Tagged / learning gain

HE policy update for the w/e 14th February 2022

COVID-19, EU, international, parliament, policy, Research news

Hi all, Parliament are in recess but there is plenty going on.  We start with last week’s reshuffle and research, but there are strong hints about new plans for access and participation

Mini Reshuffle

Last week there was a mini reshuffle of the parliamentarians holding Government. The appointments effectively draw his loyal staff ever closer and bolster up support for Boris personally within the Cabinet.

  • Michael Ellis MP has been made Minister for the Cabinet Office on top of his current role as Paymaster General and will be attend cabinet. The role was previously held by Steve Barclay. Ellis has become more visible lately as the minister most often sent up to the despatch box to answer urgent questions around ‘partygate’.
  • Stuart Andrew MP becomes Minister for Housing, leaving his role as Deputy Chief Whip and replacing Christopher Pincher at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. As the Mirror points out, this makes him the eleventh housing minister in almost as many years, narrowly overtaking the ‘curse’ of the Universities Minister.
  • James Cleverly MP becomes Minister for Europe, leaving his role as Minister for Middle East, North Africa and North America and replacing Chris Heaton-Harris who has been made Chief Whip.
  • Heather Wheeler MP becomes Parliamentary Secretary in the Cabinet Office, a ministerial role previously held by Julia Lopez, in addition to her current role as Assistant Government Whip.
  • Jacob Rees-Mogg MP becomes Minister for Brexit Opportunities and Government Efficiency and will attend cabinet. He leaves his role as Leader of the House of Commons. It also looks as though he might take on the former responsibilities of Minister for Efficiency and Transformation – the position held by Lord Agnew until last month when he resigned over the Government writing off furlough fraud.
  • Mark Spencer MP becomes Leader of the House of Commons (and Lord President of the Privy Council) and will attend cabinet. He leaves his role as Government Chief Whip to replace Rees-Mogg.
  • Chris Heaton-Harris MP becomes Chief Whip and will attend cabinet. He leaves his role as Minister for Europe (FCDO), a role he held for roughly 51 days, to replace Spencer.

In addition, last week these appointments were made:

  • Steve Barclay MP, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, took up the post of the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff following the resignation of Dan Rosenfield.
  • Andrew Griffith MPwas appointed Director of the Number 10 Policy Unit, having already served as Johnson’s PPS for some time, following the resignation of Munira Mirza.
  • Guto Harriwas appointed Director of Communications following the resignation of Jack Doyle. He previously worked with Johnson during his time as London Mayor. His appointment sparked controversy.

Research

Research Spend: Andy Westwood reminds us of some key research spend points in Research Professional’s Sunday Reading Balancing the Books: The R&D mission

  • to increase public spending outside the greater south-east (in this case, the ‘golden triangle’) by a third over the spending review period and by 40 per cent by 2030 is to be welcomed. So too is the commitment to spending 55 per cent outside the greater south-east by 2024-25…As commentators…have pointed out, this is not much of a departure from existing spending and should be easily achieved. Richard Jones… has also suggested that this spending is likely to be more at the applied end of R&D, and the stated expectation of a “2:1 private sector match” more or less confirms this. It should also remind us that this R&D mission has an explicit purpose of boosting productivity, pay and economic success rather than just dividing up the spending review’s spoils.
  • But that spending context is important—as are the government’s longer-term targets of spending 2.4 per cent (and eventually more) of GDP on R&D by the middle of the decade. The spending review allocations offer real headroom for growth and much of this spending remains unprescribed. Of the £20 billion promised across government by 2024-25, only £5.9bn will be spent on the “core research budget”.
  • So it’s less a fight over research councils and quality-related funding and more about other R&D spending, such as that distributed elsewhere in BEIS and by other government departments, including health and defence.

Horizon Europe: the prospect of the UK joining Horizon Europe appears to be slipping away. Last week in the Commons Science and Technology Select Committee Science Minister, George Freeman, stated:, It’s clear to me we can’t go into a financial year with ongoing uncertainty. So, internally, our thinking is that we need to be ready in the new financial year to start to release some of the funding that we’ve put aside for Horizon into programmes so that the science community isn’t left sitting on the bench, as it were, rather than on the pitch. What I’m keen to do is make sure that those could seamlessly—like a motorway’s slipway—segue back into Horizon association, were that to materialise after the French election [in April].

Research Professional suggest that 31 March will be make or break decision time. Research Professional report: Freeman spoke to the Financial Times about the UK’s ‘Plan B’, describing a £6bn global science fund to run over three years. The science minister is quoted as wanting a “coherent and ambitious plan for international science…based on the elements of Horizon that researchers find most valuable: global fellowships, strong industrial challenge funding [and] innovation missions around tomorrow’s technologies”. He added: “Outside Horizon, we have the freedom to be more global.” … The UK is not alone in feeling excluded from Horizon, with Switzerland similarly feeling its membership is being held up over debates around the wider political relations between the country and the EU…The FT story is not so much news as a periodic reminder that making a decision on association seems as difficult as ever.

Here’s the latest from the European Affairs Committee on Horizon Europe.

The ongoing campaigning to remain part of Horizon Europe has been a regular news feature this week. Wonkhe: Organisations across Europe are calling for science to be put above politics as the UK and Switzerland’s association with Horizon Europe remains in limbo. Universities UK has partnered with the Royal Society, Wellcome, EPFL, ETH Zurich, and the ETH Board to launch the Stick to Science campaign, which argues that the UK and Switzerland’s inclusion in the scheme will bring an estimated €18billion in additional funding, and are inviting signatures for the initiative. The PIE News and the Financial Times cover the story.

UKRI Chair: Business Secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, was reported as vetoing the appointment of Jonathan Michie for UKRI’s Executive Chair role for party political reasons. The Guardian also run the story.

Global Talent: Wonkhe – The government’s new Global Talent website has launched with the aim of attracting research experts to come and innovate in Britain. The site, which is a collaboration between UKRI and several government departments, will provide information on working in and with UK universities, innovation, and business.

Destination Australia: The Russell Group call for closer research and mobility ties with Australia. In a joint letter sent to the Australian and British foreign and trade ministers, the Chairs of the Group of Eight (Go8) and the Russell Group, their countries’ key representative bodies for world-class research-intensive universities, said they would establish a new committee to look at ways to increase two-way research collaboration and explore how this could be used to boost trade and investment and support economic growth.

Parliamentary Questions:

France took up the rotating six-month Presidency of the Council of the European Union in January with the motto Recovery, strength and a sense of belonging. The agreed priorities for the next 18 months are:

  • To protect the citizens and freedoms by focusing on respecting and protecting European values such as democracy, rule of law, gender equality, and on strengthening the Schengen area and the EU’s common asylum and migration policy
  • To promote a new growth and investment model for Europe, based on sustainable green growth and strengthening the EU’s industrial and digital sovereignty
  • To build a greener and more socially equitable Europe that better protects the health of Europeans
  • A global Europe that promotes multilateralism and renewed international partnerships and adopts a shared vision among the 27 member states on strategic threats

Pages 4-5 of this briefing indicate more on the above themes and is an interesting short read. Also in the document is analysis of what the French premiership means. While the above listed items are the EU priorities France intends a particular focus on climate change, digital transformation, and security. The priorities have connotations for both research priorities and budgets as well as economic competition between the UK and EU.

Skills Bill – OfS’ proposed new powers

Proposed amendments to the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill tabled by the Government aims to change the way the Office for Students (OfS) publicises investigations with HE providers and protect it from defamation claims. The OfS will be able to state publicly if it intends to investigate, or already is investigating, a provider or individual and will be protected from defamation claims. Where it publicises an upcoming investigation it must also publish the findings, even if no decision is reached or no further action is taken. The provisions would allow the OfS to publish notices, decisions and reports given or made in the performance of its functions, while considering:

  • The interests of HE students, potential applicants, alumni, and HE providers
  • The need for excluding from publication any information that “would or might, in the opinion of the OfS, seriously and prejudicially affect the interests of that body or individual”
  • The public interest

Publications relating to a decision to conduct an investigation are to be protected from defamation claims if they include information on:

  • A statement of the OfS’ decision to conduct the investigation,
  • A summary of the matter being, or to be, investigated, and
  • A reference to the identity of any higher education provider or other body or individual whose activities are being, or to be, investigated.

Wonkhe: …new clause 67C. In publishing details of a decision to conduct an investigation, summarising the matter that is being investigated, and naming the provider (or other body) under investigation the OfS is protected from defamation claims. This doesn’t apply to other information that the OfS may publish, and – wonderfully – it doesn’t apply if the publication “is shown to have been made with malice”.

The clause is controversial as this sort of disclosure risks damaging the reputation of HE providers even when the OfS decides not to take further action or implement sanctions.  It also came up in the context of the consultation on student protection directions in 2020.   In that context, there were concerns about the impact on an institution that was in difficulty if the OfS published their market exit plans.  In that context the guidance now says that they will consider the public interest when considering publication.

The DfE has published an updated assessment of how the Skills Bill interacts with human rights legislation, to account for the new provisions. There are also questions over how the Skills Bill will interact with the Freedom of Speech Bill.

Here’s the short Wonkhe blog on the topic.

In other OfS news last week Susan Lapworth was appointed as the OfS Interim Chief Executive from 1 May until the end of 2022. This covers the recruitment period for a permanent OfS chief executive. Susan takes over from Nicola Dandridge’s planned departure as her tenure in the chief role ended.

Lord Wharton, chair of the OfS, said: This is an excellent appointment to see the OfS through an important phase of our work, including the delivery of our reforms to quality and student outcomes. Susan has worked closely with the board since the OfS was established and is perfectly placed to lead the team through this period. Her experience and expertise has been invaluable to the OfS, and I am looking forward to working closely with her in this new role.

Access & Participation

The OfS has shared more than a hint of what is to come under the new Director for Fair Access and Participation.

In a presentation, there was the following advice:

  • We strongly encourage you to vary your plan to take account of the priorities outlined by the Director for Fair Accessand Participation.
  • We will publish advice on how to do this in spring 2022.
  • The advice will include information on the areas that should be covered in variations. This is likely to cover:
    • strategic partnerships with schools to raise attainment
    • improving the quality of provision for underrepresented students
    • developing non-traditional pathways and modes of study
    • the production of two-page access and participation plan executive summaries using an optional template.

We even get a mention in the speech!

  • But we are expecting providers to pull their weight on pre-16 attainment, a challenge which affects us all.
  • We will be generous in our expectations of the work providers undertake in this area.
  • It may be expanding evidence-led, provenly-successful interventions like Bournemouth University’s work on literacy in primary schools. Their student ambassadors worked with Year 6 pupils through a 10 week reading programme, which saw the reading ages of two-thirds of the participants increased.
  • It could be new thinking and tools for measuring and enhancing the knowledge and skills of disadvantaged pupils in subjects and year groups where we do not yet have coherent curricula matched with integrated, informative assessment.
  • It will almost certainly include both place-based policy initiatives tied closely to localities and more wide-reaching regional and national initiatives.
  • We are keen to see innovation and experimentation – provided there is commitment to independent, published evaluation.

