The importance of Indigenous centres/units for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students: ensuring connection and belonging to support university completion

ABSTRACT

Indigenous student completion rates remain very low relative to non-Indigenous students. Some universities have higher Indigenous student completion rates than the national average but research-based evidence of these universities as ‘success models' is limited. Drawing on findings from interviews with Indigenous university graduates and staff as part of a National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education (NCSEHE) funded research project, this paper discusses findings relating to one success factor that supports Indigenous student completions: Indigenous centres/units as key places to build a sense of connection and belonging for Indigenous students. The paper discusses the importance of Indigenous centres/units in providing a space where Indigenous students can connect with each other, with staff, and with their own cultural identities. The paper then discusses the development of strategies that can be adopted by all universities across Australia to strengthen and improve the completion rates of Indigenous students.

KEYWORDS:

• Indigenous students
• completion rates
• student success
• belonging

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the generous support of the National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education who have funded this research. We wish to thank the members of the reference group for their advice and guidance through the project. For assistance with organising interviews, we thank the staff in the Indigenous centres/units at the five university sites. Thanks also to all of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander graduates and university staff who were interviewed as part of the research. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Unit at The University of Queensland provided a supportive environment to undertake the project and some resourcing to complete the project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 While acknowledging the diversity among and between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, in this article, we use the term ‘Indigenous' to refer to both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

2 An additional non-Indigenous research assistant Daniel Griffiths collated and analysed quantitative data provided by the Department of Education, Skills and Employment University Statistics team to provide a comprehensive perspective on completion rates at the five selected universities in comparison to the sector. This data was then discussed and refined in collaboration with the project team (see Fredericks et al., 2022).

3 The conceptual model developed for this project is included in Fredericks et al. (2022).

4 Data from interviews with five non-completed Indigenous students (who had left their university studies) will be examined in a separate publication.

5 The Indigenous Tutorial Assistance Scheme (ITAS) has provided Australian government funding for one-to-one and group tutorial study support for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students attending Australian universities since 1989 (Wilks et al., 2017).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education, Curtin University.