At the end of the twentieth century, the relationships between higher education and the
world of work are again among the key issues of debate whenever challenges for innovation
in higher education are at stake. Issues of this domain played a substantial role, for example,
in UNESCO's “Policy Paper for Change and Development in Higher Education”(UNESCO
1995b), and were more frequently addressed than any other topic in the series of
preparatory conferences held in 1997 for the UNESCO World Conference of Higher …

The aim of this article is to provide an overview on, first, access to higher education in
Western European countries in terms of enrolment quotas as well as the composition of the
student body. Secondly, the state of knowledge on limitations of equality of opportunity
regarding access to higher education will briefly be described. Thirdly, debates and
practices regarding equality of opportunity will be discussed in detail. In this context,
emphasis will be placed on measures in secondary education effecting access to higher …