Inclusion as a central tenet of higher education access and equity

Education is a basic human right and a public good that takes on the serious need to create critical, informed, and engaged citizens (Henry A. Giroux in Apple et al. 2022). As such, education is one of the goals identified by the United Nations (2015) in the Agenda for Sustainable Development. Despite the recognised importance of education in human development, there are many socioeconomic and political systems, structures, and global geopolitical events that continue to impact access to education as an essential human need, and its profound ability to improve opportunities in life (McMahon 2023).

The global pandemic has highlighted our fragility and interconnectedness as a global community and the social contract higher education has to society as a vehicle to repair injustice and transform future sustainability (UNESCO 2022). This global crisis showed that if universities are to foster the dynamic social interactions necessary for learning to occur, they must embrace their responsibility to be places of inclusion where people from across social strata can come and engage in learning for personal and social advancement. It is an issue that higher education sectors around the world continue to grapple with.

In Australia for example, the government of the day has commenced one of the largest reforms to its university sector in over two decades with its Australian Universities Accord (2024). One of the central tenets of this Accord is to create long-term reform that will increase the uptake of higher education attainment rates from 60% of the current population to 80% by 2050 (Australian Universities Accord 2024). The need to build cultures of inclusion and equality, that put students first underpins the Accord – ‘They are at the center of the higher education system and are its most direct beneficiaries’ (151).

It is therefore fitting that in this, the inaugural editorial of Australian academics Dr Anita Lousie Wheeldon and Dr Natalia Veles, who are joining Perspectives: Policy and Practice in Higher Education as Associate Editors from April 2024, the theme of inclusion, participation, and core purpose of higher education around the world is amplified. Our first editorial allows us to express gratitude to the current editorial team, the Editors-In-Chief Dr Charlotte Verney, Dr Joanne Caldwell, and Associate Editors Dr Christine O’Dea and Anastasia Orekhov who have been carrying out the excellent work of advancing the journal as a relevant and respected outlet for the higher education academic and practitioner community. In our first month of joining the editorial team, we have been continuously impressed by the quality and breadth of submissions to the journal. It is not surprising that the journal remains a publication of choice for authors around the world. Our commitment is, therefore, to lend our support to advancing the journal’s appeal and visibility among academic and practitioner authors and audiences alike.

This issue compromises 7 articles and 2 book reviews that all address inclusion in higher education by examining a range of student and faculty experiences during the 2020 global pandemic, by understanding in more depth the vital role that student unions play in supporting student journeys, by examining the process of delivering new programme design, and through two books that seek to unpack what is the soul of universities, and how, in a practical sense higher education can become a reachable reality for all.

Shortlisted for the AHUA Dr Jonathan Nicholls Memorial Essay Prize, Dubber (2024) explores some of the major challenges that face university students; mental health, financial hardship, and employability challenges. This casts a spotlight on the important role that well funding student unions can play in lessening the burden of these experiences on students. The support universities give to their student unions in terms of training, and funding will enable these unions to take on more responsibility for extracurricular activities and in the provision of extended campus services. But perhaps most importantly, in supporting student unions more, universities can strengthen their university community through greater student inclusion. As Dubber (2024, 7) so rightly puts it ‘the clue is in the name – students’ unions’ and that ‘distancing student leaders from responsibility for service provision can lead to disempowered officers … ’.

The systematic literature review by Jones and Bell (2024) provides a much-needed precis of our understandings of the pressures UK undergraduate students encountered during the global pandemic of COVID-19. In so doing, we learn that the pressure students experienced during this crisis was multifaceted and interconnected. Students struggled with the effects of stress and anxiety associated with the personal, professional, academic, and social aspects of daily life. But more so, universities must prepare themselves to support a cohort of students in secondary education who will enter their university studies with heightened stress and anxiety that could influence their attendance and engagement with their university studies, their sense of belonging or alienation from the university community, and their resilience to persevere with their studies.

