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Equality and Diversity
As a public body, HEFCE has published a Single Equality Scheme. The Equality Scheme is intended for use in all aspects of HEFCE’s work including as guidance for the HE sector to make equality and fair treatment, irrespective of race, gender, disability, sexual orientation, age, religion or belief, an underpinning theme in the development, delivery and refinement of its services. In developing their respective schemes, Aimhigher partnerships and HE providers will need to have due regard to the positive duties contained in the statutory legislation concerning race, disability and gender and the discrimination legislation referring to sexual orientation and religion or belief. (Legislation in relation to age is not applicable here because this programme is targeted principally at the 13-19 age phase.)
Three pieces of legislation which contain positive duties are central to any Equality Scheme. These are:
- the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 (RRAA)
- the Disability Discrimination Act 2005 (DDA)
- the Equality Act 2006.
These laws impose positive duties on all public bodies to eliminate discrimination and to promote race, disability and gender equality in everything they do. This includes the projects and policies that HEFCE fund, such as summer schools.
 Those co-ordinating and administering summer schools should ensure that the arrangements made for delivery of the programme reflect the requirements of relevant legislation. Where there is evidence that a particular group is under-represented in the provision on offer then the reasons for this should be investigated and the provider should be able to demonstrate the steps which have been taken to address this situation. For example, partnerships and HE providers have taken account of previous gender imbalances when submitting plans for 2008-10. Monitoring returns to date show that providers have already made significant progress and the gender imbalance is now 11:7 (1.6:1), whereas in previous phases of the summer school programme it was 2:1.
For example, in previous phases of the HEFCE/ESF joint-funded summer schools (2003-2008) there was a significant imbalance between the sexes of the beneficiaries with girls outnumbering boys in the ratio of 2:1. Partnerships and HE providers submitting plans should show what steps will be taken to address this issue. Similarly, with disabled learners or specific ethnic groups where data shows that there has been under-representation in previous summer school provision HEFCE would expect providers to show how this situation is being addressed.
When considering responses to the requirements of the various aspects of legislation relating to equality, summer school providers should also refer to the guidelines contained in the HEFCE guidance,
‘Higher education outreach: targeting disadvantaged learners’. In the majority of cases, implementation of these guidelines will be sufficient to address equality issues associated with summer school provision.
Disability Support
It is vital to facilitate access for disabled learners to participate in summer schools activities by creating a truly inclusive environment for all learners.
The final report (available to download in Word ) for the Aimhigher national project, 'Enabling disabled learners to successfully participate in summer schools', focuses on improving the participation of disabled learners, particularly those with sensory and physical impairments.
Current Status
Guidance entitled, 'Targeting and recruitment of disabled learners', has been produced following extensive consultation with the National Targeting & Advisory Group (NTAG). This guidance available in Word or PDF format.
All regions have completed the toolkits and received the associated professional development programme.
Further information about this project is available on the
Aimhigher Practitioner website.
A Regional example of the use of self-review tools with summer school practitioners
The West Midlands disability project in liaison with a consultant on disability issues has developed a range of self-evaluation tools. Summer schools was one of the key areas chosen to undertake a review using these tools. The guidelines and the 3 questionnaires used are given below:
Inclusivity Self-Review Tools Guidelines - Download in Word
Questionnaire for Regional Co-ordinator - Download in Word
Questionnaire for HEIs - Download in Word
Questionnaire for LEAs - Download in Word
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