Tagged / social mobility

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

Industry collaboration, innovation, international, Knowledge Exchange, NHS, open access, PG research

A bumper week (again) – here is your easy way to catch up on everything all in one place

Student support

Emma Hardy, the Shadow Universities Minister, has written to Michelle Donelan (Government’s Universities Minister) to highlight students facing significant hardship.

  • In our last meeting we discussed the fact that many university students needed urgent financial help to cope with the extraordinary circumstances they find themselves in. You assured me you were confident that every university would be in a position to help every student in genuine need through its hardship funds. However, after speaking to universities and the NUS I do not share your confidence.

She goes on to describe universities so overwhelmed by the demand for hardship funds they have begun crowdfunding and another university with tricky fund rules which Hardy says prevents those most at need from applying. She also explains that students without children are ineligible for Universal Credit, and few have been furloughed due to the nature of their part time work contracts.

  • I do not have to emphasise the fact that it will mostly be those students who have overcome the greatest barriers to get to university who will be affected the most. I have already heard concerns from those in the sector that the drop-out rate will be higher this year and the news I am hearing, about the failures of hardship funds to support all those who need help, adds to my worry… It cannot be right for their welfare to be considered the sole province of individual universities, which under current circumstances means consigning it to the luck of the draw—a lottery which has left some unable to manage…I would urge the Government to take a pro-active role and I would welcome any proposals for guaranteeing there is adequate financial provision for the young people who have been caught in this storm.

Research Professional say:

  • This is not a shouty letter venting outrage but one that begins by thanking the minister for listening to different points of view, before shining a light on an area of government failing.
  • There has been no mention so far of universities in the UK government’s strategy for national recovery after lockdown. This is something of an oversight and one that the opposition parties might want to start asking questions about as we all begin to emerge from our houses blinking into the early summer sunlight.

They also highlight that the Shadow letter doesn’t set out suggestions for how the Government should support students. Their daily email runs through some possibilities and effectively discounts them.

Student Petition: And if you’ve been wondering what happened to the student petition to have tuition fees reimbursed due to this year’s strike and the loss of face to face teaching due to C-19 the official word is – The Committee decided to take further oral evidence on this petition, from the relevant Government minister.

Parliamentary questions

Financial Stability

The Government listened to the measures UUK requested on behalf of the HE sector and issued their support package cherry picking the elements that fitted with the Government’s aims and doing little other than moving payments forward with the rest. Research Professional have an interesting article rethinking it all from Pam Tatlow (ex-MillionPlus Chief Executive).

  • The deal that universities need to support them through the coronavirus crisis is not the one that they asked for. Nor is it the one that was begrudgingly put on the table by the Westminster government, which is little more than a lend-lease agreement with strings.

The article critiques the UUK approach in compiling and launching their request to Government.

  • UUK’s first requests focused on research…Its proposals would undoubtedly have benefited the small group of universities that receive the lion’s share of taxpayer-funded research monies. In the event, only a very modest amount of quality-related funding (£100 million) has been brought forward.
  • Universities that have used international fees to subsidise their reputations as world leaders in research will undoubtedly claim that without additional funding they will no longer be financially viable. This may well be so, but if such a bailout is forthcoming there should be conditions attached. For example, these institutions could be required to demonstrate that they are financially viable within five years based on their UK activities.
  • UUK’s own estimates suggest that there may be up to 15 per cent fewer home and European Union students progressing to university in 2020. It is therefore difficult to understand its proposal that universities in England and Wales should be able to recruit up to 5 per cent more students than the numbers they forecast
  • Nor do the elaborate rules and stern warnings from the Office for Students about unconditional offers and admissions practices add up. All a university higher up the hierarchical food chain has to do is issue many more offers at lower grades in the first place, leaving the majority to keep afloat by reducing courses, student opportunities and staff.

Pam concludes:

  • The right deal for universities has to mean a return to collaboration and an end to the market that has bedevilled higher education for a decade. It has to mean a return to the idea (which students have never abandoned) that studying a subject that you love for its own sake is as good a rationale for higher education as the money that you will earn (or probably not earn to the same extent in a long recession).
  • It has got to mean more and not less funding for social justice, giving the students who study at the most socially inclusive institutions the same resources as those whose institutions are well endowed through decades of public funding, private endowments and capital investment.
  • And of course it must mean a return to the direct funding of universities, the restoration of maintenance grants and an end to the tuition fees that have restricted the ambitions of those who would have liked to study at university when they were older, or to return to study, including as postgraduates and part-time.
  • Universities, with all their talents and ideas, should be on the front line and on the front foot in arguing that the crisis should not be paid for through extra taxes and pay freezes but that the government should borrow to invest, especially in higher education as a right for all.

Parliamentary questions

Education Select Committee

The House of Commons Education Select Committee met virtually to explore the effect of the coronavirus on children and young people’s services (including HE). You can read a summary of the sessions compiled by Dods here, one by Research Professional here, Wonkhe’s version is here, or watch the full Committee sessions here. In brief it covered:

Session 1

  • 2020/21 recruitment ramifications will not be known until September.
  • The Government’s support package isn’t enough to support the HR sector. Criticism included that it simply brought forward payments rather than provided additional funds and that the student number cap benefitted the wealthier universities at the expense of locally based universities.
  • Students have lost their supplementary incomes and are struggling financially. Wellbeing, mental health and the option to redo the year without cost were mentioned. Concerns over PhD students were raised.
  • The increased workload on HE staff was a concern.
  • The student rent situation was discussed and calls were made for the Scottish move to release students from their private rental agreements to be adopted in England.
  • Quality of online tuition was discussed covering that it wasn’t what students had expected from their degree programme and online access and assessment issues. (The Financial Times has a nice counterpoint to this emphasising the positive benefits since the move online, and why is should continue to some degree.)
  • There was discussion on fees being revisited during the pandemic.
  • The importance of how UCAS ‘control clearing’ was mentioned.
  • UCU stated Government should indicate when universities should reopen their campuses rather than it being an individual decision taken by the university itself. Research Professional give this aspect a lot of coverage in their description of the Committee’s session. iNews specifically covered this aspect of the session, as did the Telegraph.

Session 2

  • Session 2 focussed on disadvantaged students. The OfS reiterated the importance of the access and participation targets, including discussion on degree apprenticeships. The access gap and unconscious bias faced by black and disadvantaged communities were mentioned. The OfS stated they believe the next 5 years will show the biggest step forward in social mobility and social justice for 2 generations.
  • On a return to ‘normal’ campus based learning in autumn 2020 OfS stated that they required universities to be as clear as possible in explaining students what to expect if they accepted an offer. They did not want any promises of a return to university life when it might not be possible. The Times and BBC covered this.
  • OfS stated there were not any HE institutions at immediate risk of collapse but they do expect the financial sustainability of the sector to be affected by the pandemic and C-19 poses serious risks to the sector. They also stated that international students were not being chased simply as cash cows. Research Professional disagree and name SOAS as teetering on the financial edge.
  • OfS stated they have disseminated good practice examples in student mental health and accommodation and that sharing good practice examples is a powerful way to influence the agenda.
  • OfS dodged an answer to whether student paying full tuition fees was justifiable if they were only receiving partial online learning stating it was a ‘live’ question and that it depended on the quality of the university provision. However, at present students should pay full fees and if the provision is inadequate take this up with the Office of the Independent Adjudicator.
  • Chair, Robert Halfon, followed up on how OfS judged quality to which they responded they measure through output indicators and student complaints. (Wonkhe give this a mention here.)

Research Professional cover the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee who have

  • issued a 19-page letter to prime minister Boris Johnson, setting out “10 key lessons the UK government should learn from its experience of handling the first months of the pandemic”. The Chair of the Science and Technology Committee is the ex-Secretary of State for BEIS, Greg Clark.

Virtual Parliament

Prospect Union, who represent staff working in the Houses of Parliament, will be resisting government plans to cancel the virtual parliament and bring MPs back to Westminster as early as next month over fears about safety and the practicality of social distancing. Prospect says it will work with government on restoring any essential functions but that the key elements of the system must be retained for now. Politics Home have an article on the return to parliament schism.

However, a survey by The House says only 23% of MPs believe the virtual ability to ask questions and take part in debates remotely via video link should be retained. Only 11% believed the right to vote remotely under any circumstances should be retained. Although 55% agreed that remote or proxy voting for MPs unable to attend due to ill health should be retained and there was some support for parental leave remote measures. MPs representing remote areas of the country (such as the Outer Hebrides) have called for online voting to continue and emphasised it would stop a huge amount of unnecessary journeys by MPs and 35% agreed MPs on overseas trips should be allowed to vote remotely. Yet only 19% of MPs agreed that MPs with constituencies over 4 hours travel away should be allowed to vote remotely. Some MPs are opposed to the remote working because it would restrict access to

  • get hold of government ministers in person. The fact that we can nab the chancellor of the Exchequer in the division lobby is worth an awful lot. I think that would be a huge mistake.

Another says

  • Though the temporary measures are working “reasonably well”, he fears that MPs could risk losing out “on reading the mood of the room and picking up water cooler chat” if they continue to work remotely in the future. He adds: “I am sceptical about this becoming the default. I don’t ever want to be the moaning voice on the screen and the wall that you can basically mute and ignore.”

Others point to gender equality and greater diversity measures that can be achieved through the technologies.

Conference Recess

The Labour Party has cancelled their annual September conference due to C-19. It remains to be seen if the other parties will follow suit and Parliament will continue to sit rather than take recess.

Autumn opening

The Financial Times talks of a blend of online and in-person education post pandemic, not just as a temporary measure but as a more accessible and comprehensive overall offer. It states it

  • could revolutionise universities, help them survive the economic crisis and bring higher education to tens of millions of people who have never set foot on campus…Many “left-behind” adults everywhere would love to learn from home, get qualifications and change their lives, especially if the pandemic has left them jobless…We need more adult learners. Their numbers in the UK almost halved between 2004 and 2016…As lifespans expand, and technology changes, we should top up our education over the decades, while keeping our jobs and families. University is wasted on the young…Blended teaching could help more students enter higher education, argues Chris Stone of Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government. He proposes a model in which some students spend a month on campus, then months studying from home, before returning to campus for the final weeks. That would allow universities to teach multiple cohorts a year, cutting tuition costs…Anita Pilgrim, who teaches at the UK’s Open University, which pioneered blended learning, cautions that remote learners need lots of support. Her university has educational advisers who help students find a study-life balance, apply for funding, access resources for dyslexia etc…Teaching online has shortcomings — but so does in-person teaching.

OfS, UUK, Advance HE and the QAA are all rumoured to be putting together guidance for the HE sector on autumn 2020 possible commencement. Whilst answering questions at the Covid-19 press conference Grant Shapps, Transport Secretary, stated that: The education secretary will be returning to the subject and providing guidance. Meanwhile more and more sector sources are acknowledging that the teaching model is likely to be a blended approach from the autumn.

Wonkhe have a blog ostensibly about student spirit with a nice slant looking at how online interaction and socialisation worked well during lockdown for a sporting tournament. Rather than the deficit approach of what has been lost during lockdown it illustrates new self-organised approaches which were different and positive.

On Tuesday evening Cambridge University stated it intended to conduct all teaching online possibly with some smaller in-person taught groups if social distancing could be achieved. Of course, they intend to adjust their model in-year should restrictions be relaxed or further curtail contact.  The University of Bolton takes a completely different approach – they intend to open for in-contact teaching: be able to study and engage in person regularly with other students and staff. With students allocated 12 hours on campus per week. Of course, the remaining time will be topped up by online and self-study.

Wonkhe cover both stories and provide media links:

  • Cambridge may be one of only a few universities that could still expect a full, or near-full cohort to start in the autumn with the year ahead expected to be online – as other providers that have struggled to recruit in the past may yet find it challenging to convince students to turn up to a fully online academic year. The position is complicated further by the fact that the college system may not be an easy point of comparison for others that rely more on large lectures.
  • The news was originallybroken by Varsity, was picked up last night by the BBC, and is covered this morning by the Times, the Mail, the Telegraph, the Express, the Evening Standard, the Guardian, the Independent, the Tab, the FT and is on the Press Association It’s also on several international news sites including Forbes.
  • Meanwhile, the University of Bolton has moveddecisively in the other direction, announcing a number of technical measures – from temperature sensors, to queueless catering, to bike loans – to support a return to campus in the autumn. Manchester Evening News has the story, and the university has released an animated video.

Here is the full list of Bolton’s intended changes to enable on campus teaching:

  • Providing regular socially distanced face-to-face tutorials, laboratory experience, access to arts studios and specialist facilities, etc
  • Implementing an effective scheduling system, limiting significantly the number of students on campus at any one time to keep you secure
  • Dividing sessions for access on campus into set times per day, for example, possibly between 8am-2pm and 2pm-8pm
  • Strictly observing recommended social distancing guidelines at all times
  • Installing sophisticated airport style walk through temperature scanners at every building entry
  • Making bicycles available for loan by students, enabling them to avoid crowded public transport
  • Providing on-campus bike parks as well as car parks
  • Ensuring there are adequate additional sanitiser stations
  • Providing and making the wearing of face coverings on campus compulsory for the foreseeable future to safeguard the safety of those around you. In exceptional circumstances, such as misplacing or forgetting face coverings, students will be issued with replacements
  • Carefully managed walking routes including one-way navigation
  • Multiple ‘learning zones’ being created across the campus, by identifying and transforming large spaces into areas featuring tables with plastic dividing screens to allow communication between people facing one another. (E.g. The ground floor of the National Centre for Motorsport Engineering will be cleared to become such a zone and other areas will also be repurposed)
  • Additional self-service, café-style takeaway food and drink stations to minimise queues
  • Instigating a rigorous cleansing programme throughout all university buildings.

On Bolton the Manchester Evening News says:

  • Students are currently using video calls to take classes virtually and the campus is unable to reopen until the government gives the all clear.
  • This will mean widespread changes to create a ‘new normal’ on campus and enable all students to physically attend the university campus safely at specified sessions.
  • During those sessions they will be able to work in laboratories, studios and workshops, attend tutorials, meet other students or converse with their tutor, on top of continuing their learning online.

This British Council article on how Chinese Universities are returning (in part) to face-to-face teaching contact is worth a quick skim through.

Parliamentary questions:

Access, Participation & Success

This week one of the main discussion topics has been access to university and disadvantaged success whilst at university. This isn’t surprising – as lockdown ‘eases’ and contemplation of what the autumn 2020 restart may consist of, alongside the constant recruitment conundrums – attention focuses more and more on how the national situation may play out for equalities.

Advance HE have a blog on the entrenched structural inequalities in HE. Looking through the lens of the student lifecycle in the UK, these have resulted in many challenges, including:

  • Underrepresentation of specific student groups: both generally, and in different disciplines, levels of study, and types of institution.
  • significant degree awarding gaps for different student groups – particularly relating to ethnicity (and gendered intersections) and disability.
  • differential experience of safety and harassment
  • unequal progression to highly skilled employment, and postgraduate study
  • teaching staff and senior academic staff who do not yet reflect the diversity of student cohorts.

OfS have relaxed the monitoring requirements of the Access and Participation Plans, whilst emphasising institutions should still do all they can to deliver the chosen goals. Advance HE continue:

  • all these external drivers – APPs (or equivalents), transparency returns, funded projects, Equality Charters – should ultimately be considered instruments collectively working to achieve a greater aim: a vision of an equitable student learning experience. The test of COVID-19 is how embedded that aim is in an institution’s vision of what sort of educational experience it can and wants to provide coming out of this crisis, and for whom.

The article concludes with 5 suggestions to keep student equity momentum going.

SRHE published the blog: Paid, unpaid and hidden internships: still a barrier to social mobility.

It explains the different sources of data from which to judge whether and how big an issue unpaid internships are. At the end of the article it puts the current data into perspective:

  • These findings show that, whilst unpaid internships appear to be declining in most sectors, they are still a key access route in some key industries and occupations and that this is likely to present a barrier to entry for less privileged graduates. The fact that graduates with better grades or from more prestigious institutions are more likely to do the paid internships reinforces findings from previous studies that suggest paid internships are more competitive and sought after. The findings also show that participation in graduate internships, paid or unpaid, is more commonplace in less vocational subjects, such as mass communication and documentation, historical and philosophical studies and creative arts and design. This may suggest that graduates of these subjects feel more need to supplement their educational qualifications with internships to ‘get ahead’ in an increasingly competitive graduate labour market.

The Wonkhe blog In this pandemic, admissions policy is being developed in real time urges organisations to work collaborative on the principles of admissions implying the Government will impose changes if the sector doesn’t move on its own consensus and practice first. It also states

  • Now is certainly the time to think about what to do if demand for places drops significantly in September. If selective courses start forecasting to under recruit in 2020 then maybe some of this demand can be absorbed by a greater focus on helping previously excluded WP students gain access to these programmes and a new way of thinking about how these courses recruit and select students.

Another Wonkhe blog, Delivering remote support for neurodiverse learners. this time by an assistive technology trainer, highlights the positive and negatives within an online learning environment for some students. The comments at the end that remind about autism are worth a read.

The admissions problem isn’t just about “prediction” takes a good gallop through why the use of predicted grades will double hit disadvantaged students, mentions other contributing factors, and gently calls for admissions reform.

Andrew Ross from University of Bath talks digital outreach.

A Bridge Group blog argues we should ensure that disadvantaged students are admitted to university at the same proportion as previous years so as not to lose progress on widening participation after the lockdown.

The OfS published a briefing note on the needs of students without family support during the pandemic. It covers all the main concerns and aims to share ideas, case studies, and signposting between universities to support these most vulnerable of students. Examples include:

  • offering personalised financial support in the form of hardship funds and graduate bursaries
  • tailoring mental health and wellbeing support and providing a buddy system to mitigate the isolating effects of lockdown
  • prioritising the provision of internet access, laptops and any other necessary course equipment for care experienced and estranged students.
  • The importance of addressing challenges faced by prospective students – whose access to information, advice and guidance to make informed choices for next year may have been affected by school closures.

And Wonkhe report that:  An open letter promoted by NUS and UCU is circulating regarding specific reasonable adjustments during the pandemic for disabled, chronically Ill and neurodivergent PhD students. It argues that many actions being taken by universities and funding bodies do not provide for the differentiated impacts and pressures experienced by disabled, chronically ill or neurodivergent students – or if they do, frame them entirely as matters of “health and wellbeing” rather than marginalisation, inequity, or structural discrimination.

It’s foster care fortnight and care leavers across the UK have amalgamated their definition of care into an online collaborative poem.

Wonkhe report that: New research from the Cardiff University’s Children’s Social Care Research and Development Centre finds that young people who were either in care or care-experienced at 13- or 14-years old, had significantly lower expectations of attending university than their peers. The report recommends that social workers, teachers, and higher education providers can all contribute to closing this gap.

Marginal prospective students

The Research Professional (RP) blog All being equal reports that TASO (Transforming Access and Student Outcomes in HE) met this week with RP stating that:

  • One worry is that Covid-19 will not only widen existing gaps but also make it harder to collect the evidence needed to find what works in reducing them. The group has already had to cancel plans to assess the effectiveness of summer schools, since none are happening this year. Given all this, the ambitious target set by the OfS to eliminate gaps in entry and dropout rates and degree outcomes between different groups of students in higher education within 20 yearslooks to be at risk.

However, they report that

  • Anna Vignoles, professor of education at the University of Cambridge, suggested Covid-19 could also potentially offer “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a big widening participation intervention”.
  • While going to university just to hide from a difficult labour market is not ideal, the evidence still points to higher education generally benefiting young people both economically and psychologically, Vignoles said. The chances are that they will be better off if they go. And she suggested to Playbook that stronger communication from higher education institutions was needed to make this happen.
  • Her main concern is for the students “at the margins”—not those who have always assumed they will be going to university. It is these “marginal” students who will suffer most from a bad labour market, she says, including the many apprentices likely to see the firms they work for go under, leaving their qualifications up in the air. Higher and further education institutions need to work together to help this group, she argues—and by this, she means those higher education institutions with traditional roots in their communities, that are used to responding to local skills needs.

Science Outreach for School Pupils

UKRI is funding to I’m a Scientist, Stay at Home! a school-age outreach platform for pupils to engage with STEM research during the school closures. UKRI say it is a unique programme where students can engage with scientists over fast-paced online text-based chats. Pupils can ask them anything they want such as: What’s the nearest meteorite to us? What’s your favourite thing about being a scientist? These chats are complemented with lesson plans for teachers to engage their students and at the end students vote for their favourite scientist. Part of the UKRI’s vision for public engagement is to nurture a future generation passionate about research and innovation and they state that I’m a Scientist provides a safe, moderated space for students to be inspired by science through conversations with active research staff.

UKRI state that with limited opportunities for practical science classes and engagement with research, I’m a Scientist provides a unique opportunity for classes to reconvene and explore cutting-edge scientific research together. Taking part in I’m a Scientist has been shown to help students get a better understanding of research and gain confidence in asking questions about science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM). It also supports researchers to improve their communication skills and enables them to engage with young people from regions across the UK.

Medical Research Council (MRC) has funded the Medical Research Zone with around 30 MRC-funded researchers and technicians engaging in conversations with school pupils.

Tom Saunders, UKRI Head of Public Engagement, said:

  • “This is a great opportunity for us to support STEM teaching during this difficult time for everyone. I’m a Scientist, Stay at Home! will inspire young people about research and the role it plays in our lives as well as provide a great way for UKRI researchers and technical staff to engage with young people,”

Parliamentary questions

Postgraduate Education

HEPI and the British Library have published a 154 page report: Postgraduate Education in the UK. It considers the changing postgraduate landscape over the last decade. It takes a pre C-19 perspective, however, it does tackle how postgraduate education was affected by 2008 recession – when students sought out additional education to help surmount the economic challenges and when those who already had postgraduate qualifications fared better than others in the labour market.

The 8 page executive summary is a quicker read for those with only a passing interest.

Some key Points taken mainly from HEPI’s press release:

  • There were 566,555 postgraduate students in 2017/18, of which 356,996 (63%) were in their first year – up by 16% since 2008/09
  • Two-thirds (65%) of new postgraduates are studying for Master’s degrees, 10% are taking doctorates or other research degrees, 7% are doing teacher training and the rest (18%) a range of diplomas, certificates, professional qualifications and modules
  • The most popular discipline is Business & Administrative Studies (20%), followed by Education (14%) and Subjects Allied to Medicine (12%). Research postgraduates (64%) are more likely to study STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) but most taught postgraduates (68%) take non- STEM subjects
  • Just over half of new UK-domiciled postgraduates (53%) study full-time, reversing past trends favouring part-time study – back in 2008/09, most postgraduates (59%) were part-time students
  • More than half (60%) of new postgraduate students at UK institutions come from the UK, while one-third (32%) come from outside the EU and 8% come from EU countries. The majority of Master’s students (53%) come from outside the UK
  • The female:male ratio among new postgraduates is 60:40, or 62:38 among UK-domiciled students alone. This reflects greater female participation over time – in 2008/09, the overall female:male ratio was 55:45
  • The gender ratio varies considerably by discipline: women are in a big majority in Subjects Allied to Medicine (77%), Veterinary Sciences (72%) and Education (70%) and men are in a big majority in Engineering & Technology (78%), Computer Science (76%) and Mathematics (71%). Males outnumber females among PhD researchers (51%)
  • White men, particularly disadvantaged White men, are less likely to undertake postgraduate study than others. Among UK-domiciled postgraduate entrants from the poorest areas, 64% are women and 36% are men
  • The proportion of postgraduate students aged under 30 has grown from 52% to 57% since 2008/09, reflecting a broader decline in people accessing lifelong learning opportunities
  • The introduction of £10,000 Master’s loans for home / EU students in 2016 has had a big positive impact: UK-domiciled student numbers grew by 29% in one year and by 59% among those from the most disadvantaged areas. The loans have also encouraged above-inflation fee increases
  • The number of people taking Taught Master’s courses grew by 30% from 2008/09 to 2017/18, but the total has been volatile, particularly among UK students. Among all new postgraduates, just over half (51%) were full-time Taught Master’s students in 2017/18 (Table 3.1 and p.23).
  • Between 2008/09 and 2017/18, UK-domiciled postgraduate entrants increased by 10% but students from overseas grew faster: EU-domiciled student numbers increased by 11% and non-EU international students grew by 33%
  • Chinese students formed 38% of the non-EU postgraduate cohort by 2017/18. Such heavy reliance on a single country exposes universities to greater risk from geo-political events
  • Since the referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union, the number of new postgraduate students from EU countries has fallen (by 2% in 2017/18 and another 2% in 2018/19), but the reduction in the value of the pound contributed to a 10% increase in non-EU postgraduate starters in 2017/18
  • The great recession following the 2007/08 financial crash witnessed a marked rise in Master’s take-up, as employment opportunities were restricted and people brought forward their plans to study
  • The abolition of post-study work visas (announced in 2011 and implemented in 2012) had a negative impact on demand for postgraduate study, most notably within India. The announcement that this policy is to be reversed is welcome but needs communicating quickly and clearly
  • Women have a bigger boost to their earnings from postgraduate study, earning 28% more than women with only undergraduate degrees – the comparable figure for men is 12%. But women with postgraduate qualifications still earn 14% less on average than men with the same level of qualifications
  • In the last crash, employment among those with postgraduate qualifications was slower to fall and faster to recover than for those with only a first degree, which may signal how the labour market will respond to the current Covid-19 crisis
  • Demand for postgraduate education is likely to grow over the long term: there could be an additional 22,750 undergraduates moving directly to postgraduate study by 2030 in England alone. While Brexit could mean a drop of around 11,500 EU postgraduates, successful implementation of the UK Government’s International Education Strategy could see an increase of 53,000 in other overseas postgraduates by 2030, although this partly depends on how the world recovers from the current Covid-19 crisis
  • Transnational education, where people take UK qualifications abroad, has seen substantial growth, more than doubling since 2007/08 to 127,825 postgraduates in 2017/18 and overtaking the number of overseas postgraduate students in the UK. Students studying in this way are excluded from the other figures in the report.

Dr Ginevra House, report author, describes her concerns for fair access to postgraduate study:

  • Despite a tumultuous decade, including the 2008 financial crash, restrictive changes to visas and Brexit, the UK’s postgraduate sector has emerged bigger and more diverse than ever before. However, the gains in fair access to postgraduate education – and by extension the professions – delivered by the introduction of Master’s loans may yet stall as rising fees consume most of the funds, leaving little or nothing for living costs. Other challenges to fair access remain, with under-participation by males, by White British students, and by those from less advantaged backgrounds. When writing this report, the Covid-19 pandemic had yet to reach its current height, but the risk posed by universities’ increasing reliance on international students was evident. The crisis is providing a timely reminder of the importance of a diverse and balanced student body to weather future shocks to the system, supported by government policies that foster international co-operation and mobility of the world’s brightest. With the shadow of a new recession ahead, combined with a rapidly changing, more automated job market, postgraduate education has never been more important, to build the highly skilled, knowledgeable, flexible and independent workforce needed to tackle the challenges of the future.

Nick Hillman, Director of HEPI, said:

  • ‘A proper study of UK postgraduate education is long overdue, given the growth it has enjoyed in recent years and the changing demographics of postgraduates. Postgraduate qualifications are increasingly expected by employers and more people want to achieve them. In some respects, postgraduate education now more closely resembles undergraduate study, with today’s postgraduate students more likely to be women, full-time and young. A higher proportion of postgraduate students are also from overseas. The higher education sector is in the midst of an horrendous and unprecedented crisis that is pulling the rug from under our institutions. But the story in this report is a positive one, showing the power of higher education to do good, extending people’s options, delivering the skills employers need and pushing forward the boundaries of knowledge. Another big positive in this report is the power of public policy to help individuals. The introduction of taxpayer-supported loans for postgraduate study has opened doors that were previously locked for many people who wanted to continue studying. If international postgraduate numbers fall, some courses will become unviable – this is true even if there are more home postgraduates because of the higher fee levels for international students.

Wonkhe describe the media sources covering the report:

The report is covered in the Times, the Telegraph, and ITV. HEPI also has a response to the report from Diana Beech, Head of Government Affairs at the University of Warwick [and who used to write for HEPI]. And Research Professional also describe the report in: Avoid ‘shocks’ by diversifying postgrad intake, says think tank.

Following on, some days later, Wonkhe state:

  • What that [HEPI] report didn’t set out to cover was what it’s like to study at postgraduate level, especially if you’re doing so with a view of trying to enter academia. And so today’s publication of initial findings of a survey by the Student Mental Health Research Network and Vitae exploring the impact of Covid-19 on doctoral and early career researchers provides a complementary and concerning picture.
  • Of the early career researchers whose contracts end in 2020, only 10 per cent report their funding has been extended. Only 12 per cent of doctoral researchers said their institution has provided an option to extend their doctoral studies. The impacts on research progress are largely negative, ranging from reduced access to essential software and reduced ability to collect and analyse data, disseminate findings, and maintain contact with colleagues to widespread stress about work, future plans, and finances. Four-fifths of doctoral researchers are showing some level of mental distress.
  • For many students, postgraduate study and early career research are a high-stakes endeavour, whether because of the investment of time and money, or because they’re trying to accrue enough academic capital to take the next step in a hugely competitive career path. It’s not entirely surprising, then, that a crisis like Covid-19 is causing serious distress – many of these people were walking on a knife edge before the pandemic hit.

Research

Research Professional have been on a reporting mission to find out all they can about the University Research Taskforce. They describe the run around they got trying to obtain the names of the taskforce members. The membership list is here and on the membership RP say: That is a lot of know-how in the room: the people who know the right questions to ask but also have their hands on the levers that might actually lead to solutions.

On the group’s purpose RP state:

  • The terms of reference for the group have not been released, but Playbook understands that this membership will be flexible—waxing and waning—depending on the topic under discussion. The taskforce certainly has some firepower and no shortage of issues to discuss.
  • However, it is clear from this membership that universities are very much outnumbered by politicians and civil servants. The purpose of this group is not to receive future requests for a bailout from higher education.
  • Rather, it is there to gather evidence on the state of university research during the Covid-19 pandemic, to look at possible policy solutions and to present all this in a coherent way to the big bosses who really matter: the UK Treasury, the prime minister’s office and the leaders of the devolved nations (in that order).
  • There is no union representation, nor are there multiple voices from the mission groups that represent smaller but no less important research efforts in higher education. There is a strong sense that this is a task and finish group that will put something of substance on the table, even if it is not necessarily something that universities have a casting vote over.
  • It is to be hoped that, when the need arises, the taskforce will take soundings from independent voices in university research—such as a Graeme Reid, a Richard Jones or an Athene Donald—because it is always wise to consult those you are about to do something to before doing it to them.

PG Research Degrees – The UK Council for Graduate Education released a guidance note on the potential impacts of Covid-19 on the delivery of postgraduate research degrees and the institutional support doctoral candidates should expect to receive, including possible mitigation strategies. And as mentioned earlier there is an open letter circulating which request reasonable adjustments and time extensions for chronically ill and neurodivergent PhD students as a result of C-19.

New UKRI Head – Professor Ottoline Leyser has been appointed as the new CEO of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and will replace Sir Mark Walport on 29 June. One of her key functions will be to guide the delivery of the government’s ambition to increase investment in R&D to 2.4% of GDP by 2027, establishing the UK as a global hub for science and technology.

Professor Ottoline Leyser commented:

  • UKRI has a unique opportunity to make a profound contribution to tackling the many challenges facing the world. During my career, I have seen the power of genuinely collaborative cultures to catalyse the transformative thinking needed to create effective solutions. I look forward to working with the UKRI team to ensure that the UK’s superb research and innovation system continues to work for everyone, by pioneering new partnerships, developing innovative funding models and strengthening international collaboration.

You can read UKRI’s press release on the appointment here, the Government’s press release here and Research Professional’s coverage here. Research Professional have also dug two articles by Ottoline out on UKRI (written in 2018 as UKRI was about to begin official operations) and the REF.

UKRI also published their preventing harm policy for safe research and innovation environments this week.

The British Academy have published a comment ahead of their formal response to the UKRI Open Access Review Consultation.

Other Research News

Mental Health

UUK have updated their mental health framework in Stepchange Mentally Healthy Universities. The framework calls on universities to take a whole university approach, meaning that mental health and wellbeing is considered across every aspect of the university and is part of all practices, policies, courses and cultures. The four areas cited in the framework are: Learn; Support; Work; Live. These map onto the University Mental Health Charter, developed by Student Minds.

Recommended actions within the new framework include:

  • demonstrating visible leadership and senior ownership of mental health as a priority to promote open conversations and sustain change
  • working closely with students and staff to develop mental health strategies and services
  • ensuring accessible and appropriately resourced support for mental health and wellbeing for all students and all staff
  • focusing on staff mental health; inclusion of mental health in staff performance discussions and provision of appropriate training for line managers and supervisors
  • clarification of the key role of academic staff in supporting the mental health of students through appropriate training and development
  • commitment to assessments and course work that stretch and test learning without imposing unnecessary stress

The Guardian have an article looking at the value and changes to Nightline mental health support on its 50 year anniversary.

Admissions – offer making

The sector is (almost) over talking about OfS’ intention to obtain temporary powers to prevent what OfS consider unscrupulous admissions behaviour that is not in the student interest. There is a consultation currently open on the topic. However, HEPI have a new blog written by Dean Machin (Jane’s equivalent over in Portsmouth) – The Office for Students’ new power: a ‘necessary and proportionate’ response to the pandemic, or not wasting a crisis? – challenging the OfS thought process on the student interest. The blog concludes by calling on the OfS to address 6 concerns:

  1. Will the OfS publish its evidence that the proposed non-compliant conduct has systematically and non-trivially increased since 11 March?
  2. Given the Government’s prompt action on 23 March, why has the OfS taken so much longer to act?
  3. Will the OfS publish the criteria it will use to form its opinion on whether the new condition is violated and what constitutes a material negative effect?
  4. Will the OfS explain how it understands the ‘student interest’ in this area and what steps it has taken to get students’ views on the student interest in the pandemic?
  5. Has the OfS considered the effect on students’ interests of fining universities potentially millions of pounds just at the time they are expecting a significant decline in income? This question should be viewed in light of the fact that the Government support package for universities includes no extra funding.
  6. Finally, if the problems the condition seeks to solve are pandemic-specific and created by the conduct of a small number of universities, why is the condition ‘broad and onerous‘ and why will it be in force until at least the middle of 2021?

In fact the OfS have published frequently asked questions including covering the time-limited condition of registration and other topics (although the regulatory answers are a bit hard to navigate).

Degree Apprenticeships and Social Mobility

The Sutton Trust have published COVID-19 and Social Mobility Impact Brief #3: Apprenticeships. Here I include detail only on the aspects most relevant to HE.

Many young people from disadvantaged backgrounds undertake apprenticeships. They are more likely to be concentrated in apprenticeships at lower levels, be paid lower salaries, and work at smaller companies. At early April, employers surveyed reported that on average just 39% of apprenticeships were continuing as normal, with 36% having been furloughed and 8% made redundant. 17% of apprentices had their off-the-job learning suspended.

The Sutton Trust has previously raised concerns over degree apprenticeships and the prioritisation of spending in the levy. Degree Apprenticeships (level 6 and 7) are dominated by those from less deprived areas – there are twice as many degree level apprentices from the wealthiest areas as there are from the poorest.

The number of degree apprenticeships has grown rapidly, from 756 in 2015/16 to 13,587 in 2018/19.

  • Since 2017, there has also been a big rise in other degree-level apprenticeships, award qualifications equivalent to a degree but not from a university, from just 19 four years ago, to 8,892 last year.
  • Much of this growth has not benefitted young people, with more than half of degree apprenticeships taken up by people over 30
  • Senior leadership courses – equivalent to an MBA – have expanded significantly, growing six-fold from 552 to 3,410 in 2018/19
  • Conversely, the proportion of young apprentices from deprived communities taking degree level apprenticeships up has fallen (from 9% in 2016 to 6% last year).
  • The number of older apprentices from well-off areas has more than doubled (from 5% to 11%), leading to a growing access gap for those under 25.
  • Senior leadership and chartered management courses alone now make up almost half (46%) of the entire degree apprentice cohort as employers look to put their senior staff through these courses rather than train younger, less affluent employees.

Recommendations

  • At a time of economic downturn and limited resources, apprenticeship levy funding should not be spent subsidising senior executives taking MBA-style qualifications, but should instead be focused on providing new opportunities for young people facing a challenging labour market. The Government should consider a maximum salary ceiling for levy-funded apprentices to avoid it being spent on highly paid and well qualified senior staff. Employers could also be required to top up level funding for certain categories of apprentice or conversely incentivise apprenticeships to increase opportunities for groups who need it most.
  • The priority for current apprentices should be to continue training where possible, even when on furlough or if redeployed within a company
  • In order for apprenticeships to deliver on the social mobility agenda as we come out of the coronavirus crisis, social mobility and widening opportunity should be an explicit criterion in the government’s review of the apprenticeships levy.

FE Week covers the brief with good volume of content on degree apprenticeships.

International Students

The surveys and speculation on international students’ intention to commence UK universities in autumn 2020 disagree. Some predict dire impacts with low recruitment, others suggest there will only be a smaller reduction. Wonkhe round up two news points from this week:

A new survey from QS suggests that seventy two per cent of prospective international students are interested in starting their UK course online this autumn. This breaks down to 46 per cent being definitely committed to the idea, and 26 per cent being unsure. Sixty-two per cent of international students have had their plans to study abroad affected by Covid-19.

The Russell Group has set out proposals to support international recruitment, which includes further improvements to visa conditions and a new international marketing campaign. PIE news has the story.

Research Professional also cover the Russell Group’s proposals in Big Ask and talk of the Group distancing themselves from UUK after the Government snubbed their bailout proposals. Excerpts:

  • The government is being asked to continue “reforms to ensure Britain remains a globally attractive destination for students”. What this means in practice is passing “the two-year post-study work visa through emergency immigration rules (secondary legislation) immediately”. The Jo Johnson-Paul Blomfield amendment has yet to pass into law and surveys suggest it is not well known among prospective international students.
  • The Russell Group also wants: international students to be prioritised in visa applications once travel restrictions are lifted; the government to increase the visa to 30 months to give UK universities a competitive edge; students to be allowed to apply for their visa six months in advance rather than three, to avoid those taking online classes facing the prospect of starting courses and then potentially being refused a visa; visas to be extended for current students affected by the pandemic; rules to be relaxed on monitoring students in the UK, such as reporting to police stations; European Union students to be allowed to apply to the EU settled status scheme; and universities to be allowed to conduct their own language capacity assessments.
  • …
  • The problem is that “many overseas governments do not recognise degrees which are comprised of significant amounts of distance learning. This lack of recognition could deter students from studying in the UK where they fear their qualifications will not be recognised.” This is a particular concern in China, the UK’s primary market for international students… Accordingly, the Russell Group is calling on the government to work with the international community to agree reciprocal recognition of online classes following the impact of Covid-19. The problem is also that international cooperation is in short supply at the moment, especially where popular nationalism encourages both protectionism and undercutting of rivals.
  • …
  • Recently, one forlorn international recruitment expert in the north of England told Playbook that if the student cohorts did not return to Leeds, Sheffield, Manchester, Nottingham and Durham, the economic impact would be like closing the mines all over again. That might be an argument worth making to those still aspiring to level up.

Graduate prospects and student employment

The Resolution Foundation published a report on young workers in the coronavirus crisis using evidence from a survey they conducted. The report finds that younger and older workers have experienced the brunt of the hit to jobs and pay, with the very youngest in the most challenging position.

  • A third of 18-24-year-old employees (excluding students) have lost jobs or been furloughed, compared to 1 in 6 prime-age adults.
  • Similarly, 35% of non-full-time student 18-24-year-old employees are earning less than they did prior to the outbreak, compared to 23% of 25-49-year-olds.
  • The proportion of 18-24-year-old non-fulltime students who have lost their main job since the coronavirus outbreak began (9%) is three times as large as the figure across all employees
  • Young people are more likely than other age groups to work in atypical jobs. Recent analysis shows that people in atypical work are concentrated in ‘shutdown sectors’ directly affected by lockdown measures, such as hospitality and non-food retail.
  • Those aged 25-39 are most likely to be working from home during the crisis, and most likely to expect to do more of this in the future. Conversely, the youngest employees and those aged 55 and older are the most limited in what they can do from home.

Maja Gustafsson, report author said:

  • Our findings show the disproportionate impact of the coronavirus crisis on the youngest and oldest earners. These employees are more likely to have lost work or been furloughed due to the crisis than those of prime age, and have experienced the biggest pay swings with large proportions losing earnings. Government support through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme is helping many of these affected workers get through the crisis. As the crisis continues to unfold, comprehensive support across ages and targeted support for the very youngest workers will be essential to minimise the damage done, and especially to minimise long-term employment and pay scarring for the young.

The Institute of Student Employers has issued a report on the graduate labour market and Chief Executive, Stephen Isherwood, writes for the Guardian. He explains there are still glimmers of hope for graduate employment – although overall volume is down (12% cut in graduate jobs and 40% cut in placements) many employers are still recruiting or delaying induction programmes until later in the Autumn. Furthermore, certain sectors are not anticipating a downturn and this alongside vacancies in key sectors (STEM and digital) offers many opportunities. The article states interviews, assessments, and seeking out recruitment talent have been online for some time, but C-19 has increased the overall volume of virtual activity and that we can expect this increased practice to continue post-virus:

  • Many of these practices are long-term trends accelerated by coronavirus. Even though broadband can falter, interviews and assessments are delivered faster and more economically online. Employers won’t revert to labour intensive methods as business returns to normal. Finally, Stephen warns about the lure of a Masters. Stating There is absolutely nothing wrong with the pursuit of postgraduate study for the love of learning, if students are making an informed investment decision. And warning that some employment sectors did not value a Masters above an undergraduate degree.

The Financial Times has an article which begins with the doom and gloom outlook (worst economy since the Depression, UK hiring intentions at their lowest level in 15 years). However, it goes on to highlight how some larger firms are running their summer programmes online with almost-guaranteed jobs at the end to fill their need for ‘fresh blood’.

  • … the onus on companies that can work virtually to step up and prevent this generation from paying a disproportionate price. We’ve had a lot of talk during this crisis about stakeholder capitalism and the need to prevent economic scarring. This is one of those moments where push comes to shove.
  • …the big Wall Street banks, including Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase, are pushing ahead with online summer programmes and will bring in thousands of new trainees on schedule in the autumn. “We want to be there for our communities. We need new blood to make sure that we can forge ahead,” says Ryland McClendon, who runs career development programmes for JPMorgan. Citi has also guaranteed that participants in its abbreviated summer intern programmes will be offered full-time jobs in 2021, as long as they meet minimum requirements. “We saw an opportunity to relieve some of the stress and uncertainty so many young adults are feeling right now, especially those preparing to enter a job market in the midst of great economic uncertainty,” bank executives explained in a
  • That is not only admirable but good business. Recovery from Covid-19 may come slowly. But, when it does, some companies will have well-trained young staff ready to get to work. Others will only have a string of disappointed youngsters with bitter memories. 

Wonkhe have new blogs:

Inquiries and Consultations

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

Other news

New loans: The Guardian have an explainer article on loan application following the Student Loan Company who have urged prospective students to apply for their 2020/21 loans early to ensure they don’t face delays.

Devolved consequences: Both Wales and Scotland are reporting significant consequences of C-19 on universities finance, recruitment and stability. If you are interested in the devolved position Wales Fiscal Analysis has issued a paper.

Home School: The Institute for Fiscal Studies has published a report on learning during the lockdown focusing on the experience of children.

Immigration: With the Immigration Bill passing the vote Wonkhe talk about the Impact Assessment: The Impact Assessment for the Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill suggests that 20 per cent of EU/EEA students would be deterred by newly applicable visa requirements – around 15,000 per annum during the first five years of the policy, an estimate of up to 25,000 fewer EU higher education students in the UK by academic year 2024-25 relative to the baseline.

However the projections of an increase in non-EU/EEA international students following the implementation of the Post-Study Work Visa dwarf these changes – a 10 per cent increase in enrolments would mean an estimated annual increase of around 25,000 over the first five years of the policy. The projected increase in international tuition fee income would be between £1 billion and £2 billion over the first five years.

Behavioural changes and migration flows are notoriously difficult to predict, so the document cautions that these figures are indicative only.

Home working: in non-policy news the CMI have found that many managers have found working from home a largely positive experience and intend to incorporate it into their regular working week post-virus. And New Zealand’s prime minister Jacinda Ardern urged employers to  consider flexible working options, including a four-day week , as part of efforts to rebuild the economy after the pandemic.

Online graduation: Wonkhe have a comedy round up of the latest (mainly American) virtual graduation antics.

Post Covid Society: Politics Home cover a survey by The House (parliament) on MPs expectations of a post Covid society.

  • Three quarters of MPs believe taxes will increase to fund public services in the wake of the coronavirus crisis.
  • Almost two-thirds of MPs believe pay for NHS and care workers should be higher, while 56% say the pay packets of key workers such as bus drivers should also increase
  • 72% of MPs agree that “taxes will increase to fund public services”, while 83% agree that “the state will play a greater role in the economy”
  • 73% agree that “tough spending choices will have to be made” – but just four in ten would back cuts to public services to rein in spending
  • Freezing public sector pay was opposed by the majority of MPs
  • 90% believe that unemployment will be higher
  • 65% agree that “people will be kinder to each other” after the pandemic – but just 10% say politics will “be less partisan”
  • Just 8% believe the public will have more trust in politicians
  • 51% of MPs support a further extension to the Brexit transition period (49% don’t)
  • On handling coronavirus 9 in 10 MPs believed the NHS had performed very well, with half of those selecting performed ‘very well’. 60% of MPs surveyed believed the police had performed well. 63% of MPs felt the British media had performed poorly (10% felt had performed well).
  • Conservative opinion on the debt is split. Some warn against increasing taxes to pay off the debt accumulated from tackling the virus. However, a number of Conservative backbenchers would prefer Sunak to pursue economic growth and pay off the obligations over time.

