Business, Innovation and Skills CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by the Open University

Executive Summary

1. The Open University (OU) welcomes the opportunity to contribute to this inquiry, and in doing so draws on its experience both as a major public sector employer (11,400 employees) and as the UK’s largest distance learning University (over 250,000 students, nearly two thirds of whom are women).

2. We have focused our response on five of the inquiry’s nine themes as follows:

The Gender Equality Duty and the Equality Act
We regard the current level of regulation as proportionate but suggest there is further scope for raising awareness of gender segregation, increasing careers guidance and improving participation by women in male dominated subjects. In terms of the latter, we advocate the important role of part-time higher education, delivered online. For women this provides:

A more attractive option than full-time—there are more women undergraduates in part-time higher education than full-time higher education.

Flexible options in terms of time, place and volume of study.

In the case of the OU, access to study without the qualifications required by traditional universities, and study leading to qualifications that are favoured by employers.

Greater transparency
The University proposes that publication of pay scales and pay monitoring/audit results should be strongly encouraged.

How to tackle gender stereotyping
In our view, appropriate careers advice, at every educational stage, is one of the most appropriate means of addressing this on-going problem.

Promoting part-time work
The greatest impact would be achieved, we believe, by encouraging employers to advertise all jobs as open to job-share/part-time and other forms of flexible working unless there are justifiable reasons not to do so. We cite other measures, including positive role models in Government and male-dominated sectors.

Women in senior positions on boards
Employers’ preconceptions are a major factor.

Do the Gender Equality Duty and the Equality Act go far enough in tackling inequalities, such as gender pay gap and job segregation, between men and women in the workplace?

3. The Open University supports the current levels of equality regulation and considers that further regulation would not necessarily resolve the complex social phenomena of gender segregation and the different expectations for men and women. It would also be contrary to the government’s current drive for less bureaucracy for business and for proportionate responses in relation to equality. However, we believe there is scope for tackling inequalities by further measures to:

Raise more awareness of specific forms of gender segregation.

Extend careers guidance to include non-traditional roles for both girls/women and boys/men.

Improve participation rates in subjects under-represented by both girls/women and boys/men.

4. The flexibility offered by part-time higher education via distance learning makes it a particularly important progression route through to higher paid jobs for women, particularly those who cannot for any number of reasons attend a traditional university on a full-time basis. It offers a wide curriculum, delivery at a pace and time to suit their other commitments, and access irrespective of where they live (and work) in the UK.

Reflections of Former OU Student Jane Heybroek (Barrister)

I wanted to improve my qualifications generally, but was unsure in what field.  I started with the Foundation in Social Sciences, then, during my first year of study, the OU announced they were commencing courses which would result in a qualifying law degree.  I had wanted to become a Barrister as a teenager, but I was a very unruly teenager and ended up not finishing my A Levels because I wanted to leave home and get a job.

The main high point for me was an ever-increasing sense of self-worth and accomplishment as the years went by.  I noticed that, almost in spite of myself, I was becoming more of an intellectual, able to engage more meaningfully in debate, able to express myself with more clarity and ease than I ever had before.

Of course, the down side of OU study is the total lack of social life. I was working full time, studying part time and being a mum and a wife, all at once.  Stuck indoors doing a TMA [Tutor Marked Assessment] when everyone else is off to a barbecue can be depressing.

My areas of practice are Crime (Prosecution and Defence), Family Law and Immigration. Every day is different. And every day I wake up looking forward to going to work––which is more than most people can say about their work. I often joke that even if I won the lottery I would still work as a Barrister (although perhaps I would be a bit fussier about the kind of briefs I accepted!).

Don’t do as I did and assume that, just because you qualified with the OU, that this makes your law degree somehow inferior to “proper” universities. Nothing could be further from the truth. The OU is a highly respected institution and, generally, prospective Chambers see the independence, tenacity, commitment and determination that it takes to qualify through distance learning as highly positive assets. The majority of OU students are either in other careers, or parents (or both).

5. The part-time sector accounts for 30% of undergraduate students in the UK and of these, 89% are studying to further their career aims.

6. In 2009–10 the profile for first degree undergraduates in UK full time higher education was 54% female and 46% male (source: HESA). However, the equivalent figure for part- time higher education in the same year was higher, at 59% female and 41% male.

7. The Open University’s undergraduate profile in the same year was even higher, at 61% female and 39% male (this profile remained the same in 2010–11).

8. Unlike other universities we have no formal entry requirements (45% of our students had one A level or less when they started studying with us). The University’s “Openings” courses are a particularly important route for women who lack the traditional entry qualifications for a conventional university. Over the past ten years we have delivered an entire suite of these modules dedicated to helping non-traditional learners build their confidence and study skills through a shorter, less expensive, more flexible and supportive introduction to open learning. This Openings Programme is currently offered in nine curriculum areas and recruits 15,000 students annually. In 2010–11, 67% of our undergraduate students on the programme were women.