Wonkhe blogs:

Research Professional (writing before the well-trailed speech was delivered)

Admissions

The English exam boards published information on the 2022 GCSE, AS and A level exam adaptations which adjust for Covid related learning disruption. Plans for grading will be more generous for summer 2022, with boundaries likely to be lower than in previous years. Ofqual is planning on returning to pre-pandemic grading over a two-year period, meaning this year there will be a ‘mid-point’ set between 2019 boundaries and the grade levels used in teacher assessments last year. Also:

Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi said:

  • Exams are the best and fairest form of assessment, and we firmly intend for them to take place this summer, giving students a fair chance to show what they know.
  • We know students have faced challenges during the pandemic, which is why we’ve put fairness for them at the forefront of our plans. The information to help with their revision published today, as well as the range of other adaptations, will make sure they can do themselves justice in their exams this summer.

EPI have published Covid-19 and Disadvantage gaps in England 2020. It considers the national disadvantage gap (the gap in grades between disadvantaged students and their peers) in 2020 at key stages 4 and 5. Highlighting the impact of the 2020 (teacher assessed) grades on different students. Dods have provided a summary of the report and the recommendations here. Or these are the high-level points:

  • The gap in GCSE grades between students in long-term poverty and their better off peers has failed to improve over the last ten years.
  • More students have now fallen into longer-term poverty.
  • Fears that the switch to teacher assessed grades for GCSEs in 2020 would penalise students from disadvantaged backgrounds are largely unfounded – with no evidence poorer GCSE students lost out under this system.
  • But for students in college and sixth form (16-19 education), the gap in grades between poorer students and their better off peers widened in 2020.
  • This was driven by A level students gaining a whole grade more from teacher assessments than those who studied qualifications such as BTECs.

Also this week Teach First have published Rethinking pupil premium – a costed proposal for levelling up.

Balancing FE & HE

The Civic University Network and partners published Going further and higher: How collaboration between colleges and universities can transform lives and places. It calls for greater collaboration between colleges and universities and setting out recommendations for governments and sector leaders to support regional priorities and deliver UK-wide economic recovery.

Recommendations for sector leaders, which focus on creating strong local networks:

  1. Agree the institutions who are involved in the network and embrace the local geography and specialisms that already exist.
  2. Develop a cohesive education and skills offer for local people, employers and communities built around lifelong learning, ensuring inefficient duplication and competition is reduced.
  3. Move beyond personal relationships and agree how the whole institution is involved in collaboration, with clear roles and shared responsibility for partnership.

Recommendations to governments across the four nations to build better education and skills systems:

  1. Set an ambitious 10-year strategy to ensure lifelong learning for all and to deliver on national ambitions.
  2. Balance investment in FE and HE to ensure the whole education and skills system is sustainably funded so that colleges and universities can work in the interests of their local people, employers and communities.
  3. Equal maintenance support across loans and grants for HE and FE students, regardless of age, personal circumstances, or route into education.
  4. Tackle the ‘messy middle’ by defining distinct but complementary roles for colleges and universities to avoid a turf war over who delivers various types of education and training.
  5. Create a single funding and regulatory body for the entire post-16 education and skills system in each nation to deliver more aligned and complementary regulatory approaches that will ensure smoother learner journeys.

The report fits well with the Government’s cohesive approach to sharing learners such as emphasising the technical education route as an equal status to HE academic study. Planning education from schools to postgraduate with interaction of industry and the education providers at each level has long been a Conservative ideal and was apparent in this week’s speech from the newly-appointed OfS Director for Fair Access and Participation (more here).

Research Professional analyse the report and weave it together with the Government’s current intent on Levelling Up, the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill, Augar, the OfS and vocational education.

Students

Careers 2032: Wonkhe report on a new Careers report –A new research report on the future of careers support from Handshake, in partnership with AGCAS, the Institute of Student Employers and Wonkhe, finds that 32% of students worry they aren’t good enough or ready for a graduate job, rising to 39% of students from less privileged backgrounds. Employers are primarily worried about retaining the graduates they hire, with 71% concerned about rising to this challenge in the decade ahead. For careers professionals, dealing with the fallout from Covid-19 and responding to students’ knocked confidence will be a major priority in the coming years. The Careers 2032 report brings together insight from student representatives and SU professional staff, employers, and careers professionals to explore how careers support is changing – concluding that deeper collaborations within and outside universities will be needed to support a more personalised journey towards graduate employment for a greater diversity of students. For further analysis have a look at Wonkhe’s blog.

Wonkhe also published their report with UPP and the Student Futures Commission “A Student  Futures Manifesto”.  This calls all institutions to work with students to develop actions and commitments to securing successful student futures by the end of the 2022/23 academic year.  It also calls for better IT, a “what works” review of online teaching and assessment and a “challenge fund” for mental health and wellbeing.

Wonkhe blog by Mary Curnock Cook here.

Student Drug Use: Wonkhe report that a major new taskforce has been established to tackle student drug use, investigate how a common approach to reducing harm might be developed, and determine how collective action might tackle the supply of drugs on campus. It follows concerns about the impact of student drug use, with the associated risks of learning and mental health problems, damage to future job prospects, addiction and avoidable deaths. The group, chaired by Middlesex University vice chancellor Nic Beech, has been established by a partnership between Universities UK, Unite Students, GuildHE and Independent HE, and will include input from a range of government departments, sector agencies, charities and law enforcement.

Blog: which areas of the new taskforce investigation will need particular care in order to avoid unintended consequences.

This week the Times also ran an article on why county lines gangs are targeting students.

Mental Health: Student Space has been extended to July 2022.  Wonkhe review the underpinning evidence.

Gambling: Parliamentary Question on supporting students with gambling addictions.

Cost of living: The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has published Government uses high inflation as cover for hitting students, graduates and universities. The article begins: The government is quietly tightening the financial screws on students, graduates and universities. Students will see substantial cuts to the value of their maintenance loans, as parental earnings thresholds will stay frozen in cash terms and the uplift in the level of loans will fall far short of inflation. This continues a long-run decline in the value of maintenance entitlements… Separately, the student loan repayment threshold will also be frozen in cash terms. This is effectively a tax rise on middle-earning graduates. A graduate earning £30,000 will need to pay £113 more towards their student loan in the next tax year than the government had previously said. Finally, tuition fees will remain frozen in cash terms for another year, which hits universities and mainly benefits the taxpayer. On the whole, as our updated student finance calculator shows, the government is saving £2.3 billion on student loans under the cover of high inflation. More here.

Research Professional report on the IFS article and include opposing comment by Nick Hillman, Director of HEPI.

PQs

Other news

We talked in a recent update about the new TEF and the requirements to explain what we are doing about learning gain – there is a Wonkhe blog here calling this out as “virtue signalling!.

Apprenticeships: Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi announced a new flexible apprenticeship scheme.

AI & Data Converts: DCMS has announced that up to £23 million in government funding will create more AI and data conversion courses, helping young people from underrepresented groups including women, black people and people with disabilities join the UK’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) industry. Up to two thousand scholarships for masters AI conversion courses, which enable graduates to do further study courses in the field even if their undergraduate course is not directly related, will be available. The Government is calling on companies to play their part in creating a future pipeline of AI talent by match-funding the AI scholarships for the conversion courses. They highlight that industry support would get more people into the AI and data science job market quicker and strengthen their businesses.

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HE policy update for the w/e 12th July 2019

Business Engagement, EU, Funding opportunities, Industry collaboration, innovation, international, Knowledge Exchange, policy, Research news

We focus on the interesting set of reports released as people clear their desks before their summer holidays.

Learning gain

The OfS have published evaluations of the various learning gain projects that have been running for some time.  The OfS website is very clear “The report below is independent research which we have commissioned. As such, it does not necessarily reflect the views or official position of the OfS.”  You will recall that one reason for HEFCE setting up these projects was to see if a learning gain measure could be created for the TEF.  The answer would seem to be “no” although given the disclaimer, that might not stop them having a go.

On the final evaluation of 13 projects, the conclusions are:

  • Learning gain can be defined as the change in knowledge, skills, work-readiness and personal development, as well as enhancement of specific practices and outcomes in defined disciplinary and institutional contexts.
  • embedding measures in curriculum design is the most effective approach for collecting data for measuring learning gain
  • Pilots of standardised tests carried out during the projects have not proven to be robust and effective measures of learning gain due to challenges of student engagement, differential scores across socio-demographic characteristics, subject differences and use of data.
  • Contextual factors such as subject-level differences, institution type and student characteristics differences impact the transferability of measures of learning gain. These differences should be considered when designing and selecting learning gain measures; when analysing and presenting findings. Mediating effects need to be considered.

The report on the National Mixed Methods project  has the following recommendations:

For policy-makers and providers      

  • A one-size-fits-all measure of learning gain (modelled on the NMMLGP questionnaire) should be abandoned as it holds minimal value for the majority of students and is not an influential construct in their present decision-making concerning either choice of institution or impact on the curriculum.
  • Students’ perceptions of learning gain need further exploration in order to move beyond what are acknowledged as impressionistic findings reported here, which are bound by proportionality constraints.
  • The sector needs to consider whose interests are best served by the measurement of learning gain. The evidence gathered here from participating providers and their students indicates that there is a dichotomous view of learning gain: either as a marker of institution positioning within a market-oriented system; or as a process of progression throughout the student journey. The two things are not necessarily synonymous.

For higher education providers

  • All learning gain work needs to be related to students’ own context and clearly embedded at local level within the subject or disciplinary area. Engagement is also highly dependent on whether any initiatives are promoted by trusted sources such as course tutors, rather than unfamiliar contacts.
  • Providers should consider developing a repertoire of approaches, as part of a learning gain toolkit, which can be accessed by students as part of a flexible and adaptable process underpinned by student choice rather than normative comparison. Providers are encouraged to also review the findings of the overall evaluation of the learning gain Pilot Projects for approaches which are most suited to their local contexts.

And finally the report on Higher Education Learning Gain Analysis (HELGA): says:

  • “HELGA set out to explore whether administrative data could be used to create a proxy measure for learning gain. The project has experimented with different techniques, considered different outcomes that could be a proxy for learning gain and different source of data that could be used. Ultimately, the project has developed two methods for measuring value-added in higher education for a subset of the undergraduate population.
  • The two measures have produced different results in their measure of value-added and there is no straightforward way of evaluating which is the most accurate.
  • It should be noted that the ‘value-added’ measured is the difference between the ‘expected’ degree outcomes for students at an institution based on prior attainment (and other student and course characteristics in the case of the multilevel model) and the actual degree outcomes. The measure does not explain what this difference might be caused by. As mentioned in Section 2.3, there is concern about the comparability of degree classifications across institutions. This raises a question of the suitability of this value-added measure for comparing institutions.
  • Neither methodology should be used further without additional sensitivity analyses and serious thought as to what is really being measured and whether it is fair to measure institutional performance in terms of value-added based on the restricted population used.
  • At the outset of HELGA, it was known that it would never be possible to create a single measure of learning gain, encompassing all of the different elements that are understood to make up learning gain. It has necessarily focused on cognitive gain only, although some thought was given to using NSS metadata to measure non-cognitive learning gain, but this was unsuccessful. However, this does not mean that this could not be useful for measuring value-added, but it should be made clear that it should not be adopted to produce a single measure of learning gain”

Grade Inflation

And that brings us nicely to the next item…the OfS have published their latest review of degree classifications:

