Students gathering

As TASO’s Chief Executive, a key theme I’d like to highlight is the importance, or rather the necessity, of working together. This has been key to our achievements of the past year, and will continue to be central to our resolutions for the new year. Change is only possible when we all work together. Our joint initiatives across the sector – from grassroots to government – demonstrate the power of partnership working. 

TASO in 2023

Various metrics indicate just how much TASO has achieved in 2023. We’ve had a large increase in engagement whether looking at our events (17, with over 2,450 attendees) our online presence (a 68% rise in our website’s page views and a 117% increase in mailing list subscribers), or our media coverage (tripling year-on-year). As a What Works Centre, TASO is committed to collecting data and assessing change over time. I am hugely proud of all that my TASO colleagues have achieved this year, and these statistics represent the individual and collective efforts of each of them over the course of the year. 

A collective effort

We know that these outcomes are not the work of any one person, or indeed of TASO by itself. I’d therefore also like to thank and recognise our many partners. This includes our Sector Network, Theme Working Groups, project partners, speakers at our events, mental health consortium partners and student panel, and many others working in higher education and in the wider What Works movement. We’ve also had vital engagement from senior leaders and policymakers, in universities and colleges, the Office for Students, and the Department for Education.

Working together isn’t just a question of numbers. It’s also about the nature and depth of relationships. Thinking about one of our most important (and widely used) resources, any successful theory of change needs to consider broader contextual factors – relating both to the individuals and organisations directly delivering a project, and also the more indirect role of wider social actors and influencers, whether student activists, journalists or policymakers. This applies to TASO itself, and is something that we will continue to reflect on and refine in 2024 even as we recognise our successes in 2023.

A few highlights

Some of our activities in particular give a sense of the breadth as well as the reach of our projects and impact, and of the partners who’ve helped to achieve it. From our founding in 2019, TASO recognised the need to support the sector and to be responsive to its particular needs and challenges of what is a diverse sector, whether in terms of geography, size or student profile. 

  • Our ‘small n’ area of work – responding to the need to support the sector in evaluating interventions involving smaller cohorts of students – produced further outputs this year, including six partners testing these methods and a report on our overall learning and recommendations.
  • We continued to build on and develop our work on the ethnicity degree awarding gap, and look forward to reporting on our joint learning with six project partners early in the new year. 
  • Our summer school evaluation is another key project. Interim findings from the 2022 in-person summer schools followed on from our interim evaluation of the 2021 online summer schools. The final reports will be published in 2024-25
  • The launch of the Student Mental Health Evidence Hub particularly shows the value of working together, with our consortium partners – Student Minds, AMOSSHE, What Works Wellbeing, King’s College London and SMaRteN – as well as our student panel inputting into the work from inception to completion. With one in six undergraduates now reporting mental health challenges, it’s increasingly crucial that higher education providers ensure the support they offer is as effective as possible. The positive news is that the sector and government, including the higher education minister, share a commitment to build on the evidence and practice in the hub, which TASO will continue to promote and develop in 2024 and beyond.

The year ahead

Moving to resolutions for 2024: we will continue to ensure that we work effectively as a team at TASO, and with our many partners. We will continue to listen to and work with the sector to ensure our resources, toolkits and reports are responsive to their needs, and ultimately improve the evidence base on what works to tackle inequalities in higher education.

Some of the challenges in 2023 are also likely to continue into 2024. While the worst of the pandemic may be over, its impact will continue to cast a shadow for many years to come. Those who start higher education next year will have seen their secondary education, including GCSE and A-level learning but also social interactions, disrupted. 

The cost of living crisis will also still affect students, with rising rents, reduced maintenance and increased part-time employment particularly impacting on less advantaged students. As Sheffield Hallam’s Vice Chancellor, Chris Husbands, noted in a recent Wonkhe article: ‘Materially well-off students are able to enjoy an engagement with HE which we could call the “full-fat” experience and those from materially deprived homes are doing ever more part-time work’. 

There  are some signs that the widening participation trend could be stalling, an issue that may garner more attention by the end of 2024 as parties seek the votes of the increasing number of students and younger graduates in the next general election.

A shared mission

While the inequalities in higher education are long-term and persistent, we are making collective progress in addressing some of these inequalities, and in learning what best works to do so. While I’m proud of what TASO has achieved in 2023, my colleagues and I also know that there’s still work to be done for all students to enjoy and benefit from higher education, whatever their background. 

To realise our collective goal – to eliminate equality gaps so that every student, regardless of background, has a fulfilling higher education experience – we need to continue to collaborate and work closely to evaluate and implement what works.

The good news is that addressing inequalities is a widely shared mission across higher education, with the goal in 2024 and beyond to ensure that vision becomes a reality for all students.