Use our expertise says champion of poorer students

THE head of a project aimed at getting young people from deprived backgrounds in Yorkshire to go to university has called for an urgent meeting with the Government to ensure its expertise is not lost when the programme is scrapped later this year.

The Aimhigher scheme is to be axed in the summer, ending seven years of work encouraging children from backgrounds who do not normally go into higher education after leaving school.

The man in charge of leading the programme in West Yorkshire wants to hold talks with Simon Hughes, the Government's newly appointed advocate for access to education, to urge the coalition to find ways of building on the progress Aimhigher has already made.

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Jonathan Higgins, Aimhigher West Yorkshire's director, says he aims to share the benefit of his experience of leading a programme which has targeted thousands of young people in the county every year who have the potential but lack the tradition or support to enter higher education.

Aimhigher has been jointly funded by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), the Skills Funding Agency and the Department of Health. But in November last year, the Minister for Universities and Skills, David Willetts announced that funding would stop in July. The cuts have raised fears young people from deprived backgrounds will not be encouraged to aspire to higher education from a young age.

Mr Higgins declined to comment on whether he thought the Government was wrong to axe the scheme but he told the Yorkshire Post he was keen to ensure the expertise built up since it was launched in 2004 was not lost. "We have many achievements of which we can very proud in West Yorkshire and a legacy of thousands of young people and their families whose lives have changed through the work of Aimhigher and its wider team of partners and supporters.

"The challenge now is to identify opportunities for many of the successes of Aimhigher to be built upon and continue locally, even without a nationally funded and coordinated programme."

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The West Yorkshire Partnership is one of four in the region set up since the programme was launched. It has brought together five district councils – Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees, Leeds and Wakefield – 83 state maintained secondary schools, eight academies, 15 further education colleges and sixth form colleges and five higher education institutions, together with careers services and work-based learning providers.

Between August 2009 to July 2010, more than 23,000 young people across West Yorkshire took part in Aimhigher activities ranging from revision master classes; specialist groups focusing on subjects like law, teaching and medicine; visiting universities; attending residential summer schools and meeting successful role models who have benefited from going to university.

Mr Higgins told the Yorkshire Post that since Aimhigher had been launched the increase in people from the poorest 40 per cent of backgrounds going to university has been more than double the increase among more affluent students.

Funding, which is due to end in July, has helped to provide co-ordinators go into schools taking part in the programme to identify pupils with the potential to go to university but who may miss out without encouragement.

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The programme, offered through 42 different partnerships across the country, has particularly focused on children from lower socio-economic groups in areas where participation in higher education is traditionally low.

Mr Hughes, the Liberal Democrat's deputy leader, was appointed as advocate for access to education last month amid fears that poorer students could be put off going to university by changes to the fees system and the scrapping of the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) paid to 16- to 19-year-olds from the least well-off households to help them stay in school or college.

The Government is raising the minimum cap on tuition fees to 9,000 a year but also increasing the repayment threshold, meaning graduates will now be earning more than 21,000 before they start to make repayments on their tuition fee loans.

In a letter appointing Mr Hughes, Prime Minister David Cameron said there was a "material risk" poor schoolchildren would be put off by "misinformation" from applying to higher education institutions or staying on to study A-levels.

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Mr Hughes – who abstained from the vote on increasing tuition fees last year – is being asked to ensure people from low income families are not put off university because of the changes. He will also make recommendations on a new system to replace the EMA.

Welcoming his appointment, Mr Higgins said: "The Aimhigher programme is widely acknowledged as having played a key role in closing the gap by working consistently with a targeted group of young people, the very ones from the most disadvantaged backgrounds the coalition is concerned with to increase social mobility.

"Aimhigher is extremely well placed to help deliver the goals set out in the terms of reference of the advocate for access to education and I hope that Mr Hughes accepts my offer of help as a priority."

Does your class spell success?

Researchers are to examine whether poorer students find it more difficult to fit in at England's top universities – and their experiences of gaining a job afterwards.

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A new study by academics will look at how students from both working class and middle class homes fare at different universities in the same city, and whether class spells success.

The study will compare the experiences of richer and poorer students attending two different types of university – Bristol, an elite research-led institution, and the University of West England, a popular new university.

It comes amid concerns that Government plans to triple tuition fees next year could deter the poorest students.