Enabling Education: The Great Disruptor
National Association of Enabling Educators of Australia (NAEEA)
There is increasing evidence of the transformative role Enabling education can play in disrupting a number of educational problematics in secondary schools and universities. Enabling education is a proven pathway to higher education (HE) access, participation and success for young people and second chance learners who have previously been denied university entry (Syme et al., 2022).
Those of us in Enabling education work hard to understand where our students have come from and how we might prepare them for university study. Enabling programs are defined as non-award programs of instruction that incorporate enabling subjects or modules designed to develop academic knowledge and skills to facilitate the transition of students into higher level award programs (National Association of Enabling Educators in Australia, 2019).
Attention to a scholarship of teaching in Enabling education over a sustained period has culminated in a collective teaching philosophy, informed by pedagogies for social justice, that is increasingly known as ‘enabling pedagogy’ (Hattam, Weiler & King, 2024 forthcoming; Hattam & Stokes, 2019; Bennett et al., 2016). Although embedded within HE institutions, the ‘enabling’ space is distinct to traditional HE due to the higher representation of students from recognised equity groups (Bennett et al., 2016; Crawford et al., 2015; Stokes, 2014).
The Enabling sector is thrilled to see that the word ‘equity’ is mentioned over 200 times in the recent Australian Universities Accord Final Report, which makes recommendations for a long-term reform plan for a connected tertiary system – higher and vocational education – to meet Australia’s future skills needs. We were particularly overjoyed to see the prominent place Enabling education has in the Report, as a tried and tested strategy of universities to widen participation for students from ‘under-represented’ groups. The Accord Final Report recommends that the Australian Government ‘Increase the availability of fee-free preparatory courses and fund these places to match the cost of delivery’ (Recommendation 12), with the Expert Panel finding that ‘maintaining the fee-free nature of preparatory courses is important, and such a requirement should continue to be legislated’ (p. 136). In fact, when outlining its vision for a new funding model, the Panel goes on to recommend that the mission-based compacts with publicly funded universities include the delivery of ‘“demand driven” fee-free preparatory courses’ (Recommendation 40, emphasis added). It is clear that Enabling programs, which the Panel suggests should be ‘renamed as preparatory courses’ (p. 136), have a key role to play in the sector’s future growth, especially while national school reforms to remedy current educational inequities flow through the K-12 sector.
Enabling education provides an cogent example of how critical education theory can be embedded in HE learning and teaching through the broader adoption of a critical enabling pedagogy (Hattam et al., 2024 forthcoming) to support Accord targets to reach ‘population parity’. 25% of our population is categorised as low socio-economic status (low-SES), but only 15.7% currently attain a bachelor degree or higher (Accord Final Report, p.2). Research by Pitman et al. (2016) demonstrates that Enabling education is attractive to students from low-SES backgrounds, who participate at twice the rate in Enabling as they do at the undergraduate level.
Enabling education can also help solve the wicked problem of the decline in national school attendance and retention for 15-to-19 years olds, with 19% of this age group currently not enrolled in any education and training in 2023. If the Accord’s ambitious aspirations to increase university enrolments by 900,000 people by 2050 are to be met, 86% of those new enrolments need to come from underrepresented groups (Accord Final Report, p. 137). Enabling education can offer these dis-engaged young people opportunities to successfully re-engage in beneficial learning.
Multiple studies have found that Enabling programs have the most success in preparing students for the demands of university, as strongly evidenced in the completion data (see Jackson et al., 2023 & Pitman et al., 2016). Vocational education and training (VET) pathways run a clear second to Enabling in this regard. Enabling programs have the highest success in supporting students who have experienced educational disadvantage because they have been built on a philosophical lineage of critical scholarship. The aim of the Enabling educator is to create an inclusive and care-full learning environment (Motta & Bennett, 2018); one that is democratic and where dialogue is shared, assessment is scaffolded, curriculum is negotiated, tasks are challenging and clearly explained, diversity of individuals is valued, and effort is made to connect to students’ life worlds. Through Enabling pedagogy, students’ strengths are recognized and the processes of learning are adapted (Hellmundt & Baker, 2017). In this way, the program adopts an ‘active’ culture across all student interactions, from orientation to enrolment and right through to the academic review process (see Hattam, Stokes & Ulpen, 2017). Programs are strengthened with active assurance that all teaching staff have contemporary knowledge of Enabling pedagogies via a series of professional learning opportunities (see Hattam & Weiler, 2020).
Our provocation for universities is for all to consider whether, as the student cohorts in bachelor level study become increasingly diverse, adopting ‘critical enabling’ approaches in undergraduate teaching would not only support a social justice agenda for widening participation, but also improve overall student engagement, retention and satisfaction with teaching. Equity to and in HE is much more than just providing access to students who have experienced disadvantage. It is equally imperative to ensure that students progress and complete their degrees, so they can reap the benefits from a tertiary qualification, just as their more privileged Australian peers can, and do.
National Association of Enabling Educators of Australia (NAEEA)