Tagged / widening participation

HE policy update w/e 3rd November 23

We have a response from the Government on student accommodation, DSIT is all about the AI research, whole-sector foundation year student statistics are rather damning, we hear from the new Free Speech Tsar, and the BTEC | T level | Advanced British Standard confusion takes the next step as 85 qualifications are defunded.

Parliament – new session beckons

Parliament has been prorogued ready for the Kings Speech and the new session of Parliament to open on Tuesday 7 November. Carry-over motions were agreed for six Bills, with the Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill being of most relevance to universities. In addition, the Renters Reform Bill was introduced but was still awaiting a second reading when this briefing was published (see below for a discussion of that one).

Bills that had not completed the legislative process and for which a carry-over was not agreed have now fallen.  They might be brought back, along with the ones that were announced but had not gone forward, including bills on media, audit reform, and mental health.

The King will formally open Parliament on 7 November and in his speech (which is written by the Government) he will announce the Government’s proposed policies and legislation for the coming session. The new session will end when Parliament is dissolved ahead of the general election – which must be held in January 2025 or before.

The House of Commons Library briefing King’s Speech 2023 has lots of useful information, including setting out some potential areas for the 2023-23 new legislative session:

  • Criminal justice measures, including knife crime and sentencing
  • Raising the age of sale for tobacco products
  • Implementing legislation for UK accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership
  • Transport
  • Leasehold and commonhold reform
  • Changing the Habitats Regulations to ‘scrap nutrient neutrality’.

Conference season – final elements

Jonathan Woodhead of Birkbeck College has written a piece for the campaign for Learning on the LLE after the party conference season – lack of clarity seems to be a theme.

Wrapping up the final elements from the 2023 party conference season we highlight the aspects in Labour’s conference most of interest to HE:

  • Keir Starmer criticised the Prime Minister’s comments on universities, saying I never thought I would hear a modern Conservative Prime Minister say that 50% of our children going to university was a “false dream”. My Dad felt the disrespect of vocational skills all his life. But the solution is not and never will be levelling-down the working-class aspiration to go to university.
  • Labour’s speeches were light on policy announcements throughout the conference, likely because the polls suggest Labour is favoured for the next election. Members of the Lighthouse Policy Group suggest staying non-committal on policy announcements means they can avoid making any gaffes that would hurt the party’s chances in the polls and avoids the Conservatives producing a reactive manifesto that usurps Labour’s plans.
  • Kier also spoke of Technical Excellence Colleges describing them as having stronger links to their local economies…planted firmly in the ground of young peoples’ aspiration. TECs are expected to transform existing FE colleges and will have improved links to local universities.
  • Bridget Phillipson, Shadow Secretary of State for Education, stated that Labour would change the way students pay for their time at university, so none of our young people, fear the price they’ll pay for the choice they’d like. The feeling in the sector is that they are favouring a graduate tax, unlikely to increase the cost of tuition fees (despite sympathy for universities’ unit of resource), may be open to reintroducing maintenance loans on a small scale, and are likely to introduce some form of tuition forgiveness for teaching and nursing/midwifery.
  • Shadow Secretary of State for the Department for Science, Innovation, and Technology, Peter Kyle, announced that Labour would create 10-year R&D budgets allowing relationships with industry to build and long-term partnerships to form – leading to investment in new technology and the infrastructure that underpins it. Also that Labour would increase the number of universities spinouts, accept the recommendations of Lord O’Neill’s start-up review. This would include publishing annual data on the performance of university spinout support and a new founder track, giving more flexibility to people who establish spinouts and want to keep a higher stake of the equity. You can read the full transcript for Keir Starmer’s speech and Bridget Phillipson’s speech.

Research

  • AI & medicine: The House of Lords library published their science current affairs digest for October looking at how AI is changing drug discovery and its role in pharmaceutical changes such as anti-ageing, personalised cancer cures and robotic dosing implants. The paper includes the government’s approach to regulation.
  • AI safety summit: DSIT published the programme for the AI Safety Summit on 1 and 2 November. Day 1 will consist of roundtables on AI risks and AI safety and a panel discussion on the immense opportunities of AI to transform education for future generations, Michelle Donelan will provide closing remarks. On day 2 PM Rishi will convene a small group of governments, companies and experts to further the discussion on what steps can be taken to address the risks in emerging AI technology and ensure it is used as a force for good. Michelle Donelan will led a group of international counterparts to agree next steps.
  • Innovation funds: DSIT announced funding for £32 million for innovation projects that can improve productivity in key sectors through the use of AI; and £5 million for feasibility studies into 100 small firms’ pioneering AI ideas. Artificial intelligence projects in areas as diverse as fashion, farming and fire-fighting are being backed…as…Michelle Donelan highlights how AI can be a force for good ahead of next month’s AI Safety Summit. The funding is from the UKRI Technologies Mission Fund (administered by Innovate UK).
  • AI safety research team: Yet another AI announcement from DSIT the government’s Frontier AI Taskforce has begun building an AI safety research team to evaluate the risks at the frontier of AI. The Taskforce has partnered with Advai, Gryphon Scientific and Faculty AI – to tackle questions about how AI systems can improve human capabilities in specialised fields and risks around current safeguards. The findings of the research will be incorporated into presentations and roundtable discussions with government representatives, civil society groups, leading AI companies and experts in research at the AI Safety Summit in November. The findings of the research will be incorporated into presentations and roundtable discussions with government representatives, civil society groups, leading AI companies and experts in research at the AI Safety Summit in November.
  • AI superpower: The Lords Communications and Digital Committee met to examine whether the Government is striking the right balance between opportunity and risk in their ambition to make the UK an AI superpower. Large Language Models were considered. You can read or watch the session here.
  • Creative: Wonkhe – The Council for Science and Technology has set out recommendations to the government for harnessing research and development in the UK creative industries. Its recommendations include the Treasury and the Office for National Statistics collaborating on improvements to data collection on creative industries R&D.
  • Horizon funding: Parliamentary Question – UKRI funding of Horizon Europe guarantee scheme and other aspects of the UK research system. George Freeman MP: The government’s priority is to ensure the UK’s R&D sector gets the right support to allow them to continue their ground-breaking research and international collaboration. UKRI has to date issued grant offer letters totalling approximately £1.36bn through the Horizon Europe Guarantee scheme with further funds to be committed throughout 2023-24. UKRI has delivered further support across the Horizon programme, including elements of targeted investments to support UK research, as announced by the Government in November 2022, – with spend underpinned by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. UKRI’s budget remains as published in our Annual Report and Accounts for 2022-23
  • Innovation clusters: DSIT announced £75 million to fund eight Launchpads (regional SME innovation clusters). These initiatives will build on existing clusters of high-tech innovation in each region…The £7.5 million bespoke funding from each Launchpad will allow SMEs in each region to bid for support that is tailored to the unique needs of each business cluster, helping them drive innovation, expand operations, and boost their local economies. The Launchpads cover Net Zero, Digital Technologies, Health Technologies, Agri-Tech and Food Tech, Marine and Maritime, Bio-based Manufacturing, Immersive and Creative Industries, and the Life and Health Sciences.

George Freeman, DSIT Minister: The UK science, research and innovation economy is not just the ‘golden triangle’ of Cambridge-Oxford-London. It is all around the UK. That is why we have launched our flagship Launchpads programme – and this £75 million investment will support high-growth companies to build the industries of tomorrow – in sectors from renewable energy through to digital health. These Launchpads will play a pivotal role in growing our local economies, creating jobs and levelling up the UK

Regulatory: Free Speech

Professor Arif Ahmed, Director for Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom at the OfS made his inaugural speech at a King’s College London event. He confirmed his role was non-partisan and stated freedom of speech is not the property of one side in any culture war and that the role exists to protect and to promote freedom of speech within the law. On academic freedom Arif stated that data showed academic freedom in the UK had dropped in the last 10 years and now ranks around 60th in the world, below most EU countries. There is lots more in the transcript, it follows the messaging you’d expect from OfS covering the chilling effect and institutions silencing controversial voices.

Smita Jamdar explores how the Middle East conflict challenges free speech principles and practice in an article for Research Professional.

Meanwhile Michelle Donellan, Science Minister, has drawn huge amounts of criticism for intervening to tell UKRI to change its approach to equality and diversity, citing the social media accounts of two members of a committee as symptoms of a much wider problem and calling for the committee to be disbanded.  This is a row that is likely to run for a while.  James Coe writes for Wonkhe on the exchange of views with links to how the issue unfolded and escalated if you missed it.  Regardless of views on whether the Minister should have made comments about the individuals concerned or her criticism is justified (and we express no view on that ourselves), the elision of that issue with a wholesale challenge to the equality and diversity work at UKRI seems unhelpful.  The wholesale challenge has been on the agenda for a while, alongside other challenges to what the papers like to call “woke” ideology in universities, but ought perhaps to be treated as a separate and important issue in its own right not at raised the end of an unconnected and different sort of letter – which makes it look less considered than it probably is.

Students

Mental health – by characteristic

OfS published the Meeting the mental health needs of students insight brief examining issues relating to mental health at university. It considers the likelihood students will report mental health conditions by characteristic (age, sex, ethnicity, free school meals and area deprivation measures) and how these affect student outcomes (continuation, completion, attainment, and progression).

Mental health & climate change

Student Minds published the Climate Change and Student Mental Health report which considers curriculum design, leadership, behaviour changes, the impact on specific student groups, the role of government and HEIs:

  • 71% of student respondents were quite or very concerned about climate change.
  • 68% were quite or very concerned about the impact on them personally.
  • 53% of students wanted to learn about sustainability in their curriculum, while only 20% already had.
  • Students believe their universities and the government should focus on energy and recycling over measures to tax or ban meat on campus.

Richard Brabner, Director of the UPP Foundation, said: This fascinating report illustrates the need for universities to offer students practical and constructive ways for them to tackle climate change and wider environmental issues – not only for the good of the planet – but for their own wellbeing too.

Research Professional has a good write up and analysis of the report here.

Student mental health – blogs

Wonkhe has two blogs on student mental health:

Foundation year student statistics

The DfE published foundation year student statistics for 2021/22. Bear in mind the Government is currently reviewing HE funding for foundation years in key areas and the presentation of the statistics seems to match their agenda.

Providers, courses and entrants

Foundation year courses have proliferated in the last 10 years with the greatest number of foundation year providers in London and the South East.

  • There are 69,325 foundation year entrants at English HE providers. This is an increase of over 60,000 since 2011/12 (8,470 entrants), and a 718% increase overall (more than 20% increase each year).
  • Since 2011/12, the number of foundation years available has been growing rapidly, with the number of courses increasing more than fivefold between 2011/12 and 2021/22, from 678 to 3,717.
  • The proportion of foundation year entrants studying a classroom-based subject reached 59% in 2021/22. Most entrants were studying business and management (51% of total foundation year entrants). The figure is higher than undergraduates in the first year of their course, of whom only 13% were studying business and management in 2021/22. Business and management are one of the key areas the Government intends to discontinue foundation year funding.

In total, there were 105 English providers of foundation years in 2021/22.

  • 23 of these providers were based in London, the second highest cluster was South East England (16 providers).
  • 42 of the 105 providers (40%) had a low or unknown tariff in 2021/22, the highest percentage across all OfS provider typologies.

Student characteristics 

Foundation year students are older, more ethnically diverse, balanced between the genders, and less declare disabilities compared to first year undergraduates.

  • 64% of foundation year entrants were aged 21 and above in 2021/22
  • 58% of students entering HE through a foundation year do not have prior attainment in the standard tariff population. (For comparison, only 15% of first year undergraduates entering HE are in this category.) After excluding those recorded as not in the standard tariff population, the prior attainment of those who undertook a foundation year was still lower than for first year undergraduates.
  • In 2021/22, foundation year students identified as White (54%), Asian (14%), and Black (14%). In 2021/22 the proportion of non-white entrants was significantly higher among foundation year entrants (46%) than among first year undergraduate entrants (34%).
  • Gender is split evenly among foundation year entrants (for comparison 58% of first year undergraduates are female).
  • The proportion of foundation year entrants with at least one known disability in 2021/22 was slightly lower than the proportion among comparable first year undergraduates (11% compared to 18%).

Outcomes

Students who complete full HE study that commenced through a foundation year have lower graduate outcomes than non-foundation entrants.

  • 53% of entrants who started in HE with a foundation year completed HE within 6 years (during the academic year 2021/22). Whereas 80% of first year undergraduates completed their qualification within 5 years.
  • Foundation year students studying at high tariff and medium tariff providers saw the highest percentage of graduates in employment or further study (90%).
  • The average salary for a foundation year graduate five years after graduation was £24,500, almost £4,000 lower than that of comparable undergraduates (£28,200).

Full data available here.

Student accommodation

The Government’s response to the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee inquiry on reforming the private rented sector includes information that touches on student tenancies.

The Committee recommended that fixed-term tenancies should be retained for the entire student housing sector and require all landlords letting to students to sign up to one of the existing Government-approved codes of conduct. Long term the Committee called on the Government to replacing existing codes with a single national code of conduct. Also to consider ways to prevent or deter landlords from abusing the exemption such as introducing financial penalties.

The Government response:

  • The government recognises that the student market is cyclical – and that removing section 21 will mean landlords cannot guarantee possession each year for a new set of tenants.
  • Having engaged across the sector, we understand the cyclical model is critical for landlords’ business models and ensures a timely and robust supply of student accommodation. We will therefore introduce a ground for possession that will facilitate the yearly cycle of short-term student tenancies.This will enable new students to sign up to a property in advance, safe in the knowledge they will have somewhere to live the next year.
  • Retaining fixed terms for students, as per the committee’s recommendation, would not in itself mean properties are available at the end of an academic year for next year’s students. Unless notice is served, tenants have a right to remain in a property when a fixed term ends, and a landlord must still use a ground for possession or section 21 to evict them. We believe retaining fixed terms would unfairly lock students into contracts, meaning they could not leave if a property is poor quality, or their circumstances change. Student tenants should have the same flexibility as others.
  • We do not think it is viable to introduce codes which cover all student housing. There are a very large number of private rented sector student properties which would make enforcement extremely challenging, and further regulation would be a significant burden on small landlords. There are key distinctions between private housing rented to students and purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) which warrants a different approach. PBSA is designed specifically with students in mind and caters for their needs, often with additional facilities or support services that would not be available in a standard home rented to students.

Read the full 25-page Government response here.

Renter’s Reform Bill

Wonkhe have a blog: Jim Dickinson reviews the emerging compromise between students and landlords over the Renters (Reform) Bill – and wonders if it will be enough to get the legislation through.

Here’s the latest on the Renter’s Reform Bill discussions taking place in Parliament.

  • Clive Betts MP (Labour), Chair of the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee, described exempting purpose-built student housing from the ban on 6 periodic tenancies as ‘entirely sensible.’ Regarding non-purpose-built student accommodation, he said landlords having the right to terminate a tenancy in line with the university year may prove a good compromise and will be further probed at Committee stage.
  • Mary Robinson MP (Conservative) highlighted concerns from landlords operating student lets on the abolition of fixed-term lets. She said it may prevent landlords from securing tenants ahead of time for the next academic year, taking away certainty and security for both landlords and students. She also warned that the changes could negatively impact the rental market and make it unattractive for landlords to let to students.
  • Paul Blomfield MP (Labour) raised the concerns of student renters, drawing on his findings as Chair of the APPG for Students. He highlighted that approximately 45% of students who live in the private rented sector and are currently not covered by the Bill. Participants in a recent roundtable had agreed on the many positive elements of the Bill but stressed the need for it to succeed for all renters. Paul Blomfield proceeded to note the heterogeneity across the student community, urging the Minister to not rush to exempt students from the protections in the Bill relating to non-fault evictions…without careful consideration of the impact on all types of students.
  • Helen Hayes MP (Labour) recounted an experience of a constituent who had lost their first-year university student son to suicide. As their son had signed a tenancy for second-year accommodation with a guarantor agreement, after their son’s death the parents were pursued for rent. She said she would table an amendment to address this issue.
  • Caroline Lucas MP (Green) warned against excluding students from the reform, reminding the Secretary of State of the White Paper which stated, it is important that students have the same opportunity to live in a secure home and challenge poor standards as others in the PRS.
  • Matthew Pennycook MP, Shadow Minister for Housing and Planning, said Labour would press for clarification of the new grounds for possession for students’ landlords to ensure they are not too expansive and ensure the complexities of the student market are reflected.

The Bill is being carried over to the next Parliamentary session where it will be considered in depth at Committee Stage. It’s this stage that the real shape of the Bill will begin to emerge.

UUK have a good in-depth briefing on the implications of the Renter’s Reform Bill for students.