Single Parent Jagjit Kaur

Jagjit works as a security guard to support herself and her family. She has always wanted to work with children, and wanted to study towards that aim, but wasn’t sure where to go or what she needed to do to have a career in teaching or childcare. She came across The Open University through her children’s school which is a partner of the University. After speaking with the OU, she was encouraged to study an Openings course––Understanding children.

Jagjit hadn’t studied since leaving school and was understandably nervous, but her success on the course increased her confidence and persuaded her that she was able to study at this level. She has since enrolled on a longer OU course and intends to pursue a career in primary teaching.

“I’ve become a lot more social, engaged in a lot more voluntary activities and met new people. I’m interacting with children outside of school and helping them with their own schoolwork as well. When you see your own children getting on it gives you the initiative to want to get up and do something as well and to enjoy that time studying with them, seeing your own children progress in life makes you want to follow your own dreams.”

9. As well as being particularly attractive to women, there is evidence that part-time higher education delivers the skills employers want. For example, 80 of the FTSE 100 companies have sponsored staff on OU courses.

What steps should be taken to provide greater transparency on pay and other issues, such as workforce composition?

10. In the interests of greater transparency, The Open University would advocate that publication of pay scales and pay monitoring/audit results should be strongly encouraged in all sectors. The OU publishes such data on a regular basis.1

11. According to equal pay expert Sheila Wild,2 organisations which foster transparency in their pay systems generate employee confidence in the reward process, reinforce the link between performance and remuneration, reduce the likelihood of being targeted for regulatory action, and enhance the organisation’s reputation as an employer of choice.

12. We are proud to have been the highest ranking higher education institution in the 2010 Sunday Times Best Companies to Work for list for the public sector.

13. As well as being good for the organisation, enhanced reporting would align with the Government’s general aim to improve transparency and enable the public to hold organisations to account.

How should the gender stereotyping prevalent in particular occupations, for example in engineering, banking, construction, and the beauty industry, be tackled?

14. In our opinion careers advisers have a key role to play in tackling the gender stereotyping that exists in these occupations. The stereotyping needs to be tackled from an early age so that the career aspirations of both girls and boys are widened beyond traditional roles. Career opportunities should be inclusive and promoted through subject choice at school, college and university. This could include the promotion of positive role models.

15. At HE level, online delivery of careers advisory services for part-time distance learners can have incredible reach. For example, the OU Careers Advisory Service3 delivers online careers forums, most of which run for a month, during which a professionally qualified careers adviser provides impartial guidance and answers questions. Some forums include guest employers who are able to explain how to get into their area of work and provide advice/tips to students.

16. One example is a Computing and ICT careers forum which ran from October—November 2010. One of the topics on the forum was “Is it difficult for women in IT?” Others included further course choice, getting work experience, getting jobs, when to apply, what areas to go into, age and employment, recruitment practices, specialisations within ICT, and generally what the next step might be for an individual. This particular forum had 517 postings and included 88 discussion topics, 77 of which were started by students.

17. Feedback was positive and supportive, for example: “First let me say what an excellent idea this forum is. I’ve been reading some of the posts here last night and tonight and have been encouraged by how many experts and industry professionals have taken time from their own schedules to reply with solid and relevant information to help everyone in the OU community. Thank you all.”

18. In addition to careers advice, we would identify the following areas as important in reducing gender stereotyping:

Changing attitudes—Cultural change would be needed in occupations traditionally dominated by one or other gender so that when women/men take up new opportunities they are made welcome. This applies to colleges and the workplace. Measures to eliminate negative attitudes are needed (females are sometimes still bullied or marginalised by their peers in male dominated occupations such as construction). Networks could be built to support those negatively affected by the above.

Facilities—Appropriate support facilities need to be in place (such as toilets/changing facilities for use by women). This might result in increased costs for business where in the past facilities were provided for a single sex only.

Employer incentives—Government incentives could be provided to encourage greater gender diversity within the workplace such as introducing an employer premium for taking on women apprentices in non-traditional roles (and upon their success).

Targets—Senior, middle and junior management could be educated to eradicate any bias and employers could be asked to set gender targets to increase the diversity of their organisation in response to known under-representation and report progress in the public domain.

Recruitment practices—All vacancies could be advertised externally to avoid perpetuation of known gender imbalances.

What more should be done to promote part-time work at all levels of the workplace and to ensure that both women and men have opportunities to gain senior positions within an organisation while working part time?

19. Employers could be encouraged to make all their jobs open to job-share/part-time working unless there were justifiable reasons not to do so.

20. Despite much “encouragement” to adopt flexible work pattern options, a culture of “full-time working only” remains in many sectors and organisations, with part-time and flexible working viewed as a lack of commitment. We believe the most effective solutions for addressing this are likely to be:

Promotion of positive role models in Government, and male-dominated sectors.

Financial incentives/penalties for low levels of flexible working options.

Government guidance and strong encouragement to publish information about requests for flexible working and number of requests accepted/declined.

Why are there still so few women in senior positions on boards, and what are the benefits of having a greater number?

21. Here we would like to make reference to an article, Women in the Boardroom,4 in which three highly successful businesswomen, all of whom completed MBAs through The Open University Business School, give their expert insight into the realities of gender equality in businesses.

5 October 2012