Current status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 21 March 2019
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of comments by its spokesman in The Courier on 7 March 2019, whether the “access data working group” will form a view on the effectiveness of using the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) to increase access to university.
The Commission on Widening Access identified a strong relationship between Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) quintile and participation in higher education, particularly participation at universities, and stated that SIMD “should continue to be used for tracking, monitoring and targets relating to fair access in the coming years”.
The aim of the Access Data Working Group was to identify measures that could assist in identifying learners who do not live in the most deprived areas of Scotland (based on the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation) but face similar socioeconomic barriers to accessing university.