This document was presented by Paul Boucher, LTI Director, at the NCOP Conference held at The Studio, Birmingham on Wednesday, October 30th, 2019.
The National Collaborative Outreach Programme (NCOP) brings together 29 partnerships of universities, colleges and other local partners to deliver outreach programmes to young people in years 9 to 13.
Their work is focused on local areas where higher education participation is lower than might be expected given the GCSE results of the young people who live there.
The NCOP programme aims to:
- reduce the gap in higher education participation between the most and least represented groups
- support young people to make well-informed decisions about their future education
- support effective and impactful local collaboration by higher education providers working together with schools, colleges, employers and other partners
- contribute to a stronger evidence base around ‘what works’ in higher education outreach and strengthen evaluation practice in the sector.
The main thrust of Paul’s presentation was around the need for more flexibility with regard to admissions criteria for young people who for various reasons find themselves outside of mainstream education but at a later stage want to enter further or higher education.
