Equity challenges and opportunities in higher education: Insights for Australia from South Africa

Maria Raciti; Shireen Motala

doi:10.1080/1360080X.2025.2479431

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Equity challenges and opportunities in higher education: Insights for Australia from South Africa

Journal article

Open access

Peer reviewed

Equity challenges and opportunities in higher education: Insights for Australia from South Africa

Maria Raciti and Shireen Motala

Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, Vol.47(3), pp.351-367

2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/1360080X.2025.2479431

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Abstract

Educational inequality

SDG4

equity

accord

managed growth

needs-based funding

This comparative case study analysis explores higher education equity in South Africa and Australia, garnering insights from South Africa to inform the implementation of the Australian Universities Accord. This article identifies challenges and opportunities from South Africa that may assist with implementing the managed growth policy framework and needs-based funding model. Four insights were identified. First, Australia should embrace managed growth but minimise equity students’ tuition fees to reduce, not reproduce, inequality. Second, Australia could consider a nested equity approach to intersectional, compounding disadvantage to enable differential redistribution. Third, needs-based funding will provide the opportunity for a ‘fair chance for success’. Lastly, epistemic access, epistemic success, RPL as an equity tool, university and vocational education and training harmonisation and alternative equity student tuition debt arrangements could be explored. The article promotes an uncommon equity alliance between Australia and South Africa, offering a broader view of equity policy and funding options.

Details

Title: Equity challenges and opportunities in higher education: Insights for Australia from South Africa
Authors: Maria Raciti (Corresponding Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Indigenous and Transcultural Research Centre
Shireen Motala (Author) - University of Johannesburg
Publication details: Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, Vol.47(3), pp.351-367
Publisher: Routledge
Date published: 2025
DOI: 10.1080/1360080X.2025.2479431
ISSN: 1469-9508; 1360-080X
Copyright note: © 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
Grants: Implementing Indigenous knowledge approaches in Australian doctoral education, DP210100647, Australian Research Council (Australia, Canberra) - ARC
Organisation Unit: School of Business and Creative Industries; Indigenous and Transcultural Research Centre
Language: English
Record Identifier: 991110345802621
Output Type: Journal article

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Collaboration types: Domestic collaboration; International collaboration
Web Of Science research areas: Education & Educational Research

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