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

NHS, Student Engagement

Speculation on what the easing of lockdown means for universities and particularly research labs. Contention over the Augar Review recommendations. Further concerns for the employment outlook of the graduating cohort alongside conjecture that the lack of work may mean those who hadn’t planned to may consider postgraduate study or even commencing university at undergraduate level. And more parliamentary questions than you could ever dream of!

Parliamentary News

BEIS Chair: Darren Jones MP won the vote and has been appointed as the Business Energy and Industrial Strategy select committee chair. The Labour representative on 13 other select committees will also change due to the incumbents accepting Shadow Cabinet roles. Dawn Butler and Kim Johnson will replace Lucy Powell and Fleur Anderson on the Education Select Committee.

Virtual Parliament Ends: Despite all the investment and flurry of activity finding a virtual solution for Parliament it has been announced that the hybrid arrangements whereby some Parliamentarians remain in the chamber for business and some remote in virtually will end by Friday 22 May. MPs and staff have been told they’ll need to return ‘to normal’ from June. Many MPs feel this is precipitous and inappropriate.

House of Lords HE Debate

Last Wednesday (6 May) the House of Lords debated the impact of the Coronavirus on the HE sector and students. You can read the full debate here. Summary:

Lord Blunkett (Lab) tabled a private notice question on the support package unveiled for universities and students and what steps the government were taking to protect quality and accessibility in the sector.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Baroness Berridge, said that all providers must adhere to Office for Student conditions on quality and access. She affirmed that the Government were bringing forward £2.6 billion of forecast tuition fee income to help universities’ cash flow, and providing students with more support, including increasing student hardship funds.

Lord Blunkett (Lab) queried whether the definition of a 5% student uplift referenced in the package was based on forecast numbers, rather than a historic benchmark. He also pressed the minister for timelines of the publication on the work of the research sustainability taskforce, “in respect of the likely catastrophic loss of income from overseas students and the urgent need to underwrite research funding”.

The Minister confirmed that the precise figures to determine the 5% uplift on the cap would be provided at provider level, and the methodology for that will be published shortly.

Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD) said the loss of income from foreign students would be compounded by the loss of research income from Horizon 2020 and other EU participation programmes. She queried what steps were being taken to encourage overseas students to come to the UK.

The Minister confirmed that the Department for Education was working with the Department for International Trade to amend the international education strategy. “The clear message is that the UK is open for business and for international students to come at the start of the academic year”, she said.

Opposition Spokesperson for Education and Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, Lord Bassam of Brighton, commented that “the Government are allowing universities to charge students the full £9,250 annual tuition fee while our campuses remain closed—as long as there are highest standards of online teaching”.

He posited that many courses were simply unfit for online learning and contended that the market-driven higher education system had forced students to see themselves as consumers, “and they are not getting what they have paid for”.

The Minister responded that the Office for Students had been very clear on quality of provision that should be maintained during this period.

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) queried how future policies could help universities move towards a more co-operative model and eliminate the waste emanating from competition. “The kind of waste that could be eliminated is, as the Augar report highlighted, the £500 per student that is spent on marketing”, she added.

The Minister responded that the Office for Students was a modern regulator, encouraging greater innovation and putting student choice at the centre of the system.

Tuition Fees

In last week’s policy update we highlighted the petition to Government to refund student’s tuition fees. On Thursday the Petitions Committee examined the petition and took oral evidence. You can read a summary provided by Dods here.

Research Professional report on a conversation with UUK on the dangers if universities are required to repay tuition fees – paying back fees could see some universities pushed to the edge.

Universities Minister, Michelle Donelan, answered another parliamentary question to confirm that tuition fees remain payable as long as the quality and volume of delivery is appropriate.

Q – Stella Creasy: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether universities that have closed as a result of the covid-19 outbreak will require their students to pay their fees in full.

A – Michelle Donelan:

  • Fee loans are being paid directly to universities as planned at the start of the third term.
  • We are working with universities to make sure all reasonable efforts are being made to enable students to continue their studies to the best of their abilities. There are some fantastic and innovative examples of high-quality online learning being delivered by institutions across the UK, and the sector is already working hard to prepare learning materials for the summer and autumn terms.
  • Students ordinarily should not expect any fee refund if they are receiving adequate online learning and support. However, the government has made it clear that if universities are unable to deliver adequate online teaching then it would be unacceptable for students to be charged for any additional terms of study, which would effectively mean that they were being charged twice.
  • Whether or not an individual student is entitled to a refund of their fees will depend on specific contractual arrangements between the student and their university.
  • In the first instance, students should speak to their university. We expect student complaints and appeals processes to be operated flexibly, accessibly and sympathetically by institutions to resolve any concerns. Students who are not satisfied with their institution’s final response can ask the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education to consider their complaint if their institution is based in England or Wales.

A Lords response on (not) adjusting tuition fees for online provision.

Student Accommodation

There is a Bill before the Scottish Parliament that will allow students who cannot take up their place in university accommodation because of C-19 to end their lease. Research Professional report that

  • those already with halls of residence contracts will be able to cancel their agreements with seven days’ notice, and those who enter into such contracts will also be able to cancel with a month’s notice. This, if passed, will stop students from being liable for rental costs for next year when, in all probability, at least part of their teaching will be taking place virtually.

The BBC has covered the news of the Bill.

Parliamentary questions:

Government’s Support Package for HE

The Shadow Universities Minister, Emma Hardy, was unimpressed with the Government’s support package for HE institutions. Research Professional (RP) ran the exclusive with her writing an open letter to higher education.

  • RP report that the Shadow Minister stated: I was very disappointed that the government rejected the collective proposals put forward by Universities UK and chose instead just to bring forward the payment of student fees alone. This does nothing to address the underlying loss of income in the long term and consequently universities are being forced to set budgets in the dark without a safety net.
  • RP continue: In her letter, Hardy addresses university budgets, widening participation, casual contracts, student rent, open learning, mental health, anchor institutions, skills and training. She rounds on the government’s apparent neglect for students, saying that students are seen as “somehow a different category of person whose welfare is the sole province of universities and the Office for Students”. She calls Monday’s financial rescue package an “abdication of the government’s responsibility”.

On easing Lockdown Emma Hardy was similarly unimpressed stating the PM’s speech contained a total lack of clarity. Research Professional has also considered what easing lockdown could mean for Universities.

The Office for Budget Responsibility has published a coronavirus analysis modelling the impact of the virus and the measures put in place to tackle and ameliorate for it. Research Professional reported from the report on Sunday that while universities may not suffer in terms of income lost until September, they would be the sector hardest hit by the coronavirus crisis.

Wonkhe explain why the schemes the Government want Universities to access (furlough and business continuity schemes) don’t really work for the HE sector.

There is lots of talk about the Policy Exchange report, A training opportunity in the crisis, which some sector reporters suggest is another way for the Government to close down the degree courses they don’t feel add value to the UK economy – “mickey mouse courses”.

This Wonkhe blog looks at the options available for the sector and highlights these excerpts from the Policy Exchange report:

  • …a Policy Exchange report that’s officially on “skills”, but is really onreorganising tertiary. First some clickbait keywords – current bail out conditions provide Government, he says, with short term leverage to “weed out” weaker courses and push back against “grade inflation”, “unconditional offers” and other “pathologies of modern”, market-driven HE.

Dods summarise the key points of the Policy Exchange paper:

  • [The paper] sets out how the coronavirus crisis could be a watershed moment for education and training in the UK. Among other recommendations, it urges the Government to undo the policy error of abolishing the polytechnics in 1992… it argues that the current crisis offers an opportunity to cut through many of the normal blockages and vested interests, not least since we may – in the wake of coronavirus – be moving into a period of high unemployment, which will require a radical rethinking of current policy.

These are the executive summary points taken from within the paper itself:

  • The coronavirus crisis underlines the need for an education and training system that is better aligned with the economic and social needs of the UK. We can no longer afford the luxury of a wasteful mismatch produced by low value degrees and a disorganised approach to vocational training.
  • The Government must overcome the resistance of the higher education sector, which has quietly become a powerful cultural and economic vested interest.
  • This paper recommends that a new “opportunity grant”, to train or retrain, of at least £3,000 should be on offer for every individual, with added loans to cover more expensive courses and maintenance costs for those who want to take courses full time (repaid in the same way as student loans). The grant money would not go to the individual but would be drawn down by the training provider or FE college or, in a few cases, university.
  • It recommends suspending the apprenticeship levy for new entrants and replace it with a radically simplified model focused on school leavers (only about 9 per cent of whom currently enter an apprenticeship) and young people up to the age of 24, with Government and employers splitting the full cost 50:50.
  • Lastly, it recommends the creation of a sub-set of “applied universities,” essentially undoing the policy error of abolishing the polytechnics in 1992. With the exception of the “higher” vocational courses in medicine, engineering, and perhaps law, most vocational degrees should be clustered in the applied universities

Parliamentary questions:

  • Admissions – support for HE providers who recruit only at a significantly decreased level for 2020/21 (answer – just the package already announced).
  • What plans the Government have to provide financial assistance to universities during C-19.

New guidance as lockdown “eases”

As educational institutions make decisions on where to go with Sunday’s announcements on the easing of lockdown from Wed 13 there is clear guidance on Gov.uk on a couple of points at least.

Q – Can students return to their family home if they’ve been in halls all this time?

  • A – In general, leaving your home – the place you live – to stay at another home is not allowed. If a student is moving permanently to live back at their family home, this is permitted.

Q – Who is allowed to go to work?

  • A – In the first instance, employers should make every effort to support working from home, including by providing suitable IT and equipment as they have been already. This will apply to many different types of businesses, particularly those who typically would have worked in offices or online.
  • Where work can only be done in the workplace, we have set out tailored guidelines for employers to help protect their workforce and customers from coronavirus while still continuing to trade or getting their business back up and running. We will be publishing even more detailed COVID-19 secure guidelines in the coming days, which has been developed in consultation with businesses and trades unions.

These ‘back to work’ guidelines apply to selected groups, including those working in labs and research facilities.

There are specific guidelines for those who are vulnerable, shielding, or showing symptoms.

And on attending university – there is no answer (yet) but there is a question.

Q – Can children go back to early years settings, schools or university?

  • A – We initially urge those who are currently eligible to use school provision (children of critical workers and vulnerable children) to attend. As soon as it is safe to do so we will bring more year groups back to school in a phased way when it is safe to have larger numbers of children within schools, but not before. Keeping children and staff safe is our utmost priority.
  • Schools should prepare to begin opening for more children from 1 June. The government expects children to be able to return to early years settings, and for Reception, Year 1 and Year 6 to be back in school in smaller class sizes from this point.
  • Secondary schools and further education colleges should also prepare to begin some face to face contact with Year 10 and 12 pupils who have key exams next year, in support of their continued remote, home learning.
  • The government’s ambition is for all primary school children to return to school before the summer for a month if feasible.

There might be some clues here for what the answer will be when there is one:

Q – How will you make sure it is safe?

  • A – Schools can now operate if they are organised in a way that is compatible with minimising the spread of the virus. The next phase of measures will require the development of new safety standards to set out how physical spaces, including schools, can be adapted to operate safely.
  • We will publish guidance advising schools on reopening to ensure schools can adequately prepare for the next phase. One of the main protective measures we can take to reduce transmission is to have small consistent group and class sizes.

Labs and research facilities – there is a specific set of broad guideline for cautious reopening

On lab based researchers returning to work research Professional write:

  • Perhaps of most immediate interest to higher education people—particularly those engaged in lab or field-based research—was the announcement that as of today, those who cannot carry out their work from home are “actively encouraged” to go back to work.
  • While Johnson used the example of the construction industry, it is hard to argue that researchers whose lab work is housed on campus or in research institutes can meaningfully carry out their work from home. Those who have such work to go back to (though who knows how many experiments have been lost, either due to a lack of attention or by lab capacity being usurped by urgent coronavirus work) are now, it would appear, permitted to do so.
  • That is, provided that they can get there—without using public transport, wherever possible. Also, their employers (which is where university professional and support services come in) must ensure that their workplaces have been made “Covid secure”.

Easing back to Education

Another week brings a further set of opinions on what a graduate emergence from lockdown might be like within HE. These two were written before Sunday’s announcements:

  • Wonkhe consider the middle ground with some aspects back on campus but respecting social distancing.
  • Research Professional (RP) report that Italian research labs reopen and describe their working conditions.

And these published after the announcement:

  • RP look for clues within the published schools reopening guidance and speculate about which research labs it is most important to open first. Alongside the tricky issue of the volume of support staff that would be needed back on site to support those working in labs (cleaners, post services, estates functions, senior supervision).
  • RP cover Portugal (instructed to blend face to face with distance from September, and relaxing the entrance rules) and Germany (partially open for teaching and research where face to face necessary – but digital learning prioritised, some states prefer digital only, face to face contact remains controversial).
  • The Centre for Education and Youth has produced a report stating that summer schools likely won’t deliver the catch up for school pupils that is needed (although different approaches may result in success). They also recommend balancing academic ideals and emotional wellbeing. Teachers are most concerned about their disadvantaged pupils. Furthermore, special consideration should be given to pupils transitioning between phases or schools.
  • RP suggest that Universities or parts of universities could be moving in and out of quarantine on a regular basis. And another article details the institutions who do not intent to (immediately, at least) reopen their labs.
  • A Wonkhe student union blog looking at what we’re allowed to do, able to do, and willing to do when the autumn term commences – and how individual differences may create further inequities.

General Public Opinion on easing lockdown

A snap YouGov poll conducted after Sunday’s easing of lockdown announcements showed divided sentiments within the nation.

  • 44% of surveyed support the easing, 43% are opposed, 13% are ‘unsure’.
  • Conservative voters support the intended measures more than Lib Dem or Labour voters.
  • Support for the easing rises with age, and men are a little more likely to support the work and exercise relaxation rules than women.
  • However, those opposing the easing measures are not opposed to ending lockdown, instead 91% of the opposed feel the relaxation of measures go too far.
  • 70% of the survey population weren’t keen on the new Government catchphrase either (stay alert, control the virus, save lives), finding it unclear on what they are supposed to do. Again there is a party divide influencing whether the responders like the slogan.

Another YouGov poll finds that 82% of the public think they could easily cope with the current state of affairs until June.

  • Those that would find it hard is up 2% from 11% to 13%.
  • 63% said they’d be OK until July. But by August predicted coping drops to 44%, with 50% of respondents saying they’d have a hard time continuing as present until August.
  • It drops again to 35% who could cope into September. And 22-25% believe they’d be OK until January 2021.

YouGov say: The fact that figures level off at this point [November] could simply reflect the limits of how far into the future Britons are able to imagine their emotional state, rather than representing the bedrock figure for how many people could effectively cope indefinitely.

Augar Review

The surprise news of the weekend was Phillip Augar stating that C-19 has changed the sector and that he no longer stands by some of the recommendations the Post-16 review of tertiary education report made.

You’ll recall that the Augar report has been published for nearly a year but due to Government procrastination, in part caused by the change in Conservative leadership, there has been no official response to the recommendations.

Now Augar writes in a personal capacity for the Financial Times stating now might not be the time to reduce the social science/humanities fee level as the Augar review originally recommended. However, it is not quite the ‘U-Turn’ that the HE media are reporting. Much of what Augar has to say continues along the report’s party line, i.e. not all courses financially benefit the economy as much as others. Here are the key excerpts from the Financial Times article – the time is ripe to reform UK university finance.

  • Higher and further education will play a key role in shaping this [the way the world of work will change due to C-19]. England, where the sectors are disconnected and unevenly funded, faces particular challenges. A panel on post-18 education, which I chaired, reported a year ago and the government says it will respond this year. Reform would be timely.
  • However, there are signs that the dividend from higher education as currently delivered in England has played out. One in three graduates are not in graduate-level employment; one in five would have been better off financially had they not gone to university; and outcomes for the disadvantaged vary too widely. Recruiting large numbers on to poor quality, irrelevant courses is not a triumph of social mobility. Better directed recruitment at scale could be.
  • This is a public as well as a private issue. University education in England is funded by state-backed student loans, written off after 30 years. Nearly half of all students receive a government subsidy in this way. The write-off varies between subjects. The state loses money on around a third of all subjects studied. It writes off more on social studies subjects than on maths, computer science or engineering; more on communications and media studies than on agriculture and veterinary science; and more on creative arts than on any other subject. Without denigrating any subject as being unworthy of study, there is a clear misalignment between the subsidy and the economy’s needs.
  • The funding model is the root of the problem. It allows universities to charge £9,250 for all courses, cross-subsidising research and expensive subjects from fee income earned on high-margin courses and overseas students. This has led to an oversupply in some disciplines, under-investment in science degrees and over-reliance on overseas student fees, which necessitated this week’s government support package.
  • The panel I chaired recommended cutting tuition fees to the average cost of a humanities degree — £7,500, according to Universities UK — and increasing the existing top-up for strategically important courses. Covid-19-related disruption may now mean that such a fee cut would be too destabilising. But the problem has not gone away. An alternative would be to freeze fees for a further five years and ramp up the teaching grant for strategic subjects. Other options include number caps on some courses or a payment back to government by universities for reinvestment in priority subjects.
  • One final point. The importance of the country’s research base has been underlined during this crisis. In future, university research needs to be funded openly, generously and strategically, not partly via the back door.

So he hasn’t really changed his mind as others are reporting. He’s just saying make the proposed cuts by another method so as not to add to the immediate destabilisation of the sector. And the alternatives he proposed might not be that popular either, although they will resonate with those who like the Policy Exchange report referred to above.

Research Professional reached out to Nick Hillman, director of HEPI, to ask his opinion on Augar’s pronouncement. Here’s his response: Augar’s tuition fee U-turn made me splutter into my Pimm’s.

  • One of the great unwritten rules of politics is that if you ask a member of the great and the good to review a policy area for you, you can reliably expect them to defend their conclusions for years to come… Augar’s volte-face is nothing to do with the government ruling out his idea. We are still waiting for them to tell us what they think of a report that was originally announced at the Conservative Party conference back in 2017… Indeed, the U-turn is oddly timed because, in some respects, the chances of the Augar report’s main proposal being implemented have improved in recent months. Alison Wolf, an influential member of the Augar panel, has started advising Number 10 and numerous people have called for fee reductions to help students hit by Covid-19. Former UCAS chief executive Mary Curnock Cook, for example, has called for a 20 per cent fee discount.

Hillman takes exception with Augar blaming Blair for the 50% young people entering HE aspiration. Hillman states:

  • This historical inaccuracy matters because it allows Augar to continue portraying the recent expansion of higher education as an error. He argues that “the dividend from higher education as currently delivered in England has played out”. That is a very odd argument to make on the cusp of a recession. Earlier downturns have proven that being better educated is an insurance policy against unemployment.

And on Augar’s FE points (see article) Hillman also disagrees:

  • But his third argument is highly questionable. He says there is a need to boost further education to provide “a viable alternative to degrees”. This is half true and half crazy. Do we need a better offer for people who do not undertake higher education? Indubitably. But are there too many people doing degrees? No.
  • The problem the UK faces, as shown clearly in comparative OECD data, is that we have too many low-skilled people, not too many highly skilled people. In eduspeak, too many people are educated only to levels 2 and 3, and not enough at levels 4 and 5 and levels 6 and 7.

Nursing students

The Royal College of Midwives, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), UNISON and the NUS have written to Matt Hancock asking him to “acknowledge students’ selfless service, not only with words, but in a tangible and quantifiable way”. By:

  • reimbursing tuition fees or forgiving current debt for all current nursing, midwifery, and allied healthcare students;
  • abolishing student-funded tuition fees for all nursing, midwifery, and allied healthcare students starting in 2020/21 and beyond, in recognition that they will be supporting vital public services; and
  • introducing universal, living maintenance grants that reflect actual student need.

The RCN have been a very effective lobby force over recent years as they have ceaselessly campaigned again the introduction of tuition fees and the removal of the NHS bursary. Have you ever noticed how we talk about nursing fees far more than the other allied health professions? This is down to the organisation’s effectiveness in keeping their demands in the spotlight, the relationships they’ve developed with policy makers and applying pressure on the Government. While these demands are not new, especially during the increased calls for it during C-19, nurses have even more public attention, awareness and positive public feeling behind their campaign for change now. But will the Government cave and reform the system at a time when the pressure on public spending is almost unprecedented? It could go either way, we wouldn’t like to predict!

There was also a parliamentary question on the topic:

Q – Stuart Anderson: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of replacing tuition fees with a teaching grant for courses taken by (a) health professionals and (b) other key workers.

A – Michelle Donelan:

  • The government subsidises the costs of higher education through the teaching grant and write-off of unpaid tuition fee loans, which ensures a sustainable system. Nurses and other healthcare students are currently eligible for a range of financial grant support in addition to tuition fee and living cost loans. There is also a range of additional support and bursaries for students in other professions where they are considered to be critical workers.

This week we had International Nurses Day and Nursing Times have published a call from NHS England’s Chief Executive, Sir Simon Stevens, for universities to increase the number of nursing students they take each year. The article claims that 8,000 more clinical placements are available for trainees. Outstripping supply of students by an additional 4,000. NHS England has called for a Spring start as well as the traditional autumn intake. The Council of Deans have confirmed several universities already do this and it primarily attracts mature students. Dr Kolyva from the Council of Deans stated:

  • Multiple student cohorts do have implications for staffing and timetabling…Though these are not necessarily insurmountable if there is enough student interest, it would be useful to work with Government on supportive measures, including more flexible student finance arrangements and policies to boost the academic workforce. [There are also] …challenges to be addressed around student placements and the provision of support in practice so long as the pandemic continues”.

The Royal College of Nursing Chief Executive also contributed to the article commenting that to truly grow the nursing workforce more needed to be done including the scrapping of tuition fees. The Independent also cover the story of additional clinical placements without students to fill them. Wonkhe have an older (2019) blog on difficulties associated in the expansion of nursing.

Graduate Outlook

This week has seen a myriad of sources all covering the graduate outlook for those students finishing their degree this year. Prospects have published Graduating into a pandemic: the impact on university finalists. The article leads with: Nearly two-thirds of university finalists feel negative about their career prospects and many have lost job offers or placements as a result of the COVID-19 crisis – but others say they now have more time to plan their future. The article goes on to describe the results of their graduate recruitment survey:

  • 1% lost their work placement/internship
  • 2% lost their job
  • 2% had their job offer deferred or cancelled.

Some other stats:

  • 47% are considering postgraduate study
  • 82% feel disconnected from employers

See the article for more content including what students expect from Careers services and would like to know from employers.

The Telegraph covers the survey in Almost a third of graduate jobs have been cancelled or deferred due to coronavirus and on the national situation in Graduate job adverts fall by three quarters ahead of ‘extremely challenging’ summer.

Financial Times write that The class of 2020 need help to start their careers.

i News reports that the job crisis may persuade more young people to commence a degree in September. They quote Nick Hillman of HEPI as saying: If you were leaving school this summer you’re not going to get a job frankly… If you were thinking you might go and get a job, you might as well stay on and go to higher education. Although there isn’t comment on how this potential phenomenon might impact of non-continuation rates. i News also reports on the Prospects survey we mention above:

  • Separately, a survey by the careers service, Prospects, found that nearly half (47 per cent) of final year students are now contemplating postgraduate study, as graduate job opportunities have dried up in the wake of the pandemic. The survey found that 28 per cent of final year students have had their graduate job offers deferred or rescinded. There could be a marked rise in applications for courses which lead towards occupations which are perceived to be “recession-proof”, such as teaching.

The same article states UCAS have noted calls from students who planned to defer but now wish to attend in September – perhaps because their internship or travelling plans have to be rethought. Finally iNews state that applications by mature students and graduates wishing to take postgraduate courses are also set to rise, as older adults seek a safe haven amidst the economic turmoil caused by Covid-19.

The British Academy are upbeat (their report has a general outlook – it isn’t commenting on the effects of the Coronavirus) and they have published a report examining the employment prospects of graduates from different subject groups. It finds that graduates in the arts, humanities and social sciences (AHSS) are just as employable as their counterparts in STEM subjects, fuel some of the fastest-growing sectors in the UK and enjoy rewarding careers in a wide range of sectors. They are also more likely to change sector and role voluntarily, without wage penalty, suggesting greater flexibility and choice than STEM graduates. Furthermore graduates of arts, humanities and social sciences are just as resilient to economic upheaval as other graduates and are just as likely to remain employed as STEM graduates during downturns.

Research Professional also write that further study could ease the pressure from graduating into a collapsing job market in More time at university could protect graduates from recession.

And Wonkhe have scoured the Student Hut’s Covid-19 tracker finding that students

  • are hoping for discounts on postgraduate fees as compensation for time lost due to the pandemic – with more than half prepared to accept a “significant” discount on future study or continuing professional development to make up for interruptions to their learning this year.

Labour Market Statistics

The DfE published  graduate labour market statistics for 2019 graduate, postgraduate and non-graduate employment rates and earnings (for England). These set out a breakdown of employment rates, unemployment rates and gross median annual earnings by different age groups and by undergraduate and postgraduate degrees. Key Points:

  • Non-graduates were most likely to be employed in medium/low-skilled roles (48.1%). The proportions for graduates and postgraduates were 21.9% and 9.8% respectively; 0.4 and 1.2 percentage points lower than in 2018.
  • In 2019, the median salary of working-age graduates was £34,000. This represents no change from 2018. Non-graduate salaries rose to £25,000, narrowing the gap between the two groups to £9,000.
  • Post-graduates saw the largest increase in median salary from 2018 (+£2,000). Increasing the gap between graduates and post-graduates to £8,000, the largest it has been since 2007.
  • The employment rate for working-age graduates in 2019 was 87.5%, slightly lower than the rate in 2018 (87.7%).
  • 6% of working-age graduates were in high-skilled employment in 2019, compared with 78.9% of postgraduates and 23.9% of non-graduates. Although this represents a slight increase of 0.2 percentage points since 2018 for graduates, the rise was larger for both postgraduates (2.4 percentage points) and non-graduates (1.0 percentage point).
  • Young non-graduates performed the worst across (employment rate, inactivity and unemployment). The inactivity rate for young non-graduates (20.2%), was more than double the rates for young graduates (7.9%) and postgraduates (8.0%). However, this cohort is likely to include a significant proportion of economically-inactive students.
  • Across all qualification categories those aged 21-30 were more active in the labour market than the general working-age population, however, with the exception of graduates, the unemployment rates of the young cohort were also higher. This could indicate that young postgraduates and non-graduates find it relatively more difficult to find employment than their working-age counterparts.
  • Across all qualification types, individuals in the young population had lower high-skilled employment rates than their working-age counterparts. This may provide some evidence for graduates and non-graduates ‘upskilling’ as they acquire increasing amounts of labour market experience. It could also, however, reflect the limited number of high-skilled employment opportunities available to younger individuals and the potential difficulties they face matching into relevant jobs early in their careers.

Skills Challenges

The Federation for Industry Sector Skills and Standards has published a report on which industries face the biggest skills challenges. The report takes a longer term view, beyond immediate challenges posed by C-19, and compiles data on long term and transformative trends shaping the future of skills, such as automation and the ageing workforce. Dods summarise the key challenges:

  • Automation – The fourth industrial revolution could alleviate skills challenges, but some industries are more amenable than others. While 58% of jobs in hospitality are at risk of automation, this falls to just 34% of jobs in Information and Communication.
  • Ageing workforce – By extending working lives, this is as much an opportunity as a challenge. Agriculture, forestry and fishing is the sector with the oldest workforce. Over 50% are over the age of 50 compared to just 17% in hospitality.
  • Brexit – Immigration policy will be a more significant challenge for some sectors than others. While only 3% of the Public admin and defence workforce are EU nationals, this rises to 15% for the industry known as households as employers (e.g. gardeners, babysitters, cleaners etc.).
  • Staff turnover – Skills policy often concentrates on the talent coming into an industry. But stemming the flow of talent leaving the industry can build up the stock of skills. Sectors like Education have a low proportion of employees leaving the industry each year (14%) while for Arts, entertainment and recreation it stands at 35%.

Research

There has been a lot of reflection on research this week,

Research Professional have a blog which argues for the practice of using international tuition fees to cross subsidise research to be reconsidered – which an emphasis on Government support to pay more. It is set both within the context of expected reduction in international student numbers (so less money available to fund the research) and that post-crisis research should be funded more comprehensively and fairly.

Wonkhe have a blog  A bold plan for research will guide choices in a post-Covid economy.

Another Research Professional article reiterates last week’s messages that the Government support package only represents a 5% drop in the ocean against what UUK calculated was needed.

Taskforce: The University Research Sustainability Taskforce (part of the Government’s non-bailout support package) held its first meeting on Tuesday co-chaired by both Ministers (Michelle Donelan – universities and Amanda Solloway – science). Details from the meeting haven’t yet been released.

The Power of Place: CaSE (Campaign for Science and Engineering) have an 11 page report with case studies demonstrating the importance of investing in regional R&D.

Access, Participation and Success

Wonkhe report that Student Minds have called on the government to offer further mental health support for students during the Covid-19 pandemic.

HEPI have a blog by UCAS chief executive Clare Marchant Above and beyond predictions – No exams presents an opportunity for innovation in contextual admissions.

Parliamentary questions:

 Unite blog for HEPI on their concerns for care experienced and estranged students who are struggling without a familial support network or their part time employment during the coronavirus crisis. They call on Government to put: in place an emergency grant for care-experienced and estranged students, to make sure that they are not forced to drop out of their studies in order to support themselves.

Changes in Further Education

Wonkhe report that the government is planning on bringing further education colleges back into public ownership in (another) major shakeup of that sector. Gavin Williamson has suggested that a white paper about this is imminent – we should watch this closely for clues as to the government’s plans for the whole tertiary landscape.

FE Week cover the story, excerpts:

  • Work has begun on a White Paper to be followed by legislation, after recent attempts to financially stabilise the sector with an area review programme and restructuring funds totalling around half a billion pounds were deemed to have failed.
  • The number of colleges in formal intervention over their finances, currently more than 30, continues to rise and government bailouts have not stopped in recent months despite attempts to end them last March with the introduction of a new education administration regime.
  • …it is understood that civil servants have concluded the first and so far only colleges to be put into administration… have been both too slow and too costly.

FE week states the Government have been working on a FE Bill since January and that SoS Education, Gavin Williamson, has stated the reforms will be ‘revolutionary’. Government is concerned that where a college is failing both financially and poor quality provision the governing body remains independent and the Government has limited powers of intervention. FE week says:

  • It is understood Williamson and the team around him are becoming increasingly frustrated by this inability to step in when they deem there to have been leadership failures.

On the planned changes the DfE have stated:

  • The education secretary has already made clear that we are working on a White Paper aimed at delivering ambitious reform in our vital FE sector. The FE sector is playing a pivotal role in making sure more people can access the high-quality education and training they need to progress and will support our economic recovery following the Covid-19 outbreak. Our reforms will build on and strengthen the excellent work already happening across the country and will ensure the FE sector is at the heart of every community.

It seems the Government intend to seize all opportunities to change of course of tertiary education through coronavirus leverage.  One wonders whether Augar is needed at all.

On the expected FE changes Research Professional state: The implications could be far reaching for universities as part of the government’s skills and levelling-up ambitions.

Parliamentary Questions

An absolute flood of parliamentary questions this week! We’ve put them where relevant in the main part of this update and the rest are here:

Inquiries and Consultations

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

Other news

OfS Board papers: Research Professional highlighted that OfS are censoring an unexpectedly large amount of their Board papers and other materials. Read the article for more detail. On this the Shadow Universities Minister stated during this incredibly difficult time, the need for honesty and transparency is even more important and I would encourage the OfS to reflect on the need to redact such huge quantities of information. Wonkhe also pick out 20 points of interest in the Board papers.

NSS results:  NSS results are to be published on the OfS website on 1 July (09:30am). With provider-level and subject-level question responses, open text comments, and all providers’ NSS results published on the results portal at the same time. OfS stated

  • UK funders and regulators will look at the data when received to assess any impact the coronavirus outbreak has had on the results and make professional judgements about its statistical reliability.

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

international, NHS, Student Engagement

Dissection of the Government’s HE support ‘package’ has dominated all this week and the Sutton Trust have a new report reminding us of the importance of considering disadvantage within HE access and participation.

HE ‘package’

The Government announced its ‘package’ to support the HE sector through the financial trauma caused by C-19. It has dominated all HE news this week so we’ve included a big feature on the most relevant content here. We will outline the facts, then unpack and interpret it, followed by sector stakeholder reaction, and a little humour.

The package doesn’t provide new money for the HE sector, it is not a bailout, rather it moves payments forward (a bit) to ease cash flow and, although it has not been explicitly stated, the Government continue their watch and see approach awaiting the outcome of the autumn term recruitment. There may be some emergency cash earmarked for OfS distribution should recruitment turn disastrous, however, Government have consistently stated they will not bail out what they consider as poor quality or failing HE providers and this will be an absolute last resort.

The ‘package’ has been about as popular as the proverbial regifted toiletry set from Great Auntie Doris. While the wait and see is an understandable policy measure (universities are way down the priority list, and it isn’t “urgent” (yet),  the C-19 crisis has finally provided an opportunity for the Government to change aspects of admissions and quality that were previously limited by institutional autonomy (as enshrined in the Higher Education and Research Act 2017). While student number controls and new licence conditions are described as temporary, there may be long term impacts of these changes.

The (English) package aims to stabilise admissions across all providers as the recruitment of domestic students takes higher precedence against the expected drop in international student enrolment. To this end:

Stabilising admissions

Temporary student number controls will be put in place for domestic and EU students for academic year 2020/21, to ensure a “fair, structured distribution of students across providers”. These measures mean that providers will be able to recruit students up to a temporary set level, based on provider forecasts, which allows additional growth of up to 5% in the next academic year. We await more details of the actual numbers by institution.

If a provider does not abide by its student number controls, the Government will reduce the sums available to the provider through the student finance system in the subsequent academic year.

The Government have also made funding provision for an additional 10,000 places on top of 5% growth student number controls. 5,000 of these places are ringfenced for students studying nursing or allied health courses. The remaining 5,000 places will be allocated at the discretion of the Secretary of State for Education. Again, we await more details of where these will go.

The OfS is running a consultation on a new temporary condition of registration which intends to  prohibit (registered) HE providers from any form of conduct which would have what they describe as a negative effect on the stability and/or integrity of the English HE sector.

  • Examples include conditional unconditional offers, mass unconditional offers, offers not linked to prior educational attainment, tempting students with incentives such as free laptops (a strange choice of example given the current virtual learning concerns for disadvantaged students) or cash incentives.
  • Any admissions tactics which are considered to put undue pressure on students or conduct leading to commercial advantage over other providers are a big no no, with a whopping fine per case (£500,000+) if the institution breaches this. The justification for the fine is to negate the positive financial effects any institution would feel from the recruitment boost as a result of engaging in the prohibited behaviour.
  • There is also concern over how the OfS intend to implement this retrospectively – with some concerns it may seek to outlaw and punish activity that was not prohibited before the C-19 crisis. The proposal is to look back to behaviour since 11th March and for patterns or linked actions by institutions since then.
  • Although this is a consultation, the sector is expecting the conditions to be implemented and there are questions over how temporary it will actually be given the expected long term effect of C-19 on university finances. This condition is seen as a significant erosion into the autonomy of universities over their admission policies which has always been enshrined in law, most recently in the HERA legislation.
  • OfS have blogged regulator warns of penalties for recruitment practices.

UUK is working on a new sector agreement and statement of fair admissions practice. Including adhering to a new principle where HE providers will not put undue pressure on students, and new rules to restrict destabilising behaviours such as use of unconditional offers at volume. Both key aims the Government has been trying to influence for several years.

Wonkhe added more detail on the conditions:

  • Outlawed actions would include making conditional unconditional offers, making a lot of unconditional offers (or very low offers), offering gifts or discounts designed to attract students away from their original choices, and making false or misleading statements (including comparative claims) about one or more providers.
  • Outlawed actions would also include using financial support packages made available by the government for purposes that do not serve the interests of students or the public, failing to secure the standard of qualifications awarded to students, making offers to international students that significantly lower the academic or language requirements for a course, taking advantage of OfS relaxing particular regulatory requirements during the pandemic, and even “bypassing, or seeking to bypass, the admissions processes of the University and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS), where the provider would normally use UCAS processes”.
  • If that all sounds wide, it’s because it is. It’s another of these huge, open-to-interpretation regulatory nets designed to catch all sorts of behaviour. It’s significant – the new condition would enable OfS to consider imposing penalties that would “cancel out any financial benefit to providers of acting inappropriately”. It doesn’t so much chip away at as kick a big chunk out of institutional autonomy. But the question remains whether now is the right time for providers to kick up a fuss about autonomy, when the sector is desperate for financial support?

Research Professional reported that failing to abide by “voluntary requirements” is also included. Quite the catchall! On the conditions consultation Research Professional state: …But these are not normal times. The condition—which is out for consultation but is almost certain to be implemented—could even be “actively renewed” in the future. Take a look at RP’s article here –  well worth a read! Key excerpts:

  • When considering a fine, the OfS would look at whether universities have stuck to Universities UK’s framework on fair admissions practices for 2020-21, agreed as part of the government’s so-called bailout package to help institutions through the coronavirus crisis.
  • But Smita Jamdar, head of education and partner at law firm Shakespeare Martineau, warned the proposals in the consultation were “so much broader” than admissions and could mean the condition applied to institutions’ actions in other areas such as employment.
  • “It has got a huge potential for unintended consequences”, Jamdar told Research Professional News, adding it was a “quite frightening set of proposals when you put it all together”. Jamdar also warned universities could expect fines to be handed out if the current proposals are carried out, and pointed out that breaches could be back-dated to 11 March. “It’s quite clear they are putting this in place and they intend to use it,” she said.

Smita has more detail on her viewpoints in her own blog on the topic.

Supporting Students

The last few years have seen an increase in the number of students entering clearing, many joining the admissions process for the first time at clearing having not previously applied to university. The government package sets out to boost the role of clearing – and specifically the adjustment part of it – even further.

In conjunction with UCAS the Government have arranged for both ‘placed’ and ‘unplaced’ students to have a greater – or at least more visible – opportunity  to change their choice of provider/course once they receive their grades. This will be supported by a new service that can suggest alternative opportunities, based on their achievements, their course interest, and other preferences.

UCAS is also working with BBC Bitesize to give students enhanced advice on applying to university and Clearing. In the weeks leading up to results day, UCAS will be running a high-profile and multi-channel campaign, ‘Get Ready for Clearing’.

This fits well with the Government’s agenda – they are concerned that able students, especially disadvantaged ones, are not accessing high tariff ‘prestigious’ institutions– and therefore not receiving the social mobility employment boost associated with graduating from certain HE institutions. As has been pointed out by many, this does not support the stability of the sector, and confirms that protecting the sector is not the government’s first priority .

  • The 5% increase cap will allow room for growth and many “prestigious” institutions will have a significant amount of capacity as they usually take high numbers of international students, who are expected not to come this autumn. This is interesting as these same institutions have fought back for a long time against arguments that “foreign” students take places that home students could take. The reality of course is that international students help to fund places for home students by paying higher fees – so the financial impact of this change in balance is quite complex.
  • The UK is still coming out of the demographic dip and there was already increased competition for domestic students. The lowest tariff institutions are expected to fare worst. These may be the institutions which also have the lowest financial reserves, take the highest number of disadvantaged and local students, and have higher associated drop out rates (at least partly as a result of their student profile). A gloomy picture given the Government has stated it won’t bailout “failing” or “poorer quality” providers.
  • However, a little discussed element in recruitment is localisation – students attending institutions near to them locally or regionally. This year, students may choose to stay close to family for lots of reasons, including ongoing restrictions on travel, or a wish by students to stay closer to home. Given the publicity about rent payments this summer, some new students may decline to commit to accommodation contracts and choose to stay closer to home instead.

On the 5% admissions cap Research Professional state:

  • That is quite a loose cap and for some institutions it represents the opposite of a bailout—they will feel that the pistol has been fired for open season on their students. For universities struggling to recruit before the pandemic, the news that other institutions can now maximise recruitment of the limited number of UK school leavers will seem like the government has just poured a bucket of water into an already sinking canoe.

Wonkhe comment:

  • From a student perspective, the offer is even thinner – the Office for Students has clarified that universities can allocate student premium funding and expenditure committed in access and participation plans to provide additional financial support for students, which is far from addressing the economic impacts of Covid-19 on students’ families or the inherent lack of protections in the system for students.

Michelle Donelan also confirmed that students should continue to pay full tuition fees even if provision from Autumn 2020 is online. While this supports Universities (and stops Government from having to fund even more to stabilise them) there is, of course, a policy point emphasised in her tweet: To be clear, we only expect full tuition fees to be charged if online courses are of good quality, fit for purpose & help students progress towards their qualification. If Unis want to charge full fees they will have to ensure that the quality is there. Reading the comments to Donelan’s tweet also paints an interesting picture of the public’s perspective.

Student Fee Petition

The Commons Petitions Committee has rejected the government’s initial response to a petition requesting the reimbursement of 2019-20 student fees due to Covid-19 and industrial action. The committee felt the initial response did not address the issue directly. The petition received 336,265 signatures (see this map of the signatures’ locations, including Bournemouth West – BU’s constituency). The Petition is now awaiting a date for a parliamentary debate (which may not be as exciting or drastic as it sounds, and potentially will go over the same Government messaging we have heard already).

The petition stated:

  • All students should be reimbursed some of this year’s tuition fees as universities are now online only due to COVID-19, with only powerpoints online for learning materials which is not worthy of up to £9,250. Furthermore, all assessments are being reconsidered to ‘make do’ and build up credits.
  • Field trips have also been cancelled which our tuition fee was to pay for. There is also no need for accommodation which students have paid between £4,000-£8,000 for in advance and adding to their student debt. Lastly, the extended strikes of this year have severely disrupted student-staff interaction and personalised help, with staff not replying to emails or available for meetings. Grading is also being delayed. Overall, university quality is poor this year and certainly not worth up to £9,250.

If you scroll down on this page you can read the Government’s response to the petition. The Petition’s Committee rejected the government response. They require the Government to provide another response because they felt that the response did not directly address the request of petition. Once the Government issues a further response it will be published on the same page.

Parliamentary Question:

Q – Caroline Lucas: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether (a) his Department and (b) the Student Loans Company plan to provide support to (i) current and (ii) prospective students whose parents have lost their jobs as a result of the covid-19 outbreak by (A) facilitating access to full maintenance loans and (B) reinstating maintenance grants. [38455]

A – Michelle Donelan:

  • Many higher education providers will have hardship funds to support students in times of need, including emergencies. The expectation is that where any student requires additional support, providers will support them through their own hardship funds. Contact details are available on university websites.
  • In addition, students will continue to receive payments of maintenance loans for the remainder of the current academic year, 2019/20. Students who need to undertake additional weeks of study on their course in the current academic year may also qualify for additional long courses loan to help with their living costs.
  • Parents who have lost their jobs and whose income has dropped by 15% or more in the current financial year will be able to apply to Student Finance England to have their children’s living costs support reassessed for the 2020/21 academic year from 1 August 2020 onwards. This will increase the amount of support students and prospective students are entitled to in 2020/21.
  • Information for parents on how to apply for a current year assessment is available on the Student Finance England website at: https://media.slc.co.uk/sfe/currentyearincome/index.html.

International Students

The Government has stated it will work to update the International Education Strategy, designed to support the recruitment of international students, by autumn 2020, in respond to the impact of COVID-19.

They have also restated the commitment to a graduate immigration route launching in summer 2021, giving international students (who graduate summer 2021 onwards) the right to remain for two years after their studies and providing an incentive to study in the UK. This includes students who have already started their courses, even if, due to coronavirus, they have needed to undertake some of their learning remotely.

The Government is ‘applying discretion’ to ensure that international students are not negatively impacted if they find themselves in a position where they cannot comply with certain visa rules as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Much of the media coverage on the prospects of international students to commence HE provision in autumn 2020 has been negative. However, several opinion surveys have hinted that prospective students remain committee to UK study. Here is another one – Wonkhe report that it might not be all bad news for international recruitment – a new survey today from IDP Connect finds that 69 per cent of a sample of nearly 6,900 prospective students applying to universities in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK, and the US are intending to commence their studies this year as planned. Only 5 per cent expect to abandon plans to study overseas.

However, the UK face to face nature still seems to be the sticking point. Wonkhe continue: The survey found a huge willingness to start learning in January 2021 if this meant that the course could begin with face-to-face learning. Just 31 per cent would be happy to start online and move to the campus later on. Exposure to international culture is clearly a key component of the decision to travel for study.

Of course, another unanswered question is what happens if lockdown goes really long – would the post-study work visa still be honoured if all of the course is delivered online and the student is never resident in the UK?

Financial Sustainability

The Government will bring forward the second term tuition fee payments (expected to be worth £2.6bn) for providers so that they receive more cash in the first term of academic year 20/21 to help with cashflow issues. Currently HE providers receive the tuition fee payments in this profile: **25% on October, 25% in February, 50% in May. Instead the second payment will be brought forward – it’s not clear when it will be paid.  That’s not a big shift.

