Attachment: CAPA Submission
Only a minority of postgraduate students are eligible for ABSTUDY or Austudy. While our submission incorporates some issues regarding ABSTUDY and Austudy specifically as they apply to postgraduates, we wish to state our support for the more in-depth studies of these income support measures provided in the submissions to this inquiry made by CAPA’s affiliate the National Indigenous Postgraduate Association Aboriginal Corporation (NIPAAC), and the National Union of Students (NUS). We endorse their recommendations on ABSTUDY and Austudy, and have included some of them here.
Income support for postgraduate students if often overlooked in discussions of student income support. Here, as well as our comments on Austudy for postgraduates, we provide a detailed critique of the primary income support measure for postgraduate research students: the Australian Postgraduate Award (APA) scholarship, which is funded by the Commonwealth under the Higher Eduction Support Act 2003. We also overview problems with university-funded scholarships.
We recognise that our submission engages with the specific Terms of Reference of this Inquiry only peripherally. We ask Senators to consider problems with postgraduate income support measures which we address here within the broad scope of this very important Inquiry, under section (d) of the Terms of Reference: alternative student income support measures. We do not believe it to be the intent of this Inquiry to exclude postgraduate student income support measures from consideration.
