Voices of Black and Asian minority ethnic postgraduate students post the COVID-19 pandemic: Are higher education institutions listening?

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic significantly affected students studying in higher education (HE) institutions in the UK and international contexts. Black and Asian Minority Ethnic (BAME) university students faced massive pressure during and post COVID-19 pandemic, alongside trying to meet their education goals. Our research project was with postgraduate students from two HE institutions, and this paper highlights participants' lived experiences and perspectives, including emotional stress, the need for greater support to access learning resources, financial issues and physical and mental health issues. Our paper suggests that HE institutions need to provide democratic spaces to encourage all students, including BAME students, to engage in dialogues among themselves and with other key players in HE, such as policymakers, and local and international communities, to address issues of inequality. It is important for HE institutions to listen to students' voices, reflect on the impact of the pandemic on their lives and make strategic planning for mitigating negativities and uplifting quality learning experiences post the pandemic.

Introduction

‘How a society treats its most vulnerable people is always the measure of its humanity’ is a relevant moral quote by Ambassador Matthew Rycroft (Gov.UK. 2015). The quote applies to all public institutions, including the universities in the UK, especially when engaging with Black, Asian and ethnic minority (BAME) students whose position in the HE institutions we argue is vulnerable. As discussed by Miller and Callender (2019), due to the under-representation of BAME students' backgrounds in the positions of power in many educational institutions, BAME students' needs could be overlooked, despite most of these HE institutions claiming to promote inclusiveness, diversity and equity.

According to the UK government statistics (2022), the percentage of BAME student numbers in HE has increased between 2015 and 2021. By 2021, most students from Black, Asian, Chinese and Mixed heritage categories were above 40%, compared to below 40% in the white group. The Chinese category had the highest above 70% increase in numbers, while the white category had the lowest. This has important implications for HE institutions to support and meet the needs of all students, including those from BAME backgrounds, increasing in numbers every year. One way of helping to meet the needs of students with BAME backgrounds is by increasing BAME academic staff at the senior leadership and management (SLM) level. However, Gillborn (2018) has asserted that these positions of power have continued to privilege white middle-class academics but with under-representation of academic staff with BAME backgrounds. This lack of representation makes adherence to inclusion and diversity policy problematic in terms of BAME academic staff career progression and supporting BAME students in HE institutions.

The two researchers of this project are from BAME backgrounds, and we could identify and resonate more with the issues the BAME Postgraduate students brought to them. Although not in positions of SLM, we identified the need for the BAME student voices to be heard by educators and the SLM team in higher education. As a result, we explored ways to enhance support for the students that we work with by providing this first-hand evidence to HE institutions to enable them to cater for students' needs post the COVID-19 pandemic. We hoped HE institutions would engage with BAME students to address issues affecting their quality of learning experience and academic achievement. This would support the HE institutions to develop a vision by listening to students' lived experiences and perspectives and working with them in structuring strategies to overcome institutional barriers.

According to HESA (2020), there was an attainment gap of 13% before the pandemic, with 76% of white students gaining good degrees, while only 63% of BAME students managed the same. This gap will have been made worse by the pandemic, creating a need for HE institutions to understand their students' perspectives and experiences, furthermore, explore ways to mitigate the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and enable quality learning experiences post-pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the various measures introduced to slow its spread significantly affected the lifestyles and mental health and well-being of the general public, including students studying in HE institutions in the UK and international contexts (ONS, 2020; DAAD, 2020). It is crucial to acknowledge that the lockdown disadvantaged many BAME students in the context of adapting to remote learning whilst overcoming resource challenges and technical know-how (Corrado 2020). The impact of remote learning post-pandemic is still being felt by students who had to postpone their learning due to additional challenges in their personal lives. Therefore, there is a greater need for HE institutions to reflect on how they dealt with the impact of the pandemic on their students, including how they provided support to address students' physical and mental health, difficulties in accessing e-learning, and the financial constrain caused by the pandemic. It is also significant to acknowledge that the lockdown aggravated the existing social-cultural and economic inequalities in the UK society. As argued by Breslin (2021), it is important to recognise the negative impact of the pandemic on young people's well-being, notice the loss they went through, and make sure there is provision for support to recover.

