News archive 2003

Widening Access

11 Dec 2003, PR 82/03

Media coverage of ‘Performance Indicators’ for higher education in the media today has focused on the issue of access to leading universities by pupils from lower income families.

King’s College London is a leader in Widening Participation, providing services and facilities to many neighbouring schools, colleges, community groups and organisations to encourage a more diverse and fulfilled student and staff population.

For instance, in June the College opened its doors to 50 local young people for 'The Global Citizen' summer school. Most of the students who attended have no family experience of higher education and all live within London’s Excellence Challenge boroughs.

Somali people are one of the most underrepresented groups in higher education and King’s is attempting to redress this imbalance by teaming up with community groups to set up a Somali Success programme. Young people are offered master classes, taster days and other subject specific events.

Alongside these the College is involved in Partnerships for Progression projects such as Aspire, the South East London initiative and Gate A, a consortium of groups which provide an enriched education experience to London secondary students, teachers and parents of gifted and talented young people.

In particular the College’s Access to Medicine Project was cited as an example of best practice in a King’s Fund report earlier this year. The report stated that the Guy’s King’s and St Thomas’ School of Medicine is attracting more working class and ethnic minority students from the local community who do not have the usual academic grades required for the study of medicine. It states: ‘They have done this by realising traditional medical schools require academic levels unlikely to be achieved by students from deprived communities. GKT works with local schools to encourage students to apply.’

Notes to editors

King's College London
King's College London is the fourth oldest university in England with more than 13,700 undergraduates and nearly 5,600 graduate students in nine schools of study based at five London campuses. It is a member of the Russell Group: a coalition of the UK's major research-based universities. The College has had 24 of its subject-areas awarded the highest rating of 5* and 5 for research quality, demonstrating excellence at an international level, and it has recently received an excellent result in its audit by the Quality Assurance Agency.

King's has a particularly distinguished reputation in the humanities, law, international relations, medicine, nursing and the sciences, and has played major role in many of the advances that have shaped modern life, such as the discovery of the structure of DNA. It is the largest centre for the education of health care professionals in Europe and is home to five Medical Research Council Centres – more than any other university.

King's is in the top group of UK universities for research earnings, with income from grants and contracts of more than £114 million, and has anannual income of more than £369 million.



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