More than 60 Indigenous students from seven high schools in outback New South Wales were introduced to university life and encouraged to seek tertiary study opportunities during Western Sydney University’s Rural Indigenous Students Visits program.
The program, now in its eighth year, introduces students to a broad range of subjects including nursing, environmental and natural sciences, law, chemistry and engineering.
Students take part in academic workshops, university information sessions, career exploration exercises, self-development workshops and activities, all designed to showcase the opportunities on offer at university.
Program manager, Jo Galea - who developed and implemented the program, which is exclusive to WSU Hawkesbury - said the visits were designed to widen the participation of underrepresented groups (including disadvantaged and low socioeconomic) at university.
“They don’t have to be high-achieving kids or kids that are aiming for uni - we are actually trying to change their perceptions about what uni is. We are trying to inspire them to aspire to uni,” she told the Gazette.
Ms Galea said over 80 per cent of students who have attended the visits have decided they want to go to university - whether at WSU Hawkesbury or elsewhere.
“We saw there was a need to create this type of opportunity for country kids that normally don’t get exposed to this sort of thing,” she said.
“The program has grown from a dozen kids to up to 100 each visit. Over 1,000 kids have attended the program.
“We are now third in the country in terms of highest enrolments of Aboriginal students, behind Newcastle and Charles Darwin.”
Program organisers will touch base with the students again in August, when they will visit their schools and conduct career-mapping workshops.
Nineteen-year-old Matt Maskiell visited WSU through the program when he was in high school at Wellington High, and is now studying nursing at the Hawkesbury campus.
“At the start I didn’t really consider uni that much. I was part of the program in year 11 and then the following year, when I was in year 12, I came along again because I was more intrigued about university and set my heart on nursing. I really thought it was something I could actually do,” he told the Gazette.
Mr Maskiell and a handful of other WSU students acted as guides and mentors for this year’s group of visiting high school students.
WSU funded all the students’ travel and accommodation for the program, with funds obtained via the Department of Education and Training’s Higher Education Participation and Partnerships Program (HEPPP).