Widening Participation, Equalising Opportunity? Higher Education's Mission Impossible
| Date | 01 May 2006 |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9256.2006.00255.x |
| Author | Sarah Hale |
| Published date | 01 May 2006 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Widening Participation, Equalising
Opportunity? Higher Education’s
Mission Impossible
Sarah Hale
University of Huddersfield
Current government policy of increasing participation in higher education is justified on the
grounds of individual benefit, the national economic interest and, most significantly, as part of a
moral agenda of promoting equality of opportunity. This article examines a range of empirical
findings in the light of ideas about equality and, in particular, the concept of ‘equality of oppor-
tunity’, and what these entail. It concludes that widening participation in higher education, at
least as envisaged in current policy, cannot compensate for social and educational disadvantage,
and is not only ineffectual in promoting equality of opportunity, but carries serious disbenefits.
In recent years, more and more British students have been the first in their family
to go to university. Participation in higher education – generally understood as uni-
versity attendance, if not the successful completion of a degree – has increased
from 5 per cent of the relevant age cohort in 1960/1961 to 33 per cent in
2000/2001, with the most rapid rate of expansion being in the 1980s, from 12 per
cent in 1980/1981 to a peak of 34 per cent in 1996/1997 (Mayhew et al., 2004,
p. 66). The current government seeks to continue that rate of growth with a much
publicised target of getting 50 per cent of all 18–30-year-olds into some kind of
higher education experience by 2010 (Morris, 2001). But, for many of these young
people, getting to university is no longer a positive achievement in itself, or even
a positive experience (Leathwood and O’Connell, 2003, pp. 599–601); rather, it is
seen as a continuation of compulsory schooling; a sine qua non for entry into the
world of employment, with a degree being required for a range of jobs and levels
of employment that only a decade or two ago were open to non-graduates (Keep
and Mayhew, 2004, p. 302). The implications of this shift, for employers, univer-
sities and perhaps most importantly of all, the young people themselves, are
immense, while the rationale advanced by politicians appears not to be supported
by the evidence emerging from research in this area.
Although higher education in Britain has been expanding since the 1960s, there
has been, since the election of ‘New’ Labour in 1997, an additional rhetorical
impetus and determination to push this still further, and expand higher education
into new areas. While the Robbins Committee expressed the view that ‘all young
persons qualified by ability and attainment to pursue a full time course in higher
education should have the opportunity to do so’ (Committee on Higher Education,
1963, p. 49), current policies including foundation degrees, the ill-fated online UK
e-University (UKeU) and the slightly less unsuccessful University for Industry (UfI)
POLITICS: 2006 VOL 26(2), 93–100
© 2006 The Author. Journal compilation © 2006 Political Studies Association
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