Press Release

Ethnicity and Gender Disparities in Degree Attainment in Higher Education

22 January 2008

Students enter higher education to get a degree – and whatever the arguments for and against the current system, the classification of that degree still counts.

A year ago work carried out by the then Department of Education and Skills showed that, even after allowing for a range of factors that might affect results, there remained an unexplained difference between the degree results that students from many  minority ethnic groups might be expected to achieve and those that they actually achieved.  There were also differences in results by gender.

GuildHE represents a group of higher education institutions that attach huge importance to getting the best out of their students and enabling them to achieve their full potential.  So GuildHE welcomed the proposal to carry out further work.  The Ethnicity, Gender and Degree Attainment project was undertaken by the Higher Education Academy and the Equality Challenge Unit, with funding from DIUS and support from GuildHE and UniversitiesUK. 

The project steering group was chaired by Dr Ruth Farwell, Vice-Chancellor of Buckinghamshire New University and Vice-Chair of GuildHE.  Speaking today to managers, academics, students and practitioners at a major conference held to launch the project report, Dr Farwell noted that the project does not claim to have all the answers. 

However, as she said :
“The point is that we should analyse our own data, take the outcomes of the analysis, look at our own practices, question our own practices and consider whether we in institutions could do things differently so that all students can benefit to the full from their higher education experience”.

She noted that for institutions as a whole
“The possibility that our policy infrastructure and some of our approaches to teaching and learning including assessment may not be enabling some of our students to achieve their full potential is surely something that institutions would wish to discuss and act upon…”

Dr Farwell referred to work within her own institution looking at apparent variation in levels of achievement among certain minority ethnic groups between one year of a degree programme and the next.  Other GuildHE member institutions are also exploring the issues.  Newman University College has, for example, been monitoring student achievement and student satisfaction for both ethnic minority and male students (who are a minority group at the University College). 

Pamela Taylor, Principal of Newman University College, and immediate past Chair of GuildHE said :
“Our students generally find Newman particularly supportive of their academic needs and personal development.  However, there is no room for complacency and as our numbers increase in particular categories, especially for those less experienced in higher education, we need to work even harder to ensure that our strategies for equal opportunities and for learning and teaching and our curriculum are really joined up to embrace diversity and enable achievement”.

University College Birmingham also monitors the achievement of all their students looking at retention, progression rates and results achieved.  Eddie McIntyre, Principal, University College Birmingham, said:
“Our student profile closely matches our local community and a major part of our curriculum reflects the needs of local employers.  We will continue to monitor outcomes very closely but I am pleased to say that in practice we are not finding major gaps between the achievement of minority ethnic groups. We are very proud of the achievement of all our students.”

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