Category: Access & WP

  • Taking a systematic approach to inclusivity through uncovering the hidden curriculum

    Taking a systematic approach to inclusivity through uncovering the hidden curriculum

    Every culture and society have distinct nuances and unspoken, unwritten values, norms and beliefs that influence behaviour, expectations, and life experiences. These evolving dynamics can also influence learning experiences.

    Often referred to as the hidden curriculum, these aspects not only affect the way students experience their learning journey but the lasting impact their university experience has on their lives. It is vital, therefore, that anyone working in the sector is aware of these factors as they may impact both the curriculum, and the unintended values and perspectives communicated through the way the staff interact with students.

    Educators should not only be aware of the dominant institutional culture but should actively encourage an inclusive learning community that values and embraces the diverse backgrounds and experiences of students and faculty. Drawing students’ attention to these often-overlooked factors can empower them to navigate academic and professional spaces more effectively, helping them reach their full potential.

    The hidden curriculum has been shown to play a significant role in fostering moral values, professionalism and humanism in fields like medicine, management and the arts. But we also know that when it’s not implemented carefully, the hidden curriculum can reflect the interests of dominant groups; reinforcing privilege while disadvantaging others, such as those from working-class and marginalised communities. Therefore, we also need to openly analyse and critique the hidden curriculum, by identifying any political implications of specific pedagogic approaches.

    When people are not aware of these unspoken values and expectations, they may feel excluded or marginalised, negatively impacting their sense of belonging and therefore their willingness to engage or ability to succeed. We therefore have an obligation to not only teach the hidden, cultural norms themselves, but also foster a critical awareness of them. Encouraging students to adapt while remaining true to their own identities, resulting in an authentic experience for all students, including those with different learning needs – such as neurodivergent individuals – as well as people from different backgrounds or cultures.

    We know that a truly internationalised campus requires both institutional initiatives and individual efforts to foster intercultural understanding and collaboration, empowering students and staff to drive change together. But putting this into practice can be tough. As a result, efforts to widen participation have often led to social and academic exclusion, as systems struggle to adapt.

    Systematically overcoming the hidden curriculum

    Equitable assessments play a key role in overcoming the hidden curriculum. Clear guidance and opportunities to develop assessment literacy helps students to perform to their full potential. For example, if students are to submit a narrated presentation for their assessment, have they had opportunities to learn the required skills and to submit a formative presentation for feedback? Scaffolding the skills they are required to demonstrate, including writing skills, is imperative to student confidence and therefore submission and overall success.

    Work placements should also accommodate students’ diverse backgrounds, ensuring inclusivity in workplace culture and expectations. This may include, for example, transport needs or special equipment; where this is the case, both the university and the employer have a responsibility to meet these needs so the student is able to attend their placement and complete their duties in an equitable way, allowing them to feel part of the team.

    There should also be clear guidance on what success means. Staff should be aware of the implicit ways they are communicating the institutions and their own expectations. By emphasising grade attainment, they are potentially sending a message that high grades are valued and that those not achieving these grades are less important and/or valuable than those who are. Students who want to impress their lecturers may feel pressure to perform and feel marginalised when they do not achieve the grades they think are expected. To avoid this, staff should be explicit about how overall educational gain is measured and how students can develop their own map for navigating university life and measuring their own development.

    On top of this, bringing hidden knowledge, such as vernacular, or higher education jargon, to the surface through tools like shared, and preferably co-created glossaries will help all students, particularly those new to a field, or who speak English as an additional language, feel more included and engaged.

    Curriculum and learning design should also follow an intentional approach to foster belonging and encourage discussions about social inequalities – including why they exist and how to overcome them – making students more aware of the world that exists and their role and influence within it.

    Fighting against pressures

    Despite many institutions working towards overcoming the constraints of the hidden curriculum, there’s still an incessant problem at play. Universities are increasingly expected to embed numerous agendas into their teaching and learning frameworks: equality, sustainability, employability, decolonisation, accessibility and mental well-being – to name a few.

    These competing demands can be overwhelming, particularly when trying to implement all these elements into individual modules. This can – and has – led to inefficiencies, confusion and a disconnect between academic content and broader institutional goals. Essentially, we end up stuck in the same position, or even more behind, as staff grapple with balancing traditional academic teaching with the growing list of institutional and societal changes.

    It’s no secret that universities need to rethink how to integrate and prioritise all these different elements when teaching. We know inclusion matters to students, yet universities are having to draw back from a lot of their outreach work due to financial pressures, while at the same time fighting against a world that’s seemingly becoming more hostile toward equality, diversity and inclusion efforts. Universities need to relearn how to be inclusive with these constraints – effectively “doing more with less.”

    Some have thought to distribute the elements across modules or offer co-curricular opportunities. Some have tried to enforce better levels of transparency in workload expectations for both staff and students, including better time management. And yet the struggle remains.

    The steps to crack inclusivity

    Trying to finally crack the code to inclusivity requires both top-down institutional strategies and bottom-up approaches that focus on academic and cultural drivers.

    There are a few steps which have been found to help, such as investing in ongoing training and awareness programmes, as they provide sustained, comprehensive training on accessibility and inclusion for all staff. Increased awareness may lead to more critical assessments of institutional practices, but it will not diminish personal commitment. It is in these interpersonal interactions in learning, teaching and academic support that the tacit exclusions of the hidden curriculum can be interrogated and challenged.

    But institutional staff need back up in the form of a holistic and inclusive institutional culture that values and prioritises inclusivity at all levels. This can be done by promoting accessibility as a core value, which can help the institution remain resilient during times of change or external challenges, and by emphasising inclusivity as a shared responsibility across all departments and roles.

    Universities should also strengthen institutional support structures by ensuring staff know who to contact for accessibility issues and can trust institutional processes to provide timely and effective support. It’s important to clarify roles, responsibilities and procedures and develop clear documentation and accessible guidance related to accessibility to reduce confusion and improve responsiveness. It’s also important to avoid narrowly targeted interventions that might neglect or disadvantage certain academics. Sufficient budget and resources should also be allocated to sustain inclusivity initiatives.

    As Knight and de Wit argue: “Economic and political rationales are increasingly the key drivers for national policies related to the internationalisation of higher education, while academic and social/cultural motivations are not increasing in importance at the same rate.”

    Assessing and adapting inclusive practices in light of the changing external environment is key. Tools like cross-sectional surveys can track staff perceptions of accessibility and inclusion over time. This will help universities to monitor changes in staff confidence, attitudes and knowledge, and address areas of concern through targeted interventions. Universities should always engage with diverse voices, to inform and improve practices, while recognising and addressing external factors, such as legislative changes or global events, which may impact staff confidence and inclusivity efforts.

    Source link

  • Causes and consequences of access disparities by ethnicity

    Causes and consequences of access disparities by ethnicity

    If you haven’t looked recently at the stats on the different rates of HE participation by ethnicity, you may find them quite striking.

    Today, young people from ethnic minority backgrounds are progressing to university in record numbers.

    According to the most recent figures from DfE, the proportion of school pupils in England of white ethnicity who progress to HE by age 19 (41.8 per cent) is comfortably exceeded by the corresponding proportions of school pupils of Asian (68.4 per cent), Black (62.4 per cent) and mixed (51.8 per cent) ethnicity.

    White school pupils now also have the lowest progression rate to more selective high tariff universities. Statistics concerning the intersection of ethnicity and socioeconomic background are even more striking – Black school pupils who are also free school meals (FSM) eligible, for example, have a higher HE participation rate (51.3 per cent) than white pupils who are not FSM eligible (45.1 per cent).

    Can these gaps be explained?

    Whilst as a sector we (quite rightly) focus more on the gap in degree-level attainment by ethnicity (where white students typically outperform those from ethnic minority backgrounds), it is still worth considering why gaps in HE access by ethnicity are so large and what the longer term ramifications of these gaps may be. I recently published a piece of academic research which sought to understand the drivers of HE participation gaps by ethnicity.

    This is a much less straightforward task than trying to understand the drivers of disparities in HE participation by socioeconomic background or gender. A number of statistical modelling exercises, using England’s rich administrative datasets, have shown that gaps in HE participation by FSM eligibility and gender tend to almost vanish once average differences in school attainment are controlled for statistically. Of course, this does not excuse such disparities, but it does help us to better understand why they exist.

