Tagged / visas

HE Policy Update for the w/e 31 January 2020

A bumper edition covering lot of news across all the HE interest areas. We have also done a special edition on this week’s big OfS’ report analysing the future of HE Access and Participation.

 Parliamentary News

Select Committee elections were held on Wednesday with some big names being elected. Here are the Chairs of the Committees most relevant to BU’s interests.

  • Education – Robert Halfon (unopposed). Robert was the Chair of the Education Select Committee under the previous Parliament. He has a wealth of experience within Education and is willing to speak out to challenge and push agendas. Most recently he has been a strong supporter for FE to receive more funding and for technical education to become a mainstream alternative to the academic route with equal parity of esteem.
  • Science and Technology – Greg Clark. Greg has a wealth of related experience. He was Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (which Science sits within) from 2016-19, Minister of State for Universities and Science 2014-15, and a list of other related junior minister roles as long as his speeches. He was also did a stint in Opposition as Shadow Minister for energy and climate change in 2008-10.
  • Health and Social Care – Jeremy Hunt. Jeremy was the Minister for Health from 2012-2018. His ministerial period saw several bold and controversial decisions putting him at odds with the Royal College of Nursing and other major stakeholders. He stated that his role as Health Minister was “likely to be my last big job in politics” during the protests over the junior doctor contracts. He also stated he felt he was doing the “right thing” and “making difficult decisions to have better care for patients and deliver [the] manifesto commitments”.
  • Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy -Rachel Reeves (unopposed). Rachel is a Labour MP and chaired this Committee under the previous Parliament since 2017. She was an economist in her pre-political career.
  • Digital, Culture, Media and Sports – Julian Knight. Julian fought off Damian Collins for the Chairmanship. Damian was the previous  Chair of this Committee since 2016.
  • Defence  – Tobias Ellwood. Local MP Tobias was a Defence Minister under Theresa May’s government. During this period he handled the responses to defence parliamentary questions and lead several areas of defence policy.
  • International Development – Sarah Champion
  • International Trade – Angus MacNeil
  • Foreign Affairs – Tom Tugendhat
  • Environmental Audit – Philip Dunne
  • Environment, Food and Rural Affairs -Neil Parish (unopposed)
  • Exiting the EU – Hilary Benn (unopposed)
  • Home Affairs – Yvette Cooper (unopposed)
  • Housing, Communities and Local Government – Clive Betts (unopposed)
  • Northern Ireland Affairs – Simon Hoare (North Dorset MP, continues his Chairmanship of this Committee which commenced in 2019).
  • Justice – Bob Neill
  • Transport – Huw Merriman
  • Treasury – Mel Stride (unopposed)
  • Welsh Affairs – Stephen Crabb (unopposed)
  • Women and Equalities – Caroline Nokes (unopposed)
  • Work and Pensions – Stephen Timms

Global Talent Visa and other immigration news

The new fast tracked visa scheme aiming to attract scientists, researchers and mathematicians opens on 20th February. The bespoke Global Talent route will have no cap on the number of people able to come to the UK, replacing the Tier 1 (Exceptional Talent) route. UKRI are to endorse applicants from the scientific and research community.

The route aims to:

  • Enable UK-based research projects that have received recognised prestigious grants and awards to recruit top global talent, benefitting HEIs, research institutes and eligible public sector research establishments
  • Double the number of eligible fellowships, such as Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, the European Research Council and Human Frontier Science, which also enable individuals to be fast tracked.
  • Continue to ensure dependents have full access to the labour market.
  • Preserve the route’s flexibility by not requiring an individual to hold an offer of employment before arriving or tying them to one specific job.
  • Provide an accelerated path to settlement for all scientists and researchers who are endorsed on the route.
  • Provide for an exemption from our absences rules for researchers, and their dependants, where they are required overseas for work-related purposes, ensuring they are not penalised when they apply for settlement.

Home Secretary, Priti Patel, said: The UK is a world leader in science, with research and innovation that changes lives being undertaken every day in this country. To keep the UK at the forefront of innovation, we are taking decisive action to maximise the number of individuals using the Global Talent route including world-class scientists and top researchers who can benefit from fast-tracked entry into the UK.

Business and Energy Secretary Andrea Leadsom commented: Leaving the EU gives us new freedom to strengthen research and build the foundations for the new industries of tomorrow. By attracting more leading international scientists and providing major investment in mathematics, we can make the UK a global science superpower and level up our country.

Professor Julia Buckingham, President of Universities UK stated: We share the Prime Minister’s vision to position the UK as a magnet for global science and research talent. The Global Talent visa is a positive step towards this for UK universities…Universities are globally connected and this announcement signals that the UK remains open to talent from around the world. Our universities carry out life-changing research and our knowledge base, economy, and wider society will benefit from the international staff we can attract through this visa route.

Immigration – salary threshold recommendations

In June 2019 the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) was tasked to review immigration related salary threshold levels, the threshold calculation mechanism, exemptions, and whether there should be regional salary thresholds. By September the requirement to consider how an Australian-style points-based immigration system could be introduced in the UK, with the aim of strengthening the UK labour market was added onto their task list. They were asked to consider how additional flexibility could be added to the operation of salary thresholds by awarding points for migrants’ attributes and whether these points should be tradeable (i.e. allowing points for some attributes to make up for a lack of points for others), which migrant characteristics should be prioritised and what lessons can be learnt from international comparators. The Chair of the MAC, Professor Alan Manning, has written to the Home Secretary to introduce the Committee’s findings. Manning will continue as Chair of the MAC until the end of February 2020 to ensure continuity during this key period. Here is the full report – A points-Based System and Salary Threshold for Immigration. Or if you don’t fancy wading through the 278 pages the summary at pages 5-11 gives the key points.

Alistair Jarvis, Chief Executive of UUK, responded to the report:

  • Some of the MAC recommendations are a step in the right direction, recognising the importance of employer demand but concluding the skilled entry route needs reform. While there is welcome recognition that the salary threshold of £30k was too high, there should be a further reduction to attract the diverse workforce, including lab technicians and language assistants, who are vital to supporting the success of our universities. We are also concerned that standard salary levels in higher education sectors would no longer be recognised, meaning it will be harder to attract international talent into key lecturer roles. Our recent polling showed the British public overwhelmingly believe that immigrants should be welcomed into the country on the strength of their skills and potential and not be judged on their salary alone.
  • Combined with the recently announced changes to Tier 1 a package of positive immigration reforms is developing but needs further improvement. The Government must ensure that new immigration arrangements avoid potential unintended negative consequences for the ability of universities to attract the brightest talent with minimal barriers and to continue our world leading research and teaching.

Research news

Maths

The new global talent route is accompanied by £60m funding available per year to double funding for new mathematical sciences PhDs, as well as boost the number of maths fellowships and research projects. This is part of the Government’s ambitions to considerably boost R&D spending.

  • “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)

  • I have, as science and research minister, commissioned UKRI to publish new data today on how their investments are balanced across the regions. This is a first step on the way to greater transparency of where our money is going
  • …Because it will be crucial, if we are to level up R&D funding, that we not only strengthen existing capacity in every corner of the UK, but also that we can support emerging excellence in universities and institutions that are growing their research capability. We are determined to provide the funding and support to achieve this.
  • Already I have announced a record increase to Higher Education Innovation Funding, bringing it to £250 million per year, which will turbocharge universities’ knowledge exchange activities. We have launched the first round of the Expanding Excellence in England Fund, we’ve got the first phase of the Connecting Capabilities Fund up and running, and we’re already well into the second round of the Strength in Places Fund.
  • We are embarking on the largest ever expansion of university R&D right across the UK.
  • And when it comes to supporting and growing excellent university research departments all over the country, I fully recognise the value of QR. Perhaps in the past, our focus on challenge-led funds masked a decline in that important mainstream of basic, curiosity-driven research.
  • But this isn’t about picking one type of research over another. All should be lifted if we are to succeed. Already last year I worked to deliver the first real terms increase in QR in England for over a decade. And I want to do so again this year. But I also want to ensure that we are ‘levelling up’ university departments right across the country. Not just making it easier and quicker to apply for funding.
  • But critically, we need to think very carefully about how all of our schemes, including QR, can benefit existing institutions in all regions. I am determined to support existing institutions, right across the country, to work with you to foster and build networks. We can already see how universities are working together in networks like the N8 group of research-intensive institutions in the North, or Midlands Innovation, or GW4 in the South West. I want us to build on these partnerships, to develop new alliances between existing universities, driving up collaboration, developing deeper partnerships with industry, and working together at scale.
  • ….Because universities are not just engines of growth, or producers of skilled human capital. They are complex organisations, with complex relationships with those around them. Relationships that need to be nurtured, developed and brought to bear for the benefit of us all.
  • And it’s why it was so important that Research England published the next steps on the Knowledge Exchange Framework last week. It is hard to overstate the importance of this – it is a huge step on the journey towards levelling up. The KEF will provide universities with that all-important strategic driver, putting knowledge exchange right at the heart of universities’ missions, on a par with their teaching and research. Let me be clear – the KEF will not be some meaningless, bureaucratic, tick-box exercise. It is about empowering institutions to shift up to a higher gear, not just in commercialisation or technology transfer, but elevating their entire purpose as institutions – institutions that have such extraordinary potential to make a positive difference to their towns, cities and regions.
  • And our review of HEIF will help us take this even further.
  • …And when it comes to improving academic life, I am committed to working with you to improve your working conditions, to address the issues raised by Wellcome Trust in their report on research culture last week, and again by UCU in their report earlier this week. I want to work with you on developing a Research People Strategy for the next decade, a new overarching approach to transforming research practice and culture.
  • I want more research – but I also want better research. For I want our investment to ensure our R&D landscape is above all sustainable for the future. And that means investing sustainably in people. This is of course about building the pipeline of talent. But I also want to recognise and reward best practice in how research is being administered. So in return for increasing funding, I want to see research departments equally commit to transforming their environments. Not just by reducing bureaucracy, and fully embracing networked and open research. But also by improving reward and recognition for staff. Supporting and nurturing early career researchers who need time and space to develop, but also those with significant experience and wisdom. Giving our backing to initiatives like the Declaration on Research Assessment. And the UKRI committee on research integrity. Adopting modern approaches to knowledge exchange and technology transfer. And tackling long-standing issues around bullying and harassment.

