Scottish universities should lower entry grades for poorer students, report says

'By failing to fairly distribute the opportunities necessary for all of our people to flourish, Scotland is missing out on the economic potential of some of our finest talents'

(Getty)

Scottish universities should lower entry grades for poorer students in a bid to tackle elitism, according to a major new report.

The report recommends students from disadvantaged backgrounds should be able to gain places on courses with the "minimum" academic standards needed to complete a degree.

Published by the Scottish government’s Commission on Widening Access, the Blueprint for Fairness report said action was required for poor students, even if it meant wealthier children being displaced or Scotland’s most prestigious universities slipping down the league table.

Commission chair Dame Ruth Silver said: “To be clear, our position is not that every child should go to university or that this option should be held above all others, but we do believe that they should have the chance to do so.

“By failing to fairly distribute the opportunities necessary for all of our people to flourish, Scotland is missing out on the economic potential of some of our finest talents.”

Ms Silver said the problem of access was "rooted in family homes and local communities, in the complex mix of factors that shape aspiration and in the cultural differences between socioeconomic groups".

The commission, which was set up by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon in 2015, said universities should have lower admission thresholds for every course offered by 2019 and access thresholds should be separate to standard entrance requirements.

It comes after the commission found entry requirements had risen beyond what was required to succeed in degree level study.

Other recommendation include ensuring at least 10 per cent of full-time first degree entrants - rising to 20 per cent by 2030 - at every Scottish university were taken from the 20 per cent most deprived backgrounds by 2021.

Scotland's latest figures show students from the 20 per cent wealthiest communities are more than four times as likely to go to university than the 20 per cent poorest.

The report said the problem of closing the gap between the country's best and worst schools was made worse by the “unsystematic unfairness evident in the admissions and selection processes of institutions”.

It suggests Scottish universities should proactively promote the new entry requirements to schools, pupils, parents and local authorities in deprived areas.

However, there are concerns the proposal will displace other applicants from wealthier backgrounds.

Education secretary Angela Constance welcomed the report and said Scotland needed to do more to help young people from poorer backgrounds get to university.

She said: “Scotland has a social, moral and economic duty to achieve fair access.”

She added that the situation for poorer students had improved since 2007

Universities Scotland Convener, Professor Sir Pete Downes, the principal and vice-chancellor of the University of Dundee, said: “Some recommendations, including those that focus on minimum entry requirements and guaranteed places, are going to be challenging for universities and for the Scottish Government, but we will not shy away from that,” according to the Scotsman.

The report has been based on the First Minister’s ambition that a child born today in one of the region’s most deprived communities will, by the time he or she leaves school, have the same chance of entering university as a child born in one our least deprived communities.

A spokesperson for the University of Glasgow said: "We warmly welcome the recommendations that have been made.

"'A Blueprint for fairness' sets challenging priorities to all parts of the education system and to government to address inequality in higher education but does so in a holistic way that recognises that this approach needs to start at a very early stage of a child’s life.

"We welcome the commission’s recognition of the strong support already given by the sector to encourage widening access. At the University of Glasgow this includes extensive and extremely successful outreach programmes which ensure that we recruit the most able and ambitious students regardless of socio-economic background."