Scottish Universities to Accept More Students from Poorer Backgrounds

Students from underprivileged backgrounds in Scotland will now have the opportunity of attending university despite not achieving the required grades for entrance. Recruiting more students from colleges is part of moves to widen access to higher education for pupils from deprived communities.

Every university in the country is set to “contextualise” data when processing applicants, looking at a candidate’s background in addition to their academic performance. This move addressed concerns that many institutions were not attracting enough talented students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Figures published this year by the National Union of Students (NUS) show that leading universities in Scotland only recruit a small percentage of students from deprived backgrounds. St Andrews, for example only recruited 13 students (2.7 per cent of its total enrolees) from disadvantaged backgrounds in 2010-11. At Edinburgh, just 91 from similar backgrounds were granted places (the equivalent of 5 per cent of its undergraduate population). At Aberdeen, only 51 students (3.1 per cent of its undergraduates) were from deprived backgrounds. As a result, the Scottish Government announced new outcome agreements that will have universities setting targets intended to widen access.

Many universities already have schemes in place to encourage poorer students to be granted a university place, but this marks the first time that a national drive across all institutions was initiated.
Approaches to the policy also vary, as in the method adapted by Glasgow, which admitted students from poorer backgrounds with lower grades if they completed a rigorous entry course. According to Universities Scotland, an organisation representing the principals of Scotland’s 19 higher education institutions, there will be no “one-size-fits-all” approach, as each institution will be left to decide how best to implement their own measures to achieve this goal.

Robin Parker, president of NUS approved the move, saying: “Recruiting from colleges must be a priority for the sector…Widening access, and contextual admissions, is about making sure Scotland’s universities are not missing out on students with the potential to succeed.”