Response to the government's White Paper: The Futu

22 January 2003

Responding to the government's strategy document on higher education, Dr Philip Evans, headmaster of Bedford School, and Mrs Sue Fishburn, headmistress of Leeds Girls' High School, co-chairman of the HMC/GSA universities sub-committee, said today:

"We fully support, as we have stated in the past, the aim of securing wider access to higher education and we would welcome the further exploration with universities and the government of ways in which independent schools can contribute to this aim.

"We are however very concerned that the proposals for student finance will have a negative impact on that objective. We believe that the potential burden of debt will make university education seem more unattractive and that, in particular, the impact upon teacher recruitment could be serious.

"The government's earlier promise to drop university benchmarks based on type of school is very welcome but the plan to introduce an access regulator is potentially very threatening to university's independence. We re-emphasise our total opposition to any development which made it easier for government to dictate who went to which university."