Memorandum submitted by Ian McNay, Professor
Emeritus, Higher Education and Management, University of Greenwich
1. The Committee's timescale for the consultation
does not allow for an extended submission. Several PhDs might
be needed to do justice to the set of questions. The Committee
has already requested and received Higher Education and Human
Good, a monograph produced with Jennifer Bone. I am attaching
a copy of the final chapter of McNay [2006] Beyond Mass Higher
Education: Building on Experience,[116]
which, as the title implies, covered ground common to the committee's
concerns, and collated contributions to an ESRC-funded research
seminar series. Below, I list several points, mainly about the
balance of the inquiry as inferred from the set of questions,
or in brief response to some of the questions.
2. Full-time school-leaver undergraduates
away from home are a diminishing minority of students. HE is no
longer a passage from adolescence to adulthood and there is a
need to talk of a diverse set of student experiences [plural].
For most, there is no longer a transfer of identity, nor a change
of base community. They have strong, established identities and
are looking for development and improvement, not transformation
[though some still do have a transformative experience, as my
studies of OU students showed]. Such "non-traditional"
students are now the majority, and the discourse needs to reflect
this, rather than treating them as exceptional. There is not homogeneity
within this diverse group either, of course, so the concept of
"the student" becomes multi-faceted.
3. In England the 18+ age cohort declines
after the end of the decade. Scotland anticipates a 20% reduction
by 2025. That will further affect the balance of the student population.
Recent growth has been faster among postgraduates than undergraduates
and that will continue within a CPD/lifelong learning context
when there is a mass output of first degrees. New, high fees will
push towards part-time first degree study—note OU trends
among those under 21. Participation rates among young full-timers
are only sustained by those from minority ethnic groups where
different patterns of behaviour prevail. To quote one on student
culture—"drink, drink, drink; it's not my cup of tea".
4. So, students want a personal/professional
agenda to be met. A draft HEFCE plan some years ago talked of
a bespoke experience, a phrase deleted in the final version, but
that individualisation is in tune with the current zeitgeist.
Older students, and those on CPD programmes will expect a more
negotiated curriculum, not a prescription nor even a selection
from a provider determined menu.
5. Engagement, then, needs to be not only
with schools. A minority of undergraduates enter directly from
school. Colleges will be important in the 14-19 curriculum offer,
where they do much better than schools in responding to a diversified
society, and in providing pathways to HE, perhaps with an extended
HE offer within the FE sector [but read Gallacher, Field and others
on the Scottish situation]. Employers need engaging, too—see
below.
6. The proportion of GDP invested in HE
is the same as it was 30 years ago when student numbers were much
lower and research activity less developed. The masses paid for
the elite through taxation. Now the elite are deemed unwilling
to fund the masses and government wants quality on the cheap—or
at less than the average of OECD countries. That is not a sustainable
position. The money needed to abolish fees for fulltime undergraduates,
and to restore means tested grants at 1970s levels, is less than
the bonuses paid to a few thousand workers in the City and Canary
Wharf, or the employees of a single company—Goldman Sachs.
That is a corruption of values in a civilised society with a government
rhetorically committed to social equity. Scotland has shown the
comparative effect of fees and no fees on participation. The Irish
experiment a few years ago produced what England can now anticipate—a
widening of the opportunity gap. Concerns over costs to students
and their impact are growing stronger in the USA and Canada. Finland,
among others, shows that a high tech economy can sustain free
HE as the UK committed to in signing the UNESCO charter of economic
and social rights. It is one of the ironies of the UK democracy
that a majority of English MPs voted against the clause in the
Bill that introduced high fees, and a travesty of democracy that
they were imposed in Northern Ireland against the unanimous views
of all political parties. So, there was no political legitimacy
to the policy.
7. Fees would be acceptable if grants were
for "fees plus" as they were after Robbins and the Anderson
Report. The means testing gradient can be adjusted to avoid subsidising
the offspring of the richest. Fees and grants to support part-time
first degree students also need urgent attention to avoid discrimination,
exclusion and distortion of the market.
8. Recent increases in HE spending have
been mainly on research, not teaching nor widening of participation.
The emphasis in Access Agreements has moved from bursaries for
those in need to scholarships to those who have succeeded. Government
funding has gone disproportionately to the already advantaged
institutions, without any productivity increase being required
in research, whereas the unit for teaching has barely moved and
fails to recognise needs of diverse student populations. The double
funding of Oxbridge teaching—to colleges on top of the university—should
be abolished. As in Australia, universities might be allowed to
recruit fully fees funded students beyond their HEFCE contract.
9. RAE and QR have been consulted on recently.
My main concern is to give greater recognition to improvement
in the quality of life as a quality criterion, to balance the
current closed circuit where "impact" is seen as being
only on what other academics write about. Fuller recognition of
the gearing ratio between state funding and client funding might
bring that closer in some cases, but it needs building in also
to peer review. Currently, work with such beneficial effects is
under-credited and under-rewarded. There is some evidence that
work given middle ratings in RAE gives better value for money
than that given the highest grades. So, there is an economic case
against excessive concentration of funding, where generation of
entrepreneurial income for research is lower than in those outside
the premier division—the Avis principle of "we try
harder".
10. The balance between market dominance,
provider autonomy and state control is a difficult one to resolve.
Evidence from recent studies, here and in other European countries,
suggests that greater institutional autonomy is more effective
in entrepreneurial terms. The state cannot steer the provision
for millions of students from the centre with short stay ministers
and advisors from a narrow range of lived experience [as Sir Toby
Weaver said 30 years ago in "Weaver's Law"]. Previous
central planning of student numbers has been disastrous. Decisions
are better taken—for curriculum provision as well as R+D—closer
to the market. The role of government then becomes one of protection—of
quality as part of care for the citizen, and of key strategic
areas. Its role in research strategy will be greater. But it has
lacked consistency and continuity in many arenas, with emphasis
on short—term initiatives and confusion and contradiction
in messages transmitted—Coffield's damning summary of "101
initiatives and no strategy".
11. The relation between HE and employers
needs re-balancing. Employers have shirked responsibilities to
invest in capital renewal and employee development since they
were warned of the consequences of their failure by Prince Albert
in 1851 [see Corelli Barnett's Audit of War]. Their reluctance
over sandwich placements, joint work on NVQs and Foundation Degrees,
and other issues shows that this continues. They have been excused
any role in failure and feel exonerated and free to castigate
HE. They need to examine the beam in their own eyes, and need
encouragement from Parliament to do so. With a declining youth
cohort of new entrants to the labour market, CPD and a wider commitment
to lifelong learning will be essential to development of skills
for new demands. Employers must play, and pay, their part in that,
and policy initiatives may be needed to ensure that they do so.
December 2006
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