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BSU Equality Data - Students

Employability

Bath Spa Careers have produces an Equality and Diversity Strategy for 2011/12, when preparing the strategy they identified the following:

In the August 2010, the Head of Employability commissioned a report to review graduate destinations data over a period of several years. Amongst the findings, it was reported that over 10% of BSU graduates are registered with a disability which is slightly higher than the national and regional average. Indeed, subsequent research has revealed that the proportion of first degree graduates with known disability may be as high as 16%, with additional differences between subjects. Based on graduate destinations, appropriate strategies are being put in place to ensure that students’ career development is supported where the need is greatest.

As stated in paper G716 (‘Graduate Employability’ presented to Board of Governors on 2nd November 2011) analysis of the most recent graduate destinations data also revealed potential gender differences, which is of particular interest given the 71:29 (female:male) ratio across the undergraduate population. Only 41% of those BSU female graduates in employment secured graduate-level jobs, compared to 57% of males; and mean salary for women is £14,840 compared to £15,674 for men.

There are currently no findings in terms of how age, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity or religion or belief may affect/disadvantage BSU students.

Applicants and Students

Applicant and Student data is collected during the application process, although certain protected characteristics including ethnicity information is not made available to the University by UCAS until an applicant accepts at this institution. All students who register at Bath Spa University (BSU) verify their own protected characteristics information to ensure that the dataset is as accurate as possible. Information is currently collected and reported on Gender, Disability, Ethnicity (BME) and Age (on entry to course). The following protected characteristics are currently not collected by BSU, but we will start to collect this information from September 2012:

Student data is presented here by protected characteristic and each section includes an analysis of:

The source for all comparative data is the Equality Challenge Unit’s publication ‘Equality in higher education: statistical report 2011 Part 2: Students’, available here. In some cases, a direct comparison cannot be found and in those cases, the next level statistic has been used. For example, there is no direct comparison set for the Professional Masters Programme but this data is included by the ECU within the postgraduate cohort so it is this statistic that is used.

BSU students and courses have been split in this report into a number of different categories so that like for like comparisons can be made.  The student and course groups are:

Applications and acceptances during the admission process are covered in the final section against the protected characteristics as above.

Data is included for four academic years (2007/08, 2008/09, 2009/10 and 2010/11) followed by the four-year average for each group and sector benchmarks so that trends can be identified.

Student Gender Data

Figure 8a provides the overall proportion of students who are female. Overall, BSU shows a significantly higher percentage of female students over a four year period (70.96%) than the sector norm of 56.6%. Subjects where nationally the percentage of female students is below this sector norm include only two (History and Business) that are delivered at BSU. All other subjects delivered here, including Creative Arts/Design (60.9%) and Education (75.4%), have significantly higher percentages of female students. Undergraduate first degree proportions remain relatively static, and indeed show a slight increase in the male student population from 30.96% in 2008/9 to 31.44% in 2010/11, and Foundation Degrees have seen a decrease in the female percentage over time as newer courses have recruited, expanding the subjects on offer.

Figure 8a - Proportion of students who are female (%)

Figure 8b indicates that while only 29.04% of the student body is male, the proportion of non-continuing students who are male is 32.62%, showing a slightly higher proportion of male students not continuing. The sector norm for male non-continuation is 49.75% (though based on a higher underlying proportion) and a higher proportion of female entrants continued their studies than males.

Figure 8b - Proportion of those students who do not continue their studies and were male (%)

Figure 8c - Proportion of first degree students by classification who were female (%)

Figure 8c indicates that female students at BSU are achieving proportionally more 1st and 2.1 degree classifications for their cohort size than male students. Sector data indicates that male students achieve more 1st and 3rd class degrees than female students.

Students Disability Data

Disabled students at BSU are well represented across all course groups except PMP and 'Other'.

Figure 9a - Proportion of students who declared a disability (%)

Figure 9b - Proportion of students who do not continue their studies and declared a disability (%)

Sector data indicates little difference between non-continuation rates for students who declare a disability and all other students. This is not reflected in the BSU dataset but we are able to demonstrate an improvement in 2010/11 in the continuation of study for students declaring a disability.

Figure 9c - Proportion of first degree students by classification who declared a disability (%)

The good representation of students who declare a disability at BSU is reflected in the high proportion of students achieving 1st and 2.1 classifications against the sector norms. We have also seen a steady but significant increase in the proportion of students declaring a disability who achieved 1st and 2.1 degrees and also a decrease in the proportions gaining 2.2 and 3rd class degrees. The development work that the Student Support Service has undertaken over the past few years to ensure that learning support arrangements are in place for students with disabilities in a timely manner will ensure that this trend continues.

Ethnicity (BME) Data

Sector data for ethnicity includes only those students domiciled in the UK. At BSU, non-UK domiciled students are small in number and are therefore included in this dataset as most will appear in the ‘Other’ course group. At London universities, the proportion of BME students is particularly high, so the sector comparison used is for England excluding the London universities cohort.

Across the sector, BME students were well represented (over 20% of those students) in subjects allied to medicine (including nursing), computer science, engineering, medicine and law. These are subject areas that are not in BSU’s portfolio of courses.

Figure 10a - Proportion of students who identifies as BME (%)

BSU has seen a steady growth in the number of first degree BME students over the past four years.

Figure 10b - Proportion of students who do not continue their studies and who identified as BME (%)

Figure 10c - Proportion of first degree students by classification who identified as BME (%)

Sector data indicates that a greater proportion of white students achieved first class degrees than any other ethnicity.

Age (on entry to course) Data

In order to benchmark student age data, the sector uses the student’s age when they commence their programme of study to make comparisons.

BSU shows an above sector average for first degree students 21 and under, with numbers of students in all other age groups showing a small decline over the four year period (Figure 11a).

However, students aged 36 and over are well represented in the postgraduate cohort (Figure 11b), reflecting BSU’s commitment to open access to all courses, as well as the professional nature of the PMP programme.

Figure 11a - Proportion of first degree students by age on entry (%)

Figure 11b - Proportion of postgraduate students by age on entry (%)

Figure 11c - Proportion of first degree students who do not continue their studies by mode of attendance and age group (%)

Application Data

Data for first degree UCAS applications covers the same four-year period as the student data and is aggregated across those years. Data is shown for the percentage of applications; offers made; and whether the applicant was eligible to register at the end of the admissions cycle for each of the protected characteristics.

Figure 12a - Application by Gender

Figure 12a shows that slightly more females than males, as a percentage of applications from that gender, were offered places and were eligible to register at the end of the admissions cycle.

Figure 12b - Applications by Disability

Figure 12b shows that although slightly fewer applicants declaring a disability were offered places than the cohort indicators, a higher proportion of applicants declaring a disability were eligible to register at the end of the admissions cycle.

 Figure 12c - Applications by BME

BME data is not released to institutions by UCAS unless the applicant is firmly accepted at the institution, and consequently there are a large percentage of unknown values in this dataset. This makes detailed analysis of the unsuccessful applications difficult, but we are pleased that over 33% of applicants who had identified as BME were eligible to register at the end of the admissions cycle.

Figure 12d - Applications by Projected Age (on entry)

We are also pleased that the proportion of applicants in all age groups except the 21 & under group showed a higher eligibility to register at the end of the admissions cycle than would be indicated by the cohort aggregate.

Last Updated: 27 January 2012

Equality and Diversity

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