Alongside this the Government have reiterated that HE providers are eligible to apply for Government support schemes, including the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS), Coronavirus Large Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CLBILS, COVID Corporate Financing Facility (CCFF) and the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme. All of which are not straightforward for the HE sector due to the sources from which our finance comes. However, the OfS estimates these schemes could be worth £700m to the sector.

It comes with strings attached. HE providers are expected to make efficiencies. Furthermore, the bringing forward of tuition fee payments will mean very careful management of finances to cover the whole academic year and avoid fresh cashflow problems further down the track.

The Government state that they

  • “will only intervene further where we find there is a case to do so, and only where we believe intervention is possible and appropriate, and as a last resort. In such instances, DfE will be working with HMT and other Government departments to develop a restructuring regime, through which we will review providers’ circumstances and assess the need for restructuring”.

The sector has interpreted this as bespoke individual support, with a host of conditions attached (potentially including losing land), and the erosion of the management of the institution.

Research Professional comment:

  • The £2.6bn on offer is neither a grant nor a loan. It is an advance payment of tuition fees from the next academic year. Theoretically, this will smooth immediate financial shortfalls. But it will also mean that universities have to cut their cloth further down the line.
  • A haircut is coming, says the department. The advance payments will “help universities better manage financial risks over the autumn, including taking steps to improve efficiencies and manage their finances in order to avoid cash flow problems further ahead.” ‘Efficiencies’ is an ominous word at the best of times… It is very clear indeed that the government has no appetite to bail out badly run universities.

The Government has also set aside £100 million to purchase land and buildings to create new or expand schools and colleges. While this money isn’t solely for purchasing HE assets many HE institutions do have large estates with substantial potential. Once again, the Government has thought carefully about its ideals and seen an opportunity to acquire land to meet its policy ideals. During Theresa May’s time as PM one of her big pushes (which was unsuccessful) was to bring HE, FE and schools together in collaboration to improve quality, opportunity and cohesion within communities. Sharing resources and expertise. Potentially acquiring land and placing conditions on failing institutions seems another wizard wheeze for overcoming the reluctance of the HE sector to get behind the initiative.

Wonkhe comment:

  • The Government expects [that] access to the business support schemes, reprofiling of public funding and student number controls should be sufficient to help stabilise most providers’ finances, and that should certainly be the first port of calls for providers.
  • This implies that a calculation has been carried out using OfS financial sustainability data and projections on student numbers that may or may not turn out to be accurate. We can’t see those calculations, as OfS’ annual report on the financial sustainability of the sector is missing in action. The sector would want to see the workings so that if the wider situation follows worst-case scenarios (mass deferrals of current students, even worse international numbers, etc.), the government could be approached with a freshly minted begging bowl.
  • That ominous paragraph also describes the development of an HE “restructuring regime” in which DfE would review providers’ circumstances and assess the need for restructuring – and where action is required, this will come with “attached conditions.

And some breaking news – the OfS on 6th May published the outcome of their recent consultation on cuts to OfS spending. Bad timing, as the cut in budget and the consultation all started before the pandemic hit.

A selection of Parliamentary Questions

Q – Colleen Fletcher: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment his Department has made of the effect of the covid-19 outbreak on (a) the number of (i) international student numbers and (ii) domestic student numbers intending to take up a university place in the 2020 academic year and (b) research and innovation funding. [39637]

And

Q – Rachel Hopkins: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to support UK universities affected by reduced international recruitment as a result of the covid-19 outbreak. [38988]

A- Michelle Donelan:

  • We are very grateful for the work that universities are doing in supporting students, undertaking ground-breaking research and providing specialist equipment. We are working closely with them to understand the financial risks and implications that they might face at this uncertain time.
  • The COVID-19 outbreak will have an impact on international students. The government is working to ensure that existing rules and regulations relating to international students, including visa regulations, are as flexible as possible under these unprecedented circumstances.
  • My right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, has also announced an unprecedented package of support, including the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and a range of business loan schemes, to help pay wages, keep staff employed and support businesses whose viability is threatened by the outbreak. We recently confirmed universities’ eligibility for these schemes, and we are working closely with the sector, the Office for Students (OfS) and across the government to understand the financial risks that providers are facing, stabilise the admissions system and help providers to access the support on offer. [This response was provided before the package was announced.]
  • The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and UK Research and Innovation analysts are working closely with the Department for Education, OfS and wider non-government stakeholders to undertake a rapid programme of analysis to better understand the impact of COVID-19 on a range of research institutions including universities and analyse suitable policy responses.

Q – Emma Hardy: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to engage with (a) small and specialist higher education institutions, (b) institutions that are not members of Universities UK and (c) universities in remote, rural and coastal areas on their financial sustainability as a result of the covid-19 outbreak. [41578]

A – Michelle Donelan: answer here, but it doesn’t specifically mention rural or coastal universities

Research

In England, the Government will bring forward £100 million of quality-related (QR) research funding for the current academic year for ‘vital’ activities to address some of the immediate pressures being faced for university research activities and “to ensure research activities can continue during the crisis”. The QR top up is intended “to offset short-term impacts caused by the coronavirus outbreak, including alleviating immediate cash flow issues and where other income which would normally pay for research is no longer available”. Research Professional state: This does not come close to the cross-subsidy that research receives from the £7bn in tuition fee income that international students provided last year.

A joint DfE/BEIS Ministerial Taskforce – the University Research Sustainability Taskforce – will also form, jointly led by Science Minister, Amanda Solloway, and Universities Minister, Michelle Donelan.

It aims to act as an advisory forum for ministers and will:

  • share information and intelligence about the health of the university research and the knowledge exchange carried out by and within HE providers
  • identify potential impacts on the sustainability of university research and knowledge exchange directly arising from the response to coronavirus
  • share intelligence on government and other sources of funding for research, and develop approaches building on these to address the impacts of coronavirus and protect and sustain HE research capability and capacity
  • where possible share evidence of the impacts on university research and knowledge exchange of the taskforce’s advice

The Government have stated they expect universities will also want to develop their own proposals to build an efficient, effective and sustainable research and development system, focused on driving recovery. (See Chris Skidmore’s comments below.)

Research Professional have this to say:

  • It is the research proposals that have received the most criticism. A £100 million advance on quality-related funding represents just 5 per cent of what Universities UK had asked for…Why, then, was there so little in this announcement about shoring up research? If the research budget is due to double in five years, why the reluctance to spend now?
  • Writing exclusively for Research Professional News today, former universities minister Chris Skidmore appears to think there is more on the way—accepting that while £100m “may not be what the wider sector was hoping for…it remains a promising start”…“This first £100m of additional QR funding should be welcomed, but universities should try to do all they can to demonstrate its vital importance for the Covid-19 recovery—by going out to sell its benefits together,” he says. “Ideally, institutions should publicise and highlight where this money will go, working in collaboration where possible to demonstrate its necessity.
  • …Was there a clue too in the statement from Research England’s executive chair David Sweeneyyesterday? He said: “The higher education package announced today builds on some detailed proposals recently from UUK…English universities will want to similarly develop more detailed proposals to build an efficient, effective and sustainable R&D system and Research England looks forward to working with them and the government to achieve that end.” In the politesse of statements from senior civil servants, ‘universities will want to’ usually means ‘universities should hurry up and get on with’.
  • Following the announcement of the underwhelming bailout plan, we spoke to several well-placed figures in the research firmament. According to one of them, the government feels that while there has been some good thinking on the education side from universities, there has been less thought on the research side. They have “talked turkey on education, now it is time to talk turkey on research”, we were told.
  • In other words, ministers are not simply going to release £2bn into university accounts without a quid pro quo. As a number of sources close to government told us yesterday, there will be no substantial cash injection for research without recognition from universities that they have a shared responsibility to contribute to the post-coronavirus recovery. In other words, what are universities going to put on the table and what is the government going to get out of it? We understand that the government is looking for movement on topics such as: regional inequality, or levelling up; skills and training; and precarious contracts for researchers. 
  • …By allowing the Office for Students to consult on sweeping new powers, universities have put their admissions autonomy at risk. Do they really want to do the same with research in return for the false security of 100 per cent full economic costs?

Meanwhile Wonkhe note that:

  • UKRI hasupdated its useful “guidance for the research and innovation communities” to incorporate research focused aspects of yesterday’s government announcements. It links to Research England’s brief note on the funding advance related to next year’s QR allocation.

And Scotland have announced their own £75 million research boost for Scottish universities.

The Guardian has an article by Chris Skidmore

On HEPI former director Bahram Bekhradnia describes the proposed student number cap as “unworkable”.

Legal firm Pinsent Masons ran the article UK higher education restructuring ‘inevitable’ without targeted support stating the UK university sector should brace for potential insolvencies and reluctant mergers as the medium term impact of the coronavirus pandemic becomes clear. They base their analysis on the London Economics & UCU report of several weeks previous (the report has not escaped criticism for aspects of its calculations and assumptions).

Wonkhe also have lots of blogs, of course, here are some:

And Michelle Donelan also responded to a parliamentary question outlining the Government’s package.

Finally Research Professional’s spoof column Ivory Tower has a particularly good grasp of the ‘bailout’, especially as it was published in advance of the Government’s announcement of the ‘support’ measures. Do read Spads: bailout for a little light relief. (If you hit a log in page from the link select Bournemouth University and then log in with your BU username and password.)

What next?

The support package has been announced and whilst the dust is settling sector press is asking what next for the ‘new normal’? Both Wonkhe and Research Professional (RP) ran features on it on Wednesday. RP considered the new normal from the institutional perspective of what could open and how social distancing could be maintained. The blog is a neat consideration of the complexity of the HE context. Excerpt: The pressure will therefore be on institutions to open their doors for educational business as soon as possible, especially given student grumblings about paying full fees for courses that are now being delivered entirely online. However, as an educational setting, it is probable that universities can expect to be handed guidelines by the Department for Education as well.

Wonkhe tackle risk, audit and the student interest but from a strategic University Board perspective. Here are their series of blogs:

RP also state that AdvanceHE is launching an international project this week to help university leaders share information and find solutions to the difficulties posed by a socially distanced campus.

Education Select Committee

The Education Select Committee met this week to question Secretary of State for Education Gavin Williamson. Much of the Committee session focused on school aged children alongside disadvantage and SEN concerns; exam grades for FE courses including BTECs were touched upon. HE content has mainly been superseded by the Government’s support package announced after the Committee met. However, it also covered international students (no answer from Williamson), the difficulty in taking English language tests, and there was still no answer on nursing tuition fees. Dods summarise the nursing exchange:

Halfon [Select Committee Chair] said that “apparently” the Department for Education had not clarified whether nursing students who worked for the NHS during the pandemic would still be paying tuition fees. Pressed on this, the secretary of state said he would come back to the committee.

The Minister reiterated that a response to the Augar review is still expected around the time of the next Spending Review. Also that T Levels will go ahead in the original timeframe set out because the introduction of T-Levels and raising the status of vocational qualifications was “one of the most important tasks this Government had”.

Finally Johnson asked about domestic students who were stuck at university alone and unable to return home. The Government would “very much” want to facilitate their return, Williamson said.

On lessons the DfE have learnt from the crisis Williamson thought there were many. The ability to support children within the home and through holidays had been really transformed, he said. The department recognised that resources could be much more rapidly shared and they would be looking at how this could be used to reduce the workload for teachers. Additionally, by moving tribunals online, the department were getting through them much more rapidly, the committee heard. (Summary of the Minister’s response supplied by Dods.) The Education committee also published Ministerial letters for transparency:

Sutton Trust

The Sutton Trust published a brief on the impact of covid-19 on university access. The research surveyed 511 university applicants (pupils aged 17 to 19); found that working class applicants are more likely to be worried about the impact on them than their middle-class peers. Also that almost half of university applicants think that the coronavirus crisis will have a negative impact on their chances of getting into their first-choice university. The report also covers poll of 895 current university students raising their financial concerns resulting from the pandemic.

Access, Participation & Success

Social Mobility Commission

Chair of the Social Mobility Commission, Dame Martina Milburn, has resigned. The press points out that the social mobility commission has lost two Chairs in 2.5 years. Her predecessor Alan Milburn resigned (en masse with all other members of the Commission) in frustration at the Government’s failure to do more to tackle social mobility. Dame Martina stated she was resigning “with deep regret, and after several sleepless nights”  her substantive role as Group Chief Exec of The Prince’s Trust required her full commitment. Her letter states:

  • I am extremely proud of what has been achieved at the Commission in the last two years – appointing the 12 very diverse commissioners, re-establishing the secretariat and commissioning a variety of reports from the State of the Nation to an employers’ toolkit. Currently, we have 16 reports in the pipeline, have conducted a popular series of webinars for employers and have begun to form partnerships with bodies such as the metro-mayors and with other important commissions. We have also brought the social mobility charities together and appointed a range of social mobility ambassadors.
  • However, it is not nearly enough and given the strong links between social mobility and poverty I fear this current crisis will only serve to make social mobility harder than ever. My reflections from my time in office are that appointing a Chairman on three days per month, as I was, has proved a real challenge. To make an impact, what the secretariat needs is an executive chairman on at least three days per week or a different structure perhaps something more akin to that of the Children’s Commissioner?

She also stated that either of the Deputy Commissioners she appointed are capable of taking over her role.

Education SoS Gavin Williamson responds to her letter here.

Other blog posts

  • The BAME degree-awarding gap is likely to be an even bigger issue now. Gurnam Singhreflects on what universities should do next (Wonkhe blog).
  • The University Mental Health Advisors Network (UMHAN) blog covers the OfS briefing on supporting student mental health. Excerpt: given the disruption to normal study patterns, and potential longer-term changes to higher education as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, it is possible that universities and colleges will see new patterns in their students’ mental health and wellbeing emerge. They also plan a White Paper setting out good practice and recommendations.
  • The Guardian has an article written by the Master of Birkbeck explaining why unconditional offers for foundation years are important for social mobility

Finally another Guardian piece bringing to life the rhetoric around disadvantaged students struggling with online access

Disadvantaged Catch Up Plan

The Education Policy Institute has published a policy paper with proposals to prevent the disadvantage gap from increasing due to C-19. Before the outbreak of Covid-19, EPI research found that disadvantaged children are already on average one and a half years of learning behind other pupils by the time they take their GCSEs.

Graduate Employment Outlook

Wonkhe report that

  • the Office for Budgetary Responsibility (OBR) forecast of a 6.1 percentage point increase in the unemployment rate due to the impact of Covid-19 will have a disproportionate effect on the employment prospects of young people, according to a new briefingfrom the Resolution Foundation. Graduates would have a 13 per cent lower likelihood of being in employment three years after completing their education, with non-graduates seeing an even worse impact.
  • There’s also bad news on pay – with forecasts suggesting real hourly graduate pay would be, on average 7 per cent lower two years on. But the recession will disproportionately hit sectors where young people tend to work – non-food retail, hospitality, travel, the arts, and entertainment. One year after having left full-time education, more than one-third of non-graduates, and more than one-in-five, graduates would expect to work in a sector that is now mostly shut down.
  • The briefing suggests that – as in previous recessions – young people will be more likely to remain in education rather than enter the workforce. However, the demographic dip will make it easier for the government to offer support for those making this decision.

Youth movement:

  • 70 of the country’s leading youth charities, employer groups and experts have united to form the ‘COVID-19 Youth Employment Group’, a cross-sector emergency response to rising concerns about the economic and educational impact of coronavirus on young people. The Youth Employment Group is led by Impetus, the Youth Futures Foundation, The Prince’s Trust, Youth Employment UK and the Institute for Employment Studies. It will design, deliver, and campaign for solutions to the immediate and long-term impact on young people’s employment prospects, particularly those who already face considerable challenges entering the labour market.
  • As research increasingly warns of the potentially catastrophic impact on young people’s future employment prospects, there is a clear need for a rapid cross sector approach. The group will work to ensure young people receive quality support now, as well as helping plan for a healthy recovery of the youth labour market post-lockdown.
  • The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has warned that younger workers will be hit the hardest, as they are nearly two-and-a-half times more likely to work in a sector that is now shut down. The research also shows that on the eve of the crisis, sectors that shut down as a result of social distancing measures employed nearly a third (30%) of all employees under 25; compared to just one in eight (13%) of workers over 25.
  • The group’s membership meets virtually every week as they begin to pool together expertise and develop rapid solutions during and after lockdown. They have set up a LinkedIn Groupfor those interested.

Parliamentary updates

Online Voting: Chair of the Commons Procedure Committee, Karen Bradley, has written to Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle to confirm that the remote voting system for MPs is now ready to go live. The confirmation stated the system is suitable ad secure as long as MPs behave: MPs will have a “personal responsibility to ensure the integrity of the system”, a warning against letting others vote on their behalf. And with a tone as stern as the OfS’ she emphases: It is highly likely that any action by a Member which led to an authorised person casting a vote in a division would constitute a contempt of the House and a breach of the Code of Conduct, and would be likely to be punished accordingly.

Parliamentary Questions 

Schools – Q – Alex Sobel: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether his Department plans to allow parents who are in the covid-19 at risk groups to decide whether their children return to school, when schools reopen. [39792]

A – Nick Gibb: Schools will remain closed until further notice, except for children of critical workers and vulnerable children.

Heath Professions – Training – Q – Geraint Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether final year trainee (a) doctors and (b) nurses will be charged tuition fees while working for the NHS during the covid-19 outbreak. [37381]

A – Helen Whately:

  • Medical students and student nurses will continue to be required to pay tuition fees for their final term. Given the extended length of medical degrees, which can be up to six years in length, Health Education England pay medical student tuition fees from year 5 of study.
  • As part of the Government’s COVID-19 response, current year 5 medical students are currently being graduated by their medical schools early to enable them to apply for Provisional Registration with the General Medical Council, and if they so choose to deploy in to Foundation Year 1 posts. Those that do so will be contracted from the date they start their employment and employed under the 2016 terms and conditions for doctors and dentists in training. They will also continue to get their National Health Service bursary and student maintenance loan.
  • Year 3 nursing students have been invited to opt in to paid placements in the NHS. All students who do opt in to support the COVID-19 response will be rewarded fairly for their hard work. Students will be getting a salary and automatic NHS pension entitlement at the appropriate band. They will also still receive their student maintenance loan and Learning Support Fund payments too.
  • Decisions about the NHS workforce in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, including the funding that they provide for students, are a matter for the devolved administrations of those countries.

Scam Risk

C-19 and lockdown have increased fears that loved ones, particularly those newly venturing online, will experience attempts by scammers to obtain money, resources and personal information. You may be familiar with the work of BU’s National Centre for Post-Qualifying Social Work and Professional Practice. Professors Keith Brown, Lee-Ann Fenge and their close knit team have published many freely available downloadable guides in recent years, worked closely with Government agencies and held successful parliamentary receptions to raise the awareness of policy makers. The team have a new publication out – Scams the power of persuasive language. Do download it to take a look and share with loved ones, neighbours and vulnerable contacts. All the team’s publications on fraud, scams, mental capacity and advanced care planning can be accessed here.

Inquiries and Consultations

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

New consultations and inquiries this week:

The Skills Commission have launched a new inquiry, entitled; The Workforce of the Future – ‘Learning to earning’ transitions and career development in a challenging labour market.

Other nes

Student complaints: The Office of the Independent Adjudicator for HE (OIAHE) published the 2019 annual report setting out:

  • The number and outcomes of complaints received and closed
  • Examples of the complaints students make
  • Trends and common themes in complaints and lessons learnt

NUS VP for HE Claire Sosienski Smith commented on the report release making the same calls for action as in previous weeks:

  • “We know that next year, the number of complaints as outlined in the report might look quite different: NUS’ Coronavirus and Students Survey of 10,000 students showed that 74% of students are worried about the impact of the pandemic on their final qualifications and 20% of students who had been offered online learning did not agree that they were able to access it adequately. A lot of providers have been leading the way by offering ‘no detriment’ policies, to ensure that their students’ attainment is not unfairly captured by end of year exams this year. We believe a policy of no-detriment should be the way forward for the sector as a whole.
  • Students need a safety net, and urgently. The OIA is a fantastic service to make students more powerful, but it is set up for individuals or for small groups of students on courses. The pandemic has impacted every single student in the UK, and we need a national-level, government solution to this problem: that can only be the ability to redo the year at no extra cost, giving students the chance to make up for the education they are missing out on, or have their debt and fee payments written off or reimbursed.”

Graduate Outcomes: HESA announced dates for the publication of the first datasets from the Graduate Outcomes survey –  high-level findings on 18 June and the full release (including provider level data) on 23 June. This is a month’s delay to existing plans, and reflects the time required to prepare and assure data under lockdown conditions.

Virtual Open Days: Wonkhe have a thought nudging article on the benefits of a virtual campus tour for recruitment.

Evidence based policy making: Research Professional report that trust in science in at a record high in Germany with approval for evidence-based policy skyrocketing.

Apprenticeships: The Government have published their annual update on the apprenticeship reform programme. It reports progress towards the 3 million starts apprenticeships target between 2015 and 2020. The Government have achieved 69.6% of the 3 million target (2.09 million starts). Much fuller detail on other factors within the apprenticeship report is contained in the above link.

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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 1st May 2020

Business Engagement, HEIF, Industry collaboration, innovation, international, Knowledge Exchange, NHS

Hi all – we are bit late against our Wednesday deadline this week, we’re sure you’ll understand.  Still lots going on and some of it doesn’t even relate to the crisis – KEF concordat high on your priority list, anyone?

Students in the lockdown

Minister under the spotlight: Universities Minister Michelle Donelan has responded to several parliamentary questions this week, and come under fire for some, perhaps unintentionally misleading, answers during interviews. Most widely reported in the media was her statement responding to a question on supporting student rent costs that students had not been told to return to the family home (as a C-19 distancing safety measure) – “I can assure you that we never instructed students to return to their permanent addresses.” Also causing raised eyebrows were the implications within some of the Minister’s responses putting the onus on universities for certain decisions and support measures – such as blanket hardship support and IT funding (see the parliamentary questions below).

Q – Richard Holden: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to ensure that university students in their final year receive the support they need during the covid-19 outbreak.

A – Michelle Donelan:

  • The government is doing all it can to keep staff and students at our universities safe in this unprecedented situation, while mitigating the impact on education. I have written to students to outline the support available and we continue to work closely with the sector, putting student wellbeing at the heart of these discussions…
  • My clear expectation is that universities should make all reasonable efforts to enable students to continue and complete their studies; for their achievements to be reliably assessed; and for qualifications to be awarded securely…The Office for Students has also recently confirmed that providers are able to use the student premium to support students to access IT equipment and internet connectivity where needed. Students will continue to receive scheduled payments of loans towards their living costs for 2019/20. Both tuition and living costs payments will continue irrespective of closures or whether learning has moved online. Many students will be feeling uncertain and anxious and it is vital that students can still access the mental health support that they need. Many providers are bolstering their existing mental health services and adapting the delivery of these services to means other than face-to-face. These services are likely to be an important source of support to students during this period of isolation.

And:

Q – Peter Kyle: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to support online learning for disadvantaged university students.

A – Michelle Donelan:

  • As my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer have both made clear, the government will do whatever it takes to support people affected by COVID-19. Despite the significant disruption being felt across the higher education (HE) sector, students rightly deserve the appropriate support and recognition for their hard work and dedication. HE providers take their responsibilities seriously and are best placed to identify the needs of their student body as well as how to develop the services needed to support it. Many HE providers have moved rapidly to develop new ways of delivering courses through online teaching and alternatives to traditional end-of-course exams. When making changes to the delivery of their courses, HE providers need to consider how they support all students, particularly the most vulnerable. This includes students suffering from COVID-19, students who need to self-isolate, international students and students who are either unable or less able to access remote learning for whatever reason, as well as care leavers, students who are estranged from their families and students with disabilities. The Office for Students (OfS) has recently published guidance setting out the actions that it will take to support providers to maintain standards and teaching quality. It highlights flexible models for teaching, learning and assessment that will most likely satisfy OfS quality and standard conditions. On 23 March, the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education published the first in a series of good practice guidance notes that are available to all UK HE providers.
  • HE providers should make all reasonable efforts to enable students to complete their studies, for achievement to be reliably assessed and for qualifications to be awarded securely. Many HE providers will have hardship funds to support students in times of need, including emergencies. The expectation is that where any student requires additional support, such as access to the Internet, providers will support them through their own hardship funds. The OfS have stated that providers are permitted to divert more of their student premium funding to their hardship funds to support students, including through the purchase of IT equipment. Providers should particularly ensure that students in the most vulnerable groups are able to access this support where needed.

On Friday Wonkhe reported that Paul Blomfield, Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Students, blasted Universities Minister Michelle Donelan for “failing to acknowledge” concerns raised by 110 MPs from across Parliament – arguing in a fresh letter that the issues “have only become more pressing” over the last three weeks. Reflecting concerns about some institutions’ refusal to adopt “no detriment” policies, Blomfield argues that plans on exams “vary widely” and, for that reason, “create a sense of unfairness” among students.

Student connectivity : HE organisations have called on the Government to provide parity of online access for HE learners during the current crisis. Chief Executives from JISC, the Association of Colleges, Universities UK and UCISA ask the Minister to work with telecoms providers and Ofcom to make all relevant online education sites free for access for UK further education and higher education students and that they be considered a priority group of vulnerable consumers in discussions with telecoms providers. The letter states:

  •  ‘With campuses closed, thousands of students are now learning online at home, where both broadband and access to mobile devices is prohibited by availability, connectivity and cost. The further education (FE) and higher education (HE) sectors have worked very hard to successfully ensure the continual provision of teaching and learning online but, put simply, this is unaffordable and inaccessible for many learners. Not only does this prohibit their education, but it is damaging for their overall wellbeing.’

MPs calling for support for students who usually work throughout their degree and are ineligible for universal credit continues – see this Guardian article. There is another Guardian feature giving the student perspective on hardship (including university hardship funding).

Accommodation: Last Wednesday the Office for Students published a briefing note for universities on how to help students with accommodation problems during the coronavirus pandemic, including worries over rent, access to kitchens and bathrooms shared with self-isolators, and signposting to sources of information. Research Professional cover the guidance here.

Student Loans: The Student Loan Company updated their FAQs with COVID19 content.

More parliamentary questions:

Q – Barry Sheerman: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what representations he has received from disabled students on access to assistive technology via the disabled students’ allowance due to the economic effect of the covid-19 outbreak; and if will make a statement. [37453]

A – Michelle Donelan:

  • Disabled Students’ Allowances (DSAs) provide for the additional costs that disabled students may face in higher education because of their disability. A basic computer is a mainstream cost of study and students are therefore expected to make a £200 contribution towards the cost of any computer recommended as part of their needs assessment. The contribution is for computer hardware only; students are not expected to fund recommended specialist software or training in how to use it.
  • There are currently no plans to suspend the requirement for disabled students to contribute £200 towards the purchase of a computer. The department has not received any representations from disabled students on access to assistive technology through DSA support in relation to the economic effect of the Covid-19 outbreak. It is too early to assess the effect of the Covid-19 outbreak on the employment opportunities for disabled students. These are rapidly developing circumstances; we continue to keep the situation under review and will keep Parliament updated accordingly.

Q – Tommy Sheppard: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, when she plans to respond to Question 30815 of 17 March 2020 from the hon. Member for Edinburgh East. [38568]

A – Will Quince:

  • Students who do not ordinarily have entitlement to Universal Credit (UC) and who receive a maintenance loan or grant through the student finance system, will continue to be able to draw upon this financial support until the end of this academic year.
  • Those who do not receive student finance and who would ordinarily not have entitlement to UC, such as those undertaking a part-time course which would otherwise not be considered as compatible with the requirements for them to look for and be available for work, will have entitlement to UC. We have disapplied UC and both legacy and new style JSA work preparation, work search and availability requirements and related sanctions. This will initially be for a three-month period. After three months, consideration will be given as to whether a further extension is required.

Q – Emma Hardy: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on enabling students that are unable to (a) work and (b) be furloughed to claim universal credit during the covid-19 pandemic. (37820)

A – Michelle Donelan:

  • Students with a part time employment contract should speak to their employer about the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme which has been set up to help pay staff wages and keep people in employment. HMRC are working urgently to get the scheme up and running and we expect the first grants to be paid within weeks.
  • Students suffering hardship should in the first instance contact their provider. Many universities have hardship funds to support students most in need and contact details are available on university websites. Undergraduate students studying on full-time courses will continue to receive their maintenance loan payments as planned for the remainder of this academic year, 2019/20. Eligible students who need to undertake additional weeks of study on their course in the current academic year may qualify for additional long courses loan to help with their living costs.
  • Certain groups of students eligible for benefits such as lone parents will continue to qualify for Universal Credit in addition to their maintenance loans.

Universities and the crisis

Student number controls: you will recall that this is part of the UUK package of measures – a cap on forecast numbers plus 5% (which doesn’t sound like much of a cap anyway given that the OfS keep saying that the forecasts are unreasonably high and suggest a problem with financial sustainability because they won’t be achieved…) –Wonkhe have a blog by Mark Corver suggesting they would cause more problems than they would solve.  Some extracts below:

  • The case for quotas is that by restricting student choice they can divvy up fee income across universities in a way that can offer financial stability. But quotas make a fundamental mistake in placing little value on what students want, assuming that their personal aspirations can be redirected around the system as required. This could well lead to many students opting not to go to university, making quotas of very limited use in helping stability this cycle.
  • The best response to uncertainty is flexibility. Imposing quotas strips both students and universities of the ability to respond to events.
  • A more reliable approach to securing stability is the same as what government is considering across the economy. If a large, but likely temporary, change risks destroying productive capacity then the government considers support until the temporary conditions abate.
  • For some transport operating companies they have done this through partially compensating for the loss of passengers their finances reasonably assumed. They have not proposed offering potential passengers a take-it-or-leave-it offer to buy tickets for journeys they don’t want make to places they do not want to go. Because it would not work.

Remember that UUK bailout package? UUK and Millionplus came out with an additional specific one for the key worker sectors this week.  Working with universities, the government could take a major stride towards mitigating against future capacity shortfalls with a simple three-pronged approach:

  • Supporting students and graduates to become key workers in public services, by offering a maintenance grant of up to £10,000 for all students in training, removing any recruitment caps, and providing fee-loan forgiveness for those remaining in the relevant professions for at least five years.
  • Strengthening and enhancing key public service HE capacity in universities by increasing the funding to the Office for Students to reflect the added costs while creating a new Public Services in Higher Education Capital Fund to enable universities to invest in simulation equipment, additional staff costs and other infrastructure.
  • Retaining and developing key workers in public services, by increasing general staffing budgets and creating a new professional development programme focused on enhancing skills of current key workers in public services and the new NHS volunteer reserve.

Flexible Learning: Advance HE published guidance on flexible learning accompanied by a blog stressing the importance of flexibility: Flexible learning comes of age.

Ex-Ministers speak: Research Professional cover an excellent session in which three past university ministers (Willets, Johnson, Skidmore) discuss the dangers of allowing a Government imposed temporary student numbers cap and instead urge the sector to agree its own self restraint version. International students are also mentioned. The Express also cover Willetts’ comments.

Discussion and speculation over Government’s thinking on university bail out/support measures continued this week.

HEPI have published the blog: Don’t panic…yet? Explaining their perspective as to why Ministers wouldn’t immediately jump to support the HE sector. It contains a couple of fresh perspectives alongside reiterating reasons already stated. In essence the statement:  “Frustrating though it is, it is not unreasonable for officials to want to see this play out a little before making firm decisions that could cost billions of pounds” sums the blog up.

The Guardian ran Ministers split over bailout package for universities.

The Times have a piece explaining that Universities that would benefit well from a rescue package based on research funding are also some of the richest universities. The article reiterates familiar messages including Ministers wanting to wait to find out what the real situation is in September rather than jumping the gun unnecessarily. Excerpt:

  • Smaller, newer institutions are getting the scraps from the table. Yet they can reasonably argue that they will be the ones to spearhead an economic recovery, being in many cases the biggest employers in their areas. They are now doing their own lobbying.
  • “Frustrating though it is, it is not unreasonable for Whitehall officials to want to see this play out a little before making firm decisions that could cost billions of pounds,” Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute and a former government adviser, said.
  • The danger is the Treasury, where officials are not short of self-belief, think they know more about the sector than everyone else and can direct any bailouts to, for example, universities already in financial trouble to make sure they do not go under, rather than seeing the bigger picture of protecting Britain’s research prowess and global reputation.

New Normal

Wonkhe have a lot to say on the ‘new normal’:

  • We’re being asked to consider what living with Covid-19 in the medium to long term might mean.
  • Most universities now think they have this term under control, but it’s September that poses the biggest headache. Universities have done their best to shift the rest of this year’s teaching and assessment online – but it’s starting to become clear that this hasn’t worked for some students and some courses. A big debate about adequacy is coming, as is one about which emergency adaptations, both to teaching and to assessment, will be scrapped or retained (and when). Some of the compromises made mid-crisis may be harder to justify – and charge full fees for – in the autumn.
  • Learning and teaching teams are working around the clock to plan for a full or mostly online student experience from September. This will require much more careful thinking about remote student engagement, and in many cases a full redesign of existing courses…But delivering change on this scale at pace is bound to tax universities to the very limits.
  • If the institutional approach to dealing with this tension is truly in the student interest, then students will at the very least need to be involved in the debate. At the moment, they, like the rest of us, would love to return to a normal that isn’t on offer.

And Wonkhe offer a plethora of new blogs on the topic of what change is to come:

Parliamentary Business/Updates

Select Committee Chair elections – 6 May: The process for election to the coveted BEIS chair has been confirmed. Nominations will open (by email) on 17 April and close on May 4 and must be accompanied by 15 letters of support. Select committee membership is representative of the proportion of MPs elected at the beginning of the Parliament and a balance of Conservative, Labour and members of other parties are agreed in advance of the Committees reforming. This includes which party will chair which select committee. BEIS is chaired by Labour so only Labour MPs will be nominated to stand. The (outsourced) online ballot will elect the chair on 6 May. Chair of the Standards Committee (to replace Kate Green who was appointed Shadow Minister for Child Poverty Strategy) will also take place on 6 May 2020 again only members of the Labour Party may be candidates.

Employability after the crisis

HEPI continue to talk about new graduate career anxiety although the latest offering suggests students feel confident they will find work in Open for business? Students’ views on entering the labour market. This publication was based on a survey of 1,000 full time undergraduate students. HEPI highlight:

  • 79% of graduates feel confident of getting a graduate level job once they graduate
  • However, when asked about their feelings towards entering the labour market:
    • 28% cite anxiety, ahead of confidence (23%), uncertainty (16%) and feeling overwhelmed (16%)
    • 14% selected excitement as their primary emotion, 3% felt relaxed
  • 29% say the Coronavirus pandemic has altered their feelings (71% no feeling change)
  • Almost two-thirds (64%) have a specific career in mind for when they graduate, compared to 18% who do not and 17% who are unsure.
    • 72% intend to go into a career directly related to their degree subject
    • Work experience is seen as important (61%)
  • Students think there are four main factors that make for a successful career: doing something they are interested in (49%), being happy and fulfilled (48%), having stability (47%) and having a high salary (41%).
  • 35% of graduates to be intend to spend up to 2 years in their first role; 24% plan on staying for over three years (19% pumped for 2-3 years; 18% intend to stay less than a year and 3% intend to spend less than six months!

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

  • ‘These results show students feel confident about finding work, but anxious about starting their career. This anxiety has been there since before the current pandemic for many students, but for almost a third the current circumstances have exacerbated these feelings. Universities need to provide as much support as they can for students who are entering the labour market in such uncertain times and employers need to be mindful of these results in their hiring processes.
  • The polling also shows a number of misconceptions that students have about the labour market. Most expect to go into a career directly related to their degree subject, while employers tend to see subject of study as less important than the skills they have gained. Students expect to only spend a short time in their first graduate job, when research shows that many stay in their first role for longer than expected. University careers guidance should seek to tackle these misconceptions, so students are better informed about their future careers.’

In the Foreword to the report, Jonathan Black, Director of Oxford University Careers Service, writes:

  • Students graduating this year could, perhaps, be forgiven for thinking they have lived against a backdrop of uncertain and threatening events: the 9/11 terrorist attacks and subsequent wars, the 2008 financial crisis, the turmoil and division of Brexit, and throughout the period, an increasingly obvious climate crisis. Now, along comes a global pandemic that is beginning to make the previous environment look almost benign and limited.
  • This HEPI report confirms that students’ familiarity with uncertainty is measurable by the fact that the majority of respondents say their perceptions haven’t changed solely because of the Covid-19 pandemic. They remain generally positive about their future – perhaps the optimism of youth who either don’t know or don’t believe the predictions or maybe they see opportunities in the changes to come.
  • ‘This report forms a useful benchmark of how much the pandemic is changing students’ views of their career. The extent, scale, and life of this pandemic and its accompanying economic shock are only just emerging, and there could be a very long way to go before we return to a “new normal”’

Nicola Dandridge, Chief Executive, Office for Students responded to the HEPI paper:

  • Coronavirus will clearly have a profound impact on the economy, so it is unsurprising that students are anxious as they enter the next stage of their lives after graduation. However, the skills and experiences of graduates will be crucial to the economy as we rebuild, and there will be many opportunities for well qualified graduates to embark on rewarding careers.
  • The careers services that universities and colleges provide have a crucial role to play in helping to equip students with the confidence and skills they need to find professional employment. Their expertise will be particularly important during these difficult and uncertain times.’

Research

REF: The REF team have published a set of FAQs covering adjustments to the REF (timetable still under discussion) following last week’s webinar discussing the changes needed to adapt for C-19.

Academic Travel: HEPI have a blog considering how conducting PhD vivas online would be a forward step in reducing emissions and make a positive impact on carbon reduction supporting both universities environmental policies and national goals – Conducting PhD vivas online is working fine: there will be no need to return to excessive flying habits. It was inspired by the change in practices forced by lockdown.

Similarly HEPI have another blog on universities achieving carbon neutral status and what this means for academic travel.

Research Professional published Alarm as Covid-19 recovery plan neglects to mention R&D discussing how research and education has been left out of EU roadmap just two days before discussions were due.

Knowledge Exchange Concordat

The Knowledge Exchange Concordat was published on Friday. Research Professional covered the publication announcement here. It was a slight surprise to the sector as originally it was anticipated to be delayed and launched alongside a process allowing providers to explicitly sign up to the Concordat high level implementation plan (which won’t happen until later in 2020). And as Ivory Tower (tongue-in-cheek Friday comedy HE column) so eloquently imagine, lockdown seems a strange time to be launching an outward focussed process – excerpt from Ivory Tower imagined diary of Trevor McMillan, vice-chancellor Keele University:

  • This is definitely the right moment to release the knowledge exchange concordat. I’ve been working on this for a decade.
  • Now is the time to find out how staff in universities are getting out into their communities and interacting with people. Oh, hold on… can I start this again?

(Trevor McMillan is the Chair of the Concordat Committee on real life.)

Wonkhe have a short blog from Trevor McMillian himself  The Knowledge Exchange Concordat: published but not yet activated explaining a little on the concordat and timing:

  • Universities all have different strengths and we are committed to applying them to maximise their impact. When we are through the acute stages of the Covid-19 pandemic there will be the need for an enormous recovery programme to turn around the social and economic deficits that will be left by the current crisis. Universities will have a critical role in this, by engaging staff from right across our disciplinary base.
  • Hopefully, the Knowledge Exchange Concordat will provide a framework in which we can, as universities, ensure that we have the approaches in place to facilitate our staff and students to continue to have a major impact.

Dods explain the basics on knowledge exchange for those less familiar with the purpose of the concordat:

  • Knowledge exchange includes a set of activities, processes and skills that enable close collaboration between universities and partner organisations to deliver commercial, environmental, cultural and place-based benefits, opportunities for students and increased prosperity. This KE concordat therefore seeks to provide a mechanism by which universities can consider their performance in KE and make a commitment to improvement in those areas that are consistent with their priorities and expertise.
  • UK universities received £4.9 billion from knowledge exchange activities in 2018-19, helping fund activities to boost scientific, technological, medical and cultural breakthroughs. More effective knowledge sharing between universities and businesses will be essential in underpinning the Government’s target spend of 2.4% of GDP on research and development by 2027.

David Sweeney, Executive Chair of Research England, said: I am pleased to see the publication of the KE concordat and very much welcome that its development has been sector-led. The concordat provides the means to continuously improve institutional KE performance and I see it as critical in assurance of our funding, especially driving efficiency and effectiveness.”

Joe Marshall, CEO of the National Centre for Universities and Business, said: “Universities’ knowledge exchange activities play an incredibly important role in attracting, supporting and enhancing businesses and other organisations. The Concordat is an important vehicle for universities to proactively show their commitment to collaboration with others and demonstrate to external partners that through self-improvement they want to build better and deeper partnerships.”

And our view: it doesn’t look to have changed much from the version that was consulted on. It still includes aim 3 “to provide clear indicators of their approaches to performance improvement”. They have added more language to the guiding principles. “Working effectively” has become “working transparently and ethically” but the language underneath it is the same. It still includes “continuous improvement” and “evaluating success” as principles. The list of examples is hedged about with more “could” language but we still under the final commitment have to commit to producing an action plan for improvement and consider and respond to feedback from their panel. It still feels more like a regulatory framework than anything else.

Social Mobility and Widening Participation

Care Leavers and Estranged Students: The Care Leavers Progression Project shared several links aiming to support the vulnerable community of care leavers who are disproportionately affected by the crisis:

Disadvantaged school pupils: Education Select Committee Chair, Robert Halfon, is reported in iNews as suggesting retired teachers, graduates and underemployed Ofsted inspectors could support the reduction of the gap in the attainment of disadvantaged children by volunteering to tutor them post-lockdown. Halfon suggests they could be assigned to their local school. TES also covers Halfon’s volunteer army plan, excerpt:

  • “I’m really worried that the left behind pupils get left further behind because they aren’t able to learn during lockdown. So I’ve been proposing a catch-up premium and also a nationwide army of volunteers – including graduates and retired teachers – going in and helping the schools…The research shows if you have half an hour of mentoring three times a week you can advance by about five months.”

The Nuffield Foundation and Bristol University have also published a report highlighting how children in England who have been supported by a social worker at any point during their schooling fall behind educationally by at least 30% by the age of 16. Other findings include:

  • Young children, who needed a social worker before the age of seven, achieved better GCSEs if they had experienced a long-term stay in care than those who had not.
  • Children in need and children in care were more affected by other forms of disadvantage, such as poverty, socio-economic status, special educational needs, and disabilities, which led to lower educational attainment
  • Absence, temporary or permanent exclusions, and changing schools at the age of 15 or 16 were other factors shown to worsen academic performance.
  • A quarter of all children who had ever needed a social worker were still receiving a social work service in the final year of their GCSE exams.

Many parents of children in need interviewed as part of the study said they were living in poverty and struggled to pay for their child’s school needs, such as uniform, computers and internet access. Older children interviewed indicated they liked primary school but regarded secondary schools less favourably, due to their size, complexity and difficulties with teachers.

Recommendations:

  • Make support available for children in care applicable to children in need, such as Pupil Premium Plus payments provided to schools and Virtual Schools which oversee their education.
  • Teacher training for pupils’ well-being.
  • Measures to address the affordability of schooling are cited as other necessary changes.

The report has led to a national call to action, appealing for more comprehensive and coordinated support.

Anne Longfield, Children’s Commissioner for England, said: “Too many children in this country are growing up in disadvantage, struggling at home and at school. The educational prospects for many thousands of children in need are, frankly, terrible. Many leave the education system without even the basic qualifications. The government has promised to ‘level up’ across the country, and this must include properly-resourced, cross-departmental strategies for tackling the issues that blight the life chances of the most vulnerable children. The response to the coronavirus shows that coordinated action and political will on funding can have a transformative impact. The ‘new normal’, post-coronavirus, is an opportunity for similar brave action which gives help and support to vulnerable children from their early years and throughout their childhood and tackles the generational problems that have held back so many.”

Brexit

Dods report that the EU’s Chief Brexit Negotiator, Michel Barnier has stated that there has been a “disappointing” amount of progress made between the UK and EU in post Brexit talks. Speaking after talks with his UK counterpart David Frost, Bernier said that the “clock was ticking” and warned that “genuine progress” was needed by June if there was to be an agreement reached on the UK/EU future relationship by the end of the year. Despite talks stalling, and having to be reduced due to Coronavirus, the UK Government is still insisting that it will not request or accept an extension to the transition period beyond 31st December 2020. Under the Withdrawal Agreement, the transition period can be extended by up to two years if both sides agree by 1 July 2020. Barmier told the press conference a joint decision would be taken on 30 June about whether to extend the transition period. “The UK cannot refuse to extend transition and at the same time slow down discussions on important areas,” he said. The UK and EU are failing to make progress primarily on the areas of level playing field arrangements, fisheries and justice. The next round of talks are due to be held the w/c 11 May and 1 June.

Inquiries and Consultations

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

Other news

People News: Stian Westlake has been appointed as Chief Executive of the Royal Statistical Society (RSS). Stian was previously policy advisor to Universities Ministers – David Willetts, Jo Johnson and Sam Gyimah. RSS describe Stian’s previous roles:

  • As an executive director at Nesta from 2009 to 2017, Stian ran the organisation’s think tank. Under his leadership, the team launched a range of initiatives on data and evidence, including the Alliance for Useful Evidence, the Innovation Growth Lab and the Innovation Index (in partnership with ONS), as well as significantly increasing its external income. After this, Stian served as policy advisor to three successive ministers for universities and science. He is co-author of Capitalism Without Capital, a book about intangible investment and the economy. He is also a governor of the National Institute for Economic and Social Research and advisory board member of the Institute for Community Studies.
  • At the RSS, Stian will lead on a programme of activities that take forward its strategic goals, including the Society’s Covid-19 Task Force, Data Manifesto and National Lottery-funded initiative, Statisticians for Society.