  • The proportion of first-class honours degrees awarded has increased from 16 per cent to 29 per cent between 2010-11 and 2017-18.
  • The OfS has used statistical modelling to account for factors including entrance qualifications and student characteristics which may influence attainment. When accounting for these factors, they find that 13.9 percentage points’ worth of first class degree attainment remains “unexplained”.
  • In total, 94 per cent of the 148 universities and other higher education providers included in the analysis demonstrated a statistically significant unexplained increase in the proportion of first-class degrees awarded in 2017-18 compared to 2010-11.
  • The report updates data from a report issued in December 2018. Since that report, universities have collectively announced plans to act together to curb grade inflation via the work of the UK Standing Committee for Quality Assessment.
  • Commenting on the report, Susan Lapworth, director of competition and registration at the Office for Students, said:
    • ‘Worries about grade inflation threaten to devalue a university education in the eyes of employers and potential students. So it is essential we regain and maintain public confidence in the reliability of degree classifications.
    • ‘This data shows a further increase in both the rate of first-class degrees awarded, and the proportion of those awards. These increases cannot be fully explained by the factors we have taken into account in our analysis.
    • ‘The performance shown in the new data pre-dates our call for the sector to take action on grade inflation, so we would not expect to see the impact of such actions in today’s report.
    • ‘There are, though, positive signs that the higher education sector has begun to tackle this issue. We welcome the steps taken by the UK Standing Committee for Quality Assessment and the positive response from universities to a recent consultation on the steps universities should take to demonstrate that standards are secure. We recognise that change will take time, but it remains absolutely crucial that students, graduates and the general public can be assured that the value of a degree is maintained. That is why concerted, focused, and sector-wide action is so important.
    • ‘Following today’s publication, the OfS will be contacting those universities and providers with the most significant unexplained increases in degree classifications. We will ask them to provide further information to help us understand how they account for these increases. In seeking this additional information we recognise that there are factors that could explain the increases – for example improvements in learning and teaching – that we have not been able to measure in our analysis.
    • ‘Given the significant public scrutiny of degree standards we want to understand how universities have assured themselves that they have, and continue to, apply consistent standards. Doing so will help ensure that the degrees that students work so hard for continue to enjoy public confidence.’

The report and Excel versions of the data tables have been published.

The use of the word “unexplained” (again) is shocking given that it means “unexplained by prior attainment and social advantage”.  Inevitably this has been picked up in the media and by the Education Secretary.

BBC story here with a Damien Hinds comment:

  •  “Education Secretary Damian Hinds warned against “unfair practices”.  Mr Hinds said that if universities were giving many more top degrees without a legitimate reason, it was unfair on those who had studied to the same standard in previous years.  “We owe it to the hard-working students and institutions who play by the rules to stamp out this unfair practice,” said the education secretary. “Today’s figures are disappointing and risk compromising the public trust in the high standards of our universities,” he said.”

Wonkhe point out the escalation of threat level here: “Back in December, he said “I am urging universities to tackle this serious issue and have asked the Office for Students to deal firmly with any institution found to be unreasonably inflating grades” – so this feels like threat inflation to us.”

The OfS seem to be totally unaware of the damage that their choice of language may be doing.  In a blog, Susan Lapworth, the Director of competition and registration at the OFS, says about the plan to follow up with universities (emphasis added);

“To ensure that all universities, colleges and other registered providers are playing their part in maintaining the standard of degrees, we are likely to write to those providers that held degree awarding powers in 2010-11 and where the data show the most significant increases in the percentage of first class degrees awarded between 2010-11 and 2017-18. We’re focusing on providers with:

  • a statistically significant increase in the unexplained percentage of first class degrees awarded in a single year, or
  • a statistically significant overall increase in the unexplained percentage of first class degrees awarded between 2010-11 and 2017-18.

We will ask them to provide further information to help us understand how they account for these increases. We want to understand, for example, whether a provider has made recent changes to the way it calculates degree classifications, or whether it can point to other evidence – such as investment in staffing, teaching, services or facilities – that would credibly account for the ‘unexplained’ increase. We are also interested in the steps governing bodies have taken to ensure that academic governance arrangements are adequate and effective.

In seeking this additional information, we are not implying that the trends we can see in the published data indicate any form of wrongdoing from these providers – we are trying to understand better the reasons for performance that will be subject to public scrutiny and so are focusing our attention on those providers with the biggest unexplained increases. Given the significant public scrutiny of degree standards we want to understand how providers have assured themselves that they continue to apply consistent standards.

Doing so is essential to maintaining public confidence in degrees.”

General Election?

There has been little to say on Brexit recently because of the speculation and posturing of the Conservative leadership race. The news is all about what the two candidates might actually do (rather than what they say they will do as some promises may turn out to be completely unachievable if the EU or Parliament don’t play ball). The Conservatives, despite bitter Brexit infighting, are keen to retain power and remain in Government, avoiding an election at all costs. However, there has been increasing talk of how a general election may now be inevitable. There is a good article in Politics Home House magazine which explains the election scenarios.

Admissions

UCAS released their analysis of all full time undergraduate applications (made by end June 2019) noting a new record as almost 4 in 10 young people apply to university. Overall the number of young applications has increased by 1%, an additional 2,600 people, (despite the 1.9% fall in the young UK population). Across the UK figures are:

  • 39.5% of all 18 year olds in England submitted a UCAS application, up from 38.1% at the same point last year;
  • in Northern Ireland, 46.9% of 18 year olds applied (down 0.7 percentage points)
  • in Scotland, the 18 year old application rate is 32.7% (down 0.1 percentage point)
  • in Wales, the application rate was 32.9% (up 0.2 percentage points) – a joint record result equalling the peak in 2016

International

  • The volume of EU applicants rose by 1%, to 50,650.
  • There were a record number of applicants from outside the EU – 81,340 students applied to study in the UK, an increase of 8%.
  • China continued its rapid growth, with applicant numbers up 30% to 19,760 – this means that, for the first time, there are more applicants from China than Northern Ireland (18,520).

Disadvantage

For the first time, UCAS utilised the index of multiple deprivation measures to consider applications from disadvantaged communities.

  • In England, the number of young people applying from the most deprived areas has increased 6% to 38,770, while applications from the least deprived areas have fallen.
  • In Northern Ireland, all areas have seen a fall in applications, of between 2% and 7%.
  • In Scotland, young applicants from the most deprived areas have grown by 3%, while all other areas have seen falls.
  • In Wales, applicants from the most deprived areas remained at 1,390, with a mixed picture across different areas.

UCAS have also release a new interactive dashboard should you wish to interrogate the data further.

Clare Marchant, UCAS’ Chief Executive, said:

The global appeal of UK higher education has never been clearer, with record, demographic beating application rates in England and Wales, and the steep rise in international applications, especially from China.

Today’s analysis shows how attractive undergraduate study continues to be for young people, although university isn’t the only route on offer. Our survey insight shows that around a quarter of students are interested in apprenticeships as an alternative option.

Higher Technical Reform

The DfE has launched a consultation on Higher Technical qualifications and published a Written Ministerial Statement to accompany it. Key points within the statement:

  1. A vision for Higher Technical Education to be a prestigious choice that delivers the skills employers need, encourages more students to continue studying after A levels or T levels and attracts workers of all ages looking to upskill and retrain.
  2. The starting point for reform is to raise the prestige of Higher Technical Education and strengthen its value to employers by putting their needs and quality first. Improving quality now – to demonstrate the value of higher technical qualifications – will lead to increased uptake of Higher Technical Education in the future.
  3. To do this we a new system is proposed to make clear which higher technical qualifications provide the skills that employers want. This will be delivered through the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education signalling which qualifications deliver the knowledge, skills, and behaviours set out in employer-led national standards. This will help qualifications at this level command the confidence of students and employers alike.
  4. Alongside this the Government intent to work with the Office for Students to demonstrate the quality of providers, so there is more high-quality provision delivered across higher and further education, including through our flagship employer-led National Colleges and Institutes of Technology.
  5. The Government aims to make Higher Technical Education a positive and more popular choice by raising awareness and understanding of the new suite of Institute-approved qualifications in colleges and universities, and among potential students and employers.

This is very interesting in its own right, but also because of the direction of travel.

  • 29 We will create a clear set of signals that will enable employers and learners to easily identify the best qualifications with national labour market relevance. We want to incentivise providers to gravitate towards approved qualifications rather than those that have not met the Institute’s quality requirements. This will tilt the playing field towards qualifications which have been identified by panels of employers as delivering the knowledge, skills and behaviours needed for an occupation.
  • 30 Qualifications approved by the Institute would be clearly identified through a single name or kitemark. ….
  • 31 Approved qualifications will therefore clearly stand out as being high-quality, labour market relevant, and having national currency. These benefits will enhance the offer and credibility of even those existing qualifications that have a relatively good level of employer awareness.
  • In addition, we know it will be very important to ensure that HTE is properly funded. Funding will also form an important incentive for Awarding Bodies to submit their qualifications for approval and discourage provision of rival qualifications that have not been approved by the Institute. The Post-18 Review panel has recommended that only approved HTQs should be entitled to the same tuition fee support and teaching grant, and equivalent maintenance support, as level 6 qualifications. We want to ensure there are clear incentives to deliver reformed qualifications in the future, and we will consider this as part of the ongoing Spending Review and the government’s response to the Post-18 Review.
  • We want to ensure that the very best providers are delivering our approved high-quality HTQs, whilst also considering how providers could specialise, or adjust their offer to address local skills needs. The Post-18 Review has recommended additional capital funding, for FE colleges, with a particular focus on growing specialist HTE provision in specific colleges. We will consider these recommendations, and develop our plans in more detail, as part of the Spending Review.
  • We want the reformed higher technical offer to be the best it can be. We therefore propose taking the requirement to register with the OfS a step further, and to develop with the OfS an additional set of ongoing registration conditions specifically for higher technical provision (technical conditions). Providers would be required to meet these technical conditions, in addition to the general ongoing registration conditions that are applicable to all providers, to be able to deliver the approved HTQs with access to relevant student finance for courses leading to those HTQs, and to be eligible for any additional public funding.
  • We expect this to be a rigorous process that would specifically assess and signal the quality of a provider’s higher technical education provision. Criteria for this would:
  • Specifically indicate high-quality higher technical provision by expanding on the key elements already assessed by OfS as part of the registration process, such as:
    • Suitably qualified and experienced teachers with current, relevant occupational and industry experience and expertise, as well as high quality pedagogical skills. Leaders have the capacity and ability to ensure provision is sustainable and retains a clear focus on quality
    • Strong links with employer networks, thus ensuring the knowledge, skills and behaviours being delivered are valued by, and relevant to, employers who are engaged and investing in training; and
    • Learning environments that provide access to facilities and equipment that are reflective of the workplace, including industry-relevant, up-to-date equipment.
  • Draw from the IoT assessment process, which uses a range of criteria including evidence of support for regional and national economic growth; employer engagement; relevance to occupational skills needs; and quality industry relevant teaching.
  • 67 The panel has also recommended that additional support and capital funding should be provided to grow capacity for, and ensure, high-quality technical provision, and that quality indicators could identify how best to allocate that funding. This could mean that only providers meeting the technical conditions would be eligible for any higher technical capital or grant funding for their HTE provision. For example, this could be to support providers to expand their provision, specialise or tailor their offer to meet local skills needs, or enhance teaching facilities and equipment. As stated above, we will be considering these funding proposals and wider reforms as part of the Spending Review.

International staff

This came up in Parliamentary questions this week.

Q – Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will make it his Department’s policy to exclude scientific research occupations from proposals in the immigration White Paper for a minimum salary threshold.

A – Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North):

  • On 24 June 2019, the Government asked the independent Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) to consider the operation of salary thresholds in the future immigration system, including the impact of exemptions from minimum salary thresholds. The MAC is due to report by January 2020.
  • We recognise the vital contribution that scientists make to the UK. In his spring statement, my Rt Hon Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, confirmed that PhD level occupations would be exempt from the Tier 2 cap. Additionally, researchers applying for settlement are exempt from the rule which states that, there should be no absence from the UK for 180 days if the absence from the UK is for the purpose carrying out research. A number of research roles also appear on the Shortage Occupation List which also exempts them from the settlement salary threshold
  • The Tier 1 (Exceptional Talent) route is also available for internationally recognised leaders and promising future leaders, including in the science and research sector.

The Minister speaks (part 4) – on R&D investment

Universities Minister, Chris Skidmore, made his fourth (and final) speech in his series on R&D investment focusing on how to bring about major increases in private R&D investment.

The previous speeches covered:

  • Investing in people – ensuring that the best and brightest minds are working on the problems
  • Working collaboratives – across international borders to tackle the greatest challenges facing society
  • Enduring the funding and regulatory systems nurture new technologies and support risk taking

On private R&D investment he said:

  • If we are to deliver on our 2.4% commitment, we must be prepared to go much further and much faster. Overall investment in R&D will need to more than double in nominal terms, from current level of £35 billion per year to around £75 billion per year by 2027.
  • And at least two thirds of this investment will need to come from business. For many industries the need to invest in R&D is a pressing one – vital to competitive advantage. Businesses that thrive on the cutting edge are adept at making the most of basic research. They track down the brightest minds to seek answers to their most pressing problems. And they take the lead on experimental development and innovation, lifting new discoveries out of the lab and into people’s lives, driving economic and social prosperity.
  • That isn’t to say that the government won’t play its part. In fact, we are doing more than ever.

The Minister goes on to set out the additional funding, including a real terms QR funding uplift, and collaborative assistance that has led to successful business gains, such as Jaguar Land Rover committing to produce it’s electric cars in the UK (previously the company had been shedding staff and moving assets due to Brexit complexities).

  • Bold government policy has led to bold business decisions.
  • But to get to 2.4% we need to see significantly more than this. To ramp up from today’s levels to 2027, it is projected we’ll need to see an additional £12 billion each year from business.

To respond to this challenge the minister announced 7 focal areas:

  • Creating opportunity for the spark of creativity to arise through encouraging a vibrant and diverse research system with support for world-class, blue-skies research in universities and institutes… intellectual capital ultimately comes from people. So we need to invest confidently into postgraduate study, looking at all levels of our education system to getting more people into exciting R&D careers. This also means working tirelessly to put innovation and creativity at the centre of our education and training system.
  • Turning new ideas into new businesses, products and processes – developing a culture of startups.
  • Creating a scale-up culture with early-stage ventures able to access the funding needed to scale up
  • Driving up demand as well as supply – incentivising business investment into R&D for established businesses. The  Minister states:

I see universities as ‘protagonists’, working with businesses to address problems where others cannot or dare not, and stimulating private investment.

Whether they are spinning out a company, licensing their IP, or undertaking contract or collaborative research with business, universities are remarkably skilled at identifying where they can have the greatest impact – locally, regionally, nationally and globally – and just getting on and doing it.

  • Supporting innovation across the whole UK – playing to local and regional strengths.
  • Focussing on the industrial strategies Grand Challenges
  • Ensuring research and innovation is right at the heart of Global Britain – the UK to be a magnet for foreign direct investment and as attractive a destination as possible for major businesses looking to relocate or scale up their R&D operations. Government policies and funding streams should ruthlessly drive up our global attractiveness.
    • But it is also incumbent on us to be better at marketing ourselves overseas. An important part of this is being open to talent. It is something businesses tell me constantly: the UK urgently needs an immigration system that encourages those with the best ideas and the most innovative minds to come and work here.
  • The evidence is unarguable: skilled immigration drives innovation. We mustn’t lose sight of this as we exit the EU. If we are to thrive, we need a genuinely international approach, a ‘freedom of talent’ approach that allows highly skilled people the flexibility to move and collaborate across borders.
  • That is the purpose of our international education strategy, providing focus and clarity to our ongoing educational exports
  • We cannot duck this challenge. Other nations are adopting aggressive approaches to R&D investment, driving significant increases in both public and private R&D performance. I’m not just talking about Israel and China – 2 obvious outliers. I’m also looking at Germany, who are ramping up public spending on R&D, committing to 3% annual increases every year for the next decade.
  • The technological revolution will stretch horizontally across our economy – every company will become a tech company of sorts. 
  • So to conclude, delivering on 2.4% requires focusing on all parts of the innovation lifecycle, and looking at our policies and investments through multiple lenses. And we must keep a ruthless focus on evidence, to inform the choices we make as a nation.
  • This means we need to access the latest thinking on what works, and ensure we have the best and latest metrics so we know when we have succeeded. And it means listening to what businesses and academics are telling us, and acting accordingly.

Other points made:

  • The UK has the second highest number of doctoral graduate in the EU (Germany has the highest).
  • UK researchers are unusually collaborative in comparison with EU and G20 nations
  • The UK has above-average level of people working in the fastest-growing sectors
  • The UK’s field-weighted citations has beaten all other G7 countries since 2007 with 50% greater citation impact than the world average and 30% higher impact than the EU27. No other comparator nation has a larger proportion of its research among the most widely cited in the world.

Consultations

There are NINE new consultations and inquiries this week!  Click here to view the updated tracker. Email us on policy@bournemouth.ac.uk if you’d like to contribute to any of the current consultations.

Other news

Assistive Technology: The Student Loans Company plan to put out a tender for Assistive Technology Equipment and Training, results will be published during autumn 2019.

Industry partnership: Universities Minister, Chris Skidmore, announced UK pioneering technologies under development as part of 4 new partnerships between businesses and universities. The projects aim to help UK industry and academia lead the way in bringing new products to market that contribute to tackling the big generational challenges such as climate change and the needs of an ageing society. Skidmore stressed the importance of both government and industry contributing to the Industrial Strategy ambition of raising public and private investment in research and development to 2.4% of GDP by 2027. Projects include:

  • Developing new materials that do not make noise underwater, led by BAE Systems with the University of Southampton, the University of Nottingham and Lloyd’s Register.
  • Using AI and machine learning to speed up production of new medicines from vaccines to tablets in order to get them from the lab to the clinic faster, led by GlaxoSmithKline with the University of Strathclyde with University of Nottingham.
  • Developing a new range of fully recyclable ultra-high strength aluminium alloys for the automotive industry, led by Constellium and Brunel University.
  • Creating the next generation of household products using AI to pave the way for robots to complete advanced household tasks, led by Dyson and Imperial.

Student transitions:  Education Secretary Damian Hinds announced ‘Leapskills Workshops’, developed by student accommodation provider Unite Students which offer schools and colleges resources to teach Year 12 and 13 pupils about independent living, managing money and dealing with conflict. The sessions aim to act as a digital interactive masterclass to enhance how schools and colleges teach young people about what to expect and how to prepare for the leap of living away from home for the first time.

  • Education Secretary Damian Hinds said:  For young people leaving school, starting the next chapter of their life should be a positive life-changing experience – but we know that many people struggle with the pressures of moving away from home and living independently for the first time. A huge part of education is preparing young people for adult life and it is right that we teach them what to expect for life after school, whether that’s at university, work or an apprenticeship.
  • Unite Students CEO Richard Smith said: We believe that resilience is vital in young people and that given the right opportunities and experiences, young people can build resilience. The better prepared young people are for the transition to university, the easier they will find managing the highs and the lows often involved in this leap.

Apprenticeships: The DfE have published a summary document giving Apprenticeships and Traineeships figures. The data shows how higher level apprenticeships have boomed (68% growth since last year) with the main decline at the intermediate apprenticeship level. Apprenticeship starts from mature (19+) learners has increased by 13.8%.

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JANE FORSTER                                            |                       SARAH CARTER

Policy Advisor                                                                     Policy & Public Affairs Officer

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

HE Policy Update for the w/e 5th October 2018

Funding opportunities, policy, Student Engagement

Conservative Party Conference

The Conference ended with the PM’s speech, in which she declared the end of austerity and tried to fight back on Brexit.  This came after a predictably colourful speech from Boris Johnson calling for the party to be more positive – and #chuckchequers.  Neither talked about HE.

Education was on the agenda at the conference, though.  Damien Hinds gave a speech mainly focusing on schools.  He listed three key imperatives (all Ps):

  • Progress – “each generation should have better opportunities than the last and every year we need to raise our sights higher and we need to reach wider”
  • The prospects and prosperity of the country – productivity depends on education of this generation
  • Preparedness – being ready for an uncertain world. He mentioned global trade and technological change

And to deal with these challenges, he said that the plan was to focus on:

  • Academic standards (and there is an ongoing row about his statistics)
  • Basic essential skills (32 primary schools and 21 colleges to be centres of excellence for early literacy and post 16 Maths)
  • Behaviour management (£10m to support best practice in this area)
  • And of course, vocational and technical education (and announced a £38m capital pot for investment in colleges delivering T-levels)
  • Careers advice – doubling the number of trained careers leaders in schools
  • Reviewing level 4 and level 5 qualifications that are the direct alternative to university (this is not new, see below)

He also talked about character, workplace skills and extra-curricular activities.

  • “..we need to move forwards with our reforms. We need to ensure that the vocational and the technical, are absolutely on a par with the academic. We need to make sure that we extend our reforms in all regions, in all parts of the country. That all parts of our society have equal opportunity, that everywhere we see raised expectations and raised aspirations, and when that happens, then we will be able to say, this is a world class education for everyone.”

Level 4 and 5 qualifications have been discussed a lot recently  – see the August report  by Professor Dave Phoenix, VC of South Bank University has written for HEPI “Filling in the biggest skills gap: Increasing learning at Levels 4 and 5”.

The DfE are conducting a review of classroom-based, level 4 & 5 technical education launched in October 2017 (interim findings here) which will inform the ongoing Review of Post-18 Education.

Industrial Strategy – Creative Industries

A new £8 million funding competition will enable virtual, augmented and mixed reality experiences – also known as immersive content – to be created faster and more efficiently by UK content creators.  The competition is part of the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund’s audience of the future programme. Up to £33 million is available to develop new products and services that exploit immersive technologies.  Funding is provided by UK Research and Innovation through Innovate UK.

Immigration

Also while the Conservative Party Conference was going on, announcements were made about future immigration rules post Brexit.

From Dods:  a White Paper outlining how the system will work to be published in the autumn, ahead of legislation next year. The proposals largely mirror the recommendations of the Migration Advisory Committee from September, and offer no preferential treatment for EEA citizens coming to the country. Notably, there is a commitment under the new system not to cap the number of student visas. (there is currently no such cap)

Under the proposals:

  • The passports of short-stay tourists and business people from all “low-risk” countries would be scanned at e-gates – currently only EU citizens can do this
  • Security and criminal records checks would be carried out before visits, similar to the system of prior authorisation in the US
  • Workers wanting to stay for longer periods would need a minimum salary, to “ensure they are not competing with people already in the UK”
  • Successful applicants for high-skilled work would be able to bring their immediate family, but only if sponsored by their future employers
  • The new system will not cap the number of student visas

Theresa May said:

  • “The new skills-based system will make sure low-skilled immigration is brought down and set the UK on the path to reduce immigration to sustainable levels, as we promised. At the same time we are training up British people for the skilled jobs of the future.”
  • “Two years ago, the British public voted to leave the European Union and take back control of our borders. When we leave we will bring in a new immigration system that ends freedom of movement once and for all. It will be a system that looks across the globe and attracts the people with the skills we need. Crucially it will be fair to ordinary working people. For too long people have felt they have been ignored on immigration and that politicians have not taken their concerns seriously enough.”

