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CDU in the NT

Student profile

Understanding our student population is crucial to teaching and learning as it supports curriculum design, planning and evaluation. It also gives an insight into our students' needs. 

Our 19,000 students are drawn from not only the Northern Territory, but also across Australia and overseas. They include Indigenous and international students, school leavers and mature age people returning to study. This means our students bring with them diverse knowledge, skills, capabilities, experiences and perspectives which we need to capitalise on to create a learning environment in which people from all backgrounds can learn from one another.

Following is a summary of our student profile as at the end of 2008, together with some comments about the impact this has on our approaches to teaching and learning.

Gender

Two thirds of CDU's Higher Education students are female. This high proportion of female students is evident across most of CDU's Higher Education courses including Teaching, Nursing, Law, Psychology, Pharmacy and Applied Science. In some courses like Commerce, Environmental Science and Exercise and Sport Science, this female skew is not as evident and CDU tends to attract equal numbers of female and male students. In some of the more traditionally male dominated courses like Engineering and IT, CDU still attracts a much higher proportion of male students compared to females.

The VET student cohort includes a much higher proportion of male students than Higher Education, with over half of all VET students being male.

Age

In Higher Education, only 7% of our students are aged under 20 and 70% are aged 25 or older. This is very different to the traditional profile of university students in which school leavers dominate. It is important to recognise that this means many of our Higher Education students are adult learners who face conflicting demands in balancing family, work and study commitments.

In VET, the picture is somewhat different with 22% of our students aged under 20. This is partly due to our delivery of VET in Schools (VETiS) programs to secondary students and our delivery of Australian Apprenticeships which are commonly undertaken by younger students. As a result, our VET teaching staff sometimes face different challenges to their colleagues in Higher Education.

In both Higher Education and VET, older students bring with them more extensive life experience based on adult-to-adult relationships in both the workplace and family unit. Whilst this can enhance their learning experience at CDU, it also means they expect to interact with University teaching and administrative staff as adults and peers.  Younger students, on the other hand, tend to have more limited life experiences based on parent-child or teacher-student relationships. They are likely to be less independent, have a lower skill base and may lack maturity in preparation for the workforce.

Mode of study

An increasing number of CDU's Higher Education students are studying fully off-campus, often online through 'e-learning', or through a mixture of off-campus and on-campus studies. This means they must know how to study independently, use CDU’s online learning environment 'Learnline' effectively, form online peer support groups and interact effectively with teaching staff online. It also means our academic staff must be as adept at teaching online as they are at teaching face-to-face.

A unit that is offered online will have one of the following identifiers to show the level of online interaction required by students:


OL: Online - supplementary material is available online through Learnline. Students are encouraged to access this material, however it is not essential to complete the requirements of the unit.

OLR: Online Reliant - learning material is provided online through Learnline. Students must access this material to complete the requirements of the unit and should log into Learnline on the first day of the teaching period.

An increasing number of CDU's VET students are receiving some of their training in workplaces or remote communities away from CDU's main campuses and centres. Only a very small proportion is studying online, although this is expected to grow.

Mode of enrolment

More than 90% of our VET students and almost half of our Higher Education students are studying part-time. Inevitably, this means students will be on campus less and will require more flexibility in how their courses are delivered.

ATSI profile

Indigenous Australians make up almost 30% of the Northern Territory's population. In Higher Education, only 4.3% of CDU's students are Indigenous. In VET, more than a third of our students are Indigenous although they are predominantly enrolled in lower level courses. We need to continue to work with Indigenous Australians to better understand their needs so we can facilitate their participation in higher level VET and higher education courses.

NESB profile

For about 15% of CDU's Higher Education students and about 30% of CDU's VET students, English is their second language. The higher proportion of VET students is partly due to CDU being responsible for delivery of the Commonwealth Government funded Adult Migrant English Program in the Northern Territory, and partly also due to the higher number of Indigenous students we teach who often speak one or more Indigenous languages as their first (and sometimes second and third) language. This profile has implications for how we design our courses and teaching materials in both sectors of the university. It also highlights the cultural diversity of our students.

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Staff profile

CDU is one of the Northern Territory's largest employers, with more than 1150 staff. These include approximately 350 Higher Education academics, approximately 225 VET teaching staff and almost 600 general staff who provide support to either or both sectors of the University. A brief profile of each of these staff groups is provided below. More detailed information can be found in the current Annual Report.

Approximately two thirds of CDU's Higher Education academics are employed at Level A or Level B and many are early career academics.  About half the remainder are employed at Level C. Approximately 70% of the Level A and B academics are women and two thirds of the Levels C–E academics are men.

The overwhelming majority of CDU's VET teaching staff are employed at Category II and almost all the remainder are employed at Category III. Men make up almost two thirds of CDU's VET teaching staff.

CDU's general staff are spread across all ten employment categories, with the largest number employed at HEW 4 and HEW 5. Approximately 70% of HEW 1–8 staff are women and approximately 60% of HEW 9 and 10 staff are men.

At present, less than 4% of CDU's staff are Indigenous. To realise CDU’s commitment to increasing the number of Indigenous Australians employed by the University, an Indigenous Employment Strategy is in place which is underpinned by a range of Indigenous development programs.

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Organisational structure

CDU's courses are delivered through its various Higher Education Schools and VET Industry Divisions.

Support for staff to enhance the quality of teaching and learning at CDU is provided by the Office of Learning and Teaching (OLT) which comprises the Academic Development Team (ADT), the Accreditation and Quality Team (AQT) and the Flexible Delivery Team (FDT).

A summary of the other key areas of the University is provided below. An organisational chart can be found at http://www.cdu.edu.au/vc/orgchart/organisationalchart-may09.pdf.

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