Indigenous staff critical to boosting Indigenous university student numbers

By Jeannie Rea (NTEU National Office). The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) welcomed the announcement today (17 December) by the Minister for Tertiary Education, Senator Evans, on plans to double the number of Indigenous university students, but said that boosting the number of Indigenous staff at universities had to be part of the solution.
“Over the past decade the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff working at Australian universities has doubled. However, Indigenous academic and general staff are still only one per cent of the workforce though they constitute 2.2% of the Australian population aged 15-64 years,” said NTEU President Jeannie Rea.
Senator Evans made the commitment to population parity for Indigenous students in announcing the newly constituted Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Higher Education Advisory Council, which will advise on how to reach this goal.
“Having staff and students represented on the Council is critical to its success and we welcome the inclusion of nominees from both the NTEU and the National Union of Students,” Rea said.
Rea said that the NTEU had long campaigned to increase the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff working at Australian universities.