Memorandum 97
Submission from the University and College
Union (UCU)
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Admissions
UCU welcomes any curriculum development that
boosts entry to HE. However, it is too early to evaluate whether
a new qualifications strategy embedded in Diplomas will become
a viable curriculum and learning strategy. In particular, we are
concerned about the lack of practitioner involvement in the development
of Diplomas.
UCU supports the government's objective of widening
participation in HE, but we are concerned at the slow rate of
progress. Continued investment is needed in widening participation
activities in HE—as well as initiatives in schools and FE
colleges—and in supporting "non-traditional" students
once they are at a university or college of HE.
Further education colleges have a key role to play
in meeting the government's HE participation targets. However,
FE colleges will require additional resources to ensure that the
student experience is comparable to that in purely HE institutions.
The balance between teaching and research
While large funding increases have gone into the
research and science base, the unit of resource for teaching has
remained static. Consequently, UCU members have to deal with much
larger class sizes, have less time to spend with students and
are increasingly employed on short-term, casual contracts.
Serious public investment in the HE teaching base
is required. In particular, we favour:
— Increasing the proportion of UK public
expenditure on higher education to the OECD average, of 1.1% of
GDP;
— Transforming the career structure for
fixed term staff, including the conversion of hourly paid teaching
posts on to fractional contracts;
— Improved recognition of good teaching
in the HE promotions and rewards system.
Degree classification
We welcome the debate on alternatives to the
current degree classification system, though we recognise the
difficulties in developing a consensus on this issue.
We acknowledge that significant concerns exist
about the changing nature of academic standards in higher education.
Issues of student preparedness are one of the key concerns cited
by UCU members.
UCU receives occasional reports from members
about pressure to admit or to pass students against their academic
judgement. UCU believes that stronger procedures are needed to
protect academic whistleblowers. A strengthened external examiner
system should also form part of the protection of academic standards
in higher education.
Student support and engagement
UCU—as the voice of practitioners in both
further and higher education—welcomes various attempts to
involve students as active participants in the learning process.
However, we are concerned that there has been
a systematic attempt to downgrade the role of HE professionals
in the formulation of policy. UCU believes that staff should have
a clear, active voice in the governance of higher education institutions.
We would welcome a proper inquiry into the role
of "for-profit" providers in higher education, including
the growth of specialist English language providers.
We believe that the costs of offering financial
support to poorer students should be shared by the sector as a
whole, via the introduction of a national bursary scheme.
We also believe that something will need to
be done about making access to post-graduate degree education
available to those who are financially disadvantaged.
We urge the government to invest in higher education
as part of a wider strategy to deal with the severe economic downturn.
INTRODUCTION
1. The University and College Union (UCU)
represents 117,000 further and higher education lecturers, managers,
researchers and many academic-related staff such as librarians,
administrators and computing professionals across the UK. We welcome
the opportunity to respond to the select committee inquiry into
students and universities. Given the broad-ranging nature of the
inquiry it has not been possible to respond to all the questions.
Instead, we have decided to focus on what our members perceive
to be the key issues: namely, fees and funding, academic standards
and the balance between teaching and research.
2. Our response will also focus on a number
of cross-cutting themes: the importance of practitioner voice,
the need for a cross-sectoral approach, and the centrality of
public investment in our higher education system. On the latter,
we believe that expanding higher education funding and increasing
participation, rather than restricting the growth in funded places
and student support, ought to be an important policy lever in
coping with the current economic downturn.
Admissions
The effectiveness of the process for admission
to HEIs, including A Levels, Advanced Diplomas, apprenticeships
and university entrance tests.
3. UCU strongly supported and actively contributed
to the Tomlinson Review of 14-19 curriculum, assessment and reform,
a comprehensive architecture for learning from which the Diplomas
were unfortunately extracted. So whilst UCU welcomes any curriculum
development that boosts entry to HE it is too early to evaluate
whether a new qualifications strategy embedded in Diplomas for
the assessment of learning, which must compete with A Levels,
will become a viable curriculum and learning strategy used by
a wide range of learners.