Literature review

As Giroux (2021) pinpoints, the essence of the pandemic is more than a medical crisis but an educational, ideological and political crisis in the context of the neoliberal governments' failure to protect and enhance public health and welfare. Corrado (2020) argues that broader social-cultural and economic issues need to be looked at to reduce inequalities in our society. Different systems mould an individual's achievement in life and education (Bronfenbrenner, 2009). First, the microsystems entail the individual, close relations and environments such as family backgrounds and the status of their family, including economic status and religious beliefs. Then, the individual is further impacted by other outside factors such as schools attended and the local social systems within their reach. This has been reflected in our teaching experiences since the first national lockdown in England in March 2020. Students from BAME backgrounds might have suffered more due to their socio-economic circumstances, which have impacted their access to technical assistance, quality remote learning experiences and family health constraints during the COVID-19 pandemic. Given the scale of these disruptions, according to Reimers and Marmolejo (2022), the COVID-19 pandemic is a serious course-altering event, one that will change the life trajectories of individuals and the future of institutions and nations, setting them on paths which will make improvement of individual and collective well-being more challenging.

Freire (1972) has argued that education should be a practice of freedom, not domination. Education spaces should support individuals to become independent and acknowledge that their world engagement will impact their daily input in their life goals. Considering that reality of any changes in the world around individuals will affect their daily interactions. This argument would relate to BAME students' experiences in HE in relation to the support and resources they could access in their learning, which influences their achievement. Nevertheless, students' cultural backgrounds and daily interactions significantly impact their learning. Thus, HE institutions need to address the real encounters as they support students. As noted earlier, the effects of the pandemic were crucial and continue to be important in how students have continued to engage in their learning. Hence these students need to have freedom to participate in dialogues and positive actions with the institutions to forge progress. Indeed, how a society lives together as a community should be shaped by principles of social justice, economic equality and democratic sovereignty. Democracy needs a polity that is not only informed and knowledgeable but one that willingly inhabits a linked fate and a sense of shared responsibility. Democratic spaces are places ‘where different experiences, identities and ways of living share a collective fate of solidarity, care, and justice’ (Giroux 2021: 35).

Academics in HE institutions need to think critically about their practices, how these practices intertwine with social-cultural, political and economic factors (Giroux, 1988). There is a need for educators to reflect on how their interactions with BAME students during and post-pandemic have impacted these students' education experiences. According to Blell et al. (2022), there is an intersectionality between race, class and pandemic experiences of all involved in the HE institutions. A lack of social capital could have disadvantaged some BAME students, most being they are the first generation in the university (Stuart, 2006; Henderson et al., 2019). The shift to hybrid teaching made their learning experiences even harder. It is, therefore, crucial for educators to listen to these students on how to transition and move forward post the pandemic. The teachers could cross-examine their practices and reflect if they were supportive or discriminated against students. Reimers and Marmolejo (2022) argue that it is a professional responsibility for academics to create spaces for a culture of inquiry, collaboration and innovation. A learning environment should enable reflection and support the review of practices for progress to occur.

Reimers and Marmolejo (2022) have also highlighted the university management's responsibility to set a viable vision where all students experience a good learning environment. The university management should further equip and support the staff to meet the learning needs of the students. However, some HE institutions in the UK suffered massive financial crisis leading to funding cuts, closedown of programmes and shortage of resources. Furthermore, drastic staff redundancies have impacted students' experiences post-pandemic (Blell et al., 2022). These financial pressures have affected students' experiences when they couldn't access entrusted staff which disorganised their learning experiences.

Miller and Callender (2019) have argued that there is a lack of representation for most minority communities in various ranks of educational structures. The lack of representation could have led to a lack of understanding of specific community challenges and ethos, leading to poor engagement with these communities. To effectively apply equality and diversity policies in education, it is imperative to boost inclusiveness for all involved, including the voices of BAME Students. As Reimers and Marmolejo (2022) continue to argue, apart from various issues in the context of the global pandemic, universities are lured to pursue the ‘world-class’ aspiration alongside being requested to connect their work more effectively to local needs and realities. The engagement has become so prominent that it is now considered a key component of national or state policymaking, a tool of institutional profiling, and an indicator of performance as part of the broader accountability and system-steering agendas (Goddard et al., 2015). But it should be reflected in the learning environments where universities promote a culture of participation and democracy to enable meeting all student's needs and to enhance outcomes.

Moreover, despite the common rhetoric in the UK around immigrants being users of public services and money during the pandemic, it was evident that migrant workers were the ones who sacrificed the most to keep the nation going. Most of the migrant workers were families and even students from BAME communities. They had to work harder, despite their families being negatively affected by the pandemic through the disease, job loss and even life loss. Indeed, many BAME students are primarily workers and have formalised British citizenship, including their families living in the UK. Therefore, it is essential for all channels that provide services for British citizens to be informed, especially the Department of Education. These citizens who are taxpayers deserve good services that they fund, including access to good public university services (Sarpong, 2019; Miller and Callender, 2019; Brabazon, 2021).

Methodological approach

This qualitative study used semi-structured focus groups with both white and BAME students of postgraduate programmes (education and humanities) at two London-based HE institutions. From our pilot study, it was evident that some HE institutions and other public institutions used surveys to get feedback on experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic (ONS, 2020; OECD, 2021; Nosek, 2023), but our study aimed to use dialogic platforms through semi-structured focus group interviews, which were more liberatory, to enable participants to discuss in depth their experiences. The student participants reflected on their experiences during the pandemic. We followed all the University research ethics guidelines and those set by the British Education research association (BERA, 2018). The students were made aware of their informed voluntary participation in the study and they had the right to withdraw anytime if they wish.

The study used an interpretive approach where students were encouraged to share and discuss their experiences and perspectives on the best way for universities to support them. The interpretive approach allowed the researchers and student participants to explore practical and collaborative strategies for their contexts with more open-endedness instead of aiming for a specific outcome. Our attempt reflects what Freire (1972), Corrado (2019) and Givens (2021) argue, dialogue is an effective pedagogical tool for justice and liberation which is necessary in attempting to explore and address potential inequalities exposed by the pandemic. The aim of our study is thus to enhance the experiences of BAME students in higher education and to throw light on HE institutions regarding the quality provision of support for all students, including those with BAME backgrounds, post the pandemic.

Findings of the study – students' voices

This section amplifies students' perspectives on their learning experiences during and after the pandemic. The themes that emerged from the focus group discussion were positive and negative, centring around mental health support, face-to-face and online learning, resources and ‘chaotic' support. Although the students acknowledged that the universities tried to make their learning manageable, lessons should be learnt from the lockdown, as argued by Breslin (2021).

Online learning 'chaotic'

Most student participants noted that the support was ‘Chaotic' when the pandemic initially happened. The learning moved online immediately, but access to resources was not as effective as it would have, such as laptop support and the use of e-learning technology. For those students who needed financial support, there was no clear communication on how to do this as they were mostly referred to the website, but there was no clear or consistent guidance or support to enable them with effective access. The following quote from the focus group interview highlights some of the common issues faced by the student participants:

‘…for me, there were more disadvantages than advantages, for example, a lot of distractions in the home environment…secondly, the lack of access to library resources such as physical books… and the interactions with teachers online were not the same as face to face.'

Most of the student participants stated they preferred to be on the University campus to engage with the practical resources available, for example, in the library or in the laboratories. Other students claimed that the online support was not engaging enough. Some of them had difficulties in negotiating technology, and some struggled to access materials online due to limited internet connection. Some stated that the online materials, such as journal articles, were not easily accessible from the university's libraries. Although there was some support, the technical know-how and the availability of the only resources were challenged. The expectation from the university for students' know-how was universal and did not cater for individual differences. The students' competence with technology was diverse, and hence some found it very hard to negotiate the learning.

‘...when we completely went to study online, we lost that interaction with other students…in my previous BA studies, I made friends, but in my MA studies, it was isolating, so I could say I didn't make any friends, and I feel that making friends could have been useful.'

The student quoted above noted how studying online was very impersonal, and they lost face-to-face interactions with other students. Some students claimed that the online support was not enough since students were mostly directed to the website to access information. The directive to use online materials or access other kinds of information made their learning quite frustrating, and some students found it very isolating for some students.

