ABSTRACT
The widening participation (WP) agenda has been a force in Higher Education (HE) for nearly 40 years, initiated in the UK largely in response to the Robbins Report (Robbins 1963), which came out of the National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education chaired by Lord Robbins. This saw UK school-leaver participation rates rise five-fold from one in twenty-five to around one in five by the 1980s and, subsequently, the UK adopted a target participation rate of 50 per cent of all school leavers entering university by 2010 (notably, the Higher Education Initial Participation Rate [HEIPR] reached 47 per cent in 2009/10 [BIS 2012]). Australia essentially – and eventually – followed suit in response to the Bradley Review (Bradley 2008), with an attainment target of 40 per cent of 24–25-year-olds having at least a bachelor-level qualification by 2020 (which more or less equates to a 50 per cent school leaver participation rate). Significantly, current Australian HE policy also targets low-SES (low socio-economic status) participation to reach 20 per cent of all commencing undergraduate enrolments by 2025.
