Working in partnership: enabling social mobility in higher education – the final report of the Social Mobility Advisory Group
NEON have released an official response to the final report of the Social Mobility Advisory Group. You can access their report by clicking here.
The National Education Opportunities Network (NEON) welcomes today’s final report of the Social Mobility Advisory Group. With over 130 organisational members NEON has become the largest network of widening access practitioners from across the educational sector and this report will act as a concise summary of many of the issues they face. We particularly welcome the section on workforce development, something NEON sees as key and looks to support through its extensive Access Academy programme. NEON are leading the way in several other key areas identified in the report. At present, we are consulting with our members to identify the way in which they engage with mature learners and will launch a report on 25th November at our NEON Summit, ‘Supporting Mature Learners’ to be held at the University of Leicester. Our Access Academy sessions include a four day course focussing on ‘Monitoring and Evaluation’, a one day course on ‘Working with Schools’ and a one day course on ‘How to widen access to postgraduate study’.
Commenting on the report Dr Graeme Atherton, Director of NEON, stated:
“The report reinforces the sector’s commitment to widening access to higher education. Research has time and again stressed the importance of engaging pupils at a young age and we must not forget that this needs to start before the transition to secondary school. Through its Primary School working group NEON are already supporting its members to do this. We look forward to working in partnership with colleagues to take some of the report’s recommendations forward and helping the sector to further improve the progress that has already been made.”