Universities told to act over access

Education Correspondent

Monday 30 July 2012

UNIVERSITIES need to take immediate action to give better access to students from the most deprived communities, a senior figure in higher education has said.

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Andrew Denholm Education Correspondent EXCLUSIVE

Mark Batho, chief executive of the Scottish Funding Council (SFC), warned of financial penalties for universities if they did not do enough to close the gap, and said improvements would be expected from next year.

The intervention is significant because the SFC, which allocates Government money to higher education, is currently negotiating agreements with universities which will give them targets on widening access.At the centre of the discussions is the need to offer more than traditional access-widening programmes and summer schools where pupils in deprived areas are encouraged to think about university education.Instead, the focus will be much more on identifying individuals who would benefit from going to university and giving them more specific support to reach their potential, improving participation more directly.Although targets are not likely to be in place for next year, Mr Batho's comments highlight the fact progress will still be expected.Last week, a report from the National Union of Students in Scotland warned Scottish universities would take 40 years to get fair access for students from the most deprived backgrounds at current rates of progress.The findings followed revelations in The Herald that some universities had been recruiting tiny numbers of poorer students, with St Andrews, where Prince William studied, recruiting only 13 students from the most deprived backgrounds in Scotland in 2010/11."Through our discussions on outcome agreements with universities we have made it clear we are taking the agenda of widening access very seriously and will be looking in future for clear demonstrations of progress in this area from institutions," said Mr Batho."We are continuing to discuss with universities how specific targets should be and the time-scales which should apply to them, taking account of any legislation that the Government introduces in this area, but we are clear that we will expect to see increases in participation from those from deprived areas across institutions from next academic year onwards."He added: "If, as part of our monitoring, we were to find that universities had done little or nothing to improve access, then there would need to be a consideration of seeking some clawback of grant. That is part of the armoury we now have."Alastair Sim, director of Universities Scotland, said all universities were committed to widening access, but called for flexibility that would allow universities the freedom to pursue widening access in a way which best suited them."We strongly believe outcome agreements should be exactly that – an agreement, based on shared objectives, but informed by universities' own missions, their diversity and the understanding that each university knows best what actions will deliver results for them," he said.Robin Parker, president of NUS Scotland, said: "We expect to see ambitious and stretching plans on fair access across the sector. "The challenge for Government is to ensure these agreements are legally enforceable and the challenge for our universities is to hugely expand their local work on fair access to meet them."

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Universities told to act over access

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