I failed university in second year. Most students fail in first year, but a combination of immaturity, undiagnosed anxiety and low self-esteem combined to see my failure delayed a year.
I was fortunate.
Because I was on a teachers' college scholarship (remember them?), I was offered a one-year bridging course in Newcastle and I made the trip to Newcastle and my life was transformed as a result.
I graduated from Newcastle Teacher's College and after a stint as a national serviceman saving Singleton from foreign invasion, I began teaching in Lake Macquarie, got married, bought a house and had a family.
I enrolled at the University of Newcastle part time and over a period of five years completed my BA. I also started a theatre company part time benefitting from the double drama major that made up a significant component of my degree.
Eventually I was able to leave teaching and pursue my theatre career full time. A few years later I enrolled in an Honours degree part time and completed that. My career in the arts continued when I became the manager of a youth arts venue operated by Newcastle council. I maintained this position until forcibly retired in 2013.
Upon retirement I decided that I needed to keep my mind active so I enrolled in a Doctorate in Sociology, again at Newcastle.
Six years later, on Bastille Day this year I was awarded my doctorate. I became Doctor Langford and thus began a series of ongoing quips from friends and acquaintances: "Hey doc I've got this pain in my back". My response has been to tell them to make an appointment with the receptionist.
Why am I telling this story? Well, because for many, the journey to and through tertiary education is not a smooth one.
I failed in second year. But the "system" allowed me a fallback. I failed but the system offered a path of redemption which allowed me to pause, regroup and refocus my ambitions. I was not thrown on the tertiary education scrapheap. I finished my degree via part-time study, which in turn provided me with an entrée to a professional theatre career, and later in arts administration.
I failed but the system offered a path of redemption which allowed me to pause, regroup and refocus my ambitions. I was not thrown on the tertiary education scrapheap.
My honours degree, earned part time, provided the entrée to my enrolment in a doctorate. I have now, admittedly in retirement, scaled the pinnacle of tertiary education despite my fragmented and stilted pathway through university. This pathway I am sure is shared by many who have found the rigours of university too onerous to cope with at particular stages in their lives.
But many of us persisted and continue to persist.
My story could have been so much different. My "failure" in second year was not the end of my tertiary education. The system offered me a pathway to reclaim my tertiary studies.
But recent changes in the federal government policy on university funding means that had my failure occurred today, I would not have been allowed to continue my tertiary education. I would have been refused entry unless I became a full fee-paying student.
As the son of a bus driver who grew up knowing nothing other than working class frugality, paying the full fee was an impossibility.
This will be the effect of the federal government's proposed changes to the university fee structure. Any student failing more than 50 per cent of their subjects will be denied re-enrolment under the government's loan scheme and will have to revert to full fee-payment.
When I was growing up, university enrolment was like the holy grail for me and most of my peers.
Overwhelmingly we were the first in our extended families to attend university. We were able to do so because of the university scholarship scheme available at the time.
Later governments introduced the loans scheme which currently operates that allows students to postpone paying back their loans until they are in a financial position to do so.
This structure has served to encourage people to succeed in tertiary education even when things don't go to plan. This structure recognises that young people are often dealing with issues, but that given a second chance they can rise to the occasion and succeed.
Under the government's revised structure, young people won't get that second chance. For those unable to cope, the tertiary education scrapheap and the employment black hole that accompanies it awaits.
My story of educational redemption will have no chance of being repeated.
Dr Barney Langford is a retired youth arts worker and a councillor on Lake Macquarie City Council
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