Abstract
A major pathway for non-traditional students to access higher education in Australia is via “enabling programs”, tertiary preparation programs which allow students lacking the usual entry qualifications to gain them while preparing for success within higher education. There is an important division within such programs between “open entry” programs which allow enrolment regardless of prior academic qualifications and those which restrict entry on the basis of a range of academic criteria.
Open entry is a widening participation strategy, aiming to attract students who might not otherwise attempt higher education. This strategy has a long and successful history in Australia. However, recent research suggests that the putative benefits of attracting a wider range of non-traditional students via open entry may have a complementary cost in terms of lower student retention with the associated costs for students, institutions and the public purse. Whether open or restrictive entry to enabling programs is the more effective strategy for pursuing widening participation in Australia is an increasingly urgent question that needs to be answered.
This chapter offers a view of the open entry ‘landscape’ at issue in this debate, considering such aspects as the function of program entry requirements, the oft-quoted tension between student achievement and academic standards, the challenges of supporting non-traditional students in what are to them unfamiliar academic environments and the emergence of the need for ‘multiple discourses’ in response to the standard ‘deficit discourse’.
Much of the research for this chapter was conducted at the British Library while on study leave in 2014. My thanks to both the University of Newcastle and the British Library for this opportunity.
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Notes
- 1.
The terminology is not standard across Australian HEIs, often being established by the student management software the institution uses; in this chapter, “course” means a single subject of study while “program” is reserved for a series of courses leading to a qualification or equivalent.
- 2.
For more background information on such programs, see Hodges et al. (2013), chapter 1.
- 3.
See, for example, Baker and Irwin (2015).
- 4.
Australian Tertiary Admissions Ranking (ATAR), a nation-wide ranking score derived from secondary study results which forms the basis for university admission.
- 5.
This is the standard form of the challenge; however, there is a less canvassed but significant pedagogical challenge arising from the heterogeneous nature of the resulting entry cohort: students on entry will exhibit a sufficiently greater range of degrees of academic preparedness and this will create significant – perhaps insuperable – pedagogical challenges in addressing the diversity of student needs in the one cohort. This challenge will be neglected in this current discussion but must play a significant role in an eventual cost/benefit analysis of open entry as a widening participation strategy.
- 6.
This table does not consider wider effects which would be represented by a further right-hand column: the successful students are fed into a further system of socially defined graduate outcomes with associated costs and benefits.
- 7.
- 8.
Including both OFP (20+ years old) and Newstep (17–20). No study has yet been undertaken of relative performance in the programs of effects of prior educational achievement on student performance among those completing the program.
- 9.
And note that, on an expanded understanding of academic preparedness, especially in the case of students in enabling programs, these will have to include not only learning support and development but also a wide range of other counselling and support services.
- 10.
Recent reporting suggests a less rosy picture, with a drop in both retention and performance of students from UON enabling programs in undergraduate programs. This may be due to slippage in academic standards; equally, however, it may be the result of a change in student strategies of course choice (with a poorer match between enabling courses and undergraduate program resulting in less adequate preparation) or a change in the demographic make-up of the programs, with students being generally younger and, according to anecdotal accounts, less strongly motivated. These results are undergoing further investigation. More widely, recent studies present a more mixed picture of student success in the sector; e.g. NCSEHE (2016), Shah and Whannell (2016).
- 11.
Stuart (2005), p. 156.
- 12.
Foremost is Clarke et al. (2000), submitted but never released.
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Hodges, B. (2018). “Come One, Come All”: The Question of Open Entry in Enabling Programs. In: Agosti, C., Bernat, E. (eds) University Pathway Programs: Local Responses within a Growing Global Trend. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72505-5_8
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