Memorandum submitted by the Centre for
Higher Education Studies (CHES) of the Institute of Education,
University of London
INTRODUCTION
1. The Institute of Education welcomes the
intention of the Committee to undertake a wide-ranging investigation
into this important matter. In particular, the focus on "first
principles" is timely.
2. This submission is from the Institute's
Centre for Higher Education Studies (CHES), which has contributed
to research and development in the field since 1985. The Co-Directors
of the Centre are Professor Ronald Barnett and Professor Sir David
Watson.
3. CHES is making a separate submission
to the Committee's parallel inquiry into The Bologna Process.
KEY ISSUES
FOR CONSIDERATION
AND RELATED
RESOURCES
4. There are several areas in which CHES
believes it can assist the Committee by drawing on research conducted
by members and others in order either to confirm or challenge
received wisdom. These are outlined below, together with a highly
selective range of references to current or recently completed
work. Attention is also drawn to the important series of reports
from Universities UK (UUK) on Patterns of UK Higher Education
Institutions.
5. The student market. We encourage
the Committee to note the extent to which the UK higher education
system has been moulded by patterns of student choice, and to
query the popular assumption that such choices have been less
than rational (UUK, 2006; Watson, 2006a). The issue of so-called
strategic subjects is also relevant here (Temple, 2006).
6. Fees and funding. It is not clear
here that the Government's recent reforms will achieve their objectives,
on a number of levels: securing the economic future of the sector;
encouraging a wider range of participation; or establishing a
more competitive market (Watson, 2006c). CHES has contributed
an initial bench-marking study to the Department's own study of
this area (Temple et al, 2006).
7. Public funding of research. In
our view, too much attention is paid to the mechanism of the Research
Assessment Exercise (RAE) and not enough to the funding decisions
that are made as a consequence. In particular, the evidence is
growing that the resulting concentration of funding has become
dysfunctional. Not only does it condemn the system to only funding
the best of what it has produced historically, but it has also
apparently reduced the capacity of the winners to gear public
into private funding (Watson, 2003a; UUK, 2006).
8. Individual and social benefits. The
Institute has contributed to the wider understanding of both of
these impacts through the related work of the Centre for the Economics
of Education (CEE) and the Wider Benefits of Learning Group (WBL).
Despite the considerable expansion of the UK graduate population,
significant benefits have been sustained in the "domains
of health, the labour market, citizenship and parenthood"
(Bynner et al: 2003: 4). However, it is important also
to acknowledge some downsides. Students from poorer backgrounds
who start on full-time HE and then drop out fall behind their
contemporaries with lower qualifications in almost all of these
respects (Ibid: 25; HEFCE, 2002: 37).
9. Widening participation is an area
where the search for simple, and quick solutions has been perhaps
most frustrating. The gap between those with access to education
and resulting skills, to information, and to influence and those
without is widening, not narrowing. For an account of what we
do and don't know about the issue see Watson, 2006b.
10. Employment and employability represents
the next most fraught area of public discourse. Much of the resulting
confusion arises from two sources. One is the lack of real information
about the skills market, nationally and locally. The other is
the tendency of employers to use qualifications for different
purposes: either directly making use of the "human capital"
inherent in higher qualifications, or simply regarding a qualification
at a certain level as a screening device or "signal"
not necessarily related to employment needs (Slowey and Watson,
2003: 106-121, 152-166).
11. Higher education and regional development,
including the impact of devolution. It is in this context
that the prevailing "market" philosophy is under most
strain. Regional policy in England is being used as a redistributive
device against the direction of most market signals, while it
is increasingly apparent that the other "territories"
wish to pursue different policy priorities (UUK, 2004).
12. The global race. Naïve views
of the global context for higher education as a simple market
for UK-based goods and services may well be undermining our longer
term interests, including the challenge of managing highly internationalised
campuses (UUK, 2005). An uncritical notion of "world-classness"
may turn out to be especially damaging. The internationalisation
of higher education is as much about the creation of socially-responsible
knowledge bases relevant to contexts world-wide as it is about
the positioning of UK institutions within global higher education
markets. See also the CHES memorandum on Bologna.
13. Learning and teaching. Universities
also have to respond to the effect of revised preparation and
expectations of students, not least as a result of the younger
generation's experience of ICT. Jason Frand's seminal essay on
"the information-age mindset" presents an expression
of this dilemma (Frand, 2000; see also Barnett and Coate, 2005).
14. The development of the higher education
work force. Cultural and other changes in the student body
are matched by shifts in the demography and organisation of the
academic profession itself. As it has grown it has become younger
and more likely to have experience outside as well as inside the
academy: the average age of teaching staff in UK HEIs is now 42.7
(HESA, 2004-05). The main message is about the combined effects
of generational change and of expansion. As a cohort of academics
brought into the profession by an earlier spurt of expansion retires
at the same time as the system anticipates a new spurt, turn-over
will be rapid. In these circumstances "internal" socialisation
is likely to weaken and new perspectives to gain greater purchase.
One effect is a wider and more generous understanding of "professional"
contributions to learning support. In short, there is a potentially
"new" definition of the academic role at work here;
and new professionals will also require new models of leadership
and management.
15. Entrepreneurship and the 3rd stream.
Members of the Committee will be aware of the conclusion of
the Lambert Report that, in relation to industry-HE interactions,
there are more problems on the demand than on the supply side
(Lambert, 2003). Care needs to be taken that competitive third
stream funding supports impact and not merely activity (Slowey
and Watson, 2003: 135-151).
