Examination of Witness (Questions 780-799)
WEDNESDAY 19 MARCH 2003
RT HON
MR CHARLES
CLARKE
780. Will they be launched in all universities
at the same time or can each university launch its own foundation
degree?
(Mr Clarke) Each university can do it in its own way,
but we hope to offer a framework in which it happens.
781. Will that be simultaneous with the demise
in HNDs and HNCs?
(Mr Clarke) I do not think so. HNCs and HNDs are very
widely respected qualifications, so it is not a question simply
of simultaneous demise. Precisely the work we are doing at the
moment is how we coordinate that in a way that does not lead to
confusion amongst potential students and employers.
782. What will be the relationship between foundation
degrees and honours degrees? There will be no progression arrangements.
(Mr Clarke) Yes, there will be progression arrangements
and, again, that is something we are specifically working on.
HEFCE, as Sir Howard Newby, I think, said to you in his evidence,
is very committed to the progression approach which is there.
There will be the ability to progress and that we see as an important
element in the degree.
783. In the White Paper there is nothing or
very little—nothing that I remember—about credit accumulation
transfer progress, is that not essential if there is going to
be progression from foundation degrees to honours degrees as well
as essential if foundation degrees are to be portable between
different universities? Given that we are talking about a different
kind of student who is more likely to be changing jobs across
the country, is it not critical that we have a national structure
for credit accumulation transfer?
(Mr Clarke) Yes. I would need to double-check the
White Paper, but we decided that we should build on the basis
which already exists in the collaboration between universities
which are operating foundation degrees already and take that as
the basis, rather than establishing a new validating body or whatever.
But that is again one of the issues we are addressing specifically.
In answer to your specific point, I strongly agree that there
needs to be a credit accumulation approach which allows for transferability
in the way that you describe.
784. Does that equally apply to the existing
body of honours degrees? Or does the Government intend to be more
proactive in trying to get a national framework for credit transfer?
(Mr Clarke) More difficult. More difficult. You are
obviously right to raise it as you have. I have said to the QAA
that I would be interested in their views on these matters but
it is one of the views that we are collecting. I think that the
goal of universal transferability across the UK, or at least across
England and Wales, is quite a difficult one to achieve, given
the history of the degrees that have emerged in wide variety of
different areas. I am not certain it is desirable, actually, but
certainly elements of it are desirable in what needs to happen.
I do not think I would go further on that at this moment. I think
the thrust of your questioning, Mr Chaytor, takes us down a very
important point: that if we are going to achieve progressivity
we have to do it in a way which means there is transferability
of qualifications, and that point I accept.
785. Considering the relationship between the
command economy and the emerging market between the universities,
if the Government establishes x-thousand places for foundation
degrees and students do not take that up, how do you resolve that?
At the end of the day, funding is driven by student demand, not
by government diktat.
(Mr Clarke) Indeed. That is why I said this, for me,
is the single most challenging aspect of the White Paper, because
if we provide for x-thousand foundation degrees and people for
a variety of reasons do not take them up that will be essentially
a failure of what we are trying to achieve and we would then have
to reassess where we go. But I regard it as very important that
we do not fail the test which you have just offered me, and that
is why we are giving it the very high priority that we are, to
making this happen.
786. Would the take-up not be increased if HNCs
and HNDs were automatically rolled up within foundation degrees
because there is no alternative for students to choose?
(Mr Clarke) I understand that but the phrase "there
is no alternative" is one that I am keen to avoid from this
point of view. I do not mean purely from the party political thing.
Foundation degrees have to be attractive and wanted and desired
rather than a requirement that people are forced down that course.
If it ends up that people are forced to go down that route, then
I think it would have been a failure. From what I have seen of
the early foundation degrees, by the way, I do not think we need
be in that position at all. I think some of the foundation degrees
which have been developed are very exciting and very positive
and people want to make them go. The commitment of employers,
public and private sector employers, to the foundation degree
is so important. That commitment is necessary to encourage people
to want to take foundation degrees in order look at their future
prospects. I will not hide from the Committee, Mr Sheerman, that
this area, on which we are working extremely energetically, is
for me a big test for the whole thing, because if it were to fail
in the way that Mr Chaytor is asking about that would be a serious
failure, and we are working very hard to avoid that being the
case. I will say very positively that the welcome for foundation
degrees I think has been absolutely genuine. The other day, for
example, I met the Engineering Employer's Federation and they
are absolutely completely up for this: they think this is very
important for their industry and their business. My colleague
the Secretary of State for Health and the NHS university are very,
very committed to this in the whole health area. David Blunkett
the Home Secretary and some of the home-oriented professions are
very interested in this area. The feeling is positive. Many universities
are responding very positively. I do not feel we are pushing water
up hill in this area. On the contrary, I feel people want to make
it happen, but the challenge for us is to make sure it does actually
happen and not become an aspiration that somehow gets diverted
and trickles down the mountain, to continue the metaphor. At the
moment I feel quite confident about that, but I do accept it is
the single biggest challenge to avoid the question you have just
asked me.
