8 minute read
ACCESS TO EDUCATION
SPOTLIGHT ON
Liz Barnes and Staffordshire University
THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC HAS HAD A HUGE IMPACT ON OUR SOCIETY AND MANY ASPECTS OF HOW WE LIVE AND WORK HAVE CHANGED SINCE MARCH 2020.
For the education sector the pandemic led to a rapid transition to online teaching and learning. Staffordshire University, like many of our counterparts in the HE sector, was quick to transition and adapt under immense pressure, accelerating the move to an already increasingly digital world. As our post-pandemic Britain will inevitably be more online, increased efforts must be made to ensure that society’s pursuit of a digital future does not widen social mobility gaps. In the race to ‘be more digital’ we must take all measures possible to ensure that those living in our deprived communities and with the most complex backgrounds are not left behind. Digital poverty is a very real and current problem, one which has been brought into sharp relief during this pandemic. In September, a survey from the Office for Students (OfS) found that during the first national lockdown 52% of university students said their learning was impacted by slow or unreliable internet connection and 18% were impacted by lack of access to a computer, laptop or tablet. We know that students at Staffordshire University are disproportionately affected by digital poverty. About 47% of our student community come from disadvantaged backgrounds and more than 50% are mature learners. Many students don’t have access to study spaces at home, they might be single parents or carers and so the pressures they face are very high. They might also lack access to IT equipment. However, their learning should not suffer because of this. That is why Staffordshire is offering access to hundreds of laptops to ensure that disadvantaged students and their families do not get left behind in the latest national lockdown. Our Digital Services team have made the offer of loan laptops available to all students, handing out hundreds of computers since the first lockdown. Following the recent school closures, laptop computers are also now being provided to the children of our students to support them in homeschooling. Some parents have had no choice but to share their laptop across the family. Yet nobody – young or older – should find themselves without the means to access their learning. A parent’s commitment to their child’s education should not be at the cost of their own.
Of course, digital poverty is not just a hardware issue – learners who have their own laptops might struggle in their studies if they do not have the correct software. This is why Staffordshire University has supplied more than 2,300 Adobe licences to students since July, giving them home access to software that has traditionally been accessed on campus. Students have also been given the opportunity to enhance their digital skills and employability through certified online training in Microsoft Office, Adobe, and AutoDesk software. This range of support aligns with Staffordshire University’s commitment to improve the regional economy and enhance quality of life in local communities. Staffordshire University is working with the Social Mobility Pledge, alongside a number of leading businesses and educational establishments, to speed up the levelling-up in post-pandemic Britain. This has led to the launch of the Purpose Coalition, which aims to promote and deliver the vital environmental, social and governance (ESG)-based change Britain needs. The Coalition is calling on businesses and universities to commit to levelling up Britain by partnering with local schools, offering apprenticeships and using open and fair recruitment practices. It also calls for purpose-driven leadership and decision-making, and a recognition that employees, consumers and investors now demand positive impact from the organisations with which they engage. As a University fully invested in social mobility, we aim to lead by example and will share the insights and ideas from our own ESG approach through a publicly available Opportunity Action Plan, which aims to increase access to higher education and increase career opportunities locally. Coronavirus has highlighted the scale of the digital divide, which is a symptom of wider socio-economic issues faced in areas of deprivation like North Staffordshire. The number of people in Stoke-on-Trent who progress onto university is already significantly lower than the national average and so it is doubly important that we do not let anyone slip through the net during the current crisis. As a university, we will continue to drive forward the digital agenda, boosting digital skills and access to education in the region. In the meantime, we hope that steps such as laptop loans, provision of software and digital training will go some way to helping families during this difficult time and beyond. While Staffordshire University is invested in becoming the UK’s foremost digital university, at the heart of our purpose is our commitment to social mobility.
Putting social mobility at the heart of the cause
WE SPEAK TO PROFESSOR LIZ BARNES, VICE CHANCELLOR OF STAFFORDSHIRE UNIVERSITY, ABOUT CLOSING THE DIGITAL DIVIDE AND PROVIDING STUDENTS FOR THE ECONOMY OF TOMORROW.
Far from changing our focus, Covid-19 has cemented the need for Staffordshire University to continue to drive forward and put social mobility at the heart of our cause. My wish is for more organisations to join the cause and that more work is done across every educational setting, business and organisation to upskill, empower and enable people to make more of their lives. Our commitment to social mobility goes hand in glove with our investment in becoming the UK’s foremost digital university. At the onset of the pandemic we had to move to remote learning overnight, which was achieved with minimum disruption. We are fortunate at Staffordshire that digital has been embedded in everything we do for a number of years and thanks to our staff we were well placed to meet the challenges of lockdowns. For society in general Covid-19 accelerated our transition to a digital future and exposed people to the value of digital skills and confidence. Increased efforts must be made to ensure that a digital future does not widen social mobility gaps. We must take all measures possible to ensure those living in the most deprived areas and with difficult backgrounds are not left behind. Even before the pandemic the widening digital skills gap was on the agenda for the Government, businesses and organisations. The 2019 Open University business barometer report found that organisations in the UK are spending more than £4bn a year as a result of the skills shortage, with 68 percent of employers struggling to find workers with the correct skills. Closing the skills gap means providing routes into education to allow people to pursue digital roles and opportunities in different sectors. Higher education has a big role to play in this and it is the responsibility of the universities to help develop student’s skills to make them ultra employable. We need to start wider conversations about different paths into education and about how people who might write themselves off for the careers of the future can be encouraged to raise their aspirations. Staffordshire University’s ‘Step Up to Higher Education’ programme shows how this can be done - the part time 10 week course has proved to be a huge success, helping people into higher education for the first time or welcoming them back after a period of absence. The process is geared to developing the confidence of each individual. A digitally skilled workforce will also bear fruit for our economy, we need to ensure we are equipping businesses with staff who have the skills and confidence to make use of digital tools, techniques and infrastructure. Stafforsdhire will play a key role in providing more digital skills to our entire region. Creating opportunities in education is a priority for areas such as the West Midlands. Evidence tells us that geography is a key factor in social mobility, with young people in former industrial heartlands among the least likely to enter higher education.
As a civic university connected to the needs of our region, we are doing what we can to support more students into education during these increasingly challenging times. The need for education and digital skills sits alongside the many and varied problems caused by digital poverty. Staffordshire University is pulling every lever possible to help students and their families who are facing deepening hardships, including providing adult learners with the loan of a laptop. During lockdown some parents have had no choice but to share their laptop across the family. Nobody, young or old, should find themselves without the means to access their learning. Our work in the digital area is aligned to a much wider package of support which helps our students with other priority issues, such as mental health and hardship. We recently announced a Covid-19 response fund which was set up to help students who had been affected by the pandemic. Within hours of going live the fund had received 100s of applicants, giving a sense of how much students have been affected by the pandemic. Our efforts in this area tie in with our Opportunity Action Plan that we launched before Christmas in partnership with the Social Mobility Pledge. The plan sets out a number of ambitions that the university will work towards with the aim of ensuring that more people are able to access higher education and progress in careers unhindered by their background or lack of connections. With Stoke already identified as a social mobility ‘coldspot’, we have our work cut out. The data tells us that in areas where social mobility is low, those born into deprivation are statistically likely to remain there. We need to do everything in our power to create a Britain that breaks down the potential barriers that people face when they want to better themselves. This can only be achieved by a collective effort to identify inequality in all its forms and move towards a level playing field. We must all work together in our local communities to bridge the digital divide and work on long term outcomes for the people who are most in need of our support.
