Peter Crampton: Otago University's Public Health Professor on the shortfalls in the medical school enrolment programme

Alarms are being raised over a shortfall in programmes aimed to lift medical school enrolment for under-served groups. 

A study in today's New Zealand Medical Journal has found Otago University's initiatives have lifted Māori, Pacific, and rural enrolments over the last 30 years. 

However, the number of students in health courses from poorer backgrounds hasn't actually increased. 

Otago University's Public Health Professor Peter Crampton told Kerre Woodham they shouldn't be missing out. 

He says efforts should be made to ensure everyone can make use of tertiary education opportunities. 

LISTEN ABOVE 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the carrywood of morning's podcast from News
Talks ed B.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
New research in today's New Zealand Medical Journal has found
Otago University's affirmative action initiatives hasn't increased the number of
students from poorer backgrounds getting into med school. Mary now
make up twenty percent of enrollments, reaching parity with European
and Asian enrollments for the first time for a very
long time. That wasn't the case only a decade ago.

(00:32):
A Maya seven point six percent of new domestic medical
students at Otago identified as Mary two point seven percent
of PACIFICA professor of public health at the University of Otigo,
Peter Crampton joins me, now a very good morning.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
To you, curate a carrying good morning to you and
your listeners.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
As a woman, your women have benefited from affirmative action
over the years, almost to the point that young men
might need to have a program in place for some courses.
You know, for a long time it was believed that
women couldn't be lawyers, and that couldn't be doctors, and
now they can see it, they can be. It is
that what the thinking is behind having Marii Pacific a

(01:11):
rural and lower socioeconomic privileges.

Speaker 3 (01:17):
Yes, it is. That is the thinking behind the affirmative program.
You're dad right about the gender balance coming into university,
and it's not just into health programs like medicine, it's
the universe. This specifically is about the university of a target.
I think these patterns are seen much more widely in

(01:39):
tertiary education. From being a small minority of students, women
are now the majority overall, and in some health professional programs,
including medicine, they sort of have predominated for quite a
long time. Now. Generally this is not raised as a problem.

(02:01):
That said, I think it's something we all should keep
a close eye on because participation of men in tertiary
education and in education more generally is obviously hugely important
for society. And look, maybe I'm drawing along by on this,
but one of the themes I saw coming through the

(02:21):
presidential election in the US was the voting block of
young men responding to particular messages which were tailored for
them coming from Trump. And however, one views that I
do see in this issues to do with participation, empowerment

(02:42):
and young men being able to see themselves properly represented
in tertiary education. And it's an interesting issue, this one.
I'm inclined to kick it to touch because I don't
have expertise in in sort of the broader gender issues
in society, but I do note that it's an issue

(03:04):
that this is what numbers are telling us, and I
think wise there heads in mind need to be thinking
about this and commenting on it.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
I think you can only fight so many fights in
your lifetime, too. Really, you can pass the pattern to
other people with more energy. So can you see a
time where there will be places and scholarships for young
men of whatever ethnicity, whatever background in nursing, say, or teaching.

Speaker 3 (03:31):
Well, one can imagine that in the future. Yes, absolutely.
I think that the broader context here is how education
in general, and here I'm thinking about primary, intermedia and
secondary school education as well is working for boys and
for men. And look, I think as a society we

(03:53):
would be very wise to keep an eye on this
and to think very carefully about it. We don't want,
I believe we don't want big chunks of our communities
feeling effectively marginalized from opportunities.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
Absolutely, and you can sort of see that for young
men as they struggle to find a place in this world.
You know, And why is it that we lurch? Why
do we lurch so badly? As affirmative action. Part of
the problem that we're focused on girls can do anything
and girls. Thus girls are that at school to the

(04:29):
point that boys feel like, what about me? You know,
because we all start off as little humans and we're
full of potential. You know. It's only later that it
becomes politicized, once you enter an education system and once
you get a little bit older and start perceiving messages
from the media.

Speaker 3 (04:49):
Well, look, yes, absolutely, in my professional lifetime, there has
been no affirmative action for women, at least in university.
That women's achievement in university is driven by other factors,
it's certainly not of them by affirmative action. Affirmative action
has picked up on communities where where we believe there

(05:12):
are there's evidence, strong evidence of structural barriers to entry,
and think about rural communities, that there's a rural there's
an affirmative action for students from rural backgrounds because everyone
agrees there are certain structural barriers there which get in
the way of their participation. And we will benefit. Society

(05:33):
benefits from good participation from by students from rural backgrounds.
I don't think in my professional lifetime those structural barriers
have been evident in terms of women's participation and university.
I've not seen that, and the numbers will bear that up.

