Healthy Futures Report - LIME Network

FINDINGSSchool careers advisorsAnother issue raised during the project wasthe lack of or inappropriate advice provided toIndigenous students by career advisors withinhigh schools. Two Indigenous support workersfelt that there was a tendency among someschool career advisors to assume thatIndigenous school students were not capableof entering and/or achieving in tertiary studiesand medicine in particular. They said thatschool careers advisors often seemed to steerIndigenous students towards TAFEqualifications and careers instead. They feltthis was partly due to school careers advisorsnot being well enough informed or committedto advancing career opportunities forIndigenous people.Working with career counsellors doesn’tseem to have much of a positive impacteither, I think that the old ways of believingre: Indigenous students academiccapabilities is still around.… the information is mailed out to careersadvisor[s] and they may not receive it,read it or do anything about it …Indigenous student support workersSchool careers advisors often seem to steerIndigenous students towards TAFEqualifications and careers.Mature age entryTwenty-nine percent of Indigenous medicalstudents surveyed for this project highlightedthe need to focus more on mature age studentsand students from other disciplines whenrecruiting Indigenous medical students.… scour the biomed and health sciencedegree students … and show them howthey could do med after their degree.… recruit mature age students fromcurrent health workers and nurses.… there still seems to be a large proportionof mature age students that could betargeted better.Indigenous medical students commentingon recruitment issuesIndigenous support workers also identified theneed to reach out to mature age studentsmore, particularly for graduate entryprograms.… there needs to be information forpeople who are not at schools oruniversities but could apply.Indigenous student support workerSome university representatives at the LIMEConnection workshop felt there is not a bigenough pool of graduates to recruit tomedicine. Other representatives argued thereis a great untapped pool of potential matureage entrants and that students enrolled inother university degrees and people in theworkforce needed to be more effectivelytargeted.… there still seems to be a large proportion ofmature age students that could be targetedbetter.31