Memorandum 120
Submission from University of the Arts
London
INTRODUCTION
This submission is being made on behalf of the
University of the Arts London by Dr Will Bridge, Deputy Rector.
The University of the Arts London, is Europe's largest university
for art, design, fashion, communication and the performing arts
with c. 27, 000 student enrolments at its constituent colleges:
— Camberwell College of Arts
— Central Saint Martins College of
Art and Design
— Chelsea College of Art and Design
— London College of Communication
— London College of Fashion
— Wimbledon College of Art
Prior to his appointment as Deputy Rector, Dr
Bridge was Head of UAL's largest College—London College
of Communication. Will Bridge has a background of HE teaching
and research in media/communications with 15 years experience
of institutional management including a secondment into the HE
policy branch of DfES, plus early career experience with Xerox
and training in the NHS.
SUMMARY OF
SUBMISSION
This submission aims to highlight the issues
associated with the Governments proposed ELQ policy. Its proposed
implementation would have damaging consequences for a large specialist
Art and Design institution. The main points of our submission
are as follows.
— The lack of consultation with the
HE sector resulting in adverse consequences for institutions both
as a direct result of the policy and those assumed to be unintended
— The adverse impact the policy has
on current course provision specifically aimed at the professional
development and re-skilling / up-skilling needs of the Creative
and Cultural industries and addressing the Leitch skills agenda
— The disproportionate impact of the
policy on Part time course provision
— The lack of commitment from HEFCE
to ensure institutions who are severely affected by policy are
given priority in achieving additional student numbers allocations
from HEFCE in the future
— The implementation does not recognise
the difficult issues faced by specialist Art and Design institutions
when seeking out co-funding arrangements.
— The scope of proposed exemptions
is insufficient and does not cover post-degree qualifications;
vulnerable subject areas in Art and Design and professional teaching
qualifications for Higher Education staff
SUMMARY OF
OUR RECOMMENDATIONS
IN RESPONSE
TO THE
ELQ POLICY PROPOSALS
— Further consideration be given to
alternate ways in which the £100 million savings can be achieved
— The appropriate opportunity to review
fees and funding for ELQ students is through the Independent Commission
reviewing fees policy in 2009
— The HEFCE implementation should give
priority to institutions' ASN bid-back requests in relation to
their level of ELQ reduction
— Exemptions to the ELQ policy be extended
to include all post-degree qualifications which target professional
development and are up-skilling qualifications.
— Exemptions given to students undertaking
Initial Teacher Training courses are extended to students undertaking
Postgraduate Certificates and Diplomas in Teaching and Learning
in Higher Education
— Special consideration is given to
Art and Design provision in relation to bidding back for student
numbers recognising the employment model in the Creative Industries
— Endangered and minority specialisation
subjects within the Arts to be included within the current list
of Strategically Important and Vulnerable Subjects (SIVS) and
that they should be made exempt from the ELQ policy.
MAIN SUBMISSION
1. No consultation was undertaken with individual
universities on this policy prior to its announcement. This, coupled
with the timing attached to the targeted savings associated with
the policy has damaging consequences for individual university's
future income, academic planning and fees and admissions policies.
In addition it has resulted in unintended consequences, which
includes the removal of support for courses which fully address
the Leitch skills review agenda and undue effects on part time
students.
1.1 The HEFCE proposals around Institution's
bidding back for student numbers may offer some prospect to Universities
to rebuild their HEFCE Teaching Grant, it does not secure the
future of individual courses and it is inevitable that courses
which focus upon re-skilling and up-skilling students will be
ceased as a result of this policy implementation. In addition,
HEFCE are currently offering no guarantees that institutions most
severely affected by the ELQ policy will be given priority when
student numbers are reallocated back by to Higher Education Institutions.
The lack of commitment to institutions significantly affected
by the policy creates sufficient uncertainty to effectively stall
the majority of academic planning activities for the foreseeable
future.
1.2 The policy unduly affects part-time
provision. At UAL around a third of all students studying on part
time courses hold an ELQ. Based on current recruitment patterns
some part-time provision within the UAL would have to be removed
from its course offer if the policy is implemented as stands.
The need to deliver flexible study options is increasingly important
in both achieving an expansion of Higher Education and in providing
opportunities for skills development and retraining. The ELQ policy
cuts across this, potentially leaving much part time provision
unsustainable.
1.3 The methodology by which the HEFCE is
proposing to remove funding from Universities is retrospective
and has created a random pattern in which funding is removed for
individual students. The result of this is that the future sustainability
of courses is brought in to question, as demand for courses from
students not holding an ELQ has not so far been a significant
course planning parameter.
