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MEASURING SUCCESS
THE UNIVERSITY OF YORK IS WORKING ALONGSIDE JUSTINE GREENING AND OTHER UNIVERSITY AND BUSINESS PURPOSE COALITION PARTNERS TO DEVELOP WAYS TO MEASURE SUCCESS AGAINST THE RECENTLY LAUNCHED LEVELLING UP GOALS.
Going back to its roots, social mobility at the University of York
Pro Vice-Chancellor of the University of York, Kiran Trehan, talks to us about why improving social mobility is a priority for York and the importance of the Levelling Up Goals.
We are a university for social good, we’ve gone right back to our roots in terms of how we were founded - on the basis of inclusive education for all. What Covid has done is both highlighted points of privilege but also points of under-representation and disadvantage, it’s given us the chance to work with some of those communities who don’t have access to certain opportunities. That’s the legacy that we’ll take forward - to work with students to raise aspirations and give hope and opportunity. For me and the university, social justice is firmly established as part of our founding principles, we are already committed to social mobility and deliver a lot of work in this area. By working with the Social Mobility Pledge we can not only raise the profile of our work but demonstrate our commitment to the cause and develop an education ecosystem that reinvigorates efforts in this area. For me work is absolutely critical because it’s in our DNA, it’s part of our roots and our history, as well as the legacy that we want to leave moving forward.
We have three areas that we really want to make a difference on:
Widening participation - we’re taking an active approach in engaging and working with local schools and colleges and more widely throughout our communities to spread aspirations. We’ve done that through running events and workshops, for example, we ran an event about developing business and enterprise skills through our access and outreach activities to 13-15 year olds throughout the country. The online event supported them to understand what it might mean to develop an entrepreneurial business.
Addressing the attainment gap - it isn’t just about raising aspirations, it’s making sure that when we do get students into the university from different backgrounds that we create an inclusive and welcoming culture. We’ve been working on an initiative called ‘creating and making space’, ensuring that the spaces that we have at the university and the images and photographs on show are reflective of our whole student base. It’s important that students from diverse communities see people that look like them.
Decolonising the curriculum - because we have such a long and established history, particular in relation to social justice, that’s given us a really good start.
The Levelling Up Goals are really important, as they address an absolutely critical agenda of closing the opportunity gap. Working with Justine Greening and other leading institutions, together we want to build inclusive and purposeful futures for all. It has never been more important than now - look at the way Covid-19 has highlighted inequalities in education, health and business for young people. We know that education doesn’t start or end with schools or universities, it’s a lifelong process that individuals carry through into their careers and beyond. The unfortunate reality, however, is that this process of learning is available to some, but not all, and this is what we want to try and address with the 'Levelling Up' programme. It is not just the job of our educators to make this happen; it requires businesses, politicians and communities all working together to understand the barriers at each stage of an individual's life and to ensure that they are able to achieve their full potential regardless of race or social background. This is such an exciting and innovative initiative because it will make a measurable difference. By working together we are not just making the levelling up agenda our business but everyone’s business.
