Launch of a Mature and Part-Time Students forum

September 27, 2017

AccessHE is excited to launch a new Mature and Part-Time Students forum. An initial meeting will be held 2-4pm on Wednesday 8 November 2017 at a central London location.

This comes following feedback from our members who were interested to explore this area of access further and work collaboratively to tackle some of the main barriers facing mature and part-time learners. This action is timely: OFFA has recently described the downward trend in mature student numbers as “one of the most pressing issues in fair access to higher education” and is encouraging universities and colleges to take urgent action. Indeed, recent analysis of outcomes of 2015-16 access agreements reveals that “little or no progress has been made against a substantial proportion of targets for mature and part-time students”.

The first meeting will aim to establish a terms of reference for the forum and will feature a presentation from the University of West London on their academic summer programmes and community activity for mature and part-time learners, as well as a discussion on potential key themes and outputs for the forum in 2017-18. The initial November meeting will be used to gauge interest from our members in establishing this as a full Action Forum to meet 3-4 times a year alongside our other six forums, so we strongly encourage all institutions who have an interest in the area to attend if possible.

For more information please contact Sam Turner, London Programmes Coordinator, at sam.turner@londonhigher.ac.uk. Booking for this forum meeting will open in early October; information will be sent to all operational contacts unless a specific contact for your institution has already been noted.