1.4 Institutions will incur additional costs
and an administrative burden in order to implement the ELQ policy
and maintain student numbers. These costs and administrative tasks
may include: restructuring of the course portfolio; staff severance
costs if courses close; implementation of revised admissions and
fee policies; reprinting of prospectuses; drafting of ASN strategies/bids;
development and implementation of new courses if ASN bids are
successful. The "safety net funding" / bid back process
proposed should consider how Universities are financially supported
to implement the policy and associated restructuring and development
costs.
RECOMMENDATION 1:
1.5 The University would therefore recommend
that consideration be given to alternate ways in which the £100
million savings can be achieved and which would enable us to deliver
the agenda put forward by the Secretary of State, such as employer
engagement—which we fully support.
RECOMMENDATION 2:
1.6 The University strongly believes that
the appropriate opportunity to review fees and funding for ELQ
students is through the Independent Commission reviewing fees
policy in 2009. This would be a more principled and orderly approach
than the retrospective implementation of the "Withdrawal
of funding for equivalent or lower qualifications" in the
manner proposed.
RECOMMENDATION 3:
1.7 The University recommends it is essential
that the HEFCE implementation should give priority to institutions'
ASN bid-back requests in relation to their level of ELQ reduction—particularly
in respect of those institutions facing large financial or proportional
ELQ reductions (eg £2 million plus / 20% plus)
2. Under the current proposals modelled
by HEFCE, teaching funding for the University of the Arts will
be withdrawn in part from 112 courses and wholly from a further
13 courses and this would eventually result in approximately 800
fewer funded places on courses at the University—equivalent
to an income reduction of £5 million at current rates including
fees.
2.1 The 13 courses which are wholly are
affected by the proposed method of policy implementation have
been specifically designed to support the acquisition of vocational
skills in line with the Leitch agenda and to provide lifelong
learning opportunities in support of the Cultural and Creative
Industries. The development of these courses followed a review
of how the University could develop course provision to deliver
higher skills for London and industries we serve, such as our
Graduate Certificate courses in Printing and Journalism.
2.2 We would highlight Graduate Certificates
and Diplomas qualifications at the University of the Arts, which
have been designed for specific purposes related to employability
or progression. Part-time modes of study are available in addition
to full-time intensive provision to support mature learners and
non-traditional students. The Graduate Certificate/Diploma portfolio
has been carefully devised to reflect Widening Participation,
Lifelong Learning and Skills Development and updating priorities.
The provision is high quality, with positive student feedback
and is in line with the needs of the Creative Industries.
2.3 The ELQ policy withdraws funding for
these Graduate Certificates and Diplomas as they are undergraduate
in level and have as an admission requirement possession of a
first degree, recognising that the courses they are pursuing deliver
higher skills. This would affect 200+ students at UAL and unless
funding is restored this provision would have to be withdrawn,
as there is little prospect of their being viable without the
usual level of HEFCE support.
RECOMMENDATION 4:
2.4 The University of the Arts therefore
recommends that exemptions to the ELQ policy be extended to include
all post-degree qualifications which target professional development
and are up-skilling qualifications, such as Graduate Certificate
and Diploma courses.
3. Current HEFCE proposals exempt students
undertaking PGCE courses, but do not provide exemption for Postgraduate
Teaching and Learning courses in Higher Education. Naturally as
subject experts working in an Higher Education setting those undertaking
the courses already hold a Postgraduate qualification in their
specialist field.
3.1 The University of the Arts course provision
in this area provides opportunities for teaching staff within
the UK Higher Education sector to undertake a professional teaching
qualification in Art and Design. Since the inception of these
courses UAL have awarded over 450 of these qualifications.
3.2 Professional qualifications in Teaching
and Learning are an essential component of building a skilled
and professional workforce within Higher Education. The withdrawal
of HEFCE funding for these qualifications runs contrary to the
skills agenda and undermines the status of teaching qualifications
in a Higher Education environment. The future of this provision
is now uncertain. A case study from a course alumnus is detailed
in annexe 1 below.
RECOMMENDATION 5:
3.3 Exemptions given to students undertaking
Initial Teacher Training courses are extended to students undertaking
Postgraduate Certificates and Diplomas in Teaching and Learning
in Higher Education.
