Current Issues of Equality & Diversity in
Higher Education
David Ruebain
Chief Executive, Equality Challenge Unit
Equality Challenge Unit
= Established in 2001 to promote equality for staff in
higher education in the UK
= Remit extended in 2006 to include students
= Funded by the 4 UK higher education funding
Councils, Universities UK and GuildHE
= 19 staff, based in London
= Since August 2011 working with colleges in
Scotland
Equality Challenge Unit
ECU works to further and support equality and diversity for
staff and students in higher education and seeks to ensure that
staff and students are not unfairly excluded, marginalised or
disadvantaged because of age, disability, gender identity,
marital or civil partnership status, pregnancy or maternity
status, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, or
through any combination of these characteristics or other
unfair treatment.
What we do
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Research and investigation
Guidance
Advice line
Systemic change “beyond compliance”
Chartermark?
Networks
REF, Research, sector specific work
Equality Link
Web resources
And also
Biennial Conference
Best practice
Regional support
Intersection with widening participation
(OFFA) – increasingly important with
changes to the sector (fees, core & margin,
student “experience”)
= Academic Roundtables (identifying issues,
undertaking research, consultees)?
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45 years of legislation
= From the Race Relations Act 1965 to the
Equality act 2010 and 9 protected
characteristics
= Direct and indirect discrimination,
victimisation, harassment, reasonable
adjustments
= Equal pay, positive action, procurement
= The Public Sector Duty
= Socioeconomic status?
Equality of what?
= Opportunity
= Outcome
= Dignity?
Some Challenges in HE
= BME staff
‒ Underrepresentation; marginalisation
= BME students
‒ Differential degree attainment
= Disabled staff/students
‒ Disclosure
‒ Lack of support for staff as compared with students
= Older staff
‒ Abolition of default retirement age
Challenges (2)
= Gender
‒ “Leaky pipeline” for women academics
‒ Male students attainment and pastoral support
= Sexual orientation
‒ Harassment
‒ Employment security and research agenda
= Religion and belief
‒ Participation and access
‒ Accommodating religious observance
Students – ethnicity
Higher levels of representation nationally
= BME students increased from 14.9%
in 2003/04 to 18.1% in 2009/10.
= Increase in the proportion of BME
students across all sub-categories,
with the percentage of black
students increasing at the fastest
rate, from 4.4% to 5.9%.
However:
= Lower degree attainment than
white peers
= Lower continuation rates than
white peers
Ethnicity and type of institution
(Runnymede: 2010, p.7)
Student subject choice by ethnicity
Student subject choice by ethnicity
The degree attainment gap
increased from 17.2% in
2003/04 to a peak of 18.8% in
2005/06 and was 18.6% in
2009/10.
The attainment gap is highest
between white and black
students, where the difference
was 29.8% in 2009/10.
Source: ECU publication ‘Equality in higher education: Statistical report 2011.’
Students – disability
Of those students for whom
disability information was
available, the proportion known to
have a disability increased from
5.5% in 2003/04 to 7.6% in
2009/10.
= First degree undergraduate qualifiers known to have a disability were less
likely to obtain a first class honours or upper second class honours degree
(59.9%) than those not known to have a disability (63.4%).
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Of those declaring a disability, students who were in receipt of DSA were
more likely to obtain a first class honours or upper second class honours
degree (60.2%) than students who did not receive DSA.
Students – Gender
= Over the past 7 years, there has
been consistently more female
students than male students in
higher education.
= Male students are more likely to
attain a lower 2nd or 3rd class
honours.
= Male students are more likely to
withdraw from course.
= 52.4% of post-graduate student
studying SET subjects are male.
Staff - Race
The proportion of UK national
BME academics is slowly
increasing (5.9% in 2003/04
to 7.0% in 2009/10).
However –
• UK national, BME staff are
more likely to be on fixedterm contracts
• Less likely to be in
professorial roles
Staff - Gender
= Overall 19.1% of professors are
women. This is more acute in
SET subjects at 15.1%.
= The mean and median salaries of
female staff are less than for
male staff in almost all
occupation groups.
Research Excellence Framework (REF)
2014
= Successor to the Research Assessment Exercise
= Process of expert review of research quality
Equality issues, learning from the previous exercise (RAE 2008)
= Selection rate for staff with declared disability lower than for
staff without declared disability
= 67% of male permanent academic staff selected in comparison
to 48% of women
= Women aged 30 – 50 particularly low rate of selection
= Selection rate of black staff the lowest
Source: Selection of staff for inclusion in RAE 2008, HECFE 2009/34
Measures to support equality in the
REF
= Explicit equality requirements in HEIs’ codes of
practice
= Requirement to provide equality training to those
selecting staff to the REF
= Clarity on how individuals cans be submitted without
reduced outputs without penalty due to equality
considerations
= Centralised Equality and Diversity Panel (EDAP)
Reductions in output for the REF
Panel criteria allow for reduction in research outputs in relation
to:
1. Clearly defined circumstances
Early career researchers, part time working, maternity,
paternity or adoptive leave, secondments or career breaks
2. More complex circumstances
Disability, constraints relating to pregnancy or maternity in
addition to clearly defined period of leave, caring
responsibilities, gender reassignment, other circumstances
related to protected characteristics
ECU’s role in the REF
= Member of REF Equality and Diversity Advisory Group and observer
on Equality and Diversity Advisory Panel
= Workshops on equality requirements of REF for HEIs REF managers
= Materials to support equality provisions in the REF, including:
= Guidance on equality impact assessments and the REF
= Developing a Code of Practice
= Staff disclosure of personal circumstances template
= Case studies on complex staff circumstances
= Train the trainer materials on equality in the REF
(http://www.ecu.ac.uk/documents/ref-materials/training-pack)
Why do anything?
- Business case – diverse institutions perform better,
particularly in a global, diverse environment
- Legislation - compliance
- E&D is part of core mission of research and teaching
& learning
Systemic change work
• Concentrated on under-representation of
women and BME staff in higher education
• Exploring culture change, not just support
for individuals. Not just about “intent”
• Building on Athena SWAN principles
• May lead to a framework or kite mark
Building on Athena SWAN
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The culture of your department – self assessment
Mentoring and career development support
Career transition points
Committee membership and development
Flexible working arrangements
Transparent workload allocation models
Core hours of meetings
Support for those on/returning from parental leave
ECU in a complex environment
= Tension between “pushing the agenda” and
supporting compliance
= Differing needs of the sector from mission
groups, regions, types and size of HEIs
= Impact of our work
Contact details
David.Ruebain@ecu.ac.uk
7th Floor Queens House
55/56 Lincoln's Inn Fields
London
WC2A 3LJ
Tel: 0207 438 1010
info@ecu.ac.uk
www.ecu.ac.uk