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Dr. Howells: I will not give way againwell, I may give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Dr. Francis), who used to be my boss.
We have a huge job to do in trying to raise those aspirations on the ground. It is my job to try to explain the benefits of that funding package to all sorts of students. I have no doubt that the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel) will disagree with me about that, but we must take a far less condescending attitude towards so-called working-class families. They have
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produced brilliant academics. The professor in charge of the CERN project went to Mountain Ash grammar school. His brother was the National Union of Mineworkers lodge secretary at Deep Duffryn colliery. There is nothing to stop these young people going forward. The difference is that he was a Mountain Ash grammar school kid, the same as I was, and we had our aspirations raised. What we have to do is try to raise aspirations throughout society.
Dr. Hywel Francis (Aberavon) (Lab): I was going to help the Minister with that irritation that he was talking about. Peter Evans was one of the students whom we taught 20 years ago. What I am hearing is both encouraging and a little worrying. The picture that is being presented on both sides of the House is specific to full-time and young students. What will OFFA do to assist adult and part-time students?
Dr. Howells: I can certainly tell my hon. Friend what the Government will do. We will make grants more available to part-time students and they will be important. We will talk to universities about part-time students, because it will be a problem for universities and there is no ducking that problem. They can get more money out of full-time students than they can get out of part-time students. My hon. Friend makes a valid point. If we are going to encourage universities to reach out to communities, to provide bursaries and to try to widen access, one of the areas that they will have to look at seriously is part-time students. I expect that to be part of the offer that they make. I would not talk about forcing that upon a university because that is not what we intend to do, but it is an important issue.
Mr. Gibb: Will the Minister give way?
Dr. Howells: If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, let me make absolutely clear what our policy is and what it has always been. Our policy is that universities should be solely and wholly in charge of their own admissions. There should be no externally imposed quotas or targets to admit students from particular backgrounds. OFFA will not have any remit whatever over university admissions. I hope that that has laid the myths to rest.
I want to move on to what the real issues are and what the Government are doing about them. We face an historical and stubborn problem in our society: the underachievement of many young people who come from less advantaged backgrounds. That social class gap starts to appear very early on in the lives of young people, to the detriment of our society and economy. By the time that people enter higher education, the gap in participation between higher and lower social classes remains stubbornly and unacceptably wide. Young people from professional backgrounds are five times more likely to enter HE than those from unskilled backgrounds.
We are determined to continue to address the problem, and we make no apologies for doing so. To ignore it would be grossly irresponsible; we would be denying many with the potential to benefit from higher education the opportunity to do so and denying our industries and services the opportunity to benefit from the skills and knowledge that such people could bring.
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Social engineering is not, and never will be, the way to widen participation. To widen participation in HE, three essential conditions need to be met. The first is attainment. The ultimate driver to widening participation is increasing attainment in schools. It is the Government's responsibility to ensure that, right from the early years, the education system enables every individual to realise their full potential, and we are doing that. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Mrs. Campbell) said, this year's exam results were the best ever for those aged 14 and 16, and at A-level.
The second condition is raising aspirations. We have talked a good deal about that. It grieves me that there are so many bright young people with very good A-levels who are not applying to the best universities, in terms of the money that those universities receive for research and so on. Schools, colleges and universities are already doing vital work to raise both attainment and aspirations by offering, for example, summer schools, master classes, mentoring, visits to universities and talks by undergraduates or university staff. We strongly support those efforts and the commitment that is being shown to widening participation across the HE sector.We also recognise that the Government have a role to play, which is why we are supporting universities' efforts through the "Aimhigher" programme and other initiatives.
The third condition that needs to be met is applications; applications, not admissions, are the real issue in access. As I have said, the evidence shows that many young people with top A-level results are not applying to the universities that may be the best match for their talents.
I am proud of what the Government are doing to broaden participation in HE through the new student support arrangements, which will make higher education free at the point of use and fair at the point of repayment. It is worth pointing out that all students will benefit from greater support while they are studying and all graduates will repay less per week than they do now. Those earning up to £15,000 will not have to make any repayments and those earning £18,000 a year will pay just over £5 a week, so no matter what their social or financial background, students will have nothing to fear when considering whether to enter higher education. I challenge anyone to find a better deal.
I hope that I have made our position clear, so that we can stop debating the myth of Government interference in university admissions and talk instead about the real issues. There is no Government interference and no admissions conspiracy. We are not in the business of social engineering; we are in the business of seeking to extend opportunity and finding ways to open access to HE for those from disadvantaged backgrounds with the potential to benefit. We are proud of the steps that we are taking to achieve that goal and of the efforts being made across the HE sector to develop and seek out talent in all parts of society.
Mr. David Rendel (Newbury) (LD):
The Minister has just challenged us to find a better deal; he may find that, at the next general election, when we offer the young people of our country the chance to get rid of top-up fees and current tuition fees, and offer to introduce grants for less well-off students, they think that that is a better deal.
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The most prosperous countries are those that invest the most in higher education. Ensuring that our most capable citizens get a place at university is critical to the future of our economy, so there is no question but that university admissions policy is an important subject for us to debate. However, it is staggering that the official Opposition have chosen this subject as its top priority. Had this been the Liberal Democrats' Opposition day, there is no way that we would have let the occasion slip by without using it to allow the House to scrutinise last week's hugely significant change of policy on our troops in Iraq. Matters of life and death and war and peace are the most crucial that any Government have to decide, yet the official Opposition simply have nothing to say. So university admissions it is.
There are two important principles. The first is that access to higher education should be fair. It should not depend on people's ability to pay or on their background. It should depend only on their ability to make the most of that higher education. That is why we oppose any tax on learning. Labour taxes learning by imposing tuition fees and top-up fees. The Conservatives intend to tax learning by imposing commercial rates of interest on student loans. Under both parties, access is about a person's ability to earn, not to learn.
The second principle is academic freedom. The state has no businessI hope that we all agree on thisinterfering in academic decision making. It is not competent to do so. The state has a legitimate and important role in ensuring a level playing field in university admissions, but it should not interfere in the management of admissions. That is the crucial distinction. Hon. Members will be aware that Conrad Russell's contribution to discussions on higher education will be sorely missed. As he so succinctly put it in another place:
"the market cannot select and the state cannot manage"[Official Report, House of Lords, 14 June 2004; Vol. 662, c. 569.]
Starting from those two principles, Conservative policies fail on two counts. First, the motion speaks about "academic merit", but their policy would result in some top-class students from disadvantaged backgrounds being excluded from university by the fear of debt. Secondly, the Conservatives agree that the state is a bad manager of higher education, but they show no understanding that selection cannot be left to the market if we are to ensure fairness in admissions. The motion suggests that Government intervention is a threat full stop, but to allow universities complete freedom to use taxpayers' money without accountability is an abrogation of responsibility that is as short-sighted as it is unjust.
Recently published performance indicators from the Higher Education Statistics Agency reveal only a marginal increase in representation from traditionally under-represented groups. In particular, the top research institutions continue to lag behind. The Sutton Trust finds that pupils from independent schools are far more likely to attend a leading university than their counterparts in the state sector with the same grades. Its report states:
"While 45 per cent. of independent school students who obtain the equivalent of an A and two Bs go to a leading university, only 26 per cent. of state school students achieving the same grades do so."
That is not acceptable. It is the duty of public policy makers to do something about it. Taxpayers' money is involved and it is shocking to see the Conservatives so cavalier about its use.
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