787. Finally, I think the fee for a foundation
degree is two-thirds of the fee for an honours degree.
(Mr Clarke) Not necessarily.
788. Will that be up to the university, if they
can charge variable fees for—
(Mr Clarke) Yes. It is worth just recording that the
university's ability to charge a fee also has the right to go
to zero as well as the predicament you have described of always
putting it up. I would make another prediction in relation to
the question which Mr Sheerman raised earlier on: I think there
will be some universities, even for honours degrees, which charge
zero for their fees rather than £1,100 for some courses and
I think that will also be true for some foundation degrees.
Ms Munn
789. The current level of participation is thought
to be 43% and the Government's commitment is to 50%. If the expansion
is predominantly going to come through foundation degrees and
the Government is aiming to increase the number of students from
poorer backgrounds, either students from poorer backgrounds are
predominantly going to go into foundation degrees or you are expecting
some of the students who currently do the three-year traditional
degrees (if I may describe them like that) to switch to foundation
degrees. Which is it?
(Mr Clarke) Neither. I think what I want is for people
to make the choices. Here, again, I have to be careful about Mr
Jackson taking note of all my side remarks in the way that he
does, but, to make a side remark, I think there needs to be more
serious consideration by students going into university of the
type of course they want to do and what they are trying to get
from it. I do think there are students currently going to do a
three-year honours degree who, if we had good quality foundation
degrees in the way that I was trying to imply in answer to Mr
Chaytor's question, might enjoy and do better to go for a two-year
foundation degree. Do I think there is some universal solution
here? No, I do not. But I hope, if we can get a better range of
courses and degrees, that people will be able to make better-informed
choices about what is best for them. One of my criticisms with
the way the system has evolved over the last 35 years is that
there has been a view of the kind of university degree, the three-years
honours degree, that existed when you were talking of 6% of the
population which has grown and grown and grown and grown, in the
way that people think it is the right thing to do when they leave
school. I would say, first, there is a good case for people to
use time before going to university in a variety of ways, and
there is a lot of evidence that people who go in as mature students
do at least as well and in many cases better than if they had
gone straight from school. Secondly, there should be a better
range of courses for them to look at in making their own choices—hence
I am talking about diversity. In a sense, this White Paper does
offer a block, saying: If you have always just gone because you
have just gone because you have just gone, think again. What is
the best for you in where you go? I think that is an important
aspiration of the White Paper.
790. Do you not think there might be read into
it that there is some sort of incentive, particularly for poorer
students, then to look at foundation degrees: it is a shorter
period of time, therefore they are incurring less debt; it might
be that foundation degrees are more likely to be offered in institutions
which are closer to home, so they can stay at home and not incur
expense. Is the possibility to do that not actually restricting
choice rather than expanding it as you have explained?
(Mr Clarke) Some people will make the argument that
you have made, Ms Munn. They will say that is what we are about.
All I can say is that absolutely is not the intention of the Government.
I would make it more generally, actually: I think the argument
that vocational education is something which is for the less bright,
which is the kind of problem of our whole system, is a deeply
pernicious problem of our whole system. It is rather weird when
you have doctors and lawyers and engineers being trained in top
quality universities on what are highly vocational courses, but,
nevertheless, this message tends to be: you are either academic
and you go down the academic route or you are vocational and go
down the vocational route. I think that is a deeply damaging proposition.
That is why I think the foundation degrees have to be intellectually
challenging and demanding and the quality has to be high. We are
setting ourselves, in responding, as I am, Ms Munn, to your question,
some quite high hurdles to overcome, to the questions Mr Chaytor
was raising about the type of degree we have, but that is where
we have to go. If it were the case, for example, that foundation
degrees were all concentrated in certain universities but not
others and were filled by students coming from certain backgrounds
but not others, I think that would be a serious weakness of what
we were about doing.
Jeff Ennis
791. Who will be the main providers of foundation
degrees? Will it be HE establishments or FE establishments?
(Mr Clarke) I expect the main providers to be HE establishments.