    However, when it comes to the link between ethnicity, school attainment and the likelihood of going to university, the relationship here seems to be far from straightforward. For example, Black school pupils in England get slightly lower grades, on average, in their GCSE exams than their white counterparts. Yet at the same time Black pupils are (quite comfortably) more likely to end up progressing to university. At first glance therefore, these statistics appear somewhat counter-intuitive.

    In an analysis of linked National Pupil Database (NPD) and HESA data, I discovered that to better understand overall disparities in HE access by ethnicity, we need to investigate how these disparities vary at different points along the overall school attainment spectrum.

    This can be done using a really straightforward method. First, take an entire cohort of all state school pupils in England (I used the one who took their GCSE exams in 2015) and divide them up into five attainment quintiles based on their grades in their best 8 GCSE subjects. Then, within each of these attainment sub-populations, investigate how HE participation varies by ethnicity.

    For higher attainers, the results were largely unremarkable. But for those with slightly below average attainment, the results were truly staggering.

    The participation gulf for those with lower school attainment

    Young people from ethnic minority backgrounds with high attainment are more likely to end up at university than their high-attaining white British counterparts, but only slightly so. For example, 81.2 per cent of those pupils who were both white British and in the highest quintile of attainment ended up at university, compared to 83.3 per cent of high attainers of Black Caribbean ethnicity and 87.7 per cent of high-attainers of Pakistani ethnicity. So far, so “meh”.

    But consider what happens at the second lowest quintile of attainers. This time, only 9.7 per cent of all white British students in this attainment bracket end up at university. At this same level of attainment, the HE progression rate for those of Pakistani ethnicity is 38.4 per cent, while the rate for those of Black African ethnicity is 52.1 per cent.

    You can take a look at all the percentages here in Table 4 of my paper if you’re really keen, but I can sum it up for you quite simply. While young people from ethnic minority backgrounds with high school attainment are slightly more likely to go to university than high attainers from white British backgrounds, lower attainers from ethnic minority backgrounds are considerably more likely to end up at university than their lower attaining white British counterparts.

    And when I say considerably, I mean considerably.

    Implications

    The upshot of all this is quite simple. Rightly or wrongly, once you get below a certain level of attainment, young people of white British ethnicity just don’t seem interested in going to university anymore. On the other hand, lower attainers from ethnic minority backgrounds are still quite keen to participate in HE, even though their level of attainment might mean that they may face a somewhat constrained choice of different institutions and courses.

    This leads us then to another question – why are young people from ethnic minority backgrounds (especially those with lower attainment) – so much keener to go to university? One somewhat unhelpful answer to this question was offered in the controversial Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities report which was commissioned by the previous Conservative government. In the view of the commissioners, many people in ethnic minority communities have “an exaggerated respect for the academic route as the only path to success and economic safety on the part of ethnic minorities”. This perspective of course conveniently ignores another explanation which is well grounded in the sociological literature, which is that within ethnic minority communities, becoming as well-qualified as possible is seen as a necessary strategy to adopt in order to counteract the effects of racial discrimination in the labour market.

    Those of white ethnicity, in contrast, may enjoy more latitude to follow alternative pathways with the confidence that they are likely to fall on their feet in the end whatever happens.

    Aesop’s fables

    One thing we know for sure is that, for those with slightly lower school attainment, white and ethnic minority students seem to be making different choices on average at age 18. How might this all pan out in the longer term? Or, to put it another way, how do graduates with lower school attainment fare in the jobs market, compared to non-graduates with lower school attainment?

    When I look at analyses of the LEO earnings data for answers to this question, what I see reminds me of that familiar tale of the race between the tortoise and the hare. School leavers with lower attainment (defined here as not having at least 5 A*-C grades at GCSE) who do not go to university are the hares who dash out of the traps fairly quickly, typically earning wages (albeit fairly low ones) between the ages of 18-21. They have typically enjoyed slightly higher total earnings by age 30 than those lower attainers who went to university, who tend to enjoy only a fairly limited graduate earnings premium at first.

    But the graduate tortoises tend to plod their way to greater career earnings in the end, since graduates are much more likely to enjoy wage increases through midlife, whilst the non-graduate hares take an earnings siesta.

    Of course, most analysis of LEO so far concerns cohorts of people born in the mid to late 1980s. Without a crystal ball, young people today with lower school attainment can’t really be sure whether going to university (from a career and earnings perspective) will be a smart move or not. Either decision could be justified.

    Going to university has always tended to pay off (on average) so far, even as naysayers have continued to argue that the jobs market is becoming too saturated with graduates. On the other hand, continued (and very much welcome) increases in the salaries of less-educated workers (brought about in part by successive real-terms increases to the National Living Wage) may serve to both reduce the size of the graduate earnings premium for lower attainers whilst also increasing the opportunity cost (though foregone earnings) of attending university.

    Only the longitudinal studies of the future will confirm whether young people today with lower school attainment will turn out to be better off in the jobs market by going to university or not.

    However, if the fortunes of lower attaining graduates turn out to be different on average to the fortunes of lower attaining non-graduates, we can be pretty confident that disparities in fortunes by ethnicity will follow.

    Source link

  • It’s the little moments that power social mobility

    It’s the little moments that power social mobility

    Anyone who has gone into higher education from a “non-traditional” background knows that widening participation is a double-edged sword. It is there to promote social mobility – but for individual students this journey, once taken, tends to be irreversible.

    In return for out-earning your family of origin, you are likely to endure a long period of feeling like an outsider. Whether it’s your accent, the words you use, the house you lived in, what you eat, the school you went to, or where (and indeed, if) you go on holiday, there are thousands of ways that you can feel different – and lesser. For some students, this feeling of being an imposter is further compounded by differences in culture, religion and ethnicity. As time goes on you can either continue standing out like a sore thumb or you can start to assimilate and, in doing so, lose little pieces of yourself forever.

    This is the story I heard many times over while carrying out research for a report published today. A Different World explores socioeconomic disadvantage in the transition to university and first year experience. In a partnership between Unite Students, University of Leeds and Manchester Metropolitan University, students took part in interviews, focus groups and co-creation, with most of them contributing directly to the report’s 33 recommendations.

    If this many recommendations seems excessive (even though they are helpfully grouped into six themes) it’s because most of them are about small but meaningful actions. I’ve spent the best part of 25 years advocating for a more inclusive higher education sector, but it’s only since working in student accommodation that I’ve come to see the value of these day-to-day moments as a force for change.

    University visits for schools are good, tutoring projects even better, and the return of grants would be lovely – but wherever the student experience is built on middle-class norms we will continue to see lower enrolment, continuation, completion, attainment and graduate outcomes among students from a different background.

    The change that is needed – and attainable – involves small, local actions in addition to system-level change.

    In their own words

    A Different World enables students to tell their own stories in their own words, which brings a richness of nuance to the topic and reveals opportunities for change.

    For example, there are many ways to cope with alienation, but opportunities to meet others from similar backgrounds really helps. As well as other students, this could also include staff members, and not just academic staff. Student accommodation maintenance teams made a difference for one student, and outside of this research I’ve heard many stories of students whose experience has been transformed by housekeepers or the reception team. Do we recognise and encourage this enough? Students were also reassured by services specifically aimed at them. We British don’t like to talk about social class, but maybe it would be helpful if we did.

    Students also shared the challenges of working and balancing a budget, and financial matters certainly did limit opportunities for socialising and extra-curriculars. However, they talked at least as much about their budgeting skills and ability to find the best bargains, skills usually learned from family. They were so impressive in this respect that they would have been helpful peer coaches for students in financial difficulty.

    A less obvious impact of socioeconomic background is gaps in fundamental knowledge about higher education. If you are the first person in your family to go to university, and especially if your school or college isn’t geared up to preparing you for it, there will be a lot you don’t know, including “unknown unknowns”, which put you at a disadvantage. For some students, unspoken assumptions tripped them up several times in the first year leading to missed opportunities and academic disadvantage.

    A different world

    The good news is that there’s a lot that can be done that would benefit students from disadvantaged backgrounds, and much of it would benefit a wider range of students too. You are probably doing some of these already, or in pockets within the organisation.

