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Educational inequalities in England barely improve in two decades, study finds

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The UK education system preserves inequality – new report

• Imran Tahir

Published on 13 September 2022

Our new comprehensive study, shows that education in the UK is not tackling inequality.

• Education and skills
• Poverty, inequality and social mobility
• Social mobility

Link to read article 

The Conversation

Your education has a huge effect on your life chances. As well as being likely to lead to better wages, higher levels of education are linked with better health, wealth and  even happiness . It should be a way for children from deprived backgrounds to escape poverty.

However, our new  comprehensive study , published as part of the Institute for Fiscal Studies  Deaton Review of Inequalities , shows that education in the UK is not tackling inequality. Instead, children from poorer backgrounds do worse throughout the education system.

The report assesses existing evidence using a range of different datasets. These include national statistics published by the Department for Education on all English pupils, as well as a detailed longitudinal sample of young people from across the UK. It shows there are pervasive and entrenched inequalities in educational attainment.

Unequal success

Children from disadvantaged households tend to do worse at school. This may not be a surprising fact, but our study illustrates the magnitude of this disadvantage gap. The graph below shows that children who are eligible for free school meals (which corresponds to roughly the 15% poorest pupils) in England do significantly worse at every stage of school.

Even at the age of five, there are significant differences in achievement at school. Only 57% of children who are eligible for free school meals are assessed as having a good level of development in meeting early learning goals, compared with 74% of children from better off households. These inequalities persist through primary school, into secondary school and beyond.

Differences in educational attainment aren’t a  new phenomenon . What’s striking, though, is how the size of the disadvantage gap has remained constant over a long period of time. The graph below shows the percentage of students in England reaching key GCSE benchmarks by their eligibility for free school meals from the mid-2000s.

Over the past 15 years, the size of the gap in GCSE attainment between children from rich and poor households has barely changed. Although the total share of pupils achieving these GCSE benchmarks has increased over time, children from better-off families have been 27%-28% more likely to meet these benchmarks throughout the period.

Household income

While eligibility for free school meals is one way of analysing socio-economic inequalities, it doesn’t capture the full distribution of household income. Another way is to group young people according to their family income. The graph below shows young people grouped by decile. This means that young people are ordered based on their family’s income at age 14 and placed into ten equal groups.

The graph shows the percentage of young people in the UK obtaining five good GCSEs, and the share obtaining at least one A or A* grade at GCSE, by the decile of their family income. With every increase in their family’s wealth, children are more likely to do better at school.

More than 70% of children from the richest tenth of families earn five good GCSEs, compared with fewer than 30% in the poorest households. While just over 10% of young people in middle-earning families (and fewer than 5% of those in the poorest families) earned at least one A or A* grade at GCSE, over a third of pupils from the richest tenth of families received at least one top grade.

Inequalities into adulthood

The gaps between poor and rich children during the school years translate into huge differences in their qualifications as adults. This graph shows educational attainment ten years after GCSEs (at the age of 26) for a group of students who took their GCSE exams in 2006.

The four bars show the distribution of qualifications at age 26 separately for the entire group, people who grew up in the poorest fifth of households, those who grew up in the richest fifth of households, and those who attended private schools.

There is a strong relationship between family background and eventual educational attainment. More than half of children who grew up in the most deprived households hold qualifications of up to GCSE level or below. On the other hand, almost half of those from the richest households have graduated from university.

The gap between private school students and the most disadvantaged is even more stark. Over 70% of private school students are university graduates by the age of 26, compared with less than 20% of children from the poorest fifth of households.

Young people from better-off families do better at all levels of the education system. They start out ahead and they end up being more qualified as adults. Instead of being an engine for social mobility, the UK’s education system allows inequalities at home to turn into differences in school achievement. This means that all too often, today’s education inequalities become tomorrow’s income inequalities.

Research Economist

Imran joined the IFS in 2019 and works in the Education and Skills sector.

Comment details

Suggested citation.

Tahir, I. (2022). The UK education system preserves inequality – new report [Comment] The Conversation. Available at: https://ifs.org.uk/articles/uk-education-system-preserves-inequality-new-report (accessed: 4 August 2024).

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Home / Publications & Research / Benchmarking English Education / Education: the fundamentals – Eleven facts about the education system in England

Education: the fundamentals – Eleven facts about the education system in England

A major new report on education in England is published today by UK 2040 Options, led by Nesta, and The Education Policy Institute.

The report combines data, analysis and insights from over 75 education experts on the education challenges facing the next government and possible solutions to improve outcomes.

The report shows that:

• All sectors of the education system are facing a workforce crisis. In schools, only 69% of those who qualified 5 years ago are still teaching, and 15% of that cohort left in their first year. 
• The pupil population in England is set to decline significantly due to low birth rates. The state school population currently stands at 7.93 million children, and this will fall by around 800,000 by 2032. 
• The number of pupils with  an education, health and care plan for more complex  special educational needs and disabilities has increased by around 50% in just five years – but funding has not caught up with the level of need and is based (in part) on historic data.
• Only 5% of primary schools reached the Government’s target of 90% of pupils reaching the expected standard in key stage 2 reading, writing and mathematics in 2019.
• Pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds experience an attainment gap (relative to their more affluent peers) equivalent to 19 months of learning by the time they sit their GCSEs. Two fifths of this gap has appeared by the age of 5. 
• Absence from education is now one of the most pressing issues facing England’s education system – persistent absence (missing more than 10% of sessions) has increased from 13% to 24%.
• Closing the gap between skill supply and employer demand could increase national productivity by 5% – 42% of vacancies in manufacturing and 52% in construction are due to skill shortages.

The report, which follows UK 2040 Options publications on  inequality and wealth ,  economic growth ,  health  and  tax , also includes evidence of progress. England recently came fourth in the world for primary school reading proficiency and well above average in maths and science in Years 5 and 9.

But the report also reveals a system that is struggling. Thousands of children start school each year without basic skills, the disadvantage gap is growing, and education at every level is experiencing a chronic recruitment and retention challenge.

Over 75 subject experts from across a range of sectors took part in the project. There was wide agreement about the need to grapple seriously with the workforce crisis across all parts of the system, and the group put forward suggestions for how this could be achieved while continuing to improve the quality of education provision. 

More broadly the group proposed policies to:

• Support the growing number of children  with special education needs and disabilities and rebuild parents’ trust in the system;
• Address challenges inside and outside the school gates to improve educational outcomes, including lifting families out of poverty and increasing targeted funding for disadvantaged pupils;
• Make the skills system more equitable, higher quality and tailored to the needs of the economy. 

Alex Burns, Director of UK 2040 Options, said:   “Education has been less prominent than other areas in recent policy debate – we feel a long way away from “education, education, education”. But if we are to be serious about improving people’s lives and boosting the economy we will need to make sure that the education system is thriving. Whilst there are clear areas of progress, this report demonstrates the scale of the challenge for the future in areas like workforce, the disadvantage gap and support for children with special educational needs.” 

