This report looks at the differences in student outcomes by their religion or belief, with a focus on attainment. Religion and Belief in UK Higher Education is the first of its kind to examine how student outcomes may differ according to religion and belief.

Religion and belief became one of nine protected characteristics in the Equality Act 2010, yet there has been little research done into the impact of this on students since then.

The report uses data collected from over two million HE students.

It is part of my role within the Pre-Degree Office to go through all of the Further Education Student Survey results, and I am currently reflecting on my current reading and work within the PGCert on Faith, in relation to the questions we ask our students in the FESS. Interestingly, the FESS does not ask about faith, but it does ask about disability. I am going to raise this with my team as a matter of urgency and ask why we are not asking this question. How else are we supposed to gain insight and confidence in creating a culturally diverse and cohesive community if we are unaware of its make-up and different intersectionalities? Perhaps there is a valid reason for its exclusion. I will return to this blog post and edit it once I have an answer.

I would be keen to establish whether the existing attainment gaps in FE align along faith lines, or to discover whether new attainment gaps emerge that we need to tackle.