4. UCU also strongly supported the Tomlinson
proposal to use existing qualifications as "building blocks"
over a ten year piloting period, effectively utilising the expertise
of 14-19 practitioners in refining them into an overarching Diploma
strategy.
Unfortunately, 14-19 and HE practitioner voice
has not been brought into this process and, if at all, too little
and too late. We suspect that Diplomas, like most of their predecessors
(eg "Curriculum 2000", GNVQs), will need to be re-evaluated
and re-configured to better meet and match the needs of learners,
HEIs and employers.
5. We would also urge the Committee not
to overlook the tried, trusted and valued route for otherwise
insufficiently qualified adults to enter HE, the Access to HE
courses successfully developed by HEI and FEC partnerships over
the last thirty years.
The UK's ability to meet government targets
for Higher Education participation and the relevance of these
targets
6. We believe it is more important that
providers of HE have sufficient resources to meet adequately the
demands of additional student numbers—especially being able
to retain students drawn into the sector through widening participation
activities—than to meet particular targets.
7. Nevertheless, the UK's ability to meet
government targets for higher education participation will depend
partly on the role played by further education colleges. In fact,
we are disappointed that the current inquiry refers only to universities.
Further education colleges (FECs) are a key source of recruits
into higher education as well as an important component of HE
provision, with more than 10% of those studying for HE qualifications
doing so in FECs.
8. We support the further development of
HE in FECs, including the delivery of sub-degree programmes and
filling in the geographic gaps on HE coverage. However, colleges
will require additional resources to ensure that the student experience
is comparable to that in purely HE institutions. It requires proper
resourcing of the college infrastructure, (library facilities
and ICT provision), improved opportunities for FE staff to undertake
scholarly and research activity in their subject area, alongside
the expansion of student activities (for example, the development
of clubs or societies, and the inclusion of student representatives
on governing bodies).
The implementation and success of widening participation
initiatives such as Compact agreements, and the impact of the
current funding regime on these objectives and the role of the
Government in developing and promoting fair access and admissions
policies for the UK Higher Education sector
9. We strongly support the government's
policy of widening participation in higher education. Since 1997,
public spending in England on supporting widening participation
through Access Funds to help students in financial hardship, and
through recurrent allocations by HEFCE to HE institutions, has
grown from £22 million to £410 million in 2006-07—a
total spend of more than £2 billion over the period. But
despite prioritising this in recent years, there has to date been
little impact on admission to higher education in terms of social
class.
10. The main reason for this is that widening
participation depends closely for success on long-term improvement
in pupil achievement in schools, particularly in the early years,
but also within further education. We urge the government over
the next decade to effect a deep-rooted improvement in educational
attainment, to enable higher education institutions become places
which more closely reflect the make-up of the UK population. To
this end we welcome the funding being put into the Aimhigher programme,
and urge that in relation to improving aspiration, attainment
and applications to HE, the government continues to promote partnership
working between HEIs, FECs, schools, employers, parents and community
groups, rather than a model of inter-institutional competition
(epitomised by the Academies programme).
11. However, we also recognise that HE providers
themselves have a key role to play in outreach and curriculum
change, mode of provision and effective student support, in order
to facilitate student retention and success. To this end it is
vital that institutions are not disadvantaged in terms of funding
or prestige by taking a high share of less academically well-prepared
students or by offering flexible and part-time provision. Whilst
we welcome the increase in the widening participation premium
paid to institutions, and initial changes in support for part-time
students, the premium is still too low, and the funding model
still penalises students (and their institutions) who do not progress
according to a rigid and increasingly outdated model of a full-time,
three-year degree. Above all, such institutions and their students
must not be disadvantaged by a funding regime that relies more
and more heavily on rising fees and rising levels of student debt.
The balance between teaching and research
Levels of funding for, and the balance between,
teaching and research in UK HEIs, and the adequacy of financial
support for the development of innovative teaching methods and
teaching/research integration and the availability and adequacy
of training in teaching methods for UK academics and the importance
of teaching excellence for the academic career path, including
consideration of the role of teaching fellows
12. One of the big challenges facing the
higher education sector is providing sufficient individual tuition
for those students who need it. Meeting this challenge requires
sustained public investment in our teaching base. The decade of
under-investment in the 1980s and 1990s, although partially reversed
under recent Labour governments, continues to affect staff and
students in higher education. While large funding increases have
gone into the research and science base, the unit of resource
for teaching has remained static. Consequently, our members have
to deal with much larger class sizes, have less time to spend
with students and are increasingly employed on short-term, casual
contracts.