    All academics, and especially personal tutors, could explain expectations, terms and how to interact with them. For example, what are “office hours”, how do students get a meeting with you, and what are they allowed to talk about in those meetings? Module leaders could include ice-breakers at the start of every module, which also helps to promote belonging. Campus services staff could be encouraged and trained to develop more meaningful relationships with students, within appropriate boundaries. You could employ more students, especially those on a low income, and encourage your partners and suppliers to do the same. You could work with student-led societies to develop more inclusive practices and clearer communication. Maybe offer targeted bursaries for extra-curricular activities, via a clear and efficient process. For further inspiration I’d recommend reading the case studies from Manchester Metropolitan University and the University of Leeds that are included in the report.

    Widening access has been a success story over the last three decades – but if we’re serious about delivering social mobility as a sector, and as a society, individual students will benefit from better awareness and support while they are undertaking that difficult journey.

    Source link

  • A change agenda for the commuter student experience

    A change agenda for the commuter student experience

    In February, we launched our commuter student series, seeking to uncover how universities are responding to the increasing numbers of commuter students – students who continue to live at home whilst studying, rather than relocating to attend university, in contrast to “traditional” residential students.

    We sought to increase the visibility of commuters and share best practice, responding to demand for thought leadership and evidence-based interventions, with the aim of influencing pedagogy, practice and policy, within institutions and nationally.

    The series also followed the inclusion of commuter students on the Office for Students’ Equality of Opportunity Risk Register in England as a distinct group who experience inequality of opportunity.

    In our final article we look back at the series, reflecting on key learnings, before looking forward, setting out a change agenda for commuters that will make higher education more accessible, attractive and available to all.

    Commuter students are everywhere yet invisible

    Commuter students are part of every UK university.

    The proportion of commuters varies by institution – research by Susan Kenyon using 2022 HESA data, shows a range from 12 to 85 per cent.

    As such commuters need to be counted and made visible, acknowledged in pedagogy, policy and processes and, where necessary, considered as communities at risk in Access and Participation Plans (APPs) in England.

    And despite being everywhere, commuters can often be invisible and underserved.

    Earlier in the series Val Yates and Carolyn Oulton discussed how to build an institutional agenda for change by making commuters visible. Their agenda was one where commuters are embedded across the institution. Commuters don’t interact only with their lecturers – supporting commuters lies with academics, across professional services and into teams like IT and sustainability.

    We explored the diverse definitions of commuters in APPs, which often makes measuring progress difficult. In supporting commuters, it’s important we know we’re talking about the same group of students. Expanded definitions have considered those who live locally, use transport, have the same term time and home address but also those who relocate but live further away due to cost and housing pressures.

    Commuters need to be visible to their institution first before making them visible to each other through access programmes, networks and student societies.

    Commuter students are valuable

    Our series also reveals the cultural, educational and social value of commuters to our learning community.

    Commuters are passionate, engaged and committed. They bring diverse perspectives, experience and expertise to the classroom. As Martin Lowe, Adrian Wright and Mark Wilding write, they “are not just students, they are employees, caregivers, and active members of their communities,” bringing skills such as time management and the ability to balance multiple responsibilities, alongside discipline and an internal motivation to learn that can inspire and influence other students.

    And as Emma Maslin highlighted, there is a tendency to see commuters from a deficit perspective, as a disadvantaged group, whose experience needs to be “fixed.”

    Our authors don’t deny the academic, financial and social difficulties of being a commuter in a world designed for residential students, particularly when, as Elise Thornton discusses, commuting is often a financial necessity, rather than an active choice.

    But the opportunity to attend university as a commuter student can allow students to maintain community, employment and relationships that they value, whilst learning.

    Articles by Molly Pemberton and Susan Preston emphasise how valuable commuter students are to the wider student community. Commuters are campaigning for changes in policy, practice and spaces that reshape the university experience and bring benefits to all students.

    A common theme running throughout the series is that changes made to pedagogy, policy and processes, which initially aim to create a more inclusive environment for commuter students, benefit all students. And a lot of the time, they’re changes driven by students themselves.

    In designing services and learning for commuters, we’ve seen Tom Perou discusses the universal benefits of podcasts, which provide bite-sized learning in an alternative format; Kulvinder Singh described the importance of enhancing belonging in the classroom; and Susan Kenyon and Flic Lindo stressed the importance of improving information on the “rules of the game” and demystifying the “hidden curriculum.”

    Commuters are in the city

    In the traditional residential model, students remain largely in their defined area. But commuter students are integrated into the wider fabric of communities.

    Finding out where commuters are is often a good first step. David Kernohan analysed HESA data to help us understand what constitutes a local student and if local students aren’t going to your provider, where are they going?

    It’s common that local authorities don’t know how many students live locally, have relocated or are registered to vote, all of which inhibits the design of services to meet students’ needs. In the context of transport providers, bus fares and transport routes often don’t serve commuters because they don’t first understand that population.

    Joel Dowson’s article takes this further, outlining how universities and their students’ unions can leverage the financial value of students to transport providers, in terms of revenue and potential gains from reduced road congestion. At the Greater Manchester Student Partnership they have been lobbying for an improved commuter student experience, influencing the affordability and availability of transport services, to the benefit of all students.

    A commuter change agenda

    The aim of this series was to empower everyone in HE, whatever their role, to have a better understanding of the needs of commuter students.

    And as our contributions have evidenced, work happens everywhere – in professional services, in the classroom, in regional advocacy and with students.

    When thinking about where the work starts, it might be at your desk. There’s four categories to our change agenda, drawing on contributions from authors across the series: in the classroom, at the institution, with students and in national policy.

    In the classroom

    Supporting commuters in the classroom is about making them feel seen and making them visible to each other. Active pedagogies develop belonging and on-commute learning options such as podcasts, pre-recorded lectures or flipped learning are examples of inclusive learning delivery. Creating a reason to attend and articulating the benefits to students is important to sustain engagement.

    At the institution

    Institutions need to count commuters, then research, listen and review policies to ensure they work for all students. Practical steps include things like student-centric timetabling, consistent and empathetic attendance policies, providing clear information to commuters on application and offering accommodation options so that students can engage beyond the classroom. Institutions have influence with local governments and transport authorities and can be an effective conduit for making the city more commuter student friendly. And institutions can work towards building institutional empathy so colleagues understand that a lack of engagement may not be laziness, it may be a delayed bus or a train fare hike.

    With students

    Many APP interventions included co-creating solutions with students rather than for them which is undoubtedly the best step forward. It was students who led the way to making a commuter student lounge at Leeds University through the sharing of university rooms, giving them ownership, space and agency. In any project, involving commuters beyond consultation leads to successful interventions and outcomes.

    On a national level

    Measuring progress is difficult with different and diverse definitions, the sector needs to start with a shared agreement of who this student group is and how to measure them.

    The engagement barriers universities face are often tied to the cost of living crisis. Transport fares are expensive, so commuters make tactical, tough decisions about when and how to engage. Responding to consultations and calls for evidence on key transport policy with commuters helps shift transport service design in favour of students. And institutions are key agents in making change on a national level – at Sheffield Hallam SU, it was their VC support that got students in the room with their mayor to discuss bus prices.

    Whether it’s student-centric timetables, creating a commuter student lounge or working with the local transport authority, individuals across institutions want to feel empowered to enhance the commuter student experience themselves. So as institutions better understand, count and make visible the commuter student experience, the next step is for the work to start. And small things make a difference, simply talking about commuters in the classroom helps build community. Students experience enough delays on public transport, they don’t want to see the same delays happening with support at their institutions.

    Since publication, John Blake, Director for Fair Access and Participation at the Office for Students told us:

    Commuter students can sometimes get forgotten in the discourse around higher education. Yet they make up a significant proportion of the student body at all institutions, and at some comprise over three quarters of students. That’s why I really welcome Wonkhe’s focus on this issue. This series has helped identify who commuter students are, the enormous amount they add to the institutions where they study, and the work institutions are doing to support commuter students to get the most from their studies. The OfS has included commuter students in our equality of opportunity risk register, and a number of institutions are working with these students to develop creative solutions to some of the challenges they might face to access and succeed in higher education.

    Thank you to all the contributors to the series, if you would like to discuss supporting commuters in more detail, please do reach out to Susan Kenyon.

    Click here to read the rest of our commuter student series.

