Awarding gaps are quite rightly again in the spotlight. As Wonkhe’s Jim Dickinson highlighted recently, as “degree inflation” has decreased we’ve seen a reopening of the awarding gaps we knew about pre-pandemic.
The publication of the most recent set of data by the Office for Students in March showed a decrease in the award of good honours degrees accompanied by a reopening of the gaps for most groups, in particular students from the most deprived backgrounds and non-white ethnic groups.
This was not a surprise to many of us who have already looked at our own data in detail and in particular looked at the firsts gap which persisted or even increased during the same period.
It is vital that we understand and address the inequalities in our system – but there are two big problems with the way we talk about and focus on awarding gaps. The first being the “award” bit and the second the “gap”!
