Paul Koshy

Does accelerating access to higher education lower its quality? The Australian experience

In the pursuit of mass higher education, fears are often expressed that the quality of higher education suffers as access is increased. This quantitative study considers three proxies of educational quality: (1) prior academic achievement of the student, (2) attrition and retention rates and (3) progression rates, to establish whether educational quality suffers when supply is significantly increased. The period of analysis (2009–2011) saw just such an increase in higher education places in Australia, as universities prepared for the removal of all caps on undergraduate domestic student places in 2012. Our analysis reveals that, whilst widening access results in more students with lower levels of academic achievement entering higher education, this does not necessarily equate to a lowering of educational quality. Furthermore, although on average student progression rates dropped slightly, retention rates actually increased in the majority of universities, suggesting high levels of student perseverance. In addition, there were already wide variations in attrition and progression rates between universities, and the changes observed between 2009 and 2011 did not lead to substantial alterations.

Transnational Labour Migration and the place of Reproductive Labour: Trailing Wives and Community Support in Boddington

This article addresses the need for critical attention to families and place in the labour migration literature. Through examination of the experiences of trailing wives, it highlights the interconnected roles of state regulation, industry practice and destination communities in the gendering of transnational labour migration. Specifically, we attend to the experiences of trailing wives accompanying partners who migrated to Boddington in rural Western Australia to take up skilled work in the nearby gold mine, and incorporate (inter) related perspectives of local community members, in particular the provision of substantive migrant support by a key local figure. This research extends the labour migration literature in two ways. First, it develops understandings of how transnational labour migration fortifies gendered divisions of reproductive labour and, importantly, can encompass unpaid reproductive labour in local communities. Second, this article foregrounds the ways in which complex configurations of unpaid and paid reproductive labour – in households, community spaces and work-camp – underwrite economic globalization.

Parental expectations for young people’s participation in higher education in Australia

ABSTRACT This paper examines factors affecting parental expectations of higher education prospects for their children using Australian household survey data. We find that a variety of factors influence parental expectations, of which parents’ assessment of their children’s academic performance is the strongest. Factors known to impact upon actual higher education participation, such as parental education and remoteness, are already evident in parental expectations, but with limited evidence of expectations being shaped by financial constraints. We also find evidence of a ‘same gender’ effect, with mothers exhibiting higher expectations for higher education for their daughters. This may be in part due to significantly lower expectations held by fathers with sub-bachelor qualifications. These factors contribute to higher expectations overall for girls entering university. The research points to the importance of interventions commencing in early childhood, and accounting for key household background characteristics when designing, implementing and evaluating programmes for widening participation in higher education.