Everybody in? Not yet

PARTICIPATION.

Participation in higher education has risen but many entry barriers remain, especially for the poor. Diana Green says new developments could help bring down the hurdles.

It is now a truism that the most significant recent change in higher education is the shift from an elite to a mass system. Arthur C.

Clarke once defined the minimum survival level of the human race as "everyone being educated to the level of semi-literacy of the average university graduate by the year 2000". Similarly, some nations view the mass system as simply a step towards the ideal of a universal system, with access to higher education a right available to all.

In the UK, widening participation is seen primarily as a tool of social inclusion. It describes a range of mechanisms used to facilitate greater equity in access to higher education for those who have traditionally not participated. In volume terms, considerable progress has been made over the past ten to 15 years: the number of full-time students in higher education more than doubled from 1985-86 to 1997-98 (from 599,000 to 1,230,400). The English participation rate (among 18 to 21-year-olds) had reached 31 per cent in 1997 and is set to rise to 35 per cent by 2002. This is still significantly below the rate in Scotland (45 per cent at the time of the Dearing report), and universal higher education is clearly not on the immediate, or even the medium-term, horizon.

What is behind these numbers is significant. The mechanisms used to widen participation are a mix of voluntarism and a range of incentives from the main funding agencies seeking to promote governmental objectives. Most have focused on specific groups, for example those "disadvantaged" by being poor (less affluent), those from ethnic minority groups, those with disabilities, women and "mature" people. In addition, incentives are being provided to attract people outside these groups who nevertheless are "non-traditional" in some way, primarily those who may wish to study differently (part-time or work based learning) or who may not meet the standard A-level entry requirements.

The results have been disappointing. The biggest failure relates to the aim of attracting increasing numbers of less affluent students. In 1997, 49 per cent of those aged 18 to 21 entering higher education were from upper income groups (I, II and IIIn), while only 18.4 per cent doing so were from lower socioeconomic groups (IIIm, IV and V). Only 14 per cent from group V, the unskilled, went into higher education. In 1990, the comparable proportions were 36.7 per cent, 10.3 per cent and 6 per cent. Despite some progress, the poor remain under-represented.

In the case of disadvantaged students, the reasons for under-representation are often complex. Removing institutional and financial barriers may help, but tackling attitudinal and cultural barriers (in the universities and among their potential students) takes time. Perhaps more pertinent to the discussion of the feasibility of progress towards universal education is what is happening concerning "non-traditional" or "non-standard" students.

Definitions are tricky in this area. The emphasis is on entry qualifications, since these are the gateway to higher education.

Evidence is sparse, but it suggests that A levels remain the main entrance qualification. According to the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service, 64.9 per cent of those accepted to degree programmes in 1998 had two or more A levels. Of the 30 per cent with other qualifications, the largest group was those with BTEC or SCOTVEC qualifications (7.7 per cent) followed by those with GNVQ (6 per cent). At the same time, new qualifications such as the international baccalaureate are beginning to be accepted, albeit on a small scale. Clearly, better data are needed before any trends can be reliably detected.

The picture is different in respect of HND programmes. In 1998, 22 per cent of accepted students had GNVQ, compared with 18 per cent with two or more A levels. Indeed, 64 per cent of students accepted to HND programmes had non traditional qualifications. Analysis of where students with such qualifications go is revealing and predictable. In both old and new universities, there is little flexibility among degree programmes in the traditional academic disciplines: A-level entry is the norm. Flexibility seems to be correlated with specific types of programme (professional, vocational or interdisciplinary) and is sometimes found in subjects where recruitment is difficult, such as science and engineering. Not surprisingly, non-traditional entry qualifications are more prevalent in the new universities.

There has been no systematic research into the impact of these policies on the student experience or on employability. However, recent research by the Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services shows low take-up by employers of mature graduates, suggesting a continuing gap that needs to be tackled. If universities and employers are still attached to the traditional paradigm of education as a straight-line progression that stops at 21, what does this say about higher education becoming open to all?

Norman Longworth has suggested: "The majority of education providersI are providing an industrial-age education for a post-industrial environmentI" He argues that the content is wrong: "The emphasis is still on information and memorising rather than knowledge, high-order skills, understanding and values - teaching what to think and to commit to memory, rather than how to think and how to discriminateI" We all recognise the decreasing shelf-life of knowledge and the need to re-balance the curriculum between knowledge and skills. We need a framework that recognises and builds on different inputs to get outputs of an agreed standard in a more flexible pattern of interaction. Progress, however, is impeded by conservatism, quality concerns (the tyranny of league tables) and the practicalities and high costs of managing mixed-ability groups in a mass system.

Greater flexibility is possible. Technology, for example, can provide new delivery systems and help tailor programmes to the learning needs of the individual, thus making the entry point of less significance. Some students are already voting with their feet - new higher education providers such as the University of Phoenix and corporate universities demonstrate their success in putting students at the heart of education. This is the real revolution. How big a threat it represents to traditional universities is a moot point. But clearly, it does offer an opportunity for getting to grips with dismantling the barriers to entry so successfully erected as a means of rationing higher education to the chosen few.

Diana Green is vice-chancellor of Sheffield Hallam University.