Introduction
From Access to Engagement and Beyond
ISBN: 978-1-80382-040-8, eISBN: 978-1-80382-037-8
Publication date: 14 July 2022
Citation
Billingham, S. (2022), "Introduction", From Access to Engagement and Beyond (Great Debates in Higher Education), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 143-144. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80382-037-820221026
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2022 Stuart Billingham. Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited
This short piece attempts to highlight the ‘double-edged sword’ nature of the COVID-19 pandemic with respect to widening access and successful participation in higher education or, indeed, all types of post-school education.
On the one hand, the pandemic has highlighted the need to ensure that all students can access the technology needed to successfully engage with blended and on-line learning – now increasingly being used by universities – not just when on the university campus but elsewhere too.
On the other hand, the pandemic has revealed to many in higher education that to increase diversity of the student population, they need to consider more seriously than they might have done before what the university does as well as how, where and when it does it.
Such increased awareness of the need for institutional change was revealed in a survey across UK higher education, reported in late 2020, the headline findings from which are briefly summarised in the following pages.
Based on these findings and related arguments, the chapter concludes by asking whether this virulent enemy (i.e. COVID-19) might, paradoxically, turn out to be an ally in the battle for greater equity – and by extension, equality and diversity – in higher education.
- Prelims
- 1 Introduction
- Ethnicity and Equal Opportunity in Higher Education in the 1900s: From Access to Pedagogy
- 2 Introduction
- Learning Communities and Tertiary Education
- 3 Introduction
- Diversity, Inclusion and the Transforming Student Experience
- 4 Introduction
- From Access to Engagement
- 5 Introduction
- ‘Too Busy to Come’: What Future for Widening Participation?
- 6 Introduction
- UK Launch of the European Access Network (EAN) World Congress on Access to Post-Secondary Education
- 7 Introduction
- Supporting Student Success: Making Excellence Inclusive
- 8 Introduction
- Same but Different
- 9 Introduction
- Reflections on the Future of Social Mobility
- 10 Introduction
- Access and Disability
- 11 Introduction
- Change Is Gonna Come
- “Where Have We Been? Where Are We Going?”
- References
- Index