Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to support estranged and care-experienced students in higher education.

The department is committed to ensuring that care experienced and estranged people can access, participate and achieve in higher education (HE).

All looked-after children must have a personal education plan, which should set out the support needed to help realise their short and long-term academic outcomes. To ensure they have a greater chance of achieving the prior attainment needed to access HE, the government provides £14 million per year of additional funding to support looked-after children up to the age of 19. This is administered by virtual school heads and can be used on attainment raising activity such as tuition, mentoring or careers advice and other activities based on the individual needs of each looked-after child.

In addition to a statutory £2,000 Care Leavers in HE bursary, all HE providers registered with the Office for Students (OfS) that intend to charge higher level tuition fees must have an Access and Participation Plan (APPs) approved by the OfS. These plans articulate how providers will improve equality of opportunity for underrepresented groups. Care experienced and estranged students are classed as ‘at risk’ groups in the Equality of Opportunity Risk Register and providers should take account of inequalities they may experience when developing their APPs.