People from Refugee Backgrounds in Australian Higher Education: Policy and Cultural Challenges

This article highlights the nature and extent of challenges faced by students from refugee backgrounds in Australian higher education, and suggests potential cultural, institutional and policy reforms to meet these challenges. People from refugee backgrounds are less likely than other Australians to access higher education and face barriers across and beyond the student life cycle. These issues include highly unequal graduate outcomes, resulting from factors such as unconscious (and conscious) employer bias and limited social networks. However, while national census data confirm relatively poor access rates and graduate outcomes, most people from refugee backgrounds have historically been subsumed under a broader non-English speaking background (NESB) category within higher education statistics. This approach has served to mask inequities and create a largely invisibilized group of under-represented domestic students. Improving access and outcomes will require a greater focus on collection and publication of equity data, more targeted institutional policies across the life cycle, and effective advocacy. Cultural change is also required for universities to better identify, recognize, and reward diverse forms of capital possessed by students from refugee backgrounds. Equally, effective advocacy could include allyship with the original displaced people in Australia, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, whose own voices are increasingly centered and central to reform of Australian higher education.