Clause
17
Power
to award foundation
degrees
Bill
Rammell:
I beg to move amendment No. 2, in
clause 17, page 11, line 38, at
end insert—
‘( ) After
subsection (2A) (as inserted by subsection (4))
insert—
“(2B)
Where the Privy Council is considering whether to make an order under
subsection (1) above specifying an institution as mentioned in
subsection (1)(b) above, the Privy Council may not make the order
unless—
(a) the
institution gives the Privy Council a statement setting out what it
proposes to do as regards making arrangements for securing that any
person granted an award under or by virtue of any power that would be
conferred on the institution if the order were made (other than the
power described in subsection (4A) below) has an opportunity to
progress to one or more particular courses of more advanced study,
and
(b) the Privy Council
considers that the proposals are satisfactory and are likely to be
carried
out.”’.
The
Chairman:
With this it will be convenient to take
amendment No. 7, in
clause 17, page 11, line 38, at
end insert—
‘( ) After
subsection (2A) (as inserted by subsection (4))
insert—
“(2B)
Where the Privy Council is considering whether to make an order under
subsection (1) above specifying an institution as mentioned in
subsection (1)(b) above, the Privy Council may not make the order
unless—
(a) the
institution gives the Privy Council a statement setting out what it
proposes to do as regards making arangements for securing that any
person granted an award under or by virtue of any power that would be
conferred on the institution if the order were made (other than the
power described in subsection (4A) below) has an opportunity to
progress to one or more particular courses of more advanced
study;
(b) the Privy Council
considers that the proposals are satisfactory and are likely to be
carried out; and
(c) the Privy
Council has published the criteria by which proposals are considered
satisfactory.”’.
Bill
Rammell:
We have come to the most substantive element of
the Bill, which some people regard asthe most controversial.
Since the beginning of our deliberations, I have been clear that we
need as much innovation and flexibility as possible within the further
and higher education system in order to respond to the need of business
for a higher level of skills. In that regard, we are absolutely right
to say that highly performing further education colleges should be able
to award their own foundation degrees.
I listened carefully to the
concerns expressed, especially by higher education institutions such as
universities. I bow to nobody in my respect and regard for the
incredibly high quality of provision in our higher education
institutions. It is an area in which we are genuinely world leaders.
When the Associationof Colleges organised a debate in the
Houses of Parliament, David Melville, the vice-chancellor of Kent
university, who supports the Government’s proposals, reminded us
that at every stage of the expansion of the higher education system
there has been significant opposition from existing universities. He
related the fact that when the university of London
was created there was opposition from Oxford and Cambridge, and similar
opposition when the red bricks were created and when the binary divide
was removed. Although
there are some genuine concerns, there has at least been an impression
of protectionism in some of the debates and discussions. That is wrong
in principle, and unnecessary, because in respect of foundation
degrees, we are talking about a substantially expanding market moving
from about 61,000 qualifications today to 100,000 towards the end of
the decade. The small print of the Leitch report and our likely
response shows that we may move beyond that. It is important to put the
proposal in that context and to address the concerns that have been
raised.
A great deal
of debate has been stimulated by the proposals, and I am grateful for
the constructive approach of the Front Benchers from both Opposition
parties and for the way in which they handledthe arguments and
put forward their concerns. The Government have
listened carefully and have responded to those concerns. The proposals
on foundation degree awarding powers have been developed in response to
the debate, and a number of Government amendments, tabled in another
place, show that we are managing the risks associated with the new
measures. It will help if I detail some of those
changes.
First, we
expect there to be a probationary period of six years during which time
the ability of colleges with foundation degree awarding powers to
authorise other institutions to make awards on their behalf or to award
foundation degrees to students enrolled elsewhere will be restricted.
Secondly, an independent report on the effect of the new powers will be
made to Parliament within four years. The changes that we are making
are important and significant, and it is right that a reportis
made to Parliament on their impact. Thirdly, the non-statutory guidance
and criteria for applicants have undergone careful revision in response
to comments and suggestions.
I now turn to the thrust of
Government amendment No. 2 and the question of progression or
articulation between foundation degrees and programmes of more advanced
study. That issue is exceedingly important, as it bears directly on
issues of student experience and the protection of quality standards,
which are a major concern.
When considering an application
for foundation degree awarding powers, the Privy Council will take
advice from the Quality Assurance Agency. The non-statutory draft
guidance and criteria that have been circulated to members of the
Committee will form the basis of the QAA’s assessment of an
applicant institution. Consideration of progression arrangements will
be one important aspect of that assessment. The draft guidance and
criteria make it clear that progression routes are a core feature of
all foundation degree programmes—they always have been,
andthey will continue to be so regardless of where the
qualification is awarded. The guidance states that progression is
expected to be
“to at
least one bachelor’s degree with honours, with an expectation
that this should not normally exceed 1.3 years for a full time
equivalent student in England, or to an appropriate professional
qualification or other qualification at level 6 in the National
Qualifications Framework”.
It is important not to forget
that foundation degrees are a self-standing higher education
qualification, and that many employers and learners value them as such.
We should not devalue that through our language in debate.
Nevertheless, opportunities for progressionto further study
are exceedingly important. We are committed to education as a lifelong
engagement, and foundation degrees open up opportunities for those who
might not have gone into higher education through the traditional
routes. The opportunity to study for a foundation degree locally at an
FE college would be very appealing to many non-traditional students.
The proposals will therefore help widen participation
in higher education, which is fundamental.
Making progression arrangements
is important in order to ensure that foundation degrees have an
equivalent or equal academic value wherever the qualification is
awarded. All students will have the opportunity to undertake more
advanced study, wherever they choose to take their foundation
degree.I certainly do not want a two-tier system of
qualification.
Given
the prominence of the issue and our concern to protect standards and
student experience, we have committed ourselves to addressing the
question of progression. My noble Friend Lord Adonis made that
commitment on Third Reading in the other place, and I reiterated it on
Second Reading in this
House.
The Government
amendments would prevent the Privy Council from making an order
specifying that a further education institution in England is competent
to grant foundation degrees unless it receives a statement from that
institution setting out what arrangements it proposed so that students
awarded one of its foundation degrees had the opportunity to progress
to at least one course of more advanced study. The Privy Council must
also consider whether the proposals are satisfactory and likely to be
carried out. In a very significant way, that addresses some of the
concerns that have been put
forward.
As drafted,
the amendment preserves the flexibility that is essential to allow
innovation in the development of foundation degree programmes over
time. My noble friend Lord Adonis stressed the importance of that
flexibility when he committed to tabling an
amendment. The Government amendment does not place substantially
additional burdens on applicant institutions, which is important.
Making a statement about proposals for ensuring progression would form
part of the critical self-analysis that any institution applying for
degree-awarding powers carries out, and it will also be the basis for
any application for foundation degree-awarding
powers.
I should also
be clear that we are not introducing an entitlement progression from a
progression degreeto more advanced studies. Admissions
policies and procedures remain, rightly, a matter for individual
institutions. The amendment means that in order to get foundation
degree-awarding powers the applicant will have to show what it is
proposing to do about providing appropriate opportunities for
progression to more advanced programmes of study.
Opportunities must be available
to any student who is awarded any of the institution’s
foundation degrees, once it has foundation degree-awarding powers. The
statement made by an application will need, in a very real sense, to
look at the current situation, as well as be
forward-looking. It will set out the institution’s strategy for
securing progression arrangements for foundation degree programmes that
it might establish in future, as well as those that have already been
developed. The
Quality Assurance Agency places importance on establishing maintaining
progression routes for foundation degree students. It has
commented:
“The recommending of a
institution for foundation degree awarding powers would be on the
assumption that a further education institution would operate its
powers in the manner anticipated when the application was assessed. The
failure to ensure progression routes would be a serious matter, and
might constitute grounds for QAA
intervention.”
Mr.
Boswell:
Will the Minister give
way?
Bill
Rammell:
I will finish the quotation from the QAA and then
I will give
way.
“The
review of the cause for concern would look at the issue of persistent
failure and make recommendations
accordingly.”
Mr.
Boswell:
In support of what the Minister is saying, would
he also tell the Committee whether he is satisfied that the powers to
require reporting by the body that awards foundation degrees to the QAA
are sufficient to make it possible for the QAA to make a proper
appraisal? It is all very well to sign things off initially, but it is
important that they are monitored in practice, and that progression is
assured.
Bill
Rammell:
That is an important point, and the criteria and
powers are no different in substance from the way in which full
degree-awarding powers are dealt with at the moment. By that, I mean
that there is an ongoing responsibility on the part of the QAA to
monitor progression, and there can be intervention if those progression
arrangements fall into disrepair.
It is also important that we
should be clear that further and higher education institutions should
work together to promote the opportunities that they offer, as they
already do. It is in the institutions’ interests to market the
programmes and progression routes that they offer to attract and retain
students. However, in that regard, I do not agree with the hon. Member
for South Holland and The Deepings, that we need to legislate for that.
There is no reason why the proposals in clause 17 will undermine
existing good practice in terms of joint promotion of foundation
degrees and progression routes. However, I am sure that he will have an
opportunity to come back at me, and I shall respond to some of the
detail of the argument that he is making.
I turn now to amendment No. 7,
tabled by the hon. Members for Brent, East and for Leeds, North-West.
The amendment is, in many senses, identical to the amendment that I
have tabled, except that it also provides that the Privy Council must
not make an order granting foundation degree-awarding powers unless it
has published criteria by which an institution’s proposals with
regard to progression will be considered to be satisfactory. As I have
already said, we have already published draft non-statutory guidance
and criteria for foundation degree-awarding powers. They have been
developed in close conjunction with the
QAA, which will assess all applications for foundation degree-awarding
powers and advise the Privy Council on whether the criteria have been
met. A copy of that document has been circulated to all members of the
Committee, and with the Committee’s permission, I will now say a
few words about what that document
covers. To determine
whether an applicant institution’s statement of its proposals
about progression arrangements is satisfactory, the Privy Council could
consider such factors as whether the institution’s academic
management is sufficiently robust to ensure that progression routes are
and will be established, both now and in the future, and whether the
institution can be relied on to renew progression arrangements or to
seek new ones if the old ones should lapse, with the help of a third
party organisation, such as Foundation Degree Forward, if
necessary.
In order to
be satisfied that the proposals are likely to be carried out, one of
the matters that the Privy Council could examine is the actions that
have already been taken by an institution with regard to making
arrangements for progression from foundation degree courses that are in
preparation. Assuring standards and safeguarding the interests of the
learner are paramount. An important aspect of that process is
preserving the flexibility and potential for innovation that has
already made the foundation degree such a highly valued qualification.
Institutions, programmes and the needs of learners and employers change
over time and it is right that the QAA should be able to take account
of such evolution when it assesses applications for foundation degree
awarding powers.
We
will conduct a full consultation on the guidance and criteria as and
when this Bill completes its passage. That process will provide an
opportunity for interested parties to influence development of this
document, including the guidance on progression. A statutory provision
that, in effect, requires the Privy Council to publish its criteria in
those circumstances is, I think,
superfluous.
