Region. Culture is 'core of the problem'

The culture of Western Sydney and Melbourne’s west is “the core of the problem” regarding low participation rates at university, according to Professor Don Aitken, a former vice-chancellor at the University of Canberra. “Look at the population mix in the most recent census and you’ll see that well-educated professionals of all kinds are hugely underrepresented there,” he said in The Australian Financial Review. “These two large suburban areas are short of theatres, concert halls, private schools of note, established parks and gardens (and) they are short of high-tech, knowledge-work industries.” He said, in order to boost representation, these outer urban areas needed to be made attractive to people who cared about university education for their children