Training Teaching and Support Staff to Address Unconscious Bias

25% of all students enrolled in UK universities were from Black Asian or Minority Ethnicity backgrounds in the 2022 academic year, according to the Higher Education Statistics Agency.

Professor Amaka Offiah is the Chair of the BAME Staff Network Committee at the University of Sheffield. She is the Department Director for EDI, Co-Chair of the University’s Race Equality Charter Self-Assessment team and one of the only black female professors of medicine in the UK.

In this video, Professor Offiah discusses the importance of addressing unconscious bias in higher education, highlighting the usefulness of images in improving the understanding of racism in higher education and everyday life. She elaborates further, emphasising that by tackling unconscious bias early on in higher education, institutions are more likely to eliminate racism across the organisation. All training regarding bias needs to be voluntary though to ensure this outcome is achievable as staff will learn more from the workshops if they are not mandatory.