4.30
pm
Government
amendment No. 2 is robust. I believe that it addresses this issue in
the most appropriateway. The draft guidance and criteria,
including the QAA’s foundation degree qualification
benchmark,are transparent published documents, which include
detailed statements on how progression routes should be established,
maintained and promoted, and how an applicant institution should
demonstrate to the QAA that it is doing that.
I hope that, in the light of my
remarks, the hon. Members for Brent, East and for Leeds, North-West
will feel able to withdraw their amendment.
Sarah
Teather:
As the Minister has said, we are now turning to
the most controversial aspect of the Bill. I want to acknowledge how
far the Government have moved since the Bill was first
published.
A great
deal of amendment and a number of reassurances on record were gained in
the other place. Personally, I felt rather frustrated when the Bill was
first published, as I realised how little consultation had been
undertaken with the relevant sector about this
clause, but that is water under the bridge. The Government have moved a
long way here and we are not opposed to the awarding of foundation
degrees by FE institutions. However, we want to be sure that
progression routes are in place and that quality is assured; we will
deal with some of those points when we come to the next group of
amendments. It is
worth making a few comments about foundation degrees in particular. The
Minister said that they have been very successful since they were
introduced in 2001. It is remarkable that just over 4,000 students were
studying for such foundation degrees in 2001, but the number has now
risen to more than 60,000 students and, as the Minister stated, the aim
is that it should rise further to 100,000 students. Eighty universities
currently deliver or validate these qualifications. Forty-six per cent.
of these students are taught in higher education institutes and 54 per
cent. in FE institutions. In 2006, more than 2,000 foundation degree
courses were running. The figure of 54 per cent. of students
progressing on to an honours degree is the most important aspect, and
that is the point that we were trying to make in the
amendment.
I recognise
perfectly well the point that the Minister made, that we should also
accept that foundation degrees are an important qualification in their
own right—an important stand-alone qualification. I also think
that some of the concerns that higher education institutions have
expressed about the need to ensure that all students can progress to an
honours degree, and only to an honours degree, fail to acknowledge that
many students wish to progress to other qualifications. The Minister
said that many students wish to progress to a professional
qualification, or to another form of work-based learning.
Government amendment No. 2 goes
most of the way towards meeting our concerns about progression routes,
but we are trying to establish whether those routes are guaranteed in
practice. We wanted the Privy Council to publish the criteria by which
it will decide whether progression routes are satisfactory. I am
grateful to the Minister for putting on record those points about
guidance, which were extremely helpful.
In common with the
Conservatives, as we will hear when they speak, we wish to ensure that
progression routes are in place not only at the moment when
degree-awarding powers are given, but in perpetuity. The Minister said
that if those routes fell down for some reason, that could be grounds
for the QAA to step in. He said that, essentially, the same routes are
in place to ensure progression with foundation degrees at the moment;
will he clarify that? Currently, there have to be progression routes in
place for a foundation degree, but they would quite clearly be with the
particular institution that is validating the qualification. We are
dealing with a different scenario, because the qualification will not
be validated by that higher education institution. There might be a
range of relationships with higher education institutions, so different
criteria are required to ensure it is clear that progression routes are
in place. It is easy for agreements to break down, as they might be
quite fluid. We have to ensure that the routes are picked up again for
the same students. It is not good enough for the routes to
disappear and be picked up again in two years’ time if it means
that a cohort of students is unable to take advantage of
them.
Dr.
Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab): As I have
not yet spoken in the debate, I welcome you to the Chair,
Mr. Atkinson. I want to make a few points about Government
amendmentNo. 2, but I should first like to know whether we are
likely to have a clause stand part debate, or whether I should raise
general issues now.
The
Chairman:
As I said earlier, I think thatthe
debate will progress better if we have a fairly
wide-ranging debate on this first group of
amendments. I am sure that the Committee will bear in mind my remarks
about stand
part.
Dr.
Blackman-Woods:
Thank you for that clarification,
Mr. Atkinson.
I begin by stressing to the
Minister that, although I think it is important for clause 2 to pay
attention to progression routes, it is also important that we do not
diminish foundation degrees as a qualification in their own right. I
know that it has often happened in the past; as part of a wide range of
qualifications, it has sometimes been difficult for foundation degrees
to show their distinctiveness.
Universities UK has been right
to point out that we should adopt a cautious approach to giving FE
colleges the right to validate programmes themselves. The criteria that
have been set out, particularly in the appendix that deals with the
criteria under which FE colleges will have to bring applications, go a
long way towards meeting some of the concerns that have rightly been
raised by Universities UK. It is not necessary to diminish in any way
the role of universities in relation to employer qualifications, or to
say that such degrees should go to FE colleges, because both types of
institution can have good relationships with employers. Universities UK
has been a bit over-sensitive about that; we want to ensure that
universities have the links with employers that they ought to have, and
that FE colleges continue with their good links across a range of
courses. My FE college, New college, Durham, has excellent
relationships with employers. It has a centre of vocational excellence,
and it is able to build on that to validate programmes and to bring in
employers to do so.
Universities might have been a
little reluctant to accept that a number of FE colleges already have
wide experience of delivering HE programmes. Some, including New
college in Durham, have excellent facilities in brand new buildings
which should enable them to deliver the programmes effectively. I am
very pleased that clause 17 exists. It is a huge step forward in
acknowledging the important role that foundation degrees can play in
delivering skills across the board.
I want to ask the Minister
about franchising, because there is a legitimate concern about the
extent to which, in future, FE colleges will be able to franchise the
degrees to other colleges. We might need to pay closer attention to
quality assurance and to limiting the extent to which some colleges are
able to do that.
As is outlined clearly in annexe
A of “Applications for the grant of Foundation Degree awarding
powers—Guidance for applicant further education institutions in
England”, we should not get hung up on any one progression
route. Although it is important that all who are studying for a
foundation degree should be able to go on to study for an honours
degree if they want to do so, it is critical that a wide range of
opportunities should be available to them, and that good careers advice
should go alongside foundation degrees. The principal of my local
college, John Widdowson, has made it clear to me that foundation degree
students sometimes want to have a break from education. After they have
completed foundation degrees, they want to stay in employment if they
are already in it—we have to remember that a number of
foundation degrees are work based and work related—and go back
some years later to top them up with other qualifications. Those might
be honours degrees, but they could be management or other professional
qualifications. We have to ensure that routes are available for such
people to continue with their professional development not only in
universities but through work-based learning. I am pleased that that is
acknowledged in the regulations.
I have just two further points
to clarify. I am not clear about what happens if a college applies to
award its own foundation degrees and is refused. What is the next
stage? Is there a time lag before it can apply again? There could be a
diminution in quality if it is not made very clear that there are
things that the college must do before it can apply again. Colleges
could just go round and round the system, which would not be
helpful.
I should
also like clarification on partnership arrangements. How do the
Government intend to ensure that strong partnerships are maintained
between HE and FE institutions? At the moment, many such partnerships
are built around foundation degrees. If those are no longer in place,
attention will have to be paid to ensuring that strong links are made
and maintained.
Mr.
Hayes:
As the Minister said, clause 17 lies at the heart
of the Bill. It is perhaps the most significant part and it enjoyed
lengthy and lively consideration inthe other place, having
aroused strong feelings. I acknowledge that the Minister has listened
to argument. He has responded in a way that does him great credit. His
door has been open to all Opposition Members and third parties who have
wanted to express their views about this part of the Bill.
Understandably, there have been profound concerns about it on the part
of some of those involved in further and higher education.
In some respects, the Minister
has travelled a long way towards the position of his critics; perhaps,
to a small degree, the official Opposition encouraged him on that
journey. In other ways, he has not yet gone far enough. However, let me
be absolutely clear that, in principle, we agree with extending the
awarding powers to FE colleges in the manner given life by the Bill.
Our support springs in part from our wholehearted admiration for the
work of colleges up and down the country. I mentioned that earlier, but
I make no
apology for amplifying the point. FE colleges, as I shall demonstrate at
considerable length, do a sterling job. They are very important to the
life of our country and to the life chances of many of our countrymen.
We are convinced that clause 17 is right. Not just the scope and range
of college provision, not just the quality of its leaders and teachers
or even the degree and extent of their endeavours, but the very nature
of FE convinces us that it is right to provide this new opportunity for
learners. Let me explain. 4.45
pm
Jeremy
Wright (Rugby and Kenilworth) (Con): Will my hon. Friend
give
way?
Mr.
Hayes:
I will be happy to give way before I begin my
lengthy
peroration.
Jeremy
Wright:
In that case I am grateful to my hon. Friend for
giving way at this point.
May I suggest to my hon. Friend
that what he is saying is right, at least in part, because if clause 17
were not to become part of the Bill, those who regard further
education, quite properly, as a source of good quality education and
training would see this legislature as having damaged that view because
we would not have given confidence to that impression? It is important
that clause 17 plays its part in the Bill so that we can give the
necessary confidence to further education as a
brand.
Mr.
Hayes:
Yes. I have argued elsewhere that we need to treat
FE as grown up. Part of the case that I made earlier about extending
the freedoms of further education colleges through a considered process
of deregulation is about just that: recognising the potential of
further education, the quality of leadership and the talents of
teachers and those who govern FE colleges and giving licence to those
people to extend their work for the benefit of learners. My hon. Friend
is right: if we sent out the wrong message about this aspect of the
Bill it would discourage the very people whom we want to
encourage.
I was about
to speak about the particular strengths of FE. Perhaps those strengths
will support my hon. Friend’s consideration of these matters and
reinforce the point that he makes. FE colleges react with a particular
responsiveness to local needs and their experience in constructing and
delivering modularand part-time courses can play an important
role in addressing the entrenched perceptions that preventso
many people from considering further learning. Consequently, in my
judgment FE must be central to any strategy for widening
participation.
Rooted
in the community and offering a rich diet of provision, FE colleges are
uniquely placed to serve those whose lives are not necessarily designed
for university learning. FE is characterised by localness,
accessibility and flexibility. Colleges’ proximity to
non-traditional students’ homes, workplaces and previous
learning experiences give them an easy reach to the under-represented
groups in higher
education.
The idea of
making education accessible via FE is by no means new. The growth in
courses, including higher education courses in colleges, over the past
20 years is a
quiet triumph. Around 12 per cent. of those studying towards a degree
now do so in an FE college. Although like their university peers in
aspiration and ambition, most of these learners are far from
stereotypical students. The style and substance of their study are far
from traditional higher education. Higher education taught in a further
education context is a distinctive sub-sector with a unique style of
its own. Around 300
colleges now provide HE courses in widely varying amounts. Some cater
to a small crowd of students, while at the mixed economy colleges
around half the student body study HE. These colleges are not
university satellites. They have their own character and their own
value. They are led by people who do not want to replicate the
university experience but who wish to provide quality education
inrelevant disciplines to those who might not otherwise
consider it.
Just to
illustrate that point in graphic terms, I thought that it would be
helpful for the Committee to consider a few statistics. FE plays a key
role in helping students from varied backgrounds to access higher
education. Students whose previous educational establishment was a
further education college account for over a third of all current
full-time entrants to undergraduate education in higher education.