    Source link

  • Data lag and ambition aggregation means APPs are fundamentally flawed

    Data lag and ambition aggregation means APPs are fundamentally flawed

    In her letter to the sector last November, Secretary of State Bridget Phillipson said that she expects universities to play a stronger role in expanding access and improving outcomes for disadvantaged students.

    Her letter noted that the gap in outcomes from higher education between disadvantaged students and others is unacceptably large and is widening, with participation from disadvantaged students in decline for the first time in two decades.

    She’s referring to the Free School Meals (FSM) eligible HE progression rate – 29 percent in 2022–23, down for the first time in the series.

    Of course in 2023–24, or this year, the numbers for FSM and any number of other factors could be much worse – but on the current schedule, we won’t be seeing an update to OfS’ access and participation data dashboard until “summer or autumn 2025”, and even then only for 2023–24.

    If you’re prepared to brave the long loading times – which for me generate a similar level of frustration to that I used to experience watching Eurovision national finals 20 years ago – you can drill down into that dashboard by provider.

    It’s a mixed picture, with a lot of splits to choose from. But what the data doesn’t tell us is how providers are doing when compared to their signed off targets in their (mainly 2020–21 to 2024–25) access and participation plans.

    The last time OfS published any monitoring data was for the 2020–21 academic year – almost three years ago, in September 2022.

    That means that we can’t see how well providers are doing against their targets, and nor do we have any sense of any action that OfS may (or may not) have taken to tackle underperformance.

    So I decided to have a go. I restricted my analysis to the Russell Group, and extracted all of the targets from the 2020–21 to 2024–25 plans that were measurable via the dashboard.

    I then compared the 2022–23 performance with the relevant milestone, and with the original baseline. Where the target was unclear on what type of student was in scope, I assumed FT, first degree students.

    The results are pretty worrying.

    Baseline 2022-23 Milestone 2022-23 Actual Behind milestone? Behind baseline?
    PROG Disabled Percentage difference in progression to employment and further study between disabled and non-disabled. 3.00 2.00 0.10 N N
    PROG Ethnicity Percentage difference in graduate employability between white and black students 7.9 4.70 -2.50 N N
    CONT Disabled Percentage difference in non-continuation rates non-disabled and students with mental health conditions 7.00 5.50 1.80 N N
    CONT Disabled Percentage difference in continuation rates between disabled students and non-disabled students. 6.4 3 1.3 N N
    CONT Low Participation Neighbourhood (LPN) Percentage difference in non-continuation rates between POLAR4 quintile 5 and quintile 1 students. 5 3.5 2.3 N N
    CONT Low Participation Neighbourhood (LPN) Percentage difference in non-continuation rates between POLAR4 quintile 5 and quintile 1 students. 4 2.5 3.40 Y N
    CONT Low Participation Neighbourhood (LPN) Close the gap in non-continuation between POLAR 4 Q1 and Q5 undergraduate students from 3.8% in 2016/2017 to 1.5% in 2024/25 3.8 3 6.4 Y Y
    CONT Low Participation Neighbourhood (LPN) POLAR4 Q1 non-continuation gap v Q5 (relates to KPM3) 4 3.25 6.1 Y Y
    CONT Low Participation Neighbourhood (LPN) Percentage difference in non-continuation rates between POLAR4 quintile 5 and quintile 1 students 2.40 1.00 6.90 Y Y
    CONT Low Participation Neighbourhood (LPN) Percentage difference in continuation rates between the most (POLAR Q5) and least (POLAR Q1) representative groups. 2.4 1.5 3.1 Y Y
    CONT Mature Percentage point difference in non-continuation rates between young (under 21) and mature (21 and over) students. 10 9 6.8 N N
    CONT Mature Percentage difference in continuation rates of mature first degree entrants when compared to young students. 10.2 7 -0.4 N N
    CONT Mature Significantly raise the percentage of our intake from mature students 5.90 7.00 4.10 N Y
    CONT Mature Percentage difference in non-continuation rates mature and non-mature students 9.00 6.00 7.40 Y N
    CONT Mature Percentage difference in non-continuation rates between mature (aged 21+) and young (aged 8.00 5.00 5.10 Y N
    CONT MATURE Close the gap in non-continuation between young and mature full-time, first degree students from 7.8% in 2016/2017 to 4.4% in 2024/2025. 7.8 6.8 10.2 Y Y
    CONT Mature Mature v Young non-continuation gap 9 8.5 10.1 Y Y
    CONT Mature Close the gap in continuation rates between young and mature students (by 1pp each year) by 2024/25. 5 3 6.1 Y Y
    CONT Mature Percentage difference in non-continuation rates between mature and young students 5.30 3.80 5.80 Y Y
    ATTAIN Disabled Percentage difference in degree attainment (1st and 2:1) between disabled students and other students 2.60 1.72 0.9 N N
    ATTAIN Disabled Disabled students attainment gap v non-disabled 3 1.5 1.2 N N
    ATTAIN Disabled To significantly reduce the difference in degree attainment (1st and 2:1) between disabled students and students with no known disability 4.4 2 0.30 N N
    ATTAIN Disabled Percentage point difference in good degree attainment (1st and 2:1) between disabled and not known to be disabled students. 6 5 -2.2 N N
    ATTAIN Disabled To remove the absolute gap in degree outcomes for students with a disability (OfS KPM5). 4.0 2.0 -0.60 N N
    ATTAIN Disabled Percentage difference in degree attainment (1st and 2:1) between disabled and non-disabled students 3.90 2.00 3.60 Y N
    ATTAIN Disabled Percentage difference in degree attainment (1st and 2:1) between students with registered mental health disabilities and non-disabled students 5.80 3.00 4.7 Y N
    ATTAIN Disabled Percentage difference in degree attainment (1st and 2:1) between disabled students and non-disabled students 4.2 2.3 3.6 Y N
    ATTAIN Ethnicity Black students attainment gap v White (relates to KPM4) 20 15.5 11.2 N N
    ATTAIN Ethnicity By 2025, reduce the attainment gap between Asian and white students 8.4 5.2 4.80 N N
    ATTAIN Ethnicity Percentage difference in degree attainment (1st and 2:1) between black and white students (5 year rolling average). 12 8.6 4.60 N N
    ATTAIN Ethnicity Percentage difference in degree attainment (1st and 2:1) between white and asian students. 19 17 14.4 N N
    ATTAIN Ethnicity Percentage difference in degree attainment (1st and 2:1) between white and black students. 14.00 11.00 9.90 N N
    ATTAIN Ethnicity To close the gap between Black and White student continuation rates (reducing the gap by 4 percentage points, from 8% to 4%, by 2024/2025). 8 5.6 5.5 N N
    ATTAIN Ethnicity To close the gap between BME and White student attainment (reducing the gap by 3 percentage points from 11% to 8% by 2024/25). 17 13.1 11.6 N N
    ATTAIN Ethnicity Close the unexplained gap between proportion of BAME and white full-time, first degree students attaining a 2:1 or above from 12.7% in 2017/2018 to 5.5% in 2024/2025. 12.7 10.3 10.8 Y N
    ATTAIN Ethnicity Significantly increase the percentage of our intake from Black students 2.30 3.80 2.90 Y N
    ATTAIN Ethnicity Percentage difference in degree attainment (1st and 2:1) between white and black students 15.70 9.815 11.6 Y N
    ATTAIN Ethnicity Percentage difference in degree attainment (1st and 2:1) between white and Asian students 12.5 8.375 11.4 Y N
    ATTAIN Ethnicity Percentage difference in degree attainment (1st and 2:1) between black and white students. 20 15 19.00 Y N
    ATTAIN Ethnicity Percentage difference in degree attainment (1st and 2:1) between white and BME students. 5.20 2.00 4.60 Y N
    ATTAIN Ethnicity Percentage difference in degree attainment (1st and 2:1) between white and black students. 13.8 6 12.9 Y N
    ATTAIN Ethnicity Percentage difference in degree attainment (1st and 2:1) between BAME and White students. 7.00 4.00 7.50 Y Y
    ATTAIN Ethnicity Percentage difference in degree attainment (1st and 2:1) between white and black students 4.50 3.00 31.00 Y Y
    ATTAIN Ethnicity Percentage difference in degree attainment (1st and 2:1) between white and BAME students 9.50 6.00 11.60 Y Y
    ATTAIN Ethnicity By 2025, reduce the attainment gap between black and white students 8.7 5.9 10.70 Y Y
    ATTAIN Ethnicity To significantly reduce the difference in degree attainment (1st and 2:1) between white and black students 11.6 10 20.00 Y Y
    ATTAIN Ethnicity To significantly reduce the difference in degree attainment (1st and 2:1) between white and Asian students 10.6 10 14.50 Y Y
    ATTAIN Ethnicity Percentage point difference in good degree attainment (1st and 2:1) between white and black students. 18 14 22.1 Y Y
    ATTAIN Ethnicity Percentage difference in degree attainment (1st and 2:1) between white and black students. 17 15 22.9 Y Y
    ATTAIN Ethnicity Halve the gap in attainment that are visible between black and white students (OfS KPM4). 10.0 7.0 15.80 Y Y
    ATTAIN Ethnicity To close the gap between Black and White student attainment (by raising the attainment of Black students) reducing the gap by 8.5 percentage points from 17% to 8.5% by 2024/25 11 9.5 24 Y Y
    ATTAIN Low Participation Neighbourhood (LPN) Percentage difference in degree attainment (1st and 2:1) between POLAR4 quintile 5 and quintile 1 students 9.10 4.645 8.7 Y N
    ATTAIN MATURE Close the unexplained gap between proportion of mature and young full-time, first degree students attaining a 2:1 or above from 12.1% in 2017/2018 to 6.8% in 2024/2025. 12.1 8.8 12.6 Y Y
    ATTAIN Socio-economic Percentage difference in degree attainment (1st and 2:1) between students from most and least deprived areas (based on IMD) 10.20 6.00 12.30 Y Y
    ATTAIN Socio-economic To significantly reduce the difference in degree attainment (1st and 2:1) between the most and least advantaged as measured by IMD. 10.4 8.8 15.60 Y Y
    ATTAIN Socio-economic Reduce the gaps in attainment that are visible between IMD Q1 and Q5 (OfS KPM3). 10.0 7.0 13.70 Y Y
    ACCESS Disabled By 2025, increase the proportion of students with a declared disability enrolling from the baseline of 9% to 13% 9 11 15.70 N N
    ACCESS Ethnicity Significantly increase the percentage of our intake from Asian students 6.90 8.50 9.70 N N
    ACCESS Ethnicity Percentage of BAME entrants 10.10 12.50 12.70 N N
    ACCESS Ethnicity Increase percentage proportion of students identifying as black entering to at least match or exceed sector average (11%). 9.5 10.5 11.7 N N
    ACCESS Ethnicity To increase the proportion of Black, young, full-time undergraduate entrants by 1.2 percentage points, from 2.4% to 3.6% by 2024/25. 2.4 2.8 2.1 Y Y
    ACCESS Low Participation Neighbourhood (LPN) Ratio in entry rates for POLAR4 quintile 5: quintile 1 students 7.4:1 6:1 4.5 N N
    ACCESS Low Participation Neighbourhood (LPN) Reduce the ratio in entry rates for POLAR4 quintile 5: quintile 1 students 3.9:1 3.4:1 3.4:1 N N
    ACCESS Low Participation Neighbourhood (LPN) By 2025, reduce the gap in access between those from the highest and lowest POLAR4 quintiles enrolling from the baseline of 49% to 41% 49 45 41.00 N N
    ACCESS Low Participation Neighbourhood (LPN) Ratio of students from POLAR Q1 compared to POLAR Q5. 01:14 01:11 8.5 N N
    ACCESS Low Participation Neighbourhood (LPN) Close the gap in access between Q1 and Q5 students from a ratio of 5.5 in 2017/2018 to 3.5 by 2024/2025. 5.5 3.64 4.2 Y N
    ACCESS Low Participation Neighbourhood (LPN) Reduce ratio in entry rates for POLAR4 quintile 5: quintile 1 students 12:1 8:1 8.5 Y N
    ACCESS Low Participation Neighbourhood (LPN) To reduce the gap in participation and ratio in entry rates for POLAR 4 Quintile 5: Quintile 1 students Ratio Q5:Q1 of 5.2:1 500 students from POLAR 4 Q1 4.5 or 500 Y N
    ACCESS Low Participation Neighbourhood (LPN) LPN determined by POLAR 4 data. Looking specifically at increasing the intake for LPN Quintile 1 students, and thereby reduce the ratio of Q5 to Q1. (Target articulated as both a percentage and number). 8.0%, 391 10%, 490 8.6, 400 Y N
    ACCESS Low Participation Neighbourhood (LPN) Ratio in entry rates for POLAR4 quintile 5: quintile 1 students. 7.4:1 5.5:1 6.9 Y N
    ACCESS Low Participation Neighbourhood (LPN) Ratio in entry rates for POLAR4 quintile 5: quintile 1 students. All undergraduates. 6.2:1 5.1:1 6.3 Y Y
    ACCESS Low Participation Neighbourhood (LPN) Ratio in entry rates for POLAR4 quintile 5: quintile 1 students. 4.2:1 3.5:1 4.3 Y Y
    ACCESS Low Participation Neighbourhood (LPN) Ratio in entry rates for POLAR4 quintile 5: quintile 1 students. Reduce gap to 3.0 to 1.0 by 2024-25 (OfS KPM2). 5:2 to 1 4 5.2 Y Y
    ACCESS Low Participation Neighbourhood (LPN) To increase the proportion of young, full-time undergraduate entrants from POLAR4 Q1 by 2.5 percentage points, from 7.8% to 10.3%, by 2024/25. 7.8 8.9 10.3 Y Y
    ACCESS Low Participation Neighbourhood (LPN) To increase the proportion of young, full-time undergraduate entrants from POLAR4 Q2 by 2.5 percentage points, from 12.4% to 14.9%, by 2024/25. 12.4 13.9 15.4 Y Y
    ACCESS Mature Percentage of mature entrants 5.80 7.20 3.70 Y Y
    ACCESS Mature Percentage of mature students as part of the overall cohort. 9.2 11.0 6.70 Y Y
    ACCESS Multiple Increase the proportion of BME students from Q1 and Q2 backgrounds 5.2 8 7.6 N Y
    ACCESS Socio-economic Eliminate the IMD Q5:Q1 access gap by 2024/25. 5 2 -4.5 N N
    ACCESS Socio-economic By 2025, reduce the gap in access between those from the highest and lowest IMD quintiles from the baseline of 16.4% to 10.4% 16.4 13.5 7.00 N N
    ACCESS Socio-economic Percentage point difference in access rates between IMD quintile 1 and 2 and quintile 3, 4 and 5 students. 51.8 43.8 53.4 Y Y

