Examination of witnesses (Questions 460
- 479)
TUESDAY 27 JUNE 2000
PROFESSOR CHRIS
GREEN OBE, DR
PETER JOHNSTON,
MR JOHN
WALLACE, DR
ALAN CLARK
and MR ROBERT
FOX
Mr Foster
460. A copy of that would be very useful.[1]
(Mr Fox) It was a hand-written note in
anger on House of Commons paper and not very welcome, I agree.
Chairman: Gordon, had you finished?
Mr Marsden
461. I was rather taken aback by that.
(Professor Green) I feel confident saying about this,
Chair, because it is nobody around this table.
(Dr Johnston) I am sure they are very much the exceptional
circumstances.
Helen Jones
462. I am interested as to what you have been
telling us about working with parents. Parental expectations obviously
have a high impact on the children. Can you tell us a bit more
about the work that you have done with parents and what you think
still needs to be done to ensure that they see the opportunities
that are open to their children as well. What response have you
had from parents when you have tried to involve them?
(Professor Green) We made a request that they be involved
in one day out of the time. Many of them obviously have jobs.
It is a financial commitment for them to have to do that. The
school discussed it with them. It looks as if we were making an
imposition on them. As we are talking, a scheme is running in
Cambridge City and indeed in Fenland these three days, coming
into Cambridge, where some of the parents have committed themselves
to being involved for three days. So there is a financial issue
in all of this. It is also the issue that many of those parents
had never been to any meeting at schools. We had some head teachers
who came to the campus based day and said they had never seen
that parent before. They had never come to any school/parent meeting.
So there is a barrier there which we have to think about. We may
have erected it, but please, I do not want to be misquoted. Universities
may speak a language that erects a barrier. We do not encourage
them to come in. Why are they coming in? It is a set of buildings
and there is nothing special to see. So it is showing that we
are trying to help them and their children do something if they
want it. It is that willingness, that contract. I would hope that
this is what we can succeed in doing over the next four or five
years. It will not be done in three days. That is the key issue.
It is a long-term project. We are, incidentally, researching it
quite independently. Two of my colleagues here today are involved
in doing an arm's length research project, but it is five years
of research to do that.
Chairman
463. Peter looks eager to chip in.
(Dr Johnston) Just one word which is important here.
It is carers, not just parents. The people we are talking about
might be grandparents, it might be someone else. That is an important
issue. The type of people we are looking at might be severely
disturbed families.
(Mr Wallace) I was just going to say that I agree
entirely with your analysis that the parent or carer influence
is critical. Again in Thurrock we are one of the lowest local
authority districts in terms of percentage of graduates in the
population. 2.2 per cent. We are 350th out of 365 local authority
districts—a league table we do not particularly want to
be bottom of. All one draws from that is that there is not experience
of what higher education or university life is about. Actually
working with parents through a whole range of means is critical.
The Children-into-University project is a good example. I am busy
exploring, at the moment, working with the Adult Community College
in my patch. Looking at community education. How we can engage
them. A whole approach—it is not rocket science to work
out that this is a huge issue and it is not going to yield to
a single approach. It is not going to yield to looking at year
eights or parents or adult returners. It is the entire package.
It is engaging employers in higher education. That is a crucial
one.
464. Are you saying then, just to continue for
a moment and then I will come back to Helen, in a place like Thurrock—I
know the Member of Parliament for Thurrock very well, Andrew Mackinlay—but
I did not realise that was the situation in Thurrock. That is
most interesting. Do particular schools in an area like Thurrock
make a difference? What I am not getting from your evidence is:
okay, we could talk all day about lack of parental stimulus and
how to overcome that, but what about schools? Are there hot spot
schools that really are performing well over what you would expect
them to do in terms of their catchment area? We are very keen
to say: where are the exemplars? This school with a driving head
and excellent staff have managed to get through to kids that normally
you do not get through to, in terms of the message of higher education,
that it is a good thing to do.
(Professor Green) That is right, Chairman. We have
in our region some of the highest performing schools of entrants
into university. For example, the Sunday Times carried
a report two weeks ago, naming one of our partner colleges, Hills
Road Sixth Form College, in Cambridge, which is—
465. They beat Huddersfield College every year,
only by one place.
(Professor Green) There are many others like that
in our region.
466. What about the more challenged areas?
(Professor Green) The challenged areas we need to
get into. The issue as to whether we go into the school or whether
we go into somewhere else in that area is, I think, key to this.
