The baby bonus kids get a taste test of uni

Under its Compass program to improve equity outcomes, last week Sydney University gave 600 eight year olds their first taste of university. They’re known as the baby bonus generation or Generation Z and they will be the most formally educated generation in history. Last week, Sydney University brought 600 of them onto its campus to give them their first taste of uni life. The Year 3 students are part of the university’s Compass program, designed to attract non-traditional and disadvantaged students to university. As research increasingly demonstrates, the earlier the pro-learning, pro-higher education message is delivered and received, the more likely school students are to actively consider university as an option. “Children as young as 11 already have clear ideas about themselves as learners and their their future education and career,” said Professor Derrick Armstrong, deputy vice chancellor (education). Compass is just one of dozens of programs being rolled out in universities across Australia as the higher education sector addresses the government target to achieve 20 per cent of low socioeconomic students to be enrolled in (and complete) a bachelor degree by 2020. The proportion of low-socioeconomic students has been stuck at 15 per cent for the past couple of decades. Compass is a cohort-based program that will follow each successive Year 3 group through to the end of primary school, and then pick them up again in Year 8 and 9 in high school. There are three feeder primary schools to one high school. “While we work with individual students and small groups of kids, its about the cohort in each of the age groups, so they are doing activities regularly with the university and student volunteers going out to the schools to work with them on literacy programs,” said Annette Cairnduff, director of social inclusion. “We are trying to address attainment and aspiration at the same time. By bringing the students to the campus, they understand where the volunteers come from.” The activities are the result of consultation with schools and are embedded in the school curriculum. “It’s not about us coming up with activities for the kids to do they are designed around what the schools are tyring to achieve around particular subject areas or issues – largely literacy, science and the arts.” It will take 10 years before anyone knows whether the program has been successful and their efforts are translated into enrolments, but in the meantime, fun was had by all. JH