Tagged / fees and funding

November 23, 2020

HE Policy Update for the w/e 20th November 2020

COVID-19, Global engagement, international, open access, parliament, PG research, policy, Postgraduate Research, Research communication, Research Ethics, Research news, Student Engagement, student research jforster

w/e 20 November 2020

This week has been all about Government intervention in HE. The news has been non-stop so we’ve sectioned some of the biggest debates into separate documents which are linked to within the main text. Fear not, for our skim readers the basics on each debate are still covered in the main update.

Get comfortable, adjust your posture, the Government seems determined to tick all the boxes on their Santa wish list before the holidays (and the reality of post-Brexit Britain).

Quality: Lower value courses

Defining value for money has been a strong theme for government for the last few years. As has how the government will address their perception (shared enthusiastically by sections of the media) that the sector is riddled with “mickey mouse” “rip-off courses”. We have discussed the challenges of measuring quality mainly by reference to salary many times in our updates. And you will also have noticed (and we have pointed out regularly) that the government have become fixated this year on employment measures alongside continuation as the only useful metrics. As you know, they are encouraging the OfS to sideline the NSS.

So this week has seen some major developments –and you will not now be surprised by the direction…..

… or (spoiler alert) the pattern….

Wonkhe (Mon):

In late February, Universities UK President Julia Buckingham used a comment piece in The Telegraph to trail a speech on a new tool to measure the value of individual subjects beyond just graduate earnings, including the benefit of students as well as to wider society and the economy – all framed as a kind of alternative Teaching Excellence Framework.
Now nine months on it looks like the results of that work are set to be published this week, with the same paper reporting this morning that Vice Chancellors are to “launch a crack down” on “low quality” degrees in a new charter aimed at ensuring institutions take a “consistent and transparent approach” to identifying and improving low value courses. Proposals will even consider options for a return (in England) to “external assurance or independent review”. If the events of last week over admissions are anything to go by, DfE will likely publish its own competing plan on value by the end of Friday.

The UUK approach to quality concerns

On Monday Universities UK announced an advisory group were developing a charter to ensure universities (England only) take a consistent and transparent approach on potential low-value/quality courses. The UUK press release explains the rationale: Institutions already monitor and review their courses regularly and have robust processes in place to uphold quality and standards. Assessing value however is challenging, can be subjective and may involve areas such as graduate career satisfaction or employment outcomes many years after graduation.

The terms of reference for the charter are here. The charter advisory group will focus on:

Demonstrating the sector’s commitment to consistency and transparency in processes to tackle low value courses through the publication of a Statement of Intent, agreed by universities.
Highlighting best practice where universities are already identifying low value or low quality courses, including the use of metrics, and taking rapid action to address issues.
Guidance will be published which universities are expected to follow
Longer term universities will also consider options for external assurance or independent review to make their processes stronger as part of an ongoing charter.

Professor Julia Buckingham, President of Universities UK and Chair of the advisory group stated: The overwhelming majority of courses are high quality and offer good value for students, but we want to address concerns that some could deliver more for students, taxpayers, and employers…The public needs full confidence in the value and quality of a UK university degree and the charter will demonstrate universities’ commitment to constant improvement.”

And by mid week – the somewhat more challenging OfS approach

Just as with admissions UUK were being proactive and trying to address the concerns through self-management. However, on Tuesday the OfS finally announced their (delayed) consultation on regulating quality and standards which they hope will strengthen the English higher education sector and its international reputation.

The proposals are to set baseline requirements for quality and standards including numerical baselines for providers to meet on student outcomes.

Providers will be assessed on absolute performance in relation to the baseline. It applies to all types of students whatever, wherever and however they study. The proposed minimum numerical standards will apply for continuation, completion and employment (at professional level) and they will be absolute numbers that apply to all providers and all subjects and groups of students including familiar splits for full and part time, mature students, ethnicity, gender, disadvantaged background. They will not be benchmarked or adjusted for demographics.

Sector-recognised standards for degree classification will also become baselines. Table 1 on page 3 sets out the proposed definitions.

The OfS is also clarifying the data they will use, the indicators and approach for risk-based monitoring and their approach to intervention. They state this clarity will support them to better anticipate risks to quality and standards and rebalance their approach.

The executive summary is a useful read and they have a guide to the changes.

The OfS reassure that the consultation is taking place at an early stage of policy development and make encouraging noises about listening to providers. We’ll see.

The first and most obvious concern is about the impact of the numerical standards on universities with high numbers of WP students. This ominous section caught our eye:

We set a minimum baseline requirement for quality, which includes a minimum level for student outcomes. Our intention in doing so is to be clear that all students are entitled to the same minimum level of quality. We also expect higher education providers to improve access to higher education for the most underrepresented groups and to reduce the gaps between the outcomes achieved for these students and the outcomes achieved for other groups. We do not accept that students from underrepresented groups should be expected to accept lower quality, including weaker outcomes, than other students. We therefore do not bake their disadvantage into the regulatory system by setting lower minimum requirements for providers that typically recruit these types of students.

Let’s hope they’re listening to Johnny Rich (Twitter).

The other obvious challenge is about regulatory and bureaucratic burden. There is a clear tension between the aim to reduce bureaucracy and the desire for more and more data, more reportable events, more contextual data indicators to be reported etc. They have a weird argument that more burden in the short term means less burden in the long term because they can make their response proportionate with more data, but we are not sure that anyone will buy that!

The Guardian cover the story in Universities may face sanctions if they fail most disadvantaged and this Wonkhe blog is well worth reading: the B3 bear hunts down Mickey Mouse.

Keen beans will also want to delve into the content that Wonkhe also have on the topic:

The OfS blog on Wonkhe – OfS will tackle pockets of low quality higher education provision – worth reading for the first comment on the article which points out that the proposals will discourage providers from taking disadvantaged students, particularly those who might have a lower chance of success.
The UUK blog announcing the charter (before OfS announced the consultation). Again read the comments!
A Wonkhe blog highlighting why its wise to define the ‘low quality’ course

Wonkhe also review two papers on the topic:

The Social Market Foundation has released a briefing paper on evaluating quality in higher education. The think tank provides an overview of the current quality assessment system, how well it works, and covers the main criticisms put against it. It argues that if the government wishes to raise the general quality of higher education in the UK, it must determine the purpose of HE, identify its intended audience, understand the limitations of quality assessment, and decide how important quality assessment is and then fund it appropriately. You can read the full briefing paper here.
City AM has an opinion piece from the SMF’s [Social Market Foundation] chief economist on how answering the question of what universities are for will go a long way to fixing much of what troubles them.

Commenting on the OfS consultation and proposals, Nicola Dandridge, Chief Executive of the OfS, said:

These proposals strengthen our ability to intervene where we have concerns. We have previously been clear that we are determined to stamp out any pockets of low quality, and these proposals would not only raise the bar in terms of the quality overall, but would enable us to monitor quality at a subject level, as well as taking into account issues which might be affecting students from particular groups.
We are also making it clear that we do not accept that expectations should be lowered for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. All students are entitled to the same minimum level of quality and outcomes, and it would be untenable to have a regulatory system which allowed universities to recruit students from underrepresented groups but then set lower expectations for their success.
Our plans – and the more detailed proposals we envisage setting out in 2021 subject to consideration of responses to this consultation – would allow the OfS to continue to investigate any concerns we have about quality and standards. We will be able to use our full range of powers if we consider that any of our registration conditions are breached.
We remain extremely mindful of the need to ensure proportionate regulatory burden. Universities and other higher education providers offering high quality higher education across the board will find that our proposed approach to quality places minimal regulatory burden on them.

The consultation also clarifies the inter-relationship between all this and the TEF. See Annex D – there are no questions associated with this. However, it is ominous again:

“Annex C contains proposals for the way in which weak TEF outcomes for a provider would result in additional scrutiny of that provider’s ongoing compliance with the minimum baseline requirements contained in the B conditions”.

It does too – take a look.

We expect to consult on our future approach to the TEF in due course…..
The way we structure our definitions of ‘quality’ and ‘standards’ for the purposes of setting baseline requirements (see Annex A) needs to be coherent with the components assessed by the TEF above that baseline. This is important because providers need to be clear about what is required to satisfy the baseline requirements in the B conditions, and then the performance above this that would lead to particular TEF awards.
The way we use data to construct indicators, and the indicators that we choose to use for baseline regulation and TEF assessment, needs to be consistent, or inconsistencies explained. The indicators we propose to use in the assessment of condition B3 (see Annex B) cover similar outcomes as have – to date – been measured through the TEF. To ensure the coherence and proportionality of our regulatory activities, and subject to further consultation on both our approach to condition B3 and to the TEF, we intend to align the uses and definitions of the measures within our assessments of condition B3 and TEF, to the extent that this is appropriate and practical (for example, TEF only relates to undergraduate provision, whereas our assessment of condition B3 covers both undergraduate and postgraduate courses).
The consequences of weak performance in relation to the B conditions, or in a TEF assessment, need to create incentives for improvement for providers that are below the minimum baseline or performing weakly in TEF.

Post Qualification Admissions (PQA)

So it never rains but it pours… last Friday after the UUK and UCAS recommendations on admissions that we covered in our update, the Secretary of State weighed in.

Gavin Williamson announced the DfE would review the admissions processes and potentially move to a post qualification admissions(PQA) system with students only receiving offers after their exam results. The press release focuses on the unfairness of the predicted grade inaccuracies which can work against high achievers from disadvantaged backgrounds whose grades are more likely to be under-predicted…Disadvantaged students are more likely to ‘under-match’ and enter courses below their ability than their advantaged peers. Under-matched students are then more likely to drop out of university, get a lower-class degree and earn less in employment.

Unconditional offers were also mentioned, which the Government maintains are encouraging students to accept offers that may not be in their best interest.

Williamson stated: By using predicted grades it is limiting the aspirations of students before they know what they can achieve…We need to explore how to change a system which breeds low aspiration and unfairness.

The Government committed to consult on proposals for change, including reviewing whether personal statements contribute to the unfairness. Any future change to the admissions system will not affect 2021 entrants although the Government aims to deliver any reform before the end of the current parliament. UUK had recommended no change before 2022/23 admissions at the earliest.

On Monday Williamson issued a short written ministerial statement (WMS). It contained similar material: The current system lacks transparency…In recent years we have also seen the emergence of undesirable admissions practices, such as the mass use of unconditional offers…a Post Qualification Admissions system [would] support social mobility and remove the complexity and undesirable practices of the current system.

In addition, it felt the educational disruption precipitated by the pandemic could also have been mitigated by a different admissions system:We know, due to the pandemic, that students have experienced considerable disruption to their education this year. We believe that the unique set of circumstances students faced could have been better dealt with by a fairer higher education admissions system.

The WMS also references the Sutton Trust’s October briefing on PQA which contains a graduate poll with 66% of graduate in favour of removing predicted grades and basing decisions on actual results – 13% felt the change would actually be less fair.

The elephant in the room here is that disadvantaged students may have greater potential than they demonstrate in exams. Higher class sizes, less individual support, disruptive classroom environments, schools with poorer performance and overall outcomes, time zapping part time, poorer nutrition, less parental experience and support all play a part in achievement and a student’s final exam grade. Some of these students may have been overpredicted grades by a teacher who recognised their potential, under the current system they would have been able to access higher tariff opportunities. Overprediction might even have been a motivator to stretch themselves further overcoming the disadvantage barriers. The same Sutton Trust report that the Government quote also states this:

A change to a post-qualification system would likely influence university applicants’ choices in different ways. Just over 1 in 5 (21%) of those who achieved final grades higher than their predicted grades said they would have applied to higher tariff institutions if they knew their final grades before applying, while 29% who performed worse than their predictions reported they would have applied for institutions with lower entry requirements.

Successive Universities Ministers since Sam Gyimah have supported the agenda to get high performing disadvantaged young people into ‘high status’ institutions. However, as the Sutton Trust demonstrate above it isn’t that simple and there will be disadvantaged winners and losers.

The Sutton Trust have a good diagram highlighting the differences between the current system and two potential alternatives. Last week UUK came out in favour of PQO (post qualification offers) the Government is currently favouring PQA.

Over here we have the sector’s reaction and statements on the Government’s announcement and there are other engaging blogs and snippets for those who are most interested in this topic to explore.

No. 10

Towards the end of last week the news that several of the PM’s special advisors were leaving No. 10 captured the nation’s interest but what ripple effect might it have on HE? Wonkhe have a few things to say on the matter:

The big “reset”….means No.10 could be in the market for new takes on domestic policy agendas…it’s been reported that Tory MP and university sceptic Neil O’Brien is to chair the Prime Minister’s Policy Board [now confirmed]. It’s an unpredictable combination of circumstances, but probably doesn’t spell good news for higher education.
A ministerial reshuffle is being readied for the new year too, and the unpopular Gavin Williamson looks particularly vulnerable after a series of blunders – not least the summer examnishambles. But be careful what you wish for: The Times speculated over the weekend that Michael Gove could make a dramatic comeback to the education brief for 2021.

With so much emphasis on FE and Skills one does wonder what would happen to this agenda and the White Paper if Williamson is shuffled elsewhere.

O’Brien writes in Conservative Home: One of the great arts in politics is to see the problems and the big choices coming, so that you can solve them before the ship starts sinking.

On HE O’Brien writes:There’s a long-expected decision to take on universities. Do we keep the current system? Or build up technical education, and try to reduce the number of students on low value university courses which lead to low earnings while consuming lots of taxpayer subsidy? He doesn’t state his opinion but the questions are bang on the Conservative party line.

Finally Wonkhe tell us that the Politico London Playbook is reporting that MPs Jonathan Gullis, David Johnston, and Miriam Cates are in the running to lead a new Number 10 “task force” on the education and skills agenda.

Degree Classification Analysis

Coincidence in a week focussing on quality? Maybe. The delayed analysis of degree outcomes for 2018-19 from the OfS came out this week too.

You will recall the consternation caused by the last analysis (July 2019 which basically said that any achievement not explained by prior attainment was “unexplained”. Here they add on 2018-19 data. Expect unhelpful press comment.

Our new analysis finds that in 2018-19, across the 147 providers considered, 14.3 percentage points of first class degree2 attainment change since 2010-11 are unexplained3 by changes in the graduate population. This is an increase of 0.4 percentage points from the unexplained attainment in 2017-18, which is the smallest increase observed since 2010-11.
In respect of both first and upper second class degrees combined and first class degrees alone, the 2018-19 provider-level comparison shows:
- Most providers exhibited unexplained attainment significantly above the 2010-11 sector mean attainment.
- All providers had more unexplained attainment in 2018-19 than in 2010-11.

The OfS have a blog post written by Nick Holland, Competition and Registration Manager, discussing their findings and ‘why grade inflation matters’.

Headline findings:

5% of students included in the analysis received a first-class honours degree in 2018/19
Of these, OfS finds that 14.3 percent are unexplained when compared to attainment in 2010/11 (an increase of 0.4% on 2017/18 data)
In 2010/11 15.7% of students received a first – there have since been year-on-year increases in the proportion of firsts award, and the number unexplained
Sector-wide data shows students with the highest A-level results are most likely to gain a first-class degree
Students entering university with A-level (or equivalent) grades below DDD were almost four times as likely to receive a first-class degree in 2018/19 as their counterparts in 2010/11
The analysis identified large variations between providers, but an on-average levelling out of attainment between 2017/18 and 2018/19
The year-on-year change in first-class degreed attainment for the sector between 2017/18 and 2018/19 was 0.3%
The greatest fluctuation in year-on-year attainment changes occurred in providers with small numbers

Potential explanations for attainment changes:

For upper second and first class degrees combined, the highest attaining graduates for the additional contextual variable groups were white, non-disabled women from POLAR4 quintile 5 areas
For first class degrees alone, the highest attaining graduates for the additional contextual variable groups were white, non-disabled women from POLAR4 quintile 4 areas
Prior to 2010, the proportion of qualifiers achieving the highest A-Level grades had been increasing and it is unclear whether this was due to grade inflation or an increase in ability
While some of the reported unexplained attainment could be explained by the change in A-Level grading policy, there is still strong evidence of significant unexplained sector attainment increases between 2010-11 and 2018-19

Nicola Dandridge, chief executive of the Office for Students said:

‘This data shows that the increase in the proportion of first class degrees awarded in 2018-19 has slowed compared to previous years, with a small increase from last year in the percentage of first class degrees which cannot be explained by other factors. While this may indicate that the brakes have been applied, it is clear that grade inflation remains a significant and pressing issue in English higher education.
‘Overall, this data represents a mixed picture. It may well be that factors we don’t account for in our modelling, including improved teaching and learning, have driven some of the increase that we have seen in recent years. There are also some striking changes at some of those universities which had previously awarded high proportions of firsts, although there is increased evidence of an unexplained increase in firsts at 73 per cent of universities.
‘Unexplained grade inflation risks undermining public confidence in higher education, and devaluing the hard work of students. Degrees must stand the test of time, which is why the OfS will continue to address this issue at both a sector-wide and individual university level.
‘The OfS launched a consultation this week with proposals which will help us to strengthen our ability to regulate quality and standards. These proposals, if taken forward following the consultation process, would let us intervene where evidence suggests that the standards set and recognised by the sector are not being met in practice by an individual university, college or other higher education provider.
‘It is correct to say that a permanent solution will require continuing collective action from universities over a period of time. Ultimately though, universities are individually accountable for meeting the OfS’s regulatory requirements in this area. Where we have concerns about unexplained grade inflation at any particular university or college, we are prepared to intervene to protect the integrity of the degree awarding system for all students.’

Wonkhe: David Kernohan complicates things a little, in a good way. And there’s lots more in the Wonkhe archive on the issue.

Research

Wonkhe and Research Professional supply lots of this week’s updates:

R&D: An influential taskforce of university and business leaders has asked the government to put R&D firstin a revised industrial strategy to help the UK recover from Covid-19. (Research Professional.)
ARPA: the departure of Dominic Cummings, the chief adviser to the prime minister, adds to doubts over the UK Arpa. (Research Professional.)
What does the next US President mean for science and research? (Research Professional.)
Bullying: UKRI has announced the establishment of a Forum for Tackling Bullying and Harassment in Research and Innovation, bringing together research funders, representative bodies, scholarly societies, and the Office for Students. The new group will meet quarterly and summaries of work will be published.
UKRI and the US National Institute for Standards and Technology have signed a memorandum of understanding, with plans to work closely together in areas of research, research translation and commercialisation. (Wonkhe)

Digital Research Community: Wonkhe report that Jisc launched a digital research community last week, which they say will be exploring how technology and innovation can help improve current research practices.

One of the focus points of the new research community will be how digital technologies can be better deployed in response to the fast-changing research sector. This is part of a wider response to engagement with those working in research to explore issues around the use of technology, and to support the sector in responding to  such things as the recent UK Government’s R&D roadmap, National Data Strategy, UKRI’s corporate plan and the announcement of a new research funding agency.

It will provide a space for researchers, research leaders, research managers and other professionals in the field to:

Consider where technology solutions might alleviate concerns and support objectives, and the culture, skills and processes needed for effective implementation of those solutions
Share technology innovation and good practice, demonstrating the ‘art of the possible’
Unite disciplines, mission groups and geography
Encourage collaboration and seek unified approaches

The group are due to meet for the first time in December. The first output from the group will be a webinar, which will present priorities and potential activities for the community – you can sign up to it here.

PGRs: In a week of non-stop big HE sector news the PhD extensions calls and debate has made a surprising volume of noise to also be prominent.

Wonkhe report on the University and College Union’s open letter signed by more 770 academics and researchers, criticising the review released by UK Research and Innovation on 11 November, which rejected calls to grant extensions to PhD students affected by the pandemic. The letter’s signatories say that without additional support, inequalities within the research community will be worsened and entrenched. The Guardian covers Monday’s open letter to UKRI calling for the body to rethink its position on PhD extensions. (Wonkhe)

The latest UKRI announcements on support for postgraduate research students – a blog asking why it’s taken so long to let them down. (Wonkhe)
The BBC reports that white applicants are offered PhD places at a higher rate than black, Asian and other ethnic minority candidates, according to data obtained through a freedom of information request. (Wonkhe)

PTES: AdvanceHE are report the latest Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey (PTES) shows positive trends from students, despite the challenges of 2020.

40,000 students from 69 institutions took part in PTES before and during the national lockdown and within the context of recent HE staff strikes.

79% of postgraduates were satisfied with their taught experience compared with 82% in 2019
Overall satisfaction declined by up to six percent after lockdown
29% of taught postgraduates did not feel their course ran smoothly in 2020
32% of taught postgraduates definitely agreed they were encouraged to be involved in decisions about the course
Lockdown was mentioned in a “significant minority” of negative comments. Those who referenced lockdown cited ‘organisation’ (14%), ‘resources’ (14%) and ‘teaching’ (12%) as their main areas of concern
Overall, lockdown appears to have been more impactful on PGT students than PGR students or undergraduates surveyed this year, with particular cohorts being hit the hardest:
- Students who had already experienced disruptions (e.g. through strikes earlier in 2020)
- Students with caring and work commitments
- Students who declared a disability
- Students with disciplines relying on specialist resources (such as creative arts or architecture)

Research Parliamentary Questions

How the Government will calculate the funding gap in the event that the UK does not participate in EU research projects after the transition period.
What positive steps UKRI has taken to increase diversity in the peer review processes and advisory groups.
If the Government will bring forward proposals to enable UKRI to prolong funding for research students unable to undertake face-to-face interviews as a result of the covid-19 outbreak.

Access & Participation

The Social Mobility Commission published Changing gears – Understanding downward social mobility.

So far policy-makers have focused on helping people to experience upward mobility, ignoring the fact that others have to move down. This was not such an issue while professional and managerial jobs were still expanding, as there was more room at the top. But this is no longer the case. Given the many challenges we face due to the coronavirus pandemic, it is vital to understand why and how individuals experience downward mobility, and what, if any, barriers they face.

The report aims to fill the gaps in knowledge on the prevalence, nature and consequences of downward mobility. It explores who is more likely to be downwardly mobile and differentiates between involuntary downward mobility where people slip down the ladder and voluntary downward mobility where people are able to choose to take a ‘lower’ occupation. The report only considers occupational downward mobility, not income or wealth.

During 2014-18 21% of men and 24% of women (aged 30-59) experienced downward mobility, this in in line with other countries. 80% remained at the lower level 5 years later.
Downward mobility is highest among women with several children, ethnic minority groups from outside the UK and individuals with lower educational qualifications.
Caring responsibilities – Having more children increases the chances of experiencing downward mobility for women but has only a small effect for men
Ethnicity – Some BAME groups, especially those born outside the UK, are much more likely to experience downward mobility, even after accounting for their educational qualifications and other individual characteristics
Men and women with degrees are 50–60% less likely to be downwardly mobile, regardless of their skills in early life. This shows that talented people from less privileged backgrounds who do not or cannot access higher education are more likely to experience downward mobility than people from privileged backgrounds, who perhaps demonstrate less skill in earlier life, but can access the higher education opportunities that matter when accessing the job market.
Downward mobility is highest for children of those working in occupations that have tended to become more graduate-led over time (such as nursing, policing, fire or the military). This means that their children may not have been able to access similar occupations to their parents, without going into higher education. People experiencing downward mobility were also more likely to end up in certain sectors – including the police and military – which suggests that that there are knock-on consequences across generations.
It wasn’t possible to quantify the proportion of individuals who experience voluntary or involuntary downward mobility. However, the factors associated with ‘unfair’ involuntary downward mobility, such as access to educational opportunities, opportunity hoarding, racial discrimination, caring responsibilities or poverty, are consistent with those limiting upward social mobility.

More detail on the impact of education as an insulator.

Those with degrees have a 15% chance of experiencing downward mobility, as compared with about 30% for those with GCSEs or below. Higher degree classifications, and studying subjects like medicine, teaching or science, further reduce the chances of downward mobility.

… achieving any formal qualification results in a much lower chance of downward mobility (20%). This suggests that the qualification itself, and not just academic ability, is one of the key factors influencing downward mobility. This reflects the importance that employers attach to degree level qualifications when selecting candidates for higher occupational roles; using degrees to distinguish job-applicants potentially excludes those with high potential but lower educational qualifications.

Our research showed a range of ways in which education helped to support people, providing benefits beyond the opportunities afforded by higher levels of qualification. Education, especially higher and further education, provided confidence, soft skills and a sense of belonging in the workplace. Those who had a higher level of education also tended to approach life’s set-backs with greater confidence and resilience. This was notable when we discussed career challenges. Those with a higher level of educational attainment were more able to think strategically in terms of alternatives that might be open to them. They had a broad range of skills that they were able to draw upon beyond their qualification. There was a sense that education provided an endorsement of their skills and capabilities, enabling them to approach opportunities with confidence.

However, a degree wasn’t found to insulate against the influence of other life events:

degree-educated professional women had been driven to considering lower-status roles by the stressful reality of combining demanding and inflexible professional roles with parenthood.
In another example, a working-class graduate from a rural location had felt that she did not fit in well with colleagues in a graduate job in London, and soon returned home to take up a lower-status job

Impact of educationally supportive home environment

Researchers have highlighted the role of opportunity hoarding in restricting social mobility, demonstrating the higher educational outcomes for middle-class children, even where early ability is on a par with their peers in routine or manual occupations. The research points to some privileged parents having a high level of involvement with their children’s educational achievement, providing intensive support in order to hothouse their children academically, for example by nurturing cognitive and soft skills during childhood.
Many participants in the research sample for this report had had the opposite experience as children, with a lack of attention and oversight of their progress at school, from either parents or teachers. At school, many recalled that they hadn’t been singled out as high achievers, nor had they been targeted as requiring extra support. Either of these labels, they felt, could have resulted in a greater interest in their progress, but the fact that they had not stood out meant that they had gone ‘under the radar’ and been allowed to drift into achieving below their potential. This lack of interest had left them feeling disconnected from school achievement, and gave them a sense that they could have achieved more, given the right support and guidance.

If you are interested in this topic the report is an easy read and there is wider content than the elements outlined above.

TASO: Wonkhe report that Independent evaluation hub Transforming Access and Student Outcomes (TASO) has published a report on the lack of evidence supporting the retention and attainment of disadvantaged and underrepresented students in higher education. Based on a review conducted by Coventry University and the Bridge Group, the report recommends research be carried out to establish causal links between action and outcome, with greater attention paid to understanding effects in a more granular and intersectional way.

Parliamentary Questions

Improving access to HE for care experienced students.
Whether the overall funding for pupil premium has been increased in line with the increase in the number of pupils who are eligible for free school meals.
£39.7 million disabled students premium 2020/21.

International

Wonkhe shared lots of content on international matters this week:

The Institute of International Education has released a recruitment survey that suggests that new international student enrolment in the US (and on US provider online courses) has decreased by a startling 43% between autumn 2019 and autumn 2020.
This HEPI blog has a piece asking why universities are so secretive about their reliance on international student recruitment agents.
The SRHE blog has a piece from two researchers on approaches to teaching international students in the UK.
UCAS evidence shows there is still demand from the EU for UK universities– but students need encouragement to study in post-Brexit Britain.

Student Intention (by Wonkhe)

Ahead of anticipated January starts, global polling by IDP Connect of more than 5,000 international applicants, offer holders and students, of whom 884 intend to study in the UK, finds that 80 per cent intend to start their studies as planned – a 21 percentage point increase since the first instalment of the International Student Crossroads research, which took place in April 2020.
The research, which is supported by Universities UK International, also finds an increase in willingness to begin study online with an expected transition to face to face teaching. However, 44 per cent of those polled say they would tolerate online learning for only three months before expecting to transition. 92 per cent say they would be willing to undertake a period of quarantine before beginning their studies, up from 77 per cent in the June 2020 instalment of the research.
The UK does not fare especially well in international applicants’ comparative assessment of the national response to coronavirus (rated 5.7 out of 10), the safety of citizens and visitors (rated 6.4 out of 10), or the welfare of international students (rated 6.3 out of 10), lagging behind Australia, Canada and New Zealand, but scoring ahead of the USA.

International Perceptions: The All-Party Parliamentary University Group have published International student perceptions & why the UK needs to build more destination loyalty. There are several nice colourful charts.

Students from different markets should be approached in tailored ways that meet their specific needs. The research shows that Chinese students are risk averse – as a sector we can respect and support their needs by facilitating online studies and communicating frequent COVID-related updates. For Indian students, the emphasis should be on post-study work opportunities.
As the higher education landscape becomes increasingly competitive, the focus should be on promoting the UK to international students as a desirable, holistic destination. More destination loyalty is urgently needed in key target markets. This is to ensure that prospective international students are driven not only by prestigious institutions, but by the UK as a destination in itself.
The UK can do more to change international student perceptions. Efforts to key markets should focus on aspects such as student safety (particularly related to COVID), international student welfare (testimonials by international students currently in the UK are powerful) and what the UK is doing to effectively respond to the pandemic.
The blog suggests the UK government’s new immigration graduate route has already had positive effects on recruitment.

Future of post-16 Education

In a week of relentless news it would be easy to overlook the Independent Commission on the College of the Future’s report on the future of England’s post-16 education system. While the report wasn’t such a headline grabber it is significant because its deals with the Government’s vision to reshape and rebalance the post compulsory education sector. Make no mistake this report is all about FE, reshaping and supporting FE, yet the themes are noteworthy for the stability of the HE sector. The document is bold and frank, it names the (potential) competition between FE and HE created by the Government’s technical education agenda, alongside references to serving the other 50% of the population who do not access HE, and the intention to rebalance funding across the post-16 sector.

The (independent) Commission was formed to answer these questions – what do we want and need from colleges from 2030 onwards, and how do we get there? The report is well researched with an impressive range of collaborators. While it feels it has a weight behind it at this stage it is only a series of recommendations to Government. The recommendations however do track the Government’s headline intent and the Skills White Paper is imminent.

The report itself needed a deeper delve into the implications and you can read our analysis here. It centres around the concept of a College place-based network in which employers are heavily invested and skills needs agreed and addressed. The skills and higher technical agenda, the relationship, support, collaboration and competition between local institutions (FE & HE), adult retraining, the unspoken Government agenda to rebalance numbers going into HE and reprioritisation of the status of the graduate degree route (and perhaps, therefore, the funding behind it all) all feature. Read more here.

Research Professional have a rather decent interpretation of elements of the report here. Their write-up is particularly good at drawing out where the Commission has tried to find solutions to reduce potential competition between HE and FE.

Lord Blunkett gives his take on the report’s intent in The Times. On competition he states: Lifelong learning is complementary to higher education, which it embraces. Further and higher education working collaboratively will help to reach more people, deliver more impact and improve value for money.

However, his intent is less clear when he comments: Quality teaching equals quality learning, and further education must be underpinned by a commitment to excellence for students (unlike universities, where expertise is underpinned by research).

Student Fees petition – no blanket refund

Last week we highlighted that the Petition Committee had scheduled a debate on all five student fee related petitions. You can read the debate in full here or a summary here.

Only a handful of MPs attended the debate although those that did speak made a range of informed points. Michelle Donelan represented the Government to make it clear there would be no change. No blanket refunds and students need to pursue their own cases individually through the Office of the Independent Adjudicator.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) have a really insightful analysis on the topic – Who would benefit from reimbursing tuition fees?

The total cost to universities of refunding fees…for a whole year would be around £10 billion if the policy applied only to full-time undergraduates domiciled in England. Including all fee-paying students – which includes students from other home nations, international students, part-time students, and those studying for other degrees – would nearly double the amount to be reimbursed. [Almost half total university income in 2018/19!]
Among undergraduate students domiciled in England, this kind of reimbursement of tuition fees would primarily benefit the small minority of students who pay their tuition fees out-of-pocket, and those who go on to have high earnings after they have graduated. Only the roughly 10% of students (or their parents) who pay tuition fees directly would receive any immediate pay-out. All others will have taken out the full government-backed loan to cover their fees, so reimbursement would merely lower their student loan balance.
This change to the student loan balance only matters for high-earning graduates. The reason is that mandatory repayments only depend on graduates’ earnings, and all remaining student loan balances are written off 30 years after graduates start repaying. Lower-earning graduates will not repay their loans within 30 years whether or not tuition fees are reimbursed, so their repayments would be the same… Borrowers in the bottom half of the graduate earnings distribution would gain virtually nothing from tuition fee reimbursement
The corollary of this is that by far the largest direct beneficiary of any such reimbursement by universities would be the government… Of the total amount reimbursed, more than two thirds would end up in the government’s coffers.
No reimbursement option is particularly palatable for the government. Forcing universities to reimburse students may well bankrupt some of them, causing major disruption for some students and others. If the government shouldered the full costs, that would constitute an expensive give-away benefitting mainly high earners and international students.

Wonkhe also have a write up of the debate.

NUS – calls for change

The National Union of Students (NUS) has said students need urgent financial support as well as a plan for a new education system built on the principles of being lifelong, fully-funded, accessible and democratic, at the upcoming spending review.

NUS has been encouraging students and students’ unions to hold Town Hall meetings with MPs, so that students can share their experiences, and put forward their demands directly to them. This is being supported by a programme of action being led by grassroots student organisers throughout the week to demand that the government provide them with financial support, and that universities and colleges meet their demands – including rent rebates.

Research by the NUS has shown that 20% of students did not think that they would be able to pay their rent and essential bills, and 3 in 4 students were anxious about paying their rent this term.

NUS is calling for the government to take urgent action by –

Providing funding to colleges and universities to be directed towards hardship funds
Investing to eradicate digital poverty and ensure that students have the technology they need to learn, including free internet access
Introducing financial support for students during lockdown periods
Providing students with the right to leave accommodation contracts without any financial detriment
Directing funding towards students’ unions to empower students to shape decisions

On the lifelong, funded, accessible and democratic education system NUS calls for

Reintroduce non-repayable, means-tested maintenance grants, and set eligibility for these at previous levels plus inflationary increases
Greater investment into adult education, and all adult education funding invested into the further education sector to be ring-fenced for this purpose
All Equivalent or Lower Qualification (ELQ) funding restrictions should be removed through all levels of education
Raise the base funding rate for 16- and 17-year-olds in further education to at least £4,760
Extend the maximum student loan eligibility to enable all students to afford basic living costs without reliance on part-time employment
Greater investment in NHS children and young people’s mental health services

Commenting ahead of the spending review, Larissa Kennedy, NUS National President, said –

The treatment of students during this pandemic is not an anomaly, it is indicative of an education system rotting at its core, with this being just the latest manifestation of the tyranny of the marketised university, which is forced to prioritise profit above all else.
Students need support now. They deserve better than the meagre measures they have been offered so far, and need urgent support to prevent a worsening mental health crisis, students turning to foodbanks for their next meal and a lack of access to education.
On top of exposing and exacerbating some of the systemic challenges for students, COVID-19 has also created an urgent need for greater support. The spending review must look to the future and secure students’ present. The most important measures for this will be ensuring that students have the financial support that they require to cope with the effects of this pandemic.

PQs

Education Sector

The average programme funding for T level and non-T level full time study (the interest is in the comparison/different funding levels).
A different perspective question on the ‘bail out’ – The cost to the public purse for accounting and auditing to support universities to access finances during the C-19 outbreak.
Stepping up the pressure a little Baroness Tonge asks what legislative options the Government is considering to ensure all HEIs sign up to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism.
With Welsh exams cancelled how will the Government ensure a level playing field for university admissions in 2021. Move to Admissions section?
How universities are accountable for curriculum decisions including whether to decolonise the history curriculum.
The Government doesn’t intend to investigate ebook pricing and licensing practices although the zero rate VAT change is constantly under review for all taxes.

Covid

Covid: students only need one negative test to travel – Lord Parkinson: The guidance for students in England is that only one negative test is required.
Lord Parkinson on the January return to university guidance: people will want a bit of certainty about the resumption of education in January. Our hope is to be able to provide that guidance before the end of term so that everyone knows the situation going into the Christmas holidays. But of course, like everything, that will depend on developments in the virus and the pandemic. Lord Parkinson sidestepped answering whether students would require to be tested in January.
Accommodation codes of practice (and whether they need revision in light of Covid)
Students who wish to terminate accommodation contracts to go home to study online
Government urges universities and private providers to ‘be fair’ in their decision over rent charges during Covid, particularly for clinically vulnerable students.
Covid clusters at educational settings

Inquiries and Consultations

Click here to view the updated inquiries and consultation tracker. Email us on policy@bournemouth.ac.uk if you’d like to contribute to any of the current consultations.

Other news

Green Industrial Revolution: The Prime Minister has unveiled his Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution – summary here. Also Andrew Griffith MP has been appointed as the UK’s Net Zero Business Champion. His role is to support the country’s business community to make credible plans to net zero by 2050 or earlier and showcase the UK’s place as a global leader in tackling climate change.

Board Diversity: Wonkhe report: that Advance HE has announced a new project to diversify higher education governing boards. In partnership with Perrett Laver, the HE Board Diversity Project will establish an evidence base of what can be done to ensure that university governing boards are truly diverse, with the aim to develop and share best practices and ways forward for the sector.

Racially inclusive: Wonkhe tell us that SUMS Consulting has published a briefing paper on making higher education institutions racially inclusive. The paper, based on a panel discussion with representatives from universities and student unions, covers best practices in support of students and staff; leadership on issues of equality, diversity and inclusion; creating an anti-racist university and other sector wide initiatives.

Making friends: HEPI have a blog on How the Government should reset its relationship with universities.

NEETS: Wonkhe have picked up on a Financial Times article which covers statistics from the Office for National Statistics demonstrating that the number of 18-24 year olds not in education, employment and training fell compared to last year. An interesting counterpoint to recent stories, although the population dip demographics may come into play.

Station of the Nation HE style: There’s a new HEPI blog on the state of HE today – Turf wars, new providers and spending reviews – and how there are 118 fewer higher education providers in England than there were meant to be in 2020

Degree Apprenticeship regulatory regime: Wonkhe tell us that Universities that deliver degree apprenticeships will be subject to Education and Skills Funding Agency funding audits from April next year, according to a report in FE Week this morning. The first audits could come in the same month that Ofsted starts to inspect degree apprenticeships.

Shared Prosperity Fund: The University Alliance have published an open letter to the Government, (signed by 70 universities and businesses) calling for clarity on the delivery of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF). UKSPF is due to replace EU Structural Funds after they wrap up in 2023 and the EU funds have been a key enabler of collaboration between universities and businesses with funds used to support and develop communities and regions. The letter pushes for greater transparency and argues that without the timely replacement of funds, many of the projects and schemes universities and businesses collaboratively deliver in local areas across the UK are at risk. Affecting livelihoods across the county in a time of growing economic challenges.

Student Protection (closure): Wonkhe outline the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education (OIA)’s new briefing note on complaints arising from course, campus, or provider closure. In the case of provider closure, there are particular concerns relating to the financial implications for students of transferring institution, the need to preserve student records, the impact of interruptions to ongoing processes such as academic appeals, placements, or research projects, arranging for the award of exit qualifications, and management of student accommodation. Wonkhe has a blog wondering if the protection we give students matches the risks they take.

Student Fee comparability: iNews covers analysis by the Russell Group that showed that by academic year 2023-24 per student funding in England will be similar in real terms to 2011-12, before the tripling of tuition fees.

Careers Guidance: The Social Mobility Commission published research on how effective training and careers guidance for frontline or low-skilled workers can increase their progression, pay and social mobility. It found that organisations with strong progression cultures benefit from increased productivity, higher quality outputs, lower staff turnover and being seen as more attractive places to work.

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November 16, 2020

HE Policy Update for the w/e 13th November 2020

Business Engagement, COVID-19, EU, humanities, Industry collaboration, international, Knowledge Exchange, NHS, open access, parliament, PG research, policy, Public engagement, Research news, Student Engagement jforster

We’ve a lot to cover this week as the new lockdown seems to have inspired policy wonks to publish!

Input from the Government has informed how students should travel home safely for Christmas and the Education Secretary wants all the Skills answers.

Skills reform

Education Secretary Gavin Williamson has written to Stephen van Rooyen (Sky CEO) who Chairs the Skills and Productivity Board. The Board provides a focus on the skills areas the Government should attend to within industry and also provides independent labour market advice. In his letter Gavin confirms the Board’s priorities for the year ahead:

Under your leadership the board will play a central role in driving forward the government’s ambitious plans to upgrade the skills system – including improving higher technical education – and boost productivity. I know we agree on the importance of ensuring that courses and qualifications on offer to students across the country are high-quality, are aligned to the skills that employers need for the future and will help grow our economy after the coronavirus outbreak.

To this end, you and I have agreed the board will prioritise the following questions over the next 12 months:

Which areas of the economy face the most significant skills mismatches or present growing areas of skills need?
Can the board identify the changing skills needs of several priority areas within the economy over the next 5-10 years?
How can skills and the skills system promote productivity growth in areas of the country that are poorer performing economically?

The Minister wants quick answers – I would encourage you to prioritise the accumulation of evidence that can have the greatest impact, to build on the excellent analytical work that has already taken place inside and outside government, and to focus on actionable insights that we can use to reform our skills system… I welcome the board’s advice on what ‘good’ looks like across the globe

The letter also confirms the appointees to the Board of six leading skills and labour market economists:

Arun Advani – University of Warwick: Assistant Professor, IFS Fellow
Claire Crawford – University of Birmingham: Reader in Economics
Andrew Dickerson – University of Sheffield: Professor of Economics and Director of Sheffield Methods Institute
Ewart Keep – Oxford University: Emeritus Professor in Education, Training and Skills, Department of Education Oxford University
Grace Lordan – LSE: Associate Professor & Founding Director of the Inclusion Initiative
Sir Christopher Pissarides – LSE: Regius Professor of Economics and Nobel laureate

Admissions: Post Qualification Offers (PQO)

This is the surprising “big news” this week. Surprising from a timing point of view, at least. We need to get our acronyms right to start with. A lot of talk for years has been about PQA – post qualification admissions. However, it seems that we are now talking about PQO – Post Qualification Offer-making – i.e. students apply in a way not dissimilar to now, but offers are only made when results are available. So no more clearing – because essentially everyone is in clearing. It might also mean an end to unconditional offers in most cases (remember that these are already banned by the OfS in most cases, for the time being). Most importantly for the government, and those concerned by unfairness inherent in the system, it means an end to predicted grades. Although perhaps not……

UCAS triggered media excitement on Monday morning…

And on Friday, the UUK Fair Admissions Review – comes out in favour of PQO from 2023 subject to full consultation.

Q&A – useful for colleagues only wanting a short dip in – it’s more an exec summary than Q&A.
Fair Admissions Review (actual document).
Press release/report intro page

Other highlights:

The ending of ‘conditional unconditional’ offers
Guidance on the acceptable use of unconditional offers
A new code of practice to maintain standards
Greater transparency, consistency, and standard indicators to support contextual offer-making

Guardian Friday– Admissions reform – University leaders have given their backing to a radical overhaul of admissions policy which would mean UK students would only be offered places once they have their A-level results. The long-awaited reform aims to make the system fairer by eliminating the use of predicted grades, which are often unreliable, and will bring the UK into line with other countries, possibly as early as 2023/24.

We think it is a bit early to say that university leaders have backed it – this is a set of recommendations following a review which have yet to be consulted on…….

Stakeholder reaction to UUK proposals:

Emma Hardy MP, Labour’s Shadow Universities Minister, said:

“The university admissions system has let students down for years, and Labour have long campaigned for reform.
“University admissions must provide greater clarity and opportunities for applicants, in a way that is fair to all; whatever their backgrounds.
“The Government must now listen to universities, colleges and schools and deliver a system that is fair and transparent.”

Chris Millward, Director for Fair Access and Participation at the Office for Students, said:

‘A fair and robust admissions system is essential for ensuring equality of opportunity for all students, and must help applicants from all backgrounds choose and gain admission to the best possible course and university or college for them.
‘There is evidence that disadvantaged students could benefit from a system where offers are made on the basis of grades achieved rather than predicted grades, particularly in applications to the most selective universities. Post-qualification admissions could also help improve transparency in contextual admissions and other entry requirements. But it is not a magic bullet for fair access.
‘So, we will consider all of UUK ‘s proposals carefully, including the proposed move to post-qualification admissions, and continue to work with partners across the higher education sector to improve the admissions system – that means identifying how to remove barriers to disadvantaged applicants, promoting transparency and clarity about the admissions process and ensuring the system works fairly for all.
‘There is widespread recognition that aspects of the current system are not working. For example, research suggests that students from disadvantaged backgrounds are more likely to receive under-predicted A-level grades. We have also temporarily banned ‘conditional unconditional’ offers during the pandemic due to the pressure that they can put on students to make choices which may not be in their best interests.
‘As Universities UK proposes today, we have also called for universities to make a deeper commitment to contextual offer making. We know that school results are not achieved under equal conditions, and it is crucial that universities and colleges recognise candidates’ potential when making admissions decisions. That’s what they have committed to do through the access and participation plans agreed with OfS.’

Is this a priority?

Key areas of focus announced for the OfSthis year included admissions and recruitment including marketing and inducements
Government focus on fairness and choice: We expected this government may go further on choice and fairness by pushing hard on post-qualification admissions. Gavin Williamson does not like unconditional offers, university marketing or clearing and the government is convinced that there is mis-selling.
As we reported in September, Nicola Dandridge (OfS) presented at the Wonkhe event, the Secret Life of Students and said that the OfS admissions review that was launched before lockdown would remain on pause to allow universities to deliver the 2021 cycle first (and tackle any difficulties that arise).

And what did UCAS say? In Monday’s announcement they set out two “options for reform”.

Under a post-qualification offers model, all students, including those on technical and vocational routes, would receive offers from their chosen universities and colleges on the same day, after getting their final qualification results in the summer. This means students would not be giving up a potential place until their grades were known, and would retain the long selection window in the prior months, which allows time to support students with disabilities and those from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Apost-qualification application model will be put up for discussion, which sees all students apply and receive offers after receiving their qualification results. To allow sufficient time for support from teachers, as well as applications to be submitted, assessed, and offers made and accepted, university term would need to begin in January.

There is no more detail: “Full details on the two models being proposed and how UCAS will collect and review feedback on them will be published in the coming weeks.”

UCAS Chief Executive Clare Marchant notes that it is “It is absolutely crucial though that we limit any unintended consequences of such major change” and the report will be published alongside a mechanism to collect and review feedback from the sector. The Guardian and the Independent cover the announcement, while the Times publishes letters from Lord Blunkett, Nick Hillman and others on the proposed reforms.

Wonkhe:

tweeted the link to this August 2019 article by Mary Curnock-Cook.” How researching post qualification admissions turned me from advocate to sceptic”.
Jim Dickinson takes a lookat what’s being proposed.
It’s taken as read that post-qualification admissions will help applicants from disadvantaged backgrounds. But, says David Kernohan, the question is still open

In The Times, pupils could apply to university after A-level results day, an opinion piece says that now is the time to reform university admissions and an editorial says that universities should not make offers until A-level results have been received.

Admissions : Access to HE: Wonkhe cover the new report from AccessHE focuses on the impact of the pandemic on those applying for a higher education place in 2021. Assuming that students drop one grade from what they would otherwise have attained (for example D to E at A level) 5,000 applicants in London (75 per cent of whom are from BAME backgrounds) would miss out on HE study. England-wide, this could be as many as 27,000. There’s a position paper from NEON and the NUS calling for a later UCAS deadline and a national taskforce.

Research news

SURE: You’ll recall that Government had a bail out scheme of sorts for some universities research functions where Covid has caused significant disruption. It is now called the Sustaining University Research Expertise (SURE) package and Government have released a notice on the fund highlighting that UKRI will published detailed guidance shortly. Research Professional unpick the scheme here.

Some basic points on the fund:

It is to address short term losses in research related income (all funds received have to be spent on research or KE activity)
The government will cover 80% of a university’s losses from international student income (for 2020-21) or the value of non-publicly funded research activity in that university (whichever is the lesser), supplemented with “a small amount” of government grant.
The loan interest rate 0.55% over a 10 year repayment period
The deadline to apply is mid December (even though the full guidance isn’t out yet) and payments to providers will made by 31 March 2021.
There are other conditions too, such a pay restraint, and RP retain their sense of humour in describing the condition: there would also seem to be big disincentives from taking out a loan for any university that prizes its autonomy. As Darth Vader told Calrissian, “I am altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further.”

ARPA: The Commons Science and Technology Committee held a session on a new UK research funding agency (ARPA) they continued to hear evidence on how the proposed UK ARPA will fit into the existing research landscape, with Amanda Solloway, Ottoline Leyser, and Sarah Hodgetts among the witnesses. Wonkhe report on the session:

UKRI chair John Kingman stressed the need to balance the desire to adequately fund any potential UK Advanced Projects Research Agency (ARPA) with the usual accountability when spending public money. UKRI chief executive Ottoline Leyser said she does not see proposals for any new funding body as an implicit criticism of UKRI, but one approach among many, within a context of rising government funding of research. Science minister Amanda Solloway said that while the focus of ARPA has yet to be decided, she wants it to be led by scientific merit rather than by government. You can watch the full session on Parliament TV.

Dods have a more comprehensive summary of the session here.

Arts & Culture: Research Professional (RP) report that:

Research England is announcing £1.1 million in funding for a National Centre for Academic and Cultural Exchange to facilitate knowledge exchange between universities and the UK’s arts and culture industries. The NCACE will be run by the Culture Capital Exchange. The virtual centre will focus on showcasing the social, cultural, environmental and economic impacts of knowledge exchange in the arts, with plans to promote impacts in health, place-making, climate change and technology.

RP are critical of the Centre stating its impact is based on anecdotal evidence. More here.

Security Threats: The Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats (CREST) has received an additional £5.3 million to continue behavioural and social science research into security threats to the UK. Originally launched in October 2015 CREST is reported to have drawn collaboration from 140 researchers within 35 higher education institutions and small and medium-sized enterprises for research and engagement to add value to security training, practices and policies.

Doctoral Students: Wonkhe report that UKRI has advised funded doctoral students to discuss with their supervisors adjusting their projects to complete qualifications while funding is available. The research council will be making an additional £19m available to support students who find it more difficult to make adjustments – particularly those in their final year and those with ongoing support needs. This announcement comes alongside the publication of a review of student support, which found that 92 per cent of final year students asked for an extension, with an average length of 46 months. And there’s a Wonkhe blog on the topic.

Digital: Jisc has announced the formation of a digital research community which will explore how technology and innovation can help improve research practice. Researchers, research leaders, research managers and other professionals in the field, such as developers, software engineers, and library and IT staff can join.

Students Engage! The Future of Engagement at Universities from HEPI covers blending public engagement into the student university experience.

R&D Taskforce recommendations: The National Centre for Universities and Business (NCUB) have published Research to Recovery a R&D taskforce report. In the report, business and universities set out a collective vision for a future driven by collaboration through research and development.

The report recommendations include:

A refresh of the Industrial Strategy that places research and innovation as its engine. By backing businesses innovation, the Government will help create a more resilient, competitive and productive economy.
The establishment of a network of ‘Innovation Collaboration Zones’ across the UK to aid the levelling up agenda. The Government, with UK Research and Innovation, should create simpler mechanisms to support businesses to innovate, and to galvanise industry and academia; the Times has the story.
The creation of a Global Collaboration Fund to encourage universities and businesses to pool their strengths to attract inward investment, attracting investment from businesses in the UK and overseas.
A widened remit of the Office for Talent to help grow and deliver domestic talent, alongside attracting global talent. A coordinated, cross-cutting approach needs to be taken to develop, upskill, retain and retrain domestic talent.

Preventing abuse: HM Revenue & Customs have published a policy paper on preventing abuse of R&D tax relief for SMEs. It limits claims to £20,000 plus 300% of its total PAYE and National Insurance contributions liability for the period.

Parliamentary Questions

An oral parliamentary question (so slightly longer content) on the recent steps supporting the growth of innovation and new technologies.
The Government is open to participation in Horizon Europe if a fair and balanced deal can be reached. Alongside this, BEIS is working with the Devolved Administrations to develop credible options should alternative schemes be required. Funding for any continued participation in EU research and innovation Programmes or EU replacement schemes is subject to allocations at the Spending Review. More here.
UKRI’s proposed Open Access policy. And Rights to Retention.
Steps to ensure that PhD students from the EU wish to study in the UK after the increase in student visa costs from January 2021.
Ensuring that the UK life sciences sector continues to have access to (a) research funding and (b) collaborative working opportunities with European partners after 31 December 2020.
Government is analysing responses following its survey on the R&D roadmap.

And this one won’t be responded to for two weeks (so it’ll fit within the timing of the Spending Review without giving anything away) but it is worth noting it now:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have, if any, to exempt research councils from the one-year spending review so they can fund long-term projects.

Exams (GCSE, AS & A level)

Wales: Following an independent review panel Wales has cancelled GCSE, AS & A level exams, due to the ongoing pandemic, replacing them with coursework and assessments. Some assessments will be set and/or marked externally, however they will be delivered in the teacher supervised classroom environment during the second half of the Spring term. The assessments will feed into the nationally derived centre-assessed grades. The decision will also allow schools to continue teaching throughout the summer term (BBC). TES also covered the story.

The BBC report Welsh Education Minister Kirsty Williams said:

The well-being of learners and ensuring fairness across the system is central in our decision making process.
We remain optimistic that the public health situation will improve, but the primary reason for my decision is down to fairness; the time learners will spend in schools and colleges will vary hugely and, in this situation, it is impossible to guarantee a level playing field for exams to take place.
We have consulted with universities across the UK and they have confirmed that they are used to accepting many different types of qualifications.
And it remained a “highly challenging year” but the announcement would remove pressures from learners and provide “clear time for teaching and learning”.

Number 10 have confirmed that exams in England will still go ahead. Although Wonkhe have this:

Chair of the Ofqual “Recovery Committee” Amanda Spielman has suggested that England may only hold examinations in core subjects next year. She told the House of Commons Education Committee that cancelling exams would not be a “sensible default route”, but that this year’s A level candidates would face difficulties in catching up with their learning. You can watch the hearing on Parliament Live. The Financial Times and Schools Week have the story.

Exams in Northern Ireland will also go ahead but the number of exams per subject will be reduced (BBC).

The Education Policy Institute has published a report and recommendations on the 2021 exam series. It finds the Government doesn’t have a credible plan B should exams not be able to go ahead and sets out a number of actions that would mitigate the risks for students. It also encourages HE providers to make full use of contextual admissions.

Committee: Ofqual partiality questioned & 2021 exams: The Education Committee has written to Gavin Williamson (Education Secretary) to highlight serious concerns about the independence, accountability and transparency of the exams regulator Ofqual. The Committee has called for proper planning to be put in place to ensure students in England are able to sit exams next year. The letter also sets out the Committee’s findings and recommendations following the problems which resulted from the cancellation of this summer’s exams due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Rt Hon Robert Halfon MP, Chair of the Education Committee, said:

The fallout and unfairness from the cancellation of this summer’s exams will have an ongoing impact on the lives of thousands of families. But such harm could have been avoided had Ofqual not buried its head in the sand and ignored repeated warnings, including from our Committee, about the flaws in the system for awarding grades.
A lack of transparency and independence at Ofqual meant opportunities to raise alarm bells were missed. Ofqual should have acted to protect the futures of our young people.
There are arguments to be made for and against Ofqual remaining independent, and for its duties being brought inside the Department for Education directly under ministerial control. It must be absolutely clear to all where accountability lies. What is not acceptable is a half-way house position where lines of accountability for standards are blurred.
Both Ofqual and the DfE must learn hard lessons from this summer’s exams controversy and move swiftly to ensure exams can take place next year in one form or another. They must ensure a level playing field for those from disadvantaged backgrounds who have struggled during Covid. The catch-up fund and pupil premium should be used to help those left behind or at home due to Covid issues.
Ofqual and the DfE must also make sure there is no repeat of the unfairness faced by pupils should the pandemic continue to impact on learning. Young people have already been among some of the hardest hit these past few months and they must be properly supported to ensure they get the future their hard work deserves.

Wonkhe put it succinctly: the regulator either seemed to ignore evidence presented to it or acted in such a way as to bring itself in line with ministerial wishes, blurring lines of accountability

Dods diplomatically say: …it is clear that Ofqual recognised the problems with the model of awarding grades yet failed to raise concerns about its fairness. Instead they simply followed the ministerial direction and hoped for the best— calling into question its independence.

Exams 2021: The Committee says:

Exams must go ahead in 2021 and robust contingency planning should be put in place as soon as possible to ensure this can happen.
There should be careful consideration on whether to continue with the full curriculum should particular local circumstances or lockdowns impact student learning. Any decisions must be informed by an assessment of the learning loss that has occurred since March across schools and how this has varied across the country.
There must be a level playing field for exams for those from disadvantaged backgrounds, who have struggled with Covid. Catch-up funding and pupil premium should be used to help these left behind groups.
There will need to be urgent consideration of what approach should be taken in light of the grade inflation that has occurred this August and how standards can be maintained.

GCSE curriculum – gateway to university not skills?

The House of Commons Education Committee held an oral evidence session on Left Behind White Pupils from Disadvantaged Backgrounds (click Transcripts to download the full session content). Below are the elements most relevant to universities:

Dr Alex Gibson (Senior Research Fellow, University of Plymouth) makes a plea for the use of the LSOA (lower layer super output area) to understand local deprivation. He states he found it: incredibly valuable in trying to explain variations in performance or access to university. …Once you are able to include that [LSOA] data, for instance the IDACI score…that is the number of children in each area living in income deprivation—you are able to bring in a lot more information. Once you have that, the significance of free school meal status actually drops away. Using the national pupil database, which is one of the most remarkable databases we have, allows you to pull in an awful lot more data than just free school meals, so I would call for that to be used at every opportunity.
Henri Murison (Director, Northern Powerhouse Partnership): …we have made GCSEs a preparation for A-levels, which are a preparation for university. I understand why A-levels are a preparation for university, because they are predominantly taken by people going to university, but GCSEs are supposed to be a gateway qualification for all young people to get on. The reality is they are not an accessible qualification for people who do not have lots of experience in the family of people who have gone to university. Schools can do an awful lot to open up those qualifications, but the reality is we need to have a fundamental look at what we are asking kids to study, because I do not think employers are very interested in what they include either.
Ian Mearns MP, Education Committee member: In a nutshell, are you saying that the curriculum that is being provided is only appropriate for the 50% of youngsters who are destined for university?)
Henri Murison: Yes
Tom Hunt MP (Education Committee member):
…There has been some criticism of the education system over the past few decades that there has not been enough focus on technical education apprenticeships. It has been very much a 50% target for university, et cetera.
Do you think it is a problem for some because, almost regardless of whether you want to go to university or whether you want to go on to a good quality apprenticeship, you have to do reasonably well in your GCSEs, for example? Do you think there has been a bit of a problem that, for many, they have looked at university and said, “That seems to be the only thing we are hearing about at school: we need to go to university. We do not really think university is a route for us or for me. It is not achievable for us to get there and there is not really anything else”?
There is not really a sense of there being multiple pathways. There hasn’t been enough to promote good quality technical education and apprenticeships. Maybe if there had been there would be more of an incentive and a driver for children from low-income backgrounds, who perhaps do not want to go to university but who would be attracted by that technical route, to do better at GCSEs, for example, and that gap would not be so large.
At Q109 tracking individuals and their economic success from all backgrounds is covered – noting that the only longitudinal tracking that is conducted is on individuals who do go to university.

Access & Participation

Wonkhe report: The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) unlawfully prevented thousands of disabled students from claiming benefits for essential living costs for seven years, the high court has ruled. It found that the department had rejected students’ claims for universal credit without allowing them to undertake a work capability assessment (WCA), an unlawful refusal which Disability Rights UK has estimated could have impacted over 30,000 disabled students.

Piers Wilkinson, the former NUS disabled students’ officer said “It is imperative that the government publicly recognise the result of the court case, and apologise for the extra hardships they caused to the thousands of disabled students the government denied and ignored”. Despite the decision, disabled students making a new claim for universal credit will not be able to rely on the court ruling – Work and Pensions secretary Therese Coffey changed the regulations on 3 August, the next working day after she told the court that she would not be defending the judicial review.

Wonkhe report: The Times has an opinion pieceon how a university degree does not automatically lead to social mobility.
OfS have a blog on Tackling differential outcomes for underrepresented students in higher education based on the Addressing Barriers to Student Success (ABSS) projects. Case studies are provided. The summative evaluation of ABSS (issued last week) is here. OfS report that the approaches and interventions used in the projects are highly transferable, and it has led to accelerated sharing of what works and the roll-out of innovative solutions to a range of providers. It finds that:
Inclusive teaching led to increased student confidence, higher attendance levels and higher grades
Technology can play an important role in providing an inclusive environment
Enhanced student support led to raised confidence and resilience and improved staff understanding and confidence in supporting students from underrepresented groups
1-to-1 support was popular with students from lower participation areas, disabled students and those disclosing mental health conditions
Buy-in from senior leaders was important, it has a greater impact and chance of future sustainability.

Parliamentary Questions:

Improving access to universities for care experienced students.
Explanations on how Universal Credit interacts with the student loan (this is worth a read for interested colleagues, the explanation acknowledges the loan and justifies why it is treated as income barring most students from Universal Credit).

Social Mobility Index

The Social Mobility Foundation has published its annual Social Mobility Employer Index which identifies the top 75 UK employers who have taken the most action on social mobility. It ranks the UK’s employers on the actions they are taking to access and progress talent from all backgrounds. It highlights the employers doing the most to change the way they find, recruit and progress talented employees from different social class backgrounds.

This year’s Index highlights that some sectors of the economy – law, public sector and financial services – have made positive strides to improve social mobility in the workplace, but overall progress is too slow. The charity is calling on those sectors which have benefited most from the Covid-19 pandemic, especially major tech, gaming, or pharmaceutical companies, to make a public commitment to social mobility in 2021. None of these sectors are represented in the Top 75 employers.

Alongside the launch of the Index, their chair, Rt. Hon Alan Milburn issued a rallying cry for business to do more to improve social mobility in the wake of Covid-19 or risk a lost generation.

Key findings taken from the report:

Despite the government focus on levelling up, only 36% of businesses are setting social mobility targets within their organisation despite 85% of respondents feeling their clients care about the social class mix of their workforce
Tech companies have seen profits soar during Covid-19. The combined post-tax profits of Alphabet, Amazon, Apple and Facebook have grown by $39bn during Covid-19. None of the tech giants entered the Index
Many businesses are not being transparent about who they employ with only 29% of entrants publishing socio-economic background data on their workforce
Only 11% of businesses track if they have a class pay gap despite the Social Mobility Commission finding that those from working class background face a 7% pay gap in Britain’s professional and managerial occupations compared to their peers from better-off backgrounds
In law, a sector which received significant submissions for four years, there appears to be an unwillingness to recruit outside of Russell Group Universities. 84% of legal firms graduate intake was from a Russell Group university
However, it is positive to see employers investing more heavily in employee development, with 48% of organisations offering buddying and mentoring support (up from 30% in 2019) and supporting the creation of networks of employees from similar backgrounds up at 40% (from 26% in 2019). This progress is welcome given the importance of peer support for career progression. This work could be enhanced by diversity awareness training with a focus on social mobility – only 34% of organisations currently offer this which is unchanged from 2019.

Augar: The long awaited response to Augar may still be delivered during the Spending Review. Lord Parkinson mentioned it this week with some ominously odd phrasing: The government is carefully examining the Augar Report and its recommendations as part of the wider Post-18 Education Review. We are considering a response alongside the Spending Review, with a view to providing certainty to providers and students.

Fees

The Government responded to the latest tuition fee related petition – Lower university tuition fees for students until online teaching ends. In essence, they continue to maintain it is a matter for individual universities.

However, on Monday (16 November) there will be a Commons debate on tuition fees (as is required when a petition reaches over a certain high signature level threshold) and a DfE Minister will be present at the debate to respond on behalf of the Government. (The Commons Library is briefing members – here.) The debate will be based on all 5 petitions which, taken all together, received over 980,000 signatures.

You’ll recall the Committee investigated the fee petitions through an inquiry and issued a report during July calling for the Government to take urgent action and review the support for universities and students in the face of the “greatest challenge they have faced for generations”. Receiving a reasonable standard of education and the disproportionate impact of remote learning on certain groups (e.g. disadvantaged, disabled students, those requiring practical tuition or specialist equipment) were noted as important factors.

In its response to the Committee’s report, the Government accepted that students should be able to take action if they are unsatisfied with their university’s response to the pandemic. However, they rejected the Committee’s recommendation for a new centralised system which enables all students to easily seek a full or partial refund of their tuition fees, or to repeat part of their course.

The forthcoming mini Spending Review, unfavourable responses to parliamentary questions and Monday’s debate into tuition fees has the Russell Group on edge. Wonkhe report:

The Russell Group has published a briefingfor MPs on the sustainable funding of universities in the group. It calls on parliamentarians to ensure students and universities are provided with a “cast-iron guarantee” that if fees are cut in any Augar review response, that teaching grants cover the funding shortfall in full. It also calls for future demand for higher education places to be met in full.

Existential questions: value for money, the role of universities

Plenty from HEPI this week:

Value for Money: A Risk, Wrapped in a Mystery, Inside an Enigma – on value for money, excerpt: Lamentably, there is no easy or fool-proof way of measuring value for money and whichever metrics-paved alley you wander down, the inevitable end results will be that you create some behaviours you want and some you may not want. To draw an analogy, you weigh yourself, measure your height and calculate your body mass index, the result is not good. This leads you to decide to embark on a weight loss programme. You weigh yourself every week, you lose weight but hate eating all that rabbit food and cutting out the booze and end up depressed. Weight loss might be good but depression is bad. Any metrics-based system could end up producing unintended consequences that the Government and universities do not want… A tricky problem lies ahead for the Government managing a spiralling national debt – and the escalating cost of higher education does not help matters.
Universities have always had a civic role to play, COVID has made that role even more important
Nick Hillman (HEPI Director) wrote for Conservative Home setting out Three options for higher education. Less support for students, fewer of them – or else they pay more
“The Treasury was happy to countenance a big expansion of university finance when it did nothing to blemish its scorecard in reducing the deficit. It will take a sterner view once the actual costs show up in the budget deficit.” [Paul Wallace, Prospect.]

Once again, the Government is facing three options: providing less money per student through lower fees and loans, which would drive some universities to the wall; reducing student places, just as the number of school leavers is about to start a decade-long growth; or tougher student loan repayment terms, which would mean paying a little more. None of these options is palatable.

If it were down to me, I wouldn’t cut education spending at all. The triple whammy of Brexit dampening down skilled migration to the UK, economic change wrought by the pandemic and higher unemployment among lower skilled people in the coming recession mean we should be investing as much as we can in all types of education. More education is always better than leaving people to build blank spaces on their CVs.

Yet if the higher education sector must take some further pain in the spending review, then tougher student loan repayment terms of the sort in place in other countries and of the type recommended by the Augar panel is a better place to start than pushing universities to the brink or blocking aspirational learners from enrolling in higher education.

HEPI’s big ticket item this week is on the Graduate pay gender gap which looks at how the graduate gender pay gap changes over time tries to explain its persistence. Findings:

The overall graduate gender pay gap is not accounted for by subject of study, type of university attended, prior attainment, social background or ethnicity. Men appear to be more willing to be geographically mobile, which is likely to enhance their career prospects, but it is unlikely that increasing the mobility of women would significantly reduce the difference in pay.
Men appear to be more focused on their career search than women: they begin their career planning earlier during their time at university, make more applications and are less likely to give up once they have begun an application. They also display more confidence – perhaps overconfidence – and are more speculative in the jobs they apply for.
On the other hand, women are more likely to be offered a job once interviewed and are less likely to be unemployed on leaving university. This may in part be because they are more efficient in their job seeking; but it could equally reflect the fact that they are less ambitious in the jobs they apply for.
Women are more likely to work in part-time employment, both during and immediately after their degree than men; whereas men are more likely to undertake an internship during their degree, possibly providing them with an advantage when applying for jobs.
There are differences in attitudes to employment. For a higher proportion of men than women, a high salary is the mark of a good job. On the other hand, women are more likely to look for job security, work-life balance, a good company culture and a job which enables them to contribute to a cause they believe is meaningful.
Men and women are equally satisfied in their work, despite women being less well paid on average.

