The Office for Students has today published an independent report evaluating the Uni Connect programme. Commenting on this, Dr Richard Boffey, Head of London Higher’s widening participation division AccessHE said:
“As a delivery partner in the Uni Connect programme through our AccessHE division, London Higher welcomes the independent evaluation of Uni Connect published today, which sets out a path to much-needed stability and longer-term certainty for the programme. We are encouraged by the report’s positive findings regarding Uni Connect’s impact and its recommendation to fund a version of the programme for a 3-5 year period in future.
Several urgent questions remain unanswered by the report, however. In particular, it does not form a judgement on what Uni Connect’s core mission should be in future, nor what an appropriate balance is for the programme between serving as a ‘connective tissue’ between local stakeholders in collaborative outreach and delivering that outreach itself. The Office for Students, in its response to today’s report, has promised Uni Connect partnerships that it will provide ‘clear strategic direction to their work’ and London Higher stands ready to work with the regulator and wider sector to help determine that direction.
It will be important to ensure that clear strategic direction at national level enables Uni Connect partnerships to address access and participation challenges at regional and sub-regional level. London Higher made this point in late 2020 when Uni Connect was last subject to consultation and we remain of the view that the regional orientation of Uni Connect partnerships, working within a national framework, will maximise their contribution to equality of opportunity in English HE.”
