Access to Courses and Access to Careers

Introduction

In higher education it sometimes feels as if joined up thinking is in short supply. Governments pursue a variety of policies and projects without apparently stopping to think about the relationships between them. For example, in England the abolition of student grants took place alongside attempts to attract more students from poorer backgrounds. It requires no great powers of intellect or imagination to spot that these two policies might be less than perfectly aligned. In an education system which is piled high with initiatives and innovations there is clearly an increased danger of this kind of dissonance. The more programmes and policies which are launched, the more important it becomes to look at the relationships between them.

The purpose of this short paper is therefore to outline two of the current government’s major higher education policies and to reflect on how they connect. The first is broadening access to higher education and the government’s attempts at widening participation (WP), and the second is enhancing graduate employability. The particular connection examined centres on the question of how far non-traditional students succeed in the graduate labour market. When WP students find their way into higher education, do they benefit as much as other students in terms of employment and employability? Or do WP students need particular support to enable them to reach their career potential?

These are issues which all higher education institutions and disciplines need to consider and in certain respects they are generic. However, they are also coloured by the fact that different subjects have different approaches to the WP and employability agendas. Many GEES departments, for example, are facing increasing problems of recruitment and may well need, in future, to focus more on how to attract students from non-traditional backgrounds. In the past the GEES disciplines as a whole have not been especially successful in attracting students from ethnic minorities or disadvantaged communities. Now, these issues of access will have to be given more urgent attention.

Widening Participation

Across higher education the drive is on towards the target of a 50 per cent participation rate. By 2010 the government wants half of all 18–30 year olds to benefit from higher education (with no drop in standards). This is intended to enhance the nation’s economic performance and ensure that the country has the skilled graduate labour force needed to achieve success in the new knowledge-based, global economy. However, the 50 per cent target cannot be achieved by simply recruiting more young people from professional backgrounds. Already those in the highest socioeconomic groups are seven times more likely to enter higher education than those in the lowest groups. So, much the greatest scope for increasing participation levels lies in society’s more disadvantaged communities. We will also need more students from some of the ethnic minorities, more mature students and more students with disabilities.

Higher education now has in place a raft of initiatives to promote widening participation. Foremost amongst these are the rapidly developing provision of two-year Foundation Degrees, new systems of bursaries and the provision of a range of school-based outreach projects designed to address the so called ‘3 A’s’ problem - low Aspirations, low Awareness and low Achievement.

None the less, many young people from non-traditional backgrounds still perceive higher education as in some way ‘posh’ and irrelevant to getting a job and making some money. Certainly, they are particularly averse to incurring the debts which are now so often part and parcel of the typical student experience. If participation is to be increased such potential students will need to be persuaded of the long-term financial and other benefits from having a degree.

Employability

Alongside widening participation, the enhancement of graduate employability is another of the government’s key priorities for higher education. As student numbers have grown, so has the total cost of public spending on Universities and Colleges. As a result, the government is looking for a return on its investment in terms of an increased supply of graduates capable of making an effective contribution to the nation’s economic welfare. HE institutions up and down the land are therefore in the throes of preparing and implementing employability policies. One common element of these policies is the expectation that departments will include and embed careers education within their curricula, as discussed for the GEES disciplines in a previous issue of PLANET (2001).

The government’s drive for graduates who are ready to contribute in the workplace is reinforced by the increased importance which students themselves attach to their employment prospects. Tuition fees and rising levels of graduate debt mean that students too expect their courses to equip them for success in the workplace. Departments and academics in the GEES disciplines, as in other subjects across higher education, often feel a sense of obligation to respond to these pressures and developments. (For information on GEES work in this area, please refer to the Gedye article in this edition of PLANET - Ed.)

Exploring the link

The issues considered in the final part of this paper are about the relationships between the twin drives for widening participation and enhancing employability. In particular, the key question addressed is how well do non-traditional (WP) students actually perform in career terms after graduation? The government is keen to attract into HE more students from disadvantaged backgrounds but for these kinds of students does the HE experience ‘deliver the goods’ in terms of jobs?

A recent study conducted by the Centre for Higher Education Research and Information (2002) has produced some rather mixed results. The study looked at the career experience of some 3,000 1995 graduates from a cross-section of 27 higher education institutions. The data were collected some three and a half years after graduation. The good news is that unemployment rates were low and that salaries were typically above non-graduate levels. However, the bad news is that the WP students were generally doing less well than other graduates. It seems that their initial social disadvantage was not eliminated by higher education but was carried through into the labour market. In part, this is explained by the kinds of institutions attended and courses selected. WP students were more likely to have studied at less prestigious institutions and on less vocationally-orientated degree programmes. They also tended to perform rather less well academically in terms of degree class. In addition to these ‘structural’ and academic disadvantages, it is also possible that WP students faced ‘cultural’ problems in being less familiar with professional life and having fewer contacts who could open careers doors for them. They may lack the social and professional networks (or the ability to break into them) which many other graduates can find useful in developing their careers.

WP students are of course a very diverse group and one must be cautious about generalisations and stereotyping. None the less, there are, for example, obvious concerns that some young people from poor backgrounds may be enticed into HE and then not experience the career benefits and opportunities more commonly available to their middle class peers. Admittedly, most WP students will not have to pay tuition fees but their financial circumstances will commonly be such that at the end of their three or four year degree they will be in particular need of the financial benefits of a good job. For GEES academics and indeed for all higher education teachers, questions arise as to how to respond to these kinds of issues. Attracting more and different students into higher education is one thing. Helping them to achieve careers success is another. Perhaps it is time to consider more carefully how to bring these two agendas together. This paper therefore ends with a question: What should we practitioners be doing to enhance employability for WP students?

Endnote

Readers with a particular interest in employability may like to know that the LTSN Generic Centre has recently produced a Director of Employability Resources. This provides references to a wide range of literature and current material. The author is Dr. Rod Oakland. For information about obtaining a copy please see the LTSN Generic Centre web site at http//www.ltsn.ac.uk/genericcentre/

The English LTSN Subject Centre (based at Royal Holloway University, London) has recently produced (February 2003) a report on ‘Access and Widening Participation’, authored by Siobhan Holland. It contains a number of interesting case studies highlighting good practice in various aspects of WP work.