Memorandum submitted by GuildHE
INTRODUCTION
1. GuildHE (formerly SCOP) is a recognised
representative organisation within the higher education sector.
It is the key advocate for the importance of institutional diversity
within the higher education sector. GuildHE is an inclusive body,
with members across higher education colleges, specialist institutions
and universities. Between them, our members educate about a quarter
of a million higher education students. Other key characteristics
are briefly set out below:
— most member HEIs are smaller than
the average university;
— they include many institutions which
have a specialist mission or subject;
— they include major and world-class
providers in art and design, music and the performing arts, agriculture,
education and the health professions (for example, the specialist
HEIs provide 28.8% of all Agricultural Sciences students, 21.3%
of all Creative Arts students and 12.5% of all Education students);
— they embody communities of practice,
with a clear commitment to high quality teaching enriched by research
and knowledge exchange; and
— they make a particular contribution
to local community capacity-building thus contributing to social
and economic regeneration.
2. GuildHE welcomes the opportunity to contribute
to the Education and Skills Committee's inquiry into the future
sustainability of the higher education sector. This evidence is
also submitted on behalf of our sub-association, UKADIA (the UK
Arts and Design Institutions Association). It highlights key principles
and draws on agreed GuildHE and UKADIA policy views and statements.
In particular, we have focused on our vision for the future shape
and development of the sector over the next few years. We would
hope to have the opportunity to supplement this contribution with
oral evidence early in 2007.
OUR VISION
FOR HIGHER
EDUCATION
3. GuildHE has a vision for higher education
in which a sustainable, diverse and dynamic higher education sector
plays a full part in the development of a well-educated and socially
inclusive nation, enhances the UK's economic competitiveness,
and fosters cultural engagement, knowledge creation and exchange
in a global context.
4. To deliver this, we need a system built
on recognition of the excellent provision that already exists
across a rich and diverse range of higher education institutions
and other providers. We need a system that does not typecast or
put institutions into fixed hierarchies, is more firmly grounded
on institutional business planning and encourages greater collaboration
and complementarity. We also need a system that recognises and
rewards high quality teaching, research and knowledge exchange
activities, wherever they occur, and across all institutions in
the sector.
5. Our vision means a system with effective
collaboration and alliances with other sectors (including schools,
further education, business and the community). Higher education
cannot see itself as a world apart from the rest of the education
sector or the wider community. Higher education also needs to
be properly accountable, with effective, but streamlined, frameworks
for regulation and accountability which focus explicitly on outcomes,
alongside good quality public information.
6. Government policy from the HE White Paper[93]
onwards has highlighted the need to acknowledge and celebrate
diversity within the sector, with institutions identifying and
playing to their strengths. GuildHE's established policy lines
broadly complement this view. In addition, we would strongly emphasise
the complexity of the sector and the need for it to remain dynamic,
open to change and innovation. Indeed, the smaller and specialist
institutions represented by GuildHE embody these qualities. Any
attempt to limit and overly define the pattern and role of institutions
could lead to future decline and ossification, and will not be
in the interests of students, the economy or society more generally.
It would also deny choice to students.
7. In our response to the HE White Paper,
we identified the following core features as essential to sustain
a healthy and dynamic system of higher education:
— firstly, our higher education sector
needs to remain an integrated system with key common values and
shared principles, offering a designated range of provision to
defined higher education standards;
— we need a system based on dynamic
diversity, with institutions continuing to evolve and develop
in response to the growing and changing needs of students, employers
and the wider community;
— we need a system which is characterised
and distinguished by the fact that its staff are engaged in research
and scholarship both because of their inherent value and to underpin
teaching and other activities;
— we need a system with sufficient
public investment for its core activities of teaching, scholarship
and research and to ensure that all students capable of benefiting
from higher education are able to do so.
FUNDING
8. GuildHE supports the principle that public
funding for higher education should be directed to support the
core strategic aims of supporting high quality teaching, research
and knowledge transfer activities via the block grant and across
all publicly-designated institutions within the HE sector. Given
the recent introduction of variable tuition fees and new student
support arrangements, it is timely that the Higher Education Funding
Council for England is part way through a major review of the
current teaching funding methodology. An increasingly significant
role for HEFCE and other HE funding bodies will be to ensure that
strategically important outcomes for higher education and the
country as a whole are protected in the public interest. It will
be important, therefore, to find an acceptable balance between
investing in strategic objectives, responding to potential market
volatility, bulilding a sustainable sector and respecting institutional
diversity and autonomy.
9. Within the overall methodology for teaching
funding, there is a compelling case for continued, targeted allocations
for smaller and specialist HEIs, recognising the distinctive contributions
and specialised environments which they bring to the HE sector.
Such allocations need to be transparent and to be based on genuine
differences in teaching methods, particularly within subjects
which require more individual tuition, have major infrastructure
costs or are deemed to be strategically important to the economy
and overall quality of life.
10. GuildHE continues to support the Dearing
principle that students should make some form of means-tested
contribution towards the cost of their higher education underpinned
by robust financial support for students from poorer and disadvantaged
backgrounds. We have welcomed the reintroduction of targeted maintenance
grants which we first called for in our 2002 submission to the
Spending Review.
11. The Government's review of the impact
of differential tuition fees in 2009 will need to assess whether
participation in higher education, particularly by students from
under-represented groups, has been adversely affected by the new
arrangements. No decision on raising the current fee cap above
£3,000, or removing it entirely, should be taken until the
review has analysed the evidence of impact to date.