Unlike entrants from sixth-form colleges and schools, maintained and
independent, who are nearly all aged 20 or under, two out of every five
entrants from FE colleges are adults—half of whom are aged 21 to
24 and the rest between 25 and 60. FE colleges have a higher proportion
of entrants from lower socio-economic groups—34 per cent.
compared with 25 per cent. in sixth forms and 21 per cent. in
maintained schools. Furthermore, FE colleges provide internal
progression and external entry to their own full-time undergraduate
courses—mainly HND—and to those delivered in partnership
with universities.
As
young or older adults, a good number of those embarking on part-time
undergraduate education will have undertaken previous further education
study, especially if enrolled for vocational higher education
programmes to sub-degree levels. FE colleges are the primary location
for recognised access courses—some 86 per cent. compared with 2
per cent. of sixth-form colleges and 4 per cent. in higher education.
FE is effective in reaching the hard-to-get-at groups who otherwise
might not consider higher education. It is better at reaching less
privileged groups, mature learners, and learners from different
backgrounds, because typically it offers part-time study, modular
courses, distance learning and more flexible learning than
universities.
Foundation
degrees must be integral to the strategy of widening participation.
Sadly, however, many barriers inhibit the flowering of opportunity that
such qualifications have seeded in the system. Colleges that wish to
widen provision by teaching and awarding foundation degrees often face
tortuous and convoluted processes—an over-bureaucratic funding
regime, a poor fit between funding and flexible provision such as
part-time learning, over-regulation of FE and the rigidity between HE
and FE.
The
disconnection and disincentives resulting from those problems inhibit
social mobility by limiting the capacity of colleges to offer flexible
learning to a new
generation of students. If colleges are to be the vectors of expansion,
they must have the freedom to determine the modes of teaching and
learning, which are the pre-requisites of broader participation. That
is whya determination to widen access depends on our
willingness to deregulate FE colleges. There is a significant problem
with university validation. The foundation degree was
conceivedas a high-level vocationally orientated qualification
delivered by universities and colleges to meet the demands of local and
regional businesses. The speed of response to employers’ needs
is crucial to its appeal, as has been mentioned already in this short
debate. The local, dynamic, industry-focused character of FE colleges
allows them to respond well to that challenge, but having been
galvanised by an employer’s approach, they find often that
engagement with a university during the validation process puts the
brakes on their momentum. The measured pace of large university
management systems typically is very different from that of smaller
colleges, which can result in a culture clash when the two meet to
create new foundation
degrees.
Sarah
Teather:
I accept the point that the hon. Gentleman makes,
but has he considered the remarks made by Universities UK, which says
that it has many examples of where HE institutions have been able to
design and validate courses within three months? Is it really the case
that all HE institutions are slow and cumbersome and that none have
links with businesses, including local
businesses?
Mr.
Hayes:
I said “typically” rather than
“all”. It is true that often there are good and
productive relationships between universities and colleges, as I shall
discuss later, but there are some structural problems in that
relationship, some of which I shall describe as I continue. I want to
reassure the hon. Lady that I would not want to suggest that those
relationships never work well. Often they do work well, as Universities
UK argues. But I do think that we can re-examine the barriers that
currently exist in some cases to the effective delivery of foundation
degrees and an effective validation
process.
Mr.
Rob Wilson (Reading, East) (Con): My hon. Friend has
mentioned the hard-to-reach groups. Is he aware that on Second Reading
I highlighted the fact that the Higher Education Funding Council had
analysed those groups and found that there has been success in getting
foundation degrees, as they are currently constituted, to them,
particularly to ethnic groups, mature students and so
forth?
Mr.
Hayes:
That is because they are taught at FE colleges.
That is precisely my point. The reason why the foundation degree
process has been successful is that it is largely delivered through FE
with the kind of flexibility that I described. Now we must go further.
If we are to expand foundation degrees, allow colleges to mature and
build on the initial success, we should be confident in allowing
colleges to grow up, as I said at the outset, and award degrees
themselves within certain limits with which I shall deal in some
detail. It is important that there are appropriate safeguards, and I
take some of the points that Universities UK has made, but we need to
move on from that start to allow the flowering of the process which the
Minister briefly outlined and which I broadly support. I know that
there are doubters, and the hon. Member for City of Durham may be one
of
them.
Dr.
Blackman-Woods:
Will the hon. Gentleman accept that
universities have got better at validating foundation degrees and
working with FE colleges to put together and deliver degrees? It is no
longer necessary to denigrate the university sector in order to argue
that FE colleges should be able to validate degrees in their own right.
FE colleges themselves have the necessary expertise and
partnerships.
Mr.
Hayes:
Our universities do an important job and we should
be very proud of them. The expansion in the number of students at
universities has been another triumph—I described the expansion
of HE and FE as a quiet triumph, but of course it has been a triumph
that student numbers have grown substantially over my lifetime in both
our red-brick and new universities. However, I am not sure—I
support the Governmentin this respect—whether it is
appropriate simply to continue down the current road without allowing
colleges to mature as they can if we put in place the right safeguards
to guarantee rigour and
partnership.
Sarah
Teather:
This is an issue of fact: the hon. Gentleman
mentioned a moment ago that the increased participation in and
accessibility of foundation degrees is primarily because most of those
courses are delivered through FE institutions. I said in my remarks,
and wish to put on record again, that46 per cent. of those
courses are delivered through higher education and 54 per cent. through
further education. I emphasise the point that the hon. Member for City of
Durham made a moment ago: that we must be careful not to denigrate the
provision of foundation degrees in higher education, which has been
enormously successful and accounts for almost half those
degrees.
Mr.
Hayes:
Yes, that is true, and I have discussed it at
length with representatives of the universities and others. But let us
put on record the fact that the expansion in the number of students in
universities, which has been significant over my lifetime of48
years—I know it is hard to believe, but I am 48; I know that you
thought I was much younger, Mr. Atkinson—has largely
been within a single socio-economic sector. The profile of students in
HE now is not substantially different from the profile in 1958. FE
colleges have been disproportionately successful in reaching
hard-to-get-at groups, partly because of their localness, partly
because of their responsiveness and partly because of their willingness
to offer degrees and other qualifications in more innovative ways than
is typically the case in universities. I add one more caveat: most
universities are trying to address that issue.
I was recently at the Cambridge
institute—it is associated with Cambridge
university—which specialises
in providing flexible courses at degree and sub-degree level. It does a
superb job, which I would not want to understate in any way. However,
FE has a critical and unique role to play in deepening and broadening
participation and I make no apologies for being the champion of further
education colleges. That may make me less popular in the dining rooms
of Oxford colleges than the hon. Lady, but I do not fear that because I
am the people’s choice and the people’s voice, and it is
absolutely right to make a case for FE, which is rarely made in this
place. 5
pm
In response to
the hon. Member for City of Durham I mention the review of indirect
funding agreements and arrangements between higher
education institutions and further education colleges published by
HEFCE, which
said:
“Further
education colleges are used to being responsive to rapid change. The
rather more complex procedures of a higher education institution almost
always slows down the
process.”
Those are not
my words, but the words of HEFCE. Although I accept the caveat of the
hon. Member for Brent, East that sometimes it is much quicker, it
usually takes about 18 months of meetings and sub-meetings to secure
the validation of a foundation degree after an incredibly bureaucratic
process, which obviously places a proportionately heavier burden on the
lower-resourced colleges than on the large, well-resourced
universities. Principals speak painfully of the labyrinthine process,
which is made more difficult for colleges because although its staff
are likely to be better equipped to judge matters relating to
vocational qualifications and more closely aware of employers’
needs, throughout the long and winding processthe college must
satisfy the university’s needs and requirements above all
others. The principal of one college testified as much to the Select
Committee when it considered these matters. I will not quote him at
length; suffice it to say that he said,
“We are very much the
middle man, the
intermediary”
in the
relationship, and he described how difficult it is to manage the
process.
A culture
clash is common in the negotiations because foundation degrees are
vocational; the specialism often lies with the FE college but they are
also simultaneously higher education qualifications so the authority
lies with the university. The resulting tension is not conducive to a
fruitful, fast-moving partnership that responds quickly to employer
demand. Some embryonic foundation degrees, such as the catering
qualification, which have been conceived by employer interest and
college enthusiasm, do not even reach the validation stage because the
partner university has the power to veto subjects that do not fit in
with its pattern of
provision.
As if those
difficulties were not enough, colleges’ plans for foundation
degrees must also filter through the time-sapping sieve of its local
lifelong learning network. Although they were established to ease
collaboration, these institutional interceptions often have the
opposite effect. One London college that I visited had been obliged to
hawk its foundation degree around three lifelong learning networks in
three separate London boroughs due to the spread of its campuses,
eliciting agreements for the qualification
from each of them. It is not hard to imagine the bureaucratic bother
that that entailed. As the college principal remarked, it was an
experience that exposed the absurdity of lifelong learning networks,
however well intentioned their aims. All that explains why it is
critical that colleges take the power to award these degrees
themselves. However, that power entails important
responsibilities. Those concerns were described
at length in the briefing that we received from Universities UK and in
the debate in the other place. I have the Universities UK briefing
before me, but it might be more convenient to consider the comments of
Baroness Warwick when she spoke in the other place specifically about
this aspect of the Bill. I met her to discuss the issue—I am
sure that Ministers have done so repeatedly, and that other members of
the Committee have as well—and listened carefully and closely to
the arguments made by Universities
UK.
Baroness
Warwick’s case might be summarised in five points. She is
determined, and rightly so, that academic rigour is maintained so that
the degree brand continues to be well respected by learners and
employers, and others at home and abroad, and she made that point in
the Lords debate. She is also concerned that progression from one level
of qualification to another is assured through appropriate agreements.
The Minister spoke about articulation agreements in his opening
remarks. Baroness Warwick stated
that
“foundation degrees
were originally conceived as a stepping-stone qualification that would
enable students to study perhaps, or often, in conjunction with work or
while based at a localFE college, but which would also give
them the option of topping up to a full honours degree when they gained
the
confidence”—
and
the ability—
“to
do so.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 13
December 2006; Vol. 687, c.
1580.]
She is right—it is
critically important that we consider foundation degrees in that
context. They should be a bridge to further learning, but not just
that. They have a role in and of themselves, and many who study for the
qualification will use it for its own purpose rather than simply as a
stepping stone. None the less, progression is an important guarantor of
rigour and the kind of positive partnerships that the hon. Member for
Brent, East mentioned, and which I, like her,
celebrate.
The third
issue that we have pressed, as has Universities UK—again,
rightly so—is that such matters should be closely monitored and
reviewed, and that there should be a robust reporting process. As the
Minister knows, we have argued that it is vital that Parliament should
take a view about the effectiveness of the new awarding regime. Indeed,
the Ministerhas proposed that there be a review
period—a probationary period—and that after six years the
matter should be considered in some
detail.
Should we find
that the process is not proceeding along the lines that we all hoped it
might, I have no doubt that we could revisit the whole subject. If the
process does not work, we need to be honest about it. My judgment is
that it will work providing that we are sure about rigour. We have the
right agreementsin place, and we are clear about the quality
of the
qualifications and their relationship with
furtherand higher qualifications. None the less,
accountability must be built into the process, and I am grateful to the
Minister for his response in that
respect.
