Indigenous enabling: ‘what works’? : Developing a national conversation around enabling education for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students through a comprehensive audit of current provision.

Enabling

Enabling education has an established place in opening access to undergraduate study for groups of students traditionally under-represented in higher education. Enabling education offers tertiary preparation with no cost to the student and often with no or limited entry requirements. A recent research project, which has produced the first comprehensive mapping of university enabling programs across Australia, has identified enabling education as a field that can be characterised as broad and fragmented, yet simultaneously flexible and creative (Baker & Irwin, forthcoming). We contend that the situation is likely to be similar — disparate and unmapped — for enabling programs designed specifically for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. This project intends to add to the knowledge base by auditing the existing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander enabling programs offered across the country. Through engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander enabling practitioners and program developers across the country, this project will address gaps in knowledge, identify good practice and develop a sustained conversation within and across the Australian higher education sector: both within Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander institutes and with enabling programs not specifically targeted at, or designed for, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.

H-2016-0054

Indigenous Enabling Programmes

Researcher driven

Interviews and desktop audit

Ongoing