Extending access to university helps to cultivate the ¡°marketplace of ideas¡± that gives learning its complexity, a Melbourne forum has heard.

La Trobe University equity expert Andrew Harvey said that, while universities?have an obligation to contribute to access ¨C and, ultimately, success ¨C for disadvantaged groups, this has equally important spin-offs for the wider student body.

Diversity ¡°directly informs teaching and learning¡±, he told the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency conference.

¡°This is about the quality of the classroom experience, and understanding that diversity of viewpoints is critical to informing education,¡± said Dr Harvey, director of La Trobe¡¯s Centre for Higher Education Equity and Diversity Research.

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Mary Kelly, equity director?at Queensland University of Technology, said broad access was a pre-condition for excellence. ¡°We¡¯re in the knowledge business,¡± she said.

¡°Unlike other industries, retail or whatever, knowledge is co-created by the participants. It is best constructed where the participants themselves are diverse ¨C in their backgrounds, in their cognitive approach, in the points of view they bring.

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¡°If you only have one sort of student, you will not be able to construct your knowledge and teach your students about the very things they need ¨C nimble frames of reference, being able to see a problem from different points of view. That relies on having in front of you, within your teaching and learning ecosystem, that very diversity you¡¯re attempting to teach.¡±

Ms Kelly said that this point had been rammed home by QUT¡¯s efforts to introduce Indigenous perspectives into its curriculum. ¡°It had huge ripple effects across the academy, because to do that you first had to understand critical race theory ¨C the history of colonisation; anti-racism; the epistemology of knowledge and how it¡¯s constructed; how teachers and researchers can articulate and adapt their own points of view,¡± she said.

¡°It¡¯s led to a huge amount of reflection, widespread cultural competence training and so on. It¡¯s still a work in progress, but my point is that what could merely have been seen as an equity activity goes to the very heart of our core business of knowledge. It¡¯s shaking it up and making it more sophisticated.¡±

But Ethan Taylor, a former president of the Union of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Students, highlighted a ¡°paradox¡± in universities¡¯ equity activities. He said that, having dropped out of school but then excelled in a vocational college pathway programme, he had been denied direct entry into a University of Melbourne arts degree.

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Instead, he had been obliged to take an Indigenous bridging course ¨C a six-month diversion?that university staff later admitted had been unnecessary. ¡°We want people from diverse backgrounds, yet we apply entry standards so narrowly,¡± he said.

¡°We implement equity in a black and white way. We don¡¯t take into account the diverse experiences of the people that come to university.¡±

Mr Taylor said that a ¡°tick-the-box¡± approach to access risks depriving universities of Indigenous insights. ¡°You need our knowledge systems,¡± he told the conference.

¡°Sixty thousand years of economic policy, of social policy, of governance. You need our experiences. Unless you start to apply these standards more diversely, with more acceptance, you won¡¯t get that knowledge.¡±

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john.ross@timeshighereducation.com