The Best Chance For All: A Policy Roadmap for Post-Pandemic Panic

Sally Kift,Nadine Zacharias,Matt Brett

doi:10.5204/ssj.1782

Abstract

The Best Chance for All was developed in 2018 as a long-term policy vision for student equity in Australian tertiary education. We argue in this article that COVID-19 has exacerbated the issues that the policy vision sought to address and has increased demands on and of post-secondary education. Specifically, we argue that the magnitude of the social and economic challenges presented by COVID-19 warrants holistic policy responses that enable the transition to a connected tertiary education system; one designed to deliver choice and flexibility for lifelong learners. A roadmap for this transition exists in the form of The Best Chance For All. The vision can be actuated through demand driven funding arrangements across tertiary education that are coherently aligned to optimise the performance of both the higher and vocational education sectors and are underpinned by sustained investment in equity outreach and support.

Highlights

In the wake of the global Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, the economic and social settings of the Australian higher education (HE) sector have changed fundamentally since the beginning of 2020
The conceptual framework for this exploration is The Best Chance for All, a long-term policy vision for student equity in Australian tertiary education developed as a sectorwide collaboration during 2018 (Zacharias & Brett, 2019), hereafter referred to as ‘the equity roadmap’
We acknowledge the limitations of the action research methodology in this application, especially given the limited empirical evidence available at the time of writing

Summary

Introduction

In the wake of the global Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, the economic and social settings of the Australian higher education (HE) sector have changed fundamentally since the beginning of 2020. Volume 12 (3) 2021 to base funding are leading to substantial cuts to staffing levels (Tija et al, 2020) and courses (Marshman & Larkins, 2020), especially for those universities that had to pivot sharply in their funding and/or delivery models Taken together, these developments introduce risk and uncertainty for advancing HE student equity. The conceptual framework for this exploration is The Best Chance for All, a long-term policy vision for student equity in Australian tertiary education developed as a sectorwide collaboration during 2018 (Zacharias & Brett, 2019), hereafter referred to as ‘the equity roadmap’ This framing of equity is consistent with international work, notably the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL) (2020), which calls for lifelong learning to move up the policy agenda and for it to be recognised as both a common good and a human right in the post-COVID world. We utilise the equity roadmap as the conceptual framing to understand how the nation’s post-COVID-19 future might lead to a more inclusive, fair and productive Australia

Method and Conceptual Framing

Findings

Summary of Findings