Higher ambitions…

New HE Framework

Follow up to earlier post on HE as food-labelling:

Lord Mandelson has launched Higher Ambitions. There’s a lot in here and much of it yet to be fully fleshed out. And the much trailed element on improved consumer information still requires some work:

All universities should publish a standard set of information setting out what students can expect in terms of the nature and quality of their programme.

This should set out how and what students will learn, what that knowledge will qualify them to do, whether they will have access to external expertise or experience, how much direct contact there will be with academic staff, what their own study responsibilities will be, what facilities they will have access to, and any opportunities for international experience. It should also offer information about what students on individual courses have done after graduation. The Unistats website will continue to bring together information in a comparable way so that students can make well-informed informed [sic] choices, based on an understanding of the nature of the teaching programme they can expect, and the long-term employment prospects it offers. We will invite HEFCE, the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) and UKCES to work with the sector and advise on how these goals should be achieved.

Hmmm. Should be an interesting consultation.

‘Radical change’ is needed to reassure public on standards says THE

Follow up to earlier post on this topic.

According to Times Higher Education: “‘Radical change’ is needed to reassure public on standards”.

External examiners would be interviewed by inspection teams and universities would give a clear indication of the number of hours they expect students to study under plans to boost public confidence in the quality of higher education. A new “public-facing” role for the Quality Assurance Agency and an independent channel for external examiners to report concerns are also among the wide-ranging proposals published in a report to the Higher Education Funding Council for England on 1 October.

Hefce’s Teaching, Quality and the Student Experience sub-committee, chaired by Colin Riordan, vice-chancellor of the University of Essex, was set up to investigate concerns about standards raised last year. Its key message is that while there is “no systemic failure” in the sector, allegations of poor quality pose a serious risk to its reputation, and “radical change” is required in the way that information about quality and standards is communicated.

It is important to stress that the ‘radical change’ here relates to the communication of information, not to the wider issues about the assurance of standards and quality (and to note that the word ‘radical’ appears only once in the report, in the foreword). Articulating arrangements for the assurance of academic standards in a clear and accessible way is notoriously difficult – as the IUSS select committee discovered when talking to the VCs from Oxford and Oxford Brookes Universities.

External Examiner review (and quality and standards)

Universities UK is to undertake a review of external examining

A press release from Universities UK gives some background to the recently announced review of external examiners:

In his keynote speech at the Universities UK Annual Conference, President Professor Steve Smith announced that UUK, together with GuildHE and in collaboration with agencies such as the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) and the Higher Education Academy (HEA), would lead a UK-wide review of external examiner arrangements. This review will seek to ensure that the system remains robust, recommending any improvements
which would continue to support the comparability of academic standards and meet future challenges.

The Group, which will be chaired by a Vice-Chancellor (to be announced) and include representatives from across the sector, will address various issues, including:

• The need to develop Terms of Reference for the role, to support consistency
• Reinforcing the specific role of external examiners in ensuring appropriate and comparable standards
• Analysing the level of support given by institutions to external examining, both financial and professional
• Current and future challenges and changing practice (such as modularisation) and their implications for external examining
• Comparing the UK system with international practice

After 12 months, the Group will produce a report, highlighting the immediate short-term improvements, as well as longer term challenges and how these should be addressed.

Meanwhile, HEFCE has just announced the outcome of a study on quality and standards which has been picked up by the BBC. Its recommendations include:

• a review is needed of publicly available information provided by higher education institutions (HEIs) to meet the needs of students, parents, advisers and professionals
• a complete review of the external examiner system should be undertaken
• the degree classification system should be improved so that it better reflects student achievement.

Looks like there will be a bit more work then beyond external examiners but these do not seem to be hugely challenging tasks (indeed they have been on the agenda for some time) and reflect the conclusions of the HEFCE report that “There is no systemic failure in quality and standards in English higher education (HE), but there are issues needing to be addressed”.

This UUK external examiner review, supported by the HEFCE study, represents a speedy response to the recent (truly dreadful) report of the IUSS Select Committee. The IUSS report recommends the implementation of one of the 1997 Dearing recommendations, rejected at the time, on the creation of a national system of external examiners. It is to be hoped that the UUK review arrives at something sensible. (For anyone with a longish memory on these things it feels a bit like 1994-95 again and the Graduate Standards Programme and its reviews of external examining.)

Government needs to help league table compilers

The IUSS Committee’s recent report on students and universities is a most extraordinary document in all sorts of ways. One of the more entertaining propositions relates to university league tables where the Committee accepts the existence (wisely, you might argue) of league tables and acknowledges the work that HEFCE has recently published. However, its take on such tables is somewhat different from many, in that it suggests that as much data as possible is published in a way which facilitates the creation of league tables:

In our view, it is a case of acknowledging that league tables are a fact of life and we welcome the interest that HEFCE has taken in league tables and their impact on the higher education sector. We have not carried out an exhaustive examination of league tables but on the basis of the evidence we received we offer the following views, conclusions and recommendations as a contribution to the debate on league tables which HEFCE has sought to stimulate and to improve the value of the tables to, and usefulness for, students. We conclude that league tables are a permanent fixture and recommend that the Government seek to ensure that as much information is available as possible from bodies such as HEFCE and HESA, to make the data they contain meaningful, accurate and comparable. Where there are shortcomings in the material available we consider that the Government should explore filling the gap. We give two examples. First, the results from the National Student Survey are produced in a format which can be, and is, incorporated into league tables. It appears to us therefore that additional information or factors taken into account in the National Student Survey would flow through to, and assist those consulting, league tables. To assist people applying to higher education we recommend that the Government seek to expand the National Student Survey to incorporate factors which play a significant part in prospective applicants’ decisions— for example, the extent to which institutions encourage students to engage in non-curricula activities and work experience and offer careers advice. [Para 104]

Not only therefore is it proposed that current data be modified to make the league table compilers’ work easier, but that they should be provided with additional information where it is lacking. Thus:

Second, Professor Driscoll from Middlesex University considered that league tables neglected “the contribution that universities that have focused on widening participation, like Middlesex, make to raising skills and educational levels in this country”. In other words, the National Student Survey as presently constituted does not assess the “value added” offered by individual institutions. We recommend that the Government produce a metric to measure higher education institutions’ contribution to widening participation, use the metric to measure the contribution made by institutions and publish the results in a form which could be incorporated into university league tables. [para 105]

League table compilers have struggled with this one for some time and will therefore appreciate such kind assistance from government.

NSS results – just about the same as last year

Good news or bad news?

Not a lot to write home about with very little change but BBC reports that satisfaction rate ’slips’:

This year’s final year students in England were marginally less happy with their university experience than last year’s leavers, an annual survey shows. The National Student Survey shows 81% were mostly or definitely satisfied with the quality of their course, against 82% last year. In Wales the rating was unchanged, 83%, and in Northern Ireland up one at 84%. Twelve Scottish institutions also took part, achieving the highest overall score of 86%, the same as in 2008.

Pretty positive stuff you’d think but the NUS has a different perspective

NUS president Wes Streeting said: “Tuition fees in England were trebled in 2006, but students have not seen a demonstrable improvement in the quality of their experience. “Universities have a responsibility to deliver substantial improvements in return for the huge increase in income they are receiving from fees.”

And the Guardian also focuses on the negative:

Almost a fifth – 19% – of final-year students told the National Student Survey they were dissatisfied with or ambivalent about their courses – a rise of 1% on last year.

HEFCE though offers a more positive interpretation and the full details of results.

But overall this is surely a good news story, albeit one that is pretty much the same as in 2008.

Impact of the Budget on higher education

Savings needed? No need to think about it, just cut the administration.

John Denham has written to HEFCE on the impact of the Budget.