Regional Context

A Place Strategy for UK R&D will be published in the summer, aiming to ensure funding builds on strengths of the regions. And the government will examine how the UK’s catapult centres can strengthen R&D capacity in local areas, improving productivity and contributing to greater prosperity across the UK.

Read the full UKRI data – Regional distribution of funding for research and business.

Research – Future Frameworks

A parliamentary question on the future frameworks

Q – Lord Fox: To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they intend to respond to the report by Professor Adrian Smith and Professor Graeme Reid Changes and choices: advice on future frameworks for international collaboration on research and innovation, published on 5 November 2019. [HL453]

A – Lord Duncan Of Springbank:

  • Sir Adrian and Professor Reid’s report ‘Changes and Choices’ makes overarching recommendations which highlight the importance of stabilising and building on the UK capability, it presents opportunities for the future funding landscape of UK research and innovation globally, and it also provides options should the UK decide not to associate to Horizon Europe.
  • The Government is carefully considering the recommendations including how this might inform future policy and plans to publish a response in due course.

Engineering & Construction

The Engineering and Construction Industry Training Board (ECITB)  have launched a new Graduate Development Grant programme costing £5 million. It will support the key leadership and management skills through an apprenticeship style training scheme for graduates embarking on engineering construction careers. It is planned to support at least 150 individuals each year with each graduate receiving £12,000 over three years. The new scheme is part of the ECITB’s new business plan, is in line with employers’ October 2019 decision to raise the industrial training levy, and will help tackle the major challenges facing the engineering construction industry. This includes the need to deliver £600 billion worth of major infrastructure projects over the next decade, replace an ageing industry workforce, and supporting the transition to a net zero carbon economy. The high-level postgraduate apprenticeship style programme is interesting because, while the Government is committed to technical education to deliver Britain’s industrial strategy priorities, there has been criticism that apprenticeship levy funds have been too often used for higher level training at the expense of the level 2 and 3 apprenticeships. However, in this case skills gaps and employer support for the training runs contrary to the sector criticism

Chris Claydon, Chief Executive of the ECITB, said: “Across the engineering construction industry there is both a need to recruit and train the highly skilled workforce of the future and also to round off individuals’ academic learning with the soft skills required by employers. We have listened to calls from industry employers to fund graduate training in a similar way to apprenticeships and we are proud to support the investment employers make in their new recruits.”

Languages

Languages have been of interest for a third week running. This week the British Council have published a report on gender differences in language learning and how some schools have trialled methods to close the gender gap. The report was compiled by EPI and finds that boys’ entry and performance in GCSE languages is persistently lower than girls, with a pupil’s gender a stronger predictor of outcomes than a pupil’s level of disadvantage. These trends are salient because overall entries for languages have significantly declined in recent years. Key findings: 

  • There is a significant gender gap in GCSE modern foreign languages: girls are more than twice (2.17 times) as likely as boys to achieve a pass (Level 4).
  • Just 38% of boys sat GCSE languages in the 2018 cohort, compared to half (50%) of all girls.
  • The gap is so pronounced that gender is a stronger predictor of success in languages than a pupil’s level of disadvantage: a female pupil from a poorer background is more likely to outperform a male pupil from a more affluent background.
  • While nationally the gender gap in entry and attainment is wide, there are a number of schools in England that have ‘beaten the odds’, by successfully boosting the participation and performance of boys at GCSE level. These are schools that would be expected to have lower than the average language attainment for boys, given their context, but in practice have performed well. You can read what worked in the full report from page 31 onwards and there are useful charts on pages 37 and 38 illustrating some of the approaches that were successful with boys in 31 schools.

One of the recommendations in the report is that Ofqual should continue to address the difficulty of the assessment of language GCSEs to enable more inclusive language learning for all abilities. It should monitor the impact of its recent intervention to adjust French and German grading, and consider whether similar adjustments are needed for other languages.

David Laws, Executive Chairman, Education Policy Institute, said: Progress on the uptake of languages in schools has lagged. Our Language Trends research shows that the more disadvantaged you are, the less likely you are to learn a language at school (Language Trends 2019)… Strikingly, once we control for a range of pupil characteristics, including disadvantage and prior attainment, girls are over twice as likely as boys to enter and achieve at least a grade 4 (equivalent to the old “C” grade) in a language GCSE.

 Kevin Courtney, Joint General Secretary of the National Education Union, said: Gender stereotypes limit opportunities for both boys and girls. While schools do a great deal to provide all students with a broad and balanced curriculum, as this report shows, gender continues to shape the subjects chosen by pupils at GCSE . Girls are more likely to study languages, boys more likely to study physics – and this gender bias limits life chances for both. Schools can open up those horizons for both sexes, however Government policy is in many cases a barrier to this.

The Value of HE

HEPI has published a series of blogs on the value of HE.

Rachel Hewitt from HEPI wrote about 2020 being the year of value:

  • “Already this year, however, there has been a bigger drive in this area, with the Office for Students releasing a consultation on the money they distribute through teaching grants due to the Department for Education setting out a reduction of £58 million. The Secretary of State for Education and the Office for Students are therefore making judgements about the value of higher education in deciding where to allocate the more limited resources.
  • With the Conservative manifesto commitment to ‘tackle the problem of low value courses’ in mind, this feels like the first step in a process over the next year. This year will see the outcomes of the independent review of the Teaching Excellence Framework published and the Government’s response to the Augar review, providing plenty of opportunities to consider ways to identify courses not believed to be up to scratch – or providing good enough returns to the taxpayer. With significant spending pledges made elsewhere throughout the election campaign, this may be the beginning of university’s own period of austerity.
  • While the Government might be less likely to let a university go under than their rhetoric implies, they may be quite happy to let plenty of courses they do not see as important or cost-effective go to the wall. Instead of universities needing to make the case for why their funding should not be cut, the sector will need a strong argument for why the courses they are offering the government are high quality and high value to both students and the taxpayer. And if they do not want the methods of doing this to be LEO data or TEF, they should be thinking closely of what alternatives they can offer.”

Kim Ansell (from AdvanceHE) wrote about articulating value:

  • “Following a successful pilot project to test and evaluate a different way of understanding, reporting and demonstrating value, Advance HE built on work by the British Universities Finance Directors Group (BUFDG) and engaged mission groups and a small group of institutions in Let’s Talk Value, which looks at value through the lens of integrated thinking and reporting. This is a principles-based framework which helps organisations to think and report holistically considering all the resources or ‘capitals’ at their disposal, beyond just financial capital – for example, intellectual capital and human capital. This approach promotes a mature discussion about performance, provides transparent and authentic board oversight and helps a whole institution connect to a purpose and strategy.
  • So what does it mean for universities in practice?

o   It develops a collective vision of what value means for an institution, framed around its purpose and taking into account external factors.

o   It re-defines reporting as a tool to tell a consistent story to stakeholders about the unique value proposition of an institution.

o   It enables an understanding of the value of all resources and how they work together to create value by using strategic resources more holistically (such as people, knowledge and relationships and social capital).”