To put into contextual terms the needs for students transition from secondary school to higher education, Raven (2023) examines the learner journey of two cohorts of students from under-represented backgrounds transitioning from post-16 study, into universities college. In doing so, a number of challenges are uncovered. There was limited awareness amongst these students of what would happen after they completed this year, and what their options were in terms of next steps and in participating in college courses. The importance of this study is to highlight that if universities are to widen participation in higher education opportunities, targeted support is needed to overcome knowledge and support barriers to the uptake of college post their attainment of their General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE). Especially as college is an interim step to post college options, including university.

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic did of course impact all university community members, including university workers. Zike and Illingworth (2023) have uncovered that ‘one size fits all’ policies and approaches exacerbated the challenges teaching staff faced in regard to their wellbeing. They failed to consider individual situations, resources, and challenges. The outcome was enduring feelings of struggle during this time of crisis. This study makes 4 recommendations that challenge higher education leaders to recognise individuality in the university community and to ensure flexibility of policy at the individual level.

We round out the articles with two from the global community of higher education researchers and practitioners. Andrade (2023) presents a case study from a higher education institution in the USA that highlights the exponential growth of online course delivery during and after the events of the 2020 global pandemic. The lesson to be learned is the importance of collaboration among academic and professional staff to create and advance a flexible learning infrastructure to improve student learning and engagement.

A practitioner-based qualitative case study by Mapletoft, Mapletoft, and Henderson (2023) presents another perspective on social inclusion. Their research draws on the experiences of senior leaders studying a degree apprenticeship programme offered by a privately owned higher education provider based in the UK. This insider research study underscores the importance of including the voices of adult learners and valuing their experiences in developing mechanisms for meaningful student representation and inclusion in education programme design and provision.

In keeping with the spirit of this issue, the edited book ‘Making Inclusive Higher Education a Reality: Creating a University for All’, edited by Anna M, Kelly, Lisa Padden and Bairbre Fleming (2023) and reviewed by Muhlis et al. (2024), is included for its amalgamation of thoughts, experiences, and methodologies that provide a comprehensive perspective on inclusivity in higher education. The book is a toolkit that used Universal Design as a way of achieving inclusion in higher education that is much more than just adhering to regulations, but rather involves a dedication to building a genuinely inclusive atmosphere and culture.

The final book review included in this issue is ‘The Soul Of A University: why excellence is not enough’ written by Chris Brink (2018) and reviewed by Amar Nath (2024). This book asks two questions of universities; What are they good at?, and What are they good for?. Questions that are intended to provoke universities to contemplate and confront lingering ivory tower elitism that interferes with equitable access to higher education across race, gender, ethnicity, and disability minorities. This book embarks on a quest for the idea of the civic university that embraces diversity, plurality, equality, and most important of all, critical engagement with knowledge as an institutional virtue.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anita Louise Wheeldon

Dr Anita Louise Wheeldon has a prime research focus and passion for the future of universities, Business Schools, and business education as a lever for societal change. Anita has conducted extensive research into the comparable work experiences of academic and professional staff, investigating how these experiences shape their lived experiences, and influence the way universities are structured and their inner workings. Her work is driven by her dedication to exploring the role of universities and business practices in impacting and designing a sustainable future. Anita sees purpose in the need to research and teach in ways that produces new thinking and that plays a part in the extraordinarily work of solving the problems of our world – known, emerging and yet undiscovered. Anita has worked in the university sector for over 15 years as both a professional staff member and academic in the Management discipline, contributing as a senior leader, and Senior Fellow of Advance HE.

Natalia Veles

Dr Natalia Veles is a higher education researcher and academic leader at James Cook University in Australia. Her academic background is in applied linguistics, organisational sociology, cultural psychology and career development, with a PhD in higher education research. Her current research focuses on university third space professionals' identities and sustainable careers. Natalia is a registered career development practitioner in Australia. She is the course coordinator and lecturer of the Graduate Certificate of Career Development course at JCU. Her recent research monograph Optimising the Third Space in Higher Education: Case Studies of Intercultural and Cross-Boundary Collaboration was published at Routledge in 2022.