Among the recommendations are:

higher education institutions should promote information about the graduate gender pay gap, so students are empowered in their career planning to make the best decisions for their circumstances;
universities should make particular efforts to help female students undertake internships;
employers, working within current equal opportunities legislation, should make particular efforts to provide internship and networking opportunities for women; and that
the relative pay of male and female graduates should be included among the indicators of ranking bodies.
given the gendered impact, the Government, ranking compilers and others should not use comparative earnings as a measure of the worth of programmes or the quality of institutions.

Shadow Universities Minister, Emma Hardy MP, commenting on the report: This report shows that the government’s desire to judge university performance on graduate income is deeply flawed. The government ending it [presumably here she means gender pay difference] cannot be the job of universities alone.

Student / Staff Engagement

Advance HE published their 2020 UK Engagement Survey of student and staff engagement between Feb and June 2020. They report:

Students surveyed since the spring lockdown report higher levels of engagement in four out of seven areas. Most notably, there is higher engagement in partnering and interacting with staff, two of the areas of engagement where students have reported generally less positively than other aspects.
Students responding during lockdown are in fact 2% less likely to have considered leaving their course, which is a positive endorsement of how they have been supported, as well as how they have adjusted and adapted to learning under lockdown.
In new analysis, students who live away from campus and/ or other students show high levels of engagement which indicates that geography and living arrangements do not need to be a barrier to the quality of learning.

Overall engagement:

89% of students reported finding their course challenging and 78% reported high levels of critical thinking
‘Staff student partnership’ and ‘interacting with staff’ results remain consistent with recent years at 42% and 36%, though in the period of lockdown these improved to 45% and 38% respectively.
Overall engagement measured by ethnicity of UK domicile students
- BAME students again reported higher level of engagement than White students in every measure.
- The 2020 findings point clearly to students from BAME backgrounds putting in a significant amount of time and effort into their learning; for example,
  - in engagement with ‘Research and Inquiry’, BAME students reported engagement levels of 71%, while White students reported 66%;
  - in engagement in ‘staff student partnership’, the figures are 46% and 40% respectively.
- In terms of retention, students surveyed this year report being marginally less inclined to consider leaving than last year: 27.4% in 2019 and 26.5% in 2020. A breakdown by pre- and during lockdown responses, shows students are less inclined still to consider abandoning their studies: 26.9% ‘pre’ and 24.9% ‘during’.
- In a new area of analysis for 2020…how students’ living arrangements and commuting distance links with levels of engagement. There appears to be no detrimental impact of a long commute on how a student engages or develops.
- Likewise, living alone and/ or away from other students is actually linked with slightly higher levels of engagement or development than the more traditional model of living close to others.
  The analysis shows that age appears to be a key factor in this, with older students – who tend to be those living far away from campus and not with other students – revealing that their levels of motivation and organisation can overcome some of the potential barriers posed by distance or circumstances.

Wonkhe report: Students who took the survey during lockdown also report much greater time spent caring for others and working for pay, and less time in scheduled teaching.

Students reporting caring responsibilities: 26% in 2019 to 31% in 2020, and 45% specifically during the lockdown period.

Graduate Recruitment

The Institute of Student Employer’s annual recruitment survey highlighted that employers hire back 50% of their former interns and placement students. Also despite efforts to move internships online during Covid there were 29% less short-term internships and 25% less placements than in 2018/19. The decline was not evenly spread across the economy, and in all sectors apart from legal, employers are expecting placement opportunities to decline – most dramatically in the retail, charity and built environment sectors.

There’s a good internship blog on Wonkhe by Tristram Hooley of ISE, he states: So far government employment policy has pretty much ignored higher education students and graduates altogether. There is a need for this to be addressed as the recession deepens.

As the survey sits behind a paywall here is Wonkhe’s coverage: The Institute of Student Employers’ annual survey of graduate employers finds tough times for graduate recruitment, with the number of graduate jobs dropping by 12 per cent in 2020, and further reductions expected next year. Sectors worst affected are retail and fast moving consumer goods, which has seen a 45 per cent reduction, while by contrast the charity and public sector has increased recruitment by four per cent. An immediate challenge for universities is widespread reduction of employers offering internships and placements – which could potentially affect promises made to students applying for sandwich courses and courses that include a placement as part of the offer. The Guardian has the story.

Meanwhile: The National Centre for Universities and Business (NCUB) has called on the government to offer more support for graduates looking for employment, following the release of Office for National Statistics data showing that 13.6 percent of those between 18 and 24 are currently unemployed. [Wonkhe.]

i News covers polling of business leaders by YouGov, which says that more than half of them do not consider a degree important when hiring staff.

Finally, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) have released their latest Labour Market Overview covering July – September 2020.

Unemployment among 16-24 year olds is now at 14.6%, with the number of unemployed young people rising to around 602,000 – up from 581,000 in the last data release.
Youth employment is now at a record low of around 3.5 million, and the employment rate for young people now sits at 51.4%.
There has been a record high number of redundancies leading up to September, increasing by 181,000 this quarter.

Covid – Student Migration

The Government have released the guidance for students to travel home at the end of the term while controlling Covid-19 transmission risk. The Government’s press release (which is more readable than the guidance) is here, the written ministerial statement is here and the OfS Student Guidance is here. The guidance has UK students observe the national lockdown then travel home on staggered departure dates between 3 and 9 December following mass Covid testing on campus. The exact departure dates will vary from between individual institutions and will coincide with the cessation of face to face teaching.

On mass testing the Government states: the Government will also work closely with universities to establish mass testing capacity. Tests will be offered to as many students as possible before they travel home for Christmas, with universities in areas of high prevalence prioritised.

Students testing positive will be required to self-isolate for a further 10 days. And the Government points out that: Moving all learning online by 9 December gives enough time for students to complete the isolation period and return home for Christmas.

There is additional detail on students who will travel outside of the UK.

De Montfort and Durham universities continue to run the pilot test for the mass testing within universities, including identifying those who might be infectious but have no symptoms.

Colleagues will have seen Jim Andrews’ all staff email explaining BU is working through the implications of the national guidance whilst putting the detail and local measures in place. Jim’s email also reminds that whatever a student’s individual situation is BU will be here to support them and that the University will remain open.

Wonkhe say: We’re not at all sure if this spreads out student migration in December, or in fact has the unfortunate and ironic potential impact of concentrating something that usually happens over a month or so into about a week. They are also quick to point out there is no detail on returning to campus in January. They say: To accidentally cause outbreaks via mass migration once is deeply regrettable, to do it twice is looking disturbingly like you value not bailing out universities more than you do public health. And even if you can get students to campus safely, there will remain the uncomfortable realities of campuses whose capacity has been reduced while halls and housing (where your problem was last time) will be even more densely populated than September thanks to additional international arrivals.

Finally they state: It’s fair to say the response to the plans has been mixed – with many in the sector and beyond raising concerns around viability and the cost to providers. Wonkhe have a good (and irreverent) blog on the topic which delves into the real issues such as are the tests voluntary (and the comments ask why would students take the test and how can they afford last minute train tickets?). The blog also talks about commuter students, students who will stay on campus, and students on placements. The Independent has a student penned piece which brings home the costs of public transport within the student travel window. The Times explain that National Express are in talks with some Universities to get students home at normal commercial rates. And Swansea have done the maths and concluded it is impossible for them to test all students in the time period allowed: If we were testing 21,500 people twice, at that rate of 1,500 tests a day, it would take a month – we’ve actually got about three days. It’s not possible to test everyone in the time we’ve got now, from the time we’ve been asked to the time everybody will be set up to do this we could not test all students – and certainly not all students 24 hours before they left – nobody will really be able to do that.

Both Wales and Scotland will also test students and are asking students to voluntarily reduce social interaction in the two weeks before they travel home. Wales also intend to adhere to the 9 December travel deadline.

Universities Minister Michelle Donelan said:

We know this Christmas will feel different, and following this incredibly difficult year we are delivering on our commitment to get students back to their loved ones as safely as possible for the holidays. 
We have worked really hard to find a way to do this for students, while limiting the risk of transmission. Now it is vital they follow these measures to protect their families and communities, and for universities to make sure students have all the wellbeing support they need, especially those who stay on campus over the break.

Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Jenny Harries said:

The mass movement of students across the country at the end of term presents a really significant challenge within the COVID-19 response.
The measures announced today will help minimise that risk and help students get home to their families as safely as possible for Christmas. It is crucial that students follow the guidance in order to protect their families and the communities they return to.

Shadow Universities Minister, Emma Hardy, said: After weeks of unnecessary delay the government have finally acknowledged Labour’s call from September that more must be done to get students home safely over Christmas. They must work with universities and local government to ensure that rapid and accurate testing is available for all students who need it. It is deeply concerning that the government still have no plan for what students should do in January. They must bring a plan forward urgently.

Larissa Kennedy, NUS National President, said: We particularly welcome this mass-testing approach as it equips students with the knowledge to make informed decisions about travel ahead of the winter break based on individual risk, instead of being subject to blanket rules we’ve seen elsewhere this term. The government must now ensure that universities have enough resource to cope with the mass demand for this testing. We do now need a clear strategy for January return: students deserve better than another term of uncertainty.

It has now been confirmed that further guidance on the January return will be issued in the next few weeks. Despite media to the contrary a recent poll found that 85% of students intend to return to their accommodation in January 2021 when term resumes. More on the poll below

There is a parliamentary question requesting that UK students studying in France access Covid tests before they travel home so they do not have to quarantine on arrival. It is due to be answered next week. Shadow Universities Minister Emma Hardy asks whether the mass testing will use the Innova rapid lateral flow tests. A new angle – students who have signed accommodation contracts for courses that have no in-person teaching due to C-19. And the Government hasn’t able to confirm (yet) whether specific modelling on the demand for Covid testing re: the return of university students was carried out.

Meanwhile there are rumours that 50 Conservative MPs have banded together to oppose the imposition of any further blanket restrictions in England beyond the end of the current lockdown on 2 December. The PM has maintained throughout all his comms this week that lockdown will end as planned and the country will return to the tiered alert system.

PQs:

If there are plans for a post-covid-19 review of the performance of the Office for Students.
EU students with pre-settled status who are isolating within EU countries due to Covid – whether they will be exempted from the continuous residence requirement (answer – yes, in theory.)

Unite Students and Opinium ran a student survey on Student Experiences during the COVID-19 Pandemic (separate results). The results paint a picture of relative satisfaction, resilience and a ‘making the best of it’ attitude amongst the students polled. The also run contrary to recent media which blames universities for bringing students into accommodation for financial gain under false promises of face to face tuition.

85% of students intend to continue in their student accommodation in January
82% are happy they moved into student accommodation rather than staying at home
More than four in five are happy they decided to go to university, with 81% agreeing that although it’s not how they expected their first year to be they still value their time there.
81% are glad they didn’t decide to defer, with:
- 41% said they were driven by a desire to ‘immerse themselves in university life’
- 34% to live with people their own age away from home and
- 27% saying they were motivated by wanting independence from their parents

The importance of the whole university experience is reflected in students decisions to live away from home, with the majority of students feeling they are benefitting from the experience this year:

92% like the greater independence that comes from living away from home
64% like living with people their own age

Different, but valuable from HEPI covers the Unite poll in brief.

Cyber Attacks

Jisc published The impact of cyber security incidents on the UK’s further and higher education and research sectors. It uses findings from their cyber security posture survey. The document is intended as a means of strengthening understanding of cyber risk and promoting internal discussion, the report also offers advice on how institutions can improve their defences and shorten recovery times.

While many institutions reported a monetary impact of under £100,000 in the last twelve months, the exact monetary burden of cyber attacks remains unclear. The impact on staff is a concern, with additional staff time, including working out of hours, taken up to respond to incidents, as well as the welfare of staff and students targeted by cyber criminals. The report recommends that institutions ensure that they are up to date with security technologies and have a plan in place for when a security breach occurs.

Wonkhe have a guest blog on the topic here.

BU also reminded staff of our handy safety guide for staying safe online this week.

Parliamentary Questions

UK nationals living in EU will be classed as home students until 7 years after the transition period.
When asked what assessment the Government has made of the HEPI report on demand for HE to 2035 (I.e. the expansion needed in HE) the Government representative in the Lords stated:
This government wants our universities and other HE providers to focus relentlessly on outcomes for the individual, skills for the nation, and rigorous academic standards. Excellent outcomes are key to filling our productivity gap, fuelling our economy, and creating opportunities. It is vital that a fair and open post-16 education system offers genuine opportunity and levelling up across the entire nation, with equity between technical, vocational, and academic routes.
As part of the Post-18 Education Review, the government is carefully examining the Augar Report and its recommendations, including those that would affect capacity. We plan to respond to the Post-18 Review alongside the Spending Review.
International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism and upholding free speech in universities.

Inquiries and Consultations

Click here to view the updated inquiries and consultation tracker. Email us on policy@bournemouth.ac.uk if you’d like to contribute to any of the current consultations.

Other news

Fees: Wonkhe have a new guest blog from the NUS president in post when the move to Higher Fees was voted through Parliament – 10 years ago this week. It’s a reflective piece looking back on whether doing anything differently would have changed the outcome and provides insight to the thought processes of the parliamentarians and politics of the time.

Adult Learning: From Wonkhe – The Social Market Foundation has published (Adult) education, education, education. It shows that funding for adult education (excluding apprenticeships) has nearly halved since 2009/10, and explores the role that adult education does and could play in improving the labour market outcomes of low-income households.

Curriculum cultural diversity: The Petitions Committee and the Women and Equalities Committee held an evidence session on Black history and cultural diversity in the curriculum.

Healthcare students: The House of Commons Library has updated its briefing on funding for healthcare students in England.

STEM: The APPG on Diversity and Inclusion in STEM have published a Data Analysis Brief on the diversity and representation in the STEM (including health) workforce as it stood in 2019. Key findings:

Out of a workforce of 32.8 million people, 9 million (18%) worked in STEM occupations.

The STEM workforce has a lower share of female workers (27% vs. 52%) and disabled people (11% vs. 14%) than the rest of the workforce.
The share of ethnic minority workers in STEM is on a par with the rest of the economy, as a result of a workers with Indian ethnicity being more likely to work in STEM than elsewhere. People of other ethnic minorities tend to be under-represented in STEM.
Disabled people of all ethnicities are underrepresented in the STEM workforce. The gap in representation between STEM workers and others, is larger for disabled women than disabled men. While a majority of non-STEM disabled workers are female (59%), only one-third (33%) of STEM disabled workers are female.
65% of the STEM workforce are White men.
Proportionally, White women are less likely to be STEM workers than ethnic minority women: 10% of White female workers are in STEM, compared to 13% of ethnic minority female workers.
There is little difference in the gender balance of the STEM workforce when the youngest age group (16-29), within which 29% of STEM workers are female, is compared to those aged 30-49 in STEM, a group which is 28% female.

Higher Education Task Force: A Freedom of Information request has pushed the Government’s Higher Education Taskforce to publish some details and documents on the meetings that have taken place. The documents themselves are the perfect shade of civil service bland making them palatable for the public without giving too much away. Only a small section is redacted in the notes from an earlier meeting. The documents are published here (you’ll need to open the zip file). As Wonkhe put it there are no jaw dropping smoking gun moments here and the content needs to be interpreted by reading what isn’t there as much as what is. This Wonkhe article delves into the non-published behind the scenes discussions and the wider sector occurrences to add meat to the scrawny published bones.

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October 26, 2020

HE Policy Update for the w/e 23rd October 2020

COVID-19, EU, Funding opportunities, Impact, international, Knowledge Exchange, parliament, policy, Public engagement, Research communication, Research news, Student Engagement jforster

Some fresh news and reports but overall a quieter week HE wise as the Government continues to focus on the rise in virus numbers nationally. Much of the media interest has focussed on familiar topics such as student complaints and white working class students. HEPI looked at future demand for HE study and UUK surveyed about modular study, have a new vision for the HE sector and talk international research partnerships.

The Policy Update is taking a break next week to coincide with the Parliamentary recess. See you all in November!

Spending Review

The Treasury has confirmed that the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) will cover a one year period to set Government department’s resource and capital budgets for 2021-22 due to the constraints of the pandemic. The Devolved Administration block grants will also be set for the same period. The exact date the CSR will be delivered hasn’t been confirmed but it is expected towards the end of November. The CSR focus is expected to cover:

Providing multi-year NHS and schools’ resource settlements and priority infrastructure projects at full funding.
Providing Government departments with the certainty they need to tackle Covid-19 and deliver the Government’s Plan for Jobs to support employment.
Enhancing the vital public services to continue to fight against the virus alongside delivering first class frontline services.
Investing in infrastructure as part of the levelling up agenda and to drive economic recovery and Build Back Better.
Rishi Sunak, Chancellor, said:In the current environment it’s essential that we provide certainty. So we’ll be doing that for departments and all of the nations of the United Kingdom by setting budgets for next year, with a total focus on tackling Covid and delivering our Plan for Jobs. Long term investment in our country’s future is the right thing to do, especially in areas which are the cornerstone of our society like the NHS, schools and infrastructure. We’ll make sure these areas crucial to our economic recovery have their budgets set for further years so they can plan and help us Build Back Better.

Factors that will be of interest to HE that were meant to be included within the spending review are the Government’s response to the Augar review, response to the Pearce review of the TEF, and implications impacting on HE resulting from the Government’s already announced intentions for FE.

It isn’t clear whether the announcements over the last month on skills and technical education are it or whether there is more to come on FE. There was a debate on the role of colleges in a skills-led recovery from the Covid-19 outbreak this week. During the debate Robert Halfon (Education Committee Chair) welcomed the recently announced increases for FE funding and called for a long-term plan for FE, specifically a 10-year plan for college funding. Speaking about a previous Education Committee report he said:

We found that sometimes initiative-itis was standing in for long-term vision and the sector needed more money going into the base rate of funding, over small pots of funding.

He also said:

There is a social justice case for a pupil premium to support disadvantaged 16 to 19-year-olds. We have to get the basics right.
I urge the Minister to consider whether the apprenticeship levy pot could be fine-tuned so that companies can use more of their levy if they hire younger people from 16 to 19 years, people from disadvantaged backgrounds and people who are going to meet our skills needs where we have huge skills deficits.
We need to ensure that there is much closer collaboration between further education colleges and universities, because further education can play a major role in promoting degree apprenticeships—my two favourite words in the English language. Part of the £2.5 billion skills fund should be spent on covering training costs for small and medium-sized businesses taking on young apprentices.
Finally, it would be very special to see institutes of technology across our landscape. We have done this before, with national colleges and other schemes. I urge the Minister to ensure that they are properly integrated into further education, and that they are further education institutes of technology, not just some brand new shiny buildings. Why not help them to build the prestige of further education?

A vision for universities

UUK also published Recovery, Skills, Knowledge and Opportunity – a vision for universities. It sets out what universities do now and do well and how as a sector we contribute to the economy, communities, the nation’s wellbeing, innovation and research. It also sets out a wish list series of reforms and recommendations for the future vision.

Below we list some of the recommendations within each section. As you read the recommendations you’ll spot several touch on the Augar Review’s recommendations and recent Government priorities and announcements such as FE & the Skills agenda.

Economic recovery and levelling up

Relax the eligibility criteria for financial support for higher education to enable greater access to short courses from level 4 and level 5 up to postgraduate study, specifically removing the requirements to i) study at an intensity of 25% or greater of a full-time equivalent course; and ii) follow a full course for a specified qualification.
Modernise the regulatory system to recognise the level 4 and level 5 components of an undergraduate degree, not just as non-completion of level 6
Make it easier for higher and further education providers to collaborate and deliver more flexible opportunities for upskilling and re-skilling locally
- address Sector Deals and integration with local Skills Advisory Panels,
- ongoing support for Institutes of Technology,
- ensuring that reforms at levels 4 and 5 allow learners to progress to technical, apprenticeship and more academically focused provision
- remove regulatory obstacles that hamper innovation and block partners working together
Support a national graduate paid intern scheme, getting highly-skilled graduates into companies to help those businesses to thrive.
Ensure that research funders meet more of the cost of research, and significantly grow flexible, excellence-driven and low-bureaucracy research funding for universities (known as quality-related research).
Grow the Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF) in England. The removal of the lower thresholds in the fund should be considered to enable small, research-active universities to drive growth and support economic recovery in their localities.

Equal chances: equality, diversity, inclusion and transforming lives

Continue funding for collaborative partnerships between higher and further education providers and schools. This should include expanding opportunities for the most high-need schools to engage
Introduce targeted maintenance grants for those students that need them the most and remove the financial barriers for those wanting to study flexibly, such as part time and mature students. Extend support for the additional costs of study via Childcare Grants and the Parents’ Learning Allowance to all students.
No cut in real-terms funding per university student. This includes maintaining remaining government funding per student and the premium for supporting those from the most disadvantaged backgrounds
No imposition of student numbers caps in England. Any government-enforced number caps would create new barriers to access and a cap on aspirations.

A high-quality university experience for all students

Work with students and universities on proposed reforms to the National Student Survey (NSS) to ensure that student feedback continues to play a role in driving up quality and providing useful information to students, while keeping the administrative burden to a minimum.
Bureaucracy:
- not proceeding with subject-level TEF until the limitations of the methodology, its costs to universities and the taxpayer, and the actual value of its contribution to student decision-making in the wider student information landscape, have been fully considered
- using data and intelligence already available through other sources (e.g. UCAS) to minimise reporting demands
- OfS should not increase the bureaucracy burden when it adds new conditions or expands the regulatory framework

The UK’s globally competitive position

Prioritise full Association to the Horizon Europe and Erasmus+ programmes
Ensure that funded contingency plans are in place should Association not be possible. Any funding to replace Horizon Europe should be additional to current research and development (R&D) spending commitments set out in the 2020 Budget, including providing guarantees for third country participation in Horizon Europe. A national replacement mobility scheme should also be fully funded.
Ensure that the UK’s visa and immigration system offers a ‘best-in-class’ service to international talent in terms of cost, accessibility and ease of navigation
See other recommendations listed on pages 13-14

Health and well-being

Secure the sustained growth of healthcare programmes to meet the government’s ambitious targets through funded expansion of medical and health/social care placements and investment in teaching capacity, including support for digital innovation and simulation.
Commit support for clinical academic roles and career pathways that provide teaching and research capacity, and instil research-informed practice that is shown by evidence to improve patient outcomes, quality and safety.
Target support for whole-university approaches to the mental health and well-being of students and staff to build on the lifetime well-being gain for graduates, enhancing their resilience and health literacy.

Tackling climate change – see page 18
Culture and community – Support our creative economy by reviewing R&D definitions to ensure that these are not narrower than those of competitors, and do not neglect R&D in the UK’s internationally strong creative industries, which have been hit hard by Covid-19 measures.

Research news

The Minister writes: Amanda Solloway has written to Greg Clark (Chair of the Science and Technology Committee) on the stages of consultation and discussion the Government has taken in the development of the new ARPA style body. She also responded to the Committee’s questions on university research funding and Horizon Europe and alternatives.

Reforming the REF

Amanda Solloway spoke of reforming the REF in the Research Landscape speech for the Education Policy Institute webinar on Tuesday.

She said that the Government recognises the importance of science and innovation for the future and mentioned the commitment to increase public spending on R&D to £22 billion per year by 2024/25. On the Roadmap she said there was a duty to spend that money wisely so it can make the biggest difference possible. Key to this is evaluation… And evaluation can be a powerful incentive – and it can change behaviours. Through linking evaluation to funding, we have introduced policies intended to drive greater impact and openness from our research… But, if implemented in the wrong way, or in a way which doesn’t evolve, evaluation can drive negative behaviours. She said culture was at the root of the challenges with conducting research.

Key points:

Researchers tell me they feel pressure to publish in particular venues in order to gain the respect of their peers, which wrongly suggests that where you publish something is more important than what you say. That just can’t be right.
People talk to me about “REF-able publications” – a total distortion of the value of research and a constraint on the diversity of research objectives. Despite the rich variety of outputs that can come from research, over 97% of outputs submitted to REF 2014 were text-based. Just think about that. And it is surprising how commonplace it is to talk about the UK’s leading position in “citation impact” – an odd phrase, actually, which confuses a process with an outcome. Indeed, the processes researchers use to communicate with each other have now become so ingrained into the recognition and reward system that publication and citation seem to have become ends in themselves…. people feel pressured to show significant results from their work, to get it published, just to justify the effort and investment involved…This could be having a profound effect on the very integrity of science itself – leading to questionable research practices and evidence of a growing crisis in the reproducibility of research.
We have created this situation, in part because of the way we evaluate success.
Although intended for simple purposes, universities have turned the REF into a major industry, with rising costs and complexity. Lord Stern also commented on this, but I am not convinced that the changes introduced have gone far enough. There are now very few parts of academic life in the UK that are not affected in some way by the REF.
…a risk-averse compliance culture risks stifling creativity and diversity.
… we know that 4 in 10 surveyed researchers believe that their workplace puts more value on metrics than on research quality.
…it’s really important that I say clearly up front. I have absolutely no intention of disrupting the important work of the current REF. It is vital that this work continue as planned, delivering robust outcomes which will inform significant funding decisions over the coming years. And, perhaps even more importantly, we must protect our dual support system, which is a key strategic advantage for the UK research base.
However, we must be prepared to look to the future and ask ourselves how the REF can be evolved for the better, so that universities and funders work together to help build the research culture we all aspire to. We need to work together to build an evaluation system that achieves our goals.
- More quality time spent on research.
- A positive culture which recognises all contributions to research.
- A culture which motivates people to do diverse, creative and risk-taking work.
- Institutions improving in ways that align to their diverse missions.
- And clear accountability for public funding without layer upon layer of complex bureaucracy.
- We should not shy away from asking the tough questions.
- We need to be prepared to take bold decisions.
We need to consult widely… Culture change doesn’t happen overnight – and this is equally a conversation which we must not rush. I have today written to Research England to ask them to start working with their counterparts in the devolved administrations on a plan for reforming the REF after the current exercise is complete. Recognising the importance of protecting the current REF and valuing it. But being clear that we need to continue the journey towards building that better system we need.

Research Professional cover the speech here and Wonkhe pick apart the speech in a very short (and worthwhile) blog, read the comments too!

REF2021 – Research Professional have a piece on getting REF 20201 ‘done’.

Horizon Europe – Politico raises concerns of ‘long-term consequences’ if UK does not participate in Horizon Europe following a leaked scientist letter.

Funding News – Wonkhe tell us:

The Wellcome Trust has launched a new vision and strategy for the research they fund. Wellcome’s current funding schemes will close over the course of 2021, to be replaced by three new discovery research schemes. These will cover work done in the fields of mental health, global warming, and infectious disease. The exact closing date for specific schemes can be found on Wellcome’s website. Applications for the new schemes will open in summer 2021.
UKRI has announced details of support and facilities available to Natural Environment Research Council grant holders. This consists of specialised equipment, analytical facilities, and expert advice for researchers.

Race Equality: Advance HE have a short video by PhD student Daniel Akinbosede on race equality and why it is important for HE to mark black history month. He covers the research funding awarding gaps and he urges HE institutions to use Black History month to reassess their policies and processes rather than ‘just hosting a few cultural events’.

Prolific Publishing : Times Higher profile a gambling studies academic who publishes a paper every two days

EU / UK Research & Education: You can watch a session on the future UK-EU relationship on research and education. The Committee intends to address these questions during the session:

Should the UK seek third country affiliation with the EU’s Horizon Europe and Erasmus+ programmes at the end of the transition period?
What should the priorities be for future domestic research funding if the UK does not affiliate with Horizon Europe?
How might the lack of a positive data adequacy decision at the end of the transition period affect the UK’s research and education sector?
What would the impact of a ‘no agreement’ scenario be for UK universities and research bodies?
Are research and education organisations, including universities, research institutes and businesses, well prepared for a ‘no agreement’ scenario at the end of the transition period?

Answering the Committee’s questions will be:

Professor Sir Richard Catlow, Foreign Secretary and Vice President, Royal Society
Catherine Guinard, Policy and Advocacy Manager, Wellcome Trust
Hillary Gyebi-Ababio, Vice President for Higher Education, National Union of Students
Vivienne Stern, Director, Universities UK International.

Parliamentary Question: how much funding the Government plans to make available in grants during the second stage of the university covid-19 research support package that was announced in June 2020. Amanda Solloway answered: …it will depend on income losses which at this point remain unclear – each university’s allocation is the lower of 80% of losses in international student income or the value of non-public research funding.

Future International Research Partnerships: UUK published Future international partnerships: putting the UK at the heart of global research and innovation collaboration. They state it

…proposes a wide-ranging set of policy recommendations to enable UK universities to grow and diversify their international research and innovation collaborations. Specifically it sets out a clear plan for how the UK can expand and capitalise on researchers’ international links to attract talent and business investment from overseas.
Over the next decade, universities will pull their weight to ensure that the UK is able to meet global, national, regional and local needs…Universities…will be instrumental to make the government’s vision a reality through their international networks of excellent partners (Chapter 2) , their critical contribution to building innovation capacity in their local economy (Chapter 3) and their institutional partnerships with universities across the world (Chapter 4) provided that their role as global collaborators becomes a feature of the domestic system in the future (Chapter 1).
… However, this requires taking a strategic system view in which international connections are hardwired into the structure of the domestic funding system, rather than treated as an add-on or an afterthought

Recommendations for each area are peppered throughout the text and cover responsibilities for both Government and HE institutions.

Scottish Shake Up

Wonkhe succinctly report on a FE/HE review commencing in Scotland:

The first phase of what amounts to a major Scottish Funding Council review of the shape and scope of the HE and FE sectors hints at a unified funding model by level of provision, and a range of potential collaborations. The report – “Coherence and sustainability: a review of Scotland’s colleges and universities: phase one” – focuses on the “emergency period” of 2020-22, but recommendations are made with an ear to existing trends and likely future societal needs.
An associated financial projection highlights the varied impact of Covid-19 on sector providers. The report suggests a number of potential measures – including a cut in student numbers, consolidation of courses across providers, and “fee-only” places for providers that can afford to take the loss. Of interest around the UK will be potential measures to include regional demographic and economic skill demand data in planning and funding higher education. This first stage report follows a period of consultation with stakeholders – further such consultation will take place before the phase two report is released in February 2021.
The Times has an opinion piece from Anton Muscatelli, Principal of the University of Glasgow, which welcomes the review and calls on the universities of Scotland to work together.

And a blog: A Scottish Funding Council review is supportive of the sector as it stands, but ambitious in rethinking tertiary education post-Covid.

Petitions

Parliament’s Petitions Committee considers all e-petitions which achieve over 10,000 signatures. Decisions on all are here. Of most interest are:

Cancel GCSEs and A Levels in 2021: The Committee agreed to consider scheduling this petition for debate at a later point.
Lower university tuition fees for students until online teaching ends: The Committee agreed to debate this petition along with other petitions about tuition fees on 16 November.
Extend Tier-4 visas and waive third-term tuition fee for international students: The Committee noted the Government’s responses.

Modular learning

UUK have published a summary of results from a poll they commissioned with English adults aged 18-60 who were interested in future university study and either unemployed (or at risk) or wanting to up or re skill.

82% were keen to study individual modules of a degree and this would make them more likely to undertake university study. (Currently learners have to commit to 25% of full time equivalent to access financial support/loans.)
Earning whilst learning and maintaining a good work-life balance were important and the top benefits identified for modular learning.

UUK say these findings come as universities call for the introduction of loans for more flexible study, which would unlock opportunities for those with caring or work responsibilities.

Business management was the most popular subject individuals would select; engineering was second (a skills shortage area in industry), then teaching and nursing/allied healthcare
13% who were interested in university education said they were not likely to study part-time, but would consider modular study. UUK say this finding means that modular study has the potential to increase the number of people with high level skills in the UK
93% of those likely to undertake modular study, if loans were introduced, placed value on being able to gradually build up to a full qualification
Over one third of those unlikely to undertake modular study, even if loans were introduced, were concerned about repayment.

UUK say: The polling also revealed concerns over how financially accessible university study is, highlighting the need for a comprehensive government-funded national education campaign on student finance… The lack of clear information on the student finance system is holding back individuals of all ages that could benefit from higher education. Targeted maintenance support should also be explored to ensure flexible learning opportunities are truly open to everyone who would benefit.

UUK Chief Executive, Alistair Jarvis, said:

With one million more job losses forecast by the end of the year, it is more important than ever to boost people’s skills and maximise their job prospects in a flexible way.
The government should change the eligibility criteria for financial support for higher education to allow more people to benefit from access to shorter courses, and it should make information about the student finance system more accessible.
The recent announcement of a Lifetime Skills Guarantee is welcome, but it is not yet clear how much flexibility will be built into the system at undergraduate and postgraduate level.
Providing more people with the opportunity to upskill and retrain will be crucial to meeting the country’s skills needs, rebuilding the economy and levelling up.

Growth of HE by 2035

HEPI have published Demand for Higher Education to 2035 which considers the country’s changing demographics and participation rates. It finds that England will need an additional 350,000 more places, whilst Scotland will need fewer places despite increased participation in HE.

The report explains the findings:

In England –

if demography were the only factor, without any increase in participation, there would be an increase in demand of 40,000 full-time higher education places in England by 2035 due to rises in the 18-year old population;
if participation also increases in the next fifteen years at the same rate as the average of the last ten years, then this increases to a demand of 358,000 full time higher education places by 2035;
the greatest growth in demand will be seen in London and the South East, due to both demographic changes and patterns of participation. Our projections suggest that over 40% of demand for places will be in London and the South East.

In Scotland –

if demography were the only factor, without any increase in participation, there would be a decrease in demand of 18,000 full-time higher education places in Scotland by 2035 due to a decline in the 18-year old population;
if participation also increases in the next fifteen years at the same rate as the average of the last five years, then we can expect the decrease in demand to shrink to close to nil full-time higher education places by 2035;
these projections suggest Scotland will be able to accommodate a growth of participation in higher education without increasing student numbers, due to a decline in the 18-year old population.

This is ambivalent news for Scotland who are already struggling with the financial effects of Covid and the impact on their HE institutions. However, whilst expansion seems unlikely it means the cost to the Scottish Government is less. Wales isn’t covered by the report and Northern Ireland is expected to be similar to Scotland but precise calculations are not possible because of data comparisons would be inaccurate.

Although the report does cover how some in Government would like the student numbers cap on HE places to return it doesn’t really tackle the effect of the Government’s intention for technical education demand to increase, with a likely resulting shrinkage in traditional HE degree route. Although written for another topic Sarah likes the below by Wonkhe which summarises the Government direction:

Developing government rhetoric on “low-value” or “low-quality” courses in higher education seems to be evolving to address a concern that too many students do not progress into graduate jobs when they take those courses. The hope seems to be that creating more technical routes at levels four and five and – potentially – reducing the availability of degree-level courses that might cannibalise demand for these new routes will funnel at least some of those students in a more economically productive direction, as well as create new education opportunities for those who are less likely to progress to degree-level higher education…white working class young people…

Research Professional also make interesting comments in the same vein:

Previous incarnations of the Conservative government imagined that a growing demand for higher education in England would be met by the private sector. That was the whole point of the Higher Education and Research Act 2017, which sought to create favourable conditions for supply-side reform in higher education. That spirit seems to have been abandoned… The Johnson-Cummings-Williamson way seems to be to funnel that demand into further and technical education… the government is… listening to its skills tsar Alison Wolf. Wolf is a devotee of the eccentric notion that the UK’s productivity problem is the result of too many graduates working in non-graduate jobs, and that the cure is to boost the number of people with subdegree technical qualifications. Of course, the increased demand for higher education that Hepi identifies does not necessarily translate into a corresponding rise in graduate job opportunities, but it does reflect a competitive dynamic in the workforce whereby higher education is the perceived path to successful employment.
Wolf’s emphasis on technical education will not address the country’s productivity woes. It may, however, go some way to addressing the UK’s reliance on immigrant labour to fill technical vacancies in the labour market. The two things should not be confused.
UK productivity issues are not caused by its higher education participation rates but by the massive imbalance in the UK economy between services and manufacturing, the uncompetitiveness of sterling against currencies in emerging economies, and being slow out of the gates on the fourth industrial revolution. None of which can be solved by sending fewer people to university.

Returning back to the HEPI report…

However, while FE intentions and the growth of technical alternatives may direct young people aware from the traditional academic degree the HEPI report highlights how we are entering a global recession and that student numbers tend to increase during a recession as people choose to avoid entering an unstable labour market or look to retrain. On page 40 of the report HEPI also ponder a growth in mature numbers (again due to need to retrain and the intended flexibility in the loan system) and page 41 looks at the impact of Level 3 attainment increases and decreases on HE admissions. HEPI conclude that the growth in demand for English HE

should not make the higher education sector complacent. All these projections could be over-estimations if government policy were to change to restrict the number of students entering higher education. Assuming there is no significant change to the student loan charges and repayment terms, the projections set out in this report will be seen as a significant additional cost to the Government. The response to this could be to limit the overall numbers of students entering higher education by setting student number caps, limiting the provision of courses that are deemed ‘low value’ or by introducing minimum entry standards. All of these would limit the number of people able to enter higher education. It is likely that the effects of any of these changes would be felt most by those students from disadvantaged backgrounds. If we want to see all those who www.hepi.ac.uk 45 wish to enter higher education able to do so, we will need to continue to make the case to Government of why, now more than ever, continuing to educate our population to higher levels is so critical.

Rachel Hewitt, HEPI Director of Policy and Advocacy, said:

There have been declining numbers of 18-year olds in the population in recent years, which has impacted the way universities have operated. However, 2020 is the last year of this trend and universities are set to see a significant rise in student numbers over the next fifteen years. Among focusing on their recovery from the current pandemic, universities will need to consider how they can scale up to incorporate this level of demand. Government will also need to consider how to best prepare for this increased level of demand.
There are those who would like to see a cap on the number of students entering higher education. However, these projections show clearly that if trends in participation continue as in recent years, capping student numbers in England would deprive a growing group of students who will be looking to enter higher education, which would likely be detrimental to the push for greater equality of access to higher education.
Our projections suggest the greatest growth is likely to be seen in London and the South East, partly due to their existing higher levels of participation. If government is committed to levelling up across the country, perhaps the focus should be on the disparity of participation rates across England, rather than debating national targets.
For policymakers in Scotland, these projections suggest an easier path to tread…Scottish universities should be able to take on more students without having to expand the number of places available, limiting the cost to the Scottish Government.

Research Professional have their take on the HEPI report here.

Covid news

While the discussion of how to get students home for Christmas still hasn’t abated this weekend the media are asking whether – once the majority are back home – how feasible it is for students to return to campus in January. Guardian article here; BBC here.

Research Professional:…what happens when they all need to head back to their university campuses again. Can Covid Britain condone not one but two mass movements of people in the space of less than a month? We are already witnessing the fallout from just one student exodus

From the BBC article:

…options are under discussion about whether next term should be fully online – or maybe for the initial weeks – or for delayed or staggered starts, rather than risking triggering a fresh wave of campus outbreaks.
Students could “amplify” the spread of coronavirus, said the SAGE advice, and movement around the Christmas holidays posed “a significant risk to both extended families and local communities”.
Unlike the autumn term – when university starting dates in the UK are spread across about a month – the January return is much more concentrated. And it leaves the universities and the government with a decision about whether to press ahead with bringing students home and then straight back again, including across areas where travel is being discouraged – or finding a different way of starting the new term.
university leaders are pointing to the idea of a greatly expanded testing regime – and say privately that campus outbreaks seem to have peaked and are subsiding.

The BBC article also states decisions on the process for students who wish to return home for Christmas will be published next week (commencing 26 October). Among the issues to be clarified will be how, if in-person teaching stops in the week beginning 7 December, what would stop students disappearing home in the days before that, rather than remain confined for a fortnight’s isolation. They’re adults and it isn’t boarding school. The DfE is expected to publish a specific date that face to face tuition should cease by.

And whether students will even want to return is covered by the Guardian:

The growing fear, meanwhile, is that disillusioned students may simply drop out – a decision with consequences for the rest of their lives. Some struggling freshers have already fled, while others have quietly started commuting from home. Academics still teaching in person talk of lecture theatres emptying out, with students either self-isolating or too frightened to show up.
Boris Johnson has vowed to get students safely home for Christmas, but some in academia are beginning to worry more about getting them back in January. What if some decide they’d rather not risk getting trapped in locked-down cities once again? Before long, the government may be forced once again to choose between pumping more cash into universities or trying to craft a solution on the cheap. Let’s hope this time it doesn’t fail the test.

Wales: Welsh universities will continue to deliver blended learning during the two week fire-break lockdown. It has been stated that it is safer for students to remain on campus during the firebreak and to avoid travelling home.

Covid Cases: Wonkhe have a very short analysis.

It states: This…is not an absolutely reliable indicator – but it does look like the days of extremely rapidly growing case numbers among students might be behind us…Universities have been particularly good at testing, and fairly good at managing student self-isolation…What we don’t know…is the number of symptomatic cases, or the severity of those cases.
None of this is to downplay the huge number of cases in student-heavy MSOAs, or the utter foolishness of bring students back to campus this term. We need to think about next term very carefully…We are by no means leaving the second wave, though the student-based initial spike may be coming to an end.

The Times also reports a slow down in young case numbers.

Covid related parliamentary questions

Whether the Government have formed a COVID-19 response University stakeholder advisory group; and if not, why not.
Limiting the charges universities can make on students
Training for university students to help them access their online tuition
What compensation is available to university students who have their online tuition cancelled
Steps to ensure students have access to digital and online learning during Covid-19
Emma Hardy, Shadow Universities Minister, asks when the plans for safe return of students home from universities at the end of the autumn term will be published
Steps to increase C-19 testing capacity and reduce wait times for students and staff at universities

Student Complaints

The Welsh move has reinvigorated media debate concerning whether all HE teaching should be online or face to face continue where it is essential. We’ve all been around this discussion wheel many times now. Research Professional bring it up again and highlight that an (unnamed) Vice Chancellor has sensibly said [That] there were three main reasons to keep in-person teaching going:

universities have worked hard to make campuses and classrooms Covid-secure;
depriving students of face-to-face teaching could exacerbate mental health problems; and
putting all teaching online could lead to the risk of students moving around the country and spreading the virus.

And Research Professional (RP) add (you’re allowed to sigh here): A fourth consideration not mentioned by the vice-chancellor could be the need to deliver what was advertised and avoid complaints—and more calls for tuition fee refunds. They mention the new OfS intention to monitor universities with significant numbers of students being required to take all their courses online and the pre-pandemic strike action.

In addition, RP made freedom of information requests to research-intensive universities finding that during lockdown the number of complaints about teaching or course…grew in 2020 compared with the same period in 2019. RP continues: At King’s College London, for example, complaints rocketed from 17 in 2019 to 567 in 2020. Cardiff’s response to the FOI request sums it up: the past two years had been “some of the most difficult for our students and their university experience”. While the spokesperson pointed out that the “vast majority” of Cardiff’s 30,000 students had not complained, the university recognised that there had been a “disappointing” increase in complaints… The cumulative impact of two periods of industrial action on some, and the current global pandemic, have presented unprecedented challenges and impacted on the delivery of teaching and learning.

What is interesting to note is that quite a volume of complaints relate to the strikes rather than the vast majority on Covid related online teaching and learning, as the media would have us believe. And RP highlight that Not all universities that responded to our request reported a rise in complaints, and not all complaints will translate into requests for tuition fee refunds. Anyone who has ever written an online review knows that the act of complaining can be cathartic enough. If you have the will you can read more from RP on complaints here.

The Guardian have an article too capturing the student voice amongst the reporting.

Research Professional highlight the parental role in student complaints:

Beware, too, the wrath of the helicopter parent.
“In Facebook groups and WhatsApp circles, parents furious that their children are racking up debt in order to be banged up in Covid-riddled halls of residence are beginning to organise,” Hinsliff wrote in her Guardian op-ed. “One group of parents, using the hashtag #Fees4What, has started an online petition urging parity with Scotland, where students have the right to end university tenancy agreements early owing to Covid; others are plotting legal challenges.”
Playbook has followed the threat of mass student actions closely, as you will know. We have spent less time considering the possibility of parents and guardians mobilising to bring legal action against a provider. It is a scary thought.

Smita Jamdar writes for Research Professional to suggest how universities can mitigate the risk of student demands for refunds. Smita writes:

routes are available to students to secure what are, in effect, partial or full refunds—but to do so, they would have to identify specific assurances and promises made by institutions that had not been fulfilled, or alternatively show that the service they received was not of a reasonable standard.

Smita suggests that To mitigate the risk of claims universities can:

Ensure that information for students and prospective students is accurate and up to date
Changes to provision and services should be kept under review to ensure that wherever possible, the impact on students is continually monitored and appropriate remedial action is taken as promptly as possible. Particular attention should be paid to those courses and students where the risk of adverse impact is especially high: practical and laboratory-based courses and students with disabilities, for example. Communication of changes needs to be accurate, clear and regular.
Universities should comply with the provisions of any force majeure clause carefully. There may be obligations to give notice or to consult students that must be discharged or the clause may not be enforceable.
Low-level complaints and social media storms can be useful indicators of where future legal claims may lie, and institutions should ensure that quick action can be taken in response to emerging problems. It may be helpful to have an escalation process that ensures problem areas within specific schools and faculties are logged at a central point, which considers whether there are lessons for the wider institution.
introducing a bespoke, simplified complaints process, so that every effort can be made to address complaints without the need for external consideration…This should be accompanied by clear guidance for decision-makers so that there is a consistent position across complaints, and consistency of findings and outcomes, without the different facts and circumstances of each case being overlooked.

Wonkhe have a guest blog on fee refunds urging universities to explain things better.

Access & Participation

White Working Class: Following last week’s NEON publication Wonkhe have a blog on not treating white working class as a homogenous group.

…exactly who are we talking about? Are we all talking about the same group when we discuss the white working class?
Any comparison between ethnic groups has to grapple with the fact that the white working class far outnumbers any other ethnic group. And they live all over the country, from deprived fishing villages in Devon, rusting seaside resorts on the Essex coast, former pit villages in Cumbria, and on council estates in Toxteth, Kilmarnock, Aberdare, or Romford.
These structural questions, about who lives where, with what infrastructure, and what opportunities, these are the things that come to mind when I think about what my chances of getting in higher education were.
I have no doubt that most who use the term mean well, just as I know that there are many people across the UK who find that the term suits them well. But if we’re going to solve the issue of so few white working class boys and girls entering higher education, then we need to be more precise and engage with the country as it exists.
Britain is still a country shaped by wealth and class. The way we start to fix that is by looking seriously at how working class people actually live, and that begins by talking to us, not just about us.

There is a great comment to the blog which highlights that the past measures of social class were withdrawn and there hasn’t been a replacement:

A big issue is that there is virtually no official data on social class collected and reported on meaning that we are stuck with poor proxies such as free school meal eligibility or living in a disadvantaged area. The first narrows the debate a lot – it confuses being from a working-class background with being in poverty and so only includes a sub-set of people from working-class backgrounds. The second captures a lot of people from advantaged backgrounds and, for POLAR and similar measures, ignores ethnically diverse working-class areas including (virtually) the whole of London and large parts of other cities.
HE data by social class used to [be] reported until HEFCE decided to abolish it a few years ago despite the pleas of the Social Mobility Commission on the basis that data quality was poor (I think it’s still collected though – just not available publicly). The planned replacement measures appear to have been canned, meaning we’re left with two measures of disadvantage, neither of which are good proxies of coming from a working-class background: going to a state school and living in POLAR/TUNDRA Q1…
This lack of data needs to be resolved…[if] the UK Government wants to get serious about tackling the inequalities faced by those from white working-class backgrounds. Enacting Section 1 of the Equalities Act 2010 to impose a duty on public bodies to “when making decisions of a strategic nature about how to exercise its functions, have due regard to the desirability of exercising them in a way that is designed to reduce the inequalities of outcome which result from socio-economic disadvantage” would also help – it’s been lying around on the statute book for over a decade now…

Recycling spending again and again: Wonkhe have a blog – Jim Dickinson took to Wonk Corner yesterday to count the number of times that DfE has reallocated £256m of Student Premium Funding since the start of the pandemic. It’s a lot.

Education: Equality of Opportunity: An oral question within the Commons on ensuring equality of opportunity in education took place this week.

Michelle Donelan (Universities Minister): … talent is equally distributed, but opportunity is not. This Government have made it our mission to rectify that, and equality of opportunity lies at the heart of the work by the Department for Education, including opportunity areas, access to higher education work and reforms to further education such as the flagship T-levels. We recognise that education has an unparalleled ability to create and unlock opportunities across the nation.

White working class, the levelling up agenda, and raising school standards were also mentioned.

Parliamentary Questions

Care leavers (not specifically HE related) – what proportion of funding available to young people leaving care announced in 2019 has been allocated to initiatives which provide dedicated support for girls and young women as a named group; and what steps he is taking to monitor and evaluate the effect of that funding on girls and young women leaving care and experiencing poor mental health. The answer talks about a pilot scheme for certain groups.
Supporting care leavers and estranged students during C-19.
Secondary school careers advice and effect on social mobility (again not specifically HE related). Also a question on whether there are plans to incorporate the monitoring of the quality of careers advice in schools into the OFSTED inspection process.

Gaps: Advance HE have published their annual analysis of students by equalities characteristics LINK. Wonkhe have a blog by Advance HE introducing the key points. Numbers of students with declared disabilities have more than doubled since 2003-04, and the participation gap between the genders continues to increase. The blog also highlights that at the current rate of progress the awarding gap between white and BAME students would not close until 2070-71, and that between white and black students until 2085-86.

SEN: A parliamentary question on when the Government expect to publish the outcome of their review of support for children with special educational needs and disabilities. The answer should pop up on this link from 3 November onwards.

Non-continuation

There has been speculation whether the difficult study circumstances in 2020/21 will lead to an increase in the student drop out rate. Students who leave university within (roughly) four weeks of first commencing are not liable for their tuition fee loan. This week Wonkhe have been talking about the official measures – the Higher Education Statistics Agency’s UK Performance Indicator on non-continuation – which captures data on students who leave more than 50 days after the start of their course (but not before). This leaves a hole round about days 28-50 where student drop out is not monitored nationally. Wonkhe state:

So even in three years’ time, when this data is released, we will never know exactly what happened at the start of the autumn 2020 term. Another unknown and unknowable number is of the students who enrolled and never turned up, or that left within two weeks…In 2020, an empty room in a hall or an unanswered Zoom call might be the only indication that something has gone wrong.

Wonkhe have a blog cobbling together a data source to show attrition. On non-continuation they highlight that it is often a drawn out withdrawal:

When a student “leaves” higher education they tend not to make a sudden decision and then immediately notify everyone that needs to know. The process is best understood as a gradual disengagement. A student may stop attending lectures first of all, or find themselves unable to continue to support themselves financially, or find themselves with other responsibilities and other constraints that stop them being able to participate.

International & Mobility

The DfE updated guidance on UK students intending to study in the EU after the transition period. The information relates to those who are planning to study in the EU, and those who are continuing their studies in the EU. The links also contain information on travel insurance, making changes to Erasmus+ placements and support when students are abroad.

Exceptional Circumstances

SUMS Consulting published a short briefing paper: Crystal Ball Gazing: What is the Future for Handling Exceptional Circumstances? Highlighting the changes that were made to exceptional circumstance policies to account for the pandemic disruption but also addressing the exponential increase in the volume of requests for exceptional circumstances in recent years. There is more content here. The paper concludes:

The combination of Covid-19 and the learnings from the last few months have led many universities to significantly change their approach to exceptional circumstances. Over the next few months, it is inevitable that further adaptions may be required to accommodate events such as local lockdowns or students being sent home. There is a move to divert resources from approaches that add little value, to those that benefit the student. Universities are adapting their evidence requirements, introducing self-certification and focusing on consistency across academic disciplines. The OIA is due to publish the final version its Good Practice Framework later this year, and there is no doubt that this too will incorporate many of the lessons from universities in operating the process during Covid-19. The pandemic has accelerated the rate of change in so many aspects of university life – the exceptional circumstances process is proving to be no different.
In thinking about their exceptional circumstances process this year, universities may wish to consider:
How coherent is your overall policy framework? When were related policies last updated?
How recently have you reviewed the evidence required to support exceptional circumstances?
How recently have you reviewed the list of examples of circumstances that are likely to be accepted and those that are likely to be excluded?
How do you ensure that there is consistency and equity in determining exceptional circumstances across different disciplines and academic units?
Have you decided whether to introduce self-certification with safeguards, if you have not already taken this step?
Analysing your data over an academic year in the way that UWE has done, to discover the impact of your present process.
Whether or not your existing processes are inclusive?

Young unemployment

The Alliance for Full Employment (AFFE) have published Youth Report: A Million Reasons to Act on the impact of the pandemic on young people’s employment prospects. Under-25s suffered 60% of the post-March redundancies, and male youth unemployment is at 16%, more than three times the UK adult rate. They call on the Government to convene a jobs summit of UK nations and regions to address to impending issue.

The report also states that Kickstart, the Government’s main youth unemployment programme, will not provide anywhere near enough places for those in need of support. The report estimates that over 1m young people will be unemployed by November, and are likely to “fall through the net.”

They identify four new groups who will require the Government’s attention and help as we head into winter:

Many of this summer’s 500,000 school college and university leavers
Young people who lose their jobs on or before October 31as a result of Covid, as furlough ends
Young people in partial lockdown areas where businesses are closed down and where young employees not eligible for furlough are being laid off
Young people made unemployed because of the general turnover of staff, which is highest among the young, and including those on temporary contracts, who will now struggle to get new opportunities.

The report, which features a foreword by former PM Gordon Brown, recommends the following priorities for the Government:

Provision of quality work experience – not a return to the Youth Opportunity Programmes (YOPs) or Youth Training Schemes of the 1980s
Training geared to new jobs, like in care sector It and logistics, jobs linked to the recovery from lab technicians and contact tracers, to care worker and teaching assistant not training for continued unemployment.
Help with job searches – a vital element of getting into work, as demonstrated by the 2009 Future Jobs Fund.
A wage subsidy in the order of a £100 a week for six months for employers to take a young person on full-time.

Prof. Gregg (author) concludes: The recession in the UK has only just started, in terms of the impact on jobs, consumer confidence and firm planning. Yet because firm profitability was already low and the trading block under Lockdown, the wave of job losses will be incredibly condensed and intense between now and next April. This means that the need for getting intervention on the ground is urgent and hard to get to scale in time.

The Guardian cover the above report and report on a call from former PM Gordon Brown for employers to be given a wage subsidy of £100 a week to hire workers under 25 as part of a plan to prevent youth unemployment exceeding levels seen in the 1980s.

Graduate unemployment was also mentioned in this week’s Department for Work and Pensions topical questions:

Q- Tim Loughton (Con): With forecasts showing that there may be as many as 1 million young people without a job, I urge the Minister to think outside the box. I have long argued that we should use graduates and gap-year students to help some of those pupils who have missed out on schooling to catch up. Can we devise, with the Department for Education, a scheme to pay them a variation of JSA to provide such a service, or at least offer greater flexibility for claimants who volunteer to help in such a way or to take the pressure off other public services?

A – Dr Coffey: One element of the kickstart scheme, a £2 billion investment in the future of our young people, is designed to help people to get on the first rung of the ladder with a proper job. It is a way for those people who have recently left school or university and are at risk of long-term unemployment to get experience and financing, which does not just have to be through private organisations and could be through local government or charitable or other sectors. It is a specific way to ensure that those people get not only a job but the extra training and wraparound support that they need to help them further on in their lives.

PQs

As we’re on a break next week some of the parliamentary questions cover the two week period, you may have to check back on them in early November to see the response.

HE sector

What steps the Government is taking to increase the accessibility of counselling and support services for HE students.
Introducing an immigration checking service for Student Finance to check student eligibility similar to that of the employer checking service. (Answer: the SLC already ask the Home Office for this information when necessary.)
What steps the Government is taking to ensure that jobs involving recruiting, retaining and supporting students in their studies are protected in higher education (answer: nothing additional to the national schemes)
The Erasmus replacement questions have started up again here is one example
Deferrals
Gender diversity: what assessment the Government has made of the potential effect on gender diversity of university (a) students and (b) teaching now Silver Award of the Athena SWAN charter for Women in Science is not required. And: what steps the Government is taking to assess the effectiveness of UK research bodies and university departments in working to and achieving gender diversity.
HNC & HND student loan uptake (2017-2019)

Inquiries and Consultations

Click here to view the updated inquiries and consultation tracker. Email us on policy@bournemouth.ac.uk if you’d like to contribute to any of the current consultations.

Other news

Shadow Education Secretary – Kate Green has been in post as the Shadow Education Secretary for 3 months already. There is a good background and profile on her in Schools Week which suggests she is committed to slower policy making with sufficient time for research and evidence based formulation.

Historic Statues: Colleagues following the debate surrounding the removal of historic statues may be interested in this Lords discussion on the topic. It is not specifically HE or education focussed, although the matters covered do have some application.

Groceries: While it isn’t policy news, if you were interested in the reasons behind the price increases for your food shopping during lockdown the Institute for Fiscal Studies have a paper on it. In short: less promotions were available and there was a reduction in product variety. They’re unsure if the autumn restrictions will see the return of grocery inflation.

HE numbers: The House of Commons Library has published a research briefing on HE numbers. It finds that: Headline student numbers have increased to new records following a short dip after to the 2012 reforms. There are however ongoing concerns about numbers outside this group where trends have not been so positive, including part-time undergraduates, some postgraduates students, overseas students from some countries, especially Nigeria and Malaysia, mature students and some disadvantaged groups. There is also considerable concern about the impact of the coronavirus pandemic and student numbers, particularly those from overseas and uncertainty about the impact of Brexit on EU student numbers.

Physics: The Institute of Physics is railing against the limiting words of others which are influencing young people from continuing to study physics post-16. Report here.

many young people who want to pursue physics to improve their future are being denied the opportunity by those whose opinions they trust.
many young people are put off studying physics from age 16 by misconceptions about what physics is
They are told “physics is too difficult”, “it’s not creative” or “it’s boring”… They are told that physics is not for the likes of them based on their ethnicity, their sexual orientation, their disability and their social background.

People of Black Caribbean descent: In England, young people of Black Caribbean descent represent the ethnic group least likely to pursue physics post-16, with only 0.5% choosing to study physics A-Level despite making up 1.4% of all young people in England aged 16 – 19.
People from poorer backgrounds: Young people from poorer backgrounds are much less likely to study physics than peers from wealthier backgrounds. In England, only 2.7% of students from the most deprived backgrounds choose physics post-16 compared to 8.1% of the least deprived.
Girls: Latest figures show that girls are far less likely than boys to choose to study physics post-16. In 2020, physics was the second most popular A-level subject for boys in England and Wales and the fifth most popular in Northern Ireland. In 2019, only 3.59% (1,869) of girls in the Republic of Ireland chose Leaving Certificate physics, compared to 9.91% (5,884) of boys.
People with disabilities: According to the Higher Education Statistics Agency, in 2017/18, 13% of physics undergraduates in the UK had a known disability, much lower than the percentage for all working age adults (19%).

Recess

The House of Commons enters recess next week and the policy update will take a break. We’ll be back on 6 November.

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March 9, 2020

HE Policy Update for the w/e 6th March 2020

EU, innovation, international, policy, Research news jforster

Pre-budget week has been as we’d typically expect with organisations releasing a hoard of reports, evidence and lobbying papers aiming to influence Government funding decisions. We’ve summarised the main reports and added links for the reports which say similar things. Graduate outcomes and apprenticeships& technical education were the loudest shouters, and this week also saw University Mental Health day and the beginning of British Science Week.

Select Committees

All but one of the select committees has now confirmed their MP membership. You can see the members and brief details on the role and future outlook of the committees most relevant to BU in our committee special edition here.

Immigration

The Immigration Bill has now been published. Dods report that the Office for Budget Responsibility is preparing to downgrade the UK’s economic growth prospects in next week’s budget because of the country’s proposed post-Brexit “points” based immigration model. The OBR will forecast that a smaller population will lead to lower economic growth and detriment public finances, restricting the new Chancellor’s abilities to spend more money on key public services such as the NHS as well as the Government’s wider programme to “level up” the economy.

The economic impact of the new immigration system has led to tensions between the Treasury and Number 10 Downing Street. The Treasury favours a looser migration regime, without a cliff edge at the end of 2020, when the Brexit transition period ends.

Importantly, a reduction in migration rates have little to no effect on living standards because while economic growth might slow overall, gross domestic product per person was remain unchanged. The Migration Advisory Committee estimated a rise in GDP per person but added that this was very uncertain.

Science

Gavin Williamson and Business SoS Alok Sharma announced £179 million funding package for science, maths and engineering on Friday (which is the first day of British Science Week):

£179 million for PhDs (up to 2,200 students) within the 40+ UK universities in Doctoral Training Partnership institutions. Students will commence 2020 and 2021 academic years within the subject areas of physical sciences, maths and engineering to develop the skills for ground-breaking research and high-tech industries like cyber security and chemical manufacturing. Part of the investment will go into pilots looking at how best to attract and support those from non-academic backgrounds to undertake this type of training.
Encourage more young people, particularly girls, to study STEM subjects at school and university, and pursue a STEM-related career.
£8.9 million to continue funding science education programmes including Science Learning Partnerships and Stimulating Physics Networks, which aim to improve science teaching and increase the take up of science at GCSE level and A level and ultimately encourage young people to pursue a STEM-related career.

And on Thursday the PM hosted the Council for Science and Technology at Downing Street. The Council is comprised of senior science civil servant officials, the VC of Manchester University and attended by the Science Minister (Amanda Solloway). It advises the PM on science and technology policy matters. The official account of the meeting states the PM set out his priorities for science, research and innovation; championed science as a key part of his levelling up agenda, and emphasised the role of scientists in tackling the policy challenges of the coming decades. He challenged the Council to define their “moon-shots” for UK science, their ideas for where the UK should aim high, for example across healthcare, transport, energy and robotics. He restated the government’s pledge to invest in science and significantly boost R&D funding.

Ex-Universities Minister Chris Skidmore has two articles in TES: UK Universities must embrace the future and Skidmore rejects ‘university-bashing’ and urges funding stability. The first looks at the Universities Minister role and Chris reflects on what he achieved and his approach to the role:

I arrived with a mission. Put simply, I felt that I had to try to steer the relationship between government and the sector into a better place. No more university-bashing for the sake of a few cheap headlines. What would be the point?
Of course, that still means challenging the sector to do even better, but with a change in approach and a change of tone, I knew that I was more likely to enact real change, to encourage reform and to work productively on actual solutions, rather than simply sending out press releases calling for them.
… So much good work is already taking place – one of my rules for every speech I made was to highlight best practice
I wish my successors, both in universities and science, the very best. They have an opportunity to fashion and lead an exciting agenda that is at the centre of the prime minister’s vision. Of course I would have loved to have been part of this, but I hope I have played my small part in helping to steer the sector through a difficult year and helping it recognise the huge opportunities that can lie ahead – if the initiative is seized, and university leaders are prepared to tell a positive, forward-facing narrative, rather than being always on the defensive.
Universities are not part of the problem, they are part of the solution. We need to hear more of that message, and I, for one, will continue to do everything I can to make sure that it is voiced – and heard.

Graduate Premium

The Institute for Fiscal Studies and DfE have published The impact of undergraduate degrees on lifetime earnings. It paints a mixed picture confirming and quantifying the graduate premium across the lifespan for today’s workforce. It also digs down into the variables highlighting the effects that current age/life stage, gender, programme choice, and institutional status have on pay levels. There has been lots of media interest alongside the Government’s keen focus on the value for money agenda. Plus some acknowledgement of the other personal benefits from studying at HE level, particularly in light of the headline grabber of male creative arts graduates who experience a negative financial return.

“while about 80% of students are likely to gain financially from attending university, we estimate that one in five students – or about 70,000 every year – would actually have been better off financially had they not gone to university.
… Other personal and social benefits may be as or more important. We also only consider the effect of each student’s choices on their ownearnings holding constant the choices of others”
Median earnings of male graduates grow strongly throughout their 30s, and this earnings growth far outstrips that of non-graduates. For male graduates who were 30 in 2016, we predict earnings to rise by £15k from age 30 to age 40, compared with a rise of just £5k in the median earnings of non-graduate men. The gap in median earnings between graduate and non-graduate men continues to grow strongly until individuals’ mid-40s.
Median earnings growth for female graduates in their 30s is moderate, but still higher than that of non-graduates. We predict median real earnings of female graduates who were 30 in 2016 to rise by around £5k from age 30 to age 40, compared with no growth for non-graduate women. Among degree subjects, law and medicine stand out in that their female graduates do see large growth in median earnings between ages 35 and 40.
Accordingly, the causal effect of undergraduate degrees on earnings grows after age 30 for both men and women, but much more strongly for men. Average pre-tax returns for men at a given age increase from around 5% on average at age 30 to more than 30% on average at age 40, after which they increase more slowly to reach around 35% from age 50. For women, average pre-tax returns increase from around 25% at age 30 to more than 40% at age 40, but then fall again to between 30% and 35% at ages 50 and 60.
The average lifetime earnings gain from undergraduate degrees is substantial for both men and women, but much smaller than the difference between the gross earnings of graduates and non-graduates. The discounted difference in lifetime earnings between graduates and non-graduates is £430k for men and £260k for women. Once we account for differences in characteristics between those who do and do not attend HE, we obtain a discounted lifetime increase in gross earnings of £240k for men and £ 140k for women as a result of attending HE.
The average gain in net lifetime earnings is even smaller due to the progressivity of the tax system. Once taxes and student loans have been taken into account, the earnings premium declines to around £130k for men and £100k for women (£350k and £230k with no discounting). In percentage terms, this represents a gain in average net lifetime earnings of around 20% for both men and women.
The subject studied at university is hugely important. Net discounted lifetime returns for women are close to zero on average for creative arts and languages graduates, but more than £250k for law, economics or medicine. Men studying creative arts have negative financial returns, while men studying medicine or economics have average returns of more than half a million pounds.
However, studying a subject with high average returns is no guarantee of high returns. While average returns to law and economics are high, many students will see much lower benefits from studying those subjects, and a few will see much higher returns. In contrast, subjects such as education and nursing do not have very high returns on average, but women who study these subjects almost universally achieve positive returns.
Overall, we expect 85% of women and around three-quarters of men to achieve positive net lifetime returns. This means that around one in five undergraduates would have been better off financially had they not gone to university. At the other end of the spectrum, the 10% of graduates with the highest returns will on average gain more than half a million pounds in discounted present value terms.
Financing undergraduate degrees is expensive for the taxpayer, but on average increased tax revenues more than make up for it. Overall, we estimate that the expected gain to the exchequer of an individual enrolling in an undergraduate course is around £110k per student for men and £30k per student for women.
However, these gains are driven mainly by the highest-earning graduates. We expect the exchequer to gain more than half a million pounds on average from the 10% of graduates with the highest exchequer returns, but to make a loss on the degrees of around 40% of men and half of women. This means that nearly half of all students receive a net government subsidy for their degrees, even after tax and National Insurance payments have been taken into account. The selectivity of the institution has an influence too:

Michelle Donelan (Universities Minister) writes for the Telegraph – Universities minister announces crackdown on ‘low quality’ courses. The below excerpts are interesting because they seem to suggest the Minister gets the point that earnings aren’t everything, and that low quality means poor teaching [measured somehow] AND relatively low returns for graduates (compared to other courses at other universities in the same subject that have higher earnings). Hopefully it also means ‘adjusted for background and prior attainment’!

