£3.5m to enrol workers

Coventry University has been awarded £3.5 million to create a new way for universities to engage full-time employees as students - as part of the Government's mission to widen participation in higher education.

The Higher Education Funding Council for England has awarded the grant, as part of the Government's plans to ensure that at least 5,000 additional university places are for full-time workers by 2008-09.

So far, four large employers have signed up - Parcelforce Worldwide, the Automobile Association, Perkins Engines and Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership National Health Service Trust.

Coventry's School of Lifelong Learning will work with the firms to create customised training and development programmes run on the companies'

premises.