Jeremy
Wright:
While my hon. Friend is on the subject of the
review that will take place, does he agree that it is highly probable
that it will find that a large number of further education colleges
have continued to have their degrees awarded through higher education
institutions for precisely the reasons that were set out by the hon.
Member for Brent, East and others? They value the relationships,
closeness and effectiveness of relationships that have been built up
over
time.
Mr.
Hayes:
Yes, I agree with that, and I do not agree on this
particular occasion with the case made by Universities UK, which, in
what I might describe as a vain threat when the issue was debated in
the other place, suggested that universities might, in effect, take
their ball home. Baroness Warwick said that she would not be surprised
if some universities withdrew fromthe process, that they might
choose not to work in partnership with FE colleges and be involved in
foundation degrees.
I
do not think that that is right. I think that it is true to say that a
small number of colleges will satisfy the necessary criteria and move
to full degree-awarding powers, but many other colleges, emboldened by
the Bill—because of the point that my hon. Friend made
earlier—will continue to teach foundation degrees, but with the
university still awarding the qualification. I see no incompatibility
between a relatively small number of colleges moving to full
degree-awarding powers and many others, as my hon. Friend suggests,
continuing in the vein they are now in, working with the university to
award degrees through the university. I am not sure that I agree with
Baroness Warwick—for whom I have the highest regard—that
universities will take their ball home and withdraw from the
process.
The next of
my concerns, which are shared by the critics of this part of the Bill,
relates to franchising. The hon. Member for Brent, East will speak
about that, because she has tabled an amendment. I think that she and I
have a similar doubt about the issue. It seems right that if we are to
be clear about partnership, progression and rigour, we should be
nervous about the idea of franchising, at least at this stage. I shall
leave the hon. Lady to say more, because I would not want to steal her
thunder. She will be heard with a sympathetic ear by Conservative
Members, because the Minister has yet to be absolutely convincing about
how franchising might work, given the other concerns that I have
briefly
articulated.
Ms
Angela C. Smith (Sheffield, Hillsborough) (Lab)
rose—
Mr.
Hayes:
It is a pleasure to see the hon. Lady on the
Committee and to exchange a few words with her
again.
Ms
Smith:
Will the hon. Gentleman concede that the issue of
franchising ought to concern us generally in the provision of education
and not only in relation to the particular set of relationships between
higher education and further education or between FE
institutions? The franchising needs to be of a high
quality wherever it is done and whoever issues the
franchise.
Mr.
Hayes:
Yes. We are all determined to ensure that quality
lies at the heart of the process. We would be short-changing learners
if we did not take that view. The hon. Lady is right to say that there
is a bigger issue about franchising: the subcontracting of provision,
if one can put it like that. However, there is a particular issue about
the extension of degree-awarding powers in respect of franchising,
because it exacerbates some of the fears that the critics have that
there will be a lossof control and some diminution of the
quality of the brand. The fear is that people will not see degrees in
quite the same way as they once
did.
That might affect
take-up. Indeed, that point was made by Baroness Warwick, whom I am
using as the spokesman for the universities in this respect. She said
that there might, perversely, be declining enthusiasm for foundation
degrees as a result of the change. She feels that it might lead to
fewer people being interested in taking them up, because there might be
a perceived decline in the strength of the
brand.
Ms
Smith:
The hon. Gentleman is very generousin
giving way again. Franchising does take place at present; HE
institutions franchise within FE settings even
now.
Ms
Smith:
Surely, if people or institutions had concerns
about franchising, they would have been expressed by
now in relation to the current
arrangements.
Mr.
Hayes:
That is a good point. The hon. Lady always make
pithy and incisive contributions in these Committees; I enjoyed our
exchanges during the passage of the Bill that became the Education and
Inspections Act 2006. She is right, and more than that, to some extent
some critics of this part of the Bill really want to have a debate
about foundation degrees per se. To hear some of the people who have
commented on the Bill, one would think that we did not have foundation
degrees in place that were being jointly managed and run by HE and FE
and that we were having a debate about their inception. In fact, as the
hon. Member for Brent, East said, foundation degrees are a well
established and very successful product. We are talking now about the
next stage of its development. This is not a fundamental debate about
whether we should have them at all. I happen to think that they are
very important and I support them. She is right; part of the debate has
been almost about what might have been, rather than what is and what
could be. I have some doubts about the provisions, but I take her point
that not all the arguments that have been advanced are as robust as
others.
5.15
pm
Finally, there
is considerable concern about the maintenance of partnerships that are
in place and the strength of the relationships between FE and HE, which
was alluded to by the hon. Lady. There is a
concern that the provisions might set universities against colleges,
which could result in unhealthy competition. That is a legitimate
point. We need to ensure that we cement partnerships rather than
endanger them. I believe that there should be a duty on colleges and
universities jointly to market such qualifications, one of the purposes
of which would be to cement their relationships and to add value to the
product. Let us imagine going to Peterborough regional college to do a
foundation degree jointly marketed with King’s college,
Cambridge, notwithstanding what I said about the high table at
Oxford—I have no prejudice against Oxford and Cambridge. I think
that I would be quite attracted to the idea of a jointly marketed
product with involvement from both
institutions.
Ms
Smith:
Would it not be very welcome as well if HE
institutions, such as Oxford and Cambridge, were to open up their
facilities occasionally to students on foundation degree courses in FE
institutions for lessons or lectures so that they could get HE
experience?
Mr.
Hayes:
I take the same view. I think that HE and FE
institutions should share resources a great deal more. We should be
much more imaginative about how the skills and resources of HE and FE
can be shared where appropriate. [Interruption.] I think that
you are about to rise and tell me to abbreviate my remarks,
Mr.
Atkinson.
The
Chairman:
I was not going to tell the hon. Gentleman that,
but of course I would encourage him to do so. I was going to say that
although I encouraged a wide-ranging debate, this one has gone rather
wider than even I should tolerate. I ask him to keep his remarks
short.
Mr.
Hayes:
Yes, we have entered the junior and senior common
rooms of Cambridge and Oxford colleges, so perhaps we are straying a
little from the purpose of our considerations
today.
I turn to the
subjects dealt with by the starred amendment that has not been
selected, which I think would have addressed some of the issues that I
have described as proper and legitimate concerns of Universities UK and
others, who have been doubtful and sceptical about this aspect of the
Bill. I would want to build on the Government amendment by adding
robust conditions to ensure that any FE college being considered for
foundation degree awarding powershas arrangements in place for
the progression of foundation degree students to more advanced study.
There is an argument for putting that in the
Bill.
There is a fine
distinction between what is written in the Bill to reassure people
about progression and rigor and what is contained in guidance. I
acknowledge that that has been the subject of some discourse between
the Minister and myself. It is a difficult path to tread because we do
not want to make the Bill unnecessarily inflexible, but I think that it
might be useful to put more in the Bill to address progression. Also,
in our starred amendment No. 37, we have said that there should be
written confirmation from the relevant body validating a more advanced
course that will build
on a foundation degree. The relevant bodies in this instance are often
universities, which are defined in section 76(1)(a) of the Further and
Higher Education Act 1992, or bodies that validate professional
qualifications. It is important to add “professional
qualifications” in that regard, because some people might
progress from foundation degrees not to the BA, BSc or university
courses that we might assume they would go on to pursue, but to other
professional qualifications relating to their original learning. The
Minister should consider whether such professional qualifications
should be specified, either in guidance or in the Bill. We also need to ensure that FE
institutions continue to secure guaranteed arrangements for
progression. Our amendment puts that rather more strongly than the
Government’s amendment, which only requires the Privy Council to
check that an FE college has a progression plan when it first applies
for a foundation degree. There should be some evidence of continuing
commitment to progression, rather than simply a plan at the time of
application. That is a reasonable way of satisfying the concerns of
those who feel that this might be the beginning of a slippery slope
toward the dilution of the degree brand, because it means that a
college should always have a progression agreement in
place.
Such changes
would address a number of omissions from the Government’s
amendment. Ensuring that agreements between institutions are explicit
would help to keep the links between FE and HE institutions strong and
transparent. Because the circumstances in which academic progression
and agreements between partner institutions occur will undoubtedly
change over time, students must have a guarantee that theywill
always be able to build on their foundation qualifications if they wish
to do so.
The
addition of professional qualifications as courses of study to which
people might advance, a change in the nature of participation
agreements in order to provide assurance that—given the dynamic
nature of study—a foundation degree will always lead to the
opportunity for further study, and a duty on both organisations to
advertise and market courses would go some way to satisfying critics of
the proposals.
The
strength of this part of the Bill is, as I have already argued, that it
would go a considerable way towards guaranteeing wider participation,
cementing the position of foundation degrees as a part of that wider
participation and building on the successes that colleges already
enjoy. I hope that the Minister will go a little further to satisfy the
concerns and doubts of critics of the provision. I have set out my
position from the outset. From the very beginning, the official
Opposition have made it clear that we are in favour in principle,
because we want to be straightforward with the Minister, the Committee,
the whole House and the other organisations involved. It would have
been easy to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds, but I avoided
that temptation. However, having done that, we should, responsibly and
in a measured way, take full account of the concerns of universities
and others.
We believe
that FE institutions will be crucial to widening participation in
learning. They contain an immense amount of untapped capacity and are
willing
and ready to do more; indeed, FE colleges
alreadyplay a key role in teaching HE. They are the
singlemost significant opportunity for expanding HE
participation, and the foundation degrees are critical to that. On that
basis, and with my points begging for a detailed response from the
Minister, I support in principle clause 17. I recommend it to my
colleagues and to the whole Committee.
Mr.
Mitchell:
I had not intended to intervene in the debate,
but I have been stirred into such a frenzy of excitement by the
inordinate lengths to which the hon. Member for South Holland and The
Deepings went to support Government policy. It is an example to be
followed by the rest of the Conservative party: support Government
policy and do so at length.
I intervene to make two brief
points. First, I welcome the clause and the provision for FE
institutions to give foundation degrees. In Grimsby, we have an
excellent institute. It has been upgraded to an institute, thanks to my
bartering my vote on student fees. Its status has improved, but all the
studentshate me for giving way on the fees argument. That
isin passing, however. The institution is undertaking enormous
initiatives to develop as a university college campus with the
university of Hull, but that does not preclude the need for it to
develop in its own way, asthe hon. Gentleman said. The measure
is a way of strengthening that development by giving it an effective,
independent role, so I support it from a local and a general point of
view.
I thought that
the Universities UK memorandum was a little sniffy. Universities are
conservative institutions; they started off as old conservatives, which
is to say that they thought that nothing should be done for the first
time, and they have now become modern conservatives, who say that it
should be done, but not now. The Bill provides effectively for a
regulation procedure that will ensure the maintenance of standards.
Foundation degrees are something of value, as the hon. Gentleman said.
I shall say it at shorter length. The safeguards are well in
place.