We know that medicine and law, for example, will generally lead to higher earnings than languages but that does not mean to say that one degree is better than another. Its value extends far beyond what anyone is likely to earn during their lifetime and is merely one of the things to add to the mix when planning this stage of your life.
There will always be some courses which do not lead to increased earnings for graduates. Value is relative and for many people their degree will lead to an immensely rewarding career even though the financial returns may be lower and society as a whole is the better for it.
What concerns me most are those courses that deliver neither the high-quality teaching students deserve, nor the value for money that they and the taxpayer rightly expect. In some subjects there is a very high variability in returns depending on where that subject is studied, which students need to be aware of.
This is one of the reasons why we created a new regulator, the Office for Students, to make sure standards throughout the sector can stand comparison with the best in the world. I fully back the regulator to step in and use its powers where providers are falling short, and am determined to crack down on low-quality courses. They do nothing for the reputation of universities and they will do even less for students who sign up for them.
And for those universities who are providing a world-class education, I expect them to continue offering a world-class experience. The time spent at university will help shape an individual, adding layers to their character through independence, knowledge, experiences and friendships – and no amount of data crunching can put a figure on that.

HEPI – Careers Service view on Graduate Outcomes driving institutional change

The Higher Education Policy Institute has also published a graduate outcome related report although this one contemplates change from a different angle. Getting on: graduate employment and its influence on UK HE is a more discursive paper addressing whether recent years’ policy changes (TEF and the new Graduate Outcomes survey accompanied by the tracking of graduate salary data through LEO) has changed the nature of HE institutions. It examines the sector by drawing on the views of Heads of Careers Services via the Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services survey. Key points:

76% of careers services have seen a change in student engagement with careers in the last three years (24% no change).
93% of careers services see the increased policy focus on graduate outcomes as positive (2% negative; 5% neither positive nor negative).
The new Graduate Outcomes survey and the OfS Access and Participation plans are having the greatest impact on how careers services operate, rather than graduate salary data.

69% say Graduate Outcomes has the most impact
19% say Access and Participation plans has the most impact.
2% say the LEO (Longitudinal Educational Outcomes data) has the greatest impact.

45% of careers services have seen an increase in funding to cover additional demand on their services; 55% haven’t.
The report also covers qualitative analysis of the views of careers services, including how they, their university and students classify a successful outcome from university.

Rachel Hewitt (report author), HEPI, said: ‘Policy changes in recent years have led to employability being a mainstream activity across all universities, rather than the specialism of a few. While some may rail against the ’employability agenda’, it is clear that universities are now better serving the interests of their students by supporting them through their transition into the workplace.’

Responding to the HEPI report NUS (Claire Sosienski Smith, NUS Vice President for HE) said:

“The focus on employability and graduate outcomes is not having a positive effect on students. We see this through the increased levels of stress and anxiety that they experience. Since the tripling of tuition fees, the burden of debt hangs heavily over students entering higher education and this explains why there is a greater focus among some on their future careers. As careers services have received more funding it is a natural step that they will see more use from students.
But this change in focus shifts attention from many of the most important benefits of studying and the transformative nature of education. Graduate outcomes is a reductive measure for whether someone has had a perceived ‘successful’ education and the report highlights the disparities between the measures institutions and students care most about.
It would be more insightful to look at the impact the focus on employability has had on students and their wellbeing.”

Part time study

Ahead of the budget UUK have written to ministers to urge them to reconsider the cut off points for part time learners to access student finance. The current restrictions are that students must study at least 25% of a full time equivalent per year and must commit to an approved qualification up front. Changes to these requirements would allow fractional learners to engage with HE level study in smaller bite sized chunks. UUK argue this would encourage more learners to engage or reskill, including those with commitments such as caring responsibilities or disabilities. Previous UUK publication Lost Learners (2018) highlights the three main reasons potential students chose not to enrol are:

44% unable to afford tuition fees
42% cannot afford the cost of living whilst studying
26% course is not flexible enough to fit alongside their other life commitments

The Augar Review also highlights that having to study at 25% intensity and follow a specified qualification has been a major factor in the decline of part-time adult study. The Learning and Work Institute state that adult learning participation is as a 23 year low point with participation fallen to a record low the last three years in a row.

UUK call on the Government to run a pilot scheme targeting funding at communities with skills shortages. Alistair Jarvis, Chief Executive of UUK, said:

We know this government is committed to investment in regional economies and to helping people of all ages and backgrounds to reskill and retrain. Universities have an important role to play in that, but the current system counts against many would-be learners by restricting access to the financial support they need to develop their skills. There should be more than one accepted path to progress in higher education, to recognise that aspiring students of all ages have different circumstances and different needs.
It is time for universities and government to work together on bold new ideas to resolve the long-term skills challenges of our changing economy. Breaking down barriers to studying shorter courses would not only help students to build-up qualifications over time but boost productivity across diverse regions, target local skills needs and support economic and social regeneration.

Technical Education

Degree Apprenticeships

Education Secretary of State, Gavin Williamson, has written to the Institute of Apprenticeships and Technical Education to ask them to review their approval for a level 7 apprenticeship which includes an MBA or other masters level qualification in management. The DfE state:

In his letter, the Secretary of State reiterated his determination to ensure levy funds are used to support the people that can benefit most from an apprenticeship, such as those starting out in their careers or those from disadvantaged backgrounds, rather than paying for staff who already have a degree and are highly qualified to receive an MBA.

You’ll recall when Theresa May’s Government set out to reinvent technical education there was a big push for degree apprenticeships. Universities were urged to embrace and offer the qualifications in areas which served local or national industrial and economic priorities. Meanwhile the Government’s introduction of the apprenticeship levy was unsuccessful and instead of improving quality and opportunity it resulted in declining levels of new starts, amid reports of some apprenticeship providers gaming the system. Overall the profile of apprenticeship provision changed as the higher and degree level apprenticeships took off. The Government became concerned that the cost of the higher level provision was significant alongside the reduction in availability or lower numbers of level 2 and 3 apprenticeship starts. Gavin’s letter represents the Government trying to regain control over the apprenticeship system. They still want degree level provision within the genuine apprenticeship form and we may see either Government or the Institute tightening control over the programme areas in the future. Requiring the qualification to be an essential regulatory or professional requirement also provides the Government with wriggle room. Here is an excerpt from Gavin’s letter:

I am absolutely determined to make sure levy funds are being used to support the people that can benefit most from an apprenticeship, such as those starting out in their careers or helping more people from disadvantaged backgrounds to get ahead, and that we ensure good value for money in the apprenticeships offer…In that context, [I] am unconvinced that having an apprenticeship standard that includes an MBA paid for by the levy is in the spirit of our reformed apprenticeships or provides value for money. I question whether an MBA is an essential regulatory or professional requirement to work in this field…I am of the view that we absolutely need to safeguard the integrity of the apprenticeship brand and value for money of the levy.

Investing in Higher Technical Education

Millionplus published Levelling up: investing in higher technical education at universities in England this week . Amongst the content it covers the same argument as UUK above – that the lack of financial support for part time students and the introduction of higher tuition fees have resulted in a reduction of Level 4 and 5 study. Dods go into detail on why level 4 and 5 technical education has declined:

In 2008 support for Equivalent and Lower Qualifications were withdrawn, barring students who had previously experienced higher education funding from studying programmes to support retraining or for re-entering the workforce
The long-term impact of the 2008 financial crash on the training budgets of public and private sector employers also contributed to the sharp decline in higher technical education.
The level of provision has been declining since 2008, with a sharp drop taking place after the 2012 university fee changes in England introduced by the then coalition government.
The government has, through the Sainsbury Review and the introduction of the 15 [T level, technical] routes, recognised that this area of education needs a new focus and targeted attention. However, those reforms are not going to be enough.

In Scotland, there is a much greater level of integration between bachelor and sub-bachelor levels of study than in England. In Scotland 14% of the whole of the HE system is made up of students studying HNCs and HNDs, in England it is 0.4%. However, a decline of 45% in the number of students engaged in “other sub-degree” mirrors English trends– provision has been shrinking in Scotland as well.

There is discussion on how students are categorised in England, i.e. undertaking a level 6 programme despite years 1 and 2 being level 4 and 5 study. They argue this misleads thinking when examining level 4 and 5 study in technical areas that only standalone level 4/5 provision is appropriate (rather than the same as provision on the level 6 journey). I.e. there is no “missing middle” of sub-degree qualifications in the English HE system. The report suggests that the Augar review understood this. Moreover:

This data should suggest to policymakers that the fundamental challenge is not a trade-off between progressing younger people either to level 4/5 or to level 6, but how we can best enable 16-25 year olds, and those later in life, to successfully complete level 3 study which can provide them with a gateway of opportunity for progression into higher education or directly into employment.

There are a host of report recommendations which we’ll avoid covering in detail. In short:

Level 4 and 5 (L4/5) should receive full maintenance grant support (to increase the take up of work-focused higher education).
All L4/5 providers to register with OfS to guarantee high quality provision and access to student finance.
Universities are as much a key players in the provision of higher technical education as colleges.
Sort the L4/5 data out to better understand nature and scope of technical education across college and university providers.
All level qualifications should enable progression at any life stage and financially support level 3 students to remove barriers to study.

The DfE consulted on higher technical education reform (July-Sept 2019). Like the Augar Review the Government’s response is notably late. Most likely technical changes will sit alongside however, the Government decide to implement elements of Augar, T levels will undoubtedly be of influence, and some thinkers suggest TEF changes could also be wrapped up within this surprise parcel.

Education Policy Institute (EPI)

The EPI has published a report questioning what England can learn from other nations in designing technical education funding systems. The report finds that T levels are a significant step in the direction of high performing countries, however, there is a way to before English upper secondary technical provision resembles the model and success of other nations. EPI suggest tackling the necessary issues would require substantial levels of additional government investment.

UK has historically funded upper secondary technical education at lower rates than academic education (23% less per student in 2016, lower than the OECD average) – this is not the case in most other countries.
In other countries subsidies are provided to employers to compensate for the time that an apprentice is training outside the job or to compensate for disadvantaged intakes that drive costs up. In England, subsidies are concentrated on small and medium companies.
More generous financial support is available in other countries. In England support funding to students has fallen by 71% per student in real terms between 2010/11 and 2018/19.
While over a half of students in England follow the technical pathway in upper secondary, only 16% do so through apprenticeship training. In EU its 27%.
English technical upper secondary education is a shorter duration (2 years, even 1 for some apprenticeships). In high performing countries it takes 3-4 years.
15% of English students are in the highest-cost groups of subjects (including engineering, manufacturing, and construction); in OECD countries its 34%.
The curriculum in England is relatively narrow. In the other countries many technical students continue to study their local language, a foreign language, maths and other general subjects to equip them with a sound knowledge base.

The introduction of T levels and other proposed reforms will bring England closer to technical provision in high performing countries:

Funding will be rebalanced towards more technical subjects and funding levels will increase compared to the status quo with a corresponding increase in teaching hours.
Students starting from lower levels will receive an additional funded year to prepare them for the T level study programme.
Industry placements will improve students’ readiness for entry to the labour market..
The requirement to pass English and maths at GCSE level will result in more young people studying these subjects.

However, important gaps will remain:

Most students will study T levels over just two years.
Only those not achieving the level expected at 16 will continue to study English and maths and the curriculum will remain narrower than in other countries.
Industry placements will remain less substantial than elsewhere.
These improvements largely only apply to those taking T levels, and it is still unclear how dominant these qualifications will become.

Recommendations:

Funding for technical pathways: The government should provide the 16-19 phase with a more enduring financial settlement to sustain quality provision in the long term.
Increase the number of starts for younger apprentices: The government should consider the options to increase apprenticeship uptake among young people, including further redistribution of levy funding towards younger apprentices, or other incentives for employers to hire younger learners.
Government should review the adequacy of student support, particularly whether recent changes have left disadvantaged students worse off.
Review curriculum breadth and programme length: The government should commission an independent review to consider whether the breadth of upper secondary study, for all students, is properly providing the basic and technical skills that young people need for the labour market and for progression to further study. Where this leads to increased provision, this must be matched by appropriate funding rates.

Working life longevity

The Social Market Foundation has published Work, education, skills and the 100-year life exploring the policy changes needed to ‘ensure the workforce is ready for extreme longevity.’ It touches on the need to retrain for an extended working period during an individual’s lifetime.

As life expectancy continues to rise, the number of years spent working is likely to increase.
The 50-year career will become the norm.
The career chosen at 18 or 21 is not likely to be the career of the individual when they retire. Changes to the labour market, technology and the wider environment could mean that at various points in a person’s working life they need to change careers and retrain. [So would the restrictions on studying another equivalent level qualification place graduates at a disadvantage? Currently the rules bar access to fees and finance funding (in all but priority areas), this would prevent retraining at an equivalent high level in a different subject for existing graduates.]
EPI estimate people should plan for five careers in their lifetime. Yet 40% of 34-54 year olds are unwilling to change careers.
Longer working lives will affect employers too. Employers are concerned about increased pension contributions, time out of the workforce due illness. Needing to reskill and train staff was split but overall employers were less worried about this factor.

EPI lobby for the following to address working life longevity:

Individual Learning Accounts (they suggest Singapore as an example)
Modular learning and an inquiry into the fall of mature and part-time students.
Reallocate the money earmarked for the National Skills Fund for retraining those aged over 40 particularly in industries where there is a risk of automation or industrial decline.
Reduce Employer National Insurance contributions for certain workers over 50.
Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) and GPs should proactively enable people to work for longer through advice, support, and social prescribing of workplace health support.
Create a Minister for Lifelong Learning and Training who has responsibility over longer lives, work and skills, positioned between DfE, BEIS and DWP.

Access and Participation

Social Mobility effect of school admissions: The Sutton Trust released their fairer school admissions report at the end of February. In it they raise social mobility questions by highlighting that there is a wealth divide between low and middle income families accessing state comprehensive schools. They state that the best performing comprehensives only take half the number of disadvantaged pupils as an average state school would. And that it costs £45,700 more to buy a house in the catchment area serving a top comprehensive. The Sutton Trust wants to see a fairer system where access to schools is not as closely linked to income stating it would have benefits in terms of overall attainment, teacher recruitment and retention and social cohesion. They are calling for more balanced intakes overall, with every high-performing school committed to admitting more poorer pupils. They state comprehensives should pledge to prioritise applicants eligible for the pupil premium, to create more socially balanced intakes. Schools who are responsible for their own admissions should introduce ballots, with an inner catchment area based on proximity and the remainder of places allocated by ballot. On grammar schools they would like to give priority to applicants eligible for the pupil premium who meet the entrance criteria. They should provide a minimum ten hours test preparation for all pupils to provide a level playing field for the 11-plus and improve their outreach work to families from disadvantaged backgrounds. More details in the second Sutton Trust report: School Places: A Fair Choice?

Lords Debate – Working Classes Educational Opportunities

Baroness Morris lead a debate within Lords to take note of the educational opportunities available to children and young people from working class backgrounds. It critiqued Government initiatives including catch up clubs and the abolition of Sure Start. The Baroness said that the working class and middle class were generally pursuing different post-16 routes, with disadvantaged children entering a sector that had experienced a 20% reduction in funding.

Lord Woolley commented on disparities in outcomes between students, stating white working-class students outside big cities experienced a bottom-up lack of investment in good jobs, or in schools, contributing to communities having low expectations. Conversely, education, for the BAME community was often seen as a route out of disadvantage. However, BAME working-class students face the race penalty disadvantage that their white counterparts do not. (This comes from UCL data highlighting that BAME young people were 58% more likely to be unemployed and 47% more likely to have a zero-hours contract.)

Lord Knight of Weymouth asserted that that could be no change in working class communities without regeneration through education:

“that system must be designed for a long life of continuous reskilling—one that prepares people for a working life of 60 years, multiple careers, being great at interacting with machines as well as humans, but also out-competing machines at being human. It must be one that accepts that analytics will replace qualifications and that universities will have to innovate to deliver lifelong learning rather than a debt-loaded rite of passage, as at present”.

Baroness Wilcox: Those on free school meals and receiving the pupil premium are 27% less likely to achieve five or more GCSEs at grades A* to C (grades 9 to 6).

Lord Livermore said that getting a degree from a leading university was one of the surest paths to social mobility. She was concerned that working class students receive a lack of advice, guidance and support in navigating the university application process. She lamented that this lack of support seemed to be permeating the HE sector, with disadvantaged students disproportionately more likely to not return as second year students. Concluding, she endorsed the Sutton Trust’s proposed policies of; contextual admissions, post-qualification applications, greater evaluation of university outreach activities, increased numbers of degree and higher-level apprenticeships, and the restoration of maintenance grants for students to reduce the debt burden on the least well off.

Lord Storey (Lib Dem Education spokesperson) spoke of post- 16 education stating that there should be clear signposting about the best vocational opportunities and apprenticeship schemes available: “This would help to increase parity of esteem with academic routes”.

Lord Bassam (Opposition spokesperson for FE &HE) highlighted the Sutton Trust tuition fee research which suggests that student debt may be having an impact on the aspirations of children before they even take their GCSEs and asserts that the removal of maintenance grants in favour of loans was deterring working-class young people. He also criticised the impact of predicted grades and conditional offers on students from disadvantaged backgrounds, insisting that, “poor predictions can blight young people’s life chances, often becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. Moreover, young people with huge potential but low predictions stand little chance of proper consideration from the top universities”.

He also raised concerns over UCAS personal statements and references as a method in assessing an individual’s aptitude and ability, and intimated that was following the OfS university admissions review closely. On admissions diversity he said: “At present, half of all children in receipt of free school meals are educated in just a fifth of all schools, and more than half of universities in England have a white working-class student intake of less than 5%, despite the fact that 75% of universities, including the Russell Group institutions, claim to use “contextual information” to admit students from disadvantaged backgrounds”.

Baroness Berridge spoke for the Government and praised the role of the OfS in ensuring that universities produced ambitious access and participation plans. On contextual admissions she said that the Government “will look in appropriate circumstances at the background of students”, whilst stating that post-qualification applications could cut disadvantaged young people.

Admissions Review: Research Professional has a thoughtful article delving into contextual admissions which is well worth the quick read.

HE stats

HESA (Higher Education Statistics Agency) published income and expenditure data for HE institutions.

Income

Tuition fees and education contracts: £18,875bn in 2017/18, up from 15,541bn in 2014/15
Funding body grants: £5,112bn in 2017/18, down from £5,345bn in 2014/15
Research Grants and Contracts: £6,225bn, up from £5,968bn in 2014/15
Other income: £7,203bn in 2017/18 up from £5,902bn in 2014/15

Expenditure

Staff costs: £20,071bn in 2017/18, up from £18,210bn in 2014/15
Other operating expenses: £13.8bn in 2017/18, up from £11,770bn in 2014/15
Depreciation: £2,467bn in 2017/18, up from £1,986bn in 2014/15

Mental Health

Thursday was University Mental Health Day. Universities Minister, Michelle Donelan, – in conjunction with the DfE and the Department of Health and Social Care – announced a funding competition: £1million for innovative student mental health projects.

Students identified as being at high risk of poor mental health will benefit from a £1m funding boost. Research has identified such groups as including black/ethnic minority students, those from disadvantaged backgrounds, those with disabilities, and those identifying as LGBTQ+.
Successful projects will also target groups of students who might face barriers in accessing support, like carers, part-time and international students and those on placements as part of their course.
The projects will also be judged on how they use innovative and technological approaches to addressing mental health issues, in line with the new NHS drive for improvement in digital support.

OfS will hold the money and approve proposals.

Chris Millward, Director for Fair Access and Participation at the OfS, said:

“All students deserve the opportunity to thrive at university and college, but for too many mental ill-health remains a significant barrier. We know that there are many factors which can impact the wellbeing of students and situations where students may be or feel more vulnerable. Through this funding we want to support innovative and strategic solutions that can help ensure that all students, regardless of their background or how they study, get the support they need.
By working together with partners including the NHS and charities, universities and colleges have the power to address the complex issues associated with student mental ill-health. We will be sharing the effective practice that comes from this funding and driving improved mental health support for all students.”

Universities Minister Michelle Donelan said: “Going to university can be a really challenging time, especially if you face added pressures or if you are balancing studies alongside other commitments like carers and mature students. It is vital no student is put at risk by not getting the help they need. Universities must step up to this challenge, and this funding will help them and the sector by looking at ways support can be better targeted and improved.”

Despite the fresh announcement the funds are the same as those announced in June 2019, the change is that the bidding is now open. Research Professional cover the announcement here.

The NUS spoke out on University Mental Health Day. Eva Crossan Jory, NUS Vice President Welfare commented:

“Through my two years as Vice President Welfare I have seen the incredible work students and student’s unions have done to lobby for better mental health care on our campuses, but it shouldn’t be this way: we shouldn’t have to campaign for colleges and universities to do this work.
Universities need to acknowledge the structural barriers they create that lead to poor mental health. Our poor mental health cannot be separated from the intense pressure and competition that is deemed as a necessary aspect of our educational experience. From the spiralling costs of accommodation to the need for a better system of student funding, the student mental health crisis won’t be stopped until the problems are tackled at the root.
There is also intense pressure put on staff, from precarious contracts to over work, we cannot demand better mental health support for students without also fighting for better mental health care for staff in our universities.
Although we have seen significant movement in the sector on student mental health we must ensure that signing up to charters is not where this work stops. We need real investment made into both university services but also the NHS which is being criminally underfunded. We must also ensure the services we campaign for and win are culturally competent. That they acknowledge the structural inequalities that exist. We need a support system that understands students are not one homogeneous group.
We’re urging our members and students to have those hard conversations with senior leaders and challenge them, to start talking honestly and openly about the whole of student mental health. Only that way can we reach the goals of a truly mentally healthy whole university.”

Research

There were a series of research focussed oral questions in Parliament this week. Here’s the edited version:

Julian Sturdy: What steps he is taking to increase investment in research and development.

Alok Sharma (SoS BEIS):The Government are already increasing public spending on research and development by £7 billion over five years, the biggest increase in public funding for R&D on record. Every pound of public expenditure on R&D leverages a further £1.40 of additional private investment, generating even greater returns for the UK.

Julian Sturdy: Given that nearly 50% of the core science budget currently goes to just three cities in southern England, can the Secretary of State assure me that the increase in R&D funding will do more to favour the regions outside the south, so that in future both my city…and other regional hubs across Yorkshire…will receive their fair share for the purposes of research and innovation?

Alok Sharma: I absolutely agree that that is part of our levelling-up agenda. We want to support centres of excellence across the country… we will set out our ambitious play strategy for R&D in the second half of this year.

Bim Afolami: [Mentions agritech start ups and incubators – asks Minister to endorse Rothamsted Research and visit].

Alok Sharma:[Agrees to] meet him to discuss how the Government can support his proposals.

Mrs Drummond: .. what further action is being taken on the proposal for a UK advanced research projects agency, following the departmental meeting last year?

Alok Sharma: The UK is ranked fifth in the global innovation index, and our strengths in R&D mean that we are well placed to develop a new funding body to specialise in high-risk, high-reward projects. … I am absolutely determined that the UK should be a global science superpower, and my Department is making good progress on a UK advanced research projects agency. We are engaging with a wide range of researchers and innovators, and we will set out further plans in due course.

Chi Onwurah (Lab) (Newcastle upon Tyne Central):…European research programme.. For every £1 we put into the European Union programme, we got £1.30 back, and such funding is essential if we are to retain our place as a global science superpower, so will the Secretary of State boost UK science by confirming that we will be going for full associate membership?

Alok Sharma: Of course I want the UK to be a science superpower, and we have set out our views on expanding the R&D budget. On Europe, our EU negotiating objectives are very clear: the UK will consider participation in Horizon Europe and Euratom, but this will be part of the wider negotiations.

Geraint Davies (Lab/Co-op) (Swansea West): [Unclean air and electric cars, subsidies]

Alok Sharma: ..We currently have 460,000 green jobs in this country, and we want to push that to 2 million. I would be happy to meet him to discuss the specific point that he has raised.

Jim Shannon (DUP) (Strangford):Across the whole of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, universities have played a critical role in research and development. [Requests specific help for two local institutions.]

Alok Sharma: Of course, UKRI provides funding for a whole range of universities. Again, if the hon. Gentleman has specific ideas for projects, perhaps he would come forward with them.

Mr Richard Bacon (Con) (South Norfolk): It is possible to build a house that costs nothing to heat, but that is not happening at scale at the moment. Does my right hon. Friend consider it part of his Department’s responsibilities to support research into making this more widespread, which would be hugely beneficial for the planet?

Alok Sharma: I know that my hon. Friend is an authority on the house building sector..he raises an important point. We know that 15% of emissions are from housing, and we are looking to see how we can bring that down as part of the net zero target.

And a written question on levelling up:

Q – Neil O’Brien (Harborough): What steps he is taking with UK Research and Innovation to increase funding allocated to projects in regions of lower productivity.

A – Amanda Solloway (Derby North): We will publish an ambitious place strategy for R&D in the next few months. This will build on existing and emerging research and innovation capabilities across the country, enabling areas to ‘level up’ and reach their economic potential. This is an important part of our ambition to increase R&D investment across the economy.

Research Professional have an article how Greg Clark (Chair) is keen to incorporate social sciences, arts and humanities within the remit of the Commons Science and Technology select committee. RP also have a piece covering Germany’s statistics announcing they have hit 3% R&D spending target. And an article on the importance of metrics and measuring impact within research.

HE focussed Parliamentary Questions

PG Fees

Q – Dr Rupa Huq: what assessment he has made of the potential merits of abolishing application fees for postgraduate students; and if he will make a statement.

A – Michelle Donelan: Higher education providers in England are autonomous bodies and therefore have discretion over the application fees they charge for postgraduate courses.

Strikes

A question asking what guidance the Department has issued on tuition fee refunds as a result of cancelled lectures during industrial action.

Apprenticeships

Q – Sir David Evennett: What steps his Department is taking to promote apprenticeships as an alternative to university.

The full answer is here. Excerpts below:

A – Gillian Keegan:… We are continuing to promote all apprenticeships as a genuine, high-quality alternative to traditional academic only study for people of all ages and from all backgrounds. We launched the third phase of our apprenticeships marketing campaign, Fire it Up, in January, which promotes how apprenticeships can provide opportunities for ambitious young people.

… In January 2018 we introduced a legal requirement for schools to give training providers the opportunity to talk to pupils about technical qualifications and apprenticeships, so that young people hear about the alternatives to academic routes. We also offer a free service to schools through the Apprenticeship Support and Knowledge (ASK) project to ensure that teachers have the knowledge and support they need to enable them to promote apprenticeships, including higher and degree apprenticeships, to their students.

…We have also worked with the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) to support employers to raise awareness of their apprenticeship opportunities to prospective employees through an online higher and degree apprenticeship vacancy listing.

Inquiries and Consultations

Click here to view the updated inquiries and consultation tracker. Email us on policy@bournemouth.ac.uk if you’d like to contribute to any of the current consultations.

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JANE FORSTER | SARAH CARTER

Policy Advisor Policy & Public Affairs Officer

Follow: @PolicyBU on Twitter | policy@bournemouth.ac.uk

January 20, 2020

HE policy update for the w/e 17th January 2020

EU, HEIF, Impact, Industry collaboration, international, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer, policy jforster

Another busy week in HE policy– with consultations and a very short timeline for the KEF. Everyone has hit the ground running in 2020!

The third leg of the HE stool arrives: KEF has landed

The outcome of the KEF consultation in 2019 has come out. UKRI have published the “Decisions for the first iteration”. They have given a very short timeline for the publication of the first set of data and narratives from institutions – they will all be published this summer. Narratives have to be submitted by May. Data will be published for everyone, whether they submit narratives or not.

They have also indicated that it is likely that from 2020/21 institutions will have to submit narratives for the KEF to be eligible for Research England funding.

This first iteration of the KEF will take place in the current academic year 2019/20. All Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) eligible to receive Research England Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF) funding in this current academic year are in scope for this exercise.
The KEF is taking a metrics-led approach, although it also includes a narrative component. As previously advised, all proposed KEF metrics use existing data sources that are already collected via existing statutory returns or other means. …. This reflects the minimal burden of this exercise as there is no need for any institution to gather or submit new metrics for this iteration of the KEF.
The narrative component of the KEF will consist of three brief narrative statements … we intend to publish in summer 2020 the KEF metrics of all institutions in receipt of HEIF in this 2019/20 academic year. Therefore, institutions in receipt of HEIF in this academic year 2019/20 are strongly encouraged to submit narrative information to contextualise their results….
This report will be followed by publication of the narrative templates and final cluster membership in February 2020. If institutions in scope for this exercise wish to have their narrative templates published alongside their results, the completed templates should be returned on Friday 15 May 2020.
…Research England will provide further contextual information about the external environment in which the HEI operates that should be considered when interpreting results. This contextual information will be in the form a standard set of indicators at the LEP-region level.
Results will be presented through an online visualisation platform displaying perspectives and underlying metrics, as well as narrative statements and contextual information

The metrics will be reported against “clusters”. They have changed their original cluster proposals somewhat, removing the Social Science and Business specialist cluster – final cluster membership will be published in February with the templates. These clusters have been designed to allow meaningful comparison. When BU responded to the consultation we suggested that it is unhelpful to introduce a third methodology for comparison – the TEF uses institutional benchmarks, something that has challenges itself, and the REF is of course organised by subject. We remain concerned that this will be confusing and not very meaningful for businesses and other organisations (the declared target for this information) who may not find the cluster comparison useful if they only have limited experience with a small number of universities.

You will recall that the metrics are grouped into seven “perspectives” – only two will require narratives. The consultation looked at additional metrics but has discounted any that are not already “gathered through existing statutory returns, or available from other UKRI or external sources”. This is because they want to make it a “low burden” exercise.

Public and Community Engagement narrative – a statement:

identifying the public and community groups served by the institution and how their needs have been identified;
description of the targeted activities that are undertaken to meet these needs;
evidence that needs have been met and tangible outcomes achieved.

Local Growth and Regeneration narrative – a statement:

identifying the geographical area(s) that the institution considers to be its local area;
explanation of how needs of the local area(s) that relate to economic growth and regeneration are identified;
description of the targeted activities undertaken by the institution to meet those needs and any outcomes achieved.

The third narrative will be an institutional context narrative – “setting out the geographic, economic and social context within which the higher education institution is operating…. The information contained within this statement will not be used to normalise any of the metrics or perspectives across clusters.”

David Kernohan has written for Wonkhe about it:

“The Knowledge Exchange Framework is not (like REF and TEF are) an “excellence framework”. It doesn’t make any judgement on the quality of business and community interaction, just on the proportional volume and likely output of a number of activities described in the HE-BCI survey data. Neither is it of use to professional or armchair rankers – it doesn’t offer named awards or simple stepped gradations that demonstrate one thing is unfailingly better than another.
It may eventually be used to support the allocation of the £200m Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF), which is currently allocated using similar data. But for the first year (2020-21) it is for entertainment and edification purposes only.”

David summarises the pages of normalisation methodology in the document nicely: “Metrics are a three-year average, mostly …as ratios, which are converted at perspective level into deciles. This reduces a great deal of data and analysis into what amounts to a set of marks out of 10, which are compared to an average mark from comparable institutions (the infamous clusters)”.

And the visualisation approach: “Research England has a grand plan to use spider graphs to show institutional scores alongside cluster averages, with an option to drill down into more detailed data on each metric. I’m not as struck by this as they are – the exercise is designed to support comparisons and spider diagrams are an unwieldy way to do this. I also feel like the individual metrics are still fairly abstract, you have to go quite a long way back down the methodology to get something that the mind can easily take hold of.”

Erasmus after Brexit

After the social media storm last week when Parliament didn’t approve the Erasmus amendment to the Withdrawal Agreement Bill (it doesn’t mean we can’t be in it, it just means that government won’t be bound by the new Bill to make sure we are in it), there have been a few questions this week.

Douglas Chapman (SNP) said that the end of Erasmus scheme was an “utter disaster, culturally and socially” and asked the PM to comment on the end of the participation of the scheme. Boris’ response implied that the UK would continue to participate in the scheme.

And there were several questions on Erasmus (see this one and this one) – all with similar response – that the Government is including it within the Brexit negotiations and is working towards remaining within the scheme. The House of Commons Library have released this briefing paper on Erasmus to inform MPs ahead of Monday’s scheduled Education debate.

New HESA data

HESA have published higher education statistics for 2018/19. Interestingly, the OfS focussed on grade inflation in their response –and nothing else.

Sex of students

Of all HE students 57% were female in 2018/19 (see Figure 4), this has been the same since 2016/17.
A larger proportion of part-time students were female than full-time students.
For other undergraduate students, 64% were female, compared with 49% of postgraduate (research) students.

Age of students

The overall number of first year students aged 30 and over has increased in 2018/19 after a decreasing trend in previous years.
The number of first year students aged 21-24 has increased from 2015/16 to 2018/19.
The number of first year full-time students aged 30 and over has increased every year since 2014/15.
Numbers of full-time students aged 20 and under have increased year on year since 2012/13.

Student disability status

The overall number of students with a known disability is increasing year on year. The main reason for this increase is students identified as having a mental health condition.
Of students with a known disability in 2018/19 the category of specific learning difficulty is the largest group accounting for 36% of the total.

Ethnicity of students

The percentage of UK domiciled students that are White has decreased over the last five years. However, the percentage that are Asian, Mixed and from Other ethnic backgrounds has increased.
HE providers in England show the largest decrease and the lowest proportion of UK domiciled students that are White compared to HE providers in all other countries of the UK.

Within the European Union:

Italy has seen a notable rise to become the top European Union country sending students to the UK, overtaking three other countries in the last five years.
Germany is the top European Union country to send students to Wales and Scotland, and Ireland is top in sending students to Northern Ireland.

Outside the European Union:

China sent more students to the UK than any other overseas country. In 2018/19, 35% of all non-EU students were from China. The number of students from China was also 34% higher in 2018/19 than in 2014/15, increasing from 89,540 to 120,385 in the five year span.
Student numbers from India increased from 18,325 in 2014/15 to 26,685 in 2018/19.
The other countries in the chart are more in line with European Union student numbers.
Nigeria has seen a 41% decline in student numbers coming to the UK over the five year period, dropping behind the United States, Hong Kong and Malaysia.
For more recent trends in international student visa applications and granted visas, refer toTable 1 of Immigration statistics published by the Home Office in November 2019. Please note that although on a similar theme, these statistics are not directly comparable. Home Office statistics cover further education as well as higher education, and immigration data provides an indication of the number of people who have an intention to enter the UK for study reasons, not whether, or when, an individual actually arrived in the UK, or what they did on arrival to the UK.

Of those gaining a classified first degree:

The percentage of students achieving a first class honours remains stable at 28% for both 2017/18 and 2018/19. This follows an increase year on year since 2009/10 where 14% of students achieved this classification.
A larger proportion of female students gained a first or upper second class honours than male students.
Full-time students had a larger proportion of first or upper second class honours than part-time students.

Subjects

In 2018/19:

More qualifications were awarded in business & administrative studies than any other subject area.
Amongst part-time students, more qualifications were awarded in subjects allied to medicine than any other subject area.

Over the five year period 2014/15 – 2018/19:

There has been an overall increase in the number of qualifications gained in biological sciences and social studies.
There has been a decline in the number of qualifications gained in languages and education.

Mental Health

Student Minds has launched The Wellbeing Thesis, a website designed to support postgraduate research students to maintain their mental wellbeing.

Baroness Tyler of Enfield has presented a Bill in the House of Lords which would amend the Education Act 2002 and the Academies Act 2010 for schools to promote the mental health and wellbeing of their pupils. The Bill will proceed to a second reading at a future date.

And some Parliamentary questions:

Q – Conor McGinn: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to (a) reduce the level of social stigma in relation to mental health and (b) promote awareness of mental health issues among young people.

A – Nick Gibb:

The Department is making teaching about mental health part of compulsory health education in all state-funded schools in England from September 2020. The statutory guidance sets out that pupils will be taught about the importance of good physical and mental health including the steps pupils can take to protect and support their own health and mental wellbeing. The content will also cover understanding emotions; identifying where someone is experiencing signs of poor mental health; simple self-care; and how and when to seek support.
The Department is also working with the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families to pilot setting up peer support approaches in schools and colleges that allow young people to play an active part of creating a mentally healthy and supportive environment. The findings from the programme’s external evaluation will be shared nationally, to help more schools to develop or improve their own mental health peer support programmes.
To support school staff, the Department has set up Expert Advisory Group on teacher and leader wellbeing which has a remit to advise the Department on what it can do to help schools and colleges promote good wellbeing, including tackling stigma around mental health.

Labour leadership

Monday was the closing date for Labour leadership candidates to secure the 22 nominations from MPs to run for party leader. Chris Lewis and Barry Gardiner did not secure the required amount. The following candidates will progress to the next round (number of nominations received noted in brackets):

Keir Starmer (89)
Rebecca Long Bailey (33)
Lisa Nandy (31)
Jess Phillips (23)
Emily Thornberry (23)

Candidates for deputy leader:

Angela Rayner (88)
Ian Murray (34)
Dawn Butler (29)
Rosena Allin-Khan (23)
Richard Burgon (22)

We explained the leadership contest process in detail in last week’s policy update. However, here is a quick recap: the next phase requires the candidates to seek nominations from Constituency Labour Parties and the Unions by 15^th Jan – to carry on they need support of 5% of the constituency parties (the BBC said 30) OR 3 affiliate organisations, including 2 trade unions. The members’ ballot opens on 21^st Feb and runs to 2^nd April. Votes are redistributed if there is no clear winner. Results announced on 4^th April

An interesting background briefing on the Labour leadership candidates prepared by Dods is available here. It is worth a read to get to know the candidates better.

Fees and funding

The House of Commons Library has a new briefing paper on the Augar Review (Post 18 Education and Funding Review). The paper considers the recommendations of the Augar Review and the (page 26) initial responses to it from major HE bodies. The Government is rumoured to have made the decision on how they will respond (which parts they will adopt) of the Augar Review and intend to release their response at a suitable point (soon-ish!). Most likely the briefing paper has been produced because Education Questions will take place in Parliament next Monday.

And some Parliamentary questions:

Q -Baroness Bennett Of Manor Castle: following the announcement that nursing bursaries are to be reintroduced, what plans [the Government] have to support nurses, midwifes and other healthcare professionals with any debt incurred before the reintroduction to support their study and training.

A -Baroness Blackwood Of North Oxford:

We have committed to 50,000 more nurses in the National Health Service by 2025 and our new financial support package is crucial to delivering this.
Eligible pre-registration students on nursing, midwifery and many allied health students’ courses at English universities from September 2020 will benefit from additional support of at least £5,000 of non-repayable funding, with up to £3,000 additional funding for some students, who choose to study in regions or specialisms struggling to recruit, or to help with childcare costs, which they will not have to pay back.
The Government has no plans to introduce a scheme that will backdate the offer for students who completed courses in earlier years.

Q – Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon): To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department has taken to introduce Sharia compliant student loans.

A – Chris Skidmore (Kingswood): The government remains committed to introducing an Alternative Student Finance product for tuition fee and maintenance loans. Details on implementation will follow the conclusion of the review of post-18 education and funding.

Select Committees

Parliamentary business has been laid to commence the election of the select committee chairs now the new Parliament has formed. We anticipate the chairs will be announced early in February. Below is a diagram stating which party will chair each select committee.

There are several committees where the previous chairman has vacated their position through losing their seat, or where the chairmanship has switched from Labour to Tory to reflect Parliament’s new arithmetic (the number of chairs for each party is proportionate to the size of the party in Parliament). These include the Treasury, health, transport and work and pensions committees.

There is a potential change on the horizon. In the past when a parliamentary session ends the chairmanship and membership of a select committee ceases – as it did when the 2019 general election was called. However, a parliamentary motion introduced this week seeks to remove the limit on the maximum length of time an individual can chair a committee. This would allow parliamentarians to become long-serving chairs. There is also a clause which stipulates that the Brexit committee will continue for another year, even though the department it shadows — DExEU — is being wound up at the end of January.

Education Debate

There was a major Education and Local Government debate within the House of Commons this week led by Gavin Williamson, Secretary of State for Education. On schools the debate covered content on: the minimum school funding (per pupil), rolling out free schools (Midlands, North and South West), extra funding to Councils to support children in care, capital funding for childcare provision within schools (for school aged children), an arts activities premium for secondary schools from 2021, school building safety – following advice in the independent Hackitt review,

Gavin Williamson also said:

The Government’s £3bn national skills fund would build on ongoing work to develop a national retraining scheme in underpinning economic prosperity.
Capital investment of £1.8bn into the further education estate.
The Government plans to create more mayors across England to devolve power away from Westminster via a devolution white paper.

Angela Rayner challenged the Government on the lack of response to the Augar review, particularly in relation to decision on the regulation of home education. She said: “While we are on the subject of Bills that are missing in action…The Augar review went from being a flagship to a ghost ship”.

SNP Shadow Secretary of State for Education, Carol Monaghan, asked the Minister whether a fee change would be forthcoming, further to the Augar review recommendations. She also raised concerns over the implications of Brexit on HE staff, research funding, infrastructure and collaboration: “A recent report from the Royal Society has shown that the UK’s share of EU funding has fallen by €500 million since 2015. There has also been a drop of 40% in UK applications to Horizon 2020. We are still in it just now, but we have had that drop because people do not have any certainty. The UK is now seen as a less attractive place to come and do research, with 35% fewer scientists coming to the UK through key schemes. That is of concern, as is Erasmus and what Brexit will mean for that programme”.

David Davis (Conservative) criticised the university tuition fees and loans scheme for delivering poor-quality education, high levels of expectations and low levels of outcome. He called for concerted action to tackle low productivity, including translational research, but also, “investment, education, infrastructure, magnet cities and garden villages”.

Previous chair of the Education Select Committee Robert Halfon welcomes the Queen’s Speech and said that he believes that “skills, social justice, standards and support for the profession should be the four interlocking foundations of this Government’s education programme.” He called on the Government to turbocharge adult learning, citing that adult learning is at its lowest since 1996 and that this county needs a world-class apprenticeships programme.

Halfon also raised concerns about disadvantaged pupils who are often 19 months behind by the time they reach their GCSEs, he called on the Government to have a “bold, assertive agenda that has compassion and aspiration right at its core.” Halfon told the chamber that the Government should offer top-quality childcare, to help plug the gap of disadvantaged children who are already left behind when they start primary school.

Shadow Minister for Northern Ireland Karin Smyth told the house that the Government has got it wrong in its implementation of apprenticeships, particularly by making the process more complicated for small and medium sized enterprises.

Janet Daby (Labour, Lewisham East) raised a number of concerns surrounding the funding of schools and local authorities. She told the house that “in the midst of a mental health crisis in young adults, we must do more to address the increasing lack of support in further education colleges.”

Steve McCabe (Labour, Birmingham, Selly Oak) welcomed the Secretary of State’s admission of the problems faced by pupils with special educational needs and disabilities. He also hoped that the new student visa would make it easier for people to come here to study, but noted that PhD students did not find it particularly easy to stay after they completed their doctorates.

Alex Norris (Labour/Co-op, Nottingham North) spoke about the educational trouble faced by working class boys, saying that it was caused by a cocktail of poor discipline, irregular attendance and below par curriculums. He called on the Government to have better curriculums based on international best practice; specific, targeted resource to augment the pupil premium; a focus on catching up for boys who fall behind at key stage 1; and the deployment of the best teachers in the most challenged schools, incentivised to work in the hard environments.

Bambos Charalambous (Labour) said there wasn’t enough school funding to reverse cuts on areas like school maintenance and a lack of further education.

You can read the debate in full here.

Skills gap

The Local Government Association (LGA) published a report (compiled by the Learning and Work Institute) considering 2030 projected skills gaps in England. It considers eight areas and quantifies potential loss of economic output due to the skills gaps. They conclude that 6 million people in England risk being without a job or in work they are over-qualified for by 2030. This is a similar message to the Government’s line on upskilling the workforce to plug business needs due to insufficient skills within the workforce. However, the LGA imagine a more localised solution to the skills gaps. Key points:

1 million low-skilled people chasing 2 million low-skilled jobs – a surplus of 3.1 million low-skilled workers
7 million people with intermediate skills chasing 9.5 million jobs – a surplus of 3.1 million people
4 million high-skilled jobs with only 14.8 million high-skilled workers – a deficit of 2.5 million

This note looks at the extent and nature of the potential skills gap that could be faced in the future through to 2030 – at both the level of England as a whole and in eight selected local areas:

Nottingham City
Staffordshire
Gloucestershire
Greater Lincolnshire
Essex, Southend and Thurrock
Lambeth, Lewisham and Southwark
North of Tyne
Southampton and Portsmouth

The LGA are critical of the current centrally-governed skills and employment system whereby £10.5 billion a year is spent by eight government departments and agencies across 20 different national schemes. Unsurprisingly the LGA is calling for the Government to use the Budget to devolve all back-to-work, skills, apprenticeship, careers advice, and business support schemes and funding to the local areas in which they are used. They envisage groups of councils across England with the power and funding to deliver a one-stop ‘Work Local’ service for skills, apprenticeship, employment, careers advice and business support provision. Bringing together local skills planning, overseeing job support including Jobcentre Plus and the Work and Health Programme and coordinate careers advice and guidance for young people and adults.

Cllr Kevin Bentley, Chairman of the LGA’s People and Places Board, said:

Millions of people face a future where they have skills mismatched for jobs at a huge cost to people’s lives and the local and national economy. Councils are ideally placed to lead efforts to help the Government bring growth and jobs to all parts of the country and ensure everyone is fully equipped with the skills they need to compete for future jobs.

Stephen Evans, Chief Executive of Learning and Work Institute, said:

Improving skills is central to making the 2020s a decade of growth. Other countries have continued to invest in skills, while progress in England has stalled over the last decade, the result of large cuts in England’s adult education budget which has left us lagging behind other countries and the number of adults improving their skills at a record low. We now need a decade of investment, in order to boost life chances,

Widening participation

A thought provoking HEPI blog considers the last 20 years of research published on addressing widening participation (WP) aims. It covers all the expected current topics from the BME attainment gap to the non-participation in HE by costal and/or rural areas. It highlights international approaches such as that from Australia and Canada explaining how studies addressed the same enduring gaps as the UK has now. Overall there are no magic solutions but the blog is reinvigorating in the way it brings all the WP themes together for fresh reconsideration. You can read the full blog here.

At Prime Minister’s Questions this week previous Head of the Education Select Committee, Robert Halfon said that despite improvement in educational standards and funding, white working-class boys underperform at every stage of education system. He questioned whether, in the context of large infrastructure projects expected, and the high value apprenticeships associated, whether the apprenticeship levy could be reformed to enable such young people to climb the skills ladder of opportunity. Boris responded that the House should follow Halfon’s advice and reform the apprenticeship levy, and intimated that the Education Secretary would update the House on this in due course.

And some Parliamentary questions:

Q – Lord Bourne Of Aberystwyth: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress they have made in improving education outcomes for Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller communities.

A – Lord Agnew Of Oulton:

The latest published data, including breakdowns for Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (GRT) pupils, relates to 2019 at key stage 2 and 2018 at key stage 4. At both stages, the data showed a small improvement in headline attainment measures for this group compared to the previous year. At key stage 2, the percentage of GRT pupils attaining the expected standard in reading, writing and mathematics rose from 19% in 2018 to 20% in 2019. At key stage 4, the percentage achieving grades 9-4 in English and mathematics rose from 11.8% in 2017 to 13.1% in 2018.
The government is taking significant steps forward to support attainment and progression for all pupils, including GRT pupils. Our education reforms, including those aimed at improving teaching; encouraging good attendance and behaviour; and strengthening the curriculum and examination system, are designed to improve opportunity and standards for all pupils. These reforms are underpinned by school accountability measures, which are intended to encourage schools to focus more closely on the attainment of all their pupils.
Through the pupil premium; we are addressing low economic circumstances. This is a key factor that predicts future educational outcomes, and affects a high proportion of GRT children. Since 2011, we have provided over £15 billion of this additional funding, with a further £2.4 billion being distributed in this financial year.

Life Sciences

Medical Science is one of BU’s strategic investment areas (SIA). Colleagues with an interest in this SIA area will be interested in the Life Sciences Industrial Strategy update which highlights progress in delivering the strategy since 2017. It covers:

NHS collaboration
Business environment
Reinforcing the UK science offer, including clinical research, data and genomics
Skills
Advanced therapies, including developing advanced therapies and advanced therapies manufacturing

The report notes very substantial progress in making the UK a more attractive place for life sciences companies to succeed and grow. These developments are the result of a strong collaboration between all aspects of this diverse industry – pharma, biotech, medtech, digital and diagnostics – the wider research community in the UK, the NHS and government. And states A substantial majority of the objectives in the Life Sciences Industrial Strategy have been met and more are being delivered now. Page 5 details the key achievements and page 10 onwards details the health and clinical research and development. Page 20 covers growing the skills base and workforce to deliver the life sciences industrial strategy. However, the content is limited and mainly covers AI and existing initiatives. It does not that the 2030 Skills Strategy will be published this year so we can expect more detail in the new future facing document. Page 21 briefly touches on commercialisation of university research. You can read the sections that interest you most here.

Other news

Unconditional offers: Nottingham Trent have followed their public discussion on grade inflation last year by collaborating with The Times and publishing detail of their defence on conditional unconditional offers. Wonkhe had an article by Mike Ratcliffe, their Academic Registrar.

Care Students: The Scottish Funding Council has published its National Ambition for Care-Experienced Students, which outlines its commitment to equal outcomes for those students by 2030.

Languages: The Financial Times responds to the HEPI language report, arguing that foreign language study should be made compulsory.

Social Commuting: The Guardian have a short, to the point, piece advising commuter students how to balance a social life with their commuting arrangements.

R&D – extending definition to cover the Creative Industries: Last week there was an interesting mini-debate following this question by Baroness Bull: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what consideration they have given to adopting a broader definition of research and development that includes, and incentivises, research and development investment in the creative industries. You can read the debate responses and follow on questions here.

Universities and Crime – a Parliamentary question

Q – Lord Taylor Of Warwick: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what discussions they have had with UK Universities about reports that universities are not reporting crime statistics.

A – Baroness Berridge:

Criminal acts and misconduct are unacceptable in our world-leading universities, which should be safe and inclusive environments. Universities are autonomous institutions, and it is for each provider to determine what information should be collected and reported. Institutions have no statutory requirement to report crime statistics but have a responsibility to ensure students feel safe and able to report incidents, and to provide robust policies and procedures to address all forms of misconduct.
Current recorded crime statistics cover incidents reported to police. Where an institution (or the victim themselves) report the matter to the police it will be recorded and therefore captured in crime statistics. The government is aware that third party organisations collate data relating to incidents reported as taking place in Higher Education Providers (HEPs) and officials monitor this information.
The government expects providers to keep records of incidents disclosed to them and act swiftly to investigate and address them, with police involvement where necessary. Effective data collection processes enable HEPs to review and analyse reported incidents and complaints to inform continuous improvement. HEPs should continue to break down barriers to reporting, to ensure students and staff feel safe and able to report incidents.
The government continues to work closely with Universities UK (UUK) on implementing its Changing the Culture framework. The most recent progress report, published in October 2019, showed that 72% of responding institutions had developed or improved recording of data on incidents with a more centralised approach. UUK are also supporting HEPs in handling misconduct and criminal offences, including working with the Police Association of Higher Education Liaison Officers to explore how to best support information sharing between police forces and universities, and government officials meet regularly with UUK representatives.

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JANE FORSTER | SARAH CARTER

Policy Advisor Policy & Public Affairs Officer

Follow: @PolicyBU on Twitter | policy@bournemouth.ac.uk

January 13, 2020

HE Policy Update for the w/e 10th January 2020

EU, policy, Research news, Student Engagement jforster

Welcome to all our new readers! Parliament is back in the swing, the Labour leadership contest kicks off and the OfS has been VERY busy.

Parliamentary News

Daniel Zeichner, Labour MP for Cambridge, has been elected the new chair of the all-party parliamentary group for universities.

The Budget has been scheduled for Wednesday 11 March 2020.

Parliamentary Questions

Now that Parliament is regaining its stride relevant parliamentary questions will become more frequent (albeit on the usual topics).

Working Class | Educational Standards

At Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday Rt Hon Sir David Evennett raised concern about the lack of educational achievement amongst working class boys. He asked whether the Government would prioritise ensuring that “all school children are given the opportunities to maximise their talents.” PM Boris stated the Government were investing “record sums” in early education and would shortly be setting up a National Skills Fund. Local MP Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) welcomed the additional funding for education, but noted that equally important were disciplines and standards, and asked whether there will be a continuous focus on most disadvantaged, especially on literacy and numeracy. Boris agreed more needed to be done and that was why they were investing more.

Free Speech

Q – Dr Matthew Offord: Secretary of State for Education, what steps he will take to promote (a) diversity of thought and (b) freedom of expression on university campuses.

A – Chris Skidmore: This government will ensure that our universities are places where free speech can thrive, and will strengthen academic freedoms. The freedom to express views openly, challenge ideas and engage in robust debate is crucial to the student experience and to democracy. Individuals should never be in a position where they can be stopped from, or are made to feel inhibited in, expressing an opinion perfectly lawfully. Similarly, universities should be places where students are exposed to a range of views, including those which may be controversial, and are encouraged to debate and challenge them.
Free speech is protected in universities by law and is embedded in the Office for Students’ Regulatory Framework. Under the Education (No 2) Act 1986, universities have a specific duty to take reasonably practicable steps to secure freedom of speech within the law for staff, students and visiting speakers. The government worked with the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, who published new guidance in February 2019 on freedom of speech in higher education to support higher education providers and students’ unions in delivering their duties.
The government will be looking closely at how well higher education providers are meeting these obligations and will consider whether further action is needed, working with a range of partners.

Admissions/Productivity

Q – Lord Patten: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what analysis, if any, they have conducted into whether there is any relationship between increases in the number of university students in the UK and levels of productivity over the last 20 years; and what were the results of any such analysis.

A – Lord Duncan Of Springbank: The Office of National Statistics estimates that around a fifth of the rise in productivity between 1994 and 2019 can be attributed to improvements in the quality of the workforce. This is largely as a result of an increase in the share of overall hours worked by people with higher education qualifications. That is to say: more graduates in the labour market has led to an increase in productivity. This is consistent with other studies.
Productivity is the main driver of long-run economic growth, and a key determinant of standards of living; in the long-run, the UK’s ability to improve living standards is almost entirely dependent on its ability to raise productivity. The Government’s Industrial Strategy sets out a long-term plan to boost productivity by backing businesses to create good jobs and increase the earning power of people throughout the UK with investment in skills, industries and infrastructure. The Government recently published the Business Productivity Review in response to the Industrial Strategy’s core priority of addressing the UK’s productivity issue.
The Government is investing £406 million in STEM and technical education and an additional £400 million in further education; the Government is also considering the recommendations of the Post 18 education funding review panel chaired by Sir Phillip Augar. This looked at how the post 18 education system can help deliver the skills the economy needs and improve UK productivity.

Q – Lord Taylor Of Warwick: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what discussions they have had with UK universities about combating the student wealth divide in those applying to university.

A – Baroness Berridge: This government believes that a university education should be available to everyone who has the potential to benefit from it, and that higher education providers must continue to take steps to level the playing field for those from disadvantaged backgrounds and other under-represented groups. All providers wishing to charge tuition fees above the basic fee level must have an access and participation plan agreed by the higher education regulator, the Office for Students. Through these plans, providers set out the targets and their planned activity to support improved access and successful participation for students from disadvantaged backgrounds and under-represented groups.
The current student finance system removes financial barriers for those hoping to study and is backed by the taxpayer. The government provides maintenance loans and supplementary grants to help with the costs of living, targeting the most support at those from the lowest income families. Living costs support increased by 10.3% for eligible students on the lowest incomes in 2016/17 compared to the previous system. Further inflationary increases in living costs support have been made in each academic year since with a further increase of 2.9% announced for the 2020/21 academic year taking the support available for the lowest income students to record levels. Student loan repayments are linked to income, not to interest rates or the amount borrowed. The repayment system is designed to be progressive and borrowers on lower incomes are not obliged to repay their loans, with outstanding debt written off after 30 years

OfS updates

The OfS have confirmed they will develop a new framework for the TEF during 2020. The new framework will take account of the forthcoming recommendations in Dame Shirley Pearce’s independent review of the TEF (not yet released), the government’s response to it, and the findings of the latest subject-level TEF pilot. There will be a consultation following the publication of the new framework (expected in April) and there will not be a TEF round in 2020.

OfS have also confirmed they will publish their Insight Briefs on student information, regulation and mature students within the next six months. In addition there will be a January report covering the Access and Participation Plan commitments, a consultation on student protection plans, and the subject level TEF findings will be published.

February will see the OfS student engagement strategy, more reports on Access and Participation – particularly surrounding financial support, and an admissions call for evidence.

A highlight in March will be the OfS report into grade inflation, a student contract consultation in April, the future (recurrent) funding review, the OfS Business Plan, and a report into unconditional offers. In June OfS will report on the Access and Participation Plan monitoring outcomes and publish their OfS annual report and accounts.

Buckle up it’s not just Boris who is making changes!

Harassment and Sexual Misconduct

The OfS has been particularly active this week including publishing new expectations on how universities and colleges should deal with harassment and sexual misconduct relating to students. The published expectations form part of a consultation which is open for response until 27 March. The expectations have been shaped considering input from NUS and UUK. They cover the definition, policy and process standards, and the support expected across the cycle – before, during and after disclosure and formal investigation. They also state the OfS powers to intervene when a provider fails to handle a complaint or investigation adequately.

Wonkhe have a blog and a range of media have covered the release – ITV, the Guardian, the Telegraph, the Independent, and TES. Later in the week The Guardian published a series of letters by academics responding to the report and the OfS ran a blog by Ann Olivarius (American lawyer focusing on sexual assault) which discussed the Equality Act 2010.

Erasmus

The Brexit Withdrawal Agreement was read in Parliament this week and one of the amendments selected for debate sought to enshrine within law a compulsion for the Government to make staying part of the Erasmus scheme a priority within the Brexit negotiations. The amendment was not successful however as Wonkhe state “Chris Skidmore clarified on Twitter that this does not necessarily end or prevent the UK participating in the Erasmus+ scheme after Brexit, instead stating that the UK’s participation in the scheme will be part of future negotiations with the EU.” And that…he noted later that participation in the scheme is protected under the Withdrawal Agreement until 2021. In essence Erasmus participation will still be negotiated but not as a priority measure. Wonkhe have compiled the media coverage: BBC, the Guardian, the Independent, the Metro, Channel 4, the New European, and TES. The Guardian and i News also publish pieces by Erasmus alumni about how the scheme affected their lives.

Funding Cuts

The Government have informed the OfS that there will be a reduction in the HE teaching funding allocation of 0.5%, which the OfS administer, and they set out the Government’s priorities for provision and providers that the OfS should continue to fund, namely:

High cost subjects (clinical years for medicine, dentistry and veterinary)
World leading small and specialist institutions
The student premium (supporting WP students identified through the POLAR metric)

“all of which have an important role to play in maintaining the high quality of teaching and in supporting successful participation for underrepresented students”

RE: value for money protect those areas of the grant where the evidence base for need is strongest, and where there is clear alignment with priority activities, working closely with the DfE to identify these areas.
Consider how to fund London premium costs in the fairest and most efficient way (especially high-cost subjects within inner London).

OfS released a statement explaining how they will handle the reduction and explained that there are some areas this year where additional funds are needed:

increases in intakes to pre-registration medical degrees and the continuing effects of the transfer of funding responsibility for pre-registration courses in nursing, midwifery and allied health professions. This means the underlying cut in recurrent funding is greater – at around £70 million (5 per cent) in cash terms, although this should be viewed alongside an increase in capital funding of £50 million.
The OfS has already allocated the large majority of our funding for academic year 2019-20 and wishes to avoid as far as possible having to reduce grants already announced. Instead, we believe we can secure the savings required in academic year 2019-20 from as yet unallocated funds and by deferring some activities into academic year 2020-21.

OfS are launching a consultation next week to gather opinion on their proposed approach to implement the required savings. They have also confirmed there will be a full review of the funding method from 2021-22 financial year in April 2020. Remember the Budget will take place on 11^th March. The timing of the full review is unlikely to be coincidental.

The SoS also mentioned the full review in his letter and asked the OfS to prioritise:

Streamlining the grant allocations to be more efficiently targeted and to represent an overall strategic approach to supporting priorities such as the Industrial Strategy, access and participation and specialist institutions;
Consideration of how to make sure the Student Premium is best targeted to support access, participation and successful outcomes for disadvantaged students, using the most up-to-date and relevant metrics;
Developing a new framework for evaluation and assurance of the Teaching Grant, working closely with the DfE over the coming months to agree this.

Wonkhe have a blog on the funding reduction – David Kernohan predicts that cuts are likely to come from the £51 million national facilities and regulatory initiatives pot (such as the Learning Gain pilot, phase 3 of the Catalyst Fund, and pilot metrics work). The one David doesn’t mention that will presumably escape the hatchet is NCOP.

Research

The House of Commons Library has published figures on the rise in research and development spending. In 2017 total R&D expenditure was £34.8bn (1.7% of GDP) from £17.6bn in 1981. This is a real terms increase of 94% but in 1981 the £17.6bn represented 2% of GDP. The library publication projects what is needed to reach the Government’s R&D target of 2.4%.

Key facts:

251,000 people in UK are employed in R&D related roles.
The UK R&D expenditure of 1.7% of GDP is below the OECD average of 2.4%.
R&D expenditure in Germany is the equivalent of 3.0% of GDP, in the US it is 2.8% and in France it is 2.2%.

Worklessness – An Educational Story

The Resolution Foundation have published an interesting briefing on adults who have never held a stable paying job (holiday and casual work is discounted). While population employment levels are currently at a record high it still remains that 8.2% of the adult population have never had paid employment. 60% of this figure are young students, and as the statistic counts from age 16 to 64, a percentage of the never worked is skewed by those understandably within full time study. Yet this doesn’t explain all – there has been a rise in those aged 25+ that have never worked and are not currently studying.

The report pulls out several ‘key shifts’ that are interesting for the student population.

The death of the Saturday teenage job – the employment rate of 16-17 year olds has almost halved over the past two decades – from 48.1% 1997-99 to 25.4% in 2017-19. Increased participation in education only explains a small part of this decline – two-thirds of the fall is driven by a declining employment rate among 16-17 year olds studying full time at school or college. The types of work done by this age group have changed too. 52% of 16-17 year olds now work within catering, waiting tables or as retail assistants. In the past this age group did a wider range of work and the jobs that have declined most sharply are as retail cashiers, shelf stackers, factory packing work and as postal workers. Previous research by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills into the ‘death of the Saturday job’ confirmed that focusing on their studies was the main driver of the decline in earning while learning. Other reasons were that fewer young people wanted a job than in the past and some cited a lack of suitable jobs that fitted around study commitments. This ran alongside the strong opposition from schools and colleges who frowned on their students doing paid work – and raised that employers were similarly opposed to employing young people who are trying to juggle work and studying. The report highlights this as a concern stating the decline is despite evidence of clear benefits for teenagers who work while studying. Those who combine work with full-time education are 4-6% less likely to be not in employment, education or training – and earn 12-15% more – five years down the line than those just in education.

Less work whilst studying (FE & HE) – there has been a sharp fall in the employment rate of 18-24 year olds in FE and HE. A 25% fall in the employment rate of 18-19 year olds working while studying for degrees from the early 2000’s peak, a 15% per cent fall among 20-21 year old university students, and a 33% fall among 18-19 year olds studying for non-degree qualifications. Later the report acknowledges that most groups of students are less likely to be in employment post-financial crisis. The report continues with familiar themes: “again, this is despite evidence that working while studying at university improves long-term educational and labour market outcomes. (However, above a certain number of hours – perhaps 15-20 – work becomes an impediment to good grades, and students working only for financial reasons are less likely to get the best degrees. What explains this decline in working while in further or higher education? It’s possible that the growth in tuition fee and maintenance loans has improved university student incomes such that they don’t feel the need to work. Alternatively, tuition fees may have increased the salience of the individual costs of higher education and driven an increased focus on getting the best educational outcomes, at the expense of paid employment. Another potential factor – which would also relate to the decline in work among 16-17 year olds discussed above – may be the introduction of minimum wages reducing employers’ appetite or ability to make jobs available to those with the least experience. While there is little evidence that the UK minimum wage has harmed employment overall, there is some limited evidence that minimum wages reduce the employment prospects of the youngest and least experienced workers. Beyond these suggestions, it is possible that the social and cultural expectations among students, parents, employers and educational institutions are mitigating against earning while learning, as they have at sixth-form age.”
Getting a first paid job after completing full-time education takes longer than it used to. In the late 1990s, 56% of young education leavers who had never previously worked got a paid job within the first year after leaving. Today that figure has fallen to 44%.Again the report suggests more negative employer attitudes (as described above) alongside less work at sixth-form age, declining geographic mobility and an increase in living within the parental home as a young adult have an influence.The report goes on to discuss how delaying employment to focus on studies can be dangerous for future employment prospects
Motherhood and ill-health in early adulthood effectively ‘lock in’ a lack of paid work experience for those who have not had any up to that point. The proportion of 25-39 year old mothers who have never worked has increased from 3.3% in the late 1990s to 6.5% today.
The proportion of 25-39 year old men with health problems who have never worked has increased from 4.8% to 7.6%. This triggers alarm bells because there have been big increases in health issues (particularly mental health) among young adults.

The report recommends that

Policy makers should pay more attention to the factors that have driven a rising likelihood of working-age adults in Britain never having had a paid job. Rather than cutting benefits, they should consider the extent to which earning while studying is encouraged (given evidence that, if not excessive, doing so improves long-term educational and labour market outcomes); the systems that support education-to-work transitions; and the factors driving the growth in ill-health among younger working-age adults.
Rather than cutting benefits, we need to explore and perhaps challenge the economic, social and cultural drivers mitigating against earning while learning at school, college and university, while boosting evidence on the types of work that are complementary to studying rather than detrimental. Our evidence underscores the particular challenge that the new T level qualifications are seeking to address for those taking the non-university route, and the importance of getting the work experience component of these right. In particular, this means ensuring that sufficient numbers of employers are willing and able to deliver work experience. And this analysis suggests that a much sharper focus on the advice and support systems that help people move from full-time education to the first stage of their career is required. Finally, our findings underscore the need for continued policy action to address the labour market disadvantages that women face when they have children, and to better understand how the growing group of relatively young adults with health problems and disabilities can be supported to actively participate in the labour market.
Lazy interpretations related to workshy Brits are clear very far wide of the mark. Instead, a full investigation of the rise in the proportion of working-age adults who have never had a paid job tells us much about the challenges of parenthood and disability, but above all about the complex choices many young people are facing in trying to get the most out of a perhaps increasingly high-pressured education.
…In conclusion, the story of a rising likelihood of working-age adults never having had a paid job is a lifecycle story that is strongly related to what happens during the education years.

Labour Shadow Cabinet

After the Government’s very minor reshuffle which kept most of the major ministers in their pre-election posts (see previous policy update) we are not anticipating any further changes until after Brexit. Other parties are reshuffling and Labour has announced several of the Shadow Cabinet roles. Most notable is that Emma Hardy has been appointed Shadow Minister for HE and FE (previous Shadow HE Minister Gordon Marsden lost his seat). TES cover her background and experience nicely including her membership of the Commons Education Select Committee, her support for scrapping tuition fees and restoring the EMA (Educational Maintenance Allowance), alongside her 10-year teaching career and time at the NEU teaching union. She supports the Augar proposals to increase the funding levels of FE colleges. TES report Emma stated:

“This is going to be an interesting Parliament, and this Parliament even more so than the last, we are going to need to really strongly hold the government to account and expose what they’re doing and the impact they’re having.”

