The Office for Students (OfS) has confirmed its approach to regulating access and participation from 2024.
For those who are already across the detail, the new guidance will hit familiar notes. Following the consultation providers will be expected to undertake their own risk assessment of which student groups are at disproportionate risk of not achieving good outcomes – that could be about student demographic groups, geography, prior educational experience, or the intersection of one or more of these, for example – and explain, using evidence and theory of change, what they plan to do to mitigate those risks and the associated specific objectives and numerical targets for entry, persistence, completion, and so on.
Access and participation plans (APPs) will run on a four-year cycle, rather than five, and providers will also be required to pay due regard to a set of national priorities for access and participation, particularly the challenge of raising attainment in schools. Whatever a provider does, it will also need to evaluate to understand whether it is actually achieving what it sets out to do.
Providers have a good deal of discretion in deciding what counts as a significant risk and what its strategic priorities should be – though OfS may, of course, disagree and send it back for a resubmission. But there is a requirement to pay due regard to the national Equality of Opportunity Risk Register (EORR) – which gives a heavy steer on exactly how the analysis should take shape – and we’re seeing it for the first time now.
