How equitable are university admissions policies?

Home, heritage, and community languages (HHCLs) are languages that are usually used and learned at home, in the community, or in faith settings.

A levels are available in a range of HHCLs – for example Bengali, Gujarati, Japanese, Panjabi and Polish – but UK undergraduate admissions practices vary widely across the sector and HHCL A levels are often not treated on an equal footing with other A levels. These admission policies may be university-wide or apply only to oversubscribed or “high prestige” courses, such as medicine or dentistry.

The consequences for the diversity of students admitted to undergraduate courses are clear: high-achieving, multilingual applicants are being excluded. In many cases, the rationale behind the exclusion of these A levels is based on inaccurate sources of information and assumptions that are easily debunked.

If your institution has EDI criteria, is a signatory of Universities UK’s fair admissions code of practice or has portfolios or interests in widening participation, this issue affects you directly.

Too easy?

The most common rationale given by universities for the exclusion or devaluing of A levels in HHCLs is that they are too easy and that applicants presenting with these qualifications have not challenged themselves.

This perception is often underpinned by two misunderstandings. The first being that the specifications for A levels in HHCLs test language competence only and the second that all applicants with these qualifications are “native speakers” of the language or have, at least, had significant exposure to the language in the home.

Official specifications show that HHCL qualifications test a wide variety of skills and offer accreditation by the same bodies of the same status and value as all other A levels. Our own review of these specifications confirms that interpretations of content requirements are rigorous and consistent across awarding bodies and across languages offered.

University applicants with these qualifications are a diverse cohort from a wide range of linguistic backgrounds whose linguistic abilities range from complete beginners in that language to HHCL speakers for whom the language is a part of their daily lives.

OfQual’s own research has shown that the concept of a “native speaker” is hard to pin down, both for admissions offices and schoolteachers, and that fluency is a spectrum. Attempts to exclude HHCL A levels based on fluency and prior exposure – rationales that are not applied to curricular languages – are therefore likely to be, at best, inconsistent or, at worst, discriminatory.

The impact of these policies is further exacerbated by their lack of visibility and transparency. University websites often do not make clear whether HHCL A levels are accepted, nor the conditions used to decide “acceptability” – for example, the data drawn on to evidence an applicant’s prior exposure to a language. This affects candidates’ ability to make informed choices about their academic future, as applicants are unaware that their HHCL A level may be discounted.

A lack of visibility not only concerns candidates but is also a legal consideration for universities, potentially infringing Consumer Protection law for higher education providers.

Not a level playing field

The treatment of HHCL A levels in admissions processes is fundamentally an EDI issue.

In terms of equality, exam boards state that all A levels are of equal value, and Ofqual confirm that HHCL A levels are equal in cognitive load to any other A level qualification.

It’s also important to point out that no other A level qualification is excluded due to prior exposure – extra-curricular music lessons are not considered in admissions processes. With this in mind, equal treatment and acceptance of HHCL A levels is not only fair, but logical.

Crucially, and concerningly, admissions processes which exclude applicants with a HHCL often do so by discriminatory and inaccurate means. To ascertain whether an applicant is a “native speaker” of a language, admissions offices recount making decisions based on where the applicant attended school, if any time has been spent in a country which speaks the language, whether their school teaches the language (and discounting it if they do not) and – most worryingly – the applicant’s surname.

Applicants with surnames which look like they’re from a country where the language is spoken are discounted. Decisions are being made based on prejudiced hunches. This sets a dangerous precedent and clearly contravenes EDI principles as well as, in some cases, the Equality Act 2010.

Aligning your policy and processes with best practice also makes university access more inclusive, opening your university to a pool of applicants who are highly motivated and talented but can often be overlooked because of misunderstandings about their qualifications. It can also help to reduce potential inequalities and barriers experienced by first generation immigrant families entering the UK education system, where a lack of knowledge of the university structure and wider education system can further compound the inequalities currently built into admissions policies.

This isn’t about lowering grades. It is about demystifying the backgrounds and skills of applicants who have excellent profiles and multilingual backgrounds.

Quite simply, best EDI practice begins with admissions. Ensuring equitable access for UK-based multilingual students will strengthen the cultural and linguistic diversity that already enriches our campuses.

How to align with best practice

A team of researchers, led by Emma Humphries and Janice Carruthers, have designed a toolkit which allows your university to evaluate and review its current admissions policies to align with research-informed best practice, demonstrating a commitment to equity, transparency and visibility and more broadly to EDI – useful if your institution has a KPI in this area.

Free and open to all, the toolkit is designed to be a one-stop shop for reviewing admissions policies with HHCLs in mind. The research evidence around specifications and concepts such as “native speaker” is presented in small easily digestible chunks and the toolkit provides practical advice for making changes.

If you’re interested in this issue, please forward this to your admissions team and don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any queries or require further support. This project is co-led by Emma Humphries and Janice Carruthers at Queen’s University Belfast, with the support of Adeline Henry, Daniel McAuley and Hannah Murphy.