Imperial trailing in equal access to education
Figures released by the government are scoured through and commented upon by Padraic Calpin, Politics Editor
At the core of student opposition to the College’s decision to close Garden Hall and open a new residence in North Acton is a concern for Imperial’s less well off students. Campus Services seems to have demonstrated an utter disregard for the possibility that poorer students may be forced out off campus, separated from their classmates and their union. This raises difficult questions; what proportion of Imperial’s students come from less privileged economic backgrounds, and how do we compare to other institutions? Is Imperial ‘needs blind’, or a science, medicine and engineering finishing school?
To answer this, Felix has turned to the Performance Indicator data sets made available by the Higher Education Statistics Authority (HESA), which aim to evaluate the success of UK HE institutions in widening student provision, teaching outcomes and other factors. Unfortunately, currently available datasets only run to the 2010/11 admissions period, meaning the impact of the fees increase cannot be considered, but the data speaks volumes.
The tables give the proportion of young, first-time degree students coming from State Schools, as well as the percentage coming from poorer socio-economic backgrounds (National Statistics Socio-Economic Classes 4-7). The latter measure is an established national measure of socio-economic background based on current employment that was developed for the 2001 census.
Imperial is consistently significantly (p<0.05) below the national average in both measures, with an average of 62.9% of students coming from state schools, and 17.25% from NS-SEC classes 4-7 over the period 06/07-10/11. This is compared to the UK averages of 88.4% and 30% respectively; almost 4 in 10 Imperial students come from private education, and the vast majority come from more privileged economic backgrounds.
That said, it is interesting to compare our performance with that of near-rivals and fellow Russell Group institutions, Oxford, Cambridge and UCL. In both measures, we perform comparably to UCL, and consistently better than Oxbridge in terms of equal access to learning. Considering the statistics also aim to evaluate to what extent institutions can widen participation in Higher Education, the lack of any improvement across the years is also concerning.
However, for a more valid assessment of Imperial’s performance, we should consider the “Benchmark” performance put together by the HESA. The benchmark scores attempt to control for other factors, to give a measure of how well a given institution ‘should’ be performing based on factors such as location, subject, gender and ethnicity of applicants. Significant variation away from these benchmarks can be used to infer additional factors affecting an institution’s admissions, or may suggest an influence that has not been accounted for.
When it comes to percentage of students from state schools, Imperial performed significantly below its benchmark percentage every year in the period 06/07-10/11. The picture for socio-economic class was more varied, with Imperial alternately punching above and below expected values, but never with a statistically significant variation.
That Imperial doesn’t vary significantly from the expected proportion from lower NS-SEC classes, despite the higher than average number of students from private schools, is perhaps testament to the College’s support provision. For example, Study Support Bursaries are available to all UK students receiving a maintenance grant. The below expected percentageof state school students, however, lacks a clear explanation.
Taken alongside the nationally low averages of Imperial and other Russell Group institutions, the data seems to reveal structural problems in the British education system. Imperial’s high grade requirements mean that students from better off backgrounds can end up over represented.
The new Pro-Rector (Education) has stated that the College has expanded its outreach programme, aiming to encourage more students to apply to university and to Imperial. But outreach is just one aspect that can influence access to Higher Education from less privileged backgrounds, and, as these statistics highlight, the College can still improve substantially. Positive discrimination policies, such as flexible grade boundaries, do not necessitate sacrificing academic standards.
