Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last Saturday night, 7 October, Central Queensland University hosted the 20th anniversary celebration of its STEPS program, one of the most useful tools the university has to help potential students get ready for tertiary studies. Short for ‘Skills for Tertiary Education Preparatory Studies’, the STEPS program is a pre-university course that gives adult learners the necessary skills and confidence to take on the challenge of university via a 12-week accelerated course or a 24-week flexible program.

In many cases students enrolling in the STEPS program have had an unhappy or damaging school experience, but this program has a friendly, open-door approach. STEPS covers core subjects such as academic communications, mathematics, computing, independent learning skills, study skills, library information and literacy skills—in short, the nuts and bolts of understanding needed to kick-start academic studies. STEPS students have gone on to gain tertiary entrance to CQU or other tertiary institutions, while others have moved to more rewarding careers. One such student, Taryn Jeffery, who recently graduated from the program to start a nursing degree, said:

I really want to do a bachelor of nursing degree, but I hadn’t been to school in a while, so I thought STEPS would help me make it into the course.

I might not be the best writer, but I am a lot more confident now.

The 20th anniversary celebrations were a chance for past STEPS students to catch up with former teachers, and to meet today’s students and compare notes as to how the program helped them with their further studies. I commend CQU for the success of the STEPS program and the opportunities it is opening up for prospective university students in central Queensland. I also commend CQU for its excellent facilities that it has provided for students. In recent weeks I had the pleasure of officially opening the Bundaberg campus’s new information commons, which was built with the help of a $1.47 million program from the government’s Capital Development Pool program. These facilities have come on line at Bundaberg and Gladstone campuses and are due to be completed at the end of the year at Mackay campus. CQU’s Bundaberg Library Information Commons is providing far better ICT infrastructure for its students and staff, which is vital in today’s world, where access to state-of-the-art computer and information technology is crucial to extending each student’s learning—a job well done.