DECOLONISING higher education is “vital” to tackling discrimination, hostility and unconscious bias in British universities, a new report has claimed. 

The report by education think tank the Higher Education Policy Institute found that attempts by members of staff and students to decolonise universities are often rejected or not taken seriously. 

One interviewee and staff member, Nicole, said she had missed out on job opportunities because of her work on decolonisation. 

She said: “When you turn up to the interview and you talk about the work, you see the colour drain from their faces, and I’ve been to quite a few interviews where it’s like: ‘We’re not interested in that.’ So it does get quite alienating.”

The report’s author and University of Oxford masters student Mia Liyanage said that staff and students of colour described a “silent crisis” in universities. 

UCU general secretary Jo Grady said universities need to “do more than pay lip service” to tackling structural inequality.

The report took in the accounts of 16 interviewees including lecturers, a vice-chancellor and officers at students’ unions.