TAP provides the model for a new Oxford University College Foundation Programme

Posted on: 25 April 2016

Lady Margaret Hall (LMH), an Oxford University College, is to launch a four year pilot scheme offering a Foundation Year to students from under-represented backgrounds, starting  next Autumn.  It will offer this scheme in association with Trinity College Dublin, which has operated such a programme for 17 years.

Trinity started the scheme because, like Oxford, the university wanted to attract many more candidates from under-represented backgrounds.  Today more than 90 per cent of young people who complete the Trinity Access Programmes Foundation Course go on to take a degree at Trinity. Once they start on the undergraduate course TAP, Trinity undergraduates perform as well as any other student.

The success of the TAP scheme is supported by robust data and evaluation and they will act as LMH’s partner in the venture.

The aim is to attract the best and brightest candidates to LMH, regardless of any obstacles they may have encountered in life.

Professor Louise Richardson, Vice- Chancellor, The University of Oxford, welcomed the pilot Foundation Year and said: “Oxford is committed to recruiting the best and brightest students whatever their background. One of the many advantages of the collegiate system is that it allows us to engage in small scale experiments like this to help us identify innovative ways to recruit under-represented groups. I wish the programme at Lady Margaret Hall every success.”

Dr Patrick Prendergast, Provost of Trinity College Dublin, said: “Trinity College Dublin is delighted to be associated with the development of a Foundation Year for students from socio-economically under-represented groups in Lady Margaret Hall. Over a 17 year period, we have had great success with our own Foundation Year.  Each year, over 90% of the Foundation Year cohort complete the course successfully and progress to degree courses across the university.  Their degree outcomes have been impressive and they have made a real contribution to the social and cultural environment of Trinity. Indeed, our current Students' Union president entered the university after completing our Foundation Year.  We congratulate Lady Margaret Hall on this progressive initiative and we look forward to contributing to its success."

Tom Boland CEO, Higher Education Authority said: “Overcoming financial, cultural and other barriers is crucially important if people from disadvantaged communities are to access, and succeed in, university. The Trinity Access Programmes has a strong record as a proven model of intervention and support.  The HEA warmly welcomes the collaboration between TCD and Oxford University as a unique opportunity for the sharing of good practice between Ireland and the UK in this very important part of the mission of higher education.”

The pilot scheme will see LMH taking a dozen students who tutors think could, and should, benefit from an Oxford education, but who would not normally apply or succeed in competing through conventional channels.  LMH will give them the teaching and support that will ready them to progress to a full degree.

Alan Rusbridger, Principal of Lady Margaret Hall, launching the Foundation Year, said: “LMH was founded in 1878 to admit people – women – who were excluded from the university.  This pilot scheme will, we hope, find young people from under-represented groups and help them find a path into an Oxford education and thereby transform lives.”

Jo Johnson MP, Minister for Higher Education, said: “This pilot pioneering Foundation Year at LMH is an important, imaginative and welcome initiative to help make Oxford accessible to all. Such programmes have a key role to play in breaking down barriers and enabling people from disadvantaged backgrounds to access the benefits of a world class