Higher Education Opportunities for Socio-Economically Challenged Students

Students of inner city Bradford have limited Higher Education opportunities. There are a variety of reasons for this, some of which we can have more influence over than others. Large numbers of the students that I work with are 3rd or 4th generation Pakistanis and as practising Muslims feel a strong responsibility to stay at home and take an active and supporting role within the family, regardless of gender. The lifestyles that these students are exposed to dictates that ‘this is what young people do’, to leave and move away to study at university is a rarity to say the least. Any decisions that are to be made about where to study their higher education or whether the student even has the opportunity to do so has been further thrown into doubt with the recent ruling regarding university tuition fees in the UK. For some higher education is simply no longer a viable option. My biggest concern is that the curriculum design that is being used in some inner city schools in Bradford is designed in such a way so as to manipulate league table data more than it is to provide students with a level playing field when it comes to having opportunities to access higher education opportunities at quality universities outside of Bradford and West Yorkshire.