Higher Skills Learners – Diversity (2021-22 Year-End)

Impact on Diversity and Inclusion

Gender

Ethnicity

Learning difficulty or disability

Whilst males remain the biggest cohort on Higher Education programmes, the percentage of the HE population who are female continues to remain relatively static (from 47% in 2020/21 to 45.1% in 2021-22). We continue to encourage more female students to pursue higher technical skills, particularly in areas such as engineering, manufacturing and construction.

Their ethnicity profile shows our higher-level students as a group are more diverse than the local community. 21% of our HE students are from BAME groups compared to 11.9% of the local population.

We were pleased to support nearly 18% of higher-level students who have a self-declared learning difficulties or disabilities in 2021/22, a slight increase from 2020-21. We are happy to report that these students achieved at a rate comparable to their peers.