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Students: Fees and Charges

Answer

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) has undertaken its own evaluation of various outreach activities and continues to monitor work done by others. BIS funded substantial monitoring and evaluation of activities which took place as part of the Aimhigher programme. The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) has encouraged institutions to develop their approaches to evaluation, and organisations such as the Sutton Trust have undertaken evaluation of their own outreach activities such as summer schools. Sir Martin Harris's report ““What more can be done to widen access to highly selective institutions?”” (OFFA, April 2010) summarised the difficulties in isolating the effects of outreach activities from other factors influencing higher education participation, but concluded that there was robust evidence on the effectiveness of a range of outreach activities. The report highlighted evidence which showed that"““coordinated, sustained outreach works best””"and that schemes"““targeted at groups of very able students identified as having the potential to succeed in a selective institution, have been shown to significantly improve the likelihood of participants both applying to and entering such institutions.””"It also made particular note of the evidence that university summer schools"““often delivered either in collaboration with Aimhigher or the Sutton Trust””"have been shown to be"““particularly effective in raising the aspirations, and consequently the application and entry rates of their participants to selective institutions.””"In his guidance to institutions, issued this month, the Director of Fair Access has set out his expectation that those institutions charging the highest rates and with the furthest to go in widening participation, fair access and retention, should be doing most to protect access. The guidance includes guideline expenditure on access to help institutions in drawing up their own plans. The guidance also sets out a greater focus on outcomes, including through targeted outreach. The Director of Fair Access requires institutions to submit annual monitoring returns reporting on their expenditure on access measures and their progress against their agreed access targets. Institutions are expected to evaluate the impact of their plans with a view to directing expenditure at those access and retention measures that are most likely to succeed.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

46669; 525 c439-40W

Session

2010-12

Subjects

Fees and charges Students

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk