Read the full paper in @ResPapersInEduc here: https://t.co/ijZdk0XxTQ

Rightly or wrongly, for those born in the 21st century, ethnicity seems to be a huge predictor of whether a young person with lower school attainment decides to invest in degree-level study or not. [7/8]

Recent LEO data for those born in the 1980s suggests that those with lower school attainment still do tend to benefit financially from HE participation on average, although earnings premia are small. [6/8]

It could be that young people from ethnic minority backgrounds – especially those with lower attainment – see becoming as well qualified as possible as a necessary strategy to counteract the effects of racial discrimination in the jobs market. [5/8]

For example, among those in the second quintile of GCSE attainment, Indian school pupils are 4 times more likely to progress to HE than those of white British ethnicity, while black African pupils are 5 times more likely to progress to HE [4/8]

Among those with high GCSE attainment, ethnic disparities in access to HE are small. However, young people from ethnic minority backgrounds with lower school attainment are *considerably* more likely to go to university than lower attainers of white British ethnicity [3/8]

Young people in England from ethnic minority backgrounds are more likely to go to university than their white British peers. Unlike with gender and socioeconomic background, disparities in access to HE by ethnicity are still large once school attainment is controlled for. [2/8]

Today, I’ve published a new paper on ethnicity, school attainment and access to HE in England 🧵[1/8] https://t.co/ijZdk0XxTQ

The UK teacher workforce is also relatively young, with 19% of lower-secondary teachers aged over 50 in 2023, compared to the OECD average of 36%. This could suggest higher rates of teacher turnover and burnout (end 🧵)

Teachers’ pay in real terms decreased by 5% between 2015 and 2023 in England, compared to an average increase of 4% across all countries with available data…

Expenditure in tertiary education per full time student is high at USD 27,234 compared to an OECD average of USD 14,077. This is unsurprising given that England in particular has the highest average university tuition fees of any OECD country…

UK public investment in early childhood education relative to GDP has decreased by 13% between 2015 and 2021. Across the OECD, it has increased on average by 9%...

Investment in early childhood education is especially low in the UK at just USD 7,462 per child, compared to an OECD average of USD 12,749. The early years participation gap by socioeconomic background is also larger in the UK (27pp) than the OECD average (19pp)…

The UK’s share of young adults without upper-secondary education (12%) stagnated between 2016 and 2023. This group do especially badly in the labour market in the UK, earning 40% less than those with upper-secondary education. The average gap across the OECD is just 15%...

Yesterday, the @OECDEduSkills Education at a Glance report was published, with this year’s edition focussing on equity in education. Here are a few highlights from the UK country note… 🧵 https://t.co/GPQemg3mfD

PS. OfS data is here: https://t.co/0dcakcgMX6

For more, see my recent briefing note published by @CEPEO_UCL (end of 🧵) https://t.co/owOrVkn5N8

Remember that most reports in the media rely on the geographical "POLAR" measure, which does not correlate well with actual measures of socioeconomic status...

The OfS figures may well be the best we have on this subject given that they use data from the National Pupil Database as well as data on the actual household income of students from the Student Loans Company...

Lack of progress persists in this area despite a range of initiatives including bursaries, contextual admissions policies and hundreds of millions invested annually in widening participation outreach programmes...