Skills Toolkit: The DfE have launched a Skills Toolkit for the public. SoS for Education Gavin Williamson describes it in his written ministerial statement: a new online platform giving people access to free, top-quality digital and numeracy courses to help build up their skills, progress in work and boost their job prospects.

NHS Visas: The Home Affairs Committee has written to Home Secretary Priti Patel seeking further clarification on issues relating to NHS visa extensions.

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JANE FORSTER                                         |                       SARAH CARTER

Policy Advisor                                                                   Policy & Public Affairs Officer

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

BU policy update for the w/e 1st April 2020

HEIF, Industry collaboration, innovation, international, Knowledge Exchange, Student Engagement

HE news in the media has been dominated by talk of student number controls while the sector wrestles with decisions over student exams.

Parliamentary Business

Appointments

Alex Chisholm has been announced as the new Permanent Secretary at the Cabinet Office and Chief Operating Officer for the Civil Service. Alex is currently serving as Permanent Secretary at the Department of Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, and was previously Chief Executive of the Competition & Markets Authority. He has also held senior executive positions in the media, technology and e-commerce industries, with Pearson plc, Financial Times Group, eCountries Inc and Ecceleration Ltd.

Minister for the Cabinet Office, Michael Gove, said:

  • In the medium term, much of Alex’s work will necessarily be coronavirus response related. But Alex will be responsible for supporting ministers to develop and then drive forward a reform programme for the Civil Service, building on the Government’s existing efficiency programme. He will also supervise all the Cabinet Office’s various work programmes including on preparing for the end of the transition period, strengthening the union, and defending our democracy.

Jeremy Pocklington has been appointed as the new Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

Health Education England has announced that current interim Chief Nurse Mark Radford has been permanently appointed.

Student Number Controls

The major news since the last policy update is speculation over the potential return of student number controls to limit recruitment. It is suggested that capping numbers (limiting the number of students a university can take for a particular programme) would help stabilise the sector by preventing some universities from taking a higher number of UK students to fill places that would have been filled by international students, who may not come because of the virus.

Alongside the domestic young population dip hitting the lowest point this year (increasing competition between providers) Coronavirus also threatens the international student recruitment. With Government intimating that lockdown or lighter restrictions last between 3 and 6 months the concern is that the much-needed funds from international students won’t be forthcoming if the students cannot enter the country or undertake face to face tuition. EU student numbers would fall too if lockdown continues to prohibit travelling.

Since the removal of student number controls in 2015 there have been regular stories about financial stability as the higher tariff or ‘prestigious’ universities recruited increased numbers of students – leaving the mid or lower tariff providers with less demand for their places, especially as the UK approached the bottom of its demographic dip in the number of 18 year olds.

The flip side is that capping student numbers means some students are unable to get a place on a programme or at their preferred provider. The government wants all students to aspire to the “higher tariff” institutions and to have a choice of providers. Of most concern in this scenario is the risk that disadvantaged students are the least likely to achieve the place at the provider they wished for due to a combination of lack of careers support, guidance, lower predicted grades, parental support and intervention and access to relevant (unpaid) work experience or social networks. And the government has said, for some time, that it does not want to cap the number of students attending university, with the social mobility benefits that this has.  So the government doesn’t like student number controls.

The coronavirus pandemic has destabilised business, education, the whole economy, and this may be one way for Ministers to prevent some HE providers becoming big winners from the disruption whilst the losers collapse. The lower tariff providers are most at risk and these are the institutions that often sit at the heart of communities that have no one local or regional HE institutions, and that take higher numbers of disadvantaged students. If these institutions collapse it is a big fail for social mobility, affecting the lives of these students and future generations.

So far the Government has moved to prevent new unconditional offers being made or converting conditional offers already made to unconditional while they are finalising the exam grade awarding strategy. The Government has not spoken out on the return of student number control (yet). Although the media and HE blogging organisations seem to be doing the job for them! Here are some of the sources:

The Guardian has been at the centre of the debate from the outset:

  • Strict limits on the number of students that each university in England can recruit are set to be imposed by the government in an effort to avoid a free-for-all on admissions, with institutions plunged into financial turmoil as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, the Guardian has learned.
  • A government source said each university would face limits on the number of UK and EU undergraduates it could admit for the academic year starting in September, in a move backed by higher education leaders.

As the Guardian article mentions UUK’s response to the proposal has also been at the forefront.  The Guardian article states the board of UUK approved the return of student number caps and an edited article quotes Alistair Jarvis (Chief Exec UUK) as saying

  • “The UUK board discussed a range of measures needed to promote financial stability of the sector in these tough times. Foremost was the need for government financial support for universities. Student number controls were discussed and it was agreed that further consideration of the pros and cons were needed, with further input from members.” (Alistair tweeted to state the Board had not approved student numbers after the original Guardian article was published, hence ‘student number controls were discussed’ and RP cover the backtrack here).

The offers for students – Research Professional (RP) analyse whether degree outcomes vary based on unconditional offers (including conditional unconditional offers).

The Mail Online is convinced that student number controls are back and write as if the Government has already announced this – Government will place strict limit on student numbers in bid to avoid admissions free-for-all at universities hit by coronavirus

RP also ask in Aftershock if number controls are reintroduced then…: The Guardian’s article is well sourced but lacks detail. Are students who have had their A levels cancelled now going to be told that they cannot go to the university of their choice? That could have a significant impact on recruitment across the board come September.

The Guardian followed up their original article with Concern for A-level students over chaos on university admissions which covers exactly what RP raise above – that students holding offers may no longer have a place to attend. It also includes comment from David Willetts:

  • David Willetts removed student number controls from 2015 when he was minister for universities and science. Writing for the Higher Education Policy Institute in a blog due to be published on Tuesday, he said: “University is a safe haven for young people in these tough times. We can expect many more 18-year-olds to try to get to university now as the alternatives are so poor at the moment. If the government does reintroduce number controls (which I would regret), it must not do so in a way that reduces opportunities for young people to go to university.”

The Guardian also publish an opinion piece – Covid-19 is our best chance to change universities for good.

HEPI have much to say on student number controls. Nick Hillman, Director of HEPI, worked for David Willets ex-Universities Minister and recalls that the abolishing of student number controls was announced on his last day in the job. Elsewhere on HEPI there is a blog Eight interventions for mitigating the impact of Covid-19 on higher education; number 1 is the re-imposition of student number controls to ensure that institutions have a viable first year student population. They suggest that – Realistically, given the damage to school students’ education and examination preparation, this will not be a one-year exercise. There are a number of ways this could happen, either by setting institution by institution limits on admissions (as was the case until 2011) or by limiting variance to +/-5 per cent for any institution against a three year average of admissions (from 2017 to 2019 inclusively). In the longer term, there should be a fundamental review of the operation of the market.  The blog is worth a full read covering other topical elements such as impact on current student retention and progression rates, rent support, contextual admissions, ditching the NSS (national student survey for 2020), increasing quality-related research funding to stabilise the research base and establishing a digital learning leadership fund.

Nick Hillman (HEPI) is also quoted in the Guardian article:

  • …there are people who have long wanted to restrict access to higher education who might see this as the chance to do it. Yet when there are fewer jobs to go around, education becomes more important, not less. And: Reintroducing number caps would protect those universities that have grown the most in recent years by locking down the number of home students that they educate and stopping others from growing at their expense. Older, more prestigious universities would be the biggest losers, as they had hoped to be able to replace lost international students with more home students.

Other HEPI blogs:

Other sources:

There may be more news on this soon.

Exams

The NUS has called for all non-essential (year 1 and 2) exams to be cancelled to reduce anxiety for these students and allow HEIs to focus on facilitating the best possible assessment experience for the final year students. Coverage in the Guardian states that NUS say: disabled, international and poorer students would be significantly disadvantaged if universities go through with plans to hold online exams and assessments next term. [Because accessibility has been lost or left behind in the swift move to online teaching and assessment.]… final-year students should be given a choice of how to complete their degrees, such as receiving an estimated grade based on prior attainment, doing an open book online exam, or taking their finals at the university at a later date.

Claire Sosienski-Smith, the NUS vice-president (Higher Education): “In the current climate, student welfare must come first…It is vital that there are no compulsory exams this year.”

NUS also call for PG students to have a 6-month extension on their submission deadlines.

Similar to student number controls there is a wealth of media attention and material on exams this week. There are nationwide reports of petitions and students campaigning on a range of factors, including ‘no detriment’ policies. No detriment means the average grade the student has already earned from previous assessments is taken as a given and any further assessments can only build to increase the overall grade awarded (not decrease). However, the devil is in the detail and the application.  For example, how can students demonstrate they have met professional registration or statutory regulatory requirements? And in some approaches students have to pass this year’s assessment – if they do better their grade goes up, if worse their grade remains at previous average, if they don’t pass the assessment then their average grade may be in question. No doubt at some point a bright spark will point out that a no detriment policy when going into a final exam is much the same motivation as entering A levels with an unconditional university offer. Brace yourself for headlines not only about grade inflation but about final exam underachievement.

BU readers should know that BU has also announced a “no detriment” policy with the details being worked out on a programme by programme basis.

The Tab summarises a range of approaches and highlights which details universities are following that approach. It covers final and earlier year exams, graded assessments versus pass and fail marking, and dissertation extensions.

Other media:

Horizon Scanning

To catch up on wider regular policy issues –  you can read our BU policy horizon scan.

Research & KEF

On Tuesday Wonkhe reported that the Knowledge Exchange Concordat has been postponed.

A research related parliamentary question:

Q – Dr Lisa Cameron: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to Budget 2020, what proportion of the £22 billion investment in R&D he plans to allocate to (a) performing and (b) funding R&D. [33613]

A – Jesse Norman: The Government is committed to supporting the UK’s leadership in science and innovation, and set out an ambition to increase economy-wide investment in R&D to 2.4% of GDP by 2027. At the 2020 Budget, the Government announced that it would increase public investment in R&D to £22bn by 2024-25, the largest ever increase in support for R&D. This will support innovators and researchers across the UK to develop their brilliant ideas, cutting edge technologies and ground breaking research. The majority of this uplift will be allocated at the Spending Review, including support for various R&D programmes. The Government will set out further details in due course

Mental Health

The Department of Health and Social Care released new public guidance regarding mental health support during the coronavirus outbreak covering areas from medication, to managing wellbeing, medication and coping mechanisms. There is easy read guidance for those that need this. The Government have also announced £5 million for leading mental health charities, administered by Mind. And NHS Mental Health Providers are establishing 24/7 helplines.

Paul Farmer, Mind Chief Executive, stated:

  • We are facing one of the toughest ever times for our mental wellbeing as a nation. It is absolutely vital that people pull together and do all they can to look after themselves and their loved ones, when we are all facing a huge amount of change and uncertainty…Charities like Mind have a role to play in helping people cope not only with the initial emergency but coming to terms with how this will affect us well into the future. Whether we have an existing mental health problem or not, we are all going to need extra help to deal with the consequences of this unprecedented set of circumstances.

Claire Murdoch, NHS mental health director, said:

  • The NHS is stepping up to offer people help when and how they need it, including by phone, facetime, skype or digitally enabled therapy packages and we also have accelerated plans for crisis response service 24/7…We are determined to respond to people’s needs during this challenging time and working with our partners across the health sector and in the community, NHS mental health services will be there through what is undoubtedly one of the greatest healthcare challenges the NHS has ever faced.

The Times has an article on student mental health focusing on anxiety caused by uncertainties such as exams: Panic and anxiety after education is plunged into limbo.

Brexit & immigration

Withdrawal Agreement

The Government has published a press release outlining that the Withdrawal Agreement Joint Committee met virtually on Monday 30 March to discuss the application and interpretation of the Withdrawal Agreement. There is a factsheet about the Withdrawal Agreement Joint Committee here.

EU Settlement Scheme

The EU settlement scheme continues. However, the Home Office has clarified that while applications continue to be processed, during this challenging time they will take longer than usual. And the resolution centre will only respond to email inquiries, not telephone; all the ID document scanner locations have been suspended as is the postal route to submit identity evidence. The Home Office reminds: there are still 15 months before the deadline of 30 June 2021 for applications to the EU Settlement Scheme, and there is plenty of support available online to support those looking to apply. This includes translated communications materials and alternative formats being made available.

Visas

The Government has announced visa extensions until 31st May for all foreign nationals in the UK. Individuals who are in the UK and whose visa expired after 24th January are being urged to contact the Home Office to be issued with the May extension. The Government have confirmed they will continue to kept the timescales under review in case further extension is needed.

A dedicated Covid-19 immigration team has been set up within the Home Office to make the process as “straightforward as possible” for visa holders. To help those who want to apply for visas to stay in the UK long-term, the Home Office is also temporarily expanding the in-country switching provisions. In light of the current advice on self-isolation and social distancing, the Home Office is also waiving a number of requirements on visa sponsors, such as allowing non-EU nationals here under work or study routes to undertake their work or study from home.

Priti Patel, Home Secretary, stated: The UK continues to put the health and wellbeing of people first and nobody will be punished for circumstances outside of their control. By extending people’s visas, we are giving people peace of mind and also ensuring that those in vital services can continue their work.

NHS Visas – 1 year extension & Student Nurses

The Home Office have announced that doctors, nurses and paramedics will automatically have their visas extended for one year, free of charge. The extension also covers family members. This measure will also help bolster the number of NHS staff able to work during the coronavirus situation.

Restrictions limiting the number of hours that student nurses and doctors can work in the NHS have also been lifted.

Priti Patel said:

  • Doctors, nurses and paramedics from all over the world are playing a leading role in the NHS’s efforts to tackle coronavirus and save lives. We owe them a great deal of gratitude for all that they do. I don’t want them distracted by the visa process. That is why I have automatically extended their visas – free of charge – for a further year.

NUS

NUS ran its hustings and voting for the election of the presidential and executive officers online for the first time ever. Hillary Gyebi-Ababio has been elected NUS UK’s Vice-President Higher Education for a two-year term receiving 85% of the vote. Hillary is currently the Undergraduate Education Officer at University of Bristol Students’ Union. She states she believes that education should be free, accessible and open to all, with students from all backgrounds and identities being able to engage with and shape the education they deserve. She wants students to be at the centre of their education, not viewed as metrics in a market. She will be fighting for an education system that puts students first. Hillary commented:

  • “It is an honour to be elected as the new Vice President Higher Education of our new and reformed NUS. The fact that students all over the country have trusted me with this role is a sign of how much there is a need for a NUS that puts students at the heart of all it does. I am committed to ensuring that every student, regardless of background, circumstance or identity is heard, seen and cared for. This is going to be an exciting time for the student movement, and the beginning of a new and revitalised NUS.”

Student Experience

Lawyer Smita Jamdar blogs on the consequences of the changes to teaching, assessment and student services as a result of Covid-19 and what universities should be considering to ensure they stay on the right side of the Consumer Rights Act.

Accessibility & Mitigation

Wonkhe write: Is online teaching accessible to all? The sector has (mostly) shifted teaching online – but this has been the very opposite of the kind of planned migration that would be considered best practice by digital delivery experts. In the rush to ensure that students could continue their studies it is very likely that the needs of some students – specific learning needs, disabilities, and external factors – have been forgotten. The next phase of the great leap online will be unpicking where mitigations and alternatives need to be put in place to ensure every student can continue their education during the Covid-19 lockdown.

Wonkhe have one blog on the ethics sitting behind it all: The sudden shift to online provision has failed to consider the needs of all students, and may have been built on tools of uncertain provenance.

And a further blog from Martin McLean from the National Deaf Children’s Society on the mitigations required for deaf students to succeed in online teaching and assessment.

Parliamentary Questions

Student Enrolment/Employment

Q – Dr Luke Evans: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what discussions he has had with universities on ensuring that students remain enrolled at their institution in the event (a) that they lose their part-time employment and (b) of another change in their financial situation as a result of the covid-19 outbreak. [33725]

A – Michelle Donelan: The government is working closely with the sector on a wide range of issues, and student wellbeing is at the heart of those discussions. It will be for universities to deal with individual students’ situations. Universities know how best to provide support and maintain hardship funds, which can be deployed where necessary, which is especially important for students who are estranged from their families, disabled or have health vulnerabilities.

Students will continue to receive scheduled payments of loans towards their living costs for the remainder of the current, 2019/20, academic year. If they are employed or self-employed, they may also be able to benefit from the wider measures of support announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. If agreed with their employer, their employer might be able to keep them on the payroll if they’re unable to operate or have no work for them to do because of coronavirus (COVID-19). This is known as being ‘on furlough’. They could get paid 80% of their wages, up to a monthly cap of £2,500.

Loans

Q – Preet Kaur Gill: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what discussions he has had with the chief executive of the student loans company on the potential merits of refunding loans for the third term of this academic year. [33730]

A – Michelle Donelan: The Student Loans Company (SLC) will continue to make scheduled tuition and maintenance payments to both students and providers. Both tuition and maintenance payments will continue irrespective of whether learning has moved online. This has been communicated via the SLC website. We are continuing to monitor the position.

Inquiries and Consultations

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

New consultations and inquiries this week:

  • The Commons Education select committee is running an inquiry into the impact of COVID-19 on education and children’s services – how the outbreak of COVID-19 is affecting all aspects of the education sector and children’s social care system and will scrutinise how the Department for Education is dealing with the situation. It will examine both short term impacts, such as the effects of school closures and exam cancellations, as well as longer-term implications particularly for the most vulnerable children. Closes: 30 September 2020
  • The House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee has launched an inquiry to hear about the different and disproportionate impact that the Coronavirus – and measures to tackle it – is having on people with protected characteristics under the Equality Act. Closes: 30 April 2020

Other news

  • Data Futures: HESA have published the latest data futures guidance. Wonkhe write on the release: The release of version 1.0.0 of the HESA Data Futures manual offers a welcome indication that, Data Futures, the long-planned overhaul of student data collection will be going ahead. The new materials suggest three data collection points (one per “reference point”) each year, confirming the move away from continuous collection. Also from HESA, a detailed methodology statement (in two parts) on Graduate Outcomes.
  • Student rent: The BBC has an article on the Bristol students staging rent strikes. They are campaigning about the lack of flexibility or forgiveness from landlords. In particular students who have lost their part time jobs or are unable to work because they are self-isolating are detailed. And Wonkhe report that Shadow Secretaries of State John Healey and Angela Rayner have written to government ministers to raise concerns about student accommodation fees for the summer term – requesting action for students living in halls and for those in the private rented accommodation sector.

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

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

innovation, international

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

Select Committees

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

Immigration

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

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

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

Science

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

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

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

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

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

Graduate Premium

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

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

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

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

HEPI – Careers Service view on Graduate Outcomes driving institutional change

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

  • 76% of careers services have seen a change in student engagement with careers in the last three years (24% no change).
  • 93% of careers services see the increased policy focus on graduate outcomes as positive (2% negative; 5% neither positive nor negative).
  • The new Graduate Outcomes survey and the OfS Access and Participation plans are having the greatest impact on how careers services operate, rather than graduate salary data.
  • 69% say Graduate Outcomes has the most impact
  • 19% say Access and Participation plans has the most impact.
  • 2% say the LEO (Longitudinal Educational Outcomes data) has the greatest impact.
  • 45% of careers services have seen an increase in funding to cover additional demand on their services; 55% haven’t.
  • The report also covers qualitative analysis of the views of careers services, including how they, their university and students classify a successful outcome from university.

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

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

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

Part time study

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

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

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

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

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

Technical Education

Degree Apprenticeships

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

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

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

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

Investing in Higher Technical Education

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Education Policy Institute (EPI)

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

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

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

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

However, important gaps will remain:

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

Recommendations:

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

Working life longevity

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

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

EPI lobby for the following to address working life longevity:

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

Access and Participation

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

Lords Debate – Working Classes Educational Opportunities

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

HE stats

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

Income

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

Expenditure

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

Mental Health

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

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

OfS will hold the money and approve proposals.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Research

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And a written question on levelling up:

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

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

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

HE focussed Parliamentary Questions

PG Fees

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

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

Strikes

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

Apprenticeships

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

The full answer is here. Excerpts below:

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

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

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

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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 24th January 2020

There are five reports touching on social mobility this week, lots of education statistics released, and we’ve almost Brexited.  After all the focus on Parliamentary process over the last two and a half years, the ping pong was over before it really started.  There is scope for more before the end of the year, although given the government majority are seemingly united on Brexit, we are going to have to look elsewhere for Parliamentary excitement.  Perhaps HS2, Heathrow’s third runway and some of the other big projects up for debate in 2020 will have us all watching Parliament TV again.  Or maybe not.

Research policy developments

There have been a lot of announcements over the weekend and the Minister gave a big speech on Friday, so for BU staff we have summarised the latest developments for you here.

Global Talent Visa:

  • “A new Global Talent Visa, increased investment in mathematical sciences and commitments to strengthen and simplify the research and innovation funding system have been announced by the Prime Minister.
  • A new fast-track visa scheme to attract the world’s top scientists, researchers and mathematicians will open on 20 February. The bespoke Global Talent route will have no cap on the number of people able to come to the UK, demonstrating the Government’s commitment to supporting top talent.
  • It replaces the Tier 1 (Exceptional Talent) route and UK Research and Innovation will endorse applicants from the scientific and research community.”

Maths funding:

  • “Also announced by the Prime Minister was a significant boost to the UK’s world-leading mathematical sciences community, increasing support for this key discipline and expanding the pool of trained mathematicians.
  • Up to £300 million of additional funding will more than double the current funding for the mathematical sciences delivered by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)”.

Research Professional say:

  • It is also “subject to business case”, so it might never see the light of day. Nonetheless, the £60m commitment in principle is to be welcomed, and will provide £19m of additional funding for PhD studentships (double the existing funding, ministers say). There is also £34m of additional funding for “career pathways and new research projects”, and £7m a year extra to be shared between Bristol’s Heilbronn Institute for Mathematical Research, the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences in Cambridge and the International Centre for Mathematical Sciences in Edinburgh.

Reduction of research bureaucracy

  • “In line with the commitment to reduce administration for researchers and innovators, UKRI has also announced that applicants to UKRI will no longer be required to provide a ‘Pathways to Impact’ plan or complete an ‘Impact Summary’ within grant applications from 1 March 2020.
  • The impact agenda remains incredibly important and UKRI exists to fund the researchers who generate the knowledge that society needs, and the innovators who can turn this knowledge into public benefit.
  • Pathways to Impact has been in place for over a decade and we recognise the research and innovation landscape has changed since its implementation and impact is now a core consideration throughout the grant application process.
  • The move supports UKRI’s ambition to create a stronger research and innovation environment that is focussed on supporting talented people and realising the full potential of their work.”

Research Integrity paper: See the paper here:

Research Professional say:

  • Universities should be doing more to ensure the integrity of their research and to retain the trust of society at large, says a paper from League of European Research Universities.
  • The Leru paper published on 24 January is co-authored by Antoine Hol, a law professor at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, and Inge Lerouge, an ethics and integrity coordinator at KU Leuven in Belgium, with an input from its thematic group on the issue.
  • “Universities should be at the forefront of developing and implementing new approaches to research integrity that will maintain and strengthen the confidence of the public, governments, research funders and end users,” say Hol and Lerouge in the paper.
  • Among their recommendations are that universities should devise and share research integrity guidelines, appoint specialist personnel on the issue, and make integrity education mandatory for students.

Chris Skidmore speech on research and innovation (24th Jan)

Parliamentary News

  • Education Appointments  – Scott Mann (Conservative, Wadebridge) has been appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to Education Minister Gavin Williamson. Previously he was a PPS within the Dept for Work and Pensions. Chris Green (Conservative, Manchester Withington) retails his pre-election role as the DfE PPS. Innes Taylor has been appointed as Gavin Williamson’s SPAD (special advisor).
  • Labour Leadership Contest – Jess Phillips dropped out of the Labour leadership contest this week. Lisa Nandy has been endorsed by the GMB union and already had the support of the National Union of Mineworkers. Scroll halfway through this article to read the BBC’s analysis of all the candidates chances (spoiler – Sir Kier Starmer is still in the lead).
  • Brexit – The Lords amended the Withdrawal Bill this week starting the ping pong process. The Government threw out the amendments and the Lords acquiesced, so passing the Bill. So 4 years on from the referendum, after 2 general elections, 3 Prime Ministers, 3 extensions, and 4 exit days…The European Union Withdrawal Act 2019 has now had Royal Assent and is on the statute book. Boris has (almost) delivered (phase 1 of) his Brexit and the UK will leave the EU on 31st January 2020 (next Friday).

Longitudinal education outcomes  (LEO)

The Department for Education has published experimental statistics showing employment and earnings outcomes of HE graduates by provider and current region of residence based on the LEO (longitudinal education outcomes) data.

  • Graduates earn a median annual salary of £19,900 one year after graduating, £23,300 after three years, £26,000 after five, and £30,500 after ten years.
  • Graduates in all regions of the country earn on average around 20% more than their peers in the same region who did not go to university.
  • After adjusting for region, there is still variation in the median earnings outcomes between HE institutions, with 25% of institutions having average adjusted graduate earnings of £23,200 or below and 25% of institutions having adjusted graduate earnings of £28,500 or above.
  • At the individual institution level, controlling for regional destination can make a significant difference for some institutions; 16.9% of institutions see a change of 10% or more in their median earnings.
  • When looking at HE institutions whose graduates now live in London, half had median earnings of £29,400, five years after graduation – the highest across all current regions.

Universities Minister Chris Skidmore said:

  • It’s great to see that all over the country, it pays to have a degree from our world-leading universities, and they are bringing benefits to all of the regions. This data is a milestone for the thousands of future students, helping them to work out whether university is for them, and where to study and work. I hope this will particularly help students from disadvantaged backgrounds to see the benefits, who are often more likely to stay in their home region. Of course earnings potential is just one factor for students, but we believe they should have all the facts to make their decision. It is important for young people to know that they will not only get a rich education at university, but that their degree will be good value for money.

Wonkhe have an analysis by David Kernohan:

  • The region a graduate lives in has an impact on provider level medians. DfE use a weighted median in their top level data (which I haven’t plotted here for reasons that will become clear), and gleefully reports significant differences between median salary by provider even after a graduate region-based weighting is applied.
  • Of course, a gold standard LEO would absolutely need take into account subject of study and provider alongside current region (or indeed, local authority) of residence – alongside the sex of a graduate, their GCSE performance, and a suitable measure of inequality. However, such a nuanced examination would provide numbers too small to publish without identifying individuals.
  • There is hopefully a point in the middle, where LEO gives us enough information to be usable while remaining publishable. This release is not at that point, but I feel like we are gradually iterating around it.
  • The publication itself is clear on the limitations:
  • It should be noted that the data presented here does not control for many other factors that can influence graduate outcomes e.g. prior attainment, subject studied and other characteristics. It should also be noted that a higher education will have a range of personal and societal benefits that extend beyond earnings, which by its nature are not captured in the statistics presented here.”
  • So how useful is the weighted median? If we’re not controlling by subject or by sex, not very.

David has, of course, done a chart and you can play with where students studied (by region) and where they are currently based.  How useful is it – well, as with all these things, it depends what you are looking for.  What will be interesting will be to see what it means for the new TEF, where they included LEO as additional data in the last pilot and have long said that they would like to reflect regional differences in the metrics, but have previously only supported that with some high level maps and an opportunity to make your case for regional differences in your provider submission.  So we’ll see.

Staff in HE

DfE and HESA released the Higher Education Staff Statistics 2018/19. Key points:

  • There were 439,955 staff (excluding atypical staff) employed in the HE sector, showing an increase of 2% from 429,560 on 1 December 2017.
  • HE staff employed on academic contracts made up 49% of the population. This percentage has remained the same since 2013/14.
  • There were 296,185 staff employed on full-time contracts. This is an increase of 2% from 289,730 in 2017/18.
  • The number of staff on part-time contracts increased by 3% from 139,830 in 2017/18 to 143,765 in 2018/19.

Again, Wonkhe were quick off the mark with analysis from David Kernohan looking at data about senior BME staff in HE following headlines that there are no Black senior academics” – it seems it’s a rounding issue:

  • “..in the 2014/15 academic year there were between 0 and 2 Black senior academics in UK HE – a state of affairs that continued until 2016/17. At that point there were between 3 and 5 Black senior academics in the UK… which continued until 2018/19 when the number once again dropped below 3.
  • As Chris Skidmore put it: “It is unacceptable that the number of black academic staff in senior positions has fallen, as this does not represent our British society. Universities need to make more progress and I urge all vice-chancellors to address the barriers that are holding back black and ethnic minority staff from senior positions.”
  • He actually worded that fairly well – others in and around the sector went for the shocking (if less accurate) “no Black senior academics” framing….
  • So where does this leave Chris Skidmore (and the many journalists that have gone along with the ministerial line)? He’s right to be concerned about the poor representation of Black academics at the top of our academic providers, and he’s right that the situation needs to be improved.”

The Times Higher Education chose a different angle:

  • Teaching-only contracts up again as REF approaches.  Almost a third of staff in UK higher education are now classed as teaching-only
  • The Hesa data were released as Research England published figures showing that 22,500 more academics – measured by full-time equivalent – are set to be entered into the 2021 REF because of new rules that require all staff with “significant responsibility for research” to be submitted.
  • In practice, anyone with a teaching-only contract will not have to be entered, a key reason why it has been suggested that institutions are moving staff perceived to be underperforming in research to teaching-only contracts.
  • Last year, an analysis by Times Higher Education based on 2017-18 figures found that about a fifth of universities had substantially increased their share of academics on teaching-only contracts, while 12 institutions had a quarter of full-time staff on teaching-only terms.
  • Elsewhere, the latest Hesa staff statistics showed that the rise in the share of professors who are female increased by a percentage point again in 2018-19 to reach 27 per cent, while for “other senior academics” the female share rose to 38 per cent from 36 per cent. Overall numbers of black academics grew by 11 per cent, but they still represent just 2 per cent of all academic staff.
  • …The number of part-time contracts was up a percentage point more than full-time contracts, while the share of full-time academic staff on fixed-term contracts also rose slightly, to 25.3 per cent from 24.9 per cent.
  • The number of staff classed as “atypical” – which includes those employed for one-off tasks, for a short amount of time or in roles “that involve a high degree of flexibility” – also increased, by 2 per cent, after having fallen in previous years.
  • But specific figures on the number of zero-hours contracts, which include only “typical” staff, showed a drop, from about 11,400 in 2017-18 to 7,000 in 2018-19.
  • With Brexit now imminent, the data also showed that the share of academics from other European Union countries remained stable in 2018-19 at 17.5 per cent of total numbers.

At the same time, Wonkhe report: The REF 2021 team at UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) reports that nearly 75,000 academic staff are expected to be submitted to REF 2021, a 43 per cent increase, according to the results of a preliminary survey. All subject areas are projected to increase, especially the social sciences. This is due to the implementation of the recommendation of the Stern review that all research-active staff should be submitted to the exercise. A reduction in the number of outputs to 2.5 appears to have ensured that the overall number of outputs to be assessed remains roughly the same as the 2014 REF.

And Research Professional focussed on gender:

…What is the problem?

  • First, it’s money. While women, as a majority of students, are contributing a large part of what institutions get in fees, the salaries those fees help to fund seem to be going, in large part, to men.
  • The median gender pay gap was 13.7 per cent on average in UK universities in 2018, with men working in higher education earning £7,220 more on average each year than women.
  • One reason is that while the overall number of staff working in higher education may be mainly female, the number working in (more highly paid) academic roles is mainly male. The HESA stats show that 27 per cent of professors are women—just one percentage point higher than last year—and women comprise just 38 per cent of staff employed on other senior academic contracts. These numbers have been improving, but at a glacial pace.
  • More women are also employed part-time, including 55 per cent of employees in part-time academic roles.
  • Recent studies have also shown gender gaps for researchers in success rates for grant applications and in amounts awarded.

The other problem is that it is not just about numbers of women or the size of their salaries. Speaking at yesterday’s conference, Ruth Sealy, associate professor in management and director of impact at the University of Exeter, said it was also important to consider the nature of the roles women were taking on.

  • She cited the problem of the “glass cliff”—the idea that women tend to be offered leadership positions at a time of crisis, when it often turns out to be a poisoned chalice. (Think Theresa May after David Cameron’s resignation as prime minister following the Brexit referendum.)
  • …Another speaker at the conference, Norma Jarboe, external adviser to the Centre for Diversity Policy Research and Practice at Oxford Brookes University, has been studying diversity among university boards and their chairs, vice-chancellors, leadership teams and heads of academic departments. She has found that 55 per cent of higher education institution boards are gender balanced, compared with 19 per cent in 2013. More than 27 per cent of university governing body chairs are now women—more than twice as many as in 2013, although still low—and in 2018, women made up 29 per cent of vice-chancellors and 37 per cent of all executive team members.
  • But she said that pairs of female vice-chancellors and board chairs were still rare, and her greatest concern was the low number of female heads of academic departments—31 per cent—and the fact that this had not moved in the past two years.
  • Jarboe said a major problem was the low number of female professors, as a professorial role is often a prerequisite for gaining positions of senior responsibility. “We aren’t going to shift in a big way the numbers in executive teams unless we do something about professorial roles and paths to head into that,” she argued.

Meanwhile, the culture in some university departments remains one in which female staff and students find it difficult to thrive. Launching a consultation on harassment and sexual misconduct earlier this month, Dandridge said the OfS felt that while many institutions were improving their policies in this area, more needed to be done.

  • Writing for HE, Antonia Sudkaemper, a researcher at OCR Cambridge Assessment, suggested that men were crucial to creating a more inclusive departmental culture for women.
  • What makes all this important—beyond simply being fair—is that higher education has a particularly transformative effect on women.
  • Yesterday’s release of post-university earnings data, which focused on how median earnings vary for graduates from different institutions by the region in which they end up working, did not include a breakdown by gender. But previous releases of Longitudinal Education Outcomes have shown that the graduate premium is significantly higher for women than for men—a 28 per cent boost to salaries, compared with just 8 per cent for men, when moderated for social class.”

A levels and progression to HE

DfE released A Level and Other 16 to 18 Results.

Attainment is lower for disadvantaged students compared to non-disadvantaged students across all level 3 qualification types

  • The average grade for A levels was C for disadvantaged students (increased from C- in 2018), and C+ for all other students (the same as in 2018).
  • The average grade for Tech Levels and Applied General qualifications was Merit+ for all students, regardless of their disadvantage status. This is an increase from Merit to Merit+ for Tech Level disadvantaged students compared to 2018.

English and maths progress increased for students who did not achieve at least GCSE grade 4 or equivalent at the end of key stage 4.

  • In 2019, average progress was 0.13 and 0.08 for English and maths respectively. Average progress has steadily increased each year since the measure was introduced in 2016

Level 3 Value Added for A-level disadvantaged students continues to decrease

  • Over the last three years, the Level 3 value added scores for A-level disadvantaged students have decreased, from -0.06 to -0.12, at a rate of -0.03 per year. This contrasts with a stable score of 0.00 for non-disadvantaged students.

Read more on gender, ethnicity and disadvantage (including free school meals) breakdowns and the most popular subjects here.

DfE statistics on the destinations of Key stage 4 and 16 to 18 (Key stage 5) students:

  • Overall, 94% of pupils were in sustained education, employment or apprenticeships in the year after key stage 4, unchanged from 2016/17.
    • With 86% of this total in sustained education, up 4% since 2010/11 and unchanged from 2016/17
  • Apprenticeships and employment destinations rose slightly
  • Overall, 88% of students who took mainly level 3 qualifications went to a sustained education, apprenticeship or employment destination. Students taking qualifications at level 2 and below were less likely to have a sustained destination overall. However, they were more likely to enter apprenticeships and employment.

You can read about  progression to HE here.

  • Figure 4 shows the progression into HE/training by type of school or college. Selective schools have the highest progression rate at 88%. Non-selective schools situated in highly-selective areas have a much lower progression rate (56%) which remains low after influencing factors are controlled for. You can read more on this interesting phenomenon on page 8.
  • Figure 5 highlights the huge disparity between the regions in progressing to HE. London 16-18 year olds are 17% more likely to progress to HE/training than students in the south west (even when controlling for prior attainment and qualification type).  The report questions if this is due to the lack of local easy to access HE institutions within the south west.

Health Maintenance Grants

A Government news story released the detail on the health professions that will benefit from the non-repayable £5,000 (per year) maintenance grant reintroduction (announced in December). The bursary will be in addition to existing support so students will still receive the same loan entitlement. Students on the following programmes will benefit from the grant:

  • paramedicine
  • midwifery
  • nursing (adult, child, mental health, learning disability, joint nursing/social work)
  • occupational therapy
  • physiotherapy
  • operating department practitioner (level 5 courses)
  • dietetics
  • dental hygiene or dental therapy (level 5 courses)
  • orthoptics
  • orthotics and prosthetics
  • podiatry or chiropody
  • radiography (diagnostic and therapeutic)
  • speech and language therapy

There are three more additional payments worth £1,000 each (per year) for students meeting special criteria:

  • £1,000 towards childcare costs
  • £1,000 if studying in a region that is struggling to recruit
  • £1,000 if they’re a new student studying a shortage specialism important to delivering the NHS Long Term Plan (mental health nursing, learning disability nursing, radiography (diagnostic and therapeutic), prosthetics and orthotics, orthoptics and podiatry).

So a learning disability nurse with children (who qualify) and who is studying in a problem recruitment area would receive £8,000 per year in addition to eligibility for student loans.

This is part of the Government’s drive to increase numbers of nurses by 50,000 by 2025. The press release says the Government expects the £5,000 maintenance grants to benefit 100,000 students each year.

Unpaid Internships

Lord Holmes of Richmond was successful in the Lords Private Members Bill ballot (again!) that was held in December. He continues his campaign to tackle unpaid internships lasting longer than four weeks and has reintroduced legislation to ban unpaid internships over four weeks (with the intent that they will become paid at a reasonable rate). Lords legislation, and private members bills, often fail to progress through Parliament and become law. However, we’ll be keeping a close eye on this Bill. The date for the second reading has yet to be announced.

Social and Geographic Mobility

The Sutton Trust, in partnership with the LSE Inequalities Institute published a report on social mobility, geographic mobility, and elite occupations. This comes from a summary provided by Dods. The report presents a systemic study of whether elites in the UK are pulling away, economically and socially. Elites here are defined in two senses;

  • firstly ‘economic elites’ , a group of the most economically, culturally and socially advantaged in society, and
  • ‘occupational elites’ , a much larger group comprising of those who work in professional and managerial jobs, the most privileged group of occupations.

The report finds that becoming socially mobile – moving into a higher professional or managerial job from a working-class background – doesn’t necessarily mean moving away from where you grew up. The report also comments on the elites’ consolidation of London, finding that, for the younger generation (aged 30-36), moving to London and working in an elite occupation is largely the preserve of those from a privileged background in the first place.

  • Elites are likely to justify their position through beliefs in meritocracy. However, these meritocratic views are also largely endorsed by the wider population and thus the elite exaggerate rather than repudiate wider common sense perspectives on social mobility.
  • Although the impact of private schooling on access to elite universities and firms remains important, their power has slightly waned over the very long run.
  • Occupational elites, those employed in higher managerial and professional occupations, have not become more geographically segregated over the period 1981-2011. In fact, outside London, such segregation has declined.
  • Over two-thirds of the most socially mobile people born in 1965-1971 and 1975-1981 have never made a long-distance move (69% and 68% respectively). Instead they’ve built careers near to where they grew up in sectors like law, medicine and academia, aided by the growth in professional jobs across the country in the latter part of the century.
  • For the younger generation, moving to and living in London at age 30-36 and working in an elite occupation is overwhelmingly associated with being from a privileged background in the first place, and this holds even more true than for older generations
  • Those from privileged backgrounds that are most able to migrate to, and remain in London, and can therefore take advantage of the most sought-after career opportunities in Britain’s elite occupations. Therefore, there is an association between geographic mobility and the reproduction of social class advantage, rather than social mobility.
  • Conversely, ‘ordinary’ Londoners who move into elite occupations actually tend to move away from London in order to accomplish their ascent.

Recommendations:

  • Unpaid internships are a significant barrier to those from less well-off backgrounds outside big cities and exclude those who cannot afford to work for free. To ensure access to opportunities are fair, internships over 4 weeks should always be paid at least the minimum wage. [See our coverage of the Bill here.]
  • There needs to be a significant increase in the number of degree and higher-level apprenticeships available across the country, and a focus on ensuring young people from low and moderate income backgrounds can access them.
  • Admissions to the best schools and universities should be more equitable, with increased use of contextual admissions by more selective universities, and opening up the best comprehensive, grammar and independent schools to young people of all backgrounds.

Social Mobility Barometer

The Social Mobility Commission’s  annual social mobility barometer which assesses public attitudes to social mobility in the UK. The report underlines stark regional differences in people’s perceptions of their life prospects:

  • 31% of people living in the north-east (and 48% in north-west) think there are good opportunities to make progress in their own region, whereas
  • 74% believe this in the south-east, and
  • 78% in London.

Dame Martina Milburn, Chair of the Social Mobility Commission, said:

  • This year’s Social Mobility Barometer gives a clear message to the new Government. It shows that more than half of people feel that government does not give enough support to those who are struggling or to the least well off. It should be doing much more both at national and local level.
  • This year the Barometer reveals a worrying divide between opportunities in education and what follows – work, income and job security. Overall 63% of people felt they were better off than their parents in terms of the education they had received, but only 45% felt they had a better standard of living. Less than a third felt they had better job security.
  • This suggests that the focus on improving educational opportunities may have started to pay off but much more attention is needed on training, jobs, and pay levels. The majority of people continue to feel there are fewer opportunities for people from disadvantaged backgrounds compared to better-off peers. Almost half of people (44%) say that where you end up in society is largely determined by your background, while twice as many people feel it is becoming harder rather than easier to move up in society. This poll is a ‘call to action’ for this new Government to do more to help social mobility. Politicians must listen to it. This is a great moment to start reversing inequities of generations.

Delving into the detail behind the headlines is the finding that apprenticeships were considered to offer better career progression than HE study. However, there is a stark age difference with the younger generation plumping for HE to pursue a successful career (see page 12 for the full breakdown).

  • 77% felt that poorer people have less opportunity to attend a top university with 65% believing poor people’s chances were reduced to attend any university. 49% believed it would also be harder for poorer people to obtain an internship. Interestingly 57% believed poor people had equal opportunity to obtain an apprenticeship.
  • Those surveyed who were aged under 50 believed they received a better education than their parents but scored lower on all other factors with the 18-24 and 25-49 age groups particularly negative in their opinion.
  • Those born in the 1980s and 1990s were rated highest for the best educational opportunities (despite the fact the tuition fee loan system was in place for this cohort).

Dods report that the Social Mobility Commission poll coincides with the publication of the commission’s research report into further education and recommends that the government set up an independent What Works Centre for Further Education and Adult Learning (proposed budget £20 million over the next 5 years) to act as a knowledge and research hub; translating the best available evidence and testing a variety of approaches to ensure resources for poorer students, who make up the bulk of students in further education, are targeted more effectively.

The NUS responded to both social mobility reports and the FE report but were not in favour of a What Works centre – NUS Vice President (Further Education) Juliana Mohamad-Noor said:

  • We welcome the publication’s focus on how to improve education attainment among disadvantaged students and the report can provide a useful evidence base for this. However students have told us that what they need to best help them succeed is more direct investment into further education (FE) rather than investing in a £20 million What Works Centre. FE is in a funding crisis due to cuts since 2010, with students bearing the brunt of these cuts. The government must raise the rate to at least £4,760 per student as a priority if they are to improve attainment.

I believe there are a number of initiatives which could make life better for disadvantaged students. They include:

  • Travel passes: City of Liverpool College had travel passes for students with a household income of less than £25,000 who lived more than two miles away and had good attendance.
  • Bursary Grants: City of Liverpool College also had a small pot of funding for students who met a similar criteria. I benefitted from this when I was a business student at the College and was granted £200 to buy a laptop so that I could do my coursework outside of the classroom and not be dependent on limited library resources in College or at home.
  • Free School Meals. At City of Liverpool only 2 or 3 centres were funded to be able to provide free food at lunchtime. This lack of support meant many students had to spend time travelling to another college where their ID cards would allow them access to the meal allowance, or use their own limited resources to buy food elsewhere.
  • Nurseries, such as the one provided at City of Liverpool College for students with young children. This allows both access to education for the students as well as reliable and safe childcare for their young ones.
  • Direct investment in response to real student needs in their day-to-day lives is what’s needed to close the education attainment gap among disadvantaged students

Interventions to widen access to HE – impact evaluation

The Education Policy Institute (EPI) has published a report on the impact of interventions for widening access to HE. Students from disadvantaged backgrounds are still less likely than their more privileged counterparts to progress to HE. The report finds that, despite considerable investment and many years of widening participation policy, progress has been modest and there appears to be limited evidence on the effectiveness of the interventions carried out. The paper also describes interventions that have proved most effective.

