Widening participation (WP) in higher education can be a component of government education policy. It consists of an attempt to increase not only the numbers of young people entering higher education, but also improve equality of opportunity for students from all backgrounds.^[1] Widening participation is one of the strategic objectives of the Office for Students (OfS).^[1] The Office for Students is pursuing this policy through a number of measures, including the payment of financial incentives to universities.^[1] This policy is linked to the previous Labour government's target of increasing participation in higher education to 50% by 2010.^{[citation needed]}

Criticism

The issue of widening participation became a political issue after the Laura Spence Affair which hit the headlines in 2000, and after the University of Bristol admissions controversy in 2003, which concerned alleged biases against and in favour of state schools, respectively.^{[citation needed]}