HEPI report on student accommodation costs

Student accommodation costs across 10 cities in the UK: Cost pressures and their consequences in Purpose-Built Student Accommodation (HEPI Report 166) provides an authoritative picture of student living, conducted in response to the unprecedent rent rises and supply issues witnessed over the past two academic years. It includes data voluntarily submitted by both universities and the 10 largest providers of Purpose-Built Student Accommodation operating across ten major regional university cities who collectively manage more than 125,000 beds in those cities (including Bournemouth).

Consequences

  • The overall picture that has emerged is one of very challenging market conditions. While many accommodation providers acknowledge there is an undersupply of accommodation and rising rents, there are no easy fixes.
  • Although there is much talk of affordability, the ability of providers to build more to relieve supply pressures is being hit by high development costs. The new rooms that do get built come with a higher price tag, so that providers can recoup their development costs. The pipeline of new accommodation is being slowed by historically high interest rates which are driving up funding costs. Rent levels in existing buildings have also been increasing as a consequence of rising running costs.
  • All providers surveyed recognise that the result of all this is that many students are having to put up with steep rent rises because they have no other options.

Policy implications and recommendations (from main report):

Student maintenance system

  • The student maintenance system needs resetting, if access to higher education is to be maintained evenly across both richer and poorer students. ‘Maintenance loans’ could more accurately be described as ‘a contribution to living costs’. The importance of the parental contribution should be highlighted rather than just mentioned in passing and parents should be provided with clearer official information on the minimum they are expected to contribute.
  • Maintenance support needs to be based on how much it actually costs to be a student living independently and away from home. In England, there is a golden opportunity to harvest the invaluable data collected for the government-funded Student Income and Expenditure Survey (SIES) and to use it as an evidence base towards a better system.

Affordability and financial intervention

  • Beyond the talk of affordability, the figures show that new and additional PBSA is getting more and more expensive. Rent for new beds in 2023 is 22 per cent more than for existing stock.
  • The main driver for the growth of PBSA is the private sector, and they are unlikely to increase their risk by going it alone on innovative products or lower-cost accommodation to fulfil an educational agenda. These options will only be developed if led by educational institutions, sharing some of the risk through private sector partnerships: universities must get more involved.
  • Accommodation bursaries can be effective in markets where there is a lack of affordable options.Finding resources for partnering with private providers is essential if educational institutions are going to make this support available. This is an important short-term approach, even if it serves to help shore up a dysfunctional student maintenance system.

Wonkhe blogs on the topic:

Admissions

Grading of level 3 results

Dr Jo Saxton, Ofqual’s Chief Regulator, wrote to HEIs to communicate grading arrangements for England’s 2023/24 admission cycle. It notes the 2-year transition to pre-pandemic grading is complete and normal grading arrangements will continue for GCSE, AS and A levels in 2024. Meaning national results in 2024 are expected to be ‘broadly similar’ to those of the summer of 2023. Grading arrangements for vocational and technical qualifications will continue as normal with awarding organisations adopting the same approach for the academic year 2023 to 2024 as they did previously.

Progression to HE: key stage 4 and 5 student data

The DfE published three data releases on the destinations of key stage 4 and 5 students in 2021/22. The releases cover whether students go into apprenticeship, education and employment destinations, and whether they progress to HE. All three data sets are available here.

The data release covering progression to higher education or training look at the percentage of level 3 pupils continuing to a sustained education or training destination at level 4 or higher in the two years after they completed their 16 to 18 study back in 2019/20.

The proportion of students that progressed to a sustained level 4 or higher destination was 68.3% (+2.3%); of the 68.3%:

    • 64.0% were studying for a (full level 6) degree.
    • 1.7% were participating in a higher/level 4 apprenticeship.
    • 2.6% were studying other qualifications at level 4 or 5

Disadvantage

  • Disadvantaged students (those eligible for pupil premium in year 11) were less likely to sustain a level 4 or higher destination (63.4%) than other students (69.5%) – a larger gap than last year
  • Disadvantaged students were much less likely to sustain a degree destination at a top-third HEI (12.2% vs 21.6%).
  • However, this gap reverses looking at the value-added scores (which take prior attainment at GCSE and qualification type into account).
    • Disadvantaged students scored +1.9, compared to -0.5 for other students, showing that a student of given prior attainment and qualification type is actually slightly more likely to progress if part of the disadvantaged cohort.
    • This could be because disadvantaged students are more likely to enter into level 3 study with the intention of progression, or it could be that they are boosted by the London effect (London has by far the highest proportion of disadvantaged students and a very high progression rate).

Gender

  • Female students were more likely to progress to a level 4 or higher destination (71.4%) than male students (64.7%), a slightly larger gap than last year. Except there are more males on tech levels (qualifications prior to T levels) with male tech level students obtaining a higher progression score (+2.7) than female students (-1.8). Gender bias it likely at play here due to the type of tech level subjects chosen (some tech subjects lead to higher rates of education/ apprenticeship destinations than others).
  • Though female students were much more likely to sustain a degree destination, male students were slightly more likely to sustain a level 4 or level 5 destination and nearly twice as likely to sustain an apprenticeship.

Ethnicity

  • There is large variability in the rate of progression by ethnicity group. Asian or Asian British students were most likely to sustain a level 4 or higher destination at 84.6% overall. 21% ahead of students from the White ethnicity group which had the lowest progression rate.
  • Once prior attainment and qualification type were accounted for, students from the Black or Black British ethnicity group achieved the highest progression scores (+17.2), followed by students from the Asian or Asian British group (+13.4). Students from the White major ethnicity group were the only ones to average a negative progression score, however they were more likely than students from other groups to have a high-level apprenticeship or level 4/5 destination.

Region

  • London continues to have the highest rates of progression to level 4 or higher (79.1%), while the South West continues to have the lowest (61.7%). This difference remains even when prior attainment and qualification type are considered. The gap has widened on last year. Proximity to HEIs is likely a biasing factor here – students from London might have the opportunity to sustain degree destinations while living at home, while those from the South West have fewer options and may find the necessary travel/rental costs prohibitive. London also has a higher-than-average ratio of schools to colleges, creating a stronger bias towards education destinations over employment.

Previous provider type

  • Students from non-selective schools in highly-selective areas continue to progress well below the national average even once prior attainment is taken into account.
  • For two students with the same GCSE results and studying the same qualification types, both at non-selective schools, the one studying in a highly-selective area is 5.5% less likely to progress to a level 4 or higher destination than the other student.
  • Students from selective schools continued to progress at a very high rate (89.7%) with an average progression score of +2.0.

You can find the full data release on progression to HE here.

The DfE has also published data on 16-18 destination measures detailing students who left 16-18 study in 2020/21 and follows their destinations in 2021/22. Excerpt: Disadvantaged students were more likely to stay in further education and less likely to progress to higher education: While 45.8% of non-disadvantaged students leaving 16 to 18 education progressed directly to higher education, the rate for the disadvantaged group was 35.6%. On the other hand, 7.7% of disadvantaged students continued in further education, compared to 6.1% of all other students.

Finally, there is also information on key stage 4 destination measures.

BTECs out. T levels in for now.

Rishi’s announcement that T levels will be defunded when (if) Britain moves to the Advanced British Standard put the DfE in a bit of quandary as to whether to continue the (unpopular) cancellation of BTECs that are gradually being replaced by T levels or whether to have a serious rethink. After a quick ponder the DfE are moving ahead and continuing to pull back from BTECs (and similar technical qualifications) and have published the final list of 85 qualifications assessed to overlap with wave 3 T Levels. The overlap occurs in these areas:

  • Business and Administration
  • Engineering and Manufacturing; and
  • Finance and Accounting.

The Government will withdraw public funding from these qualifications, for new starters, from August 2025.

Universities and Skills Minister Halfon has issued a written ministerial statement announcing the changes. It points out that of the 85 qualifications – 30 didn’t have any current enrolments and another 23 had fewer than 100 enrolments in the 2020/21 academic year. Although given that parents knew these qualifications were about to be dumped there is a question over the chicken and egg here!

Moving onto the Advanced British Standard (ABS) Education Secretary Gillian Keegan published a written ministerial statement on the Government’s proposals. She confirmed the Government would provide £600 million over the next two years to prepare for the ABS, consisting of:

  • £100m each year to double the rates of the Levelling Up Premium and expand it to cover FE colleges (to disproportionately benefit disadvantaged students). All teachers who are in the first five years of their career, teaching key STEM and technical shortage subjects and working in disadvantaged schools and all FE colleges, will be paid up to £6,000 per year tax-free.
  • £150m each year to support students who need the most support. I.e. those without a grade 4 or higher pass in maths and English GCSE at age 16. And supporting English and maths for all post-16 apprentices who have not gained their Level 2 qualification, uplifting the funding rates to match the Adult Education Budget.
  • £60m over the next two years to expedite evidence-based techniques for maths teaching, including in post-16.
  • £40m to the Education Endowment Foundation to expand their post-16 work and embed evidence-based approaches in 16-19 teaching.

Keegan stated the Government will consult extensively over the coming months on the design of the new qualification with the consultation resulting informing a White Paper to be published during 2024.

Wonkhe report that since the ABS was announced student enthusiasm for T levels has waned. They have a blog: As demand for “gold standard” T levels atrophies in the face of news that they’ll be replaced, Johnny Rich laments an obsession with killing off BTECs.

Access & Participation

Social Mobility

HEPI published The English Social Mobility Index which compares the performance of (English) HEIs was published. Research Professional set to the Index and have questions in this good article: Mobility Issues. Excerpts:

  • If accurate, it would seem to confound assumptions about which sort of universities are doing the heavy lifting on social mobility.
  • The results are somewhat counter-intuitive. Are Imperial College (13) and the University of Cambridge (16) doing more for social mobility than Brunel and Birkbeck (18 and 19 respectively)?
  • Is the University of Manchester (22) a more effective engine of social movement than Manchester Metropolitan University (36)? Is the University of Oxford (21) doing more on social mobility than Middlesex University (44)?
  • Examples like this could be multiplied as you move through the ranking. The bottom nine institutions are all post-92s, with the University of Exeter the only member of the Russell Group in the bottom quartile.
  • The obvious question would be, how accurate a portrait of social mobility is this? The emphasis on graduate outcomes—weighted equally between median salaries and the Office for Students definition of “positive outcome” of graduate-level employment or further study—would tend to favour both high-tariff institutions and those based in the capital.
  • the graduate outcomes and continuation data are very broad-brush strokes, especially in larger universities, which may or may not bear much relevance to the experience of “social mobility students” at any given institution. For example, Oxford’s access numbers might be quite low, but its continuation and outcomes figures will be great, producing a decent score in the table—but that is not the same thing as delivering on social mobility, and certainly not en masse.

Read more here.

Service Children

NEON cover the new report which analyses universities’ APP plans: Under the Radar – Service Children in the UK today, highlighting that only a quarter of universities (10% drop since 2000) in England have strategies in place to support Service children to progress to HE and these numbers may fall over the next year. Read more here. You can also access a recording of the event covering service children.  And Graeme (from NEON) writes for Wonkhe: Children from military families have worse progression rates into higher education. Graeme Atherton argues that they should be a target group for access work.

Neurodiverse students

Wonkhe blog – As retention rates for autistic students are lower than any other disability group, Helen Guyatt explains what could be done to help – and what incentives there are for institutions to do so.

International

China

The Lords Chamber debated the long-term strategic challenges posed by China. The Government’s approach to protecting Chinese students from undue pressure on political issues was criticised and Lord Stirrup questions mechanisms that could effectively be used to protect students including monitoring interactions students have with their own government.

  • Lord Alton of Liverpool (Crossbench) raised Confucius Institutes and suggested the UK worked with the Government of Taiwan for language and culture studies rather than the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). He queried what steps were being taken to help universities reduce dependency and diversify their funding sources.
  • Baroness Coussins (Crossbench) cautioned against ‘throwing the baby out with the bathwater’ in responding to Confucius Institutes. She added that ‘closer monitoring of the situation in some universities is clearly advisable, but any action against the Confucius Institutes should be proportionate and properly targeted.’
  • Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, Minister of State FCDO, responded on behalf of the Government stating a series of measures had been introduced to tackle threats to HE, such as the HE (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023. Also that the Government were working to increase protections for academic freedom and university research, including strengthening the screening of Chinese academics and researchers in sensitive areas of research. On Confucius Institutes, the Minister said they were ‘taking action to remove government funding from Confucius Institutes in the UK, but currently judge that it would be disproportionate to ban them.’ More details here.

There’s also a Wonkhe blog that may be of interest: Glen Noble explains how UK universities need to develop their own risk management processes for collaborating with China – especially when it comes to sensitive research areas.

International Growth

Lord Jo Johnson has spoken out (again, same messages) on restricting further international student growth and the need for universities to diversify their portfolio.

Wonkhe report: Speaking at a Universities UK International conference yesterday, Johnson said the sector is “reaching the political limits” of tolerance for higher numbers – because of dropout rates among Indian and Bangladeshi students of “approaching 25 per cent”, and questions over students’ ability to support themselves. Reflecting on accusations that universities were “selling immigration into the UK rather than education, he called on universities to take “collective action to weed out poor quality and fraudulent applications”.

There is full coverage in the Financial Times.

Health surcharge

Wonkhe report that the Home Office has published an equality impact assessment for the forthcoming increase to the Immigration Health Surcharge, which for students and their dependants (the discounted rate) will rise from £470 to £776 per person per year. It shows that the disparity between the median weekly wage for younger and older migrants may mean that students see higher impacts from the increase to the charge, making saving to pay the Health Charge more difficult.

Digital Teaching

Digital experience: UUK report on the JISC staff digital experience insights survey 2022/23 covering perceptions of HE teaching staff to technology and its potential in teaching.

  • 71% of teaching staff agreed the use of digital technology in teaching is convenient.
  • 61% agree that it allows them to teach in ways they prefer.
  • 64% rate the quality of their online teaching environment as above average.
  • 61% agree that it enables students to make good progress.

However, the survey also shows that teaching staff need more time and encouragement when it comes to improving their digital skills, with nearly half (49%) rating support for teaching effectively online as average or below average.

Kathryn Heywood, Head of Business Intelligence at Jisc said: This year’s student digital experience insights survey shows that HE students find online learning more engaging and motivating since 2020, and they havereaped the benefits of teaching staff working hard to improve their practice. What’s clear from this year’s staff survey, is that teachers need more dedicated support from the organisation to focus on their digital skills.

Digital enabling: Wonkhe and Kortext published Setting the curve – deploying technology for learning, teaching, and student success looking at how to deploy technology to support longer term learning, teaching, and student success strategies. Excerpt: in making technology part of the solution universities must also ask some searching questions: about the degree of digital capability required of staff and students; about what “hybrid” work and learning should look like and why; about the interaction of the digital and physical estate; and, crucially, about the nature of the spaces available for being critical about technology adoption, and how the conversation about technology moves forward. Read more here.

Other Wonkhe blogs:

Inquiries and Consultations

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

Other news

General Election: The Times reported that the Government has been advised not to call the general election for November due to security concerns should the campaigning period align with America’s (fixed) November presidential election. The Times quotes an official as saying There are huge security and market implications if two Five Eyes countries are holding elections at once. It could potentially open up two countries to cyberwarfare and electoral manipulation from hostile states and if a security threat were to arise during a campaign it would leave western countries exposed. With a second Whitehall source stating: Far more care would have to be taken around national security and meddling from hostile countries. The Times also reports that Labour are preparing for a May election. The last possible date the UK election can be held on is 28 January 2025.

HE growth: Wonkhe blog – On the tenth anniversary of David Willetts’ 2013 Robbins Revisited report, David Kernohan wonders if it still stands up.proroSubscribe!

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HE policy update – summer catch up September 2023

The best bits from the summer period!

To keep the overall size of this policy update smaller we have included several linked documents to provide further detail on some items. These documents are in pdf format and accessed through a hyperlink in the text. If you would like the original documents (in Word) for accessibility purposes, please email us on policy@bournemouth.ac.uk

Parliamentary News: Reshuffle, no kerfuffle

Rishi has reshuffled his Ministers and you can find all the Cabinet members here.  All the junior ministers and their portfolios for both departments are here.

It’s stability in the main for both departments. David Johnston OBE joins the DfE as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (mainly care, SEND and schools focussed but with free speech in education within his brief too), replacing Claire Coutinho, who was promoted). Johnson was previously Chief Executive of the Social Mobility Foundation (a charity which runs a range of programmes that incorporate mentoring, internships, university application support and skills development to help young people from low-income backgrounds enter universities and professions). Johnson has been active in the media on education, generally supportive of technical education, and tweets about social mobility factors a lot.

