Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40-59)
DEPARTMENT FOR
INNOVATION, UNIVERSITIES
AND SKILLS
& HIGHER EDUCATION
FUNDING COUNCIL
FOR ENGLAND
29 OCTOBER 2007
Q40 Mr Touhig: You have taken funding
from teaching in order to put it into retention.
Professor Eastwood: We have moved
some resources around within the teaching grant between the institutions.
Q41 Mr Touhig: You are reducing moneys
intended for teaching in order to bribe universities to try to
keep people longer.
Professor Eastwood: We are trying
to target some of our investment towards the particular challenges
faced by the universities that are reaching out—
Q42 Mr Touhig: You have spent £600
million in the past five years and, by your admission, there has
been no improvement, and you have cut teaching budgets.
Professor Eastwood: I should say
that the aggregate figure may probably be closer to £800
million. Through that, we have achieved a new commitment in the
sector to completion. As the Report demonstrates, we have achieved
target interventions to drive up completion in a number of institutions.
We are working with the institutions that we have identified as
having particularly challenging agendas on an institution-by-institution
basis in order to take that forward.
Q43 Mr Touhig: I accept that that
is how you are working it, but you have spent £800 million
in the past five years for no real improvement in retention, and
you have taken that money from the teaching budget.
According to a 2003 Report by the Department
for Education and Skills, Higher education funding—international
comparisons, funding on higher education is far behind that
of our partners. A table on page 7 of that Report shows that we
spend less than the United States, Sweden, Germany, Canada, Australia,
Denmark, the Netherlands and Ireland. Why is the level of funding
so poor?
Professor Eastwood: You might
also like to address that question to the Department.
Q44 Mr Touhig: I do not mind who
answers.
Professor Eastwood: From our point
of view, over the past five years we have seen a commitment to
maintaining the investment in teaching, enhancing the resources
available—
Q45 Mr Touhig: But you have admitted
that you have cut money for teaching to give to universities to
try to retain students. The Report, Higher education funding—international
comparisons shows that only Italy spends less on further education
than we do. You are cutting teaching budgets. Do you want the
Department to answer that question?
Professor Eastwood: No, with the
widening participation premium we are making an adjustment to
how we calculate the block grant for teaching. The resource going
into teaching in real terms has increased marginally, but it has
increased over the funding period.
Q46 Mr Touhig: But even in real terms,
Professor Eastwood, we are well below all the countries that I
have just mentioned. I think that only Spain and Italy are spending
less than we are, in real terms.
Professor Eastwood: From my point
of view, that demonstrates that we have in England a sector that
is well managed, efficient and able to perform at these kinds
of levels on the basis of the sorts of investments that are currently
made.
Q47 Mr Touhig: Ms Thompson, do you
want to add anything from the Department's point of view, or are
you going to let your colleague take all the flak?
Ruth Thompson: I am very happy
to add something. I think that Professor Eastwood has correctly
identified that the priority has been for the Government to maintain
the funding for teaching in real terms, because previously there
was a considerable erosion of the amount of funding per student.
So the amount of money per student for teaching has been stabilised
in real terms.
Q48 Mr Touhig: I am sorry—I
am misreading the Report, then, because it says at 2.1, on the
funding for retention: "This new element was financed by
a reduction in the rest of the teaching grant." You have
cut money for teaching to fund retention.
Ruth Thompson: I am wondering
if I can improve on the explanation that Professor Eastwood gave,
which is that the teaching block grant comprises an amount that
is set aside—known as the widening participation allocation—that
goes into the institutions as part of their teaching funding.
Q49 Mr Touhig: Yes. You are saying
that in real terms we have increased, but the Report says that
we are actually taking money from teaching and putting it to other
uses.
Professor Eastwood: Perhaps I
could just gloss that.
Q50 Mr Touhig: And you have spent
£800 million on retention in the past five years, for no
improvement, and you have cut the budgets going into teaching.
Professor Eastwood: As Ms Thompson
says, we calculate the block grant for institutions through a
formula. The widening participation premium is a part of that
formula. The resource arrives at an institution as block grant
and it is for autonomous institutions themselves to determine
how that is most appropriately invested. Over the past four years,
as a result of the widening participation premium, we have seen
institutions being able to invest further in student-support-related
activities, learning support and various kinds of assistance,
and in additional support for learners who are experiencing difficulties,
and so forth.
