"The Higher Education Participation and Partnerships Program (HEPPP) provides funding to universities listed in Table A of the Higher Education Support Act 2003 to implement strategies that improve access to undergraduate courses for people from regional and remote Australia, low socio-economic status (SES) backgrounds, and Indigenous persons. HEPPP also helps to improve the retention and completion rates of those students.
The key objective of the HEPPP is to promote equality of opportunity in higher education by improving:
- outreach to widen aspiration and promote higher education to persons from a low SES background, persons from regional areas and remote areas, and Indigenous persons; and
- the extent to which persons from a low SES background, persons from regional areas and remote areas, and Indigenous persons access, participate, remain and succeed in higher education, and obtain higher education awards.”
(Australian Government, Department of Educations, Skills and Employment)
USQ’s key eligibility criteria for HEPPP programs include schools with a < 1000 ICSEA score, low socio-economic areas, rural and regional locations, and cohorts with Indigenous students. The programs USQ offer are as below. Please do not hesitate to contact us at futurestudents@usq.edu.au if you want to find out more.
Discovery Experience Program
The Discovery Experience provides a positive Higher Education experience to high school students through a rotation of engaging workshop-style sessions. The sessions are interactive, hands-on and aligned to an array of study areas (Nursing, Surveying, Law, etc). A Discovery Experience event is conducted on-site (at your school) by USQ as a half or full-day event.
Academic Skills Program
The Academic Skills (aka ASK) program is for senior high school students (years 10-12) and combines workshops with online modules to develop academic skills supporting students’ completion of high school and the transition into Higher Education. During workshops, students are led through online modules focusing on a single academic skill that has been identified as a barrier to academic success. The program has flexible delivery options and can be facilitated as a single-day event or multiple week series.
Primary Careers Program
The Primary Careers program consists of highly interactive hands-on STEM-oriented workshops which widen aspirations and improve career awareness of primary school students (years 4-6). The STEM-Workshops range from 1-3 hours, depending on the workshop, and partner with local community organizations.