OFFA predicts £200 million for widening access

Monday, 8 November 2004 12:00 AM

The director of Fair Access, Professor Sir Martin Harris, today predicted that as much as £200 million a year could be generated for widening access to higher education as a result of new university access agreements.

The Office for Fair Access, the Government's university access watchdog, has published guidance to help institutions produce access agreements, which will set out how each institution will use some of the money raised through tuition fees - to be established in 2006-07 - to provide financial support and outreach work to students from under-represented groups.

Sir Martin said that if over time 80 per cent of higher education institutions charged the full fee of £3,000, and invested on average 20 per cent of their additional income into bursaries, "then we would be looking at up to as much as £200 million each year available to support students from under-represented groups, in particular those from low income groups." He accepted that this would vary institution by institution.

The Conservatives criticised the new guidance arguing that it proved OFFA had nothing to do with improving standards, but was the creation of "Labour backbenchers' blind prejudice".

Conservative Shadow Higher Education Minister Chris Grayling said: "What academics, students and their families wanted to hear was the reassurance that educational attainment is still the only criterion for university entry. Instead they got the crude blackmailing of admissions tutors with cash for bursaries and the threat of fines for non-compliance with Old Labour posturing."

However, universities were pleased that the guidance did not include "arbitrary targets". Professor Ivor Crewe, President of Universities UK said: "We are pleased that the guidance reflects the consultation and comments from the higher education sector, and that it clearly acknowledges the work already being done in institutions to widen participation.

He added: "We welcome the provision for individual institutions that 'it is up to each institution to decide, dependent on its access needs and priorities, what proportions of additional variable fee income it assigns to bursaries and/or outreach and any other financial support' [para 27], rather than the imposition of arbitrary targets."

Tags: