"DIUS' own recent research found that four million people are considering, or willing to consider participating in higher education. These are people who are likely to be already in work; they may have family commitments and perhaps missed out on the opportunity to go to university the first time around. There may be others who now consider, quite wrongly, that their time has passed.

"We are now giving them a second chance and the Anglia Ruskin University has been particularly successful in doing this. I believe that every person who has the ability to go to university should also have the opportunity to do so. We must send out a clear message that it is not too late.

"And I believe that if we are to create the high-level skills base by 2020 that the UK needs, then we must aim to give those four million people who want to go to university the chance to get one of the increasingly wide range of qualifications that higher education has to offer."

"Before starting my degree I was working as a Teaching Assistant at a local secondary school. I began working with pupils who were children of migrant workers who had little or no English and enjoyed it so much I decided I wanted to become qualified to teach English. I investigated doing the 4 week CELTA course but found that I could do it as a combined degree so went for that option (with French) as I had always regretted not doing a degree when I was younger.

"Once I started the course all my concerns about being too old to start a degree were soon forgotten as there were plenty of other mature students. The course has been really interesting and covered a much wider subject area than I expected. I've also thoroughly enjoyed making so many new friends of all ages. My career prospects have changed drastically during the three years. I can now apply for graduate teaching jobs and even had offers of work before the teaching certificate was completed."