Governance and leadership roles for equality and diversity in Colleges

Introduction Colleges’ boards of management have a responsibility to ensure that both quality and equality are effectively considered in their organisations. Colleges employ different approaches to allow for local decision making but need to ensure that there is a prompt and full response to existing and future equalities legislation

Good practice All teams produce annual self-evaluation reports within which they evaluate their service or provision, identify any equalities impacts, and use available equality and diversity information to plan actions and set targets. Equalities reports are considered by relevant board committees before publication.

Good practice The overall responsibility for equalities sit at board level. Operational management of equality rests with the senior vice-principal, who, as chair of the equality and diversity committee, ensures equality and diversity is considered at all levels in the college.

Good practice Many colleges produce programme review reports on a regular basis, and their programme teams focus on student progress and outcomes and produce relevant action plans for improvement and enhancement. Colleges should include all students in this process. At programme level, provision and use of relevant and meaningful equality data as part of such processes has often proved challenging in the past. Colleges should take active steps to address this.

What leaders need to do Leaders need to understand that addressing equality challenges through the quality review process is important, and that a strategic approach will help to meet the legal requirements of the Equality Act and to improve the quality of the student experience and outcomes.

Self-evaluation and use of equality data Self-evaluation procedures draw from a range of evidence sources including: the views of students observations of learning and teaching findings from external and internal moderation reports analysis of performance indicators relating to student retention, attainment and progression reflections gathered by individuals and members of academic and support teams

Staff development Staff development is of great significance in both the actions that colleges should take to embed equality and diversity within a college’s quality culture, and also within areas for development, especially ‘structured post-initial training’ – embedding equalities legislation in continuing professional development.

Student engagement Colleges have used a variety of mechanisms to gather information about their staff and students. This includes student satisfaction surveys, commendations, complaints, staff grievances and exit interviews with staff and students to gather equality information on the impact of decisions, functions, work practices, policies and procedures on people with particular protected characteristics. The types of information gleaned from this approach provides relevant source evidence to set equality outcomes.

Promote diversity to students and staff Promote diversity to students and staff taking care to include groups and characteristics that may not be prevalent in the local area Include equality and diversity messages on your website to welcome applications from prospective students from protected characteristic groups. Use your physical environments to promote the values of inclusion and diversity, including the use of marketing screens to highlight your message and incorporate positive imagery in communications.

Prior experiences and attainment Ensure that programmes are well suited to students’ prior experiences and attainment, in order to maximise participation and success Colleges need to have systems in place to consider the barriers to student access Colleges need to implement various actions to reduce the barriers to learning. Flexible engagement models should be used to encourage a greater diversity of students across different needs and circumstances including part-time, full-time, flexible timetables, community learning centre's and evening classes.

Engagement In addition to engaging with current students, colleges should be mindful of how they engage with their wider community, for example, what their external marketing materials and application processes communicate about their college environment. To help break down barriers of perceived access to and inclusion in college life, colleges should undertake specific targeted activities to communicate to underrepresented groups, including making marketing materials available in accessible formats and using positive images in external and internal publications.

Support for students Colleges should use individual learning plans or personal learning and support plans to help students identify and achieve their learning priorities and provide support to students on an individual basis. These plans should be used to measure student progress and the development of essential skills. Where students require additional support, the plans help to track the appropriateness of the additional support measures

Monitoring Monitor for equality and diversity at programme level through systematic analysis Colleges should develop software packages that allow staff at programme level to analyse equality data for some of the protected characteristics for applications, enrolments, student satisfaction, retention and achievement. This will allow staff in colleges to see equality-relevant information at the touch of a button and respond in a timely and effective manner to any issues that are highlighted. Trends resulting from the analysis of data should be reported to appropriate committees for feedback and planning, and in college annual equality progress reports.

EDI as part of curriculum experience Colleges should develop a range of processes to ensure that equality and diversity is part of the curriculum experience. These processes will allow colleges to consider the needs of individual students and the best approaches to best meet those needs. Colleges should have a learning and teaching strategy that provides the framework for promoting high-quality learning through curriculum design, delivery, assessment and student support.

EDI as part of curriculum experience Annual curriculum and portfolio reviews include analysis of student data should be an integral part in colleges, and equality and diversity checklists and internal review or audits should be used to ensure it is kept at the forefront of staff thinking in terms of preparation of materials, analysis of programme delivery and impact on students.

Teaching approaches To build equality and diversity into teaching approaches, colleges should use models of peer or critical friend observation in the classroom. This helps staff to reflect on equality and diversity and communication methods in their teaching and allows for a review of the effectiveness of learning and teaching practices. In addition to identifying and sharing good practice, this approach is also used to design staff training to support development needs.