Labour has reshuffled the Shadow Cabinet appointments – I’ve put all the appointments (both new and those that have remained in post) here. Of most interest are:

  • Matt Western remains as the Shadow Minister for HE
  • Seema Malhotra is appointed as the Shadow Minister for Skills
  • Peter Kyleappointed as Shadow Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology

Horizon Europe

Finally!!! The Government has announced that the UK has made a deal and will associate with the Horizon Europe and Copernicus programmes through a bespoke agreement with the EU. Researchers can apply for grants and bid to take part in projects under the Horizon programme, as a fully associated member from now until the end of this Horizon programme in 2027. Once adopted, the UK will also be able to join the governance of EU programmes – which the UK has been excluded from over the last three years.

The UK will also associate to Copernicus, the European Earth Observation programme. This will provide the UK’s earth observation sector with access to specialist data, e.g. to help with early flood and fire warnings, and be able to bid for contracts (we’ve been excluded for the last three years).

It may be a case of the devil is in the detail however, the Government’s press release sets out the financial protections that have been agreed for the UK:

  • We will not pay for the time where UK researchers have been excluded from since 2021, with costs starting from January 2024This will also provide breathing space to boost the participation of UK researchers in open calls for grants before we start paying into the programme. [Because it’s expected it’ll take UK researchers some lead time before the UK begins securing a volume of successful bids.]
  • The UK will have a new automatic clawback that protects the UK as participation recovers from the effects of the last two and a half years. It means the UK will be compensated should UK scientists receive significantly less money than the UK puts into the programme. This wasn’t the case under the original terms of association.

UUKI state the agreement must be adopted by the EU-UK Specialised Committee on Union Programmes. They also clarify:

  • UK researchers will be able to carry out European Research Council and Marie Sklodowska-Curie Action projects in the UK while retaining their status as ERC or MSCA grantees.
  • UK researchers can once again lead collaborative projects as coordinators.
  • UK research entities will count towards the consortium eligibility requirements as one of the three required partners from EU Member States or Associated Countries (nb. consortia will still need one partner from an EU Member State).

From Minister Donelan’s written statement:

  • From today, UK scientists can bid and participate confidently in the world’s largest programme of research cooperation – alongside their EU, Norwegian, New Zealand and Israeli colleagues – and with countries like Korea and Canada looking to join…UK academics and industry will be able to bid, secure funding for, and, crucially, lead, the vast majority of new calls that will be opening throughout the autumn. UK researchers and businesses can be certain that all successful UK applicants will be covered through the UK’s association for the rest of the programme (or through the remainder of the UK’s Horizon Europe Guarantee scheme as we transition to these new arrangements). All calls in Work Programme 2024 will be covered by association and the UK guarantee scheme will be extended to cover all calls under Work Programme 2023. UK scientists and researchers can lead project consortia under Work Programme 2024 – a key ask of the sector – allowing them to shape the next generation of international collaboration.
  • Under the previous programme the UK established over 200,000 collaborative links, and we will now play a leading role in a range of ground-breaking industry collaborations such as the AI, Data and Robotics Partnership worth over £2 billion, or the Cancer Mission aiming to help more than 3 million people by 2030.
  • Access to Horizon Europe was a top ask of our research community. We have listened to our sector and in this deal delivered collaboration where it is most valuable to UK science. This provides our scientists with a stable base for international collaboration and makes sure we are on track to deliver on the ambition to make the UK a science and technology superpower by 2030.
    Euratom (nuclear) association is out, rumoured because the UK believes we’re further ahead than Europe. Donelan: The UK will not join the Euratom programme. The UK fusion sector has communicated a preference for an alternatives programme that would involve direct investment in the UK sector. We are pleased to announce that we will be doing exactly that. We plan to invest up to £650 million to 2027 in a programme of new, cutting-edge alternative programmes subject to business cases, and will announce further details shortly.

Links: Government press announcement; EU/UK joint statement; FAQs on the deal (provided by EU)

Press: Guardian. Research Professional: charm offensive, plan B still on cards (Minister Freeman), implications for Switzerland. UUK warm welcome

FRAP

The Future Research Assessment Programme (FRAP) is gradually wrapping up following the latest publications. The FRAP addressed how research might be measured (and rewarded) in 2028 and proposed a number of changes to the current REF. The reports that informed the planned changes have been released. This Research Professional article is a good quick read, it begins:  we learned what had influenced the thinking behind these changes, with the publication of a summary of stakeholder engagements, an analysis of equality, diversity and inclusion in the 2021 Research Excellence Framework and another analysis, commissioned from the policy-advice group Technopolis, of how much that exercise had cost to run.

  • …the starkest numbers appeared in the examination of costs. It showed that the overall cost for higher education institutions reached £430 million for REF 2021, up from £237m for the 2014 exercise. The four UK national funding bodies spent a further £17m, while the cost to the panels that assessed submissions was £24m.
  • The total average cost for each university or research institute rose from £2m in REF 2014 to £3m in REF 2021, with the average cost per researcher submitted amounting to £6,000—up from £4,000.
  • institutions had also been doing a lot of work that they weren’t asked to do because they wanted to optimise the REF process—hardly surprising…
  • the interesting thing for 2028 is how can we reach a kind of settlement with the sector to say how much of this do we really need to do?”…“And how much can we stand back from in the interests of reducing the burden on everybody?”
  • by removing the association between individual staff and outputs, the changes suggested by the Frap would make a big difference—particularly for institutions without a large infrastructure, such as smaller specialist institutions.
  • Implementing the Frap recommendations is expected to save institutions an estimated £100m and…. the research funders would use the Technopolis report to make calculated reductions in costs.

You can find all the reports here and the stakeholder engagement summary here.
Wonkhe have a blog too: REF is expensive because it’s good value.

Research – Quick news

The Science and Technology Committee published their interim report into the governance of AI: summary here. There’s a world first summit on AI safety to be held 1-2 November. International governments, leading AI companies and experts in research will unite for crucial talks and agree a set of rapid, targeted measures for furthering safety in global AI use. Matt Clifford and Jonathan Black have been appointed as the Prime Minister’s Representatives.

  1. Announcements: UKRI announced the creation of four new research facilities, and a survey has found that “extreme measures” are needed to help some European research infrastructures deal with the “severe” impact of higher energy costs (Research Professional).
  2. Peer Review: Research Professional have an article on UKRI’s Review of Peer Review: UKRI report suggests AI could improve grant reviews.
  3. Overall: UKRI has published its annual report and accounts for financial year 2022–23. The year saw it assess over 22,300 applications for funding, and make 6,118 awards (as well as support 1,897 Horizon Europe Guarantee grants). (Wonkhe.)
  4. QR Funding: Research England has notified institutions that it is “not yet in a position” to confirm quality-related research (QR) funding or Higher Education Innovation Funding (HEIF) allocations for 2023–24, “due to the complete replacement of our analytical system and associated quality-assurance processes.” It plans to publish an overview of its budget later this month, and individual allocations from late summer. (Wonkhe.)
  5. Parliamentary Question: Strengthening UK-Africa science and tech research and partnerships.
  6. Life Sciences sector: OLS, DSIT and DHSC have jointly published the life sciences sector data for 2023 covering the research environment, domestic market, production environment, international collaboration, investment environment, and access to skilled labour. Links:

Life sciences competitiveness indicators 2023

Life sciences competitiveness indicators 2023: life science ecosystem

Life sciences competitiveness indicators 2023: user guide

Life sciences competitiveness indicators 2023: data tables

Foundation year fee caps & student number controls

Read more about the government’s latest plans to incentivise quality below.  In that context, the outcomes of the first two of the OfS investigations into quality related matters – 2 of the 8 business and management investigations – were reported this week.  The OfS haven’t announced any sanctions yet, but number controls could be in their toolbox.  The VC of London South Bank University (no concerns were found after the investigation) wrote for HEPI about the experience.

Way back (February 2018) PM Theresa May announced a review of post-18 education and funding whereby the Government consulted on HE reform, and the Augar report (2019) resulted. There was a lot of change on the table for consideration and the Government launched further consultation concluding in January 2021 and February 2022. The Government introduced piecemeal changes since the Augar report, most recently laying the legislation for the Lifelong Loan Entitlement (implemented from 2025). This Government response document is the latest in these piecemeal changes and continues to focus on changes to ensure high quality HE provision across the sector. The Government states:

We have set out…what more government will do to continue to drive up the quality of higher education. This includes asking the Office for Students (OfS) to use recruitment limits to help drive out provision which is not delivering good student outcomes, a sharp focus on franchising arrangements, and a reduction in the maximum fee and loan limits for classroom-based foundation years. We will also ask the OfS to consider how they can take graduate earnings into account in their quality regime. We know many factors influence graduate earnings – but students have a right to expect that higher education will lead to improved employment opportunities and commensurate earnings… These reforms represent the start, and not the end, of our determination to drive out low-quality provision. We are confident that this will be successful with the support of the sector. The Government has decided not to proceed with a minimum eligibility requirement at this point in time, but if the quality reforms set out here do not result in the improvements we seek, we will consider further action if required.

Student Number Controls: The government believes that as most HEIs charge the maximum fee, combined with no student number controls, it has incentivised providers to expand student numbers on courses that are less expensive to teach, but which may only provide limited benefits to graduates and the wider economy.

There was a consultation on whether to introduce student number controls to prevent ‘the growth of low quality provision’. Instead the Government decided to task (via statutory guidance) the OfS to consider ‘recruitment limits’ for courses not delivering positive outcomes for students – this is already in train because the OfS is already permitted to impose recruitment limits on providers. However, the Government’s newly announced plans concern the OfS’ existing powers and regulatory framework, including the B3 condition of registration on student outcomes (continuation rates, course completion, and graduate progression). Recruitment limits won’t be applied to a course without a prior investigation, and providers will have opportunities to set out contextual information for why a course might not be delivering the student outcomes required by the B3 condition.

The OfS is expected to consider how it can incorporate graduate earnings into its regulatory regime for quality purposes too.

Foundation Year Fee Caps: Foundation years are a route in for students that do not meet the entry requirement for a particular course. However, the Augar report questioned how effective and necessary they were for students. And with the introduction of the Lifelong Loan Entitlement the Government does not want the full lifelong entitlement to be taken by one degree course entered through a foundation year. They have also been vociferous in their questioning of foundation year costs and urged for some time for the fees charged to be lower. Through the document the Government has stipulated the from 2025/26 the maximum fee and loan limit for foundation years will be lowered to £5,760 for classroom-based subjects whilst the maximum fee and loan limits of £9,250 will remain for all other subjects.

Here’s a little more detail:

  • ‘classroom based foundation years provision’ means the subjects currently in OfS Price Group D …the government will issue detailed guidance to the higher education sector on the subjects that the £5,760 fee cap will apply to in due course. While we’re waiting, we do know the challenge is to law, business and management (not tourism, transport or travel), social sciences (not health studies), and humanities (English, historical, philosophical and religious studies (exception is archaeology) including publicity studies. Although it really depends which HECoS code the course falls within as to whether it’s in or out.
  • The Government means business on the foundation year clamp down: We will keep fee and loan limits for foundation years under review, particularly where growth is concerning, and will not hesitate to impose further reductions if necessary. We encourage providers to ensure their business model is not reliant on income from foundation years.

Throughout the Government’s campaign to reduce foundation years undertaken, and reduce their costs where there do continue has been the push back from the access and participation community who state foundation years remove barriers and allow non-traditional or disadvantaged students to enter HE and ultimately achieve a degree.

Finally, other consultation questions covered plans for a new national scholarship scheme and how to grow the provision of high-quality level 4 and 5 courses. The Government document didn’t contain any detail on the scholarship scheme, however, they have confirmed they will not change the maximum fee limits for level 4 and 5 courses from £9,250 at this time.

Students

  • Cost of living: The Commons Library have a briefing on Cost of living support for students
  • Student struggles: The National Union of Students (NUS) Wales has published survey findingswhich show that a quarter of students in post-16 education were unable to find suitable housing last year as rent and bills increased, and 8% had experienced homelessness.

The research on the impact on students of the cost-of-living crisis also found that 1 in 5 students were working more than 20 hours a week alongside their studies, with 64% of those with jobs saying it negatively impacted their students.

Accommodation

PwC and StudentCrowd published Student accommodation: Availability and rental growth trends July 2023 for privately-owned Purpose Built Student Accommodation (PBSA) across the UK.

While demand outstripping supply creates an investment opportunity, particularly for private capital, it also represents a challenge for both universities and students. If left unresolved, it is likely to adversely impact affordability of accommodation, the student experience, university reputation and, ultimately, future recruitment of students. With students facing rising costs of living, without a corresponding increase in maintenance loan levels, the cost of accommodation will, for some, become a prohibitive factor in higher education (HE) participation, impacting those from under-represented groups the most.

There are illustrative charts and more detail along with recommendations for colleagues particularly interested in student accommodation – see the full report.

Healthcare students – pay and childcare

There are three petitions currently in front of parliament relating to pay and financial support (childcare) for healthcare students including student midwives, nurses and paramedics. The petitions call for healthcare students to be paid at least minimum wage for their placement hours and for the 30 hours free childcare offer to be extended to the students. Pay and conditions for healthcare students has been a constant rumble in the background since 2017 when the NHS Bursary and free tuition fees were abolished and students were switched. The strong public support shown for the petitions means a debate has been scheduled and a Government representative will be asked to respond to the petitions.

For colleagues who would benefit from dipping into the full history and detail behind healthcare student’s pay and financial support there is an excellent briefing provided in advance of the parliamentary debate.  You can view the petitions here: 610557616557 and 6196409.

Student Loans – what the policy makers are reading

The House of Commons Library has updated their briefing on student loan statistics. The content is the same as we’ve outlined in recent policy updates. However, what is of interest to the sector is that these briefings are how many non-ministerial policy makers obtain their in-depth information on topics (because they don’t have a departmental team briefing them on the topic). The briefings are impartial (i.e. don’t side with one political party over another) but the content the brief focuses on may lead to debate focusing on these topics in the House. It’s a bit of a chicken and egg situation and the reinforcement of the focus can lead to a self-fulfilling circle – hence why it’s useful for the sector to be aware of the information the parliamentarians are reading.

For more detail and other student loan statistics you can read the full briefing.

Parliamentary Question: The Plan 5 reforms will make the student loan system fairer for taxpayers and fairer for students, helping to keep the system sustainable in the long term.

Other sources on debt: The cost of student loan debt has been picked up again recently by media. The Times and Martin Lewis ran features on whether it’s better (or not) for parents who can afford to pay upfront for university costs rather than burden their children with long term debt. CAPX wants to replace student loans with ISAs. And Wonkhe report on the small but significant number of students…taking out maintenance loans but not fee loans – in 2021–22 this amounted to £281.2m across 51,000 students. Or 6% of full time English undergraduates. This blog explores the group and considers reasons nicely. There’s a data heavy section in the middle, do skip past it if you’re not keen, and read on further through the blog for more context. Here’s a quick summary of the data elements: The providers where maintenance loans outnumber those with fee loans are mostly connected by a strong access and participation role – that and a recent strategic focus on franchise and partnership arrangements. Wonkhe explain: One possible explanation is that students, agents recruiting students, or some providers are taking advantage of the time period between when students are to access and spend the maintenance loan and when they become liable for the fee loan. We don’t know for sure, but it is certainly one possibility that regulators and those responsible for university partnerships may wish to keep in mind.

Graduates – university boost

UUK report that 73% of UK graduates credit going to university with enabling them to find the job they wanted in under 1 year. In addition the report finds that 79% of graduates say going to university enabled them to build skills that have proved professionally valuable, and 71% of first in their family UK graduates said that going to university opened doors to companies for them.

Employment

  • During a cost-of-living-crisis – two-thirds (64%) say that going to university has improved their job security
  • 97% of senior managers polled revealed that graduates reach managerial positions faster, as a result of going to university
  • 73% of business leaders surveyed believe that going to university introduces graduates to peers who can help them build their careers
  • UK graduates see their salary increase by 8.2% on average with their first promotion
  • 61% of business leaders say that going to a UK university puts candidates at an advantage in comparison with other international candidates when applying for a job at their company

Industry knowledge and skills

  • 76% of UK graduates going to university helped to build their self-confidence
  • Over a quarter (28%) of UK graduates first gained employment through a direct connection to their university or degree course

Increasing social mobility

  • Those who were the first in their family to go to university had a slightly higher average starting salary than those who were not the first to attend; £30,111 versus £27,754
  • 51% of business leaders who were the first in their family to go to university said it helped them fast track their career, compared to 46% of business leaders who weren’t

Vivienne Stern MBE, Chief Executive of Universities UK, said:

  • This new research clearly demonstrates the value that graduates benefit from when they go to university in the UK. The benefits captured by this research are numerous – from job security and career ambitions, to earnings and social mobility. They highlight how highly UK universities are regarded not just by those who attend them, but also by those who hire their graduates and benefit from their skills.
  • It is clear that Universities play a huge role not only in preparing graduates for employment, but also in teaching them crucial, transferable life skills that will serve them throughout their career. Ultimately, what this research demonstrates is that our universities play a powerful role in helping graduates forge successful career paths that can help return the UK economy to growth and continue to power our public services.