Secondly, with
regard to the Liberal amendment and the argument in the Universities UK
memorandum about franchising, I should like to ask my hon. Friend the
Minister whether franchising is not precluded by subsection (11), which
will insert into the Further and Higher Education Act 1992 a new
section 76(6A), which says that an
order
“may provide that
the institution is not to grant such an award to a person unless he was
enrolled at the institution at the
time”.
That surely must
preclude
franchising.
Mr.
Wilson:
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship
for the first time, Mr. Atkinson. I should like to add my
welcome to that of other hon. Members to the Under-Secretary of State
for Education and Skills, the hon. Member for Corby. It is excellent to
see him back in his rightful place. I am sure that his absence had
nothing to do with the lengthy orationof the hon. Member for
South Holland and The Deepings; as always, it was a superb summary of
the many issues involved in this
debate.
Clause 17 will
amend section 76 of the 1992 Act, so as to enable the Privy Council to
make orders granting further education institutions the power to award
foundation degrees. We all know that. That means that
those FE institutions that now provide courses leading to foundation
degrees will be able to apply for the power to award those degrees
themselves, which isthe central issue today. By any standards,
that is a profound change that has caused enormous concern in the
higher education sector, all the more so because there was little or no
consultation with higher education representatives about the measure,
which led to exasperation in that sector. I acknowledge the movement in
the House of Lords, where a number of amendments were accepted during
the Bill’s progress through that place. I welcome those
amendments, as they have done a lot to ameliorate some concerns.
However, as the Minister indicated, Government amendment No. 2 is an
attempt to deal with some of the remaining concerns raised with and by
the higher education sector, not least on the issues of quality and
progression. I do not think that it will completely satisfy the sector;
indeed, one representative has described it as
“very weak” and “of little
assistance”.
5.30
pm
I hope that we
can find a way of strengthening the clause, as there seem to be three
outstanding concerns in the sector. I make no apology for repeating
them. The first is the status and value of the new higher education
qualification; the second is students’ opportunities to progress
from further to higher education—known as progression, as we
have heard in the debate—and the third is existing and future
partnerships between HE and FE institutions. Much of the concern could
probably have been satisfied by the acceptance of amendment No. 37,
tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings,
which was not selected.
As I asked on Second Reading,
does not anybody else find it very strange that an FE college will
beable to award an HE qualification but not the FE
qualifications that form the bulk of its own provision, such as GCSEs
and NVQs? I wish to mention some of the unintended consequences that
may run from that if we do not firm up the Government amendment. The
first is that there is a risk of undermining the HE status of
foundation degrees, which could lead to a fall in demand from both
students and employers and a decline in the number of HE institutions
prepared to offer them. That would undermine foundation degrees and
their impressive take-up to date. As hon. Members have mentioned,
60,000 students are taking foundation degrees this
year.
The second
possible consequence is that the progression to higher qualifications
could be adversely affected, as higher education institutions will not
be involved in the design or delivery of foundation degrees. That fear
has been partly allayed by what the Minister said and by the
amendment.
Thirdly,
many higher education institutions work collaboratively and in
partnership with FE institutions. A serious question is whether those
relationships will be put at risk when the institutions are in
competition. Will not allowing FE institutions the
opportunityto franchise degrees, even after six years, ensure
competition between the sectors where once there was a strong element
of collaboration?
Fourthly, will a degree given by
an FE institution have the same pulling power for a student as an HE
degree? Will not students and employers have concerns about the quality
of those degrees? There is a danger that foundation degrees will become
a signature qualification for FE, with a few large FE institutions
franchising wide-scale provision to smaller institutions. That is a
genuine concern. Is there not at least a risk that that would
destabilise progress towards embedding a fairly new
qualification?
Mr.
Mitchell:
I am getting a bit tense and excited here,
because the hon. Gentleman’s line is so very different from that
taken by the spokesman on the Opposition Front Bench, the hon. Member
for South Holland and The Deepings. Can we interpret it as a party
revolt?
Mr.
Wilson:
Some people have said in the past that the party
is revolting, but not today. It is perhaps a difference of emphasis
rather than a revolt. As I said, I make no excuse for making the
concerns of higher education institutions well known and putting them
on record. It is important that that be done. There are considerable
concerns because of the failure to consult those institutions properly,
which is why at every opportunity in Committee and on Second Reading I
have taken up those concerns and tried to articulate them on their
behalf. I say again that the concerns are substantial and the Minister
needs to deal with them. He has an opportunity this afternoon to
reassure Members such as me who have profound misgivings about the
foundation degree-awarding
powers.
Issues such as
quality, guaranteeing progression and allowing franchising are not
sufficiently robust in clause 17 as it stands. As I said on Second
Reading, the Government risk producing the opposite effect to the one
they intend with the Bill. Instead of encouraging more people to study
for foundation degrees, they may end up reducing the opportunities and
the incentivesto choose this qualification. If we are to go
ahead and give colleges degree-awarding powers, we need to be sure that
they really can offer the same quality that our universities currently
guarantee.
Mr.
Boswell:
This has been a fascinating debate. I draw great
comfort from two factors. The first is strong support for the FE sector
on its own merits onboth sides of the Committee and some words
of encouragement which are overdue and thoroughly well deserved. If FE
has any problems, they sometimes centre on a certain lack of
self-confidence as to mission and as to the quality of delivery when
that is not appropriate. There is excellent provision in FE and we
should celebrate it. I am glad that we have taken some steps to do
that.
There has been
a genuine concern, which is cardinal to the amendments and the clause,
to ensure that there is proper articulation between the FE and HE
systems and that one can progress from one to the other. If we are
seriously interested in progression and in widening the opportunities
for people, often from disadvantaged or hard-to-reach backgrounds, it
is important that that should be
achieved.
That is one
side of the story. I am, and will remain throughout my life, a keen
supporter of FE. On the
other hand, I think, even modestly—if one can do that as a former
Minister—I retain some friends and interests in the HE sector.
It is right that these matters should be debated. Indeed, I have
recently been appointed to the board of a higher education corporation
in Wales; I have Welsh connections, as I have mentioned. Therefore, I
might be said to have an oblique interest as well as that as an officer
of the parliamentary university group. I did not completely share the
emphasis of my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, East, but his
concerns are entirely proper for consideration. He said that some of
these concerns arise from the sadly characteristic handling of the
issue by the Government. It was hatched and then considered later. May
I say in fairness to the Minister, before he becomes depressed, that he
has made a good recovery because he has listened to the points that
have been made? My judgment would be that we have reached an acceptable
position, broadly speaking, with just one or two reservations which I
will enter at the end. I will be happy to support the clause and the
amendment in the form that it has
reached.
It may assist
the Committee if I briefly go through the process in which I have
considered this matter. The first point to remove from the concerns
should be any political or business-led desire to get on with this and
to change the nature of the agenda. It is quite proper for the awarding
of degrees—a brand or a badge, as somebody described
them—to be an academic issue primarily. We should not allow
anybody else to nobble that process for their own agenda. There ought
to be some resistance to any erosion of that important
principle.
Having said
that, we should note that in the real world distinctions are not quite
as precise or absolute as they are sometimes said to be. My first point
is familiar and has been touched on in Committee. Something like 11 per
cent. of higher education provision across the piece is delivered, and
very well delivered, in further education colleges. There is no
absolute distinction by institution as to sheep and goats. Secondly,
within the higher education sector itself there are different levels
including different levels of approval.
There is the issue of
foundation degrees, which is somewhat separate from what we are
discussing now, but there is also the issue of institutions that have
taught degree-awarding powers or research degree-awarding powers. There
are steps and progressions which may or may not be considered. We
should not simply take this as a matter of false antitheses in deciding
what we should
do.
When I looked
through the reservations and considered those that had been expressed
to me by the higher education sector, it seemed that they fell into
three categories. The first one, which, as I have already indicated, is
entirely proper, is to ensure that quality informs the process. That
falls within the single remit of the Quality Improvement Agency. It may
not be perfect, but at least we have a coherent method for assessing
quality on the same basis and at the same level of rigour. I would not
expect anything otherwise; nor would the FE institutions that might
enter their foundation degrees, for a reason to which I shall
return.
There are also
issues about the acceptability of degrees or process abroad, and the
Bologna process.
The Minister responded to my concerns about them on Second Reading, and
he gave some assurances which I do not need to repeat today. Whether
the degrees are accepted by institutions abroad any more than they may
be accepted by UK employers and higher education
institutions—tacitly, in terms of their admission
policies—may not be quite so clear. Until it has been proven to
the contrary by a period of rigorous study and then the review after
four years that the Minister promised, there will still be a danger
that they will not be accepted. We need to show that the quality is
absolutely up to the standards of higher
education. The second
area, which I do not think has really been discussed in the Committee,
is the possibility of what might be termed “mission
drift”. I do not want further education colleges to take their
eye off the ball—that is, off their mission generally. I do not
think that there is any need for them to do so or likelihood that they
will, but there is the experience of ex-polytechnics—modern
universities—deciding that they would like to become Russell
group universities or severe academic institutions, get involved in
transfer markets in five-star rated departments and so on. I am not
sure how much that adds to the sum of human knowledge, and I hope that
it will not happen as a result of this
process.
My third
concern is about the nature of the process itself. I have already had
an exchange with the Minister, which I need not repeat, about the
importance of reporting and reviewing the continuing position. That is
not a document check whereby, once all the boxes have been ticked, an
institution gets foundation degree-awarding powers. That is, perhaps,
the beginning of the process, but there also needs to be a programme of
continuing assessment under which there may be sanctions, some of
which—an adequate number—have been written into the Bill
as safeguards.
The
Bill should include two main objectives in respect of
assurance. Other higher education institutions and, of course,
employers need assurance that the foundation degrees on offer are
appropriate, high quality and fit for purpose. If they are specified by
employers, and if they are conducted with the right quality assurance,
that should be self-evident, but I remind the Minister that there is
also an important need for students to be reassured. The last thing
that a student wants is to devote two years of his or her time to a
process, often conducted part-time and in considerable personal
difficulty, and to end up with something that is not worth having, or
that nobody will accept as being worth having. We must avoid
that.
My judgment is
that, on the whole, the Minister has got it right. We have a quality
assurance process, and we have understandings about a proper review
after four
years.
Mr.
Hayes:
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for
highlighting the importance of professional
qualifications being added—indeed, stipulated—in the
considerations. I made a point about that earlier. There is a course at
City and Islington college on crime scene and forensic investigation. A
student who successfully completes it gains a professional
qualification that is recognised by the main employer in the field: the
Metropolitan police. That is precisely the kind of link between what is
studied, outcome and subsequent professional opportunity
that my hon. Friend is describing. That is why I am keen to press the
Minister to specify professional qualifications, either in the Bill or
in guidance.
5.45
pm
Mr.
Boswell:
That was a helpful intervention. It is important
to the process that the employer should have some influence, but also
that the student should be able to produce a qualification that is
current. Above all, we want to avoid the friction that may occur if
somebody does something in good faith and is then told that he needs an
additional module or whatever in order to meet the requirements. I
suspect that that is work in progress. My cardinal concern was that we
should tie down the quality standards, and my secondary concern that
there should be reporting to validate those standards in practice. The
Minister has very satisfactorily offered a review process after four
years.