But I think that one of the benefits of the whole reform we are
talking about is to give the HE element of further education a
bigger role. We currently have 11% of all higher education degrees
provided in further education. I think that should expand and
it would be beneficial if it did. I would welcome it if many went
for foundation degrees. But if you ask me the question: Which
would be the main provider? I would expect it to be higher education.
792. You would effectively welcome work in close
collaboration between HE establishments and local FE establishments.
(Mr Clarke) Very much so. In fact, I think that is
the very positive aspect.
793. If a university took the attitude: Well,
foundation degrees are beneath us.
(Mr Clarke) If they do, I would regard that as a major
failure. It actually relates to Ms Munn's point as well, because
the danger is that some universities might take that view but
others would not.
794. What would you do about it of they do?
(Mr Clarke) I would encourage all universities to
provide foundation degrees to the level that we are talking about.
We have here the question which Mr Sheerman raised right at the
beginning: What can I do about anything with the universities
because it is all at arm's length? It is not as bad as when Fred
Mulley was Secretary of State for Education in the seventies,
when he said, "The only thing I have any responsibility for
is air raid shelters." That was his whole policy. That was
his genuine point, by the way, that the Secretary of State for
Education only had indirect influence rather than power.
Mr Jackson
795. Quite right too!
(Mr Clarke) I do not have the power to source a particular
university, nor am I seeking any power to provide foundation degrees,
but I do have the power to encourage high quality foundation degrees
to be developed which universities will want to provide.
Jeff Ennis
796. Do you see foundation degrees as having
more appeal to more mature students than ordinary degrees?
(Mr Clarke) Not necessarily, actually. In fact, I
do not think that. I think the main thing I would say with foundation
degrees is they are a major vehicle for bringing together employers
and education at a higher education level in a way that has not
been done so far. I do not think there is any particular reason
why that should be stronger for mature students than students
coming in at the age of 18 or 19.
797. Our party has been a great advocate for
lifelong learning, yet there is very little mention in the White
Paper of higher education for students over the age of 30. Is
that an omission?
(Mr Clarke) That is not my intention. On the contrary,
I think lifelong learning is absolutely critical. Ironically universities
are already doing something in this area, with the management
courses that they do and so on for particular employers, but in
my opinion it is nothing like enough. When we focus on this, as
we do in the teaching chapter of the White Paper, and we do mention
lifelong learning in this context, I see it as a major area of
expansion of what universities do, and also, by the way, a major
source of income. In order to be able to do that, they have to
convince the employers or the individuals we are talking about
of educating themselves in that way throughout life to feel that
what they are doing is valuable and worthwhile. To be quite blunt,
I think universities need to do a lot more to make what they do
look attractive to potential employers and individuals.
Chairman
798. How much money are you saving by expanding
from 43 to 50% via foundation degrees compared to expanding from
43 to 50% in conventional honours degrees?
(Mr Clarke) We have done the arithmetic on that. I
do not have it in front of me but I will write to you with the
figure. It is not anything like as significant as people think.
As I was trying to answer Ms Munn, the reason for going down that
route is not principally financial but principally to get a wider
variety of type of degree. I can provide the Committee with the
arithmetic on that.[5]
799. It has reached 50% in Scotland without
foundation degrees. Some people would argue that you are on the
one hand expanding higher education from 43 to 50% on t he cheap
and others would argue with less quality of provision than Scotland
enjoys.
(Mr Clarke) Three points. First, with respect to you,
Mr Sheerman, I always think that, certainly in the higher education
field, comparisons between Scotland and England are somewhat misleading.
If you look, for example, at cost issues, the proportion of students
at Scottish universities who live at home is of a completely different
order than it is in England and Wales. The whole system has evolved,
with its highers and so on, in a quite different way. Secondly,
the allegation will certainly be made that this is an idea on
the cheap. I reject it utterly. There are people who will always
say that money is the key driver in all policies. Of course money
is a driver in policies, it is an important aspect, but it is
not the key driver in all policies, and, in particular, on this
it is absolutely not the driver. It is the answers I was giving
to Ms Munn and Mr Ennis earlier on about the type of degree that
we are trying to develop that is the key driver. So it is not
a question of doing anything on the cheap. Less quality, again,
I disagree with that, but I acknowledge the challenge which Mr
Chaytor put earlier on that making sure they are both high quality
and seen to be high quality is exceptionally important. If we
were to fail in that, there would be a major issue that arises.
There are some commentators on educational politics who think
that it is all about bean counting and, therefore, if we feel
we have to put up a set of degrees we will do it in a particular
way. I just do not think that is the way to look at it. I think
the way to look at it is: Why do we not have a more diverse provision
of courses in a more diverse range of universities? so that people
have more choice.
5 See Ev. p279. Back
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