These are the key findings as described by the EPI:

  • Overall, there is still a lack of available evidence on the impact of outreach interventions on actual enrolment rates. Much of the existing evidence focusses on intermediate outcomes such as increased aspirations and awareness which may not always translate into actual enrolments.
  • Most of the studies analysed found positive but modest effects. There are still some gaps in the research base, and the evidence often does not demonstrate causality; however, there has been an increased focus on robust evaluations.
  • Much of the evidence is concentrated on students in their final years of secondary school and post-16 learners (A levels students in particular). Given that differences in attainment can explain much of the participation gap, and that these arise early, there is a lack of evidence on the impact of interventions happening earlier in the student life cycle.
  • Most widening participation initiatives analysed were black box interventions combining several outreach components. These combined interventions seem to be associated with improvements in higher education outcomes but drawing definitive conclusions on the effectiveness of the single components is challenging.
  • Providing financial aid to disadvantaged students is a high-cost widening participation intervention that has a small but positive effect on enrolment. The literature suggests that financial support is most successful when it is relatively easy to understand and apply for and efforts are made to raise awareness amongst potential beneficiaries.
  • Interventions in the area of mentoring, counselling and role models has generally positive association with the outcomes considered. Qualitative and quantitative evidence suggests an increase in students’ confidence to succeed in higher education, higher aspirations and a better understanding of the world of university, especially when the mentors can act as relatable role models for the mentees. Again, much of the literature analyses only changes to intermediate outcomes such as increased aspirations, confidence or awareness, rather than actual enrolments.
  • Providing information, advice and guidance to underrepresented students during secondary school is a low-cost, light-touch tool to widen participation. The literature is largely based on fully scalable randomised control trials and indicates limited effects on both aspirations and actual enrolment. The more promising interventions are those that are tailored to the students, start early and are integrated into other forms of support, such as career advice and guidance.
  • Summer schools are high-cost interventions that appear to be positively correlated with an increase in confidence and aspirations, but evidence on their effects on application to and acceptance by higher education institutions shows mixed results.

EPI make the following recommendations: [some very familiar messages here!]

  • To avoid overestimating the effectiveness of widening participation interventions, it is crucial to provide more causal evidence on the capacity of interventions to translate increased aspirations and awareness into a higher enrolment rate.
  • There is a need for more robust research on the impact of black box interventions, with a focus on teasing out the separate effect of each component. Robust monitoring and evaluation should be built into these interventions from the start.
  • There is not enough research focused on vulnerable but overlooked groups, such as mature students, carers and care leavers, some ethnic minority students and vocational students.
  • More causal evidence on the effectiveness of summer schools should also be carried out. Where randomised control trials are not practical, other quasi-experimental techniques should be applied.
  • More research on financial aid is recommended to ensure relevance to the English and UK context.
  • The government and its delivery bodies must facilitate greater tracking of the progression outcomes of participants in widening participation interventions over time and between the school, college and the higher education sectors. This would provide improved evidence based on actual enrolments to higher education rather than on self-reported aspirations and attitudes only, and would allow for the development of more research on interventions happening

NCOP (National Collaborative Outreach Programme)

A report on the future of the NCOP (National Collaborative Outreach Programme): Voices: What next for the National Collaborative Outreach Programme? Last week OfS announced they would need to make savings in the HE recurrent funding budgets. They have confirmed they will not cut NCOP allocations, however, they will clawback and repurpose any underspend. Voices is a responsive briefing written by 17 leaders of the 29 regional NCOP consortia on the future of the programme based on this statement:

  • “The Office for Students has signalled its intention to financially support the Outreach Hubs to 2025. What recommendations would you, as NCOP Leads, make to OfS decision makers for a national programme to run alongside the Outreach Hubs to ensure that some element of nationally-funded collaborative widening access work continues once NCOP ends in 2021, drawing on your expertise and your own local context?”

The South West leads had this to say in response:

  • NCOP partnerships are neatly taking care of collaborative outreach targets, and implicit impartiality. This does not exonerate HE providers from their obligations to provide high-quality institutional WP Outreach, with the potential student as the focus of their work, not the potential recruitment of that student to their institution. The success of the Outreach Hubs will depend, in part, on their ability to signpost to a coherent, broad-ranging institutional WP Outreach offer. HE providers should be supported to build this now, in preparation for meaningful continued collaborative working post July 2021.

Here Dods summarise how the NCOP Consortia see the Future:

  • Collaboration is crucial but fragile: Strong relationships between schools, higher education, and further education are being formed but without continued funding
  • Commitment to collaboration has to be long term: A recurring theme of the responses was the need for a stable long-term commitment to a funded collaborative infrastructure. This commitment needs to be until 2025 to at least match the APP cycle.
  • Starting earlier is key: A strong theme running through the responses was the need to engage with learners earlier, as soon as primary level if possible. A strong theme running through the responses was the need to engage with learners earlier, as soon as primary level if possible.
  • Institutional Outreach will not ‘replace’ NCOP targeted activity: If NCOP targeted funding is removed then large groups of learners will lose their support if they do not fit with the priorities of providers in that area, and the risk is that all learners will have what they can learn about HE restricted. This will include those who need greater, more extensive support to progress to HE.
  • Direct school involvement matters: Even if funding is to be scaled down there could be a case for transitional support in those areas most badly affected by such a scaling.
  • Targeting is important, but targeting who?: There were voices which questioned the present area based approach and whether an individual-level approach would have greater merit. It would possibly assist the Office for Students in understanding what range of approaches to defining disadvantage and educational disadvantage could be the most appropriate in widening access work.
  • Fund national but deliver local: The recent interest in civic universities is welcome but will not represent any kind of replacement for a coherent funded commitment made by the HE sector to engaging with the local areas for whom HE does not seem relevant.

You can read the (relatively short) full document here.

Grammar Schools

Arguments over the abolition, taxing, and expansion of grammar schools were features of GE2019 and they’re still topical in 2020. In January 2019 HEPI published an occasional paper by Iain Mansfield The Impact of Selective Secondary Education on Progression to HE which found that attending a grammar school increased the likelihood of attending a highly-selective university for disadvantaged pupils. However, this week HEPI have published a collection of essays – Social Mobility and HE: Are grammar schools the answer? refuting Iain’s claims that grammar schooling has a positive effect for deprived pupils. In short:

  • The data used by Iain Mansfield was flawed – the exclusion of (missing) income data from higher income families makes it appear more grammar students come from poorer households that is actually the case.
  • Any positive benefits for individuals from attending grammar schools are outweighed by negative effects on those who do not pass the 11+. Furthermore, selection depresses overall educational achievement and harms the chances of the poorest children. There are also moral arguments against the social segregation that is the consequence of selective secondary education. At a time of increasing social division and inequality in England, authors argue that a high-quality and comprehensive system which educates all pupils effectively is needed.
  • Grammar schools thrive as a result of having highly selective universities, and because of their diverse classroom learning experience which matches well with university study.
  • There are geographical differences in areas which have grammar schools – generally they’re more affluent. This means it is not possible to attribute all differences in progression rates between selective and non-selective areas to grammar schools rather than differences in the pupil population or other factors.
  • Personal ideologies have not coloured the academic debate on grammar schools as Mansfield suggests.

Contributors, John Furlong & Ingrid Lunt, Emeritus Professors of Education, University of Oxford said:

  • Increased mobility that occurred in the 1960s and 1970s did not come about as a result of grammar schools but because of structural changes that brought about substantially increased opportunities for social mobility. There literally was ‘more room at the top’ that had to be filled whether or not there were grammar schools at the time…In a society that aspires to greater social equality and equality of opportunity there can be little justification for the continued existence of grammar schools today, let alone their expansion. They are the product of educational thinking from a very different era from our own. They are part of our educational history; that does not mean they should be part of our educational future.

Iain Mansfield blogged for HEPI in response to the latest paper both welcoming it for the contribution it makes to the body of evidence on the topic but also raising concerns on factors not addressed. He re-highlights his original points on unconscious bias and speaks out against the comprehensive university model. He concludes:

  • Academic selection is a fundamentally complex subject, involving complex trade-offs that impact on different individuals in society in diverse and varied ways. Selection may be applied at different ages, on a general or a specialist basis, and both between and within schools, for example with streaming and setting. It may be applied with differing degrees of flexibility or movement between schools and under a wide variety of different funding frameworks, from the highly inequitable one prevailing in the 1950s to one significantly more progressive, in which greater resources are provided to those most in need. There are no easy answers to any of this – but it is a matter which deserves to be discussed and researched by a diverse group of individuals with different perspectives, not a closed circle of those who have already made up their minds.

Immigration

This week The Times reported PM Boris has confirmed he will axe the £30,000 minimum salary threshold for immigrants arriving after Brexit through the planned Australian-style points system. The Times state:

  • Under Mr Johnson’s plan migrants’ earnings will be taken into account as part of their application to enter the UK. Other criteria could include English proficiency, educational qualifications, occupation and willingness to work in particular areas of Britain.
  • While the prime minister is understood to have the support of his cabinet, ditching the £30,000 criteria will still be controversial in the Tory party.

Iain Duncan Smith, the Eurosceptic MP and former Conservative leader, said they should be cautious about ditching the £30,000 threshold. They will need to have very strong checks in place to ensure that they deliver on their pledge to control immigration.  Anti-immigration campaign group Migration Watch UK are reported as warning that the number of migrants coming to Britain could rise sharply under a points-based system.

The Migration Advisory Committee will publish a report next week on how the new points-based system would work and the Government is expected to publish an immigration white paper in March 2020. The Government intends for the new immigration system to be introduced immediately at the end of the Brexit transition period in December 2020.

Assistive Technology

Universities, Science, Research and Innovation Minister  Chris Skidmore  has made an announcement  on technology to support pupils with special education needs.  From Dods: Chris Skidmore’s EdTech related speech at the BETT show has now been published.

  • The government’s EdTech testbed programme launched with Durham University, will match schools and colleges with leading EdTech products created to tackle specific educational challenges, like homework marking, or parental engagement.
    I’m pleased to announce today that in 2020 we intend to achieve a world-first, and develop a new Assistive Technology testbed aimed at transforming learning for pupils with special educational needs and disability. 
  • At the school level, we’ve put more than £80 million to create the National Centre for Computing Education, to improve the quality of computing teaching across England and to encourage more girls to take the subject.
  • On the college level, we’ve established the National College of Digital Skills, better known as Ada. We have also started to open the first 12 Institutes of Technology (IoTs), backed by £170m of government funding, to offer higher technical education in key sectors including digital. 

The Education Minister speaks

Gavin Williamson spoke to more than 100 education ministers from around the globe at the Education World Forum, setting out his vision for British education.  HE commentators were disappointed about the (lack of) priority given to HE in the speech.  There’s a transcript of the speech here.

  • …For the first time, the latest PISA results show 15-year-olds in England achieving scores above the OECD national averages in reading, maths and science.
  • …Last year we set up a £2.5 million programme to help encourage international exchanges, with a particular focus on children from disadvantaged backgrounds. Thanks to that programme, children from 138 schools have or are planning to travel to countries as far-ranging such as Austria and Zambia. Today, I’m thrilled to announce a one-year extension to this International School Exchange programme, and its expansion to include primary school children in Years 5 and 6.
  • We truly do hold the tools to make a global difference and a global change. So many people turn to us to provide them with a chance to succeed in life. To free themselves sometimes from the poverty they’ve known, or the lack of ambition that others have experienced. We have that ability to level up, to give people, young people, the chance for them to succeed, for our nations to succeed, and for every generation to be able to contribute more to their nations but also to the globe. That is what we can, and that is what we will do.

On HE:

  • We recognise for our higher education institutions to remain the best in the world, that is done through international collaboration, working with others, making sure that research and study is always an international endeavour.
  • Of course, a traditional academic education isn’t the be all and end all, and we’re all rapidly finding this out. It’s 2020, and we all live in a modern global economy—one that is set to be transformed by AI, automation and other technologies, and which will require a new and constantly changing skillset for our workforce. And those might not be the kind of skills that we can necessarily always develop within universities or traditional academia.
  • As a result, every country across the world is now putting a much bigger focus on further and technical education, so that we can build a workforce that’s fighting fit for the future and able to deal with the new challenges and opportunities that the globe faces.

Other news

  • Strong growth: The Open Innovation team have published Cautionary Tales from History an economics focused blog examining Britain’s exponential economic success during the 16th  and 17th Centuries. The blog considers the influence of policy and questions whether the growth enabling elements could be harnessed today to address left behind regions in the UK. The blog concludes that in the past strong Government with an efficient system of taxation and public finance alongside strong markets which were not manipulated by special interest groups (guilds, landlords, the church, etc) and a strong civil society were the social conditions behind the success of the industrial revolution.
  • Care Leavers: The Care Leaver Progression Partnership have promoted the latest Stand Alone report What Happens Next? which explores care leavers transitioning out of HE. And Care Day will be held on 21 February.

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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 20th December 2019

Industry collaboration, innovation, international, Knowledge Exchange, Student Engagement

It’s our last update until the New Year – we give you the Queen’s speech (not that one, the one at the State opening) and the OfS annual review, to get you ready for what will be coming in the New Year. At the time of writing MPs are expected to pass the second reading of the EU Withdrawal Agreement Bill, paving the way for the more detailed third reading stage in January.

Happy Christmas and a happy new year to all our readers, and thank you for your patience in what has been a very interesting year!

Queen’s speech (again)

You can read the Queen’s Speech here along with the PM’s introduction and briefing notes about all the legislation etc. The Executive Summary in this briefing document sets out the legislative programme clearly.

This Queen’s Speech will deliver Brexit on 31 January and allow the Government to deliver on people’s priorities and unleash the country’s potential. The Government’s first priority is to deliver Brexit on 31 January and to negotiate an ambitious free trade agreement with the EU that benefits the whole country This Queen’s Speech sets out how we will seize the opportunities created by Brexit:

  • The European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill will ratify the deal secured by the Government in October, delivering Brexit.
  • The Agriculture Bill will reform UK agriculture by improving environmental protections and strengthening transparency and fairness in the supply chain.
  • The Fisheries Bill will enable us to reclaim control over our waters, ensuring the sustainability of our marine life and environment.
  • The Trade Bill will establish the Trade Remedies Authority to protect UK industry from unfair trading practices.
  • We will end free movement and pave the way for a modern, fairer points based immigration system.

You will remember that “The Home Secretary has commissioned the Migration Advisory Committee (the MAC) to consider points-based systems, including the Australian immigration system and other international comparators. The MAC is due to report in January 2020.”

And this from the more detailed briefing:

Our new single system will allocate points on a range of criteria in three broad categories and it will be focused on skills and talents, not nationality:

  • Migrants who have received world-leading awards or otherwise demonstrated exceptional talent and sponsored entrepreneurs setting up a new business or investors.
  • Skilled workers who meet the criteria of the points-based system and have a job offer.
  • Sector-specific workers who enter on schemes for low-skilled work, youth mobility or short-term visits. These provide no route to permanent settlement and will be revised on an ongoing basis based on expert advice from the MAC.

Although it isn’t mentioned in the briefing, this was the October 2019 briefing on graduate employment rights

  • A Private International Law (Implementation of Agreements) Bill will provide a clear framework for cross-border resolutions for individuals, families and UK businesses involved in international legal disputes.
  • We will provide certainty, stability and new opportunities for the financial services sector.

The Speech sets out a number of proposals to invest in and support our public services:

  • Legislation will enshrine in law the largest cash settlement in the NHS’s history and we will deliver the NHS Long Term Plan in England to ensure our health service is fit for the future.
  • A Medicines and Medical Devices Bill will ensure that our NHS and patients can have faster access to innovative medicines, while supporting the growth of our domestic sector.
  • We will also pursue reforms to make the NHS safer for patients.
  • We will provide extra funding for social care and will urgently seek cross-party consensus for much needed long-term reform so that nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it.
  • We will continue work to modernise and reform the Mental Health Act to ensure people get the support they need, with a much greater say in their care.
  • We will increase levels of funding per pupil to ensure all children can access a high quality education.

This is from the more detailed briefing on education

  • The Government is giving schools a multi-billion pound boost, investing a total of ￡14 billion more over three years, on top of ￡5 billion for teacher’s pensions. Overall, that translates to ￡150 million a week. The core schools budget will be ￡7.1 billion higher in 2022-23 compared to this year.
  • Every school will have more money for every child and we will level up minimum per-pupil funding for secondary schools to ￡5,000, and primary schools to ￡3,750 next year, and ￡4,000 the year after.
  • From next year, we will legally require all local authorities to deliver the minimum per-pupil funding in their local area. And that will be an important first step towards delivering this funding directly to schools, through a single national formula, so that it is fair and equitable for every school in the country.
  • It is vital we ensure that the pay offer for teachers is positioned at the top of the graduate labour market – ensuring we recruit and retain a world class profession – and that is why we have announced plans to significantly raise starting pay to ￡30,000 nationally by September 2022.
  • The Government will also continue to expand the successful free schools programme, promoting choice, innovation and higher standards to kick-start wider improvement.
  • The Government wants to bring renewed focus to further and technical education, and will ensure our post-16 education system enables young people and adults to gain the skills required for success and to help the economy.
  • This means an extra ￡400 million for 16-19 year-old education next year, an increase of 7 per cent overall in 16-19 year-old funding and the biggest injection of new money in a single year since 2010.
  • There will also be additional investment in T Levels, supporting continued preparation for these courses with the first three starting from September 2020.
  • The Government will invest an additional ￡3 billion over the course of this Parliament to support the creation of a ‘National Skills Fund’.
  • The Government will invest ￡8 billion over five years in a rebuilding programme to upgrade the entire further education college estate.
  • The Government are also planning to establish 20 Institutes of Technology across England- unique collaborations between further education colleges, universities, and employers –– offering higher technical education and training in science, technology, engineering and maths subjects, to give people the skills they need for key sectors such as digital, construction, advanced manufacturing and engineering.
  • The Government is committed to making sure higher education funding reflects a sustainable model that supports high quality provision, maintaining our world-leading reputation for higher education and delivering value for money for both students and the taxpayer.
  • The Government will ensure that our universities are places where free speech can thrive, and will strengthen academic freedoms.
  • The Government wants to ensure we deliver better value for students in post- 18 education, have more options that offer the right education for each individual, and remove barriers to access for disadvantaged young people.
  • The Government is considering the thoughtful recommendations made in the Augar Review carefully.
  • The Government will boost Ofsted inspection so that parents can be confident they have the fullest picture of quality at their child’s school. We will consult on lifting the inspection exemption so that outstanding schools are inspected routinely.
  • To ensure children are getting an active start to life, The Government will invest in primary school PE teaching and ensure that it is being properly delivered. The Government wants to do more to help schools make good use of their sports facilities and to promote physical literacy and competitive sport.

The Speech sets out a variety of measures to support workers and families:

  • An Employment Bill will enhance workers’ rights, supporting flexible working, extending unpaid carers’ entitlement to leave and ensure workers keep their hard earned tips.
  • A Renters’ Reform Bill will enhance renters’ security and improve protections for short-term tenants by abolishing “no-fault” evictions and introducing a lifetime deposit.
  • To ensure residents are safe in their homes, we will bring forward measures to implement the most urgent recommendations from the first phase of the Grenfell Tower Public Inquiry. We will also publish a draft Building Safety Bill to implement the recommendations of Dame Judith Hackitt’s review of building regulations.
  • Recognising our commitment to making the UK the safest place to be online, we will continue to develop an Online Harms Bill.
  • The Pension Schemes Bill will enable people to better plan their saving for later life and improve the protection of people’s pensions, strengthening the regulator’s powers to tackle irresponsible management of pension schemes.
  • We will reduce the cost of living, including through increases to the National Insurance threshold and the National Living Wage.

The Speech reaffirms our commitment to strengthening the criminal justice system, ensuring it keeps people safe:

  • A Counter Terrorism (Sentencing and Release) Bill will ensure the most serious and dangerous terrorist offenders stay in prison for longer.
  • A Sentencing Bill will ensure the most serious and violent offenders serve more of their sentences in custody.
  • A Serious Violence Bill will place a duty on public bodies to work together to identify and tackle early factors that can lead to crime and ensure the police can more easily stop and search habitual knife carriers.
  • A Police Powers and Protection Bill will establish a Police Covenant and ensure the police are able to fully conduct their duties by providing them with additional support and protection.
  • Recognising the pain felt by victims and their families when offenders refuse to disclose certain information about their crimes, the Prisoners (Disclosure of Information about Victims) Bill will require the Parole Board to take this into account – a version of “Helen’s Law”.
  • The Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Bill will remove unnecessary conflict during the divorce process, in which children are so often caught up, while ensuring that divorce remains a carefully considered decision.
  • We will re-introduce the Domestic Abuse Bill, strengthening protections for victims and providing new enforcement mechanisms.
  • The Extradition (Provisional Arrest) Bill will empower police officers to immediately arrest someone wanted for a serious crime committed in a trusted country, without having to apply to a court for a warrant first.
  • We will consider proposals to deal more effectively with foreign national offenders, including increasing the maximum penalty for those who return to the UK in breach of a deportation order.
  • We will set up a Royal Commission to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the criminal justice process.

The Speech sets out how we will improve our infrastructure and level up opportunity across the country:

  • We will invest in public services and infrastructure while keeping borrowing and debt under control and will publish a National Instructure Strategy.
  • We will accelerate the delivery of fast, reliable and secure broadband networks to millions of homes, with legislation to make it easier for telecoms companies to install digital infrastructure and to ensure all new homes are built with reliable and fast internet.
  • The Air Traffic Management and Unmanned Aircraft Bill, will maintain our position as a world-leader in aviation by modernising our airspace, making journeys quicker, quieter and cleaner whilst also tackling the unlawful use of unmanned aircraft (drones).
  • Legislation will be brought forward to ensure that minimum levels of service are maintained during transport strikes so that hard-working commuters can still get to work.
  • We will develop measures to ensure people can get home quickly when an airline goes bust.
  • In response to the Williams Review, we will publish a White Paper containing reforms that address passengers needs while providing value for the taxpayer and delivering economic benefits across the UK.
  • A draft National Security and Investment Bill will strengthen the Government’s powers to investigate and intervene in business transactions (takeovers and mergers) to protect national security.
  • To maintain the UK’s position as a global science superpower, we will boost public R&D funding, launch a comprehensive UK Space Strategy and develop proposals for a new funding agency.

The detailed note says:

To build on our world-leading excellence in science and deliver solutions to some of the world’s greatest challenges we are:

  • Setting out plans to significantly boost public R&D funding.
  • Backing a new approach to funding high-risk, high-payoff research in emerging fields of research and technology. The Government will work with industry and academics to finalise this proposal.
  • Introducing a new fast-track immigration scheme for the best and brightest scientists and researchers.
  • Reducing bureaucracy in research funding to ensure our brilliant scientists are able to spend as much time as possible creating new ideas.
  • Establishing a new National Space Council and launching a comprehensive UK Space Strategy.
  • The R&D funding plans the Government will unveil will help accelerate our ambition to reach 2.4 per cent of GDP spent on R&D by 2027. This boost in funding will allow the UK to invest strategically in cutting-edge science, while encouraging the world’s most innovative businesses to invest in the UK.
  • Under our new funding plans the Government will prioritise investment in industries of the future where the UK can take a commanding lead – such as life sciences, clean energy, space, design, computing, robotics and artificial intelligence. The Government will drive forward development of these technologies by investing in hubs around world-leading universities.
  • Some of this new R&D spending will go towards a new approach to funding emerging fields of research and technology. It will provide long term funding to support visionary high-risk, high-pay off scientific, engineering, and technology ideas, and will complement the UK’s existing world class research system.
  • The Government will increase the tax credit rate to 13 per cent and review what R&D-related costs qualify for tax credits, so that important investments in cloud computing and data, which boost productivity and innovation, are also incentivised.
  • Removing unnecessary bureaucracy in the science funding system will help ensure all UK investments have the greatest possible impact by cutting the time wasted by scientists filling out forms.
  • The UK’s new fast-track immigration scheme for top scientists and researchers will help significantly enhance the intellectual and knowledge base of the UK. The changes to the immigration system will:
  • Abolish the cap on numbers under the Tier 1 Exceptional Talent Visas;
  • Expand the pool of UK research institutes and universities able to endorse candidates; and
  • Create criteria that confer automatic endorsement, subject to immigration checks.
  • Under the current Tier 1 Visa system, the immigration system already:
  • Ensures dependents have full access to the labour market;
  • Removes the need to hold an offer of employment before arriving; and
  • Provides an accelerated path to settlement.
  • This new immigration scheme will support our world-leading research by ensuring that UK teams can recruit the best skills and talent from abroad. We will continue to collaborate internationally and with the EU on scientific research, including with the EU through Horizon.
  • The Government will unlock long-term capital in pension funds to invest in and commercialise our scientific discoveries, creating a vibrant science-based economy post-Brexit.

 

  • We will publish a White Paper to reiterate our commitment to levelling up opportunities and investment in the regions across England.
  • We will reform business rates to protect high streets and communities from excessive tax hikes and keep town centres vibrant. We will bring forward the next business rates revaluation and make future revaluations in England more frequent.

This Queen’s Speech deepens our commitment to safeguarding the natural environment for future generations:

  • Our landmark Environment Bill will protect and preserve the planet for generations to come. It will establish a new Office for Environmental Protection, increase local powers to tackle air pollution, introduce charges for specified single use plastic items, and ban exports of polluting plastic waste to non-OECD countries.
  • We will also continue to take steps to meet the world-leading target of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
  • We will introduce legislation to promote and protect animal welfare, including measures to increase maximum sentences for animal cruelty, to ensure animals are recognised as sentient beings, and ban the import and export of trophies from endangered animals.

The Government will continue to work to strengthen the bonds between the different parts of the UK and to safeguard its constitution and democratic processes:

  • We will continue to uphold the constitutional integrity of the UK, working constructively with the devolved administrations and their legislatures to ensure our Union continues to flourish.
  • We will urgently pursue the restoration of the devolved power-sharing government at Stormont to ensure the people of Northern Ireland have the political leadership of their elected local representatives.
  • We will set up a Constitution, Democracy and Rights Commission to consider the relationship between Government, Parliament and the courts and to explore whether the checks and balances in our constitution are working for everyone.
  • We will take forward work to repeal the Fixed-term Parliaments Act.
  • We will protect the integrity of our democracy and elections, tackling electoral fraud through the introduction of voter ID and banning postal vote harvesting.

The Speech confirms our determination to celebrate and support the work of our courageous armed forces and to retain and enhance the UK’s global status and reach as we leave the EU:

  • We will continue to invest in our Armed Forces and honour the Armed Forces Covenant.
  • We will continue to uphold the NATO commitment to spend at least two per cent of national income on defence.
  • We will legislate to bring an end to the unfair pursuit of our Armed Forces through vexatious legislation.
  • We will seek the prompt implementation of the Stormont House Agreement to provide both reconciliation for victims of the Troubles in Northern Ireland and greater certainty for military veterans.
  • The Prime Minister will undertake an Integrated Defence, Security and Foreign Policy Review – the deepest review of these issues since the end of the Cold War.
  • We will secure ambitious new trade deals with our international partners across the world.
  • We will take forward our commitment to ban public bodies from imposing their own direct or indirect boycotts, divestment or sanctions campaigns against foreign countries.
  • Finally, this Government will champion Conservative values and put a strong United Kingdom front and centre in the world. We will champion the UK’s interests and uphold our values of the rule of law, freedom of expression, and the importance of human rights on the international stage. We will continue to work alongside our international partners to tackle the most pressing global challenges, including terrorism and climate change.

Research funding

We have mentioned the government’s promises on research funding above. Wonkhe have done some analysis

  • The ten-year science and innovation investment framework launched to much fanfare in 2004 made a similar promise, but ultimately didn’t deliver. Given 2.4 per cent is a “whole economy” target, i.e. made up of both public and private sector spending, we’d argue that what really counts this time is the pledge made by the Prime Minister during the election that a returning Conservative government would increase its annual investment in research and development to £18 billion by 2024/25.
  • Clearly that level of investment will need to ramp up over time to address capacity issues in the research sector: the UK will need thousands more research workers in universities, businesses and research institutes and the wider public sector.
  • Interestingly, the Conservatives’ costings document appears to only indicate a rise to just over £14 billion public investment in research and development by 2023/24, so these pledges will also need ongoing scrutiny. And we will need a strategic plan to deliver this level of change and that plan will need to show how the government will leverage private investment, alongside its own, to deliver on the GDP target as soon as possible.

Office for Students Annual Review

The Office for Students have issued an annual review which defends their approach to date and sets out some continuing and  new frontiers for intervention in the sector. The headline lets you know what is coming: England’s universities world class, but pockets of poor provision letting students down.

Before we get stuck into the detail, there is some analysis of this and the OfS board papers from Wonkhe – Jim Dickinson on plans for student protection:

  • The interesting question here is what students actually expect in each of those areas, where they get those expectations from, and what happens if the expectation doesn’t match the reality.
  • For example – a university website that boasts ”there’s lots of support available to you… no problem is too big or no worry too small for our team of experts, and there are plenty of services so you can choose the one that’s best for you” might not be setting an appropriate expectation of its waiting lists to access these services are over a term long.
  • Similarly, a university boasting that “students experience an open, informal study environment with teachers and students usually on a first-name basis… a more collaborative approach, where students are respected as junior colleagues and their opinions valued and encouraged by more experienced peers” sounds great, but may be hard to access if there’s 300 people on all your modules.
  • A student enrolled at a university whose assessment policy says that “you will normally receive work back within three weeks” and claims “you will be allocated a supportive personal tutor” might reasonably have rights to redress if all their marks take six weeks to appear, and if they get to their final year having never met their personal tutor.
  • Much of this sort of stuff isn’t in contracts now, but is certainly implied in prospectuses or university policies – and what this probably points to is providers having to be much more specific about the nature, quality and level of service on offer – both to help students compare, and enable them to enforce their rights if it doesn’t materialise.

And David Kernohan on the OfS board papers – he has a whole advent calendar full of points (26) but we’ve pulled out a few

  • 13) More publications on the way. There’ll be more guidance on value for money transparency expectations in early 2020, which may include a consultation (and thus, we guess, changes to the regulatory framework)
  • 14) We’ll be getting the results of a survey of students and graduates about VfM views in March 2020.
  • 15) There’s a consultation coming very soon, which may mean changes to the regulatory framework to help tackle harassment and sexual misconduct.
  • 19) The Student panel have been getting stuck into TEF, and they reckon the purpose of TEF should be to “incentivise continuous improvement” within providers rather than to guide student choice, which tells its own story. They don’t like the current stratification of awards (Bronze can still mean bad), but they do fancy an increased number of awards to identify providers with greater precision.
  • 20) The panel also “appreciated the level of student engagement” included within the subject-level pilot and supported “increasing the level of direct engagement and introducing more qualitative data to TEF”. There was even support for “less reliance on NSS data” as there was a feeling that “it could be gamed” and that low response rates “can lead to unreliable data which then can’t be used”.

So back to the Review.  Nicola Dandridge says:

  • ‘It is simply wrong to suggest that criticism of poor-quality provision and poor outcomes for students, when appropriate and evidenced, amounts to disloyalty that will damage the reputation of English higher education. Indeed, the reality is exactly the opposite: saying that everything is perfect in every university and college, when it plainly is not, is dishonest and corrosive, and ultimately will do more damage by undermining trust and confidence.
  • ‘More to the point, it is not in the interest of students. The OfS seeks to be honest about the experience students receive, however uncomfortable that may be. That is our job. In this, we take our cue from the principles that underpin the institutions we regulate: universities are places of intellectual exploration and, above all, honest enquiry. By drawing attention to the evidence, and to areas of concern as well as outstanding strength, we aim to offer challenge, support and opportunity for improvement that will make our exceptionally strong higher education sector even stronger

The blog summarises the areas of focus:

  • Within the OfS’s broad agenda, Ms Dandridge highlights three key issues that the OfS will pay particular attention to in the year ahead: admissions and recruitment, the quality of information for prospective students, and improving the quality of teaching and courses. To address the first of these issues, the OfS plans to launch a review of the admissions system. Ms Dandridge says:
  • ‘To the extent that the existing system is not serving students’ needs in a fair, transparent and inclusive way, it must change, and we will consult widely with students, schools, providers and others to understand their views and perspectives.
  • ‘We will also consider ways of addressing increasing concerns about some student recruitment practices. Students can be offered enticements and inducements which are often not in their best interests, at a time when they may be especially vulnerable. In particular, we will continue closely to monitor the impact of the damaging growth of ‘conditional unconditional’ offers that require students to commit to a particular course.’
  • Reforming admissions practices is one way of addressing entrenched gaps in access and participation in higher education which, historically, universities and colleges have been too slow to address. Ms Dandridge continues:
  • ‘What we have seen in the past is ‘slow but steady’ improvement. The trouble is that slow and steady is too slow when people’s livelihoods and opportunities are at stake. That is why we are now looking for a radical improvement in progress.
  • ‘There is work to do to dispel wider, persistent myths and misperceptions about access and participation: that universities and colleges cannot be expected to compensate for poor schooling and wider social inequalities; that contextual admissions are unfair; that disadvantaged students will always do less well in their degrees. Research shows that if students from disadvantaged backgrounds are helped to make the right choice of what and where to study, and given the support that they need during their time in higher education, they can end up performing just as well as, if not better than, their more privileged peers.’
  • The second of three issues identified by Ms Dandridge as priorities for the year ahead is improving the quality and reliability of information available for prospective students:
  • ‘Providers registered with the OfS must demonstrate that the information on their websites and marketing materials is accurate and accessible. At a time when questions are being asked, and concerns raised, about the value of a higher education degree, it is more important than ever that students are able to make informed choices about what and where to study based on clear, correct information. There can be no place for false and misleading advertising in how universities sell themselves to prospective students, or a lack of clarity about their rights.
  • ‘We cannot have a situation where students’ expectations are raised unrealistically before they go to university, only to be dashed when they get there. Such marketing is clearly within the scope of consumer protection law, and we will act swiftly and decisively where we find evidence of breach.’
  • The third priority identified is how universities, colleges and other higher education providers address concerns identified by the new regulatory system – particularly the quality of teaching. Ms Dandridge says:
  • ‘As our attention turns to regulating the providers we have now registered, we now plan to use our regulatory tools to support improved quality of teaching and courses. We plan to consult on whether our requirements for quality are sufficiently demanding to ensure that all students receive a good education.
  • ‘We set numerical baselines for indicators such as continuation, completion and employment as part of our assessment of the outcomes delivered for students. Our view is that a minimum level of performance should be delivered for all students, regardless of their background or what and where they study. We will consult on raising these baselines so that they are progressively more demanding and using our regulatory powers to require providers to improve pockets of weak provision.’

In the main document, there are some interesting points:

Registration:

  • Over 500 applications were received from higher education providers to join the OfS register.
  • A total of 387 providers were registered.
  • Eight providers were refused registration
  • The majority of applications (446) and registrations (330) were for the ‘Approved (fee cap)’ category, which allows providers to charge tuition fees up to the higher limit.
  • The majority of providers on the Register (373) had been regulated under the previous higher education regulatory systems. 14 providers not regulated under the previous systems have been registered

And the process has not been without challenges:

  • The vast majority of registered providers have had some form of regulatory intervention imposed. Some have had more than one intervention applied to them. Only 12 providers had no interventions as part of the registration decision. The total number of interventions applied as of 23 October 2019 was 1,109.
  • Most interventions (615) took the form of a formal communication. There were 464 requirements for enhanced monitoring, and 30 specific ongoing conditions were imposed.
  • As Table 1 on page 23 shows, interventions have been imposed across all of the conditions of registration. The majority relate to the first condition, on access and participation plans. This is in large part a reflection of our level of ambition and challenge in relation to access and participation.
  • Fair access and participation is an important OfS objective, and there is an expectation of continuous improvement in reducing the gaps between the most and least advantaged students in access, student success and progression into further study and employment. Many providers not considered to be at increased risk for other conditions of registration were judged to be at increased risk for this condition. The greatest number of interventions (229) have been made to improve progress on access and participation by those universities and colleges that wish to charge higher tuition fees. 

And what does the future hold:

  • There are notable gaps in the data we collect on students’ wellbeing. We are developing ways of capturing more data and as a first step have produced experimental statistics on background characteristics including sexuality and gender identity, which will cover mental health.
  • We intend to publish a consultation document laying out our expectations for universities and colleges in terms of preventing harassment and sexual misconduct, and dealing appropriately and effectively with reports of infringements
  • We will work to improve the quality of the academic and pastoral experience of students, using our powers of monitoring and intervention where appropriate.
  • We will:
  • Explore expanding the NSS survey to cover all years of a student’s course.
  • Continue to fund and evaluate priority areas such as mental health.
  • Set out our expectations of universities and colleges in preventing and dealing with incidents of harassment and sexual misconduct.
  • Following the outcomes of the independent review of the TEF, develop the scheme to increase its future role in securing high-quality teaching and learning in the sector.
  • To ensure we fully understand students’ ideas about value for money, and to maintain pressure on universities and colleges to deliver it in the future, we will:
  • Consider putting a question in the NSS about value for money.
  • Encourage universities and colleges to be more transparent in their value for money plans about how student fees are spent.
  • Continue to monitor the pay of senior staff, and consider taking action if it is unjustified.

On 20th December, Nicola Dandridge published a blog with similar themes:

  • …students reported valuing the quality of teaching and the learning environment above everything else. This chimes with the discussions I have had with students over the past 18 months, during which the quality of their courses and the academic support on offer was raised again and again – but not always in complimentary terms. Addressing poor quality provision, where it exists, has been one of our top priorities and will continue to be into the future
  • In particular, we are deeply concerned that some students – disproportionately from disadvantaged backgrounds – are recruited inappropriately on to poor quality courses and left to flounder without the support they need to succeed. Many end up dropping out altogether – a terrible waste of talent.
  • Over the course of the next year, we will champion areas where universities and colleges are doing great things. Where there are examples of good practice from which others can learn, we will promote them. We want to get the balance right between promoting good practice where we can, while never shying away from identifying and addressing poor practice and speaking openly about what we are doing

Prevent statistics

From Wonkhe: The Home Office has published statistics on individuals referred to and supported through the Prevent programme for April 2018 to March 2019. Of 1,887 cases reported by the education sector (the largest single sector in terms of referrals), only 324 linked explicitly to Islamic extremism – 530 cases specified right wing extremism. David Kernohan asks if we should be thinking again.

Nursing bursaries are back

In an announcement trailed in the Conservative manifesto the government has confirmed the reintroduction of maintenance support for nursing (and other healthcare) under=graduates, with more details to follow in the New Year.

Students will receive at least £5,000 a year, with up to £3,000 further funding available for eligible students, including for:

  • specialist disciplines that struggle to recruit, including mental health
  • an additional childcare allowance, on top of the £1,000 already on offer
  • areas of the country which have seen a decrease in people accepted on some nursing, midwifery and allied health courses over the past year

This means that some students could be eligible for up to £8,000 per year, with everyone getting at least £5,000. The funding will be available from next year. Further details on who can access the support will be available in early 2020.

The funding will not have to be repaid by recipients. Students will also be able to continue to access funding for tuition and maintenance loans from the Student Loans Company.

What about the Youthquake?

The day of the election, twitter was full of pictures of long queues of students at University polling stations waiting to vote. Students were encouraged by the Labour party to vote tactically.  HEPI have a blog about the impact and David Kernohan of Wonkhe did some more intensive analysis.

Nick Hillman says:

  • The embers of Labour’s defeat are now being pored over for clues on how they might do better next time. It would be wrong to assume that appealing even more to students is likely to boost Labour significantly at the next election, at least with regard to these seats. This is because, despite the general swing away from Labour, Labour held on to all 18 out of 20 that they already held, with the two Scottish seats staying in the hands of the SNP. When you already hold 90 per cent of the most student-dominated seats, there isn’t much further room for improvement.
  • Indeed, if anything, our tentative results support the idea that Labour’s problem is among less well-educated older people than it is more well-educated younger people.

David asks:

  • Are constituencies with universities in likely to see changes in the size of the majority of the winning party, or changes in voter turnout?
  • Turnout is down on 2017 (with a wet December day certainly playing a part in this trend). Intriguingly, turnout fell more in seats now held by Labour, and less in seats held by the SNP. SNP seats, too, saw a polarisation effect – the majority is higher for the winning party on a higher turn out. Conservative seats tended towards a falling turnout and a rise in polarisation.
  • But there was no way of associating “university seats” with these trends. Behavior was indistinguishable from non-university seats. More generally, if you are looking for an “anyone but the tories” get-the-vote-out pattern in any seat in England you will look in vain. Like other elections before it, 2019 was not the tactical voting election.

Updated UCAS data

UCAS issued more data about the 2019 admissions cycle. There were headlines about unconditional offers (they went up) with some faux outrage associated with it (the bit Ministerial assault on conditional unconditionals came too late for any institution to change its policy for 2019.

From the UCAS reports – main report

  • Clearing acceptances have been on the rise for several years. This continues into 2019. Over 34,000 UK 18 year olds secured a place through Clearing – the highest number on record. This figure accounts for 14% of all placed UK 18 year old applicants.
  • On A level results day this year, almost all UK universities and colleges had courses available in Clearing. This covered over 30,000 courses.
  • Clearing covers a broad range of subject areas. This includes typically highly selective courses, such as preclinical medicine (over 400 placed through Clearing, comprising 7.9% of all UK 18 year old acceptances to this subject) and mathematics (over 600 placed through Clearing – 14% of acceptances to this subject).
  • 2019 also brought the highest ever proportion of places secured through Clearing at higher tariff providers – 9.8%, compared with 8.3% in 2018.
  • New in 2019 was the option for placed applicants to ‘self-release’ online into Clearing. Nearly 16,000 UK 18 year olds with main scheme places took advantage of this option, with over 11,000 of these placed on a new course.

On unconditional offers:

  • In 2019, 20.6% of these applicants selected their conditional unconditional offer as their first choice, compared to 25.6% in 2014. Despite applicants needing to select their conditional unconditional offer as their first choice if they wish it to become unconditional, they are now only marginally more likely (1.3 percentage points) to select their conditional unconditional offer as their first choice than any of their other offers individually.
  • Applicants with unconditional offers were less likely to report feeling stressed when waiting for their exam results. In 2019, over 30,000 English, Welsh, and Northern Irish 18 year old applicants told us how they felt whilst waiting for their exam results. Figure 3 shows applicants with an unconditional offer at their first choice were less likely to feel stressed, worried or uncertain while waiting for results, and more likely to feel calm.
  • Men receiving an unconditional offer are, on average, 15.5 percentage points more likely to miss their predicted attainment by three or more grades than if they had received a conditional offer.
  • Women are, on average, 9 percentage points more likely than if they had received a conditional offer.
  • However, men with conditional offers are less likely to miss their predicted attainment by three or more grades than women with conditional offers. The net effect of the above is that men and women with an unconditional offer have similar attainment relative to predicted grades.
  • Overall, POLAR4 quintile 5 applicants are least likely to miss their predicted attainment by three or more grades (and quintile 1 most likely).
  • However, modelling did not show a significant difference between POLAR4 quintiles in the impact of an unconditional offer on attainment.
  • When the OfS talk about incentives, this is what they mean – UCAS have some data:
    • Based on responses from over 30,000 applicants in 2019, 54% of 18 year old applicants in England, Northern Ireland, and Wales reported receiving an offer with an incentive to select the provider as their first choice.
    • Of those:
    • 56% reported receiving an offer where the provider would change the conditional offer to unconditional (a conditional unconditional offer)
    • 30% reported receiving an offer promising a guaranteed place in university halls
    • 17% reported receiving an offer which would include a scholarship, bursary or cash payment
    • The biggest change in the responses to this question was in the promise of a lower grade offer or entry requirement as an incentive for selecting the provider as their first choice. In 2018, 23% reported receiving this type of offer. In 2019, this proportion has risen to 36%.
    • UCAS’ terms of engagement require providers to communicate their offers through the UCAS system. This promotes transparency and provides consistency in experience for applicants.
    • However, survey data suggests 30% of applicants who received any type of incentivised offer only received them directly from the provider – via post or email.
    • When looking at applicants who received an offer which would be changed from conditional to unconditional if selected as their first choice, 26% reported only receiving it via post or email, and that it was not mentioned in their offer conditions.

    All very interesting stuff for the OfS when doing their review of admissions.

    Wonkhe have an article

    • With only one in five 18 year olds meeting or exceeding their predicted grades in 2019, there are clearly questions to be asked
    • However the margin of error is highly predictable – predictions generally lie within 2-3 points above the actual grades, and this year’s figure is 2.35 points. There are differences based on attainment – higher predicted grades are likely to mean a smaller average difference – and more likelihood that an applicant would meet or exceed predicted grades.
    • ….The emphasis in guidance and reporting is that predicted grades should be seen as one part of a holistic system – a nod to more contextual approaches to admissions playing a wider role. Intriguingly there has been a rise in the acceptance rates for applicants holding three E grades over last year.

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HE policy update for the w/e 13th December 2019

international, Student Engagement

It’s a full moon on polling day and the results will be announced on Friday the 13th! Superstitions aside we’re issuing your policy update early this week before the election outcomes are announced so you can focus on all the educational news. Fear not, we’ll bring you all the election fall out and early outcome scenarios in a post-election special edition.

