Wednesday 10-07-2019 - 16:06

The University has recently submitted its Access and Participation Plan for 2020-21. The plan outlines the measures the University is undertaking to widen access for students from under-represented backgrounds to Durham University. It is required by the Office for Students, and without it the University could not charge the full tuition fee amount.

The Office for Students is expected to be more rigorous in ensuring that Universities are ambitious in setting their targets than its predecessor, the Office for Fair Access. Universities have responded, in many instances, with the introduction of new initiatives. You may have seen the considerable media attention Oxford and Cambridge have both received for some of these.

The main target set by the Office for Students is for Universities to increase the number of students from least represented backgrounds, and reduce the gap between the most and least represented groups. Also key is closing the gap in degree results between white and black students, disabled and non-disabled students, and mature and non-mature students.

All of these are issues that Durham has to address, but when Durham SU were asked to provide input into the plan, these were not the only issues we focussed on. We have also stressed the need for Durham to carry out more work to recruit local students, working with local schools to encourage their students to apply. We have also pressed the need for the University to be ambitious in its efforts to recruit black students who are currently massively underrepresented at Durham. Above all, we’ve made clear that the University needs to show leadership in effecting culture change within the University, tackling the often elitist attitudes that put students off applying in the first place.

Myself and the rest of the Student Officer team have met with the head of access at the University to discuss our priorities and had the opportunity to feed in specific proposals at workshops. Beyond this, we continued to suggest improvements through informal meetings and through the University’s committee structure. The whole Student Officer team also met with Chris Millward, Director for Fair Access and Participation at the Office for Students, to discuss our priorities for the Access and Participation Plan and have taken the opportunity to submit an appendix to the University’s plan elaborating on these, which you can find here.

Through all this, I am confident that the University does now take seriously the need to develop its efforts to improve recruitment from the local area, though the details behind the schemes still seem lacking in places. On the other hand, while there seems to be a recognition that the University needs to drastically improve its effort in recruiting black students, it is not clear what they are proposing to remedy this yet.

We will continue to put pressure on the University to put their words into action through Access and Admissions Committee. This will go alongside our ongoing work in tackling the cost of Durham, as well as continuing to press the need for a decolonised curriculum as the University works to reform its curriculum.