In other roles:

Former Shadow Minister for Early Years, Tracy Brabin has been appointed as Shadow Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
Luke Pollard has been appointed Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
Rachel Maskell has been appointed Shadow Secretary of State for Employment Rights.
Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi has been appointed PPS to Jeremy Corbyn as Leader of the Opposition.

Leadership Contest

The Labour leadership contest has kicked off and the winner is to be announced on 4 April 2020. Six contenders have already announced their intention to stand – Clive Lewis, Lisa Nandy, Jess Phillips, Sir Keir Starmer; Emily Thornberry; and Rebecca Long Bailey. The candidate nomination process remains open until 13 January so more MPs could still make a leadership bid. However, candidates have to be backed by a minimum of 10% of the Labour MPs/MEPs. Following this hurdle the candidates have to receive support for their leadership bid from either 5% of the constituency labour parties or three affiliate organisations such as a trade union or socialist society associated with the party. As 2 in 3 affiliate organisations are trade unions this gives them significant influence over the selection process. Following this round the final ballot opens on 21 Feb (until 2 April). The voter ranks the candidates in order of preference and any candidate securing 50% of the votes wins. If no candidate secures 50% the lowest scoring candidate is eliminated and the second choice on the ballot paper is allocated the vote instead. The elimination of the lowest scoring candidate continues until a candidate receives over 50% of the vote. A special Labour conference will take place on Saturday 4 April to announce the new Labour leader.

YouGov have already begun polling on the outcome of the contest, their results:

36% of the membership said their top preference was Keir Starmer
23% Rebecca Long Bailey
12% Jess Philips
Emily Thornberry, Lisa Nandy, Yvette Cooper, and Clive Lewis all poll in single figures.

Note – 12% of party members did not respond to the survey. And the affiliate organisation round will affect which candidates progress to the actual ballot. YouGov also found that Kier Starmer benefited from the preferential voting system (see the chart here).

Private Members’ Bills

We’ve been here before…excitement at the fresh legislation that individual MP’s have the opportunity to introduce to Parliament…then the election was called and all Private Members’ Bill (PMBs) action was over before it began. A new ballot has taken place and we’ve a new crop of 20 providential MPs who have the opportunity to introduce their legislation. The top seven are the most likely to succeed as they have the most parliamentary time. The new PMBs will be first read (presented) on Wed 5 Feb, and then further considered during the first seven sitting Fridays within the House of Commons. When the PMBs are debated on the sitting Fridays a minimum of 40 MPs must vote for the Bill to progress. Often the Government or the Opposition vote PMBs down. However, during the 2017-19 parliamentary session 9 PMBs became law.

(We explained the private members’ bill process and purpose in these policy updates: 11 Oct 2018 and 25 Oct 2018 (page 5).)

Mike Amesbury (Labour) interests: leaseholder reform, effective public transport.
Darren Jones (Labour) interests: NHS anti-privatisation, job creation for local economy, tech, climate change, clean growth and human trafficking. Darren is a lawyer, has already rebelled and voted against the party whip, and is the first ever Darren in Parliament!
Anna McMorrin (Labour) interests: climate change, sustainable development, dementia, mental health.
Laura Trott (Conservative) – new MP – political interests not known but previously worked for David Cameron focussing on education and family policy.
Chris Loder (Conservative) – new MP – replaced Oliver Letwin as West Dorset MP. Has a background in the rail industry and publically took time away from his election campaign to volunteer as a platform manager to keep trains running during the South West train strikes. He has welcomed suggestions from the West Dorset constituents for his PMB. His political interests are rural economy, transport, and the environment – all as expected given his constituency demographics.
Paula Barker (Labour) – new MP – interests: green spaces, council housing. Paula is a long term trade unionist and has family ties to the NHS and her regional clinical commissioning group.
Philip Dunne (Conservative) has a personal interest in diabetes and stated political interests in agriculture, small business, economics and financial services.
Dame Cheryl Gillian (Conservative) previously introduced the Autism Act as a previous PMB (2008). Recently she has been outspoken against High Speed 2 and environmental concerns.

Of the rest – at place number 10 Dr Ben Spencer (psychiatrist) has a particular interest in young mental health; number 11 Bim Afolami is focussed on education (pro-grammar schools and the meritocratic system); and number 15 Mary Foy has a background as a carer to her daughter and it is speculated her PMB may focus on the caring role.

Decline in language study

HEPI have published A Languages Crisis? discussing the drop in learning an additional language and how far the UK lags behind the rest of the world for languages. The key points are:

Only 32% of British 16-to-30-year olds feel confident reading and writing in another language (in Europe it is 89%).
A decreasing proportion of international research is published in English – the UK’s position as an academic and scientific world leader is at risk.
Traditional language uptake at HE level has declined. Between 2010/11 and 2016/17, student numbers for French declined by 45%, German declined by 43% and Italian 63%. Languages provision, particularly for heritage languages, is vulnerable to departmental closures and downsizing.
Additional language learning, such as facilitating students on all courses taking language modules to count towards course credits and / or as an extracurricular activity, is a key area that UK higher education should protect and expand.
The author believes part of the problem begins at school following the 2004 reforms repealing the compulsory requirement to study an additional language.

The report recommends:

GCSE and A-Level courses should be more varied and appealing, featuring coursework as well as examination assessment.
Learning an ancient or modern foreign language should be made compulsory up to Key Stage 4 (KS4), with accreditation (either a GCSE / National, or alternative vocational or community language qualification) encouraged but optional.
Policymakers should introduce measures to increase teaching staff numbers, such as conditional financial incentives, and including all language teachers on the Shortage Occupations List.
Where tuition fees exist, they should be supplemented with additional government funding to safeguard provision of minority languages, and facilitate free additional language learning for any students and staff members.

The Times, the Guardian, ITV, and the Mail cover the report.

Megan Bowler, the author of the report, is a third-year Classics undergraduate at the University of Oxford. She said: “The cultural and political implications of Brexit mean it is more urgent than ever that we re-evaluate our attitudes towards languages. Learning a language develops an analytical and empathetic mindset, and is valuable for individuals of all ages, interests and abilities. It was a big mistake to scrap compulsory foreign languages at GCSE. Rather than continuing to present languages as not suitable for everyone, we need to include a broader range of pupils learning through a variety of qualifications geared to different needs. Given the shortage of language skills in the workforce, we should safeguard higher education language courses, particularly those involving less widely-taught languages, and prioritise extra-curricular language learning opportunities for students from all disciplines”.

Responding to the report, Professor Neil Kenny, Languages Lead at the British Academy, said: Last year…we called on Government to adopt and implement a UK-wide languages strategy to revive modern language learning (coordinating with existing strategies in Scotland and Wales). With Brexit just around the corner, we need linguists more than ever. Languages are vital for effective trade, diplomacy and soft power, for social cohesion, social mobility, and educational attainment, all of which will be essential to the UK’s future success”.

T Levels

The successful election majority enables the Government to push ahead with the introduction of T Levels. They have announced that another 8 new T Levels will be introduced and taught from 2022 (10 currently planned to be introduced in 2020 and 2021 across 100 FE providers). A Government press release invites ‘high performing’ providers to apply to teach the third wave of the new 8 programmes. These include Legal, Accounting, and Manufacturing, Processing and Control. To recap – T levels are technical qualifications presented as an alternative to A levels which combine classroom taught theory, practical learning and a 45 day industry placement. They are aimed to establish a parity of esteem for the vocational route against the academic A level route and to meet Britain’s industry and employment needs and skills gaps.

Other news

Emotional Fitness: Wonkhe write about a new app being trialled at several universities which draws on positive psychological principles by focusing on mentally healthy processing (called emotional fitness) from the outset rather than reacting to poor mental health after it occurs. The Fika app divides emotional fitness into seven areas:

motivation, purpose, stress, confidence, connection, positivity and focus, all of which are linked, in theory, to overall life satisfaction, wellbeing and success. The aim is to improve students’ personal agency, and avoid “self-efficacy spirals” in which, for example, a period of low motivation leads to non-submission of work, which creates stress and panic, which leads to avoidance of issues, which then multiply until they are beyond the student’s powers to bring back under control.

The creator believes starting with HE is the mechanism to bring about real change within wider society

HE partners have a big part to play in how wider culture is shaped. Influencing this generation of students means shaping future culture, new businesses, expectations of society and being in society. And that, if successful, the principles can be weaved throughout university life: Longer term, the plan is to integrate more closely with university curricula through developing exercises for personal tutoring, peer mentoring or group work. Focused work on particular issues and student groups – including BAME, international and commuter students, and student employability, is also on the cards. The article concludes by stating the app isn’t a substitute for specialist mental health services.

Medical Science research: Wonkhe cover a report by the Academy of Medical Sciences which highlights the growing number of research active NHS staff who struggle to fit research in among other responsibilities. A widening gap between universities and the NHS is suggested as a possible cause. The report offers six recommendations:

the integration of research teams between academia and the NHS
providing dedicated research time for research active NHS staff
incorporating flexibility into postgraduate pathways
ensuring undergraduate studies equip healthcare graduate staff with skills to engage with research
streamlining research through joint research and development offices
creating a healthcare system that truly values research

Links to download the full documents are on the left hand side of this page.

European study tour: Wonkhe and five student union representatives visited a number of universities across Europe (Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia). There are four blogs covering the learning tour.

Mental Health: The House of Commons Library published a briefing on English mental health policy.

Admissions: Wonkhe report on the new HEPI blog on the debate about academic selection, asking why many experts wish to abolish grammar schools while strengthening selection at the university level.

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JANE FORSTER | SARAH CARTER

Policy Advisor Policy & Public Affairs Officer

Follow: @PolicyBU on Twitter | policy@bournemouth.ac.uk

December 2, 2019

HE Policy Update for the w/e 29th November 2019

Uncategorized jforster

A shorter update this week as specific HE policy matters are taking a back seat to the main campaigns.

So, the election…

We’ve summarised the relevant parts of the Conservative and other manifestos released since our last update. You can read it here. And here is the link to read the Conservative manifesto in full. The manifesto was widely reported on by the media as ‘not rocking the boat’ and few unexpected commitments. A stark contrast to the radical Labour manifesto. Research Professional say:

“…the level of detail is so vague that a huge spectrum of potential changes could legitimately be claimed in years to come to fit within these manifesto commitments. That’s probably by design and possibly not everyone will sleep easy as a result.” (Research Professional, Monday 25 November 2019). The Conservative manifesto noticeably shorter than some of the others and peppered with pictures of Conservative candidates related to their work roles throughout.

Jane has produced a comparison of the major parties take on the key HE issues.

And sector bodies are all producing their own comparators, here’s a short one from UUK; HEPI have yet another election briefing; and NESTA are looking to the future and considering the challenges around the knowledge economy in what the next UK Government should do.

GuildHe have published their priorities for government.

Further to their published promises The Labour Party have also launched a Race and Faith Manifesto pledging to ensure that BME people will be properly represented at the top of public life and to ensure the education curriculum teaches the historical injustices of colonialism and teaches Black history. In the launch Corbyn noted there are only 25 Black women professors in UK universities. They also said they would overhaul the OfS to review the state of inequality across HE and the steps needed to address it alongside better BAME teaching representation within schools and tackling the higher exclusion rates among BAME pupils. Meanwhile, Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell, has promised an official consultation on clearing student debt.

An exclusive in The Tab, suggests that Labour would conduct a formal review into existing student debt.

The Scottish National Party released their manifesto on Wednesday. Their key priorities are Brexit, the NHS and a further Scottish Independence referendum. We include brief mention of their HE relevant manifesto points here because of their potential to support Labour should they be in position to form a minority Government.

Free HE – no return to tuition fees in Scotland.
Continue to support the post-work study visa (brought in by Conservatives in 2019) for students starting 2020/21 onwards.
Campaign for an extension to the no-deal three-year ‘Temporary Leave to Remain’ scheme, which discriminates against students in Scotland.
Oppose the £30k minimum salary for immigration purposes
Research – current success and a commitment to do more on green energy research projects
Expand childcare into the school holidays for primary pupils from the poorest backgrounds.
Continue to argue for Scotland to receive its fair share of education funding. (p21)
Abolish House of Lords
Push for 16 & 17 year olds to receive the vote

Admissions

The Universities and Colleges Admissions Service published its first report on end of cycle undergraduate acceptance, offer and entry rates.

A record high of 30,390 people were accepted onto nursing courses in the UK in 2019. The number of applicants has risen by 6.7%, to 54,225, ending a decline that began in 2017, driven by a decrease in the number of English applicants. Financial support for nursing students in England was reformed in August 2017, replacing bursaries with access to loans for new nursing, midwifery, and allied health students. 2019’s applicant figures represent a bounce back, after initial declines in applicants following these funding changes. The rise in applicants also comes after recent recruitment campaigns by the NHS2 , and growth in younger applicants, as more people are considering a career in nursing, particularly at age 18.
Students aged 18 were the single largest age group of acceptances (6,880), accounting for 22.6% of acceptances. More people than ever aged 35 and over (5,780) were accepted onto nursing courses, a rise of 12.9% from 2018. This group accounted for 19% of all acceptances and is the second largest age grouping accepted onto nursing courses

In 2019, 97.8% of UK 18 year olds applying through the UCAS main scheme received at least one offer. …This record-breaking figure is likely a consequence of both:

declining numbers of UK 18 year olds, resulting in increased competition between universities and colleges for students
the gradual removal of student number controls in England from 2012

The UK 18 year old population is expected to fall to its lowest point in recent years in 2020. Consequently, now may be the best time ever to apply to higher education – particularly since this population is expected to grow again from 2021, reaching 2010’s height by 2024.

Findings from the 2019 cycle also suggest that applicants should not be deterred from applying to courses with challenging entry requirements. Universities and colleges frequently accept applicants who perform below their entry requirements. Encouragingly, this is most often experienced by disadvantaged applicants. In 2019, 60% of POLAR4 quintile 1 placed applicants were accepted on courses with actual A level grades below advertised entry requirements (compared with 49% across all placed applicants).

Around one in six (17%) of the most disadvantaged applicants report receiving a contextual offer.
However, many remain unaware that some universities make contextual offers. Concerningly, the most disadvantaged applicants were less likely to be aware of contextual offers (60% aware) than the most advantaged (68%). These responses were collected at the end of the cycle, when many applicants would have been in receipt of these offers. Awareness may have been even lower when it was most needed – at the point of application.

On A level results day this year, almost all UK universities and colleges had courses available in Clearing. This covered over 30,000 courses.

Clearing covers a broad range of subject areas. This includes typically highly selective courses, such as preclinical medicine (over 400 placed through Clearing, comprising 7.9% of all UK 18 year old acceptances to this subject) and mathematics (over 600 placed through Clearing – 14% of acceptances to this subject).
2019 also brought the highest ever proportion of places secured through Clearing at higher tariff providers – 9.8%, compared with 8.3% in 2018.
New in 2019 was the option for placed applicants to ‘self-release’ online into Clearing. Nearly 16,000 UK 18 year olds with main scheme places took advantage of this option, with over 11,000 of these placed on a new course

Future Thinking

University of Lincoln vice chancellor Mary Stuart launched the report from their 21st Century Lab project. The University of Lincoln’s manifesto, calls for “permeability” as the organising principle for universities in the 21st century. The manifesto identifies ten global grand challenges.

Universities need to change fundamentally to serve 21st-century society. Mary Stuart and Liz Shutt introduce their manifesto for the 21st-century university. – you can read more here
When universities put their asks to the next government, they should ask for the things that will help them solve society’s biggest challenges, argues Debbie McVitty.

Social Mobility

The Social Market Foundation (SMF) have issued a press release ‘Class ceiling’ costs working class graduates £1,700 [per year] highlighting how much less a graduate from a deprived background earns compared to a wealthy graduate. The press release says:

SMF found they [disadvantaged] can struggle in the graduate jobs market, sometimes because they lack the social connections and work experience needed to get higher-paid jobs, and sometimes because recruiters’ hiring practices are slanted against them…the SMF said those factors create a “class ceiling” that is keeping graduates with deprived backgrounds out of the highest-earning jobs.
The wage gap between a top earning middle class graduate and a high-flying graduate from a poor home is £7904..The report also found that some graduates from poor London homes lack the “soft-skills” and self-confidence to seek out the highest-paying roles.
Other obstacles that stop disadvantaged graduates doing better include choosing courses and qualifications associated with lower wages, because of poor careers guidance and advice. The need to do paid work while at university can also limit their access to internships and other schemes offering experience that can help secure a high-paid job.

The research is London-centric with all participants come from and living in London, therefore caution is needed when generalising these findings to other areas. However, the study is of interest because London is ahead of the game in ensuring access to HE for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

James Kirkup, SMF Director, said:

“Any politician who promises more social mobility or more social justice needs to accept that education is only part of the story here. This study shows that even when children from disadvantaged homes do well at school and university, they’re still at a disadvantage relative to their middle-class peers.
Social mobility and a fairer economy is about much more than better schools. Employers and families must be centrally involved too.”

Inquiries and Consultations

Click here to view the updated inquiries and consultation tracker. Email us on policy@bournemouth.ac.uk if you’d like to contribute to any of the current consultations although there isn’t much action at present because Parliament activity has ceased during purdah.

Other news

Refugees: There has been increasing talk of how Universities assess and support refugees this week. Insecure housing, no certification or proof of prior education levels, conversational challenges, lack of financial income, financial restrictions (or requirement to pay international fee levels), and social and cultural barriers all stand in the way of refugees accessing Higher Education. A Guardian article highlights Unesco’s new global convention on the recognition of HE qualifications and equivalency and urges universities to assess refugee applicants differently to overcome paperwork barriers. It also says the need for innovative and tech-supported approaches to tackle delivery in refugee camps and other difficult environments. The Guardian article says:

It’s incredibly important that universities realise that by being more flexible about refugees’ qualifications they aren’t lowering the standards of their institution, but increasing the number of students who are exceedingly determined and resilient. This will enrich the classroom with a diversity of perspectives.
Migration is one of the major global challenges of our time, and there is already talk of a “lost generation” of young refugees. Education is the route to a better life – and universities can help provide the solutions, through expanding access on campus and beyond.

Regional divide: The Institute for Public Policy Research North has published Divided and Connected reporting on regional inequalities in the north, the UK and the developed world. Finding that the UK is more regionally divided (on health, jobs, income and productivity) than any other comparable advanced economy. The report blames centralised governance and argues for greater devolution.

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JANE FORSTER | SARAH CARTER

Policy Advisor Policy & Public Affairs Officer

Follow: @PolicyBU on Twitter | policy@bournemouth.ac.uk

October 14, 2019

HE Policy Update for the w/e 11th October 2019

Business Engagement, EU, Global engagement, hate crime, Industry collaboration, innovation, international, Knowledge Exchange, nhs, policy, Research news, Student Engagement jforster

Looking ahead, this week we have the Queen’s Speech and talks are continuing to see if there is any chance of a Brexit deal ahead of the Benn Act deadline. Parliament will sit next Saturday. The government is expected to lose the vote on the Queen’s Speech (apparently for the first time in 95 years) and there will be a post-Brexit budget on 6^th November assuming that the UK leaves the EU on 31^st October. And we are getting closer to the time when the parties may agree to a general election being called.

We have news on T levels and what students really want in the tuition fees vs living costs debate.

What might happen to education and skills policy if there is an election?

Dods have produced an overview of all the Education and Skills policy announcements from the party conferences.

Brexit / UK political context

You Gov measure public feeling on whether the Brexit deadline will be met.
However, if Brexit is delayed it seems the comms plan has worked and the public feeling is that it isn’t Boris’ fault.
On Tuesday the Government published the Brexit No Deal Readiness Report which updates Parliament and the public on the legislative, regulatory and systemic changes that will occur following a no deal Brexit. It also details the steps the Government has taken and remaining actions they intend to take to enable business and the public to prepare for the change. It is a lengthy document and Dods political monitoring consultants have prepared a summary and key points.

Private Members Bills: We are expecting the Private Members Bills (PMB) ballot to take place around Thursday 24 October (although in the Brexit disruption anything could happen). MPs enter a ballot and the first 20 picked out of the hat have the opportunity to introduce a PMB on a topic of their choice (or sponsor someone else to introduce the Bill) on a Friday set aside for this purpose. Those successful in the ballot get first opportunity for 7 of the extra Fridays. Another 6 Fridays are available later in the parliamentary calendar in which keen MPs unsuccessful in the ballot vie to introduce their own legislation.

Over 400 MPs enter the ballot which is only held once in a parliamentary session, so the chances of being selected are low. And even if they get their Bill before Parliament, few of them get very far partly due to parliamentary convention – whereby other MPs can vote them out early in the process (Christopher Chope is infamous for doing this). If they aren’t killed off this way, there is usually insufficient parliamentary time for them to go through the full process. Finally prorogation at the end of the session kills all Bills that have not become law before the end of the parliamentary session.

For example, all the current PMBs that were proceeding have now been closed down ahead of the Queen’s Speech, including:

Student Loans (Debt Interest) Bill
Representation of the People (Young People’s Enfranchisement and Education) Bill
Gypsy and Traveller Communities (Housing, Planning and Education) Bill
Schools (Mental Health and Wellbeing) Bill
School Holidays (Meals and Activities) Bill
Parental Rights (Rapists) and Family Courts Bill
Youth (Services and Provisions) Bill
National Living Wage (Extension to Young People) Bill

Lastly, even if an MP is successful in the ballot they may be targeted by the Government to introduce a ‘handout’ Bill. This is where the Government persuades the MP to introduce legislation that the Government either does not wish to introduce themselves or did not find parliamentary time for.

T Levels

In last week’s policy update we described Secretary of State for Education, Gavin Williamson’s, firm support for technical and vocational routes. This week the Government are pushing ahead in their T-level preparations and have launched the NexT Level national campaign building support for T levels which will commence next academic year as an alternative to A levels. A substantial amount of extra funding is available to the early adopters who are expected to work with DfE to tweak and develop the T levels.

From 2020/21 three T levels will be delivered – Digital, Education and Childcare, and Construction. In September 2021 seven more T levels will be added including subdividing digital and construction into two different pathways and adding a Health and Science route. From September 2022 three new sectors will be added: Legal, Finance and Accounting, Engineering and Manufacturing, Business and Administration. And from September 2023 the remaining T levels will come on board (making 25 T levels in all), including Agriculture, Environment and Animal Care, Creative and Design, Hair and Beauty and Catering and Hospitality.

Education Secretary, Gavin Williamson, said: T Levels are a complete game changer – high-quality technical courses that will give young people a head start in their careers and that will rival top performing technical education systems like those offered in Germany. With less than a year to go before the first T Levels are taught, we want to make sure young people and their parents know all about the brilliant opportunities these new qualifications will offer. Our new campaign will help make sure they have all the info they need.

Sir Gerry Berragan, Chief Executive of the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education, said: We are extremely excited about launching T Levels that will provide a gold standard of technical education on par with A Levels. The Institute fully supports this campaign. It’s important that potential students and their parents are aware that they will be rolled out from next academic year. We know that many young people are looking for an exciting alternative to the academic route and want to start training for their chosen careers after completing their GCSEs.

Tech Reskill Entitlement

Universities and Science Minister Chris Skidmore spoke at the TechUK conference on putting skills at the centre of innovation. Here is some of what he said:

No one can ignore the gathering force of technology that is reshaping the future of each and every one of us… Every day, developments in digital technologies are pushing the boundaries of what is possible. And, together, your companies and innovations are stretching the limits of what humanity can achieve, and what the UK can achieve as a nation….

UK investment in AI has also grown almost 6-fold in the 4 years between 2014 and 2018.
Our tech sector is going from strength to strength in front of our very eyes, growing at 50% faster than the rest of the UK economy.

I am keenly aware that our tech sector won’t go on thriving if we don’t concentrate on people. On putting people and skills at the centre of our innovation system. On ensuring that our regulatory system is as modern as the technologies that it supports. So, let’s take keeping the brightest and best people in the sector first. How do we do it?

Well, we need to recognise and address the challenges researchers and innovators face on a day-to-day basis. Developing a people-first research strategy is just one part of this.

Last month, I was pleased to support the launch of the revised Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers. This encourages signatories from across higher education and innovation to work together on the challenges facing researchers in the world today.

A world where research positions are shorter and more precarious than they used to be.
A world, which relies on the continuous transfer of talented people between academia and industry.
And a world where individuals may find themselves balancing heavy workloads with poor mental health and wellbeing.

It is on all of us to ensure we are supporting people across the entire innovation and tech sector to be the best they can be. From researchers, academics and innovators, to technicians, postgraduates and post-docs.

All of these people together are integral to the overall strength and prowess of UK tech. Embracing diversity in the sector is crucial to getting this right.

This government is determined to address the gender imbalance in tech careers, in particular by improving girls’ take-up of maths, computing and physics at all stages of the education system from primary school through to university. We’re keen that more people from currently under-represented groups, including those with disabilities and those from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities, realise a career in tech can be for them as much as anyone else.

…And we’re not just talking about young people here. We’re also talking about adult learners. Those people who, later in life, want to access the further technical training they need. In the digital age, education is going to become a lifelong endeavour, not just something you do until you’re 18 or 21…That’s why we’ve put in place now a commitment to introduce a national entitlement to adult basic digital skills training from 2020. Adults without the digital skills needed for life and work will have the opportunity to study new qualifications free of charge, so that nobody gets left behind as the world around us inevitably moves on.

…if we’re serious about meeting our target to invest at least 2.4% of GDP in R&D by 2027 then we can’t just rely on home-grown talent alone. Creating a climate based on the free movement of talent is obviously going to be key to generating the numbers and diversity the sector needs. The International Research and Innovation Strategy I launched earlier this year best evidences our commitment to global engagement in the science and tech sectors.

And the International Education Strategy, launched the same month, sets out our ambition to increase the number of international higher education students studying in the UK by over 30% to 600,000 by 2030.…And thanks to the hard work of my successor-come-predecessor, Jo Johnson, the introduction of the Graduate Route, or 2-year post-study work visa, will hopefully incentivise much of this talent to stay on our shores, work in our companies, and set up their own businesses.

…It cannot have escaped anyone’s notice that our Research and Innovation sector is incredibly concentrated in London and the South East. Per-capita spending on Research & Development in the North East is way under half that in London.…If we are to become an innovation nation, then we must learn from this, ensuring that the whole of the UK benefits from our tech revolution. This means ensuring that our most innovative SMEs can scale up and access seed funding as well as large grants, enter the market, and even shape new markets.

…I want us to build on the work we’ve done with University Enterprise Zones, which I launched last month, and to build on our amazing network of incubators, accelerators, catalysts and catapults – spreading the benefits right across the UK. To create a truly business-friendly environment. To join together research, development, and innovation. And to create a new unity of purpose.

For as long as I’m Universities and Science Minister, I want to help the UK to find a new gear, to put the UK tech sector in the fast line, and to grow an incredible tech ecosystem that can accelerate into the future.

International student outcomes

HE metrics often focus on home students, however, SoS Gavin Williamson, has highlighted the Government is looking closes at the gaps for international students – their drop-out rate and the likelihood of them achieving a good honours degree. Two blogs on Wonkhe tackle these issues.

Gavin Williamson is right on international students explores an international attainment gap of 10% and how difficult it is to obtain reliable data on international students to benchmark or make accurate judgements.
Shining a spotlight on international graduates explores whether shining A spotlight on our international graduate destinations could lead to a long overdue investment in international student employability support …because [while] international outcomes are [currently] counted – but don’t actually count [for TEF metrics]…– it can be a real struggle to get funding for the specialist support our students need and deserve. The blog also highlights that international students, the majority of whom choose to study abroad to better their career prospects, are least satisfied that they have received value for money.

Julia Buckingham, President of UUK said: “Universities are listening to concerns about grade inflation and these initiatives show our determination to ensuring transparency and consistency in the way degrees are awarded.”

Grade Inflation

Wonkhe report that the UK Standing Committee for Quality Assessment (UKSCQA) has agreed initiatives to more widely publicise degree standards information and has produced institutional guidance. UKSCQA will expect providers to publish a voluntary Degree Outcomes Statement on their website which describes their degree outcome data and explains any changes. They’ve produced guidance for institutions.

SoS for Education Gavin Williamson states: “It’s crucial that students, graduates and employers can trust the value of a university degree and the achievements of students who put in the hard work aren’t undermined”, adding that “grade inflation has become entrenched in higher education”, and that he will be “watching closely” to see if these initiatives work, and expecting the OfS to “challenge institutions which continue to record unexplained rises in top degrees awarded”.

The Guardian covers the story and Wonkhe have a dissection blog by David Kernohan. Kernohan is quoted in the Guardian article: “the effort to boil down a complex set of algorithms and classifications into a brief text, as the code requires, was unrealistic…If you are setting out such broadly applicable descriptions you are in danger of not adding anything tangible to the subject specific learning goals and outcomes that already exist in course documentation…With such rubrics already available…what exactly do these non-exhaustive generic descriptors actually add? The idea of consistency in measures of learning is attractive, if unlikely. A mention of a provider’s adherence to these descriptions in their degree outcomes statements seems to be the likely endpoint. And I’m not sure who benefits from that.”

Fees & Funding

The Higher Education Policy Institute have published results from new research on undergraduate students’ views of the education funding system. It finds that students are mixed in their attitudes towards the current tuition fee model and Augar recommendation to lower fees. It finds:

79% of students stated that the level of interest charged is one of the most important aspects of the funding system
40% prefer the current system of £9,250 paid back over 30 years; 41% prefer Augar’s approach of £7,500 paid off over 40 years; and 18% have no preference between the two.
Students are supportive of Augar’s recommendation to bring back maintenance grants, with 53% of students advocating for a mixed system of maintenance grants and loans and 32% saying they would prefer grants only
Cost of living is a higher priority for students than tuition fees, with 59% saying it is their top funding concern.
Over half (52%) of students’ parents contribute to their living costs
Of the students whose parents contribute towards their living costs, half (50%) receive more than £1,000 every year, 29% of students receive between £500 and £1,000 and 21% receive less than £500.
Many students see living away from home as critical to their university experience, with around half (49%) saying they would still choose to live away from home even if this came at a greater cost
Over half (57%) of students say living away from home was important to them when they applied to university

Rachel Hewitt, HEPI’s Director of Policy and Advocacy, said:

Many believe that in the current political environment the eagerly anticipated Augar review is dead in the water. The current minority Government lacks both the political sway and desire to implement the report’s recommendations. Our polling shows students are also split in their views on whether Augar should be implemented. They find the recommendation of lowering fees to £7,500 is no more appealing than the current system. Instead students’ main priority is the money available for living costs and ensuring the system operates fairly by reintroducing maintenance grants for the poorest students.
With an election potentially around the corner, politicians should take heed of students’ priorities. A winning offer to students may not involve focusing on tuition fees but instead on less headline-grabbing aspects, such as the maintenance system and interest rates.

Disadvantaged Participation and Success

Care students: UUK have a new blog on care leavers highlighting that the restrictive definitions that English universities apply and the strict criteria for access to bursaries is creating barriers. Earlier this year Scottish Universities unanimously agreed an open approach whereby any form of care experience, at any age, leads to enhanced support and consideration. The UUK blog calls on English universities to do more to remove barriers….Universities should consider the merits of adopting a definition of care experience which does not exclude certain individuals based on length of time in care, type of placement, or age, to ensure all individuals with care experience receive appropriate support. The most effective support replicates the financial and emotional safety-net that a family provides. Sensitivity is vital……and to recognise that many care leavers are often mature students.

Finally, the blog highlights that the National Network for the Education of Care Leavers (NNECL) is creating a sector-specific quality mark for supporting care leavers. (The hyperlink brings up a log in box, just press the X to get rid of the log in box and read the pilot quality mark launch article.)

Social Mobility: The Army and the Royal Air Force have been recognised as within the top 100 employers in the country for encouraging social mobility. The Minister of Defence was also listed within the Social Mobility Index. The Index lists organisations that have taken substantial action to improve social mobility in their workplace and ranks employers on the actions they are taking to ensure they are open to and accessible to progressing talent from all backgrounds.

New Trials: The Education Endowment Foundation has launched three new trials.

Children’s University

Nine- and 10-year olds in 150 primary schools across England will take part in the EEF-funded trial of Children’s University, which aims to raise the aspirations and attainment of pupils by providing learning activities and experiences outside of the classroom. Each pupil will get a ‘Passport to Learning’, used to record each activity and hours spent on the activities. Children will make their own choice from a wide range of activities and receive a stamp in their passport on completion. Activities range from walking trails and gymnastics, to trips to wildlife parks, sports sessions and performing arts classes.

SEND Review

A programme, delivered by the National Association for Special Educational Needs, that aims to improve provision for pupils with SEND in mainstream schools by helping schools to evaluate the effectiveness of their provision, and then implement a bespoke action plan to target areas of priority and drive improvement. Around 150 mainstream secondary schools will take part in the trial, which will be independently evaluated by a team from Manchester Metropolitan University.

Headsprout Early Reading in Special Schools

A programme, delivered by Bangor University, which aims to improve reading skills through a computer programmes that adapts instruction in response to children’s answers. Activities are designed to be engaging, with pupils working through cartoon-based worlds via tasks that resemble computer games. Bangor University have piloted the programme in UK special schools, and over 100 special schools will now be invited to take part in a large-scale trial of the programme for primary-aged children with SEND.

Official figures show there is a larger attainment gap for pupils with SEND than for any other group. In 2018, just 21% of these pupils achieved the expected standard in reading, writing and maths at age 11, compared to 74% of their classmates. Pupils with SEND are twice as likely to come from disadvantaged homes, too (27% of pupils with SEND are eligible for free school meals compared to 12% of all other pupils) and so face a double disadvantage in the classroom.

Sir Kevan Collins, Chief Exec of the EEF, said:

All young people deserve the chance to access a well-rounded and culturally rich education. Yet we know that those from disadvantaged backgrounds are less likely to take part in the sort of activities that Children’s University provide. Our previous trial found that taking part in the programme had a promising impact on reading skills, as well as on attributes like teamwork and aspirations. This new trial will find out if these positive findings can be achieved at scale. The results will help schools to make decisions about how best to target their resources and provide enrichment activities in their school.
It is great that we’re able to announce our first two trials of programmes focused on improving outcomes for pupils with special educational needs. The attainment gap is widest for this group and the evidence we generate from these trials will provide much needed evidence of how best to support them.

Mental Health

Professor Elaine Fox, University of Oxford, has been appointed as UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Mental Health Networks Impact and Engagement Coordinator. She will help encourage and facilitate engagement and collaboration between the eight Mental Health Networks and maximise their impact. The eight Mental Health Networks embrace a collaborative ethos, with researchers from a wide range of disciplines (including health, medicine, biology, social sciences, humanities and environmental sciences, insights from charity workers, health practitioners and people with lived experience of mental health problems). The networks aim to progress mental health research in themes such as the profound health inequalities for people with severe mental ill health, social isolation, youth and student mental health, domestic and sexual violence, and the value of community assets. The coordinator role will help to raise the public profile and quality of mental health research in the UK.

Professor Fox said: “I am absolutely delighted with this appointment and look forward to working with the eight Mental Health Networks to help shine a light onto the importance of mental health research. If we want a world in which mental health problems can be effectively treated and prevented we will need highly collaborative research teams bringing together expertise from many disciplines, including expertise that comes from lived experience.”

Research

Universities Minister Chris Skidmore delivered a speech on international research collaboration at the British Academy. Key Points:

Our universities, and innovative businesses, are powered by openness, and are strengthened by it…openness to ideas, to talent, to internationalism, and to collaboration – all of which bring real vibrancy to our universities and our wider research base in academia and industry alike. One of the enablers of this great openness has been our partnerships with the continent of Europe, over many centuries, helping us to develop a shared sense of culture, shared collective experiences, and a like-minded approach to the values of civilisation, enlightenment and liberty.
Irrespective of Brexit, sowing the seeds of intellectual and cultural unity across Europe is something that absolutely can and must continue. Yet, we cannot ignore the basic fact some of our largest international partnerships in science and research to date have been undertaken while we’ve been a member of the EU…as you know, the government has put in place guarantees for Horizon 2020, which apply whether or not we leave with a deal.
The European University Institute (EUI) is just one example of European collaboration on education and research. I am pleased to announce that we have concluded an interim arrangement with the EUI, to cover the period from Brexit until the middle of next year, as a transitional measure if we leave the EU without a deal. And now that we have concluded an interim arrangement, I have asked my officials to explore the possibility of a future relationship with the EUI.
We have sought to put in place robust contingency plans so that Erasmus+ projects that are already underway can continue if we leave without a deal. I hope that we will secure a deal shortly: a deal, which we all know would enable our continued participation in EU programmes such as Horizon 2020 and Erasmus+. But if there is not movement from the EU, we are ready to leave without a deal.
The government committed on the 8 August to ensuring that all UK bids to mono-beneficiary calls – the European Research Council, Marie Sklodowksa Curie Actions and the European Innovation Council Accelerator calls that are submitted to Horizon 2020 before Brexit would be evaluated in all scenarios. This means researchers and innovators can continue to submit proposals to Horizon 2020 with confidence, right up to the point of exit, knowing that the best proposals will be funded – regardless of how we leave the EU.
In the last 3 years, over 52% of the UK’s academics publications were produced in collaboration with international partners. Our International Research and Innovation Strategy aims to protect this, but also enhance this. It is also why we have announced the return of the Graduate Route – or the 2-year post study work visa.
[The strategy] builds upon the work we have begun this decade, with the investment in the Global Challenges Research Fund and the Newton Fund, partnering with countries across the globe, expanding research excellence in fields of study that are meeting global challenges for the future.

Chris Skidmore also wrote to Research England’s Executive Chair, David Sweeney on the KEF this week. In addition to the points already described above he also states:

Quality-related Research (OR) funding remains important to our research success within this system. I full recognise the value of QR’s un-hypothecated nature which contributes to a sustainable research system and allows universities to deploy funds strategically.
I remain firmly committed to encouraging universities to strive for both research excellence and the “impact agenda”. I therefore welcome the progress that you have made with the devolved HE funding bodies in detailed preparations for Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021, in which research impact will account for 25% overall.
Open Access is a key feature of REF2021. I encourage Research England to continue to support the implementation of full and immediate open access, in line with global efforts in this area.
I have re-committed to a strategic, long term approach to knowledge exchange and confirmed the important role that Higher Education lnnovation Funding (HEIF) plays in supporting effective university-business engagement. I am pleased that Research England, in consultation with the Office for: Students, will now be launching a full review of HEIF, undertaking a radical reform work programme over the next three years, including a fundamental review of the HEIF methodology. This reform plan will aim to put KEF at the heart of our approach.
All our HE institutions can play an important role in addressing the particular economic and social issues facing different local areas. I encourage you to support universities in understanding more about local issues and priorities, and in deploying their intellectual assets for the benefit of people in every part of the country. I am pleased that you have established the Expanding Excellence in England Fund to build high quality research capacity in areas of the country which do not yet have the ability to address urgent problems. There is scope for further rounds, in particular to help increase research capacity to tackle place-based research problems.
I recognise the important work that Research England/UKRI has undertaken in collaboration with the OfS, and look forward to this continuing to strengthen on areas of shared interest.

And last week BEIS SoS Andrew Leadsom launched a package of measures supporting UK researchers and business to innovate and embrace the green tech revolution.

Hate Crime

The Commission for Countering Extremism published its report into challenging hateful extremism. The report states the current strategy for countering extremism is “insufficient and too broad”, and calls for a major overhaul of government strategy. They propose a human-rights-based strategy to countering extremism, through detailed recommendations for government and civil society. Further recommendations include:

Provide greater clarity on the difference between work to counter terrorism and to counter hateful extremism.
Work to build resilience in communities against those who seek to restrict the rights and opportunities of others, particularly women and young people.
Deliver the commitment to set out who it will or will not engage and why.
Do more to support and protect those organisations and individuals who are countering extremism from abuse, harassment and intimidation.

UUK also published results this week from their harassment and hate crime survey, following up on how institutions are responding to the ‘Changing the Culture’ taskforce report. Key points from the 100 university respondents:

81% have updated their discipline procedures, with 53% introducing or making additions to the student code of conduct
81% improved support for reporting students and 67% improved support for responding students
78% provided students clear information on how to report an incident
72% developed or improved recording of data on incidents with a more centralised approach
65% have rolled out consent training to their students
Over a third reported recruiting new staff to respond to the recommendations in Changing the Culture

Despite this progress, UUK state that the research shows there is still more to do to drive positive change across HE. In particular, while there has been good progress in responding to sexual harassment and gender-based violence, less priority has been afforded to tackling other forms of harassment including racial harassment and other forms of hate crime.

Professor Julia Buckingham CBE, President of Universities UK said:

The higher education sector recognises its shared responsibility to eliminating hate crime, which is unacceptable in our society, and in our universities. We are committed to ensuring we create welcoming and inclusive environments for students of all genders, backgrounds and ethnicities to flourish and this research shows significant progress towards that. We particularly welcome actions taken by universities in addressing some of the issues and steps highlighted in our Changing the Culture report. However, it is clear that there is a long way to go in ending harassment and hate crime for good in higher education. While it is understandable that there has been a particular focus on addressing gender-based violence, it is time for us to step-up and make sure the same priority status and resourcing is given to addressing all forms of harassment and hate.

Responding to UUK’s report Nicola Dandridge, Chief Exec OfS, said:

“The findings from Universities UK show progress is being made by universities to develop systems and policies to address these issues, but more must be done. These improvements need to be taking place across all universities. We have supported 119 projects in universities and colleges across the country with £4.7 million to tackle sexual misconduct, online harassment and hate crime. As UUK’s report makes clear, this funding has made a real impact and sparked positive change across a number of universities and colleges. It is critical that areas of effective practice are now built-on and spread throughout the sector. The Office for Students will continue to work with universities and colleges, and other organisations to ensure that all students from all backgrounds can be – and feel – safe on campus.”

Finally United Response report that prosecutions for disability hate crime charges have fallen, despite sharp rises in reports and repeat offenders.

Parliamentary Questions

Q- The Lord Bishop Of Winchester: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to extend the pupil premium to post-16 education.

A – Lord Agnew Of Oulton: The government is determined to ensure that disadvantaged students are supported in their post-16 education. The national funding formula for 16 to 19 year olds and the funding through the Adult Education Budget both include a disadvantage uplift. This provides extra funding for disadvantaged students (specifically for those with low prior attainment or those who live in the most disadvantaged areas). We will continue to consider how we can most effectively support disadvantaged students in post-16 education, and will continue to keep financial arrangements under review.

Competitiveness: Also this week was a response to a parliamentary question on how the Government is supporting UK universities to remain competitive with universities elsewhere in the world. There was no new news and the response mentioned OfS, TEF, fast track immigration to attract talent, research, and the graduate immigration route (post study work visa). Read the full response here.

Other news

Fitness to Practise: The Office of the Independent Adjudicator has published new guidance on Fitness to practise for courses leading to professional qualifications. Guidance is provided on:

What fitness to practise is, including behaviour-, health-, and disability-related fitness to practise concerns;
How to help students understand the professional standards they need to meet and to support them to meet those standards where possible;
What a fair process looks like.

The guidance will inform how The Office of the Independent Adjudicator handles fitness to practice complaints from 2020/21. Felicity Mitchell, Independent Adjudicator, said:

Fitness to practise processes are about ensuring the safety of the student and those around them, including members of the public, and preserving public confidence in the profession. This must be balanced with fairness to the individual student whose career is at risk. The process should be supportive even when the outcome is that the student cannot continue with their studies.
The purpose of the guidance is to help providers treat their students fairly, not to provide answers to what are often complex questions that involve professional judgment.

Nursing: Maria Caulfield MP presented a nurse staffing levels bill; a Bill to make provision about National Health Service bodies establishing nurse staffing levels. From the first reading of the Bill:

There is increasing evidence that the right number of qualified nurses can improve patient outcomes in terms of mortality, morbidity and quality of care, and that, conversely, insufficient nurses can have a potentially life-threatening effect on patients. The Bill has four main aims.

First, we need to make the Government accountable for nursing levels in England. No one is accountable for nursing numbers, which is why we have such a high vacancy rate and a lack of strategic action to address the situation. How are we going to increase student nurse numbers via degree apprenticeships, which are working so well in places at the University of Brighton in my constituency, where student nurses earn while they learn in clinical placements? How are we to increase the numbers returning to practice when return-to-practice courses are difficult to access and expensive, with nurses often having to pay for them themselves? Nearly a third of our nurses in practice today are likely to retire in the next 10 years, so how are we to address early retirement? Without someone taking responsibility, none of those issues will be addressed. While individual trusts do their best to mitigate recruitment and retention challenges, no one is taking responsibility for the sheer scale of the issue across England.
That fits neatly into the second and third parts of the Bill, which relate to a fully costed workforce strategy and nursing numbers. There are currently no legally enforceable nursing numbers for any healthcare sector in England. In 2014, National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines for adult wards stated that when nurse patient ratios reach eight patients to one nurse, that should act as a red flag that care is becoming unsafe… We need legally enforceable numbers, so that nurses and patients can be protected from unsafe care and so that someone is held to account if that does not happen… However, the Bill is about more than just ring fencing nursing numbers. It is about the skill mix, too. Having experienced qualified nurses is the key to improving patient outcomes.
Finally, the Bill would legislate to provide training and education for all nurses throughout their career. If we want nurses to take on more advanced roles, from nurse prescribing to chest drain insertion, the Government need to ensure the training happens both by paying for it and by allowing study leave. We cannot continue with nurses using their annual leave and their days off to undertake training vital to their role.

Other countries have realised the need for change and have made legislative changes to ensure safe staffing levels. That is why I support the RCN and Dame Donna Kinnair in promoting this Bill to create a legal framework that clarifies the roles and responsibilities and the accountability for the supply, recruitment and retention of nurses in England.

The Bill was read the first time and scheduled for a second reading but unfortunately prorogation meant it has been dropped. All hope is not completely lost, it could be picked up in the next session if special provision has been made, although we do not believe it has been. However, if luck is on her side Maria might be within the first twenty in the private members bills ballot.

Schools Funding: One of PM Boris’ campaigning points to become Leader of the Conservative party centred on increasing funding for schools. Since the announcement there have been various statistics and debates over whether it means a real terms increase for schools. The House of Commons Library has published school funding in England – FAQs which gives an overview and tackles some of the confusion.

Children’s mental wellbeing: The Government have issued the first ever State of the Nation report on children’s mental wellbeing. This publication fulfils a government commitment to bring together the best evidence on children and young people’s wellbeing, identifying trends and drivers so that the right support is in place to help them fulfil their potential. You can read a short summary of the key points here and the Government press release here.

Schools apace with housing: Developers creating new housing estates can access a loan from the Government to ensure they build a school alongside the new accommodation. The aim is to ensure the school is open and ready as the new communities move in (rather than there being a lengthy delay). The Government are running this scheme as a pilot which will commence shortly. More detail here.

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September 30, 2019

HE Policy Update for the w/e 27th September 2019

Business Engagement, ECR Network, EU, Funding opportunities, HEIF, Impact, Industry collaboration, innovation, international, Knowledge Exchange, policy, Research news, Student Engagement jforster

What a week! Parliament is sitting (but not quietly) and there is lots of coverage from the Labour Party conference including the fringe events.

Fresher loneliness

Fresher loneliness: The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy and Louise Knowles (Sheffield University) have spoken out on tackling loneliness during the first few weeks when starting university.

For many, the thought of Freshers’ Week conjures up images of non-stop partying, a whirlwind introduction to university life and new places, opportunities and friendships. But for some students it also brings a feeling of anxiety, isolation and the start of a long battle against homesickness.
Fresher’s Week can be a culture shock. Some students relish this and enjoy the excitement, but others are like a rabbit caught in headlights.
Being isolated affects your psychological wellbeing. When they start at university, many students have lost the comfort of home, someone to cook for then, that structure they had, their community of family and friends for support.
It’s especially true for marginalised students – such as international, disabled or mature students. They can feel at a loss. They will wonder ‘is there anyone else like me here?’ or ‘where can I get support?’

Having a sense of community can be key to helping a student overcome homesickness.

Sense of belonging

“They need to build up that sense of community, that sense of belonging.
“Some students can be very reserved. They might not be comfortable in large social groups or going out clubbing all the time with lots of new people. They might find it easier to join smaller, informal groups, and look for activities on a smaller scale to join in.
“We have to push ourselves a little bit to put ourselves out there and build a new community, but not to the depths of despair.”

There are university societies to pretty much cover every interest and hobby, as well as for specific groups of students, and they can often help people form a much-needed community to help them settle in.

Preparation

“Some students haven’t had much preparation for university. If they’ve accepted a place through clearing they may not even known where they were going until a few weeks before. It does help to familiarise yourself with where you’re going and what life’s going to be like before it’s thrust on you in the first week of term.“

Freshers’ Week and the following few weeks can be a bit of a blur. Some people want to jump in and do everything. Others want to familiarise themselves with university life more slowly. “It’s important students remember to take it at a pace that they are comfortable with.”

Wonkhe have a fresher related blog: Are freshers the new realists when it comes to mental health support?

Initiations: UUK have published a briefing, Initiations at UK Universities, to raise awareness of the dangers associated with initiation tasks and excessive drinking among students. The briefing sets out recommendations and actions they suggest universities should take to prevent and respond to dangerous behaviours and aim to drive a change in attitudes towards these events.

The briefing includes a consensus statement on the best way forward from stakeholders across the university and health sectors and examples of emerging good practice. Here are the key recommendations:

Adopt a clear definition of what constitutes an initiation which focuses on prohibited behaviours
Foster cross-working and a whole university approach. This means including work to prevent initiations as part of strategies to tackle harassment and promote good wellbeing and mental health
Evaluate new initiatives and share knowledge and good practice, continuously assessing progress being made
Update or develop policies and practices to explicitly refer to initiation events and the problems that arise from them
Ensure proportionate disciplinary processes and sanctions are in place, noting that a “zero tolerance approach” is unhelpful as it implies initiations do not happen
Provide clear reporting systems and advertise support available to students
Raise awareness of initiations and their risks among students and staff
Organise appropriate staff training, identifying the levels of training needed for different staff. First responders will need the most training, for example.
Work with the local council, licensees and partners to ensure the campus environment promotes responsible behaviours towards drinking
Work with alumni to encourage an increased sense of responsibility for the safety of student groups and societies of which they were a part

Wonkhe have a new blog exploring the complexities for universities to walk the right balance over initiation.

Parliament is back

The supreme court ruled that PM Johnson was unlawful in his advice to the Queen to prorogue parliament. A summary of the court’s decision is here. In essence:

For present purposes, the relevant limit on the power to prorogue is this: that a decision to prorogue (or advise the monarch to prorogue) will be unlawful if the prorogation has the effect of frustrating or preventing, without reasonable justification, the ability of Parliament to carry out its constitutional functions as a legislature and as the body responsible for the supervision of the executive. In judging any justification which might be put forward, the court must of course be sensitive to the responsibilities and experience of the Prime Minister and proceed with appropriate caution.

The court ruled that Parliament was frustrated and its ability to debate the Brexit change curtailed:

This was not a normal prorogation in the run-up to a Queen’s Speech. It prevented Parliament from carrying out its constitutional role for five out of the possible eight weeks between the end of the summer recess and exit day on 31st October. Proroguing Parliament is quite different from Parliament going into recess. While Parliament is prorogued, neither House can meet, debate or pass legislation. Neither House can debate Government policy. Nor may members ask written or oral questions of Ministers or meet and take evidence in committees. In general, Bills which have not yet completed all their stages are lost and will have to start again from scratch after the Queen’s Speech.
This prolonged suspension of Parliamentary democracy took place in quite exceptional circumstances: the fundamental change which was due to take place in the Constitution of the United Kingdom on 31st October. Parliament, and in particular the House of Commons as the elected representatives of the people, has a right to a voice in how that change comes about. The effect upon the fundamentals of our democracy was extreme. No justification for taking action with such an extreme effect has been put before the court.
The Court is bound to conclude, therefore, that the decision to advise Her Majesty to prorogue Parliament was unlawful because it had the effect of frustrating or preventing the ability of Parliament to carry out its constitutional functions without reasonable justification.
The prorogation was also void and of no effect. Parliament has not been prorogued. This is the unanimous judgment of all 11 Justices.

So all bills that were previously passing through parliament are resumed and Parliament is sitting again. A recess for the Conservative Conference was not approved. Next week will be another interesting one.

Fees and funding

Meanwhile, on Monday, Wonkhe reported that the Sunday Times confirmed that ministers have “shelved” implementing the Augar recommendation to cut full-time undergraduate English tuition fees to £7,500. Wonkhe continue:

This does not mean that higher education finance will not make its way into a future Conservative election retail offer to students and young people – maintenance grants, expansion of higher technical and apprenticeship qualifications, and interest rates on student loans could all plausibly feature – and would generate fewer direct comparisons to Labour’s free tuition offer. Though other parts of the Augar recommendations will perhaps make it through the month, the “big difference” that education secretary Gavin Williamson claimed the Augar review is making to his thinking, now looks quite a bit smaller.

And there is a new Wonkhe blog on the topic.:

The Sunday Times reports that ministers felt there was no parliamentary majority for any legislation. However:
Making changes to the fee cap would just require a statutory instrument. From the way HERA has been drafted it is difficult to see what the precise process would be to lower fee caps… but there is no indication that lowering fees would require such a vote.
The blog suggests Jo Johnson killed off the fee reduction “Six weeks would be plenty for him to kill off the idea of ill-considered tweaks to his 2017 legislation. He lost his job over opposition to the post 18 review, so given a second chance he was always going to take the opportunity to render it harmless.”

Voter registration

Electoral Registration: With the prospect of an election before the end of 2019 looming an Electoral Commission report holds particular interest for the student voter registration hurdle. They find that local government registers are only 83% complete (so between 8.3 and 9.4 million people are not correctly registered). The greatest risk factors for non or inaccurate registration are:

Aged 18-24 years
Having lived at current address for less than two years
Renting from a private owner
Being of ‘other ethnic background’ or ‘mixed background’ ethnicity

Several of the risk factors chime with the HE student demographic, which also has the additional hurdles of understanding the electoral registration process given their dual (home/study address) residence status. Alongside the de-prioritisation of registering to vote against the many other items competing for their attention when they start or return to university.

KEF is coming – and more money for knowledge exchange

A couple of significant announcements were made this week by the Universities Minister.

Universities Minister Chris Skidmore has today announced a new strategic direction for university knowledge exchange funding to drive the high performance needed to deliver the government’s commitment to raise research and development investment to 2.4% of GDP.

The measures announced at the Research England Engagement Forum event in London today, Thursday 26 September, include:

Confirmation that Higher Education Innovation Funding (HEIF) will rise to £250 million by 2020/21
Roll-out of the first iteration of the Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF), with the first results anticipated in 2020
A comprehensive Research England-review of the current HEIF funding method, aiming to put the KEF at the heart of the approach
The launch of a joint call with the Office for Students (OfS), making £10m available for projects that evidence the benefits to students of being involved in knowledge exchange

You can find more detail here: Research England

Universities Minister, Chris Skidmore, spoke to celebrate the broad range of topics and internationalism within the Future Leaders Fellowships second wave. He also spoke about early career researchers:

I also want to highlight what I’ve referred to as the ‘Cinderella subject’ of education and research policy: that surrounding early career research. How can we create an environment that ensures early career researchers are not only better paid, but feel valued, that their work is properly recognised and rewarded?

And on the academic juggle:

I also am acutely aware that for all Future Leaders Fellows, the ability to conduct your research unhindered and free from the constraints of what should I say, ‘normal academic life’, is just as important as some of the financial investment that has been made today.
Pressure is experienced by us all, but I know myself as a historian, writing books late into the night, that there are few disciplines such as the process of academic thought and research creativity, that can be so adversely affected by the impositions of the outside world.
So I’m keen to do all I can to help investigate how to reduce these pressures, to understand where we need to refine our processes and minimise unnecessary paperwork, and find out where additional flexibilities need to be created, to clear the path for researchers to be free to conduct the research they need to.
This includes looking again at our various research funding models, ensuring that we are doing everything we can to unlock the creativity and imaginations of everyone working in research, whether they work in universities, research institutes or in industry.
It also means focussing on our efforts on that critical point in a researcher’s early career, when they feel most precarious, and when the strictures of an academic career can seem so burdensome that most choose simply to take a different path in life, away from research altogether.

More detail on the Future Leaders projects can be found here.

Skidmore also spoke on Space and the importance of small business innovation this week.

Lastly, PM Boris visited a school and the BBC captured his talk with the children when he reminisced that he didn’t do enough work at university and frittered too much time at university. He advised them to use their time productively: “Don’t waste your time at university, don’t get drunk…use it well”.

HE Data

The OfS have released a new area based measure of access named TUNDRA (tracking underrepresented students by area). As the name suggests it is a data source derived from the tracking of 16 year old state funded mainstream school pupils in England on an area basis who participate in HE at age 18 or 19. They have also updated the POLAR4 postcode data which measures how likely a young person is to participate in HE based on their postcode. Note: POLAR 4 covers all schooling types as it is an area based measure. However, questions of the validity of any postcode based metric remain due to start discrepancies which mask disadvantage within postcode areas. And Minister Chris Skidmore has been open within his criticism over the shortcomings of this measure. The Government (and OfS) are rumoured to be quietly investing more time in understanding whether the index of multiple deprivation has potential for greater use in the future. Back on the OfS site are also interactive maps selectable by each of the four types of recognised young participation measures (TUNDRA, POLAR 3 & 4, NCOP) and the calculation methodologies for each type of measure are here.

Data guru David Kernohan of Wonkhe gallops through the main features, issues and oddities of TUNDRA in A cold spot on the TUNDRA.

OfS data – Changes in Healthcare Student Numbers

The OfS have published data on healthcare student number changes following the removal of the bursary system (2017 entrants). The data compares 2016-17 to 2017-18 highlighting:

An 11% drop in the number of students starting nursing courses (19,790 down to 17,630). Students aged over 21 dropped by 17%
A 3% increase in students starting midwifery courses
Little overall change in the number of entrants to allied health courses, with some courses growing and others decreasing. E.g. physiotherapy increased by 19% (250 students), while podiatry decreased by 19% (45 students)
Overall, the number of young entrants to healthcare courses increased by 8%, BUT the number of mature students decreased by 30%
Overall, there was a slight increase in entrants from the lowest POLAR4 quintiles (areas of lowest participation).

They said that the full impact of the reforms will not be evident until more years of data are available.

Yvonne Hawkins, Director of Teaching Excellence and Student Experience, said:

The reduction in nursing and healthcare students is a concern for the health workforce of the future. We are working in partnership with universities, Health Education England, NHS England and representative bodies to increase the numbers of healthcare students and there is emerging evidence that this work is starting to have an impact.
The OfS is supporting a number of innovative projects to boost take-up and development of specialist healthcare courses – as well as providing direct additional funding for the delivery of high-cost healthcare subjects. This data will help universities to identify gaps and opportunities to increase recruitment and ensure that the country is provided with the next generation of highly-trained health professionals’

Immigration: The Tier 4 Visa list which catalogues the institutions licensed to sponsor migrant students has been updated. It includes information about the category of students a provider is licensed to sponsor and their sponsorship rating.

Students

UCAS have launched the UCAS Hub which aims to bring together all a student’s research about their next steps into one place including HE and apprenticeships. UCAS describe it as: a personalised, digital space for young people considering their post-18 choices, as well as anyone thinking about returning to education.

It seems it is a week for one-stop shops as UK music have launched their own to help students and parents consider a career in the creative industries. Excerpt:

DiscoverCreative.Careers is designed to help students and their parents, guardians and teachers find out more about the careers in industries including advertising, architecture, fashion, film and television, museums and galleries, performing arts and publishing – and the routes to them.

The creative industries are growing three times faster than the UK economy as a whole and to meet the predicted growth, there is a need for more young people to choose a career in one of the UK’s most dynamic sectors. The new site will signpost users to the full range of jobs available to counter an historic dearth of good careers information for the creative sector.
The initiative is part of the Creative Careers Programme being delivered by ScreenSkills, Creative & Cultural Skills and the Creative Industries Federation supported by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sports as part of the Government’s industrial strategy. The lead partners have worked with organisations covering the 12 subsectors of the creative industries to provide expert information on the range of jobs. (More content here.)

HE Participation Stats

The DfE has published statistics on Participation Rates in HE from 2006 to 2018 (and this link gives previous years of data). It shows rise in the Higher Education Initial Participation rate, a stable gap between male and female HE participation and a highest rate of 18 year olds accessing HE. The detail is explained here.

New Insight: See the OfS press release in our WP and Access section on their new Experimental Statistics which group disadvantaged student demographic characteristics to, hopefully, provide answers to tricky questions such as why certain groups of students are more likely to drop out or encounter difficulties whilst studying.

Widening Participation and Access

Experimental Statistics: The OfS highlight new experimental statistics which consider the interaction of demographic characteristics. Imaginatively named ABCS (Associations Between Characteristics of Students) the OfS state the statistics could offer important insights on the combining factors which leader to non-access or poorer outcomes for disadvantaged students. The OfS press release says:

Associations between characteristics of students’ (ABCS) is a new, experimental set of analyses that seeks to better understand how multiple characteristics – like age, sex, ethnicity and area background – interact to affect students’ outcomes in higher education, including whether they get in to university and, if so, whether they continue beyond their first year.

The methodology could also be used in future to look at the results students achieve and whether they progress to graduate employment, and across all levels of higher education.

The kinds of findings that can be explored using the ABCS methodology include:

black Caribbean students aged 21-25 are at higher risk of dropping out than other students, and this risk increases dramatically when looking at those who also report having a mental health condition
although young female students are, on the whole, much more likely to go to university than male students of the same age, those who received free school meals were far less likely to go than those who did not.

Chris Millward, OfS Director for Fair Access and Participation, commented:

Our guidance encourages universities and other higher education providers to address combinations of characteristics when they are setting targets, choosing measures and evaluating their work to close equality gaps.
Our hope is that, in the future, measures such as these will help them better understand these interactions, and therefore target their work more effectively.
This work is experimental, so we are looking to users to provide feedback on all aspects of the methodology and measures. This will be crucial to any future development and use of these analyses.

Power of the Parent: FE Week has an article stating the truism that every WP practitioner knows – the power of the influencing parent on a young person considering their HE prospects. Towards the end of the article are some suggestions on how to bring parents on board.

Differentiated Fees: Colin McCaig (Sheffield Hallam) has a policy paper explaining how differentiated fees (e.g. based on higher fees for higher tariff entry points to a course) would significantly undermine widening access for underrepresented social groups. In particular they find that applicants from low income households would gravitate towards lower cost provision rather than accessing the prestigious, high tariff, high cost institutions.

Tricky Target Decisions: The Times letters to the editor contains Degrees of Privilege (scroll to half way down the page to find it) which explores the complexities (and hints towards a fairness question) in widening access targets.

Private Tuition

The Sutton Trust and Ipsos MORI surveyed schools and found that 24% of secondary teachers have offered paid for private tuition, two-thirds did so after direct approach by parents of pupils. In primary school it is 14%. The survey also found that in 2019 27% of 11-16 year olds have received private tuition at some point during the last four years, up from 18% in the 2005 survey. The duration of the tuition isn’t stated but looking at the data it appears around 10% of the 2019 27% had tuition across multiple years in the last four years.

24% accessed the private tuition for a school entrance exam, and 37% for a specific GCSE subject, 4% because their school doesn’t offer a particular subject they wish to study.

The increase in private tuition is contentious because, unsurprisingly, the young people who receive it come from better off backgrounds (34% from high affluence households, 20% from low affluence households). The Sutton Trust’s press release says:

The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), the Sutton Trust’s sister charity, has identified one-to-one and small group tuition as a very cost-effective way to boost attainment. To level the playing field outside the classroom, schools should consider prioritising one-to-one and small group tuition in their Pupil Premium spending. The government should also look at ways of funding access to such tuition sustainably, for example through a voucher scheme.
The Trust would also like to see more private tuition agencies provide a certain proportion of their tuition to disadvantaged pupils for free, as well as an expansion of non-profit tuition programmes that connect tutors with disadvantaged schools. Agencies like Tutorfair, MyTutor and Tutor Trust operate innovative models in this area.

The Sutton Trust’s other recommendations are available here. The survey results are available here.

This was a limited scope survey designed to provide a yearly update to the two key questions of how many mainstream teachers are offering private tuition and how many young people are being tutors. The research does not answer questions behind the increase in private tuition, such as whether the Government’s raising of curriculum standards may have been a factor in compelling parents that can afford additional tuition to do so. However, the data shows that accessing private tuition has increased at a steady rate since 2005.

The next challenge – continuation

The Ministers have made a big WP student success speech this week. SoS Education, Gavin Williamson, and Universities Minister Chris Skidmore both spoke out to compel universities to do more to reduce dropout rates, particularly within the disadvantaged student body. The Government news story highlights how the Government are looking to the Access and Participation Plans that all registered providers are required to have as a vehicle for sector movement to improve the drop out disparity. While more disadvantaged students now access university (although students from advantaged areas are still 2.4 times more likely to access HE) there is a gap with students from lower income backgrounds more likely to drop out of university. In 2016/17 6% of advantaged students dropped out compared to 8.8% of disadvantaged. Of concern is that the drop out gap has become wider from the previous year. The news story says:

Ahead of… the publication of new statistics on access and participation by university regulator the Office for Students, Mr Williamson has underlined his determination to take action and ensure every student choosing to go to university – regardless of background – is supported to get the most out of the experience….[he will]…say that more needs to be done to make progress on access and participation at our world-class institutions. He will urge all universities to follow in the footsteps of institutions like Kings College and improve their offer for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The Education Secretary of State, Gavin Williamson, said:

It is not good enough that white working class boys are far less likely to go to university and black students are far less likely to complete their courses than others. We cannot let this wasted potential go unchecked any longer.
I want all universities, including the most selective, to do everything they can to help disadvantaged students access a world-class education, but they also need to keep them there and limit the numbers dropping out of courses. My message is clear – up your game and get on with it.

Universities Minister Chris Skidmore said:

Progress is being made to ensure that more disadvantaged young people are going to university than ever before, but it’s not enough to get students through the door – they must then get the right support to complete their courses too.
Dropouts will be a key focus of mine as Universities Minister and I will be watching carefully to see how universities respond to this challenge. I fully support the OfS in taking action if providers fail to do all they can to deliver their commitments.

The Government news story concludes: The Government’s wide-ranging reforms to higher education has led to the publication of access and participation plans…The OfS will closely monitor all these providers to make sure they follow through on their plans.

UUK have responded to the speech – Julia Buckingham, UUK President, said: “there is more work to do” and called on the government to “quicken the progress” by “reintroducing maintenance grants for students most in need”.

Media coverage can be found in iNews and ITV.

Labour Party Conference

32 hour working week: At the Labour Party conference John McDonnell said the next Labour government will reduce the average full time working week to 32 hours within a decade. A shorter working week with no loss of pay. HEPI have a short new blog on what this might mean for university staff and whether it also applies to students who work long hours as part of their course load (medicine, health, architecture and education).