    Milestones and baselines

    If we start with access, of the 25 targets that can be analysed, 14 behind milestone – and 10 show a worse performance than the baseline.

    On continuation, 11 of the 17 are behind milestone, and 9 are behind the baseline. And on attainment, 25 of the 38 are behind milestone, and 14 behind baseline.

    Notwithstanding that some of the other targets might have been smashed, and that in all cases the performance may well have improved since then, that looks like pretty poor performance to me.

    It’s the sort of thing that we might have expected to result in fines, or at least specific conditions of registration being imposed.

    But as far as we know, nothing beyond enhanced monitoring has been applied – and even then, we don’t know who has been under enhanced monitoring.

    And the results are a problem. When OfS launched this batch of plans, it noted that young people from the most advantaged areas of England were over six times as likely to attend one of the most selective universities – including Oxford, Cambridge and other members of the Russell Group – as those from the most disadvantaged areas, and that that gap had hardly changed despite a significant expansion in the number of university places available.

    At the rates of progress forecast under those plans, the ratio was supposed to be less than 4:1 by 2025. It was still at 5.44 in the Russell Group in 2022–23.

    It was supposed to mean around 6,500 extra students from the most disadvantaged areas attending those universities each year from 2024-25 onwards. The Russell Group isn’t the whole of “high tariff” – but it had only increased its total of POLAR1 students by 1350 by 2022/23.

    OfS also said that nationally, the gap between the proportion of white and black students who are awarded a 1st or 2:1 degree would drop from 22 to 11.2 percentage points by this year. As we’ve noted before on the site, the apparent narrowing during Covid was more of a statistical trick than anything else. It was up at 22.4 in 2022–23.

