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-----Original Message-----
From: HE Administrators equal opportunities list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Felicity Cooke
Sent: 05 November 2007 12:08
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: HEFCE Circular on ELQ's: impact on students from minority groups

Should we also send a collective response from HEEON?

Will ECU be responding?

Felicity

Dr Felicity Cooke
Head of Diversity and Equal Opportunities
University Offices
Wellington Square
Oxford OX1 2JD 
Tel: +44 (0)1865 289821
Email: [log in to unmask]

-----HE Administrators equal opportunities list <[log in to unmask]> wrote: -----

To: [log in to unmask]
From: Alexandra Muir-Mackenzie <[log in to unmask]>
Sent by: HE Administrators equal opportunities list <[log in to unmask]>
Date: 11/05/2007 11:52AM
Subject: HEFCE Circular on ELQ's: impact on students from minority groups

Dear colleagues

Following a ministerial decision, HEFCE have recently published a consultation circular about the withdrawal of funding for students with equivalent or lower qualifications.  This change in policy will mean that HEFCE funding is withdrawn for students taking a qualification at an equivalent or lower level than the one they have already, for example no funding for people taking a postgraduate taught course in a different subject in order to retrain if they have already studied at this level.  The change in policy will come into place from academic year 2008/09 and will affect all categories of new Home/EU HEFCE fundable students - full-time, part-time, undergraduate and postgraduate.

The HEFCE circular can be seen at http://www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/hefce/2007/07_27/

This new policy is bad news for universities - the Open University - the hardest hit - will lose approximately £30m per annum.  We have no real way of challenging this ministerial decision, except that the final question of the HEFCE consultation document (consultation question 7) asks whether the ELQ policy is likely to have a differential impact on students, depending on their gender, race, disability etc.

We will be responding to the consultation and intend to say something about the prejudicial impact of this policy, for example on women seeking to retrain following a career break, or disabled people seeking to retrain to allow them to move into an occupation where their impairment or condition can be more easily accommodated etc.

Any thoughts out there on how to build this case?

Regards

Alex




Alexandra Muir-Mackenzie
Equality & Diversity Adviser
University of Portsmouth

Tel: (023) 9284 5039

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