This is an unprecedented opportunity to widen participation to Higher Education and improve social mobility in East Anglia.
- Tom Levinson, Head of Widening Participation
NEACO is part of the national Network for Collaborative Outreach Programme (NCOP), which aims to:
- Double the proportion of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds in Higher Education (HE) by 2020
- Increase by 20 percent the number of students in HE from ethnic minority groups
- Address the under-representation of young men from disadvantaged backgrounds in HE
The project launches in January 2017 and runs until December 2018, with the possibility of a further two years of funding to take the project to the end of 2020. The East Anglia funding allocation is approximately £9 million for the first two years of the project.
The universities will work closely with FE Colleges offering HE provision in the region, as well as dozens of target schools, colleges and other stakeholders. Advisory Groups in Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough are being set up to ensure a wide range of experience can feed into the project.
The programme will work closely with schools and colleges in the region to identify and support students in Years 9-13 from disadvantaged areas (HEFCE GAP wards). The network will deliver a range of targeted outreach activities to raise aspirations, explain the full range of Higher Education options available to students, and provide crucial advice about how to make successful applications.
Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge
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