The Eurydice report on equity and inclusion in higher education shows that there is still a long way to go in improving the social dimension in higher education.
On 29 March 2022, the European Commission published the Eurydice report “Towards equity and inclusion in Higher Education in Europe”, which analyses how European higher education systems comply with the ten “Principles and Guidelines to Strengthen the Social Dimension of Higher Education in the EHEA” (P&G). Eurydice is a network of 40 national units (including Switzerland) that aims to explain the functioning of education systems in Europe by publishing various comparative reports, news and articles. In the report, each Principle and the corresponding Guidelines are briefly explained, analysing their relation to equity and inclusion, presenting methodological challenges, explaining the choice of indicators and presenting the collected data. It is then evaluated how well each of the Guidelines are implemented in European countries in order to determine how strong the focus on equity and inclusion is in higher education in Europe. The P&G were agreed upon by all European Higher Education Area (EHEA) countries at the Rome Ministerial Conference in November 2020, and they aim at improving the social dimension in higher education institutions (HEI). The ten principles include i. Strategies on higher education with a social dimension; ii. Flexibility; iii. Lifelong learning; iv. Data; v. Guidance and counselling; vi. Funding; vii. Staff training and institutional mission; viii. Mobility; ix. Community engagement; x. Policy dialogue.
The main part of the Eurydice report focuses on analysing each of the ten P&G and on how they relate to equity and inclusion, and further provides a scoreboard indicator to assess European countries’ implementation of the P&G. The first principle concerns strategies on higher education with a social dimension, arguing that HEIs should commit to integrating the social dimension in their strategies together with concrete targets for equity and inclusion. The report shows that almost all European countries have at least one strategy or policy plan regarding equity and inclusion in higher education, however not all strategies contain specific targets. The second principle focuses on flexibility, requesting that policies and legal regulations should leave flexibility to HEIs in developing their own strategies and study programmes to meet students’ needs and address equity and inclusion. Moreover, the third principle concerns lifelong learning and aims to improve equity and inclusion in all forms of education, from early childhood to higher education and lifelong learning, by creating synergies and coherent policies. The fourth principle targets data, highlighting the need to collect, process and use continuous data regarding the social dimension of higher education. The fifth principle and its corresponding guidelines point out the need for guidance and counselling for potential and enrolled students, as well as offering support especially to students with physical and mental health challenges. The sixth principle concerns funding, calling for sufficient and sustainable funding and financial autonomy to be provided to HEIs so that they can fully support equity and inclusion in higher education. The seventh principle and its guidelines focus on improving staff training in order to respond to the needs of a diverse student and staff body and create a more inclusive culture. Furthermore, the eighth principle concerns mobility, asking for international mobility programmes to provide additional support to students and staff from vulnerable, disadvantaged or underrepresented backgrounds in order to ensure equal access for all. The ninth principle concerns community engagement, pointing out the role of HEIs in developing community engagement activities and in making sure they promote equity and inclusion. Finally, the tenth principle highlights the importance of a policy dialogue about the implementation of the P&G between public authorities, higher education institutions and other relevant stakeholders. The report shows that in the majority of the countries, no policy dialogue has been established since the adoption of the P&G.
Overall, there is still a long way to go regarding the alignment of European higher education systems with the P&G, and thus addressing the social dimension. However, there is some variation regarding the state of implementation of the different principles and guidelines in European countries. According to the different scoreboard indicators in the report, implementation is more advanced for some principles, such as the first principle concerning strategies on higher education with a social dimension and the fourth principle concerning data, where around 60% of the two principles and corresponding guidelines have been met. On the other hand, the score is especially low for the ninth and tenth principles, concerning community engagement and the policy dialogue respectively, where less than 20% of the two principles and corresponding guidelines have been met. Out of the 38 different education systems in the report, the Swiss education system ranks around the middle, but still in the upper half, with 19 out of the 40 possible points. This is mainly due to Switzerland scoring highly in strategy (P&G 1), lifelong learning (P&G 3) and data (P&G 4) but less well in funding (P&G 6), mobility (P&G 8) and community engagement (P&G 9).