Students noted that there was an increased volume of emails from the university, which was helpful, but for those with SEN (Special Educational Needs), they found it extremely difficult to learn online and access all the information sent to them. Some students didn't struggle to negotiate online learning, but those who had dyslexia found it difficult to pick up cues and interact, as one participant reported. Additionally, the background noises were distracting for students with SEN issues during online classes. As the student quoted earlier noticed, studying online had more disadvantages than advantages, even though some students gained a few skills, such as technical know-how. Others enjoyed learning from the comfort of their home and developed time management skills. The competence and pleasure of this acquisition were not the same for all students, especially those who had to negotiate other life pressures and learning needs.

Inadequate health and well-being support

Firstly, the pandemic posed the risk of contracting the disease, and for the BAME community, this was an increased stress factor. Undeniably, the media increasingly reported how minority communities were susceptible to the disease and their increasing death rates (Nosek, 2023). Hence, there was a need for more support for students from these communities to see how they were coping and if they needed extra support throughout the pandemic and post-pandemic. Some of the students could have contracted the disease or lost their loved ones from the disease. As quoted by one participant,

‘... in my USA university, there was support, but in the UK university, you only had a few sessions, and then they outsourced you. But it doesn't mean the struggles have gone away.'

From the above quote, the student noted how the university limited the support for well-being and mental health issues during these challenging times. The individual noted that students had three to five slots for support if they struggled; no more sessions were available. This student was a new international student with no knowledge of negotiating the UK health system, so it wasn't easy to seek help. The individual argued that even though you had a few slots for support, it did not mean that the issues continued. The student also compared the support from a USA University, which provided more support than the UK university in terms of mental health and well-being support.

Indeed, since the pandemic, most HE institutions have seen a spike in the number of students with mental health and well-being difficulties (BBC, 2022; Abrams, 2022). Out of 7,200 students surveyed by the charity Humen, nearly half felt mental health difficulties negatively impacted their university experience. The research also revealed only 4% of staff received ‘adequate training’ to support these students. Nevertheless, support for such students is crucial to increase chances for their learning success and to promote their health and well-being. According to World Health Organisation (1984) and Ewles and Simnett (2003), the holistic approach to individuals' health, the support should target their social, emotional, physical, spiritual and intellectual wellness. Once these requirements are met, one can uphold good health, which will enable individuals to realise their self-actualisation goals, such as getting a good degree. Mukherji (2005:18) stated that 'the extent to which an individual or group is able on the one hand to realise aspirations and satisfy needs; and, on the other hand, to change or cope with the environment; health is, therefore, seen as a resource for everyday life. Not the objective for living; it is a positive concept emphasising social and personal resources and physical capacities.'

Empathy support, as suggested by Givens (2021), is very important for academics and HE institutions when supporting students. From our study, the BAME students struggled to access sufficient mental health services, increasing their learning challenges. We argue that moving forward, HE institutions should reflect on the support they provide for students struggling with mental health issues. Before the pandemic, the MIND UK charity (2019) reported that one in four adults struggled with mental health issues. The Department for Education (2018) reported that one in 10 children and young adults are diagnosed with a mental illness. The numbers may have increased during and after the pandemic; hence, the support for students struggling with mental health issues in general and as a result of the pandemic needs to be considered sensibly. Wijnia (2021) has noted that having decent well-being correlates to student learning success.

Balancing learning with other commitments

‘For me, it was not just that pandemic was happening, but there was family and work. Hence everything was combined… I had some people at home who were sick, and I couldn't go to the campus' participant quote.

Some BAME students, like the participant quoted above, had to balance personal life commitments and achieve their learning goals. Although the COVID-19 pandemic was challenging locally and globally, most students from minority communities would continue facing additional social and cultural issues. Indeed, some students would have to negotiate to work part-time in frontline jobs where they were susceptible to catching the disease. According to a Public Health England report (2020), many minority groups were at risk of catching the disease due to working in risky jobs. ‘BAME groups represent the health and social care workforce particularly well: Indians account for 14% of doctors and Black Africans makeup 7% of the nursing workforce' (Public Health England, 2020. P.17). Hence, it is important to note that whether the BAME students worked in the front line or not, they would have had either family members or friends at risk, which increased pressure on themselves. Furthermore, the report noted that these minority groups appear to have underlying health conditions such as obesity, smoking and diabetes, amongst others which increase the risk of catching the disease. The participant above mentioned how there were sick people in the household, and it wasn't possible to go to the university campus, which intensified the struggle to balance all the commitments.

Another participant lived in an accommodation which was not very conducive to learning since the individual had housemates to share spaces and technology equipment such as a laptop and Wi-Fi. This made his concentration difficult. Other participants shared concerns about the challenges involved in managing families' needs in lockdown, together with working and studying from home. Many felt that staying safe from the disease, as well as being focused on their responsibilities, was a real struggle, especially for the mature students.

Family and peer support

‘I didn't have a desk, so my mum helped me buy one, which was a great help that I needed.'

Like the participant quoted above, most participants in our study noted that they needed support from family in terms of accessing resources to support them in learning from home, such as buying laptops and desks. Some needed to share accommodation and get financial support from family and friends during and post-lockdown since some had lost their jobs.

‘I had a table that had been provided to me, but I didn't use it until the pandemic when I realised that it wasn't suitable for use. Then, my landlord promptly helped me get a suitable desk to use for my home studies...I had to also tell my housemates via WhatsApp to reduce the noise because I had to study more at home, and they were very cooperative.' (Participant quote)

The student quoted above acknowledged the landlord's support by providing extra furniture for studying and internet services in the house. The landlord's generosity enabled the student to continue his studies effectively. At the same time, the cooperation from others living in the household was important and made the individuals learning more conducive. Sharing spaces could have been a similar case for many students who had shared rented accommodation or had to live at home with family members. The support and understanding of those sharing these living spaces were significant to their learning.

‘None of my family members has gone to University… a lot of this learning was alien to them, so they couldn't help me,' a participant stated

The above participant noted that he couldn't get academic assistance from family, such as navigating technology, since they were unfamiliar with university learning. The participant was the first one in his family to go to university. Henderson et al. (2019) have argued that first-in-family graduates may struggle, but with the help of friends, they could navigate their learning and succeed. Some of these students who are the first generation in the university are from minority groups (Stuart, 2006; Henderson et al., 2019). Thus, peer support is vital to these individuals. However, the peer support due to the lockdown was only via online platforms such as WhatsApp, student groups and Twitter, which were helpful since they enhanced camaraderie but could not compare to face-to-face interaction. Some students reported that they did not have family support. Hence, university support and peer interaction were necessary for their survival. According to Wijnia (2021) and Stuart (2006), having good supportive relationships helps students succeed in their learning. Another study with over 400 college students showed a correlation between family and peer support to the success of these students, especially in their first year (Marley and Wilcox (2022). The support from family and peers was significant for participants in this study.

Implications for HE institutions post the pandemic

The students in our study noted that there was some flexibility by the university in terms of assessments. They noted that many Emails were sent to the students to update them on how to access various information or help. At the same time, they could get a few phone calls and have online support via various platforms such as Zoom; BB Collaborate, among others. Still, for some students, the online support was overwhelming and inhibiting, especially for those who did not have resources such as laptops, reliable internet connection or have the technical know-how to negotiate the e-learning spaces.

It was evident from our focus groups that some students with financial challenges were unable to access funding due to the complex online procedures, which increased their stress levels. For some students with special education needs, the support ‘wasn't forthcoming' as one student stated. Post-pandemic, it is pertinent for HE institutions to review how they communicate with the students to assess whether their procedures are user-friendly. Just sending students a website link or asking them to go to the website is not enough, as voiced by our participants. For new students and those who have undergone other kinds of education experiences (international students), and those with SEN, the ‘hands off' support was not good enough. Participants’ perspectives strongly suggest that complexity and diversity of student learning experience require a comprehensive coherent approach between institutional level and tutor level to reduce ‘Chaotic-ness’ in terms of support systems and mechanism post the pandemic.

