Building recovery for Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander staff & students

Celeste Liddle National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Organiser

The impacts of COVID-19 on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (A&TSI) staff and students has been an ongoing question.

Initially it was felt that perhaps both would receive a certain amount of buffering due to dual facts that Indigenous Student Success Program (ISSP) funding was direct from the government and provided some funding surety in uncertain times, but also, that considering Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff and students are still vastly underrepresented in the sector, the need to retain and grow these numbers remains apparent. Yet, unfortunately, this has not been the case across the board.

When the A&TSI staff and student data for 2019 was finally released by the Government in early July, it showed that there had been a 10% full time equivalent (FTE) increase of academic staff and a 7% FTE increase of general/professional staff between 2018 and 2019. These numbers, however, did not tell the full story. The gap between the actual number of staff and FTE holds steady and therefore the assumption can be made that as the numbers of A&TSI staff in secure employment grows, so too do the numbers of A&TSI staff in insecure employment.

In an environment where universities are cutting staff at a dramatic rate, through Enterprise Agreements with percentage-based A&TSI employment targets it may suddenly begin to look like progress is being made.

In total, according to the Governmental data, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff now make up 1.3% of the total staffing complement at universities. Whilst this is a welcome increase that mirrors the student data, it remains a long way off both population parity rates of employment and also the NTEU-negotiated employment targets contained within Enterprise Agreements.

As has been noted numerous times during the COVID-19 pandemic and the unique circumstances we find ourselves in right now, universities still have a responsibility to ensure they are striving to achieve these employment targets and your union has a responsibility to ensure we are enforcing these clauses.

However, there are further considerations. In an environment where universities are cutting staff at a dramatic rate, through Enterprise Agreements with percentage-based A&TSI employment targets it may suddenly begin to look like progress is being made. By this we mean that increasing A&TSI employment percentages without actually employing anyone and indeed, just shedding mainstream staff is something we need to continue to keep an eye on as a union.

All this, however, supposes that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff are buffered both by the exist- ence of ISSP funding and universi- ties needing to reach employment targets. Unfortunately, the anecdotal evidence has suggested otherwise.

Since the beginning of April, the NTEU’s National A&TSI Unit, togeth- er with the A&TSI Policy Committee representatives, have been holding member forums via zoom in lieu of the usual annual Division Forum schedule. It is via this process that we have heard of members taking packages or witnessing colleagues being pushed towards accepting redundancies despite any assumed safeguards.

Unfortunately, a lot of universities still have a long way to go before they do truly become environments which not only support A&TSI staff, but also value the contributions that A&TSI staff make to the academy – as academics but also as general/ professional staff.

Where an Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander staff member is in a situation where they have felt greatly unsupported or undervalued in their research or contribution, or are continually on the outer as white wealthy elitist cultures persist in dominance, they become more likely to seek redundancies in order to find employment situations where they are valued. It is noted that a number of universities have made strides to grow these capacities but for most, there is still a lot to be done.

Finally, with regard to A&TSI student loading, there has been both positive and negative news. Some positives have been that thanks to experience learning, remotely or in block release styles, some A&TSI students have managed quite well in a pandemic environment with online learning.In- deed, some A&TSI staff have become sought after in the sector due to their skills in these flexible delivery modes.

Some negatives, however, are that there have been a number of defer- rals and discontinuations, and these learning modes can be isolating whereas so much of the A&TSI stu- dent support model is supported by community-building on campus.

It is expected that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students will be in high demand next year as universities seek to grow numbers in light of what is likely to be a de- crease in international student loads.

NTEU hopes that universities will also give thought to how important staff and support centres are when it comes to ensuring these students have what they need to succeed. •

Image: Effie Serico