Opening doors and breaking down barriers
Woman’s Wales? is a new book which is packed full of essays about what devolution has really meant for women in Wales. Here, as part of a Weekend series featuring edited versions of those essays, Dr Michelle Deininger focuses on access to education
IDON’T think it’s much of a stretch to say that education saved me. ere have been multiple points in my life where engagement with education outside of school, from part-time college provision to lifelong learning within a university setting, gave me the chance to nd my own voice – and to have hope.
When you come from a working-class background, where generations have been steeped in poverty and hardly anyone stays on for sixth form, let alone goes to university, it’s hard to see what you might become. A PHD and a university lecturing job certainly didn’t feature in my dreams for the future.
My old estate of Blackbird Leys, in Oxford, made the news in 2016 when a Freedom of Information Act request revealed that no students from the most deprived areas of Oxford (Blackbird Leys and North eld Brook) had been awarded a place at Oxford in over a decade. Articles often focus on this false contrast between who has made it to the dreaming spires when it should be about accessing higher education at all. I will say, when those spires are on your doorstep and you can’t come in, it’s a kick in the teeth that you feel every time you cross Magdalen Bridge on the Number 5 bus on the way into town. (And you’ll never fully understand why the bridge is spelt one way and pronounced more like “Maudlen”.)
What caught my attention more from that article was the point that only 7.5% of young people were recorded as entering higher education before the age of 19 between 2005 and 2011. My time there was a little earlier, but I would have been part of that small minority – and I lasted at my university for exactly two months before dropping out. I wouldn’t restart my journey for some time.
at experience shaped so much of my 20s – that deeply-held belief that education was not for me and that I did not belong. Years later, when I worked in a role that focused on how to retain students in higher education, I discovered that dropping out was pretty much locked into my future outcomes – that students from areas like mine, often eligible for free school meals, were at the highest risk of leaving education early.
And again, when I returned to higher education in 2005, with two small children in tow and a direct entrant to year two of my degree, I was yet again within an “at risk” group. Some of this was tied up in that feeling of not belonging, of not being a “traditional” entrant to higher education. However,
When you come from a working-class background, where generations have been steeped in poverty and hardly anyone stays on for sixth form, let alone goes to university, it’s hard to see what you might become. A PHD and a university lecturing job certainly didn’t feature in my dreams for the future
much of the problem lies with universities that have poor induction processes for entrants that arrive in any other year apart from the rst. And many don’t have well-funded provision for the induction of mature students – something I’ve helped ght for
nd and provide in my current role as a university lecturer. My own induction involved a senior tutor passing me a timetable and leaving me to it. I ended up crying on an administrator in the student records o ce as I had no idea how to ll in the forms required to register on my chosen modules. I went back and thanked her years later, when I started teaching at the university myself – without that kindness, I might have walked out the door and never come back. How many do just this, I often wonder to myself. How many barriers should working-class students have to break down before they can nally come in?
Beyond belonging, some of the reasons for being at risk were deeply entwined with money. e rst time I went to university, I remember continually asking at the university’s nance counter about my grant cheque – the only income I had for the year, without taking out a student loan. Due to an administrative error, the cheque never arrived and I eventually got the portion of the grant I was entitled to after I dropped out. I can’t go back far enough in my digital student nance account to see how much this was, but I think it was a couple of hundred pounds. I don’t know if there were errors with the way my application was handled or if I did something wrong when I applied, but there was nothing like the promised amount for students based in London, which was supposed to be paid at a higher rate. As the rst in my family to complete compulsory secondary education, there was no-one to ask. I assumed the authorities knew best.
is kind of lack of knowledge is a huge obstacle and is something I strive to o set in the work I do with adult learners in my role as a lecturer in lifelong learning.
All of my experiences had been within the English system and it was not until I started to teach in the Welsh sector, including in both higher education and further education, that I started to see the di erence between the funding model in Wales compared to England. I think it’s fair to say that the devolved Welsh system is more generous, from Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) for sixth-formers (Wales was the rst country to increase EMA rates in 2023) to maintenance grants for part-time higher education courses, with additional loans if needed. In England,
part-time university students can only access a loan for maintenance, so students are building a higher level of debt as soon as their studies begin. In Wales, students who earn £25,000 a year or less can access a £3,000 grant. e impact of this on women, especially those who are balancing caring responsibilities and more likely to be working part-time as a result, is potentially huge. For women earning the minimum wage, currently £10.42 per hour (2023-24 rates, over 23 years of age), having access to the grant would give them the potential to reduce their working hours by approximately ve hours a week. is genuinely creates space and time for study.
