7 CONCLUSION
Views of students
298. This inquiry has been about student engagement
and the student experience of university. Detailed below are some
of the answers given when we asked students what for them makes
for a good, or bad, university experience.
- I […] have had a very
positive experience within university because of the excellent
teaching and support that I have received.[553]
- For me the main one would have to be the high
standard of teaching, which is good value for the tuition fees
we are paying for our course. There's nothing more frustrating
when you go to a lecture and you have a lecturer just reading
Powerpoint slides, especially when they are available at other
sources like on the internet and the virtual learning environments
we have as well.[554]
- What I consider to be a good university experience
is a place where you can go to learn, where you feel supported
by the staff within it. So it doesn't matter if you've got all
the modern facilities and all the best teachers.[555]
- If I were to use one phrase to encapsulate which
makes or breaks a student experience it would be getting involved.
The endless opportunities available at university are wasted if
students are not properly encouraged to embrace them and push
themselves.[556]
- What I think makes a good university experience
is a clear and defined career path. Myself personally, I've been
working for many years. I come from a single parent background
and it's a career change, so my reason for going to university
is because I just want a whole new changing career.[557]
- What contributes to a successful university experience
is an institution which actively seeks values and acts on student
feedback.[558]
- For me the students' union were the good guys
at the university. They kept me going. They showed me the extra-curricula
activities I could do. I didn't enjoy my course in the first year.
I really wanted to leave, but it was the extra-curricula activities.[559]
- Where parents can afford to meet the cost of
living students gain better degrees; where parents can't afford
it, their children's job prospects are damaged. When debts are
so high and repayment takes so long many poorer students may decide
to avoid university due to its cost, especially at the moment.
University is too expensive and there are not enough grants offered
to poorer students.[560]
- Within the current job market it is important
that universities do prepare their students for jobs as not only
are students now competing for jobs but many experienced people
are losing their jobs, meaning that graduates are up against those
who have a lot more experience.[561]
The higher education sector
299. When we were in the USA we asked an academic
with extensive experience of European and American higher education
for his views on the British system of higher education and how
it compared with the system in the USA. He said that the best
of the British was better than the best of the American but added
that the British system was hampered by an "inherited elitism",
an interesting assertion. While we now have a mass higher education
system in England, much of the ethos and operation of the sector
has been influenced by the research intensive universities in
the 1994 and Russell Groups. Is this sustainable in the face of
a government objective to have 40% of all adults in England gaining
a university qualification by 2020?
300. One clear example of the weight of history lying
heavily on the sector is the boundary of institutional autonomy
and a reluctance in parts of the sector to develop greater openness
on terms other than those which they have determined. We found
one example where autonomy and lack of transparency appeared to
have led to a serious deficiency— statistically flawed methods
of assessments used for degree classifications. We conclude
that one of the challenges the higher education sector faces over
the next decade is to develop greater openness and transparency
in relation to, for example, academic standards, external examiners
and the safeguarding of the student experience.
HIGHER EDUCATION COMPACT
301. We consider that an essential first step towards
greater transparency is to define the roles and responsibilities
of the higher education sector—academics, managers and students—and
of the government with regard to higher education. We concluded
in chapter 5 that all would benefit if their roles and responsibilities
were set out in a concordat. It could, for example, define the
nature of both individual academic freedom and institutional academic
autonomy, the principles applying to the consideration of applications
for admissions and, more specifically, that only assessments meeting
acceptable statistical practice will be applied to the marking
of students' work (see paragraph 257 and following).
STUDENT COMPACTS
302. We envisage that as part of the concordat there
should be a general agreement that each higher education institution
would produce, in consultation with its students, a student compact.
Such compacts could cover the following:
- for prospective undergraduate
students an indication, by faculty or department, of the number
and duration of lectures, seminars and tutorials with an indication
of (a) the likely size of groups attending lectures, seminar groups
and tutorials—for example, based on the previous year's
experience, or the average in the department—and (b) the
amount of teaching that will be carried out by named academic
staff and by graduate students;
- information regarding academic staff who will
be available in a given year to guide students outside formal
lectures and seminars;
- a commitment to return work assignments to students
within a certain period and provide detailed feedback; and
- in return each higher education institution should
be able to set out what is expected of students, how many assignments
they will be expected to submit, and how much time they will be
expected to devote to private study.