Abolishing Student Fees: Jim Dickinson from Wonkhe highlights the unknowns within Labour’s commitment to abolish student fees:

Blimey. Do you remember when the most interesting that happened at Labour Party Conference was Cherie Blair mouthing “the chancellor’s a liar” on her way out of Tony’s speech?
For higher education, the inclusion of “no fees” in Labour policy has never really been in doubt, and popped up several times in Brighton. The question is the deeper complexity – would existing debt be wiped? Would the unit of resource be protected? Would more students in England be discouraged from doing higher education in universities rather than FE colleges? What kinds of incentives will get the adults back? Will OfS be scrapped or reformed? The party is unforgivably vague or refreshingly open to ideas, depending on your perspective.
Labour’s Lifelong Learning Commission is expected to provide some answers, but has not produced its findings in time for conference. Gordon Marsden is furious that Gavin Williamson has announced subject TEF before the independent review has even been presented to Parliament. But given that every delegate agrees that the system is too “marketised”, the thorniest question was on student numbers. Say out loud that you’d have number caps and you look like an enemy of opportunity. Say you wouldn’t and you rule out the thing that has caused the intensification of competition in the first place. Marsden said neither, of course.

MillionPlus call for maintenance grants to be reinstated: Professor Lynn Dobbs, VC London Metropolitan University was a key speaker at a Labour fringe event. She said under a National Education Service (NES) a Labour government should restore student maintenance grants and guarantee investment, in order to deliver a well-funded tertiary education system for all. She said:

Guaranteeing sustainable investment across tertiary education can foster collaboration rather than competition between universities and colleges.
Shifting money around within education only moves problems from one part of the sector to the other, and from one set of students to other, does not address the critical issue of a real-terms reduction in investment in all of our students – none of us should EVER settle for that.

She urged for part-time and mature students to become a priority: The need to focus on part-time and mature students is much needed … Despite the populist narrative of ‘too many students’, fewer than 50% of 30 years olds in the UK have had the opportunity to experience any form of higher education – this is a low bar that we should be seeking to leap over.

Abolishing Ofsted: There were tweets (and another tweet) and news stories from the Guardian and Politics Home on scrapping Ofsted to be replaced by a teaching standards support system. Angela Rayner: Schools will no longer be reduced to a one-word grade or subjected to a system that hounds teachers from the classroom.

Further Education and the Fair Economy: The Social Market Foundation and the Further Education Trust for Leadership (FETL) ran the Further Education and the Fair Economy fringe event. The panel discussed further education and the opportunities it opened for elderly people, as well as disabled students. Time was also spent discussing the impact it had on social mobility and the future economy.

Chair James Kirkup, director, Social Market Foundation said that further education was pivotal to the future economy and insisted that politicians needed to increase their engagement in FE considerably.
Opinium’s research manager, Priya Minhas provided an overview of public perceptions of vocational qualifications, noting that they were well perceived in terms of practicality. However, she noted that most people saw university degrees as more useful for future careers and linked university education with more than just a skillset – they had an intellectual and social aspect too. Yet, vocational qualifications did have a reputation for helping people get into a job. She discussed the potential for “Nimbyism”, wherein people spoke positively about vocational qualifications but would not want them for their own child. However, the data did not simply support this hypothesis.
Lord Bassam of Brighton expressed disappointment at the gradual erosion of funding for FE, which had served to destabilise the sector and restrict access to FE for many people. He praised the Augar Review and said that it was through the review that the Government had realised that they needed to improve their work in the sector. He concluded by emphasising that if the Government truly believed in improving the quality of manufacturing in the UK, then it needed to increase support for FE.
Caireen Mitchell of Croydon College said that many colleges, including her own, had been forced into mergers due to financial pressures. She welcomed the announcement of £400m for the FE sector but said that far more was required. The implications of the funding shortage could be extensive, with far lower hours for a “full-time” programme compared to other European countries the primary concern for Mitchell. She also noted that health and mental health support was stretched, and extra-curricular activities were being slashed in favour of other priorities. The college could provide qualifications, Mitchell said, but a wider breadth of education was simply not possible. She linked the lack of funding to a lack of social mobility and productivity, with many low-income students unable to afford to continue in education. She said people on low-incomes needed free access to a rounded education, including subjects that were not “core” such as English and Maths.
Gordon Marsden MP (Shadow Minister for HE, FE & Skills) referenced the House of Lords Committee on seaside towns, noting the challenges that people in those areas had in accessing higher education and said that the educational challenges in those areas was “palpable”…The economic and political context was that skills were no longer siloed – the rise of technology meant that skillsets were far more fluid and varied than before. This, Marsden believed, made FE more vital than ever.
A representative from the Deaf Children’s Society noted that FE was often a better route for disabled children and asked what more could be done to assist disabled people get the careers they wanted. Gordon Marsden said that Labour had wanted to make provisions in law to put a special emphasis on disabilities generally in education and apprenticeships. The Government had not been willing to work with them so far, he said.

Immigration – What should be in Labour’s manifesto?: The session focussed on immigration policies as a whole and didn’t specifically cover HE.

Shadow home secretary Diane Abbot said that there was a lot of interest in immigration and that (following her own experience working in the Home Office after university) it was essential that the culture of the Home Office changed and the language it was having around migration. She highlighted a poll which suggested that in the last few years the UK had had an increasingly positive view of the benefits of immigration, with a poll this year showing that 22% of people believed immigration provided a net benefit to the UK.
Abbot said that Labour would look to unpick those policies introduced by both Labour and Conservative governments that tied into the hostile environment, principally that immigrants could not have access to resources once in the UK. Labour would not seek to impose salary limits for access to the UK as the £30,000 figure excluded valued professions like nurses. And that Labour would also entitle family members to join people already in the UK.
Abbot criticised the Home Secretary’s commitment to end freedom of movement from day one and explained that it had to be reserved quickly because it was illegal. Abbot said that Labour would take a more liberal approach to immigration which she said had become increasingly popular.
Thom Brooks, professor at Durham University, offered his views on immigration, stating that an EU citizen amnesty should be introduced because the current EU settlement scheme was inadequate. He said he would like the 2014 Immigration Act to be repealed and reviewed with the view that immigration was positive for the UK overall. He also said that the Migration Advisory Committee was too small and should be expanded so there would be more expertise. He called for a Royal Commission to be conducted on immigration, which could form the basis of future immigration policies.
Kate Green, chair of the APPG on Migration, said that Ministers in the Home Office should be giving their civil servants a positive message about immigration and affirmed that immigration should be viewed as being beneficial to the UK. Green said that migration would rise across the world because of conflict and climate change and said that it was a shame the UK was leaving the EU because this was an important institution the UK could use to influence global issues.

Industrial Strategy, Skilled Jobs and Education; Run by the Fabian Society and the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry this event focused on assessing on how places, communities and regions can all see good work grow. The panel questioned what methods can be undertaken to ensure not only high employment, but also high skilled jobs. There was consensus that stronger regional strategy for providing skilled jobs is needed but also a strategy which guarantees that jobs remain “good” with the implementation of automation and new technology.

Shadow Minister for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Chi Onwurah MP opened the discussion on the topic of skilled jobs everywhere which she said is driving part of the industrial strategy. [Note – Labour have their own version of the Industrial Strategy.] Key points are:

strong cross sector investment and a strong focus on investing in infrastructure so that people have sufficient access to jobs.
delivering skilled jobs as part of an industrial strategy, this would allow for some divisions to be healed amongst regions, prosperity would be delivered
innovation needs to be a part of the “cultural DNA of our country” and the UK needs to become an “innovation nation”; if this remains a key goal then access to skilled jobs can be broadened to those who are currently excluded
there should be the implementation of a National Education Service that champions adult education and enables people to reskill.
both the industrial strategy and education strategy should be combined and work alongside each other so that individuals can “realise their dreams”.
international talent is vitally important and even those who earn less than £30,000 should have access to work in the UK

Labour’s Anti-Private Schooling Motion: At the Labour Party Conference a motion was passed intending to dismantle the private school system should Labour win the next general election. Previously Labour said they intended to close the tax loopholes available to elite private schools, redistributing this money to ‘improve the lives of all children’. However, the motion, spearheaded by the Momentum faction, said the next Labour manifesto should include a: “commitment to integrate all private schools into the state sector…[and]…withdrawal of charitable status and all other public subsidies and tax privileges, including business rate exemption. Plus: “endowments, investments and properties held by private schools to be redistributed democratically and fairly across the country’s educational institutions”. It also said that universities only admit 7% of students from private schools, to reflect the proportion of all pupils who attend them. More details are in this Politics Home article. Laura Parker, Momentum’s national co-ordinator, said: “This is a huge step forward in dismantling the privilege of a tiny, Eton-educated elite who are running our country into the ground.

The Letters to the Editor of the Times on Labour’s proposed abolition of private schools provide some interesting questions on how beneficial it would be to society to carry this policy through.

From the Labour NASUWT fringe event on valuing teachers:

Dr Patrick Roach, Deputy General Secretary of NASUWT – in some instances, teachers only had a single GCSE in the subject area they were responsible for, which had led, he added, to a culture where “as long as you are one-page ahead in the textbook of the pupils that you are teaching then that is good enough.” He lamented that this is not good enough.
Mike Kane, shadow schools minister, said that the Labour Party would bring an end to “toxic testing” and ensure that teachers had proper qualifications in a bid to bring “hope” back to the profession. He proceeded by highlighting how Conservative cuts to university budgets and training courses had led to an influx of unqualified teachers entering schools. He said “far too many teachers in our system are absolutely unqualified. It isn’t a profession, it is becoming more of a trade which you learn on the job”. Kane continued emphasising that forcing teachers to “teach to the test” coupled with a litany of legislation had resulted in plummeting morale.

The Class Ceiling: Barriers to Social Mobility in the UK today. This event run by Demos and The Investment Association focused on the challenges facing social mobility today. In particular, how aspirations, access to jobs and attitudes can be altered amongst those who have the least opportunity and come from backgrounds that traditionally limits how far people go in life.

Duncan Exley, former director of the Equality Trust, said that during the 20th Century there was more social mobility than in the 21st Century with the odds now greater that individuals will have a lower level job than their parents. He also said that no matter how much individuals are trained and educated, there needs to be an increase in supply of good jobs and homes if social mobility is going to occur. Finally, Exley said that there is a need to support collective wellbeing to encourage social mobility, as this in turn unleashes individual opportunity.
Claire Ainsley, Executive Director Joseph Rowntree Foundation said that the perceived social mobility problem is particularly worrying – younger people are less likely to believe that it is hard work and talents that gets them on in life, as most see background and parents as responsible for where they end up. Ainsley argued that this is a problem that needs to be tackled if levels of social mobility are going to improve. She continued that in order to properly address social mobility problems, bright young people from deprived backgrounds aren’t the only ones that need to be given attention, but maybe those who are older too; the lens on social barriers and mobility needs to shift.
Seema Malhotra, MP for Feltham and Heston, framed her remarks on social mobility about “creating conditions for success”. She said that there needs to be an increased readiness to learn amongst people, the opportunity to dream and a desire to achieve. Malhotra commented that not only do attitudes towards young people need to change if social mobility is to improve, but she also said that attitudes within families and communities that traditionally hold people back when there is an attempt to create opportunity need to be altered. She explained that young people are experiencing cumulative impact effects, whereby they are absorbing their parents’ anxieties about housing and this in turn is limiting their own mobility; Malhotra attributed this whole issue to poverty and austerity. Malhotra discussed what she called “the pillars of prosperity” – she said that the education system needs to create conditions for success and that the levers and relationships within communities and society need to assist in creating opportunity. To conclude she spoke on how there is a “fundamental” issue about human flourishing and providing mechanisms that support this; this is something that must start early in life and should be sustained if social mobility is to improve. Whilst this isn’t really a policy goal currently, she argued that it should be a central approach to the creation of policy.
CEO of the Investment Association, Chris Cummings, said industry should be prioritizing ‘potential’ over ‘polish’. Cummings said that financial services specifically has a bad habit of employing the “best” people – those that have good academic qualifications, perform very well at interview and have a high degree of social capital. However, Cummings said that this often leads to a “group thinking” attitude, instead of prioritizing diversity of thought, which in turn can be highly beneficial, and give overall better outcomes and returns. He said that if industry isn’t diverse in the way it thinks then decisions can often become constrained. Cummings described his own organisation as implementing an hour glass model, rather than a pyramid, to provide opportunity to those who can bring a “different dimension” to the world of work.

Labour’s cradle to grave careers service and the quality of careers advice was also discussed.

A guest blog from SUBU

Our guest blog series by Sophie Bradfield of SUBU continues this week

With a new cohort of students joining us this week, Unite’s recent report with HEPI on ‘The New Realists’ can help us gain some insights about prospective students, students enrolling and already enrolled at BU. The aim of the report is to “investigate young people’s transition to university, their expectations and their experiences in the first year, looking at both academic and non-academic aspects.” There are 4 stages to the research: desk research, online communities, friendship triads, and a quantitative survey. (You can download the full methodology here). Respondents are diverse with a range of genders, nationalities, ethnicities, grades achieved, sexualities and abilities, ensuring a reflective view of the student mind set. 5,108 students were surveyed, with a fairly even split between applicants (2,535) and first year students (2,573). The majority of these respondents are in the 16-19 age bracket (86%) with the remaining 14% in 20+ age bracket. The report has 3 key themes which I have unpicked below.

Key Theme 1: University Provides a Bridge to a Stable Future

One of the key findings from the report is the general belief carried by generation Z that University is a way to foster stability in an unstable world where their futures are otherwise uncertain. 69% of respondents agreed “going to University is the only way to make sure I’ll get the life I want”. 68% felt they would face more challenges than their parents in becoming successful in life which may be because 59% felt there is more “chaos and risk in the world than there was 20 years ago”. ‘Independent but not adults’ is a term used in the report to explain how students felt. I’ve heard BU students refer to themselves as feeling ‘adultish’ which links to the findings of this report and shows how widespread it is. University is a place where students can try new things, challenge themselves and develop their future selves. For many students, University is a key development time to ‘become adults’.

Key Theme 2: Students are more Diverse than ever

The report finds that more than ever, students have diverse individual identities dispelling the myth that there is a ‘typical student’. For example over a fifth (22%) of students in the research study identified as being teetotal, demonstrating a shift away from the drinking culture often associated with the student experience. As noted in the report, this means it is essential that students are continuously listened to so their education experience meets their needs.

With the research depicting a rise in students declaring a disability (including mental health); a higher proportion of Black and Minority Ethnic students (BAME); a rise in students from lower participation neighbourhoods; and a higher proportion of students identifying as LGBT+, higher education institutions are fantastically diverse places for students to develop and grow as open-minded and progressive individuals. Nevertheless, the report finds that respondents from minority and under-represented groups are slightly less likely to see themselves as successful which shows there is still some way to go to level the playing-field for all students, through empowerment and liberation.

The report also finds that over 80% of respondents combined either don’t follow trends or don’t pay attention. We can see this in the political world too; 40% of respondents didn’t identify with a particular political party. Labour came top being supported by 19% of respondents, followed by 8% supporting the Green party; 7% the Conservatives and the remaining gaining 1-3%. We’ve seen this move away from tribal politics over the last few decades but these latest results show how pertinent it will be for political parties to attract the student vote in the anticipated General Election.

Key Theme 3: Peers Play a Pivotal Role in a Successful Student Experience

The report asks students about successful aspects of their student experience.

In SUBU we’ve been asking BU students a similar question for the last 7 years in an annual student experience survey: ‘When you graduate from BU, what are the 3 most important things that will determine whether your time at BU has been as good as it could have been for you?’ With an open text response, students have always chosen the same three themes: Degree Grade, Friends Made; and Employability Prospects. This shows similar themes to the Unite report above.

The report finds that the majority of students report feeling lonely occasionally with a further 22% saying they feel lonely often and 4% saying they feel lonely all the time. The BBC loneliness experiment reported in 2018 found a higher proportion of 16-24 year olds were lonely compared with the oldest in society. Wonkhe reported on this issue earlier in the year too making the link between loneliness, student activities and mental wellbeing. The Unite report also shows that students understand that they can increase their wellbeing through socialising, making friends and taking part in activities, demonstrating the importance of balancing the academic experience with the non-academic experience whilst at University. ‘Freshers’ Week’ events are highlighted as specifically making a positive difference to the experience of students who are estranged from their parents or have been in care. Yet, more can be done ‘to help students connect, make friends and integrate when they first come to University’.

The research shows that students feel ‘pressure to solve their own problems independently or with peers’ connected to ‘transitioning to adult life’. This belief is reflected in their approach to mental health too as despite an increase in students identifying as having a mental health condition, many want to manage it themselves rather than seeking support from University services. Only half of students report their condition to their University and trust their peers far more than their University to reach out to for support. The report found that 47% of respondents considered their mental health condition to be part of who they are, forming part of their identity, however 46% also acknowledge there is still a stigma around mental health. This reluctance to seek support due to stigma and trust is something that continues to be a key area for Universities’ to address in the midst of an ongoing national debate about whose responsibility it is to ensure students get support for mental health issues.

Conclusions

The Unite/HEPI report highlights some very interesting insights from the student perspective, some of which are detailed above. Ultimately it all relates to conversations around transitions and support. There has been lots of research and work around improving the transition of students into University, for example Michelle Morgan developed the Student Engagement Transitions Model for Practitioners to demonstrate the importance of transition at all stages of University. This Unite report highlights this too; the whole University experience is a transitionary experience for many students into ‘adulthood’. As director of HEPI Nick Hillman notes, “Today’s students are not, in the main, going to university because they want to be rich; they are going because they want to absorb the lifelong transferable benefits that degrees continue to confer.” Therefore it seems Universities and Students’ Unions should continue to do all they can to shape and nurture a diverse and malleable University community for students to share, experiment and grow into progressive, engaged citizens of the future.

Inquiries and Consultations

Click here to view the updated inquiries and consultation tracker. There aren’t any new inquiries and consultations this week however, email us on policy@bournemouth.ac.uk if you’d like to contribute to any of the open inquiries or consultations.

Other news

Climate Change Funding: At the United Nations General Assembly on Monday PM Boris announced £1 billion aid funding to develop and test new technology targeted at tackling climate change in developing countries. The innovative new Ayrton Fund to give developing countries access to the latest cutting-edge tech to help reduce their emissions and meet global climate change targets.

The UK is home to some of the world’s best innovators in clean energy technology. Through the Ayrton Fund they and other scientists from around the world can work in partnership with developing countries to transform their energy sectors and reduce emissions by:

providing affordable access to electricity for some of the 1 billion people who are still off the grid, including through innovative solar technology for their homes
enhancing large-scale battery technology to replace polluting diesel generators and ensure clean energy can be stored and not lost
designing clean stoves like electric pressure cookers for some of the 2.7 billion people who still rely on firewood – with the smoke damaging their health as well as the environment
working with factories in major polluting industries like iron and steel, petrochemicals and cement to reduce their carbon output
improving the technology behind cooling systems so energy isn’t wasted – residential air conditioning alone is expected to raise global temperatures by 0.5°C in the years ahead; and
designing low-emission and electric vehicles to cut pollution and make transport systems cleaner and greener

Meanwhile Labour seem to have interwoven the environmental crisis through all their policy areas during their Party Conference this week. For example, when speaking of planned NHS reforms they said their: Green New Deal for our NHS – A Labour government will deliver the greenest health service in the world. As we rebuild our hospitals we’ll invest in solar panels and energy efficiency schemes. We’ll move to a fleet of low emission ambulances. And we’ll guarantee patients and staff a right to green space with an ‘NHS Forest’ – 1 million trees planted across our NHS estate – a tree for every member of staff.

Graduate Employment: The Times describe the biggest graduate recruiters in Top 100 Graduate Employers: bright young things flock to prison careers. In 2019 the Civil Service was the biggest graduate recruiter followed by PwC, Aldi, Google and the NHS. You’ll need to follow another link to find out about the variety of work within the prison service, however, this article talks about how young designers are influencing the prison environment. And WONKHE have a quick and interesting new blog: Who is responsible for getting a graduate a graduate level job.

Positivity towards TEF (or not): Steven Jones (Manchester) speaks of how to harness TEF for positive gains during the SRHE conference:

[The Conference] was full of new ideas. Opposition to metrics wasn’t based on change-resistance and ideological stubbornness. Indeed…we urgently need to measure, understand and close differential attainment gaps in many areas, such as ethnicity. But there was consensus that current proxies for ‘excellence’ were incomplete, and creative thoughts about how they could be complemented. What about capturing graduates’ long-term well-being instead of their short-term satisfaction? Or encouraging institutions to develop their own frameworks based on their specific mission and their students’ needs? How about structural incentives for collaboration rather than competition? And a focus on teaching processes, not teaching outcomes?
The argument that the TEF is less about changing pedagogies than manipulating wider discourses shouldn’t bring any comfort to the sector. I tried to show how the dominant logic of teaching excellence primes the sector for more fundamental policy shifts, such as for-profit providers receiving taxpayer subsidy on pedagogical grounds. One delegate spoke to me at the end of the event to offer another example, explaining how employability-minded managers within his institution were squeezing out critical engagement with cultural theory to allow for further skills-based, professional training. The TEF may not change practice directly, but it retains the power to nudge the sector away from its core public roles towards more privatised and instrumental practices.
The challenge for us is to articulate a confident and robust defence of all kinds of university teaching. We need to explain how our pedagogies bring lifelong gains both to our students and to wider society, even if initial encounters can be difficult and unsettling. Policy has taken us a long way down the market’s cul-de-sac, but what’s reassuring is that we’re now moving on from TEF-bashing towards a coherent counter-narrative. This event confirmed that universities have more meaningful things to crow about than their fleeting goldenness against a bunch of false proxies.

Apprenticeships Access: The OU surveyed 700 employers in England and have published their Access to Apprenticeships report. Wonkhe describe the report contents: [the report]

concludes that many employers need more funding, training and information to support apprentices with declared disabilities. 24 per cent of companies surveyed find it challenging to fund training and development for apprentices with disabilities and 34 per cent of employers surveyed report an increase in entry-level applications from people with declared mental health conditions.
The report recommends that the government support employers through providing clearer guidance around hiring apprentices with disabilities, urges the Department for Education to simplify its funding model for providing additional learning support, and advocates the introduction of a training programme for employers recruiting apprentices with disabilities – akin to a Mental Health First Aid course.

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August 27, 2019

HE policy update for the w/e 23rd August 2019

Business Engagement, Fusion, HEIF, Impact, Industry collaboration, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer, policy, Research news jforster

A quieter week for HE policy, however, there’s news on the KEF and lots of other relevant content.

STEM for Britain

As a member of the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee BU’s early career researchers and PhD and post-doc researchers all have the opportunity for exposure of their work through the annual poster competition. Posters are being accepted for the following areas:

Biological and Biomedical Sciences
Chemistry
Engineering
Mathematical Sciences
Physics

Prizes will be awarded for the posters presented in each discipline which best communicate high level science, engineering or mathematics to a lay audience.

Please share this information with ECR, PhD and PDR colleagues and those who work directly with them. This is a rare opportunity to showcase work within parliament at this level. All the shortlisted posters will be shared during a parliamentary reception in March 2020 and there will be the opportunity to talk about the research directly with policy makers.

The poster competition is open now please contact Lisa Andrews, RDS Research Facilitator, for more details and to enter.

www.stemforbritain.org.uk

Mental Health

The House of Commons library has a briefing paper setting out data on the prevalence of mental health conditions in higher education students in England and outlines the action higher education providers, the government and the Office for Students are taking to help students with mental health issues. It also flags up how students can get support.

From the briefing:

Student mental health has been the subject of a number of reports as students are increasingly declaring mental conditions and reporting issues with stress and poor mental wellbeing. It has been suggested that student mental health is in ‘crisis’.
The proportion of students who disclosed a mental health condition to their university has increased rapidly in recent years.
Surveys of students have found much higher rates of mental ill health than those disclosed to universities. A recent survey found that 21.5% had a current mental health diagnosis and 33.9% had experienced a serious psychological issue for which they felt they needed professional help. Survey responses are confidential and are likely to give a better idea of the full extent of mental ill health.
Many factors have been suggested as contributing to the rise in cases of mental ill health among higher education students – work pressures, moving away from home, financial worries, or more generally higher education institutions are said to be feeling the impact of the rise in metal health conditions among the 16-25 age population.
The effect of mental health issues on students can be serious and can lead to consequences such as: academic failure, dropping out of education, poorer career prospects and in the worst cases suicide.
Concern has been expressed about the availability of support for students with mental health conditions and the response of universities and higher education institutions.
In 2017 Universities UK, published Stepchange Mental health in higher education. Stepchange provides a framework to help higher education providers embed good mental health across all university activities.

Placement Premium

A Chartered Management Institute commissioned survey finds 3 in 4 parents believe that qualifications that combine with work experience and study are the best way to prepare young people for the workplace.

With record numbers of young people going through university clearing, the survey also shows that:

Parents rate degree programmes that combine work and study over traditional university degrees.
Nearly two thirds of parents (64%) favoured a degree apprenticeship with a major company like Rolls-Royce over a degree at Oxford or Cambridge (36%).
Nearly three quarters (73%) rated a degree that combines full-time work with study over a traditional 3 year university degree based on lectures and seminars alone (27%).
71% of parents also wanted all graduates to have the opportunity to develop management, enterprise and leadership skills.

Rob Wall, Head of Policy at CMI said: “Innovations like degree apprenticeships – which bring together work and study, and allow apprentices to apply their learning in the workplace – are hugely attractive to employers. Our survey shows that they are now increasingly popular with parents, with the vast majority rating a degree apprenticeship with a FTSE 100 corporate over a traditional 3 year degree at a top university. Our message to all those young people receiving their GCSE results this week is that, whatever your results and whatever path you take next, developing those employability skills like self-management and leadership will always give you an edge in a competitive jobs market.”

FE Funding Push

The Association of Colleges are capitalising on the recent announcement that there will be an accelerated spending round by the end of September. They have issued a paper to the Treasury and the DfE making recommendations for tertiary education. In headline their proposals cover the full remit of college work and request a one-off cash injection of £1,114m in revenue and £240m in capital. The paper capitalises on the Augar Review which discussed the lower funding rates and investment in FE education. It covers the items you would expect such as a higher funding rate for all FE provision, better pay and status for FE teachers. It also suggests a ten year funding plan for education. A larger adult education budget to support retraining, improve skills and develop lifelong learning (at a one-year cost of £250 million).

Of relevance to HE are the apprenticeship funding reforms they suggest (at a one year cost of £200m).

Increase funding for non-levy employers and for young people. The non-levy budget should increase by £200 million and all 16-to18 year olds should be funded through the education budget to guarantee their training opportunities.
The increase in degree apprenticeship numbers is a concern because these involve high costs and because it appears that obligations previously covered by tuition fees have been shifted onto the apprenticeship budget. It would seem more appropriate for apprenticeships at level 6 and above to be funded from the higher education teaching budget, regulated by the Office for Students and operated with the same rules on equivalent and lower qualifications as loan-supported programmes.

They also suggest a development fund for higher technical education (one year cost of £40m).

For students, it would be simple to offer the same tuition fee cap, student finance rules and teaching grant funding as offered for degree-level study. For colleges there needs to be a modest fund to support set-up costs which precede the relevant income because enrolments take time to build.

On regulating to protect students and employers while maximising impact:

Colleges spend a growing and disproportionate share of their budgets on administration and compliance and account for themselves to two different parts of the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA), to the Office for Student (OfS), to Ofsted, to local enterprise partnerships and combined authorities, to the Home Office, to lenders, pension funds and any other funding organisation. Some complexity is unavoidable but there is a case for the DfE group to consider whether there are ways to focus regulation more clearly on activities that benefit students and employers, to cut compliance costs and to place simpler duties on college governing bodies to account for the public investment they receive.

David Hughes, Chief Executive, Association of Colleges, said: After making great efficiencies over the last decade, there is a strong consensus now that colleges need major investment to put them in a position to be able to thrive and from that position to be able to maximise the impact they can have. The UK’s industrial strategy identifies skills as an issue across a range of priority sectors and the need for action to avoid shortages. Without thriving colleges, this priority will not be met.

Total expenditure on 16-19 education fell by 17.5% in real terms between 2010-11 and 2016-17, while the funding allocated to 16-19 education fell by 13% in real terms between 2013-14 and 2017-18.
The funding rate for students aged 16 and 17 in education in 2018-19 has been frozen at £4,000 since 2013-14, while the funding rate for students who are already aged 18 has been frozen at £3,300 since it was cut by 17.5 % in 2014.
The government is currently consulting on ambitions to build a “new generation” of higher technical qualifications at levels 4 and 5 for T-level students to progress onto. The introduction date of 2022 has been set to fit with the first cohort of T-level students, who will start their two-year level 3 qualification in 2020.

Labour’s Education Policies

Recent news has detailed Jeremy Corbyn’s efforts to amalgamate enough support that should the autumn vote of no confidence succeed he may be able to form a temporary caretaker Government. Labour are hoping for an early General Election and Wonkhe have covered all their recent Education related announcements into one blog.

KEF

Research England have published the outcomes of the Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF) consultation and pilot exercise. Final decisions on the KEF will follow later in 2019.

72% of responses agreed the KEF should be an annual, institutional-level, metrics driven exercise.
The respondents commented on the balance between running a low burden exercise at the expense of losing valuable detail.
Significant themes within the report were noted as:
- The (mostly) output metrics do not necessarily capture the quality of knowledge exchange activity
- Varied responses on how often the KEF should take place, although the report notes the majority favoured an annual exercise.

Below follow the main points picked out of the KEF report narrative

Clusters The KEF clusters institutions together, BU is in cluster E.

“The conceptual framework underpinning the analysis and the variables and methods employed were broadly well received, with the majority of respondents somewhat agreeing or agreeing with these aspects, and the resulting composition of the clusters. There was less consensus on whether the clusters would help fulfil the stated aims of the KEF (Q6.4), and the purpose of allowing fair comparison. Although a majority agreed to some extent, there was a higher level of ‘disagree’ responses than for Q6.1-6.3.”
“In regard to the overall approach to clustering (Q6.4) it is worth noting that the majority of negative responses were ‘somewhat disagree’. This is borne out by the associated commentary, with the most common response (105 respondents) welcoming the clustering approach, with only 10 respondents making critical comments on the overall concept. Respondents indicating an overall ‘slightly disagree’ or ‘disagree’ tended to be for very specific reasons. For example, while broadly welcoming the concept of clustering they disagreed with the range of variables used. Other more negative responses were driven by consideration of whether clustering helped the KEF meet its aims (and how businesses and other users might use or interpret them), with more agreement on their positive role in enabling fair comparison between HEIs.”

“There were a substantial number of points in the commentary focussing on the descriptions and presentation of the clusters:

There were a significant number of comments relating to the cluster descriptions – e.g. describing a cluster as having HEIs with ‘limited world leading research’ could be seen as negative in itself, and that it may be better to frame cluster descriptions on what the institution does do, rather than what it doesn’t.
Multiple requests to provide a brief introduction into what the clustering is for, how the descriptors work and how the cluster names (which are random letters) were assigned. It was noted that this was particularly important for external audiences.
Approximately 15% of responses suggested clusters may be confusing for businesses and other users or they suggested that there should be flexibility for users to be able to group institutions in different ways that were more relevant to them.
There was some concern that whatever the intent, the clusters will be seen as a hierarchy in their own right (10%).
That there is still too much variation within clusters (although we would argue that the KEF proposals include further steps to normalise for size, and the scaling of metrics mitigates this).
That specialist institutions are difficult to place in clusters, but most respondents making this point stated that this approach was still preferable to not using clustering or a comparable method to aid fair comparison.”

“There were also multiple comments and suggestions on the variables used to create the clusters, including on the role of professional services staff not being represented, concerns that variables were too heavily skewed towards research activities, and that 3* (as well as 4*) REF outputs should be used.

“Overall, there was no clear consensus from the responses received on a course of action that would satisfy all and no appropriate alternative models were proposed that would meet the requirements of providing a means of fair comparison. Given that the concept of clustering was well received for those in the main clusters, it is unlikely the fundamental approach to this aspect of the KEF proposals will change….”

Perspectives and metrics

“For the proposed perspectives and associated metrics, we asked for feedback on both the overall range and balance, and also views on the metrics proposed under each perspective.

A majority agreed that a sufficiently broad range of KE activity was captured (72%), although a sizeable minority of 26% disagreed to some extent”
The range of perspectives were welcome with around 40% of responses agreeing that they broadly captured a sufficient variety of KE activity. However, around 15% of responses felt that the individual metrics within the perspectives were too narrow to adequately capture the full range of KE activities undertaken by HEIs.”

“The majority of recommendations for KE activities that could be considered for inclusion in the KEF fell into four key areas:

Contribution to public policy
International partnerships
Partnerships with SMEs
HEI-HEI collaboration

Other common themes expressed in the commentary related to:

The timing of the HE-BCI review and the subsequent impact on the KEF. …
How the quality and sustainability of partnerships with business can be captured e.g. regular student placements, repeat business, voice of the customer.”

On working with business:

“A significant number of responses considered there was a disconnect between the broad nature of the perspective title ‘Working with business’ and the proposed income metrics. The metrics were considered by over a quarter of respondees to be very narrow, and not reflective of the full breadth of knowledge exchange activities undertaken in HEIs. In particular 15% of respondees felt that income from use of specialist facilities and equipment should be included as a useful indicator of interactions with business.”

“The nature of the metrics as income measures brought feedback across a number of points:

Some argued that income is not an appropriate proxy for impact and does not well reflect the quality of the interactions. A number of alternative metric areas were suggested such as repeat business, length of relationships or nature or number of strategic partnerships.
The opportunities for undertaking consultancy and contract research and the income value of that activity will be impacted by the local economic context, particularly for some types of interactions e.g. with SMEs.
Across all disciplines, but especially in the public and third sectors, it was considered that a significant proportion of knowledge exchange activity is not monetised and so not well reflected in the metrics.
The role of students is seen as significant by about 10% of respondents, either through the close relationships developed with businesses through degree apprenticeships or placement work, or directly by supervised services delivered as part of their course or extra curricula activity.

About a fifth of respondees provided feedback on the use of ‘academic FTE’ as the denominator for two of the metrics. While 4% expressed support for the use of academic FTE to account for the size of the institution, 10% considered it to be misleading to restrict it to academic staff when a signification proportion of knowledge exchange activity is undertaken by professional services staff or students. Some 5% requested a clearer definition of who is included in ‘academic FTE’ and 2% felt that it would be more relevant to restrict it to research active academic staff.”

On local growth and regeneration:

“We recognise that this metric on its own does not sufficiently capture the breadth of activity in this area and therefore have proposed the use of additional narrative. The feedback from respondents verified this view, with over a quarter expressing support for the use of narrative. The primary areas of concern expressed for the proposed metric were:

The metric was considered by over 20% of respondees as unhelpfully focused on income, it was felt that this is a less effective proxy for impact within local growth and regeneration.
Around 14% of respondees noted that the metric was very narrow as a standalone metric and needed to be part of a wider basket of metrics. A further 5% of respondees felt that the metric was too poor to be used at all and suggested that the perspective should be ‘greyed out’ until additional metrics could be identified. It was considered that the forthcoming HESA review of the HE-BCI survey may be an opportunity to find additional metrics. …
Inconsistency of returns to the HE-BCI survey were believed to impact this metric in particular, ….
A small number of respondees felt the use of academic FTE as a denominator was inappropriate, with a wide variety of reasons cited.

A number of alternative or additional metric areas were suggested by respondees:

The investment that individual institutions make to their local areas, either through the local supply chain, direct regeneration investment in cash or in kind was viewed by over 10% of respondees as a helpful addition.
While 9% suggested that activity and income related to local industrial strategies and related government funding such as city deals, regional growth funds or local growth funds should be included.

A small proportion of respondees (4%) also looked to create links to the strategies and action plans being developed by institutions who have signed up to the Civic University Commission’s Civic University Agreements.”

On IP and commercialisation:

“A wide range of comments concerned timeframes around these metrics including:

The concentrated nature of income-generating commercialisation activity within relatively few institutions and its ‘lumpy’ nature (i.e. that volumes vary significantly year-to-year) means the metrics in this perspective may not be relevant to some institutions, and that it would be hard for external audiences to draw conclusions from them (18% of respondees).
Whether the proposed three year time series and normalisation by research income was appropriate for measuring spin-out performance, given the long time-lags involved. Would a longer time series of 10+ years be more appropriate?
The time lags between research being undertaken and spin-out creation was seen as particularly problematic for the metric of ‘research resource per spin-out’. Several respondees also expressed concern that given the relative ease of creating a spinout that this metric may create a perverse incentive to incorporate spin-out companies too early, or where a more appropriate exploitation route existed.

This question also elicited specific suggestions for new metrics based on other areas of the HE-BCI collection:

In addition to licensing income, nearly 10% of respondees argued that the numbers of licenses granted (whether or not they generate income) may also give a useful indication of performance. Numbers of free licenses could (subject to a rigorous treatment that differentiated end-user licenses from other forms) indicate active exploitation of IP (the licensee having gone to the effort to enter a formal agreement) where impact rather than income generation was the primary driver.
Other common suggestions focused on proportions of patents or licenses generating income (indicating active exploitation), rates of disclosures, or ratios of disclosures to patents and IP income (indicating effective translation of disclosures).
There was also a group of suggestions for metrics which focused less on income and more on capturing results from enterprise structures and IP exploitation strategies that do not focus on income generation, such as social enterprises, open innovation strategies or open source products and software.”

On public and community engagement

‘Public and community engagement’ received the lowest average score when participants were asked to rate their percentage agreement…while the inclusion of the perspective in the KEF was broadly welcomed, there was also a clear message that the metric did not adequately capture the range of activities undertaken by HEIs in this area.

Around 17% of respondees suggested that the current metric of time per FTE was not adequate to capture performance or quality of the events recorded, with an additional 12% of respondees suggesting that this risked the role of professional services staff being overlooked.
The consistency of reporting in Table 5 of the HE-BCI return (Social, community and cultural engagement: designated public events) was a concern for 15% of respondees, highlighting the need for clearer guidance on how this information should be recorded across the sector.
The inclusion of narrative was welcome, but 10% of respondees raised the concern that it was not assessed and would therefore not be viewed as of equal value to metric element of the perspective.

Additional metrics that were suggested included:

The number of times that university assets are opened up to the community in some way
HEI investment in brokerage
Public involvement in research
Metrics collected by public relations and marketing departments e.g. the number of academics/professional staff blogging on external sites, social media interactions, media appearances by academics, or coverage of research
Number of performances or events and the associated number of attendees.”

Use of Narratives:

The NCCPE concluded that there is strong rationale for adopting and adapting the approach to narrative within the KEF. Whilst the proposed template delivers some effective prompts that elicited useful information, there was considerable variety in the level of specificity and supporting evidence provided in the pilot drafts.

The NCCPE have provided specific recommendations to Research England on how the templates and use of narrative could be improved to draw out more relevant and consistent information. Alongside the consultation responses these recommendations are informing the development of the KEF.

Respondees showed an exceptionally strong preference for the provision of an overarching institutional statement being provided by the HEI with 89% agreeing to some extent (and almost half strongly agreeing). 101. This was echoed through the written responses which expressed the broad view that an overarching narrative would be beneficial and that it should be provided by the institutions themselves. There was also a strong articulation that the local economic context needs to be considered to place knowledge exchange activities in context, and that it may be appropriate for Research England to provide this data in a standardised format

A number of respondees felt that an overarching statement could also be a useful tool to demonstrate an institution’s overall strategic goals in relation the perspectives. This may help mitigate any perceptions of relative ‘poor’ performance in areas that were not of strategic importance to a particular HEI. However, it was recognised that this would be difficult to achieve through the visualisation. Other voices expressed concern that the statements could become marketing tools with little added value.

And finally: We note the concerns expressed in both the consultation and pilot regarding timing of implementation and potential overlaps with the REF and TEF. We will pay regard to this when agreeing implementation timescales.

You can read the report in detail here.

Widening Participation and Access

National Care Leavers Week will be held on 24-31 October 2019.
Estranged Students Solidarity Week is 25-29 November 2019
Former Prime Minister Theresa May recently announced plans for a new body, the Office for Tackling Injustices (OfTI), to monitor government efforts to tackle “deep-seated societal injustice”.

Inquiries and Consultations

Click here to view the updated consultation tracker. Email us on policy@bournemouth.ac.uk if you’d like to contribute to any of the current consultations.

New consultations and inquiries this week: Lords inquiry in Ageing: Science, Technology and Healthy Living

Other news

Arts rise: The DfE published information on GCSE entries on results day. It highlights that entries to arts subjects have risen by 3.2% to 320,000. The DfE see this as positive new because previously the EBacc was criticised as squeezing these subjects out of the curriculum because of the opportunity to select them was less than other curriculum models. The news sits alongside a 3.7% rise in entries to EBacc subjects and an increase in foreign language entries (particularly Spanish and French). For more detail, including the key stats for other subjects click here.

T levels: The House of Commons Library have one of their helpful briefing papers on T Levels: Reforms to Technical Education which provides an overview of the proposals to reform the technical education system.

Student Debt Sanctions: the CMA have taken action causing the University of Liverpool to change their student debt penalty policy. They will no longer issue academic sanctions – such as the as the removal of library or email access – for students who have debts which are unrelated to their fees. Susan Lapworth, Director for Competition and Registration, at the Office for Students, said: “We welcome today’s announcement that, following CMA action, the University of Liverpool has formally committed to drop academic sanctions for students with debts, for example for accommodation costs, that are not related to their tuition fees. The fair treatment of students is important to us as a regulator. All universities and other higher education providers should be mindful of today’s CMA announcement and ensure that their debt collection policies comply with consumer law. Our own regulatory framework sets out the need for universities to demonstrate they are complying with consumer protection law, and we will continue to support the important work of the CMA on these issues.”

AI job displacement scheme: On Tuesday new Education Minister, Kemi Badenoch, announced an extension in the roll out of a pilot programme aiming to help adults whose jobs may change due to new technologies – such as automation and AI – to retrain and get on the path to a new career. The Get Help to Retrain digital service will now be rolled out to the West Midlands and the North East following success in Liverpool City during the summer.

Student Grants: The Student Loan Company are raising awareness of their practitioners’ page. They are also sharing information on their grants – Childcare Grant; the Adult Dependants’ Grant; and the Parents’ Learning Allowance – to ensure those eligible apply for the funds.

Market Signalling: HEPI have a new blog exploring the marketisation of HE alongside the Augar Review and institutional autonomy.

Unconditional Admissions: The most effective and fairest admissions system continues to be debated this week. A provocative Wonkhe article makes the barest nod to grades asking what if all university offers were unconditional? The comments at the end are well worth a read too as sector colleagues suggest other alternatives and admissions tweaks, primarily moving away from the overreliance on A level grades. And The Guardian have an article which suggests social class is a barrier to good A level/exam performance.

PQA: Post qualification admissions. Mary Curnock Cook, ex-CEO of UCAS, explains the factors that made her turn from determined to implement post qualification admissions to remaining with the current system.

OfS Student Tool: The OfS have a new online tool for prospective students which launches in September: Discovering Uni: planning your HE journey.

NEETS: Office for National Statistics published the quarterly stats on 16-24 year olds who are classified as NEET (not in education, employment or training).

There were 792,000 young people in the UK who were NEET; this number increased by 28,000 from January to March 2019 and was up 14,000 when compared with April to June 2018.
The percentage of all young people in the UK who were NEET was 11.5%; the proportion was up 0.4 percentage points from January to March 2019 and up 0.3 percentage points from April to June 2018.
Of all young people in the UK who were NEET, 41.6% were looking for, and available for, work and therefore classified as unemployed; the remainder were either not looking for work and/or not available for work and therefore classified as economically inactive.

The report details examples of specialist projects (Medway, Southwark, Blackpool) which have effectively decreased the NEET population.

Schools Funding: One of Boris’ campaigning objectives was his pledge to increase the minimum per pupil funding level for English schools – this House of Commons Insight Guide has an interactive mechanism which checks which schools within a constituency area will see an increase against the £4k (primary) and £5k (secondary) proposed thresholds.

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August 19, 2019

HE policy update for the w/e 16th August 2019

policy, Student Engagement jforster

Welcome to a bumper update catching you on the last two weeks in policy land plus Sarah has taken a special in-depth look at post-qualification admissions as it is the hot topic of the week.

Post-qualification Admissions

Labour reinvigorated the post-qualification admissions debate on Wednesday when they declared they would reform the HE system and scrap predicted grades to implement a ‘new fairer system of post-qualification admissions’. Talk of post-qualification admissions (PQA) has been around for a long while, (Schwartz review, 2003; UCAS 2011), and quite recently the UCU have been pushing for PQA because they believe it penalises disadvantaged students. The claim is that capable disadvantaged students are penalised because they may receive under-predicted grades than their stronger, higher grade performance in their final exams. Lower predicted grades restrict their ability to apply to and secure a university place at the most competitive institutions. A focus on ensuring access for disadvantaged students to the highest tariff institutions was championed by Sam Gyimah, (HE Minister of 10 months, 2 Ministers ago) who pressurised Oxbridge to radically improve the number of disadvantaged students they accept and challenged students to think big and trade up to the most competitive institutions (claiming it leads to higher employability returns). So it is interesting to see a Conservative and Labour policy align, even if they have different solutions.

Labour’s plans would see students applying for their HE place after receiving their A level/other results so they can select the “best” institution that their actual grades will qualify them for. They also address another political hot potato– unconditional offers – Labour want to see an end to unconditional offers and, of course, a PQA system where offers aren’t made in advance has no place for them (more on this below). It also means the end of clearing. Labour say that it will enable students to make better, more accurate decisions, and mean that are not pressurised into accepting an unconditional offer from a lower tariff university.

The last reason that is always trotted out for PQA is that England is the only country where a pre-qualifications admission system is used.

There would be significant practical challenges in implementing a PQA system. Universities are usually criticised as blocking such changes for their own convenience.

Universities have autonomy in this area with control over their admissions processes and the right to choose whom they admit. The Higher Education and Research Act (2017), states: ‘“the institutional autonomy of English higher education providers” means … the freedom of English higher education providers … to determine the criteria for the admission of students and apply those criteria in particular cases’.

We explore the complexities below, but first, is there evidence that disadvantaged students are under predicted? It seems there is:

Analysis carried out by the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (2011) found black students were the most likely to have their grades under-predicted.
The Sutton Trust states that poorer students are more likely to have their grades under-predicted than their wealthier peers.
UCL’s Institute of Education found that nearly one in four disadvantaged students who go on to achieve AAB or better in A-Level have predicted grades lower than their final results.

So while there is clearly an issue, what about those grey areas? HEPI have a useful blog. It highlights that if students wish, they can already apply after receiving your grades [and increasing numbers are, although that feels like a risky business especially in future when the demographic dip reverses] Students can also hedge their bets by accepting a firm choice, and then declining this offer to trade up to a better place. So it is possible, but it is complicated and it is unclear whether students really know how to make the system work for them. It is easier to just accept the place you had originally chosen (mere-exposure effect).

What about other countries?

If the UK is an international outlier and comparator countries all have PQA systems, are we missing a trick? They answer is our systems and intentions are quite different. In the British system the majority of students travel away from their home to attend the institution which they believe is most attractive – for all sorts of reasons (not just prestige/ranking of the university) – the programme content, type of course (accelerated, sandwich, traditional), employer links and employability outcomes, institutional prestige, and the desirability of the wider rounded offer and university environment. Students choose and universities select students they believe will thrive. Even if we changed to a PQA system this established cultural approach to student choice and the meritocracy would not immediately change. So how does it work in other countries?

France – students apply post-qualification. All those achieving a pass in the baccalaureate are entitled to go, and most do. Most stay locally. Fees are low. University is an automatic right and universities have to accept all those that achieve the pass, shutting their doors only when full (and that means really full). Non-continuation rates are huge with many students dropping out during the first year because university just isn’t for them, not to mention the enormous class sizes and relatively poor student experience. Application processes are generally on-line, anonymous and impersonal. Universities do not need to sell themselves to students and there is no selection except for a small number of very exclusive universities.

Australia – school leavers apply before they have their results ranking their preferences for their preferred institutions. When they results are known they are converted to a common score (ATAR) and the universities consider the score achieved by the students that have ranked them top and then decide a cut off for acceptances. Students below the threshold repeat the process with their second ranked choice, and so on down the list. However, it is not working well. Those with lower scores struggle to obtain places and universities are starting to move away from relying on their score based system.

America – it’s complicated, drawn out, highly selective, and stressful. First there are fee distinctions between public and private institutions, and they types of degree they issue. The application process itself has multiple steps and deadlines. Separate applications are sent to each institution (although they can use the Common Application process for certain institutions). On four year degree programmes, once accepted, students may be assigned to the entire college, not a particular department or major (focal programme). Entry to the top institutions is fiercely competitive. Students choosing the two-year county and community college route have a less complicated system than the four-year degree schools, as this usually only requires a high school transcript or minimum test score. And the provision of high school counsellors (who help with careers and HE advice) is patchy – private schools often have a dedicated full time post, only 1 in 4 public schools have the equivalent level of resource. Transfers between institutions are more frequent than, currently occurs in the UK too.

UCU have a summary table for 30 countries (see pages 7-8).

So how could the system work? There are two main options. HEPI:

The differences between Post-Qualification Applications (when you applyfor a place after receiving your results) [this is Labour’s ideal process] and,
Post-Qualification Admissions (where the places are handed out after the results but in which you might have applied, as now, before you know how you have done). [Australian model]

HEPI continue: The oddity of our system is not so much that people apply before receiving their results; the oddity is that huge weight is put on predicted grades, which are notoriously unreliable. Either version of PQA could tackle this, but they are different from one another and it is not always clear which one PQA advocates want.

Exams of prime importance

Whether it is post qualification applications or admissions, changing the system would increase the focus on exam results. Last year there were calls to reduce the reliance on grades as the sole or most major determinant of accepting an applicant (including peripheral interest in comprehensive universities). And many universities acknowledge that grades alone cannot represent an individual’s range of desirable skills and attributes, nor their ability to thrive and achieve on a particular course at a particular institution. So a system which places more emphasis on grades could be a retrograde step. Plus the reality of a post-qualification application process means a more pressurised, shorter, decision turnaround with less time to consider alternatives such as interviews, portfolios, personal statements, and applicant’s background circumstances.

What about those students who have over-predicted provisional grades? They will have applied to a higher tariff institution, which post-qualification may well still accept them (given market pressures). Much of the rhetoric for PQA surrounds extending the aspirations of the most capable disadvantaged students. Yet the mid-ability disadvantaged deserve to secure a place at a good institution, just as their more affluent peers do. Of course this is where contextual admissions could come into play.

Contextual Admissions

Contextual admissions could [and should] still exist in a post-qualification system. However, to truly support social mobility aims they would need to be far more transparent. Disadvantaged students can only aspire to a ‘reach’ university if they know their actual grades plus the contextual leniency that will be applied. Without this they likely will self-select to a less competitive institution. Students also need assurance that universities value this information and do not use the contextual ‘tick’ to filter out applications.

Universities would need to clearly spell out which disadvantage factors they accept and what grade/points reduction they adjust the advertised tariff by, including any further leniency due to double disadvantage or intersectionality. Providers would need to provide online checkers so a student can input their data and check if they are eligible for a reduced offer. And this needs to be transparent, available not only on the institution’s own website but clear and accessible through the UCAS application process (pre or post qualification).

This suggests a clearer but more automated approach to contextual admissions. However, there may be other important factors that some universities check outside of the standard criteria to provide a further adjusted offer, or an offer that doesn’t decrease the standard tariff but provides other alternatives. Of course, if contextual admissions are more ‘automated’ the process could be national – a standard set of criteria by which a defined reduced was applied cross-institution. However, this is may be a step too far. It is right that universities retain their autonomy to determine what contextual reduction or alternatives can be provided. And this isn’t about ‘bums on seats’, universities have different remits with some experienced in taking very high proportions of disadvantaged students with a strong support infrastructure. And in some cases this is determined by regional characteristics.

Speed is of the essence

The aspect that strikes me most when considering UCU’s table of countries with post qualification admissions is that the time between application and acceptance is a matter of days or weeks. This is just not possible in the UK if there is to be an element of selection. Either the process becomes more automated with less attention to personal factors (which really does feel like ‘bums on seats’, and would less selection increase drop out?) or the start date for foundation and first year courses is delayed (or A level exams are taken earlier/marked quicker). None of these options are attractive. In particular extending the time between school/exam finish and commencing degree/alternative study is counter to Government aims for a productive workforce (and accelerated degrees).

The knock on effect potentially also polarises choice between degree and other alternative skills/study programmes. Imagine a student unsure whether to choose a traditional degree programme (with confirmation of place mid-September) and an apprenticeship option which commences early September. The timing for post-level 3 options needs to match.

Intensive Careers Support Period

Careers advice came up a lot in the press this week. In a PQA system where students still apply to HE institutions while studying at level 3 (but aren’t accepted until their results are known) students can still access careers support and HE advice through their educational provider. However, in a post qualification application system schools or other agencies would need to be available to guide choices and support with personal statements during the summer closure periods, or early autumn.

Capacity would be an issue – far more staff would be needed to cover all the students needing the same support all at once within a short period. And in a system where students apply before results are known provisional grades are still likely to be used by the institution as an indicator. Even though they’ll only be used internally by the school and the individual they will still be unreliable and have the same effect Labour are trying to curb – they’ll restrict the disadvantaged students’ choice of institution based on what they believe they can attain, negating the intention of changing to a PQA system. Of course there is a watered down hybrid approach whereby careers support and statement preparation would be done while studying the level 3 (and this would work for a system of post-qualification admissions rather than applications). This isn’t really student focussed though, it just makes things easier for schools, and internal predicted grades will still bias the student’s initial choices.

Is it really the end for Clearing?

Labour stated clearing wouldn’t exist. However, this seems dangerous as if students applied with their results and none of their institutions accepted them then they are left without a safety net to rethink their possibilities. A PQA system actually creates more uncertainty for the student. Even if they have the grades they cannot be certain their preferred institution will take them, and everything hinges on results day for the process to even start. Really PQA is one giant clearing round, and as such stages would be required. If we were truly joined up vocational and apprenticeship options would all be part of one giant post qualification application system. Wouldn’t that be an enormous feat!

Unconditional Offers

Labour are also opposed to unconditional offers. Schools are pressuring the Government to clamp down on unconditional offers as they claim that some students ‘take their foot off the gas’ and underperform when they hold an unconditional offer. Politicians also believe the overuse of unconditional offers is a misuse of recruitment simply aiming to lock students into attending the institution ‘bums on seats’ and doesn’t represent ‘value for money’. Unconditional offers were introduced to support certain disadvantaged groups, such as providing basic security for care leavers who often have to give up their accommodation before their university place is confirmed. More recently, they have been accepted as valid to support those with proven mental health or additional needs who may underperform at final exam. The point of these unconditional offers is that they provide security and access for the underrepresented groups whose lives are characterised by precarity and who, without the unconditional place, who not access HE or consider a ‘reach’ university. In cases of accepted or demonstrated need it is feasible that these could still form an early application element, even in a post-results system. Or if that was too unpalatable we could follow the Scottish example and provide some form of guaranteed offer (link).

How would it work in practice – the nitty gritty

Everyone has their own theory about how PQA could work in practice. Universities could commence later, schools or a national careers service could advise during the post-exam crunch periods, campus visits could be undertaken during the year or in the summer period (or virtually). However, don’t all these aspects have an impact on the disadvantaged student? A later degree start means either less/more intensive tuition (less period for adjustment – those coming from poor schools need time to level up, some need time to emotionally settle) or that tuition will finish later in the first year summer (impacting on access to the paid summer jobs needed to top up the student loans). Careers advice depends on the quality of the school and dedicated resources – deprived schools may not have the same resource to spend on careers as a private institution. The cost of campus visits may be prohibitive – and why undertake them pre-results if you are unsure where you might end up? Plus with a squeezed acceptance period would there be time for student’s to visit multiple institutions to experience whether they feel it would be a good fit?

Of course there are implications for the University too. Pre-qualification applications form a large part of the end recruitment picture, and HE institutions are essentially reliant on fee income to function. Particularly in today’s marketised competitive environment. Could no visibility as to recruitment levels make ‘bums on seats’ worse? It also doesn’t provide enough lead time to free up extra resource for unexpectedly popular courses. And, timetabling (groan) unpredictable recruitment levels are a timetabling headache. Plus certain widening access groups, such as parents and carers, need to know their timetable well in advance of the start of the programme so they can arrange alternative care.

At the other end of the spectrum how would universities deal with oversupply? Too many students with the required grade level all wish to attend the university. Would universities have less choice over who they take (French model)? Would the university then have to rely on the personal statement (time issues)? Could unconscious bias come into play? Could oversupply pave the way for the three D’s cut-off grade threshold to be introduced?

There could be a first come, first served model, but this has a hidden equality bias. Disadvantaged students may need more guidance in choice of institution or be slower to apply due to personal circumstances. Would there still be an ‘application’ or decision deadline post results?

In the balance…

Many of the reasons offered for a post qualification admissions system are aspects which need tackling anyway. Furthermore, the Government wants to see more choice and variability in the HE market (accelerated degrees, part time and flexible options) alongside prestigious alternative technical and degree apprenticeship routes. A PQA system swaps the unpredictability of predicted grades for the unpredictability of exam performance, which may still not be a reliable predictor of an individual’s sustained capability.

Commentary

Angela Rayner MP, Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for Education, said: “The higher education admissions system isn’t working for students, and radical action is needed to change that…Predicted grades are wrong in the vast majority of cases, and disadvantaged students in particular are losing out on opportunities on the basis of those inaccurate predictions. No one should be left out of our education system just because of their background, yet with grants scrapped and fees tripled, the system is now deeply unfair…We will work with schools, colleges, and universities to design and implement the new system, and continue to develop our plans to make higher education genuinely accessible to all.”
Sir Peter Lampl, founder and chairman of the Sutton Trust, said: “The Labour party is right to look at overhauling the university admissions system. The current system is based on students’ predicted grades which are wrong most of the time. Moving to a system of post-qualification applications would empower the student to make the best university choice for them. We’d also like to see a greater use of contextual data in the admissions process, as well as a review of the personal statement to see how it could be improved.”
Geoff Barton, General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “It is a good idea to look at moving to a system of post-qualification admissions for university, but it would represent a significant and complex change to our current admissions systems. t would be extremely difficult to manage the entire applications process in the few weeks between A-level results in mid-August and the beginning of university terms in September or October, and it is likely that we would need to rethink the entire calendar. It might be simpler to return to a system in which AS levels counted towards the first year of the full A-level as this allowed universities to use actual results in considering applications, and for universities to stop the practice of so-called ‘conditional unconditional’ offers – which are unconditional as long as the student makes the university their first choice – simply to put bums on seats.”

Damian Hinds, the previous Education Secretary, announced a review of admissions practices on 5 April 2019. The OfS is expected to launch the review in the autumn. The House of Commons Library has issued a briefing paper on the key issues surrounding admissions. Meanwhile UUK launched their own pre-emptive admissions review on 22 July.

A Level Results

DfE Statistics published on Thursday, A Level results day, showed:

Entries to STEM subjects increased for both male and females – overall a 26.2% rise since 2010;

More girls now do science subjects – biology, chemistry and physics combined – than boys and overall science entries are up by 7.4%, despite the fall in the population;
Entries to Spanish have risen making it the most popular language at A level while there has been a relative increase in entries to German for the first time since 2007;
Maths remains the most popular subject at A level;
Since 2010, total entries in mathematics and further mathematics have increased by 20.0%, despite a 10.7% fall in the A level cohort population in the period;
Entries to both history and geography have increased;
Girls narrowly outperform boys at A and A* combined, reversing last year’s trend, but boys did better than girls at A*;
The North East has the highest overall pass rate and the biggest percentage improvement at A and A* grades;
A drop in the proportion of A-level results at the top grades to the lowest level in more than a decade.
There has been a rise in non-EU students coming to the country to study; and
A rise in nursing admissions – bucking a recent trend.
The gap between boys and girls increased this year with 73.3% of male students achieving a C grade or above compared with 77.2% of females.
The gap between boys and girls increased this year with 73.3% of male students achieving a C grade or above compared with 77.2% of females.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: I congratulate everyone receiving their A level results today. The new government will do all we can to improve funding for education and to give schools the powers they need to deal with bad behaviour and bullying so that pupils can learn. We also must focus much more attention on providing great apprenticeships for all those who do not go to university.

The new Secretary of State for Education, Gavin Williamson, also spoke on A level results day.

Angela Rayner MP, Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary, stated: Congratulations to everyone receiving their A-Level results today. And thank you to parents and carers, education leaders and teachers for their hard work in supporting young people through their education. We need to give more support to our students, so Labour will abolish predicted grades and implement post-qualification admissions. This will allow those studying to make informed choices, and reduce the stress of the transition to higher education. Students should be proud of what they have achieved today, and we are proud of them.”

The Office for Students has A level day commentary and coverage. Among the links are Sir Michael Barber speaking on information, advice and guidance plus fair access. Nicola Dandridge on unconditional offers (iNews picks up on this too, and the Telegraph states the OfS are ‘poised to intervene’ on the issue quoting Dandridge as saying “we can and we will” use regulatory powers to crack down on the worst offenders.) Dandridge is also covered in the Times on improving the ease for students to transfer between institutions.

The Telegraph report on the busiest clearing even in: More students go straight to clearing as Russell Group universities drop grades to take extra applicants. The Telegraphy also have an article by Universities Minister, Jo Johnson, who returns to ‘bums on seats’ mode in Results day is not a chance to simply get students through the door.

There is always press about exams being too easy or too hard on A level results day. The Financial Times started a day early highlight leaks that A grades for maths, biology and physics would be awarded by some Boards to students achieving 55-59%.

Fans of Wonkhe’s David Kernohan will be delighted with his latest analysis:

The Sunday Times splashed on the idea that 48 per cent of (essay-based) A level results are “wrong” – which prompted a delightful correctionfrom Ofqual that could only really be improved if it was written in red ink. For many subjects, marking is based on qualitative criteria that rely on academic judgement. There will be variation, though a well argued and well constructed essay will always win out.
And The Times’ Sian Griffiths reportedthat some students would get the highest grade without achieving a particularly high percentage mark. As we all know this is due to the Ofqual quest for “comparable outcomes” if you change the assessment method to one that gives students more trouble, the average marks for each grade will be lower assuming the population taking the exam has broadly the same characteristics. The whole set of boundaries leaked yesterday on social media to generalised merriment.
Away from A level performance, the classic “Mickey Mouse” courses articlecame from the Mail this year – an annual failure to understand the idea of niche courses serving a specific local needs, the need to widen participation, and the limited utility of A levels in solving either issue. And – yes – there’s a “Campaign for Real Education” quote.

Which leaves us only with one question – why in today’s digital world is results coverage still depicted by a shock horror/happy face supposedly examining their results on a piece of paper?! (Exhibit A and B!)

Results Day Records: UCAS has welcomed ‘a record number of disadvantaged young people going to university’:

A record 17.3% of 18 year olds (18,900 students, which is also the highest on A level results day) from the most disadvantaged backgrounds in England have been accepted (a rise of 0.8% on 2018). This slightly narrows the gap between the most and least advantaged groups. Both Wales and Northern Ireland have new highs in disadvantage acceptances too.
Across the UK, 28.2% of all 18 year olds have been accepted through UCAS, also a new record for results day (last year’s figure on A level results day was 27.7%).
A new high of 33,630 international students from outside the EU have been accepted, driven by a 32% rise in accepted applicants from China.
26,440 EU students have been accepted to study in the UK, a small rise compared to the 2018 results day.

Clearing: Last year nationally 15,000 students were placed through Clearing on the day after the A level results came out, with 39,000 placed within the first five days. Updates on the national picture of applicants and acceptances is regularly updated through UCAS’ daily clearing analysis page. We wish all BU staff involved in Clearing resilience and fortitude during this busy period!

Widening Access

Scotland are proactively tackling social mobility by guaranteeing offers for care experienced and the most deprived students. Scotland’s 18 higher education institutions have set out a new commitment that care experienced applicants who meet minimum entry requirements will be guaranteed an offer of an undergraduate place from autumn 2020. The move aims to drive a significant increase in the number of care experienced people going to university. This guaranteed offer is crucial because in Scotland, partially because of the funding system, demand for places outstrips supply – on average, only half of applications are likely to result in an offer even for students who meet standard entry requirements. The guaranteed offer is informed by the universities belief in the importance of recognising the context in which care experienced applicants have achieved the entry qualifications needed for university.

Most pioneering is that Scotland has defined ‘care experienced’ without limits. It includes anyone who has been or is currently in care or from a looked after background at any stage of their life, no matter how short, including adopted children who were previously looked after. Different forms of care settings are included (e.g. residential care, foster care, kinship care, or looked after at home with a supervision requirement) and there are no age restrictions (so an adult who was in care 40 years ago can also benefit). The guaranteed offer also applies to people living in the 20% most deprived Scottish areas, known as SIMD20.

Professor Sally Mapstone, Principal of the University of St Andrews said: “This is a decisive and, I hope, catalytic step jointly taken by Scotland’s universities. It gives due recognition to the substantial achievement of people with experience of care who are successful in getting the grades for university having overcome very challenging circumstances at a young age. We hope it will enable more people with care experience to feel confident applying to university, knowing that their application is encouraged and will be supported. It is important that all of Scotland’s universities have made this guarantee together. That should provide the greatest possible clarity and visibility of this change to people with care experience wherever they live in Scotland and wherever they want to study.

It’s hoped that that universities’ guaranteed offer of a place based on new minimum entry requirements exclusive to care experienced and MD20 applicants, will be a prove to be a powerful combination of both action and words that together signal the commitment universities have to creating opportunities for those with care experience and encourage a rise in applicants.”

Disability & Disadvantage

The APPG Assistive Technology has published a report into the disabled students’ allowance finding the £200 charge is a significant deterrent for new students. The £200 contribution was introduced by the Government as a fair contribution towards the price of a high powered laptop that is capable of running resource-intensive assistive software. However, students often make do with their existing lower-tech computing equipment and forgo the disability support package of software. Furthermore, the APPG state the cost of the disability assessment is wasted and borne by the taxpayer as the student doesn’t take the package up. The report calls on the government to remove upfront assistive technology costs and open a public consultation on all financial barriers associated with the Disabled Students’ Allowance. Policy Connect, who publish the report on behalf of the APPG, state:

The increasing number of disabled people reaching university is a major step forward for inclusion and social mobility. More disabled people rightly see university as an option for them and the growing culture of disability inclusion within the UK has encouraged more students to disclose their impairments. Yet when disabled students get to university they still face a persistent gap in experience and outcomes compared to their non-disabled peers.

Policy Connect also manage the HE Commission who are undertaking an inquiry into the university experience of disabled students. It focuses on the three strands of student life: teaching and learning; living and social; and transition and employment. It aims to explore the challenges faced by disabled students and whether current interventions are good practice and effective. Disabled students are less likely to complete their course, are lower paid as graduates and are more likely to experience loneliness. Working age adults with a disability also access university in lower numbers than expected – less than 17.5% of working age adults with a disability access university. The Commission will hold a parliamentary oral evidence session in September. The report is due early in 2020.

The National Deaf Children’s Society has published analysis on deaf children falling behind at school

Social Justice: FACE have a blog establishing that ECRs (Early Career Researchers) are deeply interested in social justice, social mobility and improving the student experience – despite this being primarily outside of their ECR roles. The article talks of how to offer ECRs greater involvement within social solutions for students through their evaluation expertise.

Immigration

Within days of Boris taking the reins he dropped the net migration target and began pursuing a more internationally friendly policy than Theresa May. And this week the one millionth person was granted settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme.