Jon Andrews, Head of Analysis at the Education Policy Institute, said:  “ Whatever the outcome of the next election, it is clear there is much to do to get education back on track following a hugely disruptive pandemic and a decade dominated by funding cuts. A focus on the early years, greater funding that is targeted at the areas in need of it the most, and a plan to ease the recruitment and retention challenges facing schools must form cornerstones of any new government’s education strategy.”

You can read the report in full here.

About UK 2040 Options

UK 2040 Options is a policy project led by Nesta that seeks to address the defining issues facing the country, from tax and economic growth to health and education. It draws on a range of experts to assess the policy landscape, explore some of the most fertile areas in more depth, test and interrogate ideas and bring fresh angles and insights to the choices that policymakers will need to confront, make and implement.

About Nesta

We are Nesta . The UK’s innovation agency for social good. We design, test and scale new solutions to society’s biggest problems, changing millions of lives for the better.  This report was produced in partnership with Nesta, as part of UK 2040 Options.

Jon Andrews

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One primary school in Nottinghamshire reported that some children arrived at school unable to say their own names and that 50% of their pupils in reception and nursery were not toilet trained.

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Wednesday 15 June 2022 11:00, UK

Education systems across Britain are "failing on every measure" and 60% of parents don't believe schools prepare pupils for work, according to The Times Education Commission.

The commission said that while the pandemic was a "disaster" for young people, both in terms of their mental health and the widening of the disadvantage gap, the "flaws" predate the pandemic.

The year-long project was chaired by Times columnist Rachel Sylvester and supported by 22 commissioners from a range of fields, as well as two former prime ministers and 13 former education secretaries.

Their report recommended that every child should have access to a laptop or tablet, and that counsellors should be employed in every school.

It also called for teachers to receive more training on how to identify pupils with special educational needs.

Clive Searl, the headteacher at Worthington Primary School in Greater Manchester, agreed with most of the review's recommendations and said it is time for parity of resources between state and private school students.

He said struggling to find electronic devices for students to be able to work from home during lockdown was a problem exclusive to state schools.

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The commission's report also found that there are "shocking" regional disparities when it comes to early years pupils.

Geoff Barton, General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders and one of the report's commissioners, said the pandemic had left the education sector in a "meltdown".

He added: "The consequences of that are being felt by children of all ages and from all backgrounds, but particularly the most disadvantaged who didn't have the access to the technology and devices that for other children was crucial.

"The problem now is we have to play catch-up while revitalising the education system."

The report recommended an army of undergraduate tutors to help pupils to catch up.

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But Mr Searl said the government already has a National Tutoring Programme that does not work effectively.

"During the pandemic, schools found that tutors were unavailable and didn't show [up] when they were meant to. It was expensive and wasn't really meeting the needs of individual pupils, as we in school know those needs."

Mr Searl said the government should provide extra money for tutors but ministers should not be in charge of the programme.

The commission also raised concerns about the impact of exams on pupils' emotional wellbeing.

Read more: Plans for 14,000 new mainstream and special school places in England as part of levelling up State school in deprived London borough beats Eton for Oxbridge offers

Polling by YouGov found that 65% of parents think the current school system places too much emphasis on exams, and 56% of parents felt this was bad for students' mental health.

Helen Tebbutt's daughter Chloe McLean attends Worthington Primary School and said: "She's in Year 6 so she's just gone through SATs. There are lots of formative assessments.

"Teachers know their children… without having those sitdown formal assessments."

The commission's report called for a "British Baccalaureate" offering a broader range of both academic and vocational qualifications at 18, with a "slimmed-down" set of exams at 16 as opposed to GCSEs.

"Let's stop defining young people ultimately as a grade," Mr Barton said.

"Let's recognise that, of course, academic success is important, but other things are important as well.

"And I think parents looking in on education through COVID will say: 'I want more for my young person, for their mental health, for their wellbeing, but for them to be recognised for the range of skills and talents they've got.'"

The commission also called for an "electives premium" for all schools to fund drama, music, dance and sport, as well as a National Citizenship Service experience for every pupil to ensure that poorer pupils can access outdoor expeditions and volunteering.

A Department for Education spokesperson said: "We thank the Times Education Commission for its report and always welcome new ideas and views from the sector and education experts.

"Our Schools White Paper sets out a clear roadmap for levelling up education in England, including targeted support both for individual pupils who fall behind and whole areas of the country where standards are weakest, alongside ambitious targets for raising pupil attainment by the end of primary school and GCSEs.

"Our ambitious education recovery programme is already getting children back on track following the pandemic, with the revolutionary National Tutoring Programme providing nearly two million courses of high-quality tuition for the children and young people who need it most, together with additional funding for schools to use to provide further tailored support for pupils."

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Education research funding shortfall exposed by learned societies

Royal society and british academy back increase in education research spending after study reveals funding gap compared to health.

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Education research in UK universities requires a “significant uplift” as it is significantly lagging behind other sectors, a joint report by the British Academy and Royal Society has recommended.

While health research accounts for 1.7 per cent of all spending on public health in Britain, education research represents only 0.05 per cent of funds invested in education, explains the study published on 21 May.

Put differently, that means just £1 in every £2,000 spent on education goes on research, whereas the equivalent sum for £2,000 of health spending is £34.

Overall, universities receive about £55 million annually via the Research Excellence Framework to undertake education research, which, according to the report, was described by a sub-panel for REF 2021 as “a very small amount in the context of annual public spending on education”.

Education research received about £22.7 million in charity and industry donations in 2021-22, the paper adds, comparing this sum with the £1.4 billion received by health research from these sectors in the same year.

“The comparison made to health here is not to suggest that educational research spending should match that in the health sector in absolute terms, nor that one is necessarily more important than the other,” says the report, titled ‘ Investing in a 21st century educational research system ’

“But there is an argument that, as a vital public service, investment in education research should be in line with health research as a proportion of overall health spending,” it continues.

The policy briefing – the culmination of longstanding collaboration between the British Academy and the Royal Society – recommends that “government should increase funding for educational research, bringing it into line with other important public service research funding”.

It also calls on research funders to include more long-term research funding opportunities and support for underrepresented and emerging research themes to provide deeper insight into important questions and into the effectiveness of policy changes.

Noting a lack of longitudinal research, the report observes that two thirds of grants awarded by research councils between 2010 and 2020 were for less than three years.

Ulrike Tillmann, chair of the Royal Society’s education committee, said that “if the UK is to become a science superpower, we need to understand better the long-term effects of education”.

“We can no longer rely solely on short-term evaluation and learning gains – we need forward-thinking research that looks at the enduring impact of education on an individual’s lifelong growth to build a healthier education system that benefits us all,” she added.

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• Education, training and skills

Bridget Phillipson's speech at the Embassy Education Conference

Secretary of State for Education Bridget Phillipson delivers a speech at the Embassy Education Conference.

Thank you very much. I am delighted to be here with you today. Thanks so much for the invitation.  

In my first weeks as secretary of state in this new government I have been resetting relationships across the length and breadth of education.  

I want to refresh old partnerships and grow new ones, not just at home but around the world too.  

By joining forces in education, we can build new bridges between our nations. 

And I want to set the record straight on international students. I know there’s been some mixed messaging from governments in the past, from our predecessors most of all.  

And for too long international students have been treated as political footballs, not valued guests.  

Their fees welcomed, but their presence resented.  

Exploited for cheap headlines, not cherished for all they bring to our communities. 

This government will take a different approach and we will speak clearly.  

Be in no doubt: international students are welcome in the UK. 

This new government values their contribution – to our universities, to our communities, to our country.  

I want Britain to welcome those who want to come to these shores to study, and meet the requirements to do so.  

Now this is part of a wider sea change here in the UK. 

Under this new government, education is once again at the forefront of national life. 

Under this new government, universities are a public good, not a political battleground. 

Under this new government, opportunity is for everyone. 

And our international partnerships are central to this drive to spread opportunity far and wide. 

The more we work together, the more progress we will see in the world – partners in the push for better. 

Closed systems that only look inward quickly run out of ideas. Creativity crumbles, innovation dies, the same thoughts spin round and round and collapse in on themselves.   

But through our international partners, we can reach out across the world and bring back a freshness of thought that breathes new life into our society.   

That includes our universities, and it includes international students.  

How could it not?  

These people are brave. They move to a new culture, far away from their homes and their families.  

They take a leap of faith, hoping to develop new skills and chase new horizons. And I am enormously proud that so many want to take that leap here in the UK.  

And we will do everything we can to help them succeed.  

That’s why we offer the opportunity to remain in the UK on a graduate visa for 2 years after their studies end – or 3 for PhDs – to work, to live, and to contribute.  

While this government is committed to managing migration carefully, international students will always be welcome in this country. 

The UK wouldn’t be the same without them. 

Arts, music, culture, sport, food, language, humour – international students drive dynamism on so many levels. 

And of course, their contribution to the British economy is substantial. Each international student adds about £100,000 to our national prosperity.  

This impact is not just a national statistic. It’s felt in towns and cities right across country.  

I’ve seen it in Sunderland, where I have the privilege to serve as a member of parliament. The city is home to almost 5,000 international students.  

Many come from China, flying across the world to study at the University of Sunderland. I welcome their presence and I value their contribution. 

And students from all nations add to the city’s buzz.  

More footfall on our highstreets. 

More laughter in our pubs. 

More conversation in our cafes.  

International students contribute so much to my home city, so much to our country.  And they get so much in return. The UK is a fantastic place to come and study. 

Every student who steps off the plane in Manchester or arrives on the Eurostar in London is a vote of confidence in our universities. 

Students come because they know they will receive a world class education. They come because they know it sets them up for success. 

Many go on to positions of power. Above the desks of leaders around the world sit certificates from British universities. 

They, and hopefully many of you, will know the joy of living abroad, the excitement of discovering a new culture, a new perspective, perhaps even a new weather system … 

While students may not come to the UK for our weather system, they do come for our rich and varied culture. 

They know this is a country that sparks genius, that has birthed innovation to the rest of the world. 

What better place to study science than the land of Charles Darwin, Ada Lovelace, Alan Turing? 

What better place to study English than the land of William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Zadie Smith?  

And what better place to study music than the land of John Lennon, Stormzy, Adele? 

Students benefit from coming to the UK, and we benefit from them being here.  

But I don’t see this as a hard-nosed transactional relationship. It’s not just about GDP, balance sheets or export receipts. 

No. My passion is for an open, global Britain – one that welcomes new ideas.  

One that looks outward in optimism, not inward in exclusion. 

In my university days I made some wonderful friends who came from around the world.  

They broadened my horizons, challenged my views, and pushed me to be better.  

Students come and build bonds with their classmates – and friendships between students become friendships between countries. 

That’s what education is all about. 

A force for good in people’s lives, a force for good in our world. 

A generation of young people who have studied abroad and cultivated friendships with people from different cultures – those ties make the world a safer, more vibrant place.  

This new government is mission-led. And I am leading on the mission to break down the barriers to opportunity. 

I am determined to make Britain the international home of opportunity. 

So I want genuine partnerships with countries across the world in higher education and beyond. 

We already have deep education partnerships with countless countries around the globe, and I want to build more.  

From our closest neighbours, France, Germany, Italy and Spain, to major regional powers, India, Nigeria, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, important allies, the US and Australia, to world leading systems like Singapore and Japan, and many others. 

Whether that’s through British international schools abroad, or cross-border collaboration on skills training. 

School trips and scholarships, exchange programmes and language learning, policy conversations that span the early years to learners with special educational needs. 

And I want our universities to work with their international partners to deliver courses across borders.  

Education must be at the forefront of tackling the major global challenges of our time. 

Artificial intelligence, climate change, poverty, misinformation, polarisation, war and instability.  

Education puts us on the path to freedom.  

Intellectual freedom. Economic freedom. Social freedom. Cultural freedom.  

Through education, we can enlarge and expand those freedoms, we can show that government is a power not just for administration but for transformation. 

The answer is partnership. And the answer is education. 

As I close, I want to extend an invitation to all your education ministers to attend the education world forum here in London next year from the 18th to the 21st of May.  

You can expect a rich exchange of ideas, visits to schools, colleges and universities, and enlightening keynote speakers. 

This is a time of change here in Britain. A new age of hope. A new era of optimism for our country.  

A place where once again education and opportunity are the foundations of a better society.  

A place where our universities are nurseries of global friendships, as well as places of economic growth.  

A place where new ideas are prized.  

I want to work with all of you to deliver opportunity for all – not just here at home, but across the world too. 

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The UK education system preserves inequality – new report

Research Economist, Institute for Fiscal Studies

Disclosure statement

The IFS Deaton Review of Inequalities is funded by the Nuffield Foundation.

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Your education has a huge effect on your life chances. As well as being likely to lead to better wages, higher levels of education are linked with better health, wealth and even happiness . It should be a way for children from deprived backgrounds to escape poverty.

However, our new comprehensive study , published as part of the Institute for Fiscal Studies Deaton Review of Inequalities , shows that education in the UK is not tackling inequality. Instead, children from poorer backgrounds do worse throughout the education system.

The report assesses existing evidence using a range of different datasets. These include national statistics published by the Department for Education on all English pupils, as well as a detailed longitudinal sample of young people from across the UK. It shows there are pervasive and entrenched inequalities in educational attainment.

Unequal success

Children from disadvantaged households tend to do worse at school. This may not be a surprising fact, but our study illustrates the magnitude of this disadvantage gap. The graph below shows that children who are eligible for free school meals (which corresponds to roughly the 15% poorest pupils) in England do significantly worse at every stage of school.

Even at the age of five, there are significant differences in achievement at school. Only 57% of children who are eligible for free school meals are assessed as having a good level of development in meeting early learning goals, compared with 74% of children from better off households. These inequalities persist through primary school, into secondary school and beyond.

Differences in educational attainment aren’t a new phenomenon . What’s striking, though, is how the size of the disadvantage gap has remained constant over a long period of time. The graph below shows the percentage of students in England reaching key GCSE benchmarks by their eligibility for free school meals from the mid-2000s.

Over the past 15 years, the size of the gap in GCSE attainment between children from rich and poor households has barely changed. Although the total share of pupils achieving these GCSE benchmarks has increased over time, children from better-off families have been 27%-28% more likely to meet these benchmarks throughout the period.

Household income

While eligibility for free school meals is one way of analysing socio-economic inequalities, it doesn’t capture the full distribution of household income. Another way is to group young people according to their family income. The graph below shows young people grouped by decile. This means that young people are ordered based on their family’s income at age 14 and placed into ten equal groups.

The graph shows the percentage of young people in the UK obtaining five good GCSEs, and the share obtaining at least one A or A* grade at GCSE, by the decile of their family income. With every increase in their family’s wealth, children are more likely to do better at school.

More than 70% of children from the richest tenth of families earn five good GCSEs, compared with fewer than 30% in the poorest households. While just over 10% of young people in middle-earning families (and fewer than 5% of those in the poorest families) earned at least one A or A* grade at GCSE, over a third of pupils from the richest tenth of families received at least one top grade.

Inequalities into adulthood

The gaps between poor and rich children during the school years translate into huge differences in their qualifications as adults. This graph shows educational attainment ten years after GCSEs (at the age of 26) for a group of students who took their GCSE exams in 2006.

The four bars show the distribution of qualifications at age 26 separately for the entire group, people who grew up in the poorest fifth of households, those who grew up in the richest fifth of households, and those who attended private schools.

There is a strong relationship between family background and eventual educational attainment. More than half of children who grew up in the most deprived households hold qualifications of up to GCSE level or below. On the other hand, almost half of those from the richest households have graduated from university.

The gap between private school students and the most disadvantaged is even more stark. Over 70% of private school students are university graduates by the age of 26, compared with less than 20% of children from the poorest fifth of households.

Young people from better-off families do better at all levels of the education system. They start out ahead and they end up being more qualified as adults. Instead of being an engine for social mobility, the UK’s education system allows inequalities at home to turn into differences in school achievement. This means that all too often, today’s education inequalities become tomorrow’s income inequalities.

• Social mobility
• Learning Inequality

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• Open access
• Published: 29 July 2024

Medical school origins of award-winning pathologists; analysis of a complete national dataset

• Sinclair Steele 1 ,
• Gabriel Andrade 1 ,
• Marwah Abdulkader 2 &
• Yehia Mohamed 1 , 3  

BMC Medical Education volume  24 , Article number:  814 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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Metrics details

The ultimate aim of medical education is to produce successful practitioners, which is a goal that educators, students and stakeholders support. These groups consider success to comprise optimum patient care with consequently positive career progression. Accordingly, identification of the common educational features of such high-achieving doctors will facilitate the generation of clinical excellence amongst future medical trainees. In our study we source data from British clinical merit award schemes and subsequently identify the medical school origins of pathologists who have achieved at least national distinction.

Britain operates Distinction Award/Clinical Excellence Award schemes which honour National Health Service doctors in Scotland, Wales and England who are identified as high achievers. This quantitative observational study used these awards as an outcome measure in an analysis of the 2019-20 dataset of all 901 national award-winning doctors. Where appropriate, Pearson’s Chi-Square test was applied.

The top five medical schools (London university medical schools, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Oxford and Cambridge) were responsible for 60.4% of the pathologist award-winners, despite the dataset representing 85 medical schools. 96.4% of the pathologist merit award-winners were from European medical schools. 9.0% of the pathologist award-winners were international medical graduates in comparison with 11.4% of all 901 award-winners being international medical graduates.

Conclusions

The majority of pathologists who were national merit award-winners originated from only five, apparently overrepresented, UK university medical schools. In contrast, there was a greater diversity in medical school origin among the lower grade national award-winners; the largest number of international medical graduates were in these tier 3 awards (13.9%). As well as ranking educationally successful university medical schools, this study assists UK and international students, by providing a roadmap for rational decision making when selecting pathologist and non-pathologist medical education pathways that are more likely to fulfil their career ambitions.

Peer Review reports

To individuals outside the profession, the word ‘pathologist’ conjures up images of doctors performing autopsies on deceased patients [ 1 ] in an attempt to discern the cause of death. In reality, this is only a small part (approximately 5%) of the routine work of most pathologists. The vast majority of a pathologist’s time is spent in diagnostic endeavours. For example, examining tissue samples to diagnose or manage cancer, reviewing cervical Pap (Papanicolaou) smears, rapid examination of surgical specimens and presenting pathological information at multidisciplinary team meetings are more reflective of pathologists’ activities. This technical discipline is scientifically demanding and requires a foundation in training that commences in undergraduate medical degrees. Furthermore, it has historically been accepted as a truism in medical training as the science of disease that underpins the majority of subsequent clinical disciplines. In fact, in the UK the Royal College of Pathologists refers to pathology as the “ science behind the cure .” Students or trainee doctors that are interested in being well-trained doctors or wish to become pathologists often seek out medical schools/colleges that have robust embedded pathology training. One measure of the effectiveness of the pathology training is the production of successful clinical pathologists. Accordingly, our project examines the educational backgrounds of successful clinical pathologists.

Historically, in Britain there have been two clinical merit award schemes established to reward successful clinicians employed in the National Health Service (NHS):

The Clinical Excellence Awards (CEA) scheme, covering Wales and England [ 2 ].

The Distinction Awards (DA) scheme, covering Scotland [ 2 ].

The schemes are similar in aims and organization; both offer tiers of local and national awards to high-achieving doctors. However, the CEA scheme is currently being restructured, renamed and re-established as the National Clinical Impact Awards (NCIA), whilst the DA scheme remains in place in Scotland. The doctors receiving such awards gain benefits not only from the effects of these honours on their reputations and career progressions but also from the recurring financial rewards accompanying such accolades [ 2 ].

These UK national award schemes were envisioned and implemented after World War II for the pragmatic purpose of motivating senior clinicians to support the newly-created NHS. Since their inception, these schemes and their implementation have been the cause of vigorous debate in the UK medical community. As a result, these clinical merit awards have been evaluated and discussed from the perspective of award objectivity [ 3 ], specialty distribution [ 4 ], regional distribution [ 4 ], gender parity [ 2 ], age distribution [ 5 ] and ethnicity/racial distribution [ 6 ] but, until our research series, not by medical school of origin . These constructive criticisms have resulted in iterative revisions of these award schemes over the previous three decades. Many medical commentators agree that there should be a system to reward high-achieving clinicians [ 7 ] and the CEA/DA/NCIA merit awards are seen as national recognition of clinical career success - accounting for their continuing value, greater than 70 years after their inception. This original innovative research study is part of a series that contributes to the medical education discussion by relating the pathologist and non-pathologist merit award-winners to their medical schools of origin . We place our findings in the contexts of educational, career and global implications for ambitious prospective medical students, undergraduate medical students and doctors aspiring to attain career success [ 8 , 9 ].

The lists of pathologist award-winners and non-pathologist award-winners were retrieved from the source material of the DA annual report (Scotland) for 2019–2020 [ 10 ] together with the CEA annual report (England and Wales) [ 11 ] for the 2019–2020 awards round. These lists were summations of both the newly selected awardees and the previous award-winners who had retained their awards. The medical schools of origin were identified by using the published Medical Register, UK [ 12 ] as well as the published Dental Register, UK [ 13 , 14 , 15 ].The total number of award-winners was 901 - the university medical schools of origin were successfully identified for 99.8% of these clinicians [ 14 , 15 ]. Accordingly, 899 doctors were included in the analyzed dataset. Award-winning doctors in the publications above, who were designated as specializing in the core pathological disciplines, were included in this study [ 14 , 15 ]. In the 2019-20 award round the following specialties were included: (general) pathology/forensic pathology and histopathology [ 14 , 15 ].

The rankings of medical schools by number of merit award-winning alumni were determined by summation of the number of pathologist award-winners of A plus (A + ), A or B grade (or platinum, gold, silver or bronze award-winners) [ 14 , 15 ]. Only these national level Clinical Excellence Awards and Distinction Awards were included in this study [ 14 , 15 ]. Combining these parallel and similar award gradings, permitted all of Britain’s (England, Wales and Scotland) excellence award-winners to be analyzed together [ 14 , 15 ]. As part of our analysis of the grades of awards we collated the award categories to explicitly show the three tiers of national merit awards; A plus and platinum award-winners were combined to yield the top tier (tier 1) of national pathologist awards [ 14 , 15 ]. The A and gold awards were combined to create the intermediate tier (tier 2) of national pathologist awards [ 14 , 15 ]. Finally, the B and silver/bronze awards were combined to create the lowest tier (tier 3) of national pathologist merit awards [ 14 , 15 ]. The same approach was taken with the non-pathologist data [ 14 , 15 ].

The rankings of the medical schools by the number of merit award-winning alumni were approximately size corrected by dividing the total number of award-winners that were alumni of the medical school by the number of admissions to the undergraduate medical school in the 2019-20 academic year [ 14 , 15 ]. We used this pragmatic approach to estimate the size correction rather than the more ideal but inaccessible integral of medical school graduation numbers against time for approximately the last 50 years [ 14 , 15 ]. The comparison of the distributions of award-winners (pathologist merit award-winners versus non-pathologist merit award-winners) was quantified using Pearson’s Chi-Square test with the significance level set to p  < 0.05 [ 14 , 15 ].

On the basis of the frequency of award holders in the 2019-20 round, the top 20 medical schools were selected. For those 20 medical schools, a Pearson’s coefficient was calculated to determine the correlation between the age of the medical school by establishment date and the number of award-winners corrected by size (award- winners/number of admissions 2019-20).

All procedures were performed in compliance with the pertinent guidelines [ 14 , 15 ].

Patients and public involvement; no patient involvement [ 14 , 15 ]. The methods that were applied in our study, and that cover the description in this methods section, were similar to and closely derived from earlier publications in this series, which we cite here [ 14 , 15 ].

The 55 core pathologists indicated in the 2019-20 award round represent not only the new award holders but also the cumulative total of all pathologist award-winners in that year together with all previous years, at the time of publication. The largest category was designated (general) pathologists amounting to 70.9% of all the merit award-winning pathologists.

Table  1 shows the ten medical schools that attained the largest number of alumni merit award-winners; these award-winners possessed platinum, gold, silver, bronze, A plus, A or B awards. More importantly, Table  1 compares the originating medical schools of the pathologist and non-pathologist merit award-winners for the ten medical schools with the largest numbers of award-winners; the table contrasts the numbers and percentages of pathologist award-winners and non-pathologist award-winners which the graduates of each medical school attained. Pearson’s Chi-Square test demonstrated a statistically significant difference between the distributions of the medical schools of origin for pathologist merit award-winners versus the non-pathologist merit award-winners, p  < 0.01 ( p  = 0.005, Chi-Square 12.91). Graduates of London university medical schools, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Oxford and Cambridge medical schools accounted for 60.4% of pathologist award-winners. In comparison, 53.3% of the non-pathologist merit award-winners were graduates of five British medical schools: Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow, London university medical schools and Oxford.

Table  2 displays the effect of the approximate medical school size correction on the ranking of the medical schools by number of alumni award-winners. London’s number one ranking (pathologists) before size correction dropped to a number seven ranking after size correction. Similarly, London’s number one ranking (non-pathologists) before size correction became a number seven ranking after size correction.

Our analysis included a comparison of the pathologist A plus/platinum award-winners (designated tier 1) with A/gold award-winners (designated tier 2) and B/silver/bronze award-winners (designated tier 3). The tier 1 pathologist award-winners came from 6 medical schools: Belfast, Edinburgh, London, Oxford, Sheffield and Southampton. The tier 2 pathologist award-winners came from 8 medical schools: Aberdeen, Belfast, Birmingham, Dublin, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Ireland (Royal College of Surgeons) and Oxford. The tier 3 pathologist award-winners originated from 17 medical schools: Aberdeen, Birmingham, Bologna, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Goethe, Ireland, Leeds, London, Manchester, Mysore, Nottingham, Osmania, Oxford, Sheffield and Tirana.

Table  3 contrasts the continental locations of the originating medical schools for pathologist and non-pathologist merit award-winners; for the ten medical schools with the greatest numbers of award-winners. 96.4% of pathologist merit award-winners were from European medical schools, in comparison 91.4% of the non-pathologist award-winners were from European medical schools. Pearson’s Chi-Square test indicated that there was not a statistically significant difference between the continental locations of the originating medical schools for pathologists and non-pathologist merit award-winners, p  > 0.05.

After evaluating the top 20 university medical schools (arranged on the basis of award-winners’ frequencies), a moderate and positive correlation was found between the age of the medical school by establishment date and the number of award-winners corrected by size (number of admissions), r [ 18 ] = 0.47, p  = 0.04.

11.4% of all the merit award-winners were international medical graduates (IMGs) - meaning that they were not graduates of UK or Irish medical schools. 9% of the pathologist award-winners were IMGs. The pathologist tier 3 award-winners included the greatest proportion of IMG award-winners at 13.9%.

Pathologist merit awards and UK medical schools

Our study is part of the first series to comprehensively analyze British clinical merit award-winners’ medical schools of origin. This project identifies medical schools that have facilitated the successful medical education of pathologists by using the outcome measure of clinical merit award-winning. As a result, the data and analysis we provide will be of significance to local potential medical students as well as current and future graduates of International Medical Programs [ 16 ]. Our series of studies are the first to rank medical schools by the number of merit award-winners originating from each school, and accordingly will provide a new comparative perspective for medical educators.

The UK has long been known to attract international medical graduates to practise medicine. This was further confirmed and quantified in the General Medical Council 2019 workforce study that stated “For the first time, more non-UK medical graduates took up a licence to practise than UK medical graduates.“ [ 17 ] As a result of such workforce migrations, the scope of possible medical schools of origin of merit award-winners has essentially become global. Specifically, our database of merit award-winners covering the 2019-20 round has 85 different medical schools represented. This study shows that after being chosen by a “transparent and defensible” assessing and scoring arrangement [ 18 ] 60.4% of the pathologist award-winners received their undergraduate training at one of only five UK medical schools (Table  1 ). These were London university medical schools, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Oxford and Cambridge. A similar pattern of concentration occurred amongst the non-pathologist merit award-winners; 53.3% of these were graduates of Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow, London university medical schools and Oxford. The observation that there is a similar concentration of award-winners amongst graduates of similar medical schools, for both the pathologists and non-pathologists, implies that there may be common underlying non-specialty specific factors which account for the success of these doctors. The quality of undergraduate medical education may well be such a factor.

A Pearson’s Chi-Square test showed a statistically significant difference between the distributions of the medical schools of origin for pathologist merit award holders versus the non-pathologist merit award holders ( p  = 0.005, Chi-Square 12.91). Specifically, the successful pathologists were 2.6 times more likely to be graduates of Oxford or Cambridge university medical schools than non-pathologists. Considering the data presented in Tables  1 and 2 (whether or not a size correction is applied) the top four medical schools of origin of the pathologists include Oxford and Cambridge, so in this instance the prestige and good quality of medical education would seem to coincide in these universities [ 19 ]. Interestingly and in contrast, the high rankings of Glasgow and Aberdeen medical schools amongst non-pathologist merit award holders implies that a prestigious medical school alone is not as dominant a factor in the successful career development of non-pathologists. Based on our data, a strong local or international student candidate applying to medical school who has a desire to specialize as pathologist could be advised to favour Oxford, Edinburgh and Cambridge medical schools, whereas a less strong student applicant who definitely did not want to specialize as pathologist might be wiser to prioritize Glasgow medical school. A student who was not sure whether a pathologist or non-pathologist career pathway was preferable might consider Aberdeen medical school. Thus, the rankings of medical schools that we produced in this study provide data which future prospective medical students can use to select medical schools appropriate for their ambitions. Students generally make rational decisions in the field of education [ 20 , 21 ] and ranking information of this type is particularly important to an educational pathway as complex and tortuous as attempting to train to be a doctor in a particular specialty. Recent studies have demonstrated that the differences between medical schools tend to remain stable over time [ 22 ], so the guidance offered here will have valuable longevity.

Our observations regarding the concentration of award-winning pathologists and non-pathologists within a comparatively small number of UK medical schools led to an examination of the role of medical school size on our award rankings. Specifically, after aggregation of the number of annual graduates, London medical schools effectively become one of the largest medical schools in Europe. Thus, as a percentage, London university medical schools’ alumni are likely to be well represented in any essentially Eurocentric medical award schemes. In order to investigate this consideration, we carried out an approximate size correction on the medical school rankings by number of award-holders, as indicated and discussed in the Methods above, using the 2019-20 university medical school admission numbers. After applying this approach to the pathologist award-winners rankings, the combined London university medical schools fell from the number one position prior to the estimated size correction to seventh position after size correction. A similar and parallel effect was noted when the size correction estimate was applied to the non-pathologist award-holder rankings; here combined London university medical schools fell from first to seventh in the rankings. Obviously, medical school size has an effect on the medical school ranking. However, it is unlikely that size alone accounts for the concentration award-holders in a small number of medical schools; factors related to the quality of the undergraduate medical training are entirely consistent with our findings.

Pathologist merit awards and international medical schools

In view of the tendency of medical trainees and students to travel internationally in this era of globalization [ 23 , 24 ] we also evaluated the originating medical schools of the award-winners by continent of location. Table  3 depicts the comparison of the originating medical schools for pathologist and non-pathologist merit award-winners. 96.4% of the pathologist award-winners originated from European medical schools whereas 91.4% of the non-pathologist award-winners were originally trained in European medical schools. Statistically, there was no significant difference between the continental locations of the originating medical schools for the pathologists and non-pathologists, in terms of their distributions, p  > 0.05 (Chi-square test).

This study demonstrates a greater diversity of medical school origins among the lowest tier of merit award-winners than the highest tier of merit award-winners. Specifically, pathologists with tier 1 awards came from 6 medical schools representing one continent whereas tier 2 award-winners came from 9 medical schools representing one continent. In contrast, the tier 3 award-winners originated from 17 medical schools representing two continents. These findings would seem to indicate a trend towards greater globalization and inclusivity effects in the lower tier merit awards. The finding that the largest concentration of IMGs, 13.9%, was found among the lowest tier of award-holders also supports this observation. The larger number of lower tier awards and the shorter time required to achieve these lower grade awards than the higher tier awards, would understandably reveal such demographic trends more readily amongst the lower grade merit awards. Future longitudinal analyses of merit award-holders would be important in accurately determining whether this diversity trend progresses into the higher tier and more prestigious clinical merit awards.

Merit awards; undergraduate and postgraduate training of pathologists and non-pathologists

This research project is unique in investigating the relationship between national award-winning pathologists and their originating medical schools. Specifically, little peer reviewed work has been published that investigates the effectiveness of each medical school in training their students and relates this to the future postgraduate success of each medical school’s alumni. We were only able to identify three authoritative studies [ 22 , 25 , 26 ]. The MedDifs study by McManus et al. [ 22 ] was the most comprehensive and included some components that were comparable to our study. The MedDifs study involved examining UK medical school performances using 50 different criteria that were either quantitative or qualitative in nature. These criteria were grouped into categories [ 22 ]:

Selection of applicants.

Student satisfaction.

Curricular influences.

Fitness to practise.

Choice of training specialty.

Postgraduate examination performance.

Foundation entry scores.

Perception of Foundation Year 1.

Teaching/learning and assessment.

Institutional history.

In comparing our study to the MedDifs study, we were obviously more limited in the number of factors pertinent to medical education that we considered and we followed a purely quantitative approach to the research. Unsurprisingly, McManus et al. were able to correlate their range of factors and reveal educational relationships. For example:

Medical schools that focused on Problem Based Learning tended to produce doctors that scored lower in postgraduate exams.

Doctors from the bigger medical schools tended to score worse in postgraduate exams.

Medical schools that focused on self-regulated learning produced doctors that tended to perform better in postgraduate exams.

Both their study and ours shared the limitation of not being able to assess and compare medical school courses in undergraduate medical degrees. Furthermore, the MedDifs project was much more limited in its ability to identify causal relationships between its investigated educational factors.

In order to investigate the possible causalities in our presented medical school rankings for pathologist, non-pathologist and all merit award-winners (Table  1 ), we reviewed the histories of the UK medical schools [ 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 ]. We noted that all seven of the oldest medical schools in the UK, measured by establishment date, were present in our top 10 medical school rankings by award-winners for pathologists and non-pathologists. These were all established prior to 1826 and were Birmingham (1825), Manchester (1824), Aberdeen (1786), St Bartholomew’s university (1785), Glasgow (1751), St George’s London University (1733) and Edinburgh (1726) medical schools. Moreover, Oxford medical school was known to have been teaching medicine since the 12th century and Cambridge had been teaching medicine since 1524; in essence, these two medical schools had been teaching clinical disciplines before the formal establishment process had even been formed. Accordingly, it can be stated that of the top 10 medical school rankings (Table  1 ), 8 are the oldest medical schools in the UK.

Furthermore, none of the more modern medical schools (established after 1999) are represented in our top 10 medical school rankings (Table  1 ). So, Warwick (2000), Norwich (2000), Peninsula (2000), Brighton and Sussex (2002), Hull York (2003), Keele (2003) and Swansea (2004) are not represented our top 10 (or top 20) medical school award-winner rankings. Whilst it may be understandable that the younger medical schools established within the last ten years may not yet have had time for their alumni to distinguish themselves to national merit award levels, it is less clear that this explanation accounts for the dearth of top 10 ranked medical schools established around the year 2000.

In summary , our observations are consistent with at least a correlation between medical school age and the number of subsequent graduates becoming merit award-winners. Furthermore, on evaluating the top 20 university medical schools a moderate and positive correlation was found between the age of the medical school by establishment date and the number of award-winners corrected by size, r [ 18 ] = 0.47, p  = 0.04.

After considering the totality of the results of our research study and also accepting the previous results of the studies into UK medical school education [ 22 , 25 , 26 ], in Fig.  1 we reiterate a model first described, elucidated and published earlier last year [ 14 , 15 ] - a model accounting for the age-dependent differential medical school performance in creating award-winning pathologists:

Cycles of institutional memory and experience

Because of their greater age, the older university medical schools have accrued more institutional memory and experience in medical education than the more youthful medical schools. Accordingly, the older medical schools have a better chance of generating successful graduates - potentially before some of the younger medical schools have even become established.

As the older university medical schools appear to produce larger numbers of obviously successful alumni, they will garner positive reputations and inevitably be designated as more prestigious institutions. Consequently, ambitious , competent and career-focused students are more likely to be apply to these university medical schools.

Having produced more successful students, these older university medical schools will also have accumulated more experience in positively managing and educating such high-achieving students. Such experience will also coincide with improved support for the better educators in the medical school.

As a result, these older university medical schools with greater institutional memory and experience will tend to progressively and steadily accumulate a greater percentage of the most able students and educators .

Ultimately, the students in these older medical schools will tend to receive and benefit from better quality teaching , better mentoring and better medical career advice .

Thus, these older university medical schools will produce better educated, better advised and better prepared doctors who are more likely to become merit award-winners. There will also be an additional benefit to the originating medical school of having trained such high-achievers; they will accumulate greater experience in training award-winners, so adding to the institutional memory of successful education. The cycle will then repeat.

A model for the creation of award-winners. Cycles of institutional memory and experience

The medical education consequences of the action of Cycles of Institutional Memory and Experience can be described as follows:

An inevitable result of the operation of the adjacent cycle is that the longer established medical schools have naturally experienced more cycling during their longer existences. This causes an accumulation of an increasing number of award-winners in the medical community, from each such originating medical school.

The differential accumulation of award-winners in the community from each medical school depends on the relative efficacy and efficiency of the cycle in each medical school. Such efficiency differences account for the ultimate medical school rankings.

The same considerations that led to development of the Cycles of Institutional Memory and Experience can also apply to the college/departmental/faculty levels. Specifically, a department that generates merit award-winning pathologists will tend to generate more such pathologists in the future. In principle, this could be termed a departmental cycle of memory and experience.

Any award scheme designed and administered by human beings runs the risk of introducing biases, thus leading to overrepresentation of particular groups. Our model provides a natural explanation and mechanism for connecting excellence/success with such bias. With every cycle of our model, increasing numbers of successful graduates originating from the older universities accumulate in the UK medical community. Subsequently, such distinguished and visible alumni are more likely to be elevated to senior leadership or managerial positions. These positions would include clinical excellence/distinction award allocators. Consequently, explicit selection biases or implicit selection biases would have a tendency to favour the graduates of these same medical schools of origin - resulting in a disproportionate number of these alumni gaining awards. Ultimately, we believe our model of Cycles of Institutional Memory and Experience , at least in part accounts for the concurrence of appropriate success/excellence in award-winning and apparent bias in our medical school rankings. Accordingly, it seems inevitable that the effects of genuine appropriate award attainment and bias are linked and would tend to be expressed simultaneously.

In the last year there has been a reorganization of the UK national clinical excellence scheme. Specifically, in January 2022, it was announced that the latest iteration would be termed the “National Clinical Impact Awards, NCIA.” [ 37 ] The governing authority announced that the objectives of this scheme would be to:

Widen access.

Simplify the application process, attempting to make it more equitable and inclusive.

Reward excellence in a wider range of activities and behaviours. [ 38 ]

This new rewards scheme offers a natural test and challenge to our Cycles of Institutional Memory and Experience model. Our model is based on the history and epidemiology of medical education in the UK. Accordingly, an analysis of the medical schools of origin of the NCIA winners should yield rankings similar to those reported in our series of publications, assuming that there is an underlying value to the model. We look forward to testing our model in this way.

