University education is about giving people the best possible opportunities in life and
that has to be regardless of race gender or social background.
Given the diversity of our student body it really is almost a moral issue of doing right by our students.
The diversity of the student body, we think, is one of the greatest learning environments
one of the greatest benefits we have and any students should have the best possible chance
to get the best possible education.
Addressing the attainment gap is a journey - it's important to recognise from the beginning
that there are no quick fixes and that persistence is one of the most important things that you
need to do this. And then you have to address the issue from both top and bottom.
We were the first University to set closing the attainment gap as a university KPI, so the board has
signed up to that, so that's important as a message of what's important to the university
and also it means that the priority survives changes in leadership.
We have created very precise datasets so we know exactly how our students are performing
in a number of key areas down to module level, so we can pinpoint where issues are, particularly
on this issue where the problems are. We go out to the staff and to the students to talk
about the attainment gap - it's a very scary topic for a lot of people so you have to get over that.
Then you have to make it one of the measures for learning and teaching quality
Once you've identified where the problems are, once you've got the staff and the students
on board that this is something which we need to address and where we need to do better,
then you have to put some mechanisms in place to actually improve that. So one
of the things is an inclusive curriculum framework where we do try and make the curriculum recognisable
to the diversity of our student body, we use a course dashboard where we explicitly
say that closing the attainment gap is one of the key metrics for performance and you
have to make this a university-wide project - so it can't be a project which is just handled
by a little group in a corner somewhere with EDI over the door. We've set up steering groups
which have membership from across the university so that the project is not 'ghetto-ised'.
We have made a lot of progress and while there are ups and downs over the last five years
we have moved from an attainment gap of 29% to an attainment gap of 13% and that is a
tremendous improvement.
Setting the bar higher than the sector demands, what we think is doing right by our students
especially as students from BAME backgrounds.
The commitment to the board is key to closing the attainment gap. It has to be an institutional priority.
In order to set that KPI we did run a number of workshops with the governors
so that they are well up to speed on the issues around it, on why it's important and they
are truly behind this as a priority.
We are really happy to be leading this project. We think that this is a very important issue
for the sector and we really have to do right by the students and higher education and that
we are ahead in this area means that we can share best practice and help other universities
get going on this, and do better by their students as well.
We don't have all the answers and we're still finding our way and so it's helpful to us
too, to see what other universities are doing - what they've tried, what's failed, what's worked
so that we're all part of a learning community.
The key messages for other universities in trying to close the attainment gap are
1) to get the commitment of the board and of the senior leadership team behind the project
and that has to be genuine commitment where it stands alongside the other priorities facing
the university. The second is that the focus on the attainment gap has to be mainstreamed
in the university, it can't be a little project that sits somewhere else, it has to involve
the whole University in some of the ways that I've described. And the third thing is just
to keep at it! I mean persistence is really important, this is a very difficult gap to close
there's a lot of cultural and structural issues that need to be addressed.
This is not easy and you just have to keep going. We've been at it for about six years now and
we've just now managed to get close to where we need to be.