Ms Bukky Adebowale:

My comment is only brief really. I am summarily commenting around the environment and culture within education. I would absolutely agree that it is not necessarily that we do not have women or non-binary people wanting to take up these spaces. I would have addressed this in my opening remarks, however, in terms of creating safe environments for those people to remain and stay in those spaces. I myself was a student in secondary school and one of the only black women studying there within my agriculture science classes, which is typically a very white male dominated place. It was something I loved but not it was not necessarily an environment that allowed for me to stay.

I am speaking in particular about recommendation 28(a), although I know that we will discuss recommendation 28(b) a little more. Recommendation 28(a) will push that forward in respect of talking about professional development for staff members. As well as this, there could be an area where we could talk about gender awareness for the students in respect of the environment and culture that we create within these subject spaces. That is important to note. The USI would definitely support that area. That was my initial comment on the previous statement.