16. The civic and community role of universities.
Pursuing the "social agenda" means two types of
activity on the part of universities, which are themselves sometimes
in tension. The first is about developments "inside",
notably action on admissions and student support, but also about
choice of teaching, research and service priorities. The second
is significantly outside, where the university recognises that
it has an obligation to help to change matters (for example on
schooling, or on community capability). For discussion of these
issues see Watson, 2007a.
17. The question of values. In such
circumstances, universities can choose to behave well or badly.
As powerful institutions they can undermine and intimidate their
members, their partners and their clients. They can perpetuate
self-serving myths. They can hide behind specious arguments (narrow
constructions of "academic freedom", force majeure,
and the like). They can displace responsibilities (and blame
others). They can fail the "stewardship test" (for example
by not assessing and responding to risk, or by cutting corners,
or by "letting go"). They can be bad neighbours. Above
all, they can fail to tell the truth to themselves as least as
easily as failing to tell truth to power (Watson, 2007b). See
also Barnett, 2000, 2003.
18. Leadership and management. The
inexorable tendency is for university leaders to overestimate
the extrinsic influences and underestimate the intrinsic influences
on the development of the University in the knowledge society
(Slowey and Watson, 2003: 159).
19. Governance. In these circumstances,
it is not apparent that a simple adoption of commercial approaches
to corporate governance is effective or appropriate (Lambert,
2003; Shattock, 2006).
20. Policy formulation. Finally,
we urge the Committee to look carefully at the process and effect
of policy formation for higher education, not least in respect
of a number of lurches in policy which have left institutions
in the sector understandably risk-averse. A particular problem
is the lack of any secure "policy memory" in respect
of higher education (Watson and Bowden, 2005).
OVERARCHING ISSUES
21. Putting these items together, we suggest
that there are three overarching issues which the Committee will
need to address if it is to meet its objectives.
22. The first is the question of establishing
the public interest in higher education development.
23. The second is understanding the nature
and extent of public confidence in what it is that higher
education delivers.
24. The third is establishing how far the
interests of the nation are bound up in maintaining the reputation
of a relatively unified sector of higher education, as
opposed to supporting the ambitions (and the pre-emptive claims)
of a small number of institutions for "world-class"
status. There is a danger at present in British higher education
of decline of civility, of over-hyped inter-institutional competition,
and of loss of commitment to the controlled reputational range
implied by mutual assurance of quality (Watson, 2006d).
PROPOSED KEY
QUESTIONS
25. In summary, CHES respectfully suggests
that as part of its work the Committee attempts to answer the
following twenty hard questions:
— Should we trust the student market
more? (5)
— Has the English fee structure for
undergraduates from 2006 onwards serious prospects of meeting
its objectives? (6)
— Has concentration of public funding
for research gone too far? What have been the effects, for example,
on quality of teaching and learning? (7)
— Have we established a proper balance
between understanding the social and the economic benefits of
higher education? (8)
— How much of the widening participation
agenda needs to be tackled outside of the higher education sector?
(9)
— Is graduate "under-employment"
a serious long-term problem? (10)
— How do national ambitions for higher
education reinforce or undermine its regional role? (11)
— Have the ambitions of and for a small
number of so-called "world-class"" British universities
prevented us from developing a world-class sector? (12)
— What should higher education as a
whole do about its ICT strategy? (13)
— What happens when the "screen-age"
generation gets to teach? (14)
— How can we improve the capacity for
business and industry to be an "intelligent customer"
of higher education services? (15)
— What is the civic role of the modern
university? (16)
— Are higher education values under
threat? (17)
— Are universities well managed? (18)
— Is the balance between corporate
and academic governance correctly understood? (19)
— How can the DfES improve its policy
memory? (20)
— What exactly is the "public
interest" in higher education? (22)
— What can the Committee, and politicians
in general, do to improve public confidence in higher education?
(23)
— Does the "controlled reputational
range" of UK higher education still matter? (24)
26. In our view, informed responses to these
questions should enable the Committee to achieve its goal of a
sustainable sector, populated with autonomous but responsible
institutions, less distracted and deflected by short-term and
fickle policy interventions, and capable simultaneously of contributing
to economic growth, social cohesion and international development.
REFERENCES
All items can be supplied to the Committee secretariat
on request.
Barnett, R (2000). Realizing the University
in an age of supercomplexity. Buckingham: SRHE and Open University
Press.
Barnett, R (2003). Beyond All Reason: living
with ideology in the university. Buckingham: SRHE and Open
University Press.
Barnett, R and Coate, K (2005). Engaging
the Curriculum in Higher Education. Maidenhead: Open University
Press.
Bynner, J, Dolton, P, Feinstein, L, Makepiece,
G, Malmberg, L and Woods, L (2003). Revisiting the Benefits
of Higher Education: a report by the Bedford Group for Lifecourse
and Statistical Studies, Institute of Education. HEFCE: Bristol
(April).
Frand, J, (2000) The Information Age Mindset;
changes in students and implications for higher education, Educause
Review 35.5 (September /October) 14-24.
Higher Education Funding Council for England
(HEFCE) (2002). The Wider Benefits of Higher Education: report
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Lambert, R (2003). Lambert Review of University-Business
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Shattock, M (2006). Managing Good Governance.
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Temple, P (2006). Intervention in a Higher Education
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Watson, D (2007b). Does Higher Education Need
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November 2006
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