International STEM talent: The Home Office has launched a fast-track immigration STEM talent scheme building on the existing Tier 1 Exceptional Talent visa route. The new scheme will provide eligible individuals with a three-year visa, during which they can come and go from the UK at will. At the end of three years, those on the scheme would be able apply for indefinite leave to remain (giving a permanent right to reside in the UK and access to benefits and healthcare on the same basis as British citizens). The scheme does not have a minimum salary requirement and individuals do not need to secure a job before arriving in the UK (unlike the existing Tier 2 route for skilled workers). Individuals will be able to bring dependants (spouses/partners and children) and they will be able to work or study while here. Visa fees that are commensurate with existing immigration fees will be charged. A review of funding the immigration system, including fees charged will take place in the future. The talent scheme aims to ensure that those with specialist skills in STEM subjects can come to the UK and make an important contribution to our leading science and research sectors, significantly enhancing the intellectual and knowledge base of the UK. The entire Tier 1 Exceptional Talent route is earmarked for revamp and rebranding over the new parliamentary period.

UK post-study work visa comparison

The Scottish Government have published a comparative report on how the UK’s post-study work offer compares with competitor countries.

The popularity of international education continues to grow, and the volume of student mobility is at an all-time high. In 2015, there were an estimated 4.6 million globally mobile higher education students, a massive increase from the 2.1 million students who went abroad in 2001.
The US, the UK, China, France, and Australia rank as top host destinations of international students worldwide and collectively host an estimated two thirds of all international students. In terms of student numbers, the US is the global leader for international students with 971,000 students in 2016, followed by the UK which had 432,000 international students in the same year. At the same time, however, international students comprised only 5% of the total student population in the US as compared to 18% in the UK.

The following factors are significant in student destination choice:

The academic offer and the international reputation of a given university or a given country’s education system more generally, as well as language of instruction/official language of the country.
Ease of meeting formal requirements (fulfilling university recruitment and visa requirements).
Finances: affordability of studying and living in the host country; sponsorship opportunities in host country.
Presence of networks in the host country; general atmosphere in a given country: attitudes towards international students (and immigrants in general), lifestyle.
Work opportunities during and after studies.
For those looking to emigrate permanently – the country’s immigration policy and pathways to settlement post-study.

The report concludes that to improve its global competitiveness in terms of attracting and retaining international students, the UK should:

Introduce a more competitive post-study work offer taking into consideration ease of application and application timescales, programme length, work entitlement, and opportunities for applying to the programme after leaving the UK.
Implement additional measures supporting the longer term retention of international students, such as: language and employability support; integration programmes; provision of information and advice on conditions of stay, employment opportunities, and life in the UK; creating opportunities for establishing professional networks.
Ensure systematic monitoring of the programme and its implementation to prevent its potential misuse (and evaluate its effectiveness).

Visa Checking Dissatisfaction

International students are unable to access the visa checking services they are entitled to and are resorting to paying additional fees to gain appointments. Sopra Steria holds the contract for the UK Visa and Citizenship Application services to enrol and check the biometric information on visa applications. UUK are campaigning for Sopra Steria to immediately improve the service they are offering. Currently students are unable to get checking appointments, the online service isn’t accessible or compatible with the use of assistive technology, there are further problems with the online service and an exorbitant telephone support line charge to resolve these problems. Students have resorted to paying additional charges to fast track their appointments and traveling a distance away from their university to attend these. UUK is calling on the company to resolve these issues quickly before the September ‘student surge’ when 40,000+ students will need to register their biometric details.

Alistair Jarvis, Chief Executive of Universities UK, said: Despite constructive engagement between the Home Office, UKVI and universities, the current capacity and level of service being offered by Sopra Steria remains unacceptable. Students and universities cannot be expected to pay to address Sopra Steria’s broken system. We are calling on Sopra Steria to fully address these concerns before the September surge of students so that students can start their courses with the visas they need. International students make a huge cultural and economic contribution to the UK. Sopra Steria should be helping to send a more welcoming message to international students, signalling that the UK is open to talented individuals from around the world, as is the case at our universities.

Elisa Calcagni, a PhD student from Chile studying at the University of Cambridge, thought the service she received from Sopra Steria was very disappointing: As a non-EEA national I was required to enrol my biometrics through Sopra Steria. I had not expected any additional charges but I found it virtually impossible to find a free appointment. The time window for bookings on the online system only covers two weeks and there were no free appointments available, or any appointments at all in Cambridge. I called the Sopra Steria support line and they suggested to keep checking the website for cancelled appointments. I didn’t want the uncertainty of constantly checking the system with no guarantee of an appointment becoming available, so I selected to pay £100 for an appointment in Croydon, two hours away. Despite booking a timed appointment, there was a waiting time of an hour and then the system wasn’t working properly leading to further delays.

Khalid Elkhereiji, a student at the University of Southampton, said: “I use a screen reader which reads on-screen text aloud. Trying to login in to my UKVCAS account to book the appointment I needed for my visa was very frustrating as none of the screen readers I used were able to detect the checkbox which must be selected to confirm the person logging in is not a robot. I spent hours trying to do this, carefully repeating the same steps as it was not possible to identify the issue. This is not a problem that I face with other websites and it meant I was not able to login without the assistance of a sighted person…I have explained my concerns with the accessibility of the service to Sopra Steria and I believe it is a relatively simple issue to fix, however I have not had any further updates from Sopra Steria and there has been no confirmation that their website is inclusive and accessible to everyone. ”

HEPI have published Two sides of the same coin? Brexit and future student demand. The report concludes that the best available evidence points in opposite direction for student demand predictions. Nick Hillman, summarises:

There is a broad consensus that says Brexit will mean far less demand for UK higher education. When EU students are no longer entitled to taxpayer-subsidised tuition fee loans and face much higher international fees, they are likely to look elsewhere or stay at home. Research we published back in 2017 suggested the number of students who come from the EU could halve.
But there is an important historical precedent that tells a rather different story. Until the early 1980s, all international students coming to the UK were subsidised by taxpayers. At the time, the consensus said their numbers would fall off a cliff. In fact, the end of the subsidy laid the foundations for what eventually became a big expansion in international students. Universities realised they could charge fees high enough to cover the full costs of teaching and more. When international students subsidise other activities, such as underfunded research programmes, there is a strong incentive to recruit more of them.
No one knows for certain whether the pessimistic economic modelling or the optimistic historical precedent is the better guide to the future. Perhaps the impact of Brexit on student numbers will end up lying somewhere between these two extremes. What happens will depend, to some extent, on whether the new crop of Ministers decide to roll out the red carpet for international students – for example, by streamlining visa procedures, improving post-study work rules and clarifying the rules for EU students after Brexit. It will also depend on how institutions choose to respond to Brexit

Headline Estimates/Findings:

31,000 fewer incoming EU students each year (-57%), representing a loss of fee income of £40 million, as a result of the changes to fee and loan entitlements;
20,000 more non-EU students (+9%) and EU students (+10%) each year, representing an increase in fee income of over £225 million, as a result of the change in the value of the pound.
a net drop of roughly 11,000 incoming students but over £185 million more fee income for institutions, as all incoming students would then be paying the full international fees.
Institutions foresee the considerable growth of students from non-EU countries continuing, collectively forecasting an increase of over 56,000 by 2022, or 20% (although the Chair of the Office for Students has complained about ‘over-optimistic student recruitment forecasts’)

Policy Takeaways:

The best modelling that has been undertaken on changes to fees and loans suggests there will be a big drop in the number of EU students coming to the UK after Brexit.
Changes to the value of the pound are also likely to determine the degree to which institutions are affected.
Ending subsidies for students from other countries can sometimes provide new financial incentives on institutions to enrol them.

Parliament

We have a refreshed Cabinet (here is a link to a lovely wall chart!) and here is a reminder of Labour’s shadow cabinet.

Universities Minister is Jo Johnson, for his second stint in the role, he remains with joint lines of responsibility to both the Department for Education and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). His reappointment to the Universities role has prompted much speculation about unfinished business in the BU policy office and is interesting when taken in context with the new Education appointees, some of which are tough characters or old hands. For the first time ever the Universities Minister will attend Cabinet too. Jo’s BEIS responsibilities have been set as: science and research, innovation, intellectual property, space, agri-tech, technology.
Heading up Education is Gavin Williamson (yes he who was ousted by Theresa May for leaking while he was SoS for Defence) in the chief role of Secretary of State for Education. His responsibilities cover early years, children’s social care, teachers’ pay, school curriculum, school improvement, academies and free schools, further education, higher education, apprenticeships and skills. He has no previous experience in an education role, nor in his non-political career.
Nick Gibb is Minister of State (Minister for School Standards) and holds a wide school responsibility remit. He has held an education role almost continually since 2005 both in Government and the shadow cabinet, including school reform and school standards before a brief stint as Equalities Minister (2017-2018). Nick retained this, his previous role, in the Boris reshuffle.
Kemi Badenoch is a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State and Minister for Children and Families. Among her responsibilities are social care, SEN, race disparity audit, disadvantaged pupils, social mobility and opportunity areas. She has no previous ministerial experience, was only elected to the Commons in 2017, and is heavily pregnant (you can see her views on MP motherhood here).
Lord Agnew has an unpaid role as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State and Minister for the School System. His responsibilities include university technical colleges. Within the Lords, since 2017, he held position as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the School System and Government Spokesperson. He was also a non-executive Director within DfE (2010-15). Lord Agnew retained this, his previous role in the Boris reshuffle.
Engineer and running fanatic Chris Green is the team PPS (Parliamentary Private Secretary). He has an interest in education and plethora of relevant APPG memberships including artificial intelligence, life sciences, medical research (and medical devices), engineering, health, youth employment, digital skills and he was a member of the Science and Technology Select Committee (2015-2017).

The Apprenticeships and Skills Minister (Anne Milton’s old role) has been removed. SoS Gavin Williamson has assumed these responsibilities into his brief, with Ministerial support from the new Children’s Minister, Kemi Badenoch. A DfE spokesperson stated: As the Prime Minister has said, further education and skills will be a priority for this government – and the Education Secretary taking the lead for this vital work is a reflection of that commitment.

Previous Universities Minister, Chris Skidmore, is now Minister of State for Health and Social Care.

In local news Conor Burns (who was Boris’ PPS) has been promoted to Minister of State for International Trade. Tobias Ellwood has stepped down from his two year stint within the Minister of Defence. And Simon Hoare retains his post as Chair of the Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs.

Humanities bias within Cabinet: It is unsurprising to note that 67% of the new Cabinet attended a Russell Group university (45% at Oxbridge). However, what is perhaps slightly surprising, given the negative rhetoric and rumblings about downgrading the fee level for certain subjects, is that 87% of the Cabinet studied programmes within the humanities and social sciences field. For more on who studied what and where see this HEPI blog.

UUK lobby new PM: UUK call on Boris to take action in 5 areas to maximise the role of universities within his domestic and global ambitions:

Recommit to the 2.4% of GDP investment in research and development by 2027. Plus immigration system favourable to bring in the most talented global researchers.
Back the two-year post-study work visa amendment within the Immigration Bill, alongside lowering the salary threshold for international workers to obtain a high-skilled work visa to £21,000.
For domestic success including regional growth, skills workforce, equality of opportunity and social mobility UUK call for secure long term and sustainable funding for universities and students. Including reintroducing maintenance grants and cutting the on-programme interest rate on the loans. Overhauling so students better understand the student finance system.
Acknowledge the importance of the university experience – support mental health, widening access and end the BAME attainment gap.
Avoid no-deal Brexit, retain Horizon Europe and Erasmus+.

And it seems Boris was listening (or more likely had already decided):

Education featured as a core element within a speech Boris made in late July:

We will give every child the world class education they deserve. Which is why we will increase the minimum level of per pupil funding in primary and secondary schools and return education funding to previous levels by the end of this parliament.
And we cannot afford the chronic under-funding of our brilliant FE colleges, which do so much to support young people’s skills and our economy. We have a world class university sector; in fact it is one of the biggest concentrations of higher education anywhere in Europe right here in this city – why should we not aspire to the same status for our further education institutions, to allow people to express their talents?
We will double down on our investment in R&D, we will accelerate the talks on those free trade deals… If we unite our country, with better education, better infrastructure, with an emphasis on new technology, then this really can be a new golden age for the UK.

Other new Education related appointees

Ofsted – Julie Kirkbride, Hamid Patel, Martin Spencer, Carole Stott and Baroness Wyld appointed as board members, and John Cridland and Vanessa Wilms reappointed.
Ofqual – Susan Barratt, Matt Tee and Mike Thompson appointed as board members, and Roger Taylor reappointed as Chair.
Migration Advisory Committee – Madeleine Sumption reappointed as Chair for a further three years. (Relevant because the MAC are looking at the immigration thresholds for post-study work visas.)
Royal College of Midwives – Sasha Wells, Neil Tomlin, Natalie Linder, Dee Davies, Keelie Barrett, Janet Ballintine, Sarah Jones have been elected to the Board as members.

Brexit

On Tuesday Parliamentarians hoping to stop a no-deal Brexit through the courts will get a chance to make their case in September. A Scottish judge agree Friday 6 September for the legal case aimed at curbing the Prime Minister’s ability to prorogue Parliament in order to push a no-deal exit past MPs will be heard. The legal bid has been backed by more than 70 MPs and peers, and seeks to get the Court of Session in Edinburgh – which, unlike English courts, sits throughout the summer – to rule that suspending Parliament would be “unlawful and unconstitutional”. Papers lodged with the court say: “Seeking to use the power to prorogue Parliament to avoid further parliamentary participation in the withdrawal of the UK from the EU is both unlawful and unconstitutional.” Judge Lord Doherty on Tuesday confirmed that a full hearing for the legal petition would now take place on 6 September, just days after MPs return from the summer recess.

However, a poll suggests that Boris Johnson would be backed by a majority of the public if he shut down Parliament in order to achieve Brexit. A ComRes study for The Telegraph found that 44% of the public agree that the Prime Minister “needs to deliver Brexit by any means, including suspending Parliament if necessary, in order to prevent MPs from stopping it”. 37% of the public were opposed to the move, while 19% said they did not know. Boris has repeatedly refused to rule out the controversial move, sparking an outcry from MPs and warnings it would prompt a constitutional crisis.

No Deal

Political monitoring consultants, Dods, set out seven scenarios by which Parliamentary alliances could prevent a no-deal exit (scroll to page 8). This is a mid-July document, the scenarios are still valid and simply explain the constitutional complexities and assess the likelihood of stopping no deal.

As time progresses and the likelihood of the UK leaving the EU without a deal increases the commentary and analysis of the no deal scenario has proliferated. The House of Commons Library have produced a briefing paper giving links to a range of 2019 publications by private sector organisations, think tanks, research institutes and other academic institutions on a no-deal exit from the EU. The papers consider the general political, constitutional and economic implications of a no-deal Brexit rather than its effects in particular sectors.

And you won’t have missed Corbyn’s bold move to cement no deal opposition by seizing power for a care taking Government to prevent crashing out of the EU, followed closely by a general election.

Trade Deals: Two day visit by John Bolton, Trump’s national security adviser, has set out that America is keen to make post-Brexit trade deals with the UK. The deals are likely to be piecemeal starting with key quick win sectors and progressively continuing on to encompass other areas.

Degree Apprenticeships

Degree apprenticeships are four years old and the OfS conducted research to find out what motivated these earlier adopters to choose a degree apprenticeship instead of the traditional full time undergraduate study route. Their report finds:

Achieving a degree whilst earning a salary was the most motivating factor for 90% of level 6 and 92% of level 7 students. The OfS believe this is because degree apprenticeships represent value for money and are a kickback to the cost and level of student debt accrued through the traditional route.

38% of level 6 students would have undertaken the traditional degree if they hadn’t chosen the apprenticeship. OfS state this demonstrates degree apprenticeships are seen as an alternative to traditional HE degrees by many. Two thirds of students (at both levels) determined for themselves that degree apprenticeships would be the best fit for their needs.
90% (L6) and 78% (L7) believe the degree apprenticeship boosted their career by advancing them more quickly than a traditional degree could.
Level 6 and 7 respondents have different educational and employment backgrounds and different motivational drivers
- Level 6 learners tended to be younger, often recently joining the labour market and typically described the degree apprenticeship as a way to kick start their careers. It was also seen as a good route to achieve self-employment.
- Level 7 respondents tended to be older and were more likely to have different motivations behind attaining a degree apprenticeship, such as retraining to keep pace with the general labour market skill level and achieving career progression.

The Level 7 respondents found that the employer was pivotal in providing information on degree apprenticeships but also advice and support. [Interesting given the claims that current careers support signposts to a traditional degree route rather than alternatives.] Whereas Level 6 respondents relied on their friends and family for advice and support. [It seems reasonable that the age profile difference is a factor in where the student sought advice from here.]However, the OfS believe this access to advice reinforces the assumption that workforce development and retraining are important motivators among Level 7 respondents where Level 6 apprentices view it as a way into employment.

The report concluded: With 31% of Level 6 respondents coming to degree apprenticeships directly from schools, sixth form colleges and other education routes there must be information and guidance on degree apprenticeships here as well. This will help to ensure learners understand the available options so maximising the potential of degree apprenticeships. Expanding the number of employers who support degree apprenticeships is also important to not only the supply of degree apprenticeships, but also to ensure this source of information is able to adequately promote degree apprenticeships among potential learners.

Young Aspirations

More recently, the Sutton Trust and Ipsos Mori have published a report following their survey into 11-16 year olds’ University Aspirations and Attitudes to HE.

Almost two-thirds (64%) of young people said they’d be interested in doing an apprenticeship rather than going to university, if one was available for a job they wanted to do. Meanwhile, just under two-thirds (65%) said they think it’s important to go to university. This has fallen from a high of 86% in 2013, with the proportion who feel that going to university is not important rising from 11% in 2013 to 20% in 2019.

Key Findings:

Almost nine out of 10 (85%) said it’s important to be confident to do well and get on in life. Three quarters felt that having connections was crucial, with 75% saying that ‘knowing the right people’ is important for success in life.
University was deemed less important for young people from the least affluent families (61% compared with 67% in ‘high affluence’ households), and white pupils (62% compared with 75% of young people from a BME background).
Three-quarters (77%) of young people think they’re likely to go on to higher education after school. This is a similar rate to the past few years, but slightly below the high of 81% in 2013.
Of the young people who said it was unlikely they would go into higher education, the most common set of reasons (62%) was they don’t like the idea or don’t enjoy learning or studying. 43% cited a financial reason, while 41% said that they weren’t clever enough or wouldn’t get good enough exam results to get in.
Two-fifths (40%) of young people who are likely to go to university or who aren’t sure either way yet, are worried about the cost of higher education, down from 46% in 2018. However, money worries continue to be pronounced for young people from the least affluent families (50% compared with 32% in ‘high affluence’ households) and for girls over boys (44% vs 36%).

Sutton Trust make the following recommendations:

All pupils should receive a guaranteed level of careers advice from professional impartial advisers.
Maintenance grants, abolished in 2016, should be restored
The government should introduce a system of means-tested fees which waives fees entirely for those from low income background
There should be more higher and degree apprenticeships, targeted at younger age groups, to give young people a platform for progression to higher level learning and careers, including through university.

Gordon Marsden MP, Labour’s Shadow Higher Education Minister, responding to the downturn in HE aspirations, stating:

These figures show how badly this government has failed young people. As a result, more students are expressing doubts about higher education. Young people are paying the price for a system that burdens them with debt, and doesn’t provide the guidance and support they need. We need to support young people. That’s why Labour will restore EMA, and scrap fees for college and university. We’ll also scrap university offers based on predicted grades and implement a new fairer system of post-qualification admissions.

Labour’s Education Proposals

In addition to stimulating the post qualification admissions debate earlier this month Labour published their interim Lifelong Learning Commission report which informs the Party’s proposals for a national education service from cradle to grave. Interesting are the points they identify as inadequate in the current education and funding system. It mainly picks up on the same themes as the Conservatives have highlighted – FE, disadvantage, retraining due to fourth industrial revolution job changes, and part time students – albeit with stronger emphasis on FE and more flexible/shorter study models. A major departure from Government thinking is their criticism of apprenticeships:

Apprenticeships and Further Education Reforms: The push toward apprenticeships as the primary choice for training has been at the expense of shorter, more flexible modes of training. Not all adults are in a position to be able to commit to the minimum duration required by an apprenticeship, and apprenticeships are often not the most appropriate form of learning for adults who already have substantial employment experience.

Student Loans

Paula Sussex, the (relatively) new CEO of the Student Loans Company, made an interesting speech to a NUS Conference. It has a clear tone of doing better by their ‘customers’ and explains recent changes made to improve the service and make it more digitally enabled.

Loan Debt

The Labour Party have analysed Government projects and estimate that graduate student debt interest will rise by £4.2bn to £8.6bn by 2024. DfE figures show this rise is due to the post-2012 undergraduate loans 6.3% interest charge. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has estimated that less than 20% of graduate will fully pay back their student loans.

According to the House of Commons Library, the cash value of loans has increased from below £6 billion (2011-12) to £15 billion (2017-18) and is forecast to reach in excess of £20 billion in 2023-24. This increase is driven primarily by higher fees from 2012, but also replacing grants with loans and expansion of loans to part-time and postgraduate students. The ultimate cost to taxpayer is currently thought to be around 47% of the loan value.

What affect could the intentions of the Augar review have on this?

The Augar Review recommended a headline cut to tuition fees, the return to maintenance grants and a cut to interest during study to RPI + 0%. It also suggested a cut to the repayment threshold from £25,000 to £23,000 in today’s money, and an increase in the repayment term from 30 to 40 years. The final change recommended by Augar was a repayment cap equal to 1.2 times the value of the loan.

The IFS estimate that the full package of these reforms would overall create a system that was considerably less “leaky”, with roughly 50% of graduates paying off their loans under the Augar model compared to less than 20% under the current system.

The proposed Augar system has mixed effects for social demographics:

Highest earners would see reductions in their repayments of around £30,000 in today’s money (and we know disadvantaged students struggle to access the top paying jobs).
Middle earners would see increases of around £15,000.
The biggest winners would be those in the top 10% of lifetime earners who grew up in low income households qualifying them for the full maintenance grant; those people could expect to see reductions in lifetime repayments of approximately £40,000

Augar – University funding

The House of Lords Science and Technology Committee have published Science research funding in universities considering the Augar Review’s implications for Science Research Funding within HE. The report criticises the Augar review for failing to take a holistic approach to the funding of universities and recognises that the current research system is being cross-subsided by other areas of funding in the higher education ecosystem, including international student fees. The report recommends that if the Government follows any of the recommendations of the review relating to tuition fees, it must implement them as a full financial package, including increasing the teaching grant to cover the loss of tuition fees, to ensure that universities are no worse off than they are now. The report expresses concern that the proposals would erode the autonomy of universities. In particular, the proposal that the Office for Students should determine the value of teaching grant awarded to individual institutions for different subjects.

Funding/Augar:

QR funding is vital in allowing universities to cover the full economic cost of research, and in helping universities to fund research infrastructure which is often not covered by other sources of funding. QR funding must rise by at least the rate of inflation and the deficit that has been created since 2010 should be addressed.
Reducing the tuition fee cap in England to £7,500 without compensating universities for this loss in full by increasing the teaching grant will result in significant financial consequences for universities. The immediate casualties of such a reduction in income will likely be widening-participation programmes, student experience, infrastructure maintenance and repair, and the hands-on elements of courses.
The Augar Review recommends that the social and economic value of different subjects be determined by the Office for Students, taking account of the subject’s relative importance with respect to alignment with the Government’s Industrial Strategy and a range of other factors such as the financial viability of the university and its contribution to the local economy. This recommended process is far from straightforward and is certain to be controversial. We are concerned that it will be fraught with difficulties and that it will remove autonomy from universities.
Whoever has the responsibility for determining the value of teaching grant awards must do so using clear metrics to assess the impact on the research base. Given the complex nature of the cross-subsidies universities employ in managing their finances, seemingly small disruptions to inputs could have significant unintended consequences for research.

Brexit:

We urge the Government to associate the UK with Horizon Europe as soon as possible, to ensure certainty and stability for researchers in universities and industry.
Public funding for research in universities after Brexit should seek to replace not just the amount of funding but the areas it supports, like discovery research and scientific infrastructure and facilities. It is important to the scientific community that the basis for awarding funding is research excellence.
Retaining the mobility of researchers after Brexit is vital to ensuring the UK can continue to attract the best researchers and meet its research and development goals. The Government must ensure post-Brexit immigration laws do not hinder the ability of UK universities to recruit and retain the scientific staff they require, including technicians earning below the recommended salary threshold. In doing so the Government must also give consideration to amending immigration laws relating to families and dependants of those scientific staff.

With Jo Johnson back in the Universities Minister hot seat the implementation of (elements of) Augar will be closely watched. Jo was resistant to the review in the first place, often urging the sector to ‘pipe down’ and not call for the HE Review to take place. His refusal to support the review was one of the factors in his step down from the Ministerial responsibilities. Upon publication Jo remained opposed to the outcome of Augar tweeting: “Looks like Augar (as predicted) will destabilise uni finances, imperil many courses & reverse progress in widening access. Reducing fees to £7.5k will leave funding hole HMT won’t fill + benefit only highest earning grads at expense of general taxpayer. Bad policy, bad politics”.

Changes to fees and loans

The Department for Education has published a Written Ministerial Statement on Higher Education Student Finance: https://bit.ly/2LAO5cn Made by: Chris Skidmore (The Minister of State for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation) (The Minister of State for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation).

Key Points:

Maximum tuition fees for the 2020/21 academic year in England will be maintained at the levels that apply in the 2019/20 academic year, the third year in succession that fees have been frozen. This means that the maximum level of tuition fees for a standard full-time course will remain at £9,250 for the 2020/21 academic year.
Maximum undergraduate loans for living costs will be increased by forecast inflation (2.9%) in 2020/21. And the same increase will apply to maximum disabled students’ allowances for students with disabilities undertaking full-time and part-time undergraduate courses in 2020/21.
Maximum loans for students starting master’s degree and doctoral degree courses from 1 August 2020 onwards will be increased by forecast inflation (2.9%) in 2020/21. And the same increase will apply to the maximum disabled students’ allowance for postgraduate students with disabilities in 2020/21.
I expect to lay regulations implementing changes to student finance for undergraduates and postgraduates for 2020/21 late in 2019 or early in 2020. These regulations will be subject to Parliamentary scrutiny.
The Government will consider the recommendations of the independent panel to the Review of Post-18 Education and Funding, published on 30 May 2019, and will conclude the review at the Spending Review later this year.

Inquiries and Consultations

Click here to view the updated consultation and inquiries tracker. Email us on policy@bournemouth.ac.uk if you’d like to contribute to any of the current consultations.

New business this week:

The Government have published their response to the Lords Committee on Intergenerational Fairness and Provision.
The Government have also published their response to the Lords Rural Economy Committee.
REF – summary of responses following the REF draft guidance and criteria consultation.

Did you know you can view all of BU’s older inquiries and consultation responses here?

Other news

AI: The Financial Times have two interesting articles on AI. First using AI for legal mediation and a second future focussed article which considers implants chips into a young brain to mimic thoughts and behaviour and learn how to simulate the biological brain by adulthood.

Foundation Years: A HEPI blog explores all that is valuable and good for students choosing to undertake a Foundation Year before commencing their degree level study. The blog responds to the dismissive tone of the Augar report which suggested universities were using this extra year to line their pockets at the expense of the student and taxpayers.

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June 7, 2019

HE Policy Update for the w/e 7th June 2019

EU, humanities, international, policy, Student Engagement jforster

Is it only just over a week since Augar landed? Given the volume of commentary, it feels much longer. We are quite good as a sector at criticism and finding the potential problems and risks in things. As a HEPI blog says: “Last week’s Augar report divided opinion. At HEPI, we were at the more positive end of the spectrum, not least because the report addressed, in a serious way, pretty much all the points we had said it should. We were, and remain, determined not to fall down the biggest rabbit hole that has to be avoided when commenting sensibly on public policy: being unceasingly negative and refusing to recognise serious attempts to address genuine problems.”

Last week we stuck to the facts looking at the full set of recommendations and the content of the report, this week we look more at opinions in a report that may well not be implemented in full, but is unlikely to disappear completely.

One thing that everyone can agree on is that the implications of Augar are ominous for the Arts and Humanities – the (historian) Minister for Universities gave a speech on Thursday which we discuss below, with some reflections on what Augar could mean for Arts and Humanities subjects in universities. This update was getting so big, we have written about that in a separate blog here.

Augar – what next?

On Tuesday the Secretary of State of Education, Damien Hinds, made a statement on the Government’s review of post-18 education and its funding – the first review since the Robbins report in 1963 to look at the totality of post-18 education. Hinds said the Government will carefully consider the independent panel’s recommendations before finalising any spending review announcements.

A lot of the attention will be on what this report says about higher education, but the majority of students in post-18 education are not at university. The report identifies the importance of both further and higher education in creating a system that unlocks everyone’s talents. As the Prime Minister said last week, further education and technical colleges are not just places of learning; they are vital engines of both social mobility and economic prosperity. Colleges play an essential part in delivering the modern industrial strategy and equipping young people with knowledge and skills for the jobs of today and tomorrow. We are conscious of the need for reskilling and upskilling at a time when we are all more likely to have multiple careers during our working lives.
…Our higher education system transforms lives and is a great contributor to both our industrial success and the cultural life of the nation. It can open up a whole world of opportunities and broaden horizons. Whatever decisions we make about how best to take forward the recommendations in the report, it is vital that we support these institutions to continue to offer world-leading higher education to students in future.

Hinds went on to highlight the general importance of education to society, listing current government policy geared toward improving education. He said that is it right that contributions to the cost of higher education are shared between the taxpayer and the student. The Minister added that although 18-year-olds from disadvantaged backgrounds are now 52 per cent more likely to go to university than 10 years ago, progress is still required in levelling the playing field in higher education.

In keeping with the continued pressure for Government to improve social mobility Hinds said: The panel’s proposals on support for disadvantaged groups are an important contribution to the debate in this area. I very much welcome the focus that the panel has placed on making sure that all higher education is of high quality and delivers well for both students and the taxpayer. There are very high-quality courses across the full range of subjects—from creative arts to medicine—but there are also courses where students are less well served. I have also spoken in recent months of bad practices not in the student interest, such as artificial grade inflation and so-called conditional unconditional offers.

On implementation: The panel’s recommendations on student finance are detailed and interrelated, and cannot be considered each in isolation. We will need to look carefully at each recommendation in turn and in the round to reach a view on what will best support students and the institutions they study at, and what will ensure value for taxpayers. In considering these recommendations, we will also have regard to students currently in the system or about to enter it to ensure that any changes are fair to current and new cohorts of students. I am sure the House will recognise that this comprehensive report, with detailed analysis and no fewer than 53 recommendations, gives the Government a lot to consider. We will continue to engage with stakeholders on the findings and recommendations in the panel report, and we will conclude the review at the spending review.

The shadow secretary of state for education, Angela Rayner, responded, arguing the Conservatives have previously made terrible decisions regarding education. She intimated her belief that any adoption of recommendations will be deferred until the spending review, or the appointment of a new chancellor.

“Augar is the epitaph for Theresa May’s government…slow, wrong-headed, indecisive and, above all, failing in its central objective, to help level up Britain. As it stands, the Government have now wasted two years on a review to reach the blindingly obvious conclusion that, as the Prime Minister now admits, abolishing maintenance grants was a huge mistake.
Decisions need to be made on funding. The outgoing Prime Minister promised that austerity is over, but there is every danger it will continue in tertiary education. Presumably, the Secretary of State accepts that a cash freeze in funding for universities means a real-terms cut. Is the tokenistic fee cut pushed by the Prime Minister not the worst of both worlds, as institutions will have their hands tied on funding while students will still be graduating with tens of thousands of pounds of debt?”

She pushed the Secretary of State to assure the House that maintenance grants will be restored and that the cash-freeze for university’s will not have an equality impact burden – and that an assessment of this would be produced. She concluded that any shortcomings in the Augar review are a product of the limitations the Government has set on them.

The Secretary of State responded:

The hon. Lady asked me to commit to not playing off further education and higher education. I give her that absolute commitment. That principle is at the heart of the independent panel’s report: both routes of higher learning are essential for widening social mobility, for letting young people fulfil their full potential, and indeed for enabling our economy and our society to fulfil theirs.
We should not lose sight of the fact that we have a successful system in place, particularly for the financing of higher education. The hon. Lady and her Front-Bench colleagues constantly complain about it, but since the 2012 reforms, resource per student has increased dramatically, the living costs support available to disadvantaged students has risen to its highest ever level, more young people are going to university than ever before, and more young people from disadvantaged backgrounds are going to university than ever before.

The Chair of the Select Committee on Education, Robert Halfon, raised the necessity of degree apprenticeships to ensure individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds gain the necessary skills to gain skilled employment. I welcome much of the report, particularly its strong emphasis on further education and technical education. Our Education Committee report talked about value for money in higher education and universities, focusing on skills, employability and social justice. Does my right hon. Friend not agree that the real engine of those three things is using funds to boost and put more emphasis on degree apprenticeships? They help people from disadvantaged backgrounds to gain the skills they need, they help us to meet our skills needs and they ensure that people are employed in properly skilled jobs.

Jo Johnson: The Augar review does not mention the teaching excellence framework. What use does the Secretary of State think the TEF will have in assessing which courses offer value for money for students and the general taxpayer? [Readers will remember that differential fees based on TEF outcome were thrown out of the HERA by the Lords.]. Hinds: The TEF is a very important reform and is part of the framework from HERA—the Higher Education and Research Act 2017—and the OFS that enables a much more holistic view of quality in higher education. It remains a central part of that architecture.

Carol Monaghan, the SNP Spokesperson for Education questioned whether the Government will make up any funding shortfall associated with a reduction in fees. Hinds responded that education equality in England is better than that of Scotland and all recommendations will be considered carefully.

Several non-Conservative MPs echoed Rayner’s arguments, questioning when grants would be reinstated or whether the Government will fund the shortfall in funding for disadvantaged students.

Thangham Debbonaire (Lab, Bristol West) raised a necessity for free or low-cost high-quality childcare to ensure more women can develop their potential within further education to ultimately close the gender pay gap. Hinds side stepped a direct response.

Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods: “…we want to hear a guarantee from the Minister that those resources will not come from higher education. We also want a guarantee that if tuition fees are reduced, any shortfall of money going to universities will be made up by teaching grant from the Government not just for science, technology, engineering and maths subjects, but for arts and humanities subjects, because they are also very important for our economy. If these proposals will eventually see their way into legislation—it is not clear to any of us how that would happen—is the Minister going to consult the sector widely so that he does not destabilise it further? We need those guarantees so that universities have certainty if they are to compete globally.”

Hinds: “The hon. Lady will shortly meet the universities Minister in her all-party group on universities and will have an opportunity to discuss some of these things further. She mentioned teaching grants. The Augar report recommends precisely that—that there should be top-ups, although not exactly the same for all subjects. Few people realise the extent of the teaching grant. It is £1.3 billion, with some 40%—two in five—of courses attracting some sort of teaching grant. What the report talks about is how we balance that correctly properly to reflect not only value but cost to serve, as I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Neil O’Brien).” [So no guarantee then, despite his earlier commitment to “not playing off further education and higher education”.

Later in response to questions he also says: We must not allow different parts of our education system to be pitted against each other, and I can give him an absolute commitment not to do so. In fact, as he will know through his work, there is already a great deal of cross-over between what higher education institutions do and what further education institutions do, but they are both incredibly important parts of the overall system.

Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op): As I learned from the 10 years I chaired the Select Committee, we make most progress in higher education when we find a cross-party consensus, as anyone who looks at the Robbins report or subsequent reports, such as the Dearing report, will know. There is some good stuff in this report. ….let us build a cross-party consensus. I love the part about a new fund for lifelong learning. Tony Blair introduced one in 1997. It failed, but everybody knew we should bring it back to secure the future of further and higher education. So I say well done in part, but if the Secretary of State could keep a higher education Minister for more than a few months we would do a lot better.

Hinds: The hon. Gentleman was right about more than one thing—let us say several. He spoke of the local importance of universities not only to the cultural life of our towns and cities but to, for instance, local economies, business development, innovation, and research and development. He was absolutely right about that, but he was also right to speak of the importance of securing a degree of consensus about these matters. The last two major reports, the Browne and Dearing reports, straddled a change of Government. I hope that that will not happen on this occasion, but I think it right for us to have an opportunity, between now and the conclusion of the spending review, to engage in a good discussion with, among others, representatives of the sector and politicians on both sides of the House and elsewhere, because I think that such discussions help policy making to evolve.

Augar was mentioned in Wed’s Prime Minister’s Questions – Richard Graham (Conservative) made the case that the Government’s review into post-18 education should be “essential reading” for Treasury ministers before the Spending Review. He said that more funding for further education would be “very welcome”. Lidington concurred that further education plays a vital role in equipping young people with skills, but also providing a path towards higher education. He added that the Augar Review “provides a blueprint of how we can make sure that everybody can follow the path that is right for them” and its conclusions should be studied carefully before the Spending Review.

Augar – the critique

Wonkhe have centralised all their analysis and blogs on the Post-18 review and Augar – find it all here. Including this ‘lessons learned’ blog from crossbench peer Professor Dame Julie King (who was part of the previous Browne review) and says Augar is ‘damaging’ and that it does not propose fundamental transformation.

One concern has been the impact on social mobility. The Sutton Trust response is here:

The Augar Review’s headline proposal to reduce tuition fees to £7,500, alongside the reintroduction of maintenance grants, means that the overall student “debt” figure looks a little less eye watering. But the review also proposes lowering the repayment threshold from £25,000 to £23,000 (based on 2018 figures) and to extend the lifetime repayment period to 40 years from the current 30 years, all at interest rates which at present are around 6 percent. This means that lower and middle earners (like teachers and social workers) will end up paying more than they did before and for longer – and the wealthiest, who can fall back on support from parent or grandparents, can pay the fees upfront, or over a shorter period, and thus contribute far less overall.
This is why the Sutton Trust has always argued for means tested fees – so the poorest student are asked to pay less than the wealthiest- and we are disappointed that the Post-18 Review did not adopt this as a policy. It seems to us fundamentally unfair that, whatever the repayment mechanism, the son or daughter of a cleaner is asked to pay the same as the son or daughter of a stock broker.

Lizzy Woodfield, Policy Advisor at Aston University, wrote for Wonkhe on WP: “Government should undoubtedly run with reintroducing maintenance grants, but not so hastily that it overlooks commuter students. The continued freeze in per student funding risks further squeezing universities’ ability to maintain high quality student services, like careers and placements and additional learning support, which support retention, success and good graduate outcomes. Doing away with foundation years would be very ill-advised and would set widening participation back.”

In an article for Wonkhe on 4^th June 2019 , David Willets, the former Minister for Universities and Science, points out:

“The period covered by the LEO data is the ten years since the financial crash. Our research at Resolution Foundation has shown that this post-crash decade has been particularly bad for salaries, and even more so for the pay of young people. The real hourly pay of young people aged 18-29 fell by 9% in the four years after the crash – an unprecedented fall followed by a modest recovery. Unemployment was less bad than in previous recessions but – again – one group which did suffer increased unemployment was young people with lowest educational qualifications. Their unemployment rate increased from 68% to 56% after the crash whereas for graduates it only fell from 91% to 88%. It looks as if graduates traded down to less well-paid jobs, displacing the less qualified.
The LEO data excludes unemployed people so the only effect they show is on pay. You would not get any sense from the review that the British economy has just been through its deepest post-war recession – with big effects covering exactly the same period as the LEO data. By contrast that same decade did not see a significant increase in the number of graduates – indeed the rate of increase of people with higher education qualifications slowed down. So it is dangerous to interpret LEO data as telling us much about higher education when it may be telling us more about the post crash labour market.”

There is also a geographical effect. This has been raised by many in the sector before and I understand that there is some work looking at this in the context of the TEF (which is using median earnings as supplemental data in the subject level TEF pilot). The Office for National Statistics latest report on geographic mobility and young people (2012-2016) shows the change in average earnings growth for young people by local authority (see Figure 6). We wrote about some of these issues in our policy update on 6^th July 2018

Augar – what does it mean for the Arts and Humanities

In an interesting choice of headlines, the headline on gov.uk is “Science Minister hails the importance of humanities to society”. Of course his full title is Minister of State for Universities, Science and Innovation (and currently also Interim Minister of Stage for Energy and Clean Growth. Like his predecessor , Chris Skidmore has also taken several titles upon himself – Sam Gyimah was famously “minister for students” and Chris Skidmore has called himself “minster for the 2.4% [investment in R&D]” and “minister for EdTEch”. But most importantly, he adopted the title “Minister for the Arts and Humanities”. So what did this former academic and historian say on this vital topic at the meeting of the Arts and Humanities Research Council? The full speech is here.

So with all that in mind, we took a look at the implications of Augar for the Arts and Humanities. One narrative around the Augar Review is that it has embraced, and even validated the popular narrative about “mickey mouse degrees” and universities filling low cost, high volume courses, putting “bums on seats” to subsidise other activities, doing a disservice to “overqualified graduates” who are “saddled with debt” that they can never repay. This shocking state of affairs means that the government subsidy to higher education, in the form of direct funding and underwriting for the student loan system, in which 83% of students will not repay their loans in full, is misdirected and therefore the taxpayer is receiving poor value for money. And, the argument goes, it is not only the taxpayer who is being ripped off, but students are too. They are being tricked into taking courses that will not lead to better paid jobs but will instead leave them with student loans that will hold them back even further. These are the students who should be doing technical training, apprenticeships. They should be plumbers and bricklayers. They have been told that they will achieve social mobility through education, and it isn’t true. These narratives were not born with the Review of Post-18 Education and Funding in February 2018. They became sharper once the tuition fee cap was increased to £9000 and were heightened when Labour adopted a policy of abolishing fees. Jo Johnson raised them when launching the Green Paper in November 2015 that led to the Teaching Excellence Framework and the Higher Education and Research Act 2017. In just one example, many of the arguments were rehearsed by Jo Johnson as Universities Minister in a speech in February 2017. It all boils down to value for money.

But there is a terrific confusion here, as highlighted by the Minister earlier on. The talk in Augar is all about value for money subject level. But when people (including previous Universities Ministers (both Sam Gyimah and Jo Johnson) and the current Education Minister) talk about this, they talk not about the value of whole subjects, but of individual courses at individual universities. And so they talk about quality. But they don’t really mean quality either, because they talk about entry tariffs and outcomes and start talking about bums on seats. Which is the big give away. What they really mean is that they believe that there are too many students going to universities to do courses which are not aligned with the government’s priorities. This is about the government wanting to choose not to invest in subjects that they believe do not add value to the economy. Which is why Augar, which is all about money, has kept in the threat of a 3D threshold and/or a cap on student numbers (for some courses at some universities).

You can read more in our separate blog on this here.

Student Mental Health

The OfS have published details of the 10 winners of their Challenge Competition (investing £14.5 million) which aimed to achieve a step change in mental health outcomes for students.

The OfS new story says:

The proportion of full-time UK undergraduate students reporting mental health concerns when they enter higher education has more than doubled over the last five years.
Over 87% of students said they struggle with feelings of anxiety, and 1 in 3 experienced a serious psychological issue which required professional help.
OfS data shows that full-time students with a declared mental health condition are more likely to drop out, and less likely to achieve a first or 2:1 degree or secure good jobs after graduation.

This week they have released a news story focussing on Northumbria University which aims to reduce student suicide through utilising analytics and mining data (such as social media). Of course the scheme has to be data compliant and students have to opt in. Northumbria state that only 1 in 3 suicide deaths are known to mental health services. In response the researchers have developed an Early Alert Tool identifying students in crisis to sport early warning signs and to target intervention. (A little more information on the data triggers is here.) Northumbria’s project has been picked up by the Telegraph.

Projects in other Universities cover:

Transition from school to university – addressing the first year additional vulnerability something mentioned by the Minister in his recent speeches]
Mental health needs specific to international students [another thing mentioned by the Minister recently]
Advancing HE / NHS partnership working to improve support
Embedding mental health within a community approach, holistically incorporating police, local authorities and the NHS.
Developing a module for the PGCertHE to ensure that new academics, nationally, have the knowledge and skills to support mental health and learning through their teaching.
Creation of a ‘hub’ of qualified therapists and volunteers with mental health experience who will provide brief therapeutic interventions for students in comfortable, open-plan safe-spaces without the need for appointments or waiting lists.
Curriculum-based ‘mind management’ skills training (separate UG and PG courses) which use evidence-based approaches for improving emotion regulation and for managing common issues in student life (e.g. anxiety, stress, social isolation, managing expectations, imposter syndrome).

Nicola Dandridge, OfS Chief Exec, said:

Whenever I talk to students, improving mental health support is consistently raised as a priority. Universities and colleges are responding to the problem, but in too many cases students are having their experience of higher education blighted by mental ill-health. For many of these students, there is much more that we can do. Taking preventative action to promote good mental health is critical, as is taking a whole institution approach and involving students in developing solutions. In addition, the earlier we can identify issues developing, the more effectively we can give the vital support that is needed.
We know that many complex factors impact on students’ mental health and wellbeing, so addressing mental ill health is always going to be challenging. But universities and colleges are uniquely placed to rise to that challenge: through the expertise of their staff, insights from their own students, and their ability to bring groups and other organisations together to tackle complex problems in partnership.

The Independent covers the launch of the projects.

Tory leadership contest

From Dods:

Speaker of the Commons, John Bercow has dismissed the idea that Parliament could be prorogued in order to force through a no-deal Brexit. The idea that Parliament could be dissolved by a new Prime Minister, so that MPs could not take any legislative steps to block no-deal, was touted by ERG members and gained attention when leadership contender Dominic Raab repeatedly refused to rule out pursuing it. The Speaker yesterday, however, told MPs that it was “simply not going to happen.”
10 have confirmed that the Commons will be sitting when the new Prime Minister is appointed at the end of July, amid concerns that Parliament could have entered summer recess before this happens which would mean that the new PM could avoid a potential no confidence vote.
Theresa May will resign as Conservative Party leader today, but will remain on as Prime Minister until her successor is appointed in late July.
Boris Johnson will launch a judicial review today to challenge the private prosecution against him for the alleged offence of misconduct in public office.

Sarah enjoyed this Spectator article on the Tory leadership contest.

Parties don’t get rid of their leaders unless things are going very badly. But this Tory crisis is different in scale and size to anything we have seen in recent decades. The question is not whether the Tories can win the next election, but whether they can survive.
The dire state that the Tories are in hasn’t put anyone off running to be leader, however. We suddenly have the most crowded field we have ever seen in a leadership race. Whoever wins will become prime minister without having to go through a general election. It’s quite a prize. Given the unpredictability of Tory contests and the frontrunners’ ability to destroy each other, everyone thinks they have a chance.

It divides the candidates into two categories: the ‘full-blooded Brexiteer’ and ‘compromising cabinet members’. Then it explains the four challenges the Conservative leadership will need to deliver on:

The Tory party is attempting to answer four different questions in this contest.

The first is who can best get Britain out of the EU. This will require not just an ability to find a way to extract concessions from a recalcitrant EU, but also an understanding of how to get Britain’s departure through parliament.
Secondly, the Tories are trying to work out who is best placed to take on Jeremy Corbyn and Nigel Farage. Given the parliamentary numbers, the next election is likely to come sooner than 2022 and so the Tories need someone who can fight on two fronts simultaneously.
The next question is who can come up with a new domestic agenda. The failure of Theresa May’s attempt to reinvent the Tories as a Christian Democrat party has resulted in a vacuum where Tory domestic policy should be.
Finally, the Tories must ask themselves who could best do the job of being prime minister.

The problem for the party is no one candidate is the best answer to all four questions. The Tories will have to make trade-offs to decide which qualities they regard as the most important.

Apart from their views on Brexit, the candidates are trying to differentiate themselves on other policies too. We pick out a few of both here but of course there is much more. Two dropped out this week – James Cleverly and Kit Malthouse. Nominations (which now require 8 MPs rather than 2) open and close on Monday. The BBC list is here. The Express have their take here Politics.co.uk have a detailed analysis of their policies on Brexit. And the (Boris Johnson banking) Guido Fawkes shows the state of support amongst Tory MPs .

Matt Hancock has pledged to re-implement a form of student nurse bursary if he succeeds as PM. Huff post reports: he said that he would offer new cash support for mature student nurses, and those specialising in mental health and community work, in a bid to fill staff shortages. However, he is clear it is about nursing dearth areas: ensure…in the areas of shortage we have that sort of targeted support that’s needed – so not across the full nursing training spectrum. He continues: There’s a question of how you make sure the money we’ve got goes as far as possible. There’s an overall shortage of nursing. It isn’t as big as the headline vacancy figures suggest. But there are acute shortages, especially in some specific areas like mental health nurses, and community nursing. And: I want to make sure that the approach we take is to support and incentivise people into those areas where we’ve got shortages. He also intends to tackle big business care providers for whom profit is a key objective.
Michael Gove has said that if it “finally comes to a decision between no deal and no Brexit, I will choose no deal”. However, he would be willing to delay Brexit beyond the 31^st October if a deal was in sight, stating it wouldn’t be right to ‘flounce’ out of the EU for a delay of mere weeks. Gove said that the deadline of 31 October was “arbitrary” and he was “not wedded” to it. That any delay would only be sought if a deal or breakthrough was on the horizon. This sets him against the other front runners, Boris Johnson and Dominic Raab, who have said that the UK will leave the 31 October under any circumstances.
Dominic Raab has repeatedly refused to rule out proroguing (discontinue) Parliament days before 31 October, which would in theory prevent Parliament from blocking a no-deal and see the UK crash out at midnight on the 31^st. This move would be completely unprecedented, and arguably unconstitutional. Sky News, Lewis Goodall has said such a move would be “a hand grenade into our constitution” and leadership contender Rory Stewart has said “it would be illegal…it would be unconstitutional and it would be undemocratic.”
Sajid Javid has said he supports Jo Johnson’s amendment to the draft immigration legislation to change post-study visas to encourage international students. He is, after all, Home Secretary, and since his appointment has been less than enthusiastic about TM’s “hostile environment”, dealing with the fallout from the Windrush scandal amongst other things. The FT article says: “Mr Javid has already announced plans to axe the net migration target — which has never been met — if he becomes the next Conservative leader and is now also supporting the move to let students stay for longer after they finish at university. Mr Johnson has forced the pace on the issue, tabling an amendment to the government’s immigration bill — designed to implement a post-Brexit visa regime — which would take students out of the net migration target. …In 2012 Britain cut the time that students can work after graduating from two years to just four months, although the government this year recognised that the new regime was causing problems and agreed to raise the limit to six months.”
Rory Stewart says his competitors’ claims they could negotiate a new Brexit deal before 31 October are “misleading” and there is “not a hope” a new deal can by deadline.
Behind its paywall, the Telegraph reports that Boris Johnson plans to spend at least £5000 on every secondary school pupil to “level up” Britain’s education system.

Cost of housing hinders employment prospects

The Resolution Foundation has published: Moving Matters – Housing costs and labour market mobility. The briefing doesn’t focus on the HE sector but that are some interesting findings that could be transferable.

Nationally changing areas to move for new employment and housing purposes has fallen. Unexpectedly the rate has particularly dropped within the younger age groups. The report notes this is surprising because young people are more likely to be graduates, non-UK born and private renters than in the past, changes that should have increased rather than decreased moves made for work.

Why?

Because moving area isn’t essential to get a job – “the variation between the employment rates observed across local authorities has reduced over time” – so it is possible for young people to obtain some form of employment relatively locally. This is not ideal for graduate outcome statistics as earnings are expected to be lower, the job likely to be less specialised or relevant to the degree. It becomes a compromise option – once that can be difficult to recover from financially in their future career (see this Policy Update page 6 – impact of recession on graduates) .
Moving isn’t as lucrative as it once was – “the ‘pull’ of more buoyant areas has fallen apace.. the difference in the average ‘wage premium’ achieved as a result of such a move has fallen since the turn of the century.”
High housing costs negate the wage premium – “private rents have risen consistently faster in higher-paying areas of England. Rents have risen by almost 90% in the highest-paying 30% of local authorities over the past 20 years, compared to just over 70% among the 30% lowest paying places. As a result, not only has the earnings boost of moving to a more productive area diminished as a result of closing wage differentials; so, too, has the broader living standards uplift once housing costs are taken into account. So for the young graduate quality of housing and lifestyle may well go down as the quality high cost rents are prohibitive.

The report notes that job + housing mobility rate have fallen over time and the number of relocations moving to lower housing cost areas (47%) has increased 6% in the last 15 years. It also highlights a rise in commuting time – which costs the individual both in time and money.

With the evidence showing that efficiently matching with job opportunities is especially important for young people at the beginning of their working lives, the intergenerational implications of this briefing note are clear. While two of the reasons we identify that potentially explain the fall in job-plus-residence moves can be viewed as positive, our findings about the way that rising housing costs are determining the behaviour of younger renters in particular is a real cause for concern.
..the evidence is clear that the real boosts to earnings are achieved by moving jobs. Critically, taking a new post in a different firm has a larger pay uplift than simply being promoted within the same organisation, and moving to denser, more productive areas comes with an even bigger pay premium. We know that job mobility is especially important at the start of one’s working life, when progression depends on testing out new roles and developing new skills. Moreover, an agile workforce is generally viewed as good not just for the individuals concerned, but also for the economy as workers ‘match’ more efficiently with business requirements.

You can read the detail of the full report here.

Spending Review

With Teresa May stepping down as PM and the Tory leadership race galloping along the Spending Review will be delayed and likely to be finalised between autumn and Christmas 2019. Liz Truss MP (Chief Secretary to the Treasury) was questioned by the Lords on the Spending Review this week. this is very important to the Augar review, as the government response will be timed to come out with it.

Here are the most interesting snippets:

Truss confirmed the Spending Review preparatory work had ‘already began’ with the Treasury having ‘written to departments asking for initial capital bids, human capital submissions and reform proposals’.
Lord Turnbull (Crossbench) asked whether the spending review was likely to prioritise ongoing austerity measures and the reduction of the deficit, or whether spending might be increased or taxes increased. Truss replied that the priorities were likely to continue to be reducing the national debt and maintaining fiscal discipline. However, the main priority was economic growth, and therefore spending and tax reforms would be directed towards that goal.
Lord Layard asked for the Treasury’s response to the Augar Review. Truss responded that FE needed reform and that there had been ‘problems with funding’. The Augar Review would be considered within the Spending Review, she said, though given the amount of public subsidy to universities, which was higher than in other areas, better value for money was crucial. She went on to state that she supported the notion of students contributing towards their own education and was not in favour of capping student places.
In response the Chair (Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, Conservative) voiced concerns that universities and university placements were being judged too narrowly on their value pertaining to economic productivity and not enough on whether they produced good quality of life.

Consultations

Click here to view the updated inquiries and consultation tracker. Email us on policy@bournemouth.ac.uk if you’d like to contribute to any of the current consultations.

Other news

Degree Apprenticeships: The Augar Review, the Higher Education Commission, and budget concerns have all cast doubt on the effectiveness of degree apprenticeships during 2019. Concerns that it is not attracting the sections of the population who could benefit most from social mobility, that existing courses are being rebranded as degree apprenticeships to attract funding and are not truly in the spirit of the alternative route to higher qualification, that higher level provision is counter productively squeezing out lower level apprenticeship starts, that rurality and access remains an issue, and crucially that a high proportion of degree apprenticeship starts are not within areas that will help deliver the Government’s industrial strategy have all come to a head. This Wonkhe blog Post Augar, what will it take to reform degree apprenticeships? takes a gallop through the issues.

Gender employment gap: The BBC report on research which finds gender as the main factor in employment seniority, regardless of whether the female had children or not.

Soft power: It was good to hear Chris Skidmore publically acknowledge the importance of soft power through educating international students in answering a question on tuition grants for students living in Africa: Scholarships are a key part of the UK’s soft power, creating lasting positive relations with future leaders, influencers and decision-makers around the world. Many scholars funded by the UK go on to take up senior leadership positions in their home countries, and the strong bond they have formed with the UK enhances our direct and indirect influence abroad. This enhances our diplomatic work, our efforts in promoting increased trade and investment and supports our national security through increased goodwill and cooperation.

School absence policy debate: While it’s not strictly HE related the parents and carers among our readers might like to be aware of a Westminster Hall debate on school absences during term time. Here is the quick summary. Don’t go booking that term time holiday yet though!

HERA: The House of Lords approved a motion making ‘Uncontroversial’ amendments to the Higher Education and Research Act (HERA) relating to the registration and exemption status of some HE providers. You can read a summary here. As you will see some parliamentarians seized on the opportunity to ask what effects the Augar Review would have on matters under discussion.

FE: Parliament have published The Further Education Loans and the Education (Student Support) (Amendment) Regulations 2019. There has been a new regulation inserted which allows the Secretary of State to cancel all or part of a (FE) fee loan in certain circumstances.

TEF: Chris Skidmore answered two parliamentary questions on the TEF. He said the independent TEF review lead by Dame Shirley Pearce is expected to report in summer 2019. Also that the second pilot year of subject level TEF is drawing to a close and the OfS will shortly publish the findings. Skidmore confirms Government will await Dame Shirley’s recommendations, and take account of the evidence from the subject-level TEF pilot, before making a decision on the next phase of the TEF.

Sustainability: Transport Minister, Michael Ellis, has announced the new EU-wide fuel labelling system rolling out from this week which identifies how much of the fuel the drivers are using comes from renewable sources. Here is the news story which simply explains the change, and here is the campaign link.

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June 7, 2019

What does Augar mean for the Arts and Humanities – Policy Update Supplement 7th June 2019

humanities, policy jforster

The Minister speaks

So what did this former academic and historian say on this vital topic at the meeting of the Arts and Humanities Research Council? The full speech is here. It is long – and actually quite interesting. It’s a shame really that given all the other turmoil we can’t read too much into it because he may not remain as Minister for any of this stuff for very long (as he admits in the speech). [Did you know? The HE sector has had 5 Universities Ministers in the past 5 years. The last time a Minister lasted more than 6 years in the job was 1902 (source: HEPI – scroll to near end). ] Of course, we may be surprised, if suddenly unity breaks out amongst MPs in the face of the possibility of Nigel Farage as PM, and strong and stable government finally returns…in which case there is a lot of hope for the sector and for the Arts and Humanities in this speech. He starts:

“As many of you know, I’ve attempted to try and achieve a work-life balance that involves juggling policy and public service, with a personal passion for exploring the past and continuing to write history. I continue to do so…because, like many of you here this evening, I am drawn by that overwhelming desire to understand, to comprehend, how different, how similar, previous generations are to our own, and to understand them on their own terms, for their own sake.
It is not something that can ever be fully measured, or its value codified by some anonymised data collection processor. Indeed, my own graduate outcome data was only salvaged at the last moment, in the final week before I turned twenty nine, when to my surprise I was elected as the Member of Parliament for Kingswood. That brought to a sudden end any hopes I might have had of my first career path of choice, and dream of entering academia.”

On Augar: “Indeed, even before the report was released, I made clear my concerns over some of the initial leaks, such as the speculation over a three-‘D’ threshold to enter university. And I’m pleased to see that proposal didn’t make the cut. If it had done so, it would have been completely regressive, and would have shut the door on opportunity for so many people whose lives are transformed by our world-leading universities and colleges.” [Yes, but it did make the cut – as a recommendation if the sector does not itself cut recruitment to “low tariff, low value” degrees.]

He makes a very important point which has been bothering your policy team: “But we must be careful not to confuse high-quality with high-value, for they are two different concepts, with two very different outcomes. High Quality is something that we should all aspire to, whether in our work, our research, our teaching….I hope that our reforms to Higher Education, with the establishment of the Office for Students, which will be fully operational from 1 August this year, will help embed and achieve that focus on quality which must be continued.” [In other words quality is something for the OfS regulatory regime to worry about, using TEF and other things as tools to support it.]

And then he turns to value:

“…data, in its current form, cannot measure everything. And until we have found a way to capture the vital contribution that degrees of social value make to our society – degrees like Nursing or Social Care – then we risk overlooking the true value of these subjects. The same goes for the Arts and Humanities.
Although some people around us may argue that the contribution of these disciplines to society may be less tangible, their influence is all around us. …Without people who can think outside the box or challenge ideas. All this comes from the critical thinking that knowing about different cultures, philosophies and languages provides us….What might be ‘low value’ to one man, might to others represent money well spent on acquiring knowledge for its own sake, expanding one’s cultural horizons, learning to empathise and reflect upon the human condition, applying it to the challenges for the future.
There is a place for knowing which subjects have the potential to generate higher salaries in the future– not least for those students who want to make sure they make the right choice of subject and institution for them. For those who wish to know this information, it is also important to highlight the economic benefits of studying creative subjects too.
And, actually, the story isn’t all negative for those studying creative subjects. The latest Longitudinal Educational Outcomes (LEO) data show us that women studying creative arts, in particular, can expect to earn around 9% more on average than women who don’t go into higher education at all. And the highest returning creative arts course can significantly increase female earnings by around 79%. So, a creative education can certainly be the right choice for a number of people….After all, our Industrial Strategy recognises the importance of the Creative Sector in the UK economy, as being an absolutely vital one.”

And the role of arts and humanities in innovation:

“Today, we live in a world where around 50% of the UK population have a degree by the time they are 30. Still not enough in my opinion, and certainly not enough if we are to compete as a knowledge economy for the future internationally. As Universities Minister, I’m keen that nobody is deterred from pursuing a particular discipline just because it appears that studying it isn’t for people like them. This is a principle, which applies equally to the Arts and Humanities as it does to Science and Engineering. Thankfully, one mitigating factor to this is the fact that our disciplinary landscape is continually evolving. … multi-disciplinary approaches have become more desired – not just within academia itself, but by businesses, industry and government.
Part of this is down to our recognition of the fact that we have to tackle the world’s grand challenges now, before it’s too late. And these challenges, themselves, are not constrained within individual disciplinary boundaries. Indeed, the grand challenges we face today are formed at the intersection of the traditional disciplines – where the Arts, Humanities, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences meet…
The Arts and Humanities are also what makes science ‘useable’. It’s no good developing a cure for a pandemic like Ebola, for example, if you don’t have the anthropologists, the linguists or the lawyers to make the science work on the ground. To bring the product to market. To win the trust of the people. And at a time when trust in knowledge and expertise is constantly threatened by the lapping tides of populism, we need the humanities more than ever to be able to reach out and communicate the value of science and research more than ever….
…it is the inclusion of the humanities, running like a golden thread through all scientific collaborations and projects that will protect the future of Western science, maintaining its focus on excellence, but excellence for a human purpose.”

What does Augar mean for the Arts and Humanities?

One narrative around the Augar Review is that it has embraced, and even validated the popular narrative about “mickey mouse degrees” and universities filling low cost, high volume courses, putting “bums on seats” to subsidise other activities, doing a disservice to “overqualified graduates” who are “saddled with debt” that they can never repay. This shocking state of affairs means that the government subsidy to higher education, in the form of direct funding and underwriting for the student loan system, in which 83% of students will not repay their loans in full, is misdirected and therefore the taxpayer is receiving poor value for money. And, the argument goes, it is not only the taxpayer who is being ripped off, but students are too. They are being tricked into taking courses that will not lead to better paid jobs but will instead leave them with student loans that will hold them back even further. These are the students who should be doing technical training, apprenticeships. They should be plumbers and bricklayers. They have been told that they will achieve social mobility through education, and it isn’t true.

These narratives were not born with the Review of Post-18 Education and Funding in February 2018. They became sharper once the tuition fee cap was increased to £9000 and were heightened when Labour adopted a policy of abolishing fees. Jo Johnson raised them when launching the Green Paper in November 2015 that led to the Teaching Excellence Framework and the Higher Education and Research Act 2017. In just one example, many of the arguments were rehearsed by Jo Johnson as Universities Minister in a speech in February 2017. It all boils down to value for money.

See this bit in Augar (page 88): “A small minority of institutions produce graduates who on average earn significantly less at age 29 than their comparators who did not attend higher education. The IFS estimate that 33 per cent of male students, and 1 per cent of female students – together making 15 per cent of all students – attended universities that had either significantly negative or statistically negligible earnings returns when these are averaged across all students at age 29.”

It goes on: “Altogether 34 per cent of courses – accounting for 29 per cent of male students – were shown to have negative returns for men at age 29 (without taking foregone earnings and interest loan repayments into account), suggesting that one in three male students who took these courses could have earned more if they had chosen a different course of study or not gone to university at all.”

Augar looked at the overall cost for the government of the sector – taking into account direct investment and the subsidy given through student loans. For this section, Augar relied on the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) analysis published in March 2019 Where is the money going? Estimating the government cost of different university degrees. They break it down by borrower (i.e. by student, for those that take student loans) and by subject (which takes into account the number of students). On a student by student basis, the most expensive programmes for the government – in terms of loan write-off plus direct grant are Agriculture and Veterinary Science, and Medicine, driven by teaching grants followed by Creative Arts, which is driven by loan write-offs. The best “value” course on an individual basis is Economics, with no teaching grant and loans paid off at a higher rate. Comms and media and other arts and humanities courses sit more in the middle. But when they overlay the student numbers (figure 5), the picture changes, because of the comparatively large number of students studying some of the subjects with fairly large write-offs or subsidy. This chart highlights the overall cost of the Creative Arts, but also brings biosciences, subjects allied to medicine, business and social studies to the top. For this table, Social Studies includes Politics, Anthropology, Human and social Geography, Sociology, Social Policy, Social work, Development studies (see footnote 100, page 110 of the Augar Report). Again the best value is economics, but Veterinary Science and Foreign languages come off relatively well too, because so few students study them.

The Augar report refers to the Graduate outcomes (LEO) data for 2016-17 released in March 2019. It says (pages 87-88):

“Among men, the earnings premium for an Economics graduate at age 29 is 33 per cent on average, whereas a graduate in the Creative Arts will, on average, earn 14 per cent less than his peers who did not attend university. Among women, the earnings premium for a medical graduate is 75 per cent, but only 9 per cent for those graduated in the Creative Arts.
The graduate premium for men is low or negative at age 29 for a sizeable minority of subjects. In addition to the Creative Arts, these include English and Philosophy, for which the premium is negative, and Agriculture, Communications, Psychology, Languages, History, Biosciences and Physical Sciences for which it is zero or very small. Women, by contrast, enjoy a graduate premium at age 29 irrespective of the subject they studied, but the premium is small for the Creative Arts, Agriculture, Social Care and Psychology.”

This is interesting but it is not comparing apples with apples. Looking at the original DfE LEO data report you can see the problem – in that report they compare graduates in a particular subject with median earnings for all subjects.

This ignores the choices made by those students. Students who choose creative arts degrees, on average, probably do not go on to high earning careers, based on this data. But there is nothing to say that if they had chosen a different subject, or not gone to university at all, they would have been any higher earning. To establish whether a creative arts degree is better than no degree at all, it could be argued that you would need to compare the employment outcomes of a creative arts graduate against a cohort of people who did not go to university but have the same background profile and prior academic attainment and are doing the same mix of jobs. Then you would know what difference a creative arts degree made to the outcomes for that student.

But those who do not go to university undertake a wide range of careers, and on average they may earn more than those undertaking some degrees at some universities. But that does not mean that those individual students would have earned more if they had not gone to university at all. That’s possible, but it isn’t proved by this data, even though the data is controlled for background characteristics and prior attainment. They might not have become plumbers, or bricklayers, they might still have pursued badly paid careers in the creative arts and individually in fact earned less than the creative arts graduates.

If all students were robotic clones, with the same potential and no personal talent, interest or individual motivation, then they would all do economics at university and become bankers or CEOs. But that would lead to a different problem, because the world does not need that many bankers.

