Implementing the Accord’s recommendations to achieve Growth through Equity
Dr Nadine Zacharias, Managing Director, Equity by Design
The implementation of the recommendations from the Accord Review took centre stage at the Student Equity Forum during the recent Student Success conference in Cairns. This discussion occurred in the context of a re-elected Labor government and the establishment of the Australian Tertiary Education Commission (ATEC).
Image of equity panel session at Student Success Conference in Cairns, June, 2025
Following a presentation by the Department of Education, six panellists shared their aspirations and concerns about the implementation process before responding to questions from the audience. Together, we represented the main practitioner organisations advocating for increased equity in higher education for students undertaking enabling programs (NAEEA), regional students (SPERA), students with disability (ADCET), students from all equity groups and otherwise under-represented in higher education (EPHEA), and the Australian Centre for Student Equity and Success (ACSES).
My reflections draw on my work with a significant cross-section of Australian public universities and are organised using the four themes to which we were asked to respond on the panel: excitement, challenges, impact and priorities.
Excitement
I’m excited about the ambition of the Accord reforms and the opportunity to think through what a universal tertiary education system can look like in Australia. If 80% of the population are expected to participate in post-secondary education, that means we have to create a much more diverse tertiary education system that responds to the needs of both prospective students and a rapidly changing labour market. This is a canvas for innovation, experimentation and systems change that we’re only just starting to get our heads around.
Challenges
The key challenge is that this kind of step change will not be easy. The Government has articulated a medium-term target of an additional 80,000 students in higher education by 2035. That represents a 10% uplift in HE participation on 2023 numbers.
The issue is that the next 10% will be a lot more difficult to achieve than the 25% uplift since the 2008 Bradley Review. There is no unmet demand for higher education due to several interrelated reasons. The price tag for obtaining a university qualification is too high. The opportunity costs are high also, especially for students from equity groups and mature-age students. Educational disadvantage is increasingly concentrated and cumulative, making the first step into tertiary education for equity and other under-represented groups more difficult. Significant numbers of young people are disengaging from formal education or are underprepared for tertiary learning.
In this context, a universal tertiary education system is not going to be achieved by universities doing more of the same.
From tertiary education providers, especially universities, we need: different educational products; reduced barriers and parity of esteem between vocational and higher education; more accessible on-ramps into formal learning for people who haven’t engaged with post-secondary education for a while or ever; and, agreed processes for awarding exit qualifications for partially completed courses.
From government, we need policy and funding settings that encourage and enable universities to be as responsive to their communities as possible, to innovate and to take risks. I’m not convinced that the current proposals will incentivise the required level of change nor hold universities to account that are happy to continue just doing ‘more of the same’.
Impact
The clearest example of the mismatch between encouraging growth, innovation and risk taking, and the proposed policy settings, is the concept of managed growth funding for equity cohorts. Managed growth is not a helpful concept for allocating places for equity students because growth in the student cohort is not within the control of institutions, except for the most selective ones. For everyone else, there is not currently sufficient demand from prospective equity students to achieve enrolments over and above their institutional cap.
Additional demand needs to be generated and when exactly it will manifest in applications is reasonably unpredictable. In a dynamic and complex environment, which is driven by student choices, a centrally planned expansion strategy is doomed to fail. What is required instead is a return to demand-driven funding, that allows equity students to enrol at the institution to which they get admitted and funds institutions for the students they enrol. Everything else is too complicated and ultimately unmanageable. It was great to hear that the government appears to be moving in the direction of demand-driven funding for equity students.
Another example of policy mismatch is the approach to regional students. Under the new demand-driven needs-based funding arrangements, universities only receive funding if a regional student attends a regional campus. There is a risk that this policy approach will discourage metro universities from setting targets for regional student participation, and will reduce those universities’ engagement with regional communities, which is more expensive and difficult than partnerships with metropolitan or suburban communities. Over time, this has the potential to exacerbate the existing divide between metropolitan centres and the regions and will reduce choice for regional students who will have less exposure to opportunities in the cities. Personally, that breaks my heart because I was one of those regional students for whom higher education was the ticket into the wider world and experiences way beyond the imagination of my 19-year-old self.
Priorities
Perhaps the most revealing question was what we would do if we were a Vice-Chancellor for one day. If I was afforded the power and visibility of a VC for a day, I would use it to set the direction of travel for my institution, in its unique context and with a detailed understanding of its existing student cohort and wider community. I would provide clarity about what my institution needs to do to contribute to the aspiration of universal tertiary education in a strengths-based way. That is, what is it that we are uniquely placed to do? What can our institution do better than almost anyone in the sector?
This could include concerted efforts to progress tertiary harmonisation in dual sector institutions or the development of new and innovative lifelong learning products for those already well advanced on the road to integrated tertiary degrees (e.g., industry-informed professional learning or stackable micro credentials). Other institutions have invested time, effort and resources into their delivery models – be they online, hyflex or high-engagement on campus – and can scale and improve those offerings to attract new student cohorts who value a particularly flexible or high-touch model of delivery. Or the differentiator may be the excellent partnerships – with schools or vocational institutions, industry or community organisations – that sets my university apart and provides the foundations from which to enable further growth, especially in communities that are currently under-served and distant from formal education.
Whatever it happens to be, I would double-down on it and set expectations for my executive team to leverage our strength to do our bit to achieve growth through equity. And I would ask Minister Clare for the necessary incentives to collaborate, innovate, and scale, to progress his ambitious agenda.
Dr Nadine Zacharias is the Managing Director and Founder of Equity by Design.