    And the gap in dropout rates between students from the most and least represented groups was supposed to fall from 4.6 to 2.9 percentage points – it was up at 5.3pp in 2022–23.

    The aggregation of ambition into press-releasable targets appears to have suffered from a similar fate to the equivalent exercise over financial sustainability.

    What a wonderful thing

    Of course, much has happened since January 2020. To the extent to which there were challenges over the student life cycle, they were likely exacerbated by the pandemic and a subsequent cost of living crisis.

    But when you’re approving four year plans, changes in the external risk environment ought to mean that it revises what it now calls an Equality of Opportunity Risk Register to reflect that – and either allows providers to revise targets down, or requires more action/investment to meet the targets agreed.

    Neither of those things seem to have happened.

    It’s also the case that OfS has radically changed how it regulates in this area. Back then, the director for fair access and participation was Chris Millward. It’s now John Blake. And the guidance, nature of the plans expected and monitoring regimes have all been revamped.

    But when we’re dealing with long-term plans, a changing of the guard does run the risk that the expectations and targets agreed under any old regime get sidelined and forgotten about – letting poor performers off the hook.

    It certainly feels like that’s the case. And while John Blake is widely respected, it’s hard to believe that he’ll still be the director for fair access and participation by the end of the latest round of plans – 2029.

    Hindsight is a wonderful thing, of course, but notwithstanding the external environment changes, few anticipated that any of the gaps, percentages or ratios would worsen for any of the targets set back in 2019.

    That matters because of that OfS aggregation issue. It’s not just that some providers can drag down the performance of the sector as a whole. It’s that no provider was set the target of not getting any worse on the myriad of measures that it didn’t pick for its plan.

    For all we know, while a certain number of providers might have set and agreed a target, say, on POLAR1 access or IMD attainment, performance could have worsened in all of those that didn’t – and that poses a major problem for the regulator and the design of the thing.

    It remains the case that we’re lacking clarity on the way in which the explosion of franchised, urban area business provision has impacted the stats of both the providers that have lit that blue touch paper, and the sector’s scores overall. For me, improvements in access via that method look like cheating – and declines in continuation, completion or progression ought to mean serious questions over funding policy within the Department for Education.

    We don’t really know – but need to know – the impact of other providers’ behaviour on an individual provider’s external environment. If, for example, high tariff universities scoop up more disadvantaged students (without necessarily actually narrowing the gap), that could end up widening the gap elsewhere too. There’s only so many moles to whack when you’re looking at access.

    We still can’t see A&P performance by subject area – which has always been an issue when we think about access to the professions, but is an even bigger issue now that whole subject areas are being culled in the face of financial problems.

    And the size and shape question lingers too. UCAS figures at the close of clearing suggested that high tariff providers were set to balance the books by expanding in ways they claimed were impossible when the “mutant algorithm” hit in 2020.

    Much of continuation, completion and progression appears to be about the overall mix of students at a provider – something that’s made much more challenging in medium and lower tariff providers if high-tariff ones lower theirs.

    In the forthcoming skills white paper, we should expect exhortations from ministers that the sector improves its performance on access and participation. It will have choices on provider type, subject area, the types of disadvantage to focus on, and the mix of measures between things inside its control in the external environment, and things within providers’ control (or at least influence) that OfS should expect.

    Whatever it chooses, on the evidence available, it will have real problems judging either its own performance, its regulator’s, groups of providers or even individuals’. If you think the sector still has some distance to go on fairness, that just won’t do.

    Source link

  • Widening participation should stretch beyond convenient local universities

    Widening participation should stretch beyond convenient local universities

    Secondary schools, particularly those in regions with a high density of higher education providers, are inundated with offers of university outreach initiatives.

    Meanwhile university widening participation and schools liaison teams, acting (in England) on the principles of their respective access and participation plans (APPs), channel their efforts towards regions, schools, and demographics currently underrepresented in their institution.

    The result is a substantial duplication of effort and resources from institutions competing within the HE marketplace.

    Variety pack

    The typical set of university partnerships for many schools appears to be a local Russell Group university, a local post-92 university, and the designated Oxford and/or Cambridge link college for their region.

    Encounters with local universities may be facilitated by a Uni Connect partnership, although a recent evaluation revealed inconsistencies in the extent to which partnerships offered a ‘joined up’ approach to locally targeted outreach. Local universities are undoubtedly convenient. Campus visits require minimal travel time and costs, and widening participation teams may have a strong knowledge of local issues and individual schools.

    However, relying on the convenience of local institutions both reinforces the tendencies amongst applicants in many regions to stay close to home for university without considering other options, and risks perpetuating undermatch amongst when local universities do not provide a suitable academic match. For example, the Uni Connect East Anglia partnership, neaco, includes the University of Cambridge, Anglia Ruskin University, the University of East Anglia, and several others.

    There exists a large gap between the ABB entry requirements for Engineering at UEA compared to the A*A*A asked for at Cambridge. Students with predicted grades within this gap have a substantial risk of undermatching if they narrow their options in line with the Uni Connect parameters.

    Three at the point of use

    The three-tiered university outreach provision, sometimes partially supported by Uni Connect, goes some way towards achieving Gatsby Benchmark 7:

    encounters with further and higher education appropriate to the needs of each pupil

    Yet it seems unlikely that three universities could represent the diverse spectrum of HE offerings across the country, nor truly provide a good match for every pupil.

    There are two issues to address here: firstly, that locally-targeted outreach should not be solely conducted by local universities; and secondly, that universities must balance their widening participation and recruitment priorities to avoid duplication of resources and overwhelming target schools.

    A university, admittedly with the resources to do so, can offer informed and meaningful regionally-targeted outreach despite not being located in the immediate vicinity of target schools. I am a long-standing proponent of the Oxbridge Link Area scheme, which provides schools with a point of contact at each university, and encourages WP practitioners to develop knowledge about and relationships with stakeholders in specific UK regions.

    Most recently, I teamed up with the charity Aspire Liverpool for the latest iteration of the Magdalene College Liverpool Event – a day of super-curricular exploration for 700 Year 10 pupils led by academics and Student Ambassadors, held in Liverpool’s St George’s Hall.

    From Cambridge to Merseyside

    One of the comments I receive most from pupils when I visit schools in Merseyside and North Wales is that they are surprised, but pleased, that a representative from Cambridge showed up for them. In the case of the Liverpool event, my team arrived determined to show the pupils that a coachload of busy academics took the time to travel to Liverpool, because we think these pupils are worth investing time and resources in, and have the potential to apply to competitive universities should they choose to. With a recruitment hat on, I’m keen to continue to develop the institutional memory amongst our target schools of being the college and university who can be relied upon to deliver high-quality locally-targeted outreach provision.

    Working with Aspire Liverpool helps us to target those schools which haven’t historically engaged with our outreach programmes, and helps to address the second issue I put forward, regarding the risk of duplication of outreach offerings from multiple universities. Attempting to collaborate with universities targeting similar groups of students can result in competition for recruitment. Whilst I have rarely delivered activities in partnership with, for example, the University of Liverpool or the University of Oxford, I liaise with their respective WP teams to develop an understanding of what activities students may be receiving from other providers, and to avoid clashes between the dates of our flagship events.

    Universities are often more comfortable collaborating with third-sector organisations such as The Brilliant Club, if they can demonstrate quality and value, as promised by successful applicants to the recent Equality in Higher Education Fund. Such organisations can help to scale up activities which are challenging for a single university WP team to provide, such as the attainment-raising initiatives promised in many Access and Participation Plans.

    So, where do we go from here?

    How can students be presented with a sufficiently wide range of HE options to increase their likelihood of finding a suitable academic match, whilst avoiding the duplication of effort and resources by each individual HE provider? The UCAS Outreach Connection Service, launched to UCAS advisers in 2024, may go some way towards highlighting the range of opportunities available, and allowing teachers to point students in the right direction towards potentially suitable universities and courses.

    And potential reforms to Uni Connect may establish a more defined strategic purpose for the partnerships, and perhaps space in the calendar to deliver campus visits or residentials for other partnerships’ target schools. Without overwhelming students by the sheer number of HE options available, it is doing them a disservice by not making them aware of the range of choices both in their home region and beyond.

    It remains crucial to understand the local contexts in which students are making their university choices, and is the responsibility of WP teams to set aside their recruitment angle to some extent, to provide opportunities for students to engage with multiple universities in their search for the perfect match.

