A persistent issue in Australia, and globally, is how to improve participation rates in higher education for students from regional and rural areas. In this paper, we tackle this challenge by exploring the idea of a Community Embedded University (CEU). We draw on empirical data from three participatory co-design workshops with university students…

Attracting high quality teachers to regional, rural, and remote locations has been an issue for school communities in Australia. Research has illustrated that innovative initiatives and experiences can change pre-service teachers' attitudes, perspectives and perceptions about regional, rural and remote schools. What is less understood is the…

Understanding the rural intentions of medical students has the potential to improve the effective allocation of rural clinical placements, the demand for which regularly exceeds availability. Longitudinal studies on students' rural intentions have been published but a refined understanding of the spectrum of intentions is absent in the literature.…

This study sought to determine whether students' perceptions of health, security, and environmental risks influence student enrolment at private universities in rural areas of Nigeria, as well as whether security risks mediate the correlations between the variables in the study. The research utilised multistage sampling approaches to ascertain and…

Recruiting and retaining professionals such as doctors, allied health professionals, and teachers to rural communities has been a significant issue in Australia for decades. Research has established that a successful rural clinical placement, delivered in a rural setting, can significantly influence a graduate's work location choices. However,…

Australian higher education participation continues to expand, yet in unequal ways. Regional, rural, and remote (RRR) student participation is stubbornly stalled, despite sustained research and policy initiatives to support these cohorts. To address this complex issue, we interviewed 10 RRR principals in Queensland and Victoria to explore specific…

This study reports the findings from a survey of 201 recent teacher education graduates from a university in the north-western United States of America regarding the factors that influenced their decision to take a teaching position in a rural or urban community following graduation. Results indicate that an in-depth rural practicum experience,…

Across Australia, students at regional, rural and remote high schools are considerably less likely to go to university than their metropolitan counterparts. One of the ways in which universities try to help to bridge this gap is to organise visits to such schools, with the purpose of familiarising students with the idea of university and…

This case study centres on projects instigated by the University of Wollongong's Batemans Bay campus which engaged other community entities in collaboration to produce a cultural and educational resource in book form. These projects occurred between 2017 and 2019 with more planned for the future. While this work is not a how-to guide, the analysis…

The research experience for teachers (RET) professional development was a six-week long summer-intensive National Science Foundation (NSF) funded project that took place at a large university in western Texas. It was designed to provide a research-rich learning environment in data science and cybersecurity for STEM teachers in the region, which is…

This paper addresses educational inequality of access to higher education for Scottish rural communities. Inequality results from the sole use of a national socio-economic index in order to meet a key milestone for higher education goal. I show (1) how the use of this index can have adverse effects on these communities and (2) how contextual…

Insufficient access to specialised career development within many rural, regional and remote (RRR) areas contributes to persistent differences in the higher education participation rates of young people from these areas. This paper reports on research conducted with 4,993 students at a university in Western Australia who self-assessed their…

Preparing teachers for rural and remote (RR) schools in Australia appears to be an ongoing issue with many schools continuing to experience staff shortages. This research aimed to understand preservice teachers' (n=23) perceptions of their readiness for teaching in RR schools within four theoretical constructs, namely: self, classroom, school, and…

A personal teaching project, developed over six years at a regional university campus, offered mentoring to capable and engaged students with limited subject options. Providing individual or near-individual instruction enabled the mentored students to deepen their learning, extend their discipline knowledge and consider career steps. With their…

Access to secondary education for very remote Northern Territory Indigenous students is limited. Although many students attend distant boarding schools, very few stay to complete Year 12 (the final year of secondary school in Australia). Few families and communities are fully engaged in the whole transition process. This paper describes a case…