After months of anticipation, the post-16 education and skills white paper has finally landed.
For many across the sector, the wait has been worth it. There are bold commitments on funding, skills pathways and structural reform. But for those of us focused on widening participation there are the green shoots of ideas but very little detail and the group of students who are at most risk to lack of equality of access – care experienced and estranged students – are barely even mentioned. The paper feels more like a promising prologue than a full chapter.
There are areas of positive progress. The previously trailed increase in maintenance support, which will help students better manage rising living costs – a critical issue for those without family safety nets.
Plus the report commits to “provide extra support for care leavers, some of the most vulnerable in our society, who will automatically become eligible to receive the maximum rate of loan.” We would want to see these extended to estranged students as well as care experienced young people as we know many report financial hardship without the support of parents to top up income. Data from the Student Academic Experience Survey showed us that both care experienced and estranged students work a statistically significantly higher number of hours per week – 11.3 and 11.1 hours respectively – than 8.8 hours non-care experienced students at 8.8 hours.
But we must await further detail to see whether this makes any material difference for care leavers (and hopefully estranged students) – given that they’re currently already eligible for the maximum maintenance loan, and this maximum doesn’t cover anywhere near enough to support their living expenses, as recent work on minimum income standards has shown.
A richer picture
The promise of better information for applicants, combining UCAS data with graduate outcomes and completion rates, is an important move toward transparency and fairer choice. The work that UUK, Sutton Trust and UCAS have already started in this space is welcome but ensuring consistency will be key. This is especially important to consider when we know from UCAS research that 60 per cent of surveyed applicants said “they did not receive guidance at school around applying to higher education, specific to their status as a care-experienced student.”
We’re also encouraged by the focus on regional disparities and disadvantage cold-spots, especially in coastal and low-participation areas. These are often the places where care experienced and estranged students are most at risk of being left behind.
But while these commitments signal progress, there’s still much to be drawn out around widening participation. Care experienced and estranged students remain largely invisible in mainstream policy design. They’re not always captured in data. They’re rarely the headline. But they matter (which is why we welcomed HESA’s planned exploration of the issues involved in publishing data on this group of students more regularly). These students face some of the steepest barriers to access, retention and success.
There are pockets of excellent practice and growing awareness of this group of students that is driving change in some areas. The commitment by Russell Group universities to develop a consistent offer of support is welcomed as is seeing more FE and HE institutions achieving the NNECL Quality Mark. These examples demonstrate that progress is achievable when there is institutional will and leadership – but there is still such little evidence about what works.
At the Unite Foundation, we were pleased to see recognition that accommodation is a key issue. For care experienced and estranged students, having somewhere safe and stable to live is not just a nice-to-have – it’s a fundamental prerequisite for participation in education. If we’re serious about widening participation, then addressing the barrier of housing insecurity must be central to the conversation. And yet, the white paper is light on detail about how government will support access to accommodation. This is a missed opportunity.
The Unite Foundation’s own scholarship programme remains the only intervention to meet OfS Level 2 standards for impact on retention, progression, and completion for this group. It’s a powerful testament to what targeted, sustained support can achieve – but it also highlights how little evidence we have about what works.
The journey continues
So while the white paper offers a welcome direction of travel, it’s not the final destination. I’m pleased to be joining the national access and participation task and finish group, chaired by access and participation champion Kathryn Mitchell, to work within government to ensure that we’re embedding care experienced and estranged students at the heart of this work as the detail starts to emerge.
If we’re serious about change we need more than just warm words. We need system-wide commitments that embed equity in funding, housing, student support and success metrics. We need to listen to students and design policy that reflects their lived realities.
The wrapping paper is off. Now it’s time to see what’s inside – and to make sure care experienced and estranged students aren’t left out of the picture.
