Perspectives on Access to Higher Education

Practice and Research

Sam Broadhead, Rosemarie Davies, Anthony Hudson

• Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781787569935
• Topic: Pedagogía
• Subtopic: Educación superior

Access education has been through many changes since its beginnings in the late 1960s. Recent shifts in the academic landscape including standardization, grading, and new tensions in higher education raise difficult questions for educators regarding the future of access education. This book critically examines various aspects of Access education from a historical perspective. It proposes that there are particular 'Access' values that are shared by practitioners that can be at odds with the needs of higher education. Wider questions concerning funding and accountability underpinned by neoliberalism have also had an impact on Access education. The authors, practitioners and researchers of Access education, gather their insights in this timely book, grounded in authentic experience. They explore the ways in which policies and procedures have been developed in light of these tensions. By drawing particular attention to the voices of Access practitioners and highlighting the current constraints around curriculum design this book will prove invaluable for leaders, administrators, researchers and practitioners in further and higher education.

CHAPTER 1

ACCESS TO HIGHER EDUCATION: FROM MARGIN TO MAINSTREAM

Samantha Broadhead

1.1. CHAPTER INTRODUCTION

This chapter considers the development of the Access to higher education (HE) course from a historical point of view in order to show the tensions that have existed in the different perspectives held by practitioners, institutions and governmental policy makers about the value and function of Access education. For some commentators Access courses were examples of radical, practitioner-led, collaborative and student-centred education (Burke, 2002; Parry, 1996; Williams, 1997). For others they became increasingly more like ‘A’ levels and over time became very narrow in their scope. It could be argued that access education should be about a wider access to knowledge production, not necessarily to do with going to university (Stowell, 1995; Tight, 1993). It is also possible to suggest that when Access courses were inculcated within the mainstream educational system in the late 1980s, practitioners had to fight to hold onto some of the attributes that made Access distinctive. For example, curricula were designed with the locality in mind rather than being nationally prescribed. Policy documents and the research undertaken for publications such as the Journal of Access Studies have been invaluable in telling this story, as are the narratives provided by Brian and Ruth who are Access practitioners who have worked in this field since the 1970s and have lived through many of the changes discussed in this chapter.

Three historical moments within Access education are examined in this account. Firstly, the early examples of access provision in the 1970s are explored in relation to radicalism of the access project. Secondly, a significant moment in 1987 is analysed where Access (with a capital A) was officially proclaimed as the third way into higher education. Thirdly, Access in the 1990s is explored, drawing upon the discourses around widening participation and marketisation. This will set the stage for the next chapter, which considers the current arrangements for the monitoring and validating of AHED courses. A critical look at the development and implementation of grading strategies and grading descriptors for AHED, which occurred in the late 2000s, is then discussed.

1.2. ACCESS – A RADICAL EDUCATION?

Access courses were distinctive because they were student-centred, practitioner-led and encouraged the students to draw upon their own experiences. They also included advice and guidance as part of the course to help students think about how they could progress in the future. The aim of the Access course was to build a student’s confidence and self-esteem. The curricula were devised in relation to the local contexts in which the students lived and learned. The radical ways of constructing knowledge derived from the feminist movement was a big influence on the philosophy and values of Access educators (Burke, 2002). In addition, the transformative, critical pedagogies of Freire (1972) can be seen in the approaches used by Access teachers.

1.3. ASPECTS OF ACCESS THAT CAN BE PERCEIVED AS RADICAL AND MARGINAL

The historical origins of the Access movement, it could be argued, began in the nineteenth century originally being focused on adult education rather than higher education (Williams, 1997). Many Access practitioners often cite Freire (1972) as an example because his approach promoted social justice, political literacy, empowerment and community development. Williams (1997) suggested that the early Access movement drew upon a radical approach to education that asks for a fundamental shift in the distribution of cultural capital.

Furthermore, Corrigan (1992) argued that the Access movement was a change initiated from ‘below’, outside of state control and sponsorship. It was seen to be concerned with structural rather than individual inequalities and was very different from the liberal-meritocratic position. Therefore, Access education for some commentators was not concerned with giving educational opportunities to individuals but was about making radical changes in the structures of education that supported and reproduced privilege.

As higher education was expanding, supposedly from an elite to a mass system, Access education became more associated with widening access to higher education in particular. Practitioners and researchers still argued that Access was a radical project. The purpose of Access routes into higher education was seen to be not just about developing the individual or even social groups but to act as a catalyst for community development and to change higher education itself (Connelly, 1991; Parry, 1989). It was assumed that the greater diversity of students entering higher education would drive changes in pedagogy and assessment in higher education.

Access courses were different to mainstream formal education not only because of their radical approach but also because they were situated in local communities and curricula were constructed according to local needs and interests. The places where Access courses were taught were diverse – further education colleges, prison education departments and community centres for example. The Trade Unions also facilitated access styles of teaching and learning.

The origins of Access courses lie in a community development model, which addresses itself to the empowerment of the local community at all levels. (Connelly, 1991, p. 41)

Similarly, Kearney and Diamond (1990) wrote that Access education addressed itself to the empowerment of local communities and had more in common with social work or continuing education rather than a narrow aim of sending people to university.

Access courses were different because they also required collaboration between different institutions in order to be successful. Often partnerships or collaborations between various sectors and institutions were facilitated by the Open College Networks or Federations (North West England, West and South Yorkshire, the West Midlands and London).

As Access education developed in the late twentieth century, it became the role of the federations to develop and maintain links and to accredit learning. They allowed ‘credits’ to be transferred between different institutions and sectors. Many of the regional networks belonged to a National Open College Network, so that credits could be recognised across the nation. Credits were used as a personal record, a basis of further study or to support job applications. The achievement of credits raised the confidence of people without formal qualifications (McGiveny, 1990). Parry and Percy (1995) have described the Access movement as being mildly radical, local and interstitial, which seems to apply to the very early Access courses of the 1960s and 1970s.

