“Considerations of economic and social justice both argue for ensuring that the opportunity to enter higher education should be open to anyone who has the potential to benefit from it, regardless of background. Universities’ need to identify, encourage, admit and support to graduation all those who have the potential to succeed. Fair access to university is integral to the Government’s programme of expansion of higher education, and to its commitment to high standards of university research and teaching.”
(Widening Participation in Higher Education, DfES, April 2003)
Notes For Trainers
The content and context of the resource pack has been developed in consultation and collaboration with the project steering group, students and staff from Coventry University and from the wider student and academic community in the UK. We actively encourage colleagues to use the materials in ways appropriate to their own training requirements and HEI policies, including photocopying and duplication materials provided the original source is credited.
The DVD contains a series of 19 short film sketches which focus on various aspects of student diversity, including cultural sensitivity, race, mental distress, gender, sexuality, older learners, care responsibilities and physical disability. All the films can be viewed with or without sub-titles.
The first part of the booklet describes each film sketch and includes a synopsis and some suggested questions for discussion for each scene. Because our intention in this pack is to stimulate discussion and creative thinking rather than a ‘how-to’ guide, the films (and the issues they address) should be seen as contributing to wider discussions around teaching and learning, widening participation and working with non-traditional students, rather than ends in themselves. The booklet also includes examples of good practice (Section 2) and a list of useful additional resources around the equality and diversity agenda including websites (Section 3). The material contained in Section 2 is the result of requests for such examples which we made via the Higher Education Equal Opportunities Network listserv. It is not meant to be exhaustive and we welcome further good practice examples which we will upload to the project website. Similarly, the resources included in Section 3 comprise those known or passed on to us and again, we would welcome further suggestions for resources which we could include on the website. The project, then, has a life beyond the distribution of the resource pack, so thoughts on additional resources which can be added to the website are very welcome.
