05 Jul 07

'To widen participation in higher education, more money at 18 is less important than prolonged, sustained contact between schools and universities' said Sir Martin Harris, Director of the Office of Fair Access at a seminar at Oxford University on 4 July.

The event, hosted by the Vice-Chancellor, brought together education experts and access practitioners to discuss the challenges and opportunities of widening student participation.

The speakers included David Willetts MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills; Sir Martin Harris, Director of the Office for Fair Access; Wendy Piatt, Director General of the Russell Group; Dr Bahram Bekhradnia, Director of the Higher Education Policy Institute; and Dr Cheron Byfield, Director of the National Black Boys Can Association.

The Vice-Chancellor, Dr John Hood, set the theme in his opening remarks by urging the education sector to focus its attention on the student, the individual pupil. Pro-Vice-Chancellor Professor Elizabeth Fallaize put the seminar in the context of Oxford's continued effort to convince people from all backgrounds that Oxford was for them, and to understand how best to work with everyone to achieve this aim.

In his first speech since the Shadow Cabinet reshuffle, David Willetts MP gave his analysis of the situtation. He said: 'We're facing a dual problem: if you are from a disadvantaged background, you are less likely to go to university, and when you do, you are more likely to drop out.'

He stressed the importance of informed choice - pupils needed the right advice when choosing GCSE and A-level courses. Neglecting 'crunchy' subjects such as English, Maths, Modern Languages and Sciences reduced their chances in fulfilling their potential in higher education. At the same time, the secondary school sector needed to make sure that it provided 'crunchy' subjects for all pupils.

OFFA's Sir Martin Harris reassured the audience that the evidence so far showed that top-up fees hadn't put off students from entering higher education. 'The combination of fees, grants and bursaries have made finances NOT a deciding factor when it comes to university choice,' he said. The reason why students from disadvantaged backgrounds still not applied was because of negative peer pressure and a lack of encouragement from parents and schools. Sustained and prolonged programmes to encourage and foster pupils were therefore more important for widening participation than giving money to 18-year-olds.

Dr Cheron Byfield then showed how a long-term, sustained programmed such as Black Boys Can could achieve results. 'Nationwide, we have about 600 boys on our programme and 2,000 attend our events each year,' she said. 'Last year, our boys had over 60 per cent success rate at GCSE.'

Wendy Piatt's talk illustrated the general problems of social mobility. While this was beyond the universities' scope to resolve, Russell Group universities still put in an enormous amount of effort into widening participation, which sometimes went unrecognised. 'The Russell Group universities have over 100 full-time Widening Participation staff, and together provide over 600,000 opportunities to have contact,' she said. She also felt that pre-entry aptitude tests could be a helpful tool in university admissions, as school qualifications did not always show the 'rough diamonds'.

Dr Bahram Bekhradnia said that tuition fees had greatly increased the resources available. 'You can't widen participation if you don't increase numbers,' he said. He questioned universities' reluctance to 'get into social engineering'. 'Why not?' he asked, saying that Harvard and Princeton took ethnic background into consideration when making admission decisions.

The seminar closed with a lively discuassion and in her closing remarks, Professor Fallaize expressed the hope to continue the debate on a regular basis.