The following recommendations were made the UUK/ NUS report (published May 2019) BLACK, ASIAN AND MINORITY ETHNIC STUDENT ATTAINMENT AT UK UNIVERSITIES: #CLOSINGTHEGAP
- Providing strong leadership: University leaders and senior managers need to demonstrate a commitment to removing the BAME attainment gap and lead by example. UUK and NUS have created a checklist (see table 1 in section 5) for university leaders to draw upon when considering how to address their institution’s attainment gap.
- Having conversations about race and changing the culture: Universities and students need to create more opportunities to talk directly about race, racism and the attainment gap and to identify what students think is causing it. A change in culture is needed alongside a clear institutional message that issues of race are embedded within wider strategic goals.
- Developing racially diverse and inclusive environments:University leadership teams are not representative of the student body and some curriculums do not reflect minority groups’ experiences. A greater focus is needed from universities, working with their students, on ensuring that BAME students have a good sense of belonging at their university, and on understanding how a poor sense of belonging might be contributing to low levels of engagement and progression to postgraduate study.
- Getting the evidence and analysing the data: Universities need to take a more scientific approach to tackling the attainment gap, by gathering and scrutinising data in a far more comprehensive way than they may currently be doing, in order to inform discussions between university leaders, academics, practitioners and students.
- Understanding what works: Universities can work together to address gaps in the evidence-base by using applied research to ensure that evidence on ‘what works’ is high quality, and share evidence of what works and what doesn’t. As a first step, UUK has created a collection of case studies, which universities and students are encouraged to engage with and develop
You can also read the University Alliance response to the report
