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…

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 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…

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…

Introduction: Australia's rural health services commonly face serious and protracted workforce shortages. To help address such shortages in rural and remote areas, a range of programs exist to support university students to undertake placements in a rural setting. In particular, University Departments of Rural Health (UDRH's) are funded to support…

Health professionals require specific knowledge and a broad range of skills and attributes to work and reside in rural environments. It is important students are offered the opportunity to undertake a rural professional experience placement (PEP) to ensure they develop a breadth of understanding of healthcare practice with opportunities to apply…

Online study is generally associated with the terms "flexible" and "flexibility." Many students choose to study online specifically for the flexibility that is offered, hoping they can combine their studies with multiple other responsibilities in their lives. For students living in regional and rural areas, such flexibility can…

School completion has been hailed by many as the 'holy grail' of Indigenous education, and 42% remote-living Indigenous students now attain year 12 completion each year. But for a range of complex reasons, only 60% of these graduates translate this achievement into further engagement in study, training or employment. This systematic literature…

This paper reports on the findings from an Australian study exploring how best to facilitate the success of students from low socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds who are studying at regional universities. Interviews with 69 successful regional students from low SES backgrounds, and 26 staff identified as experts in supporting these students,…

Young people in low socioeconomic (SES) regions, including regional and rural areas of Australia, aspire to attend university after high school at a comparable rate to young people in higher SES regions. However, without concrete opportunities to support and develop their aspirations, students in regional areas are unable to internalize the goals…

"Growing Our Own" is an innovative and unique program for Initial Teacher Education (ITE) in the remote Northern Territory. As a partnership between Catholic Education, Northern Territory (CENT) and Charles Darwin University (CDU), lecturers travel to remote Indigenous communities to deliver unit content to local 'Assistant Teachers'…

Equitable access and participation in higher education from regional youth is a major concern in Australia (National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education (NCSEHE), 2015). Currently 0.9% of all university students in Australia come from a regional or remote area (NCSEHE, 2015). This statistic is alarming in the context of the ever-rising…

This paper presents an exploratory analysis of young people's perceptions and attitudes towards their potential progression to higher education in rural areas of Scotland. These young people belonged to three state secondary schools whose catchment areas were mainly rural. All were in S5/Year 12 or S6/Year 13 and aged 16 years and over. They…

The notion of 'raising aspirations' to widen participation in higher education and increase attainment has dominated policy discourse globally for the past decade. Projects and campaigns that aim to increase participation and attainment in education therefore typically focus on student aspirations. This is certainly the case in the Tasmanian…