Students who are parents can also apply for Childcare Grants and Parents’ Learning Allowance – more grants that do not have to be repaid. While there can be an impact on Universal Credit, for the most part the bene ts of this nancial package outweigh the negatives. Across the funding package, Wales provides its students with a fairer o ering compared to England.
For full-time undergraduates, there has been a Student Finance Partial Cancellation Scheme in place for many years. e Welsh Government will cancel up to £1,500 from any full-time maintenance loan balance when students enter repayment. While this may not seem like much, it does help to reduce overall debt and, more importantly, incentivises nishing a course. Wales was also cautious about raising full-time tuition fees for undergraduates to £9,000 per year and has not (yet) raised them – a decision that has caused much di culty to the Welsh HE sector itself as it has to do more work with less tuition fee income.
e decision to slash fees for Foundation Years (an extra year added on to a standard degree for students who do not meet the standard entry requirements, often popular with mature students) in England raises so many questions about the longer-term sustainability of “nontraditional” routes.
Re ecting on my experiences has enabled me to look more broadly on the opportunities available in Wales, especially for adults returning to learning, as I did. One key aspect, I believe, is having the opportunity to undertake learning without much (or any) nancial risk. is is where devolution has had a signi cant impact on adult learners in Wales as there has been the opportunity for shaping policy so that it ts the needs of its citizens.
In my role as a lecturer in lifelong learning, I see the impact money has on my students all the time.
“I can’t a ord to study,” a potential student will say to me.
And my answer will always be: “Have you seen the package that Student Finance Wales o ers its students?”
Part-time adult learners in Wales currently receive a £500 grant whatever level of income they might have, and will often be eligible for grants
I’ve mentioned already, in the region of £3,000 (for courses at half the intensity of undergraduate full-time courses), if they are within the lower income brackets. is kind of funding means that a parent with kids can come to evening classes, via Cardi University’s Pathway to a Degree programme scheme (which o ers a route for mature students into degrees at Cardi University and beyond) and end up on a degree in nursing a year later. Equally, it opens up the chance for disabled students to study part-time, at their own pace, via the Open University, perhaps taking an English literature degree and then moving on to teacher training (also available via the OU in Wales). ese are just two (real) examples from two institutions, but they demonstrate the breadth of opportunities available to Welsh residents, and the doors that can open when people make the decision to step back into the classroom, whether virtual, physical or via distance learning. I’ve seen the di erence having these opportunities can make, the way that lives change, and the con dence that grows. I see it especially in the women I have supported, who are often battling with negative experiences from school, which has left them feeling “stupid”, or simply not having the chance to nd the subject they really enjoy.
One of the most transformational changes I have witnessed myself is the expansion of the criteria for fee waivers for up to 20 credits in standalone courses at Cardi University, within my own division. Funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW), this scheme has traditionally been accessed by learners with disabilities or those in receipt of certain incomebased bene ts. Over the past two academic years, the criteria have been widened to include applicants from groups underrepresented in higher education, including black, Asian or minority ethnic applicants, carers, care leavers, asylum seekers, refugees and LGBTQ+ applicants. When I have a potential student in front of me who isn’t ready to study at the intensity needed to undertake something like the Pathways to a Degree scheme, but wants to study something, I have an option for them.
“How would you like to do some learning for free?” I ask.
Often those students are women – women who have been excluded from mainstream education, lacking con dence due to poor educational experiences, discouraged by online learning during the pandemic, unable to access daytime courses due to having small children, disengaged from education because of gender presentation or sexual identity, wanting an online course due to a disability, or being pulled in di erent directions by caring for elderly relatives. ese are just a small number of examples. Now I have something I can o er them, with no risk – aside from developing a passion for learning, of course.
A devolved Wales means that we can make choices for ourselves as a nation – to build fairness and equality into the way we fund education. Ensuring there is access to opportunities for Welsh people to study, to learn, and to embrace new ways of thinking should be at the heart of decision-making and education policies for all learners, whatever their age. is should be one of the most signi cant and transformative legacies of devolution – and I hope it will continue to be in the decades to come.
Dr Michelle Deininger is interim director of lifelong learning at Cardi University and senior lecturer in humanities. She teaches a range of courses in literature, creative writing and cultural studies, aimed at adult learners and often involving the end of the world. She writes about Welsh women writers, environmental literature, and the idea of apocalypse. She is especially interested in class and education, and has written and spoken on this topic in various contexts.
Next Saturday in Weekend: Manon Ste an Ros on an obsession with politics.
Woman’s Wales?, published by Parthian Books and £10.99 a copy, can be ordered at www.parthianbooks.com/products/womanswales-hardback