The coronavirus pandemic could set back progress on widening access to university, Scotland’s commissioner for fair access has said. In his annual report, published today, Peter Scott says there is a risk the work underpinning the progress made by Scottish universities towards meeting their targets – including measures to ensure more college students get full credit for their studies when moving to university – could be overshadowed by the more urgent challenges posed by the impact of Covid-19.

Using minimum entry requirements to attract more students from socially deprived backgrounds or enabling more Higher National (HN) students to receive full credit when they switch to degree courses in universities may become a lower priority as universities focus on the predicted loss of international income, the commissioner says.

As part of efforts to curb the spread of the virus, the Scottish government closed schools and cancelled exams. The commissioner's report states this "will exacerbate the existing inequalities between school pupils, potential higher education applicants and students in terms of access to material and financial resources".

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Widening access to university

Scotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon has set the sector a target of having 20 per cent of entrants coming from the 20 per cent most deprived communities in Scotland by 2030. According to today’s report, much of which was written before the full impact of the coronavirus pandemic was clear, the interim target that by 2021, 16 per cent of full-time first-degree Scottish domiciled entrants to higher education institutions in Scotland should come from the 20 per cent most deprived communities “has effectively been met two years early”.

“But the rate of progress, a gain of 0.2 percentage points in the most recent year, has been slower than the previous year, when there was a gain of 1.8 percentage points. So there may now be fewer grounds for optimism that the next interim target - 18 per cent of full-time first-degree entrants by 2026 - and the final target - 20 per cent of all HE entrants by 2030 - will be easy to achieve.”

Progress towards allowing higher national (HN) applicants from colleges for first-degree courses full credit “continues to be slow, despite the work of the National Articulation Forum”, the report says. Only half receive advanced standing – which means they receive full credit for their college studies and enter straight into the second year of a four-year degree from an HNC and straight into third year from an HND – and a substantial number receive no credit at all.

“Although the difficulty of matching HN and degree curriculum and learning approaches should not be underestimated, there still seems to be a deep-rooted resistance to developing truly open and flexible pathways for learners between colleges and universities within an integrated tertiary education system,” says the report.

It calls for an integrated tertiary education system, rather than discrete university and college, higher education and further education, education and training sectors. This, it says, should be “vigorously promoted in Scotland”. “In particular, there needs to be step-change in the proportion of HN students entering degree courses who are given advanced standing.”

The report says that all universities had now developed, and published on their websites, minimum entry requirements (MERs) for applicants from SIMD20 areas and suffering from other forms of disadvantage. It also highlighted the progress made through bridging programmes.

Shona Struthers, chief executive of Colleges Scotland, said there were "still too many students not being given the credit for qualifications already achieved, which is a point Sir Peter Scott’s report emphatically makes, so we will continue to work with the Scottish government and universities to ensure that college students across Scotland are given due recognition for prior learning and can progress on to university, if they wish, without any unnecessary repetition". 

She added: “Colleges are working well with universities to provide a wide range of pathways for students to progress into university courses but, as the report states, for the flexible pathways to work more effectively, enhanced collaboration across the tertiary sector is required. 

“We agree with the commissioner’s view that, regrettably, Covid-19 is likely to have a significant adverse effect as – in line with previous recessions – the most disadvantaged are usually the hardest impacted, and, therefore, widening access will be even more critical over the next few years."  

A spokesperson for Universities Scotland said: “Sir Peter’s report reinforces that universities are not only on track but ahead of schedule to meet the 2021 interim targets on widening access. That’s a very positive position to be in just now but we absolutely agree that there’s no opportunity to pause there; it is only going to get harder and he is right to highlight that the coronavirus pandemic poses a range of additional obstacles to widening access at all levels of the education system. Universities were quick to offer reassurance in early April that the pandemic would not divert their efforts and we’ve made widening access a focus of our discussions with the SQA over alternatives to the exam diet in schools. Sir Peter’s emphasis on the need to sustain funding to support widening access is very welcome.  

“Last year, Universities Scotland’s focus was on supporting universities to deliver minimum entry requirements and guaranteed offers for applicants with experience of care. This year, we’ve invested a lot of time with students and with our partners in the college sector looking at how to increase the amount of articulation with full credit given. We’re excited to be able to share the outcomes of this work in the next couple of months.”

Karen Watt, chief executive of the Scottish Funding Council, said: “This report shows very positive progress by Scottish universities in becoming more accessible to the most disadvantaged students. Through the Covid-19 crisis and beyond, fair access to higher education, and supporting the work of colleges in enhancing opportunity for thousands of learners across Scotland who come from disadvantaged backgrounds, must remain a key priority”