And see this from Tuesday’s Lords Augar discussion: Lord Storey (LD): My Lords, everybody seems to be very much in support of the Augar review. I have real reservations about the funding proposals for higher education. When the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, and my noble friend Lady Garden raised the issue of how the funding model, interest charges, the extension and all the rest will favour the rich and not the poor, the Minister kept saying that we will see it in the round. What does “in the round” actually mean? I agree with the noble Lord, Lord O’Shaughnessy, but we have to be very careful, because there are degree courses that are undersubscribed. We are seeing those courses cut, but they are courses that we need to develop, such as modern foreign languages. Fewer students are doing modern foreign languages because there are fewer studying them in secondary schools. It is the same with music. Music is hugely important to the creative industries, which is one of the major growth industries in this country, and yet we are seeing music in secondary schools, because of the EBacc, being scaled back and back. That has a knock-on implication for our universities, where music degree courses are declining as well. If we took the idea of the noble Lord, Lord O’Shaughnessy, all these courses would be cut, much to the detriment of our country.

I have argued before that using LEO to assess subjects is misleading for lots of reasons including because it only really works if all courses are vocational and all students follow their vocation. If all law students became lawyers, all PPE students became politicians, all history students pursued an academic career (in schools or universities) and all language students became translators, interpreters or teachers then it would be valid to compare. Of course for some subjects there is more of a linear connection. But for many subjects, students will go on and pursue a wide range of careers, using the generic skills that they have learned at university. Generic skills which they may have learned more effectively because they were following a subject they were passionate about.

[In June 2018 I wrote: “[1] Whether your degree pays for itself is a function of a lot of things – such as what your degree is, and where you do it, but also what you did before you went there, where you live, where you work, the state of the national and local economy, what career path you choose now and in the future, your gender, your age, your ethnic group, your family background, your disabilities, how hard you work at university and at work, the culture, policies and success of the organisation you work for, your other life choices…and many more”]

Just as an experiment, I looked at the 13 candidates for the Tory leadership (as at 3^rd June 2019).

University	Politics/Economics/PPE	Law	Other
Oxford – 8	5 (Gyimah, Hunt, Hancock, Harper, Stewart)	1 (Raab)	2 Classics (Johnson) English (Gove)
Post 92 – 1			1 – Hospitality management University of West London (Cleverly)
Other	3 Exeter (Javid) Warwick (Leadsom) Newcastle (Malthouse)	1 Queen Mary (McVey)

So is a politics degree vocational training for a career in politics? Surely it really just shows an interest in the subject. Certainly not all politics graduates go into politics. And these people did not go into politics for the money. Some of them didn’t need to, but they went into it for other reasons. Using Wikipedia I looked at their early careers, and only 6 of them “used” their degrees (and that is stretching the point a bit): Michael Gove taking his English degree and becoming a journalist, and 5 of those with an economics aspect to their degree going on to be bankers, accountants or, in the case of Matt Hancock, an economist.

I also looked at the careers of FTSE 100 CEOs in 2017 and being fairly generous in terms of definitions (apart from other things, the choice of degree subject was more limited, looking at their ages), out of the 53 I could easily find information for, only 31 had a link between their degrees and their early career choices. And these are clearly talented and successful people, 2/5 of whom chose to immediately pursue a career for which they had not been “trained”.

It might be easier to deal with the “problem” if it was defined more honestly. The problem really is that the government thinks that the cost of HE is becoming unaffordable. The effort to encourage students to make “better” choices, by giving them more and better data about outcomes and other things hasn’t really been given a chance to work but also very few people were convinced by it – because students make choices based on a whole range of factors. Even Sam Gyimah (a huge proponent of transparency) said when asked that students should follow their passion when choosing what to study. So instead what we are going to get is rationing. Rationing by subject feels like a blunt instrument, because it leaves it up to the sector to make the “sensible” decision about cutting student numbers when faced with lower fees but it may have odd effects – like making it harder for disadvantaged students to access courses in those subjects which they might have excelled in (and which might have increased their chances of exceeding median earnings in, too). Or just reducing the quality of those programmes as they are delivered at a lower cost.

So if Augar is implemented, could we get a much more sophisticated methodology.? Augar already talks about an institutional Student Premium for disadvantaged students. You could see a world where there is institutional student uplift for those courses that achieve good student outcomes and loan repayment outcomes. Maybe they could be relative outcomes, subject adjusted not just based on the median and adjusted for geographical factors. And maybe they will find a way, as Augar suggests that they do, to measure the social value and adjust for that in the teaching grant as well.

April 11, 2019

HE policy update for the w/e 12th April 2019

international, policy, Student Engagement jforster

Brexit

So we aren’t leaving the EU on 12^th April – not that anyone really thought we would. Although the decision made by the EU in the middle of Thursday night means that we could leave at some stage up to the 1^st June, it seems far more likely that EU elections will be held and then we will be up against another cliff-edge deadline on 31^st October. At the moment it is hard to imagine that there can be any movement on anything that will change the position. Of course, the government might agree something with Labour, that gets the Withdrawal Agreement through, but it seems unlikely, especially as the deadline for that is not 1^st June but a good few weeks before that because of the legislation required after the meaningful vote.

In her statement to the House of Commons on Thursday afternoon the PM said [thanks to Dods for the summary]:

she still believes it is better to leave the EU with a deal, and in an orderly fashion.
many member states preferred a longer extension and the extension until 31 October 2019 was a compromise.
if we were to pass a deal by 22 May we would not have to take part in European elections.
she agreed with Tusk that the future now lies in the UK’s hands. She also confirmed there was no conditionality attached if the UK were to elect MEPs and would continue to hold full member rights.
the choices we face are “stark” and we must push forward “at pace.”
she welcomed the discussions with Labour and the talks that will take place today. She stated reaching an agreement “will not be easy” and will require compromises on both sides. However, it is “incumbent” on both parties during a deadlock to seek a compromise/agreement.
she maintained that she hoped to reach a single unifying agreement, but if this were not possible she hoped they would be able to agree a number of options that would be put forward in indicative votes. She confirmed the Government would act on the outcome of these indicative votes.
the Withdrawal Agreement is a necessary bit of legislation for any agreement to pass.
the European Council is prepared to consider changes to the political declaration but reiterated the Withdrawal Agreement cannot be reopened.
she stressed she had never wanted to seek this extension and asked MPs to use the recess to reflect on the way forward.

The Leader of the Opposition laid blame for the extension with Theresa May, arguing she had “stuck rigidly” to a flawed plan. He said he welcomed her now reaching out to the opposition, but said the lateness of this was a “reflection of the Government’s fundamental error” to not seek a consensus. However, he said talks had been “constructive” and welcomed the indication the Government may be willing to move on their red lines (customs union.) He said he wanted a close economic relationship with the EU and frictionless trade and if that were not possible then “all options should remain on the table – including the option for a public vote.”

All this will play out in late April/ May while the country is preparing for EU elections. It is not clear how all this will be affected by the purdah rules that restrict certain activities and prevent the use of public resources ahead of elections. There is more information from the House of Commons here, although this is silent on the EU elections – for that you have to look at the main document. This was the 2014 version and similar rules are likely to apply now unless the special circumstances mean that something different is issued in due course:

The guidance set out the general principles that should be observed by all civil servants, including special advisers, during this period:
- a) Particular care should be taken over official support, and the use of public resources, including publicity, for Ministerial or official announcements which could have a bearing on matters relevant to the elections. In some cases it may be better to defer an announcement until after the elections, but this would need to be balanced carefully against any implication that deferral could itself influence the political outcome – each case should be considered on its merits;
- b) care should also be taken in relation to proposed visits;
- c) special care should be taken in respect of paid publicity campaigns and to ensure that publicity is not open to the criticism that it is being undertaken for party political purposes;
- d) there should be even-handedness in meeting information requests from the different political parties and campaigning groups.
- e) officials should not be asked to provide new arguments for use in election campaign debates.

The terms of the EU deal [thanks to Dods again for the summary] are:

European Union leaders have collectively agreed on an extension of Article 50 until 31 October 2019, but the UK will be able to leave before this date if a Withdrawal Agreement is passed and ratified.

If the UK remains a member of the European Union by 22 May then the UK must enter European Parliamentary elections. UK MEPs would retain all rights of member states (voting) if elected on 23 May 2019.
If the UK passes and ratifies a Withdrawal Agreement by 22 May then the UK will exit the EU on 1 June 2019 and will not have to enter into European Parliamentary elections.
If the UK is still a member state after the European Parliamentary elections then the EU will have a “review” of the situation on 30 June 2019. President of the European Council, Donald Tusk said the point of this review would be to update EU leaders on the status of progress in the UK.
Donald Tusk has not ruled out giving another extension after October 31 but has urged the UK, “please, do not waste this time.”
The EU have once again reiterated that the Withdrawal Agreement is not open for re-negotiations.

Meanwhile, the background campaigning for a possible future Tory leadership contest will continue. And MPs will get an Easter recess after all – to campaign for the local elections and hopefully reflect on the muddle we are in. The country might appreciate a break from the ramping up of rhetoric, which has perhaps been fuelled by late nights and too much proximity.

Guarantee extended for Erasmus funding

The government have extended their guarantee of EU funding in the case of a no deal Brexit: the guidance has been updated:

The HMG guarantee will cover the payment of awards to UK applicants for all successful Erasmus+ and ESC bids submitted before the end of 2020. Successful bids are those that are approved directly by the Commission or by the UK National Agency and ratified by the Commission.
This includes projects and applicants that are only informed of their success, or who sign a grant agreement, after the UK has left the EU, and commits to underwrite funding for the entire lifetime of the projects.
If discussions with the Commission to secure UK organisations’ continued ability to participate in the programme are unsuccessful, the government will engage with Member States and key institutions to seek to ensure UK participants can continue with their planned activity so far as possible.
UK organisations should consider bilateral or multilateral arrangements with partner organisations that would enable their projects to continue in these circumstances and further guidance is available below.
The guarantee covers funding committed to UK organisations. It does not cover funding committed to partners and organisations in other Member States and other participating countries. This means that where a UK organisation is the lead member of a partnership, any funding it distributes to non-UK associated beneficiaries is not covered by the guarantee.
In the event that the HMG guarantee is called upon, it will be for the Commission and other countries to consider how to fund non-UK organisations

Fees and funding – more lobbying

With rumours that the Augar review will now not be published until after the local elections (now likely to be after the EU elections?), there is ongoing conversation about what it might say and what the impact might be. David Willetts has written for the Times Higher:

Which universities’ and subjects’ graduates go on to earn the most – and the least? Those are not unreasonable questions for prospective students to wonder about. They are also very relevant to policymakers – particularly in England, where the government-commissioned Augar review of post-18 funding is due to report imminently.
Until recently, neither students nor policymakers had any firmer basis to answer their questions than anecdote and received wisdom. That is why, as UK minister for universities and science, I commissioned the longitudinal education outcomes project (LEO). This is one of the biggest, most policy-relevant datasets to arrive in Whitehall for years. By linking educational data on students to tax data on their earnings, LEO promises fresh insights into social mobility by tracking specific routes from school to university and out to good jobs. It is a good example of using administrative data for social science. No wonder it is hot.
But it is also dangerous. The idea that we have reached “peak student” is currently fashionable, hovering somewhere between a forecast and a policy preference. And LEO is taken to present an objective means by which student numbers could be reined in, by cracking down on courses that yield low graduate returns. But that, in my view, would be a misuse of the data and a major policy error.

Discussing the LEO research project (by Neil Shephard (then at Oxford, now at Harvard University) and Anna Vignoles (then at the UCL Institute of Education, now at Cambridge), he says:

The research showed that there are wide disparities in graduate earnings university by university, and this would have made it possible to implement a full-blown version of the Browne model. But the research also revealed the actual reasons for the differences in graduate earnings and so raised big doubts about whether this was good grounds for divergence in fees. The key reasons were students’ prior attainment, parental social class and subject studied. For most universities, there was not a strong institutional effect independent of these factors. So a higher fee would be a reward not for educational quality but for selecting students with good A levels from affluent families who want to be bankers or lawyers. It would be the pupil premium in reverse. These arguments are still relevant to today’s debate.

He continues:

This is information that certainly ought to be available to students. But now that the Augar review has opened up a wider debate on higher education funding, there are ways that policymakers could be tempted to act upon it, too. Most obviously, they might decide to refuse to provide loans for some courses at the universities with apparently low returns. However, such a move would be problematic. The initial LEO research project was very well suited to assessing specific policy options around graduate repayments. It used graduate earnings to assess prospects for repaying loans. Since repayment obligations are largely determined on the basis of taxable earnings, the data and the policy question were tied together. Earnings data, however, are not necessarily a guide to wider policy, such as the performance of universities.
For instance, LEO measures annual earnings, with no distinction between part-time and full-time work, so it does not say how much hourly earnings are. Young women with poorer qualifications tend to work part-time; this artificially depresses their earnings, which, in turn, boosts the relative returns to the female graduates. Furthermore, LEO offers no information on occupation or industry or other employer characteristics, so a university that provides nurse and teacher training will inevitably appear to perform less well than one focused on financial services and City law firms.
…. And while the data show in which part of the country someone was educated, they do not show where they work. As some graduates stay near where they studied, this penalises universities in areas with lower earnings. So when the data tell us that some non-graduates earn as much as graduates, they could be telling us that a public school dropout working at an upmarket estate agent in Kensington earns as much as a recent graduate working part-time in Bolton.
… The dataset stops at age 29 because of limitations on how far back the education data are available. So it fails to capture the evidence that graduate earnings have a better long-term trajectory than non-graduate earnings. This is particularly true of some arts courses. The data favour those occupations where you get to peak earnings early on. They mirror the failures of the British economy, rewarding quick, high returns over longer, slower ones. …
… Another rather awkward angle is that there seems little correlation between earnings figures and the student satisfaction data that are part of the teaching excellence framework – the other obvious driver of policy direction. This just underlines the point that the LEO data have strongest implications for policy that is most related to earnings and tax. The further you go from the original purpose of the data, the more tenuous the link to the policy conclusion.
Excluding the courses and universities that appear to do badly under LEO from public support would introduce a two-tier system in which affluent parents, whose children do not need public loans, could presumably buy places. The performing arts would become even more middle class. It would also mean that a Whitehall planner has to pronounce on the value of sports science at University X and drama studies at University Y. It would take an interesting new dataset and turn it into a tool of a very significant policy directly constraining the options for prospective students: a role that is quite simply beyond it and a threat to LEO’s long-term credibility and development.

And he has some conclusions for the Post-18 Review

The current system’s high repayment threshold of £25,000 means that too high a proportion of the loans is written off. Predictably, this has opened up the whole question of the treatment of the write-offs in the public accounts, leading to their proposed reclassification as public spending. It is not even politically popular because, combined with the high interest rate on some outstanding debt, many graduates now see their debt rising every year, which understandably upsets them.
So I propose a package of abolishing the interest rate and lowering the repayment threshold back down to its original £21,000 – which virtually nobody ever complained about. One might add a few extra years to the repayment period as well. That would make the system both financially sustainable and more politically acceptable without having to constrain the autonomy of universities.
As for LEO, the data should be part of the increasing mix of information available to prospective students and their parents, but we need to understand them more fully before wider lessons can be drawn. The best way to extract more value from the dataset would be for more researchers to be able to access it – with the necessary privacy protections, of course. We at the Resolution Foundation are keen to analyse the raw data, and so are others.

How to implement a change in fees?

Nick Hillman has a blog on the HEPI website about how to implement any changes that the government decides to make at the conclusion of the post-18 review.

There are practical problems in reducing fees overnight. For example, universities and the Student Loans Company need time to prepare for any new system.
Perhaps most importantly, if there were a significant reduction in fees, then many people who had planned to go to university in the very near future might opt to take a gap year. Remember, many of those who had planned to take a gap year in 2011 cancelled it to avoid being stung by the last big increase in fees…
… if the reduction in fees does happen, it is worth exploring whether it should be implemented for final-year students in the first instance. In other words, for the first year of the new policy, it would be aimed at students who are already more than halfway through their time as an undergraduate – and not, as is generally expected, freshers.
This would have two clear advantages, one practical and one political.
It would make delaying entry to higher education more neutral in terms of the debt arising from being a student, as entrants would feel like they were facing less of a cliff edge. (See below for a more detailed explanation of this.)
As the people closest to graduation tend to be the people who are most aware of the large debts they have accrued and are typically about to join the labour market and therefore enter the repayment phase, they are also the people who are most likely to feel any gain – though it is important to note that lower fees have no effect on the pound in your pocket until much later (if at all), by bringing the date at which you extinguish your loan forward. Given that you are more likely to vote the older you are, any electoral benefits (if they exist) could be clearer too.

Placements

HEPI have a blog by Mike Grey – an advocate for placements but who argues that they are not an employability panacea.

“…the latest LEO data release also reports an overall salary premium for students from sandwich courses of approximately £6000, which remained steady at 3, 5 and 10 years. This will further encourage the adoption of this model and is potentially a powerful motivator for students to follow this route. However, this kind of direct sector-wide comparison is intrinsically flawed because:
Many of the courses with higher placement take up rates, such as engineering disciplines, have stronger labour markets and lead to higher salaries on average across all graduates
Due to the competitiveness of the placement process, it is likely to be the higher performing students, on average, that secure placements
We also know that widening participation students take up placements at a lower rate; there are likely therefore to be a number of socioeconomic factors influencing this salary premium
When looking at direct comparisons at course level, I would predict that in most cases the salary premium is likely to be closer to half of the overall headline figure. Placement experience clearly has a positive impact on salary outcomes but should not be viewed in isolation without considering the wider influencing factors. The host of other benefits of completing a sandwich placement, such as students being able to make a better-informed decision about their future career, are potentially even more valuable but, as with much of the true value of higher education, these benefits are harder to measure.”
“Placement schemes are only typically viable at scale if:
There is sufficient employer demand within the specific discipline and if employers are prepared to pay students. Placements completed as part of a course fall outside of National Minimum Wage legislation, but unpaid placements create huge issues for social mobility and encourage employers to undervalue students and graduates.
The prescribed delivery model offers the potential for employers to get a return on investment for the time and money invested in the student, and if it fits with industry norms. In many technical disciplines shorter placements are simply not attractive to employers due to the training required to get students up to speed with software and processes. Conversely, in other disciplines, such as law, the culture is for employers to offer shorter internships and insights, so sourcing sandwich placements can be extremely challenging.
They are properly resourced. Placements schemes are intrinsically resource intensive, involving managing the administrative process, delivering quality employer engagement, preparing students to enter the world of work, supporting and visiting students whilst they complete the placements and assessing the academic module associated with the experience.”
“Beyond sandwich placements, there are a whole host of curriculum-based, embedded, mass-engagement methods which can be vehicles for career development but reach far greater numbers of students. These include:
Embedding real-world projects to deliver equitable career development for your students. These real-world projects are often a particularly important gateway drug for widening participation students who disproportionally self-select out of traditional career development activities and do not have the same access to professional networks or levels of social capital that their more privileged peers benefit from.
Develop industry authentic assessments and engage employers to contextualise their relevance to graduate-level professional life.
Ensure there are synoptic assessments that encourage students to reflect on their employability development throughout their wider course.
Design some assessment processes which reflect graduate recruitment processes, for example students could write up their experiences as six responses to competency questions, each with a strict word limit, or complete a video interview assessment, rather than consistently defaulting to a standard reflective essay.
Involve practitioners, employers or community groups in the setting of assessments and as the audience for your students’ reporting.
Invite alumni to speak who are applying their skills in a diverse set of sectors to illustrate the non-linear nature of the graduate market.
Develop an employer advisory board with a specific brief to inform curriculum design and employability delivery.
Build partnerships with graduate developers, the professionals who design and deliver employers graduate training programmes, not just graduate recruiters. Seek to transfer industry best practice into skill development activities within the curriculum.”

Institutes of Technology

The first twelve Institutes of Technology were announced:

Barking & Dagenham College
Dudley College of Technology
HCUC
Milton Keynes College
New College Durham
Queen Mary University of London
Solihull College & University Centre
Swindon College
University of Exeter
University of Lincoln
Weston College of Further and Higher Education
York College

Prime Minister Theresa May said: I firmly believe that education is key to opening up opportunity for everyone – but to give our young people the skills they need to succeed, we need an education and training system which is more flexible and diverse than it is currently.

Education Secretary Damian Hinds said: I’m determined to properly establish higher technical training in this country – so that it’s recognised and sought after by employers and young people alike. These Institutes are a key part of delivering this.

Angela Rayner MP, Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for Education said: While investment in further education is desperately needed, this announcement will do nothing for the overwhelming majority of providers and students in technical education. The £170 million re-announced today is nowhere near to the £3 billion in real terms cuts to further and adult education since 2010.When they first announced this policy years ago the Government said they would make higher-level technical education available in all areas, yet this list does not include a single university or college in the north west.

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JANE FORSTER | SARAH CARTER

Policy Advisor Policy & Public Affairs Officer

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March 18, 2019

HE policy update for the w/e 15th March 2019

EU, Funding opportunities, Impact, Industry collaboration, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer, policy, Public engagement, Research news, Student Engagement jforster

A lively week in Westminster although not much specifically for HE – the Spring Statement had a few good news stories for us, although it’s all provisional because of Brexit, and of course that is the real story of the week. In fact not much has changed, the end result of the votes is as expected i.e. Parliament still didn’t want the deal as it stood, doesn’t want no deal and realises an extension is inevitable. No change there then. And there is some actual HE policy news too…

A big week for the KEF?

It was the closing date for the Research England consultation on the KEF metrics and reporting this week – you can read BU’s response here. Research England reported that they had received more than 150 responses to the consultation.

Spring Statement

Here’s a Treasury summary of the Chancellor’s Spring Statement. You can read more detail here.

In HE specific news, Brexit permitting, the comprehensive spending review will start before the Summer recess and complete in the Autumn, and Augar “will report shortly”. [Chris Skidmore told parliament this week that there had been more than 400 responses to the call for evidence for the Augar review]

PHD level roles will be completely exempt from the visa cap:
“research institutes and innovating businesses will benefit from an exemption for PhD-level occupations from the cap on high-skilled visas from this autumn. Overseas research activity will also count as residence in the UK for the purpose of applying for settlement, meaning researchers will no longer be unfairly penalised for time spent overseas conducting vital fieldwork”
“Apprenticeship Levy – Budget 2018 announced that the co-investment rate will be halved from 10% to 5%, and the amount employers can transfer to their supply chains would increase to 25%. These changes will now take effect from April 2019.”
“International Education Strategy – A strategy, to be launched by the Departments for Education and for International Trade, which will help to strengthen our position at the forefront of global education.”
“International Research and Innovation Strategy – A strategy setting out the government’s ambition to ensure the UK retains its place as a global partner of choice for science and innovation collaboration. As a first step in implementing this, the government has launched an independent review to assess and make recommendations on our future frameworks for international collaboration.”
Science and technology investment:
Today, I am allocating over £200 million in cutting-edge infrastructure to support our world-leading scientists, innovators and industry. These investments, which underpin the government’s ambition to raise economy-wide investment in R&D to 2.4% of GDP by 2027 and drive progress against the Grand Challenges, such as healthy ageing and the AI and data revolution, include: Photonics – Allocating £81 million to a national Extreme Photonics Application Centre in Oxfordshire. This centre will help researchers and industry better understand the composition of new materials and how they behave in different conditions.
Bioinformatics – Investing £45 million in a critical upgrade to data storage cloud computing infrastructure at the European Bioinformatics Institute in Cambridgeshire, to support researchers using big data to drive genetic research. Supercomputers: Archer funding – Allocating £79 million to a new UK supercomputer (ARCHER 2) which will replace the current national high-performance computing platform (ARCHER), providing researchers with a fivefold increase in computing capacity. Joint European Torus (JET) Funding (Fusion) – Setting aside up to £60 million to confirm funding is guaranteed for the facility over 2019/20

Meanwhile, ahead of Augar, 50 per cent of students have reported that they struggle to pay rent, according to the 2019 National Student Accommodation Survey.

This year, 1 in 2 students (50%) say they struggle to pay rent. This is a staggering number – yet the consequences are even more concerning.
Almost two-thirds of you (63%) say the cost of accommodation negatively affects your mental health. More than a third add that money worries affect their studies. Again, these figures are higher than a year ago.
The average student rent is £125/week (£541/month). Hang on to your hats: that’s less than last year.
In a blow for affordability, we’ve found that almost half of the UK has average rents higher than the Maintenance Loan on offer. In other words, once you’ve paid rent, you might not have enough left to pay for food or bills.

The House of Commons library issued a briefing paper – the background in 7 charts

And the Office for Budget Responsibility (the OBR) has issued reports and updates alongside the Statement.

Access and Participation

The OfS have published an A-Z of effective practice for universities and colleges to use alongside the guidance on how to prepare access and participation plans.

And looking in more detail at recently released HESA data, David Kernohan has looked at disability on Wonkhe

We only have data on students that declare their disability to their institution – many choose not to – and we generally (at a top level) get no information on the type or severity of such disability. As legislation puts a duty on providers to make adjustments for students with disabilities before it is notified of these disabilities, it is likely that some types of disability (where significant and specific support is needed) are over-represented in these figures and that others that may be less visible are under-represented.

International Students

MillionPlus have published a report arguing for a new system for student visas, concluding that the current Tier 4 visa application system for international students is overly complex, bureaucratic, and too often arbitrary and subjective in its outcome.

From Dods: Main Criticisms:

The process can be long-winded for the applicant, as well as highly resource intensive for universities and UKVI
The current maximum rate of refusal by Entry Clearance Officer (ECO) is 10%, for all Confirmation of Acceptance of Study (CAS) issued. This system means that universities can have a major source of investment stopped owing to decisions made largely outside of their control, which severely limits institutional willingness to expand provision into potential growth markets. The logical extension of this is that universities act with enormous caution in many parts of the world, or even scale back from overseas operations in those places.
Not all credibility interviews are problematic, but therein lies part of the problem. Either there is a degree of randomness within the system throwing up poor decision making or there is some level of bias embedded within the decision-making process. Neither of these options are a good advert for this system

Therefore, the current system, they argue, is letting too many prospective international students down, and for too many universities it can bring unpredictability and limit their ability to grow in many parts of the world.

Proposals for Reform:

Provisional Visa: A potential student could apply first to UKVI, not the university. UKVI would assess their visa eligibility, based on publicly available assessment criteria as decided by the Home Office. If they are then judged to be a genuine applicant, with the means to undertake a course, they would be issued with a provisional visa (out-of-country). The applicant could then formally apply to a university. The benefits of this proposal would mean the removal of the threat of licence revocation for providers, enable growth to continue in line with government ambitions, whilst maintaining compliance standards

Streamline and Contextualise the Compliance Regime: The Home Office should firstly look to phase out the Tier 4 credibility interview process. Removing the credibility interview would remove a layer of unnecessary bureaucracy and subjectivity. The government should also have a more fundamental re-evaluation of the way it understands and measures compliance and remove some of the arbitrary and counter-productive parts of the current framework.

The 10% maximum refusal rate should also be removed, focusing instead on reasonable and proportionate enforcement designed to combat any real abuse of the system. Under such a system a university would meet at pre-set intervals with UKVI to provide information on compliance and would be assessed on all necessary measures (be they refusal rate, enrolment rate, completion rates etc.) in a more holistic and rounded way.

Conclusion:

To make the most of a post-Brexit world the UK’s Tier 4 visa application process needs to change at this point more than ever. If we can take up the challenges the UK faces and grasp the opportunities for expanding international education, we can achieve our shared aspirations to boost this critical export sector. Universities across the UK, and modern universities in particular, are perfectly placed to expand into new markets, unlock fresh potential and improve the student experience.

Part Time Distance Maintenance Loans – shelved

The intention to offer part time distance maintenance loans has been currently shelved because low numbers make the scheme economically unviable:

Q – Sir John Hayes: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when his Department plans to make distance-learning maintenance loans available. (LINK)

A – Chris Skidmore:

The Department for Education had forecast that 20,000 part-time maintenance loans would be issued for the 2018-19 academic year. Further information can be found in Table 2.
In January 2019, the Student Loans Company (SLC) published early in-year data on the payments of maintenance loans to part-time students domiciled in England. At the end of December 2019, 2,700 students had been paid a part-time maintenance loan. Further information can be found in Table 7F.
The number of part-time maintenance loans issued was lower than had been forecast at this point in the academic year cycle and the demand for a loan product aimed at part-time distance learners is therefore unlikely to be high enough to make the introduction of such a loan economically viable.
In light of this, I have decided not to extend maintenance loans to distance leaners in academic year 2019/20. The government remains committed to tackling the decline in part-time undergraduate higher education. In particular, the Review of Post-18 Education and Funding is considering how we can encourage learning that is more flexible, including part-time and distance learning. The review will report this year. The SLC will publish guidance relating to part-time maintenance in advance of the application process opening later this year.

Care leavers

From Dods: Under Secretary of State for Children and Families, and Universities Minister Chris Skidmore have issued a joint Written Ministerial Statement, on supporting care leavers in Higher Education. This includes a set of principles for Higher Education providers to consider in their offer to care leavers to help increase the number of students in care accessing higher education and ensure that care leavers in HE are given the support they need to succeed.

Outreach and local authority relationships: Engagement with looked after children should be a key feature of outreach work and should begin at as early an age as possible.
Accommodation support: HE providers should seek to provide priority access and continuous 365 days a year accommodation, preferably subsidised by the institution.
Financial support: HE providers should provide financial support to help with the costs of accommodation, associated study costs and access to social activities to support inclusion and a quality student experience.
Designated member of staff: HE providers should identify at least one designated member of staff to support care leavers.
Offer on website
Support networks: Loneliness and isolation are among the biggest problems reported by care leavers. Encouragement and facilitation of support networks for care leavers within the institution is therefore critical to retention.
Careers Advice.

The Department for Education has issued a press release on the need for culture change at universities. This states that the new Higher Education Principles published today set out how universities – especially the most selective and best-resourced – should do more for young people leaving care by providing them with personal support through buddy systems as well as giving them money for course materials and to fully experience student life.

Children and Families Minister Nadhim Zahawi said: Far too many young people leaving care are missing out on opportunities that their peers take for granted. Many universities are already improving their offers to care leavers, through our Care Leaver Covenant and beyond, but I want this to become the norm – not the exception.
Universities Minister Chris Skidmore said: The access and participation work done by universities must ensure all parts of society have fair access, especially for care leavers. But a place at university is only the start and universities must also focus on supporting young people to make the most out of their course and ultimately secure employment in the future.

Brexit

Well, for any other politics geeks (sorry, policy wonks) out there it has been an exciting week. Whole families have been glued to Parliament TV – and not just mine, apparently. It was real soap opera.

And we’re all learning so much about Parliamentary procedure. It was hugely confusing.

Motions that were difficult to understand in the first place because of cross references and Parliamentary language
Amendments that made no sense on their own, and amendments to amendments.
An amendment that was withdrawn by the person who tabled it, only to be reinstated by a co-signatory (and passed)
And then of course the drama on Wednesday night when MPs amended (against the government) the motion on no deal that was meant to be a free vote for the Conservative Party, at which point the government stopped liking it after all and issued a three line whip against it. Of course this follows the muddle a few weeks ago when the government backed (and whipped members to support) the Brady amendment against its own motion
Amendments that would have allowed space for things that lots of people wanted, but did not vote for, because their party whipped against it or because “it was the wrong time” – e.g. the second referendum.
The government choosing to allow a free vote on some amendments but not others – and then not sacking people who voted or abstained in the face of a three line whip, even senior members of the Cabinet. To be fair, it does seem highly unreasonable to allow no-deal supporting Ministers a free vote, but not the Ministers who want to prevent a no deal exit. And after all the fuss and outrage about Greg Clark and the rest abstaining on Wednesday, 7 leading Brexiteer Ministers defied the whip themselves on Thursday and actually voted against the government. Oh dear.

There was an awful lot of emotion. There were rebels all over the place – only one Minister and one Shadow Minister resigned despite many more ignoring their whips in both parties. Enraged MPs are talking of the complete failure of party discipline. “Incandescent” seems to have been the word of the week, alongside “betrayal” and “chaos”.

The immensely powerful role of the Speaker has been highlighted – he gets to pick which amendments are voted on from the long lists that are submitted, and apparently could even refuse to allow a Meaningful Vote 3 next week because of a 19^th century rule that you can’t ask MPs to vote on the same motion more than once in the same session. But he’ll have to find a way round that. No matter what people think of the deal, if there is a chance of it passing it has to be given – can anyone imagine defending a system that made us leave the EU without a deal because of Parliamentary protocol? If it is voted down, that’s one thing, but refusing to have the vote would surely be bizarre.

If you are reading this on Monday it is quite possible that over the weekend the Attorney General will have changed his legal advice based on an obscure rule that someone has dragged up, that the DUP and the ERG will have found a face-saving way to back down, and the deal will be heading towards approval on 19th or 20^th March. Or else positions will have hardened. Either way, there it seems highly likely now that there will be a delay to Brexit, short or long. But as of Friday, whether we will leave with a deal or not is very much up in the air.

No wonder the Europeans think we’re mad.

So on a more positive not, our Minister, Chris Skidmore has an article in The House, Parliament’s Magazine “This Brexit deal is fantastic for science”.

It is no secret that many in the science and higher education industries had and continue to have concerns over the UK’s exit from the EU. Skidmore, who voted Remain, is optimistic about the future, but does not want Britain to take its eye off the ball.
“From my historical perspective, my concern is that we have this heads down moment looking at Brexit, but those clouds will pass, and we need to be prepared to sell a vision, to be able to implement a vision going forwards. That’s why in this role science is absolutely critical, not just in terms of making sure we put together an effective international strategy, working with our European partners and our international partners and really creating a new vision for where Britain sees its role in the world,” he says.
To crack on with addressing these issues, Skidmore has a solution; back Theresa May’s Brexit deal. “It’s fantastic for science, it’s fantastic for universities, it’s fantastic for collaboration,” he says. “At the same time, we want to then look at where we diverge. It’s those moments of diversion, it’s the opportunity to be able to work outside of structures that we’ve previously been committed to.”
Should the Prime Minister’s deal be ratified, the UK would continue to participate in the EU’s flagship programme for research and innovation, Horizon 2020, and its international mobility programme, Erasmus+. The UK is a net receiver in funding for Horizon 2020, having put in £4bn and received £5.7bn back.
“So, when people talk about the £39bn being some kind of gift to the EU, it’s not,” Skidmore says about the so-called divorce bill. “A significant proportion of that money covers my brief, and I’m keen to demonstrate and communicate the continued value of why we need to do these things.”
But there is uncertainty about the UK’s continued participation in the follow up programmes after 2020. The Government’s mission, Skidmore continues, is to associate to Horizon Europe, the successor to Horizon 2020. Negotiations for associate membership (the UK will no longer be full members after Brexit) will begin later this year.
In a bid to diversify investment streams, Skidmore announces plans to review establishing a new international fund for research. The Government has asked Sir Adrian Smith, the director of the Alan Turing institute, to look at how the fund would work in practice. The consultation would involve national academies, UK Research and Innovation and the science community. Skidmore says the fund could help Britain meet its pledge to spend 2.4% of GDP on research and development by 2027. “We know that our reputation for research and our tertiary education brand is incredibly strong – we need to strengthen it. So, these funds I see supplementing our opportunity to associate with Horizon Europe,” he says. Skidmore is also hopeful of receiving a “good deal for science” at the upcoming spending review.
From his talks with European counterparts, Skidmore believes there is a “genuine degree of warmth” towards the UK’s continuation in the follow up programmes to Horizon 2020 and Erasmus+. “The question will be with a new Horizon Europe programme and new regulations, is there a new form of association. Part of the future political declaration, I’m really keen to explore how can we create the closest possible links,” he answers.
…The Government has sought to reduce uncertainty over no-deal by pledging to underwrite funding for UK participants in Erasmus and Horizon projects until the end of 2020. Skidmore has written to fellow EU ministers outlining the UK’s guarantees. But in a no deal Brexit, firms would not be eligible to receive money from three of the EU’s major funding programmes; the European Research Council, Marie Sklodowska-Curie and SME Instrument Grants, which account for 44% of the total EU science money Britain receives.
“I’m continuing to work with the Treasury to be in contact with them about sort of what mitigating opportunities there will be,” Skidmore says. “I’ve been open and honest about that and partly some of the work we want to take forward with Adrian Smith on the international fund is what is a replacement to the ERC.” No deal would be “very difficult” for the science community, Skidmore concedes. But he has faith in the Government’s preparedness for the scenario – he has spent the morning passing statutory instruments before we meet – and once more champions the PM’s Brexit agreement.
…Beyond funding, concerns in the science and higher education industry centre on access to talent and the continued flow of researchers into the UK. ..Skidmore points to recent UCAS application figures showing a record number (63,690) of students from outside the EU applying to UK institutions this year, an increase of 9%. He also highlights the latest QS World University statistics, with the UK in first place in 13 out of 48 subject rankings, three higher than a year earlier.
“I don’t want there to be a corrosive effect where people start talking down the UK and that makes the international assumptions that somehow there is a problem here. We are investing more money than ever before in science, research and development, more than the last 40 years. An extra £7bn has gone in between 2016 and 2021,” he says.
Turning to the immigration white paper, Skidmore says the Government must “allow for mobility in the science sector”. Is he calling for workers to be given a special status? “Well, it’s whether you have a special status or whether you look at the salary cap,” he says, referring to the proposed £30,000 immigrant salary threshold. “If there is anything to be taken away from this, it’s to make sure that we keep the UK in a place where we are competing against China, Canada and Australia for student places.”

In the meantime, no deal preparations are continuing. On Wednesday by 3pm I had received 51 Brexit e-mails from the government….

The government has set out its approach to avoiding a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland if the UK leaves the EU without a deal on 29 March.

Today we are confirming a strictly unilateral, temporary approach to checks, processes and tariffs in Northern Ireland. …The UK government would not introduce any new checks or controls on goods at the land border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, including no customs requirements for nearly all goods.
The UK temporary import tariff announced today would therefore not apply to goods crossing from Ireland into Northern Ireland. We would only apply a small number of measures strictly necessary to comply with international legal obligations, protect the biosecurity of the island of Ireland, or to avoid the highest risks to Northern Ireland businesses – but these measures would not require checks at the border.

In preparation for the no-deal scenario, the government have announced their plans for tariffs that would apply. The government has announced that most imports into the UK would not attract a tariff in the event of a no-deal Brexit.

The BBC cover the story (Industry bodies and businesses are still poring over the 1,477-page document which outlines the new plan)

Under a temporary scheme 87% of imports by value would be eligible for zero-tariff access. At the moment 80% of imports are tariff free.
Tariffs would be maintained to protect some industries, including agriculture. Beef, lamb, poultry and some dairy products would receive protection.
A tariff is a tax applied to goods that are traded on international markets. In the great majority of cases, tariffs are applied to imported goods by the country importing them. But there can also be tariffs on exported goods.
…The new tariff regime would mark a shift in favour of products from non-EU countries. It would mean 82% of imports from the EU would be tariff-free, down from 100% now.
92% percent of imports from the rest of the world would pay no border duty, up from 56%.
…Imports of cars from the EU will have a tariff of 10% applied, which would add £1,500 to a typical family car.
…The National Farmers’ Union President, Minette Batters, said that eggs, cereals, fruit and vegetables would not receive any protection under the plans. The plans would see the current tariff rate on oranges cut from 16% to 0%, the rate for onions down from 9.6% to 0% and the tariff on imported televisions down from 14% to 0%.

The British Chamber of Commerce said:

“If the tariffs announced today were to come into effect, there would be winners and losers across UK industry overnight. The abruptness of changes to tariff rates in the event of a no-deal exit from the EU would be an unwelcome shock to many of the businesses affected.
“If the government were to bring these tariffs into effect on March 30, the move would also have the potential to cede negotiating leverage in future trade talks.
“While ministers have clearly listened to our arguments and maintained targeted protection in some areas, overall there has not been enough consultation, preparation or planning to support the firms and communities that could find themselves at the end of a sudden shift in tariffs. As MPs vote tonight, this is yet another reason why they must act to avoid a messy and disorderly exit from the EU on March 29.”

Other news

T levels: text This House of Commons Library briefing paper is a great catch up on the T levels basics. The executive summary follows (or to read in full click this link then scroll to the bottom of the page for the PDF download link). Under the reforms, a new technical education option will be created to sit alongside the academic option (e.g. A Levels and a degree). The technical option will comprise 15 routes based around occupations with shared training requirements. Some routes will be further sub-divided, with closely-related occupations grouped together into pathways.

The technical option will be delivered by a combination of college-based education and apprenticeships, with four of the 15 routes delivered primarily through apprenticeships.

New level 3 study programmes – T Levels – will be created to sit at the start of technical routes (apart from the four apprenticeship only routes), with a T Level for each pathway (i.e. some routes will have more than one T Level). They will be primarily aimed at 16 year olds. The Government intends to develop a ‘transition year’ for those students who are not ready to start a T Level at age 16, but who could achieve one by age 19.

T Levels will be equivalent to a 3 A Level programmes and will, on average, consist of 1800 hours studied full-time over two years – around 50% more than the average 16-19 study programme at present. They will all follow the same broad framework and will consist of five components:

A technical qualification
An industry placement with an employer of between 45 and 60 days
Maths, English and digital requirements
Any other occupation-specific requirements/qualifications (e.g. a license to practise).
Any further employability, enrichment and pastoral provision.

Three T Levels within the construction, digital, and education and childcare routes will be delivered at small number of providers from September 2020. A further seven T Levels will be available from September 2021, with the reminder rolled out from September 2022 onwards. The Government’s current aim is for all T Levels to be introduced by September 2023.

T Levels will not be available in all subjects where level 3 qualifications exist. The Government has stated that it will carry out a review of post-16 qualifications at level 3 and below (excluding A Levels and GCSEs), with the aim of simplifying the current qualification landscape.

It is intended that the technical option will extend from T Levels up to higher skill levels, and the Government is currently conducting a review looking at how technical qualifications at level four and five can better meet the needs of learners.

Professor Julia Buckingham CBE elected next President of Universities UK. Professor Julia Buckingham CBE, Vice-Chancellor and President of Brunel University London, has today been elected as the next President of Universities UK following a ballot of Universities UK’s members. She will succeed the current President, Professor Dame Janet Beer DBE, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Liverpool, from 1 August 2019 and will hold the post for two years. Please find more information here.

Defence recruit STEM grads: STEM graduates are targeted in a new Ministry of Defence initiative. Mark Lancaster, Defence Minister, issued a written statement outlining the new recruitment campaign. He stated:

In an increasingly complex and technologically driven world, the need for talented individuals with a wide variety of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) skills has never been greater. They will be central to developing, maintaining and exploiting our current and future military capabilities, to help Defence stay at the leading edge of technological change. Through their contribution to innovation and experimentation, to harness new technologies, we will be better prepared to meet the challenges and threats of today and tomorrow.
Defence has been reviewing its STEM graduate requirement and will put in place a new, targeted scheme to recruit undergraduates in related subjects; the STEM Graduate Inflow Scheme (SGIS). This scheme has been designed to significantly increase the number of STEM graduates brought into Defence and the variety of STEM disciplines they are from. It will be open to undergraduates across all UK Universities and be supported by a competitive financial package. The new scheme will also be more flexible and enable Defence to adapt quickly to future changes in requirement.
The new scheme will replace the current Defence Technical Officer and Engineer Entry Scheme…Defence needs to increase numbers well beyond the current scheme’s ability to deliver, and it needs to be more responsive and agile to succeed in an increasingly competitive market for STEM graduates in the UK and globally.

Transition from the current arrangements to the new STEM Graduate Inflow Scheme will take place incrementally over a 5-year period.

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JANE FORSTER | SARAH CARTER

Policy Advisor Policy & Public Affairs Officer

Follow: @PolicyBU on Twitter | policy@bournemouth.ac.uk

March 11, 2019

HE policy update for the w/e 8th March 2019

EU, international, policy, Research news, Student Engagement jforster

And it’s a bumper version this week, with a lot of really interesting new data, a super-critical TEF response from the Royal Statistical Society and we continue the speculation on fees and funding and Brexit.

Mental Health

Damian Hinds, Secretary of State, for education has launched a new taskforce to help students with the transition to University within these areas:

independent living (budgeting, cooking, managing living independently)
independent learning
healthy relationships (including new peer groups)
general wellbeing

The taskforce will be known as the Education Transitions Network and Universities UK, the Association of Colleges, OfS, NUS, Student Minds, and UCAS are all expected to be involved. Sky news covers the announcement. UUK have a blog from UWE’s VC, Steve West, on supporting students through the transition and risk factors. This excerpt highlights resources available:

The more that universities can do to get students prepared before they arrive, the better. Student Minds, in partnership with Southern Universities Network, has published a guide to the first few weeks of term, designed to help students prepare through workbook activities and practical case studies. At UWE Bristol we have developed an enhanced induction programme for new students, which signposts available support and includes a new parent and carer advice section on our website, to advise on how best to support loved ones while at university.

And Wonkhe have several blogs to contribute to University Mental Health Day:

Building resilient com unities rather than resilient individuals
The time for mindfulness in universities has come
“Thank you” seem to be the hardest words [thanking front line staff]

Universities Minister, Chris Skidmore, has been tweeting about a mental health charter with Student Minds and acknowledge the student voice is essential as universities look to improve the provision from student mental health. Welsh Education Minister, Kirsty Williams, announced £2 million new funding for Welsh Universities to support mental health initiatives. And there is new guidance out on preventing student suicides.

IFS report on the cost of HE

An IFS report was issued on 4^th March on the cost of different degrees. There’s an IFS blog here with the predictable headline “Creative Arts degrees cost taxpayers 30% more than engineering degrees”. It’s long but it is complicated and important, so worth setting out in some detail (sorry):

These are among the results of new analysis which for the first time estimates the distribution of government spending, taking account of grants and unrepaid student loans, across subjects studied and institutions attended. It is important to understand these are not estimates of returns to the different degrees: some subjects and institutions may therefore receive large loan subsidies even if they are positively impacting the earnings of their graduates, because they happen to attract students that have very low earnings potential. Since the final costs will depend on actual earnings over the next 30 years, there is inevitably uncertainty about these estimates. But they are based on new administrative data giving precise details on actual earnings of previous cohorts of graduates and are likely to be the best estimates possible at the current time.

Our main findings include:

There is considerable variation in loan subsidies by subject. For many subjects the government expects to write off around 60% of the loans it issues. For economics, however, write-offs are likely to be just a quarter of loans issued and for medicine and dentistry only a fifth. For creative arts, write offs are likely to amount to around three quarters of the value of loans issued. This variation in loan subsidies is primarily driven by differences in repayments rather than differences in loan sizes.
The highest government spend typically goes towards graduates of the subjects with the highest loan write-offs, as loan write-offs account for more than 90% of total government spending on undergraduate HE. The cost to government is around £11,000 per economics student who borrows from the government to help with tuition fees and maintenance loans, while it is more than £35,000 per creative arts borrower. Medicine is an exception – despite its graduates repaying most of their loans, it is one of the highest-cost subjects, at £45,000 per borrower, due to large teaching grants.
The government cost per student also varies by institution type. While total funding received by universities is extremely similar, the government contribution per student at each institution varies massively. Each borrower at Russell Group institutions – where graduates are typically high earning – costs the government less than £25,000. Costs are more than 20% higher for ‘post-1992’ and ‘other’ universities, where the average graduate earns much less.
The reforms since 2011 have shifted the allocation of spending from high-cost degrees to those with the lowest graduate earnings. Spending per borrower on students doing economics and engineering degrees is likely to have fallen by around £8,000 as a result of reforms between 2011 and 2017, while increasing by more than £6,000 for creative arts degrees. Similarly, spending on borrowers at Russell Group universities – which tend to offer more high-cost subjects – has fallen by £6,000, while increasing by more than £2,000 for borrowers at ‘post-1992’ and ‘other’ universities.
Consequently, the share of total government spending on science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) courses has fallen from 57% to 48% as a result of policy changes between 1999 and 2017. If we had the 1999 system in place today, only 30% of spending would go to arts and humanities (AH) subjects. Under today’s system, this figure is 37%, and roughly 13% of the £9 billion the government spends on HE per cohort now goes to creative arts courses.

The report also considers what these figures mean for policy options:

Lowering the fee cap from £9,250 to £6,000 could give the government more flexibility to target spending. This would free up around £7,000 per borrower to be targeted more directly towards priority areas, with the savings coming mostly from subjects that have low-earning graduates. Any cuts to tuition fees would, however, benefit the highest-earning graduates most.
Variable fee caps would be another option to regain flexibility in targeting spending. Reducing the fee cap for AH subjects to £6,000 would reverse some of the increase in funding these subjects have seen over the last couple of decades. This policy may, however, increase demand for those courses, or perversely reduce funding for STEM achieved through within-university cross-subsidisation.
One policy that might resolve some of these issues would be for government to charge universities a fee for charging tuition fees above a certain level in areas where it wants to reduce spending. A ‘negative teaching grant’ of £3,000 for AH courses would mean government allocates less money to those courses, without affecting the fees students face or their repayments. Savings could be targeted towards priority areas. However, the impact on, and responses of, universities are unpredictable.

You can find the full report here.

It is important to keep in mind that this variation in government subsidy is not the same as variation in funding levels. This is because graduates also contribute to the cost of their education by repaying their student loans. Once this is accounted for, the variation in overall funding per university is very small due to the lack of variation in tuition fees.

Fees & Funding – what is the state of play?

With the Chancellor’s Spring Statement due on 13^th March, which might give more detailed timing for the Comprehensive Spending Review (he said “summer” on Radio 4 on 7^th March), we thought it would be helpful to summarise the state of play…like Brexit, this is getting harder and harder to call….although the IFS report noted above will no doubt be considered carefully.

We don’t know when we will know more, because the advisory panel chaired by Philip Augar, originally due to report in November 2018, has delayed its report again – the latest official statement is “Spring” – which could be anytime from now (according to the Met Office, although 21^st March is the usual first day of Spring) to June. Research Professional suggest June and cite a BBC insight that it the final outcome could be in the Autumn.

One of the challenges is that this is a two stage review – the “independent” advisory panel report and then the DfE led review itself. The final DfE report (in the form perhaps of a green or white paper, accompanied by a consultation) will be when we see what the outcome really might be.

Philip Augar has said that he wants to make recommendations that will be accepted (presumably by the department/government, rather than the sector?) and it may be getting that consensus which is causing the delay. Research Professional today report that there is a draft doing the rounds in government but not everyone likes the recommendations.

The timing of other things is important – when it was originally announced, the Augar recommendations were due in November 2018, with the final report due out by the end of March – even at the time that sounded unlikely given the coincidence with the UK leaving the EU. Now of course Brexit may be delayed until May or June, and the effort involved in Brexit may be one of the reasons for the delays with the review. It has also been suggested that the government may be waiting because they want some big policy announcements to make after Brexit.

The most relevant dependencies are linked to government funding priorities. The outcome of any review of fees and funding needs to be affordable. The terms of reference say “its recommendations must be consistent with the Government’s fiscal policies to reduce the deficit and have debt falling as a percentage of GDP”. The first delay to Augar was because of the Office for National Statistics review of accounting for student loans that came out in December 2018 (You can read about this in more detail in our analysis in the HE policy update for the w/e 21^st December 2018). The latest delays may be linked to the Chancellor’s Spring statement (due on 13^th March 2019 – a day when other things are happening). But the Spring statement is only a holding position – partly because Philip Hammond has said it might all change depending on what happens with Brexit, and partly because the real story about spending is the comprehensive spending review. This is a full review of all government spending but the dates have not been confirmed. They may be confirmed as part of the statement on 13^th March.

All this matters because while there are lots of other things at stake, including the “young vote” and perhaps more importantly, the votes of parents and other contributors to student budgets and the government’s social mobility agenda, this review is largely driven by money. Many have called for investment in FE, in support for disadvantaged students and, in particular, for maintenance grants. Against the other pressures on the economy, and a narrative of bad news about the sector (grade inflation, pay differentials, free speech, poor quality courses etc.), an overall increase in investment in HE looks unlikely. The ONS accounting changes on student loans don’t change the cost of HE but they increase its visibility in the deficit.

So just a quick reminder – what are the possible recommendations of Augar and/or the final DfE report, whatever form it takes?

Tuition fee cuts – widely trailed as a leak from Augar, repeated again last weekend. Apparently the original figure that Augar will propose of a cap on tuition fee loans of £6500 a year has been increased to £7500 because of sector resistance. Such a cut would be likely to have far reaching consequences in terms of services and SSR. It might mean drastic cuts in spend on WP activities, now financial targets will not form part of the OfS review of access and participation. It could mean changes to the profile of programmes offered across the sector as institutions abandon high cost subjects in favour of lower cost subjects, increasing competition in these areas at a time when we are still approaching the bottom of a demographic dip (and when EU student numbers are falling).

Of course there might be top ups. If they happen at all they would almost certainly be conditional. They might be linked to certain subjects or meeting access or other targets. They might be linked to student outcomes (defined in terms of employment, probably), or to regional needs (such as value add in regions of low employment or access). It may be that there would be continued support for STEM subjects, for example, or additional grants to institutions seen to be making a substantial difference to their regional economy by helping social mobility. After all, the terms of reference for the review say that it must “support the role of universities and colleges in delivering the Government’s objectives for science, R&D and the Industrial Strategy”.

It might be that employers could provide top-ups to the capped fees – directly to institutions or through some sort of centrally organised fund. Again, if organised centrally, this funding would most likely be conditional – probably linked to certain subjects and outcomes. If done directly it would essentially mean growth in employer sponsored degrees. There is a real conflict with the apprenticeship agenda there – how do employers choose? And how do small and medium sized businesses get involved?

Student numbers cap/limit – another way to reduce long term costs is to reduce numbers. The terms of reference for the Post-18 review rule out a direct cap on numbers. But there are other ways of doing it. Alleged leaks about the proposal to stop students with grades lower than DDD at A-level from accessing student loans have been widely discussed. See our policy update for 21^st December 2018 when this story first broke. Current comment includes a blog from Nick Hillman on the HEPI website.

The headline focusses on A levels. Many students enter HE with other qualifications. Unless, as some have commented, there is a plan to not only have a floor on a-level results but also say that only students with A-levels can go to university then there would have to be an equivalent system for BTECs and other qualifications. Messy but surely possible. Given the government focus on technical education, it is not impossible that they would try to force more people down a technical route – but using entry to university as a lever would surely have the opposite effect, pushing students back to A-levels, at least in the short term if only to keep their options open.

The big focus has been on how this (like a reduction in the fee cap) would be bad for social mobility. It is also potentially bad for some universities with a large proportion of lower-grades students – ironically, these are likely to be the universities with a big impact on their region and on social mobility. This sort of rationing as social engineering just doesn’t seem to make sense, but of course it plays well with those who like to talk about “mickey-mouse courses”, “bums on seats”, and “too many people at university” – whose conclusion is usually that “other people’s children should do technical qualifications”.

So what next?

The Minister was on Twitter over the weekend to say: “Worth stating today that the Augar post-18 review is an independent one which will reach its independent conclusions. We will then consider these when published—working with HE/FE sectors on an evidence-based approach to deliver a joined-up post-18 education landscape.”
He went on to say: “But I have always been clear that the government’s priority is to ensure that we focus efforts on widening participation and access, across all communities and WP groups, centred on value and outcome for the learner journey. We want to build bridges—not pull up drawbridges.”

So back to where we started – we don’t know what or when. But the story will run and run and provide a distraction from Brexit in the meantime…

And more lobbying on fees

Alistair Jarvis (Chief Exec) wrote a UUK blog expressing his belief that Augar is finished – but awaiting a good launch date:

“I have good reason to believe that the ink is rapidly drying on the Augar panel’s recommendations, though the date of publication of the report itself is subject to the ongoing vicissitudes of political events.…when parliamentarians and educational experts judge the panel’s recommendations it must be on the basis of what is most likely to enable Britain to thrive, not on political ideology or electoral expedience. With Brexit mere weeks away, and our collective economic future uncertain, the country simply cannot afford to risk damaging universities, our most reliable source of innovation, skills and global connections.”

He goes on to say there are five tests that can be applied to the Augar recommendations – all of which highlight elements of strength, excellence or aspiration within the current HE system. In short the tests are:

Whether Augar’s proposals will enhance or impede access to HE (widening participation and social mobility) – whereas the talk of reintroducing student number caps or perhaps a minimum DDD grade threshold would create access barriers
Graduate skills gaps – Jarvis argues Universities need to expand and provide more highly skilled workers, not cut back and downsize.
The combination of in-depth subject knowledge, co and extra curricular provision, 1:2:1 academic support, online learning, engagement in current research, all backed by robust regulatory system are strengths that should be maintained. “Cutting the fee level, without a commitment to make up the shortfall with public funding, will see bigger class sizes, poorer facilities, and less advice, support and choice for students.”
Cuts will hit the local communities and civic life: “Any MP knows intimately how their local university is woven through the fabric of civic life, contributing to health, sport, culture, charitable endeavour and local economic growth. Much of this activity is not formally funded; universities do it because it matters and because they have a responsibility to their local community. In areas where traditional industries have declined the university is always at the heart of regeneration efforts, providing the research, innovation and skills to stimulate business growth and attract external investment”.
Students should be free to make their own choices on what to study and where “Our current system is shaped by students’ choices by design. To suggest that a civil servant in Whitehall knows better than a prospective student what sort of course they should study and where, is clearly nonsense…fundamentally we should respect and support students’ choices – as it is they who will have to live with the consequences.” Jarvis does go on to acknowledge that IAG could be better, and the funding system needs to be clearer.

During this week’s Science and Technology Committee session examining the work of the Universities Minister Skidmore responded that any reduction in fees for universities would have to be mitigated through alternative measures and the voice of universities properly heard.

Meanwhile the Stephen Hammond, Minister of Health and Social Care, remains adamant nursing bursaries will not return:

The Government has no plans to reinstate the bursaries for nursing degrees and is committed to increasing uptake of the additional places these reforms have made available.
The intention of the funding reforms was to unlock the cap which constrained the number of pre-registration nursing training places, and to allow more students to gain access to nurse degree training courses, creating a sustainable model for universities and securing the future supply of homegrown nurses to the National Health Service. In support of the reforms, we announced additional clinical placement funding to make available 5,000 more nurse training places each year from September 2018 and 3,000 more midwifery training places over the next four years.
Students on the loans system are at least 25% better off than they were under the previous bursary system. In recognition of the additional costs that the healthcare students incur in order to attend the mandatory clinical placement, the Government introduced the Learning Support Fund, a £1,000 per student, per year for child dependent allowance, reimbursement of all travel costs above their usual daily travel and up to £3,000 per year for exceptional hardship. These payments are in addition to the allowances on the student loans system.
On 7 February, the University and College Admissions Service published full-time undergraduate nursing and midwifery applications made by the 15 January deadline. This data showed a 4.5% increase in applicants to undergraduate nursing and midwifery courses at English providers. We are working with Health Education England and the university sector to ensure students continue to apply for these courses this year and in future years.

TEF, metrics and more

As you are aware, last week was a big week for TEF as the call for views closed. You can read more in our policy update for w/e 1^st March here.This week we have seen more about the metrics used for TEF.

The Royal Society of Statistics wrote an explosive submission., which builds on their previous submissions to the year 2 and subject level consultations (there are links in the document), which they say have been largely ignored. They say:

the TEF “appears to transgress…the..UK Statistics Authority Code of Practice for Statistics
the data is potentially deceptive and misleading for students – it should be communicated to students that “the TEF is observational in nature and that TEF differences are likely not solely due to teaching quality differences”
“The use of the same TEF award, and the same TEF logo, for all types of university seems highly misleading. The literature and communication around TEF should make it clear that TEF awards are not comparable across the board.”
the presentation of data in the TEF and the way that is benchmarking may encourage game playing by universities (eg to improve their metrics)
the TEF benchmarking is flawed from a statistical point of view and many flags will have been awarded incorrectly “far too many flags are being raised, erroneously alerting the downstream human TEF panels to effects that are just not there. Our conclusion is that the previous TEF awards are not valid”
It shouldn’t be called TEF because it doesn’t assess teaching quality [that’s an old chestnut, but one that Dame Shirley will hear a lot]
And this: “TEF also does not appear to capture the time series nature of teaching quality. We have made this point previously in our consultation responses. What is the evidence to say that a teaching quality mark now will result in a student getting a good experience in several years’ time?”
TEF is oversimplifying the data, in a way which is unhelpful – and misleading. Students should be able to assess the detailed data themselves on a more granular basis through a revamped unistats. “…. It might be argued that the TEF’s philosophy that distils diverse institutions into three categories, underestimates the intellectual ability of prospective students and other stakeholders”

Some more detailed quotes below because they really are worth reading:

On uncertainty:

Ultimately, the RSS judges it to be wrong to present a provider/subject as Gold/Silver/Bronze without communication of the level of uncertainty. The current TEF presentation of provider/subjects as Gold, Silver, Bronze conveys a robustness that is illusory. A prospective student might choose a TEF Silver subject at one provider instead of a TEF Bronze at another institution. If they had been told that, statistically, the awards are indistinguishable, then their choice might have been different and, in that sense, TEF is misleading.
The uncertainty is likely to be higher for subject-level assessment than for provider-level assessment….
Accurate and coherent uncertainty assessment is also vital to understand the value and cost-effectiveness of the TEF. If it turns out that the uncertainty swamps the mean level award (Gold, Silver, Bronze), then this calls into question whether it is even worth continuing with the TEF.

On comparability

Is a TEF Gold at one university the same as TEF Gold at any other university? The answer has to be no. …Statistically, TEF Gold at one institution can not necessarily be compared with TEF Gold awarded to another. This is potentially deceptive and misleading for stakeholders, particularly students…The use of the same TEF award, and the same TEF logo, for all types of university seems highly misleading. The literature and communication around TEF should make it clear that TEF awards are not comparable across the board.

On benchmarking

We are extremely worried about the entire benchmarking concept and implementation. It is at the heart of TEF and has an inordinately large influence on the final TEF outcomes. (i) The RSS has referred to benchmarking in the past as a ‘poor person’s propensity analysis’…. differences in TEF metric scores might be due to unobserved characteristics unrelated to teaching quality. So, attributing the differences to teaching quality is unscientific and wrong
TEF benchmarking does not include important characteristics such as amount of course content, diversity (in its broadest sense) or difficulty/challenge of material. Surely, this has an enormous effect on what is measured? This seems wrong in itself. We are concerned that omissions of this sort will lead to game playing by institutions. One might improve NSS scores, for example, by ‘dumbing down’ the syllabus and there is strong anecdotal evidence that this is already happening in the sector. (Indeed, OfS already has evidence of unexplained grade inflation which might be evidence of ‘dumbing down’ or related behaviours. How much of this is stimulated by exercises such as TEF or NSS?)
…At Dame Shirley’s listening session, the RSS enquired of the DfE/OfS representatives whether multiple testing without adequate size control was occurring and the answer seemed to be yes. Since this seems to be the case, then this lack of overall size control is a serious statistical mistake and means that many (previous) TEF flags should not have been so flagged.

Transparency and reproducibility

At a minimum, we would expect the entire TEF data process pipeline to be published, including as much data that can be released ethically. We have reports of people (in and outside the RSS) trying to understand the TEF data release, but find the accompanying instructions impenetrable. There is a lack of transparency, which is fuelling a perception of lack of integrity.

Conclusions

Fundamentally, do the metrics input to TEF measure quality of teaching? Do the provider submissions measure teaching quality? We are sceptical. There may be some distant indirect association, but what robust research been carried out to assess this? Alternatives might be to rename TEF (to remove ‘teaching excellence’), or actually carry out some evaluation of teaching quality (which would be expensive).
We do think it is useful for students to see the metrics that underpin TEF, relating to their potential course choice. The Unistats website already does this and seems to be useful and well-used by potential students. The RSS could imagine an upgraded Unistats site containing well-chosen and well-communicated metrics being valuable for prospective students and other stakeholders.

Continuation data

And HESA have published experimental data about continuation, one of the metrics used in TEF. As we have written before, non-continuation is linked to a whole lot of different factors, but in the TEF of course the implication is that students leave because the course is poor quality or they do not believe that carrying on will make enough difference to their employment prospects afterwards.

Arthi Nachiappan and David Kernohan from Wonkhe have helpfully looked at the data to see what it says about who leaves HE. Of course there are interactive data views to play with too.

We tested a common variation on the above theory – that non-continuation rates are lower at the Russell Group and higher at post-92 institutions due to the latter taking higher proportions of first degree young undergraduate students from low participation backgrounds…
Among Russell Group institutions, students who didn’t continue were more likely than average to transfer to another provider than to leave higher education altogether. Russell Group institutions tended to have a lower proportion of students from low participation backgrounds than the average provider, but non-continuation rates for those students from low participation backgrounds at Russell Group universities tended to be lower than 8%.
The equivalent figure for post-92 institutions is in the range of 5-20%. When we look at students from other backgrounds, this range narrows to between 4 and 12% at post-92 institutions, while at the Russell Group it is between 1-7%, but generally – with the exception of Queen Mary University of London – below 4%. The proportions of those from low-participation backgrounds who do not continue in their studies is higher at both groups of institutions than the equivalent figures for students from other backgrounds.
….But any idea that alternative providers are currently reaching students that would otherwise not access HE, much less offering them a successful student experience, should be abandoned.

They also look at subject level:

… the overall rate for all students leaving computer science (for instance) is 9.8%. But among students who enter following a HE foundation course, the rate is 4.2%. What students come in with is a huge predicting factor of their course outcome.
Among students entering with at least some tariff points, mass communications and documentation sees the largest percentage of non-continuation (20.40%), but the largest number of students not completing their course (6,341) are on social studies.
For those with BTECs – to give another example – the subject area with the largest number of non-completions is biological sciences (5,738), but the subject area with the highest percentage of non-completions is engineering and technology. The overall preferred subject of study for BTEC students is business and administration.

And what’s next?

… once again it is Damian Hinds rather than Chris Skidmore that supplies our comment. Inflammatory “bums on seats” language will do little to endear him to the sector, and once again the threats of Office for Student action are wheeled out.
His substantive point is unlikely to surprise anyone: “No student starts university thinking they are going to drop-out and whilst in individual circumstances that may be the right thing, it is important that all students feel supported to do their best – both academically and in a pastoral sense. Today we have announced a new taskforce to help universities support students with the challenges that starting university can involve, but universities need to look at these statistics and take action to reduce drop-out rates.”

Apprenticeships

It’s been National Apprenticeships Week with lots of news and releases. The Federation of Master Builders published their survey which states that (marginally) more parents in the UK want to see their child undertake an apprenticeship than a university degree.

25% preferred their children to undertake apprenticeship
24% preferred their children to study a university degree
50% had no preference

Brian Berry, Chief Executive of the Federation of Master Builders (FMB), said: “We’re finally seeing the shift in attitudes with more people understanding the value of undertaking a vocational apprenticeship rather than a university degree. For too long, apprenticeships were looked down on and seen as the alternative route if children weren’t bright enough to follow the more academic route. With university fees in England going through the roof, and with apprenticeships offering an ‘earn-while-you-learn route to a meaningful job, it’s no wonder that the penny has finally dropped.”

These findings contrast (slightly) with the Sutton Trust findings below (note these only asked about degree apprenticeships – parents seem to be preferring the traditional degree model rather than a degree apprenticeship for their children with the capability to study at this level).

