Enshrining the fair go

Joobin Hooshmand’s chances of realising his dream of becoming a doctor were threatened by multiple factors. 

Firstly, he is of the Bahá’í faith which in Iran, his country of birth, prevented him from continuing studying beyond high school. 

Next, his family arrived in Australia from Turkey as refugees and he attended Northern Beaches Secondary College in New South Wales for his final two years of high school, despite speaking little English. 

Then later, throughout his years as a university undergraduate and trainee doctor, he shared the financial and emotional pressures commonly faced by students living and learning away from home.

“It’s no secret that cost-of-living pressures make it difficult for our students to make ends meet while undertaking their studies,” says Luke Chandler, currently working as the University Services Executive Officer at the University of Melbourne. 

“The University’s focus is on ensuring we do everything possible to make sure our most vulnerable students have the best opportunity to participate and achieve given the high standards we ask of them during their studies.”

In his previous role as Business Improvement Co-ordinator leading a small team within Student Services, Mr Chandler reviewed the University of Melbourne’s system for assessing student applications for financial aid, to discover ways of streamlining the process and developing objective ways of determining and evaluating need. 

“With demand for assistance growing year by year,” says Mr Chandler, “the University decided to completely rethink how we went about assessing students in financial need.

“Our aim was to strike a balance between identifying barriers to equity and then applying these on a measurable scale in order to determine which students were in the most financial need.”

Using a combination of mathematical and information technology datasets and capabilities, the Student Services’ team was able to build what software developers refer to as a ‘smart form’. This new online application form is now able to automatically retrieve the information the University already knows about each student from its student database, and apply tailored business logic based on this information.

“For example, if a student is under 21, it’s likely their parents’ income would be a factor in the student’s financial wellbeing,” Mr Chandler says. “So, working from date of birth, we tailored questions specifically to the unique circumstances of the student.”

The new system also analyses addresses against Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA) to enable scoring and assessing applications against an authoritative and objective means for identifying the most financially disadvantaged students.

“Thereafter, working with staff from Financial Aid, we were able to carefully craft a set of 13 specific scoring categories against which we could assess student need,” Mr Chandler says. “Student Services is now able to effectively target the University’s Financial Aid schemes, such as Student Grants and Loans, and is capable of assessing thousands of applications very quickly, efficiently and fairly.

“Importantly, by developing an intelligent, targeted and objective process that truly delivers equity to our student community, we can provide assistance without undue delay…to those who need it most, when it matters most.

“So students like Joobin can be quickly identified, and supported.”

www.services.unimelb.edu.au/scholarships

Support helps refugee student achieve career goals

"I was born in 1984 into a Bahá’í family. The Bahá’í faith is an independent world religion that was founded in 1844. The Faith’s central theme is that humanity is one family and the time has come for its unification into a peaceful global society. 

"The Bahá’í faith is not recognised by the Iranian government and its 300,000 members are under constant persecution. Despite Iran being a signatory to the declaration of the human rights since the Islamic revolution, the highest level of education accessible to members of Bahá’í faith in Iran is high school.

"I chose to become a Bahá’í when I was 15 years old. By 16, my parents – having recognised my academic tendencies – had started speaking about leaving Iran so that I, along with my two younger siblings, could access higher education. 

"So in August 2000 we became refugees in Turkey and applied for a humanitarian visa to Australia where my aunt had migrated some 20 years before. While in Turkey and awaiting a visa I became fluent in Turkish and started interpreting for the refugee community at the doctors’ and hospital visits. It was then that I decided I wanted to study medicine.

"When we arrived in Australia, after a short transition course I started years 11 and 12 at a high school in Sydney. Fortunately I did well and I was offered a place in the University of Melbourne Medical School which incidentally came a day before other university offers. The next day I received a letter of scholarship from the University covering the cost of the course and a small allowance for the first four years.

"I received four scholarships during my time as a medical student. The University’s Access scholarship, as well as accommodation scholarships I received from Medley Hall which were later granted through Trinity College when Medley closed for renovations, enabled me to move to Melbourne and study something I am passionate about through one of the finest medical schools in the world. 

"I was also awarded the Lin Martin Global Scholarship which enabled me to travel and work in Samoa for a month giving me exposure to medicine as practised in a resource-limited setting. This, along with other experiences working on eradicating trachoma – a blinding eye condition – from Indigenous communities, has inspired me to dedicate a portion of my working life serving disadvantaged communities within Australia and the Pacific."

– Joobin Hooshmand

campaign.unimelb.edu.au