Taking Identities Into Account
in Access Policies
International trends and local
innovations
Gaële Goastellec, University of Lausanne, Switzerland
OECD Conference, 12/2008
Introduction
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NCS research 2005-2006
Collaborative research : issue of access
and equity policies in its various facets
Look at 9 HE systems (UK, SA, the US,
France, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Ireland,
Indonesia, Israel)
Sub-topic: Equity through two tracers:
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Access norms
Funding
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Aim and structure of this presentation:
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Identifying historical global trends in access
policies
Presenting some local innovations
The issue of the organization of access to
higher education is non dissociable from
individual identities and collective
belongings
1.
Common global patterns regarding access: 3 main
principles `
- “Inherited Merit”:
characterizes the 1st
period of HE systems. Access is the exclusivity of
academically selected students within the dominant
group of the society (being a male, coming from the
upper class and from an urban area)
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Equality of rights:
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Equity:
Access formal barriers
regarding genders and later ethno-racial or social
groups are eliminated. Open access to all is
supposed to guarantee equal access between
individuals independently of their belongings.
EoP/ widening access to the HE sector as
a whole and/or within the most selective institutions
in order to build up a student body more
representative of the social diversity. Implicates to
take identities into account to warrant equality
between the various groups.
An emerging “fair” definition of merit?
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Merit becomes the measurement of the
distance between the academic level
reached by students and the diverse
handicaps they had to face (conditions of
schooling, social, cultural,geographic,
ethno-racial background, disabilities…)
This measurement is based on various
indicators depending on national
traditions
National traditions…
Each society has one legitimated
category of reading social diversity
Examples:
- professional categories in
France
- ethno-racial categories in
the US & SA
… moving toward complexity
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From racial to social identities
From social to racial identities
And more broadly, a complexification of
the identities taken into account to
measure inequalities.
EoO norm is translated into admission
processes (Affirmative Action; holistic admission
processes…) and increasingly implemented through
funding instruments
2. Innovating admission processes
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Bronx CC:
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attempt to improve the level of
registration for black males.
organizes a second start of the
academic year for those who walk over
the counter after the first start
(bridging classes, tutoring and specific
calendar for the 1st semester to
overcome their lateness)
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University of Johannesburg:
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25% of the students: “disadvantaged”
students recruited through a second path of
admission (specific test)
All are oriented towards bridging classes
centralized by a Center for teaching and
learning (foundation year)
One year in or out: if at the end of the first
years, academic results insufficient to follow
the general program: out
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CUNY Honor Colleges
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High end programs for gifted students,
many of whom come from underrepresented groups and are first
generation students.
Students are selected for their
academic results and provided with
generous financial support and access
to NY cultural activities.
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SciencesPo Paris
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Adopted in 2000 a specific admission process
for students coming from geographically
identified disadvantaged high schools (ZEP)
Reorganized tuition fees and funding to make
high family income students pay the price of
their studies and low income students benefit
from all inclusive fellowships.
Aim: to socially diversify the student body
Learning from innovations:
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Diversity of the procedures implemented.
Focus on specific publics (small scale) and
provide academic, economic and cultural
support.
Underlines a trend toward a more holistic
taking into account of individuals: importance
to adapt practices to local specificities and to
follow admission processes aimed at taking
under represented groups into account.
3. Innovations in funding: Two categories of funding
instruments…
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students funding: classical cost-sharing rationale
(Johnstone; 1986, 2002, 2006)
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Tuition fees (direct or repayable): global trend to
increase their weight
Grants (need-based/merit-based) loans : principle
of a loan framework with later repayment under
question in a larger number of HE systems
Institutions’ funding
Allocation mechanisms taking into account students
access dimensions
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number of students
the characteristics of entering and graduating
students (social belonging)
Time to graduation…
Funding incentives toward widening access: a new dimension
of cost-sharing?
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Indexing part of institutional funding on
the characteristics of the students
registering or/and the students
graduating:Has for effect to partly fund
institutions on their ability to favor social
mobility
- Ireland: new funding model 2006-2008:
Integrates State premium for identified target
groups of students
- Ethiopia: 2003: Higher Education
proclamation: funding formula taking into
account the type of program or course
enrolment of females and disadvantaged
students.
- SA: funding formula aimed at taking
entering and graduating students into account
as well as the proportion of “disadvantaged”
students.
3. Some conclusions
The funding of access can be used by public authorities as an
instrument to steer, and, in particular, to implement the
Equality of Opportunities norm.
The equity norm is helpful as an indicator of institutions’
efficiency especially when it comes to access quality
The diversity of identities is increasingly taken into account in
innovating institutions admission processes and national
funding frameworks. They underline the necessity of a diverse
and of always more plural models of taking inequalities into
account.
Thank You
Gaele.Goastellec@unil.ch