Get involved HUNDREDS of bright Coventry teenagers are missing out on a university education even though some of them are clever enough to get
into top ranking institutions. Warwick University assistant registrar Andrew Holdcroft reckons there are around 200 teens in the city who have opted not to apply for degree courses even though they have all the right qualifications. Dr Holdcroft, whose job it is to encourage bright teenagers from families where nobody has been to university before to consider higher education, said: “They’re getting all the grades and they should be going to university but they’re not. Here at Warwick we get a bit of stick for not being wholly representative so we have a very strong policy of encouraging people whose parents haven’t been to university to apply. “It’s partly peer and cultural expectations, partly having no history in the family and not understanding what it’s about and concerns about employability. There’s also student debt as well.” Students Gus Sagoo, aged 20, and David Lees, 21, are among those backing the drive to get more bright teenagers from working class backgrounds going to uni. Both have volunteered to visit secondary schools to talk to pupils and encourage them to consider their futures. Engineering student Gus, himself the first in his family to go to university, said: “Pupils sometimes think you have to study all the time at university and don’t have any fun so we have to explain that students have a social life. Sometimes pupils don’t understand the benefits so we have to talk about doors being opened. And some just need a role model, especially if they’re from single parent families.
“Money is becoming more of an issue as well.”