Students’ experience of sexual harassment varies widely depending on what type of university they attend and what course they are studying, according to a new analysis of the first major survey of the issue in the English sector.
Higher-tariff universities and disciplines such as languages, medicine and veterinary sciences report incidents at a far higher rate than the national average.
The Office for Students’ survey, conducted last year, found that nearly one-quarter (24.5 per cent) of respondents reported sexual harassment since entering higher education, and around one in seven (14.1 per cent) reported sexual assault/violence.
The regulator’s new analysis, published on 8 May, found other groups were also more adversely affected than the average. For example, students who study at a provider that is not local to them reported harassment levels of 29.2 per cent while 42.2 per cent of students who also report a mental health condition said they had experienced harassment.
Students at higher-tariff institutions were more likely to report harassment than those at middle-tariff ones, at 34.9 per cent and 26.5 per cent respectively. The figures for “low tariffs and unknown tariffs" were lower than the average, at 17.6 per cent.
