Giving widening access a real reboot

As we enter 2022, NEON will continue to strive to support those from all backgrounds to benefit from higher education. Please find our first article of 2022 from the NEON Director Professor Graeme Atherton, published kindly by the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) last week. ‘Giving widening access a real reboot’ can be found here:

https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2022/01/07/giving-widening-access-a-real-reboot/

This article argues that if the government really wants to move the widening access agenda forward then it needs to be more radical than was suggested by the Minister for Higher Education in November last year. A ‘real’ reboot of widening access to higher education would:

• Revise graduate outcomes targets to make them both broader to encompass both other measures of success alongside income and also local/regional as well as institutional.
• Move away from the POLAR measure as a tool to orientate the work of outreach and access work.
• Initiate collaboration across the student lifecycle.
• Make the Office for Students more outward facing.
• Link outreach to careers work through a change in the admissions system.

We look forward to working with you in 2022.