Australian Universities’ Review - Widening participation? Barriers to learning for manual grade staff in higher education institutions

Oct 15, 2026

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A survey across eleven universities in northern England finds manual grade staff attend internal higher education training programmes at significantly lower rates than other employee groups. Evidence from two universities compares attendance patterns, revealing sharp under-participation and worsening disparity. The paper investigates training attendance and analyzes three categories of barriers to learning, using a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. Recommendations are proposed to address equality and business impacts, including staff capability and student experience outcomes.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages9

Reading Time23 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Survey and training attendance findings

Barriers to learning and barrier categories

Recommendations and implications

A U S T R A L I A N U N I V E R S I T I E S ’ R E V I E W Widening participation? Barriers to learning for manual grade staff in higher education institutions Liz Dunphy & John P Wilson University of Bradford & University of Sheffield, UK. In a survey conducted across eleven universities in the north of England, attendance figures for manual grade staff attending internal university training programmes was found to be significantly below that of other employee groups. This is unsatisfactory from an equal opportunity perspective since the ethos of a university should encompass all employees. It is also unsatisfactory from a business perspective because all staff need to possess the requisite skills and be able to use them to maximum effect. Furthermore, manual grade staff frequently interact with students and the quality of this interaction may have implications for student satisfaction and course completion rates. This paper investigates the levels of training attendance by manual grade staff at two universities and discusses three categories of barriers to learning identified by Hillage and Aston (2001). A survey of manual grade staff was conducted and supplemented with a number of semi-structured interviews. Forty-four barriers were ranked and the first ten are considered in more detail. Recommendations are made to address some of the equality and business issues regarding the barriers to learning. Introduction In an internal survey conducted among staff developers from eleven universities in the north of England, ten confirmed that there were disproportionate levels of attendance among staff groups attending in-house courses. Six of these named manual grade staff e.g. porters, security staff, cleaners and catering staff, as the lowest attending group. The content, availability and suitability of training programmes did not appear to suggest that these were causes of the imbalance, and so more detailed research was then confidentially conducted in two of these universities with the intention of verifying the general observations found in the initial survey. Attendance records for in-house training at University A (UniA), for a six month period revealed that there was a large discrepancy between training attendance levels of manual grade staff and that of 70 Widening participation?, Liz Dunphy & John P Wilson other grades.At the end of this period UniA had 2,080 staff on its payroll with manual grade staff making up 20 per cent (414) of total staff. During this time more than half the total employees (1,156) across all staff groupings e.g. administrative, clerical, manual grade attended at least one in-house training programme organised by the Staff Development Unit. However, only 48 (4 per cent) of these staff were manual grade staff. Fifteen months later this discrepancy had significantly deteriorated with just one manual grade staff member attending an in-house training event in the preceding six months. In University B (UniB), which had 2000 employees, only 33 out of 288 manual grade staff had attended courses during the last three years i.e. 4 per cent annually. This situation, while very unsatisfactory, is not entirely unsurprising, nor new; with Woodley et al.(1987, p. 71) finding that adult education recruited disproportionately more from non-manual than manual vol. 51, no. 2, 2009 A U S T R A L I A N U N I V E R S I T I E S ’ R E V I E W occupations and that,‘the working class is massively under-represented among mature students.’ Universities are places of education and it would be expected that there would be equality of access to training and development for all members of staff. Indeed,the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD, 2002, p. 8) argued that,‘If an organisation offers training ideally there should be no barriers to eligible employees taking up such offers.’ However, the evidence above suggests that barriers may exist for manual grade staff attending in-house

FAQs

What was the main problem identified in the training attendance survey?

Attendance figures for manual grade staff at internal university training programmes were significantly below those of other employee groups, creating an equality of access concern.

How was the evidence gathered for the two universities?

The study used attendance records from University A and University B, based on defined time periods, and supplemented the work with a survey plus semi-structured interviews.

Which types of barriers does the paper focus on?

The paper discusses three categories of barriers to learning identified by Hillage and Aston (2001), and examines the highest-ranked barriers in more detail.

Oct 15, 2026

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