Ricky Roy

The Widening Participation agenda is the recognition that the higher education student body consistently underrepresents certain socio-economic, cultural and racial groups and that this demonstrates inequity within our education system that should be appropriately tackled. The leaders in tackling this problem have thus far been the higher education institutions themselves and much academic attention has been dedicated to the effective methods adopted. However, this article seeks to highlight the limitations in adopting current methods and instead advocates an inversed, as represented by the title, policy approach.

In light of the problem, the initial response of traditional higher education institutions was to recognise that within their identities of prestige were undercurrents of elitism that would deter applications from certain student groups. Traditional higher education institutions then began a process of ‘re-branding’ that retained their image of prestige but within an inclusive rhetoric. Whilst this was welcomed and deemed progressive by advocates of the widening participation agenda, its limitation soon became apparent. Academic literature emerged suggesting that the underrepresentation of certain groups within the higher education student body was a result of a deeper process that involved said underrepresented groups disengaging with secondary education and subsequently underperforming throughout. Therefore, by the time of university admissions a large proportion of the underrepresented groups did not reach initial criteria for application; therefore rendering the rebranding process of higher education institutions somewhat irrelevant.

From this stemmed notions of contextual admissions, whereby students from underrepresented groups would have their academic achievements made relative to their circumstances instead of being judged against the standard requirements. This too had limitations, higher education institutions needed to remain competitive and were therefore notably hesitant to implement contextual admissions. Academia did emerge suggesting that students admitted contextually did not underperform relative to their counterparts at the higher education levels. However, higher education institutions, for the most part, remained hesitant and therefore the method remains relatively unviable.

Higher education institutions instead adopted the policy of creating outreach programmes. This involved dedicated widening participation departments that would compose and deliver programmes to students within secondary education. These programmes proved to be particularly successful and the method has received academic praise and focus. Whilst I hold great admiration for the positive impact of said outreach programmes I admit that their scope too, is limited. This is primarily because widening participation departments within higher education institutions have to compete for funding and priority against other departments. The programmes therefore fail to attain significant and sustained funding by virtue that, per student they are expensive; often involving residential stays, hiring of buildings and catering, training of staff and general operational costs. This means that the programmes in place, only reach a small number of secondary education institutions and seldom extend to students younger than 16. Therefore, breaking the process of academic disengagement often comes too late, if at all. Further to this, higher education institutions have set geographical locations and their outreach schemes as a result have a limited radius in which they can operate. This leads to the neglect of areas where there are no local higher education institutions, as is particularly the case for rural and coastal regions.

The result of all this is that within the UK there is a context of higher education institutions mixing and matching the methods above to ease the underrepresentation of certain groups within their student bodies. As noted however, this context does not reach enough students or at a young enough age to bring about significant and systemic change. Nevertheless, an opportunity presents itself in the form of PSHE. This is a compulsory subject for all secondary students that is currently neglected and in need of reform. Personal Social Health Education, is s subject that appeals to the notion of providing students with a holistic education that encourages the development of well-formed students and future adults; distinct from and outside of the immediate academic disciplines. In this regard it should also include encouraging students to value the process of education and within reason, to engage and utilise it.

Academic literature indicates that the provision of PSHE is in neglect because it is not valued by students and to a lesser degree teachers. This perhaps stems from the lack of a coherent curriculum for the subject; provision of the subject is frequently highly speculative and subjective to the individual teacher and secondary institution. In any case, the subject is in need of revitalisation and reorganisation and its presently neglected state only supports this. I advocate that this revitalisation and reorganisation take place and that the subject is utilised as a mechanism to balance higher education participation.

I advocate that if reformed effectively PSHE has a larger capacity to widen participation that present methods. The primary reason for this is that PSHE is compulsory for every student within secondary education. This means that there is no bias based on proximity to a higher education institution and there is no limitation to the number of secondary education institutions that can provide it. Further to this, because the subject is compulsory for all secondary students it means that demonstrating the value of education, and engagement with it, can start with students as young as 11 years old. It therefore has the capacity to pre-emptively halt the process of students disengaging with education. I would also suggest that, per student engaged, the reform of PSHE is a cheaper method of widening participation than outreach programmes because the frameworks of location, time and provider are already in place and students will in many cases not have to be re-engaged with education only encouraged. Another advantage is that the effective approaches rehearsed within outreach programmes can be transferred into PSHE, or more simply put, we can utilise techniques that are already known to work. The final strength is that higher education institutions themselves will no longer have to balance widening participation amongst their other priorities because applications should be better balanced in regards to student backgrounds and circumstance, once the first cohort of students undertakes the new reformed PSHE.

You may note that this policy approach edges out of the domain of higher education institutions and increasingly into the domain of central government, which can be problematic. However, I predict a relatively smooth transition in consideration that government rhetoric is conspicuously positive despite recent neo liberal policy changes to tuition fees for example. Also because this policy approach has the capacity to be more cost effective, per student, than contemporary methods, higher education institutions have an economic incentive to encourage and support this policy transition. This coupled with the existing frameworks of PSHE means that the costs involved are almost exclusively in designing a new curriculum and training teachers to effectively implement it.

There is however one exception to the new policy approach and that is the underrepresentation of mature students. The dynamics and circumstance of this group vastly differ from the others discussed here and therefore I politely request that, amongst all and any suggestions, you leave it with me.

Ricky Roy

United Kingdom 12K followers 500+ connections

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Experience

H&P Executive Search

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Education

University of Nottingham

Honors & Awards

Tempest Award for Outstanding Contribution to Widening Participation

University of Nottingham

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English

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Punjabi

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