Concern at lack of university applicants in many parts of country
SERIOUS concern has been expressed over the low level of university applications from school-leavers in many parts of Wales.
Official figures compiled by the admissions body Ucas show that while the constituency with the highest proportion of 18-year-olds applying to university was Cardiff, with 47%, the lowest was Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney with just 19.3%.
A further nine constituencies – Swansea West, Torfaen, Swansea East, Blaenau Gwent, Islwyn, Neath, Aberavon, Rhondda and Clwyd South – have less than 25% of their
18-year-olds submitting applications.
Plaid Cymru Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills Llyr Gruffydd said: “The gap in application rates within Wales reveals a fundamental problem.
“Large areas of post-industrial Wales are being under-represented in university applications, even in parts of the country where universities are located like Swansea and the Valleys. Applications from these areas are falling in Wales while rising in England and Northern Ireland.
“The Welsh Government knows about the link between poverty and low educational attainment and these figures confirm the problem still exists. In more deprived areas, fewer young people make it to university. We need to break that cycle and we do that by focusing on early intervention, investing in good-quality childcare from a very early age, and targeting young people when they begin to fall behind.
“It is true that not everyone has to go to university. But Plaid Cymru has a serious concern about inequality within Wales and the impact that has on educational attainment. It is fair to ask the Labour-led Government here what they are going to do about it.”
Kirsty Williams, Cabinet Secretary for Education, said: “Academic ability should determine whether you go to university, not your social background.
“For too long high living costs have been a barrier to people studying at university. From 2018 we will be introducing the most progressive student finance system in the UK where students will receive the equivalent of the National Living Wage while they study.
“Across the UK the access gap is even wider for post-grad study. For Wales to succeed economically, we need more people with higher-level skills from all backgrounds. That is why Wales will become the first country in Europe to deliver living costs support across full-time, parttime and postgraduate study.”
In terms of entry rates to universities, Wales last year saw 29.5% of 18-year-olds placed through Ucas into higher education, an increase of 1.3 percentage points (4% proportionally).
This is the highest entry rate recorded for Wales, and is the fifth consecutive cycle in which entry rates have increased.
The proportion of the English 18-year-old population who entered higher education through Ucas increased by 1.2 percentage points to 32.5%, the highest recorded entry rate for England.
This increase means young people were 4% more likely to enter higher education than in 2015, and 31% more likely to enter than in 2006. Entry rates for England have increased every year since 2012. Entry rates for 18-year-olds living in Northern Ireland were higher than elsewhere in the UK at 34.8%. In 2016, the entry rate increased by 1.4 percentage points (4% proportionally), reversing the fall in entry rate in 2015.
In Scotland, entry rates for 18-year-olds recorded through Ucas were lower than for other countries, but not all higher education provision in colleges in Scotland is recruited for through Ucas. In 2016, the entry rate was 25.3%, an increase of 0.8 percentage points (3% proportionally) and the highest on record.
Commenting in Ucas’ annual report on the disparities that continue to exist in terms of university admissions, Mary Curnock Cook, the body’s chief executive, wrote: “Simply because of combinations of characteristics such as income, sex, ethnic group, and where they live, some young people are four times more likely to enter higher education than others in their peer group.
“When we consider those universities with the highest entry requirements, that differential is more like 10 times, meaning some universities are seemingly out of reach for great swathes of the population, by accident of birth.
“Of that fifth of the young population with the poorest access to university, just 14,500 go to university each year – only around 6,000 more than a decade ago.
“But if they have the same intrinsic potential to go as others in the population, this means a further 40,000 each year are left out.”