Many of those parents have themselves not had a good experience
at school. From that point of view it is a delicate issue because
in one sense we have to work with the schools. It is a community
issue.
467. What I am asking is: does a particularly
good school make a difference? Have you any evidence?
(Professor Green) Yes, indeed, because those schools
that participated wanted their parents to be involved. They gave
every assistance to us. They encouraged the youngsters to get
involved and they want to come back. They are doing something
to raise the aspirations of those youngsters, I hope. There are
others which did not.
468. Could you produce a school for us, to give
evidence here, that out-performed other schools in the same category?
(Professor Green) We did not rate them, Chair, so
to that extent we have not got a ranking table.
469. Anecdotally.
(Professor Green) I am sure we will find one.[2]
Helen Jones
470. May I come back to the attitude of parents,
something you said earlier, which was that while many of them
may be in what you call the cold spots, the less affluent areas,
that does not correlate exactly. Now we all draw on our own experiences,
I suppose, when we are looking at this but I wonder if your research
has turned up any evidence about the changes in cultural attitudes,
changes in respect for learning, (if I might put it that way without
wanting to over-egg the pudding), which might influence people's
choices of higher education and long-term education and, if so,
what you found could be done about that. Have you any evidence
to give us on that, bearing in mind that some of us come from
not very affluent backgrounds but which had a lot of respect for
learning, even if parents themselves had not had the chance to
stay on in education. What has made those changes?
(Professor Green) We have to be careful we do not
claim too much for the research, first of all, bearing in mind
this is only one year. The focus on this is that we needed to
do it for our own benefit and hopefully because it would be to
inform the project. There is evidence in many of the areas—and
I think Thurrock is a good example—where value is placed
upon education but for a certain purpose; namely, to go out and
get a job. To that extent it serves its purpose. It is not for
us to question that issue. There are other areas where the same
thing happens. Now coming back to the Children into University,
you have to remember that in many parts of the region the pattern
of pre-16 education is different, so we start in Lowestoft with
middle schools. It is important because they will be leaving that
school and going on to a county upper school later on and we need
that continuity. So there is evidence but we have not got that
in a form where I would be happy to say to you yes, we can give
you that example.
(Dr Johnston) There is some evidence from more than
a decade of initiatives like from inner city London Choice and
others, that bring children into university for a few days in
summer. That does make an impact. But the other thing I would
like to say about a co-ordinated approach to the problem is that
we have all experienced situations where we have been involved
in discussing the career future and intention and plans of a child
and realised it was the parent who was interested. Mature students
returning can affect the children. The two are inter-connected.
Sometimes it may be that it is the parent who gets there later
in life. All of this is important and there has been a tremendous
amount of impact through the access to HE Kitemark courses in
that respect. It has shown that particular individuals can enter
successfully into higher education.
471. In those wards you identified as cold spots,
which were doing much better than other areas around them, what
made the difference? What were the factors that were involved
that made them different from other very similar areas around
them?
(Professor Green) There was often a very proactive
careers support service within the school, where the school was
willing to engage others to come into the school and work with
the youngsters. It seemed to be that sort of outward looking view
that made all the difference. Chairman, you asked a question as
to whether I could give you an example. I would not for the record
but we are working in selected areas this year with the Children
into University project, where one particular consortium of schools
have not talked to each other for years. They have not got their
act together. This is a rural area. They are doing it as a result
of other factors in that area but they were most resistant to
others coming in. They are going to become an education action
zone, or they were seeking for that status. It illustrates the
point I am making; namely, if there is a resistance to other people
working alongside you, what does it say about what you are doing
with the youngsters in those schools?
Mr Marsden
472. I wonder if I could just pick up one point
when you talked about the different layers of influence. You talked
about the influence of the mature students, perhaps parents returning,
and how that communicates. That brings me on to another point.
We know from other inquiries and from other research that one
of the things that eases the passage of returning mature students
is the cultural conditions. In other words, if there is not too
big a jump between the prior experience and the post experience.
I wonder in this case whether you have any evidence. I am thinking
particularly in the 16 to 19 year-old age range, whether entry
from school into further education courses, sub-degree courses,
is an important facilitator in terms of deciding for children
from non-traditional backgrounds. Does it predispose them more
to university entrance or do we simply not know?
(Professor Green) I can only speak for my own institution,
but others operate similar schemes. We have run for eight years
now a Compact Scheme. In fact, a number of universities run compact.
There are different compact schemes. Ours gives credit for the
achievement of key skills. That will change with curriculum 2000.
