Education secretary Gavin Williamson must provide strong leadership to tackle racism and adopt a joined-up approach across all systems organisations and regulators, the Black Further Education Leadership Group (BFELG) has said.
In a report, entitled Making the Most of an Ethnically Diverse Britain: the role of further education and shared exclusively with Tes, BFELG calls on organisations across FE - including Ofsted, the FE commissioner’s team and the Department for Education - to act on systemic racism in the sector.
The report urges the government to prioritise compulsory ethnicity pay gap reporting along the same lines as gender pay gap reporting, and for all regulatory bodies, including the FE commissioner, to include the experience of black students, staff and communities in all strands of work and decision making.
Background: Anti-racism toolkit launched by leadership group
News: Diversifying leadership will improve college finances
Tes magazine: What FE colleges can do to improve diversity
The report points towards research that says one in three young people will be from black backgrounds by 2061. The report also says that from 2020 to 2028, while there will be an expansion of all 16- to 18- year-olds by 17 per cent, the growth in black students will be significantly beyond that, at 23 per cent.
Tackling racism in the FE college sector
The report explains: “The research confirmed that while some black students make relatively positive progress through compulsory schooling, drastic disparities occur from the age of 16 years, when we see an inexplicable drop in attainment and progression for black students, affecting their future destinations, employability and earnings.”
And an exclusive investigation by Tes in 2020 found that 84.1 per cent of senior leaders in English colleges are white British and just 8.7 per cent are black, Asian or minority ethnic - despite black and minority ethnic people making up 13.8 per cent of England’s population.
Today’s report also says that the impact of the withdrawal of the limiting grade of equality and diversity from Ofsted’s inspection frameworks cannot be underestimated. The group calls on Ofsted to refine the current education inspection framework to focus more clearly on the language of grade descriptors in relation to ethnic diversity; for example, defining what “outstanding” and “good” leadership and management, including governance for equality and diversity, looks like.
The reports urges the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE), FE providers, the Federation of Awarding Bodies (FAB), awarding organisations and employers to collaborate on a clear and sustained strategy to redress the historical imbalances in the curriculum and to ensure that there is inclusive content, pedagogy, assessment and awarding.
Amarjit Basi and Stella Ngozi Mbubaegbu, executive members of the group, said the report is “a must-read for everyone invested in further education and anti-racism”.
They said: “Not only does it capture thought-provoking presentations and dialogue from the conference, including the contributions of influential speakers and delegates from a range of backgrounds, it is particularly pertinent in the context of the recently published controversial report of the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities.
“This conference report presents a number of themes that will influence individual and system-wide reflection and resolve, thought leadership and action to secure a truly anti-racist FE sector.”
Last summer, the BFELG wrote to the education secretary and the prime minister to highlight the sector’s shortcomings when it came to tackling racism, and in February BFELG launched a 10-point diversity toolkit for colleges to inform, guide and challenge further education providers to tackle racism and promote diversity, inclusivity and equality across the sector.
A DfE spokesperson said: “There is no place for racism in our society or in our education system, and our colleges provide an inclusive, welcoming environment for students from all backgrounds.
“We provide grant funding to the Education and Training Foundation to run a Diversity in Leadership Programme which has been set up to remove obstacles to attaining leadership roles in FE.”
