In John Blake’s blog on updates to his guidance and advice on producing access and participation plans, he’s stressed three things.
First, the Office for Students’ (OfS) Director for Fair Access and Participation wants to see more evidence of collaboration between universities and colleges and third sector organisations, schools and employers to address risks to equality of opportunity.
That suggests he didn’t see enough in the summer pilot exercise. The official message is – why would you be doing all of this on your own? The unofficial one is – you ain’t gonna pull this off on your own, lads.
The second is a desire to see more ambitious work to raise the attainment of students before they reach higher education. When he says “I recognise that there are barriers to … these ambitions”, he’s effectively saying that the excuses he presumably read in the summer pilots won’t wash. “There are excellent examples of good practice in these areas across the sector”, he says, “and I would like to see these more widely taken up.”
