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The Student Equity and Participation Team is proudly participating in World Access to Higher Education Day. In recognition of the day, we are participating in four ways:

-Involving schools that participate in the Aspire UC Program. We are sending packages to our partner schools to raise awareness of and celebrate World Access to Higher Education.

– Publishing a video featuring both staff and student voices together highlighting reflections on what access to higher education means to them.

-Featuring a series of social media posts about University of Canberra staff who make it both accessible and inclusive for this World Access to Higher Education Day.

-Participating in the Zoom event organised by our colleagues NCSEHE and EPHEA from 12.30-2.30 AEDT. This year’s event will feature a keynote from Professor Maria Raciti (USC), who will tackle the question, What’s the next step to help low SES students navigate perceived risk during these volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous times? We will also hear from a disability practitioner and student panel, discussing important accessibility considerations when returning to an on-campus learning model.

The global community has committed itself to widening access to higher education in Goal 4 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Nationally, the UK government, the devolved nations and the Republic of Ireland have responded by putting in place strategies to facilitate the widening participation agenda. Likewise, across these islands an increasing number of universities have created outreach programmes in a great variety of formats, and much research is now being conducted on the themes of education, participation, representation and equity. All of these initiatives are united by the aim of breaking down the barriers – actual and perceived – which for decades have deterred people from deprived and/or underrepresented backgrounds from enjoying the social and economic benefits of a university education.

To date, however, comparatively little discussion has taken place on the theme of widening access to legal education. That is so despite the fact that, for too many people in the 21st century, the perception remains entrenched that legal education and training are ‘open to all – like the Ritz Hotel’ (to borrow from Sir James Matthew). The aim of this workshop is to bring together educators, researchers and practitioners from across the UK and Ireland to consider how the legal community can rise to the challenge of reaching out to students from non-traditional backgrounds, dispel outdated perceptions of elitism and exclusion, and make the law more attractive to those who are the ‘most able but least likely’ to study it. This is a vital endeavour since, ultimately, it is only by creating a more diverse student body that the profession can become truly reflective of the society that it serves.

With funding from the Society of Legal Scholars, the workshop will comprise two panels of invited speakers and will be open to all interested parties to attend and contribute: 1) an educational panel, made up of lecturers and curriculum managers from law schools and vocational training providers; and 2) a professional panel, comprised of representatives from the governing bodies of the legal profession in the UK and Ireland. Together, the panels will provide a public forum for discussion of core topics, with particular emphasis on: 1) the difficulties that come with trying to attract students from the most challenging backgrounds into legal study; 2) the ways in which academic and professional bodies can work together to facilitate better transitions from study to practice; and 3) examples of successful interventions in the form of outreach programmes, transition support measures and partnership arrangements. These conversations will be disseminated in a policy report, which will contain recommendations for all providers of legal education across these islands (academic and vocational) to promote a more consistent approach to the widening participation agenda, by raising awareness of common problems and providing examples of institutional best practice.