Measuring Up the Educational Manifestos

We’re not including the myriad of speeches and party declarations this week. However, worth a short mention is the Education Policy Institute (EPI) who have (like many others) analysed the five main parties’ manifestos, compared them against EPI costings, and considered what the impact would be from an independent perspective. They conclusions don’t paint the rosiest of futures for the education sector:

  • Although all parties have made bold pledges about reducing opportunity gaps and raising educational attainment, the policies in their manifestos are unlikely to deliver on these aspirations.
  • Despite a large proportion of the attainment gap between poor children and the rest emerging before entry to school, party policies seem to focus on improving childcare for employment and cost of living reasons, rather than focusing on high quality early years education. While Labour and the Liberal Democrats are making major funding commitments in this area, there are serious questions about whether their policies can be delivered effectively and secure high quality and value for money over the limited implementation periods envisaged. The Conservatives give no indication of whether they will take action to improve the quality and progressiveness of early years entitlements.
  • All major parties are pledging additional funding for schools, colleges and special needs education – with Labour and the Greens committing to the biggest increases. This could help to deliver effective interventions and may improve teacher retention. But under Conservative policies, there will be a relative shift in funding away from schools with higher levels of disadvantage – and this attempt to “level up funding” could widen the disadvantage gaps in attainment. Both Labour and the Liberal Democrats may have under-estimated the cost of their policies on free school meals, and this could require funding to be diverted from other parts of the schools budget.
  • Large policy differences have opened up between the parties over school inspection, school testing and performance tables. The current system of accountability is in need of improvement, but education research suggests that Labour and Liberal Democrat plans to scrap primary tests and move to lower stakes inspection could damage attainment, and might particularly pose a risk to improving outcomes for the most vulnerable learners. The Conservatives do not commit to improving the current system or addressing any of its negative incentives and impacts.
  • Party policies on post 18 education are particularly disappointing. Labour proposes that its most expensive education policy should be allocating around £7bn to scrap university tuition fees, even though this may not improve participation, or the access of vulnerable groups. The Conservatives offer few policies on higher education, and the one concrete measure (reduced interest rates on student loans) would disproportionately benefit higher earners. The Liberal Democrats appear to be offering a similar “Review” to those included in their two previous manifestos.
  • While all parties are committed to additional education funding over the years ahead, there is a high level of uncertainty about the revenues which have been earmarked for such funding. The Conservative plans assume that the growth impact of Brexit will be moderate; the Labour plans assume the same, and also rely upon large tax revenues from a limited number of sources; meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats are banking on a “Remain Bonus”, and revenues from uncertain sources such as tax avoidance. With all parties, it is unclear how education spending plans would be altered if the projected revenues isn’t realised and cuts have to be made.

Natalie Perera, Executive Director and Head of Research at the Education Policy Institute, said:

  • “All of the main parties are united by one thing – bold ambitions to raise attainment and close gaps. However, our analysis shows that while each party has some well-designed and helpful policies, none has a properly evidence-based strategy to meet their ambitions”

A NUS General Election survey with healthcare students found that 68% of students (with a loan) are more likely to vote for a party because they plan to bring back maintenance grants post-election. Claire Sosienski Smith, NUS Vice President (Higher Education) also mentioned the NUS Homes Fit for Study Report which said 1 in 6 students are unable to keep up with their rent payments. She said “we know that a student finance system based on individual debt is fundamentally flawed.” This was reinforced by the recent General Election survey with 2 out of 3 students stating they did not have enough money left to pay for everything once they had paid their rent and 43% rely on their bank overdraft. Healthcare students particularly raised issues of having to fund placement expenses up front, inadequate hardship funding systems and paramedics who are unable to access reimbursement for placements.

Also hitting the news this week are the health care courses at risk due to the bursary removal recruitment crisis – podiatry, radiotherapy, prosthetics, orthoptics, and mental health and learning disability nursing. BU’s Steve Tee, Executive Dean of HSS, is quoted in the article:

  • “Now the bursary has been taken away there are specialist courses with small numbers nationally that have been put at risk. This is intensified if the course is in an area like radiography, which requires expensive kit. Why would a university invest if they are only getting 20 people?”

Grade Inflation

There is an interesting article on Wonkhe by Mark Corver of dataHE. Sarah was lucky enough to hear him speak at Wonkfest and explain how claims about grade inflation rely on inaccurately data.  The data modelling actually suggests grade deflation –a double whammy for students. The article is a little technical but worth a read to understand why the Government’s claims are being refuted. It also has a high number of comments at the bottom of the article showing how engaging it is (and as Wonkhe only publish the ‘most interesting’ comments we can imagine there was a lot more chatter than published). Some excerpts to get you started:

  • It is likely that the true attainment of today’s young people is being seriously underestimated, putting them at a disadvantage, and damaging universities in the process.
  • ..there might be areas where this powerful grade deflation could be causing problems for young people and universities. Here are two examples.
  • The first is the damage from the charge that the sector is “dumbing down”. This has that – in contrast to the past – universities are now admitting people whose attainment is simply not good enough for higher education. That the average A level grades for UCAS acceptances has been going down provide fuel for this view… If you correct for the modelled grade deflation (Figure 8), average grades held by UCAS applicants who get into university have not been going down. They have been going up.
  • The second problem is where post-2010 grade data is used for analysis through time. Particularly so if that analysis is used by government to pursue policy. Which takes us back to those sharply worded complaints of degree grade inflation that the government has levelled at universities, and its calls for action to stop it. These rest on Office for Students statistical models of degree grade inflation. A level attainment is a very powerful factor in that model. And rightly so because the stronger your A level grades the better your odds of getting a higher class degree.
  • But the way the model is built effectively assumes that A level grades are an absolute measure of educational attainment that are stable through time. With this model construction, if universities maintain their academic standards then it is inevitable that the neglected A level grade deflation will pop up as degree grade inflation. But it would be a false signal. Degree quality would be unchanged. It is the measure of the input quality that has changed.
  • Our proposed A level grade deflation might not be a big enough effect to account for all the degree grade increases seen. But it would be a very substantial effect. We think that this, and other potential weaknesses in the model, do amount to reason enough to look again at the models and their conclusions. Meanwhile, government might want to think again about its pressure on universities to make it harder for students to get “good” degrees. Otherwise a double whammy for young people looms: those who have already been hit by deflated A level grades risk being hit again with a lower degree class than their attainment deserves.

Student Finance & Accommodation

Clear Accessible Finance Information throughout the Student Lifecycle

In June UUK and NEON published The Financial Concerns of Students. They said that the available information on tuition fees and the student loan system in England is often inaccessible and unclear, and that students want more information on how universities spend tuition fee income. The main findings were:

  • Prospective and UG students need clearer and better-targeted financial advice on the full implications of taking out a student loan.
  • Prospective students are uncertain what universities spend tuition fee income on.
  • Living costs are a more significant concern for current UG students than the level of tuition fees.
  • Strong agreement that going to university generally helps graduates to earn more money in the longer term (64% of prospective students and 77% of UG students).
  • More than half of students believe they should make some contribution to the cost of their education.

Since the report NEON and UUK ran a student finance information advisory group consisting of sector experts from nationwide leading organisations who work with prospective and current students to communicate student finance information. This week the group published Improving the provision of information on student finance and have proposed a Student Finance National Education Programme which recommends how to ensure student finance is more understandable and accessible for all (including family members). In summary:

  • Student Finance Information should be more coherent and collaborative – government and information providers should develop and sign up to an industry standard of core messages.
  • Teachers, schools and parents vary in their capacity to support prospective students’ decision making – leading to access gaps. Approaches and activities offered to schools should be underpinned by a more robust, funded, national careers policy than exists at present. Specific parental information is important as they are one of the most influential actors on the young person’s decision.
  • Take a student lifecycle approach to the provision of information required. Focus on sharing information during study and post-graduation (differentiated for particular groups of students) as well the prospective student stage.
  • The UK’s student population is larger and more diverse than ever before. A national education programme on student finance must reflect this diversity with a balance of different approaches to information sharing. It should reflect the needs and circumstances of prospective and current students, from school leavers to those in work considering study, and those with caring and other commitments. There is potential to strengthen a range of different approaches, such as online and face-to-face provision, and explore implementing tailored approaches for groups like mature students and care leavers.
  • Policymakers need to adopt a more strategic approach to the provision of information on student finance and be more ambitious in their goals particularly on coherence. A strategy should be developed collaboratively and in consultation with students, those who advise them, and student finance information providers. This strategy should aim to provide more than a basic level of information at the pre-higher education stage and ensure that students have a level of knowledge enabling them to make the right choices for them, based on an understanding of the costs and benefits of higher education prior to, during and after study.

Wonkhe have a blog on the topic: How we communicate student finance needs a re-think.

Accommodation

Wonkhe report that Commercial Estates specialist Cushman and Wakefield have reported on the level of private student accommodation. Key points:

  • 87% of new student beds are delivered by the private sector
  • The average ensuite accommodation is priced at 70% of the level of the maximum student loan. (NUS recommends rent by no more than 50% of maximum available.)
  • There are 23% more places in private halls since 2013
  • Demand for student accommodation rises 30% faster than can be built (although there are huge increases at some providers balanced by decreases elsewhere). Research Professional state – the top five universities for recruitment accounting for 41% of all growth in the last five years while the bottom five universities by student growth have seen a 29% decrease in student numbers.

The Times covers the report in the (very short!) Students struggling to find affordable accommodation.

Research Professional also covered the report in their own way highlighting concerns over absence of affordable student rooms stating that private student accommodation blocks are becoming more luxurious but affordable options remain scarce.

Eva Crossan Jory, vice-president for welfare at NUS echoed this and called for rent controls to stop prices spiralling further. “This is the latest report to confirm the increasing cost of accommodation has created a real affordability problem for students,” she said, adding that “reform is urgently required.”

Social Mobility

HEPI have released a wide range of content this week. Their policy note (prepared by colleagues at Exeter University) on Social Mobility has particularly been picked up by the media.  The note begins by stating

  • Much of the heavy lifting on widening participation in higher education to date has been undertaken by newer and less selective higher education institutions. The access challenge therefore remains greater at more selective institutions. They could learn from the best practice that exists in less selective universities.
  • It will take nearly a century for highly-selective universities in England to raise the participation rate for 18-to-30-year olds from the least advantaged areas to the existing participation rate for 18-to-30-year olds from the most advantaged areas.

Interestingly they state that if the number of degree places at the selective institution remains static (i.e. doesn’t grow) the number of places for advantaged pupils would need to fall by as much as 10,000, which is one-third of current annual intakes [to meet social mobility targets]. To meet the targets highly selective universities would need to double their places over the next 20 years to ensure all young people access the same participation rates as the most advantaged students. An extra 19,400 18-year old students from the least advantaged areas would need to enrol each year at highly-selective universities to equal the current participation rate of 18-year olds from the most advantaged areas.

Other recommendations:

  • Social mobility rankings for universities should be established, measuring outcomes for disadvantaged students.
  • The Office for Students should challenge highly-selective universities to expand student numbers in innovative ways to diversify intakes, including degree apprenticeships, foundation years and courses for part-time and mature learners.
  • Universities should undertake a social mobility audit, benchmarking their work on outreach, access and academic and pastoral support for disadvantaged students.
  • Universities should also consider using random allocation of places for students over a certain minimum academic threshold (as has occurred in other countries).

On Contextual Admissions the report states:

  • Universities have long taken into account the context of prospective students when assessing their potential. Contextual admissions are used in many ways – giving students a taste of university life, establishing which candidates should be interviewed or offering a degree place on lower grades.
  • But too often universities operate in the dark, worried that reduced offers will damage their reputations. ‘How low can we go?’ is the first question, sometimes followed by ‘how can we keep this out of the public eye?’ What is baffling for applicants is that contextual information is used differently from one university department to another. Research suggests that more consistency and transparency is needed.

Later the policy note acknowledges how university league tables have ‘chilling effects’ on universities’ efforts to promote social mobility. But rankings are here to stay.

  • The problem is that league tables punish universities for improving social diversity. Perversely, the tables do not generally measure the gains made by students. Universities gain higher rankings for the higher A-Level entry grades they demand – a direct disincentive to award lower grade contextual offers or consider applicants without traditional academic qualifications. Dropping down the newspaper rankings and losing status can mean fewer future applicants from the very groups a university is trying harder to attract. A succession of government representatives have tried in vain to convince newspaper compilers to reform their rankings.

Instead the policy note authors suggest that social mobility rankings could bring balance to the importance placed on current attainment based ranks.

On the place lottery:

  • Post-qualification applications would open up more radical possibilities. Universities could use random allocation of places for students over a certain threshold of A-Level grades. This is the fairest way of selecting equally-qualified candidates for degree courses. Lotteries have been used widely in education. You might compensate losers in the lottery – such as guaranteeing a place at another institution. Dutch medical schools select the highest academic performers by traditional means, and enter lower achievers into a lottery.
  • The benefit of these schemes is their simplicity. Admissions tutors have amassed a battery of criteria designed to distinguish between thousands of equally well-qualified applicants: personal statements; teacher recommendations; predicted exam grades; essays; university admissions tests; interviews; and much more. But how much of this data add to predicting which candidates are best suited for degree courses? And how much does the complexity alienate potentially excellent applicants?

The policy note concludes:

  • The time has come for a simpler, more transparent, consistent and honest system of university admissions, recognising that A-Level grades (still less predicted grades) are no longer the gold standard of entry.
  • Failing to find ways of expanding university places will prompt acrimonious battles over who secures degree places – a clash of the classes – with politicians, parents and students questioning the fairness of university admissions.
  • Universities need to embrace a cultural shift in the support provided for students from disadvantaged backgrounds, seeing greater diversity as an opportunity to enrich the academic experience for all students and staff.

The Times takes up the HEPI report arguing for most selective universities to allocate places to all those meeting the A level grade criteria threshold by lottery (with a fall back place at another University for students who do not ‘win’ the lottery).

HEPI have also published a reply to the paper on their website by Tim Blackman, VC of the Open University.

  • “‘Elite’ universities are described as such simply because they are so selective. They are the grammar schools of the higher education sector and cause the same problem for other universities as grammar schools cause for other schools. This problem is that they cream off students who have had all the advantages that enable them to be academic high-achievers at school, concentrating these students in institutions that are full of other students like them, making all universities less diverse and denying other universities a mix of abilities that is likely to enrich their learning environment and benefit everyone.
  • Lee is silent about the many, often post-92, universities that have become the secondary moderns of the higher education sector because of the self-perpetuating prestige of highly selective institutions. While the measures he advocates would help diversify these institutions, they would do so at the cost of other universities that do not have the prestige that comes with the academic snobbery that pervades British higher education.
  • Reluctantly, I have come to the conclusion that the only way to address this problem is to return to student number controls at an institutional level and require institutions to use entry quotas banded by grades above a minimum matriculation requirement to create mixed ability intakes across the board. This would be a requirement of their access or outcome agreements. There could be some exceptions; in The Comprehensive University I suggested that a regional distribution of research universities could be excluded on the basis that they explicitly prioritise research over education and the unique open access mission of The Open University would continue to serve a valuable role.
  • …What I do not think is a good idea is to advocate more audits and more league tables. The sector is already creaking under the number of reports and returns it is required to complete, paradoxically never including institutions’ own strategic plans and institutional performance indicators. There are many progressive incremental reforms that can be made – I would add to Lee’s list the scandal of part-time distance learning students being denied access to maintenance loans in England – and in that sense his note is certainly to be welcomed. But there are great dangers in a one-sided argument that frames the debate as one that is just about access to ‘elite’ universities.”

Meanwhile Prospect Magazine takes a differing tack arguing that education is no longer a path out of the social mobility trap and that a greater focus on creating better jobs is a solution.

Finally Wonkhe have a new blog on the transformative experience of HE for care leavers.

Mental Health

Student Minds have created the University Mental Health Charter – a set of principles to ensure student and staff mental health becomes a UK wide university priority. The principles will inform the Charter Award Scheme which will be developed during 2020 to recognise universities promoting with excellent mental health practices. This summary contains the key recommendations under various topics such as transitioning to university, learning and assessment, support services, managing risks, residential accommodation, and proactive interventions. There is a timeline highlighting the next steps as the Charter Award Scheme is developed and piloted. The Scheme is due to launch in Winter 2020.

Student Minds highlight that the Charter has drawn on all the current evidence, research and sector context to ensure its real world validity for the university sector. It states it isn’t intended to be definitive and encourages institutions to combine the elements to fit the local context. Future work will review the Charter and refresh it as new evidence emerges with a major review every 3-5 years. In conclusion Student Minds state:

  • It is not expected that universities will aim to fulfil each of these themes perfectly (no such a thing exists), but we hope they inspire discussion, thought, new interventions, evaluation and learning. The evidence we have suggests that progress on each of these themes will bring us closer to a moment when our universities are mentally healthy environments.
  • Universities are incredible places. Within our universities we have established the basis of science, unravelled the mystery of DNA, discovered stem cells and even located a long lost King under a car park. Improving the mental health of students and staff is within our ability, given time, resource and commitment. We hope the University Mental Health Charter helps to make a contribution to this process.

Mark Fudge, Chair of the University and Colleges Division for the British Association of Counselling, responded to the Charter’s publication:

  • Student Minds’ University Mental Health Charter is a step in the right direction and something for the higher education to sector to aspire to… But higher education leaders need to ensure they invest in counselling services to ensure they have enough resources so student have access to a range of mental health and wellbeing support options while at university.
  • There are thousands of students who are accessing counselling services every year. These services are at the forefront of supporting the most disenfranchised and vulnerable university populations.  They don’t just offer counselling but all sorts of group work, training and other support. They are often under-resourced, but they are having a positive impact on students’ lives and universities need to see that and invest more in them.
  • Universities need to invest in all forms of mental health support so that students have access to a range of options when they need them.”

Immigration

Universities UK has published a public poll (data available here). British adults were interviewed on their attitudes towards the immigration of university staff coming into the UK. Had there not been a purdah period for the General Election the timing of this poll would have hit whilst the Migration Advisory Committee considers how to implement a points-based immigration system and a salary threshold for international staff. Key points:

  • 87% strongly agree that it is more important that the UK’s immigration system attracts university staff who are highly skilled than it being more important that the UK’s immigration system attracts university staff who are highly paid (3% felt high pay was an important factor to allow immigration).
  • 89% agree that scientists, academics and their support staff are valuable to the UK, with half (51%) saying they strongly agree. 3% disagree.
  • 85% agree that it is important for the UK to be a world leader in science and research. 5% disagree.
  • 82% agree that the UK should try to compete with other major economies to attract scientists, academics and their support staff. 7% disagree.
  • 69% said that a UK points-based immigration system should be designed so that scientists, academics and their support staff score highly.

Alistair Jarvis, Chief Executive of Universities UK, commented on the findings:

  • “Technicians, researchers, and language assistants are all vital in supporting both high-quality teaching and innovative research at our universities. These skilled roles are critical to the ongoing success of our universities. As the UK prepares to leave the EU, it is more vital than ever that the UK remains a world leader in science and research and continues to attract international talent at different stages of their careers – from support staff and technicians to Nobel Prize winners.
  • If a new immigration system were to have a salary threshold, Universities UK has called for a threshold of £21,000 which would allow recruitment for most technician and language assistant roles in the higher education sector. This polling shows the strength of feeling among the British public that immigrants should be welcomed into the country on the strength of their skills and potential rather than facing a system that judges them on their income. This is vital for the UK to continue to lead the way in research and education.”

Wonkhe reported that a linked report from Universities Scotland had similar attitudinal findings with 78% of Scottish adults agreeing that the immigration system should support the entry of academics and support staff. The National covers the Scottish perspective.

Other news

Political untruths: Plaid Cymru leader Adam Price published a new draft law on Thursday that would make deliberate lying by politicians a criminal offence. The bill states “It shall be an offence for an elected representative acting in their capacity, or an agent acting on their behalf, to make or publish a statement they know to be misleading, false or deceptive in a material particular”. Adam was interviewed by Sky News highlighting how Parliament had changed: “Unfortunately we are normalising a dishonesty, we used to have conventions, social mores and norms etc. you know people used to resign in parliament if they mislead”. Adam said the push for the lying law was triggered by the misleading and false information such as Conservative HQ rebranding their twitter account to appear to be a fact checking service alongside other politicians Brexit claims which the EU have refuted.

Student Vote denied: The Independent report on the c.200 Cardiff Halls students who registered to vote but were not informed their application was incomplete and have been denied the vote. The student quoted in the article selected her address from a pre-filled drop down list but later discovered it had not registered her because it did not contain her room number. NUS called for Cardiff Council to resolve this unacceptable outcome. The Council said they had not been able to contact the c.200 people who supplied the incomplete addresses to register them in time.

Gamification: A Wonkhe article considers whether gaming could be a positive outreach method (alongside more traditional current efforts) in Simulation games: can gaming break barriers to university?

System Working: NHS Digital has published  a briefing on workforce challenges in the NHS:

  • As part of the drive to offer staff incentives to stay in the system, trusts are seeking to collaborate with local partners to make it easier for staff to move between organisations. Initiatives like rotation agreements and staff ‘passports’ have the dual benefit of creating a varied developmental employment offer for staff who might otherwise look outside of the system for new opportunities, and creating a more efficient mechanism for filling vacancies where they arise.
  • Our workforce has a substantial role to play in driving the progress of system working. How we work with our valued workforce to enable closer relationships between trusts and other health and care organisations, and how we support staff throughout periods of change and transformation, will be an important determinant of how systems work in collaboration to tackle workforce pressures and drive integrated care

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To subscribe to the weekly policy update simply email policy@bournemouth.ac.uk

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 6th December 2019

international

A fresh selection of educational reports were issued this week. When we issue next week’s policy update the election results will be out.  The campaign has already got a bit over-heated, with leaks from both main parties, edited videos, dodgy data and everyone trying to avoid making the ultimate error in today’s world – the soundbite in which you admit that the interviewer may have a point.  It is becoming increasingly hard to listen to interviews in which people read out their prepared lines and then repeat them over and over again. And it will probably get worse next week.  So we’re going election light in this update.

If you are interested in comparing manifesto pledges, the BBC have an interactive tool here.  And here is our own comparison of the major parties’ take on the key HE issues.

An English atlas of inequality

The Nuffield Foundation have published a new English Atlas of Inequality (created by University of Sheffield) challenging the current one-metric approach to disadvantage in distinguishing between ‘rich’ and ‘poor’ areas.

  • In late 2019, as the nation continues to experience political uncertainty and the machinations of the Brexit process roll on, it seems there is little room in the policy arena for taking action on persistent poverty, deprivation or the level of inequality in England. In fact, it seems like there is little room to even discuss the topic. However, as hard as it may be to envision a return to ‘normal’ politics, it is surely the case that at some point in the future attention will once again turn to the question of inequality, and the growing consensus that something needs to be done about it. Indeed, only two years ago it was one of the few topics where there was an element of consensus across the political spectrum…in their 2017 party political manifestos, all the major parties in England highlighted inequality as a policy challenge that needed to be tackled.

The research uses three separate measures of inequality and compares the results of each measure in ‘travel to work areas’ to outcomes for the population in mortality, poverty and entry to higher education; to understand how alternative approaches to understanding inequality can produce very different results. The measures used consider income distribution, a measure of economic imbalance within areas, and geographic clustering of different income groups. The report also stresses the risk of relying on one metric to understand an issue so they compared all three measures across the geographical classifications of local authority districts, parliamentary constituencies, and the ‘travel to work’ areas.

Professor Rae (author, Sheffield) said: 

  • “Our atlas highlights the fact that no one measure of inequality paints the full picture and that methodological diversity is needed before we start to think of solutions to inequality at a local, sub-national and national level. This is a reminder that a policy focus on inequality ought also to be linked to a focus on poverty alleviation and equality of opportunity, but also that how we understand inequality is inextricably linked to how we measure it in the first place.”

An example given in the report is that

  • if inequality alone was seen as a policy problem worth tackling, and the Gini coefficient [income distribution] was the only way we measured it, one could conclude that some of England’s most deprived seaside towns should not be the focal point. We believe such a conclusion would be incorrect.

Alex Beer, Programme Head at the Nuffield Foundation, said:

  • “This English Atlas of Inequality advances our knowledge of how inequalities are distributed at the local level. The Atlas highlights the importance of taking a multi-faceted approach to the study of inequality and to policy making for a more inclusive society.”

The report makes four recommendations:

  1. Take into account the fact that many of the poorest local economies in the country are also the most equal. Methods which increase equality alone are not enough.
  2. Increase the policy focus on the links between geographic dislocation, deprivation and inequality. It is important to consider wider questions of regional and sub-national connectivity and links to the drivers of inequality. There are important connections to be made between transport policy and welfare policy and as such an inter-departmental approach to tackling geographic dislocation is likely to be necessary.
  3. Thorough review of evidence considering whether the ‘majority of deprived individuals and families [do] not live in the most deprived areas’ (Smith et al., 2001; Barnes and Lucas, 1975). Rather than viewing this issue as an arcane methodological question finding a definitive answer should be a policy priority. When it comes to tackling persistent poverty through policy intervention, it may be right to focus on the most deprived locations if they contain the highest proportions of poor households and residents, yet doing this in isolation may lead to reduced effectiveness if poorer residents living elsewhere are overlooked. This is a fairly obvious point but it is a gap in the academic and policy literature – there is no definitive answer on the proportion of ‘poor people’ who do or don’t live in ‘poor areas’.
  4. Any approaches which seek to understand the true nature of inequalities should incorporate an explicit measure of spatial disparity: it’s clear from our analysis in this Atlas that the story of inequality in England is an inherently spatial one and as such we believe it should also be measured as one, in addition to [income] The authors say this point is threaded through the literature on urban and regional inequalities (e.g. Beatty and Fothergill, 1996; Bell et al., 2018), which often highlights quite striking spatial imbalances at the regional level.

On local areas Dorchester and Weymouth are rated 11th in the country as least unequal. Portsmouth and Southsea are among the most unequal. (Remember areas can be poor but still equal.) You can also delve into all the map detail for different areas here (e.g. by constituency, by travel to work area, and by local authority areas).

  • “Too often the debate takes place in silos, focusing on just one type of inequality, a specific alleged cause or a specific proposed solution. We need to step back and ask: how are different kinds of inequality related and which matter most? What are the underlying forces that come together to create them? And crucially, what is the right mix of policies to tackle inequalities?”

(Joyce, R. and Xu, X. (2019) Inequalities in the twenty-first century, Introducing the IFS Deaton Review, Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Nuffield Foundation, London.)

Academic Mismatch

UCL and the Nuffield Foundation have launched ‘Mismatch in Higher Education’ . Mismatch is a term that’s become very popular in widening participation and governmental circles recently, particularly after the Behavioural Insights Team considered how they could use nudge theory to tackle academic mismatch. A ‘mismatch’ is when a student selects or attends a course/institution which is less or more selective (competitive) than their academic achievement might suggest they could attain.

In the Nuffield investigation a course was benchmarked by using the median A-level (and equivalent) exam results of the students studying on the course as well as the average earnings of previous graduates of the course. The report finds that there is significant under- and over-match in the UK. They also confirm the widely held belief that there are substantial socio-economic status (SES) and gender gaps in mismatch, with low SES students and women attending lower quality courses than their attainment might otherwise warrant. Past universities ministers Sam Gyimah, Chris Skidmore and (briefly) Jo Johnson all picked up the theme of ensuring the most capable students from disadvantaged backgrounds aspired to and were able to access the most selective institutions. Under matching by disadvantaged students and females has ramifications for social mobility and the gender pay gap.

Key Points:

  • Up to 1 in 4 students from lower socio-economic backgrounds take courses at ‘less prestigious’ universities despite having the grades for ‘more selective’ institutions.
  • 15% of students were over-matched and 15% were under-matched using the course quality measure and 23% over-matched and 23% under-matched based on earnings.
  • The school attended accounted for much of the ‘mismatch’ among lower socio-economic students, most likely due to influential factors such as peers, school resources and what information, advice and guidance (IAG) is offered.
  • Disadvantaged students were more likely to attend universities close to home, but those who do so are worse matched than richer students who attend universities close to home.
  • High attaining disadvantaged students going to universities near home were more likely to attend a post-1992 institution, whereas high attaining advantaged students staying near home were more likely to attend a Russell Group university.
  • Interestingly the report suggests 50% of US students are mismatched and that students from ethnic minority backgrounds are likely to undermatch, however, this is not replicated in the UK context.

The data points have been taken from a report by Dods Political Consultants because at the time of writing the full report findings have not been released to the public outside of those attending the launch event for us to verify their accuracy.

Cheryl Lloyd, Programme Head at the Nuffield Foundation, says:

  • “This research highlights that students from different backgrounds but with similar abilities are making very different choices when it comes to the university courses they decide to study. To overcome the significant socio-economic and gender inequalities students face when choosing university courses, it is clear that they need equal access to the information, advice and support they require to make informed choices about their future.”

Co-author, Professor Lindsey Macmillan (UCL Institute of Education) explains:

  • “While women enrol in courses that are as academically prestigious as men, they are more likely to attend courses which command lower average earnings. This is, in large part, driven by the different subjects studied by men and women at university. These findings have important implications for the gender pay gap.”

The student take on data security

HEPI have published students or data subjects? What students think about university data security.

The research stems from the volume of data HEIs collect on students both for regulatory purposes or to gather information about student experience. The authors suggest the volume of data collected will increase further as the Government’s focus on measuring universities’ performance through metrics and the internal analysis of data increases. Key Points:

  • 32% of students surveyed agree they are aware of how their institution handles their personal data, 45% who disagree, 22% undecided.
  • Students surveyed do not feel they have been provided with clear information on how their personal data are used. 31% feel their institution has clearly explained how their personal data are used and stored, compared to 46% who disagree (24% who neither agree nor disagree).
  • When asked whether students are concerned about rumours of universities facing data security issues, 69% of students said they are concerned. Around one-fifth of students (19%) are unconcerned and 12% are unsure.
  • 65% of students said a poor security reputation would have made them less likely to apply, compared to around a third (31%) who said it would have made no difference and 4% who said it would have made them more likely to apply.
  • Under half of students feel their university will keep their data safe: only 45% of students feel confident that their institution will keep their personal data secure and private, while 22% are not confident. A third (33%) are unsure.
  • 64% of students say that when sharing personal information online, they check to see if the source is trustworthy and secure. 17% don’t check.
  • Students were split in their knowledge of data privacy and ethics news and 36% keep current on ethical developments whilst 37% don’t.
  • 93% of students feel they should have the right to view any personal information their university stores about them, 2% disagree. 86% also felt they should have the right to delete any personal data the institution holds about them.
  • Students do not want their health information shared widely. 83% of students expect their medical information to be kept private to their institution and themselves. 5% say they would expect for it to be shared with commercial and business services, 10% for it to be shared with government services and 2% for the information to be shared more widely.
  • When asked about information provided to student support and welfare services, 78% say they expect the information to be kept private between them and their institution.
  • A quarter of students (26%) said they are comfortable with their HEI reviewing their social media posts, if it allows them to better identify and target struggling students with wellbeing support services. 57% were opposed to this and 17% neither agreed nor disagreed.
  • On sharing health or wellbeing information with a student’s parents/guardians 48% were happy for institutions to do this; 33% disagreed, 19% were undecided. However, on contacting parents/guardians over academic performance issues only 35% of students were happy for this to take place, 48% were opposed and 17% undecided.

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

  • ‘Students are required to provide large amounts of data to their universities, including personal and sensitive information. It is critical that universities are open with students about how this information will be used.
  • Under a third of students feel their university has clearly explained how their data will be used and shared and under half feel confident that their data will be kept secure and private. Universities should take action to ensure students can have confidence in the security of their data.’

Michael Natzler, HEPI’s Policy Officer, said:

  • ‘Students are generally willing for their data to be used anonymously to improve the experience of other students, for example on learning and mental wellbeing. Around half are even happy for information about their health or mental wellbeing to be shared with parents or guardians.
  • However, when it comes to identifiable information about them as individuals, students are clear they want this data to be kept confidential between them and their institutions. It is important that universities keep students’ data private where possible and are clear with students when information must be shared more widely.’

On learning analytics the majority of students were happy for their anonymised data on accessing university buildings, online platform usage, library books checked out to be aggregated into patterns and used as insights for other students, lecturers, to forecast if future students will drop out and to predict their own performance from the similarity of behaviours from past students (including possibility of drop out).

HEPI concluded:

  • A clear majority of students are happy for the university to use their own and other students’ data to enhance the learning and mental wellbeing of students at university. However, students do not want personal data and data related to learning to be shared outside the student-university relationship.
  • Students expect and demand privacy around their data, while being aware of the positive outcomes responsible usage can bring. Understanding of how student data are used is lower than it ought to be, which universities should work to address, but the message about how students want their data used is clear and must be listened to.

PISA results

The DfE have published the PISA (programme for International Student Assessment) 2018 reports coving the four areas of the UK. Once every three years the PISA measures 15-year-old school pupils’ abilities in reading, mathematics and science through ‘their competence to address real-life challenges’. PISA is administered by OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development). It is a snapshot assessment checking how countries are performing relative to each other,

  • In PISA 2018, mean scores in England were significantly above the OECD averages in all 3 subjects. The mean scores in reading and science in England have not changed significantly over successive PISA cycles, but in mathematics, England’s overall mean score showed a statistically significant increase compared with PISA 2015.
  • England’s mean score for reading was similar to scores for Scotland and Northern Ireland, and all 3 had scores significantly higher than Wales. In both science and mathematics, the mean scores for England were significantly higher than the scores for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, which were not significantly different from each other
  • Closing the gap – the top performers in reading were south-east Asian countries China, Singapore, Macao, China and Hong Kong with Estonia, Canada and Finland also scoring highly. In PISA 2018 there were 9 countries where the mean reading score was statistically significantly higher than that in England, compared to 12 countries in PISA 2015.
  • In common with all other participating countries, girls in England outperformed boys in reading. However, the gender gap in England was significantly smaller than the average gap across the OECD.
  • In England, the gap between high and low achievers in science was significantly larger than the OECD average, with a larger proportion of pupils in England performing at the highest proficiency levels.
  • There was no statistically significant gap between performance of boys and girls in science in England, which was also the case in PISA 2015. This differs from the OECD average where there was a small but statistically significant gender gap in favour of girls.
  • England’s mean score in mathematics was significantly higher than in PISA 2015, which is the first time performance has improved after a stable picture in all previous cycles of PISA. The size of the gap between scores of the highest and lowest achievers in England was similar to the OECD average.
  • Boys in England significantly outperformed girls in mathematics, as was also the case for the OECD average. The gap between boys and girls in England was similar to that in PISA 2015.

TES covered the release in PISA results must be a relief for the government (but there are still many challenges that we must address). This includes the England’s higher scores for pupil dissatisfaction and poorer wellbeing. Also that many pupils said they only read if they have to, not for enjoyment which the article says is of concern, given the importance of reading – for future learning, stimulating creativity and imagination (sought after by employers).

Inquiries and Consultations

Click here to view the updated inquiries and consultation tracker. Email us on policy@bournemouth.ac.uk if you’d like to contribute to any of the current consultations. There are not any new consultations or inquiries this week because we are still in the purdah period.

Other news

Transnational Education: The Government have released statistics costing the revenue generated through transnational education (THE) and other education related exports. The HE highlights:

  • HEIs contributed £14.4 billion (67%) of the total value of £21.4 billion. This is +7% growth between 2010 to 2017. The revenue from other stages of education such as FE and Schools is smaller at £0.3 billion and £1.0 billion.
  • The share of English Language Training (ELT) and FE (non-EU students) have both fallen – the ELT share dropping from 14% to 7% and FE dropping from 6% to 1%.

New Welsh Tertiary System: The Welsh Children, Young People and Education Committee have published their final report scrutinising the HE (Wales) Act 2015. This report aims to showcase evidence to learn the lessons of the 2015 Act, which is considered unsuccessful and set to be repealed. The report also sets the scene to influence the preparation of the forthcoming Tertiary Education Bill. The new bill will establish a new Tertiary Education and Research Commission for Wales, which will oversee the entire post-16 education system.  Lynne Neagle AM, Committee Chair, said:

  • We heard quite considerable criticism of the HE Act, mainly focusing on its failure to create a complete system of HE regulation, its unsatisfactory addressing of student interests, and it not providing an effective means to align providers behind national priorities. These issues are of such consequence, and are so much a part of the fabric of the 2015 Act, that we agree with the Minister’s intention to repeal Because it is to be repealed, the recommendations we make in this report in relation to it are what we think are realistically possible before any new tertiary education and research Commission is established. 

GCSE changes: The Sutton Trust has released the report Making the Grade analysing the impact of GCSE reforms on the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers. Read the executive summary for a main synopsis in general the gaps between disadvantaged pupils and their more advantaged peers have not changed significantly (except for triple science), partly due to the conscious maintenance of grade boundaries and the comparable outcomes approach. Of concern is that less disadvantaged students are achieving the highest marks and grades – potentially impacting on future social mobility as less disadvantaged students achieve the top grades needed to apply to the most selective institutions and impacting on their graduate wage due to the focus top employers place on recruiting from the selective institutions.

Kevin Courtney, Joint General Secretary of the National Education Union, commented on the report:

  • “It is absolutely not surprising that the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and others has widened as a result of the Government’s GCSE reforms. These reforms were unplanned, had no meaningful consultation with teachers and no proper lead-in time. The exams now cover an unmanageable amount of content for many students, and unlike in real life the students have to sit them once-and-for-all at the end of the course.
  • Both these issues are causing real problems… whilst under the previous system 2% of disadvantaged pupils achieved the top grade (of A*), it is now just 1% that achieve a grade 9. The Sutton Trust is right to say that this may have negative impacts on these students when they are applying for university places.
  • A survey of National Education Union members found that 73% thought that pupil mental health was worse due to the new GCSE reforms and 64% said the reformed courses did not reflect students’ abilities as accurately.
  • We need to see a system in place that plays to all pupils’ strengths to ensure they get the qualifications they deserve.”

Subscribe!

To subscribe to the weekly policy update simply email policy@bournemouth.ac.uk

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 29th November 2019

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

So, the election…

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

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

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

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

GuildHe have published their priorities for government.

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

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

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

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

Admissions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Future Thinking

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

Read more:

Social Mobility

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

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

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

James Kirkup, SMF Director, said:

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

Inquiries and Consultations

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

Other news

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

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

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

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JANE FORSTER                                            |                       SARAH CARTER

Policy Advisor                                                                     Policy & Public Affairs Officer

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

HE Policy Update for the w/e 22nd November 2019

Election fever!!  There is some other news- sector organisations continue to consider the power of the student (young) vote, and social mobility is up for debate.

If you’re interested in the detail of the manifestos, we have done a separate version of our update for BU readers this week. We will update it next week when we have another bunch to report. And here’s a link to the list of parliamentary candidates running for election in the local areas.

Social Mobility

The  Sutton Trust has published analysis  on social mobility in the UK following polls carried out on their behalf by YouGov. Most reported has been the story that (47%) think that today’s young people will have a worse life in comparison with their parents. This negative opinion increased to 1 in 5 responses for respondents aged 25-34

Sutton Trust say the poll counters last week’s report by Civitas which argued that social mobility in the UK is now the ‘norm’ rather than an exception and that 65% of working-class parents have moved up in social class. Civitas’ author, Peter Saunders, Professor of Sociology at Sussex University, said in that report:

‘The failure of our politicians to grasp the truth about social mobility is resulting in damaging policies designed to rectify problems we do not have. Our top universities are not biased against working class applicants, for example; nor do they unfairly favour those educated at private schools. Imposition of targets and quotas is undermining what is currently a meritocratic system.’

Other aspects of the poll revealed that to get ahead in life people believe the most important factors today are a good education, knowing the right people and having well educated parents. And, having ambition was seen as essential. The analysis says that an increasing proportion of the population think that factors beyond talent and drive are vital with coming from a wealthy family seen as important to success, up 14% since the 2009 survey, and ‘knowing the right people’ increased by 21%.

The respondents were also asked to choose which education policy measures would be the most effective in improving social mobility and help disadvantaged young people get on in life. Over a quarter (26%) said focusing on developing ‘life skills’ like confidence and resilience in state schools was key, while 18% thought more high-quality apprenticeships opportunities were important. The third most common answer (13%) was fairer admissions to state schools, so that the best schools are open to those from all backgrounds.

Intergenerational Social Mobility – Wonkhe report that the Centre for Economic Performance has published a pre-election briefing on intergenerational social mobility, calling for radical reform to enable individuals to fulfil their potential and improve living standards for all, irrespective of social background.

Reports issued

The Institute for Public Policy Research North has published a report on devolving Parliament regionally speaking out against centralised Government and addressing regional inequalities ‘that have created such a divided country.’

Carers UK  has published a  report on adults that care unpaid for a loved one

The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry  has published  a report on the challenges faced by UK clinical research  it considers how the UK has built on its legacy of medical innovation to become one of the most competitive global hubs for clinical research and how we compare against Europe and the rest of the world.

Size of the sector

David Kernohan has written for Wonkhe on the size of the sector: “The sector in England is growing (and also shrinking)”.

  • The whole idea of the new English regulatory system was to bring new providers into the HE system, to grow choice and competition. But as well as market entry, we are seeing a fair amount of market exit.
  • So far the only view we’ve had of this is via the OfS’ own updates to the register. We know which institutions have made it on to the register, but we only have a partial glimpse of the providers that have either chosen not to register or have refused registration. Thanks tonew data from the Student Loans Company, we can take a closer look.
  • …In February of this year arevised impact assessment predicted 10 less alternative providers and 40 less FECs than the initial prediction in July 2018. At that point the prediction was for 508 providers on the (Approved, or Approved (Fee Cap) parts of the) OfS register, in February 2019 it was 464 – but by November 2019, long after the start of term, OfS have registered only 388 HE providers.
  • …A smaller-than-expected sector means a failure in DfE policy making and OfS implementation. Registered providers are paying more than is expected on mandatory registrations to OfS, and the registration system is proving complex and difficult to negotiate. And, most damningly of all, the legions of high quality alternative providers seeking to disrupt the market – the “Byron Burgers” in Jo Johnson’s once again apt metaphor – simply do not appear to exist.

Complaints

HEPI have a blog by Felicity Mitchell, Office of the Independent Adjudicator (OIA), on student complaints and value for money in HE. The OIA’s role is to review student complaints once they have been through the provider’s internal complaints process. They report an increase on the usual 2,000 complaints per year. In general 23% are ‘service issues’ (consumer-type complaints about things that were promised but not delivered, poor teaching, supervision and facilities).

On value they say:

  • Value is in the eye of the beholder. It means something different for undergraduates and postgraduates, home and international students, students with jobs, degree apprentices, students living at home, students with support needs, students struggling to meet their living costs, in fact for every individual. It is not just value for money. Students value being listened to, treated as an individual and getting help and support when they need it, as well as contact hours, quality teaching, resources and facilities.
  • Even students who are not paying can still feel they did not get good value if the course did not deliver what was promised or what they expected it to deliver.
  • …students need sufficient, clear and accurate information upfront about what they can expect and when. Providers come unstuck if they overpromise and cannot deliver. But they also get into difficulties if they are too vague, so students have to fill in the details themselves.
  • Students in the same cohort sometimes complain to us as a group…At the most serious end, students have missed out on a crucial part of the programme: they have not been taught a specific skill, or the course does not deliver expected professional accreditation.
  • Some students will be more seriously affected than others by things like changes to course structure, assessment methods, teaching venue or supervision arrangements. They might have chosen a course because it was delivered close to home. They might not be able to travel distances, afford extra transport costs or spend more time away from work or caring responsibilities. These are all things we need to consider when looking at whether changes have affected the value of the course for an individual student.

The OIA recommend practical steps for matters to be put right. If this is not possible they may recommending a refund of some or all of the student’s tuition fees and/or compensation for the distress and inconvenience that the student has suffered.

  • This may be because the provider has not communicated effectively, or the student has had to fight hard to make their complaint and the provider has missed opportunities to put things right. We also make ‘good practice’ recommendations, for example to change the programme information or advertising, or to improve the provider’s internal procedures.
  • Value for money is important, but it is not the whole story. We have found that students’ perception of value is more nuanced than a straightforward consumer perspective might suggest. It is influenced by students’ expectations and their individual circumstances and perspectives. Of course providers need to be clear about what they are offering and deliver what they have promised. But they also need to listen and respond to their students’ individual needs to give them a truly valuable higher education experience.

Strike Action: The OIA blog also aims to inform providers how they deal with complaints related to industrial action (in light of the forthcoming sector planned strikes):

  • The complaints we received about last year’s industrial action were more than usually closely related to tuition fees. This may have been influenced by publicity encouraging students to claim compensation for missed teaching. Students tended to present these complaints in overtly consumerist language: ‘I did not get the teaching I paid for and so I want a refund’. From what we have seen, providers tried to make sure that their students were not disadvantaged academically, for example, by changing the content of exams or assessment methods, and giving exam boards discretion to make allowance for unusually poor performance.
  • We also looked at whether the providers had made up for lost learning opportunities. Some delivered missed teaching by other methods, through online resources or allowing students to attend different seminar groups or sit in on later sessions. But some interpreted the student contract very narrowly and decided that they were not obliged to provide a specific number of taught sessions, so the students had suffered no loss. The logical conclusion of that line of argument is that it does not matter what the students have been taught as long as they come out with a degree at the end of it.
  • Our view is that if a student reasonably expects to learn about a specific topic, then the provider cannot make up for not delivering that learning simply by not examining the student on it. They consider the individual: what the provider has done to make up for what has been missed, and whether that has been enough for the individual student. A change in timetabling or assessment or teaching methods may have disadvantaged the student, for example because they have a disability or caring responsibilities. An international student or working student may not be able to attend extra teaching sessions.

And yes…the election

The most important thing: register to vote – the deadline is 26th November.

If you’re interested in the education and research related detail of the manifestos, we have sent a separate e-mail version of our update for BU readers this week (link). We will update it next week when we have another bunch to report.

At the time of writing the Conservative manifesto has not been published.

  • The Green Party were first to publish their GE2019 Manifesto.
  • The Liberal Democrats were next to publish their manifesto (on Wednesday) you can read it in full here or dip into the bitesize version which is arranged topic by topic.
  • Labour published their manifesto on Thursday
  • The Conservative and Unionist Party have not finalised the publication date for their manifesto however it is anticipated to be published over the weekend
  • Plaid Cymru’s manifesto came out on Friday but we haven’t had time to digest it yet – there’s a BBC summary here
  • The Brexit Party announced they aren’t having a manifesto – instead they are offering a contract, also launched on Friday

In terms of commentary, Research Professional covered the Labour plans in the 8am Playbook on22nd November and the Lib Dem plans on 20th November.

