April 8, 2008...12:21 pm
Universities Secretary urges VCs to go back to school
by Conor Ryan
Much stronger engagement between universities and schools must be a crucial part of the widening participation agenda in the future, universities secretary John Denham told delegates at Warwick today.
Mr Denham had trailed his appearance at Warwick well, with news of a shake-up of Aim Higher to fund 5,500 new student ambassadors at the weekend. Today’s papers heralded a tougher set of powers for the access regulator, OFFA, to monitor what universities are doing on access.
And as Mr Denham reiterated his commitment to 50% participation by young adults – albeit over a longer timescale than the government originally envisaged – he also made clear on the Today programme this morning that he expected much more effort with 13 and 14 year-olds to improve their aspirations of going into higher education than has hitherto been the case.
So Mr Denham’s audience at the HEFCE conference felt they knew what to expect by the time he stood up this lunchtime.
But they got a fascinating speech that went well beyond the trailed announcements. First, Mr Denham made a passionate case for the government’s 50% target linked to what he said was the aspiration of more than half of all families in every social class – including a fast-growing level of aspiration among those with no HE tradition.
And while he repeated the familiar arguments about globalisation, he also pointed out that 45% of young women already enter higher education, compared with perhaps 34% of young men, and much of the target could be achieved by raising the aspirations of young men.
Equally, he pointed out that those for whom WP and access programmes were aimed were not just those from the most disadvantaged youngsters, but the children of the majority of families who were working in jobs like classroom assistants, but had no history of going to university in their own families.
“I worry that too many people think that fair access is about someone else’s children,” he said. “We sell ourselves short if we pretend that this is all it is about.”
Mr Denham said that the ‘consistency of relationships’ between universities and schools, teachers and pupils was what worked best, and he was pleased that 26 institutions were already partnering academies, with 30 in discussions to do so. 59 were linked to trust schools.
The universities secretary said that it was also important that more schools offered students the chance to study three GCSE science subjects, as there was a strong correlation with progress to university among those who did so. With a new entitlement for high achievers in tests at 14, he expected the proportion of schools offering triple science to rise from 27% in 2005 to 50% soon.
Mr Denham was at pains to stress that his proposals for annual reporting of access arrangements should not mean an extra burden on HEIs. But he believed there was a corrosive debate on the subject, and a feeling that “my child is going to lose out no matter how hard they work”. So, the answer was “openness, transparency and accountability” with HEIs publishing their admissions policies, having the means to implement them and assuring themselves they are doing so. “This is not a new burden,” he insisted. “But it will address public confidence.”
This was a carefully argued and measured argument for wider access, one that sought to move the debate from one about poorer families into one that addressed the hopes and aspirations of the mainstream majority. And it was well-received by delegates.
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