UNIVERSITY OF LEICESTER. Recording Equality Impact Assessment of Policies, Services and Functions

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1 UNIVERSITY OF LEICESTER Recording Equality Impact Assessment of Policies, Services and Functions An Equality Impact Assessment is an improvement tool. It will assist you in ensuring that you have thought about the needs and impacts of your service/policy/function in relation to the protected characteristics. It enables a systematic approach to identifying and recording actions and any gaps. It also ensures that you have documented evidence that you have paid due regard to the protected characteristics in relation to the decisions made. Please note that the word policy is used to cover the wide range of strategies, contracts and other areas that are covered by the Act. It is also important to note that an equality assessment is an ongoing responsibility not something that can be done once and then put aside. 1. Department and/or Team Curriculum Planning 2. Name of policy, project service/function, contract or strategy being analysed 3. Name and contact details of staff completing the assessment 4. Date 19/02/16 Rescheduling of undergraduate resit dates Jon Scott; js50@le.ac.uk 5. People involved in the analysis To ensure transparency and objectivity in undertaking this analysis it is recommended that more than one person is involved in informing this document. Therefore HR, Registry, staff equality fora, Departmental Equality Officers and representatives from Academic Policy Committee have been involved. 6. Brief Description of policy being analysed (Summarise the aims, objectives and purpose of the policy) The impact assessment of the policy regarding restructuring of the academic year has already been undertaken and this policy is now in place. In that policy it was agreed that resit examinations needed to be moved to a date earlier in the summer but the actual timing was not specified. This is an additional impact assessment now that an optimum timing for resit examinations has been proposed. Revised CP 1

2 7. Is this a new policy or a review of an existing one? This is a revision of existing practice. The undergraduate resit exams are currently scheduled in September. This is very unsatisfactory for the students because a significant number of resitting students do not have a finalised outcome until one or two weeks after the start of the next academic year. This causes undue anxiety to students and can cause practical problems for students who do not know whether or not they will be able to continue studies and therefore cannot forward plan. The proposal is therefore to bring the resit dates forward to the last week of July and first week of August each year, thus affording equal opportunity to all returning students. It is further noted that a significant proportion of students who are required to take the exams during the resit period do so because of temporary illness or other short-term events during the summer examination period. These students will have fully prepared for the exams but were unable to take them on the day in question. Delaying their resit opportunity till September requires them effectively to restart their revision process from scratch during the summer. An early resit opportunity enables them to make best use of the revision already undertaken. This proposal has full endorsement from the Students Union. This is intended to be brought in as part of the curriculum transformation project, so will not take effect until summer Data & Engagement what information did you gather and use and who have you consulted? The consultation regarding the rescheduling of the resits formed part of the process of consulting over the restructuring of the curriculum and academic year that took place during 2014 this was very widespread involving focus groups, forums, information sessions and questionnaires for staff and students, over 3,000 members of the University were involved. The proposals were also discussed in College level committees, Academic Policy Committee and agreed at Senate. The timing of resits was part of these proposals, and in terms of the timing of the resits it was agreed by all concerned that the current system of September resits was highly detrimental to those students who were having to take resit examinations for the reasons outlined above. It was therefore Revised CP 2

3 Revised CP 3 agreed that the resits should be moved to a point earlier in the summer but the specific dates were not determined. The best dates have now been determined and this impact assessment concerns the impact of these specific dates. This also would bring the University in line with the common practice of all our benchmark group (made up of a subset of Russell group universities along with the ex-1994 Group and some non-aligned institutions): Leicester s current practice of September resits is out of line. This proposal was and is fully endorsed by the Students Union.

4 9. Findings Did you discover any adverse or positive impact on any of the following 9 equality strands? Age (younger/older) Disability (e.g. physical/sensory/unseen) Identified Impacts Mature students with child care responsibilities may be disproportionally impacted. If a student s disability contributed to the requirement to sit/resit the exams they may be experiencing a worsening of their condition, and may not have been able to adequately recover if the resits are soon thereafter. Actions A proportionally low number of mature students with childcare responsibilities will be required to resit and therefore the impact will be minimal. For those who are impacted, it will be expected that they should arrange for childcare for the date of the resit. In such situations students will be able to access the Mitigating Circumstances Policy or the Temporary Withdrawal Policy. Staff with long-term mental and physical health conditions which constitute a disability, may experience excessive tiredness by the end of the academic year, with a need for annual leave sooner rather than later to enable their recovery. Resits so soon after the current exam and marking period could have a detrimental impact on affected staff. Workload modelling may support staff with disabilities who may have been able to manage under the current arrangements, however this is based on staff disclosing the impact of their disability to their manager. Therefore it will be proposed that disabled staff, managers and Departments should consider what support will be needed and how this can be organised. Reasonable adjustments should be considered in workload modelling. Staff who may be impacted by the new resit dates because of their disability should discuss this with their manager Revised CP 4

