Memorandum 12
Submission from City of Westminster College
SUBMISSION TO THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON WITHDRAWAL
OF FUNDING FOR EQUIVALENT OR LOWER QUALIFICATIONS (ELQs) BY HEFCE[21]
EXEMPTION OF
CLINICAL PHYSIOLOGY
City of Westminster College agrees that specific
categories of students identified by HEFCE should be exempt from
the proposals on ELQs. We would argue, however, that the rules
for exemptions should be applied evenly across the board to include
all students on courses that are covered by the criteria. This
would ensure the maintenance and development of opportunities
for individuals in re-training to allow vocational progression
in accord with the life long learning agenda.
City of Westminster College runs a degree course
in Clinical Physiology that serves a niche vocational market supplying
clinical technicians for the NHS across the South of England.
This is a highly successful programme meets the needs of 140 students
per year. These students are all employed by the NHS and undertake
a block release programme to train as scientific medical professionals.
There are skills shortages in these areas with some NHS Trusts
having to recruit overseas. The age demographic of the profession
is biased towards those approaching retirement and there is also
a need to train students to fill senior posts. All of the students
on this course are employed by the National Health Service at
the start of the course and 40% of the students are in the ELQ
category.
Students attend college for two week blocks
followed by development of practical skills in the workplace.
Assessment involves formal examinations as well as monitoring
the development of practical skills in the workplace.
Vocational bodies (Society of Cardiological
Science and Technology, Electrophysiological and Technologists
Association, Association of Respiratory Technologists and Physiologists,
Society for Critical Care Technicians) and representatives of
the NHS have been involved in the development of the course and
these partnerships have evolved as the course has developed to
include five clinical pathways.
The courses are co-funded and offer part time
retraining/reskilling in a specialist market for which there is
a proven demand.
The degree course in Clinical Physiology at
City of Westminster College is in the public interest in that
it ensures that there is a good supply of graduates with practical
and clinical expertise available to fill vacancies with the NHS.
This course has, therefore, all the characteristics
required to be counted and should be counted as a strategically
important and vulnerable subject (SIV).
It is our view that the policy is likely to
have a more marked effect on women, older learners and migrant
communities. Students from these groups are more likely to be
involved in retraining/reskilling following on from an earlier
educational experience or time out of the employment market and
this will be balanced by a minor gain in employer involvement
on vocational programmes. An increase in fees on the course would
have to be passed onto the student and employer. This would have
the effect of reducing student numbers and could lead to the closure
of the course. Hence the policy undermines the principals of Life
Long Learning and the Leitch recommendations.
The programmes that have been exempted from
ELQ rules are those that the government have identified as being
high priority/risk areas. These programmes were identified using
JACS code (table 4 in the explanatory notes on modelling of the
withdrawal of funding for ELQs).
There is no specific JACS code for Clinical
Physiology and hence this subject area has been left out of the
list of exemptions.
The course at City of Westminster College is
validated by Middlesex University and on annual returns to HESA
appears to have been allocated a generic JACS code which is illustrated
by the use of Bioscience benchmarks to judge the quality of the
course by QAA.
City of Westminster College recommends that
the course in Clinical Physiology should be exempt from the proposed
changes to ELQs since it retrains students to fill the skills
gap within the medical professions.
December 2007
21 See consultation document at http://www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/hefce/2007/07_27/ Back
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