New evidence

The project has produced a new evidence base for widening participation and social inclusion in sub-Saharan Africa. Case studies of one public and one private university in Ghana and Tanzania comprised:

• 200 student life-history interviews - including women, mature, low socio-economic status (SES) and disabled students
• 200 interviews with academic staff and policymakers on policies, interventions, strategies and challenges for widening participation and the Millennium Development Goals
• 100 Equity Scorecards - statistics on four programmes of study in each university intersecting gender, SES and age to reveal patterns of participation, retention and achievement

Key findings

Student life history interviews:
Narratives of growing up, entering and experiencing higher education (HE) suggested the need to develop:

• student-centred services and practices, eg. transparency in assessment
• quality learning environments, eg. resources, effective pedagogy
• lecturer professionalism and accountability.

Students saw the impact of HE in terms of:

• identity transformation, eg. "Becoming a somebody"
• an escape route from poverty
• enhanced self-efficacy and self-esteem
• national economic and social development

Staff and policymaker interviews indicated the need to address:

• monitoring, evaluation and management
• impact of poverty on participation
• importance of loans systems
• effectiveness of affirmative action
• capacity challenges
• integrating Education For All policies and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) into HE
• WP should mean more than increasing the number of women in science

Equity Scorecards

• Support evidence-based policy development and evaluation
• Comprise detailed statistics on patterns of participation, retention and achievement
• Yield a nuanced overview of the intersected effects of gender, age and SES

They revealed that:

• most programmes enrolled very few (or no) SES students
• low SES students tended to be on programmes with low exchange rates in the labour market
• fewer low SES students withdrew and performed as well as (sometimes better than) other groups
• mature students were most at risk of withdrawal
• women, especially low SES and mature women, were under-represented on science programmes
• more women entered private, rather than public, universities

Selected recommendations

To Universities

1. Management information, monitoring and evaluation - collection and analysis of data on access, retention and achievement, disaggregated by gender, age, SES and disability
2. Quality assurance procedures should:
   - facilitate consistent educational experiences and standards for students
   - monitor staffing and resourcing
   - examine admissions and assessment procedures
   - promote professional development of lecturers
   - ensure codes of professional conduct
3. Support for 'non-traditional' students, eg. academic literacy, inclusive pedagogy, accessible buildings for disabled students

To Policymakers

1. Quality assurance - enhance monitoring and accountability of public and private universities, including standardised systems for student feedback
2. Capacity and resourcing issues - human and learning resources allocated communsurately with student numbers
3. Preparedness for HE, eg. Ministries of Education need to develop and monitor within schools:
   - codes of professional ethics for teachers
   - professional development for teachers, especially on social inclusion issues
   - robust quality assurance, inspection and audit arrangements
   - adequate supply of trained teachers and facilities, particularly in rural and deprived regions
   - improved access to good quality science teaching, especially for girls