Universities favour students from deprived areas for places
TEENAGERS from disadvantaged backgrounds are being offered places at some of Britain’s top universities with lower grades than middle-class pupils, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.
Fifteen universities including UCL, King’s College, Exeter, Manchester, Warwick, York, Newcastle, Leeds and Liverpool have launched formal schemes where the applicants can get an alternative offer reduced by up to two grades below the normal required tariff, which is generally at least AAB. Birmingham is prepared to lower offers by up to three grades for medicine where students are typically offered A*AA.
Bristol also admitted almost 1,000 students on offers of up to two grades lower than the normal tariff for the first time last autumn and plans to expand its positive discrimination scheme to more pupils this year.
The schemes are likely to lead to renewed debate over how far universities should go to widen participation and accusations that they are discriminating against teenagers from wealthier backgrounds.
Ministers have criticised universities for not doing enough to widen access to higher education, but some education experts warn it will lead to a dumbing down of standards.
Prof Alan Smithers, director of Buckingham University’s Centre for Education and Employment Research, said A-levels were a reliable and tested predictor of university performance.
“What will happen is that universities will have to soften their requirements for degrees and students will get in who will necessarily struggle to keep up with the pace,” he said. “I am deeply worried by government policy on this.”
The scheme, known as Realising Opportunities (RO) and involving 14 of the universities, is targeted at pupils from deprived areas with little tradition of sending students to university, who are entitled to free school meals or similar aid or are the first in their family to go to university. To be eligible, pupils have to meet two of the criteria, complete an academic project and attend RO events.
Prof Les Ebdon, the university fair access regulator until last month, said the scheme was “not big enough” and universities should increase it 10-fold to take 10,000 students a year as evidence from the pilot programmes showed disadvantaged undergraduates “outperformed students who have been hot-housed in fee-paying schools”. He
urged the Office for Students (OFS), which is now the regulator, to use its greater powers to “push those universities that are not doing enough”.
This could include sending officials into these universities to access and check the data they used to claim offering bursaries helped widen participation. “We have evidence that doesn’t work,” said Prof Ebdon.
Chris Millward, the OFS director for fair access and participation, said there were still “large gaps in participation which persist between the most and least advantaged young people” despite the initiatives by the universities and the record numbers of people from disadvantaged backgrounds in higher education.
While the OFS could not dictate admissions policies, Mr Millward told The Telegraph it had a range of powers to ensure universities took “reasonable steps” to comply with plans agreed with the OFS to widen participation.
“The sector as a whole has demonstrated its commitment to these issues over many years, but must now strive for further improvement,” he said. Since the RO scheme was first piloted in 2010, the number of students enrolled has trebled to 1,000 recruited this year in their first year of sixth form.
To qualify for the reduced offers, organisers say these disadvantaged pupils have to demonstrate they can benefit from being at a top university.
They are generally expected to have at least eight GCSES at grades A*-C including English and Maths, of which five must be at A*, A or B.
They also have to do a RO programme which includes an extended academic project, attending RO events and a conference, an online study skills course and mentoring. Typically the universities, which also include Sheffield, Goldsmiths, Leicester and Sussex say any reduced offer depends on sixth-formers completing the RO programme.
Most will make reduced offers for all subjects, though some exclude medicine and stipulate candidates will be expected to complete other admission criteria such as interviews or practical work. The universities maintain the RO students go on to outperform their counterparts. Their research says 77 per cent of RO students obtained a first or 2:1, compared to 66 per cent of students nationally.
Chris Ramsey, universities spokesman for the Headmasters’ and Headmistress’ Conference of private schools and head of Whitgift School in south London, welcomed the RO scheme as “fair and appropriate”.
However, he cautioned against a big expansion of it as there were “only a smallish number of students – no more than a couple of thousand a year – whose university performance outstrips their school performance. These are the ones who need proper support”.