Enhancing Student Success Through PASS & Peer Learning
This Conference is the premier, dedicated event in the region for Professional Staff, Academics and Student Leaders looking to enhance their professional development and network within this vibrant community of practice. The 25th - 26 June, 2026 at Rydges World Square Sydney, will be 2 days of major celebration, collaboration and coming together of staff and student leaders. Whether you are keen to learn current best practice, explore innovations, discuss challenges or reconnect with other staff and students working in PASS/Peer Learning, this conference is a must attend event!
Assoc. Prof. Jane Skalicky
Peer Learning: Integral to Quality Student Learning Environments
PASS and peer learning have become integral to the higher education learning development landscape. With increasing student diversity and levels of preparedness for tertiary study, peer learning as a high-impact practice (HIP), remains key to fostering emotional, social and cognitive development across the student lifecycle. Peer learning helps students build a sense of belonging, develop self-efficacy and confidence in their abilities; fostering wellbeing and academic success.
This keynote will take participants on a journey from implementing PASS and peer learning programs, delving into the peer leadership experience, and finally cultivating and evidencing the value of peer learning strategically within an institution and more broadly. Jane has lived this journey through her career and will share best practice insights from the perspectives of theory and practice, student leadership development, and strategically aligning peer learning programs with student cohort, institutional and sector priorities.
Associate Professor Jane Skalicky is Director, Student Academic Success at the University of Tasmania. She leads a large team of staff and student leaders providing an integrated suite of student support services. With a higher education career spanning over 20 years, Jane has worked both in academic and professional spaces. Her ethos is underpinned by facilitating networked partnerships across the University to ensure that student success services and peer programs are relevant to the changing needs of students and curriculum and are strategically delivered to areas of most need and impact. A core focus of Jane’s leadership throughout has been a focus on student experience and student outcomes; introducing data-informed best practices for student support and development services. Jane has been a key contributor nationally and internationally within the fields of peer learning and peer leadership through national grants and international research partnerships. She regularly shares her work at national and international conferences and in scholarly journals.
Prof. Peter Siminski
Do First Year Support Programs Improve Grades and Retention of Equity Students at Australian Universities?
This Keynote will discuss two experimental evaluations of programs designed to improve student success at Australian universities. The first examines the Peer Assisted Study Sessions (PASS) program at the University of Wollongong (Paloyo et al., 2016). Our analysis suggests that participating in PASS is associated with a meaningful improvement in student grades, particularly for those in their first semester of study. This research was cited in the Australian parliament as on example of credible causal evaluation.
The second study is an ongoing evaluation of the First Year Success Program (FYSP) at the University of Technology Sydney (Delavande et al., 2025). FYSP supports students from disadvantaged backgrounds in their transition to university through initiatives such as academic preparation courses, workshops, social events, and peer mentoring. I will share early findings from this work and reflect on what these evaluations reveal about designing and assessing effective student support programs.
Across both studies, I will also discuss the practical and methodological challenges of evaluating programs in real university settings — and what these challenges mean for credible evidence-based improvement in student support.
Peter Siminski is a Professor of Economics at UTS. His research is in applied microeconomics and microeconometrics in the fields of inequality and economic mobility, education, health, labour and public economics. Much of his work applies modern impact evaluation techniques to estimate the causal effects of Australian government policies and programs on people’s lives. The measurement of inequality and inter-generational economic mobility is a key theme of his work. He has published in leading economics journals such as the American Economic Review, AEJ: Applied Economics, the Journal of Labor Economics, and the Review of Economics and Statistics. He is Co-Editor of the Economic Record and is on the Editorial Board of the Economics of Education Review.
Conference Accommodation
The room block being held by the venue for the conference has now expired but they ask that people contact Rydges World Square directly (+61 2 8268 1888) and reference the conference and they will continue to honour the conference room rate. There are also multiple nearby hotels, depending on your budget.
Conference location
The 25 - 26 June, 2026 at Rydges World Square Sydney. Centrally located only a 5-minute walk from Central Railway Station. Also serviced by the light rail on George Street.
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