This paper investigates the degree of rural disaggregation needed in school data to capture rural deprivation in a higher education (HE) context. Using state secondary school datasets, I compare and contrast four methods of disaggregation. This allows me to highlight (1) the importance of rural disaggregation and (2) the necessary step of intersecting the rural indicator with at least one meaningful school statistics to contextualise deprivation within a ‘rural’ school. It also allows me to encourage policy-makers to revisit the concept of ‘deprivation’ in achieving equal opportunities to access to HE.

In the light of over-representation of students from affluent backgrounds in universities, governments in Europe have often adopted national objectives to promote social inclusion in HE institutions and foster access to HE from under-represented groups of students (Brooks et al., 2020). A few countries went further by setting quantitative targets, in particular in terms of national deprivation indexes (European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice 2018).

Deprivation indexes are widely used in policy-making (Pampalon et al., 2012). First, they identify communities that may have more need for support. Second, they allow the evaluation of government policies on crime, health, transport, or education. These indexes aggregate multidimensional aspects of deprivation experienced by communities, but they are known to be more able to describe the nature of deprivation in urban areas than in rural areas (Fecht et al., 2017; Burke & Jones, 2019; Clelland, 2021). They could have adverse effect on access to HE for rural learners (Lasselle & Johnson, 2021) and Lasselle (2021).

Studies on access to HE from a rural point of view is still thin although there exists a rural gap in terms of enrolment, attainment and completion at tertiary level in OECD countries (Eurostat, 2017; Echazarra & Radinger, 2019). The rural factor is rarely considered in fair access with the notable exception of Australia.

This paper aims to provide a better understanding of rural deprivation in fair access to HE policy. 

This paper follows the approaches considered by Thier et al. (2020) and Roberts & Fuqua (2021) and builds on the methodologies developed by Lasselle & Johnson (2021) and Lasselle (2021). It compares and contrasts four different approaches to disaggregating secondary school data as rural to measure rural deprivation. All approaches measure rurality from government statistics and definitions. The first approach considers the traditional urban/rural divide. Schools are characterised by their location: a school in an urban area vs a school in a rural area. The second approach is taking into account a more disaggregated divide in which remoteness is introduced. The third and fourth approaches are not based on location, but on the proportion of students attending the school and residing in a rural area (or a remote area). The fourth approach differs from the third approach as it integrates proxies measuring poverty at school level. The four approaches are all data-driven and Scottish-based. They can be replicated in many countries with standard rural/urban classification and school statistics collection. The choice of Scotland as a case study is motived by two reasons. First, Scotland combines a large variation in terms of geographic location, including remote island, large remote rural areas in the mainland, towns in a remote area, big cities. Second, the Scottish government has a clear ambition in terms of access to HE: students from the 20% most deprived communities must represent 20% of all entrants to HE by 2030. The evaluation of this policy is solely based on the use of the national deprivation index determining which communities are the most deprived.

The results are twofold. First, rural disaggregation in school data is an essential step to understand rural deprivation in fair access to HE policy, but it is still insufficient. The chosen geographical indicator needs to be intersected with at least one relevant school statistics to capture rural deprivation in the HE context. Second, the paper encourages policy-makers not to neglect the rural dimensional when they formulate national fair access policy to HE. It provides them measures on rural deprivation that could be used alongside deprivation national indexes in policy implementation and evaluation.

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