The latest (by Nick Hillman) is about taxpayer contribution:

  • “The many changes to student funding in England over the past 20-odd years have created a system in which it is thought that taxpayers cover around 45% of the costs and students / graduates around 55%. Of course, this is a guess incorporating some heroic assumptions: you cannot know for certain until we know how well graduates will do financially in coming decades, plus we don’t know if the repayment terms will be changed again.
  • However, if public funding should reflect the scale of public benefits, then we possibly have it about right, at close to 50:50 – though some might say we should slightly rebalance the burden towards taxpayers a bit, so that they pay a little more than half rather than a little under half.
  • Yet, intriguingly, despite calling for big changes to student funding, the Augar panel did not envisage a shift in the proportions paid from public and private sources. Their review called for a shift in public funding from loans to grants. But they still envisaged taxpayers picking up half the tab and students / graduates picking up the other half.
  • And as the wheels in Whitehall and Westminster grind slowly on, we should consider this: the overall idea that working out the split between public and private benefits and then charging taxpayers accordingly is unlikely to convince many people in the corridors of power…..The argument can seem overly insular and naïve, as well as unpersuasive, to public funders for three reasons.
    • First, it ignores the almost limitless demands of taxpayers – which will be uppermost in the minds of policymakers as we approach the spending review. Some of these might be educational (like early years’ provision or primary school class sizes) and others might have little direct link to education (like A&E waiting lists and better transport infrastructure). Whether they actually want to or not, many students and graduates seem willing to pay more than half of the costs of their higher education, given the proportion of school leavers moving on to higher education has gone up despite the increases in cost. Asking them to continue doing paying (or even to pay more through higher fees or tougher repayment terms) frees up resources for other things in education and elsewhere, including items which are generally deemed more urgent priorities by voters.
    • Secondly, we don’t apply the argument that public funding should reflect the ratio of public and private benefits to other areas of public policy. We don’t generally say, for example, that many of the benefits of healthcare are personal and thus seek to charge individuals accordingly for them – indeed, we don’t even try to recover the costs from progressive income-contingent repayments. Nor on the other hand, do we tend to argue that because some benefits of, say, private schooling are public (think of all those extra Olympic medalsOscars and Nobel Prizes that we win), then the state should fill independent school coffers. (Although I look forward to hearing if this claim is made at today’s HMC / IDPE / AGBIS conference on independent school bursaries.)
    • Thirdly, arguing that public funding should reflect public benefit plays into the hands of those policymakers who want to defund courses that look like they have particularly low financial returns – deemed low quality courses’ in the 2019 Tory manifesto. If we argue public funding of courses should match the public value of those courses, then we also have to accept that public funding should be low when the public value is low.
  • This is not an argument for less public funding of higher education. I have often written of:

Admissions

Coverage of UCAS data released this week suggests that at this early stage the number of conditional unconditional offers is declining. Wonkhe report that 75% of providers who currently use the dreaded “conditional unconditional offers” predicted to no longer do so in 2020. The data isn’t publically released until 6 Feb and Wonkhe’s blog is useful because it contains a tableau chart through which we can gain more hints. The UCAS prediction that conditional unconditional offers are decreasing is based on the number of early offers (but it is really too soon to tell)

Conditional unconditional offers are where a provider turns a standard offer dependent on the student achieving certain grades into an unconditional offer where they can enter the institution without reaching those grades if they agree to make the provider their first choice of institution.  The Government, and schools, are vehemently opposed to this practice. They state it causes pupils to perform more poorly in their exams and sways their choice away from other institutions (particularly higher tariff institutions) where the individual might be better placed or have better long term prospects.

Research Professional (RP) write that the Education Secretary, Gavin Williamson, is considering whether conditional unconditionals are breaching students’ consumer rights: “students are being let down by the universities that are using these offers to get students through the door”.  Moreover, Gavin is in favour of a full admissions overhaul describing it as an opportunity for the sector to get its house in order. Today he committed to: “Under no circumstances are ‘conditional unconditional’ offers justified and I will write to all universities continuing them asking them to end this practice.”

RP report that according to the UCAS end-of-cycle data there were:

  • 33 providers whose conditional unconditional offers accounted for 1% or more of their total offers made last year, up from 29 providers in 2018.
  • At 17 providers, conditional unconditional offers accounted for 20% or more of their total offers made—a net increase of two providers compared with 2018.

There were seven providers where conditional unconditional offers made up more than 50% of the total offers made to students, compared with two providers in 2018: Falmouth University (68%); Canterbury Christ Church University (66%);  the University of Lincoln (59%); Birmingham City University (56%); Bournemouth University (56%; and De Montfort University (55%). Four (including BU) have confirmed they will not make conditional unconditional offers for the 2020 recruitment cycle.

RP continue:

According to UCAS Medium-tariff providers (as determined by the average number of UCAS points required to get onto a course) are most likely to make a conditional unconditional offer..

  • In 2019, 13.7% made by medium tariff providers were conditional unconditional (up 1.3% on 2018)
  • It was 9.4% lower-tariff and 3.3%t for higher-tariff institutions.

Clare Marchant, Chief Executive of UCAS, stated: “Early indications point very strongly to a behaviour change in 2020. We forecast as many as 75% of universities and colleges which made conditional unconditional offers in the 2019 cycle will no longer make these in 2020.

Whilst we predict a fall in these types of offers, we will likely see universities and colleges deploy other offer-making strategies, including direct unconditionals, in this competitive market.”

Research Professional make a tongue in cheek response:  As Playbook has said before, it could be considered harsh for the political powers that be to introduce a more marketised higher education and then get annoyed when universities start competing like they are in a market. 

OfS welcomed the predicted decline in these types of offers and reminded the sector that their review of the HE Admissions system, including considering a post-qualification admissions system would begin soon. Nicola Dandridge stated: We will shortly be launching a review of England’s admissions system, working with partners from across education to ensure that we have a system of admissions which is fair, easy to understand, and allows students to demonstrate their achievement and potential. This review will build further evidence about unconditional offers and their impact in the context of the entire admissions system.

Equality Data

The UCAS end of cycle data also highlights that:

  • more students in receipt of free school meals (fsm) are attending high-tariff universities – the between fsm students (18.9%) and other students (35.6) is at a record low.
  • Students from a less advantaged background are more likely to study closer to home

And Wonkhe’s David Kernohan has a more nuanced delve into the offer making data here (scroll down to the bottom half of the email).

Student Accommodation

The Minister for Universities gave a speech on students accommodation this week, raising a number of concerns and outlining some possible solutions.

  • As your Universities Minister, I am keen to ensure that no student is exposed to the types of issues we sometimes see in the news; no student should be left in the lurch due to late completion, priced out of adequate accommodation or end up in a building with too few social spaces that can leave them feeling isolated or lonely.
  • Tackling these awful and disappointing issues will require sustained collaborative effort. That’s why I called together students, sector bodies, universities, PBSA providers and regulators just before Christmas, to make sure their voices are heard on how we work together to identify solutions in this new decade.
  • I’ve had a chance to reflect on the fascinating insights that came out of this summit, and I am struck by the opportunity student involvement can pose for developers and universities.
  • Meaningful consultation with students in the design of rent structures can help ensure timely rent payments while easing money worries and boosting wellbeing. Involving students, universities and local authorities at the design stage of new accommodation allows individual places to ensure they have the right mix of rooms and spaces for their specific student population, and makes sure students are happy with what they’re paying for.
  • Some messages were not as positive. It is not right that accessible accommodation is often the most expensive option available to students; if disabled students are forced to pay premium prices for suitable rooms, this is tantamount to a tax on disability, and cannot be allowed to continue.
  • Speaking to some of you in the sector, I have been impressed by the real-life benefits that have been realised through partnership-working. There are so many positive examples of this; I want to continue to see PBSA suppliers notifying universities early of construction delays so impacts on students can be minimised, and of accommodation managers developing information sharing arrangements to deliver support to struggling students.
  • … We also need to look at what the latest updates to the Unipol and UUK accommodation codes should be. I want us to consider not only what we can do to strengthen compliance with them, but also to hit developers hard in the pocket if they refuse to seek code accreditation.
  • We all need to think hard about the quality and availability of accommodation information to students and their families, including its costs and where the profits go. Students must have access to the right facts to be able to make the right choices – they have consumer rights. And I want us to think about what the best-practice models of PBSA provision are and how we ensure the sector adopts them.

