Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans she has to increase the number of individuals aged 24 and over in part-time and full-time education.
The Government is committed to ensuring all individuals have the opportunity to make the most of their potential. The Industrial Strategy Green Paper, published in January, outlined some of the challenges that adults face when considering re-entering education. This year’s Budget therefore committed £40million to fund pilots to test ambitious, new approaches to remove these barriers.
We want to increase participation in higher education by older and part-time students, and we have taken action to support those who choose to study part-time. These measures include:
In addition, we are extending undergraduate maintenance loans to distance learners from academic year 2019/20, subject to the development of a robust control regime.
We are also removing barriers to accelerated courses. Evidence shows that accelerated courses appeal particularly to mature students who want to retrain and enter the workplace more quickly than a traditional course would permit. We have already made provisions in the Higher Education and Research Act 2017 to remove a key barrier to the growth of these courses, and will now consult on implementation and setting a new fee cap specifically for accelerated courses in secondary legislation.
The Office for Fair Access has also asked universities to consider the different barriers mature learners may face in accessing, succeeding in, and progressing from higher education, and to consider what more they can do to attract and support part-time learners across the whole student lifecycle as part of their Access Agreements.