Moving forward, it is important to empower students with skills they need for their learning and further equip them for their future careers. It is vital that the gaps in support identified above that HE institutions reflect and aim to do better. Moreover, the students in our study noted that they need platforms where they can be empowered through participation, which implies the importance of HE structuring strategies to enable quality student learning. The student participants also indicated that they would be willing to lead the university's activities on areas and issues that relate to them, such as BAME student learning advocacy. They stated that they need to be part of research collaborations that interests them in terms of identity and career.

Over the years, there has been a call for HE institutions to eradicate the attainment gap by reviewing how they have engaged BAME students, which this study endeavoured to explore. UUK–NUS project (2019) recommended that HE reflects and engage BAME students and further increase representation in the SLM team. Post-pandemic, it is vital for HE institutions to reflect and rethink strategy on how they can progress in the context of an increase of BAME students and their continuous advocacy for inclusion and diversity. Otherwise, just putting inclusion policies in place without much action could be perceived as inclusion dishonesty (Sinclair, 2023). According to Robison (2019), initial education strategies were designed to benefit only a minority of students, and to date, education is not working for the majority of students hence reviewing how learning is planned and accessed will be helpful through critical dialogues with educators and students (Moss 2019).

One of the lessons from our study is that most BAME students struggled during a pandemic, and the support provided by the university was adequate but ‘chaotic', requesting for more to be done. Another significant finding was the warranty for HE to create spaces for critical dialogue where students' voices are enabled. Democratic spaces for productive dialogues are key to meeting the needs of the current silenced voices of students from BAME backgrounds who appear to lack representation at the powerful levels in the HE institutions. Understanding these students' struggles and how to best meet their needs cannot be done without dialogue. Researchers in this study argue that all students and staff, including those from BAME backgrounds, should be supported by HE institutions to self-govern, think, dialogue and influence their learning environments. The proposed practice would enable all involved to feel valued and become independent and autonomous learners. According to Farini and Scollan (2019), self-determination through positive engagement is key to achieving good learning. It furthermore helps to uphold inclusion and meets the human needs (UNCRC, 1989).

It is imperative for universities to review the application of equality and diversity policies. From our study, it was evident that there is a conflict between equality and diversity progress with the neoliberal capitalist approaches applied during and post-pandemic by HE, such as academic restructuring in the context of the financial crisis, limiting the support that students could access for well-being support, the provision and access of resources, and training provided to all students to use IT technology or access funding among other needs. Indeed, there is a need for a robust, critical, justice and social responsibility in education which should value human beings above profits. We argue that students and staff should be provided effective tools, resources and democratic space to maximise their engagement.

Conclusion

We acknowledge from our study that there is a need to centre the voices of students in HE institutions by creating democratic spaces. It is important that when those voices are heard, the concerns raised are met as well. The participants in this study discussed the challenges they faced during and post-pandemic. It is pertinent for HE institutions to acknowledge these voices, especially from students of BAME backgrounds, who are still suffering from pandemic fatigue and need flexibility and additional support. Although academics and universities were supportive, there still is space to provide more support to enable effective access to resources, technical know-how and well-being support that is warranted. One student stated that ‘Universities should know that life changed for many during the pandemic', indicating the ongoing impact of the pandemic on grief, physical health, well-being and economic issues. All these challenges continue to impact their learning. As Givens (2021) has argued, educators should support their students to achieve their learning goals through empathy. Similarly, the HE should support students, especially those from BAME backgrounds since they face more challenges. The support should be from an understanding and empowering position.

Our study further uncovered that the universities need to provide democratic spaces for dialogue and encourage BAME students to engage amongst themselves and with other key players such as academics, the SLM team, the universities, policymakers and communities to address issues of inequality. Valenzuela and Rodriguez (2022) identify the importance of a model that seeks to develop capacities, strengthen networking dynamics, explore challenges facing teachers and students and address them jointly. Furthermore, it is important to nurture the common and diverse elements to enhance public education post-pandemic via collaborative work.

We conclude with ‘hope of liberation':

‘Hope of liberation does not mean liberation already. It is necessary to fight for it within its historically favourable conditions. If they do not exist, we must hopefully labour to create them. Liberation is a possibility, not fate nor destiny nor burden. In this context, one can realise the importance of education for decision, rupture, choice, and ethics at last.' ( Freire, 2019 : p.12, p.12)