Abstract
The awarding gap is typically defined as the difference in the proportion of students from different demographic groups who obtain a “good” degree (first- or upper second-class honours). In UK higher education, it has become a central lens through which equity is monitored. However, this simple metric conceals a number of important caveats and shortcomings.
This paper critiques the awarding gap as a binary, end-point metric. It shows how reliance on the “good degree” threshold discards information, creates perverse incentives, and obscures the roles of non-continuation, inequitable access, selection effects, and compensatory advantage. Drawing on UK sector data, institutional practice, and the wider equity literature, it argues that a narrow focus on awarding gaps encourages institutions to intervene at the wrong point in the educational lifecycle, locates responsibility disproportionately within universities, and renders upstream inequalities less visible to scrutiny.
The paper argues for a shift towards more granular and lifecycle-oriented approaches to monitoring educational inequity. In particular, it proposes the inclusion of value-added measures framed as progress gaps, which assess outcomes relative to students’ starting points. Such measures offer a clearer way of distinguishing inequities that pre-date entry from those that emerge within the university environment, and provide a more precise basis for evaluating the contribution of higher education institutions to the production or mitigation of educational inequity.
Keywords: equity,awarding gap, equality, student progress, Office for Students
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