Abstract
At a time when interventions in widening access to, and participation in, higher education aim to maximise impact by engaging with schools located in the most deprived communities, school pupils in rural communities, and who experience deprivation, are, in practice, less likely to benefit. Using statistics available from the Scottish government, we show that state secondary schools located in Scottish remote or rural areas are not well served by the indicators capturing socio‐economic, educational, or geographical deprivation widely used in the selection of schools for these outreach interventions. We construct a marker that identifies schools facing higher levels of deprivation than the Scottish average. We argue that (1) this marker is a step in the direction towards levelling the playing field between remote or rural schools and urban schools; and (2) it selects a wider range of schools for outreach interventions.
Highlights
At a time when interventions in widening access to, and participation in, higher education (HE) aim to maximise impact by engaging with schools located in the most deprived communities, school pupils in rural communities, and who experience deprivation, are, in practice, less likely to benefit (Donnelly & Gamsu, 2018, p. 28; Bridge Group, 2019)
The schools’ outreach projects funded by the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) on behalf of the Scottish government have only worked with schools which are below the national average of progression to HE (SFC, 2017)
We highlight the possible imbalance in favour of urban schools when limited criteria related to deprivation are taken into account in the selection of schools, or the eligibility of young people who apply for outreach interventions
Summary
At a time when interventions in widening access to, and participation in, higher education (HE) aim to maximise impact by engaging with schools located in the most deprived communities, school pupils in rural communities, and who experience deprivation, are, in practice, less likely to benefit (Donnelly & Gamsu, 2018, p. 28; Bridge Group, 2019). The schools’ outreach projects funded by the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) on behalf of the Scottish government have only worked with schools which are below the national average of progression to HE (SFC, 2017) According to this measure, and as we will later report, a school located in an urban area is as likely to have. In the context of this policy goal, our inference is that state secondary schools located in remote and rural communities could be overlooked by interventions in widening access and participation because of their relatively low proportion of pupils living in the most 20% deprived areas. Our article aims to respond to this question by proposing a school marker that identifies schools facing higher levels of deprivation than the Scottish average This marker could be used by policymakers and relevant stakeholders, in addition to the first SIMD quintile measure. We elaborate on how this marker selects a wider range of schools for outreach interventions
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