The National Indigenous Knowledges Education Research and Innovation (NIKERI) Institute at Deakin University has been providing higher education opportunities to First Nations students for over 30 years.
Current student Kaydi Enoch and alumni Professor Roianne West at NIKERI Institute, Deakin University.
The NIKERI Institute gives access to university through our distinctive Community Based Delivery (CBD) learning program. The CBD model offers a combination of on-campus study blocks and supported learning in home communities, strengthened by Deakin’s leading digital platform. This enables students the flexibility to live in their home community, maintain family, work, and fulfil cultural obligations while studying.
Admission to courses at the NIKERI Institute is based on alternative entry; an ATAR or high school graduation certificate is not a necessity as other factors such as knowledge gained through experience are also considered.
Kalkadoon and Djunke woman, Professor Roianne West, the CEO of the Congress of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Nurses and Midwives (CATSINaM) was part of the first group of Bachelor of Nursing graduates from NIKERI Institute, alongside her brother and sister over 20 years ago.
“I look back at me before I started my degree. And then the opportunities that uni has offered to me, to my children and it all started because I started studying nursing.”
Professor West highlights the uniqueness of a First Nations dedicated space such as NIKERI Institute: “When you’re in institutions like a university unfortunately most days you are compromising your Indigeneity in order to survive in those spaces. Having dedicated spaces like this just means that you fellas get to be without worrying about people looking at you, judging you, having to think you have to perform in a certain way to get something done.”
“It also means that you don’t have to negotiate your Indigeneity as much in order to get to the end of the degree. Because we don’t want to just graduate students, we want to graduate people who are strong Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, not forgo all that through a degree that’s very western and then they graduate and they’ve almost got to rebuild that other part of their identity.”
Kaydi Enoch, a Noonuccal-Nughi woman currently studying a Bachelor of Social Work, agrees. “For our mob tertiary education can be very daunting. It’s a very westernised space [and] can be very overwhelming so having a dedicated program such as NIKERI provides us that culturally safe space where we can share our experiences and our own knowledges through that cultural lens.”
Kaydi first experienced the Institute through NIKERI’s Indigenous Direct Admissions Program (IDAP) which will be again offered in November. The program is designed to provide applicants with the study skills to succeed, prepare them for university, and the experience of on-campus study blocks through the CBD model.
“The IDAP program gave me a sense of security and helped me realise I can attend uni, I can do it and I will be supported through that process. It really made it not as daunting as what I originally thought university would be.”
All prospective students who have completed an online application to NIKERI Institute are invited to attend the program.