LEO

The LEO (Longitudinal Education Outcomes) data for 2020-21 has been released. Quick reminder – the LEO data looks at the employment and earnings outcomes of graduates and postgraduates at 1, 3, 5 and 10 years after graduation. One aspect of a university’s performance that the regulator watches with their quality hat on is their graduate outcomes.  If you’re interested in graduate outcomes I’d recommend you engage with the short, simple explanations here and there’s plenty to capture your attention further down the page where you can drill down into charts and summaries by student characteristics such as subject, prior attainment, ethnicity, and disadvantage (POLAR). The provider level data is also well worth a browse through. There’s too much of interest for us to cover it all here so do dive in at source.

What we will mention is where media focussed their attention – on the widening pay gap for graduates previously receiving fee school meals. The data shows that at one, three and five years after graduation, graduates whose families claimed free school meals (FSM) were less likely to be in sustained employment, further study or both than graduates whose families did not claim FSM…and their median earnings were lower – 10% lower at 5 years post-graduation. It continued a trend seen in previous years – that the earnings gap increases as the years after graduation increase. You can see the charts and read more of the detail on the gap here.

If you’d prefer a very quick overall here’s what Wonkhe have to say: This latest iteration of the Longitudinal Education Outcomes (LEO) dataset shows that the impact of Covid-19 as measured by subject area and by industrial area varied widely. Overall, the experience was a negative one for graduate and postgraduate earnings – though in most cases these remained relatively stable in real terms. At a subject level, there appeared to be a greater impact by provider in computing, law, and business and management subjects. This year’s Longitudinal Education Outcomes (LEO) data drop refers to the 2020–21 tax year – a period during which you may recall that the global economy was subject to a number of shocks. The fascinating thing about what we see from our heavily-caveated data on graduate salaries is how little impact this appears to have had. In most cases graduates could expect a similar level of pay, in real terms, to every other year LEO covers.

And what they read into the politics: All this prompts us to ask what LEO is really for, and what it really shows us. It’s gone from being a central feature of the government’s armoury of tools to identify and destroy “low-quality” courses – thus driving down the cost of the loan system – to featuring only on the data graveyard that is Discover Uni. Even the people who write those “best course for a big salary” articles rely on aggregated CVs rather than an actual government release. One wonders if Wonkhe will change their opinion on this given the weekend’s announcement on the role of graduate data in student number controls.

Plus a blog: LEO – it promised much, but in regulatory terms has delivered little. David Kernohan wonders what went wrong. And another: however, it does offer a useful corrective to the use of provider- and subject-level outcomes measures.

Note: the LEO data is different to the DfE 2022 Graduate labour market statistics (see Graduate Employability section for coverage of the DfE statistics).

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) published an article on the data released exploring the educational attainment of pupils in English towns, using data from the Longitudinal Educational Outcomes (LEO) dataset. It examines how educational attainment differs by town size, deprivation level and the average qualification levels of residents in the previous generation, using LEO data, and focusses on pupils who sat their GCSEs in the 2012 to 2013 school year. A summary provided by Dods Political Intelligence is available here.

Sharia-compliant student finance

This Parliamentary Library paper on Sharia-compliant alternative student finance is a good catch up on the basics and latest news for the alternative student finance system which the Government plan to introduce from 2025. There haven’t been any further developments since this was announced at the beginning of the summer period.

Students: Quick News

Cost of living: Wonkhe blog –  Eighteen months into the biggest cost of living crisis the UK has seen in decades, Jim Dickinson tries to work out if university advice on the costs that students will face has improved.

Mental Health: Wonkhe – Some 30 per cent of undergraduates starting university this September will have a history of missing education due to their mental health, the Unite Students 2023 Applicant Index suggests, drawing on a survey of 2,141 applicants for 2023–24 entry conducted by Savanta in May (and weighted to be broadly representative of the applicant population as a whole). Of these, 24 per cent have missed 20 days or more due to mental health issues. The survey also found that 18 per cent of applicants with a disability say they have no plans to disclose it to their university.

Harassment: The Women and Equalities select committee report Attitudes towards women and girls in educational settings concluded that sexual harassment and abuse of female students and staff is a serious problem in education. They call on the Government to support the following recommendations for implementation in universities

  • OfS should implement a new condition of registration to place mandatory obligations on universities to tackle sexual harassment and sexual violence
  • Develop a nationwide sexual harassment and sexual violence awareness campaign that particularly targets male university students
  • Compulsory intervention programmes (evidence-based bystander intervention) for all first-year university students

Transport: Parliamentary Question – the cost of public transport on students’ finances and mobility.

Parliamentary Question: Students cost of living (grant question).

Apprenticeship Barriers

The UCAS and Sutton Trust report What influences the choices of would-be apprentices looks at the choices and barriers students face on the journey to an apprenticeship, such as when discovering, applying for and entering a role. Here’s the press release if you prefer the quick read version: Three in five do not pursue apprenticeships because they cannot find one, or here’s an impartial succinct summary of the key points prepared by Dods.

Of note for HE in the report are the recommendations for degree apprenticeships (below) and the recommendation for parity between degrees and apprenticeships (see page 7).

Parliamentary Question: Incentivising universities to provide more higher apprenticeships

Admissions:

The Government responded to the House of Commons Education Committee’s report on The future of post-16 qualifications. Committee report here; Government response here. The Government’s response does not depart from the same party lines you’d expect – rationalising qualifications, the study of maths to age 18, skills bootcamps and is primarily focussed on T levels and apprenticeships. Halfon’s priorities are apparent – HTQs, apprenticeships/skills, and careers advice (especially as relates to T levels).  One concession is that the Government does ‘note’ or acknowledge the Committee’s interest in Baccalaureate models.

We’ve three major data releases included in this policy update. This one is the 2023 cycle application data (at 30 June deadline). The June deadline is when students have to apply for (up to 5) choices of HE provision (and make their conditional firm and back up selection) so this data snapshot provides a good look at the application rates.

We cover the high level data below, but for those who want more interpretation of the implications we recommend reading Research Professional’s (slightly irreverent) Ucas’d a spell on me – What’s the difference between reality and spin in this year’s application data? It begins: It is one of the perennial puzzles of higher education in the UK: why does the university application service Ucas insist on trying to spin good news stories about higher education entry data when the available evidence points to the contrary?

Here’s the top level data:

Note: All data relates to UK applicants unless we specify otherwise.

  • 18-year-old applicant numbers are 319,570; down -2% from 326,190 in 2022, but up on 2021 (311,010, +2.8%).
  • 37,410 18-year-olds from POLAR4 Quintile 1 (i.e. the lowest rate of participation) have applied – this is down from the record of 38,310 in 2022 (-2.3%), but an increase on 2021 when numbers stood at 34,840 (+7.4%).
  • The number of international applicants (all ages) stands at 138,050, up from 134,870 in 2022 (+2.4%), and 130,390 in 2021 (+5.9%). This is driven by interest from India (+ 8.7), the Middle East (+20.8%) and Africa (+3.9%). Meanwhile, applicants from China are down by 2.2% (UCAS says most likely due to Covid-19 restrictions and disruption to learning).
  • The number of UK 18-year-olds applicants who have declared their ethnicity as Asian, Black, Mixed or other has increased by 4.4% – 104,160 in 2023, versus 99,770 in 2022, and 89,560 in 2021 (+16.3%).
  • A total of 1,740 people with predicted T Levels have applied to higher education, up from 490 last year (252%).

Admissions – quick news

  • Parliamentary Question: Foundation Degree enrolments (national data).
  • Clare Marchant reflects on her time as Chief Executive, and the progress UCAS has made in this Research Professional blog.
  • Finally, an entertaining parliamentary question asking reasons for the difference in the number of men and women entering university was answered by Minister Halfon who managed to link together the male gender underrepresentation in HE and the gap in progression rates with prior attainment concluding that universities should have a more direct role in driving up the standards in schools. He even mentions degree apprenticeships and skills related courses and the OfS Equality of Opportunity Risk Register as a key marker for social justice to ensure that no student groups are left behind. So there you go, it’s up to universities to do more to fix the systemic issues behind the lower number of men entering HE provision. One wonders if the staffer who wrote the response to this parliamentary question was after promotion or on a whim to win the office keyword bingo.

International

HEPI published their annual soft-power index (where the world’s countries are headed by someone educated in the UK or another country other than their own). America still leads the field but the UK has taken a step closer to America’s top numbers.

  • In the first year of the Index (2017), there were more world leaders who had been educated in the UK tertiary sector than in any other country, including the US. But the US overtook the UK in 2018 and extended its lead in each of the four subsequent years – in 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022.
  • The new results for 2023 show, in contrast, that the gap between the number of current world leaders educated in the US and the UK has shrunk for the first time since the Index began: compared to last year, there are two more countries with a leader educated in the UK and two fewer countries with a leader educated in the US, reducing the gap by four.
  • There are 195 countries in the world and around one-quarter of them (54 or 28%) have at least one very senior leader who was educated in the US while a similar number (53 or 27%) have at least one very senior leader who was educated in the UK. As there is some overlap, with a handful of leaders being educated in both the UK and the US, the total number of countries with a very senior leader who has been educated at a higher level in the US and / or the UK is 84 (43% of the world’s countries).

Research Professional verge dangerously close to stating that the recruitment of international students for financial sustainability is/will impact on the number of domestic UK students recruited when they report on this Telegraph article and this opinion piece. Read the Squeezed Middle (meaning middle class students are/will be pushed out by international recruitment and outreach targets to recruit disadvantaged students) to see if you agree with the reasoning presented. Of interest is that the number of unplaced applicants (presumably domestic applicants) rose by 46% last year to 20,000 (was 14,000 the previous year), that’s quite a jump.

Quick news from Wonkhe:

Parliamentary Question: Cost of living support for international students.

Access & Participation

The Research Professional article Squeezed Middle may be of interest.

TASO (Transforming Access and Student Outcomes in Higher Education – one of the Government’s what works centres) published a project report – Addressing gaps in the participation of sandwich courses. Project partners were:

  • University of Surrey who focused on the intention to apply for and complete a sandwich course.
  • Nottingham Trent University (NTU) who focused on converting this intention to successful completion of the sandwich course.

Findings – intention to apply and participate

  • There was a perception that disabled students, students from low-income families, and black, asian and minority ethnic (BAME) students were underrepresented on sandwich courses. However, few providers were able to provide specific statistics about their sandwich course cohorts nor identify whether those taking up sandwich courses were representative of the wider student population.
  • Both staff and students identified several factors that influence a students’ ability to apply to and complete a sandwich course such as a perceived lack of support from providers and challenges associated with travelling considerable distances for a work placement.
  • Staff referenced a variety of activities, some of which had already been implemented, to remove the barriers (financial and otherwise) that WP students experience when accessing sandwich courses, such as students attending a budgeting meeting to ensure they would be able to cope financially.
  • There was a consensus from both staff and students that participating in a sandwich course had a positive influence on employment outcomes for students.

Findings – successful completion of sandwich course

  • Students, employers and staff identified confidence and resilience as important for helping students navigate challenges that arise throughout the process of applying to, securing and completing a sandwich course.
  • They also reported that biases remain against students from disadvantaged backgrounds that can influence their experiences of navigating the process of applying to and securing a placement as part of their course.
  • A lack of placement opportunities, and lack of opportunities in geographically convenient areas, were identified by students as a factor in whether they could secure a placement.
  • The requirement for money and resources was also reported as a challenge for their participation in the course.

Recommendations for HE providers:

  • Develop Enhanced Theories of Change (ToCs) to plan, and rigorously evaluate, the impact of support for WP students accessing sandwich courses.
  • Make more use of their institutional data and administrative datasets, such as the Longitudinal Education Outcomes (LEO) dataset, to track students into the labour market and evaluate employment outcomes.
  • Consider implementing specific support on student finances for learners intending to take part in a sandwich course.
  • Provide comprehensive and tailored support to WP students considering a sandwich course, as well as those who have already enrolled in the course, at multiple points to ensure students are supported to start and complete the course.
  • Take a strategic approach to employability support, developing and evaluating programmes specifically designed for disadvantaged students in order to address the gaps between more and less advantaged students.

High potential students

The Sutton Trust published: Stories from the Class of 2023 – Education experiences of high potential students from different backgrounds as part of its new Social Mobility: The Next Generation series. The report sets out key differences and similarities between high attainers from different socio-economic backgrounds:

Differences

  • Overall, the major areas in which socio-economic background drove differences in young people’s experiences were the quality of and access to education. Quality was defined by staff turnover, lack of teachers and generally poor quality of (online) teaching, whereas access to education was limited or enabled on the basis of technological access.
  • Socio-economic background also informed differences in the role and level of engagement of parents.
  • Differences in socio-economic backgrounds were also associated with a varying consistency of motivation and the varying degree in the perceived importance of hard work.
  • Experiences of the COVID pandemic were mainly shaped by the quality of and access to education, as well as differences between state and private education.

 Similarities

  • Regardless of socio-economic background, young high attainers also shared similarities such as the importance of relationships with parents, teachers and friends as well as an intrinsic motivation to perform well at school.
  • They also shared the importance of disruptive life events such as COVID-19 or experiences of bullying and its detrimental effect on motivation, mental health & wellbeing.
  • Inequalities stemming from (mental) health, sexuality, gender or race could be intertwined or go across socio-economic backgrounds.
  • Across socio-economic backgrounds, high attainers were guided by their personal interests in their future plans.

Recommendations include a national strategy to close the attainment gaps that have opened since the pandemic, reform of school admissions for a better socio-economic mix of pupils across schools (those who attend more socially mixed schools progress more at GCSE), universities to recognise the disruption faced by students and support their transition and success (universities to identify key gaps in learning at an early stage in the first term, and provide continuing support if necessary, as well as support for student mental health and wellbeing).

There’s a short blog on the report if you don’t fancy reading the full content.

Place, Privilege and Prestige

HE Minister Halfon spoke at the NEON Summer Symposium. The key element of his speech focussed on social justice, structured around his three ‘P’s of Place, Privilege and Prestige. His passion topics of skills, FE, apprenticeships and careers advice were all explored in the speech.

As far as I am concerned, social justice is fundamental to higher education. Universities should exist to facilitate the studies, progression and graduation of all students – including those from disadvantaged backgrounds – so they can go on to get good jobs and pursue worthwhile careers.

On Privilege:  the Office for Students recently launched the Equality of Opportunity Risk Register, with 12 key risks to equality of opportunity across the student lifecycle. These have used evidence to determine where interventions can really move the dial on social justice. They’ll be an important tool for designing future initiatives to broaden access to HE, and I look forward to providers rewriting their upcoming Access and Participation plans to incorporate them.

On Prestige:

  • I want technical education and training routes to have parity of prestige with academic routes…For students to be excited at the prospect of learning a real technical skill that can get them a job. And for teachers to value pupils’ success equally, whether they accomplish a T Level or three A levels.
  • I really believe degree apprenticeships can bridge this gap in a way that other initiatives haven’t managed…HE needs to allow FE to leverage some of its prestige. At this point Halfon announced a bidding process for universities on degree apprenticeships to come later in the year (through OfS). He continued:
  • I also want to end the perception that FE colleges are somehow second-rate institutions. And that to finally emerge from the shadow of academia, there must be a ‘Skills Oxbridge’ we can point to. I have great respect for the academic excellence of Oxford and Cambridge, but we need to stop using them as a benchmark for everything else.

You can read the official (as written, not necessarily exactly as Halfon delivered it) speech here.

However, NEON report that the audience was unimpressed and even angered by Halfon’s speech. One attendee, Jessica Newton, felt compelled to blog and give voice to her frustrations. Excerpts:

  • Was it the halls of residence pillow causing a twinge in my neck or was it the physical cringe when he was so unaware of his contradicting messages when addressing his already unimpressed audience? His feeble attempt to be one of the people ‘I too come from a working-class background’ was instantly discredited when he followed that by ‘but I went to an independent school’ and ‘my father gave me no choice but to go to university’. The lack of awareness that it is the independent schools and the encouraging parents that elevate one student above another almost sent my neck into spasm.
  • How dare Robert Halfon sit there and express how joyous his time at university was and how free he felt and then explain that for the disadvantaged students there’s some really incredible vocational choices out there for them. How dare Robert Halfon say how free he felt at university when I speak to 13-year-olds that are making plans for their future so they can financially support the rest of their family. How dare Robert Halfon say how free he felt free at university and have the severe lack of awareness young people are raised with no safety net, there is simply no room for feeling free.
  • …How dare Robert Halfon have his moment in the spotlight and have the ‘best time of his life’ but expect the working-class, unrepresented future generations [to] spend their career only ever behind the curtain.