(05:55):
But I think the underlying issue you're referring to is important.

Speaker 2 (05:58):
Yeah, I mean a lot of people, a lot of
texters to the show so far this morning, have focused
on the Mardi getting access to med school when they're
very bright kids have missed out. Thirty percent. Is an
awful lot of places to be reserved for Mari and Pacifica.

(06:20):
Given the proportionality of the makeup of the population, does
that need to be tweaked.

Speaker 3 (06:28):
Well, The historical context here is effectively non participation by
those communities or participation in very very small numbers. And
the purpose excuse me, the purpose of this, and my
view is if we're talking about health, professional education and
medical school is an example of that, is to produce

(06:49):
the workforce that meets the needs of our various communities.
So no one would question the need to have women doctors,
and similarly, we don't question the need to have Maldi
doctors and Pacific doctors. And because we've got such a
huge historical eff set to make up for, that's why

(07:10):
we're driving the numbers. But having said all of that,
Pacific students and if we're talking about medical school specifically,
still don't make They're still not a population parity in
terms of participation. Maori students are about at population parity
if we use the proportion of Maori in that particular
age group, the eighteen to twenty five age group who

(07:32):
go to university. So it's not it's not above population paroity, No,
it's it's it's from Maori. It's at population parity.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
But the place is reserved for them, are above aren't they?

Speaker 3 (07:44):
Well, in the way that the University of Otago does this,
we don't have a set number of reserved places.

Speaker 2 (07:51):
Oh okay, there was a six percentage.

Speaker 3 (07:54):
No, we have we have criteria for selecting the men
and it and it turns out that it's at population parody.
It's not. No, No, I mean there's no a wreck
correspondence there. If there was, we'd have more Pacific students.

Speaker 2 (08:10):
Right, Okay. Interesting, Once they're in, do they complete the course?

Speaker 3 (08:19):
Well, depends which courses we're talking about it. But if
we stick with medicine, the completion rate is high for
all groups of students, very high, it has been. We
support them tremendously, and that's been the case for a
very long time. For all students. It's not one hundred percent,
it's in the nineties for all groups.

Speaker 2 (08:37):
Yeah, okay, And they have to pass at the same
level once they're in the Bachelor of Medicine.

Speaker 3 (08:44):
The assessment criteria that exactly the same for everybody, right okay.
And they're blind too, so no one knows who. In fact,
my job this morning is marking exam papers and I
have no idea whose exam papers I'm marking.

Speaker 2 (08:57):
Oh okay, well, I'm glad I took you away from
that for just a few minutes. And welcome Relie, thank you.
But how on earth do you get those from ECONO
disadvantaged backgrounds? And what is what is a poorer background?
How do you define poor? Because they're behind the eight
ball so much from the very start.

Speaker 3 (09:16):
Well, and that's one of the stand up findings of
the study. So we measured a socio economic position using
two measures. One was the school gathar system, which for
the thirty years that this study covers, the school gasar
system was in existence. It's actually stopped now, but for
that thirty year period up until last year, it was

(09:36):
saul in use. And the other measure was the New
Zealand Index of socio Economic Apprivation, which is a measure
of poverty and we use that for the student's home
address at the time that they applied to come to university.
We use We use those two measures over the entire
thirty year period of the study and effectively no change,

(10:02):
very low participation from students from the poorest community at
the University of Otago and no change over that period.
So in contrast to Maldi and Pacific and rural participation,
for example, there's been no change amongst students from low
social communities. And for me, that's a great concern and

(10:23):
it's alarming. And for all those reasons we talked about
for young men, I think they apply here too. We
should be making a lot more effort to reach out
to and support students from poor communities so that they're
participating it properly in all the opportunities that come with
tertiary education.

Speaker 2 (10:45):
Thank you so much for your time. I would have
to send you back to your marketing professor Peter Crampton,
Professor of Public Health at the University of Otago, former
medical school dean, and a thoroughly splendid man.

Speaker 1 (10:57):
For more from Kerry Wood and Mornings, listen live to
news talks that'd be from nine am weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio.