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This paper dissected the role of leaders in implementing equality, diversity and inclusion in UK higher education. Since most Higher Education Institutes are now monitored on their graduate outcomes, it is important that they are inclusive within planning curriculum design so as to give their students better chances and outcomes at completing their studies and being competitive in the global jobs market. The UK law and legislation worldwide is stepping up to value inclusion and now moving away from passive social exclusion. The research used ethnographical research in order to find out if equality, diversity and inclusion is being effectively implemented in curricula design. The results are based on one organisation in the Northwest of England using data collected over a 4-year period. A mixed method research design was also devised to use in-depth unstructured interviews to tutors of HND and degree programmes regarding curriculum design on their programmes. The findings show that there has been significant changes based on social and political influences, such that leaders are therefore working within standardised frameworks as a result of legislation. The primary research confirms that leaders have more understanding of equality, diversity and inclusion and it has the potential to self-sustain the UK higher education system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates international differences in wage inequality and skills and whether a compressed wage distribution is associated with high unemployment across core OECD countries. Wage dispersion and wage structure are widely debated among policymakers; compressed wage structure is often perceived as an important cause of high unemployment. Firstly, this paper examines differences in wage dispersion across OECD countries and their link to skill dispersion. Some countries that have more compressed (dispersed) wage structures simultaneously have more compressed (dispersed) skill structures as well, and skill differences explain part of the differences in wage dispersion. However, even when accounted for skills, some countries have a more compressed wage structure, most likely caused by labor market institutions. We do not find an effect of wage compression on the labor market performance in the low-skill sector. Based on the Program for International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) survey of adult skills for core OECD countries, this paper cannot confirm the skill compression nor wage compression hypotheses. Rather than insisting on the deregulation of labor market institutions and reductions in public welfare policy as the main policy recommendations to achieve higher employment (and higher wage inequality), policymakers should reconsider aggregate demand deficiency and the variation in macroeconomic policies as potential explanations for the employment differences across countries. JEL Classification: J31, J24, E24 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]