Leader: Ministers bluster, universities suffer

The declining proportion of people entering higher education is a major blow for the Government. Its drive to expand student numbers and attract more pupils from less privileged backgrounds is, according to the most recent official data, not only faltering but heading in the wrong direction.

The latest figures for the Higher Education Initial Participation Rate for England were released by the Department for Education and Skills in April without so much as a whisper to the wider world. But the facts, despite having been buried in a statistical first release on the DFES website, are unequivocal. The proportion of 17 to 30-year-olds entering higher education in England has fallen from 43.4 per cent in 2002-03 to 42 per cent in 2004-05. The proportion of male entrants has dropped from 39.2 per cent to 37.3 per cent over the two years. Forget performance indicators:these measures are the genuine barometer of university participation, taking into account the population as a whole. They once more offer an unheeded lesson for ministers: yesterday's bold headline-grabbing targets are tomorrow's embarrassing reminders of broken promises.

Is it any coincidence that Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, had last month quietly distanced himself from the Government's 50 per cent participation target?

Universities could find themselves singled out for recriminations. Indeed, questions must be posed about the effectiveness of billions of pounds worth of widening participation schemes now in place. However, the entry figures are in effect a final measure of how well people have been educated throughout their entire lives. Improving parental guidance for under-fives, tackling social segregation in schools and improving staying-on rates for 16 to 18-year-olds could all have a massive impact on the university participation rate. Although these data do not disclose the social make-up of the student population, there remains a suspicion that university expansion has been fuelled almost entirely by the middle classes. Those from less privileged backgrounds are lost from the education system long before A levels, let alone university admissions.

Universities have a role to play in tackling these issues, but they should not be made the scapegoats for the Government's failure to address educational inequalities entrenched at an age when university entry is but a distant dream.