Retraining is something that often looms large in women’s minds after having children. Often their priorities change and they no longer want to do the same work they did before, or they take a long career break and decide they need reskilling before they go back.
Retraining can build up women’s confidence and set them on a whole new career path. However, women who want to change careers after having children are likely to form a substantial number of those affected by Government moves to cut £100m of funding for second degrees or what is known as equivalent or lower qualifications [ELQs]. The Government says it wants to target funding at those who have not been to university before.
Universities which are most likely to be hit by the changes include Birkbeck College in London and the Open University which have many people taking second degrees, including women returning to the workforce after a career break. In its submission to the Government about the ELQ cuts, Birkbeck, which has 38% of its students on ELQs, singled out women returners as a group which would be particularly discriminated against by the cuts with fees soaring and the possibility of courses being cut. Another option it is considering is to offer accelerated part-time degrees which can be finished in half the time that it takes now. It has asked the Government to defer taking action, pending a review, and also to exclude those who are re-entering higher education more than five years since their first degree. It says reskilling workers is vital for the UK economy.
Women carers
Birkbeck College students are mainly mature. Lectures are held in the evenings and the majority of part-time students – 62% - are women. 90% of its students work part-time. The College is making increasing efforts to do more for working mothers whom it recognises form a substantial number of its students. The students’ union’s student welfare group includes student parents/carers in its brief. Under the union’s new constitution which comes into force in August it will also have a new caring responsibilities officer who will be charged with ensuring the College meets carers’ needs and promoting carers’ issues nationally.
Rob Park, Acting President of the Students’ Union, says: “It recognises that people who choose to have families and go back into paid work face more barriers to stay in education. The College has a drop-in creche from 6-9pm when lectures are held which is shared with University College London and also operates during the daytime if parents need to catch up on studying. “It frees up parents, especially single parents, to study during the day,” says Park.
Cambridge
Birkbeck is not the only university looking at new ways of attracting women who are considering changing their futures after having children. The University of Cambridge is this month launching its first course for women returners who have no previous experience of higher education. Jane McLarty, admissions tutor at Lucy Cavendish College, says women might become interested in going to university after their children decide to go to university or because they want a change following the birth of children.
The five-week course runs on Saturday mornings and focuses on issues such as how to finance studying, the different ways to access higher education and women’s experiences of going into higher education. The aim is to demystify the higher education process and get women to apply. “It’s a complete how to kit for getting women to university,” says McLarty. Representatives from the Open University will also be on hand to explain how women can study part-time and remotely.
McLarty says many women are put off by the perception that university is expensive and time-consuming. This is equally true for women wanting to reskill and do a second degree. The present moves to cut ELQ funding is unlikely to help change that perception.
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