And meanwhile, at the conference, the Home Secretary announced a new “British values” test for those applying for UK citizenship, which will be “significantly tougher” than the current test, which he said was like a pub quiz, and would be accompanied by strengthened English language tests.

Degree apprenticeships

The Office for Students (OfS) has published new analysis of degree apprenticeships.

  • Compared with other levels of apprenticeships and higher education generally there were relatively few degree apprentices in 2016-17, but the number of starts are growing. In 2016-17 there were 2,580 degree apprentices registered in higher education, of which 1,750 started their apprenticeship that year.
  • The two most popular degree apprenticeships are:
    • Chartered Manager – 34 per cent of entrants
    • Digital and Technology Solutions Professional – 29 per cent of entrants.
  • Most of the degree apprenticeships currently available are within the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subject grouping. Within the arts, humanities and social sciences subject areas, the majority of degree apprentices are taking chartered management courses.
  • There was a roughly equal number of young and mature entrants undertaking degree apprenticeships, with young students (entrants under 21) more likely to be going into science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) apprenticeships.
  • There were more males entering degree apprenticeships than females, but relative to similar higher education courses there is a slightly lower proportion of males.
  • Apprenticeships at all levels had lower proportions of entrants from minority ethnic groups, than entrants to similar higher education courses.
  • Apprenticeships have a lower proportion of entrants with a declared disability than entrants to higher education.
  • The North West and North East of England have the highest proportion of the working age population entering degree apprenticeships, with London having the lowest density.

30 per cent of degree apprenticeship entrants come from areas underrepresented in higher education, slightly higher than the proportion entering similar full-time higher education courses (26 per cent).

Graduate Outcomes and Employability

The Office for Students (OfS), has launched its first Challenge Competition, inviting providers to develop and implement projects to identify ways of supporting the transition to highly skilled employment and improving outcomes for graduates who seek employment in their home region.

The OfS intends to support a range of projects that will deliver innovative approaches for graduates and particular student groups, to contribute to improved outcomes and local prosperity. Through this process we want to identify:

  • what interventions work best in a variety of different regional and local contexts to support progression into highly skilled employment
  • what interventions work best for different types of students and graduates
  • findings that can continue to shape sector-wide debate and inform interventions to capitalise on graduate skills and knowledge for the benefit of individuals and for economic prosperity.

Providers with successful bids will be expected to form a network to share, discuss and disseminate key information among themselves and with the OfS, strategic partners, and the wider sector as required.

Metrics and ratings – graduate salaries

From Wonkhe: ONS has released its annual estimates of the value of the UK’s “human capital” – and if you like to promote higher education on the basis of pay premia, it’s not great news for the sector. The headline news is that back in 2004 the average premium for “first and other degrees” was 41%, but by 2017, it had reduced to 24%. The same has happened for “masters and doctorates” – where the pay premia has declined from 69% in 2004 to 48% in 2017. Although the premia for graduates is still significant, the downward trend will provide ammo to those who argue that “too many people are going to university”, ONS says that “one explanation for this could be a large increase in the proportion of the population with a university degree”.

Metrics and ratings – Learning gain

On Wonhke, David Kernohan wrote on 30th September about learning gain “Plenty ventured, but what was gained?”.

  • David notes: Some projects have held final conferences and events. Others (notably two large scale national projects) either concluded early or have never been publicly spoken of.  It’s a far from glorious end to an initiative that set out with a great deal of ambition – to measure “the distance travelled: the improvement in knowledge, skills, work-readiness and personal development demonstrated by students at two points in time” – a goal that would probably represent the most significant finding in the history of educational research.

The learning gain projects were expected to lead to discussions about a new TEF metric for learning gain – or at least to a set of tools and methodologies that providers would over time start to adopt to support their TEF submissions –because learning gain is an important element of the TEF, but one that it is not currently reflected in the metrics.

  • So the article continues: Project after project reported issues with lack of engagement from students and staff. Why would a student complete a test or exercise that had no bearing on their degree, and that was of uncertain benefit? And why would an academic recommend such a course of action to their students while unsure of the underpinning motivation?
  • And David concludes: …learning gain is measurable. But it is measurable only in terms of the way an individual student understands their own learning. Interventions like learning diaries and reflective writing can prove very useful to students making sense of their own progress. What learning gain may not be is comparable – which on the face of it makes perfect sense. In what world could we say that a student of economics has learned the same quanta of learning as a student of the piano?

And so on 2nd October, Yvonne Hawkins of the OfS responded, also on Wonkhe:

  • he’s wrong to say that the programme is coming to an end – the first phase has concluded, and planning for a second phase that draws on the learning from phase one is already underway. I must also take issue with his rather eeyorish view of the wider learning gain endeavour.

So what are the next steps as set out by the OfS? They are “committed to developing a proxy measure for learning gain”. And it “will form part of a set of seven key performance measures to help us demonstrate progress against our student experience objective”.  And how will they get there?  There will be evaluations of the projects that did go ahead, and then there will be a conference, and recommendations to the OfS board in March 2019 about the next phase of work.

So watch this space….

Freedom of speech

Another week another article on free speech by the Minister– this time on Research Professional to coincide with the Conservative Party Conference.

  • He starts with some context: a cultural shift is taking place, and diversity of thought is becoming harder to find as societal views become highly polarised between the left and the right. A culture of censorship has gradually been creeping in, and a monoculture is now emerging where some views are ‘in’ and others are clearly ‘out’. Social media has exacerbated this trend by giving rise to echo chambers that restrict opposing points of view and legitimise threatening and abusive behaviour.
  • So what is the problem? In universities and colleges, we are witnessing the rise of no-platforming, safe spaces, trigger warnings and protests. These may all be well intended and have their place in fostering free speech, but they are also all too easy to be appropriated as tools to deny a voice to those who hold opinions that go against the sanctioned view.
  • It’s perhaps put in rather strong terms: This is catastrophic for democratic debate and puts at risk the fundamental right to be heard that many have fought and died for.
  • And the example – from 2015: I am increasingly alarmed by reports of individuals and groups preferring to support those who seek to restrict others’ right to speak than to protect the fundamental right for all to be heard. This was the case at Goldsmiths, University of London, in 2015 when the university’s Feminist Society came out in support of the university’s Islamic Society after its members aggressively disrupted a talk by Maryam Namazie, a feminist campaigner and human rights activist.
  • So what next? That is why I am supporting an initiative coordinated by the Equality and Human Rights Commission to create new free speech guidance to ensure future generations are exposed, without hindrance, to the stimulating debates that lie at the very core of the university experience.

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JANE FORSTER                                            |                       SARAH CARTER

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66724                                                                                 65070

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

HE policy update for the w/e 12th January 2018

EU, Knowledge Exchange, policy

Cabinet Reshuffle

Out with the old and in with the new…the cabinet reshuffle this week brings changes for HE. Goodbye to Jo Johnson as he departs from the Universities Minister role to become Minister of State for Transport and Minister for London. Nick Hillman, Director of HEPI, reflects on Johnson’s legacy in the Times Higher, and Wonkhe present a more mixed picture in Jexit leaves a mixed legacy in HE.

Sam Gyimah has been appointed as Universities Minister. The role remains under both Department for Education (DfE) and Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. Sam has been a consistent front bencher within the Commons since 2010 in his role as PPS to the Prime Minister, since then he has undertaken roles as a party whip, within the cabinet office, childcare and education (DfE) and prison and probation (Ministry of Justice). Sam voted to remain in the European referendum (his interesting 2016 blog sets out his remain mind set and his identification with the “easyjet generation”) although he has stated he believe Britain will thrive outside of the EU.  A party loyalist, Sam’s education voting record mirrors Government aims. He voted for greater autonomy for schools, establishing more academies and raising undergraduate tuition fees to £9,000. On the tuition fee cap its reported that originally Sam believed the HE system should change so fewer people went to university with grants or lower costs. However, he changed opinion deciding participation was the right way forward stating “we must therefore work out how we can continue to fund that” and voting with the fee rise. Gyimah was also involved in the filibustering to prevent the Opposition’s Compulsory Emergency First Aid Education Bill in 2015. Sam’s political interests are HE, small business and international development.

The title of the role appears to no longer include science, research and innovation. This may just be a product of short form reporting in the breaking news; the below tweet suggests he still expects the same responsibilities as Jo Johnson enjoyed, we’ll be watching closely to see how the job develops!  A 2014 Independent interview with Sam describes his family background, state schooling, and struggles to pay rent whilst at Oxford. A Wonkhe article What’s in Sam Gyimah’s in-tray? speculates about the new Minister’s role within the sector.

Damian Hinds has been appointed as the Secretary of State for Education. His responsibilities cover the full Education remit from early years to HE, apprenticeships, skills and free schools. Damian has a background in social mobility; he previously chaired the APPG on social mobility and was a Member of the Education Select Committee (2010-12). Whilst chairing the APPG in 2012 the committee published Seven Key Truths about Social Mobility – the key messages of which still prevail today. Hinds is known to have criticised how social mobility has stalled within the UK. His political interests are welfare, affordable credit, social mobility, education and financial inclusion. Damian’s previous roles span defence, party whip, the Treasury (Exchequer Secretary, 2015-16), and Minster for State within the Dept for Work and Pensions 2016-18). Sam Gyimah reports to Damian. Hinds is a loyalist and has consistently voted with the Government on education reforms and believes in greater autonomy for schools and establishing more academies. He is a regular speaker within the Commons. He voted to raise the undergraduate tuition fee cap to £9,000 in 2010, he voted against reducing fees to £6,000 in 2012, and voted to end financial support (16-19 year olds in training/FE). In 2014 he led a debate calling on the Government to lift the faith cap preventing the Catholic Church from opening free schools. Interestingly he will now be responsible for the Government’s response to the consultation on lifting the cap. Damian attended a Catholic grammar school before studying his degree at Oxford. Damian campaigned to remain in the European referendum, stating while he saw good points on both sides it was important for economic growth to have more negotiating weight. His constituency is East Hampshire. He supported Theresa May in the Conservative leadership contest.

So the PM has two loyalists in control of the HE sector, already the speculation over the much heralded major review of HE has begun: – a succinct Times Higher article Reshuffle paves way for bold review of English HE funding concurred with this and speculated that the planned knowledge exchange framework may also be doomed?

DfE: The remainder of the DfE roles are: Nick Gibb, Anne Milton, Lord Theodore Agnew, Lord Nash, all of whom remain in post. They’ll be joined by previous backbencher Nadhim Zahawi as DfE Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State.

Education Secretary Justine Greening declined the offered post (Work and Pensions) and has departed from Government. She said: social mobility matters more than a ministerial career.

Strong and stable:

  • Amber Rudd remains the Home Secretary, and will also be the Minister for Women and Equalities.
  • Greg Clarke remains as Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). Greg is Sam Gyimah’s second boss.
  • Michael Gove remains as the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
  • Penny Mordaunt remains as the Secretary of State for International Development
  • Minister of State for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (DEFRA) remains as George Eustice
  • Therese Coffey remains as Parliamentary Under-secretary of State for Environment and Rural Life Opportunities (DEFRA).