Fee changes

A statutory instrument (SI) with implications for HE was laid in the House of Commons on the 24th January: The Education (Student Fees, Awards and Support etc.) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2020.  The regulatory changes will become law on 13th February 2020 although there is an objection period window ending on 12th March 2020. You can read all the changes here, below are the most relevant changes:

  • To provide that a student who has been granted indefinite leave to remain in the United Kingdom as a victim of domestic violence or domestic abuse is eligible to receive funding in respect of a further education course, an undergraduate higher education course, a master’s degree course or doctoral degree course, or a course at the European University Institute
  • To provide that a student who transfers from a full-time course which started before 1st August 2019 to an accelerated course which started on or after 1st August 2019 will be entitled to apply for a fee loan for their accelerated course up to the higher limits that apply for an accelerated course starting on or after 1st August 2019 and grants and loans for living and other costs.
  • Makes provision in circumstances where a student’s household income is based on the incomes of both parents, or a student’s parent and the parent’s partner. In these circumstances, where the parents’, or parent and partner’s, income falls by 15% or more compared to either the “prior financial year”, or the previous financial year, the Secretary of State may assess the parent’s, or parent’s partner’s, income for the current financial year.
  • In relation to a course which begins on or after 1st August 2020, to provide that a student who has previously received a grant under regulation 33(1) of the Education (Student Support) Postgraduate Master’s Degrees (Wales) Regulations 2019 is not eligible for a master’s degree loan.
  • To provide that when a student repeats a module or similar unit of work forming part of a master’s degree, that repeat study is not funded.
  • In relation to a course which begins on or after 1st August 2020, to provide that a student who is in receipt of funding under the Educational Psychology Funded Training scheme is not eligible for a doctoral degree loan.
  • To increase the maximum amounts of master’s degree and doctoral degree loans for students beginning those courses on or after 1st August 2020.

Social Mobility

We’ve done a special feature on this week’s big news – the OfS report which analyses the future of HE Access And Participation by amalgamating all the HE providers’ Access and Participation Plan targets to create a national change picture. Read it here.

Other news

Merchandise: Brexit will be a major historical event. The Conservatives are celebrating Brexit with some thoroughly British official merchandise. The tea towel is my favourite!

Student health: Derek Thomas MP used Prime Minster’s Questions to highlight that 40% of students haven’t seen a dentist in the last year. He asked whether the PM would meet with him to resolve this inequality, Boris agreed.

Antisemitism: The Government has announced new funding to help universities tackle antisemitism.
The new funding will enable 450 student leaders, journalists and academics to be taken to Auschwitz over the next three years. They will be expected to educate tens of thousands of students on their return. Specifically, students will participate in a seminar which will deal explicitly with campus-specific issues and how to identify and tackle antisemitism. The student programme will be delivered by the Holocaust Educational Trust in partnership with the Union of Jewish Students, following a successful scheme ran in 2018-19. To drive engagement amongst the student population, the programme is planned to work with influential student publications and media, as well as student leaders and networks to disseminate the messages they have heard first hand to tens of thousands of students across the country. Alongside the announcement Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick is urging all universities and Local Authorities to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism.

Fire Safety: A Parliamentary question on university fire safety –

Q – Steve Reed (Croydon North): To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many university vice-chancellors have replied to his letter of November 2019 on the issue of fire safety procedures and safeguards across university residential, teaching and research accommodation. [5444]

A – Chris Skidmore (Kingswood): We are pleased to see that the engagement with the letter of 18 November… to all 138 higher education institutions has had a 100% response rate. The safety of pupils, students and staff remains ministers’ highest priority. Since the Grenfell fire, the department has worked closely with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, as part of the cross government programme to remediate buildings with potentially dangerous cladding, including student accommodation. That approach will continue, and we welcome the package of measures to improve building safety standards announced on 20 January by my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government. We are already looking at ways to ensure the education estate complies fully with the updated advice to building owners, announced as part of that package, on actions they should take in relation to cladding.

MATHS Resit: Mathematics in Education and Industry have published a report investigating the feasibility of a new maths GCSE curriculum for post-16 resit students which tackles a recommendation from the Smith review – “In view of the low GCSE resit success rates and new GCSE requirements the DfE  should review its 16-18 resit policy with the aim that a greater proportion of students…attain appropriate mathematical understanding by age 18. The report outlines a curriculum for a new qualification that focuses on the maths needed for everyday life and work, which also has sufficient rigour to meet the requirements of a GCSE qualification. It recommends that such a post-16 maths GCSE qualification should be developed and that it should have the same status as GCSE Mathematics at the same grade.

Maintenance Grants: This Parliamentary Question gives no hints on the Augar Review outcomes the sector is waiting for

Q – Caroline Lucas: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment he has made of the potential merits of introducing non-repayable maintenance grant funding in (a) further and (b) higher education. [5382]

A – Chris Skidmore: The independent panel’s report on the Review of Post-18 Education and Funding was published in May 2019. The government is considering the recommendations made in the report, including those relating to maintenance support for higher education and further education students. The government will conclude the review alongside the next spending review.

Overseas Campus: If you ever wondered how universities with an overseas campus are monitored here is your answer:

Q – Lord Storey: To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they inspect the overseas campuses of UK universities. [HL478]

A – Baroness Berridge: UK higher education providers with degree-awarding powers are responsible for the academic standards of their awards and for the quality of provision, irrespective of where or how courses are delivered or who delivers them. The external review of Transnational Education (TNE) has been carried out by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) on behalf of funders, regulators and UK providers since it was established in 1997. As higher education is a devolved matter, each nation of the UK will deliver quality assurance of TNE according to the process adopted for higher education institutions within its jurisdiction.

Historically, QAA has carried out TNE reviews, which have included a range of activities including overseas campus inspection, scrutiny of partnerships from the UK end including video conferences with providers, and the analysis of data on TNE provision.

The process for carrying out TNE review activity for UK higher education institutions has been the subject of a recent consultation which ended in January 2020, carried out by Universities UK International, Guild HE and QAA.

The consultation responses are currently being considered and the future model of TNE review, including overseas campus inspection, will be decided through this process and the consulting organisations will jointly analyse the responses and develop an action plan.

Micro aggressions:

Q – Dr Julian Lewis: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether he plans to take steps in response to proposals by Sheffield university to pay some students to monitor and report on statements made by other students which might be regarded as micro-aggressions; what progress he has made on bringing forward proposals to safeguard free speech in colleges and universities; and if he will draw the lessons of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four to the attention of college and university staff during this 70th anniversary year of the author’s death. [5319]

A – Chris Skidmore: This government will ensure that our universities are places where free speech can thrive and work to strengthen academic freedoms. The freedom to express views openly, challenge ideas and engage in robust debate is crucial to the student experience and to democracy. Lawful freedom of speech and the right to discuss all kinds of issues is an integral part of our higher education system.

Under the Education (No 2) Act (1986), higher education providers have a specific duty to take reasonably practicable steps to secure freedom of speech within the law for staff, students and visiting speakers. Higher education providers also have clear responsibilities under the Equality Act (2010).

Higher education providers should discharge their responsibilities fully and have robust policies and procedures in place to comply with the law and to investigate and address incidents reported to them. Universities, as autonomous bodies regulated by the Office for Students, should ensure that they are balancing their legal duties carefully and proportionately.

The government worked with the Equality and Human Rights Commission, who published clear guidance in February 2019 on freedom of speech in higher education to support higher education providers and students’ unions in delivering their duties.

The government will be looking closely at how well higher education providers are meeting their obligations and will consider whether further action is needed, working with a range of partners.

Schools: There was a written ministerial statement on the new application system for initial teacher training and the pilot scheme being trialled in the South West. Education Minister Gavin Williamson announced £24 million investment for North East schools to tackle challenges in the region through extra teacher training and greater access to employers and universities for young people.

Equality Charters:

Q – Caroline Lucas: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will take steps to ensure that universities use universally accessible (a) student surveys and (b) data collection processes to monitor university compliance with equality charters; and if he will make a statement. [6062]

A – Chris Skidmore: Higher education providers (HEPs) are independent and autonomous institutions. While we recognise the work of Advance HE and the value that both the Race Equality and Athena Swan charters bring to the sector the government does not compel HEPs to participate in equality charters.

However, progress on addressing both gender and racial equality in HE has been unacceptably slow, particularly for minority ethnic staff securing senior university leadership positions. It is essential that HEPs urgently address those institutional and cultural barriers standing in the way of women and minority ethnic staff and students so that everyone who has the potential to thrive at university, does so.

The government has brought forward sweeping reforms of higher education to tackle equality of opportunity through the Higher Education and Research Act 2017 (HERA). This includes a mandatory condition of registration which, for the first time, requires all higher education providers registered with the Office for Students (OfS) to publish data including the number of applications for admissions, offers made and acceptance rates broken down by gender, ethnicity and socio-economic background. The OfS has issued guidance to higher education providers on how to comply with the transparency condition.

The OfS has also made available online an interactive dashboard of data, which will help to evaluate access and participation at specific universities and colleges. The dashboard can be used to compare different student groups (for example, disabled students or students by their ethnic background) and their peers, and reveal gaps in access, continuation, success and progression. More information is available at the link.

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HE Policy update for the w/e 24th May 2019

We usually post these early on a Monday morning so you can all catch up before you start the week, but we write them on a Friday – these days they can be out of date within 10 minutes, let alone after a weekend.  So this week we are going early!

