Commenting on OFFA’s report calling for fundamental changes in widening participation, Sir Peter Lampl, Founder and Chairman of the Sutton Trust and of the Education Endowment Foundation, said:

 

“OFFA is right to call for fundamental changes to widening participation. While the number of disadvantaged pupils going to university has been increasing, the access gap at our most selective institutions remains stubborn and wide. We need radical change to shift this, including a greater and more transparent use of contextual admissions from universities.

 

“It’s important that we get a better idea of what works when it comes to widening participation and OFFA is right to stress this. We want to see much better evaluation of different programmes from universities and are working with OFFA to ensure that on an overall basis access initiatives are cost effective.”

 

NOTES TO EDITORS:

  1. The Sutton Trust is a foundation set up in 1997, dedicated to improving social mobility through education. It has published over 200 research studies and funded and evaluated programmes that have helped hundreds of thousands of young people of all ages, from early years through to access to the professions.
  2. The Office for Fair Access (OFFA) is an independent public body that regulates and promotes fair access to English higher education for people from under-represented groups. For more information see offa.org.uk.
  3. Understanding a whole institution approach to widening participation: Final report and Implementation and evaluation guidance and toolkit will be published at 00:01 hours on Monday 16 October 2017 at https://goo.gl/yhgX2S.