Social inclusion is the path to progression

The higher education review is a catalyst for the education revolution. It offers a blueprint for a progressive trajectory into a national educational system that could place Australia as a global leader in systems design for social inclusion. It is marked for its understated sophistication in quantitative policy design while avoiding the pitfalls of small-scale institutional dogmatism. Australia’s inclusive approach to higher education, produced by the Dawkins reforms and the Martin national equity indicators, provided the structural and systemic foundation for our current national system. The Bradley review recommendations offer the next two steps in the progression of Australian higher education equity policy: the shift from student equity to social inclusion and from institutional transparency to universal accountability.