Widening Participation

The DfE published the 2021/22 widening participation in HE statistics. The statistics explore young progression to HE study by a range of student characteristics such as free school meals, ethnicity,

Parliamentary Question: Accreditation scheme for universities to demonstrate the gold standard in the care leaver provision.

Blogs: Wonkhe – To meet legal responsibilities to disabled students, the sector must address the overwhelming workloads of disability services staff, says Hannah Borkin.

Lifelong Learning Bill

The House of Lords debated the Lifelong Learning (HE Fee Limits) Bill. Despite the vigorous debate no changes prevailed as all amendments were either withdrawn or not moved. Baroness Barran as Minister for the School System and Student Finance was able to bat away most of the opposition. She emphasised that the policies behind the Bill had been designed in consultation with relevant HE sector stakeholders and there would be further consultation to come.

The Government intend to set most of the detail of the Bill through secondary legislation. In essence this means that Parliament passes the Bill so it becomes an Act. Then the Government backfill the nitty gritty detail which sets out the operation and how things run. The positive of secondary legislation is that it can flex with the times – fee limits can be raised, new clauses can be brought in to respond to the unexpected and keep the sector functioning well and responding to change. The negative is that it hands full power to the Government of the time to set these items with very little parliamentary scrutiny or power to change the Government’s will – it could result in a bad deal for the HE sector being forced through. In practice, while the Bill is passing it means that Parliamentarians, and the Bill is currently with the House of Lords, can raise objections and call for certain things to be changed and the Government’s representative can simply provide reassurances without conceding or changing the wording of the Bill. Likely the Government will listen to the amendments and speeches made and may make concessions or adapt to points raised through the secondary legislation (as suits their policy ideals). But there is no guarantee of this. There is little detail for the Lords (who now have a very well informed, experienced and powerful HE faction, with several ex-Universities Ministers) to take a stand on and force a change. Meaning the Bill may pass quite quickly as it is so bland. Short of the unexpected this Bill will become law before the next general election (and is planned to be implemented in 2025).

Distance learning fees: the Government have no intention of differentiating fee limits between distance and in-person learning under the LLE. The per-credit fee limits will be the same for full-time, part-time, face-to-face and distance learning…Distance learning courses will remain in scope for tuition fee loan support under the LLE.

Distance maintenance: The Baroness stood firm against calls for maintenance support for distance learners although will continue current arrangements for distance learners with a disability to qualify for maintenance loans and disabled students’ allowance. The disabled students’ allowance will be extended to all designated courses and modules.

More reading:

Free Speech Act

This parliamentary question reveals there is still no set date for the free speech Act to come into play:  The timeline will involve working in collaboration with the OfS on the creation of new registration conditions and a complaints scheme dedicated to handling freedom of speech complaints, which will be operated by the OfS. The OfS will also develop guidance on how to comply with these duties, in consultation with providers, constituent institutions and students’ unions.  Another related parliamentary question asks whether freedom of speech in the UK includes the right to criticise ideas around gender identity. Answer – it’s defined in case law and in the HE (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 and the Government has no plans to outline the specific content of freedom of speech on an issue-by-issue basis.

Russell Group Yardstick

Finally, Wonkhe report: At the House of Lords Education for 11–16 Year Olds Committee yesterday, schools minister Nick Gibb was on the end of a grilling from committee chair Lord Johnson of Marylebone over the Department for Education’s use of Russell Group entry rates as a performance indicator for schools in England. The former universities minister suggested that the government was “fixated” on the Russell Group and disincentivising schools from sending students to other universities. Gibb replied that the term “high tariff” could have been used instead. You can watch the session back online.

HEPI

HEPI celebrated their 20th Birthday by releasing UK higher education – policy, practice and debate during HEPI’s first 20 years. Fifteen contributors cover a wide range of HE policy matters including governance, research, student learning, funding and finances, and the relationship between HE providers and Government. One thing HEPI haven’t learnt in 20 years is that not many people enjoy the thought of reading a 184 page document, so do use the contents page to jump to the section you’re most interested in.

Inquiries and Consultations

Click here to view the updated inquiries and consultation tracker. There isn’t much of interest at present but things will pick up over the autumn period. You can email us on policy@bournemouth.ac.uk if you spot a consultation or inquiry that you’d like to contribute to.

Other news

Turing: The House of Commons Library has a comprehensive briefing on the Turing scheme which funds international study and work placements. At 51 pages it’s a bit long but there is a useful 2 minute read summary here.

Cyber employment: DSIT published Cyber security skills in the UK labour market 2023. It sets out the skills needs and job vacancies across the UK cyber security sector.

Findings:

  • 50% of all UK businesses have a basic cyber security skills gap, while 33% have an advanced cyber security skills gap. These figures are similar to 2022 and 2021.
  • There were 160,035 cyber security job postings in the last year. This is an increase of 30% on the previous year. 37% of vacancies were reported as hard-to-fill (down from 44% in 2022, but same as 2021).
  • Only 17% of the cyber sector workforce is female (down from 22% last year, but similar to 2021 and 2020) and 14% of senior roles are filled by women.
  • There is an estimated shortfall of 11,200 people to meet the demand of the cyber workforce (down from 14,100 last year, largely due to slower growth of the sector).

DAPs: The OfS has published new operational guidance for providers to apply for (or vary existing) degree awarding powers (DAPs). The OfS’ powers mean they can authorise HEIs to grant different types of degrees, including:

  • foundation degrees only (up to and including Level 5 qualifications)
  • awards up to, and including, bachelors’ degrees (up to and including Level 6)
  • all taught awards (up to and including Level 7)
  • research awards (research masters’ degrees at Level 7 and doctoral degrees at Level 8).

Full details here.

Digital Education ID: The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change published The Future of Learning: Delivering Tech-Enabled Quality Education for Britain. There are a number of recommendations mainly aimed at schools. Of interest is their recommendation to introduce a digital learner ID for every pupil that would:

  • contain all educational information, including formal test results, attendance records, week-by-week assessments, marked homework, records of non-academic achievement and more;
  • become a hub of digital learning, connecting learners with apps to supplement traditional teaching;
  • give pupils and parents control of their data and provide them with useful insights from the information, such as suggestions for further study or employment opportunities, or assistance in the selection of schools or nurseries.

A digital ID implemented as described may have implications for the HE admissions system and for student data interface, particularly as the expectation would be to continue this regular feedback model direct to the student throughout their HE study.

Parliamentary Question: Evaluating the interventions aimed at increasing boys’ learning in educational settings.

HE Net Zero: Wonkhe – Achieving a net zero higher education sector will cost £37.1bn based on current decarbonisation costs, according to a report from the Association of Higher Education Directors of Estates, the British Universities Finance Directors Group and the Alliance for Sustainability Leadership in Education. A “cost of net zero calculator” has also been released, designed to allow individual institutions to estimate the financial resources required to reach net zero. Also from UKRI:

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Recruiting : University Rep to co-lead Research Staff Association

Two vacancies have arisen for the posts of University Representative, the leaders of the Research Staff Association. This is not a faculty-specific post, any eligible person from any faculty can apply.

The BU Research Staff Association(RSA) is a forum to promote research culture at BU. Research staff from across BU are encouraged to attend to network with others researchers, disseminate their work, discuss career opportunities, hear updates on how BU is implementing the Research Concordat, and give feedback or raise concerns that will help to develop and support the research community at BU.

In addition to the two leaders, there are two reps from each faculty.

Eligible research staff are those on fixed-term or open-ended employment contracts (not PTHP/casual contracts) who have at least one year remaining on their contract at the time of recruitment.

If you are interested in this role, please supply a few words to demonstrate your suitability, interest, availability in relation to the position to Researchdev@bournemouth.ac.uk by the 02/05/2023.

Please contact your faculty RSA rep to chat about it if you have any queries.

HE Policy Update w/e 21st December 2022

There’s something for everyone in this final policy update of 2022. Although things have calmed down a bit as we approach the festive period there is still lots of news. We’ve kept matters as light as possible for you with links to more information for those that wish to read more. Here’s wishing you all a relaxing break, happy Christmas and a good start to the New Year.

Parliamentary News

Parliamentary session to continue: It’s been confirmed that the King’s Speech (and therefore, the State Opening of Parliament in 2023) will be delayed allowing more time for the Government to pass its legislative agenda. This is because when the Parliamentary session is closed any outstanding legislation drops away automatically unless a carry-over motion is passed to enable it to continue. (You’ll recall the Freedom of Speech (HE) Bill was carried over from the previous session because the Government is determined to get it on the statute books). The monarch then re-opens parliament with a speech setting out the Government’s legislative plans for the coming months. The Government indicated they plan to dissolve Parliament in Autumn 2023 meaning the new parliamentary session may begin in November 2023. The Prime Minister’s spokesperson said: “The programme is very full and to make sure we have the time we need to get through the packed agenda the Prime Minister wants to deliver, the session will run until autumn 2023.” A cynic might mention it’s also getting awfully close to the next general election. Both Houses will return from recess on the 9 January.

HE priorities: Education Select Committee session: HE Minister Robert Halfon was examined by the Education select committee and HE received a brief mention. Miriam Cates MP queried whether HE funded provided value for money considering the lower funding settlement received by FE institutions. Halfon stated he welcomed the impact and successes of both sectors and suggested that he wanted the sector to focus on social justice and bringing the most disadvantaged the opportunities to get enter higher or further education. This is a personal agenda for Halfon and he has been very open about his interest in social justice, social mobility and accessibility/performance of HE institutions in supporting disadvantage. Cates was unimpressed with Halfon’s response and pressed for a full review of joined up education post-16, not just 16 to 18, stating that the investment in HE did pay off in terms of jobs and prosperity.

Spring budget announced: Chancellor Jeremy Hunt will deliver the Spring Budget on 15 March 2023. This fulfils the obligation to produce two forecasts in a financial year (required by law).

HERA – the Christmas edition

The DfE published their policy paper assessing the Higher Education and Research Act 2017: post-legislative scrutiny. HERA was a major change to HE operations and was pushed through the Commons (against substantial Lords backlash) by Jo Johnson in 2017. It established the OfS and UKRI in their current form.

Although the paper seems to have come out of the blue the DfE are expected to do this for each major piece of legislation within their remit after the first 5 years. As the paper is written for the Education select committee we may well see a new inquiry in this field in the new year.

Even if you’re not interested in the paper per se it has an interesting synopsis of the sector from page 8 onwards. And what is a Christmas edition of anything without a review of the major occurrences over the last (5) years? Here are the ‘high’lights we’ve contended with:

  • Left EU
  • Global pandemic and all that implied: changed social and economic environment and remote/hybrid/blended learning
  • New regulatory and funding system
  • Revolving door for ministers each with their own stamp on specific priorities (printing and accommodation costs, free speech, antisemitism, university advertising, post qualification admissions, the role of universities in school performance
  • All the big things: disadvantage, quality and outcomes, Lifelong Loan Entitlements, degree apprenticeships, T levels, broader structural HE reform. Cue the adverts… phew!

On the paper Wonkhe say: It is meant to properly reflect on the act – what has worked, what hasn’t, and what needs to change, with a view to making sure we have the best law we can. The publication we got made a start – and there are some eyebrow-raising lines in there about the way the underlying assumptions and government policy have shifted, often quite radically. They have a blog for those who enjoy Wonkhe’s analyses: David Kernohan wonders if we really have the system that was asked for.

HEPI have a related blog: Have the Higher Education & Research Act and the Office for Students delivered for new and ‘challenger’ providers?

Regulatory & Free Speech

HE (Freedom of Speech) Bill

The HE (Freedom of Speech) Bill received its third reading in the House of Lords. The Lords made more amendments and have passed it back to the House of Commons. So we are now in the final stage of ‘ping pong’ where the Commons and Lords tussle over the ultimate wording before the Bill passes to the King for Royal Assent.

The Third Reading was a calm affair but the Lords didn’t roll over. Minister for the School System and Student Finance, Baroness Barran, stated she was pleased to have introduced a definition of “freedom of speech” to the Bill and that this was one of the many important clarifications as a result of their discussions in the House (during Report Stage). She also confirmed they had avoided inadvertently giving alumni the same protections as current students and had clarified that the new power given to the OfS to give guidance on supporting freedom of speech was not related to the duty on higher education providers and their constituent colleges to promote the importance of freedom of speech and academic freedom. She recognised as a breakthrough the banning of non-disclosure agreements in cases of sexual misconduct, abuse or harassment, or other forms of bullying. However, the proposed right to bring a civil claim in the courts against universities remains a big bone of contention. The Peers voted to remove it during the Report Stage and Baroness Barran said the Government would “reflect on this verdict and the arguments advanced to support it very carefully indeed.”

Lord Wallace spoke about the appointment of the new OfS free speech director. He asked the Government to “take particular care in finding a candidate for that position who will be accepted—possibly even welcomed—by the sector he or she sets out to regulate.” This reminds us of the controversy of partisan appointments that dogged Boris Johnson’s premiership.

Lord Wallace also drew attention to the outstanding question of the degree of overlap between this Bill, the recent National Security and Investment Act and the current National Security Bill, all of which imposed new duties and reporting requirements on universities. This has still not been fully resolved.

Baroness Thornton, Shadow Equalities Spokesperson, said “the jury it still out” on whether the Bill was necessary at all, but she was confident the legislation was being sent back to the Commons in an improved state. She drew attention to other outstanding matters, such as the role of the students’ unions. She also agreed with concerns around the risk of duplicating security regulations, and the risk that the Bill might pose to the business community, the commercial relations and the trading futures of universities.

Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Affiliated) said she hoped the Commons would “restore some version of Clause 4 and material remedies for victims of cancel culture on campus”.

OfS Annual Review: The OfS published its annual review. In her commentary of the report, OfS Chief Executive Susan Lapworth, sets out the key OfS priorities for 2023 including how tackling poor quality provision, ensuring students from all backgrounds are able to enter higher education and succeed in their studies, and protecting freedom of speech on campus are the key priorities for the OfS in 2023.

Parliamentary Questions: Regulatory

Matt Western (Shadow Universities Minister) asked some interesting questions regarding OfS funding:

In response to a parliamentary question Robert Halfon (Universities Minister) confirmed that the department’s priorities for higher education are consistent with those set out in guidance to the Office for Students (OfS) earlier this year. This includes a continued focus on delivering the government’s skills mission, driving up quality and ensuring equality of opportunity and real social mobility for students. The Government will only issue the OfS with new guidance for the current financial year if new issues or priorities emerge. 

Matt Western also asked: whether a review of the potential changes required to the admissions system for HE course in advance of the delivery of the Lifelong Learning Entitlement (2024/25) has been conducted.  Robert Halfon responded:

  • To support the design and delivery of the Lifelong Loan Entitlement (LLE) from 2025, the department will continue to engage with sector bodies across both further education and higher education, as well as the Student Loans Company and regulatory bodies.
  • On admissions, the department is continuing to work with UCAS and sector bodies to improve transparency, reduce the use of unconditional offers, and reform the personal statement to improve fairness for applicants of all backgrounds.
  • The LLE consultation and other ongoing engagements are an important part of delivering a transformation of student finance. The department is carefully considering the contributions and will publish a response in due course.

Research

Pro-innovation regulation

The Treasury published a policy paper: Pro-Innovation Regulation of Technologies Project: Terms of Reference which announces a review considering how to regulate emerging technologies.

Pro-innovation regulation focuses on ensuring that we can safely and ethically accelerate the development, testing, route to market and uptake of new technology products. It should give confidence to innovators. This is key to making the UK an attractive destination for R&D projects, manufacturing and investment, and ensuring we can realise the economic and social benefits of new technologies as quickly as possible.

The Treasury also announced the appointment of five industry experts to help accelerate the development and deployment of emerging technologies in the following key UK growth sectors:

  • digital technology
  • green industries
  • life sciences
  • advanced manufacturing
  • creative industries.

Experts will collaborate with industry and Sir Patrick Vallance to advise on new rules that use regulatory freedom to promote innovation.  The aim of the review is to establish the UK as the best regulated economy ensuring that industry and investors have the certainty needed to drive innovation, investment and growth through anticipating new developments in emerging technologies. The experts are:

Matt Clifford, Chair of the new Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA), and Priya Lakhani OBE, a member of the AI Council, have been appointed to support work to harness new digital technology such as artificial intelligence.

Sir John Bell, sits on Genomics England’s board of directors, and Camilla Fleetcroft, Eclevar UK’s Vice-President of Clinical and Regulatory Affairs, will work on cultivating the life sciences sector and help drive the next generation of discoveries, such as delivering genomics-enabled clinical trials.