Wonkhe have an article by Jim Dickinson on the Labour plans for maintenance grants.

Welsh Electoral Reform: The Welsh Government intends to introduce a bill giving 16 and 17 years olds the right to vote at local council elections (once every 5 years). They intend to automatically add people to the voting register and will allow councils to decide the type of voting system they will use, e.g. first past the post or single transferable vote.

Hung Parliament: Dods have produced a good briefing exploring the what ifs should the election result in a hung parliament. It covers the likelihood and policy alignment of potential cross-party alliances. Worth a 5 minute read.

Campaigning organisations call for action

In the run up to the election period many organisations issue their own statements or manifesto aiming to influence the Government to consider supporting their requests. Last week we mentioned MillionPlus and the British Academy.   Here follows a small selection of organisations that published their calls to action this week.

Impetus: WP organisation Impetus ask that all political parties put the needs of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds at their heart of their commitments. This includes:

  • Schools – entitlement to extra tutoring for those who fall too far behind at primary. They say small group tutoring is one of the most impactful interventions.
  • Universal breakfast provision in primary school
  • FE – extend the pupil premium up to 18
  • HE – protect £900m of widening participation funding
  • OfS to clamp down on marketing tactics that encourage university applicants to pick a specific institution. The OfS should also set an expectation on long term attainment and aspiration raising measures in schools.

NUS: Sunday 17 November was International Students Day and the NUS urged British student voters to think of international students when they make their electoral choices (because international students cannot vote). NUS suggest fair policy proposals to support international students would be:

  • A fair immigration system for all migrants, with an expedited legal guarantee of a post-study work visa lasting at least two years for international students
  • Abolition of the health surcharge levied on international students
  • Protection of inward and outward mobility post-Brexit, with participation in Erasmus+ or any successor schemes

NUS quote UCAS statistics which say that over 500,000 international students study in the UK every year – diversifying our campuses, revitalising our communities and contributing to the social fabric of our society, international students contribute massively to UK higher and further education.

Commenting, NUS UK President Zamzam Ibrahim said:

  • “International students come in their hundreds of thousands to make our education the best, most diverse and enriching system possible. They deserve to be treated with respect and dignity.  This upcoming general election is our chance to achieve just that. We have had enough of a hostile immigration system that disregards student welfare and potential, limiting our ability to attract the brightest and best to study in the UK. 
  • History shows that when students lead, society wins. We’re asking for students in this election to make sure our campuses remain diverse places into the future, with an expedited legal guarantee of a post-study work visa lasting at least two years for international students, with sweeping reforms to humanise our immigration system, and much more.”

Adult Education: The Centenary Commission on Adult Education has published “Adult Education and Lifelong Learning for 21ST Century Britain”. It recognises that funding for adult learning and apprenticeships has fallen by 45% in real terms since 2009-10 with massive drops in adult education participation. It sees adult education as a national necessity (particularly to address the huge societal divisions and challenges to democracy we currently face). It calls for a Minister for Adult Education and Lifelong Learning, a Government gap reduction participation target, and an annual progress report to Parliament. There are many more recommendations encompassing funding, basic skills, innovation, individual learning accounts and paid time off for learning. You can read a summary and comments from sector figures here.

AgeUK  has published  its general election manifesto 

The Sutton Trust: The Sutton Trust’s Mobility Manifesto outlines practical policies from early years to the workplace which they believe will address Britain’s stubborn social mobility problem. The 10 key recommendations are:

  • Better access to the best early years’ education for disadvantaged pupils by ensuring that early years’ practitioners are well-qualified.
  • Fairer admissions to state schools across the system, with consideration given to ballots and priority for disadvantaged pupils.
  • Independent schools should be opened up, on a voluntary basis, to pupils of all backgrounds.
  • A greater focus on supporting the development of essential life skills in young people, both in and out of the classroom, with time and funding allocated for their development, through the curriculum and extracurricular activities.
  • A significant increase in the number of degree and higher-level apprenticeships available as an alternative to university, and a focus on ensuring young people from low and moderate income backgrounds can access them.
  • A greater – and more transparent – use of contextual admissions by more highly-selective universities to open up access to students form less privileged backgrounds.
  • Post Qualification Applications (PQA) to university should be implemented to allow young people to make an informed choice based on their actual rather than predicted grades.
  • The restoration of maintenance grants for students to at least pre-2016 levels to provide support for those who need it most and reduce the debt burden of the least well-off.
  • A ban on unpaid internships that are over four weeks long so that young people who can’t afford to work for free aren’t excluded from the most competitive career paths

Student Voting Power / Electoral Uncertainties for HE

HEPI have an interesting policy note, Election Briefing.

In the 2017 snap election results the young vote was seen as disrupting the Conservatives majority and HEPI highlight that much has surrounded the student vote for the 2019 election – from the debates over the timing of polling day, through the push for more tactical voting, to the focus on education at the start of the campaign. The policy note highlights that students don’t necessarily prefer to vote labour and in 2014 they favoured the Conservatives and the Greens.

The policy note discussed the complexities in registering students to vote. In 2015 halls were prevented from registering students en masse and recognises how universities have made a huge push (alongside their local councils) to ensure students are aware and do register. HEPI go on:

  • Electoral law relating to students is complicated and poorly understood. Students may register to vote at their home address and their term-time address. At local elections, they can even cast two separate votes, so long as the addresses are in different local authority areas. But general elections count as a single electoral event, so each individual voter may only cast one vote.

On the power of the student vote HEPI highlight the many factors that have to be aligned for students to make a difference:

Overall, however, the impact of student voters is often exaggerated. To make a difference to the result in any individual constituency, students must:

  • be registered to vote;
  • use their vote;
  • reside in a marginal seat;
  • vote as a meaningful bloc;
  • vote differently to how the constituency would vote anyway; and
  • be present in sufficient numbers to make a difference.

The number of seats where students are likely to determine the outcome is therefore limited but, at a very close election, the student vote could affect the overall outcome, such as making the difference between a hung Parliament or a clearer result.

Moreover, while the electoral impact of so-called student issues may have less impact on how students vote than is often supposed, student issues can affect other voters too. For example, student loan repayment rules directly affect graduates and students’ parents and carers are affected by the means-testing of student maintenance support.

On Brexit HEPI highlight that the overwhelming majority of students want the UK to remain in the EU and there is evidence that a large minority of students are prepared to vote tactically over Brexit at the 2019 election.

On fees HEPI suggest a slightly different picture to previous sector rhetoric: Polling of students by HEPI and YouthSight suggests students do not have a strong preference for either the current system of fees capped at £9,250 with a 30-year repayment term or for the Augar report’s preferred model of fees capped at £7,500 with a 40-year repayment term. They do highlight that none of the major parties have suggested reintroducing student number controls. Pages 4-5 track the rise and fall of the real terms per undergraduate funding level since the 1990’s, and Augar’s recommendations would see the student resource frozen resulting in 11% real terms drop against 2018/19. HEPI’s opinion is that universities need to strap in for an upcoming bumpy ride no matter who is elected and remind that if Government subsidy is increased due to a drop in student fee payment it would also change the nature of the sector’s relationship with the Office for Students who were set up as a market regulator not a funding body.

HEPI also say that with widening access gains and the forthcoming population boom 300,000 more full time HE places will be needed by 2030. And this is interesting:

  • The high-fee model in place in England has not led to the drop-off in young full-time entrants that was widely predicted. This has led some policymakers to imply that there is now a record number of people at university. However, this is false. The total number of students remains much lower than the high point achieved in Labour’s last year in office (2009/10). This fall is driven by part-time undergraduate student numbers.
  • If the number of adult learners and part-time learners were to increase, it would diversify the student body. In particular, it could mean higher education institutions educating more local students… if higher education institutions are to educate more mature, part-time and adult learners, then we may need to rebalance away from the expectation that students should change to fit their universities and do even more to recognise that institutions must sometimes need to change to fit their students.

On research HEPI remind that the major parties are all committed to increasing the investment in research (UK currently spends less on R&D than other countries) however current forecasts suggest the target spend level won’t be reached based on the current rate of progress. HEPI say: renewed commitments to such extra research and development activity are necessary to remain competitive. And there have been calls to rebalance research funding by directing more funds towards research institutes and business.  Page 9 lists the key unanswered questions surrounding the increased research spend pledge.

Lastly, it highlights a drop in international students will reduce the level of research that can be undertaken (because the higher international fees cross subsidise Universities’ research spend). Which leads neatly on to internationalisation and the contradictions in Conservative policy. The relaxation of policy to provide post-study work visas has been welcomed, however, this is accompanied by Home Secretary Priti Patel’s points based immigration system which intends to reduce immigration levels (wisely they have learnt not to state a net migration target!). Of course if the value of the pound drops it makes studying in the UK cheaper for international currencies.

HEPI finish their policy note by reminding what was said in last week’s policy update – that election manifestos tend not to cover the entirety (or much!) of the incoming party’s plan for HE.

Nick Hillman, the Director of HEPI said:

  • ‘Every election matters for higher education institutions but this one matters more than most. The main political parties are offering radically different proposals on student fees, loans and grants for English students, which would have knock-on consequences throughout the UK.
  • Politicians across the political spectrum have backed more research and development spending, a high proportion of which is spent in universities. But the UK continues to lag far behind our main competitors and the election could determine if, and how, we raise our game. In particular, there are big unanswered questions on how any extra spending will be distributed.
  • The future vitality of our higher education sector relies not only on positive new commitments but also on policymakers limiting the fallout from any unwise election promises.’

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

  • ‘Recent political uncertainty has led to an ever-changing environment for universities. While this may be the “Brexit election”, it is important that the outcome clarifies the fog on higher education policy. Prospective students need certainty on the fees they will pay and the support available to them, as do university leaders. In a post-Brexit world, staff need to know how they can research across borders and how universities will recruit international students. For all stakeholders, including the general public, it is important this election provides some certainty about the role universities will continue to play in society.’

TV Debates & Polling

As we write this, the BBC are preparing for their Question time special with 4 party leaders on Friday evening.

In the end the Lib Dems and SNP were not permitted to take part in the ITV debate earlier in the week. Unsurprisingly, each party felt their leader had ‘won’ the debate.  The post-debate snap polls conducted directly after the leadership debate are interesting (and very close). Viewers gave their opinions on each leader’s performance. YouGov found that when asked who had performed best, on the whole, Boris Johnson came out on top with 51% with Jeremy Corbyn in second with 49%. Contrastingly, the ITV poll on Twitter believed Labour won 78% to 22%. When YouGov asked viewers to rate how well and badly each individual had done. Corbyn came out on top with two thirds believing the opposition leader had been a success and Boris Johnson trailing behind with 59%.

We think it is fair to say that it is unlikely that many people will have changed their minds based on the debate performances.

Target seats: The Guardian has an interactive map of the top target seats for each party and seats to watch on election night.  The BBC has a map of marginal seats too, and the FT has a good round up.  Dorset seats don’t feature…

NHS overtakes Brexit as the most important issue: A poll conducted by Ipsos Mori has shown that the NHS has overtaken Brexit as the most important issue for voters. 1,140 British adults were asked which issues would be very important in helping them decide which party to vote for. 60% of people selected healthcare/NHS/hospitals as the most important issue when thinking about which party to vote for in the election, followed by Brexit (56%). This is a 6% increase prioritising the NHS since last week.

Other news

Exam Diversity: A new Wonkhe blog questions whether Muslim students need exam adjustments during Ramadan, and whether they are supported to the same extent as their non-Muslim peers. The article suggests that the 13% BAME attainment gap can only be addressed by peeling back the layers of intersectionality and considering the additional levels of disadvantage that ‘can complicate a student’s experience’.

Roma: The BBC has an article about the difficulties faced by Roma in accessing higher education due to racial abuse.

Mental Health: The Financial Times has a piece on how academics are acting as a “fourth emergency service” for students dealing with stress and mental health difficulties at university.

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To subscribe to the weekly policy update simply email policy@bournemouth.ac.uk

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 15th November 2019

Student Engagement

Breathe – in four weeks the general election will be done and dusted, meanwhile we’ve listed the key information sources and looked at the education related pledges made so far. Of course, the HE sector has been busy too with research funding, postgraduate satisfaction, student accommodation, more free speech, value for money, and widening participation under the microscope this week.

Research

Research Fundermentals have a blog from Wonkfest on discussions with John Kingman (Chair UKRI, ex-Permanent Secretary to the Treasury). Key points:

  • UKRI has challenges because the core funding is ‘tight’ – which has consequences for the system
  • The 2.4% GDP research and development (R&D) spend target is a ‘stretch target, but not necessarily a crazy one.’ He emphasised that the target was for the economy as a whole, and two thirds of R&D happens in the private sector. He felt using public money to ‘crowd in’ private investment was a sound policy. With both the Government and Opposition backing the 2.4% target he stated the sector should be very pleased about this strong cross-party consensus.
  • UKRI ready to administer the Government’s promise to underwrite UK involvement in European funding, however he couldn’t say how this will ‘play out,’ he would be arguing strongly for UK science, and was already ‘heavily involved’ in policy discussions.
  • On international engagement we was more reticent – ‘We’ve got to think hardheadedly,’ he said, ‘and consider what benefits will come from any links we make.’ There should not just be memoranda of understanding and photo calls just for the sake of it.
  • Kingman was positive about Darpa and didn’t see it as a sign the government want greater control of research funding: ‘I see this as part of a wider jigsaw…It should be wholeheartedly welcomed.’
  • On talent Kingman stated: Developing the next generation of researcher is a priority for UKRI. Those working in science are pressured to deliver results quickly. To do so, ‘we need incredibly talented people…and we need to worry about people as much as money.’ UKRI are focused on encouraging and supporting early career researchers and believe research (especially science) needs to be seen as a positive option by people before they leave school. He also stated UKRI should ‘own it’ because there is much to do on equality, diversity and inclusivity.
  • Kingman was in favour of REF and believes research has benefited from the system. He agreed REF isn’t perfect and need to continue to develop but that, for him, there was still a strong case for the dual support system, regardless of the legal obligation to continue it, and that we ‘shouldn’t put all our eggs in one basket of project research.’
  • Kingman was not in favour of prescriptive regional funding, and believes research should be funded wherever it was found.

On Wednesday the PM made a speech on ‘unleashing the potential of the whole country’ in which stated he would double funding for R&D to £18bn in the “biggest ever increase in support for R & D”. Theresa May’s government committed £7 billion extra R&D funding over five years as part of the 2017 Industrial Strategy, and set the target of reaching 2.4% by 2027. Earlier this year, Johnson said he would “double down on our investment in R&D”, and committed to making an extra investment of £2.3 billion in 2021/22. The science, research and innovation community support the 2.4% target but few believe it is achievable without considerable levels of private investment. With the new announcement that the Conservatives would commit to £18bn this would provide a major boost. Of course, there are not yet details about how this spending will be balanced between competing areas of R&D.

Other commitments made in the speech included investing more in electric vehicle technology and creating a Britain that would lead the world in tackling climate change and reach net zero by 2050. In his own words: “not because we hate capitalism, not just by gluing ourselves to the tops of tubes trains or whatever, as important as that may be, but because it is precisely companies like this one [the London Electric Vehicle Company] that make the brilliant technical breakthroughs that will enable us to cut CO2 and go carbon neutral by 2050”.

Venki Ramakrishnan, President of the Royal Society, responded to the announcement: “Successful science is not based on money alone. We will also need to maintain full participation in European funding schemes and the collaboration that they promote, rather than trying to replace them.” (Source: Wonkhe/Financial Times.)

Postgraduate Student Satisfaction

AdvanceHE have published the 2019 Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey (PTES).

The Office for Students has announced that they will have a new measure of postgraduate satisfaction so this is likely to become an area of focus for the regulator.

  • “Overall satisfaction is high and has remained consistent over several years. The one exception to this was in 2018, when a temporary dip in satisfaction appears to be related to UCU (University and College Union) strike action. Despite the strong scores, satisfaction levels remain slightly below those reported by undergraduates through the National Student Survey (NSS).
  • …institutions across the sector score particularly highly for providing effective resources (e.g. library, IT, subject-specific) and information, although organisation (logistics, guidance, communication) and assessment (criteria and timeliness) continue to be rated least positively. …The main specific aspect that requires attention is how to provide opportunities for postgraduate taught (PGT) students to be involved in decisions about how their course operates, which scores consistently lower than all the other measures in the survey.
  • In 2019, for the first time, we have conducted detailed analysis of the open comments, specifically around suggestions for improvement. This analysis identified some key areas of consistency with the quantitative analysis, building a clear picture of some areas to prioritise across the sector. In particular, these included how teaching staff provide support and how the course is organised.
  • A relatively small proportion, 20%, had considered leaving their PGT course to date, which compares favourably with similar data collected at undergraduate and postgraduate research (PGR) level – and is an endorsement of the levels of support provided across the sector.
  • In terms of ethnicity, the results go against the stark White/BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) contrast that we have previously found at undergraduate level. Instead, there is a more nuanced picture, with Black, Chinese and White students reporting strong satisfaction levels, contrasted by evidence of a more disappointing experience for Asian and Mixed students, as well as those of “Other” ethnicity. A particular challenge for investigating the concerns of these cohorts lies in the fact that they are comprised of a range of different subgroups, each of which may be facing their own particular issues.
  • There is a strong picture among overseas students, who tend to report a very positive experience. One of the factors contributing to this is that overseas students tend to spend little time working for pay. Our analysis shows that time spent working for pay can link strongly to a greater likelihood of leaving the course, and hence the high levels of retention among overseas students are likely to be strongly linked.
  • Motivations for choosing an institution can vary, but analysis highlights how the type of motivation can be linked to the subsequent quality of the experience. Where students have chosen an institution based on reputation (of tutors, course or institution) or content of course, they tend to go on to be much more satisfied than those for whom the choice may have been a more restricted one – e.g. based on the location of the institution of whether there was funding available.”

According to PTES, Black postgraduate taught students are more motivated to progress to a higher-level qualification than white students – which is interesting in the context of the recent Leading Routes report which found that only 1.2 per cent of UKRI-funded PhDs over the last three years went to Black or Black mixed students.

Mental Health

The OfS have published an insight brief on mental health – Mental health: Are all students being properly supported? It highlights that students who report a mental health condition are more likely to drop out of higher education, less likely to progress into skilled work or further study, and graduate with a first or 2:1 – compared to students without a declared mental health condition.

Key points:

  • PT students from deprived areas are most likely to report mental health conditions
    Whereas PT students from advantaged areas were least likely to report a mental health condition
  • Black students with a declared mental health condition have low continuation and attainment rates.
  • Full time students declaring a mental health condition has more than doubled in the last five years (1.4% in 2012-13 to 3.5% in 2017-18)
  • Females are more likely to report a mental health condition (4.7% females report; 2% males report)

The report does mention the distinction between a clinically diagnosed mental health condition and the broader mental ill health/distress.

Participation and Attainment

School Families: The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) has re- launched the Families of Schools Database. This is an online database for schools to compare themselves against other institutions nationally by a range of criteria (e.g. levels of free school meals pupils, or similar disadvantage/poverty area measures). It aims to help schools understand more about their disadvantage attainment gaps. Every school in England has been placed into ‘families’, based on the characteristics of pupils who attend them. The EEF hopes schools will use this as a springboard to learn from, and collaborate with, the most successful schools in their ‘family’ of similar schools.

Analysis published by the EEF found that the national disadvantage gap would be significantly reduced if schools are able to help their disadvantaged pupils reach at least the average performance achieved by their 30 most similar schools.

Educational Cold Spots: just before Parliament entered purdah Robert Halfon questioned whether the extension to the DfE Opportunity Areas which tackle the national cold spots (including West Somerset) was a suitable use of Government funding and whether it provided value for money. However, the Government have reconfirmed their commitment and stated that the funding is beginning to boost GCSE grades.

Social Mobility: The Sutton Trust has published their Mobility Manifesto aiming to influence politicians to embrace social mobility at the heart of their election campaign. It covers fairer school admissions, early education, widening access to universities, banning unpaid internships, degree and higher apprenticeships, and best practice in widening access in employment. Below is the light touch summary on each. Incidentally in the run up to the vote for the new speaker of House of Commons, The Sutton Trust CEO wrote to all the candidates to urge them to commit to tackling unpaid and unadvertised internships in Parliament.

Residential Model

HEPI and UPP (a major student accommodation provider) have published Somewhere to live: Why British students study away from home – and why it matters examining the ramifications of the choice of most students to move away from home to study. Excerpts:

  • ‘There are many problems with the residential university. It is expensive – and becoming ever more so. It disadvantages those students who do not live away from home and those young people who never get a chance to attend university. It can alienate and exclude others, especially the communities who live around the campus. And yet, residence is undeniably popular and remains desirable, despite its costs. By tracing its history, we can also consider its future, and how it might come to serve the interests of all.
  • Demand for student accommodation remains strong, with many young people still wishing to leave home to benefit from a fully immersive higher education experience.
  • The report considers how the issue of the value-for-money of accommodation has emerged as a key area of focus for both the NUS and the OfS in the wider context of the affordability of going to university.’

The report also looks to the future and how diversity drives need – what student accommodation should be like in the future; what proportion of students should live away from home; how costly should it be to live in bespoke student accommodation; and what support should be on offer?

Here are the key points:

  • For the overwhelming majority of UK undergraduates, attending university means leaving home. It is certainly a distinctive feature of British higher education, and one that marks Britain out from both its nearest neighbours and its most obvious comparators.
  • In Britain, in the academic year 2017-18, just over 80% of full-time students left home for study. On average, 36% of European students live in their parental home. In America nearly 40% of students live at home and 77% attend college in their home state.
  • Student accommodation is now worth something like £53 billion in the UK. Struggling to keep up, even traditionally residential universities are having to invest millions in providing new housing – with Cambridge borrowing nearly £1 billion and Oxford recently agreeing a joint venture with Legal and General worth £4 billion.
  • Residence has an effect on the host communities, who may find themselves irritated, changed and outpriced by the students who live within them.
  • ‘Commuter students’, do not always have such rounded and fulfilling experiences as other students, and they sometimes do not benefit from their higher education as much as those students who reside at university.
  • If universities are to remain residential for most, they still need to think about those who are excluded or disadvantaged precisely because they do not share the same benefits as the overwhelming majority who do study away from home.

Recommendations:

  • Although there are some examples of good practice, universities as a whole must do better at providing appropriate information about accommodation to prospective students. This means offering accurate details about the true cost of living.
  • Universities should review how they support their students: both those who live on campus and those who do not. There is a need to better integrate commuter students.
  • The design of accommodation should be reviewed by universities and other providers alike. As a report published in 2019 outlines, many developments have not been designed with student wellbeing in mind.
  • Both government and accommodation providers need to address an increasingly unsustainable rise in rents.
  • Universities should review how their accommodation policies affect the local community and how their resources can be shared.

Freedom of speech

The Policy Exchange have had another “go” at free speech in universities in their report, enticingly titled “Academic Freedom in the UK”..

It starts with an allegation of political discrimination which *may* be violating academic freedom and confirms that there is really no evidence of a problem:

Britain’s universities are world-leading. Yet there is widespread concern that, instead of being places of robust debate and free discovery, they are being stifled by a culture of conformity. Universities have a particular role in upholding free speech in society more broadly, with academic freedom central to this. The danger is that academic freedom is being significantly violated due, in particular, to forms of political discrimination.

There has to date been a lack of good evidence, specific to the UK, which confirms or disconfirms whether academic freedom is being infringed beyond a small number of high profile cases. In addition, beyond statements like the ‘Chicago Principles’, which affirm the value of free speech in universities, there is a relative lack of policies which would protect academic freedom. The link between academic freedom among faculty and freedom of speech amongst students has also not been thoroughly explored in a UK context.

New polling by Policy Exchange supports three key findings.

  1. There is evidence of a chilling effect for undergraduate students. For instance, on Brexit, only 4 in 10 (39%) of Leave-supporting students say that they would be comfortable espousing that view in class.
  2. Despite such chilling effects, a significant proportion of students are consistently supportive of academic freedom. This figure is likely to be between 3 out of 10 to a half of students.
  3. Support for academic freedom is significantly affected by the context in which one considers the issue. In particular, it is affected by whether one is exposed to narratives that affirm either the need to create safe spaces for disadvantaged groups who have been subject to systemic oppression, or the value of free speech in preventing censorship and in promoting liberty and the free exchange of ideas. These findings reinforce the need for, and value of, policies which protect academic freedom

But it goes on to set out a framework anyway.  The key to this seems to be the Chicago Principles, as referred to above, plus a system of “champions” across the sector and a new charter-mark for viewpoint diversity.

Universities should:

  1. Adopt an academic freedom commitment, such as the Chicago Principles, that clearly states that ‘debate or deliberation may not be suppressed because the ideas put forth are thought by some or even most members of the University community to be offensive, unwise, immoral, or wrong-headed’.
  2. Appoint an Academic Freedom Champion (AFC), reporting directly to the Vice-Chancellor, with the power to investigate complaints of political discrimination across the Higher Education Institution (HEI), and to recommend actions as appropriate.

The Office for Students should:

  1. Appoint a National Academic Freedom Champion who would have the power to investigate allegations of academic-freedom violations from academics and lead on enhanced monitoring requirements or other sanctions where appropriate.
  2. Impose an obligation on HEIs to have a senior person responsible for protecting academic freedom in each HEI, and to have an Academic Freedom Code of Practice.

The Government should:

  1. Establish a statutory duty of non-discrimination for political and moral beliefs and judgments for the purposes of employment in higher education.
  2. Extend the existing statutory duty to ensure freedom of speech and academic freedom to include students and Student Unions, as well as those involved in governance in HEIs.

Civil society should:

  1. Incorporate academic freedom as a criterion against which universities are measured in international rankings of universities.
  2. Establish an Academic Freedom charter organisation, awarding kitemarks to HEIs for their demonstrated commitment to political anti-discrimination and viewpoint diversity.

The report has been criticised by David Kernohan on Wonkhe: who calls the underlying research a “terrible survey” and says that “The recommendations are nonsensical.”

This section is interesting (page 15):

Are academics brainwashing students?

When asked how most students acquired their opinion on the Peterson and Greer cases, 68% said social media. This was by far the most important influence on student opinion on these issues, with parents well down the list at 14%. New partisan online news sites like Vox, Buzzfeed, Breitbart, the Mail or the Guardian came in at 8%. University lecturers and schoolteachers both scored a paltry 1%. This suggests that the content of what students are learning is not directly shaping their worldviews on the speech issue. A further data point in favour of this interpretation is that older students (those 20-25) were 19 points more likely than 18-19 year olds to back the free speech position over emotional safety. It must also be emphasised that more research is needed to test this finding as some of this effect may be due to mature students. While it is reassuring that students do not appear to be directly influenced by their University experience to oppose free speech, given the range of opinions on this issue, it is important for universities to consider how their policies, structures and culture can encourage support for free speech rather than inadvertently suppress it.

A limitation of this polling is that it does not probe the social influence that lecturers may exert on students, through the way that they speak about and present politically-salient topics in their teaching. For instance, it is unknown whether the 6 in 10 Leave-supporting students who do not say that they would be comfortable expressing that view in class are cautious of how other students would react, or of how their lecturers may react. Further work is needed on this too.

And an interesting Times article –  Students have every right to ban speakers – explores a very different perspective of how politically and media savvy Gen Z students are, how they care about world issues, and how they avoid the pitfalls of being drawn into furious Twitter rows that older generations are floored by.

General Election 2019

We list below some sources of information on the election:

HEPI’s latest is about how manifesto promises don’t really mean much for HE:

“Finally, it is also worth remembering that the biggest higher education policies tend not to feature in election manifestoes at all. That was true of:

  • Tony Blair’s introduction of tuition fees;
  • Tony Blair’s tripling of tuition fees;
  • David Cameron and Nick Clegg’s tripling of tuition fees; and
  • George Osborne‘s abolition of maintenance grants.”

Last week there was a lot of press coverage about students voting tactically and it is rumbling on – HEPI referred to it in a student voting report: this has been widely cited as a storm rages on social media about student voting.  For the record, students can register both at home and at their university address but it is illegal to vote twice.  BU and SUBU have been working together to promote student registration and we will be sharing impartial information with students about policies nearer the time.  The voter registration deadline is midnight on 26th November.

Sky News has announced they will hold a 3 way head to head debate on 28th November between Johnson, Corbyn and Swinson (Swinson a late add to the line-up after the Lib Dems complained to ITV about their exclusion).

Finally, in parliamentary news, last week Sir Lindsay Hoyle was elected the new Speaker of the House of Commons. He is a Labour MP and former deputy speaker. He has pledged to be a “neutral” speaker and highlighted his desire to restore respect to the Commons. He also stood on the platform of safeguarding the welfare of MPs and staff.

Local candidates

Candidate selection closed on 14th November.

  • BCP have announced the candidates in Bournemouth East, Bournemouth West, Christchurch, Mid Dorset and North Poole and Poole:
  • Dorset Council have announced the candidates for North Dorset, South Dorset, West Dorset (and they overlap with some of the above too)

Party Education pledges so far

These all come with a pinch of salt because the manifesto pledges have not yet been published…

Labour  

Labour’s pledges sit within their National Education (cradle-to grave) Service (which they have been talking about for a long time and which are therefore relatively well developed),  They plan to:

  • expand adult education and lifelong training, including:
    • increasing reach of basic skills provision (on Tuesday they published research stating the number of adults currently learning is at its lowest point since 1996, and the number of people achieving basic skills qualifications has plummeted since 2011).
    • Retraining for adults (improve job chances, tackle displacement through automation/AI, and address skills shortages/meet changing needs of industry and the climate emergency) they expect to reach an extra 300,000 people per year and “throw open the door” for adults to study.
  • Ensure vocational education is considered on a par with a university degree, in particular they aim to increase the flexibility adult learners receive to resolve the mature tensions.
  • Support adults studying with 30 hours of free childcare for all 2 to 4 year olds.
  • They also state they will involve employers in designing qualifications to ensure the training equips them with the right skills.

The ‘free’ education covers:

  • any adult without A-level or equivalent qualification to attend college and study for free;
  • every adult a free entitlement to six years of study for qualifications at level 4-6 (undergraduate degrees and equivalents such as Higher National Certificates and Diplomas, Foundation Degrees, Certificates and Diplomas of Higher Education in areas such as rail engineering technicians, nursing associates, and professional accounting technicians);
  • provides maintenance grants for low income adult learners to complete their courses;
  • gives workers the right to paid time off for education and training;
  • Make sure everyone has access to the information they need to return to study through a national careers advice service.

Angela Rayner also told BBCR4 Today programme that a Labour Government would crack down on high wages for vice chancellors, and abolish university tuition fees. It will be interesting to see if this makes it into the manifesto.  Labour’s ‘rescue plan’ for the NHS also includes a promise to restore bursaries for student nurses and tackle the staffing crisis. There are also proposals to extend statutory maternity leave to 12 months, legislate for menopause friendly workplace policies and fine firms who fail to report on gender pay gaps.

Healthy Young Minds: Labour have also pledged £845 million to put a qualified counsellor into every school across the country, to combat the long waiting times for treatment and the lack of mental health services available to young people. The commitment is considered timely as it dovetailed the publication of the National Education Union’s league table of underfunded schools which found that there are just 18 out of 533 Parliamentary constituencies where per-pupil funding will be above its 2015 level in real terms.

Liberal Democrats

The Liberal Democrats have proposed a “skills wallet” providing every (English) adult with £10,000 to spend on education and training throughout their life. People would get the money in three instalments: £4,000 at 25; £3,000 at 40 and another £3,000 at 55. Individuals, their employers and local government will be able to make additional payments into the wallets. Access to free careers guidance will also be provided.  They intend to fund this by reversing government cuts to corporation tax – returning the business levy to its 2016 rate of 20%. However, they would consult on their proposal and therefore would not bring it in until 2021-22.

Liberal Democrat Shadow Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Secretary, Sam Gyimah, (ex-Conservative Universities Minister, of course) stated:

  • “By stopping Brexit and investing in our Skills Wallets, Liberal Democrats will empower people to develop new skills so that they can thrive in the technologies and industries that are key to the UK’s economic future and prosperity.”

Conservatives

The Conservatives have been tight lipped about their manifesto intentions (not unexpected – they published their 2017 manifesto far later than the other parties). So far they have proposed a National Retraining Scheme for adults needing to update their skills for work. Prior to purdah Johnson also made the schools funding pledges. On Thursday they promised to cut immigration numbers ‘overall’ after Brexit if elected to government. Home Secretary Priti Patel said the party would not set an “arbitrary” target if it wins the election, having failed to meet previous targets, but the policy ambition is in line with the Conservative’s agenda for a points-based system based on skills and other factors. And they intend a NHS visa scheme (reduced application cost, 2 week decision fast track, 5 year visa) to run alongside the introduction of the points based system in 2021. The scheme has been criticised because it fails to consider worker retention and critics feel it doesn’t address how dependent the UK is on clinicians from abroad. Priti stated: “We will reduce immigration overall while being more open and flexible to the highly skilled people we need, such as scientists and doctors.”

They Conservatives have also attacked Labour’s immigration policy in their own published report by the Conservative Research Department. They argue that Labour’s official immigration policy is to ‘maintain and extend free movement rights’, which includes closing down all detention centres, providing unconditional rights to family reunions, scrapping immigration targets and maintaining and extending free movement of peoples , including outside of the EU through facilitating an open-borders policy. It notes that Labour voted against specifically ending free movement (Public Bill Committee Immigration and Social Security Coordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill fifth sitting motion).

The Conservatives claim there are leaked Labour documents whereby Corbyn’s team have been reviewing ways of extending visa schemes to allow thousands of unskilled immigrants access to the UK. Finally the Conservative paper refers to immigration under the previous Labour Government where between 2003 and 2008 there was a 91% increase in employment levels accounted for by foreign nationals. Dods report that the Conservatives have been pulled up on their claims and Shadow Home Secretary Dianne Abbott stated it was “more fake news from the Conservative party’s make-believe research department”.

SNP

The SNP campaign focuses on the NHS and pledges an NHS protection Bill which “would explicitly prevent any future UK government from signing up to any agreement that made the NHS, in any part of the UK, a bargaining chip of any kind in any future trade deals”. This is in response to Trump’s interest in access to the NHS in a US/UK trade deal (which the Conservatives have strenuously denied). They also push for a second Scottish independence referendum. Labour who, should they be in a position to form a minority government would rely on the support of the SNP, have suggested they would permit another independent referendum however, Corbyn has been heavily criticised this week as he will not commit to a timeframe for it to be held.

Lots if interest groups will also publish their calls for policies:

MillionPlus have published their Manifesto entitled; The soaring twenties: investment, innovation and inclusion in UK higher education. They ask parliamentary candidates to commit to six key pledges that will boost the country by embracing, engaging and enhancing what modern universities have to offer to students and the economy. Key Pledges:

  • Increase current levels of investment in line with inflation and guarantee sustainable resourcing for universities to provide world-leading education for students
  • Restore maintenance grants for students from lower income backgrounds
  • Reform the student visa system to attract global talent to study across the UK
  • Invest 3% of GDP in research and innovation to boost our national productivity
  • Improve student financial support so mature and part-time students can better access higher education in a way that works for them
  • Recognise modern universities as being at the heart of technical education and pivotal providers for a skilled public service workforce

The British Academy has published a Manifesto for the Humanities and Social Sciences setting out 6 priorities for the Government to tackle. It includes supporting a sustainable HE sector and highlights that skilled arts, humanities and social science graduates fuel the service sector (80% of the economy) and asks for a funding system which maintains the breadth of subjects at both FE and HE. You can read the other priorities such a research environment and global talent here.

The final word

And the Institute for Fiscal Studies are warning the main parties about their ambitious spending pledges being made during this election campaign. Lord Gus O’Donnell, President of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, spoke on BBC R4 Today to explain that spending pledges could only be met by increased taxes. He said:

  • “When you look at the big capital spending increases – it’s about £50bn for Labour, £20bn for the Conservatives – do we have the capacity? The civil servants who are writing their briefing packs for the incoming ministers for various parties will be thinking, ‘well what could you spend this on’? ‘What’s, as it were, shovel ready? Will you get good value for money if you rush at it this quickly?’ So I think there’ll be lots of bottlenecks.”

Other news

Pay Gap: Thursday was Equal Pay Day where, due to the 13.1% pay gap, women have (on average) effectively stopped earning for the rest of the year. The Fawcett Society have launched a campaign today “right to know” which would allow women the right to have access to equivalent male counterparts salary details. They have a Bill drafted and will be pushing for MPs to introduce it in the new Parliament. The Lib Dems have also pledged to compel large companies to publish data on employment demographics for gender, BAME and LGBT employees.

Labour have pledged to eradicate the gender pay gap by 2030 through measures such as fines for organisations that fail to report on the subject, and by extending the reporting requirement from firms with 250 or more employees to those with more than 50.

Value for Money: HEPI have a new blog by Sir Nigel Carrington (VC, University of the Arts, London) on the multifaceted nature of value for money in degree provision. While this is a topic where we’ve regularly heard all the arguments this is a nice simple blog that brings the points together.

Multi-skilled engineers: IMechE have published an article, Adapt or Perish, on the growing trend (and challenge) of multidisciplinary engineering teams. The changing job market and AI revolution is creating a need for engineers to be technically fluent in a wider range of areas alongside collaboration and problem solving skills. Early-career engineers stated that they left university without skills such as coding and augmented reality, and that their degrees were often out of sync with the future needs of the industry.

The article states that embracing life-long learning will become a way of life for engineers at all career stages as new, disruptive technologies come into play. However, the research suggested that there is currently a mismatch between what higher education is delivering at masters level and what industry actually needs.

Italian or Chips?: This week’s best read has to be the (statistically modelled) article demonstrating how the Brexit leave / remain voting significantly correlates with the dominant type of fast food restaurant in the constituency area. Fish and Chips correlate with a leave vote, Italian with a remain. Without spoiling the amusement factor it is worth noting that Fish and Chips dominant constituencies also tend to be less diverse, and that the influence of holding a degree trumps all culinary effects. Worth a look at the map just to see the startlingly regional patterns in takeaway preference!

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

Business Engagement, Funding opportunities, HEIF, Industry collaboration, innovation, international, Knowledge Exchange, Student Engagement

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

Fresher loneliness

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

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

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

Sense of belonging

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

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

Preparation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Parliament is back

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

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

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

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

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

Fees and funding

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

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

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

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

Voter registration

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

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

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

KEF is coming – and more money for knowledge exchange

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

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

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

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

You can find more detail here: Research England

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

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

And on the academic juggle:

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

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

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

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

HE Data

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

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

OfS data – Changes in Healthcare Student Numbers

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

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

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

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

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

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

Students

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

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

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

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

HE Participation Stats

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

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

Widening Participation and Access

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Private Tuition

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

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

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

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

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

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

The next challenge – continuation

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

  • Ahead of… the publication of new statistics on access and participation by university regulator the Office for Students, Mr Williamson has underlined his determination to take action and ensure every student choosing to go to university – regardless of background – is supported to get the most out of the experience….[he will]…say that more needs to be done to make progress on access and participation at our world-class institutions. He will urge all universities to follow in the footsteps of institutions like Kings College and improve their offer for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The Education Secretary of State, Gavin Williamson, said:

  • It is not good enough that white working class boys are far less likely to go to university and black students are far less likely to complete their courses than others. We cannot let this wasted potential go unchecked any longer.
  • I want all universities, including the most selective, to do everything they can to help disadvantaged students access a world-class education, but they also need to keep them there and limit the numbers dropping out of courses. My message is clear – up your game and get on with it.

Universities Minister Chris Skidmore said:

  • Progress is being made to ensure that more disadvantaged young people are going to university than ever before, but it’s not enough to get students through the door – they must then get the right support to complete their courses too.
  • Dropouts will be a key focus of mine as Universities Minister and I will be watching carefully to see how universities respond to this challenge. I fully support the OfS in taking action if providers fail to do all they can to deliver their commitments.

The Government news story concludes:  The Government’s wide-ranging reforms to higher education has led to the publication of access and participation plans…The OfS will closely monitor all these providers to make sure they follow through on their plans.

UUK have responded to the speech – Julia Buckingham, UUK President, said: “there is more work to do” and called on the government to “quicken the progress” by “reintroducing maintenance grants for students most in need”.

Media coverage can be found in iNews and ITV.

Labour Party Conference

32 hour working week: At the Labour Party conference John McDonnell said the next Labour government will reduce the average full time working week to 32 hours within a decade. A shorter working week with no loss of pay. HEPI have a short new blog on what this might mean for university staff and whether it also applies to students who work long hours as part of their course load (medicine, health, architecture and education).

Abolishing Student Fees: Jim Dickinson from Wonkhe highlights the unknowns within Labour’s commitment to abolish student fees:

  • Blimey. Do you remember when the most interesting that happened at Labour Party Conference was Cherie Blair mouthing “the chancellor’s a liar” on her way out of Tony’s speech?
  • For higher education, the inclusion of “no fees” in Labour policy has never really been in doubt, and popped up several times in Brighton. The question is the deeper complexity – would existing debt be wiped? Would the unit of resource be protected? Would more students in England be discouraged from doing higher education in universities rather than FE colleges? What kinds of incentives will get the adults back? Will OfS be scrapped or reformed? The party is unforgivably vague or refreshingly open to ideas, depending on your perspective.
  • Labour’s Lifelong Learning Commission is expected to provide some answers, but has not produced its findings in time for conference. Gordon Marsden is furious that Gavin Williamson has announced subject TEF before the independent review has even been presented to Parliament. But given that every delegate agrees that the system is too “marketised”, the thorniest question was on student numbers. Say out loud that you’d have number caps and you look like an enemy of opportunity. Say you wouldn’t and you rule out the thing that has caused the intensification of competition in the first place. Marsden said neither, of course.

MillionPlus call for maintenance grants to be reinstated: Professor Lynn Dobbs, VC London Metropolitan University was a key speaker at a Labour fringe event. She said under a National Education Service (NES) a Labour government should restore student maintenance grants and guarantee investment, in order to deliver a well-funded tertiary education system for all. She said:

  • Guaranteeing sustainable investment across tertiary education can foster collaboration rather than competition between universities and colleges.
  • Shifting money around within education only moves problems from one part of the sector to the other, and from one set of students to other, does not address the critical issue of a real-terms reduction in investment in all of our students – none of us should EVER settle for that.

She urged for part-time and mature students to become a priority: The need to focus on part-time and mature students is much needed … Despite the populist narrative of ‘too many students’, fewer than 50% of 30 years olds in the UK have had the opportunity to experience any form of higher education – this is a low bar that we should be seeking to leap over. 

Abolishing Ofsted: There were tweets (and another tweet) and news stories from the Guardian and Politics Home on scrapping Ofsted to be replaced by a teaching standards support system. Angela Rayner: Schools will no longer be reduced to a one-word grade or subjected to a system that hounds teachers from the classroom. 

Further Education and the Fair Economy: The Social Market Foundation and the Further Education Trust for Leadership (FETL) ran the Further Education and the Fair Economy fringe event. The panel discussed further education and the opportunities it opened for elderly people, as well as disabled students. Time was also spent discussing the impact it had on social mobility and the future economy.

  • Chair James Kirkup, director, Social Market Foundation said that further education was pivotal to the future economy and insisted that politicians needed to increase their engagement in FE considerably.
  • Opinium’s research manager, Priya Minhas provided an overview of public perceptions of vocational qualifications, noting that they were well perceived in terms of practicality. However, she noted that most people saw university degrees as more useful for future careers and linked university education with more than just a skillset – they had an intellectual and social aspect too. Yet, vocational qualifications did have a reputation for helping people get into a job. She discussed the potential for “Nimbyism”, wherein people spoke positively about vocational qualifications but would not want them for their own child. However, the data did not simply support this hypothesis.
  • Lord Bassam of Brighton expressed disappointment at the gradual erosion of funding for FE, which had served to destabilise the sector and restrict access to FE for many people. He praised the Augar Review and said that it was through the review that the Government had realised that they needed to improve their work in the sector. He concluded by emphasising that if the Government truly believed in improving the quality of manufacturing in the UK, then it needed to increase support for FE.
  • Caireen Mitchell of Croydon College said that many colleges, including her own, had been forced into mergers due to financial pressures. She welcomed the announcement of £400m for the FE sector but said that far more was required. The implications of the funding shortage could be extensive, with far lower hours for a “full-time” programme compared to other European countries the primary concern for Mitchell. She also noted that health and mental health support was stretched, and extra-curricular activities were being slashed in favour of other priorities. The college could provide qualifications, Mitchell said, but a wider breadth of education was simply not possible. She linked the lack of funding to a lack of social mobility and productivity, with many low-income students unable to afford to continue in education. She said people on low-incomes needed free access to a rounded education, including subjects that were not “core” such as English and Maths.
  • Gordon Marsden MP (Shadow Minister for HE, FE & Skills) referenced the House of Lords Committee on seaside towns, noting the challenges that people in those areas had in accessing higher education and said that the educational challenges in those areas was “palpable”…The economic and political context was that skills were no longer siloed – the rise of technology meant that skillsets were far more fluid and varied than before. This, Marsden believed, made FE more vital than ever.
  • A representative from the Deaf Children’s Society noted that FE was often a better route for disabled children and asked what more could be done to assist disabled people get the careers they wanted. Gordon Marsden said that Labour had wanted to make provisions in law to put a special emphasis on disabilities generally in education and apprenticeships. The Government had not been willing to work with them so far, he said.

