Examination of Witnesses (Questions 380
- 387)
WEDNESDAY 7 MARCH 2007
PROFESSOR SIR
DAVID WATSON
Q380 Chairman: We are coming to the
end of this session but when would you think you would be satisfied
we had cracked it in terms of widening participation? What is
the goal? What is the standard? I know there seemed to be some
indication we are better than continental Europe but when do we
say we have done the job?
Professor Watson: We would have
cracked it when we have staying-on rates at 17 and 18 in structured
education and training which are comparable with the rest of the
OECD top group. That is where we fall behind at present. My hypothesis
would be that if we can actually create that kind of effect over
the next 10 or 15 years then issues that relate to higher education
will solve themselves. We did have, a number of years ago, a very
important improvement in staying on following the GCSE reforms.
The effect of that has now, more or less, wound through the system.
I think we need a further positive effect that relates to remaining
in education and training, or a combination of both, between 16
and 18.
Q381 Chairman: Most of us in this
room share that aspiration in reaching that destination. In some
of the excellent work you sent us, and some of the things you
said earlier in this session, there is an implication if you do
not go to university you have failed, you have dropped out of
civilised society. All of us in this room rely on a whole range
of professions that do not need a HE grade. There are a large
number of people in my constituency who would think that if their
son or daughter went on to be an electrician, a plumber, a plasterer
or a whole range of non-graduate professions that they done rather
well and would not have dropped out of society, would not be anti-social,
would not have a greater tendency to criminality, all the things
that seem implied by you. You do not mean to do this.
Professor Watson: I would not
want to give that impression. I come at your challenge from another
point of view. One of the very interesting things about the UK
higher education system is that a majority of the students who
are engaged with it are not on full-time first degrees. They are
engaged with higher education in a whole range of other ways,
including many people who are mid-career, who are coming back
for professional updating or maybe coming back for adult education
or coming back because they wish to change their careers. I think
the UK system is emphatically not a "one chance and if you
miss it you have had it" system. That is a very important
social contribution in a broader sense. The fact that well over
half of the students who are engaged on first degrees in the UK
have some experience after they have left compulsory education
before they come into higher education indicates that we have
grown a kind of life-long learning system underneath us without
necessarily recognising it.
Q382 Chairman: Again, I welcome and
share that view, but you have slightly ducked the facts. You have
talked about social capital—that you were more concerned
about social capital. A lot of people choosing not to go to university
do add very much to the social capital in this country. Still
implied in what you have said is that no HE experience, in some
ways, is not as good as having HE experience.
Professor Sir David Watson: I
think you have played back to me, Chairman, a wicked issue of
the kind I was trying to explore with you on expansion and non
participation. Clearly there are people who have no engagement
with higher education, who are upstanding citizens, who have very
productive and happy lives—
Q383 Chairman: And economically?
Professor Sir David Watson:—and
are economically successful. What I think we are responsible for
is creating an opportunity framework so that those people who
might wish to participate in the ways that we have talked about
are, in fact, not constrained from doing so. For example, in the
1960s, when I was an undergraduate, there was a view that if you
did not get in when your time came, you had missed it forever,
and I think that culture has now changed. I think there is a view
that higher education is there as a service that can be accessed
in many different ways and at many different times during the
life course. I think I am trying to play back to you, Chairman,
the notion that none of these decisions are ever, once and for
all, irrevocable decisions either to go or not to go; and for
the students who decide not to go it is very important, I think,
that the opportunity does remain there throughout the rest of
their careers and their lives.
Q384 Chairman: One last question.
I am a little bit worried about your enthusiasm for interviewing.
As I said, it was not a question we had picked up in the United
States. Most of the Ivy Leagues do not interview. They do have
five different kinds of ways of assessing the student, including
SATS, that do not need interviews, but they do have a much broader
range of criteria. If I remember, there were five different aspects
of a student's experience and background that they weighed in
assessing (coming back to something Helen said) the potential
of the student, not just one test, an A level test. Is not that
the way we should be going rather than interviews?
Professor Sir David Watson: The
difficulty is creating systems that will generate the information,
that can fill out that wider profile. Again, I think we have got
to think about the differential social capital of families in
terms of being able to support the data in those other categories
that you might wish to pick up, such as, for example, community
service. It is very interesting in relation to admissions to elite
American universities to watch the way that kids in high schools
start constructing their CVs from their early teens onwards through
internships and volunteering and so on.
Q385 Chairman: A lot of people apply
to do work with Members of Parliament, and we can tell you a lot
about how British students do that as well, but do not SATS cut
through that? There is an argument from Peter Lampl of the Sutton
Trust that the SAT test cuts through all that social capital that
people have, the social networks. They can get you jobs to make
you look impressive on your CV. SATS cuts through that, does it?
Professor Sir David Watson: It
claims to cut through it. I think that is a fairly robust proposition,
but there are some critics that actually suggest that even the
SAT tests are culturally constructed and can be discriminatory.
Q386 Chairman: They were part of
five—
Professor Sir David Watson: Indeed,
yes. It is that breadth of view. When I was responding on interviews
earlier I was not just responding in relation to interviews to
read "greats" or to read history of art, I am very impressed
by the way that interviewing techniques for admission to professional
courses in the UK have improved. I am thinking here about medicine,
which I evidenced, but also teaching, other health professions,
social work, and so on, where we have professional formation at
the undergraduate level, and I think interviewing there does help
test potential as well as achievement today.
Q387 Chairman: Sir David, it has
been a very good session. This is an important inquiry for us.
I hope you will remain in touch with the Committee.
Professor Sir David Watson: Indeed.
Thank you
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