Jane Toogood, Chief Executive of Catalyst Technologies at Johnson Matthey, will take forward work on building green industries like hydrogen and battery development in the UK.

Future Research Assessment Programme

UKRI/Research England published three reports on the Future Research Assessment Programme (FRAP). Taken together the reports speak out against a fully metricised system for the next REF but do suggest ways in which AI might support low risk areas of the exercise. The reports are:

  • Harnessing the metric tide: indicators, infrastructures and priorities for responsible research assessment in the UK
  • Responsible use of technology in research assessment
  • REF outputs analysis: maximising the use of REF data

Quick news:

Horizon Europe extension: The Government announced an extension to the support provided to UK Horizon Europe applicants, originally launched in November 2021. The extension will ensure that eligible, successful UK applicants will continue to be guaranteed funding. The guarantee will be in place to cover all Horizon Europe calls that close on or before 31 March 2023. Eligible, successful applicants to Horizon Europe will receive the full value of their funding at their UK host institution for the lifetime of their grant. Successful awardees do not need to leave the UK to receive this funding, which will provide reassurance for future collaborations, and support UK researchers whether association is confirmed, or otherwise.

Science Minister, George Freeman, has been busy recently:

Wonkhe blog: The International Science Partnerships Fund is out, and James Coe thinks it has implications for UK research post Horizon.

The Lords Science and Technology Committee wrote to the Minister for Science, Research and Innovation George Freeman with the findings of its inquiry into people and skills in UK STEM. And THE has a blog on the topic: Academic careers: Teetering progress: A House of Lords committee has warned that the precarity of academic careers is exacerbating the UK’s growing skills gap in STEM.

HEPI blog: Research Leadership Matters: Agility, Alignment, Ambition

Graduate outcomes and employment

Sir John Holman, Independent Strategic Adviser on Careers Guidance wrote to DfE and DWP Minister regarding England’s careers guidance system.The letter summarises his recommendations for the future of the careers guidance system. It draws upon 18 months’ of consultation and conversations with careers practitioners and sector representatives, employers, schools, colleges, local bodies and a range of other interested parties, as well as a review of available evidence from the DfE, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and the wider sector. You can read Holman’s recommendations (9 Strategic Principles) here. It’s worth a read, put it on your January list! HE and Skills Minister Robert Halfon welcomed the recommendations and stated he will consider them carefully – and that the Department will publish more information on future plans for the careers guidance system “in due course”.

Graduate employment: A catch up on the news that graduate employers aren’t focussed on degree outcome grade. The Times broke the story. Quickly followed up by Research Professional: The Times reports that fewer than half of graduate employers asked recruits for a 2:1 this year, according to a report by the Institute of Student Employers. And by Wonkhe: For the first time, less than half of graduate employers require a 2:1, new findings from the Institute for Student Employers suggest. The data from its 2022 student recruitment survey – drawn from 168 responses covering 32,110 hires, with larger organisations somewhat overrepresented – saw only 48% of responding employers having such a stipulation for graduate roles, down from 57% in 2021.

Data: The DfE released a new type of LEO data dashboard (and a report) looking at the earnings of individuals post GCSE over a 15 year period. Socioeconomic, demographic and education factors are within the data providing a granular picture. It isn’t directly comparable with the Graduate Outcomes data the HE sector routinely uses as there are small methodological differences, not least the inclusion of non-graduates. The box on page 23 explains the differences.  However, it provides a comparator for graduate and non-graduates of the same age (rather than mixed ages with all of the same graduation cohort). For the data buffs page 22 onwards explains the graduate/non-graduate comparators re: the value of a degree.

Key points:

  • People have diverse employment pathways in their 15 years. Taking into account the 50 most common pathways only accounts for 31% of individuals.
  • The report aims to show how education and labour market activities and outcomes differ for different groups of individuals despite similar education levels. Particularly, to see how education and labour market outcomes differ for graduates and non-graduates with different individual characteristics.
  • Higher proportions of individuals completing a degree are in employment, having higher average earnings than those without a degree and with lower proportions claiming out of work benefits.
  • Higher levels of education lead to better labour market outcomes for all. This compares like with like so an individual with SEN or who was in receipt of free school meals (FSM) has a better labour market outcome than their SEN/FSM counterpart who left education at a lower level.
  • However, when the comparison is not like with like certain groups have lower labour market outcome than others. Although in these cases those completing a degree have better labour market outcomes than their comparators who do not have a degree. For example, there are higher proportions of graduates that were FSM eligible in employment and lower proportions claiming benefits than non-FSM eligible nongraduates. Of those in employment, the FSM eligible graduates earn around £5,000 more per year than non-FSM eligible nongraduates and their earnings potential seem to have different trajectories.
  • For a few select sub-groups a higher education level does not always lead to better labour market outcomes than their peers with a lower education level. For example, individuals with a SEN statement even with a degree tend not to outperform those without SEN who only studied to a lower educational level.
  • There is considerable difference in the earnings trajectories and outcomes for graduate and non-graduate individuals in employment (see Figure 15 below). There is a £10,000 difference in annual average earnings for graduates and non-graduates in employment 15 years after finishing KS4 (for most graduates this is around 8 to 10 years after graduation). Though the curve for graduates flattens after a sharp increase as more graduates join the labour market, it continues to increase at a faster rate than that for non-graduates

The Institute for Fiscal Studies analysed the data in more depth using measures to control multiple background characteristics. They found prior attainment and subject of study at HE level to be very important in determining [financial] returns to degrees. Similarly, this report finds:

  • Those with poorer attainment at KS4 that go on to complete a degree do not have better labour market outcomes than individuals with better KS4 attainment that do not complete a degree. This is also the case for SEN statemented individuals when compared with those not identified with SEN.  However, every other sub-group that completed a degree benefits from the better labour market outcomes due to the degree premium. Table 14 below illustrates this for SEN individuals. If you are interested in this sectionality do read the key findings, paragraph 159 on page 86 onwards as they cover all the groups with lower outcomes in a more granular way.
  • Black and minority ethnic groups tend to have higher levels of post 16 education, when compared with those from the White British group, yet not necessarily better labour market outcomes
  • The report states it is novel in that it analyses the data by SEN, first language and school type (in relation to employment outcomes and benefit claims).
  • Graduates are more likely to be employed than non-graduates, however, there is an interesting regional effect (see Table 18 below). Bear in mind this is based on the individual’s current region (which is not necessarily their key stage 4 region) – yet the rankings by region for those completing a level 3 are exactly the same in table 19 on page 80 – suggesting it’s a regional thing more than a graduate thing

HEPI

HEPI published many interesting papers and blogs over the autumn semester. Here are the most relevant and recent apart from those featured elsewhere:

 Students are evenly split on whether or not they regard it as the responsibility of their higher education institution to find them a job, with one-quarter (34%) believing it is and only a slightly lower proportion (30%) saying it is not.

 Most students look to their careers service to offer help with finding an internship or placement (63%), writing their curriculum vitae (63%), interview preparation (61%), finding a career (60%) and hosting careers fairs (52%). Providing mentoring and life skills also has substantial support (49%) while far fewer students expect help with finding a holiday job (22%).

 A majority of students (53%) think ‘all university courses should be designed mainly with future employment in mind’ and a further 37% say ‘some university courses should be’. Very few students say only ‘a small proportion’ (4%) or no university course (4%) should have a focus on employment.

 However, over half of students oppose the proposal in England of providing reduced access to student finance to those opting for courses with poor employment prospects; 53% ‘strongly disagree’ and an additional 16% ‘disagree’.

 Nearly one-half of students are either ‘very confident’ (14%) or ‘quite confident’ (32%) that they are likely to find their desired job on graduation but a substantial minority are ‘quite unconfident’ (21%) or ‘very unconfident’ (9%).

 When it comes to the type of employer, many students say they do not mind (34%) what size their future employer is. Among those with a preference, a similar proportion chose larger employers (28%) with 250 or more staff than small-to-medium sized enterprises (31%) with 249 staff or fewer.

 More students prefer employers who consider characteristics such as work experience and extra-curricular activities (41%) than prefer employers who mostly care about degree results (30%).

 When asked what they regard as ‘the best definition of a “graduate-level job”‘, students split three ways: 30% say a graduate-level job is one where an employer requires applicants to have a degree; 29% say it is one that is officially classified as ‘graduate-level’; and 26% say it is a position that pays above the student loan repayment threshold.

 Nearly half of students are either ‘very confident’ (16%) or ‘quite confident’ (31%) that they will secure a graduate-level role, while 17% are ‘quite unconfident’ and 8% are ‘very unconfident’.

 Around half (49%) of students have not used their careers service to date, which is slightly higher than the proportion who have (43%).

 Those who have used a careers service are more satisfied than unsatisfied, with 59% saying they were ‘very happy’ or ‘quite happy’ with the service they received. However, 13% were ‘quite unhappy’ and 7% were ‘very unhappy’.

 Those who have not used their careers service were given an opportunity to explain why. Some said they do not know what their careers service has to offer, some believe the careers service would not support their specific career needs and some feel they are too early in their course to consider career planning.

 Students want a single digital learning platform that is easy to use.

The vast majority (87%) of students would like to see digital learning resources streamlined onto a single platform with one, intuitive user experience, where texts are easily readable and navigable. The platform should be compatible across a range of devices and accessible on- and off-campus.

Students want to be able to access digital resources without waiting lists.

Nearly all (95%) of students say digital copies of their course books should be available to them at the point of need, without waiting lists.

Although many students say that they do not worry about being able to access course books through the library when they need them, 59% of students who are impacted by such worries say the wider availability of digital resources would improve their mental health.

Students want digital recordings of their lectures.

The most in-demand digital learning resource is lecture recordings. Students want to see recordings uploaded onto a single, user-friendly platform and for them to be made available for the duration of their courses.

HE Sector Resource

The Institute for Fiscal Studies published its fifth annual report on education spending in England. Here’s the summary of HE spending provided by Dods Political Intelligence:

  • Up-front spending on teaching resources per higher education student has continued to decline steadily, standing at £9,300 per year for the 2022–23 university entry cohort. That is around £1,700 less per year in real terms than for 2012–13 entrants, largely because the cap on tuition fees is now 18% lower in real terms than it was in 2012–13.
  • The nominal freeze in fees is set to continue for another two years, adding to other financial pressures on universities. The most important pressure in the near term is likely to be the cost of any settlement with staff over pay and pensions.
  • A major package of student loans reforms was announced in February and has substantially reduced the expected long-run cost of higher education, shifting a larger share of the cost onto graduates themselves. Changes to future repayment thresholds mean most students from the 2012 to 2022 university entry cohorts can expect to repay substantially more, with middle-earning graduates hit hardest.
  • From the 2023 entry cohort onwards, a lower repayment threshold, a longer repayment period and a lower interest rate mean most students can expect to repay their loans in full and to repay roughly the same amount as they borrowed in real terms. High earners will no longer pay off more than they borrowed, and only low-earning graduates’ loans will be subsidised by the taxpayer.
  • For current students, higher-than-expected inflation has eroded the real value of maintenance loans. Students in 2022–23 will be entitled to borrow 10% less towards their living costs than they were in 2020–21, a cut equivalent to £90 a month for the poorest students. Without a change in policy, living cost support for future students will be permanently lower, causing hardship for some.

Admissions, Access & Participation

Disabled students: Wonkhe blog – Endless reports have promised progress on access failures for disabled students – but how much difference has been made? Meg Darroch and Jim Dickinson take some regulatory ideas for a spin.

Disadvantage gaps: The Education Policy Institute published a report on the disadvantage gaps in England during 2021. It finds that much of the reduction in the disadvantage gap over the last decade has been reversed during the pandemic. The report mainly focuses on key stage 4 and 16-19 education. If this report was of interest you may also be interested in Ofsted’s annual report,

HEPI blog: Designing outreach with people of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller heritage – a lesson in critical unlearning and Raising institutional aspirations for supporting Gypsy, Traveller, Roma, Showmen and Boater students in higher education

HEPI blog: Why every university needs an advisor for care leavers and estranged students

Admissions:

HE – massification

Research Professional ran a thought-provoking article describing how the massification of HE has resulted in an unequal and divided workforce as graduate culture permeates companies. It describes ways to rebalance HE to provide vocationally oriented degrees – but this isn’t article just trumpeting skills, it believes HE should be universally funded and as natural as completing secondary schooling. It supports levelling up – although not in quite the same style as the Government originally intended through technologically advanced regions. Also: At the same time, there would need to be a corresponding growth in graduate jobs. This would involve spinouts and cooperative ventures with research universities, incentivised through their endowments to build these kind of links. Regional government would need to be involved in planning health, care and education systems, and the supply of graduate jobs in the health and education sectors would need to be underwritten before graduate employment in private and not-for-profit sectors caught up. It’s alternative in its solutions and it is easy to dismiss the article but closer readers may find aspects that resonate.

International

Transnational £: DfE estimates of the value of transnational education (TNE) for 2020 (this includes education programmes that take place outside the UK, through partner institutions or distance learning or international campuses).

  • Total UK revenue estimated to be £25.6 billion in 2020, an increase of 0.8% since 2019 in current prices.
  • HE was the main contributor with £19.5 billion of export revenue – equating to a share of 76.3% of the value of total exports, representing an increase of 6.3 ppts from 2019.
  • In 2020, international (EU and non-EU) Higher Education students at UK universities generated an estimated £18.0 billion in exports through living expenditure and tuition fees (£15.9 billion in 2019), which accounts for around 70.2% of the total value of education exports and TNE activity (62.6% in 2019).

The National Statistician, Sir Ian Diamond, has explained why international students are included in the net migration figures.

  • The United Nations definition of a long-term migrant is: “A person who moves to a country other than that of his or her usual residence for a period of at least a year (12 months), so that the country of destination effectively becomes his or her new country of usual residence.” International students will typically live in the UK for more than a year, and so meet the definition of a long-term migrant.
  • However, we recognise this definition is narrow and doesn’t always meet user needs. We have plans to explore alternative definitions, including estimating net migration by reason, such as study. This will help provide more context to headline measures of migration, addressing recent findings from the ONS research that most international students will leave the UK after their studies are concluded.

Wonkhe blog – For Nick Isles, recent ministerial comments about international students have been dangerously underinformed.

Parliamentary Questions:

Inquiries and Consultations

Click here to view the updated inquiries and consultation tracker. There are not any new consultations or inquiries this week.

Other news

Gaming: Grants for R&D and recruitment of video game graduates (parliamentary question).  

OIA appointment: The Office of the Independent Adjudicator for HE (OIA) announced the appointment of Helen Megarry as the next Independent Adjudicator. Helen takes up the post in May 2023, and will jointly lead the organisation with Ben Elger, Chief Executive. Megarry is currently the Independent Adjudicator for His Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC) and Valuation Office Agency, and independent reviewer of decisions made under the Windrush Compensation Scheme. She was previously Deputy Housing Ombudsman at the Housing Ombudsman Service, and a Board member of the Ombudsman Association. The current Independent Adjudicator, Felicity Mitchell, will continue to jointly lead the organisation until her term of office concludes at the end of April 2023.

PTES: Earlier this month the 2022 Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey results were released. Research Professional has a nice write up suggesting that satisfaction levels among PGT students have bounced back after hitting record lows during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Power sharing:  Gordon Brown’s Commission on the UK’s Future (Labour party) published A New Britain: Renewing our Democracy and Rebuilding our Economy – a report on devolution and constitutional reform. Key points:

  • A new “constitutional statute” will be written which codifies social rights for citizens and the devolution of power amongst the 4 nations.
  • Local authorities will be given the opportunity to gain new powers from central government.
  • A “suite” of R&D programs will aim to drive growth across England via local growth.
  • The UK Infrastructure Bank will be given an explicit mission to address regional economic inequality in the provision of infrastructure.
  • Local authorities will be given longer term funding settlements
  • Local people will have greater input to local authorities spending priorities.
  • Powers for devolved nations will be broadened
  • Councils of the Nations and Regions and of England will open opportunities for shared decision making from local government, devolved and national government.
  • New rules and enforcement procedures for standards in public life.
  • The House of Lords will be abolished and replaced with an elected 2ndchamber which will focus on protecting the constitution, devolution and standards in public life.

The report was strongly criticised by Plaid Cymru and the SNP.

Consumer Law: New OfS enforcement deal raises consumer law compliance pressure on universities. Higher education providers in the UK need to step up their efforts to protect students’ rights and comply with consumer laws, an expert has said as the Office for Students (OfS) and National Trading Standards announced a new partnership. The OfS’ partnership with National Trading Standards is a sign that the higher education regulator is moving into “regulatory compliance mode”, according to Rami Labib of Pinsent Masons. Read more.

