QMC degree in 'wee' steps for jobless

"I got some Highers at school, but university wasn't an option," says Susan Forgie. "We weren't that kind of a family. I didn't understand anything about the university culture, I didn't understand how to apply, and my teachers didn't view it as their job to demystify it."

Billy Flynn had a similarly discouraging experience. "I just couldn't afford to go to university. At 15, you're beginning to be a burden on your family, and they feel you should be bringing money in."

Twenty years on, the two have become pioneers in a radical access initiative by Edinburgh's Queen Margaret College. Access schemes, providing a way into higher education, are now commonplace. But QMC has taken a dramatic step beyond this with a project that is not a way into, but a way through, higher education, bringing unqualified adult learners directly into first-year level classes.

The project, supported under the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council's second Flexibility in Teaching and Learning Scheme, was in part inspired by the College of New Rochelle in New York, says Anne de Looy, convener of Queen Margaret's educational philosophy and practice committee.

"They have campuses in Brooklyn, Harlem and the Bronx, and they say that provided you have the motivation and aptitude, come and enjoy higher education - you don't need to have pieces of paper."

Over the past 18 months, the college has recruited 19 students, all long-term unemployed, from community education courses in Edinburgh's most deprived areas.

"The community education tutors were vital in terms of encouraging them to do it. The community education approach to teaching is quite different because it values the individual tremendously," says Professor de Looy.

And the students felt QMC shared this outlook. "The college made us welcome. It understood our alienation from the education system," says Ms Forgie. "We're all on benefits, and it gave us lunch allowances, travel permits and help with child care."

The college initially taught the students on community education sites, but after six weeks the students said they wanted to learn on campus. They studied two "orientation" modules, which have now been approved as mainstream courses, as well as three existing first-year modules in study skills, sociology and psychology.

"There was no pressure," says Ms Forgie. "The important thing was to become comfortable with lecturers and the institution. Success can be measured in a number of ways. For some, it's getting an A, for others, it's being able to speak in a tutorial."

"I think it's just a case of taking each module as it comes, just tiny wee steps," agrees Mr Flynn.

But the results have been impressive. Project manager Phil Denning says: "There is a spread of marks, and I'm quite glad - if everybody had been getting superb marks, people would have said we'd been coaching them. In some subjects, notably social sciences, they're among the top performers. In others, such as marketing, they're below average but still passing."

Only one student has dropped out, while the others have found jobs, or are continuing in further or higher education.

"I'm going to be the first generation to achieve a degree," says Mr Flynn. "This has given me a real hunger and a real thirst to see how far I can go educationally."

Ms Forgie, a single parent, says the course has widened horizons for more than herself. "My children now talk about 'when I go to university' - these are kids whose grandparents and parents are working class."

SHEFC funding for the pilot project has now ended, but the college hopes to win funding for a further four years from the European Social Fund.