Ensuring Inclusivity in Higher Education: Strategies and Best Practices
By Kiran Arooje, Lecturer in Business, LSST Luton
Higher Education is a fundamental right that should be accessible to everyone worldwide without discrimination. The UK education system can achieve this by implementing various measures, such as inclusivity policies, diversified faculty and staff, inclusive curriculum, student support services, and engagement. In this blog, I will focus on some of the best initiatives in the UK education system towards achieving this goal.
Clear Inclusivity Policies and Commitment
It is necessary for Higher Education institutes to develop and implement clear policies related to inclusivity to reflect their commitment to diversity. All the key discrimination issues, such as age, gender, gender reassignment, disability, race, and economic background, must be addressed in these policies (Nieminen, 2022). For instance, Fung et al., (2022) in their landmark work “Tackling Hate Crime and Macroaggressions: Effective Practices in Higher Education Institutions” provide key insights related to policy development for fostering better inclusivity in higher education institutes in the UK.
Diverse Faculty and Staff
It is not only suitable for UK Higher Education institutions to promote inclusivity among students; instead, they must reflect the same attitude in the case of staff members (Westwood, 2018). UK Higher Education institutions must offer a clear and equal opportunity for selection and promotion to diverse staff members without any discrimination and assess the level of diversity amongst staff members in educational settings to achieve better results in terms of overall inclusivity (Nieminen, 2022). The conflict among staff members and cross-cultural collaboration is certainly a key challenge existing in this regard; however, it is possible to tackle this challenge by arranging training for the staff members to overcome this issue (Tai et al., 2023).
Inclusive Curriculum
The Higher Education institutes operating in the UK must also pay attention to developing curricula for promoting inclusivity. For instance, the UK Quality Code of Higher Education accepts the need for diversity and quality within the curriculum to encourage students to come up with diverse ideas and creative solutions (Fung et al., 2022). Such an approach tends to make students feel accepted and promoted by others, which directly contributes to the enhanced inclusivity level at educational institutes (Tai et al., 2023).
Support Services
It is necessary for UK Higher Education institutions to offer support services to the staff as well as students in case of any challenge being faced by them related to diversity (Ainscow, 2020). Such services tend to make individuals feel respected, supported, and included, which motivates them to pace up their actions to be involved in the culture. Tai et al., (2023) argue that UK Higher Education institutions must ensure the offering of such support services in curriculum settings as well to keep students motivated.
Student Engagement
The UK Higher Education institutions must take positive actions to boost the level of engagement amongst staff members. Fung et al., (2022) agree with this aspect by citing the example of the National Union of Students, which offers better resources for student engagement.
Next steps
Based on the above discussion, it is quite clear that there is a wide range of suitable action opportunities available to UK institutes for promoting inclusivity at the workplace, which must be taken accordingly to achieve and sustain the best possible results.
References
Ainscow, M., (2020). Promoting inclusion and equity in education: lessons from international experiences. Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy, 6(1), 7-16.
Fung, C. Y., Su, S. I., Perry, E. J., and Garcia, M. B. (2022). Development of a socioeconomic inclusive assessment framework for online learning in higher education. In Socioeconomic inclusion during an era of online education (pp. 23-46). IGI Global.
Nieminen, J. H., (2022). Assessment for Inclusion: rethinking inclusive assessment in higher education. Teaching in Higher Education, 1-19.
Tai, J., Ajjawi, R., Bearman, M., Boud, D., Dawson, P., and Jorre de St Jorre, T. (2023). Assessment for inclusion: rethinking contemporary strategies in assessment design. Higher Education Research and Development, 42(2), 483-497.