  • EU election results will be announced on Sunday.  In BCP the turnout was 36%.  In Dorset it was 41.2%.  While these are not spectacular turnouts, they are higher than some were expecting.
  • The PM has announced that she will step down and that the leadership contest will start on 10th June (which means the positioning etc that had already started will now intensify massively and candidates will only start being eliminated formally after 10th June).  We have more below.
  • And in “legacy” territory – the Augar review may be published next week.
  • Expect “ground-softening” over the weekend – probably as painful as it sounds.

Augar rumours – the Review of Post-18 Education and Funding.

The Augar review may be published next week.  Remember, it’s the review of an advisory panel.  The Department for Education will have to respond (was planned for the Autumn) and it is dependent to a certain extent on the Comprehensive Spending Review (not yet started).  Whoever gets the top job may have other priorities than implementing its recommendations.  And if whoever gets the top job really messes things up, there might be a general election  before the end of the year.

However, once the recommendations are out, it will be very hard to put them back into the box, so hold on to your hats.  Personally I’m expecting a very complex and detailed set of recommendations – not just a simple cut to headline tuition fee loan amounts (although that may be the starting point).

Damien Hinds is already positioning.  How to read this?

  • “universities that are shown to offer a poor economic return for their degrees will not be able to charge £9,250 a year”….” Instead, a lower fee of around £7,500 is expected to be announced by Philip Augar’s review” [note it’s a recommendation not an announcement]
  • “the Education Secretary argued that under the current £9,250 a year tuition fee system there is “no distinction” between courses that offer a high return for graduates and the economy and those that do not”…targeting “low value, low quality” university degrees – “the move is likely to crack down on creative arts and media studies courses from lower tariff universities”

So does this mean fees set by subject?  But it sounds more complex than that – how do you address the low quality, low value bit of this?

  • This could imply an uplift on a £7500 base for the “high value, high quality programmes” within a subject based on a metric linked to either “quality” [defined how?] or outcomes [aka graduate salaries or a basket of outcomes measures?]. If so, let’s hope it is based on data that takes into account background, context (eg geography and the state of the economy) and prior attainment of students, and not just raw salaries. 
  • Any uplift could be in the form of a government grant or an increased fee cap funded by a tuition fee loan. The latter seems to add a level of complexity for applicants and a set of strange incentives [pay more for sciences] so a government grant/loan to the provider seems more likely – perhaps with further strings attached? 
  • Or does it mean something else? “he said too many universities were being “incentivised” to expand courses that cost little and offer poor prospects to students in a bid to generate income”

This is the “bums on seats” argument.  So that sounds like instead of being based on outcomes, a fee cap might be linked to cost?  Probably not, it probably means quality and outcomes again.  There will just be [slightly] less incentive to offer these courses and pack the bums onto seats once the fee cap is reduced.  This is playing to the proponents of the “too many students are going to universities” argument by linking high volume and low cost to poor quality – which doesn’t necessarily hold true. 

  • But on top-ups, the article says: “Universities have argued that any cut in tuition fees should be topped up by the Government, but Mr Hinds suggested the sector had not been forced to bear the brunt of cuts as other areas of the public sector had since 2010.” “If you look back since the financial crash in 2007/08…it has been difficult for the public finances. We’ve protected the five to 16 schools budget, we’ve protected the health budget but for everywhere else there have been tight times. For universities they haven’t had that same tough, tight times,” he said.”

So no top ups then?  But if that is the case, how is the Minister going to achieve the differentiation that he seems to want?  I think this is just an argument against universal top ups – and there will be some, just limited, linked to metrics and with strings attached as described above.

It’s all a bit of a muddle.  We may see as early as Sunday….

Grade Inflation

In November 2019 QAA ran a consultation on degree classification and academic standards (here is BU’s response). You can read an analysis of the consultation responses here, and this week the outcome report has been published: Degree Classification transparency, reliability and fairness – a statement of intent. It sets out a statement of intent by which HE institutions will ensure academic standards are protected. It also calls on English universities to publish a degree outcomes statement. The statement should report on an internal institutional review which will self-judge whether the Quality Code and the OfS’ registration conditions relating to qualifications are being met.

A common degree classification framework, which will act as a reference point for providers by describing high-level attributes expected of a graduate to achieve a particular degree, is also in development. The descriptions formed part of the consultation and are currently being refined ready for publication by the UKSCQA in the summer.

Finally the report sets out the sector level actions to ensure the conventions and practices are refreshed and remain current.

Nicola Dandridge, Chief Exec of OfS, welcomed the report and said: “This is a welcome statement of intent which shows that universities recognise the need to ensure that degree standards are maintained, and can be trusted by students and employers alike…Our own research on this issue showed that there has been significant and unexplained grade inflation in recent years. The Office for Students has been clear that measured but decisive action is necessary to ensure that students, graduates and employers have confidence in the manner in which degrees are awarded.”

Brexit and the government….

Well, this is out of date the minute it’s written.  The Withdrawal Agreement Bill is now completely irrelevant until after the Tory leadership contest.  There is time for one of those and then who knows what before Hallowe’en and the default date for leaving the EU without a deal.  Everyone assumes that either a no-deal advocate will win – and ignore the wishes of Parliament and let us default out of the EU – or that whoever wins will have to ask for yet another extension while they sort out a new arrangement or try to persuade the EU to change the backstop etc.

Key EU figures have spoken out against the Conservative leadership squabbles restating that the EU will not reopen negotiations with the new Conservative Prime Minister. Ireland’s deputy PM, Simon Coveney, said: “the personality might change but the facts don’t”. Coveney said: “The danger of course, is that the British system will simply not be able to deal with this issue…even though there’s a majority in Westminster that want to avoid a no-deal Brexit, and that is why over the summer months we will continue to focus significant efforts and financial resources on contingency planning to prepare for that worst case scenario.”

The BBC explain the process here:

  • Candidates need two MP proposers to back them for leader;
  • Tory MPs then vote and the candidates with the lowest votes are eliminated until two candidates remain;
  • A postal vote ballot is then held on these two candidates with the rest of the Tory membership. The winner of this becomes Conservative leader.

Current likely candidates: Jeremy Hunt, Amber Rudd, Liz Truss, Sajid Javid, Boris Johnson, Dominic Raab, Andrea Leadsom, Matt Hancock, Penny Mordaunt, Tom Tugendhat, Michael Gove, Esther McVey, Sir Graham Brady, James Cleverly, Kit Malthouse, Mark Harper, Rory Stewart.   A recent YouGov poll reveals Boris Johnson is the most popular Conservative candidate among the party members with a lead of 18 points.

With a change of party leadership and PM we may see some policies being pushed and others dropped.  The Times have an interesting piece sharing a survey of 858 Conservative members’ opinion on key manifesto pieces such as same-sex marriage, HS2, economic policy, and avoiding an early general election.

Finally, a cascade reshuffle has been announced to replace Andrea Leadsom:

  • Mel Stride,the current Treasury minister, will become leader of the Commons replacing Andrea.
  • Jesse Norman, currently the transport minister, will replace Mel Stride as financial secretary to the Treasury and paymaster general.
  • Michael Ellis, currently a culture minister, replaces Jesse Norman as transport minister.
  • Rebecca Pow joins the government to replace Michael Ellis as culture minister.

T Levels

The Government have announced the package of measures to support employers to deliver T-level industry placements. The T Level placement will be at least 315 hours (approximately 45 days) allowing students to build the knowledge and skills they need in a workplace environment. The package includes:

  • New guidance to support employers and providers to offer tailored placements that suit their workplace and the needs of young people. This will include offering placement opportunities with up to 2 employers and accommodating students with part time jobs or caring responsibilities.
  • A new £7 million pilot scheme to explore ways to help cover the costs associated with hosting a young person in their workplace such as equipment and protective clothing.
  • Bespoke ‘how to’ guides, workshops and practical hands-on support for employers – designed alongside industry bodies to make it as easy as possible for them to offer placements.

T levels begin rolling out in across the first three study areas in September 2020 (digital, education, construction). The announced pilot scheme will start prior to the 2020 roll out. From 2021 Health and Science T levels will be introduced, followed by legal, finance/accounting, engineering and manufacturing, creative and design in 2022. Bournemouth and Poole College are listed as one of only 20 providers who will run the first T level projects. The Government also aims to attract 80 industry experts to teach within the T levels sector.

Education Secretary Damian Hinds said: T Levels represent the biggest shake up to technical education in a generation…Industry placements will provide businesses with an opportunity to attract a diverse range of talent and build the skilled workforce they need for the future. To make a success of T Levels, we need businesses working in partnership with us and colleges. Industry placements will help young people build the confidence and skills they need to get a head start in their careers and they’ll help businesses maximise their talent pipeline for the future.

Matthew Fell, CBI Chief UK Policy Director, said: There has long been a need for an increase in prestigious technical options after GCSEs that parents, teachers, and businesses understand. This package of measures to help employers deliver placements is welcome, because if T Levels are going to be a success they will require long-term commitment from Government. Support will be most needed for small and medium-sized businesses, so special attention should be paid to these firms.

