Universities urged to recruit more white working-class boys (From St Helens Star)

Universities urged to recruit more white working-class boys

9:03am Thursday 3rd January 2013 in News

Universities Minister David Willetts

Universities should recruit more white, working-class boys in the same way they target students from other disadvantaged groups, it will be suggested.

Universities Minister David Willetts says white, working-class teenage boys should be categorised alongside ethnic minorities and those from disadvantaged communities when universities look to attract students.

His suggestion comes against a backdrop of a drastic fall in the number of university applications from men.

Speaking to the Independent newspaper, Mr Willetts said the Office for Fair Access (Offa), the university access watchdog, "can look at a range of disadvantaged groups - social class and ethnicity, for instance - when it comes to access agreements, so I don't see why they couldn't look at white, working-class boys".

Mr Willetts said he would suggest the inclusion of white, working-class boys as a target group for recruitment in university access agreements, which universities have to sign to gain permission to charge higher fees, in a meeting with Professor Les Ebdon, the director of Offa.

Figures from last autumn's intake show a 54,000 fall in men applying to university, which is 13% down on 2011 and four times higher than the reduction from women, the Independent said.

Just 30% of male school-leavers apply to university in 2012, compared to 40% of female school-leavers, according to Ucas.

Mr Willetts told the Independent this was "the culmination of a decades-old trend in our education system which seems to make it harder for boys and men to face down the obstacles in the way of learning... That is a challenge for all policymakers and parties."

He added: "I do worry about what looks like increasing under-performance by young men."

Dr Wendy Platt, director general of the Russell Group, which represents 24 top universities, said: "Universities cannot solve this problem alone. The root causes of the under-representation of students from disadvantaged backgrounds are under-achievement at school and poor advice on the best choices of A-level subjects and university degree course."