Pilbara Universities Centre provides relief as Karratha students put vision of studying interstate on hold

With continued uncertainty around WA’s border restrictions, two Karratha students say the ability to study closer to home provided relief as they put their vision of attending university interstate on hold. The Pilbara Universities Centre has provided Jilliane Posawen and Demi Nelson, both 18, a chance to enrol in UniReady courses, with Ms Posawen studying humanities in academic writing and Ms Nelson studying social work. Ms Posawen said she considered studying at the University of Notre Dame in Sydney. “I’ve lived in Karratha for nearly a decade and it would have been nice to move somewhere else, and maybe going to other major cities like Sydney would have been so good,” she said. “COVID played a big part in my decision to stay and right now, I don’t see an easy way to move from Karratha and get out of the State. “I enrolled myself into PUC and it’s been such a relief because it has taken the weight off of me, I feel like everything is settled and I don’t have to worry — I know there are people here to support me and there’s various, various people with experience at PUC.” With family interstate, Ms Nelson said she wanted to get over to Cairns in Queensland to study. “I’m not from Australia so they are the only other family members that I have and I kind of thought moving interstate over there would mean I would be with family, with the support but also to experience new things,” she said. “I changed my mind a year ago because of COVID — beginning of 2021, I figured I could still go but as the months went on I realised I couldn’t.” PUC chief executive Susan Grylls said the pandemic forced people to re-assess how things were previously done. “I think COVID, in some ways, has actually been very positive for the PUC because we are quite an innovative regional and remote education institution,” she said. “What COVID has allowed us to do is for people to be more open about different ways of providing education. “We’ve been able to run our nursing residential schools, we’ve been able to run our tutorials, we’ve been able to run our one-on-one academic support in a way that we actually give more service and support to our students over and above what students in Perth actually get.” Premier Mark McGowan indefinitely delayed the re-opening of WA’s hard border to double-jabbed international and interstate travellers just 16 days before the State was due to reconnect with the world.