Mature Foundation Year Phenomenon

Last week we told you about how access courses are declining whilst foundation years are on the rise and explored the student outcomes for these differing routes (see here, pages 9-10).

HESA have analysed data from 2010/11 to 2017/18 to find clues about disadvantaged students who undertake a foundation year. Foundation years have taken off in increasing numbers since 2014/15, in particular London sees significant growth in foundation year numbers.  Click here for the interactive chart to explore the interactions between disadvantage and young/mature.

The analysis uses the index of multiple deprivation to measure disadvantage and find that across England the number of entrants to a foundation year from the most disadvantaged areas has grown by 7%  – making it 32% of the total entrants. However, the effect is greater when only the most disadvantaged mature students are explored up by 12% to 41% of the total entrants. Mature students seem to account for the significant rise in foundation years – it can be seen most prominently in the London only data.

HESA say:

  • The Office for Studentshas said that reversing the decline in entry into higher education among mature students and especially those from less privileged backgrounds is a vital part of ensuring more equality in access to higher education. Much of the current debate has been around what modifications are required within part-time study and student finance to help achieve this, given such courses are taken predominantly by older students.

The above narrative suggests that foundation years could also be a useful way of helping disadvantaged mature learners return to study. In both countries, we found that much of the increase in mature entry in recent years is accounted for by a small number of institutions. Hence, future research may wish to explore how these universities have managed to buck the wider trend of decline, as this may improve sector understanding of what is needed to support mature and/or disadvantaged individuals into higher education.

Graduate Outcomes

Wonkhe report on the graduate recruitment company who have published Working with class: The state of social immobility in graduate recruitment. Wonkhe state the report finds over a third of 18-25 year olds are put off joining a business if they perceive the workforce to be made up predominantly of middle and upper-class employees – equating to 2.5 million young people. The report argues that this is costing businesses and the wider economy £270 billion per year. The research also found two thirds (66%) of graduates felt they had to change “who they are” to “make a good impression” during an interview and the majority (64%) said they weren’t able to express themselves as individuals during application processes.

Wonkhe also have an interesting and short blog on what the graduate outcomes metrics aren’t measuring despite the data being available. What about graduate job satisfaction? explores the old DLHE question examining why the graduate chose the job they were doing and the nearest equivalents in the Graduate Outcomes survey which asks whether the graduate’s current activity fits with their future plans, is meaningful, and utilities their degree learning. The author calls for TEF and league table compilers to pay more attention to this richer source of graduate outcome information.

Disadvantage – access, participation and success

A parliamentary question on opening up disadvantage data to support university admissions receives the usual ‘not yet’ response:

Universities: Disclosure of Information

Q – Ben Bradley: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what discussions he has had with the Office for Students on the transmission of data on applicants’ pupil premium status and ethnicity directly to universities in order to support universities’ work on widening participation and access.

A – Chris Skidmore:

  • Widening access and participation in higher education is a priority for the government. This means that everyone with the capability to succeed in higher education should have the opportunity to participate, regardless of their background or where they grew up.
  • We have made real progress in ensuring universities are open to all, with record rates of disadvantaged 18-year-olds in higher education. However, we know there is further to go to maximise the potential of the talent out there, so it is vital that we build on this progress.
  • Higher education providers need to use good quality and meaningful data to identify disadvantage in order to effectively address disparities in access and participation in higher education. We encourage institutions to use a range of measures to identify disadvantage, including individual-level indicators, area data (such as Participation of Local Areas, Index of Multiple Deprivation or postcode classification from ACORN), school data, intersectional data such as Universities and Colleges Admissions Service’s (UCAS) Multiple Equality Measure, and participation in outreach activities. To this end, we are working with the Office for Students (OfS), UCAS and sector representatives to further explore how we can support universities to improve and enhance access to data.
  • We want institutions to consider a broad range of information in their offers, including the context in which a student’s results were achieved. We are committed to helping universities progress in their efforts to improve access and successful participation for under-represented groups.

And while we’re talking of Chris Skidmore, he has had a temporary promotion to cover for Claire Perry, Minister of State for Energy and Clean Growth. Chris will retain his Universities Minister portfolio whilst attending Cabinet on Claire’s behalf.

Minimum salary threshold

Politics Home reports that Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, will remove the £30,000 minimum salary threshold for EU migrants wishing to work within the UK. All media sources are drawing on a letter than The Sun obtained in which Sajid wrote to the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) recommending they reconsider the wage threshold and address regional wage discrepancies. The Sun report Sajid also said he wants EU migrants to receive exemptions for a range of professions and for new entrants and inexperienced works to be paid less.

The MAC’s £30k policy brought the wage requirement for EU in line with that required to be achieved by international migrants and said it would also help to boost wages for UK workers. Prior to the £30k policy announcement (see Immigration white paper, Dec 2018) it was reported that there was heated opposition to the policy in the cabinet from both the Chancellor and the Business Secretary (Greg Clark). As a concession to the opposition it was agreed the Minister (Sajid Javid) would consult with business on the final level of the salary threshold. Politics Home state: “Saj is basically telling the MAC to go away and do their work all over again. He knows Theresa is off and he’s cashing in.”   

The leaked letter states: “The Government is committed to engaging extensively over the course of this year before confirming the level of the minimum salary threshold.”  It is believed the MAC are due to reopen the salary threshold discussions and report back to Sajid Javid at the end of 2019.

Apprenticeships

The Public Accounts Committee have published a progress review on the apprenticeships programme, raising concerns over low take-up, unambitious targets and poor-quality training.

It argues that the DfE has failed to make the predicted progress when launching apprenticeship reforms in 2017. The number of apprenticeship starts fell by 26% after the apprenticeship levy was introduced and, although the level is now recovering, the government will not meet its target of 3 million starts by March 2020.  The committee moreover concludes that the department’s focus on higher-level apprenticeships and levy-paying employers increases the risk that minority groups, disadvantaged areas and smaller employers may miss out on the benefits that apprenticeships can bring.

The report also finds that the Department underspent the programme’s budget by 20% in 2017-18, but employers’ preference for higher-cost apprenticeships means that the programme is expected to come under growing financial pressure in the coming years.

Other news

Smart dorms: Accommodation provider UPP are considering trialling new technology and research initiatives as part of a smart property technology push. UPP said:  “We have an aspiration to create smart communities within our bedrooms and our accommodation, and we want to support universities’ smart agendas…One of the ideas that we’re following at UPP is, how can we get virtual assistants into our rooms? How can we use smart technology in the lights and so on?”  UPP state that students want more control over their accommodation, such as how much energy they use, and that new technology could help monitor student wellbeing, for example registering how often students leave their rooms. They are encouraging suppliers to see university accommodation as a “testbed for…their new gadgets”, which could help keep down costs for students renting the rooms. Research Professional have the full article here.

FE funding: Education Select Committee Chair Robert Halfon joins the call for FE providers to be funded fairly. Writing in Politics Home he states:

  • When delivered well, skills, education and apprenticeships provide a ladder of opportunity that allows anyone, no matter what their background, the opportunity to secure jobs, prosperity and security for their future. This is important for two reasons: to address social injustices in our society and to boost productivity in our country. Getting this right benefits everyone, and colleges are the vanguard in our fight to achieve this.
  • Despite delivering fantastic outcomes for their learners and meeting our skills needs, colleges get a raw deal in funding terms. According to the IFS, 16-18 education “has been the biggest loser”, with spending per student falling by eight per cent in real terms since 2010/2011. For too long, Further Education has been considered the ‘Cinderella Sector’.

The Education Select Committee has been: examining the potential for a long term, ten-year vision for education investment that recognises the vital contribution from our collegesThe benefit that colleges bring to individuals, communities and our country transcends party politics and referendum lines.

Antisemitism: Universities were reminded of their responsibilities to tackle religious-based hate at the end of last week. This Government news story tells of potential indirect discrimination after a University Jewish society was expected to fund a £2,000 security bill to run an event.

Careers Hubs: Dorset LEP has been successful in a bid to establish a Careers Hub. In 2018 Careers Hubs were trialled through first wave providers who reported over performance against the measured careers education targets:

  • outperforming the national average on all 8 Gatsby Benchmarks of good careers guidance;
  • 58% of Careers Hubs provide every student with regular encounters with employers;
  • 52% provided every student with workplace experience (work experience, shadowing or workplace visits).
  • Improvements were strongest in disadvantaged regions.

The press release describes the Careers Hub model:

Careers Hubs bring together schools and colleges with employers, universities, training providers and career professionals to improve outcomes for young people. There is a focus on best practice and schools and colleges have access to support and funding, including an expert Hub Lead to help coordinate activity and build networks, a central fund to support employer engagement activities, and training for a Careers Leader in each school and college. Employers are vital to the Hub model’s success, with all Hubs required to demonstrate strong engagement amongst local businesses and a clear plan for increasing employer engagement

Carolyn Fairbairn, Director General of the CBI, said:“Firms can sometimes struggle to engage with the schools and colleges that need their support. It’s therefore hugely encouraging to see more Careers Hubs on the way. There is no doubt they will play a pivotal role in helping employers get more involved.”