    Source link

  • Access partnerships need human relationships, not just programmes

    Access partnerships need human relationships, not just programmes

    Our schools and universities are experiencing difficult circumstances. One particularly worrying challenge – which is happening at the intersection of both – is the decline in widening participation.

    Recent research from the Education Policy Institute shows that widening participation in higher education in England has stalled.

    Despite a constant focus from the sector on the issue, young people eligible for free school meals remain half as likely to participate in higher education as their wider peer group.

    While various approaches exist nationwide, partnerships that directly connect university students with potential future applicants create unique opportunities for building social capital across communities.

    Models like this don’t just address academic attainment gaps – they forge meaningful relationships between people who might otherwise never interact, enriching both sides through expanded social networks and shared experiences.

    Our new agreement between the Tutor Trust and the University of Salford is a good example. The partnership enables Salford students to provide tutoring to local Year 6 pupils as they make the critical transition from primary to secondary school.

    The University of Salford has a strong track record of working with young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to improve access to higher education. Our latest figures show that out of our nearly 27,000 current students, 50 per cent are first in family to attend university, and 49 per cent of students identify as minoritised ethnic.

    Our new partnership represents one of several approaches universities are implementing to create authentic connections between their current students and young people in their communities.

    Similar initiatives can be found across the higher education landscape. The University of Bristol’s Bristol Scholars programme connects current students as mentors with local schools, while Kings College London’s K+ programme creates long-term engagement between undergraduates and sixth form students from underrepresented backgrounds. What unites these initiatives is their focus on genuine, sustained human connection rather than simply institutional outreach.

    We have identified five ways in which these student-centered partnerships can increase widening participation in higher education:

    Closing the attainment gap

    At the core of successful widening participation is improved academic attainment for young people from low-income households.

    Currently at the end of Key Stage 2, the attainment gap in Salford between disadvantaged young people and their more privileged peers is 12 months, and this gap increases to 21.8 months by the end of Key Stage 4. In comparison, the attainment gap at the end of secondary school in London is 10.5 months.

    There is extensive evidence that tutoring is one of the most effective interventions to accelerate academic progress. When delivered by university students, this intervention simultaneously addresses the immediate attainment gap while building aspirations through organic relationships.

    Alleviating financial pressures

    Effective student-led programs must be delivered at no cost to pupils and minimal cost to schools, ensuring no family has to choose between their child’s education and essential living costs.

    These models also typically provide fair compensation to student tutors, with rates well above minimum wage. This dual benefit addresses financial barriers on both sides – removing cost as a barrier to access for school pupils while providing meaningful income for university students who may themselves come from disadvantaged backgrounds.

    Providing authentic role models

    When tutoring is delivered by university students, they naturally become relatable role models who help inspire their tutees to consider higher education as a realistic pathway.

    Research shows that pupils with tutors from similar backgrounds demonstrate higher engagement and increased academic progress. This highlights how representation matters – for young people from low-income backgrounds to see university as a realistic option, they benefit tremendously from interacting with people from similar lived experiences who are already succeeding in higher education.

    Integrating workplace skills into the student experience

    To ensure universities attract and retain students from all backgrounds, higher education must demonstrably prepare students for future careers. Recent surveys found that 72 percent of students feel universities could do more to integrate workplace skills into the curriculum.

    Student tutors develop invaluable real-world skills through their experiences in classroom settings, including communication, leadership, and adaptability. These experiences enhance their employability while allowing them to make meaningful contributions to their local communities.

    Building cross-community social networks

    Perhaps most important is how these partnerships build social capital across traditional divides. University students expand their understanding of diverse communities and challenges, while school pupils gain connections to networks they might otherwise never access.

    This exchange creates ripple effects beyond individual participants. Family members, friends, and wider community connections all benefit from these expanded networks, gradually breaking down the invisible barriers that often separate university and non-university communities.

    Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson recently wrote to all universities asking them to expand access and outcomes for disadvantaged students, aiming to remove structural barriers and improve inclusivity. Student partnership models of this sort directly respond to this call by addressing both immediate academic needs and deeper systemic barriers.

    Developing strong, community-led partnerships that connect real students with real potential applicants has never been more important. These models don’t just increase university participation statistics – they weave new social fabrics across communities, building mutual understanding and respect. When university students work directly with younger students from their surrounding communities, both groups gain perspective, connection, and belonging.

    The most powerful widening participation initiatives recognise that sustainable change requires more than institutional programs – it requires human relationships. When we invest in models that prioritise these connections, we create pathways to higher education that are supported not just by academic readiness, but by expanded social networks and authentic community bonds too.

    It improves the life chances of young people, benefits our universities, strengthens local communities, and ultimately creates a more cohesive society.

    Source link

  • For those in HE cold spots, higher education isn’t presenting as a good bet

    For those in HE cold spots, higher education isn’t presenting as a good bet

    Bridget Phillipson has said she wants to work with universities to widen access, and participation for those from lower income backgrounds is one of the government’s five priorities for higher education.

    But the words of a 17-year-old trainee legal assistant in Doncaster reveals how much of a challenge it will be to overcome the scepticism towards the value of a university education in a “cold spot”’ town;

    I love jobs and I can’t wait to get another job, because I just love getting paid. I want to go to uni, to live on my own and to get drunk all the time – the uni party lifestyle, right? But if I do it just for that, then I’m getting into debt. If I just go straight into work, then I don’t have anything to pay back.

    This quote underlines the findings from the opening paper of the UPP Foundation’s inquiry into widening participation, which showed how alongside gender- and class-based inequalities in rates of progression to HE, there are huge gulfs in the rate at which young people progress to university at 18 across different areas of the country. Almost 70 per cent of Wimbledon 18-year-olds go to university, compared to just 25.9 per cent of those in Houghton and Sunderland South – Bridget Phillipson’s own constituency.

    With some local authorities lacking a university and also exhibiting rates of progression to HE lower than one might expect based on young people’s academic attainment, our new paper, published today, sets out how and why these “cold spots” for progression to HE struggle to inspire young people to go to university.

    Daunted by costs

    During our research trip to Doncaster – one of England’s worst-performing local authorities for progression to university at eighteen, and a case study for cold spots as a result – the scepticism towards university that our trainee legal assistant exhibited came up time and time again. None of the eight parents in our focus group selected university as their preferred post-18 option for their children, and only one of the 16-18 year olds we spoke to in our focus group intended to apply to university. The primary objection was cost.

    Parents, young people, and adults of all ages that we spoke to in our immersive work thought that university was simply too great an expense for most people in the area to justify. Among those who had been to university, or knew those who had, it seemed that everyone had a horror story to tell about a friend or relative who had been burned by astronomical living expenses, or resented being mired in debt after doing a degree that had only passing relevance to their eventual career.

    Even when the long-run opportunities that university provides seem enticing, the mounting cost of maintaining an undergraduate degree is a daunting prospect to many. Few thought that universities, colleges or schools had done a good job of making pathways through higher education seem clear, achievable and valuable.

    Crowd in communities

    The challenge for places like Doncaster is that the opportunities that university provides are anything but obvious. Residents were at pains to stress that Doncaster is a place that feels like the economy has left it behind, with jobs few and far between and graduate careers a luxury seemingly reserved for other places.

    As one woman we spoke to put it: “The jobs in Doncaster, a lot of them you don’t require a degree for – we’re an industrial type of town.” Across our conversations in the area, it became clear that since the job market could not provide the security, stability and prospects that people wanted, family and community took on that role instead.

    In this context, then, going to university is a double-edged sword: the aspirational youngsters we spoke to were excited by the opportunities that university could provide, but they recognised that this probably meant getting out of Doncaster and staying out. To many people we spoke to, leaving home, and one’s hometown, was a hidden psychological cost heaped on top of the very real financial burden of university.

    With all this in mind, the ambivalence of cold spot residents towards university seems not reckless, but rational. If we think of university as a “bet” that people make on the understanding that the “payoff” is a higher graduate salary in the long run, then it is easy to see why those in areas with no university and few graduate jobs would be reluctant to make that sort of commitment.

    If the government wants to make good on its commitment to widen university participation, it will require a multifaceted approach that crowds in whole communities, not just bright teenagers with good prospects. They will need to work with schools, colleges, universities and local employers to make the value of university clear across generations. Cold spots can make university feel like a reckless gamble – it’s up to the government to make it a good bet.

