Chapter 2: Literature Review
2.3 Predictors of participation in higher education
23
24
and segregated which really restricts the progression of potential candidates to higher education (Powell & Solga, 2011). The country has a highly stratified secondary schooling system which means those in lower socio-economic groups are nine times less likely to access higher education than those who have an upper socio-economic background (Powell & Solga, 2011; James, 2007). In Portugal, students in the highest socio-economic group are ten times more likely to access higher education than those in the lowest (James, 2007).
The United Kingdom (UK) higher education system has significant social imbalances (Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), 2013) with half of the
population in England classified as low socio-economic but only 28% of young, full time entrants to first degree courses represented (James, 2007; Corver, 2005). Young people from more affluent areas are five to six times more likely to go to university than those from working class areas (James, 2007). The government adopted an ambitious equity agenda of “widening participation” by removing upfront fees, funding incentives to universities and encouraging part time attendance (Department of Business, Innovation and Skills, 2012; James, 2007), however the economic austerity measures seen throughout the Western world has meant that the current British government has had to institute some reforms (HEFCE, 2013) which have not always been well received by the student
population. Ireland, where socio economic class is used to define social inequality (Clancy
& Goastellec, 2007), has seen a large increase in participation with an overall rate of 60%
but continues to experience social class differences (Keane, 2011). It is also students from the managerial and professional classes who are taking advantage of the expanded higher education system in Ireland (Higher Education Authority, 2008; James, 2007).
25
In the United States of America (USA) people from lower socio-economic groups are accessing higher education less than before due to standardised entrance tests and higher tuition costs (Layer, 2005). The USA has an enormously diverse system of private and public universities which range from highly inclusive to highly socially elite (James, 2007;
Obst & Forster, n.d.). There is some evidence to show growing inequality in USA higher education, as suggested by Astin and Oseguera (2004) that there are substantial socio- economic inequalities in who can get access to the most sought after colleges and universities and these inequalities have increased despite interventions such as financial aid, affirmative action and outreach programmes (Wolfenden, 2013; Golden, 2006). USA higher education is more socio-economically stratified now than at any time in the last thirty years (Astin & Oseguera, 2004). The reasons for this are not well known but are thought in part to be due to the increasing competitiveness among high school graduates for admission to the country`s most sought after colleges and universities. Numerous universities in the USA have implemented aggressive and effective equity programmes that specify admission targets (James, 2007; Allen, Teranishi, Dinwiddie & Gonzalez, 2002). Several of these programmes focused on participation of minority groups and were legislated in order to address the legacy of racial discrimination (Garces, 2012; James, 2007; Allen, Teranishi, Dinwiddie & Gonzalez, 2002). However these affirmative action policies have been challenged legally (Wolfenden, 2013; Garces, 2012; James, 2007;
Douglass, 2007; Allen, 2005).
The Brazilian higher education landscape is also populated by those from the wealthy classes and in 2001 the Brazilian government introduced a quota system for non-white Brazilian students in higher education in an effort to address these inequalities. The
Brazilian education system is such that public secondary education is poorly resourced and
26
attendance at a public secondary school is a marker of poor socio-economic status (Telles
& Paixao, 2013). The wealthy people in Brazil attend private schools and then transition into public universities which are generally of higher quality than the private universities (Telles & Paixao, 2013). University entrance was almost solely based on an entrance examination which those from private schools were well prepared for but those from public schools were poorly prepared for resulting in a preponderance of wealthy students at the public universities which are generally free (Telles & Paixao, 2013). The students from poor socio-economic backgrounds who managed to qualify for university entrance generally ended up in private universities. In 2010 45 000 students benefited from the affirmative action policy in public universities but this was only 11% of all students in public higher education. In 2012 a law was passed that all public universities must implement a quota system for students – by 2016, 50% of places at universities must be earmarked for students who attended public schools, have low family income or are of indigenous, Black or Brown race (Telles & Paixao, 2013) – all proxies of socio-economic disadvantage. This law of quotas has been received with mixed reaction. Critics argue that Brazil has never had policy along racial lines and that introducing quotas will lead to a lowering of quality in Brazilian universities and that the government should rather focus on improving basic education so that all people can compete on an equal footing (Carneiro, 2013; Telles & Paixao, 2013; Francis & Tannuri-Pianto, 2012). However those in support of the law, like the Rector of the University of Rio de Janeiro, Ricardo Vieralves, have had a positive experience with these students – they work harder, generally graduate in shorter time, drop out less often and they admit that initially these students marks are not as good but they quickly catch up and often do better than those who accessed on merit (Carneiro, 2013; Telles & Paixao, 2013; Cardoso as cited in Francis & Tannuri-Pianto, 2012, p.5)
27
Admission to Chinese universities was merit based and linked to college entrance examinations but in 1997 the user pay principle was adopt widely and financial criteria were added to the selection criteria (Wang, 2011). Government funding for higher education decreased dramatically from 93.5% of University income in 1990 to 42.6% of income in 2006 and higher education fees increased 25 times (Wang, 2011). As family support is the primary source for university fees many low and middle income families could not afford to send their children to university (Wang, 2011). It has generally been thought that socio-economic status has a bearing on Chinese student`s achievement in the Gaokao selection tests but in Eastern China socio-economic status does not appear to have influenced performance as much as socio demographic factors have (Lui, 2013).
