PWDA submission to the NSW Parliamentary Inquiry into the New South Wales University Sector
17 October 2025
PWDA welcomed the opportunity to provide comment on the NSW Parliamentary Inquiry into the New South Wales University Sector.
We are funded to provide cross-disability systemic advocacy on behalf of people with disability in NSW under the Department of Communities and Justice’s Disability Advocacy Futures Program.
Students with disability have a poor experience of higher education
The number of undergraduate students in Australia reporting a disability has steadily increased. In 2022 it was estimated at 11% (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2025). Other sources indicate that in 2023 students with disability had risen to 12.7% of the undergraduate cohort.
However, students with disability have consistently rated their overall educational experience lower than those students without disability.
They rated their experience lower than students without disability across all five specific focus areas measured by the National Student Experience Survey:
- Skills development
- Peer engagement
- Teaching quality and engagement
- Student support and services and
- Learning resources.
The 2024 Student Experience Survey looked at specific aspects of the educational experience beyond the key five areas. One being ‘sense of belonging’ which they also rated lower than students without disability.
A critical result of this dissatisfaction is that despite increasing representation, students with disability have significantly lower retention and completion rates than students without disability.
Governance structures must reflect lived experience
Simply having rights ‘recognised’ does not lead to the actual realisation of those rights. This is the case for both students and staff with disabilities at Australian universities .
An institutions disability, equity and inclusion policy is of little practical value if the document is underpinned by ableist assumptions given approval by its governing body. If university governance arrangements are to meaningfully promote accessibility, achieve public benefit, and support diversity, inclusion and access for disadvantaged groups, systemic change in governance is required.
This must start with people with disability for example being in key leadership positions, most crucially of which, are the university governing councils.
Recommendations
We note the current Australian Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee inquiry into Quality and governance at Australian high education providers. The Interim Report was released on 19 September 2025.
PWDA is generally supportive of these recommendations from the Interim Report:
- Recommendation 1, to improve transparency and accountability of governing bodies.
- Recommendations 5 and 6, to ensure people on governing bodies have proper public administration and higher education expertise/skills, and that governing bodies contain staff and undergraduate and postgraduate students on governing bodies.
- Recommendation 12, to require universities to improve complaints processes.
We note that the Interim Report contains additional comments and recommendations from the Australian Greens. In the context of this submission, we are supportive of Greens Recommendation 5 that:
- [A]ll higher education provider governing bodies reflect the community’s diversity including First Nations peoples, Culturally and Racially Marginalised people, and people with disabilities.