| STRATEGIES
FOR WIDENING ADULT PARTICIPATION IN HIGHER
EDUCATION:
A EUROPEAN PERSPECTIVE
Rob Mark (Queen’s
University Belfast)
Background
In the introduction the background to the ALPINE
project - its aims, objectives and rationale were
examined. The need to widen participation in higher
education is recognised as a key issues within the
European Union. The commission’s Memorandum
on Lifelong Learning suggests that we need to do
more to encourage adults1 to take up educational
opportunities and many national governments have
already developed or are currently promoting wider
inclusion practices at a national level.
In this chapter, the problem of low participation
among adults in universities is further explored
in the European context. The links between lifelong
learning and adult participation and the need for
strategies to involve more adults are established.
The problem of low adult participation in universities
Widening participation in universities is a way
of opening up a system to accommodate a wider social
mix of students, particularly from previously excluded
groups. Concepts such as ‘equal opportunity’, ‘access’ and ‘equity’ are
central to the analysis of participation. It is largely
a response to the economic implications of globalisation,
but also in the interests of social exclusion. As
higher education was once designed for an elite group,
its agenda provides an enormous challenge not least
because there are many who equate expansion and diversity
with declining standards.
There is considerable evidence from many European
countries that while absolute participation rates
in higher education have increased for all socio-economic
groupings, the relative rates for different groups
have not changed substantially. For example, data
from Germany (Schitzer, 1999) shows that while 33%
of young people from the lowest socio-economic grouping
reached upper secondary school, only 8% managed to
get to higher education. In contrast, 84% from the
highest group got to upper secondary school and 72%
to higher education.
This picture is quite consistent across countries
regardless of educational structures and policy initiatives.
For example, Morgan & McGill (2001,p47) note
that in Belgium economically disadvantaged groups
are still under-represented, while in Denmark the
percentage of higher education students from lower
socio-economic backgrounds has not changed over the
last two decades. (Nexelmann cited by Skillbeck and
Connell, 2000 )
A thirteen country study by Shavit and Blosfield
(1993), who studied social classes attending higher
levels of education, found that the relative advantages
associated with higher-class origin is still found
and has increased, and that while in absolute terms
lower socio-economic groups have done better in terms
of access to third level education, the relative
differences between classes has not changed so much.
The Shavit and Blosfield study showed that only two
of the countries studied, Sweden and the Netherlands,
had made significant progress in changing the relative
positions of higher and lower socio- economic groups.
In Ireland, Clancy and Wall (2000) analysed the
social background of higher education entrants in
the Republic of Ireland between 1980 and 1998. Striking
differences were found between the socio-economic
groups participating in higher education. In the
1998 study, 58% of higher education entrants were
found to come from four socio-economic groupings
(higher professional, lower professional, employers
and managers, and farmers.) even though these groups
constituted only 37% of the relevant population.
In contrast, other groups were under-represented
in higher education, making up 41% of entrants even
though they constituted 63% of the cohort. Those
in categories of agricultural workers and unskilled
groups were found to have only a third of the places
in higher education that their numbers in the population
warranted.
Research would seem to suggest that a great deal
still needs to be done to widen participation in
higher education, particularly from traditionally
excluded groups. In the UK, where policy has traditionally
focussed on younger learners up to 18 years old,
there is now a shift towards providing opportunities
for the 19-30 age range. The UK Government has set
targets for 50% of young people under the age of
30 to have access to higher education opportunities
by the year 2010. Recent race relations and disability
legislation (the amended Race Relation Act and the
Special Educational Needs & Discrimination Act
(2001), focuses attention on approaches which institutions
need to take to redress the systematic institutional
exclusion faced by disabled people and people from
Black and Asian communities. Policy is also focussing
on effort to link higher education more closely to
local communities, connecting with the wider voluntary
and community sectors.
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