Guest Lecture - Alice Davies

Alice Davies's lecture was on Widening Access in Wales and she concentrated on how it functions and what it consists of.
Her first slide explained that "Widening access is about increasing opportunities for people from a diverse range of backgrounds to benefit from higher education (HE)."

There was then a quote from Jane Davidson (Minister for Education and Lifelong learning in 2002)
"We want to see a country where every individual is given equal opportunity to fulfil their potential, maximise their earning potential and contribute to society"

This is an area of education that I take a particular interest in and to an extent agree with the equal opportunities for all therefore found it a very interesting lecture. Alice went on to discuss the different social classes and what ones dominate Higher Education, she also explained that the Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation shows that poverty persists and that's why we need the widening access. The lecture moved on to discuss the more deprived areas in Wales, and this was shown with a map picture with the more deprived areas targeted.

 The next point that Alice discussed was the Three Regional Partnerships ( North and Mid Wales, First Campus - South East and the South West Wales Partnership). These partnerships aim to encourage progression to higher education, enhance individuals achievement, they help work with areas with social disadvantages and they focus on the underrepresented communities. The partnerships are made up of Higher Education, Further Education, the local authorities, Careers Wales, the third sector and Communities first which are all come together to give these more deprived communities better opportunities.

Before this lecture I was unaware of these Partnerships therefore I was very interested when Alice began discussing them, I was particularly interested when she went into some more depth about what these partnerships do for children at different ages. For example the art projects that they've set up for primary school children and the weekend clubs for comprehensive schools. The fact that they have in fact set up these opportunities for children from an early age right the way through to higher education is something that is very important to Wales and also something that I feel needs to be developed further.

Overall I feel as though this lecture was very interesting and introduced me to the work that these partnerships actually do for the social community's who are a little less fortunate.