13. UCU believes that we need serious public
investment in higher education to reduce current student:staff
ratios. The recent JNCHES review of HE finance and pay reports
that "Although most HEIs are financially stable in the short-term,
the levels of surplus and investment of HEIs are too low confidently
to assure a sustainable future. HEIs are facing new financial
challenges and risks which threaten their ability to innovate
and advance as fast as some overseas competitors."[345]
Because of this, we believe that the proportion of UK public expenditure
on higher education should be increased to the OECD average, of
1.1% of GDP.
14. We also need to transform the career
structure for fixed-term staff and believe that the conversion
of hourly paid teaching posts on to fractional contracts offers
the only way forward in this area.
15. A related problem is the dominance of
research as the driver of the HE system, which manifests itself
in terms of funding levers, institutional prestige and staff reward
structures. Although there has been some progress in recent years,
it remains the case that if you want to progress in academia,
excelling in research is the best way to do this. The greatest
single incentive for encouraging excellence in teaching and learning,
therefore, is the recognition of good teaching in the promotions
and rewards system. Forms of reward should include a mix of salary
and non-salary elements, but with a focus on salary-enhancement,
promotion opportunities and scholarship funding. Such a strategy
would form an element of overall reward strategies, rather than
separating out teaching from the broader academic role (for example,
as often occurs with the establishment of "teaching only"
posts). We also need to see greater transparency in promotion
procedures and genuine parity of esteem between research and teaching.
UCU has been working at a local level, through the new pay and
grading structures, to help deliver this but more needs to be
done at departmental, institutional and national levels.
16. The lack of funding in the sector, as
well as the dominance of research as the route to career progression,
help to explain the failure of accredited, in-house teaching courses
to transform the status of teaching in higher education. We would
also argue that the generic nature of these courses has sometimes
alienated course participants. Moreover, there are workload issues
resulting from these accredited courses, in particular the huge
demands placed on young academics to complete a postgraduate teaching
certificate, whilst juggling a significant administrative, teaching
and research load.
Degree classification
17. We welcome the recent debates on the
future of the UK's system of degree classification, including
the planned piloting of the Higher Education Achievement Report
(HEAR). Our members have raised concerns about perceived "grade
inflation", though they believe that it is caused mainly
by pressures on examiners from above (managers and funders) as
well as from students. Changing the metric, therefore, is unlikely
to have an impact on "grade inflation".
18. There is a case for ensuring that the
new HEAR includes all relevant information, including records
of non-formal learning. However, a missing element in the current
debate is the impact on staff of more intensive student assessment.
Effective evaluation of student performance requires a degree
of attention to individual student needs, which is desirable but
difficult to achieve in an under-funded and rapidly expanding
mass higher education sector.
19. As a trade union and a professional
association, we receive regular reports from members about the
changing nature of academic standards in higher education. Some
of the negative trends are well known. An increasing proportion
of students are combining a detrimental level of paid work with
their study. Student:staff ratios are too high, and staff cannot
always select the most effective teaching methods as a result.
20. Another major concern for UCU members
is students' preparedness for higher education study, especially
in science subjects. The national curriculum and in particular
SATS have accentuated the curricula and assessment gap between
schools and universities. For example, one of the detrimental
effects of the testing regime in schools is that students tend
to see the goals of education in terms of passing tests rather
than developing an understanding about what they are learning,
and that they judge themselves and others by their test results.
As a result, academics are increasingly challenged with preparing
students for undergraduate and postgraduate degree level. This
so-called "remedial work" has placed a huge additional
burden in terms of workload and expectations, a burden which has
gone unrecognised and is a significant factor in the increasing
unhappiness and decreasing job satisfaction.