The Sutton Trust surveyed parents (with children aged 5-16) about on degree level apprenticeships. Key Findings:

27% said they would advise their child to take a degree level apprenticeship over a universities degree course, with 31% indicating they would make the opposite recommendation, Of which:
68% intimated that this was because they believed it offered better career prospects, whilst 29% said it was because they lacked knowledge about apprenticeships in general

The National Audit Office published a report assessing the apprenticeship programme considering whether it provides value for money, addresses poor productivity, and employer investment in training. It wasn’t great news for the Government. Key conclusions:

The DfE has not set out clearly how it measures whether the programme is boosting economic activity
Since funding reforms were introduced, apprenticeship starts have fallen substantially.
Employers are not using the apprenticeship levy to pay for new apprenticeships (just 9% of funds used, £191 million of the available £2.2 billion)
The average cost of training an apprentice is double what was expected, as employers are choosing more expensive standards at higher levels than expected. This could inhibit the growth in the number of apprenticeships once frameworks are withdrawn and all apprenticeships are on standards.
To meet the target of 3 million new apprenticeships by March 2020, the rate of starts would need to double for the remainder of the period
The Department’s targets for widening participation among under-represented groups lack ambition and levels of apprentices from the most disadvantaged areas are actually going down.
The introduction of standards has increased the number of higher-level apprenticeship starts, and the trend looks set to continue. But its not all good news some levy paying employers are replacing professional development programmes with apprenticeships – meaning no additional value to the economy.
Inspection grades are still low with many inadequate or requiring improvement and the 20% off the job training rule doesn’t appear to be adhered to across the board.

Just a few of the most relevant recommendations:

The Department should set out clearly how it measures the impact of the programme on productivity, and indicate the level of impact that it is aiming to achieve.
The Department should strengthen the programme’s performance measures relating to participation among under-represented groups.
The Department and the ESFA should assess whether they would secure better value for money by prioritising certain types of apprenticeship, rather than delivering a programme for apprentices at all levels, in all sectors.

Matthew Fell, CBI Chief UK Policy Director, said: Today’s report confirms what employers already know – that the Apprenticeship Levy is not yet working as intended and is holding back the Government’s welcome efforts to modernise the skills system. Companies are committed to apprenticeships, so what’s needed now is a second wave of reform. The Government must use its review of the apprenticeship levy to work with business and the sector to build a system that supports, rather than frustrates, employers offering a first step to people in their career.’

The OfS have released one of their Insight Briefs on degree apprenticeships to try to raise awareness and increase both supply and demand for degree apprenticeships. This link also has the data on level 6 and 7 apprenticeship starts (2017/18) and this looks at the disadvantage profile of young apprentices on higher level apprenticeships. The chart below highlights that as the level of apprentice rises more places are taken up by the more advantaged students (quintiles 4 and 5).

Research

Research Professional have an interesting article on the government’s plans to prepare for the impact of no-deal Brexit on research.

With three weeks to go before Brexit day, the UK government is in talks to create an international research funder to mitigate the loss of access to the coveted European Research Council….As reported by Cristina Gallardo, a project to craft a UK-based global research agency is being led by Adrian Smith, director of the Alan Turing Institute, the UK’s national centre for data science. …In the spirit that hard problems are not to be shirked, today’s Playbook draws attention to three questions that will be high on Team Smith’s list of considerations.
Size matters How much funding should researchers expect? That’s the billion-pound question and one in which UKRI chief executive Mark Walport, BEIS secretary Greg Clark and chancellor Philip Hammond have shares. According to data compiled by the Royal Society, in the previous European Framework programme (2007 to 2013), the UK received €1.67 billion in ERC grants, around a fifth of the entire budget. The UK also received just over €1bn in Marie Skłodowska-Curie grants, a quarter of the total. Former Royal Society president Paul Nurse reiterated last week that the UK receives between £500 million and £1bn more in European grants annually than the government puts into the EU science budget, and he isn’t confident that this extra funding will be replaced. Assuming that the government pays separately for the UK to associate to eligible parts of Horizon Europe, the new global fund should still be worth at least in the region of €350m to €400m annually, and likely more if it also absorbs the Global Challenges Research Fund and what remains of the Newton Fund….
Housing decisions We know that the new funding agency cannot be a like-for-like replacement for the ERC, as it is designed to support UK-international collaborations. But that prompts questions about its institutional home and its organisational architecture. It will almost certainly sit inside UKRI. But what happens if UKRI chooses to reduce or streamline its nine-council structure? …A permanent home will take time to decide on. In the interim, BEIS and UKRI could potentially extend their relationship with outside bodies such as the British Council and the British Academy. ..
What price autonomy The ERC’s great attraction for researchers—something that the UK fought hard to achieve—is that it is both generous with its funding and unashamedly investigator-led. Nick Talbot, a plant geneticist at the University of Exeter, told us in an interview that his success in obtaining an ERC Advanced Grant was down to his track record as a scientist and the power of his idea—not necessarily the foremost criteria for conventional grant schemes. But we’re in a vastly different world from 2004, when Ian Halliday, then chief executive of the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council, was happy to remark: “There is an awful flavour in Europe of: ‘Let’s give everybody something.’ It has to be possible for the best guy in Cambridge to run away with all the money.” It isn’t possible today to establish a funding agency without proper regard to equality of opportunity, diversity and inclusion. Funders can no longer disregard the importance of place as well as public engagement in how they make decisions. Creating a wholly new research funding body in the midst of the Brexit drama presents plenty of challenges and it should not be rushed. The chance to create a global research funding agency doesn’t turn up every day.

Universities Minister, Chris Skidmore, responded to a parliamentary question to highlight the Government’s hopes for Horizon Europe:

The Department has worked closely with UKRI and engaged with wide range of stakeholders on no deal planning for the Horizon 2020 programme. This includes via the High Level Group on Science and Research. Further updates will be provided on Horizon 2020 no deal planning in due course.
The Government remains committed to ongoing collaboration in research and innovation and wants to work with the EU on a mutually beneficial outcome beyond 2020. The Government wants to have the option to associate to Horizon Europe, depending on the outcome of negotiations.
In the event that the UK does not associate to Horizon Europe, the Government is committed to continuing to back UK researchers and innovators by supporting measures to enable world-class collaborative research, including support for small businesses. We will be seeking independent advice from Sir Adrian Smith on these measures.

He also includes research within his top priorities when he spoke within the Committee meeting that scrutinises his work:

Skidmore informed the committee that the UK was rated one of the most innovative nations in the world and was home to three of the world’s top ten universities. He argued that 2019 was a critical year for science and innovation due to Brexit and the CSR. It would be pivotal to establish a clear roadmap that demonstrated where public investment would be made as well as demonstrating how private investment would be leveraged to reach the new target of research and innovation spend at two-point four percent of GPD.

He went on that

…it was important to maintain close ties with European institutions after Brexit, including participation in programmes such as Horizon 2020, Euratom and the European Space Agency.
His priorities, Skidmore advised the committee, were to ensure maximum certainty on relationships with Europe, ideally through a deal on Brexit, meeting the target of 2.4% spend and to maintain strong international collaboration.

Meanwhile Sir Patrick Vallance, Government Chief Scientific Advisor, who was also examined informed the committee that he had been focused on [amongst other work] improving the absorptive capacity of science among policy makers. Perhaps good news for those academics hoping Parliament will take their research on board within policy development.

SUBU says: Gender in HE – graduate outcomes

Here’s the latest from SUBU’s Sophie Bradfield.

As its International Women’s Day, it’s interesting to take a brief look at gender in Higher Education; specifically graduate outcomes. There are lots of factors that can influence outcomes and this update only looks at gender, but when you add characteristics such as ethnicity or disability alongside gender, the picture changes again.

First a caveat; I was disappointed when researching data that the most reputable sources only separate graduates by sex and not gender or perhaps they have even confused the two; so on a day where we are actively celebrating gender equality, I’d like to share the Genderbread Person, which is a great infographic to understand the concept of gender and why it’s important that we don’t use it interchangeably with sex.

The number of graduates has increased steadily over the past decade and it is widely known that females are more likely to enter Higher Education than their male counterparts (see UCAS applicant figures). However when looking at the latest Office for National Statistics (ONS) report on Graduates in the UK labour market, the outcomes of female graduates compared to male graduates highlight a disparity in employment attainment after leaving Higher Education.

The research defines a graduate in broad terms as: “a person who is aged between 21 and 64, not enrolled on any educational course and who has a level of higher education above A level standard.” With this definition, it looks at all graduates and not just recent graduates, therefore using a data set of 14 million people in the UK who were graduates from July to September 2017.

Delving deeper into the report, employment rates differ between male and female graduates, with 86% of male graduates in employment compared to 79% of female graduates (figure 13a). Further to this, the research also finds that male graduates are more likely to have high or upper-middle skilled employment (figure 14a). It’s important to note that in this research, high-skilled employment involves use of skill acquired from a degree or equivalent; upper-middle skilled employment involves skills developed from post-compulsory education but not degree level; lower-middle skilled employment involves skills developed from compulsory education with a combination of work experience; and low skilled employment involves skill attained from compulsory education.

The data shows female graduates are almost twice as likely to have lower-middle skilled employment compared to male graduates, which goes some way to explain why the median gross hourly pay differs, with male graduates receiving £17 an hour on average, compared to female graduates receiving £14 an hour.

33% of female graduates work part-time, compared to only 8% of male graduates (figure 14b) and 47% of all part-time workers are employed in lower-middle skilled jobs (figure 14c). The statistics show that the lower-skilled jobs seem to offer more opportunities to work part-time; which is a need that can be influenced by a number of factors including family commitments, which as 11% of female graduates, compared to 2% of male graduates, are ‘inactive due to looking after the family and/or home’ (figure 13b), is a factor which has a greater impact on female graduates than male graduates.

Figure 11 shows that STEM degrees lead to higher salaries and Figure 15b shows that the subjects that lead to the highest average salaries are mainly dominated by male students. According to WISE: “Women make up 23% of those in core STEM occupations in the UK”. Because of this, there are fewer female role models working in these areas and/or going on to teach STEM subjects; something which is vital to move towards a gender-balanced workforce and also increase the earning potential of female graduates.

There are initiatives such as Athena SWAN which seek to address gender equality in Higher Education and you can read more about how this is working in the recent Wonkhe article ‘No more steps. It’s time for a leap on gender equality.’

Ultimately, despite females making up 58% of the overall figure of applicants (see UCAS), they are less likely to apply for the subjects that lead to the greatest earning potential and are also less likely to achieve employment utilising the skills developed from undertaking a degree. This is something that needs to be looked into if we want to achieve this year’s International Women’s Day theme of #BalanceforBetter.

Failing Universities

A new HEPI poll was released showing student attitudes to financial concerns at their institutions

The survey of over 1,000 full-time undergraduate students, undertaken for HEPI by the polling company YouthSight, shows:

most students (83%) are confident their own institution is in a strong financial position;
over three-quarters of students (77%) believe government should step in if their university were threatened with closure;
more than half of students (51%) think fees should be refunded in the event of their university closing, while only one-third (32%) back merger with another institution;
nearly all students (97%) want to know if their university is in financial difficulty – in contrast with current practice which hides financial problems from students;
most students (84%) say they would have been less likely to have applied to their university if they had known it was in financial difficulty; and
the overwhelming majority of students (89%) do not know what Student Protection Plans are, while even more have not seen their own university’s Plan (93%).

Lots of renewed media interest in the financial sustainability of universities and the polling results: BBC, iNews, FE News, and Mail Online.

Brexit

We have a big week coming up for Brexit, maybe, but in the meantime…

The Institute for Government have published a report on Immigration Post-Brexit. This criticises the Government’s “incoherent position” over student migration, with the DfE on the one hand wanting to increase education exports to £30 billion by 2020, but simultaneously counting students in the net migration target. “The policy remains simultaneously to reduce student migration while also wanting to boost it”.

This, from James Blitz in the FT, summarises the position nicely.

The Russell Group are calling on the Government to change their post-Brexit immigration plans as the salary threshold is too high for mid level scientific, teaching and technician posts, and it discriminates against part time posts (many of which are taken up by women). ITV news covers the story.

Student Loans – another way of presenting them

MoneySavingExpert.com and the Russell Group of universities are piloting a proposed redesign of the student loan statement and are calling on parents, students, graduates and those in the higher education sector to test it and give feedback. The consultation runs until 12^th March

MSE and the Russell Group, which represents 24 UK universities, believe that this change should substantially enhance understanding of the student loan system for graduates and their families. We plan to present our findings to Government in the hope it will change the current student loan statements.
Currently, students simply receive a statement of their outstanding ‘debt’ and the interest that is being added. As an example, a low-earning graduate on a Plan 2 loan (for students in England and Wales who started university after 2012) would receive a statement with £50,000 of ‘debt’ on it, and would see it growing by £1,500 a year in interest. But in reality, a graduate earning under £25,000 would not have to make any repayments at all.
Instead, the redesigned Plan 2 statement focuses on the actual repayments that students have made, and what they are likely to repay in the future.

You can see a full pilot of the proposed redesign on this link.

Consultations

Click here to view the updated consultation tracker. Email us on policy@bournemouth.ac.uk if you’d like to contribute to any of the current consultations.

Other news

Health dominates part time provision: Wonkhe report that an independent report published by the OfS which tackle part-time provision for underrepresented students finds that allied health subjects are the most prevalent part time subject area. The report argues that decline in participation among part-time students is driven partly by cost of study and partly by lack of provision. It goes on to notes that the proportion of disadvantaged students has remained at around 10 per cent. Wonkhe go on to explore a second independent OfS report focussing on mature allied health students. They highlight that although applications from mature students have declined, enrolments have stayed stable, and the report recommends improvements to information provision and diversification of pathways into allied health courses. As ever, the questions surrounding the decline of part time provision, and the dominant programmes and part time groups remain a question of chicken or egg. It is hard to sort cause and effect out from one another.

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March 4, 2019

HE policy update for the w/e 1st March 2019

EU, international, policy, Student Engagement jforster

It’s a big week for TEF and new guidance is out on access and participation. No real news on the post-18 review but it’s apparently coming “in the Spring”. Policy watchers will remember that these terms are flexible in government circles – optimists enjoying the recent sunshine and the daffodils will think Spring is upon us but officially we’re still in Winter (and all the snow last year was in March)– and Spring could mean June….when Brexit may still be a big distraction….

With that in mind, we’ve saved Brexit for the end – and it’s only a short comment.

Independent Review of the TEF

1^st March was the deadline for the call for evidence for the Independent Review of the TEF. BU submitted a response which you can read here.

The UUK submission was widely covered in the press, mostly because they were very critical of subject level TEF. Their press release says: In this report, UUK – representing 136 university members – states that overall the TEF is having a tangible effect on the sector, but there is still some way to go to improve the system. In particular, UUK calls on the government to reconsider plans for subject-level assessment following the challenges arising from pilots in 89 universities, and to look again at its value for students, universities and taxpayers. In it, UUK concludes:

The TEF is having an impact on the sector, in teaching and learning strategies and the monitoring of outcome measures.
It is however hard to gather conclusive evidence of its contribution to teaching and learning experience and outcomes.
Its definition of excellence is weighted heavily towards employment outcomes, without full consideration of a student’s overall study experience and the wider benefits of teaching and learning for students and society.
Awareness of the TEF is still low among students while gradual and piecemeal changes have made it complicated for them to understand or to use it most effectively.
New governance arrangements should be made to ensure the government, the Office for Students, students and providers have a clear stake in strategic decision-making.
A year into piloting subject-level assessment, there is considerable doubt over whether this will drive real value for students, while it is adding significant complexity and cost which could divert resource from other student-focused areas.

UUK believes that plans for subject-level TEF should not proceed until the limitations of the methodology, its resource impact, and the actual value of its contribution to student decision-making, have been fully considered.

Estimates from UUK put the cost of taking part in year two of the TEF at £4 million for participating universities, a figure which would increase significantly with a full roll out of subject-level assessment. UUK is calling for further consideration to be given to whether the aims of subject-level assessment could be met through existing or alternative information sources such as Unistats, university websites and league tables. Further work into this area should also look at the risks of the subject-level TEF; including concerns around the quality of the data and metrics, and their ability to support students in important and complex decisions.

William Hammonds of UUK writes about the UUK response on Wonkhe here:

the focus should be on ensuring institutional TEF makes a positive contribution to teaching, learning and student decision-making before significantly increasing the complexity of the exercise. Our concerns are:

Subject-level assessment will be large, complex and costly and won’t produce reliable judgements.
It won’t support good quality teaching and learning and instead will encourage universities to chase rankings.
It won’t help student decision-making, only adding to the volume of information already out there.

David Morris, formerly of Wonkhe and now of the University of Greenwich, writes on Wonkhe about how to rescue the TEF and make it worthwhile

Part of the government’s problem in persuading the sector, students, and wider public of the need for TEF has been its insistence that it is about enabling better student choice. This is clearly complete tosh, and is being borne out by early data we have on students’ general unawareness and indifference about an institution’s TEF rating.
Long-time readers of Wonkhe may well remember that the real genesis of TEF (and indeed the entire new regulatory regime) came as much from government officials’ belief that universities were held insufficiently accountable for teaching quality under the old quality assurance regime, particular compared to research, as much as it came from any Tory ideologues’ insistence of creating a market for student choice.…Greater honesty about TEF’s role in asserting the public as well as student interest in university accountability would also better reflect what we have finally acknowledged about higher education funding: ultimately, the taxpayer is footing most of the bill. Acknowledging this fact, as well as the wider limits of marketisation, could lead to an accountability exercise with greater scope for nuance, recognition of diversity, and more conducive towards actually making teaching and learning better.

He defends benchmarking (which we agree with – although we have concerns about forced differentiation)

But we shouldn’t overlook the instances where TEF has pointed us in the direction of a more progressive and fairer assessment of the state of the UK university sector. This is most notable in the instance of benchmarking TEF metrics, by far the biggest leap forward in assessing UK universities’ quality of student experience upon their actual merits rather than irrelevant and archaic qualities such as ancientness, research power, or international prestige. Benchmarking is what distinguishes TEF from the traditional media league tables, by acknowledging that different institutions’ student characteristics give them a different starting point from which to be evaluated.
I really hope that the Pearce Review does not abandon this approach. If TEF abandons benchmarking and moves in a more qualitative direction, the spectre of the early-nineties teaching quality assessments might begin to emerge, with judgements on the quality of teaching being made almost concurrently with perceptions of prestige and research quality. This would be a huge step backwards.

And urges the review to drop LEO (something we also agree with – it is interesting but the data can’t tell you anything about current courses, if it can tell you anything about courses at all….what it tells you about is the economic and employment situation of students who graduated a number of years ago, which may or may not have much to do with their university studies…)

Regular readers of Wonkhe will know that I am far from a LEO cynic. Indeed, I am really enthused about the power that richer data about graduate employment outcomes for better policy making in higher and further education and about the youth labour-market efforts to make society more just.
But beyond ideological objections (which are well documented elsewhere), on a practical level, TEF is not the right place for the DfE to play with its sparkly new toy. The piloted inclusion of two new supplementary LEO metrics in TEF appears to have produced bizarre results. Upon brief examination of the national data, the spread of outcomes once benchmarked across providers appears to be very narrow, with few providers securing either a positive or a negative flag. Under the current flagging system, if a new TEF metric does not show a sufficient spread of performance, it is hard for me to see how it will aid panel decision making or provide much value.
Then there is the lag effect of LEO’s inclusion in TEF. If TEF 2020-21 goes ahead as planned, it will include assessment of the graduate employment and salary outcomes of students who entered university in 2008 (i.e. my own fresher year). It will also assess those graduates’ employment outcomes in the 2014-15 tax year. This seems nonsensical, both in fairly assessing institutional performance, and in providing information to applicants.

Post-18 review

After we trailed the Augar report it didn’t come out – and we aren’t now sure when it will. The PM answered a question about it in PMQs this week – “Philip Augar and his panel are working on the report and we will look seriously at the proposals they bring forward”.

The House of Commons library has published a research briefing on the post-18 education and funding review. The covering note:

says that the review is due to report I the Spring 2019 – so presumably that is still the plan.
confirms that the Review recommendations will be consistent with the Government’s fiscal policies to reduce the deficit
says that the recommendations will not place a cap on the number of students who can access post-18 education.
This briefing paper discusses the Review process and gives an outline of the post 18 funding system in England.
It includes helpful links to some of the mission group and other influential responses to the original call for evidence – ours is here
It suggests possible options for reform that the Review may propose, such as the lowering of higher education tuition fees and analyses the impact of these proposals in detail, including looking at the Treasury Committee and House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee reports, which we have reviewed in this update previously.
It includes a summary of impact

The BBC have published this story suggesting the reasons for the delay are Brexit plus a disagreement about the outcomes of the review – which may have pushed it back to the drawing board…

But it seems increasingly likely that the all-consuming politics and economic uncertainty of Brexit have pushed back the review.
There are also claims of significant differences in what 10 Downing Street, the Treasury and the Department for Education want from the shake-up of fees. According to sources, a headline cut in fees is seen as important for the prime minister’s office – described as being the “retail offer” needed to respond to Labour in a general election.
The Treasury does not want to commit to extra direct funding while there is such uncertainty about future public finances. But at the same time, the Department for Education is reluctant to go ahead with a cut in students’ fees until it is clear how that income could be replaced.
The debate is said to be “stuck on the roundabout” – and even when the Augar review publishes its findings, there could be delays before the government responds with any decision.
This might not be until the autumn or later – in a political calendar full of uncertainties about budgets, elections and leaders.
However, other senior university figures say the prime minister might want to push ahead with changing fees as soon as Brexit has been achieved, as a way of showing the government still has a grip on domestic policy.
There are also arguments that when the review is so strongly linked to Theresa May, any change at the top could see it disappearing into the long grass. Charles Heymann, a higher education consultant who formerly worked at the DfE, says: “It wouldn’t be the first education review to end up gathering dust on Whitehall shelves.”

In the meantime, the lobbying continues. Shakira Martin, the NUS president, wrote for Wonkhe.

I’m still adamant that maintenance grants need to return, so we support working class students and put an end to the obscene situation whereby they graduate with the highest student loan debts. The Diamond Review in Wales shows this can be done in a way that really ensures the poorest students are properly supported, and we know that the Augar has looked at the findings of Diamond in detail. On top of that, just about every voice in the sector, including UUK, the Russell Group and Million Plus argues they should return, so I remain hopeful.
We also need to provide better funding for those on part-time or distance learning courses, or otherwise support flexible learning – this should include targeted support like childcare funding for part-time students and travel grants for commuters. The decision to scrap NHS bursaries for nurses, midwives and other healthcare professions needs revisited as it has clearly failed those students and the health service.
There are lots of other changes we have suggested that would make a huge difference to students such as monthly student support payments monthly to help students budget or increasing the threshold for maximum support from £25,000 for the first time in over a decade. And all this is not even to start on adult learning – student support is inadequate in HE – but at least it exists. We need to radically improve the offer for those in FE and I think the Augar panel will recognise that too.

And HEPI have a blog by Andy Nicol, Managing Director at QS Enrolment Solution about a student survey about the perspectives of prospective students:

“This year’s survey (of 1,700 respondents, mostly aged 16-18) sought to unpack what they believe to be the appropriate balance between their individual investment in their degree and that of the state.”
39% of respondents say that the debt they will take on makes them less likely to apply to university than they otherwise would. It is perhaps not surprising then that overwhelmingly (88%) survey respondents believe that Government should be funding at least half of the teaching cost of an undergraduate degree. These prospective students also said that their tuition fees being spent on student accommodation, course facilities, careers support and links to employers would represent a return on their investment.
HEPI’s own research last year found that 74% of students want more information on where their fees go. According to university accounts, the research also found that typically only around 45% of each student’s fee goes on the direct costs of teaching – such as staff salaries. The majority of the remainder is also spent on areas that benefit students. After teaching, the next biggest cost is buildings. Then come other high priorities like information technology, student support services (such as counselling and careers advice), widening participation activities and the students’ union.
… Now is the time for Government to work more closely with universities to ensure it communicates how potential new funding arrangements will represent value for money. With political, economic and demographic challenges facing the sector, it is more important than ever that institutions understand how to engage better with potential recruits. That’s why as part of this report we have published an Action Plan for Domestic Student Recruitment in 2019to help universities and Government do just that.

Widening participation

The OfS published guidance for institutions to produce their new Access and Participation plans for 2020/21. Key points include:

The removal of the guideline percentage of how much of the higher fee income an institution should spend on widening participation, success and progression activities.
The OfS has stated institutions can expect increased scrutiny, rigour and challenge on their plans, in part to kickstart the stagnation of social mobility. Including consideration of whether institutions are at risk of breaching their conditions of registration with the OfS.
Focussed, evidenced, analysis of an institution’s current performance will link with the institution’s strategic aims and priorities for rectifying inequalities in access, student performance and attainment, and progression. The OfS will assess the feasibility of an institution’s aims and the appropriateness and challenge within the chosen targets.
All targets should be outcomes based, rather than measuring outputs.
A greater focus and breakdown on ‘investment’ (spend) is required for access measures. This fits with current Government rhetoric on ensuring widening access spend is effective and focussed towards the most efficient and successful outcomes (supported by robust evidence of impact).
Evaluation, impact and research of widening participation interventions remains important.
All providers are expected to use the POLAR measure (number of young local population that progress to HE) to provide a level of consistency and comparability. A national Access and Participation dataset is also expected to be published shortly.

The OfS has also set itself national key performance measures which address the inequalities they are most concerned about – the gaps that remain the most challenging to tackle and affect large student groups. In order to meet these measures all institutions are expected to have a target which contributes towards improving outcomes in these KPI areas.

ENTRY GAP – Eliminate the gap in participation at higher-tariff providers between the most and least represented (POLAR) groups, from a ratio of 5:1 to a ratio of 3:1 by 2024-25.
DROP OUT GAP – Reduce the gap in non-continuation between the most and least represented groups (POLAR) – eliminating the unexplained gap by 2024-25, and eliminating the absolute gap (the gap caused by both structural and unexplained factors) by 2030-31.
ATTAINMENT GAP – Reduce the gap in degree outcomes (1sts or 2:1s) between white students and black students, eliminating the unexplained gap in degree outcomes (1sts or 2:1s) between white students and black students by 2024-25, and eliminate the absolute gap by 2030-31.
ATTAINMENT GAP -Reduce the gap in degree outcomes (1sts or 2:1s) between disabled students and non-disabled students by 2024-25.

The OfS acknowledges that other non-KPI measures remain important too – addressing the decline in the number of mature students in higher education and access, success and progression for care leavers.

Sarah attended a parliamentary reception this week at which Chris Millward, Director for Fair Access and Participation, emphasised the scrutiny and rigour with which the OfS will be examining the new plans, pushing for ambitious (but realistic) progress, and setting out a commitment to tackle underperformance early on. At the reception there was much discussion of the US universities’ Princeton model of admissions with Chris Millward calling for more English universities to step away from grade based entry and make far more use of contextual admissions, including assessing the personal qualities of grit and resilience which he felt were sure indicators of graduate success within disadvantaged students. Chris confirmed that the OfS’ powers didn’t extend to direct interference in an institution’s admission policy and that the Access and Participation targets would be one of their key methods to push the sector to solve the disadvantage gaps.

Universities Minister, Chris Skidmore, gave his first speech on access and participation on the day the guidance was launched. He spoke during a tour of Nottingham Trent University and praise the institution for its work in advancing social mobility. He announced that Nottingham Trent, alongside Kings College London and the Behavioural Insights Team have been awarded the OfS contact for the WP Evidence and Impact Exchange. The Minister said: I want to use this occasion today to outline my own five-part vision for the access and participation agenda – to help set a strategic direction for the sector and support the OfS in holding providers to account on these vitally important issues.

His speech acknowledged the importance of the removal of the student number caps, spoke about the narrowing of the gap with more disadvantaged young student applying to university, whilst acknowledging: All this is good news and a welcome move away from the days when going to university was just for the fortunate few. Yet, we all know that behind the positive headlines lies a much more complex picture of inequality and progress is not as rapid as it should be. And that takes me on to the first point in my plan – namely that we now need a more nuanced approach to ‘access’ and a greater recognition of the true access gaps. Major themes I want to see the sector and the OfS addressing are geographic disparities and widening access for specific groups, including White working-class as well as Black and minority ethnic students.
Sam Gyimah, the previous Universities Minister, wanted disadvantaged young people to aspire to and enter the highest tariff institutions. Chris continues this challenge to the high tariff institutions to become more accessible and think beyond entry grades whilst acknowledging that high tariff doesn’t necessarily mean best: I also want to reverse the trend of students from currently under-represented groups being less likely to apply to high-tariff universities. In 2018, 17% of students who were eligible for free school meals entered higher education in the UK. Yet only 2.7% of them enrolled at high-tariff providers. Now, I’m not saying that high-tariff institutions are necessarily the best option for everyone. Plenty of excellent lower-tariff providers offer students a first-rate education with exceptional graduate outcomes, and are the right choice for many. But what worries me is that some people may not be considering high-tariff providers even when they could clearly benefit from them – showing how prior social and educational experiences can all impact on an individual’s life choices. I am genuinely saddened when I hear people hesitating about applying to one of our world-leading providers because they simply don’t believe that going to a university like that is really for people like them… The UK is blessed to have a diverse, multi-cultural society, and it is simply not right that, despite displaying obvious talent, some people still feel a ‘top’ university education is out of reach for them… This is why I also welcome the fact the Duchess of Sussex recently added public prominence to this issue when expressing shock that too few professors in the UK are from diverse backgrounds. She is right – as she herself said, “change is long overdue”, and if we want our student communities to reflect our wider population, then we have to start thinking seriously about the role models and examples we are setting them.
Chris spoke about the Secretary of State for Education’s guidance letter to the OfS setting out the Government’s expectations. They called for greater and faster progress in access and participation, including at the most selective providers, as well as for key target groups, including disabled students and care leavers. He also spoke of the Race Disparity Audit initiative when he called for the OfS to hold universities to account for attainment disparities through their Access and Participation plans and, if necessary, to use its powers to challenge any provider failing to support equality of opportunity.
Chris was stern on the effective use of WP monies, particularly making better use of evidence to inform spend: £860 million [the combined planned spend by universities on WP in 2018/19] is not an insignificant sum and, so, I believe it is essential that this money is used well, and that any future spending is underpinned by clear evidence and evaluation. Although some providers already do this, for too long the sector as a whole has been too slow in using evidence to inform its approaches and to understand what really works.
He also wants to see more collaboration across the sector: Despite numerous providers undertaking excellent work in the access and participation space, by and large, the sector has been too piecemeal in its approach and too many providers have got used to doing their own thing. I will be the first to admit that this may well be a logical consequence of policy development – with an emphasis on market-style activity, a lack of data-sharing, and too little infrastructure to encourage collaboration. But now is the time for this to change.
Finally, he turned to the importance of data and consistent, reliable measures to track progress in tackling disadvantage. When it comes to data, I know there is a saying that ‘what gets measured, gets managed’…higher education providers have focused less on the outcomes of their disadvantaged students than they should…Differing approaches have not helped. The key measure to drive widening participation in higher education has traditionally been POLAR…The POLAR system has many strengths, and the insight it has provided has helped lead to genuine progress in opening up access to university. Yet, it is also known that POLAR doesn’t always overlap well with other measures of disadvantage – such as eligibility for free school meals…the principal measure used in schools and forms the main basis for extra support and funding. He spoke of UCAS’ work to find new and better predictors of disadvantage in higher education that take account of much more than just where someone grew up. It’s also why I welcome the OfS’s commitment in its access and participation strategy to work with providers to look not just at POLAR, but other aspects of disadvantage to ensure this work can really transform the life chances of young people.
He also welcomed the Transparency Duty which requires institutions to publish data on the application, offer, acceptance, completion and attainment rates of students, divided by ethnicity, gender and socio-economic background: And on this, I further welcome the OfS’s requirement that providers set out their ambitions for improving access and participation for up to five years and report annually – something which I hope will keep everyone’s eye on the ball and prevent us from becoming complacent. He also spoke about the newly announced formation of a Data Advisory Committee stating it would help me ensure we are not only using the right data to shape the access and participation agenda, but are using it in the right way. I therefore look forward to working with the OfS, this Committee and the wider sector to find ways to refine and advance the data we use.
Interestingly he also mentions the (delayed) Augar Review and attempts to reassure the sector as a counterpoint to the leaked snippets and speculation of disastrous cuts for HE within the past press: I know many in the sector have been critical about what could emerge from the Review’s recommendations and its potential impacts on access and participation activities. Let me reassure you today that progressing access and successful participation remains a top focus for this government and it will be a key lens for me and others in government as we decide how to take the Review forward. My key outcome for the Review is that we create a truly joined-up system, which is even better at promoting social mobility and countering childhood disadvantage. I also encourage us to view the post-18 Review as an opportunity to think again about how we view disadvantage, to ensure we are putting our energy and investment where it is most needed. Reading between the lines I’m not sure this is quite as reassuring as Chris intended!

Disadvantage starts early – Universities Minister Chris Skidmore is a believer that disadvantage starts at birth and has committed to working with Nadhim Zahawi (Minister for Children and Families) to tackle disadvantage. He has announced they will be working together to improve support for care leavers throughout the whole education system, noting that only 6% of care leaver attend universities and are the most likely student group to drop out. He urged the OfS to do all they could to support care leavers. Nadhim also announced an additional 1,000 health visitors will be trained to support children’s early language and communication needs this week. Noting that children who start school with poor vocabulary are twice as likely to be unemployed as an adult. The health visitors will detect early signs of speech and language delay and take early action when it can have the most benefit.

Level 4-5 Qualifications Review Outcomes

The DfE have published a research report on the Level 4-5 Qualifications Review. Key points:

L4-5 qualifications support a diverse mix of students. The qualifications are undertaken by a slightly higher proportion of ethnic minority and male students than other HE and FE programmes, and there is also a relatively high proportion of older learners and learners with disabilities
Nearly all FE colleges (97%) and most HEIs (88%) provide L4-5 qualifications. Nearly 200 private and adult community learning providers deliver L4-5 providers, which includes 48 alternative providers in HE that are not FE colleges.
The L4-5 market is diverse. There were 3,368 different L4-5 qualifications that were available to learners in 2016/17, of which 2,633 were developed by HEIs and delivered by FE and HE providers.
The size of the L4-5 market is relatively small, compared to HEIs and FE providers’ overall offer. There were 111,420 learners that studied an accredited L4-5 qualification in 2016/17, which comprises only 2% of all vocational qualifications awarded. In HE, there were 75,632 learners that undertook L4-5 qualifications in 2016/17, which accounted for 3% of all HE learners.
L4-5 programmes not delivered through apprenticeships are most commonly taken for subjects in health, public services and care (composing 23% of all L4-5 learners); business administration and law (17%); and Engineering and manufacturing technologies (12%).
Just under 40% of learners on HE-accredited L4-5 programmes progressed to full-time employment and 26% progressed to full-time further learning. This reflects the dual aims of L4-5 qualifications. The proportion of learners that progress to employment does, however, vary significantly by subject area and qualification type

Recommendations:

Support the promotion to providers and learners of L4-5 qualifications that provide direct entry to the labour market, by being actual or de facto licences to practise. Awareness of these qualifications can be low among learners, which reduces take-up.
Incentivising HEIs to recognise L4-5 qualifications as providing exemptions from the first or the first and second year of a degree programme and encouraging joint working with HEIs and AOs to harmonise content with degrees and L4-5 provision.
Stimulating FE providers and HEIs to expand their L5 provision, as this appears to be provided less comprehensively than L4, despite having higher learner take-up.

Apprenticeships

The DfE have published Apprenticeship and Levy Statistics for February 2019

As at 31 January 2019, 122,700 commitments had been recorded for the 2018/19 academic year (114,000 fully agreed and 8,700 pending approval). This compares to 98,000 commitments recorded for the 2017/18 academic year at the equivalent point last year
Of the 122,700 commitments recorded so far for 2018/19, 60,800 commitments were for apprentices aged 25 and over. 38,200 commitments were intermediate apprenticeships, and 52,000 were advanced apprenticeships.
In 2017/18, there were 48,150 higher level (level 4+) apprenticeship starts, compared to just 3,700 in 2011/12.
- Between 2015/16 and 2016/17 higher level starts increased 34.7per cent from 27,160 to 36,570.
- Between 2016/17 and 2017/18 the higher level starts rose 31.7 per cent to 48,150.
In contrast, both intermediate (level 2) apprenticeships and advanced (level 3) decreased between 2016/17 and 2017/18 by 38.1 per cent and 15.9 per cent, respectively.

The DfE have published an Apprenticeships Study on non-completion. This is NOT about degree apprenticeships but FE learners and apprentices – but still interesting

Non-completers commonly lacked information about the content of their course and how it would be delivered before they began. Whilst motivated, a lack of upfront information before they started the course meant that expectations tended to be limited to an expectation that the course would be organised, run smoothly, and enable them to work to pass.
Non-completers reported mixed experiences of their courses and apprenticeships. However, they had commonly experienced challenges such as a lack of sufficient flexibility, loss of child care, and employers not allowing them enough time to do their coursework.
Non-completers dropped out when one or more of three key areas were not satisfied. They dropped out when core personal issues took priority over learning; with family, health, and finances commonly taking priority. Drop out occurred when learners did not see their course as valuable, meaning the content and level were not appropriate to enable them to pursue their career goals. Finally, learners dropped out when their course or apprenticeship failed to meet their expectations for functional delivery.

This is interesting because of course many of the same issues arise with university non-completions. Non-completion (or continuation as the TEF calls it) is a key metric for TEF, precisely because the DfE believe that the value of the programme and the functional delivery of it, to use the terms above, are key indicators of the quality of a programme and so continuation is a proxy measure for quality. Of course that ignores the personal issues. The report says: “Although learners were generally tipped into non-completion by an issue aligned to one of these areas, they tended to be facing multifaceted issues which overlapped across two or more layers”. So it’s not that simple.

Key Recommendations:

More comprehensive and accurate information up front about the content, structure and expectations for a course
Proactive and holistic support and flexibility to ensure they can continue to manage their course alongside their personal priorities
Improvements to course delivery so that courses and apprenticeships are more consistently delivered across the country.

The Sutton Trust have conducted a survey of parents with children aged 5-16 on degree level apprenticeships.

75% of parents said they would be confident offering children help and advice were they to apply to a degree-level apprenticeship
27% said they would advise their child to take a degree level apprenticeship over a universities degree course, with 31% indicating they would make the opposite recommendation
Of those parents who would advise their children to undertake a university degree course, 68% intimated that this was because they believed it offered better career prospects, whilst 29% said it was because they lacked knowledge about apprenticeships in general

Young People Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET)

The DfE and ONS have published statistics on the proportion of young people not in education, employment or training.

For quarter four (i.e. October to December) 2018, 11.3% of 16-24 year olds were NEET, a slight increase of 0.2 percentage points from quarter four of 2017.
The age 16-17 NEET rate was 4.2%, an increase of 0.6 percentage points. The 18-24 NEET rate was 13.1%, increasing by 0.2 percentage points.

However, none of these annual changes to the NEET rates were statistically significant

Brexit

It now looks increasingly likely that there will be a short delay to Brexit unless the deal, perhaps amended in some way with concessions from the EU, is passed on 12^th March in the newly scheduled meaningful vote.

Resignations and the formation of the Independent Group of MPs don’t really change the arithmetic yet. The shift of the Labour party’s position on a second referendum also does not make much difference either while the vast majority of MPs continue to vote along party political lines.

There will need to be many more resignations or radical changes of position on the deal if it is to pass in March. That is still possible, but a good number of Conservatives, from both the remain and the leave side, will need to find a way to support it, supported by a good number of Labour Brexiteers seeking to avoid a second vote. Remember that more than 100 MPs need to change their view on the deal for it to go through.

However, UK citizens worrying about their plans for travel to the EU may therefore find that they don’t need an International Driving Licence or private health insurance for an Easter trip. No deal is still, however, firmly on the table, so you may need them for the summer. The overwhelming flood of information from the government has included reissuances for EU colleagues and EU students about travel to the UK after a no deal Brexit – but of course the continued uncertainty is unhelpful. And it’s sobering to note that whatever the result of the current flurry, even if the deal is signed we will have to go through it all again before the end of the transition period in December 2020. There won’t be proper certainty about anything for a long time.

A delay beyond June still seems impossible – although it might seem a lot more possible by the time we get there.

Consultations

Click here to view the updated consultation tracker. Email us on policy@bournemouth.ac.uk if you’d like to contribute to any of the current consultations.

Other news

OfS Student Panel: The Office for Students (OfS) has announced five new members of its student panel, which advises the OfS board to ensure student interests are reflected in OfS’ work. Georgia Bell is President of the students’ union at the Northern School of Art; Rose Bennett is Student Experience officer (postgraduate) at the University of Birmingham; Samuel Dedman is vice-president education at the University of Southampton students’ union; Joshua Sanderson-Kirk is president of the student association at the University of Law and Sabrina Mundtazir is a student nurse at the University of Huddersfield.

University enterprise zones: The Treasury and BEIS have announced a £10 million fund to help develop proposals for up to 10 new university enterprise zones in England. Treasury Minister Robert Jenrick and Universities and Science Minister Chris Skidmore launched the fund during a visit to Nottingham University, which has piloted a University Enterprise Zone that is supporting start-ups and enterprises in the East Midlands. Universities Minister, Chris Skidmore, stated:

Our universities are among the best in the world, and when they join forces with our ambitious and innovative small businesses, they have the potential to meet the grand challenges of the future.

HESA have published stats on staff employed in HE providers for 2017/18

Student sexual harassment/violence: Dig-In have published an infographic on sexual harassment and violence experienced by students based on a survey.

They say:

56% of students have experienced unwanted sexual behaviours (such as inappropriate touching, explicit messages, being cat called, followed and/or being forced into sex or sexual acts)
Only 15% of students believe that they are the victims of sexual harassment
And only 8% have reported an offence.
Only 25% of students who were forced into having sex reported it
53% of incidents were perpetrated by another students and 30% took place on campus

They also say that only 52% of students understand that it is not possible to give consent if you are drunk

January 28, 2019

HE policy update for the w/e 25th January 2019

EU, Funding opportunities, Impact, international, policy, Research news, Student Engagement jforster

We have made the policy update an almost Brexit-free zone this week. Of course we are all looking forward to the excitement on Tuesday, described by the Chancellor Philip Hammond, on radio 4 as not being “high noon” – we’ve got lots more to get through before we get to high noon, apparently.

Brexit

Keeping it dry today, no politics here…if you are interested in all the amendments to the motion so far tabled for Tuesday, you can find descriptions of them on the BBC here. Parliament will publish the order of business nearer the time but as at Friday lunchtime the latest is here, which sets out the text of the amendments as tabled so far. It is very unlikely that all of these will be debated or voted on.

Dods have given us a very handy summary:

Amendment (a) in the name of Leader of the Opposition Jeremy Corbyn: Calls for Parliament to have a vote on staying in the customs union, and a second referendum with the aim of preventing the UK from leaving without a deal.
Amendment (b) in the name of Yvette Cooper: It provides for the European Union (Withdrawal) (No 3) Bill to be heard and passed on 5 February in a single day. The Bill, if passed, would mean that if the Prime Minister could not pass a withdrawal agreement by February 26 then the Commons would have an immediately vote on whether to request an extension of Article 50 from the EU which would end on 31 December 2019.
Amendment (e) in the name of Andrew Murrison and Sir Graham Brady: states that the EU withdrawal agreement would be amended so that the backstop shall expire on 31 December 2021.
Amendment (f) in the name of Hilary Benn: Calls on the Government to hold a series of indicative votes on the options setting out Exiting the European Union.
Amendment (g) in the name of Dominic Grieve: The Government’s powers under Standing Order No.14 which allows them to set government business would not apply. A motion entitled: “That this House has considered the United Kingdom’s departure from, and future relationship with, the European Union” would then become the first item of business.
Amendment (n) in the name of Andrew Murrison and Sir Graham Brady: amends the withdrawal agreement to include “and requires the Northern Ireland backstop to be replaced with alternative arrangements to avoid a hard border; supports leaving the European Union with a deal and would therefore support the Withdrawal Agreement subject to this change.”. *There is no suggestion of what the alternative arrangement would be.

Chief Political Commentator, John Rentoul has done a tally on likely outcomes from the amendment. Based on his calculations (very susceptible to change) Amendment B would pass by 320-317.[Ed: of course this one is a “long grass” amendment – it puts off the decision (as long as the EU agree) but who knows what Parliament would use the time for – the Bill to amend the leaving date and deliver the second part of the amendment is set out below]

And there are still some separate draft bills making their way through Parliamentary processes:

Geraint Davies (this one has been around since June 2018) – will have its second reading on 8^th Feb: A Bill to require the holding of a referendum to endorse the United Kingdom and Gibraltar exit package proposed by HM Government for withdrawal from the EU, or to decide to remain a member, following the completion of formal exit negotiations; and for connected purposes.

And his second one (first presented in December 2018) also gets its second reading on 8th Feb: A Bill to require the Prime Minister to revoke the notification, under Article 50(2) of the Treaty on European Union, of the United Kingdom’s intention to withdraw from the European Union unless two conditions are met; to establish as the first condition for non-revocation that a withdrawal agreement has been approved by Parliament by 21 January 2019 or during an extension period agreed by that date under Article 50(3) of the Treaty on European Union; to establish as the second condition for non-revocation that a majority of participating voters have voted in favour of that agreement in a referendum in which the United Kingdom remaining as a member of the European Union was the other option; and for connected purposes.

The Grieve bills have still not been published
The Yvette Cooper one has – but no second reading date has been announced

And possibly connected, or possibly not, this is interesting (but not yet published) – Peter Bone “the Prime Minister (Temporary Replacement) Bill 2017-19” – this one was first tabled in Feb 2017 so probably not related. A Bill to make provision for the carrying out of the functions of the Prime Minister in the event that a Prime Minister, or a person temporarily carrying out the functions of the Prime Minister, is incapacitated; and for connected purposes.

And that is enough for now…

TEF Review

The independent review of the TEF kicked off this week with a call to HE providers to share their views on the TEF. The review is being chaired by Dame Shirley Pearce and will contemplate the adequacy of the metrics on which judgements are based, the rating categories (Gold, Silver, Bronze) and the impact these have on providers, and whether TEF is fair, worth it, and in the public interest. The review will conclude and report in summer 2019.

The Minister said:“As Universities Minister I want you, the experts, to take part in Dame Shirley’s call for views and to give your thoughts so the TEF can work as well as it possibly can. It is important that we maximise the potential of this system and can only do that by getting invaluable insights from the sector.”

BU is compiling a response – please let us know if you want to input into this.

To coincide with the launch of the TEF review the DfE published their evaluation research into the TEF’s impact at year 2 (2016-17). They state it has driven providers to make improvements with positive changes in teaching quality and a focus on student employability. It also considers how widely prospective students used the TEF to determine their choice of institution.

A large majority considered that the TEF was either having a ‘positive’ or ‘neutral’ impact on their institutions. A small minority considered that the TEF had impacted their provider or the sector in a negative way.
Respondents reported that the TEF had contributed to an increased emphasis on student outcomes in the last two years (37%) and 29% noted that the TEF had contributed to an increased emphasis on teaching quality and the learning environment (rising to 45% among academic staff responding).
- A slightly lower proportion reported that the TEF had contributed to a change in course content (22%), or enhanced interventions for improving student retention (21%).
- With the exception of teaching quality/learning environment, HE providers which received a Bronze TEF award 2017 (Year 2) were more likely to report that the TEF had contributed to change over the last two years: 71% reported an increased emphasis on student outcomes, 38% noted change in course content, while 51% reported interventions for improving student retention.
They report a considerable amount of change in student employability over the last two years, attributing some of this change to the TEF.
- The most common impact attributed (at least in part) to the TEF was an increase in student exposure to employability opportunities (21%).
- A further 17% reported that communications with students about their careers had started sooner (rising to 37% among academic staff responding)
- 17% reported developments in the careers services as a result of the TEF. Only 11% reported that the TEF had enhanced employer partnerships.
28% of respondents reported an increased demand on staff to support students, at least in part as a result of the TEF (rising to 44% among academic staff responding)
A higher proportion of respondents noted that the TEF had contributed to a decrease in teaching morale (15%) than an increase (10%)
Recruitment
- Among Gold providers, 43% said that the TEF had, at least in part, impacted on an improved institutional reputation among potential applicants.
- Bronze award providers were more likely to attribute the TEF in a decline in reputation (25%).
- Page 14 considers the level of influence the TEF rating had on applications and choice of a HE provider
Respondents reported that at least partly as a result of the TEF:
- new initiatives were being developed to improve teaching standards (24%)
- there was an increase in teaching qualifications or training schemes (24%)
- staff were provided more support to deliver positive student experiences (23%)
- there was an increase in sharing best practice across departments (21%, rising to 37% among academic staff responding)
TEF brought a focus to some areas:
- increased investment in the monitoring of TEF-related metrics: 61% of TEF Contacts reported that the TEF – at least in part – contributed to increased monitoring of metrics such as NSS scores, continuation rates and employment data)
- This rose to 79% among Bronze providers.
- The qualitative interviews revealed a particular emphasis for some HE providers on monitoring retention rates, in part due to the financial implications of high retention rates.

This chart on page 34 shows a mapping of the perceptions of the impact that TEF has had: As Figure 3.2 shows, there are some clear patterns by broad category:

Student Experience – TEF Contacts reported a high amount of change in the last two years for all items, relative to other categories, and a moderate (average) amount of this was considered to be as a result of the TEF.
Student Employability – For four items, this followed a similar pattern to student experience, although generally both the amount of change and extent of TEF influence reported was slightly lower. Two items showed low change and low TEF impact.
Teaching Staff – With one exception, there had been low change in the last two years, and TEF influence was also primarily low.
Teaching Practices – Similar to student employability, with a higher level of change reported overall, and mostly a low amount of this was attributed to the TEF.
Prospective Students – All four items showed low or average levels of change in the last two years; with one exception TEF influence was also low.
Wider impacts – The extent of change in this category varied from very high to low, and in all instances where change had occurred, a high amount was attributed to the TEF, relative to other categories

Conclusions can be read at pages 120-123. One of the final points is that awareness and understanding of the TEF within the applicant population needs to increase for the TEF to fulfil its original purpose to better inform students’ choices about what and where to study.

The call for views is only the first step: “In addition to the call for views I will be holding a programme of listening sessions and commissioning specific assessments of specialist questions. These will include an independent analysis of the statistical base of the TEF process and an assessment of its international impact. See more on the workstreams here.“

Unconditional Offers

The Student Room ran a survey with TSR research to obtain prospective students’ views on unconditional offers.

46% agreed the Government should regulate unconditional offers (33% didn’t, 22% unsure)
However, 70% would be happy to receive an unconditional offer and 58% felt they would feel positive about a university that gave them an unconditional offer believing it is offered as recognition of achievement (especially when from a high rank university or competitive course)
In keeping with the above theme of unconditional offer as recognition the survey found ‘for the most part’ the prospective students felt universities should be selective in who receives an unconditional offers
The prospective students felt these were genuine reasons to receive an unconditional offer:
- Already have the grades (62% agreed)
- An impressive personal statement (40%)
- Successful interview (31%)
- Very high predicted grades (31%)
- Student is from a disadvantaged background (30%)

However, 10% felt that unconditional offers should never be made.

When asked if universities make unconditional offers to fill places rather than because of student aptitude or characteristics the opinion of unconditional offers became negative:
- 59% would perceive the university negatively if they believed they weren’t discerning and made too many unconditional offers (6% weren’t bothered about this)
- Conditional unconditional offers (when the university makes a conditional offer unconditional after the application selects them as their firm choice) received mixed responses with 47% perceiving this negatively and 20% who approved of it.
  However, the prospective students commented that the practice is manipulative. And while half said a conditional unconditional would not make them change their decision 27% said it would sway their choice to the unconditional university over the one they really wanted to attend. This was one of Sam Gyimah’s key criticisms on unconditional offers whilst he was HE Minister.
43% recognised that the unconditional offer was a boon to mental health – reducing the pressure of exams and allowing them to do better. Although others felt it would negatively impact motivation to perform well (39%) and that such students wouldn’t be sufficiently prepared for university study and exams.
Other students (without unconditional offers) were resentful and didn’t want to study alongside those with an unconditional offer that may not have worked as hard or achieved the required grades. One quote implied only the top universities should be allowed to make unconditional offers: “Ultimately I just think unconditional offers shouldn’t be handed out on a plate, and more regulation of less prestigious unis handing them out should be enforced.”

All in all the students back up Government concerns that unconditional offers sway capable students away from more prestigious universities, that they undermine the sector’s reputation, and that is it more about bums on seats within the crowded HE recruitment market. However, there is enough balancing student opinion to show the other side of the coin – young people value unconditional offers when they perceive they are a reward for aptitude, a reasoned boon to social mobility, and a balm to improve mental health. A large proportion were in favour of Government regulation, which the HE sector is keen to avoid.

And the OfS have responded with a press release, a briefing and interviews.

Some extracts from the briefing are here:

The growth of unconditional offers appears to be a consequence of increasing competition between universities. The OfS has a legal duty to have regard to the need to encourage competition where it is in the interests of students and employers. The question is whether the sorts of unconditional offer practices arising from this competition are in the interests of students

…The OfS is concerned about the rapid rise in unconditional offers, particularly those that require students to commit to a particular course. We will take action where they are not in students’ interests.

While some are seeking to justify unconditional offers as a tool to support fair access for disadvantaged students, contextual offer-making is a more effective way of achieving this.
We will make clear where ‘pressure selling’ practices are at risk of breaching consumer protection law, and empower students to challenge this as well as taking regulatory action if appropriate.
We will bring together a range of education, employer and other organisations to explore whether the admissions system serves the interests of students. We will work with the Department for Education, students, UCAS and others on a consultation on principles for how the admissions system can best achieve this goal.

….Are unconditional offers a good or bad thing? This is probably the wrong question. Most commentators agree that, used appropriately, unconditional offers have a legitimate and useful place in the university admissions system. The right question is probably more complex: what does an ‘appropriate’ unconditional offer look like?

Risk of reduced attainment

The most recent UCAS report, and our own analysis, support this concern. UCAS estimates that the proportion of applicants placed in higher education through unconditional offers who miss their predicted grades by two or more grades is around five percentage points higher than would be expected compared with those holding a conditional offer. UCAS’s modelling controls for different attainment at GCSE, background characteristics of the student and the course where they hold their firm offer to ensure that this estimate is not influenced by the group of applicants who hold unconditional offers. This proportion has remained fairly stable throughout the increase in unconditional offer-making. This means that as unconditional offers increase, more young people are attaining slightly weaker A-level results than expected each year.
….The rapid increase in unconditional offers means that it’s too early to assess with any certainty their effect on continuation rates, student satisfaction and degree attainment. The limited evidence we have on non-continuation rates is set out in Figure 3, which shows non-continuation rates by entry qualifications. Because of the timescale we have only been able to look at entrants in 2015-16, when the numbers of unconditional offers were much lower than in 2018, and the differences are not statistically significant. We will continue our analysis as more data becomes available.

Impact on disadvantaged students

There are particular concerns about the effect of unconditional offers on students from disadvantaged groups. Critics highlight the particular vulnerability of applicants who are the first in their family to attend university, and of those who lack parental support. These applicants may be more likely to accept an unconditional offer with limited information about their options and the potential drawbacks.UCAS analysis shows that more unconditional offers are being made to applicants from the areas with the lowest rates of participation in higher education: these applicants are more likely to receive an unconditional offer than applicants from areas with higher participation. This is illustrated in Figure 4.
…Our own analysis demonstrates that some of this difference may be attributable to types of university rather than to student characteristics. In other words, universities and colleges may not, in general, be directing their unconditional offers towards disadvantaged students; rather, those that take a greater proportion of disadvantaged students tend to use more unconditional offers. This is an important distinction. It suggests that unconditional offer-making to disadvantaged students may be driven more by the circumstances of universities and colleges than the needs of the students. This contrasts with the practice of contextual offer-making, which takes into account the circumstances in which academic results are achieved.

Constraining choice?

A concern is that applicants may choose an unconditional offer because they see it as a safer option than a conditional offer. In particular, students accepting a conditional unconditional offer are depriving themselves of the chance to
consider other universities and colleges. This can result in students making sub-optimal choices, without information on alternative options which may be more suitable for their career plans or may better reflect their abilities and talents. In other words, they may not necessarily be opting for the course and university or college that would be best for them overall.
Since they can have the effect of reducing attainment, unconditional offers may also limit students’ ability to choose a different higher education course, whether by changing their mind before starting, ‘trading up’ during adjustment or clearing, or transferring courses at a later stage. A connected concern centres on a perceived lack of transparency about how unconditional offers work. There is limited understanding of the criteria universities apply in selecting applicants to receive unconditional offers.

The OfS is taking action in relation to unconditional offers on a number of fronts:

We will continue to monitor and assess the way unconditional offers are being used across the sector.
We will ensure that provider-level data on unconditional offers is published on a regular basis, starting in 2019, including their impact at all stages of the student lifecycle where this can be monitored.
We will identify any cases where the evidence suggests that students with unconditional (or very low) offers are particularly at risk of poor outcomes, or not being properly supported. We will challenge the universities or colleges concerned, and intervene where necessary.
We will make clear our expectations that the governing bodies of universities and colleges are fully sighted on their institution’s admissions policy and its implications for the interests of individual students.
We will make clear where ‘pressure selling’ practices are at risk of breaching consumer law, and empower students to challenge this as well as taking regulatory action ourselves if appropriate.
We will work with UCAS and other bodies providing information, advice and guidance to improve students’ ability to make informed choices about unconditional offers.

The OFS research paper is here:

We are currently unable to include conditional unconditional offers (type B) which have not been recorded as unconditional (typically because the applicant has not made the offer their firm choice). The UCAS report includes an assessment of the conditional unconditional offers (type B) including those that are not recorded as unconditional. It suggests that the proportion of offers being made that have an unconditional component could be as much as 70 per cent higher than the unconditional offers reported here. Where possible we have shown the UCAS estimates of offers that contain an unconditional component alongside our estimates, for context.

Research

On Thursday the Chancellor, Phillip Hammond, announced £100 million investment for research and technology to future-proof the UK economy for the fourth industrial revolution and to boost UK innovation. The funding has been earmarked for the creation of 1,000 new PhD places across the UK for the next generation of Artificial Intelligence; to fund research into life-saving technology to be used in NHS hospitals; to address pollution hotspots within cities and develop an early warning system; and to improve voice-recognition software for business and consumers. Despite the rhetoric it’s not completely new money – it is part of the £7 billion that was promised for science and innovation in announcements since 2016. The Chancellor said:

“Britain is a great place to do business. And we are determined, as we leave the EU, to make sure it remains that way. We are leading the way in the tech revolution. The UK digital sector is now worth over £130 billion with jobs growing at twice the rate of those in the wider economy .I want to ensure we remain the standard bearer, so we must invest in our new economy so that it can adapt and remain competitive. We are backing British innovation to help create growth, more jobs and higher living standards.”

Accelerated Degrees

Last week we informed you that the regulations aiming to change the HE funding regime to facilitate accelerated degrees were presented in Parliament amid concerns from Labour. Labour feel that working throughout the summer break rules out lower income students who rely on holiday jobs to fund their study and living costs. This week the Commons voted and have passed the regulations authorising the 20% increase on yearly fees for accelerated students. While the vote wasn’t close there was substantial opposition with all Labour MPs voting against the increase. Other criticisms levied at the accelerated degree was the loss of the university experience and less time for students to settle into university life.

Chris Skidmore, Universities Minister, said the legislation was: “One of the great modern-day milestones for students and breaks the mould of a one-size-fits all system for people wanting to study in higher education.”

Next hurdle for the regulations is the House of Lords vote which will take place next Tuesday 29 January.

International students

Encouraging International Students (link)

Q – Jo Stevens: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department has taken to ensure that the number of international students choosing to study in the UK grows over the next 10 years.

A – Chris Skidmore:

The government fully recognises the important economic and cultural contribution that EU and international students make to the UK’s higher education sector. The government welcomes international students and there continues to be no limit on the number who can come here to study, and there are no plans to limit any institution’s ability to recruit them.
The UK remains a highly attractive destination for non-EU students with their numbers remaining at record highs, with over 170,000 non-EU entrants to UK higher education institutions for the seventh year running. The UK is a world-leading destination for study, with four universities in the world’s top 10 and 16 in the top 100 – second only to the USA. The government actively promotes study in the UK through the GREAT Campaign and to over 100 countries through the British Council.
In the Immigration White Paper, published on 19 December 2018, the government proposed to increase the post-study leave period for international students following completion of studies to 12 months for those completing a PhD, and to six months for all full-time postgraduate students and undergraduate students at institutions with degree awarding powers. Going beyond the recommendations set out by the Migration Advisory Committee, these proposals will benefit tens of thousands of international students.

Q – Catherine West: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether there will be an independent review of credibility interviews within the student immigration system to ensure the system is (a) fit for purpose, (b) cost effective relative to current risk and (c) does not hinder universities’ ability to recruit a diverse range of students.

A – Caroline Nokes:

An internal review of point of application credibility interviews for international students was conducted in 2018 to ensure that interviews are adding value to the case consideration process and not unnecessarily inconveniencing customers.
Up to date risk information was factored in to this review. Regular engagement with universities and other educational institutions ensures that feedback is collected in relation to the application process.

Q – Wes Streeting: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether EU students starting courses in England in the 2019-20 academic year will be eligible for home fee status in the event of the UK leaving the EU without a deal.

A: Chris Skidmore:

The department is aware that students, staff and providers are concerned about what EU Exit means for study and collaboration opportunities. To help give certainty, in July 2018, the department announced guarantees on student finance for EU nationals.
These guarantees are not altered if the UK leaves the EU without a deal. EU nationals (and their family members) who start a course in England in the 2019/20 academic year or before, will continue to be eligible for ‘home fee’ status and student finance support from Student Finance England for the duration of their course, provided they meet the residency requirement.

The House of Commons library also released an international and EU student briefing paper. You can download the pdf paper from the link at the very bottom of this page.

Q – Jo Stevens: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he plans to review the option of introducing a post-study work visa allowing up to two years of work experience for international students in the UK.

A – Caroline Nokes:

The independent Migration Advisory Committee’s report on international students, published in September 2018, recommended against the introduction of a separate post-study work visa. The report also made several positive recommendations with regard to the current post-study work offer. (Link.)
… As set out in the Immigration White Paper, published last month, under the new student route all students studying at a Masters’ level, or at Bachelors’ level at an institution with degree awarding powers, will be eligible for a six-month post study leave period. Doctoral students will be eligible for a 12-month post study leave period. This will benefit tens of thousands of international students by providing them with more time to gain valuable experience or find employment in the UK in accordance with the skilled work migration routes.

Post-18 review

The rumours and leaks surrounding Augar’s Review of Post-18 education and funding have been a weekly affair over the last month with mass speculation over how degree tuition fees may change in the future. This week the BBC ran an article suggesting that Justine Greening planned to axe tuition fees in favour of graduate tax contributions before she was reshuffled out of office. The article says:

She [Justine] says she had been working on a radically different system which would have removed fees – but instead the prime minister launched a review of student finance, chaired by financier Philip Augar. Ms Greening is scathing about the review, which is expected to report back next month… She says its public remit is confused – without any “clear objectives of the problem it was trying to fix”. And she says its private purpose was to buy time and only “tweak” a few of the most politically toxic aspects of the current system.

Other news

Extremism:

On Monday the Henry Jackson Society published Extreme Speakers and Events: In the 2017-18 Academic Year. It claims that in 2017/18 there were 435 student focussed events which had extremist content and creates a league table of the institutions most regularly hosting events which contain such content. The Society garnered media attention in claiming such universities were failing in their Prevent duties. They also criticised the Office for Students (OfS) monitoring and questioned the OfS figure that 97% of universities are compliant with Prevent. Wonkhe highlighted that the report doesn’t consider the risk assessment and mitigation that may have been put in place by the host institutions. Responding to the report Queen Mary University replied that their speakers were subject to “stringent checks” and Birmingham University said “none of the speakers appear on any government list of proscribed organisations or individuals”. Nevertheless, The Times report that Robert Halfon, Chair of the Commons Education select committee, said: “This is incredibly distressing. We seem to be going backwards. There needs to be an urgent inquiry.”

By Wednesday the Home Office Minister of State for Security, Ben Wallace, announced a public independent review of the Prevent counter-radicalisation programme stating it was in response to an amendment by peers seeking such a move during scrutiny of the government’s counter-terrorism and border security bill. He continued:

“This review should expect those critics of Prevent, who often use distortions and spin, to produce solid evidence of their allegations.” On the timing he said: “The review of part 5 of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015, which provides the legislative foundation for the Prevent programme, is in any event due to take place early in 2020, just 12 months away. Given that, I have decided that the time is now right to initiate a review of Prevent. Communities across the country are behind the policy and are contributing to it because, like us, they want to protect their young people from being groomed and exploited by extremists.”

The Financial Times also reports Parliament’s joint committee on human rights, comprising both MPs and peers, has also called for the scheme to be scrutinised.

Civic Engagement: Narratives on HE: slumming it on civic engagement is a new blog on Wonkhe covering the social good that students do within a community.

International Education Strategy: Education Minister, Damian Hinds, announced the intention to develop a cross-Government international education strategy stressing that education is “a big part of our diplomacy”. The strategy will address and encourage incoming international students to the HE sector as well as supporting the expansion of UK universities abroad, Damian said:

Inbound international students is a really important part of [the strategy], both for the earnings reason – it’s an important part of business – but also, just as important, because of the role it plays in our place in the world and because it makes sure we have diverse, vibrant student communities where everyone is learning from each other.”

UUK International Director, Vivienne Stern, said:

“We’re delighted to hear the Secretary of State for Education speaking publicly about the new governmental international education strategy and we are looking forward to its launch. The sector has long called for an ambitious strategy, backed up by meaningful policy, to encourage international students to choose UK universities. International students are vital to our universities.”
The speech was also covered by The Financial Times.

Disadvantaged pupils:

The DfE have released data showing rising standards in secondary schools with disadvantaged pupils in multi-academy trusts making more progress than the equivalent national average. School Standards Minister, Nick Gibb, said:

Making sure that all pupils, regardless of their background, are able to fulfil their potential is one of this Government’s key priorities and these results show that more pupils across the country are doing just that.It’s been clear for some time that standards are rising in our schools and today’s data underlines the role academies and free schools are playing in that improvement, with progress above the national average and impressive outcomes for disadvantaged pupils.

A level and other 16-18 results have also been published highlighting lower attainment for disadvantaged students compared to non-disadvantaged students across all qualification types.

Meanwhile the Public Account Committee have published a report on school academies accounts and performance. It concludes that a number of high profile academy failures have been costly to the taxpayer and damaging to children’s education, and recommends that the governance and oversight of academy trusts needs to be more rigorous. Furthermore that Academy trusts do not make enough information available to help parents and local communities understand what is happening in individual academy schools. And when things go wrong it is not clear who parents can turn to, to escalate concerns about the running of academy schools and academy trusts.

Contact Sarah if you would like a more in depth summary of any of the above three reports.

EDM: An interesting cross-section of MPs have signed the following Early Day Motion within Parliament which pushes back against the recent ‘let them fall’ mindset to Universities in financial difficulty:

That this House recognises the crucial role of our higher education sector in meeting the nation’s skills needs and supporting local economies; notes with concern the recent comments by Sir Michael Barber, chair of the Office for Students, which suggest that the new regulator will not support universities experiencing financial difficulties; further notes that allowing a higher education institution to fail would cause significant harm to its students, graduates and local area; awaits with interest the findings of Philip Augar’s review of post-18 education and funding which represents an opportunity to overhaul the current system predicated on student debt; and calls on the Government to introduce a fair and sustainable funding system which protects both student interests, institutional funding, and which recognises higher education is not a private commodity but an essential public good.

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JANE FORSTER | SARAH CARTER

Policy Advisor Policy & Public Affairs Officer

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