And also of interest:

  • Conservative Vice Chair for Training and Development is James Morris (previously a backbencher working as PPS to Damian Green).
  • The Minister of State for Immigration within the Home Office is now Caroline Nokes, and she will attend Cabinet.
  • Minister of State for Digital and Culture (DCMS) is Margot James (previously Margot was Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State to the Minister for Small Business, Consumers, and Corporate Responsibility within BEIS).
  • Changes to the Minister of State for Health (2 posts) are Caroline Dineage (previously focused on families) and Stephen Barclay (Treasury).

Locally: Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) remains within the Ministry of Defence retaining his role as the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Defence, People and Veterans).

On the reshuffle PM Theresa May stated: [this reshuffle brings] fresh talent into government, boosting delivery in key policy areas like housing, health and social care, and ensuring the government looks more like the country it serves.

The reshuffle provides fresh opportunity for BU staff to engage with the parliamentarians now responsible for their expertise area to impact on policy. Contact the policy team if you need support to begin building relationships with parliamentarians.

Office for Students – Student Panel

The 13 strong OfS student panel members were announced on Monday (see below) with members drawn from under and postgraduate provision, part time study, an international student, a recent graduate, prospective students (at sixth form level and a GCSE student) and the NUS President.  The OfS explain that the student panel will ensure the new regulator’s work “properly engages with, and is relevant to, students from all backgrounds…[acting as] a critical friend” by providing advice to the board and examining the regulator’s relationships with students. Research Professional inform that the Student Panel will also produce research on important issues affecting students. The student panel will first meet later in January. Research Professional

  • Alice Richardson , 6th Form student from the North West of England
  • Benjamin Hunt, President of King’s College London Students’ Union 2016-17
  • Chad Allen, a PHD student at the University of Cambridge, and former President of the Cambridge University Graduate Union
  • Lizzie Pace, a part-time mature student at Birkbeck, University of London, and a former soldier in the British Army.
  • Luke Renwick, President of Sheffield Hallam Students’ Union
  • Megan Dunn, Senior Policy Adviser at the Equality Challenge Unit and President of the Nation Union of Students in 2015-16
  • Ruth Carlson, Civil Engineering student at the University of Surrey. Ruth has also joined the Board of the Office for Students on an interim basis.
  • Shakira Martin, President of the National Union of Students
  • Shraddha Chaudhary, international student, and President, Director and Chair of the Trustee Board at University of Exeter Students’ Guild
  • Sinead Brown, GCSE student from London
  • Stuart Cannell, a part-time postgraduate student at Manchester Metropolitan University and a Student Reviewer for the Quality Assurance Agency
  • Xenia Levantis, President of Norwich University of the Arts Students’ Union
  • Zahra Choudhry, Vice President of Education at University of West London Students’ Union

Panel member, Luke Renwick, stated that “given recent controversies, the OfS has a long way to go to instil faith that it will truly work ‘in the student’s interest’”.

OfS Board Membership

This week saw a barrage of parliamentary questions focused on Toby Young’s appointment to the OfS Board, several MPs were also outspoken in their opposition. An urgent oral parliamentary question by Dawn Butler (Labour) on Tuesday brought the issue to prominence and required Jo Johnson to defend Young’s appointment.  Dawn began by quoting a past Justine Greening speech: “Violent, sexist and homophobic language must have no place in our society, and parliamentarians of all parties have a duty to stamp out this sort of behaviour wherever we encounter it, and condemn it in the strongest possible terms.”  And concluded by stating: “I find it hard to comprehend the appointment; I believe that it leaves the credibility of the Office for Students in tatters.”

Johnson’s defence, while balanced, was met with continued challenge from across the house – on process, suitable and merit grounds. The criticism for Young turned into a mini debate including, criticising the tweets and Young’s “dark and dangerous…progressive eugenics” (Halfon, Conservative), questioning standards at Young’s free school (Powell, Labour/Co-op), querying the due diligence of the appointment panel (Jenkin, Conservative; and Diana Johnson, Labour), and the implication for Muslims (Khan).

Later that day Toby Young resigned from the OfS Board. On his resignation Sir Michael Barber (OfS Chair) stated: “Many of his previous tweets and articles were offensive… he was correct to say that his continuation in the role would have distracted from our important work.” You can also read the Guardian – Toby Young: how barrage of nudges made OfS position untenable which suggests the remaining OfS Board members were gathering forces and Vice-Chancellor pressure brought to bear on Nicola Dandridge through prior UUK connections.  Toby has the final word on his resignation in The Spectator.

It will be interesting to see who replaces Young on the OfS Board, whether they will also be drawn from the alternative provider sector. Although after the controversy Young created on the first official day of the OfS I think we can expect the new appointment to have a squeaky clean background!

Read the Wonkhe article: A beginner’s guide to the Office for Students.

International Students

HEPI and Kaplan have released The costs and benefits of international students by parliamentary constituency. The report uses economic modelling to identify the monetary value international students generate for the UK (after deducting a myriad of costs associated with hosting the student). It quantifies these economic benefits at a national, regional and local constituency level. The report acknowledges the wider positive cultural, societal and soft power impacts that international students bring but does not include these aspects in the value calculations.

In the report both EU and non-EU students are described under the umbrella term ‘international’. The report uses the 2015/16 cohort entry year but adjusts costs and considers the changed HE systems and context to ensure the figures are relevant for today. It takes a conservative approach to the calculations by including every kind of hosting cost to the public purse that is possible. For example, deductions are made for healthcare, housing, community amenities, education and care of dependents, social security, public order and safety, local resources, defence, economic affairs, recreation and culture, religious provision, environmental protection, student non-continuation, non-repayment of EU student loan post-graduation, and so on right up to the nuclear deterrent submarine that circles the UK. This conservative approach means the net value calculation of the income an international student brings is actually an underestimation ensuring its validity for policy making. To understand more on the methodology read the full report pages 10-28.

Key findings:

  • In 2015/16 there were 438,000 international (EU and non-EU) students studying at HE levels across the UK (19% of all students). The most students come from China (1 in every 4 international students came from China), next were the US and India. From the EU Germany came top, closely followed by France and Italy.

Note: recruitment of international students has plateaued since 2009/10

  • International students were roughly evenly split between under and post graduate studies.
  • International students study at institutions throughout the UK. Higher concentrations study in London and the South East, followed by the West Midlands. The South West region has the second lowest concentration (of the English regions) totalling 12,770 international students.
  • The average economic contribution each international student (across their full duration of study) makes to the UK economy is £87,000 (EU students) and £102,000 (non-EU). Aggregating these figures to the national level the UK economy receives £22.6 billion from international students (£5.1bn EU, £17.5bn non-EU).
  • Using the conservative ‘include every cost imaginable’ approach the cost of hosting the international students is £2.3 billion. So each student costs the UK taxpayer £19,000 (EU) and £7,000 (non-EU) over the full duration of their studies. The majority of this cost is their use of public services.
  • This means the 2015/16 starters resulted in a total net economic benefit of £20.3 billion (£4bn EU, £16.3bn non-EU). The value to the economy per student is £68,000 (EU) and £95,000 (non-EU). For every 11 non-EU students the UK economy received £1 million. This means the benefit of hosting non-EU HE students is 14.8 times greater than the total cost. For the South West this equates to £1.21 net impact. As we would expect the highest spending from international students is clustered around the immediate university area, however lower levels of spend ripple out into surrounding areas, meaning the positive impact is experience everywhere (just to a lesser degree).
  • The report takes a sensible methodological approach, however, because aggregate figures are used the values, when translated into parliamentary constituencies, will vary slightly from the average aggregate values applied due to the local context (cost of housing and so on) and because international students were apportioned to a constituency on the basis of UK student residency location census data. Overall, this doesn’t detract from the validity of the values because they are so high and already an underestimation. In the majority of cases, if it were possible to calculate every student precisely it would actually increase the net economic benefit each international student brings. (Read pages 19 and 38 of the full report for a more in depth explanation.)
  • The constituency areas that benefit most from international students are Sheffield, Newcastle, Nottingham, Oxford and Manchester. The top earning constituency within the South West is Bristol West (14th out of the top 20). An intriguing political quirk of the top 20 areas that obtain the greatest net income from students is that all but one are Labour seats.
  • Here are the local net impact values:
Parliamentary Constituency Net impact
Bournemouth East £35.0m
Bournemouth West £65.1m
Christchurch £9.1m
Mid Dorset and North Poole £9.6m
North Dorset £9.4m
Poole £14.0m
South Dorset £10.2m

See pages 69-70 of the full report for the values associated with other South West constituencies

  • International students attract friends and relatives to visit the UK. This additional income is included in the figures quoted above. In 2015/16 international students attracted a further 330,000 visitors to the UK (averaged at 3 visitors per EU student, 0.9 per non-EU student). The average EU visitor spent £296, whereas the non-EU on average spent more (£822) per visit. Across the full period of study the value is in the region of £3,000 (per EU student) and £2,000 (non-EU). Totalling £0.6 billion to the UK economy overall (£0.2bn EU, £0.4bn non-EU).
  • The report concludes the costs of educating and hosting international students are modest and far outweighed by the benefits.

Sector mood music

While they are not ‘new’ providers there is increasing news this year of movement within specialist and alternative provision. The sector is hearing the mood music of gradual diversification and extended remits as specialist providers commence a wider offer, mainstream, or join sector bodies. These forward steps for previous fringe dwellers is all part of the current HE atmosphere of change, such as the push for accelerated provision as more standard and universal offer and the OfS registration changes to incorporate and strongly encourage alternative providers.

The Government and civil service are stridently pushing for a diversification of HE providers. Jo Johnson spearheaded the charge through the Higher Education and Research Act and stridently supported the alternative, but ill-fated, appointment of Toby Young for the OfS Board.

Two moves in this direction this week come from specialist providers KPMG and the University College of Estate Management. In recent months KPMG have been particularly noticeable on the university policy circuit and they have just launched a new Digital Degree apprenticeship in conjunction with BPP University. And the University College of Estate Management which provides online education for the Built Environment (apprenticeships, UG and PG provision) has joined GuildHE. On the join Guild HE CEO stated: “Like other GuildHE members UCEM offer vocationally relevant higher education, industry connections and a focus on the student. They help produce the highly skilled workers that industries and professions need – the skills essential to increase productivity and help realise the aspiration to see growth and prosperity in all regions across the UK.”

Learning Gain

Learning Gain is the latest movement in HE but still developing in terms of consensus, measurement and agreed metrics. A HEPI policy note What affects how much students learn? published on Monday utilised statistical analysis of the HEPI Student Academic Experience Survey (2017) question where students self-report their perception of their own personal learning gain. The analysis combined influencing variables from elsewhere in the survey to determine the top factors which had the greatest effects for students to report they’d ‘learnt a lot: and three surprising variables that didn’t influence learning gain.

The key influencers:

  1. Access to high quality teaching (as judged by combining the 10 survey questions relevant to teaching quality) was highly statistically significant. This included aspects such as helpful and supportive staff, useful feedback, how effective staff were in explaining concepts. This was significant across the whole range of student prior attainment (judged by UCAS entry points).
  2. The volume of independent study – students reporting 20+ hours of independent study were significantly more likely to report ‘learnt a lot’
  3. Personal wellbeing was a significant threshold effect – students reporting low wellbeing were negatively associated with having ‘learnt a lot’
  4. More than 17 hours of paid work per week had a negative effect
  5. Students entering with 144+ UCAS points were more likely to report having ‘learnt a lot’
  6. Whether the student hailed from a gold TEF rated institution had a significant independent effect and increased the likelihood the student reported learning a lot. Interestingly there were no step level effects – only a gold rating produced this effect,  silver didn’t result in higher ‘learnt a lot’ ratings than from a bronze level provider.
  7. There were also London effects (negative influence) and coming from a non-graduate family background (negative influence)

“Being at a London institution, at an institution that did not achieve a Gold in the TEF, and having non-graduate parents all appear to depress the odds of reporting having learnt a lot.”

