Select Committee on Education and Employment Minutes of Evidence



Examination of witness (Questions 680 - 699)

TUESDAY 4 JULY 2000

MR TONY HIGGINS

Chairman

  680. I think we have pursued one line for quite some time and I would hate to lose your valuable opinion on one or two other issues. Looking at the broad spectrum, you talked about the need for sociological research but there is a very important document, From Elitism to Inclusion, that is over two years old, sponsored partly by the CVCP, HEFCE and so on. In it it suggested ways in which you could expand to a much more inclusive institution as a higher education institution. Firstly, you must know about this piece of work but are there exemplars who took this to heart, this From Elitism to Inclusion, who have been more successful? In your wonderful statistical knowledge, are there institutions that are right up there ahead of anybody else in terms of social inclusion, doing a better job? I do not want to compare Oxford to Huddersfield University, but comparable institutions, one of which is doing much better than the other in similar situations.
  (Mr Higgins) That is an impossible question to answer at the moment. As you say, that research was published a couple of years ago and it might take seven, eight, ten years for institutions to be able to demonstrate whether they are being more successful or less successful. We chose as our partners for the research we are doing four institutions who are all being extremely successful: Birmingham University, one of the so-called elite universities, the Colleges of Ripon and York, St John, Queen Mary and Westfield College, and the University of Central Lancashire. They are all doing different kinds of work, some with ethnic minorities, some with those in poor areas in East London and the rural poor in North Yorkshire. There will be many other examples.

  681. Are there any views you have in terms of what seems to be successful? We have had a lot of talk here over the last couple of months about the value of some schools, and Peter Lampl and the Sutton Trust have given evidence to this Committee. Although I certainly would not under value some schools, there is another voice which is coming forward that says you need something much earlier—I think Charlotte has been raising it—which starts at a lower age and is a much more consistent relationship over time. Is any of the evidence you have seen from UCAS's point of view suggesting one is more successful than another?
  (Mr Higgins) We certainly tried two years ago to run one or two conferences for teachers of children of the ages of 13 or 14 to try to begin to sell the concept of how advice might be given on entry to higher education to those who perhaps might not normally think of it. They were the least attended conferences that we have had. I just do not know whether any universities are consciously getting into the highways and byways to try to get to young people that age but that is what we should be doing. At the moment we are working on developing an electronic guidance system available through the web, we hope alongside qualified careers officers, to help people make decisions starting at the age of 13 or 14 when they make their decisions about GCSEs and then the next set of decisions about A levels or vocational A levels and then entry into higher education. We would like pupils to do the GCSEs that they want to do, that they feel comfortable in doing, but we would like to think that we might well be able to sell the benefits when they select their GCSEs that they are perhaps beginning to plan, albeit at a very early age, to go on to higher education.

Mr Marsden

  682. You will know when you came to see us last year this was a question I and another Member of the Committee asked you about specifically, the involvement of FE students and students from other backgrounds in the UCAS process. Are you going to be looking in that study at the extent to which feeder applicants from FE colleges are important in widening access? What more generally is your view as to how that relationship between FE colleges and universities could be developed?
  (Mr Higgins) The answer to your first question is yes. Secondly, you may or may not know that we have just taken into membership of UCAS a further 83 FE colleges who will be admitting their students through our system. I suspect there may be more FE colleges coming into the system in future years, perhaps particularly also in Scotland. I see the divide between FE and HE blurring by every day that goes past.

  683. Sorry to interrupt but I want to try to get this point out. Do you think that blurring of the divide between FE and HE is beneficial to the idea of widening access and bringing in people from socio-economic groups who might see the jump to HE as a bridge too far and they are far more comfortable especially in this community base with FE education?
  (Mr Higgins) Yes, I do. Perhaps more by luck than by judgment we are developing a system—I will quote higher education for the moment—very much along the lines that is available in North America. We have an Ivy League, it is called the Russell Group. I think inevitably at some stage there will be tuition fees levels, raised so that we will have effectively private universities. We will have state universities. One of the real developments will be that we will have an increasing merger of FE colleges, usually with each other. In fact, that has been encouraged by FEFC. They will effectively be the community colleges they have in North America. They will be offering foundation degrees and other higher education diplomas as well as degrees under licence to partner universities. For those who feel they do not want to travel and there is not a university in Gloucester or Swindon or—

  684. Blackpool.
  (Mr Higgins) Blackpool. That will help those people access that. Then of course, on a slightly different slant, we now have students paying their way through higher education which they did not used to do before. Some universities have got job agencies on campus to help their students get jobs during term time as well as in vacation time. When we have the Chief Executive of the Quality Assurance Agency saying "look, how much longer are we going to have classified honours degrees, shall we just have transcripts like we have in the USA?", I guess in five or six years' time we will have a North American system of higher education in the UK.

Chairman

  685. Considering you were quite reluctant on some issues to be drawn out to gaze into the future, Tony, that was a remarkable bit of future gazing for which we are most grateful.
  (Mr Higgins) Good.

Mr Foster

  686. Can I come to one point of the application process which has puzzled me. For what reason is it that students cannot apply for both Oxford and Cambridge?
  (Mr Higgins) I think the reason is that the system of considering the application for both universities is a residential one. It is a two day, sometimes even a three day, interview process, certainly two days with an overnight stop. The only possible time of doing that would be over the Christmas vacation, a large part of which is blocked off now by the traditional holiday, say, between 23 December and whatever it is, 2 January. It is logistically extremely, extremely difficult to do that. However, this is an issue that we have under consideration with Oxbridge. We are looking at some of our procedures, some decisions have been made. One of them is an examination as to whether students should be able to apply to both Cambridge and Oxford or not as the case may be.