4. HEFCE propose that institutions seek
to form employer/HEI co-funding arrangements for ELQ students
and to bid to the council for additional student numbers to replace
the lost resources for them. This strand of the implementation
does not recognise the difficult issues faced by specialist Art
and Design institutions when seeking out co-funding arrangements.
4.1 Engaging in co-funding arrangements
with employers in the Cultural and Creative Industries is more
difficult than for other industrial sectors as the predominant
employment model for graduates working in these Industries is
that they are self employed / freelance or working in SME's and
micro businesses. These patterns of employment translate into
individuals taking responsibility to re-skill and up-skill with
little evidence of employer support, limiting the opportunities
for co-funding arrangements. This is against a background where
individuals constantly need to acquire new skills to respond to
rapidly changing technologies in the Cultural and Creative industries,
failure to meet these needs will in turn impact on London's Creative
economy.
RECOMMENDATION 6:
4.2 We would request therefore that special
consideration is given to Art and Design provision in relation
to bidding back for student numbers. Specifically, to allow for
bids which will deliver mainstream skills based provision in Art
and Design that is neither FdA or Co-funded, as employers value
the creativity which these engender, upon which the UK's fastest
growing economic sector is based.
5. The University agrees in principal that
subjects, which are strategically important and vulnerable subjects,
should have their funding status protected from the ELQ policy
implementation. However the University feels that the process
is inappropriately constrained.
5.1 The National Arts Learning Network (NALN)
has created an "at risk" register of courses where there
is the very real prospect of the permanent loss of traditional
skills within specific creative industries. Subjects on this "at
risk" register include ceramics, printing, textiles, metals,
glass, conservation and book-binding, amongst others. By their
nature, such subjects are often returned to rather than first
chosen as HE programmes.
5.2 The ELQ exercise disproportionately
affects these subjects as students are often gaining additional
vocational skills and already hold an ELQ, as an example UAL provision
in Conservation is already cross-subsidised by the university
as an endangered subject at both Undergraduate and Postgraduate
level. This subject area is now further under threat by the removal
of funding through the ELQ policy, which will mostly eliminates
HEFCE funding for this particular course area. An unintended outcome
of the proposed ELQ methodology may be the entire loss of these
subject areas from the UK university sector.
RECOMMENDATION 7:
5.3 We would propose that this is as an
opportunity for endangered and minority specialisation subjects
within the Arts to be included within the current list of Strategically
Important and Vulnerable Subjects (SIVS) and that they should
as a minimum should be exempt from the ELQ policy.
January 2008
Annex 1
PG CERTIFICATE IN TEACHING AND LEARNING—CASE
STUDY
LONDON COLLEGE
OF COMMUNICATION
Manuela Zanotti
I am the Course Director for the Graduate Certificate
in Photography and Portfolio Development and Realisation at LCC.
I am a member of the LCC Photography team that teaches a range
of photography courses, from FE to MA, covering Studio and Art
Photography through to Photojournalism. The team includes practising
photographers with international reputations and those involved
in research, working in conjunction with the Photography and the
Archive Research Centre at LCC. My own course is at the intersection
of art and commercial photography and builds photography as a
reflective medium concerning reality and thought.
I started at LCC as a part-time Associate Lecturer,
teaching on a part time FE course on reportage and portraiture.
I was later asked to join the Professional Photography Practice
course team to teach contextual studies and eventually I also
became the PPD co-ordinator for the School of Media. After a period
on maternity leave I re-assessed my role and, on returning to
work, decided to undertake the PG Certificate in Teaching and
Leaning in Art and Design and to build my way back into teaching
Photography.
The PG Cert helped me to contextualise my practice;
it made me identify what level of course I should be teaching
on and what my strengths as a teacher are. For example, by undertaking
the PG Cert, I began to understand that one of my strengths lies
in designing and creating courses.
More specifically, the PG Cert empowered me
to step back and allow my students to feedback more on their learning
journey. Before I took the course, I was quite traditional in
my teaching style, wanting to "give a lot of information"
to the students, so I tended to give continuous information during
teaching sessions. The PG Cert made me realise that to give incessantly
was not the best way to help students learn and that it is much
better to empower students to learn for themselves. Now I provide
a framework for learning whereby the students engage much more
in self-directed study which I support and facilitate.
Prior to undertaking the PG Cert course, I had
never intentionally brought my own professional practice as a
photographer to my teaching and now I do that all the time. My
professional practice feeds directly into my new course and I
now see the sense in integrating my practice into my teaching
in the university. I also now understand the significance of our
relationship with course alumni and the benefit of this for the
course and for the students.
| 