Fees & Funding: Wonkhe blog – It was a trip down memory lane as graduate tax – and all the reasons to reject it – were rehearsed at a sector event. But the sector needs some bigger thinking on fees and funding soon, argues Jim Dickinson.

Enterprise: The All-Party Parliamentary University Group praised the work of the National Centre for Entrepreneurship in Education in the blog: How can higher education be at the forefront of enterprise and entrepreneurship?

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HE policy update for the w/e 9th December 2022

Education oral questions always makes for a busy time in the HE world. As you’d expect international students and the cost of living featured heavily, along with some interesting responses from Skills and HE Minister Robert Halfon. Ex-Universities Minister Chris Skidmore will stand down at the next election, there’s a new regulatory typology of HE institutions, FE colleges are to be reclassified (watch out HE), and the big news is the HE (Freedom of Speech) Bill is back in Parliament with a bang!

Parliamentary News

Fresh blood incoming

Parliamentarians are indicating whether they intend to stand as MPs at the next general election. Previous Universities Minister Chris Skidmore has publicly announced he will not stand for re-election. Research Professional comments: Skidmore was a relatively popular figure in the universities minister role and always sought to use his position to celebrate the good that universities can do, playing down any rhetoric about limiting access to universities for those who wished to attend. Skidmore says he intends to “devote the next stage of my career to delivering a more sustainable future for energy and our environment”.  It’s a loss for the HE sector as Skidmore was a stabilising voice genuinely valuing the benefits that universities bring to individuals and the country as a whole.

Politics Home has a running list and commentary on the MPs who will not contest their seat at the next election. It includes some notable long-standing figures. Since Rishi has assumed the leadership clamour for a general election has calmed however parliamentary rules mean the next election must be ‘called’ by December 2024 (so held by January 2025 at latest). The Conservatives are still behind in the polls and they will attempt to plan an election for the time that gives them the best chance of winning.

Education Questions

In Education Oral Questions last Monday, John Penrose MP raised whether the grades of undergraduate degrees in similar subjects were of an equal standard across all HE courses/providers (“no employer or student thinks a 2:1 in English or chemistry is worth the same from every university.”). Instead of seizing on the opportunity to lecture on grade inflation or low quality courses or passing off responsibility to the OfS, Minister Halfon gave a measured response: Our important sector-recognised standards are agreed by the UK Standing Committee for Quality Assessment to ensure that degrees equip students with the skills and knowledge required for them to succeed. Provider autonomy on what and how they teach is vital, and we must avoid driving standardisation over innovation. The Office for Students regulates to these agreed standards and investigates any concerns.

Halfon also stated: my priority for higher education…it is skills, jobs and social justice, by which I mean ensuring that disadvantaged people can climb the higher education ladder of opportunity.

It’s both nothing new and revealing at the same time.

Education Select Committee: Skills background

Nick Fletcher (Conservative) has been appointed to the Education Select Committee. Previously an electrician, he holds a HNC in electrical engineering. This represents yet another appointee to the Committee with a strong skills background and who did not follow the ‘traditional’ A levels to University route. The Government’s messaging on skills and the importance of technical routes have been clear for some time. They’re not just about achieving parity of esteem but also about drawing students away from the academic pathway into skills focused routes which the Government believes will address business skills gaps and productivity – improving the UK’s economic potential. (Some also believe it’s because student loans and support are so costly to the public purse. However, a longer-term thinker may recognise that skills may travel down the same route in future.)

While he is from the party that formed the current Government (and he will be expected to vote on party lines during divisions) he isn’t a minister and his role on the select committee is to engage and investigate education matters as a parliamentarian. I.e. he can interrogate the Education Minister, challenge Government policy and report alternative recommendations. Select Committees are part of Parliament’s scrutiny and checking function. So is a background that fits so well with current Government policy a coincidence, or are they taking advantage of someone who will clearly understand and support the skills agenda and has less experience of the benefits of HE.

Free Speech – the latest

The HE (Freedom of Speech) Bill returned to the Lords. We provided a rundown of the Bill so far in our last policy update.

Last week the HE commentators pointed out what a rough ride the Bill received at Committee Stage in the Lords and are gleefully trumpeting about the proposed amendments for Report Stage. Wonkhe outline some of the amendments: New amendments laid for the Report stage of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill aim to ensure the publication of guidance for students’ unions, prevent universities having to disclose sensitive commercial information to the OfS, and clarify the OfS free speech director’s duty to report to Parliament.

And:

  • Earl Howe has laid several amendments to the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill on behalf of the government, following robust criticism from the Lords at Committee Stage. Should the government get its way, the definition of freedom of speech used in the bill will now be compliant with the definition from the European Convention on Human Rights, alumni will not count as “members” of a university or college for the purposes of the bill, and the statutory tort in Clause 4 will only be exercisable by those who have “sustained loss” and who have had recourse to a complaints scheme – including the ability to complain to the Office for Students (OfS).
  • Though Lords will welcome these changes to the bill, it was notable at committee that many expert observers had fundamental misgivings about Clause 4 – and it is unclear if the government has gone far enough to satisfy them. You can read the latest amendments under “amendment papers” on this page.

Several of these Government sponsored amendments are to ameliorate concerns the Lords raised previously. The concessions are not significant, it’s almost as if they’re doffing a cap towards the Lords in hope the Bill will pass through the Report Stage quickly and without other more fundamental objections being raised which would derail this already delayed legislation. However, there are more meaty amendments tabled – more on these later.

Wonkhe also released a blog before the Bill was considered: Three remaining issues with the Free Speech Bill as we head towards report stage in the Lords. It makes some interesting points about student bodies that aren’t as sizeable and well-resourced as the Bill makers had in mind. And on academic failure – Wonkhe point out how the bill is a route around the academic judgement ruling.

Blogs:

THE- Fighting talk:  House of Lords opposition to the Westminster government’s plans to allow universities and students’ unions to be sued over perceived breaches of free speech shows there is “little support for introducing scope for endless litigation”, peers say.

James Herbert in THE on free speech and the need to challenge students: The University of New England president explains his fearless approach to freedom of speech on campus, including the trans/sport debate. Excerpts: more university leaders should embrace controversy… Herbert considers universities to be “marketplaces of ideas” and says good ideas require conversations between different groups of thinkers. “If students get offended because they’ve been told that they shouldn’t get offended or made to feel uncomfortable – I think they should absolutely be made to feel uncomfortable. That’s what university education is all about…It’s strange for me because we’re at a university. But a few people believe that there’s a correct perspective on whatever the issues may be, and if you don’t adhere to it, you’re wrong and a bigot…”

This week the Report Stage has come and gone and we’ve seen some of those amendments pass. Several amendments refining the definition of free speech were accepted. Two notable amendments were also passed.  We explain the basics of these and have added in Wonkhe’s brief explanation of the implications for the HE sector. For more detail do read this Wonkhe piece, it’s excellent.

  • Universities will no longer be able to use non-disclosure agreements in some circumstances (including sexual misconduct or bullying). There was a campaign about this recently and Michelle Donelan was urging universities to sign up to a very wide ranging pledge.

Wonkhe: Universities in England are to be banned from using non-disclosure agreements to settle complaints on campus. The amendment to the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill – passed during Report stage for the Bill with cross-party support – will apply to any complaint relating to sexual abuse, harassment or misconduct, and other forms of bullying or harassment. Lord Collins of Highbury, the shadow deputy leader of the Lords, said his amendment would “stop a nasty practice of non-disclosure agreements inhibiting free speech”.

On the passing of this amendment Wonkhe say: It’s a major, significant and somewhat surprising win for student and staff campaigners.

The other amendment related to the right of those claiming that their academic freedom had been limited to bring a claim for damages against a university or a student union in the civil courts.    The main argument was whether this was necessary, given that the OfS has regulatory oversight of this area.  No-one expected the government to concede on this, but the amendment removing it was passed in the Lords. Previous Universities minister Lord Willets and others led the charge.

Wonkhe summarise: Meanwhile, the Bill no longer has Clause 4, following peers deciding to vote for an amendment tabled by Lord (David) Willetts. The controversial clause – a statutory tort which would have given those injured by a restriction of their freedom of speech an absolute right to bring a case to a civil court – was defeated by 213 votes to 172. Former universities minister Lord Willetts had expressed concern at government claims that the tort would be “a backstop”, arguing that “if one of these controversies flares up, there will be a lawyer’s letter in the first 24 hours”. The Telegraphand the Times cover the story, and you can watch the Report stage debate on Parliament TV.

It is always interesting to understand what the amendments that were not accepted would have covered. Here’s a quick run through.

The amendment to avoid inconsistency between the right to freedom of expression and the right to freedom of expression in Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights was NOT adopted. Th amendment recognising threats to academic freedom such as academics being able to say that they disagree or agree with values that are imposed on them by institutions trying to make their name as doing the right thing was NOT adopted. The Baroness expanded on her threats: institutions signed up to “third-party organisations that set targets, codes and charters which, in effect, impose demands, often on the curriculum, research priorities and academic content of academic life, that are determined not by the demands of the discipline or scholarship but by fashionable external ideological diktat.” This was the “real threat” to freedom. An interesting point but it was NOT adopted. However, Earl Howe, Deputy Leader of the House of Lords, said the Bill would already protect the freedom of academics to put forward opinions about the curriculum content adopted by their provider or third party organisations with which the provider was affiliated.

The amendment which allows academic staff to seek redress if they felt the likelihood of their securing promotion or different jobs at a provider had been reduced as a result of them exercising their free speech was not moved (therefore NOT adopted).

Next is the third reading, and potentially the ping pong between both houses over the final matters.

Research

Horizon Europe

It feels as if Horizon Europe has been a dead duck for so long even the smell has disappeared now. The UK Government blame Europe, Europe blames the UK Government. There is no association for the UK (currently) and the Government is rolling out alternative support schemes. The Government continues to maintain the party line that association is preferred but plan B is underway. Last week was no exception with Science and Research Minister George Freeman emphasising continued efforts to associate with Horizon Europe: I was in Paris last week negotiating. We are still actively pushing to be in Horizon, Copernicus and Euratom, but we have made provision, and early in the new year Members will start to see that we will be rolling out additional support for fellowships, innovation and global partnerships. If UK scientists cannot play in the European cup, we will play in the world cup of science.

The Minister also confirmed that the £484 million alternative investments will be distributed by existing trusted and experienced UK delivery partners, such as UKRI.

Additional Funding

Wonkhe reports: Research England has confirmed allocations for the additional QR funding and Research Capital Investment Fund (RCIF) grants announced by the government last week. Eligible providers – those already in receipt of QR or RCIF funding for 2022-23 – will receive an allocation in proportion to their current entitlement, though with QR funds capped at £5 million and RCIF at £3 million. UKRI has also outlined the disbursement mechanisms for the new Talent and Research Stabilisation funding, which will be allocated according to historic performance in four Horizon 2020 schemes.

Quick News

Regulatory

Regulatory Quick News

  • THE – Great expectations: Almost two-thirds of English universities could potentially face sanctions for failing to meet new quality thresholds that were introduced last month, analysis suggests.
  • US regulatory signs: THE – Small print:US universities are promising to make clearer to students their actual costs, agreeing through their nationwide leadership associations to create a single standard for understanding and comparing net prices and financial aid offers.
  • Research Professional report that more than 300 people applied to be “boots-on-the-ground” inspectorsfor the Office for Students.

Regulatory Parliamentary questions

OfS typology

The OfS has developed a new typology system for classifying providers. Institutions are categorised by two criteria – by financial attributes and by the make-up of their student population or study characteristics (aka tariff).

The new system is disappointing as a missed opportunity to change the language in this area and move away from the unhelpful Russell Group/everyone else that the press can’t seem to move beyond.  But in practice, the chances of these becoming standard labels in policy circles is very small, given the catchy names they have selected. The OfS specifically state: These typologies have no regulatory status. They do not imply any particular regulatory status or judgement of regulatory risk for providers in one group rather than another, and they will not inform our regulatory decision making.

As such they will sit alongside the other categorisation that Research England have done for the KEF – that has not become mainstream (or at least not so far).

Wonkhe have a blog.

FE reclassification

We’ve seen lots of reclassifications over the last few years. Reclassifying how student loan payments were counted within the national debt resulted in teeth gnashing about the huge outlay on HE students and led to calls for more skills based technical education instead of the academic route. The reclassification of R&D spending resulted in artificially hitting R&D targets early (prompting sector fears the Government would not honour the original spend intention).

Now the Office for National Statistics has ruled that FE colleges should be reclassified as public sector bodies. Research Professional (RP) do a wonderful job at explaining the implications of this. And remind us that the implications for higher education are huge as ONS will also perform a classification review on the HE sector (reporting December 2024 – interesting given the potential election timing).

In short, the review could impact on universities’ ability to borrow money and insidiously impact on Governance. RP say:

  • Suddenly, the direction of travel for government policy on skills does not look so benign for universities. Once, Theresa May spoke about universities working more effectively with schools. Now there is a genuine risk that universities could be taken under the control of the DfE as part of public sector education.
  • Anyone familiar with the onerous principles of the higher education restructuring regime proposed by the DfE during the Covid-19 pandemic as the condition for any government bailout will understand what would be at stake for universities brought under direct control by Whitehall. Everything from executive pay to enforced merger would be on the table.
  • The fact that this is now a possibility through the mechanism of the 2022 Skills bill ought to send alarm bells ringing throughout university boardrooms. Universities will be quickly lawyering up and deploying the lobbyists in force.
  • Some will say this could not possibly happen to universities, there are international treaties that guarantee the autonomy of higher education institutions. The same used to be said about the Free Speech bill, and there are no international treaties that require universities to be designated as part of the private sector.
  • If we consider last week’s news that the government was said to be considering only allowing “elite” universities to recruit international students, is a pattern of intention emerging from the government? For example, might we see a scheme of internationalisation and research intensification for the Russell Group and nationalisation and skills provision for everyone else?

Students

There has been a surprising amount of focus on students’ eating habits last week alongside big coverage of the latest analysis from the Institute for Fiscal Studies which suggests that England’s poorest students will receive £1,000 less support with living costs in real-terms this academic year than they would have in 2020/21 – a significant cut each month. Key points:

  • If inflation forecasts had been accurate, maintenance loan entitlements would have kept rising over the last two years. Students from the poorest families studying outside London and living away from home would now be entitled to £11,190 in living cost support – around £1,500 more than they are actually receiving. Put differently, these students are £125 per month out of pocket merely because of errors in inflation forecasts.
  • These cuts in support will affect students potentially for many years to come. There is no mechanism in place for these cuts ever to be undone, as past forecast errors are not considered when the adjustment in entitlements for the following year is determined.
  • This means that – unless and until policy changes – any cuts will stay in place. Indeed, if the government continues to use out-of-date inflation forecasts for uprating, the IFS expects a small further cut in the real value of entitlements next academic year.
  • Most students fall through the cracks in the government’s ‘cost of living’ support package. They are typically not eligible for benefits, and so are not entitled to targeted payments for those on low incomes. Most households received £400 towards their energy bills this winter but, as others have pointed out, we still do not know whether students living in halls will be eligible for payments through an expansion of that scheme.
  • Government ministers regularly defer to universities’ own ‘hardship funds’ and to the £261 million of funding from the ‘student premiums’. IFS say this overstates the funding available to support students in financial hardship, and the real value of funding being provided has in fact been cut compared with last year.
  • The expectation of financial hardship may prevent prospective students from attending university in the first place. Analysis from the IFS shows a 21-year-old student could earn nearly £1,200 more working in a minimum wage job this academic year than they will receive in maintenance support. This gap is set to increase to more than £2,000 next academic year – the biggest gap since the national minimum wage was introduced in 1999.
  • Correcting the fall in maintenance loan entitlements will be less expensive for the taxpayer than it may at first appear. This is because students can be expected to repay a portion of any extra maintenance support over the coming decades. The IFS estimate that restoring maintenance loan entitlements this academic year to the same real value they had in 2020–21 would cost £0.9 billion for the cohort starting university in 2022, or around 70% of the initial outlay. Completely correcting forecast errors made in the last two years would cost £1.3 billion for this cohort.

Research Professional cover the report: inflation-related cuts to maintenance loans are worse than first appeared. In the playbook they state: On Monday, skills and higher education minister Robert Halfon claimed in parliament that the government was doing “everything possible” to help students during the cost of living crisis. After today’s IFS paper, he may wish to revisit that analysis.