Three factors did not have a significant effect on student’s self-reporting of how much they had learnt: timetabled taught hours (contact time), ethnicity and whether or not students live at home.

The report goes on to speculate what the findings mean for the current Government vogue for accelerated degrees:

  • The findings have implications for the Government’s proposals for more two-year degree programmes as a ‘cheaper’ option to three-year programmes. Currently an undergraduate degree is 360 credits, each credit based on 10 hours of study. Students on accelerated degrees are expected to study for 1,800 hours a year, in excess of the 1,600 hours of many full-time jobs. If they undertake paid part-time work as well, as most students do, the pressure on them is likely to be considerable, with a risk of putting in too few independent study hours and their wellbeing suffering, both potentially leading to doing less well in their degree than pacing their study over three years.
  • So there is a danger that many students will do less well than their potential taking two-year degrees, and that it will be students from less affluent backgrounds who are tempted by the offer. Indeed, if it is more affluent students who choose this route, and who may do so because their higher prior attainment means they can cope with the intensity, that will leave their less affluent peers with the greater debt and loss of earnings from a year less in the labour market.

Nick Hillman, the Director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, said on the report:

  • We do not know anything like enough about how students learn or how much they are learning. We need a more scientific approach to this issue, which our new report helps deliver.
  • Asking students how much they are learning and cross-referencing this with their personal circumstances is innovative, illuminating and important. Some of the results are intuitive. Good quality teaching matters as does lots of independent study, while low well-being and many hours of paid work have a negative impact. But some of the results are surprising. Contact hours, ethnicity and whether or not students live at home make less difference.
  • Learning gain is likely to be one of the top concepts in higher education in 2018 and beyond. No one can pretend they have all the answers, but this work shows beyond doubt where we should focus.

Mature Students and Employer Skills Gaps

In a blog post Maddalaine Ansell links the drop in mature student numbers with the struggles of employers to fill their skill needs and calls for cooperation, dropping ELQs, and the potential for a more blended learning model:

  • In relation to mature learners, we saw a further drop of 40% in applications this year. As many mature students used to study at Levels 4 and 5, there has been a decline in demand for these courses and an increase in complaints from employers that they cannot recruit sufficient people at this level. In some industries where the current workforce is approaching retirement, this is becoming critical. The government is trying to tackle this through the creation of a small number of Institutes of Technology. While these may turn out to play a useful role in some areas, fundamentally they are solving the wrong problem.
  • We are not short of institutions that are capable of delivering qualifications at this level rather we are short of students who want to study them within the current system. This is likely to be linked to debt-aversion in older learners who are reluctant to take out loans…, lack of careers advice, particularly for people who left school long ago, and insufficient flexibility of provision.
  • … if we are serious about offering students genuine opportunity and choice, we should promote collaboration between different institutions. Mature students are likely to be far less mobile than their younger counterparts so it is the local offer that will matter to them.
  • Local industrial strategies could provide a vehicle for other areas to think about how best to use all the resources already in their area more strategically to meet the needs of local people and industry.
  • While we recognise that there has to be some system of rationing the amount of education that is supported by the taxpayer, the time may have come to jettison the principle that people shouldn’t be funded a second time to study at an equivalent or lower level. It is no longer helpful. Higher education funding should be as flexible as possible, allowing for people to study for both academic and technical qualifications and to study at different levels at different times – or even concurrently.
  • Some degree students would benefit from doing a lower level apprenticeship alongside their degree as it would teach them complementary skills and enable them to earn a little money while they learn – but currently, the funding system does not allow for a blended model.
  • The sector has undergone a lot of reform in recent years. If we are going to have a major review of funding, let’s tackle the real problems.

Other news

Pedagogic innovation: HEFCE blog part-way through the catalyst projects to highlight the positives and some pitfalls of engaging students in the pedagogic innovation projects.

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JANE FORSTER                                            |                       SARAH CARTER

Policy Advisor                                                                     Policy & Public Affairs Officer

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HE policy update for the w/e 1st September 2017

data management, innovation, policy, Research news

We continue our series of summer updates focussing on themes rather than news with a look at learning gain.  We have updates on the Industrial Strategy Bell review of Life Sciences, and an update on the TEF from UUK.

Learning Gain

Learning gain has become a potential hot topic for universities over the last year – could it be the magic bullet for problems with TEF metrics?  Why is it a policy issue and what are the implications of the policy context for universities and students?  Wonkhe recently published a helpful summary in July by Dr Camille B. Kandiko Howson, from Kings College.

Background – TEF – The Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) includes learning gain alongside student outcomes more generally as one of its three main criteria for assessing teaching excellence (the others are teaching quality and learning environment).  The relevant TEF criteria are:

Student Outcomes and Learning Gain  
Employment and Further Study (SO1) Students achieve their educational and professional goals, in particular progression to further study or highly skilled employment  
Employability and Transferrable Skills (SO2) Students acquire knowledge, skills and attributes that are valued by employers and that enhance their personal and/or professional lives
Positive Outcomes for All (SO3) Positive outcomes are achieved by its students from all backgrounds, in particular those from disadvantaged backgrounds or those who are at greater risk of not achieving positive outcomes

Further definition was given in the “Aspects of Quality” guidance (see the TEF guidance issued by HEFCE):

“Student Outcomes and Learning Gain is focused on the achievement of positive outcomes. Positive outcomes are taken to include:

  • acquisition of attributes such as lifelong learning skills and others that allow a graduate to make a strong contribution to society, economy and the environment,
  • progression to further study, acquisition of knowledge, skills and attributes necessary to compete for a graduate level job that requires the high level of skills arising from higher education

The extent to which positive outcomes are achieved for all students, including those from disadvantaged backgrounds, is a key feature. The distance travelled by students (‘learning gain’) is included”.

And it goes on:

  • “Work across the sector to develop new measures of learning gain is in progress. Until new measures become available and are robust and applicable for all types of providers and students, we anticipate providers will refer to their own approaches to identifying and assessing students’ learning gain – this aspect is not prescriptive about what those measures might be.”

The TEF guidance issued by HEFCE included examples of the sorts of evidence that universities might want to consider including (amongst a much longer list):

  • Learning gain and distance-travelled by all students including those entering higher education part-way through their professional lives
  • Evidence and impact of initiatives aimed at preparing students for further study and research
  • Use and effectiveness of initiatives used to help measure and record student progress, such as Grade Point Average (GPA)
  • Impact of initiatives aimed at closing gaps in development, attainment and progression for students from different backgrounds, in particular those from disadvantaged backgrounds or those who are at greater risk of not achieving positive outcomes.

TEF Assessment – If you have been following the debates about the TEF in Year 2 (results now published), you will be aware that the assessment of institutions against these criteria was done in two ways – by looking at metrics (with benchmarking and subdivision into various sub-sets), and by review of a written provider assessment.

  • The metrics that were used in TEF Year 2 for Student Outcomes and Learning Gain were from the Destination of Leavers from Higher Education survey (DLHE), specifically the DLHE declared activity 6 months after graduation – were they in employment of further study, and if in employment, was it “highly skilled” as defined by SOC groups 1-3 (managerial and professional).
  • So the metrics used in Year 2 of TEF do not cover learning gain at all. In fact they only really relate to SO1 above, are of limited use in terms of employability for SO2. DLHE doesn’t measure employability, only employment. Of course, DLHE is being replaced, after major consultations by HESA throughout 2016 and 2017 with the new Graduate Outcomes survey, which will take a longer-term view and look at a broader range of outcomes. (read more in our Policy Update of 30th June 2017).
  • So for the TEF year 2, any assessment of learning gain was done through the written submissions – and as noted above there are no measures for this, it was left to providers to “refer to their own approaches to identifying and assessing students’ learning gain”.

Universities UK have published their review of Year 2 of the TEF (see next section below) which includes a strong endorsement from UUK members for a comparative learning gain metric in future iterations of the TEF.

Measuring Learning Gain – As referred to above, there is a HEFCE project to look at ways of measuring learning gain.

They are running 13 pilot projects:

  • careers registration and employability initiatives – this  uses surveys and is linked most closely to SO2 – employability
  • critical-thinking ‘CLA+’ standardised assessment tool – also uses the UK Engagement Survey (UKES). CLA+ is a US assessment that is done on-line and asks students to assess data and evidence and decide on a course of action or propose a solution. As such, it measures general skills but is not subject specific.
  • self-efficacy across a range of disciplines
  • skills and self-assessment of confidence measures
  • a self-assessment skills audit and a situational judgement test
  • HE in FE
  • A multi-strand one: standardising entry and exit qualifications, new measures of critical skills and modelling change in learning outcomes
  • a project that will analyse the Affective-Behaviour-Cognition (ABC) model data for previous years
  • research skills in 6 disciplines
  • psychometric testing
  • learning gain from work-based learning and work placements
  • a project evaluating a range of methodologies including degree classifications, UKES, NSS, Student Wellbeing survey and CLA+
  • employability and subject specific learning across a range of methods – includes a project to understand the dimensions of learning gain and develop a way to measure them, one to look at R2 Strengths, one to look at career adaptability and one looking at international experience.

These are long term (3 year) projects – HEFCE published a year 1 report on 6th July 2017 – you can read more on our 14th July policy update – this flags a couple of challenges including how to get students to complete surveys and tests that are not relevant to their degree (a problem also encountered by the UKES). The report suggests embedding measurement “in the standard administrative procedures or formal curriculum” – which means a survey or test through enrolment and as part of our assessment programme.

To become a core TEF metric there would need to be a national standard measure that was implemented across the sector. That means that have to be mass testing (like SATs for university students) or another national survey alongside NSS and the new Graduate Outcomes survey (the replacement for DLHE) – with surveys on enrolment and at other points across the lifecycle.

Some BU staff are taking a different approach – instead of looking at generic measures for generic skills they have been looking at measuring specific learning gain against the defined learning outcomes for cohorts of students on a particular course. This is a much more customised approach but the team have set some basic parameters for the questions that they have asked which could be applied to other courses. The methodology was a survey. (Dr Martyn Polkinghorne, Dr Gelareh Roushan, Dr Julia Taylor) (see also a more detailed explanation, March 2017)

Pros, cons and alternatives

In January 2016, HEPI published a speech delivered in December 2015 by Andreas Schleicher, Director for Education and Skills, and Special Advisor on Education Policy to the Secretary-General at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris. In the speech, the author argues strongly for institutions worldwide to measure and use learning gain data. He supports the use of specific measures for disciplines although points out the difficulties with this – not least in getting comparable data. So he also focuses on generic skills – but he doesn’t suggest a specific methodology.

An HEA presentation from December 2016 mentions a number of inputs that “predict both student performance and learning gains” – including contact hours, class size (and a host of other things including the extent and timing of feedback on assignments).

