Colleagues,
There is some interest here at the University of Bath in including a
question about a student's religion on our registration form. Some
background information is given below. I should be interested to know
whether other institutions do this, and if so, how they frame their
questions, why they do it, and how they use the information. I would
summarize and post information back to the list unless asked by anyone
not to do so. Please reply to me direct, rather than to the list.
Thanks.
John Harris.
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Some background:
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It is suggested:
- That any question on our registration form would be for optional
completion by students;
- That we would store such optional replies in our student record
database;
- That individual information might be used in the scheduling of
examinations;
- That individual information might be used to deal sensitively and
appropriately with particular requirements in the event of death;
- That statistical information derived from the replies might assist in
the monitoring of equality issues.
I have looked at the web pages relating to the 2001 census. It's
interesting to note that the inclusion of a question on religion for
England and Wales is under consideration, but that its inclusion for the
first time would require a change in the primary legislation. The
relevant document gives some background on the purpose of the proposed
question: "responses to the question would help provide information
which would supplement the output from the ethnicity question by
identifying ethnic minority sub-groups, particularly those originating
from the Indian sub-continent, in terms of their religion" ("The 2001
Census of Population", Cm 4253, para. 64, cited from the Office for
National Statistics web pages, via http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons_f.htm).
This limitation of purpose would probably render the proposed
categorisation unhelpful for university purposes.
HESA's Field 78 in the Individual Student Record asks a question
labelled "Religion" for which response is compulsory in respect of
Northern Ireland domiciled students at institutions in Northern Ireland.
Many colleagues will recall that there was once a proposal that this
question should be asked of all Northern Ireland domiciled students
wherever they were studying in the UK, but this was removed during the
early consultation phases. According to Cm 4253, there has traditionally
been such a question in the census in Northern Ireland (ibid. para. 66).
Here too the purpose and categorisation are unhelpful for our purposes.
____________________________________________________
Dr John Harris, Senior Assistant Registrar
Student Records & Examinations Office
University of Bath, Bath, BA2 7AY, U.K.
EMail: [log in to unmask]
Tel: (01225) 826826, extn 5045
SREO: http://www.bath.ac.uk/Admin/Student_Records/
JH: http://www.bath.ac.uk/~adsjh/
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