Q51 Mr Touhig: Thank you for that.
I do not think that we are going to take this argument much further,
but we will see how we come through with our Report.
Part-time students account for 45% of entrants
into higher education, but you have no measures in place to retain
them. Have you run out of money for bribes or have you got no
other initiatives?
Professor Eastwood: As I said
earlier, we are committed to ensuring that there is appropriate
support for part-time students.
Q52 Mr Touhig: You have a plan. When
will it be ready?
Professor Eastwood: We pay a premium
to institutions for part-time students and we are proposing, in
a current consultation, to increase further that premium for part-time
students. We recognise that there are particular priorities around
part-time learners. The challenge that we face is whether we can
put in place a benchmark for part-time completion that mirrors
the benchmark for full-time students. As the Report makes clear,
there are some formidable issues there, because of the learning
intentions of part-time students.
Q53 Mr Touhig: But you are working
up some plans for this, according to the Report.
Professor Eastwood: We are indeed
considering this and we are looking at what other countries do,
as well.
Q54 Mr Touhig: I am running out of
time. I appreciate the brevity of your answers. In my view, if
we are to sustain our economic position or even grow it, we have
to invest in engineers, scientists, technicians and language experts.
What do you think we are doing to ensure that maths and science
students stay on their courses, because the retention rates are
about 3% less than the average? That is in figure 34 on page 45.
Professor Eastwood: There is that
issue. The priority over the past four years has been to increase
the number of entrants into the universities in the so-called
stem subjects, including mathematics, and we have made some substantial
progress in the last two years on that front. But we also think
that working with our colleagues in the Department for Children,
Schools and Families on science and mathematics in schools will
mean that, increasingly, students who come into those programmes
will be better prepared for them and will therefore progress still
more satisfactorily.
Q55 Mr Touhig: Have you done any
research to discover why, in maths and science, the retention
rate is about 3% less than the average?
Professor Eastwood: We have not
at this juncture done any specific research on that issue.
Mr Touhig: Well, you have got the idea
from here, and I won't charge you a fee.
Q56 Mr Mitchell: It is hardly surprising,
is it? We have bigger, more impersonal universities and more people
going there. Kingsley Amis said that more means worse. A lot more
pressure is exercised in universities, so there is bound to be
a problem with people leaving before completing their courses,
and it is going to get worse, is it not, as we get 50% going to
University? Do you anticipate that it will get worse?
Professor Eastwood: I do not think
that there is any evidence to suggest that the participation rates
will fall as we make further progress towards the 50% target.
In the past few years, completion rates have held up or improved
marginally as participation has gone up. That is one of the more
remarkable achievements of the sector.
Q57 Mr Mitchell: But generally speaking,
students are getting a worse deal now than in my time. The pressure
is far greater and staff have less time for them, as the Chairman
said. Staff get extra pay and promotions through publication,
not by running a student counselling service or being friendly
to the students. In fact, the students are a waste of time as
far as promotion is concerned.
Professor Eastwood: There was
a time when that was absolutely correct.
Q58 Mr Mitchell: When was that time?
Just a few years ago, or now?
Professor Eastwood: One consequence
of the change in the funding environment and the advent of fees
has been a renewed emphasis in institutions on the importance
of teaching and being seen to esteem and reward it. The situation
is changing and, in a modern learning environment, although the
Chairman was absolutely right to emphasise the importance of the
relationship between students and tutors and lecturers, there
are other important things such as new learning technologies and
so on. In considering whether there is a well founded student
environment, we need to consider a range of student support and
facilities as well as the contact time available to students.
Q59 Mr Mitchell: These figures are
for British students of whatever ethnic origin, are they not?
What is the retention rate among foreign students? After all,
universities could not be kept going without foreign students
paying much higher fees than everybody else. One sometimes gets
the feeling that the necessary qualifications are being lowered
to attract the foreign students who pay those higher fees.
Professor Eastwood: The retention
rate data that we have here are for home students, as you say.
I do not have the completion data for international students to
hand, but my estimate is that they would be comparable. We will
get you an answer on that.[4]
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