Widening Access and Participation

Widening Access and Participation Plans (WAPPs)

The philosophy behind Access Agreements was that the introduction of higher fees should not have a detrimental effect on widening participation and that institutions are explicitly committed to increasing participation of under-represented groups.

Broadly speaking, widening participation is a sector-wide issue whereas fair access is one that concerns individual institutions. 2. Widening participation broadly refers to the widening of the social groups that benefit from higher education. Fair access is less straightforward.

“Widening participation” means seeking a more representative cross‐section of young people across universities and subjects. Using these distinctions, “access” is effectively a first level assessment of opportunity and of exclusion while “participation” works at a lower and more refined level of aggregation.

Where next for widening participation and fair access? New insights from leading thinkers

The Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) and the social mobility charity Brightside are jointly publishing a collection of essays by senior higher education figures entitled Where next for widening participation and fair access? New insights from leading thinkers.

Contributors include: Kirsty Williams AM, the Cabinet Secretary for Education in the Welsh Government; Vonnie Sandlan, the former President of NUS Scotland; and Peter Horrocks, Vice-Chancellor of The Open University. Les Ebdon, the Director for Fair Access, has contributed a Foreword.

The policies put forward in the chapters include: much bolder contextualised admissions policies for highly-selective universities (with AAA+ offers typically being reduced to CCC), more support for people in care with the potential to benefit from higher education and new Personalised Learning Accounts to meet demand for more flexible lifelong learning.