Poverty: The Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, published his final report into extreme poverty and human rights (including taking account of 300 written consultation responses). You can read the full report here, or you can contact Policy for a shorter summary and recommendations if this topic is of interest. The report sets out a bleak picture of poverty levels in the UK and draws a direct parallel between the rise in poverty and the Government’s austerity agenda:

“Close to 40 per cent of children are predicted to be living in poverty by 2021. Food banks have proliferated; homelessness and rough sleeping have increased greatly; tens of thousands of poor families must live in accommodation far from their schools, jobs and community networks; life expectancy is falling for certain groups; and the legal aid system has been decimated”

“The bottom line is that much of the glue that has held British society together since the Second World War has been deliberately removed and replaced with a harsh and uncaring ethos.

The Government have responded pushing back on the report calling it a “barely believable documentation of Britain” and stating that “all the evidence shows that full-time work is the best way to boost your income and quality of life.”

Industrial Strategy: The 5 universities in the West Midlands have jointly published a report raising awareness of the value and contribution they make to the Government’s Industrial Strategy. Deborah Cadman, CEO of the West Midlands Combined Authority, said:  “The West Midlands is the first region to work with the UK Government to develop a Local Industrial Strategy and the region’s universities are at the forefront of the vital link between innovation and industry. Their research and development reaches far beyond the laboratory and lecture theatres. By driving the local economy and improving everyone’s lives, they are already addressing the UK’s future challenges.”

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HE Policy Update for w/e 10 August 2018

Review of Post-18 education

Tim Bradshaw, who leads the Russell Group, was in the media this week as he called for maintenance grants to be restored to help improve diversity in HE.

  • BBC coverage here
    • “…Mr Bradshaw said the government should make more funding available to help improve access to higher education, instead of “putting all the blame on universities”.
    • The group is due to submit proposals to the government on how maintenance grants could be restored as part of a review into post-18 education funding. Their options include a “living wage” for students who had been eligible for school meals during their school years. The £8,192 grant would reduce the debt of a student by £27,800, according to the proposal.
    • Mr Bradshaw said:

“It could be very targeted, really cost-effective and actually make quite a substantial difference to those from disadvantaged backgrounds who may inherently be very nervous about taking on an additional loan.”

  • A Department for Education spokesman said poorer undergraduates will get more help than ever when they go to university in the autumn. He said:

“Finance should never be a barrier to a young person’s education, and we are seeing real progress, with disadvantaged 18-year-olds 50% more likely to enter full-time university in 2017 compared with 2009. We have increased the maximum grants and loans available to support students with costs, and disadvantaged students starting their courses this year will have access to the largest ever amounts of cash-in-hand support for their living costs.”

  • The spokesman also said the department was working with the national regulator for higher education in England – the Office for Students – to encourage more young people from disadvantaged groups to apply to university and give them support when there.
  • Guardian here
    • When asked whether the loss of maintenance grants, coupled with £9,250 annual tuition fees, could be dissuading students from poorer backgrounds going to university, Bradshaw conceded: “Yes it might be. The student loans system is very complicated and difficult to understand.”
    • The grants were replaced in the 2016-17 academic year by loans which students would start paying back when they earned more than £21,000 a year.
    • In effect, this means that the poorest students – whose parents are unable to supplement their loan, or indeed help them repay their loans – face an even greater burden of debt after their studies, which could amount to about £58,000 for a three-year course.
  • This could also put them off from studying in the most expensive parts of the country, such as London and Oxford.
    • The Russell Group has been told it needs “to go further” in improving access for disadvantaged pupils with just 6.5% of students in last year’s intake from the poorest parts of the country.

The story was also reported in Politics Home.

In the Independent Robert Halfon (Chair of the Commons Education Select Committee) is sympathetic to the restoration of maintenance grants but doesn’t see it as a magic panacea to bring more disadvantaged students into university. In turn he called on the Russell Group to accept vocational qualifications. Halfon also stated that degree apprenticeships at all universities would be transformative in allowing disadvantaged students to earn whilst they learn – implying this would significantly widen access.

UUK report – future skills

UUK have released a report today “Solving Future Skills Challenges”.  It is only 32 pages but contains a lot of data and analysis from a range of sources.  The recommendations are set out below.

The Guardian covers the story here:

  • The UK economy could benefit from more people of all ages attending university.
  • The advance of automation, robotics, artificial intelligence and digital technology, as well as the challenges of Brexit and an ageing population are creating greater demand for those with level 4 and above qualifications. Including HNC/Ds, foundation, undergraduate and postgraduate degrees.
  • The Universities UK report highlights the need for continual upgrading of skills, lifelong learning and study of higher education qualifications at all levels.
  • The percentage of young people from England entering higher education has reached 49%, but there has been a steady decline in part-time and mature student numbers.
  • The report calls on policymakers to help reverse the latter trend and encourage closer links between universities and employers.

Also:

  • The recruitment gap widens: in 2016 440,000 new professional jobs were created but there were only 316,690 first-degree UK-based graduates – leaving a recruitment gap of 123,310 –  more than double the gap in 2015.
  • By 2030, it is estimated that there will be a UK talent deficit of between 600,000 to 1.2 million workers for both our financial and business sector, and technology, media and telecommunications sector.
  • 65% of children entering primary schools today will ultimately work in new jobs and functions that don’t currently exist.
  • Universities provide around 41% of all professional and technical qualifications

Report recommendations:

  • Government plays a key role in providing an overarching strategy that brings together and enhances the range of policies and interventions that support skills development and educator–employer engagement, including higher level skills, to ensure a ‘whole-skills’ policy approach. Pathways, progression routes and bridging provision, avoiding an artificial ‘binary divide’ between academic and vocational education, and enhancing opportunities for learners, should together be an essential part of the skills strategy.
  • Government can facilitate the development and sharing of more robust, comprehensive and adaptable intelligence about future skills needs across sectors and localities.
  • This approach needs to be supported at both national and local level, including being embedded in sector deals, and with skills advisory boards providing a strong foundation for local industrial strategies.
  • Policies to support employers to provide opportunities for work experience should be a priority, especially among SMEs.
  • Universities should ensure that they enhance and improve their role through:
    • having an integrated, embedded strategy that captures, builds upon and enhances the feedback and intelligence gained through existing partnerships, draws in advice and evidence at the sectoral, regional and the national level, and drives teaching, learning and course development
    • committing to increasing employer advice and input, work experience opportunities, and the delivery of enterprise skills
    • having a co-ordinated, effective and clear employer engagement service – extending their relationship with students beyond graduation to include careers advice, skills provision and engagement with alumni to enhance employer advice and input
  • Employers need to invest in training, development and partnerships as part of enhancing their talent strategies. Staff at all levels should be encouraged to engage with universities and to enhance their recruitment of talent. More work experience opportunities should be offered and greater collaboration in the development of transferable skills. Sector collaboration should be supported to adopt a collaborative ‘eco-system’ approach to developing skills and enhancing their skills-supply chains.
  • Employers and universities must also test and develop existing partnership approaches and collaborative processes to ensure that they will be both robust and agile enough to succeed in an increasingly uncertain and disrupted future.

In order to develop specific policy recommendations to meet the challenges outlined above, Universities UK will be undertaking a range of research projects and activities over the coming months, including the following:

  1. The economic case for flexible learning – this project, undertaken in conjunction with the CBI, will look specifically at how the government can encourage learning that is more flexible, and support people to study at different times in their lives.
  2. High-level skills through effective partnerships and pathways – this work will consider how partnerships between higher education and further education providers are meeting the local skills needs of businesses and how the policy environment can help promote and enhance these partnerships.
  3. Integrating higher level skills and adopting a ‘wholeskills’ approach to local industrial strategies and skills advisory boards – we will be developing advice and guidance based on practical examples to support the development of effective skills strategies and partnerships at the local level.
  4. Technical and professional education – this project looks at developing effective links, pathways and bridging provision to ensure effective opportunities for learners and employers.
  5. Enhancing intelligence on employer needs – this collaborative project aims to ensure a detailed analysis is undertaken of the Employer skills survey to provide intelligence for universities, employers and policymakers.

Research Professional also ran an article related to the UUK report in Vice-chancellors set out ideas to avoid future skills gaps. It talks of maximising attendance at university, incentivising university/business links, and reversing the part time and mature decline through flexible and lifelong learning.

Student Employment

Part time work

The Financial Times writes of the reduction in working students in The decline of the student summer job.