Study limitations

Most of the traditional limitations of a study of this type have been implied and exemplified in our discussed comparison with the MedDifs study. We could not quantify the relative effects of postgraduate versus undergraduate professional circumstances on ultimate award-winning likelihoods. For example, a graduate of a less renowned medical school may move on to work in a successful and high profile research institute or specialized clinical settings - thus increasing their personal chance of attaining a merit award, beyond that which might have been predicted from their alma mater. We would emphasize that the medical school of origin is only one of many factors that determines ultimate career success and potential award-winning. It would be interesting to find out whether such postgraduate centres were themselves smaller scale centres of institutional learning and experience.

We also could not quantify the probable effect of the assessment criteria used for award giving, on the number of merit awards attained by specific medical schools. Undoubtedly, there is certain to be such an effect, however the dynamically changing nature of these assessment criteria since the inception of the awards in the post-World War II era make measuring such an effect more than challenging and beyond the scope of this study. In fact, the latest iteration of the merit awards, NCIA, has been designed to include a larger range of activities to measure excellence and to widen accessibility. Our study is better placed to show the different apparent attainments of the medical schools than the summation of all of the medical education factors and award assessment criteria that contribute to merit award-winning success. We do not believe that any one factor should be used alone as a predictor of future merit award-winning, by either medical schools or by individuals.

Our original study uses national clinical award-winning as an outcome measure to add training and education data to the demographic description of successful doctors in Britain. Specifically, we determine and present the university medical schools which are most likely to generate award-winning pathologists. We also determine and present university medical schools most likely to generate award-winning non-pathologists. This study is the first to calculate and present a ranking of university medical schools by the number of national award-winning pathologists. Accordingly, we present comparative medical school data that can be used in the rational choice of medical schools for ambitious pathologist inclined, non-pathologist inclined and undecided medical school applicants.

We demonstrate that international medical graduates are making significant contributions to good pathology clinical practice in Britain, as judged by their concentration amongst the lower national merit award-winners. We provide evidence that indicates globalization and diversity of medical school origin are being reflected in the merit awards, indicating that Britain is a credible destination for ambitious medical trainees that seek national or international success.

Data availability

Data from this article is available upon reasonable request to the authors. Dr Sinclair Steele is the corresponding author and will make the data available https://www.sehd.scot.nhs.uk/publications/DC20200319SACDA.pdf https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/accea-annual-report-2020 https://www.gmc-uk.org/registration-and-licensing/the-medical-register https://olr.gdc-uk.org/SearchRegister .

Abbreviations

International Medical Graduate

National Clinical Impact Awards

Clinical Excellence Awards

Distinction Awards

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S.S. and G.A. wrote the main manuscript text and G.A. performed the statistical analysis. S.S. prepared Fig. 1. All authors reviewed the manuscript.

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Steele, S., Andrade, G., Abdulkader, M. et al. Medical school origins of award-winning pathologists; analysis of a complete national dataset. BMC Med Educ 24 , 814 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-024-05790-8

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The 2024-25 Outstanding Teaching Awards: Jack Swab

Each Wednesday, UKNow is highlighting one of the winners of the University of Kentucky’s 2024-25 Outstanding Teaching Awards, given by the Office for Faculty Advancement with the Office of the Provost.

LEXINGTON, Ky. (July 31, 2024)  — John “Jack” Swab, a former teaching assistant (TA) in the  Department of Geography  in the  University of Kentucky College of Arts and Sciences , is one of nine winners who received a 2024-25 Outstanding Teaching Award this past spring.

The awards identify and recognize individuals who demonstrate special dedication to student achievement and who are successful in their teaching. Recipients were selected via nomination and reviewed by a selection committee based in the UK Provost’s  Office for Faculty Advancement  and the  Center for the Enhancement of Learning and Teaching . Swab is one of three Category 3 winners, which honors UK teaching assistants.

“I’m incredibly grateful to have been recognized with a 2024 Outstanding Teaching Award,” Swab said. “One of the highlights of my graduate school experience has been working with and helping the diverse students that attend UK grow into individuals with a sense of purpose about their lives. I often think about the teachers that inspired me as a student: to be able to pay that back — and be recognized for it — is very meaningful.”

After graduating with dual bachelor’s degrees from Penn State in 2017, Swab came to UK to pursue master’s degrees in geography (2020) and library science (2022) and ultimately his doctoral degree in 2024. 

During these past six years at UK, Swab has taught several courses in the geography department, making “an outstanding contribution to undergraduate education at UK” according to Matt Wilson, professor and chair of the department, who nominated Swab for the award.

In addition to being TA for recitation sections, Swab has been the primary instructor for five introductory geography courses and one core course.

“The decision to make a Ph.D. student a sole instructor is not something we do lightly, but the department had great confidence in his professionalism and teaching ability,” Wilson said. “I am happy to report that our confidence was well justified based both on his TCE scores and on the positive reviews given by our faculty during classroom observations.”

Swab’s excellence in teaching is also reflected in his student evaluations, which Wilson says are consistently “outstanding.”

“The scores are all the more remarkable given that these independently-taught classes are (1) introductory courses, (2) mostly taken by nonmajors, and (3) taught during the constantly changing classroom conditions brought on by the pandemic,” Wilson wtrote in his nomination of Swab. “Jack was adapting to course modality flexibilities during this time and his ability to get such high scores are a true testament to his skills in the classroom. The students are incredibly fortunate to have Jack as their instructor.”

In his teaching statement, Swab says a true collegiate experience goes beyond just graduating, but rather planting seeds for a life of personal happiness, career success and civic engagement.

“Geography is an important discipline from which to craft this version of undergraduate education — whether it be a general education class, an upper- division elective or a major-required class,” he said. “I enjoy teaching geography, because it requires commitments to consistently be relevant, thoughtful and engaging.”

In addition to this award, Swab received the 2022 Outstanding Geography Teaching Assistant Award and UK’s 2022 GradTeach Live! People’s Choice Award.

Swab will graduate with his Ph.D. this August and will begin a tenure-track faculty position at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, this fall.

This year’s Outstanding Teaching Awards were given to six faculty and three graduate teaching assistants. Each winner received an award certificate, a commemorative engraved gift and a cash award in recognition of their teaching excellence at a campus ceremony on April 25.  Read more here .

As the state’s flagship, land-grant institution, the University of Kentucky exists to advance the Commonwealth. We do that by preparing the next generation of leaders — placing students at the heart of everything we do — and transforming the lives of Kentuckians through education, research and creative work, service and health care. We pride ourselves on being a catalyst for breakthroughs and a force for healing, a place where ingenuity unfolds. It's all made possible by our people — visionaries, disruptors and pioneers — who make up 200 academic programs, a $476.5 million research and development enterprise and a world-class medical center, all on one campus.   

In 2022, UK was ranked by Forbes as one of the “Best Employers for New Grads” and named a “Diversity Champion” by INSIGHT into Diversity, a testament to our commitment to advance Kentucky and create a community of belonging for everyone. While our mission looks different in many ways than it did in 1865, the vision of service to our Commonwealth and the world remains the same. We are the University for Kentucky.   

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