12. While many smaller and specialist institutions
would be able to charge a higher fee in a more differentiated
market, there are concerns about the possible effects of market
failure. For example, it might be relatively easy for visual and
performing arts institutions to charge higher fees if the cap
were raised or removed, but this might come with the risk of limiting
access to these institutions for students from under-represented
or disadvantaged groups. Many of these institutions do not wish
to return to a situation where their programmes are largely filled
with students from affluent backgrounds.
13. GuildHE's submission to the recent DfES
consultation on research assessment and funding emphasised that
any future processes should:
— identify genuine excellence, wherever
it exists, within mechanisms which are as fair and transparent
as possible, and take account of the critical role of peer review
within the assessment process;
— be based on a broader definition
of research, taking greater account of contributions in applied
and multi-disciplinary research areas and the links between research,
knowledge transfer, teaching and professional practice;
— be developmental and responsive to
improvements in performance over time;
— ensure that new and emerging research
areas receive the necessary support to develop and thrive;
— be broadly consistent in the approach
used across all disciplines (with variation in detail or weighting
to reflect the nature of individual disciplines); and
— provide a baseline allocation for
all higher education institutions in recognition of the need to
invest in research capacity across the sector. This allocation
could be calculated using either student or staff FTEs and would
be particularly important for new and developing institutions
and emerging disciplines within the HE sector.
14. The recent DfES announcement sets out
a new framework for research assessment and funding which aligns
with many of the points outlined in paragraph 12. We remain concerned,
however, that further attention should be given to investment
in broader research capacity across all HEIs and we continue to
call for a baseline allocation for all institutions.
STRUCTURE
15. One of the great strengths of the UK
higher education sector is the diverse range of excellent and
autonomous institutions within it. GuildHE would not support any
attempt to introduce centralised planning for the sector, although
we recognise that the wider public interest may sometimes require
funding bodies to steer or facilitate particular developments.
We feel that this should be on the basis of providing incentives
for HEIs and potential students to engage in particular activities
or subjects.
16. We believe that the sector needs to
continue to develop more flexible and innovative approaches to
learning at the HE level. The recommendations in the Leitch Review[94]
for over 40% of the adult population to be qualified at Level
4 or above and for shifting the balance of intermediate skills
from Level 2 to Level 3 are particularly welcome. While the delivery
of higher education in further education colleges is one means
for facilitating growth and new types of provision, it is not
the only one. In the context of GuildHE members, we would wish
to emphasise the distinctive strengths of smaller and specialist
HEIs. Collectively, they represent a major concentration of "practice"—in
teaching, research and knowledge exchange. They often hold exceptional
links to their respective worlds of work. They have an important
role in applied and near-market research. They make major use
of professional practitioners bringing added benefits to the vitality
of the curriculum, the attraction and retention of staff, employability
and the employment of graduates.
17. Many specialist institutions also excel
in providing high quality higher and further education within
the one institution. This is a particular characteristic of specialist
art and design colleges and the agriculture/land-based institutions.
Some of these institutions are located within the HE sector—others
within the FE sector—but they have a very particular commitment
to delivering progression opportunities within a specialist environment
from post-16 to postgraduate levels.
18. GuildHE is supportive of the role of
further education colleges (FECs) in delivering higher education.
We believe that all FECs providing HE should provide some kind
of strategic HE policy statement which is proportionate to the
level of engagement of a particular institution and its relationship
with HEFCE. There is also a strong case for bringing all higher-level
programmes under the strategic direction of a single funding agency
(ie: HEFCE).
19. It is important to signal that higher
education in FECs should not be expected to conform to a single
model of provision. While much of the HE delivered in FE might
be seen as closely aligned to higher level skills and employer
engagement, there are also many examples of provision in FECs
delivering to a broader, academic objective. Similarly, many HEIs
are contributing significantly to higher level skills and employer
engagement through a wide variety of innovative programmes alongside
knowledge transfer and research activities.
20. A number of FECs will continue to reach
the 55% higher education threshold which qualifies them to transfer
from the FE to the HE sector. Our view is that there should be
a different and more intensive strategic engagement between the
funding council and an FEC which is clearly on a trajectory to
move into the HE sector.
CONCLUDING POINTS
21. In conclusion, we would wish to reiterate
the following key points:
— Distinctive and specialist HEIs make
a major contribution to diversity and high quality provision within
the higher education sector; there is also further potential for
growth in such institutions to support widening participation;
— They offer a valued alternative for
many students to studying in one of the large, general HEIs. The
recent published analysis of the 2005 National Student Survey
results[95]
identifies that students in smaller HEIs generally have a higher
level of overall satisfaction;
— Smaller and specialist HEIs offer
distinctive environments for teaching, research and knowledge
transfer within communities of practice. As such they are effective
guardians of particular specialist subjects and
— practice-based approaches within
higher education. They make a vital contribution to the dynamism
and diversity of the higher education sector;
— the higher education sector is complex
and needs it to remain dynamic, open to change and innovation.
Any attempt to limit or prescribe the pattern and role of institutions
could lead to future decline and ossification, and would not be
in the interests of students, the economy or society more generally.
December 2006
93 The future of higher education, DfES, 2003. Back
94
Prosperity for all in the global economy-world class skills,
Leitch Review final report, HM Treasury, December 2006. Back
95
The National Student Survey 2005: Findings: A report to HEFCE
by Paula Surridge, Department of Sociology, University of Bristol,
HEFCE, November 2006. Back
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