The regional, rural and remote university sector is awash in reviews. The Napthine review report into Australia's RRR tertiary education strategy was released in August and the Australian Council of Learned Academies review is expected early next year.
While it is gratifying that tertiary education in regional Australia is garnering attention, there is a slightly patronising element creeping into the debate.
Recently the Group of Eight universities argued to ACOLA that they need to be part of its reviews because they are big, successful and offer the best chance of change. Effectively citing the "Matthew effect" whereby bigger is better, their argument could have been better framed.
Australia is hamstrung by an educational model that determines where you live affects attaining a university qualification.
Even when you allow for differences in Australian Tertiary Admission Rank scores, regional students are 5 per cent less likely to attend a university than their city cousins.
And when they do undertake a university degree, those from RRR backgrounds are less likely to graduate (60 per cent for remote students; 69 per cent for regional students; 75 per cent for metro students). Add health outcomes, and the inequity and disadvantage escalates.
This inequity was partly why the federal government commissioned Denis Napthine to produce his review, which highlighted the problems facing non-metro university students as: having fewer study options; the financial, emotional and social burden faced by attending a rural university; and the disadvantages associated with being older, indigenous, poorer or needing to study part time.
The Napthine review came up with recommendations including increasing the research capacity of regional universities through developing new pathways and boosting infrastructure.
In September the federal government engaged ACOLA to work with the RRR research sector to find ways to improve research at universities in RRR areas. The report, expected to be delivered in February next year, led to a letter from the Go8 to ACOLA warning the review should broaden its scope beyond those institutions with their main campuses in regional areas.
The Go8 argued that its members, too, had large rural campuses and "with their size and the level of importance accorded to them", generated "as much, if not more impact, than RRR universities".
It is a breathtaking statement akin to saying to the seven predominantly RRR universities that the Go8's members, with their stellar history of doing quality city-based research, know better than RRR-based institutions what needs to be done. It is at odds with the Australian Research Council's 2018 Excellence in Research for Australia results and its engagement and impact assessment report, which both found that RRR universities were delivering effective and meaningful excellence in research with local and national impact.
If ever there is a clue as to what divides regional and metropolitan universities surely it is this: the Go8 universities claim to know what is best for country-based universities when it comes to the sort of research they should do and what kind of education best serves the needs of these highly individualised communities and regions.
However there is clear evidence that RRR universities actually know what they are doing and they do so in collaboration with global experts.
Regional universities are central in conversations about the community support for refugees, the burden of blue crime (water theft), enabling indigenous knowledge and addressing environmental resilience.
We know the areas we service, and what sorts of research and outcomes are needed to improve rural health, agriculture, tackling drought, mental health issues in remote areas, mining technology and so on.
We also have strong partnerships with local government agencies, corporate entities and philanthropic agencies.
Providing tertiary education in the bush is far more collaborative than in the cities, requiring us to be engagement-based as well as outcomes-focused. We don't decide what the problem is and fix it; we engage with the community around us, ask what their problems are, then set about solving them through partnerships and alliances.
We are not better or worse than our metropolitan cousins but different.
More important, a successful modern Australia needs an integrated collaborative framework to support the regions.
And we must be doing something right; graduates of regional universities tend to enjoy better employment and economic outcomes: 76 per cent of regional graduates have full-time work, compared with 71 per cent in the cities.
The regions are not a battle ground to be fought over by contesting partners.
There is no doubt that we struggle to attract university students and graduates and strengthening our research capabilities will address aspects of this. But let's focus on making that research regionally relevant, benefiting local communities and in turn boosting populations and the economy in rural Australia.
Ask us what we need - because (and it's self-evident to even have to say it) we live here in regional Australia. We know what we need and we have been providing that to many, many students for a long time.
First published in The Australian, 13 November 2019
