Memorandum 108
Submission from the University of Cambridge
1. The University of Cambridge has long
had a commitment to community engagement and to ensuring that
its excellence in arts, humanities and sciences is disseminated
to the wider society. Cambridge was the very first University
in Britain to develop (in the 1870s) "University Extramural"
programmes. Ever since then, the University has had a strong belief
and presence in this important area of higher education activity.
Currently, for example, the University has a Council for Lifelong
Learning, chaired by a Pro-Vice-Chancellor and with a wide and
senior University membership. The Council has compiled a University
strategy for an ambitious development of the University's activities
in lifelong learning.
The University believes that the present
ELQ proposals threaten to undermine significantly this whole area
of activity.
2. There are several specific aspects of
the University's work in continuing education and lifelong learning
that will be adversely affected if the ELQ proposals are implemented:
but the proposed change in funding will have a particularly serious
effect on two areas—the training for ordination of clergy
and, even more critically, the University's Institute of Continuing
Education. This paper concentrates on the latter.
3. The Institute has a wide range of provision
for adult learners in the Eastern region (as well as for national
and international communities of adult learners). The Institute's
Programmes for the Public contribute significantly to the University's
community and social engagement agenda. For many years, the Institute
has organised a programme of full-time day and evening classes
in arts, social studies and science subjects throughout its large
region. These all carry credit at higher education level, and
many offer the opportunity to obtain certificates, diplomas or
advanced diplomas of higher education. Much of our area is rural,
and we have a complex range of local centres and community partnership
bodies—many of them in areas of social and educational deprivation.
The levels of student satisfaction are very high indeed, and the
high quality of the provision has been confirmed repeatedly in
quality reviews. There are approximately 7,000 adult learners
enrolled on these programmes each year. This student body ranges
from those approaching higher education study for the first time
to those seeking to broaden their vocational, professional and/or
personal horizons at whatever age and stage of their lives.
The Institute calculates that up to 80% of
this provision will be severely threatened by the ELQ proposals.
This is the result of the "unintended consequences"
of the change: principally, those courses which are currently
viable financially, will in future become non-viable because a
large proportion of the learning involved will become unfundable,
thus depriving "non-ELQ", educationally disadvantaged
learners of the benefits of their educational involvement. Diversity
of provision in this region will be very considerably reduced.
4. In recent years, the Institute has also
developed two new areas of provision which address directly Government's
priorities for lifelong learning: Professional Studies, focussing
upon developing full-cost employer/employee programmes for post-experience
provision, largely at postgraduate level, in a range of programmes
of key importance for the community. This is a major aspect
of the University's dissemination of its expertise for the benefit
of the economy and of the wider society. This work is expanding
rapidly, but is dependent for its infrastructure, funding and
support upon the wider Institute. With the projected reduction
in HEFCE funding as a result of the ELQ legislation, this new
work will be threatened and may well become non-viable.
5. The second new area, Community Education
and Outreach, concentrates upon work with educationally disadvantaged
individuals and groups in our region, and on working with the
professionals in the voluntary and community sectors who are engaged
with them. This work addresses directly key aspects of the
Government's social inclusion and widening participation agenda,
and has a developing profile in the region. Again, this new work
depends upon the infrastructure funding of the wider Institute:
and its future will be severely jeopardised should the ELQ policy
be implemented.
6. The other main aspects of the Institute's
work—principally, the International Summer School programmes;
the e-learning initiatives; and a developing research profile
in the field of lifelong learning itself—are not directly
affected by the ELQ proposals. But they too depend upon the wider
infrastructure, and will thus be jeopardised by the ELQ proposals.
7. Many of the national, systemic, negative
consequences of the ELQs will apply to the University's work in
this field. Among the chief of these are:
— the ELQ proposals contradict the
basic philosophy of lifelong learning, in particular the need,
given both demographic and labour market changes, for restructuring;
— part-time (and mainly adult) learners
in HE are already discriminated against in funding and other terms.
