Penalties for failing to widen access could be waived
The debate on the forthcoming Higher Education Bill has twisted and turned during the last week, as a proposition not to penalise universities for failing to widen access was accepted by the Government.
The move, initially proposed as a revision to the Higher Education Bill at its committee stage in the House of Lords by Lord Butler of Brockwell, Master of University College, will remove the planned access regulator's powers to castigate universities that fail to accept students from broader social backgrounds.
Should the Government's amendment pass, the Office for Fair Access will only be permitted to police the efforts made by universities into improving their social-class mix.
Lord Butler, who brought the strongly supported suggestion to the Lords committee, argued: "The purpose is to remove a fear on the part of institutions - that in a situation when they have done everything that they promised to do in the plan agreed with [Offa] to provide fair access - they could still be penalised because the social mix of the students they admit comes out in a particular way."
However, Baroness Blackstone, former master of Birkbeck College, London, attacked the plan.
She objected during the debate: "If a university provides all kinds of access arrangements, runs summer schools and gets more applications from a wider range of students, that is all well and good. But if it does not accept a wider range of students, that is a problem."
Oxford University, with its reputation for a narrow reach into the lower social classes, may well rejoice at the news. The 2003 intake consisted of just 51.6 per cent of students from state schools.
While a University spokesperson refused to comment on the precise details of the proposition, she told The OxStu: "We are very much in favour of admissions remaining at the discretion of each individual university."
10th Jun 2004