My only
residual concerns, which are not subversive of my support for the
clause—I should not want to signal that—are about points
that have been made ina number of quarters about franchising.
Formally, within the quality assurance system, franchising should work
to exactly the same effect as direct provision, and those of us who are
interested in outsourcing would not regard it as being in any way
improper. However, it is true that there have been failures in the past
in both higher and further education. We could debate that at length
and produce examples from abroad and from the United Kingdom. I can
think of a FE college that is fairly close to my constituency in which
a problem arose. Many people with experience of the sectors will know
that it is something of a weak link in the provision, so Ministers need
to keep the point under review, particularly with reference to the
Quality Assurance Agency.
That leads me to my final
point. One should not raise points without knowing the answer, and I do
not know the answer when it comes to the withdrawal of accreditation or
awarding powers of an institution. We would not wish ever to have to
countenance that situation, but if an institution is doing so badly in
terms of its offering in education or training, it may fail
commercially and then the Minister will face a different issue.
However, it might be useful for the Minister to consider—not
only in relation to foundation degrees but more
generally—whether it would be appropriate to have powers to
rescind a Privy Council decision and to strip an institution of its
powers where there had been manifest misconduct or misfeasance, or
academic failure. That would open a wider debate.
Let me just say to the Minister
that we should not create a monopoly in any area. The higher education
sector has a proper interest in the matter, and we have a proper
interest in seeing that its concerns are met. Above all, there should
be no dilution of quality. Subject to that, I am happy to widen the
opportunities available to FE colleges and to people to study at them
and to acquire qualifications. We should not just do that through
clause 17 and then walk away. The process must be carefully and
continuously reviewed and if anything goes wrong before or, if
necessary, after, four years, we should be ready to step in and say,
“This is
discrediting the British concept of a degree, and it should no longer
continue,” and find a means of stopping
it.
Bill
Rammell:
We have had a good and instructive series of
exchanges on these two amendments. It is particularly interesting and
welcome that, certainly across the three Front Benches, there is now no
disagreement on the principle of degree-awarding powers for foundation
degrees in respect of FE colleges. We have established an important
consensus.
Let me
start by picking up on the comments of the hon. Member for Brent, East.
She referred to the suggestion—others have also made the
claim—that there was little consultation on the concept of
giving FE colleges powers to award their own foundation degrees. Andrew
Foster, in his report on and fundamental review of the FE sector, made
it clear that the issue would need to be examined. Indeed, there has
been a significant debate within the further education sector about the
desire on the part of FE to gain these qualifications. Furthermore,
since the publication of the Bill, we have—rightly in my
view—consulted and I think that we have given a strong degree of
reassurance.
I also
certainly welcome the support of the hon. Member for Brent, East for
the significant progress that has been made since the establishment of
foundation degrees, from 4,000 students initially taking such degrees
to 61,000 students today. She also said that we have gone most of the
way towards reassuring her on this matter. I think that we have gone as
far as is appropriate and I would not go as far as she has suggested,
in particular because I do not wish to establish, as it were, a set of
two-tier qualifications. We would risk doing that as we would be
setting a precedent, because we do not, in statute, prescribe the
publication of criteria for any other award. If we were to do that
exclusively in respect of foundation degrees awarded by FE colleges, we
would be setting that precedent and we would create a two-tier
system.
Sarah
Teather:
What we have asked for is not the criteria for
awarding foundation degrees; we have asked for the criteria for making
sure that progression routes are in place. The Minister has got that
slightly wrong.
Bill
Rammell:
I will come back to that point.
However, regarding the criteria for awarding
foundation degrees, there would be a significant problem. I want to
come on to the issue of publishing the progression routes for
foundation degrees
later.
It is also
important that we address the question of “what would happen
if?” to which a number of hon. Members have alluded. What would
happen if, once a college had been granted foundation degree-awarding
powers, it subsequently failed to adhere to the proposals regarding
progression that it had submitted at the time of application? That is
an important area and it is right that we give some absolute clarity.
It is a matter that would be picked up by the Quality Assurance Agency,
either through one of its regular audits of higher education provision
in FE institutions or through its procedures for handling causes of
concern in institutions providing higher education.
A cause for
concern can indeed be declared at any time; there is no need to wait
until the institution’s next audit. If the cause for concern is
substantiated, then swift and appropriate action can be taken to
rectify that shortcoming. There is no need to legislate for there to be
consequences for a college that fails to ensure progression from its
foundation degrees after it has been awarded foundation degree-awarding
powers. The QAA has confirmed that failure to ensure that there are
progression routes would be—rightly, in my view—a serious
matter and could constitute grounds forQAA intervention. I
hope that that provides some reassurance for
Members.
Mr.
Hayes:
The Minister is right to address the particular
issues about progression and we understand the role of the QAA in that
area. However, I want him also to assure the Committee that, if the QAA
found other failings in terms of rigour or quality—progression
is part of the story and part of the guarantee of rigour, but it is not
the only guarantee of rigour—presumably it would act in a
similar way and the capacity to award degrees could be similarly
withdrawn.
Bill
Rammell:
The provisions for QAA intervention are the same
for foundation degrees as they are for other higher education
qualifications; that is one of the reassurances that we have given.
Those provisions are robust. If there is a problem, it is clear that
the QAA can intervene and that it has the ability to do so.
I would like to pick up on the
comments made bymy hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham.
I strongly agree with her assertion that we should not diminish the
importance of foundation degrees in their own right. Indeed, at the
moment 46 per cent. of students who undertake a foundation degree do
not immediately progress to a higher level qualification. Where it is
appropriate and in the interests of the students, I want those
progression arrangements to be available, but I do not want us to
undermine the importance for many students of getting to that first
base, in terms of gaining a foundation degree. I also agree with her
assertion that there are many higher education institutions that have a
strong and positive relationship with employers and that many flexible,
innovative higher institutions are responding in a very real way to the
needs of business.
My
hon. Friend then made some comments, as indeed did many hon. Members,
about franchising. If you will allow me, Mr. Atkinson, I
shall not comment on that now, because I believe that we are coming to
a series of amendments dealing directly with those issues, at which
stage I hope to give some
reassurance.
My hon.
Friend the Member for City of Durham and the hon. Member for South
Holland and The Deepings raised the important issue of progression, not
only on to an honours programme, but on to management qualifications.
That is provided for and is set out clearly in the draft criteria. The
hon. Member for Brent, East asked when a college could reapply if an
application were turned down. In theory, it could reapply straight
away, but, rightly, that would be a time-consuming and expensive
process, and in those circumstances, before making a resubmission, a
college should consider and act upon what the QAA said when it turned
down the application.
Mr.
Hayes:
The Minister is being very indulgent. To be crystal
clear, when he speaks in his amendment about defining
“courses of more advanced
study”,
does he include
professional
qualifications?
Bill
Rammell:
Yes, that is most certainly the
case.
I shall move on
to the comments by the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings.
First, I would like to congratulate him on his well-developed sense of
irony in describing himself as the people’s champion and the
people’s voice. However, he made an important and serious
contribution. He started by setting out a litany of obstacles that he
claims are in the way of the expansion of foundation degrees. However,
the evidence demonstrates that we have gone from 4,000 to 61,000
foundation degrees. I do not believe that those obstacles exist.
Everyone to whom I have spoken in the FE and HE sectors believes
thatwe are on track to hit 100,000 foundation degree
qualifications by the end of the
decade.
I agree with
the hon. Member for Brent, East when she intervened on the hon.
Gentleman. I think that he has been too pejorative in his attitude
towards the ability of HE institutions to respond genuinely to the
needs of employers and business. I am not going to take a stance
critical of how universities have dealt with foundation degrees, but,
in order to face up to the skills challenge set out by Sandy Leitch, we
need as much flexibility and innovation as possible in order to meet
the needs of business and the world of work. In those circumstances, it
would be wrong to exclude highly performing FE colleges from
contributing to that
process.
Jeremy
Wright:
I put to the Minister the point that I put to my
hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings: does he
think it likely that when we review the position we will find that many
FE colleges are still working in conjunction with HE institutions
because the system is working very well, and will continue to do
so?
Bill
Rammell:
I believe that to be the case and have argued so
consistently. Those powers are available, although not every FE
institution will seek to take them up. Each will make a judgment
depending on the circumstances; some FE colleges will find that their
existing arrangements with partner HE institutions are working
effectively and would seek to continue with
them.
Returning to the
comments of the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings, I must
say that I definitely disagreed with his comments on lifelong learning
networks. He described them as self-serving networks, but I think that
they are invaluable and it is right that local FE colleges and HE
institutions work together on a range of issues. Lifelong learning
networks allow institutions to share out student numbers and,
therefore, encourage collaboration in a way that he advocated. They do
not have formal validation functions now, and nor will they have under
the proposals in the Bill. If a particular network is not working well,
it is down, rightly, to its members to change it, learning from good
practice elsewhere.
I should
make clear the review procedures that we are setting in place under the
proposals. There has been some confusion in this debate. We are
saying—rightly, in my view—that we will have an
independent review that will report to Parliament on the general
operation of FE colleges and their ability to award their own
foundation degrees after four years. Alongside that we are saying that
after the initial award of foundation degree-awarding powers to an FE
college there will effectively be a probationary period of six years.
If, however, at the end of that period it has been successful, it will
be possible for the Privy Council to award a college those
degree-awarding powers on an open-ended basis. There will be two
processes taking
place.
Mr.
Boswell:
Will the Minister confirm that if at the end of
six years the matter is indeterminate and there is not a clear
possibility of awarding those powers, there may be a further period of
probation before the matter is
concluded?
Bill
Rammell:
That is certainly possible under the proposals
that we are putting forward, but we should not start on the basis that
that is the expectation. I believe that the highly performing further
education colleges to which we have referred have the ability to take
on the task
successfully.
The hon.
Member for South Holland and The Deepings rightly mentioned the
importance of the strength of partnerships between further education
colleges and higher education institutions, and the need to cement
those partnerships. He then advocated, as he has both publicly and
privately to me in the past, a legislative requirement on the two sides
to market foundation degrees jointly. Although I respect his
motivation, I disagree with that proposition. It would be
over-bureaucratic, and to place that requirement in statute would be to
go too far. We need to trust institutions to take the matter forward
rather than micro-manage
them.
6
pm
Mr.
Hayes:
I understand the Minister’s comments on that
suggestion and can see why he is reluctant to build it into statute.
Will he go as far as to concede that inthe positive
partnerships that both he and I envisage,the joint promotion
and marketing of a qualification would be almost
implicit?
Mr.
Hayes:
Is it something that we would perhaps not demand
but certainly expect of the partners? The Minister might have a role in
giving guidance, might he
not?
Bill
Rammell:
Because we do not want to be overly bureaucratic,
I am not going to put that into guidance, but there will be an
expectation that there will bejoint marketing of activities by
the relevant further education college and university. Frankly, it
wouldbe crazy, and contrary to the interests of those
institutions, were they not actively to take on
that task. Where that framework exists at the moment, that is taking
place.
On the hon.
