‘Put shoulder to the wheel’ on school standards, says access tsar

England’s new access tsar was today due to tell universities to “put their shoulder to the wheel” on driving up attainment in schools.

A renewed focus higher education institutions’ engagement with closing achievement gaps between the richest and poorest pupils had been trailed by higher education minister Michelle Donelan in November when she announced the appointment of John Blake as director for fair access and participation at the Office for Students.

Some sector leaders have questioned whether it is universities’ role to improve standards in schools, with Mr Blake’s predecessor, Chris Millward, suggesting that any effect that they might have would be “marginal”.

In a working paper published by the Centre for Global Higher Education at the University of Oxford, Professor Millward – now professor of practice in education policy at the University of Birmingham – said that undergraduates would “legitimately question” why tuition fees for their degree courses were being used to pay for schooling.

But in his first speech in the role, Mr Blake – who formerly led on policy issues for educational charity Ark, which runs the multi-academy trust Ark Schools – was set to say that if universities were “are at all concerned with equality of opportunity in accessing higher education, we must be concerned with improving attainment much, much earlier in life”.

“Universities and colleges have a moral duty to put their shoulder to the wheel of improving that wider community they sit within, and as both educational and civic institutions, improving attainment in our schools is an essential part of that work,” Mr Blake was expected to say.

“But they should not assume this duty falls to them alone – of course it doesn’t. We are asking providers to seek out strategic, enduring, mutually beneficial partnerships with schools and with the third sector, all working together to contribute to this work.

“But we are expecting providers to pull their weight on pre-16 attainment, a challenge which affects us all.”

Access experts have previously warned that universities were “squeamish” about engaging in school standards. Last month it emerged that some institutions in northern England had declined to help with a pandemic mentoring scheme for schoolchildren because they wanted to focus on “the most able students who could enhance their worldwide reputation for academic research”.

In his speech, Mr Blake was due to call on universities to focus also on disadvantaged students’ attainment once they enrol in higher education, warning that he had “heard more often than I would like that students feel their providers fell over themselves to bring them into higher education, but interest in their needs trailed off the moment they were through the door”.

“Students from disadvantaged backgrounds have often overcome significant obstacles to get to university. It cannot be right that those students’ entry to higher education is used to polish the laurels of providers who are consistently and persistently not delivering on the quality of teaching and support those same students need to thrive in higher education, and succeed after graduation,” Mr Blake was expected to say.

Mr Blake was also set to address the OfS’ ongoing consultation on plans for minimum baselines for student outcomes, rejecting suggestions that expectations should be lowered for providers with high proportions of students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

“I absolutely reject any suggestion that there is a trade-off between access and quality. If providers believe the regulation of quality justifies reducing their openness to those from families and communities with less experience of higher education or who have travelled less common, often more demanding, routes to reach them, they should be ashamed of themselves,” he was expected to say.

chris.havergal@timeshighereducation.com