The Department for Education’s flagship study abroad scheme should offer higher funding rates to its most disadvantaged students to widen participation, researchers have said.
An independent evaluation of the first year of the Turing scheme, the DfE’s replacement for the Erasmus scheme since 2021/22, was published today and revealed nine in 10 HE and FE participants were satisfied with their placement.
But researchers warned how several delivery issues had a “greater impact on participants from a disadvantaged background and may have created barriers to many participating”.
These included an initial lack of guarantees for funding, the amount of funding and the timing that it was delivered, which “disproportionately impact participation among disadvantaged groups,” the report said.
Researchers said that some students who could not afford the upfront costs or the risk of funding not being available further down the line meant they dropped out.
