This measure classifies domestic students into metropolitan, regional, or remote categories, using their residential postcode mapped to the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS) Edition 3 Remoteness Areas, which are based on the Accessibility/Remoteness Index of Australia Plus (ARIA+) accessibility index.
Classification Process:
Students' postcodes are mapped to ASGS Remoteness classes: Major Cities, Inner Regional, Outer Regional, Remote, Very Remote.
Each student's postcode is mapped to metropolitan, regional and remote categories. Postcodes can be mapped to multiple categories meaning that fractions can occur. For example, a postcode may be classified as 75% regional (0.75 regional) and 25% remote (0.25 remote). A postcode in the middle of Sydney however would be classified as 100% metropolitan and students in this postcode would receive a score of '1' for the metropolitan category (and '0' for the regional and remote categories). Integers and fractions are then summed across the data set to calculate an estimate of the number of students from a metropolitan, regional or remote area. Student-level fractional values are aggregated to estimate counts in each category.
A regional student includes those students from either an Inner Regional or Outer Regional area as defined under the ASGS.
A remote student includes those students from either a Remote or Very Remote area as defined under the ASGS.
A small number of students are unable to be classified to a regional classification and these students are therefore assigned to 'unknown'.
Technical Notes:
- Only domestic onshore students are considered. International or overseas addresses are not classified.
- Remoteness is derived from ARIA+ scores (0–15), reflecting road-access-based distance to services, aggregated at the SA1 level.