Gentleman’s points in starred amendment No. 37, which he tabled,
I understand his concerns. Had we been able to debate the amendment, I
would have argued that it goes too far. The statement that an FE
institution will produce for the Privy Council will need to show what
it is doing to provide progression opportunities, as I have made clear.
That sits in the context of the wider working relationship to be
promoted between further education colleges and higher education
institutions.
The FE
institution will also need to be able to tell a coherent story about
the options and opportunities open at the end of a foundation degree.
That will rightly be done through the institution’s prospectus,
and options will include honours degrees as well as
appropriate professional and higher-level
qualifications, as I have said. Institutions will want to promote the
full range of progression opportunities available to foundation degree
students. I should reiterate that although more advanced study
following a foundation degree will most often mean the completion of an
honours programme, progression could also be through an appropriate
professional or higher-level vocational
qualification.
Mr.
Hayes:
The point that I made in my all-too-brief remarks
and in the starred amendment is that it is important for an FE college
to show that progression can be guaranteed in perpetuity. My worry is
that colleges will put together a plan that assures progression at the
outset, but that as things change, so will the capacity for
progression. Will the Minister comment on how progression can be
guaranteed over
time?
Bill
Rammell:
I know that it has been a long afternoon, but I
believed that I already had commented to that effect. If the
progression arrangements fall into disrepair, that could be grounds for
intervention by the Quality Assurance Agency. On the hon.
Gentleman’s proposals, the draft guidance specifies that when an
FE institution applies for foundation degree-awarding powers, the QAA
will invite the institution’s existing validation partners to
comment on the nature oftheir operational relationship. That
will constitute a relatively small element of the full assessment of
applications carried out by the
QAA.
The
Government have rightly supported collaborative arrangements between FE
and HE institutions and continue to do so. Lifelong learning networks
often involve two or more universities that may compete for students
yet can work together. I believe that that will continue to be the case
with universities and FE colleges. Partner organisations, such as
Foundation Degree Forward, lifelong learning networks and regional
skills partnerships, can work with FE colleges and HE institutions to
support collaborative working. I hope that that explanation reassures
the hon. Member for South Holland and The
Deepings.
My hon.
Friend the Member for Great Grimsby, who is not in the Room at the
moment, made an important contribution. He rightly values the work that
is undertaken by Grimsby institute of further and higher education and
he rightly underlined the degree to which the arrangements that we
propose will maintain quality and
standards.
The
hon. Member for Reading, East perhaps expressed the one contrary view
in the debate about the
principle of FE colleges gaining powers to award
their own foundation degrees. I disagree with the underlying thrust of
what he said. He quoted an unnamed individual from a higher education
institution saying that the amendments that we have made are very weak
and are of very little assistance. That is not the thrust of the
argument being advanced by the generality of universities. If the hon.
Gentleman looks at the report that Universities UK submitted for this
afternoon’s debate, he will see that that remark is not
consistent with what Universities UK has
said.
Sarah
Teather:
It was interesting to note the very different
tones used by Universities UK and the CMU. The CMU was most concerned
about the amendment that the Minister has proposed. I tried to say
during my remarks that I thought that some of its concerns related to
the idea of progressing only to higher education. I disagree with that
idea, because I think that a range of different routes are needed for
people to progress, but it is specifically the CMU that is very
concerned about the
amendment.
Bill
Rammell:
I understand that. It is also fair to say that
the CMU institutions probably have the biggest vested interest in the
current arrangements. It is important that we make it clear to those
institutions, as I have repeatedly done, that this is an expanding
market and that even with the FE colleges that gain the right to award
their own foundation degrees, there will continue to be significant
opportunities for CMU institutions. When the Bill was in the other
place, I met a numberof peers who expressed concerns on behalf
of those institutions. I asked officials to go through some modelling
on a case-by-case basis with the institutions, and significant
reassurance was given as a result of that
process.
My hon.
Friend the Member for Great Grimsby highlighted the fact that the hon.
Member for Reading, East appeared to say something that was completely
at odds with his Front-Bench spokesman. I think that my hon. Friend was
being very unfair. It is clear from the debate about grammar schools
that in the modern Conservative party it is possible to have two
completely contradictory policies at the same
time.
I agree with the
analysis by the hon. Member for Daventry that historically some parts
of the FE sector have lacked self-confidence. That lack of
self-confidence has been unjustified, based on what FE colleges have
achieved. Those colleges take on a variety of functions, but the core
mission for FE colleges—this was set out in Andrew
Foster’s review and our further education White Paper and is
encapsulated in the Bill—is the skills mission. It is right that
high quality FE colleges have the ability to award their own foundation
degrees, which is completely consistent with the core skills mission.
On the hon. Gentleman’s concern about mission drift, I say again
that these proposals fit within the core skills mission, which should
provide
reassurance.
Having
given that explanation, I hope that we can move on. I hope that the
Committee will support Government amendment No. 2 and that the hon.
Member for Brent, East will not press amendmentNo.
7.
Amendment agreed
to.
Sarah
Teather:
I beg to move amendment No. 8, in clause 17, page
12, line 16, leave out ‘may’ and insert
‘shall’.
The
Chairman:
With this it will be convenient to discuss
amendment No. 9, in clause 17, page 12,line 24, leave out
‘may’ and insert
‘shall’.
Sarah
Teather:
Amendments Nos. 8 and 9 deal with the concerns
that hon. Members on both sides ofthe Committee have expressed
about franchising. I acknowledge that the Government have moved a long
way on the matter; there is now a six-year probation period for
individual colleges and the four-year review of legislation, which we
will discuss in a moment. However, the Minister has not adequately
explained why he wants colleges to have the franchising power, and I
want to give him an opportunity to do so. I have acknowledged the need
for colleges to have the power to award degrees, but I am yet to be
convinced of the separate need for them to be able to validate courses
provided by other institutions, and I continue to have concerns about
quality.
It is worth
reminding ourselves of some of the roles that higher education
institutions play when they work with further education colleges to
validate degrees, not all of which are acknowledged. We understand
someof the more widely recognised roles, but others are worth
putting on the record. Obviously, they provide academic and
administrative support and advice for course development, review and
validation. However, they also provide access to staff development and
training, access for students to services such as libraries, academic
and administrative representation at exam boards and the production of
student certificates and transcripts, as we would expect. They share
responsibility for disciplinary procedures and ultimate responsibility
for student complaints and appeals, which we might not
expect.
Giving
colleges the ability to award degrees for the first time means that
they are not only doing all those things for themselves, but taking
responsibility for ensuring that those things happen in the other
institutions where they validate courses. For the first time, they will
take responsibility for issues such as external examiners, copyright,
student concerns, complaints and appeals in not only their own
institution, but all institutions. We should acknowledge that the
colleges will be required to take on a wide range of
responsibilities.
The
hon. Member for Daventry has said that issues have arisen in respect of
institutions franchising courses internationally. Will the Minister say
whether the new franchising power, especially in institutions that are
not accustomed to it, might have an impact, if they are franchising
courses that are being provided abroad?
The hon. Member for Reading,
East, who is not in his place at the moment, said earlier that most
ofthe qualifications offered by FE colleges—GCSEs,
GNVQs and so on—are not awarded by them. The rest of the
Committee accept the need for foundation degrees, but it seems curious
that we would allowthose colleges to validate awarding powers
in other institutions when they cannot do so for the qualifications
that they deal with in their own institutions.
When I
discussed the matter with the Minister outside the Committee, he said
that there is a danger that the amendments would lead to a two-tier
system, but we have a multi-tier system already. There are
foundation degrees that are validated by higher
education and delivered in higher education institutions, and there are
foundation degrees that are validated by higher education institutions
but delivered in further education institutions. We now have further
education-validated courses delivered by that institution. Franchising
would allow further education-validated courses delivered by another
institution. It is not a two-tier system. We already have a three-tier
system, and I wonder why we need a fourth tier. The argument has not
been adequately made, and I would appreciate the Minister responding to
my
concerns.
Mr.
Hayes:
The Committee will know from my earlier remarks how
enthusiastically I support further education colleges. In that context,
I give my warm support to this part of the Bill, with the important
qualifications that were made from across the Committee about the need
to ensure rigour, progression, partnership and so on. In that spirit, I
speak with some concern about franchising.
The hon. Member for Brent, East
has made a persuasive case for ensuring that we keep close control of
the process in its early stages. The Minister has made it clear that,
through a combination of the QAA and his Department, the necessary
safeguards will be put in place to deal with some of the points that
the universities and members of the Committee have made. I am concerned
by the impact that franchising would have on the capacity to ensure
those safeguards, although I see why the Minister might take a
different view. I do not want to anticipate his every word, but I
understand that he is fearful that making one setof rules for
colleges and a different set for other institutions might establish
what the hon. Lady has described as a two-tier
structure.
6.15
pm
We have
acknowledged that this is a bold measure that will require a proper
degree of caution from all concerned, and we have accepted that it is a
probationary measure. As it moves ahead, the colleges that handle the
matter in the way in which we expect will acquire additional powers. We
know that a small number of colleges are likely to be involved at the
outset, which the Minister has acknowledged both publicly and
privately. It does not seem unreasonable to say that if a small number
are involved, the best way of maintaining rigour, quality and
progression is not to let that number burgeon through franchising.
Being kind to Liberals is always difficult for me, but I think that the
hon. Lady has done a service to the Committee in tabling the amendments
and allowing this debate on an important aspect of this part of the
Bill. Unless the Minister can offer strong assurances, I would be
inclined to support the hon. Lady, were she to press the
matter.
Bill
Rammell:
There are some legitimate concerns on this issue,
and the Government’s response has been proportionate. I hope
that I can justify that statement. Proposed new subsections (5A) and
(6A) were added to
the clause by a Government amendment in response to the debate in
another place. The subsections recognise that it is right to allow the
Privy Council to place certain conditions on foundation degree-awarding
powers, especially when they are awarded for the first time. It is
important that the powers should be used with care. The powers are also
enabling, and it would be perverse to say that we have limited trust in
further education institutions, especially when they have proved their
abilities. The Privy Council will take advice from the
QAA.
Sarah
Teather:
I am sorry to interrupt the Minister so soon
after he has begun. I just want some clarification. He describes the
legislation as enabling, but would not the colleges automatically be
awarded franchising powers at the end of the six-year probationary
period? Or will they be given degree-awarding powers, with a separate
decision being made on whether they should also be given franchising
powers?
Bill
Rammell:
I will hopefully go on to explain that in some
detail, but it is not an automatic provision for the institution to
gain permanently the degree-awarding power. That will be an option for
the
QAA.
Sarah
Teather:
That was not quite what I meant. If the college
passes its probationary period and is allowed to continue with its
degree-awarding powers at the end of the six-year period, is it
automatically allowed not only to award degrees, but to franchise
others to award degrees? Are those powers separate, or are they
combined?
Bill
Rammell:
Both issues would be examined by the QAA and
separate decisions could be made. Let me respond in detail to the hon.
Lady’s points. It would be wrong and perverse to say that we
have limited trust in FE institutions, especially when they have proved
their abilities.
