‘Covid gap year’ likely to hit poorest applicants hardest

EXAMS chaos could leave many students facing a “lost year”, educational charities have warned, amid fears that a “Covid gap year” could hit disadvantaged pupils hardest.

A survey by the Sutton Trust found that one in five applicants had changed their plans for university since the start of the pandemic, a figure that is expected to rise.

A-level students who missed out on their first choice university must now decide whether to accept their back-up offer, apply through clearing somewhere else, or reapply to their favoured institution next year.

Some universities, including Oxford, have said they will honour all conditional offers in “this year or next”, speaking fears that pupils could be waiting to take up their places for 12 months at great personal cost.

Rae Tooth, the chief executive of the Villiers Park Educational Trust, said the poorest children would be worst affected by a “Covid gap year”.

She added: “It’s the disadvantaged kids that haven’t been given the opportunity that was rightly theirs and are now facing a wasted year.

“They were the ones who were worst affected by the algorithm and now face this prospect. When we work with particularly disadvantaged young people we know that levels of unemployment are so high. In many cases going to university is their route out of intergenerational poverty.”

Ms Tooth warned that those from disadvantaged backgrounds would be less likely to have the financial support from their parents to be able spend the year volunteering and faced a “pretty tough jobs market”.

James Turner, the CEO of the Sutton Trust, warned that gap-year students faced getting “lost in the system” and said there was a “real concern” over how young people would fund their time out.

He said: “Disadvantaged students in particular will not be able to rely on their parents for financial support, and other opportunities for employment or work experience will be harder to come by. And we know that many students have lost part time jobs or been furloughed during the pandemic.”

Despite the pandemic taking its toll on the travel industry, gap year providers have already seen an uptick in demand. Milly Whitehead, cofounder of The Leap, said: “We have never been so busy with online gapyear consultations.”