1.4. EARLY ACCESS COURSES

The development of Access education coincided with new thinking about who should benefit from higher education. The importance of widening access to higher education was signified by the Robbins Report’s ‘guiding principle’ that higher education should be available to everyone who was qualified to participate (1963, p. 8). According to the influential Robbins Report, a key aim of higher education was that it ‘should be to produce not mere specialists but rather cultivated men and women’ (1963, p. 6). This aim necessitated new forms of curriculum, particularly for the ‘new universities’ ‘to give the student a more liberal education […] broad enough for them to emerge as educated human beings’ (Thistlethwaite, 1966, p. 58). The early Access courses came about when the discourses around increasing access to higher education stressed the developmental and human-centred aspects of education rather than its individualistic and instrumental functions. In the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s there were local, small, separate and different types of access activity rather than a national strategy for ‘second-chance’ education.

There were courses that enabled mature students to enter higher education before 1978 when there was a formal call from the government to create Access courses. Enid Hutchinson claimed to have set up one of the first Access course in 1966 at ‘City Lit’ (City Lit was part of London’s literary institute movement, which came into being after the First World War in 1919). It catered for adult students who sought education that was not necessarily vocational and could be related to leisure (Hutchinson & Hutchinson, 1978). She argued that it was different to the type of courses taught before because it comprised a programme of subjects – English Language and Literature, Social Studies, Mathematics, Speech and Drama – and provided advice and guidance (Hutchinson & Hutchinson, 1978, p. 13). A lack of resources for the natural sciences was one of the reasons cited as to why the curriculum was designed with a humanities and social science bias. The programme was called Fresh Horizons and many of the students were women. It was aimed at adults seeking part-time, non-vocational studies who potentially wanted a career. Although job and career counselling was part of the course, its main aim was to meet the educational needs of students wishing to rebuild or achieve for the first time as part of their personal development. The first cohort found progression opportunities into colleges of education.

Hutchinson and Hutchinson (1986) later described the activity of the Swarthmore Centre in Leeds where Fresh Start courses were initiated in 1975. They offered students linked subjects, information and counselling about job prospects and further study. It was described as a developmental course rather than a ‘training’ course. During 1975–1983 up to 300 students had taken the Fresh Start courses. In 1979, a grant from the Equal Opportunities Commission gave funds for a part-time tutor to be employed; after 1980, the centre funded the post. Swarthmore is a full-time independent adult education centre founded in 1909, supported by the then Leeds Local Education Authority and managed by a voluntary committee. Voluntary aid and funds allowed a crèche and playgroup to be attached to the provision. Students paid subsidised fees. The ‘Foundation’ course of 10 hours a week over two days covered psychology, literature, sociology and history with communication skills and tutorial sessions. Courses were inter-connected with flexible movement in response to student wishes and tutorial support. Based on the development of study skills linked to the subjects taught, homework was incrementally more difficult and voluntary but most students undertook it. Part of the course was a residential at the Northern College subsidised by the local education authority. Hutchinson and Hutchinson (1986) described how funding for adults focused on long courses and there needed to be a wider scope for funding smaller part-time provision.

Brian, an experienced Access practitioner who has seen Access go through many iterations, started his teaching career at the Swarthmore Centre. He is still employed in the education sector after 40 years.

I was working with a fellow teacher whose husband ran the Swarthmore Centre in Leeds [an independent education centre that ran adult education courses]. Rather than running leisure classes, the centre aimed to deliver more ‘senior’ or ‘foundation’ classes aimed at part-time students. I was offered work there to run an adult education foundation course in art and design [in 1977] and in order to do this I compressed the Foundation course that was taught at the Art College and taught it one day a week at the Swarthmore Centre. It got really popular but it wasn’t ‘kite-marked’. So I showed the work to the Head of Fine Art at the local Polytechnic. He suggested that he could talk to the students with their work and suggest what level they were achieving. He said that some of them were producing work that could be equated to the first year of a degree. (Brian, 2018)

Brian went on to say that ‘You could have someone with a previous degree working next to someone who had no formal qualifications’. The Fresh Start courses at Leeds, which Brian refers to, share many of the features of other similar courses. They were situated within communities and had informal links with the polytechnics, colleges and HEIs. All the provision also had advice and guidance for students so they could plan their learning goals in order to meet their personal aspirations. Practitioners committed to Access education were innovative in the ways they facilitated the progression onto higher education. The activity was planned in an ad hoc manner, responding to local student needs by tutors who were committed to their students and the social justice aspects of access (Lieven, 1989). These courses could be described as marginal within the education system, operating under the ‘radar’ of national government.

1.5. THE CALL FOR ACCESS COURSES

It has been suggested that the roots of Access education can be traced back to a working-class, radical educational tradition, but Parry (1996) described the Russell Committee report in 1972 as a starting point for a more formal recognition of Access courses. The Committee was concerned with provision of non-vocational education to adults that was not intended for those who sought formal qualifications. It recommended that adult education through General Certificate of Education (GCE) examination boards should extend their formal education and prepare mature studen...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Access to HIGHER EDUCATION: from Margin to Mainstream
• Chapter 2 Access to HIGHER EDUCATION: Monitoring and Standardisation
• Chapter 3 Learning on a Bespoke Access Programme
• Chapter 4 The Trust between Access to HIGHER EDUCATION Students and Their Tutors: A Practitioner Research Project
• Chapter 5 Accessing Postgraduate Education
• Conclusions
• Index