How online study, a 24/7 hub, and a Mary MacKillop Today scholarship are changing what’s possible for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in the Kimberley.
Somewhere in Broome, at almost any hour, the lights at the Pilbara Kimberley University Centres (PKUC) hub are on.
It is the only 24/7 study hub in the entire PKUC network – a quiet room with high-speed internet and face-to-face support. For students like Mikayla, who are studying online while raising children, working, and choosing to remain on country, that combination changes everything.
Mikayla is from the Yawuru and Bardi peoples, born and raised in Broome, and currently completing her Diploma in psychology. She works at Headspace, a youth mental health service, a role that aligns, she says, with where her studies are taking her. Her four-year-old daughter is close by. She has tried the alternative: enrolling at the University of Western Australia in Perth, moving south, stepping away from home.
“I found it really hard being away from home. Coming from here”, said Mikayla.
She came back. And now, with Mary MacKillop Today’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Scholarship supporting her, she doesn’t have to choose between home and higher education.
“There have been times where this is all really hard. But having the scholarship will really help me to commit. It’s like… a reason to keep going.”
Why the hub exists
The Kimberley sits in the far north of Western Australia, a region of extraordinary scale, where distances don’t register until you’re living them. Broome, its largest town, is more than 2,200 kilometres from Perth. For generations, the assumption was simple: if you wanted a university degree, you left.
Amanda Davies, Manager of the Broome PKUC hub, has heard every version of that assumption. And she has watched it change.
“People living in their regions, they like to stay here. They don’t want to upskill and leave their community. They want to upskill and stay.”
That desire runs into real barriers. Students pursuing degrees that require placement – nursing, allied health, psychology – must travel for those placements, unpaid. If they have children, childcare must be arranged. The cost of accommodation in Broome is among the highest in regional Australia. And for many students, geographical distance from a university campus can quickly become a feeling of academic isolation too.
The hub addresses all of those barriers. Located in the heart of Broome, it offers high-speed NBN, wide-screen computers, a fully equipped study area, and 24/7 swipe-card access for registered students. When the day finally settles, after work, after the children are in bed, the lights are still on.
But it’s the wrap around support that Amanda describes with the most warmth. “I had a student in here an hour before you arrived this morning. I’ve been on the phone to one of our partner universities trying to help her through something. If we weren’t here, she wouldn’t have had that.”
The Broome hub opened officially in September 2023. Since then, over 310 students have registered in the West Kimberley. Today, 172 are actively enrolled. Thirty-one of them are Aboriginal students. Of last year’s 19 graduates, two are now working at Broome Hospital. “I guarantee you there are more up here,” Amanda says. She’s smiling.
Increasing support
Last year, Mary MacKillop Today launched a scholarship pool for West Kimberley students. With the PKUC partnership now formalised, our commitment in FY27 goes further still.
That is the difference between one student being supported and ten. It is the difference between Mikayla managing her fees and not. Between a young woman keeping her daughter close, walking into her job each morning, and building the kind of psychology career that will one day serve the community she grew up in.
She hopes to complete her undergraduate degree and, eventually, a PhD in research psychology. She may end up in Perth for a time, opportunities take you places, but she is clear about one thing.
“Broome is always Broome. There will always be a place for me here.”
Amanda tells me about another Mary Mackillop Today scholarship student, Shannon, who came in from a community near Fitzroy Crossing without knowing what she wanted to do. The team worked through her pathway options with her. She recently walked back in to announce: “I’ve made my decision. I’m not having children until I get my Bachelor Degree.”
“That,” Amanda says, “is what we are trying to do here.”
It is what Mary MacKillop understood: that education offered where people are, not where the system expects them to be, changes everything. Support given whilst walking alongside. On country. On course.
To help support more students like Mikayla, please donate today.