  687. Do you think that this is a barrier to students who perhaps are not sure of what Oxford offers or what Cambridge offers, that they can only go for one, whereas if we are trying to broaden a wider participation and encourage people to go to Oxford and Cambridge who have no prior experience of that, no family members to talk to, they should be free and open to apply to both?
  (Mr Higgins) As I understand it, the view from Oxford and Cambridge, although they should speak for themselves, is if you can apply to both you only have six choices in all and they are both extremely difficult universities to get into as we know, for obvious reasons, and that might begin to block off access and to reduce the widening participation because for some of them it may mean they have really only got four choices. That is not a view that I necessarily share but we will be having our discussions with two universities and some of the representative groups both from schools and HE in the next few weeks.

Chairman

  688. Is it next year or the year after that the receiving university will only see the application from their own—
  (Mr Higgins) It will be for the year entry 2003.

  689. 2003?
  (Mr Higgins) Yes. There are considerable software implications of programmes having to be written particularly in the universities but also at UCAS. It will be from the application year for entry 2003 that for the first time universities and colleges will not be able to see the other universities and colleges to which their applicants have applied, nor the decisions that have been made about them.

Mr Foster

  690. Can you understand people who have the view with regard to the non-ability to put Cambridge and Oxford as applications that it is more to do with elitism, snobbishness, "oh well, if they have put Cambridge we do not want them because we are Oxford" or "we are Cambridge, we could not possibly want them if they have put Oxford"?
  (Mr Higgins) There may be all kinds of misconceptions.

Chairman

  691. What is your rationale for no longer putting all of the universities? Why are you changing it in 2003, albeit ever so slowly it seems to me?
  (Mr Higgins) Because there is evidence that some institutions are discriminating against applicants because they put other institutions down on their application form, notably Oxford or Cambridge.

Dr Harris

  692. This is institutions other than Oxford or Cambridge, if people have put Oxford or Cambridge on that form higher, are less likely to give them an interview?
  (Mr Higgins) That is correct.

  693. Gosh. That has very worrying implications for people who feel they might be marginal for Oxford or Cambridge and do not want to limit their opportunities elsewhere.
  (Mr Higgins) Precisely.

  694. That might deter them from applying to Oxford and Cambridge.
  (Mr Higgins) It is not a universal practice by any means but there is some evidence that it happens.

Chairman

  695. What has been the time between you as UCAS making that decision and 2003? How long ago did you make the decision to make the change?
  (Mr Higgins) A fortnight ago, two weeks ago.

Mr Foster

  696. How was that decision arrived at, for everybody to be happy on a general consensus on the way ahead?
  (Mr Higgins) Yes. It was a very long consultation, what I might call an iterative consultation, among schools' groups as well as individual universities and colleges and representative bodies. Eventually the decision was taken, and happily so by the institutions I have to say.

  697. No dissenting voices?
  (Mr Higgins) No.

Mr St Aubyn

  698. A lot of this debate about access, particularly to Oxbridge, has been framed in terms of proportion of students with certain grades at A level and how many then got allocated places, but in your press release last month on the new tariff for A levels you are quoted as saying "Achievement at A level was never meant to be used for allocating university places, still less for performance tables". Can one read from that that it would be a mistake to read too much into a crude analysis of the distribution of A level results and then allocation of places at specific universities?
  (Mr Higgins) Yes. I did say, Nick, before you came in that you could infer probably that somebody who got three As or even four As at A level is a particularly bright individual who would probably succeed at university or college, unless there were financial or personal problems or something like that, and somebody with two Es might actually struggle. Can you really fine tune the difference between someone with two Bs and a C and a B and two Cs or an A and a B and a C or two Bs and a D or two As and an E? It is all rather difficult. What we have not done, nobody has done satisfactorily, is to prepare a system of calculating added value based on scores of A level entry into higher education and then on graduation. That is a very, very difficult one to crack.

  Mr St Aubyn: I do not want to go over ground that you have covered already.

  Chairman: If you do I will stop you.

Mr St Aubyn

  699. I am sure you will. Is it such a tragedy in someone's life that they go to Bristol rather than Oxford? Bristol might say that they offer just as good a course as Oxford does but because of the quirks of the application system and the fact they have put different colleges or different universities at different points on their UCAS form that has some marginal effect. There has to be an element of luck in this anyway.
  (Mr Higgins) I should say you put institutions on your UCAS form in alphabetical order and not in order of preference. You might assume if you put down Oxford or Cambridge they are the first choice, but even so Oxford might be fourth on the list. I think I would go back to the days at the beginning of the real mass expansion of higher education and the creation of the polytechnics with generations of people going on to polytechnic, going to higher education for the first time, but perhaps being desperately disappointed that they went to a polytechnic and then graduating at the end of it saying "I had an absolutely fantastic time". I spoke to sixth formers at some schools this May and very few of them had ever heard of the polytechnics. It was not actually part of their vocabulary. I worked at Loughborough University, a fantastic university, but who remembers that it was once a College of Advanced Technology, or Bath University? Gradually I think things begin to equalise themselves out particularly as we have got a generation of students who went into higher education 18, 21, 23 years ago, say into the polytechnics particularly, who are now of course parents and they begin to have children of that age who want to go into higher education and they advise them to go down a completely different route.


 
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