The Federal Government should consider establishing an American-style military preparatory academy for the Defence Force to give some of Australia's most disadvantaged students a chance at a university degree, a senior academic says.
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The rector of the University of NSW at the Australian Defence Force Academy Michael Frater said ADFA could offer a one-year bridging course to give disadvantaged students a leg-up into a degree and a career in the military.
He warned that if the Federal Government was serious about meeting its own target of achieving 20 per cent of all Australian undergraduates coming from low socio-economic backgrounds by 2020, it needed to consider a larger range of alternative pathways to university than those currently on offer.
The American style of military academy - which took socially disadvantaged students with promise for a bridging year before university - could radically reshape the lives of students who would not normally gain entry to ADFA, according to Professor Frater.
Already ADFA holds a distinct position in Australia's tertiary landscape as it takes the largest cohort of socially disadvantaged students who are keen for a career in the military and who are able to earn a wage while they study.
''At ADFA, 46 per cent of students come from families where no other family member has gone to university,'' Professor Frater said.
As a member of the Group of Eight elite universities, the University of NSW, through its academic partnership with ADFA, was therefore already catering to a group of students who would not normally gain entry to a Group of Eight university. Yet Professor Frater said Federal Government investment in a military academy model could vastly increase that reach.
''If they are serious about meeting their target then something has to give,'' he said.
While a military academy has not been done before in Australia, Professor Frater said a bridging year for ADFA should be seriously considered.
''It's not about affirmative action in lowering entry standards, it is about preparing the student and allowing them to reach the entry standard.''
Professor Frater said he had little doubt the idea would likely appeal to young people who were interested in a military career but were not able to meet current entry requirements.
He noted that ADFA already drew its students from right across Australia, including rural and regional areas.
Under the 2009 Bradley Review of Australian Higher Education, Emeritus Professor Denise Bradley stressed that far more needed to be done to recruit rural and regional young people to university.
She set a target that 40 per cent of all Australians aged between 25 and 34 attain a bachelor degree or above by 2025, with 20 per cent from disadvantaged backgrounds by 2020.
The Government has agreed to both targets and universities have dramatically increased their enrolments this year as the Bradley Review has also scrapped the caps on student places.
Professor Frater noted, however, that enrolments at the UNSW at ADFA will this year remain steady, at about 1100 students, as ADFA catered to demand from the Services, not the Federal Government.