5 and explore possible reasonable adjustments. Students with disabilities may find it difficult to concentrate and do the additional work to improve their understanding and therefore not perform as well in their resits as if they d have some recovery time prior to the exams. Students with dyslexia may be affected in other ways. Furthermore, it is noted that there will still be a period of at least a month between the end of term and the scheduling of the resits Departments will need to consider the detrimental impact on students who have such conditions and consider the reasonable adjustments that need to be put in place. This is done through the AccessAbility Centre. In some situations, students will be able to access the Mitigating Circumstances Policy or the Temporary Withdrawal Policy. Gender/Sex (female/male) See Other below See Other below Transgender (including process of gender reassignment) Race/Ethnicity/Culture (Asian, Chinese, White, Black, Other and categories within these) May impact on a transgender person who is undergoing treatment at the time of resit exams. None Due consideration will be given to make appropriate arrangements for resits. This may involve accessing the Mitigating circumstances Religion / Belief (Muslim, Sikh, Christian, Jewish, Hindu etc.) Revised CP 5 Religious observances may coincide with the time of resits. Religious celebrations are not usually considered as part of the Mitigating Circumstance policy. Although due consideration will be given to religious observances as is currently accounted for in the Senate Regulations.

6 Sexual Orientation (lesbian, gay, bisexual) None Pregnancy and Maternity None Other (family circumstance, socio economic circumstance etc). There is a potential impact on members of staff with childcare responsibilities. This does not only impact on parents/carers with school age children as some nurseries which are affiliated with schools will also be closed during school holidays. The new dates for resits coincide with part of the period of closure of schools for holidays which may have detrimental impact on parents/carers. For example, staff may typically use their leave during this time because it is difficult to find affordable, flexible and available childcare provision or because they wish to go on holiday with children during the summer school holiday period. However, it is noted that the normal holiday entitlement still requires staff to be working during part of the school summer holiday period. It is recognised that this may have a greater impact on women as they are more likely to have caring responsibilities. This will be considered as part of workload modelling within departments, where there is already a requirement to oversee the requests for leave. As noted, the holiday entitlement of full-time staff requires them to work during part of the school holiday period. It should also be noted that the programme of curriculum restructuring includes a targeted reduction in the number of examinations which in turn will reduce the number of resit examinations. Furthermore, the University will be removing the requirement for staff to act as invigilators for all university-level examinations Revised CP 6

7 10. How does the policy fit with the University s wider objectives and priorities? 11. If you have discovered some inequalities/adverse impact what are you going to do to reduce/eliminate them? NB Positive impacts should also be recorded. The policy forms part of the restructuring of the academic year. This has been developed and agreed as a means of improving the student experience and also allowing a longer block of time in the summer for research. As an additional element, we are undertaking a review of assessment policy across the University with the particular aim of reducing the overall burden of assessment, particularly examinations. This should also include a reduction in the, currently very high levels of resits being taken. This is particularly the case where a resit is being scheduled as an alternative re-assessment, which is in fact inappropriate. It is therefore anticipated that the extent of the resit examinations will reduce, again bringing the University more in line with its benchmark group. We are also moving to remove invigilation duties from academic staff by increasing our usage of trained external invigilators. This will further reduce the extent to which academic staff are required to be physically present on campus during resit exam sittings. 12 How and when will you monitor whether the adverse impact has been eliminated or reduced? (Guidance notes contain a template for an equality action plan that can be used. Alternatively ) The impacts and actions identified in this impact assessment will be incorporated into the review of the assessment policy and the development of principles for workload modelling. The potential impacts and considerations which should be made in relation to the new re-sit dates and disabilities will be communicated to all staff and students through the communication strategy for these changes, This will be monitored during the implementation of the new curriculum structures from academic year onwards. Signed Head of Department/Division PVC (Student Experience) Signed Director Revised CP 7

8 Date 17/04/16 Date Revised CP 8