Voluntary work could save students from paying tuition fees

"Gap Year Students" could still miss out -- UCAS

Details of a scheme to waive £1000-a-year tuition fees for school-leavers planning to take a "gap year" are to be announced later this week. The exemption will apply for those doing at least three months voluntary work.

Graduates not needing to mind the gap

But the National Union of Students warned it would back a legal challenge to the charging of tuition fees. A spokesman said: "We have had legal advice that all students offered places this year, whether deferred or not, received those offers on the same basis -- which did not include the payment of fees."

The plan -- aimed at avoiding chaos in the universities admissions system from thousands of late applicants -- is to be revealed on Friday, the day after A level results are published.

However, it remained unclear whether these students would be exempted from fees, or offered bursaries to cover the cost. It was also unclear whether the exemption would apply only to the tuition fees, or also to the extra debt some students will incur through the abolition of maintenance grants.

Tony Higgins, chief executive of the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service, said the scheme would help to ease the logjam, but added: "The policy seems to apply only to those doing charity work in their year off. That seems to imply that all the others taking a year off are just bumming around.

Tony Higgins

...explaining his reservations on the BBC's Today programme Dur: 2'05"

"But what about the civil engineering student who decides to spend six months working on a building site, or the medical student who decides to work as a hospital porter? Why should they be penalised?"

He said that the scheme would appear to account for just 19,000 students planning to take a year out through "deferred entry" -- deliberately opting for a place in 1998. It did not include those re-taking A levels, or those applying for places in their "gap" year.

But sources at the Department for Education and Employment quashed any hope that exemption from fees would be extended beyond students planning voluntary work. "This is a specific group for whom the Secretary of State feels we owe a deal of consideration. Since they are helping society, it is not unreasonable to give them some assistance."

UCAS says it has already seen a 38% increase in applications to its clearing system compared with last year, and a 75% rise in the number of pupils so far placed in clearing. Mr Higgins has said he believes this is hard evidence of would-be students trying to "get in under the wire".

Head teachers' leaders added to the pressure on the Government to widen the scope of its concession scheme. David Hart, General Secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said it was "manifestly wrong" to limit the concession to those planning charity work in their year off.

All students who satisfied the terms of a deferred offer of a university place had met their side of a contract which did not include the payment of tuition fees, Mr Hart said.

The scheme to end free university tuition and abolish student grants was laid out in the Dearing report into the future of financing the university system.

Related Sites:

• The National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education
• The Dearing Report