21. We also receive occasional reports from
members about pressure to admit or to pass students, or to approve
new programmes, against their academic judgement. The recent case
of Dr Paul Buckland at the University of Bournemouth was one of
the few cases to reach the wider public domain. In general, institutions
are also under pressure in the HE marketplace not to disclose
concerns about their own standards. Whistleblowing procedures
and the academic freedom protections in the 1988 Education Reform
Act have proved to be inadequate in protecting academic whistleblowers.
22. A strengthened external examiner system,
as recommended by the Dearing Committee, also remains one of the
best safeguards of academic standards in higher education. We
would be the first to admit that the system has suffered in recent
years from lack of resources and from increasing and competing
demands on staff time. It is difficult now to persuade staff with
the appropriate experience and academic standing to devote time
to external examining; apart from anything else, the rewards for
doing so (both professional and financial) are unattractive. There
will be financial costs involved in strengthening the system,
but they will not be on the scale of those consumed by previous
quality assurance regimes such as Teaching Quality Assessment
(TQA).
Student support and engagement
23. We welcome attempts to involve students
more as active participants in the learning process. For example,
the development of student course reps, the involvement of students
in quality enhancement processes and the presence of student reps
on university governing bodies are positive initiatives in the
sector. One of the advantages of this approach is to challenge
the notion of students as passive consumers of education, which
has been fostered by the current fees regime.
24. While we welcome student participation
in the learning process, we are concerned that there has been
a systematic attempt to marginalise the role of higher educational
professionals in the formulation of policy. For example, at the
institutional level, large numbers of universities have reduced
or abolished staff presence on governing bodies. Academic Boards
and Senates are also increasingly sidelined in the decision-making
process and denuded of any rank and file participation. UCU believes
that staff should also have a clear, active voice in the governance
of higher education institutions. Collegial decision-making should
encompass decisions regarding curricula, research, administration,
outreach and community work, the allocation of resources and other
related activities.
25. Given the small number of private universities
in the UK, it is too early to compare the experience of students
with public institutions. However, we are concerned about the
expansion of "for profit" providers in UK higher education
and the potential for the profit motive to undermine academic
standards. We would welcome a proper inquiry into the role of
"for-profit" providers in higher education, including
the growth of specialist English language providers such as Kaplan
and INTO.
The adequacy of UK higher education (HE) funding
and student support packages, and implications for current and
future levels of student debt
26. UCU welcomes a recent report by the
National Union of Students (NUS), Broke and Broken: A Critique
of the Higher Education Funding System. It highlights the unfairness
and lack of sustainability in the current HE funding system. In
particular, the report shows that the system ensures that the
richest institutions financially benefit most from poor performance
in widening participation—and vice versa. Significant amounts
of institutional bursary help arising out of the new system are
also being allocated on criteria that are not related to financial
need. We believe that the costs of offering financial support
to poorer students should be shared by the sector as a whole,
via the introduction of a national bursary scheme.
27. We also believe that something will
need to be done about making access to post-first degree education
available to those who are financially disadvantaged. The present
system just shifts the middle-class advantage from degree level
to postgraduate level. Unless there are significant changes we
will be looking at a more socially exclusive staffing demographic
in higher education (for example, mirroring trends in other professions
such as journalism).
Any further action required by the Government
and/or HEFCE to ensure that UK HEIs offer students a world class
educational experience
28. The government has rightly recognised
the role of universities and colleges in helping businesses and
employees deal with the current recession. However, a new counter-recessionary
policy requires additional funding. If the financial crisis means
the government is prepared to re-write the rule-book in terms
of banking, borrowing and fiscal policy, the looming rise in unemployment
means it should revisit its current reliance on market mechanisms
in higher education. For example, we urge DIUS to reverse the
£100 million withdrawal of funding from ELQ students who
may need the training to make themselves employable.
29. More widely, the global economic downturn
is likely to have a detrimental impact on private investment in
higher education. Current policies—based on increased student
contribution towards their tuition (particularly from non-EU students),
employer co-funded places and greater alumni giving—look
increasingly threadbare. We, therefore, urge the government to
invest in higher education as part of a wider strategy to deal
with the severe economic downturn.
March 2009
345 Joint Negotiating Committee for Higher Education
Staff (JNCHES) Review of HE Finance and Pay Data Report,
December 2008. Back
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