The
Privy Council will take advice from the QAA before making an order
granting foundation degree-awarding powers. The QAA will make a
rigorous assessment based on the non-statutory guidance and criteria
document, which we have published and circulated to the Committee. It
rightly sets out a very high standard based closely on the current
standard for full taught degree-awarding powers, and only
top-performing colleges with significant experience in delivering
foundation degree programmes could meet the required
standard.
It is
expected that when an FE institution is granted the powers for the
first time, the Privy Council will make a time-limited order of six
years and impose two restrictions to prevent FE institutions from
authorising other institutions to grant awards on its behalf and to
require that any student to whom a foundation degree is awarded must be
enrolled at an institution with foundation degree-awarding powers. In
the interests of quality assurance, it is right to place those
restrictions on an institution granted new powers for the first time. I
think that there is a consensus in the Committeeon
that.
A six-year
probationary period would be an important testing period in which the
FE institution will take full responsibility for delivering and
awarding its own foundation degrees. The Government accept that there
will always be a level of risk when a new measure is introduced. We are
trying to manage that risk. Having listened to points raised when the
proposals were debated in another place, we agreed that there would be
an independent report to Parliament on foundation degree-awarding
powers within four years. Clause 18 imposes in primary legislation an
obligation on the Secretary of State to lay that report, which I think
is a welcome move.
The
terms of reference that we have publishedmake it clear that
the report could look at whether restrictions in proposed new
subsections (5A) and (6A) should continue to apply beyond the
probationary period. When an institution applies for a renewal of its
powers after the expected six-year probationary period, the QAA will
advise the Privy Council again, taking into account the way in which
the FE institution has exercised its powers during those six years.
Having first awarded limited foundation degree-awarding powers to
successful applicants, having then undertaken an independent review of
the wider use of the new powers and, finally, having reassessed
applicants after six years, I do not believe that it will be necessary
to continue imposing blanket restrictions, as this amendment would
require.
Mr.
Hayes:
The Minister is making his case with typical
clarity. He knows that I am extremely pleased about the four-year
report to Parliament; I have pressed very hard for it. However, I want
to be absolutely clear about what might happen at the end of the six
years. He talked about a blanket restriction. Does he mean that there
could be particular restrictions affecting certain colleges? Are we to
assume that all colleges would automatically have not only the power to
award degrees in perpetuity, but the full range of powers to franchise?
Or could some colleges franchise, but others
not?
Bill
Rammell:
There could be some variation depending on the
circumstances of the college and the degree to which it has managed its
affairs. There is no automatic progression to open-ended provision of
those powers. In those circumstances, the QAA will make a
judgment.
Jeremy
Wright:
I do not want to detain the Committee unduly on
this point, but it is important, as the Minister will recognise.
Perhaps we should look at where the presumption will lie. Will the
presumption be that every college will receive those powers unless
there is a good reason that they should not, or will it be the reverse?
In other words, will it have to be demonstrated to the QAA that the
college in question ought to have the full range of powers to
franchise? He will recognise that that is an issue of confidence,
particularly among the HE institutions, which we have talked about. We
need to ensure that the HE institutions are fully on board with the
procedure. They would be considerably reassured if it were clear in the
legislation, or any guidance that he might supply, that there will be a
presumption against those powers being given widely, unless it can be
demonstrated that it is appropriate.
Bill
Rammell:
Each case must be judged on its merits. If we
want that to happen, it would be wrong to have a blanket set of
restrictions and an assumption that the FE institution will not move
forward. It will certainly not be automatic, and it must be judged on
its
merits.
Bill
Rammell:
If I can make some progress, I shall allow
further interventions. The issue is important, and we must get this
clarification on the record.
When an institution has proved
its ability to take full responsibility for its foundation degree
programmes and shown that its academic management procedures are
robust, there should be the option to grant it the full powers without
further restriction, but that will not be an automatic right. The QAA
operates an ongoing quality assurance cycle, and any FE institution
granted foundation degree-awarding powers will rightly be subject to
regular monitoring.
The institution will need to
continue to demonstrate that it is able to guarantee the quality
standards of provision for students on its foundation degrees, wherever
and however that provision is delivered. Failure to do so, irrespective
of where the provision is delivered, could lead to intervention by the
QAA. That could occur as part of the regular cycle of quality audits,
or it could be picked up as a cause for concern at any time. The QAA
has a robust mechanism for dealing with causes for concern in higher
education, whether they occur in HE or FE
institutions.
Sarah
Teather:
I intervene in the hope that the civil servants
might be able to pass the answer to the Minister if he is not
immediately aware of it. If he can stipulate that there is in the
current guidance, or give an assurance that the new guidance will
contain, a clear separation of the two points—degree-awarding
powers and franchising—I will be happy to withdraw the
amendment. If that will not be in the guidance, I shall press the
amendment to a Division. I would like an assurance that that is in the
guidance now or that the Minister will agree to put it in. The point is
thatthe decision should be taken after the six-year
probationary
period.
Bill
Rammell:
I think that I can give the reassurance that the
hon. Lady asks for. If I slow down my comments, I am sure that we will
be able to get it on the record in the appropriate
form.
Jeremy
Wright:
In a helpful spirit, may I ask the Minister to
give us a further reassurance? If the QAA decides that it is
appropriate for franchising powers to be granted to a particular
college, it will have to assess what is required of secondary colleges
that may then be franchised by that college. Will information about
that be available in guidance, or can it be made
so?
Bill
Rammell:
I want to come specifically to giving significant
reassurance on the issue of franchising, but I shall continue where I
was.
Of course,
failure to gain a judgment of confidence from the QAA would rightly
have serious consequences for an institution’s reputation. We
should place
confidence in the ability of the FE system to work to the same standards
as the HE system in deliveringand awarding foundation degrees.
There are some outstanding institutions in the FE sector, and it is
right that their excellence should be recognised and rewarded. It would
be disappointing if Members felt unable to invest their full confidence
in the sector. I shall
deal specifically with the concerns that have been expressed, which I
understand, about the practice commonly referred to as overseas
franchising. By franchising I mean the practice of one institution
authorising another to make awards on its behalf, and one institution
making awards to students who are not enrolled in it. When we initially
consulted on the proposals in November, we explicitly signalled that we
were seeking views on the issue. It has been debated at length, and I
can offer the hon. Member for Brent, East and other hon. Members the
following reassurance. First, the QAA currently examines the
international activities of higher education institutions through a
programme of overseas audits. It is possible to include FE institutions
with foundation degree-awarding powers in the scope of those overseas
audits. Secondly, a periodic special review of foundation degrees
delivered overseas could also be considered bythe
QAA.
Mr.
Hayes:
This is a complex subject, and the Minister is
taking us through it point by point. The audits that he is
describing—we know that they are widely used now, as a number of
universities, including my own old university, do extensive work with
overseas campuses—are rigorous. Are we to understand that the
audits that would apply to FE colleges would be precisely the same as
the audits that currently apply to those universities that have
overseas
satellites?
Mr.
Boswell:
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. His
reassurances are helpful. Will he also consider a situation in which
somebody is unhappy about something and draws it to the attention of
the QAA? Will he confirm that the QAA could carry out an immediate
investigation, either abroad or within the UK, to determine whether
there was any substanceto
it?
Bill
Rammell:
That is most certainly the case.Under
the existing arrangements for higher education institutions and in
respect of these proposals for foundation degree awarding powers, the
QAA has those powers of intervention. It has them currently, and it
will continue to have
them.
6.30
pm
I was saying
that there would be a periodic special review of foundation degrees
delivered overseas and that that could be considered by the QAA. The
QAA is also currently reviewing its work with regard to transnational
education and will shortly deliver a revised strategy. Foundation
degree awarding powers could be included as one of the factors to be
considered by the review.
Under clause
17, there is no necessity that any college will ever acquire the right
to grant foundation degrees to students taught overseas. We have
introduced a number of measures to safeguard the international
reputation of the UK degree brand, of which we can all rightly be
proud. As I said, we made it clear that for the first time-limited
grant of the new powers the QAA will advise the Privy Council so that
so-called franchising could be ruled out. This is a significant
departure from precedent and I think it provides an important
safeguard.
Secondly,
we have said that the independent review of the use of the new powers
will look at the case for allowing franchising. Thirdly, when a college
applies to have its foundation degree-awarding powers renewed, full
powers, including the power to award foundation degrees to students
taught overseas, need not always be granted. In making recommendations
to the Privy Council, the QAA will look at the general conclusions of
the independent report and at the specifics of the college’s
applications.
We have
set out a comprehensive approach to managing the risks that have
concerned hon. Members. I repeat that under our proposals we are not
sayingthat awarding foundation degrees to students taught
overseas should definitely be ruled in. To respond directly to the
question raised by the hon. Member for Brent, East, the guidance can be
separate but the guidance on franchising will not come into play
forsix years and it will be drawn up to take account of the
independent review after four years. That is the point that I was
making a moment
ago.
We have put
forward a significant degree of reassurance but—this is the
crucial element of this debate and it cuts to the heart of the
matter—the amendment goes further. It says that this practice
should be ruled out permanently, for ever and a day. Here, for all that
we have worked constructively together to achieve consensus around
workable proposals, we have an element of disagreement. The whole basis
for the Government’s approach is that, subject to appropriate
quality control and the management of legitimate risk, we should give
greater freedom to the top providers of higher education within the
further education sector.
In the end, this principle
applies to overseas operation as it does to the basic awarding of
degrees to students at home. The controls need to be greater because
the risks are greater. But if it is argued that top colleges could
never be trusted with these proposals, I fundamentally disagree. I
would be surprised if that were the contention that was being put
forward this afternoon. We have provided reassurance. We have put
forward a proportionate set of reassurances. There is no automaticity
and I would hope on that basis that the amendment can be
withdrawn.
Sarah
Teather:
I am a bit disappointed with the
Minister’s response. What I think he has just said is that the
review of the franchising powers will take place within the four-year
review of the legislation rather than what I asked for. I asked for a
separation, clearly stated in guidance, so that at the end of the
six-year probationary period, the Privy Council could decide whether,
first, the college could continue to award
degrees and, secondly, having been granted the ability to award degrees,
it could also validate the award of degrees by
others.
Bill
Rammell:
I am sorry if I have not been clear. I have been
trying to say that two separate functions will be available to the QAA
at that stage.
Sarah
Teather:
Is that point written clearly into the guidance?
I think that the two points are currently conflated, rather than shown
separately.
Bill
Rammell:
I believe that that reassurance is there. It
certainly exists because of the debate that has taken place and the
statements that are on the record, both here and in another place.
However, I shall seek to ensure that that is made abundantly clear in
the
regulations.
Sarah
Teather:
I thank the Minister for that reassurance; that
is what I was seeking. If it is written clearly into guidance, I shall
be happy to withdraw the amendment. All that I want is to see the two
points separated at the end of the probationary period so as not to
remove the possibility of franchising for all colleges in perpetuity.
The Minister has given me the assurance that he will reconsider the
guidance. If I am still not happy later, I shall bring forward new
amendments on Report. However at this stage I am happy with the
Minister’s reassurance and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the
amendment.
Amendment, by leave,
withdrawn.
Clause 17, as amended,
ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 18 and 19 ordered to
stand part of the Bill.
| 