In 1997 the number of young students (aged 18-24) that worked whilst studying decreased by 12% (from 48% in 1997 to 36% in 2017). The decrease was more pronounced in working 16-17 year olds (22%). The article continues on to consider automation (less low skill jobs available), the pressure to undertake unpaid internships, and tuition fees (which increase focus on academic success) as reasons for the decline. It also considers the attractiveness of the gig economy to students.

There is a section on unpaid internships which highlights their attractiveness to employers over low skill employment whilst acknowledging the elements privilege and unfairness play.

Ben Lyons (from Intern Aware) says that internships at high-profile companies, even if they are unpaid, typically count for more with prospective employers than paid work in a bar.  Ben continues: “It might be the case that someone working several unrelated summer jobs might have more get up and go. Employers often assume that people who have done 20 internships have more initiative rather than thinking that they have more advantages.”

Career placements

The OfS have published a City University blog on social mobility recruitment within their summer placement scheme. It notes that almost half of top UK firms have introduced questions about applicants’ education, free school meals and parents’ jobs in their recruitment process. Their Micro-Placements (MPP) career exploration scheme addresses soft skills development amongst students from underrepresented groups.

The blog talks of how the messaging can drive an organisation’s corporate social responsibility agenda, helping to attract diverse talent by raising their profile with students across all backgrounds, having them recognised as a key recruiter that acknowledges the necessity of a wide range of talents and driving social mobility.

It is rewarding that employers are very interested in how the MPP gives underrepresented students the opportunity to increase their employability skills. Dissemination through promotional events and tailored messaging encourages employers of all sizes and sectors to see the benefits of diversifying their recruitment pool and the necessity of offering these flexible opportunities to attract a wealth of talent, experience and perspectives.

By mobilising talented student cohorts early…we believe we can really address the most pressing issues our students face around employability. By engaging employers in a creative way we can develop the skills and networks students need to successfully enter employment after graduation.

Post study work visa

New Zealand has radically changed its post study work visa. From November international students completing level 7 bachelor’s degrees, or above, will be given a three-year open work visa. Lower level students (studying for at least 60 weeks) will be given a one-year work visa. The employer-sponsored visa will be abolished. The Immigration minister stated: “Our changes to post-study work rights will boost New Zealand’s economy, reduce student exploitation and promote our regional education offerings.”

Education Technology Enhancement

Damian Hinds (Secretary of State for Education) has called on the tech industry to ‘launch an education revolution for schools, colleges and universities’.  A Government news story notes that few schools are harnessing existing technological opportunities and Damian urges the tech sector to tackle five classroom challenges to innovate and improve teaching and revolutionise unnecessary workload.

  1. Inclusion, access and improved teaching practices
  2. Effective and efficient assessment processes
  3. Flexible methods of teacher training/development
  4. Reduce non-teaching admin burden
  5. Lifelong/online learning solutions (post compulsory education)

Read more here.

Other news

Clearing: Nick Hillman from HEPI blogs on clearing in How to land a jumbo jet on a postage stamp. He highlights how 2018’s clearing is a buyer’s market, considers the decision making art of when to stop recruiting, and the limitation of official student planning numbers.

New approach to immigration: CBI argue the Government should scrap the net migration target. Alternatively they suggest EU citizens should instead be registered on arrival and have their visits restricted to three months, “unless they can prove that they are working, studying or are self-sufficient”. See the Politics Home or Financial Times articles; read the CBI document in full; or a much shorter summary provided by Dods which includes a focused education sector analysis section.

International Students: Times Higher use the results of a student survey to highlight UK student opinion on studying alongside international students can be mixed. It proposes universities should do more to promote the benefits experienced by engaging with international peers.

Horizon 2020: The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy published Horizon 2020 participation statistics. It shows the number of times UK organisations participated Horizon 2020 and the value of the EU’s contributions. The UK remains the second strongest participant in Horizon 2020 (for participation and total funding obtained). The data tables break down and also list the top 50 universities for participation.

Stronger Communities: This week the Government launched the Civil Society Strategy policy paper as a mechanism to create stronger communities by bringing together businesses, charities and the public sector. They define civil society as individuals or organisations deliberately acting to create social value, independent of state control. The paper focuses on five key foundations of social value: people, places and the public, private, and social sectors.

It emphasises a connected society and creating opportunities for people to actively take part in community decisions, as well as highlighting ways to harness the power of digital and technology for public good. It will complement the Government’s Industrial Strategy by boosting productivity through thriving communities.

As part of the Civil Society Strategy, the Government will:

  • Unlock £20 million from inactive charitable trusts (those which spend less than 30% of their annual income) to support community organisations over the next two years.

 

  • Launch an ‘Innovation in Democracy’ pilot scheme in six areas trialling creative ways for people to take a more direct role in decisions that affect their local area. This could include Citizens’ Juries or mass participation in decision-making on community issues via an online poll or app.

 

  • Establish an independent organisation that will distribute £90 million from dormant bank accounts to get disadvantaged young people into employment. This new organisation will harness the experience of grassroots youth workers, businesses, and other local services, to help young people achieve their full potential. Also use £55 million from dormant bank accounts to tackle financial exclusion and the problem of access to affordable credit.

 

  • Support charities to make their voices heard on issues that matter to them and ensuring that charitable trustees reflect the diversity of the society they serve.

 

  • Strengthen Britain’s values of corporate responsibility, through the launch of a new Leadership Group, formed of senior figures from the business, investment and social sectors, to put social and environmental responsibility at the heart of company decisions.

 

  • Improve the use of the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 to ensure that organisations can generate more social value for communities when spending public money on government contracts.

 

  • Use digital technology to improve the work charities can provide to support healthy ageing, bolster online safety and better connect people in an effort to tackle loneliness.

Read the executive summary (5 pages) here.

Catapult Funding: On Friday Chancellor Phillip Hammond announced £780 million of funding to expand Catapult centres developing a range of innovative new technologies for tomorrow across the UK.

Intellectual Property: If patents, trademarks, design rights, and copyright confound you read this clear and simple blog post by Research Fundermentals.

Consultations

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

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JANE FORSTER                                            |                       SARAH CARTER

Policy Advisor                                                                         Policy & Public Affairs Officer

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

 

Call for academics to unite and stand up against the changes to the student visa regulations

The changes wrought to the student visa regulations are extremely concerning and almost certain to lead to irreversible damage to Higher Education (HE) in the UK especially in respect of its international reputation, as a consequence of an ill-conceived policy to reduce the numbers of incoming migrants to the UK that plays to popular, ill informed ideology and short-term, self-serving politics at the expense of the country. Students are an easy target, but a false one and do not indicate the changes for which the public may in fact be vying.

The ramifications for HE and the UK economy are likely to be very significant judging from the hard evidence brought to bear on the issue. According to the report ‘Estimating the Value to the UK of Education Exports’ produced by Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the profits brought in by the education of international students represents £14.1 billion, with a projected estimated profit of £26.6 billion by 2025.

Dr Jo Beall, director of education and society at the British Council, has disseminated the findings of a major study with the Economist Intelligence Unit, entitled ‘Impact of Visa Changes on Student Mobility and Outlook for the UK’. This demonstrates that the UK is now seen as having the most restrictive immigration regime of all its competitors, leading to international students taking their business away from the UK towards the USA, Australia and Canada. Nor do arguments against the control of extremism among international students carry much weight, since this not related to international students, as shown in the Home Affairs Committee report ‘Roots of Violent Radicalisation’. Furthermore, according to the British Council, international students ensure the viability of certain disciplines, such as postgraduate biotechnology and engineering courses, where they can constitute 90% of the population (see Times Higher Education, 9-15th Feb 2012 for details).

The weight of hard evidence from these various, highly reputable sources point to a dramatic and deleterious effect on the economy if we restrict international students in this way. We must not, either, forget the importance that a global mix of students brings to the pursuit, creation and sharing of knowledge. Our higher education is an elite export that brings billions to the UK economy and it seems absolutely incredible that the Government is blatantly ignoring this alarming evidence, especially during a time of grave financial hardship and austerity for the country. This evidence cannot be ignored and makes a mockery of misguided arguments that international students represent an abuse of the UK. Instead it is clear that the UK economy and reputation is reliant on international students who have until now sought in great numbers the UK’s elite export: our world-leading higher education, which is rapidly slipping from its hard-earned first position in the international tables, and is a fall that is likely to prove irreversible.

It is most concerning that academics are seemingly accepting these changes, rolling over and aping the actions of a pusillanimous UUK in the face of the Government’s HE reforms. The evidence is there and we need to stand up for important if difficult truths in the face of short term political goals. Our conversation with Phil Baty at the Times Higher indicates that the new editor, John Gill, features editor, Rebecca Atwood, are seeking interest to develop a campaign around this area. Something we feel strongly should be engaged in by all concerned academics.

 

Prof Jonathan Parker and Dr Sara Crabtree

School of Health and Social Care