Higher education participation is more common amongst students whose parents have higher education qualifications (Powell & Solga, 2011; Osborne, 2003). In Finland, despite an egalitarian public school system, participation in higher education is heavily skewed according to parental educational background (James, 2007). A young person whose parents have an academic background is seven times more likely to go to university than someone from a less educated background (James, 2007). In Norway over 50% of students who start an academic track in upper secondary school have parents who have higher education, however this is changing with increasing numbers of students accessing higher education whose parents do not have higher education (Hovdhaugen, 2013).
Students whose parents were educated in higher education were 9 times as likely to attend higher education in 1999 and four times as likely in 2011 (Hovdhaugen, 2013).
28
Inequalities in access to higher education, throughout the world, are often as a result of geography – where people are born or where they live. For example the Hukou system (population registration) in China precludes people moving from the rural to the urban areas although population mobility is just part of this social control policy (Chan & Zhang, 1999). The higher education opportunities in China are greater in the urban areas than in the rural areas (Jacob, 2006; Wang, 2011) and therefore higher education it is more easily available to those living in urban areas than those from rural areas (Jacob, 2006). China has seen massive growth in enrolments in higher education – in 2000 they had 7 364 111 students enrolled and in 2007 that had grown to 25 346 279 (Wang, 2011; Altbach, et al., 2009) however with this has come issues of equity and access to higher education
particularly amongst their minority population which is over 100 million people (Jacob, 2006). For potential students from rural areas access to higher education is difficult due to factors such as socio-economic status, distance from family support and the lack of financial resources (Yang, 2010; Jacob, 2006). Language is also a barrier to higher
education in China for minority groups (Jacob, 2006). The minority language groups learn Mandarin at school but often their language fluency is not good enough for higher
education (Jacob, 2006). Many of these minority groups come from rural areas which compounds the disadvantage they have in accessing higher education. In 1992 only 156 981 children were admitted to primary schools in rural China, 12 years later only 8.2% (12 872) of the cohort successfully completed school, whereas in the urban areas they report a 61% completion rate (Yang, 2010). Even fewer than those who completed took the
College Entrance Examination (76%) and of those only 83% (8120) secured admission to higher education (Yang, 2012). This is an example of the disadvantage that rural students in China face in accessing higher education.
29
Countries which have a colonial and “settler” history commonly have higher education systems which are predicated on the needs of the colonising nation (Metcalfe, 2009), examples of which could include Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand to name a few. These higher education systems are concentrated in coastal areas and other well developed centres which grew around trade (Metcalfe, 2009). In 2008, British Columbia, Canada re-configured the institutions of higher education but this did not address the geographic diversity of institutions with most of the institutions of higher education situated in the south-western area of the province (Metcalfe, 2009). The effect of this is that Aboriginal students, who are not well represented in higher education, are still not catered for as the new universities are in areas of low Aboriginal residence (Metcalfe, 2009). In 2007, people from remote areas accessing higher education in Australia represented 1.2% which was a participation ratio of 0.44, for those from low socio-
economic groups a 15% participation rate was reported, a ratio of 0.60 and for indigenous people a participation rate of 1.3% was reported representing a ratio of 0.59
(Commonwealth of Australia, 2008). Secondary school achievement is also an important predictor of both access to and success in higher education throughout the world
(Rodrigues Vieira & Viegas Vieira, 2011). A study in Holland reported that educational achievement was a stronger predictor of participation in higher education than parental income was with 93% of students with a pre-university education accessing higher education (Vossensteyn, 2013).