Creating Alternate Futures Through Higher Education: The Refugee Mentoring Program

摘要: In 2008, the final report of the Review of Australian Higher Education, chaired by Denise Bradley, pointed to some startling inequalities in the Australian Higher Education participation rates. Based on a historic analysis of just who was participating in higher education, it was evident that young people from Indigenous, culturally and linguistically diverse, disability, rural and remote and low SES backgrounds were chronically underrepresented in higher education nationally (Bradley, Noonan, Nugent, & Scales, 2008). Worse, the participation rates specifically of students from low SES backgrounds had remained static for more than a decade. In response to these alarming data, and within a context in which social inclusion had become a significant focus of the Rudd Government, a Widening Participation agenda was launched by the then federal Minister for Education, Julia Gillard. Specifically, a national target of 20 …