CODES OF PRACTICE ON ADMISSIONS
AND ACCESS INFORMATION
303. It also appears to us that institutional autonomy
can get in the way of cross-sector arrangements that are clearly
to the advantage of students and prospective students. First,
the operation of, and principles underpinning, admissions arrangements
need to be fully explained by all higher education institutions
to enable applicants to know how and against what criteria they
will be assessed. We call for a code of practice on admissions
to higher education. Second, we see clear advantages for students
if higher education institutions present information in a consistent
format such as that which we suggest for inclusion in the student
compacts. So we also call for a code of practice on information
for prospective students.
EVIDENCE FOR THE FORMULATION OF
POLICY
304. We found a paradox in this inquiry. The higher
education sector in England carries out, and has a reputation
for, world-class research (and often world class teaching) but
there was a dearth of research, especially applied research, into
key areas that should inform policy formulation on higher education
policy itself in England—for example, on the influences
stimulating the growth in numbers of degrees classified as firsts
or upper seconds, the relationship between teaching and research
or the variation in students' hours of study between institutions.
As we note in the body of the Report, there appears to be little
appetite for such research, which we find disappointing. We
are concerned that the higher education sector's lack of interest
in research into parts of its own operation might be seen as a
symptom of complacency and a reluctance to test and challenge
assumptions, some of which in an increasingly global market for
higher education may be outmoded. We see a role for Government
here to identify, commission and publicise research on the operation
of the higher education sector in England.
Standards
305. We were especially struck by the lack of clarity—and
sometimes we even detected an element of irritation—when
we asked Vice-Chancellors whether a degree from a research intensive
university in the 1994 or Russell Groups was the same as one from
a university established after 1992. Their responses were in marked
contrast to those we received in the USA. The American Council
on Education said there was no doubt that degrees varied between
universities and between departments within a university and added
that there was no question that the prestige of the Ivy League
and top universities was greatest. Whether it likes the question
or not, the higher education sector in this country is going to
have to explain whether first class honours degrees from different
universities are equivalent. It is unacceptable for the sector
to be in receipt of departmental spending of £15 billion
but be unable to answer a straightforward question about the relative
standards of the degrees of the students, which the taxpayer has
paid for.
QUALITY AND STANDARDS AGENCY
306. In reviewing the evidence in our inquiry, we
found that the arrangements for safeguarding standards need to
be brought up-to-date. The arrangements that served us well during
the 19th and 20th centuries are now in danger
of failing under the weight of a higher education sector in England
with 133 diverse institutions and where the total number of higher
education students has increased in England by from 1.5 million
in 1996-97 to 1.9 million in 2007-08.[562]
Without the glue of common, clearly understood and consistently
applied standards there is a risk that the sector could fragment
further. If it does and if it follows the pattern of the USA,
what is likely to happen is that the sector fragments and a hierarchy
emerges—described to us by an American academic—as
based on: the price an institute can charge in fees; the institution's
position in league tables; a selectivity of students that may
not be as sensitive to fair access and widening participation
as the current arrangements; and value for money. We have no problem
with a hierarchy of universities but what we do care about is
that any such hierarchy should be based on excellence of teaching,
scholarship and research, not exclusively on money.
307. We are clear that the sector needs to address
the question of standards now. We have called for a new quality
and standards agency, answerable jointly to higher education institutions
and the Government, and reporting annually to Parliament. We envisage
that such a body, expanding significantly from the work that the
Quality Assurance Agency has done, will build and rejuvenate the
limbs of the existing system that until relatively recently was
working well—in particular, the system of external examiners—and
to provide the best way to safeguard the integrity of standards
in English higher education institutions.
308. It will also naturally be part of such a
development that the relationship between this new agency and
the Higher Education Academy be reviewed, including clarification
of the key responsibility for quality enhancement in regard to
the student experience. Although we had reservations about the
operation of the Academy, it could and, we believe, should have
a key role in promoting and enhancing academic standards.
309. The key to the successful transformation
of higher education in England in the next decade will be to move
away from a culture fixated on the most prestigious research-intensive
universities and the results of the Research Assessment Exercise
(and its replacement) to one where other models of study and university
can thrive and excellence is recognised and rewarded for teaching
supported by scholarship.
553 Q 184 (Ms Donaghy) Back
554
Q 187 (Mr Chotai) Back
555
Q 225 (Ms Davidson) Back
556
Q 186 (Ms Hopkins) Back
557
Q 231 (Mr Harris) Back
558
Q 228 (Mr Pollard) Back
559
Q 229 (Mr Topazio) Back
560
Q 185 (Mr Williamson) Back
561
Q 184 (Ms Donaghy) Back
562
See table at para 3. Back
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