Parliamentary questions

A selection of the best news and articles relating to student matters this week:

  • A short exchange on student cost of living support in last Monday’s oral education questions. Excerpt – Skills Minister Halfon: I reiterate that we are doing everything possible to help students with financial hardship.
  • THE: Government action including more hardship funding, bigger maintenance loans and restored grants would all complement universities’ efforts to help students cope with the cost-of-living crisisargues Sarah Stevens, director of policy at the Russell Group.
  • Universities Minister Halfon provides a comprehensive reply in response how the Autumn Statement (2022) supports students. He also states that a Treasury-led review will be launched to consider how to support households and businesses with energy bills after April 2023 (includes students).
  • Wonkhe: Learning from students – and from their dataearly interventions are key in improving student engagement, so it makes sense that engagement data needs to be used as early as possible in targeting these. Low engagement four weeks into the first term offers an accurate prediction of retention – as engagement rises so too do predicted grades. And it turns out that the traditional “welcome week” may mean that September starts have a better overall experience than those who start in January. See blog: Drawing links between insight, practice, and student success
  • Spiking: Home Secretary Suella Braverman respondedto a letter from the chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee on Spiking yesterday outlining the work the Department for Education and universities have undertaken to tackle spiking in night-time venues which was predominantly a communications campaign aimed at perpetrators. She also promised an update on the need for a specific criminal offence for spiking before Christmas and a statutory report on the nature and prevalence of spiking by April. (Wonkhe)
  • Wonkhe: The Financial Times has a pieceon the student housing crisis.

Alternative Student Finance

The Government has been promising Sharia compliant finance for almost a decade now and this was highlighted in last Monday’s Education Topical Questions. Clearly there still isn’t a solution (yet) and Skills Minister Halfon believes it will be introduced as part of the future Lifelong Learning changes. Here is a similar parliamentary question, and this the actual exchange that took place in the chamber:

Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab): It is estimated that 4,000 Muslim young people every year choose, with a heavy heart, not to enter higher education because their faith bars them from paying interest on a student loan. David Cameron said nine years ago that he would fix that. Will the new ministerial team, whom I welcome, commit to introducing alternative student finance and give us some indication of when that will be?

The Minister of State, Department for Education (Robert Halfon): I am strongly committed to introducing alternative student finance, something my Harlow constituents have also lobbied me about. The issue is that we want, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, to introduce the lifelong learning entitlement, and we will introduce alternative student finance in conjunction with that.

The constituency connection that Halfon mentions is important. MPs want to be re-elected (and a General Election is on the not-so-distant horizon. It represents the twin pressure on Ministers – the need to deliver on behalf of the Government and the need to represent and satisfy the views of those that ultimately elect them to parliament. Having a constituency connection may make the matter more pressing for Halfon and therefore may result in a system finally being set it in place.

Admissions

Personal Statements

Last update we mentioned HEPI’s paper on the inadequacies of admissions personal statements. Wonkhe have a rejoiner from a guest blogger: It may well be a good idea to rethink the personal statement, but for Katherine Lloyd Clark there are other admissions issues that are more pressing.

Snippets:

  • Universities themselves and the schools they support conspire to hide the real dynamics of HE admissions from the applicant and parent community. Universities are afraid to reveal that their processes have become progressively impersonal over time.
  • Now we dispatch beautiful branded CRM messages in bulk to inboxes, portals, and apps, praying that we don’t make a mistake affecting thousands. Our offer processes are automated, at least in part, grouping those with the same grades ready for release when the data analysts say it’s safe. 
  • Amid all this, the applicants themselves, quite rightly, just want some agency over their own future and to believe that the application process will deliver it. This is entirely reasonable…But unless you apply to…a discipline that offers an interview, agency will largely escape you. Volume dictates this. UCAS is flagging that there will be a million undergraduate applicants by 2026.
  • Are personal statements a key element of the problem? For the most part, no. Predicated and achieved grades still matter most, sadly.

Admissions Cycle – record numbers

UCAS’ 2022 end of cycle data highlights record numbers of 18-year-olds from the most disadvantaged areas (POLAR4 quintile 1) have been accepted onto a course – 32,420 students compared to 30,910 last year (+4.9%). It narrows the entry rate gap between the most and least advantaged to 2.1 – a record low.

Key points:

  • Growth in demand for places has not discouraged UK 18-year-olds, with 330,780 applicants this year – up from 315,945 in 2021 (+4.7%) and significantly higher than the pre-pandemic number of 280,815 in 2019 (+17.8%).
  • This uptick has translated into 277,315 UK 18-year-olds gaining a place, the highest-ever number to date – an increase on 275,235 in 2021 (+0.8%) and 241,515 in 2019 (+14.8%).
  • This despite more cautious offer-making from universities and colleges, leading to a 54.3% overall offer rate at higher tariff institutions, down from 59.7% last year.
  • The number of UK 18-year-olds securing their firm choice of course (200,615) is second only to last year’s high (214,015) – 72.3% of all placed UK 18-year-olds, compared to 77.8% in 2021.
  • A total of 761,740 applicants of all ages and domiciles applied in 2022 (+2.1% on 2021), of which 563,175 were accepted (+0.2% on 2021).
  • The overall entry rate for UK 18-year-olds is 37.5% this year, the second highest on record (slightly down on 38.3% in 2021 but up from 34.1% in 2019). Broken down by nation, the 2022 entry rates are: 38.4% in England, 40.6% in Northern Ireland, 32.4% in Wales and 30.1% in Scotland.
  • All regions in England bar one saw an uplift in 18-year-olds being accepted onto a course compared to last year. West Midlands saw the biggest increase (+2.5%) while the South West saw the only decline (4.6%) Accepted applicants in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland remained comparative to 2021 figures.
  • In total, 92% of applicants (all ages, all domiciles) received an offer, the same proportion as last year. UCAS analysis found that 21,080 active applicants did not have a place on results day (Free to be placed in Clearing), of which 12,010 were subsequently accepted onto a course (57.0%).
  • There has been a 22.1% increase in the number of apprenticeship views on Career Finder compared to last year.
  • Continued demand among international students of all ages – with the highest number of accepted applicants on record from China (+13.4% on 2021), India (+43.7%) and Nigeria (+32.7%).
  • This was the first year of T-levels results – the vast majority received an offer and 80.2% were placed.

Blog: Clare Marchant, Chief Executive of  UCAS, blogs for Wonkhe: Five key findings from UCAS end of cycle data for 2022.

Access & Participation

Care experienced students

UCAS published Next Steps: What Is The Experience Of Students From A Care Background In Education? stating that while care-experienced students aspire to HE 60% receive no specific support relevant to their circumstances when deciding on their options. Key points:

  • Education disruptions: 19% had moved schools once, 11% had moved schools multiple times.
  • Care-experienced students’ journeys are often longer and nonlinear: one third of applicants were aged 21 or above, compared to one fifth of applicants without a care background. Applicants were more than twice as likely to take the Access to HE Diploma.
  • Applicants have lower average attainment prior to HE and are more likely to attend lower tariff providers. 51% less likely than their non-care-experienced peers to achieve the highest grades and 30% less likely to be accepted at higher tariff providers.
  • Access to specific guidance about going to HE as a care-experienced student is inconsistent: 60% stated they received no guidance specific to being care-experienced during their application journey. Applicants seek advice from a wide variety of trusted people, not all of whom will have had access to the latest information and resources about UCAS applications or the specific support available in HE for care-experienced students.
  • The intersectionality of care experience with other personal characteristics presents additional challenges: these applicants are 38% more likely than non-care-experienced applicants to come from the most disadvantaged areas (POLAR4 Quintile 1), twice as likely to be from Mixed or Black ethnic groups, 79% more likely to identify as LGBT+, almost twice as likely to share a disability, and nearly three times as likely to share a mental health condition.
  • Applicants do not always talk about their circumstances with school staff: only a quarter were always open about their care background, and a third did not discuss this with anyone at school unless they had to.
  • They have positive expectations for support in HE: two thirds expect the pastoral and educational support and student living to be good or very good, and two in five believe the social and extracurricular support will be good or very good.
  • Applicants from a care background are motivated by career prospects, especially in health and social care: they are 179% more likely to apply for health and social care than non-care-experienced students, and 50% more likely to apply for nursing and midwifery.
  • HE choices are strongly influenced by applicants’ individual support needs: over three quarters prioritised access to mental health and wellbeing support, with financial support, accommodation, and pre-entry support also important influential factors.

Recommendations start on page 7 of the report.

UCAS’ Clare Marchant blogs for Wonkhe on the report findings: Bridging the gap between ambitions and access for care experienced students.

Social Mobility Commission: Employer Advisory Group

The Social Mobility Commission announced the membership of its new Employer Advisory Group (EAG) which aims to drive social mobility in the workplace in the UK and support the Commission’s employer focused programme of work. Scroll down on this link to read about the people appointed to the EAG.

You can also read the oral evidence on the work of the Social Mobility Commission examined by the Women and Equalities Committee here.

International

No promises or reassurance to the sector on international students were made in last Monday’s Education topical questions (although there were some weaselly words):

Q: Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con) – …Can my right hon. Friend categorically confirm that the UK will continue to welcome students from across the word to all our universities?

  • A: Robert Halfon: I have good news for my right hon. Friend: we were proud to meet our international target of 600,000 students by 2030; we have actually met that target already. It is currently worth £25.9 billion to the economy and it will be £35 billion by 2030.

Q: Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP) – Reports that this Government could cause monumental damage to higher education by restricting international students to so-called elite universities have been described by former Universities Minister Lord Johnson as a “mindless crackdown”. Can the Secretary of State confirm that this Government will not implement such a mindless policy?

  • A: Gillian Keegan – I can confirm that we have a world-class education system and we will attract the brightest students from around the world. That is good for our universities and delivers growth at home. We were proud to meet our international student ambition earlier this year to attract 600,000 international students per year by 2030. Today that is worth £29.5 billion and we are now focused on bringing in £35 billion from our education exports, which are the best in the world.

They’re both stock government responses which could mean (a) doom and gloom – the Government are making no effort to refute because they are seriously considering a reduction in student numbers (whilst trumpeting support for targets already reached) or (b) they are undecided on which side to come down – and weighing up all the factors (e.g. economics, income vs cost to the country, HE funding that isn’t drawn from the public purse, and the likelihood of  in-party revolt at a change to restricting international student numbers). Cynics would also point out the continued news coverage is distracting away from other Government business so may be serving them well.

Here is the piece that Carol Monaghan MP quotes from by former HE Minister, now Lord Jo Johnson who spoke out against curbs on international student recruitment last week. THE: Backwards step:  It is “hard to imagine” a policy more likely to torpedo the Westminster government’s higher education policy goals than a “mindless crackdown” on international student enrolment, former universities minister Lord Johnson of Marylebone warns.

The NUS have responded to the Government rhetoric on reducing international student numbers:

  • International students are our friends and colleagues, and benefit our lives at universities, colleges, in workplaces and communities across the UK beyond measure. The government is treating that rich diversity of experience and humanity like a number on a spreadsheet.
  • This is hugely cruel to those students, who have taken the brave step of travelling to pursue their education and sometimes moving their families across the world.
  • This move would be grounded in hypocrisy- the government starves the education sector of funding and forgoes concern for international students and migrant staff. This has encouraged and legitimised institutional strategy to exploit international students as cash cows through astronomical fees and violent visa regimes.
  • Against the backdrop of the UK skills shortage, it is laughable that the government would be actively preventing international students from studying here.

Dods report that the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for International Students are speaking out to raise concerns about the inclusion of international students in net migration figures and reiterating the findings from their 2018 inquiry which called for international students to be removed from the migration figures. The APPG for International Students has consistently argued against international students being counted in net migration figures, not least as international students are temporary immigrants with the overwhelming majority returning to their home countries on completion of their studies. Based on Home Office data from exit checks, the Oxford Migration Observatory reports that at least 98% of non-EU students leave the UK on time and before their visa expires.

Paul Blomfield MP, Co-Chair of the APPG International Students, said: Nobody’s concerned about international students in the debate on net headline migration numbers. They provide a huge benefit bringing nearly £30 billion a year to the UK economy, supporting jobs and businesses in every part of the UK, including those which the Government claims it wants to level up. This student group plays an important role in our universities, enriching our campuses, and they bolster Britain’s place in the world at a time when we need it.

Co-Chair Lord Bilimoria commented: As a former international student myself I know the value of the British university degree, our universities are the finest in the world along with the USA. The APPG for International Students recommended a target for international students which the government listened to and we have now crossed the figure set of 600,000. International students are one of the strongest elements of soft power the UK has, not only enriching the experience of our domestic students but building generation long links and friendships; there are more world leaders educated at British universities than any other country along with the USA.

Paul Blomfield MP: If the Government don’t welcome international students and their families, they’ll simply turn to one of the many countries that will. The Prime Minister and the Home Secretary must think again and drop this backwards-looking proposal. Lord Bilimoria agreed and said: We are in a global race and many of our competitor countries do not include international students when calculating net migration figures as the vast majority of international students are not immigrants!

Degree apprenticeships

A Sutton Trust report The Recent Evolution of Apprenticeships: Apprenticeship pathways and participation since 2015 has garnered interest because it finds a greater underrepresentation on higher and degree apprenticeships from low-income background young people (those classified as older are represented in greater numbers. There is also an overall decline in apprenticeship starts over the last few years with this effect exacerbated for individuals from areas of high deprivation. This despite the continued emphasis the Government has placed on technical education and apprenticeships since the last general election, the 2017 Apprenticeship Levy changes, and an increase in apprenticeships as a route to employment from young people. No comparison is made between the levels of deprived young people who access HE degrees (traditional route) and the numbers accessing degree and higher apprenticeships. The report feels as though it misses the point on a number of occasions and the recommendations for change could be seen to be in line with the political approach of the Conservative party.

Recommendations (our comments in blue text):

  1. While the growth of degree apprenticeships in recent years is welcome, action should be taken to further boost the supply of higher and degree level apprenticeships targeted at young people, and advertised externally on portals such as UCAS or Find an Apprenticeship. Yet they don’t seem to consider revising their methodology to examine the effect that younger people from deprived backgrounds may take longer to reach degree level apprenticeships, nor investigate the link between mid-lower GCSE attainment meaning degree apprenticeships are not pursued as the younger ages.
  2. The apprenticeship levy should be reviewed, with social mobility and widening participation as an explicit criterion. The balance of apprenticeships across age groups, levels, those with equivalent qualifications and existing staff versus new starters should be examined.
  3. Measures should be taken to rebalance the profile of apprenticeships back towards those who are younger and more disadvantaged. This could include:
    1. Requiring employers to ‘top up’ levy funding for certain categories of apprentice, or otherwise incentivising the creation of apprenticeships most conducive to increasing opportunities for groups who need it most. A nifty route for the Government to spend less on degree apprenticeships, except for those top GCSE performing degree apprentices who are already making it. Although if skills gaps are the genuine aim one would hope the Government would remove this top up requirement for older degree apprentices (because it takes them longer to get there – otherwise surely this is a negative social mobility double whammy).
    2. A maximum salary ceiling for levy funded apprentices, meaning that limited public funding is concentrated on providing opportunities for those who would not otherwise be able to afford training.
  4. In order to improve transparency and ensure that apprenticeships are delivering for social mobility, levy employers should be required to publish anonymised statistics on the age, level, socio-economic background and salary level of apprentices, along with the proportion of new and existing staff benefiting from apprenticeships. So businesses supporting existing staff already on good salaries who are aspiring higher can be easily picked out of the data. It’s easy to understand the Government’s aim here – to ensure funding is spent on those currently outside of the workforce and train them up to a skilled worker from zero to hero. However, it is slightly at odds with the apprenticeship model of working and training within a company to meet their skills needs and gradually progress up the career ladder to highly skilled labour.
  5. Universities should step up access and outreach activities for degree apprenticeships, working in collaboration with employers and harnessing the experience, skills and resources of both.

Sir Peter Lampl (Sutton Trust): today’s report highlights that there is much work still to be done. Young people and those in deprived areas have not been the beneficiaries so far of this expansion. If we are to harness degree apprenticeships as a driver of social mobility, and as a high quality alternative to university, we need many more of these opportunities open to, and targeted at, 17, 18 and 19 year olds leaving school…we must take this opportunity to build a system that will create genuinely new opportunities for those who will benefit most. We need a step change to really deliver apprenticeships as the engine of opportunity they can be.

Inquiries and Consultations

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

New consultations and inquiries: TASO call for evidence on risks to equality of opportunity | 23 December 2022

Other news

Transnational: THE – Farrar cited:  Universities will play a “critical role” in addressing some of the transnational challenges the world faces in the 21st century, the director of the Wellcome Trust says.

Graduate Mobility: THE article – Returning home after graduation? It’s more complicated than that: Research reveals more detailed picture of where students go to work after finishing their degree. It’s a quick read!

State scholarship: Parliamentary question from Shadow Education Minister Matt Western asking about progress on the establishment of a UK national state scholarship (announced February 2022). Halfon confirmed that the Government are considering the responses to the HE Reform consultation on the matter and will provide further information in due course.

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VC’s Policy Advisor                                                              Policy & Public Affairs Officer

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