It is worth looking quickly at GPA (Grade Point Average) as this is also mentioned in the TEF specification as noted above. The HEA are looking at degree standards for HEFCE now, having done a pilot project on GPA in 2013-14.  The report notes that “potential capacity to increase granularity of awards, transparency in award calculations, international recognition and student engagement in their programmes”. The summary says, “The importance to stakeholders of a nationally-agreed, common scale is a key finding of the pilot and is considered crucial for the acceptance and success of GPA in the UK”, and that “The pilot providers considered that the development of widespread stakeholder understanding and commitment would require clear communication to be sustained over a number of years.”

Wonkhe have a round up on the background to the GPA debate from June 2016,

Although the big focus for the TEF was on outputs not inputs, the Department for Education has announced that it will start to look at including some of the inputs. See our HE policy update for 21st July where we look at the new teaching intensity measure that will be part of the subject level TEF pilots. You can read more about this in a THE article from 2nd August:

  • “The pilot “will measure teaching intensity using a method that weights the number of hours taught by the student-staff ratio of each taught hour,” explains the pilot’s specification, published by the Department for Education“. Put simply, this model would value each of these at the same level: two hours spent in a group of 10 students with one member of staff, two hours spent in a group of 20 with two members of staff, one hour spent in a group of five students with one member of staff,” it explains. Once contact hours are weighted by class sizes, and aggregated up to subject level, those running the pilot will be able to calculate a “gross teaching quotient” score, which would be an “easily interpretable number” and used as a “supplementary metric” to inform subject-level assessments”.

The contact hours debate is very political – tied up with concerns about value for money and linked to the very topical debate on fees (speech on 20th July by Jo Johnson .and see our HE Policy Update for 21st July 2017)

This is all very interesting when, as mentioned above, the TEF specification for year two put so much emphasis on measuring outcome and not just inputs: “The emphasis in the provider submission should be on demonstrating the impact and effectiveness of teaching on the student experience and outcomes they achieve. The submission should therefore avoid focusing on descriptions of strategies or approach but instead should focus on impact. Wherever possible, impact should be demonstrated empirically. “

Experts and evidence – There will be a real push from the sector for evidence that the new teaching intensity measure and reporting of contact hours and other things really does make a difference to students before it is included in the TEF. The HEA’s position on this (2016) is a helpful summary of the debate about contact hours.

There is an interesting article in the HEPI collection of responses to the Green Paper in January 2016  from Graham Gibbs, former Professor at the University of Winchester and Director of the Oxford Learning Institute, University of Oxford, and author of Dimensions of quality and Implications of ‘Dimensions of quality’ in a market environment. He supports the use of learning gain metrics as a useful tool. He points out that “cohort size is a strong negative predictor of both student performance and learning gains”. He also adds “Russell Group Universities have comparatively larger cohorts and larger class sizes, and their small group teaching is less likely to be undertaken by academics, all of which save money but reduce learning gains”. He does not accept that contact hours, or institutional reputation (linked to high tariff entry and research reputation) impact learning gain.

There is an interesting article on the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) website here written by the authors of an article that looked at class size.

Impact so far – So what happened in the TEF – a very quick and incomplete look at TEF submissions suggests that not many institutions included much about learning gain (or GPA) and those that did seem to fall into two categories – those participating in the pilot who mention the pilot, and some who mention it in the context of the TEF core data – e.g. Birmingham mention their access project and learning gain (but don’t really evidence it except through employment and retention). Huddersfield talk about it in the context of placements and work experience but again linked to employment outcomes, although they also mention assessment improvement.

Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) – year 2 review

Universities UK have published their review of Year 2 of the TEF following a survey that UUK did of their members.

The key findings from the report are:

  • There appears to be general confidence that overall process was fair, notwithstanding the outcomes of individual appeals. Judgements were the result of an intensive and discursive process of deliberation by the assessment panel. There was a slight correlation between TEF results, entry tariff and league table rankings.
  • It is estimated that the cost of participating in the TEF for 134 higher education institutions was approximately £4 million. This was driven by the volume of staff engagement, particularly senior staff.
  • Further consideration will need to be given to how the TEF accounts for the diversity of the student body, particularly part-time students, and how the TEF defines and measures excellence. [UUK also raises a concern about judgements possibly being skewed by prior attainment]
  • If subject-level TEF is to provide students with reliable information it must address the impact of increased metric suppression [this relates to metrics which could not be used because of small numbers, particularly for part-time students and for the ethnicity splits], how judgments are made in the absence of data [particularly an issue for those institutions affected by the NSS boycott], the comparability of subject groupings and the increase in cost and complexity of submissions and assessment.

[To address the issue with suppression, the report noted that the splits for ethnicity will be reduced from 6 to 3 for subject level TEF (p35)]

These findings also suggest that if the TEF is to make an effective contribution to the ongoing success of the whole UK sector, the following issues would merit consideration as part of the independent review:

  • How the TEF defines and measures excellence in a diverse sector and supports development of teaching and learning practice.
  • The role that the TEF plays across the student decision-making process and the relationship with the wider student information landscape.
  • The process for the future development of the TEF and the role of the sector, including students and devolved nations.
  • The relationship between the TEF and quality assessment, including regulatory baselines and the Quality Code.

Figure 4 shows the data benchmarking flags received by providers at each award level – these two charts are interesting because they show that providers with negative flags still received gold (and silver).

The survey also asked about future developments for the TEF with learning gain being a clear leader – ahead of teaching intensity. HEFCE is running learning gain pilots, as discussed above, and teaching intensity will be the subject of a pilot alongside subject level TEF. Interestingly, on p 33 a chart shows that nearly 70% of respondents believed that “there is no proportionate approach for producing a robust subject level TEF judgement which will be useful for students”.

Industrial Strategy

Following our update on the Industrial Strategy last week there are a couple of updates. Innovate UK has announced funding for businesses to work on innovative technologies, future products and services. The categories link closely to the Industrial Strategy priorities including digital technologies, robotics, creative economy and design and space applications as well as emerging technologies and electronics.

There was also an announcement about funding for innovative medicines manufacturing solutions.

Sir John Bell has published his report for the government on Life Sciences and the Industrial Strategy. There are seven main recommendations under 4 themes, which are summarised below. You can read a longer summary on the BU Research Blog.

Some interesting comments:

  • “The key UK attribute driving success in life sciences is the great strength in university-based research. Strong research-based universities underpin most of the public sector research success in the UK, as they do in the USA and in Scandinavia. National research systems based around institutes rather than universities, as seen in Germany, France and China, do not achieve the same productivity in life sciences as seen in university-focussed systems.” (p22)
  • “The decline in funding of indirect costs for charity research is coupled to an increasing tendency for Research Councils to construct approaches that avoid paying indirect Full Economic Costs (FEC). Together, these are having a significant impact on the viability of research in universities and have led to the institutions raising industrial overhead costs to fill the gap. This is unhelpful.” (p24)
  • “It is also recommended, that the funding agencies, in partnership with major charities, create a high-level recruitment fund that would pay the real cost of bringing successful scientists from abroad to work in major UK university institutions.” (see the proposal to attract international scientists below).
  • On clusters “Life sciences clusters are nearly always located around a university or other research institute and in the UK include elements of NHS infrastructure. However, evidence and experience suggests that governments cannot seed technology clusters and their success is usually driven by the underpinning assets of universities and companies, and also by the cultural features of networking and recycling of entrepreneurs and capital.” And “Regions should make the most of existing opportunities locally to grow clusters and build resilience by working in partnership across local Government, LEPs (in England), universities and research institutes, NHS, AHSNs, local businesses and support organisations, to identify and coalesce the local vision for life sciences. Science & Innovation Audits, Local Growth Funds and Growth Hubs (in England), Enterprise Zones and local rates and planning flexibilities can all be utilised to support a vision for life sciences. “ (see the proposal on clusters under “Growth and Infrastructure” – this was a big theme in the Industrial strategy and something we also covered in our Green Paper response)
  • On skills: “ The flow of multidisciplinary students at Masters and PhD level should be increased by providing incentives through the Higher Education Funding Council for England.2 and  “Universities and research funders should embed core competencies at degree and PhD level, for example data, statistical and analytical skills, commercial acumen and translational skills, and management and entrepreneurship training (which could be delivered in partnership with business schools). They should support exposure to, and collaboration with, strategically important disciplines including computer and data science, engineering, chemistry, physics, mathematics and material science.”

Health Advanced Research Programme (HARP) proposal – with the goal to create 2-3 entirely new industries over the next 10 years.

Reinforcing the UK science offer 

  • Sustain and increase funding for basic science to match our international competition – the goal is that the UK should attract 2000 new discovery scientists from around the globe
    • The UK should aim to be in the upper quartile of OECD R&D spending and sustain and increase the funding for basic science, to match our international competitors, particularly in university settings, encouraging discovery science to co-locate.
    • Capitalise on UKRI to increase interdisciplinary research, work more effectively with industry and support high-risk science.
    • Use Government and charitable funding to attract up to 100 world-class scientists to the UK, with support for their recruitment and their science over the next ten years.
  • Further improve UK clinical trial capabilities to support a 50% increase in the number of clinical trials over the next 5 years and a growing proportion of change of practice and trials with novel methodology over the next 5 years.

Growth and infrastructure – the goal is to create four UK companies valued at >£20 billion market cap in the next ten years.

NHS collaboration – the Accelerated Access Review should be adopted with national routes to market streamlined and clarified, including for digital products. There are two stated goals:

  • NHS should engage in fifty collaborative programmes in the next 5 years in late-stage clinical trials, real world data collection, or in the evaluation of diagnostics or devices.
  • The UK should be in the top quartile of comparator countries, both for the speed of adoption and the overall uptake of innovative, cost-effective products, to the benefit of all UK patients by the end of 2023.

Data – Establish two to five Digital Innovation Hubs providing data across regions of three to five million people.

  • Create a forum for researchers across academia, charities and industry to engage with all national health data programmes.
  • Establish a new regulatory, Health Technology Assessment and commercial framework to capture for the UK the value in algorithms generated using NHS data.
  • Two to five digital innovation hubs providing data across regions of three to five million people should be set up as part of a national approach and building towards full population coverage, to rapidly enable researchers to engage with a meaningful dataset. One or more of these should focus on medtech.
  • The UK could host 4-6 centres of excellence that provide support for specific medtech themes, focussing on research capability in a single medtech domain such as orthopaedics, cardiac, digital health or molecular diagnostics.
  • National registries of therapy-area-specific data across the whole of the NHS in England should be created and aligned with the relevant charity.

Skills

  • A migration system should be established that allows recruitment and retention of highly skilled workers from the EU and beyond, and does not impede intra-company transfers.
  • Develop and deliver a reinforced skills action plan across the NHS, commercial and third sectors based on a gap analysis of key skills for science.
    • Create an apprenticeship scheme that focuses on data sciences, as well as skills across the life sciences sector, and trains an entirely new cadre of technologists, healthcare workers and scientists at the cutting-edge of digital health.
    • Establish Institutes of Technology that would provide opportunity for technical training, particularly in digital and advanced manufacturing areas.
    • There should be support for entrepreneur training at all levels, incentivising varied careers and migration of academic scientists into industry and back to academia.
    • A fund should be established supporting convergent science activities including cross-disciplinary sabbaticals, joint appointments, funding for cross-sectoral partnerships and exchanges across industry and the NHS, including for management trainees.
    • High quality STEM education should be provided for all, and the government should evaluate and implement additional steps to increase the number of students studying maths to level 3 and beyond.

JANE FORSTER                                                             |                               SARAH CARTER

Policy Advisor                                                                                               Policy & Public Affairs Officer

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