Can living abroad close the attainment gap for disadvantaged students?

When Fatima Afzal was offered a chemical engineering job in the US, she worried what it would be like to transfer to a country where people might never have seen a British Muslim before. She moved, and found her suspicions confirmed in an environment dominated by “very big alpha males”. It was challenging, but she coped. She credits her confidence to a placement year spent abroad, in Malaysia, during her undergraduate degree at Aston University: “If I hadn’t taken that first step I would be closing doors because of my own fear.”

It’s students like Fatima who are being targeted by a new campaign to double the proportion of students at UK universities undertaking placements abroad by 2020, to reach 13% of the student body. The campaign, run by Universities UK International, is particularly focused on students from disadvantaged backgrounds, since they’re the least likely to study abroad.

This is despite the fact that studying or working abroad can make a major contribution to closing the attainment gaps that exist between different groups of students. Across the board, students who go abroad are 9% more likely to gain a 1st or 2:1 degree, and they are 24% more likely to be employed after graduation – which rises to 41% for black graduates.

“It’s not good enough if the opportunities are only taken up by a small subset of the student population, or that they’re the preserve of a small group of predominantly wealthy students,” says Vivienne Stern, director of Universities UK International. “We’ve got a responsibility to spread the benefits. If we don’t we’re compounding inequality.”

Aston University, where Fatima studied, has just completed a research project exploring how to close the attainment gap between white and BAME students. Although the university, which has a majority BAME student body, has a gap half the size of a national average, it found that the only effective means of redressing the balance is through work placements, both national and international.

Leading on the research was Prof Helen Higson, deputy vice-chancellor and member of Universities UK’s outward mobility board. She says the university is building on the findings by introducing targeted placements for BAME students, many of which are abroad.

“The main thing is working with them early on in university, in the first year, to persuade them it’s a good idea, and also to persuade their families,” she says. “We get a lot of role models – like Fatima – who have been through placements to go out to schools and meet with our first-year students to encourage them to see what will happen, the opportunities they will get, and to show them the stats.”

Aston University also aims to address fears of moving overseas by offering additional support tailored for different student groups. These include peer-to-peer mentoring; pre-departure preparation meetings targeted at students identified as needing extra support adapting to a new culture; and networks connecting students to others undertaking a placement in the same city. Once students are in-country, they are normally visited by a member of staff at least once, and kept in touch with via Skype.

At Aston, outward mobility is closely linked to the widening participation agenda. Higson says the university has lobbied to have studying and working abroad included in the guidance for the Office for Fair Access agreements, which universities need approved to charge the maximum £9,250 tuition fee level.

According to Rose Matthews, head of global opportunities at Cardiff University, it’s essential that outward mobility is a key component of institutional strategy. The university is fortunate in that its vice-chancellor, Prof Colin Riordan, led the government review that resulted in the UK’s first student outward mobility programme. Matthews says: “This has been crucial in terms of raising the profile of this agenda and galvanising support across institution.”

This includes widening participation activity, which is primarily focused on bursaries targeted at disadvantaged students and expanding the range of opportunities available to students. Matthews adds that the right mental health and wellbeing packages are crucial for students who may face additional emotional barriers to life in another country. “It’s important for students abroad to be informed that they are still our students, that they can still access all our support services, like our counselling services which have been adapted to their needs through Skype and telephone.”

Part of the problem, according to UUKi, is that expertise such as this isn’t always shared. As part of its campaign, it is encouraging universities that are experienced in outward mobility to get better at talking about best practice and sharing case studies. These include a range of approaches, such as the short-term exchange programmes at Edinburgh Napier University, aimed at enabling a wider range of students to participate in experiences overseas, and a scheme at De Montfort University giving every student the opportunity to learn one of five languages on offer to stimulate interest in life abroad.