ABOUT US
Equality & Diversity
What Equality & Diversity means to MK College
Diversity. Inclusion. They’re more than just words for us. They’re the hard-and-fast principles guiding how we build our teams, cultivate leaders and create an environment that’s the right fit for every person inside of it. We are one of the largest educational institutions and employers in a richly diverse area—we want to reflect that inside our walls.
Arv Kaushal
Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Manager
Staff
We are a signatory to the Race At Work Charter and we are broadening its approach which commits us to five calls to action:
1. Appoint an Executive Sponsor for equality, diversity & inclusion
2. Capture data and publicise progress
3. Commit at Board level to zero tolerance of harassment and bullying
4. Make clear that supporting equality in the workplace is the responsibility of all leaders and managers
5. Take action that supports career progression where we identify under-representation
We are striving to create a workplace that reflects the communities we serve and where everyone feels empowered to bring their full, authentic selves to work. One of the ways we’re doing this is by producing an Inclusive Language Guide to increase our understanding of respectful and inclusive words and phrases.
Please read on if you’re interested in finding out what it’s like to work at MK College, why you should consider a career with us and see our current vacancies.
Students
Milton Keynes is a diverse and vibrant community and our learners reflect this; Black and Minority Ethnic students make up a third of our student population. We also have a significant number (over 12%) of students with a learning or physical disability.
Tailored support is always student-focused to support and celebrate what makes us different as well as everything we share. In practical terms, this approach includes a dedicated Student Support Team, achieving Refugee Welcome Schools accreditation and supporting the inaugural Pride:MK.
As well as our campus teaching programme in Milton Keynes, we also deliver courses in prison locations across England. In 2018/19 we worked with 30,000 offender learners to improve their personal skills and self-belief with the ultimate aim of building careers within custody or finding employment on release. More about our successes in prison education can be found here.
Having taught over 200,000 learners since we were established in 1982, we have developed an excellent network of community links in the area. As well as these civic relationships, our campus buildings are at the heart of the communities we serve. Our aim is for them to be a focus for sharing skills and resources in line with our ethos of ‘transforming lives through learning’.
With a history of almost 40 years’ in Milton Keynes, we are excited to continue to drive investment in the area. Our transformative Institute of Technology (IoT) will teach a new generation of learners about all things digital. An incredible group of partners, including Microsoft, KPMG and Cranfield University, are working together to put together a curriculum based entirely around the real needs of business.
Diversity is built into the foundation of the IoT with ambitious targets to ensure this new offer creates opportunities for all – not just those ‘traditionally’ working in the digital sector.
FE Voices
A series of events in which participants can deconstruct the challenge of racism in FE to evolve the agenda and face the issue together.
Session One: The Lived Experience
Session Two: Looking In
Session Three: The Reformers
