A SCOTTISH institution which trained actors James McAvoy, Alan Cumming and David Tennant has been awarded £1.5 million to widen access to its performing arts courses.

Under the scheme, the Glasgow-based Royal Conservatoire of Scotland will seek to attract more pupils from poorer backgrounds to study drama, music and ballet at its junior conservatoire.

The money from the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) will be spread over four years, starting this August, with additional places on screen and production courses introduced from 2014/15.

Officials hope the initiative will give talented pupils who cannot afford extra training the chance to develop their skills before applying for degree courses.

Professor Maggie Kinloch, the conservatoire's vice-principal, said: "High-quality pathways to develop the right skills in drama, modern ballet, music, production and screen are inconsistently available across Scotland and often prohibitively expensive.

"We aim to help prospective dancers, performers and producers of music, theatre, television and film as they enter the transition into the training phase of their development and hopefully towards formal degree training.

"In real terms, this is access to arts and humanities for all, enabling people from all walks of life to reach their extraordinary potential."

Laurence Howells, interim chief executive of the funding council, added: "Talented young people from poorer backgrounds often cannot afford the kind of training required to audition for degree-level courses. By developing their skills in this way, we will give more people the chance to go on to train in dance, drama and music."

During the first year of the Transitions 20/40 initiative, the Royal Conservatoire will recruit 48 students into its Junior Conservatoire of Drama, Modern Ballet and Music strands. Auditions will take place in Glasgow, West Lothian, Inverness and Dundee.

The scheme aims to enhance pupils' educational horizons, to lay the foundations for lifelong creative learning and to provide access to high-quality training.

The Transitions 20/40 scheme will offer training and mentoring provision, skills development courses, links to the creative and cultural industries and enterprise and careers initiatives.

The scheme is part of wider Scottish Government moves to widen access to elite universities.

For the first time, the Scottish Government is demanding universities use money to widen access with specific expansion targets for some institutions.

In a recent letter to the SFC, Education Secretary Michael Russell said: "As part of the return for the continuing high level of investment in universities, I want to see universities and the SFC strengthen the efforts they are already making on access.

"I want to see that growth targeted at widening access, in increasing the ability of those universities with the highest demand to take more students from the most deprived areas."