The ELQ policy will exacerbate this and will almost certainly
lead to a serious reduction in part-time learners in higher education;
— it is not only those studying for
ELQ degrees who will become unfundable, but also all those tens
of thousands of adult learners undertaking 10 or 20 credit courses
or HE certificates (120 credits) in the continuing education context,
who have degrees or indeed other HE certification or diplomas
(240 credits). Such learners may be studying with the objective
of a return to the labour market after an absence of many years,
and are often studying in a different subject area, or those needing
to develop complementary skills and expertise in the light of
technological and labour-market changes;
— women who return to HE after some
years of child care or other domestic responsibilities, are particularly
adversely affected by the ELQ policy (this is already having a
noticeably adverse effect on recruitment to the University's "mature
colleges");
— part-time learners, the large majority
of whom have to pay their own fees and have other demands on their
limited finances (as has been demonstrated by research—for
example, that undertaken recently by South Bank University) are
very "price sensitive". Any significant rise in fees
as a consequence of ELQ policy will thus certainly result in a
serious reduction in the numbers of part-time learners in higher
education;
— an increasing number of "continuing
education" learners are post-55, and many of them retired.
There is abundant research (for example, London University's Institute
of Education's Wider Benefits of Learning project) to demonstrate
the social benefits of involvement of such groups in lifelong
learning—better health, less demand on social services,
increased voluntary and other beneficial community involvements
and so on. This is in addition, of course, to the benefits in
terms of personal intellectual development.
— the negative effects of the ELQ policy
affect all parts of the sector. Most obviously, the specialist
institutions such as the Open University and Birkbeck College,
University of London, will be very severely affected. But also,
those institutions with dedicated, specialist departments of adult
continuing education/lifelong learning will be threatened: many
may indeed be forced to close as they become financially vulnerable.
Yet these are the very catalysts of institutional change for developing
the programmes and culture to implement the Government's twin
priorities of employer engagement and social inclusion. All these
points apply with particular force to the University's Institute
of Continuing Education.
8. There are numerous and powerful arguments
for reconsidering the ELQ policy. However, if, despite all the
evidence, the Government persists with this policy, there are
"ameliorative" amendments which we would suggest:
— the present timescale for the transition
is impossibly short. The introduction of the changes should be
deferred for at least one year, and the transition period lengthened
by at least two years, to enable a viable transition to be achieved;
— a "Statute of Limitation"
should be introduced, whereby anyone who obtained a degree or
equivalent qualification more than ten years ago should be exempt
from the ELQ regulations. (This would go some way towards meeting
the argument for re-skilling.)
— HEFCE has stated that it intends
to redistribute the £100M saved through ELQs to meet the
Government's HE priorities. We would urge that the criteria for
bidding for this funding should be inclusive, and should allow
for the educational aspirations of a wide range of continuing
education adult learners to be met.
— the current list of exempted subjects
is both too narrow and is incoherent. To cite Richard Lambert,
Director General of the CBI, in his inaugural address to Universities
UK (11 December, 2007):
" . . . I feel a bit uneasy about the
idea that the State should decide which disciplines are worth
supporting, and which are not. If a mother in her thirties decides
that a law degree is her best way back into the workforce, why
should she receive less help than one who opts for land management?
Why are vets to be exempt from the change, but not pharmacists?"
9. Students not wishing to give false information
may believe that it is in their interests not to declare former
qualifications. The proportion of students whose qualification
on entry is unknown may in practice be irreducible and we are
very concerned that the default for "unknowns" is that
they will be unfundable. The policy, in practice, will be supported
by incomplete data that cannot practically be verified giving
an opportunity for unfairness in outcomes.
We would emphasis, though, that the University
of Cambridge regards the whole ELQ initiative as misguided and
destructive: and we would urge its withdrawal for further consideration
and consultation.
January 2008
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