To widen access, you need to engage teachers

Back in the summer of 1997, Helena Kennedy proclaimed that the case for widening participation to higher and further education was “irresistible”. National strategies were drawn up, Whitehall circulars issued, and, two years later, Tony Blair stood before the Labour conference and pledged that 50 per cent of young people should go to university by 2010. Things seemed simpler then. While progress has been made in the overall rate of young people going to higher education in universities and FE colleges, there remain troubling gaps in the progression of poorer and part-time students. As a generation of policymakers and practitioners have discovered, supporting students from disadvantaged groups to enter higher education is no easy matter. Read More.