Attainment gap

Two events discuss ways to improve outcomes for diverse students

You wait years for universities to address the problem of student attainment gaps and then two conferences on the issue come along at once.

Yesterday’s Universities UK event on closing attainment gaps directly clashed with the first annual conference of Taso, the Centre for Transforming Access and Student Outcomes in Higher Education. It meant a busy day for Hillary Gyebi-Ababio, the National Union of Students’ vice-president for higher education, who was speaking at both. But that helped back up one of her key points—that much of the work in addressing these gaps is left to small numbers of people from the demographic groups most affected, often with little reward.