The Fair Chance Foundation Project has been awarded over £42,000 of Economic and Social Research Council Impact Acceleration Account funding in order to complete a more in-depth impact phase.

The FCF project has, over the past 4 years, been researching access to Higher Education in Haryana, India, focusing on gendered social relations and differences in choices, obstacles and opportunities for young people. The project now seeks to devise a programme of actions leading to positive social change which build on the findings from the three project research phases. Working with local partners, the project will aim to contribute to developing an outreach culture in Haryana, India (and beyond). The project will develop policy briefs and produce an outreach toolkit to support those involved in outreach initiatives. The project team will work with our partners in Haryana and Delhi to develop these resources and to co-facilitate project events.

We will focus in particular on supporting the development of outreach activities within government colleges which often provide higher education to the most disadvantaged communities and also to those young people who are the first generation of higher education students in their families. The aim is to work with colleagues in India to develop a toolkit which can provide the basis for such outreach activities which are ‘family friendly’ and enable family members to support young people in informed choices. Our research has highlighted the importance of family members in decision making but also the challenges that families with little or no history of higher education face in supporting their young people in making choices and taking up opportunities.

Ann Stewart who is leading the project told us, “we hope to contribute to the Indian government’s new policy on Education – 2020 Education Policy – it has a substantial section on HE and it mentions the importance of developing outreach activities to increase equality, diversity and inclusion. We are keen to use our work as an example of what could be done.”

For more information on the project please visit: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/law/research/projects/rlaaa3083