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A Message from the Director
Lesley Dunbar, SWAP East’s Director, reflects on her role, the work of the SWAP partnership, and the important role it plays in widening access to higher education for adult returners.I began working in adult education in 1993. Over the years, I have seen the hugely positive effects, many, many times over, that returning to education can make in a person’s life. Since 2012, I have been part of the SWAP team helping to support adults return to education and successfully transition through a college access programme into higher education. I initially joined SWAP as a co-ordinator and was very fortunate, just a year later, to be made Director. I feel extremely privileged to have held this role ever since.
My vision, from the very start, was that SWAP should be a programme that gives every adult, who has the potential, the opportunity to access and succeed in higher education.
We were in college, chatting to the SWAP students, when William, 29 and a former bricklayer, suddenly said “I’ve just had my university interview for Community Education; it’s madness, for a wee dude like me frae the slums of Edinburgh”. It summed up SWAP perfectly: that access programmes can, and do, change people’s lives.
A lot has changed in SWAP in the last 13 years. We’ve increased the partnership to include the colleges and universities in the north and highlands of Scotland; we’ve developed new programmes, including online, to give opportunities to students who can’t get to a college campus; we’ve increased the number of routes into university; we’ve introduced an Access to Medical Studies in the east and got new routes into Medicine, Vet Medicine and Dentistry; we’ve worked with the Robertson Trust to give a scholarship to single parents; we developed an award winning Mentoring programme and we’ve increased engagement with former SWAP students to help SWAP’s work.
These students’ voices are the most powerful tool SWAP has for getting the message across as to what it is going to be like for our access students at university. They are a really important part of SWAP’s work.
SWAP was formed in 1988 and our core aim has never changed – to give opportunities for accessing higher education to adults with few or no formal qualifications who have been out of education for a while. Over the years, SWAP has seen tens of thousands of access students move on to higher education. Currently 38% of SWAP students live in the poorest areas in Scotland and most of them successfully move on to higher education.
During this same period, the world changed. The COVID pandemic hit globally, affecting everyone, and learning at college and universities suddenly had to be very different. SWAP too had to change. Out of that came better work practices and a more streamlined approach to how we give information, support and guidance.
More recently we’ve seen a funding crisis in colleges and universities as well as a significant rise in the cost of living, the latter resulting in students having to undertake more part-time work whilst they study and more reports of students falling into poverty or greater levels of poverty. This inevitably raises further challenges for our students.
It’s now 11 years since the First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, voiced the ambition that by 2030, 20% of students entering undergraduate degrees in Scotland should come from the 20% most deprived areas in Scotland. A commission was set up a year later to advise on steps that would need to be taken to achieve this ambition and recommendations given. My hope going forward, is that widening access to higher education remains a priority for the Scottish Government and that everything that can be done, to help level the playing field for adults with less advantaged backgrounds, is done to help them succeed.
I’m retiring soon, so now is a good time to reflect on what it has meant to me to be part of SWAP. It has been a fantastic job and I am so lucky to have been given the opportunity to take the reins for a while. The mature students I’ve engaged with constantly amaze me with their resilience and determination to succeed, no matter what barriers are thrown up in front of them. I’d like to thank each and every one of them for inspiring me every day that I have been in this job. Good luck to SWAP and to all our students, now and in the future.
I’m retiring soon, so now is a good time to reflect on what it has meant to me to be part of SWAP. It has been a fantastic job and I am so lucky to have been given the opportunity to take the reins for a while. The mature students I’ve engaged with constantly amaze me with their resilience and determination to succeed, no matter what barriers are thrown up in front of them. I’d like to thank each and every one of them for inspiring me every day that I have been in this job. Good luck to SWAP and to all our students, now and in the future.
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