This is a significant letter from the Secretary of State but it doesn’t quite say what the Guardian is reporting. The paper’s headline states: “Universities told to cut admin costs, not teaching or research”. This isn’t precisely the message but the sentiments are there:

Ministers have calmed fears that universities will be asked to axe thousands of academic jobs and make savings on teaching and research.
Letters from the universities secretary, John Denham, to the Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce) and the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) confirm that savings should be made in administration costs, rather than the core university business of teaching and research.

“I am confident that we can find efficiency savings whilst protecting the quality of teaching and research,” he wrote.

Savings should come from programmes that “do not directly contribute to the frontline delivery of teaching and research”, he added.

The important point here is that, having determined that universities have to make significant savings it really isn’t the job of the Secretary of State to tell institutions how to prioritise their spending. Of course institutions will not seek to undermine quality of teaching and research. But the idea that there is this huge unnecessary raft of administration from which savings can easily be made, that this will have no effect on quality and also that that somehow administrators are dispensable is simplistic and thoroughly misguided.

So, universities will find their own ways to make the savings required and will, it is to be hoped, aim to do so in a measured and sensible way. But this kind of advice is not hugely helpful.

How real is the concern over degree standards?

Guardian story: Take concern over degree standards seriously, universities warned

Whilst MPs will always find ways to give VCs and universities a hard time, they can rarely be accused of getting too close to the serious issues. But where is the evidence for this huge public concern about degree standards? And are the responses the right way forward in the context of what is inevitably going to be a reduction in public funding for universities?

Universities must take public concern over degree standards seriously if they want to make the case for more investment by the taxpayer, the new head of the higher education funding body warned yesterday. Speaking on his first day in the job, Sir Alan Langlands, the former chief executive of the NHS, took vice-chancellors to task when they complained about being “roasted” by MPs during an inquiry into qualifications at British universities and the quality of the student experience.

“Sometimes select committees catch the public mood. There is real public interest which needs to be addressed. If there is some scepticism we have to be able to take that head on and deal with it,” said Langlands, chief executive of the Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce).

But is there really a big public concern about standards? There just doesn’t seem to be much evidence to support the notion that there is widespread scepticism about degrees.

Prof Rick Trainor, vice-chancellor of King’s College London and president of Universities UK, said they had been given a roasting by the committee and that universities and Hefce should act together against a “sustained campaign of scepticism” by MPs and others.

Baroness Blackstone, vice-chancellor of Greenwich, said there had been some grade inflation in numbers of firsts and 2:1 degrees due to league tables and the sooner universities moved away from this crude assessment the better.

Whilst there is a debate to be had about the replacement of degree classification (and attempts are still being made to promote the alternatives), accepting the proposition that the proportion of good degrees has risen because of league table driven grade inflation doesn’t seem to be a helpful starting point in countering the sceptics.

Prof Geoff Crossick, warden of Goldsmiths London, said the maintenance of standards was fragile because of lack of resources. “Quality will be under threat in coming years and we need to be able to resist reductions in funding,” he said.

But funding has gone up, including as a result of variable fees, and to argue that there is fragility in standards maintenance and that quality is threatened does seem somewhat disingenuous in an economic climate where there is only one direction we can expect public funding for universities to be heading. It is far from clear how this is going to be resisted by the sector given the funding gains and the pay increases in recent years.

On the prospects of future funding, Langlands warned: “I have been involved in government spending negotiations for 15 years and I have known a less propitious time for arguing for public investment.”

(This must be a misquote, surely.) Not propitious times at all. And, whilst there might not be a big public debate about degrees at the moment, linking funding demands to the maintenance of standards and quality may end up bringing one about. That really wouldn’t be terribly helpful.