Immigration – What should be in Labour’s manifesto?: The session focussed on immigration policies as a whole and didn’t specifically cover HE.

  • Shadow home secretary Diane Abbot said that there was a lot of interest in immigration and that (following her own experience working in the Home Office after university) it was essential that the culture of the Home Office changed and the language it was having around migration. She highlighted a poll which suggested that in the last few years the UK had had an increasingly positive view of the benefits of immigration, with a poll this year showing that 22% of people believed immigration provided a net benefit to the UK.
  • Abbot said that Labour would look to unpick those policies introduced by both Labour and Conservative governments that tied into the hostile environment, principally that immigrants could not have access to resources once in the UK. Labour would not seek to impose salary limits for access to the UK as the £30,000 figure excluded valued professions like nurses. And that Labour would also entitle family members to join people already in the UK.
  •  Abbot criticised the Home Secretary’s commitment to end freedom of movement from day one and explained that it had to be reserved quickly because it was illegal. Abbot said that Labour would take a more liberal approach to immigration which she said had become increasingly popular.
  • Thom Brooks, professor at Durham University, offered his views on immigration, stating that an EU citizen amnesty should be introduced because the current EU settlement scheme was inadequate. He said he would like the 2014 Immigration Act to be repealed and reviewed with the view that immigration was positive for the UK overall. He also said that the Migration Advisory Committee was too small and should be expanded so there would be more expertise. He called for a Royal Commission to be conducted on immigration, which could form the basis of future immigration policies.
  • Kate Green, chair of the APPG on Migration, said that Ministers in the Home Office should be giving their civil servants a positive message about immigration and affirmed that immigration should be viewed as being beneficial to the UK. Green said that migration would rise across the world because of conflict and climate change and said that it was a shame the UK was leaving the EU because this was an important institution the UK could use to influence global issues.

Industrial Strategy, Skilled Jobs and Education; Run by the Fabian Society and the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry this event focused on assessing on how places, communities and regions can all see good work grow. The panel questioned what methods can be undertaken to ensure not only high employment, but also high skilled jobs. There was consensus that stronger regional strategy for providing skilled jobs is needed but also a strategy which guarantees that jobs remain “good” with the implementation of automation and new technology.

Shadow Minister for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Chi Onwurah MP opened the discussion on the topic of skilled jobs everywhere which she said is driving part of the industrial strategy. [Note – Labour have their own version of the Industrial Strategy.]  Key points are:

  • strong cross sector investment and a strong focus on investing in infrastructure so that people have sufficient access to jobs.
  • delivering skilled jobs as part of an industrial strategy, this would allow for some divisions to be healed amongst regions, prosperity would be delivered
  • innovation needs to be a part of the “cultural DNA of our country” and the UK needs to become an “innovation nation”; if this remains a key goal then access to skilled jobs can be broadened to those who are currently excluded
  • there should be the implementation of a National Education Service that champions adult education and enables people to reskill.
  • both the industrial strategy and education strategy should be combined and work alongside each other so that individuals can “realise their dreams”.
  • international talent is vitally important and even those who earn less than £30,000 should have access to work in the UK

Labour’s Anti-Private Schooling Motion:  At the Labour Party Conference a motion was passed intending to dismantle the private school system should Labour win the next general election. Previously Labour said they intended to close the tax loopholes available to elite private schools, redistributing this money to ‘improve the lives of all children’.  However, the motion, spearheaded by the Momentum faction, said the next Labour manifesto should include a: “commitment to integrate all private schools into the state sector…[and]…withdrawal of charitable status and all other public subsidies and tax privileges, including business rate exemption. Plus: “endowments, investments and properties held by private schools to be redistributed democratically and fairly across the country’s educational institutions”.  It also said that universities only admit 7% of students from private schools, to reflect the proportion of all pupils who attend them. More details are in this Politics Home article. Laura Parker, Momentum’s national co-ordinator, said: “This is a huge step forward in dismantling the privilege of a tiny, Eton-educated elite who are running our country into the ground.

The Letters to the Editor of the Times on Labour’s proposed abolition of private schools provide some interesting questions on how beneficial it would be to society to carry this policy through.

From the Labour NASUWT fringe event on valuing teachers:

  • Dr Patrick Roach, Deputy General Secretary of NASUWT – in some instances, teachers only had a single GCSE in the subject area they were responsible for, which had led, he added, to a culture where “as long as you are one-page ahead in the textbook of the pupils that you are teaching then that is good enough.” He lamented that this is not good enough.
  • Mike Kane, shadow schools minister, said that the Labour Party would bring an end to “toxic testing” and ensure that teachers had proper qualifications in a bid to bring “hope” back to the profession. He proceeded by highlighting how Conservative cuts to university budgets and training courses had led to an influx of unqualified teachers entering schools. He said “far too many teachers in our system are absolutely unqualified. It isn’t a profession, it is becoming more of a trade which you learn on the job”. Kane continued emphasising that forcing teachers to “teach to the test” coupled with a litany of legislation had resulted in plummeting morale.

The Class Ceiling: Barriers to Social Mobility in the UK today.  This event run by Demos and The Investment Association focused on the challenges facing social mobility today. In particular, how aspirations, access to jobs and attitudes can be altered amongst those who have the least opportunity and come from backgrounds that traditionally limits how far people go in life.

  •  Duncan Exley, former director of the Equality Trust, said that during the 20th Century there was more social mobility than in the 21st Century with the odds now greater that individuals will have a lower level job than their parents. He also said that no matter how much individuals are trained and educated, there needs to be an increase in supply of good jobs and homes if social mobility is going to occur. Finally, Exley said that there is a need to support collective wellbeing to encourage social mobility, as this in turn unleashes individual opportunity.
  • Claire Ainsley, Executive Director Joseph Rowntree Foundation said that the perceived social mobility problem is particularly worrying – younger people are less likely to believe that it is hard work and talents that gets them on in life, as most see background and parents as responsible for where they end up. Ainsley argued that this is a problem that needs to be tackled if levels of social mobility are going to improve. She continued that in order to properly address social mobility problems, bright young people from deprived backgrounds aren’t the only ones that need to be given attention, but maybe those who are older too; the lens on social barriers and mobility needs to shift.
  • Seema Malhotra, MP for Feltham and Heston, framed her remarks on social mobility about “creating conditions for success”. She said that there needs to be an increased readiness to learn amongst people, the opportunity to dream and a desire to achieve. Malhotra commented that not only do attitudes towards young people need to change if social mobility is to improve, but she also said that attitudes within families and communities that traditionally hold people back when there is an attempt to create opportunity need to be altered. She explained that young people are experiencing cumulative impact effects, whereby they are absorbing their parents’ anxieties about housing and this in turn is limiting their own mobility; Malhotra attributed this whole issue to poverty and austerity. Malhotra discussed what she called “the pillars of prosperity” –  she said that the education system needs to create conditions for success and that the levers and relationships within communities and society need to assist in creating opportunity.  To conclude she spoke on how there is a “fundamental” issue about human flourishing and providing mechanisms that support this; this is something that must start early in life and should be sustained if social mobility is to improve. Whilst this isn’t really a policy goal currently, she argued that it should be a central approach to the creation of policy.
  • CEO of the Investment Association, Chris Cummings, said industry should be prioritizing ‘potential’ over ‘polish’. Cummings said that financial services specifically has a bad habit of employing the “best” people – those that have good academic qualifications, perform very well at interview and have a high degree of social capital. However, Cummings said that this often leads to a “group thinking” attitude, instead of prioritizing diversity of thought, which in turn can be highly beneficial, and give overall better outcomes and returns. He said that if industry isn’t diverse in the way it thinks then decisions can often become constrained. Cummings described his own organisation as implementing an hour glass model, rather than a pyramid, to provide opportunity to those who can bring a “different dimension” to the world of work.

Labour’s cradle to grave careers service and the quality of careers advice was also discussed.

A guest blog from SUBU

Our guest blog series by Sophie Bradfield of SUBU continues this week

With a new cohort of students joining us this week, Unite’s recent report with HEPI on ‘The New Realists’ can help us gain some insights about prospective students, students enrolling and already enrolled at BU.  The aim of the report is to “investigate young people’s transition to university, their expectations and their experiences in the first year, looking at both academic and non-academic aspects.” There are 4 stages to the research: desk research, online communities, friendship triads, and a quantitative survey. (You can download the full methodology here). Respondents are diverse with a range of genders, nationalities, ethnicities, grades achieved, sexualities and abilities, ensuring a reflective view of the student mind set. 5,108 students were surveyed, with a fairly even split between applicants (2,535) and first year students (2,573). The majority of these respondents are in the 16-19 age bracket (86%) with the remaining 14% in 20+ age bracket. The report has 3 key themes which I have unpicked below.

Key Theme 1: University Provides a Bridge to a Stable Future

One of the key findings from the report is the general belief carried by generation Z that University is a way to foster stability in an unstable world where their futures are otherwise uncertain. 69% of respondents agreed “going to University is the only way to make sure I’ll get the life I want”. 68% felt they would face more challenges than their parents in becoming successful in life which may be because 59% felt there is more “chaos and risk in the world than there was 20 years ago”. ‘Independent but not adults’ is a term used in the report to explain how students felt. I’ve heard BU students refer to themselves as feeling ‘adultish’ which links to the findings of this report and shows how widespread it is. University is a place where students can try new things, challenge themselves and develop their future selves. For many students, University is a key development time to ‘become adults’.

Key Theme 2: Students are more Diverse than ever

The report finds that more than ever, students have diverse individual identities dispelling the myth that there is a ‘typical student’. For example over a fifth (22%) of students in the research study identified as being teetotal, demonstrating a shift away from the drinking culture often associated with the student experience. As noted in the report, this means it is essential that students are continuously listened to so their education experience meets their needs.

With the research depicting a rise in students declaring a disability (including mental health); a higher proportion of Black and Minority Ethnic students (BAME); a rise in students from lower participation neighbourhoods; and a higher proportion of students identifying as LGBT+, higher education institutions are fantastically diverse places for students to develop and grow as open-minded and progressive individuals. Nevertheless, the report finds that respondents from minority and under-represented groups are slightly less likely to see themselves as successful which shows there is still some way to go to level the playing-field for all students, through empowerment and liberation.

The report also finds that over 80% of respondents combined either don’t follow trends or don’t pay attention. We can see this in the political world too; 40% of respondents didn’t identify with a particular political party. Labour came top being supported by 19% of respondents, followed by 8% supporting the Green party; 7% the Conservatives and the remaining gaining 1-3%. We’ve seen this move away from tribal politics over the last few decades but these latest results show how pertinent it will be for political parties to attract the student vote in the anticipated General Election.

Key Theme 3: Peers Play a Pivotal Role in a Successful Student Experience

The report asks students about successful aspects of their student experience.

In SUBU we’ve been asking BU students a similar question for the last 7 years in an annual student experience survey: ‘When you graduate from BU, what are the 3 most important things that will determine whether your time at BU has been as good as it could have been for you?’ With an open text response, students have always chosen the same three themes: Degree Grade, Friends Made; and Employability Prospects. This shows similar themes to the Unite report above.

The report finds that the majority of students report feeling lonely occasionally with a further 22% saying they feel lonely often and 4% saying they feel lonely all the time. The BBC loneliness experiment reported in 2018 found a higher proportion of 16-24 year olds were lonely compared with the oldest in society. Wonkhe reported on this issue earlier in the year too making the link between loneliness, student activities and mental wellbeing. The Unite report also shows that students understand that they can increase their wellbeing through socialising, making friends and taking part in activities, demonstrating the importance of balancing the academic experience with the non-academic experience whilst at University. ‘Freshers’ Week’ events are highlighted as specifically making a positive difference to the experience of students who are estranged from their parents or have been in care. Yet, more can be done ‘to help students connect, make friends and integrate when they first come to University’.

The research shows that students feel ‘pressure to solve their own problems independently or with peers’ connected to ‘transitioning to adult life’. This belief is reflected in their approach to mental health too as despite an increase in students identifying as having a mental health condition, many want to manage it themselves rather than seeking support from University services. Only half of students report their condition to their University and trust their peers far more than their University to reach out to for support. The report found that 47% of respondents considered their mental health condition to be part of who they are, forming part of their identity, however 46% also acknowledge there is still a stigma around mental health. This reluctance to seek support due to stigma and trust is something that continues to be a key area for Universities’ to address in the midst of an ongoing national debate about whose responsibility it is to ensure students get support for mental health issues.

Conclusions

The Unite/HEPI report highlights some very interesting insights from the student perspective, some of which are detailed above. Ultimately it all relates to conversations around transitions and support. There has been lots of research and work around improving the transition of students into University, for example Michelle Morgan developed the Student Engagement Transitions Model for Practitioners to demonstrate the importance of transition at all stages of University. This Unite report highlights this too; the whole University experience is a transitionary experience for many students into ‘adulthood’. As director of HEPI Nick Hillman notes, “Today’s students are not, in the main, going to university because they want to be rich; they are going because they want to absorb the lifelong transferable benefits that degrees continue to confer.” Therefore it seems Universities and Students’ Unions should continue to do all they can to shape and nurture a diverse and malleable University community for students to share, experiment and grow into progressive, engaged citizens of the future.

Inquiries and Consultations

Click here to view the updated inquiries and consultation tracker. There aren’t any new inquiries and consultations this week however, email us on policy@bournemouth.ac.uk if you’d like to contribute to any of the open inquiries or consultations.

Other news

Climate Change Funding: At the United Nations General Assembly on Monday PM Boris announced £1 billion aid funding to develop and test new technology targeted at tackling climate change in developing countries. The innovative new Ayrton Fund to give developing countries access to the latest cutting-edge tech to help reduce their emissions and meet global climate change targets.

The UK is home to some of the world’s best innovators in clean energy technology. Through the Ayrton Fund they and other scientists from around the world can work in partnership with developing countries to transform their energy sectors and reduce emissions by:

  • providing affordable access to electricity for some of the 1 billion people who are still off the grid, including through innovative solar technology for their homes
  • enhancing large-scale battery technology to replace polluting diesel generators and ensure clean energy can be stored and not lost
  • designing clean stoves like electric pressure cookers for some of the 2.7 billion people who still rely on firewood – with the smoke damaging their health as well as the environment
  • working with factories in major polluting industries like iron and steel, petrochemicals and cement to reduce their carbon output
  • improving the technology behind cooling systems so energy isn’t wasted – residential air conditioning alone is expected to raise global temperatures by 0.5°C in the years ahead; and
  • designing low-emission and electric vehicles to cut pollution and make transport systems cleaner and greener

Meanwhile Labour seem to have interwoven the environmental crisis through all their policy areas during their Party Conference this week. For example, when speaking of planned NHS reforms they said their: Green New Deal for our NHS – A Labour government will deliver the greenest health service in the world. As we rebuild our hospitals we’ll invest in solar panels and energy efficiency schemes. We’ll move to a fleet of low emission ambulances. And we’ll guarantee patients and staff a right to green space with an ‘NHS Forest’ – 1 million trees planted across our NHS estate – a tree for every member of staff.

Graduate Employment: The Times describe the biggest graduate recruiters in Top 100 Graduate Employers: bright young things flock to prison careers. In 2019 the Civil Service was the biggest graduate recruiter followed by PwC, Aldi, Google and the NHS. You’ll need to follow another link to find out about the variety of work within the prison service, however, this article talks about how young designers are influencing the prison environment.  And WONKHE have a quick and interesting new blog: Who is responsible for getting a graduate a graduate level job.

Positivity towards TEF (or not): Steven Jones (Manchester) speaks of how to harness TEF for positive gains during the SRHE conference:

  • [The Conference] was full of new ideas. Opposition to metrics wasn’t based on change-resistance and ideological stubbornness. Indeed…we urgently need to measure, understand and close differential attainment gaps in many areas, such as ethnicity. But there was consensus that current proxies for ‘excellence’ were incomplete, and creative thoughts about how they could be complemented. What about capturing graduates’ long-term well-being instead of their short-term satisfaction? Or encouraging institutions to develop their own frameworks based on their specific mission and their students’ needs? How about structural incentives for collaboration rather than competition? And a focus on teaching processes, not teaching outcomes?
  • The argument that the TEF is less about changing pedagogies than manipulating wider discourses shouldn’t bring any comfort to the sector. I tried to show how the dominant logic of teaching excellence primes the sector for more fundamental policy shifts, such as for-profit providers receiving taxpayer subsidy on pedagogical grounds. One delegate spoke to me at the end of the event to offer another example, explaining how employability-minded managers within his institution were squeezing out critical engagement with cultural theory to allow for further skills-based, professional training. The TEF may not change practice directly, but it retains the power to nudge the sector away from its core public roles towards more privatised and instrumental practices.
  • The challenge for us is to articulate a confident and robust defence of all kinds of university teaching. We need to explain how our pedagogies bring lifelong gains both to our students and to wider society, even if initial encounters can be difficult and unsettling. Policy has taken us a long way down the market’s cul-de-sac, but what’s reassuring is that we’re now moving on from TEF-bashing towards a coherent counter-narrative. This event confirmed that universities have more meaningful things to crow about than their fleeting goldenness against a bunch of false proxies.

Apprenticeships Access: The OU surveyed 700 employers in England and have published their Access to Apprenticeships report. Wonkhe describe the report contents: [the report]

  • concludes that many employers need more funding, training and information to support apprentices with declared disabilities. 24 per cent of companies surveyed find it challenging to fund training and development for apprentices with disabilities and 34 per cent of employers surveyed report an increase in entry-level applications from people with declared mental health conditions.
  • The report recommends that the government support employers through providing clearer guidance around hiring apprentices with disabilities, urges the Department for Education to simplify its funding model for providing additional learning support, and advocates the introduction of a training programme for employers recruiting apprentices with disabilities – akin to a Mental Health First Aid course.

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

HE policy update for the w/e 28th June 2019

international, Student Engagement

Although after the frantic weeks in early Spring we seem now to be in a political limbo, when nothing is achieved except an escalation in rhetoric and an increase in polarisation, actually, there’s quite a lot going on.  Some of it looks like political legacy building, but hey, if it works…

Sharing access to health and social research in the UK

BU is gathering views internally on the consultation “Make it Public” by the Health Research Authority.  Responses to an internal survey will inform BU’s institutional response.

The HRA’s consultation gives everyone involved an opportunity to influence the Health Research Authority’s future strategy to improve public access to information about health and social research in the UK. Please read the strategy before you answer the questions.

The BU survey is anonymous, however we have asked about your role at BU to inform our response. We have taken the content and questions directly from the HRA’s consultation. Please take time to complete it if you have experience in this area.

New Commission for Students with Disabilities

The Minster has announced a new body to speak out for students with disabilities…or actually, has renamed an existing group and confirmed he supports its work. Chris Skidmore announces new Commission to improve support for disabled students: 27th June 2019.  The OfS is setting it up:  [The Minister] ”has instructed the Commission to identify and promote good practice which helps those with disabilities have a positive experience at university. The Commission, formerly Disabled Students’ Sector Leadership Group (DSSLG), will use the DSSLG’s existing guidance for providers on supporting disabled students inclusively and look at what more needs to be done.”

Universities Minister Chris Skidmore said:

  • Living with a disability should never be a barrier to entering higher education and as Universities Minister, I am determined to ensure disabled students get the support they need to have a positive, life-changing university experience.
  • There are a record number of students with a disability going to university, but we must do more to level the playing field and improve the experience and outcomes for disabled students.
  • It’s my personal priority that those living with a disability have an equal chance to succeed in higher education. I want to see all universities face up to their responsibilities and place inclusion at the heart of their access and participation agenda.
  • The Commission will look at approaches which work well to improve support for disabled students, such as more inclusive curricula, restructuring support for students and enhancing learning and teaching environments.

Brexit

All those who backed Boris on the basis that he would flunk a hard Brexit (eg George Osborne at the Evening Standard) seem to have their bluff called.  This week Boris Johnson has written to Jeremy Hunt saying that leaving on 31st October is a “do or die” thing.  So it looks like he has been nobbled by the Brexiteers , perhaps spooked by the reaction stories of his private life into thinking that his lead with the membership was slipping away.  He looks pretty committed now.  But he has also made lots of speeches suggesting it is all going to be very straightforward….(there’s a million to one chance of not getting a deal, apparently).

Jeremy Hunt meanwhile has refused to make such a robust commitment but continues to challenge Boris on a number of fronts and to present himself as the experienced negotiator.

Both of them sound like the US President from time to time. And they are both making huge spending commitments.  They were both at the Pavilion on Thursday evening, and the local news showed Boris giving BU a tiny plug and also repeating his commitment (as we noted last week) to removing international students from the immigration cap.

Last week we talked about the possibilities for recess being cancelled – that seems unlikely, so we are likely to have an announcement of the new PM on 22nd July, a frantic couple of days in Parliament and then a recess that will probably end earlier than usual, with EU negotiations taking place in the background – if they can find anyone to negotiate with in what is likely to be a long hot European summer.

Local MP Tobias Ellwood was mentioned on Monday’s Radio 4 Today programme talking about the ‘nuclear’ Brexit option of taking down Boris Johnson’s Government through a vote of no confidence should he intend to push through a no deal Brexit to ensure exit from the EU on 31 October. Tobias states a group of 12 backbencher and ministerial Conservatives are already in talks and prepared to risk their careers, including losing their Conservative candidacy, to bring Boris premiership down if he pursues a no deal Brexit. This would be done either through ministers joining backbencher dissidents to vote against the Government (and party whip) or a larger group of MPs abstaining en masse so the Government loses the vote. Tobias also featured on BBC’s Panorama programme talking about this potential rebellion. If the Government lost a no confidence vote it would pave the way for a general election.

REF

Research England have published the Real-Time REF Review evaluating perceptions and attitudes towards the Research Excellence Framework (REF).

  • Views on the REF are not as polarized or as extreme as is commonly believed, or reflected in coverage of the REF in the media. Extremely negative views were in the minority, while a majority of respondents had neutral or moderately negative attitudes about the REF.
  • REF has both positive and negative influences on research activity. The REF is seen to increase engagement outside academia and the use of open research activities, whereas game playing and impacts on creativity are deemed to be the most negative influences.
  • Open access and research practices was the most consistently positive and impactful influence of the REF on both researchers’ own work and UK academic culture. Survey data suggested the move to encourage more open research practices was seen as the most positive change in REF 2021.
  • Researchers generally saw the changes to REF 2021 in a positive light. Increased emphasis on open research practices was seen as the most positive change.
  • It may be fruitful for institutions to share best practices in REF readiness rather than attempting to ‘reinvent the wheel’ as the REF process approaches the submission stage and as the new rules are more widely embedded

And interestingly:

  • Notably, women and independent early and mid-career researchers reported that changes made to REF 2021 were more likely to influence the expectations placed on them, although it was not clear whether these changing expectations would be positive or negative ones. The finding that early-career researchers report more influence is consistent with interviews, in which managers highlighted a disproportionate influence of the REF on early-career academics. The difference across genders is also noteworthy and merits future consideration
  • Although not assessed in the survey data, analysis of the interviews conducted with university managers revealed some negative impacts upon the health and well-being of the research community with respect to the REF. With respect to the changes to REF 2021 where equality and diversity considerations are taken more plainly into account, most managers felt that this would have a positive impact upon the well-being of academics for whom equality and diversity issues were faced in the previous REF 2014. Analysis suggests that the new approaches to equality and diversity and reduction in outputs may lessen anxiety and stress caused by the rules of the previous REF cycle.
  • However, notable findings are: that those who identified as submitting to Panel B – engineering and physical sciences – reported the most beneficial influences on research activities in academic culture, and that those from Panel D – arts and humanities – reported the least beneficial influence of the REF on research activities.
  • Further, in survey data, Panel C participants reported a greater influence of the REF on the quantity, quality, scope, and prestige of outputs they produced. This may suggest a challenge to meet expectations of the REF, particularly as interdisciplinary research is often located within this group of cognate disciplines.

Immigration

Home Secretary Sajid Javid formally requested the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) to review and advise on salary thresholds for the 2021 immigration system. All the details remain as we’ve already informed in previous policy updates, this simply triggers the requirement for the MAC to carry out the review (again) and report back to the Government in January 2020.

Sajid stated: “It’s vital the new immigration system continues to attract talented people to grow our economy and support business while controlling our borders. These proposals are the biggest change to our immigration system in a generation, so it’s right that we consider all of the evidence before finalising them. That’s why I’ve asked independent experts to review the evidence on salary thresholds. It’s crucial the new immigration system works in the best interests of the whole of the UK.”

In their last review the MAC advised the Government to continue with the existing minimum salary thresholds for the future immigration system. This means international entrants would need to be paid at least £30,000 (for an ‘experienced’ role) and new entrants (including recent graduates) at least £20,800.

The new review asks the MAC to

  • consider how future salary thresholds should be calculated
  • what levels to set salary thresholds at
  • If there is a case for regional salary thresholds for different parts of the UK
  • whether there should be exceptions to salary thresholds, e.g. newly started occupations or work shortage occupations.

Free Speech

HEPI have published Free Speech and Censorship on Campus defending free speech in Universities.

  • HEPI say:the report recognises the concerns of those who wish to restrict free speech as a way of protecting others, but concludes that restrictions on free speech usually end up being counter-productive. Despite the UK’s Government’s strong rhetoric supporting free speech in universities, the paper claims the current single biggest threat to free speech on UK campuses currently comes from the Government’s own Prevent programme.
  • Corey Stoughton, the author of the report, states:“…honest confrontation of legacies of discrimination and unequal distribution of power allow us to see how censorship replicates those problems and to focus on the real threats – like the UK Government’s ill-conceived Prevent strategy, which has had a demonstrable chilling effect on free speech in universities.”
  • Nick Hillman, Director of HEPI, said:  ‘We are delighted to be publishing this nuanced but firm defence of free speech. It challenges students, universities and, above all, Government Ministers to be more careful when they are tempted to impose new restrictions on free expression.There are few justifications for limiting free speech beyond current laws. That is true whether it is students wanting to block provocateurs from speaking or Government Ministers mixing up the prevention of terrorism with blocking legitimate free expression.’

Raising aspirations

In a debate on raising aspirations of secondary school pupils Dr Matthew Offord MP (Conservative) urged the Government not to view academic and technical education routes as two simplistic alternatives. He insisted that permeability and flexibility between different types of learning, throughout the academic journey would be crucial in underpinning increased social mobility and productivity. He also argued that HEIs must develop an understanding of T-levels to communicate entry requirements to prospective students and level 3 providers. He pushed the Government to drive collaboration between schools, universities and local Government. To raise aspirations within school age pupils he set out three elements to be addressed:

  • interventions that focus on children’s parents and families
  • interventions that focus on teaching practice
  • out-of-school interventions or extracurricular activities

Shadow HE Minister Gordon Marsden (Labour) suggested the Government should pursue sustained and dedicated programmes, with children from a much earlier age, and with particular social and ethnic groupings. He also argued for the need to enact a robust, independent and wide-ranging review of admissions processes to higher education, removing unconditional offers and investigating the value of post-qualification admissions.

Nick Gibb (Minister for School Standards) stated “For the good of our economy, we need more young people to pursue degrees and careers in the sciences, including computer science. We have already seen excellent progress, with entries to STEM A-levels increasing by 23% since 2010”. The Minister reassured members that views expressed during the debate had been taken into account as part of the Post-16 review process.

Staff Mental Health

Q – Sir Mark Hendrick: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the report by the Higher Education Policy Institute entitled Pressure Vessels: The epidemic of poor mental health among higher education staff, what assessment he has made of the reasons behind the increase in poor mental health among academics and the increasing numbers of university staff being referred to counselling and occupational health services.

A – Chris Skidmore:

  • Mental health is a priority for this government which is why last week (17 June 2019) my right hon. Friend, the Prime Minister announced measures which overhaul the government’s approach to preventing mental illness. These measures include £1 million to the Office of Students for a competition to find innovative new ways to support mental health at universities and colleges.
  • The Department for Education is also working closely with Universities UK on embedding the Step Change programme, which calls on higher education leaders to adopt mental health as a strategic priority and take a whole-institution approach to embed a culture of good mental health practice.
  • The university Mental Health Charter announced in June 2018 will drive up standards in promoting mental health and wellbeing, positive working environments and excellent support for both students and staff.
  • The Independent Review of the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers led by Professor Julia Buckingham has recognised issues of wellbeing and the challenges that arise from the use of short and fixed term contracts. Recommendations are currently under review and a revised concordat is expected by the end of June.
  • However, universities are autonomous institutions and it is the responsibility of Vice Chancellors to give due consideration to the way their policies and practises impact on staff. This includes responsible use of performance management, workload models and other metrics to assure both student and staff success.

Changing nature of future work

The Learning and Work Institute has published Tomorrow’s World – Future of the Labour Market highlighting the shifts in employment culture and adaptive skills that young people will need for the future labour market. It suggests that young people will be increasingly likely to be self-employed, in busier jobs, need to adapt and more frequently update their skills because of the pace of technological changes and their longer working lives (50 years due to higher retirement age).

Some points from the report:

Young people will need a rising bar of skills needs and a wider pool of skills to enter and progress at work and to adapt to change. Changes in sectors and occupations, coupled with changes within existing jobs, imply an increased demand for interpersonal skills, cognitive skills, customer and personal service, English language, literacy, numeracy, digital, communication, team working, and management.

  1. A more diverse range of young people will participate in the labour market, with further increases in participation among women, people with disabilities, and other groups. This makes it even more important to tackle education and employment inequalities among young people, or these will have long-lasting impacts.
  • Higher occupations and sectors such as health and social care are likely to continue to grow, and the nature of work will continue to change.
  • There will be more opportunities for young people to work flexibly, with policy helping determine if this benefits both people and employers. Employment laws and the tax and benefit system need to support flexibility and security for young people. More workers in the workforce with caring responsibilities means employers will need to offer more flexible options. 
  • Longer working lives and economic change mean young people will need to be adaptable and flexible. A wider and deeper core set of skills will help young people adapt. Learning and social security systems must reflect this ‘new normal’.

Stephen Evans, Chief Executive of the Learning and Work Institute, stated:

“Young people are going to face huge changes during 50 year careers. Attention often focuses on the risk of robots replacing jobs, but further growth in self-employment and changing skills requirements in most jobs could perhaps have bigger impacts. Young people must get the support they need to prepare for this future. It is no good just focusing on the skills needed for jobs today, we also need to give young people the skills they need to adapt to future changes, many of which cannot be predicted accurately.”

Social Mobility

The Sutton Trust has published Elitist Britain 2019.

The nature of Britain’s ‘elite’ is higher in the national consciousness than ever, with a series of events, including 2016’s vote to leave the European Union, putting a focus on the strained trust between significant sections of the population and those at the highest levels of politics, business and the media.

Social mobility across the UK is low and not improving, depriving large parts of the country of opportunity. This contributes strongly to this sense of distance. This study, conducted for the first time by both the Sutton Trust and the Social Mobility Commission, looks at the backgrounds of around 5,000 individuals in high ranking positions across a broad range of British society, and provides a definitive document of who gets to the top in Britain in 2019.

The report paints a picture of a country whose power structures remain dominated by a narrow section of the population: the 7% who attend independent schools, and the roughly 1% who graduate from just two universities, Oxford and Cambridge.

Key findings:

  • Politics, the media, and public service all show high proportions of privately educated in their number, including 65% of senior judges, 59% of civil service permanent secretaries and 57% of the House of Lords.
  • 39% of the cabinet were independently educated, in stark contrast with the shadow cabinet, of which just 9% attended a private school.

However:

  • Significant is decline of grammar school alumni among the elite (20%), down about 7 percentage points in five years, and a consequent rise in those educated at comprehensives (40%, up 9%). This reflects the abolition of the selective system in most of England during the 1960s and 70s, and the rise of the comprehensively educated generation to positions of power.

Access to professions

  • Law, defence and the academic world had the highest level of these “elites”.
  • University Vice Chancellors had relatively low levels of private school and Oxbridge educated members among their number
  • Media – Britain’s media, including newspaper columnists, and high-profile editors and broadcasters, had some of the highest rates of attendance at independent schools and elite higher education institutions. Newspaper columnists, who play a significant role in shaping the national conversation, draw from a particularly small pool. Only 5% of newspaper columnists attended a non-Russell Group University.
  • Police and Crime Commissioners were more likely than those elected at local council level to have attended independent school, 29%, the same as MPs.
  • Civil service permanent secretaries (59%), Foreign Office diplomats (52%), and Public Body Chairs (45%) have among the highest rates of independently educated in their ranks. Despite recent efforts to overhaul entry into the Civil Service, its highest levels remain highly exclusive, with 56% of permanent secretaries having graduated from Oxford or Cambridge, and 39% having attended both a private school and Oxbridge.
  • The chairs of public bodies were more likely than their CEOs to have come from exclusive educational institutions; 45% from independent schools compared to 30%. This may reflect the age of such post-holders as well as their social class background.
  • Women are under-represented across the top professions (5% of FTSE 350 CEOs, 16% of local government leaders, 24% of senior judges, 26% of permanent secretaries and 35% of top diplomats). Socio-economic class and gender can often combine to create a ‘double disadvantage’, with women from lower socio-economic backgrounds less likely to be socially mobile. Interestingly for women who do make it to the top, their journeys do not always look the same as those of their male peers. In a variety of sectors, women at the top are less likely to have attended Oxbridge than their male counterparts.
  • The Creative Industries had the lowest levels of these groups; however, among the wealthiest members of the TV, film and music industries, university attendance was higher (42%), with about a quarter attending Russell Group institutions. Also 38% of independent school attendees, although the number attending comprehensives has risen by 18% since 2014.

Policy recommendations from the report:

Sir Peter Lampl, Chairman of the Sutton Trust and the Education Endowment Foundation, stated:

“Britain is an increasingly divided society. Divided by politics, by class, by geography. Social mobility, the potential for those to achieve success regardless of their background, remains low. As our report shows, the most influential people across sport, politics, the media, film and TV, are five times as likely to have attended a fee-paying school.

“As well as academic achievement an independent education tends to develop essential skills such as confidence, articulacy and team work which are vital to career success. The key to improving social mobility at the top is to tackle financial barriers, adopt contextual recruitment and admissions practices and tackle social segregation in schools.  In addition, we should open up independent day schools to all pupils based on merit not money as demonstrated by our successful Open Access scheme.”

The Association of School and College Leaders released this statement:

“We need to do many things to break this cycle but a good start would be for universities and industry to do more to recognise the background of candidates through the greater use of contextual recruitment and admissions practices, as the report recommends.

Industrial Strategy developments – tourism sector deal

The government have published the Tourism sector deal  – the latest in a string of sector specific plans linked to the Industrial Strategy.  They have also published an International Business Events Action Plan outlines how government will support the events industry in attracting, growing and creating international business events.

We have pulled out the actions from the sector deal below:

People

  • The government will work closely with industry on the rollout of two new T Level courses to help deliver the hospitality and tourism workers of the future.
  • The government will continue working with industry, through ‘Fire It Up’ and other campaigns, to promote apprenticeship and the opportunities for careers in the hospitality and tourism sector.
  • The government will engage fully with industry during its Post-16 Qualifications review to ensure the sector has an opportunity to feed into future policy development.
  • `The Department for Work and Pensions will continue its partnership agreement with the hospitality industry to help provide its customers with a structured route into work in the Sector.

Sector action to support tourism

  • The sector will create 30,000 apprenticeship starts each year by 2025, covering all grades, from entry-level roles up to degree-level apprenticeship, and across a range of disciplines.
  • Employers will commit over £1m of funding to an ambitious retention and recruitment programme to revolutionise the pipeline of talent that joins the sector.
  • A new industry mentoring programme will be developed to support 10,000 employees each year. This will aim to enhance careers as well as helping to ensure talented people remain within the sector.
  • The sector will increase the percentage of the workforce receiving in-work training to 80 per cent.

Places

  • The government will pilot up to five new Tourism Zones to increase visitor numbers across the country. More information about the bidding process will be released later in the year, with a view to commencing projects in 2020.
  • Tourism Zones will also receive a range of support co-ordinated by central government.

Sector action to support tourism

  • Tourism Zones will be developed and delivered by businesses local authorities and Local Enterprise Partnerships (in England) who will determine the specific priorities of an area.
  • A range of larger businesses have offered training and support for small and medium enterprises within Tourism Zones.

Business Environment

  • Alongside the Sector Deal the UK government’s International Business Events Action Plan 2019-2025 has been published and sets out the steps the UK government will take to support the UK to maintain its position as a leading destination for hosting international business events in Europe.
  • The UK government will achieve this by providing support in relation to the six key drivers that event decision makers consider when determining where to host an event, from providing government advocacy to financial support.

Sector action to support tourism

  • The Events Industry Board, set up to advise government, has identified two priority areas which they can help and support – skills and infrastructure. These priorities are being considered by working groups set up by the Board and will report later in the year.

Infrastructure

  • The UK government will make travel to the UK and around the UK easier for tourists through the development of its Maritime and Aviation strategies, as well as a number of rail policy developments.
  • The UK government is investing in a number of projects across the Museums, Heritage and Arts sectors that will enhance visitor’s experience. These include supporting the conservation work at Wentworth Woodhouse, the development of a new interpretation centre at Jodrell Bank and the development of England’s Coast Path, the world’s longest coastal path.
  • The UK government will launch a new £250k competition to improve broadband connectivity in conference centres. This will be a UK wide competition.
  • The UK will build on its excellent existing offer, to become the most accessible destination in Europe.
  • The British Tourist Authority will increase their publicity about accessible travel and provide inbound visitors with increased information about the accessibility offer in the UK through a brand new website.

Sector action to support tourism

  • Industry will create an extra 130,000 bedrooms across the UK by 2025 – a significant increase of 21 per cent in accommodation stock.
  • Industry will continue to invest in tourism attractions and innovative products, to remain a global leader in the experiences the UK offers visitors.
  • The sector will support the UK government’s ambition to be most accessible destination in Europe. They will take forward a number of measures, including better coordination of accessible itineraries online, and increasing the visibility of people with accessibility issues in promotion and marketing campaigns

Ideas

  • The government has supported the British Tourist Authority development of Tourism Exchange Great Britain. Launching in June 2019, this is an online business-to-business platform, which will connect tourism suppliers to global distributors.
  • The UK government has provided £40k to the Tourism Alliance in England to carry out further research on how, where and why businesses within the sector obtain advice on compliance, which will inform the shape of further advisory services including Primary Authority.

Sector action to support tourism

  • The industry and British Tourist Authority will work together to create a new, independent Tourism Data Hub, which can help the sector across the UK to better understand visitors’ preferences for location, activities and products in real time. It will also enable the sector for the first time to gather better data about the people choosing not to holiday in the UK

Action plan

“The Action Plan lists a set of criteria that events will need to meet in order to qualify for the UK Government’s support. This includes criteria on the minimum number of delegates and the proportion of those travelling from overseas. It then outlines the UK Government’s support offer across a number of areas. Key actions include:

  • Government advocacy – A comprehensive advocacy package will be offered – ranging from Ministers being available to write letters of support in order to help with bidding for events to offers of hosting delegates in historical Government property;
  • Financial support – We will continue funding the VisitBritain led Business Events Growth Programme,and look at opportunities for expanding it, especially where business events are identified as critical to meeting the UK’s key economic sector objectives; and,
  • Arrivals and welcome – The Border Force and UK Visas and Immigration will offer a relevant support offer to delegates.”

Lifelong learning

Life Transition Point Learning: The Learning and Work Institute published Learning at Life Transitions focussing on the importance of understanding the needs of adult learners particularly at the key points in their lives when they might be more or less likely to take up learning opportunities. In particular, these points can be parents returning to work after caring for young children and also people preparing for retirement.

Transition back to work after caring for children:

  • Adults, and in particular women, with caring responsibilities who are outside of the labour market are under-represented in learning
  • Taking parental leave or returning to work can act as a trigger to engage in learning. This can result from greater time or a change in attitude or perspective.
  • Returners also face a range of barriers to learning. Adults returning to work after caring for children tend to face significant challenges in relation to work and time pressures, primarily related to childcare

Transition into and through retirement:  Participation in, and decisions about, types of learning opportunities alter as adults retire. Although participation in learning tends to decline with age, those approaching retirement have higher levels of participation than the national average.

  • Moving into retirement can create space to consider learning for enjoyment for the first time. The perceived value of learning can often be greater than at previous life stages, with many adults placing greater value on the role of learning, particularly in relation to providing intellectual and social stimulation.
  • Adults facing retirement experience a range of barriers to engaging in learning. Attitudinal factors, such as feeling too old, not wanting to learn or the perception that their skills and capabilities may have deteriorated can be common.

The report’s recommendations for Policy:

  • National lifelong learning strategy – It is vital that every effort is made to harness the opportunities presented by the 4th Industrial Revolution, while ensuring that no one – including those seeking to leave or return to the labour market – is left behind.
  • Increase investment in lifelong learning – Government should reverse the decade-long fall in real-terms investment in lifelong learning to drive economic growth, promote social justice and support inclusive communities
  • Personal learning accounts – Government should develop and trial a personal learning account model, as a mechanism to both stimulate greater engagement in learning and provide a vehicle through which investment in learning by the state, employers and individuals can be aligned and optimised.
  • As part of the wider development of the National Retraining Scheme, the government should give particular attention to how returners can be supported to upskill and retrain to re-enter the labour market.
  • Access to apprenticeships. Flexible timetabling and blended learning options to facilitate part-time and flexible apprenticeship models should be developed and promoted.

Dame Ruth Silver, President of the Further Education Trust for Leadership

The changing nature of work and of retirement mean that these transitions are changing in nature and need to be rethought. People are more likely to move between jobs, or to need to re-skill or up-skill, than they were 20 or 30 years ago. They are also much more likely to continue working after ‘retirement’, or to seek different ways of combining work and life, and not only when approaching the sort of age traditionally associated with retirement. Transition is increasingly a part of our everyday life; an ongoing consideration.

Other news

The leaders of every general further education college in England have written an open letter to the Chancellor and Secretary of State for Education urging them to “answer the calls from business” and respond to the “challenges of technological change and Brexit”  by urgently investing in the country’s technical and vocational education system by implementing the main recommendations of the government’s recent Post-18 Education Review. The Augar Review called for, amongst other things, an end to the 17.5% cut in education funding for 18-year-olds, support so that everybody, regardless of age, to achieve to at least level three, and a rebalancing of the traditional post-18 educational landscape.

  • In many respects the Augar Review represents a wider emerging consensus across England. We are sure that you will agree with us and other key stakeholders that further education colleges have been neglected, and that there is now a growing appreciation of their unique role, value and potential. What we now need are decisions and commitments: with your political leadership, support and resolve, colleges will be able to build on what they already do to reach more employers and more adults and make the differences our economy and society need.

David Hughes, Chief Executive of the Association of Colleges said: It is extraordinary to have every leader in every general further education college in the country collaborate like this. But then these are extraordinary times. These college leaders are uniquely placed at the hearts of their communities, working closely with local, national and international business, supporting individuals to get on in life, and driving the social mobility agenda. Government needs to listen to them if they’ve got any chance of tackling the major issues this country faces, now and in the future.

Welsh Digital Skills: the Welsh Government have published a strategic framework for post-16 digital learning to increase the continuity of learning experiences and transition from compulsory to post-compulsory learning provision.  Vision and aims:

  • Clear, nationally agreed standards for digital skills are in place to enable learners and staff to meet industry, private and public sector requirements, building on the digital competences developed during compulsory schooling
  • The coherence and accessibility of digital learning is increased through a range of curriculum delivery methods that are appropriate to learner and employer needs
  • The benefits of digital technology, and possible barriers to their achievement, are understood by all staff including senior leaders
  • A culture of collaboration ensures that information and best practice are shared to drive effective use of digital skills to support leadership, learning and business processes
  • Staff, learning and business resources are aligned to enable efficient support of the continually evolving digital requirements of post-16 education

Kirsty Williams, Welsh Education Minister, stated: Our Economic Action Plan highlights the importance of businesses adapting to the opportunities and the challenges presented by new technologies in order to grow the Welsh economy and pursue our aim of prosperity for all. We can’t predict exactly how technology will evolve over the next decade, but we can equip our post-16 learners with the confidence and capability they will need to use digital tools in their work and their everyday lives.

What’s your favourite subject?

The British Academy published a YouGov Poll revealing the nation’s favourite school and university subjects. The study, entitled, ‘a nation of enquiring minds’ reveals that:

  • Given the opportunity to start a university degree tomorrow, UK adults were most likely to choose a subject in the humanities and social sciences –
    • 28% would opt for either the humanities (14%) or social sciences (14%),
    • engineering and technology (10%)
    • mathematics and computing (10%)
    • medicine (9%) .
    • English (17%) and history/classics (15%) topped a list of the nation’s favourite school subjects,

The report finds that arts, humanities and social sciences (AHSS) graduates look forward to strong employment prospects. It states AHSS graduates are as likely to have a job, as resilient to economic downturn, and just as likely to avoid redundancy as STEM graduates. However, AHSS graduates are more flexible (more likely than STEM graduates to voluntarily change job or sector).

Professor Sir David Cannadine, President of the British Academy, said: “The humanities and social sciences help us to make sense of the world in which we live so it is little wonder that the desire to study these subjects at school and university is so great. We not only love the humanities and social sciences in the UK but we also excel at them. Graduates from these disciplines are highly employable and able to weather the changes of a fluctuating job market, while our researchers are disproportionately successful in international funding competitions, punching well above their weight on the world stage.

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JANE FORSTER                                            |                       SARAH CARTER

Policy Advisor                                                                     Policy & Public Affairs Officer

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