We have mapped those youngsters. Many of them are youngsters who
would not come in with standard entrance. That is important. We
have had a considerable success, as have other universities, like
Surrey and so on. There are not vast numbers because you have
to put a lot of effort into support. That is worth it but you
do have to put the effort there for which the universities are
not funded.
473. We can say then that the fact of prior
involvement in FE is a definite benefit, a definite advantage,
when you are trying to bring in people from a non-traditional
university background?
(Professor Green) That is certainly so, speaking from
my own institution, yes.
Chairman
474. May we bring in Alan at this point. You
are the assistant registrar at Cambridge. Many of us would like
to have your views.
(Dr Clark) Actually on this question we have noticed—we
are recruiting both nationally and internationally—an increase
in the good applicants who are coming to us from local FE colleges.
That is in the last two or three years. This is partly as a result
of the hard work of the FE colleges themselves but also of good
connections between universities and colleges and the FE colleges
which, among other things, participation in this regional consortium
has facilitated.
475. I am not asking you to say this specifically
for Cambridge but to make a general observation, but would it
be fair to say that the sorts of links between FE colleges and
universities are, generally speaking, relatively recent phenomena
in the last two or three years?
(Dr Clark) No. They have been going for decades but
they have only developed further recently.
476. How do you develop these?
(Dr Clark) Partly through the initiative of senior
people in the FE college. FE is a very managed system. But also
through enthusiasm at a teaching level within the universities,
to make contact with particular departments and courses in FE
colleges, and especially those who are co-ordinating courses like
access courses.
(Professor Green) May I give you a case study. The
university of which I head up the regional office in our university,
that has 22 FE colleges working very closely, one of which is
Thurrock College. Essex University have a similar relationship,
but not so many colleges. In those local centres there are increasingly
wide ranges of HE courses, which are running alongside FE courses.
These are not just addressing 18 year-olds but also the mature
student market and encouraging people to take those programmes
at a local centre. It does not involve new buildings. They are
existing institutions. Many of the students feel very comfortable
in those institutions—maybe sometimes too comfortable—but
they are used to those institutions. They are getting taught at
a ratio probably better than they would in the university. But
they need that support. We have something like 2,000 students
like that in any one year doing that. That is a lot from a community.
Dr Harris
477. My colleague, Gordon Marsden, did not have
time to finish the quote in that article. Mr Kasparian, one of
your students at Thurrock, said: "I just want to earn money.
I want to work myself up and become a stockbroker and have a car
and a nice house. "Most students are skint" is the end
of the quotation. How much do you think fear of debt—and,
indeed being, skint as a student—is a factor contrasting
between hot spots and cold spots?
(Mr Wallace) If I can answer that first, Chair. It
is a factor for a significant number of students. That is something
that has changed and developed in the last few years. The changes
in students' financing and students' grants, etcetera, which have
been put there for good purposes but which have obviously produced
the result of a potential debt. So, yes, for some students it
is a factor. It does not answer everything by any means. He was
speaking for a cohort of students, certainly very articulately,
as students from Thurrock always do.
478. You summarise at 6.3,6.4, that financial
barriers rank high as reasons not to continue with education.
These issues received the highest responses in the cold spots.
But you interestingly showed an interesting progression of fear
as the year groups went up in your student analysis. The number
who cited they could not afford it went up from 10 per cent to
32 per cent between years 10 and 13. Could you comment on that.
(Professor Green) You have also to take into account,
as I am sure you do, that during that period of time the actual
grant system was changing. In one sense, one has to set it in
the context of what was going on in the external environment.
Certainly from this study, and another one which was done, was
that this gradual concern came much sharper into focus as they
faced making a decision and a choice about whether they were going
to higher education or not. In other words, as they did more research,
which many of us encouraged them to do obviously—and there
were a lot of talks undertaken by the schools liaison teams, debt
counselling about the grant situation, loans—that realisation
began to dawn by the time they got to year 13. You find that.
479. It is interesting. First, I thought it
was the latter on reading that, as people do more research, but
from what you are saying this is an active time-based analysis
which may, therefore, be influenced by policy factors on the outside
as they get more coverage perhaps.
(Professor Green) We were sampling by year, so I cannot
say that Year 10 would respond the same way as Year 13, because
we were not applying over that four year period. What we were
doing was taking a sample within the same socioeconomic group,
which would suggest that that is exactly the case.
1 Not printed. Back
2
Supplementary memorandum, page 121. Back
|