Cambridge avoids extra accountability (for a while at least)

“Cambridge dons retain control of university”

According to the Guardian, Cambridge has fended off pressure to change the composition of its Council to include a lay majority. The extent of the additional accountability requirement which has been agreed seems to be an annual meeting between the chair of the Audit Committee and a Hefce officer:

The ancient university has agreed to provide more information to account for the public money it receives from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce) — more than £181m in the coming year — but has resisted pressure to have a majority of external members on its governing council. A review by Hefce of how the university accounts for public funds concluded: “We are able to place reliance on the University of Cambridge’s accountability information. This will be strengthened by a new annual process that has been introduced to provide additional assurance on the use of public funds, given that the university does not currently have a lay majority on its council.”

However, the funding council appears satisfied that a “modest extension of its public accountability” — essentially a meeting between the chair of the university’s audit committee (an external member) and a Hefce officer — will meet its needs. Asked if Hefce had reached a face-saving compromise, a spokesman replied: “We recognise with both universities that governance reform will take some time. In the case of Cambridge, in recognition of the fact that the university does not feel able to move to a lay majority on its council at this time, we have agreed that we will undertake an additional annual assurance visit specifically to gain additional comfort about the use of public funds. We will operate this mechanism for three years and expect the university’s governance reform to continue moving forward in that time. At the end of three years, we will review the effectiveness of the annual assurance exercise.

Looks like a pretty good outcome for Cambridge this. The additional requirement seems extremely light touch and it will be interesting to see if anything emerges from these meetings and whether the university is pushed into making more substantial changes in the next three years.

RAE Funding Results

RAE funding results out

Following the results published in December 2008.

Handy summaries of research funding outcomes are published by the Times Higher Education. Resources have been spread more thinly and there are some perhaps surprising recipients of significant growth in research income:

Biggest winners by cash increase (growth, % increase)
University of Nottingham, £9,685,797, up 23.6%
University of Oxford, £8,769,293, 8.0%
Queen Mary, £7,282,125, 29.4%
University of Liverpool, £6,420,263, up 19.5%
Loughborough University, £5,965,970, 36.9%
University of Bristol £5,607,884, up 12.6%
London School of Hygiene, £4,980,410, 46.5%
University of Plymouth, £4,868,489, 125.8%
Brunel University, £4,542,356, 54.5%
University of Kent, £3,779,827, 46.4%
Cranfield University, £3,621,707, 36.8%
University of Exeter, £3,550,318, 24.4%
City University London, £3,425,676, 50.3%
University of the West of England, £3,342,120, 121.6%
The Open University, £3,323,539, 44.9%

Good news for some of us but some institutions have lost out.

Accountability costs “cut by £50 million”

Times Higher Education: Accountability costs cut by £50 million.

A Hefce-commissioned report from PA Consulting claims universities’ administrative burden has been reduced by £50m. As reported in THE:

Between 2004 and 2008, it says in the report, the costs of accountability fell by just over a fifth, broadly in line with Hefce’s targets. This fall follows a 25 per cent reduction in the administrative burden between 2000 and 2004, and Hefce wants costs to be cut by a further 10 per cent by 2010-11. According to the study’s authors, PA Consulting Group, the total costs of compliance fell from about £240 million in 2004 to £190 million last year.

Seems pretty straightforward – unequivocally good news?

However, despite these headline figures, Mike Boxhall, one of the authors of the report, said that the picture behind the numbers remained “quite mixed”. While the study measured costs linked with specific accountability demands from bodies such as Hefce and the Quality Assurance Agency, it did not consider the impact of more general public regulations such as the costs of complying with health and safety laws or the Freedom of Information Act, he said. Steve Egan, deputy chief executive of Hefce, said the sector was moving from a position in which accountability was seen as a burden to one in which it was a “positive force”.

It really isn’t as clear cut therefore. Day to day experience in universities simply doesn’t feel as if there is lighter regulation. And the idea that all of this regulation is somehow a really good thing and not a burden is just bizarre.

The HEFCE press release is obviously very upbeat and the report itself is worth a look.

The question remains though: what is the problem to which this regulatory regime is the solution?