    This article is published in association with the UPP Foundation.

    Source link

  • The widening access narrative must return to speaking about places

    The widening access narrative must return to speaking about places

    Widening access to higher education has experienced a precipitous fall from grace in the eyes of politicians over the last ten years – a fall that may have slowed slightly but as yet to stop under this government.

    This fall may have coincided with the shift away from place-based to institutional-focused approaches to the problem. The access and participation plan regime may have stopped widening participation slipping out of sight completely but as our latest report shows, they have done little to increase higher education participation for those from the poorest backgrounds, particularly in rural and coastal areas.

    Split geographies

    The report – Coast and country: access to higher education cold spots in England – looks at the data published annually by the Department of Education on participation in higher education by free school meal (FSM) backgrounds. There are things we know about what this data shows as outlined in previous reports I have written and more recent work such as that from the Sutton Trust – in particular that London does far better than everywhere else.

    In this report, though, we show exactly how much. The national higher education participation rate in 2022–23 for those from FSM backgrounds was 29 per cent. If you take out London, which has only 16 per cent of the population of England, it falls to 23 per cent. London is covering up a much more challenging situation in the rest of the country than we are prepared to admit.

    These challenges increase as areas get smaller. The report looks at the relationship between the size of an area and the FSM higher education participation rate. It drops steadily as population decreases from 43 per cent in big cities to 18 per cent in rural villages. Nor is the situation improving. The gap between London and the other 84 per cent of the population has increased 3 per cent from 2012–23 to 2022–23 and just under 3 per cent between predominantly urban areas and predominantly rural areas over the same period.

    Many coastal areas in England – especially seaside resorts – have well documented problems with poverty, unemployment and health inequalities and higher education participation can be added to that list. The higher education participation rate for those from FSM backgrounds coastal communities was 11 per cent lower than in inland areas in 2022–23 with in many areas less than one in five such young people going onto higher education. There is an overlap here between rural and coastal areas here with the South West especially including areas of lower higher education participation.

    It is often said that the differences in higher education participation described above are associated with attainment in schools. Increasing attainment was the priority where widening access work was concerned for the Office for Students for a number of years. In the report, we map GSCE attainment at the area level against FSM higher education participation – and the correlation is indeed strong.

    It is far weaker, though, in villages and coastal areas than the rest of the country. This suggest that in the places where the problems are the greatest, better GCSE results alone won’t be enough. In 2022–23, six of the ten areas with the lowest levels of higher education participation did not have a university campus within them. What provision exists also matters.

    We need new (old) stories

    If any progress in closing the gaps between regions described above is to be made then place must again become the central focus for widening access to higher education work – as it was when the last Labour government championed the issue so vigorously in the 2000s.

    The pendulum has swung too far since then toward what institutions themselves do. Consequently, that political link between widening access, opportunity and growth has been broken. It is possible that the government itself will swing the pendulum back to place, and some of the signs coming from the Office for Students in recent months have been promising.

    However, higher education providers themselves can take the initiative themselves here and look for new ways to form stronger partnerships – ones that take whatever replaces Uni Connect as the start, not the endpoint, of what regional collaboration means.

    While the sector’s financial challenges make competition for students more intensive than it has ever been – and thus collaboration in this area more difficult – the value of higher education itself is being questioned by young people more than it ever has been since participation increased rapidly in the 1990s. Fighting between each other for young people’s and their schools’ attention won’t convince those, especially from the poorest backgrounds, that higher education is worth it. But collaboration will.

    Collaboration won’t produce additional provision in rural and coastal areas, or the money to fund it. But unless we shift the story and the practice of widening access back to place, this additional provision will never come.

    Source link

  • How commuter students show up in new access and participation plans

    How commuter students show up in new access and participation plans

    When the Office for Students included commuter students in the Equality of Opportunity Risk Register (EORR), it recognised the risk that commuter students may not always get the same experience as their “traditional” residential peers.

    The second wave of access and participation plans (APPs) for 2025–26 to 2028–29 have slowly been published and in the wake of the EORR’s inclusion of commuter students, we’ve got a better sense of the steps providers are taking to make the experience more equitable.

    Taking Universities UK’s member list as the sample and searching variations of the phrase “commuting student” in the currently available wave two APPs, 44 out of 81 APPs (at the time of writing) referred to commuter students in some form.

    Sometimes this was a simple statement of demographics, for example, “over 86 per cent are commuters,” or a statement of intention – “increase… work with commuting and mature students.” Other plans detailed comprehensive work to reduce inequities with various interventions, projects and additional research to undertake.

    Some plans referred to commuters broadly in a literature review but did not link this to their local contexts, and as such were not included in our analysis.

    Definitions

    As part of our ongoing series about commuter students, convened with Susan Kenyon at Canterbury Christ Church University, one challenge when discussing support for commuters is working out if everyone is talking about the same thing.

    The EORR sets out that commuter students referred to students “based on the distance or time [students] take to travel from their accommodation to their place of study” – but it then goes on to note there are many definitions, referencing both time and distance and the fact of not having re-located for university.

    In the absence of a sector-wide definition, providers have had to work this out themselves.

    The majority of plans that referenced a definition identified commuters as students whose home address matches their term time address, who had been recruited locally or still lived in their family home. Some plans used a distance to identify commuters, for example 15+ miles into their main campus base. When using distance as a criteria it opens up the possibility of a commuting student also being a student who has relocated to university but lives further away due to cost and housing pressures.

    As we’ve seen earlier in the series, there are differences in the experience based on those who chose to commute versus those who do so out of necessity.

    St Mary’s University in Twickenham explored using the Office of the National Statistics’ Travel to Work Areas maps to define commuters and setting an average travel time of 15 minutes or more (using public transport) from a term time address. They explicitly noted they had investigated the impact of using different definitions of commuter students when analysing student outcomes which led them to identifying commuters as their sixth risk category.

    When identifying commuters in APPs, ten plans went into detail about the intersecting characteristics of this demographic of students. One provider noted that “commuter students are more likely to be Asian, black or from IMD Q1+2 than non- commuter students” – this is something Kulvinder Singh looked at earlier in the series. There were several links between the association of being a commuter and being from an underrepresented group such as a mature student, carer or from a geographical area of deprivation.

    One provider interrogated whether being a commuting student was a direct factor on student outcome metrics and opted that it, in fact, coincided with other risk factors.

    Mind the gap

    For plans that had identified a risk to the commuter student experience, a brief thematic analysis suggests continuation, completion and student outcomes metrics were most prevalent in the sample followed by cost (and transport costs) and its subsequent impact on belonging.

    A lack of flexible timetabling was highlighted several times as a structural challenge for commuting students and plans honed in on the preciousness of commuters’ time.

    Bridging the gap

    Many universities plan to implement student centric timetables to tackle barriers to engagement and include plans to inform students as early as possible about scheduled classes. Flexible modes of learning, better communication methods and early timetables then further reduces peak-travel commuting costs, easing financial pressures.

    A handful of universities offer pre-arrival events and bursaries, aimed at improving commuter student access. At Manchester Metropolitan University, for example, an introductory module to support students preparing for university was particularly valued by commuting students.

    Interventions also emphasised the importance of space, with providers reviewing physical and virtual facilities, creating dedicated spaces to study and relax and improving the visibility of existing commuter spaces. The University of York’s APP suggested a provision of subsidised accommodation on campus to support commuters to engage in evening and social events.

    Peer mentoring programmes, social prescribing, and the creation of commuter student networks are examples of belonging-based interventions. York St John University’s plan proposed social opportunities each month and drop-ins for commuters to be held as often as weekly on campus.

    Many plans recognised a need to better understand the commuter student population. This often manifested as a commitment to engage or set up working groups and projects. Some providers viewed additional research as a first step toward supporting commuters, while others built on existing work and recognised that ongoing consultation offered the best way to deliver support.

    As many of these plans have started to, counting commuters, recognising their experience is geographical and making them visible is the first step to service design with commuter students in mind. Our series has been exploring ways to support their experience through making space, pedagogy, data, shifting institutional thinking and transport agendas that may inspire providers ready to take the next step.

    This blog is part of our series on commuter students. Click here to see the other articles in the series.

    Source link