During 2017-18 over 120,000 young people took part in higher education outreach programmes through the NCOP.
What is NCOP?
The National Collaborative Outreach Programme (NCOP) brings together 29 partnerships of universities, colleges and other local partners to deliver outreach programmes to young people in years 9 to 13.
Their work is focused on local areas where higher education participation is lower than might be expected given the GCSE results of the young people who live there.
Phase one of the programme started in January 2017 and ran until July 2019. It aimed to support the government’s social mobility goals by rapidly increasing the number of young people from underrepresented groups who go into higher education.
Phase two started on 1 August 2019 and is due to finish in July 2021. Building on phase one, it supports two main strands of activity:
- Targeted higher education outreach within the local areas where we can have the most impact (these are the same areas targeted under phase one)
- Outreach hubs within the 29 local partnerships with cross-England coverage to help schools and colleges access the higher education outreach they need and provide a platform for wider collaboration.
Programme aims
The NCOP programme aims to:
- reduce the gap in higher education participation between the most and least represented groups
- support young people to make well-informed decisions about their future education
- support effective and impactful local collaboration by higher education providers working together with schools, colleges, employers and other partners
- contribute to a stronger evidence base around ‘what works’ in higher education outreach and strengthen evaluation practice in the sector.
Contact us
For more information about the National Collaborative Outreach Programme, email [email protected]
