Widening participation – a comparison of the characteristics of successful UK applicants to the ﬁve‑year and four‑year dental programmes in 2007 and 2008 V. Niven, *1 L. B. Cabot 2 and J. E. Gallagher 1 VERIFIABLE CPD PAPER speciﬁc local WP initiatives, the introduc- tion of four-year graduate and professional entry programmes and the opening of three graduate-only dental schools. 2 One signiﬁcant challenge to WP has been the introduction of student fees, which vary across the constituent coun- tries of the UK – these were ﬁrst intro- duced in 1998, rose to over £3,000 per year in 2004, and in England and Wales in 2012 these have risen to a maximum of £9,000 per annum. Scottish domiciled students are not required to pay fees at Scottish universities and with the desire to retain the dental workforce in Scotland and the introduction of graduate entry programmes various bursary schemes have been available to certain categories INTRODUCTION Widening participation (WP) in higher edu- cation is an important factor in education policy. WP can be considered as increas- ing diversity and representation of students who have not traditionally accessed higher education. 1 In recent years we have seen an increase in undergraduate numbers and Aim To compare the demographics (age, sex, ethnicity, social status, disability, country/region) and academic experience (school type) of accepted UK applicants to the ﬁve‑year and four‑year dental programmes in 2007 and 2008. Methods Retrospective descriptive analysis was carried out on the University and College Admissions Services (UCAS) data for ac‑ cepted UK applicants to the ﬁve‑ and four‑year dental programmes at UK dental schools in the years 2007 and 2008. Logistic regression was used to model the outcome of dental admission to programmes (four‑year vs ﬁve‑year), controlling for the other explanatory variables. Data were analysed using SPSS v19. Results In the years 2007 and 2008 over 2,000 UK applicants were accepted on to a dental course (n = 2,274) within the UK. Of these accepted applicants, 84% (n = 1,903) were accepted onto a ﬁve‑year and 14% (n = 322) onto a four‑year, programme. Over half were female for both the ﬁve‑ and four‑year programmes (58% cf 59% respectively). One tenth of students accepted to the ﬁve‑year programme were ‘mature’ (n = 173) and nearly all of the students to the four‑year programme (n = 321). Similar proportions of accepted applicants to both pro‑ grammes were from minority ethnic groups (46%), with the majority of students being of White or Asian background; how‑ ever, the four‑year programmes accepted a higher proportion of black (4% cf 1%) and ‘other’ minority ethnic students (8% cf 3%) when compared with the ﬁve‑year programme. A higher proportion of accepted students to the four‑year programmes came from the lowest ‘higher/further education participation areas’ (POLAR2 groups 1‑3) than the ﬁve‑year programmes (38% cf 28%). Proportionally more accepted applicants to the four‑year programmes came from London than the ﬁve‑year programmes (30%, cf 20%). In contrast, a greater proportion of accepted applicants to the ﬁve‑year programmes came from Scotland (13% cf 6%), Northern Ireland (9% cf 0%) and Wales (4% cf 2%). When all other factors were controlled, the odds of being accepted to the four‑year rather than the ﬁve‑year programme were higher if the applicants were mature and from Greater London. Conclusion There is little deﬁnitive evidence that graduate entry programmes widen access to dentistry when compared with the traditional ﬁve‑year programme; however, the ﬁndings do highlight geographic disparities in access to graduate entry programmes, which are important for policy makers and schools to consider. of student over much of the past decade. 3 Ironically, the recent increase in tuition fees in England and Wales is conditional on a signiﬁcant proportion of this fee being spent on WP initiatives. 4 We can only speculate as to the impact this recent change will have on WP, however, we do know that applicant numbers for medicine and dentistry have fallen for 2012 entry. 5 Dentistry, to some extent, has followed its medical counterparts in expanding student numbers and promoting a widening access agenda. Both medicine and dentistry attract, and admit a higher proportion of students from socially advantaged backgrounds, albeit that dentistry has done rather bet- ter in attracting students from state schools than its medical counterparts. 6 1 King’s College London Dental Institute at Guy’s, King’s College and St Thomas’ Hospitals, Unit of Oral Health Services Research & Dental Public Health, Denmark Hill Campus, Bessemer Road, London, SE5 9RS; 2 King’s College London Dental Institute at Guy’s, King’s College and St Thomas’ Hospitals, Department of Prosthodontics, Floor 25, Tower Wing, Guy’s Hospital, London, SE1 9RT *Correspondence to: Victoria Niven Email: victoria.niven@kcl.ac.uk; Tel: 0203 299 3481 Refereed Paper Accepted 29 October 2012 DOI: 10.1038/sj.bdj.2013.107 © British Dental Journal 2013; 214: 117-122 • Provides an understanding of changes to UK BDS programmes in recent years. • Presents the characteristics of applicants to the traditional ﬁve‑year dental programmes compared with applicants to four‑year graduate entry programmes. • Stresses the challenges in comparing the demographics of students given data collection by UCAS. • Highlights inequalities in participation in dental education. IN BRIEF EDUCATION BRITISH DENTAL JOURNAL VOLUME 214 NO. 3 FEB 9 2013 117 © 2013 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved.