Memorandum 79
Submission from Universities UK
"STUDENTS AND
UNIVERSITIES"
1. Universities UK is delighted to contribute
to the Select Committee enquiry into "Students and Universities".
As the major representative body for the higher education sector,
Universities UK has 133 members who are the executive heads of
the universities in the UK. Universities UK works closely with
policy makers and key stakeholders to advance the interests of
universities and higher education.
SUMMARY
2. This submission indicates the considerable
work universities are undertaking in three key areas affecting
students: admissions; ensuring quality and standards; and student
support. It also acknowledges the challenges in these areas and
offers solutions. It recognises the impact on students as well
as institutions of the recent economic downturn and argues that
universities are ideally placed to support the Government's efforts
to ensure a speedy recovery, providing they are adequately supported.
ADMISSIONS
3. Universities are actively engaged in
reviewing, modernising and professionalising the applications
and admissions process, and developing good practice guidance.
They are keen to ensure that admissions policies and procedures
are professionally administered, transparent, fair, accountable
and offer a good service to the applicant. In this, universities
work with bodies such as Universities UK, the Universities and
Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS), the Supporting Professionalism
in Admissions Programme (SPA), the Delivery Partnership and the
Quality Assurance Agency (QAA).[335]
4. The admissions landscape has changed significantly
as a result of the strong growth in student numbers in higher
education over the last decade (from 1.8 million to 2.4 million
between 1997 and 2007), the rapid internationalisation of UK universities
(with 14.9% of students now from overseas, compared to 11.3% in
1997), and through developments in new technologies which can
enhance the admissions process. In 2008, 99.9% of applications
through UCAS were electronic.
5. The higher level of qualifications held
by applicants and the accelerating pace of change of qualifications
and curriculum reform across the UK is also significant. In England,
the development of the Advanced Diplomas will mean that from 2010
some applicants will offer new or revised qualifications and bring
new skill sets and experience of different learning styles. To
ensure that admissions processes reflect these reforms, universities
are looking in more depth at the relevance to students of their
entry requirements and course Entry Profiles. Universities have
actively engaged with the development of Diplomas to ensure that
they meet universities' requirements and are fit for progression
to higher education. Over 250 institutions now have supporting
statements on Diplomas on the UCAS website.
6. To keep the admissions process fit for
purpose institutions use a range of admissions and selection approaches.
These reflect both the diversity in institutional missions and
the diversity of applicants from different countries and backgrounds
who will demonstrate their potential to succeed in a range of
ways. Universities use a variety of measures to assess an applicant's
merit, achievement and potential. This is key to addressing issues
of fairness and widening participation, such as the need to identify
the potential of applicants whose ability might not be reflected
in their grades, encourage applicants from under-represented groups,
and differentiate between apparently equally qualified applicants
for courses with competitive entry requirements.
7. For the majority of HE courses, little
or no selection is required. Students applying with the required
entry requirements secure an offer of a place. For the small proportion
of courses which are highly selective, universities may seek to
expand the range of information available to help them identify
students with the greatest potential and ability. This is achieved
through a holistic assessment of the applicant through interviews,
portfolios and auditions, taking into account school performance
and other relevant factors in the applicant's background, and
the use of admissions tests. However, admissions tests only form
part of the process as they provide only one piece of information
about an applicant. They apply to only 0.7% of the 49,000 courses
in the UCAS scheme for 2009 entry. Transparency in the use of
these tests is important and the SPA programme has circulated
a briefing for universities (December 2008) on the good practice
issues associated with the introduction, or continued use, of
a test. A similar briefing has gone to schools and colleges. This
briefing provides information on the financial support available
for applicants from widening access backgrounds.
8. There is a legitimate public interest
in securing confidence in admissions. Universities have supported
the introduction of the Widening Participation Strategic Assessments.
Universities' admissions policies and procedures are open and
transparent and are available on many institutions' websites.
This will help to ensure that applicants are well informed and
minimise misconceptions about admissions policies and processes.
We also welcome the role DCSF and DIUS are taking in improving
information, advice and guidance for young people , which is critical
to raising aspirations and attainment.
WIDENING PARTICIPATION
9. It is now widely recognised that the
principal barrier to widening participation in higher education
is prior attainment. Research shows that there is no evidence
of bias in admissions procedures against students from socio-economically
disadvantaged backgrounds or from particular schools and colleges
(Schwartz Report, Section C1, page 8). Rather, evidence provided
by the National Audit Office Report on Widening Participation
in Higher Education, shows that prior attainment is the root
cause in explaining the under-representation in higher education
by certain groups. (NAO Report HC616, 2007, p 7).
10. Universities' commitment to widening participation
is not in doubt. As Universities UK's submission to the National
Council for Educational Excellence (NCEE) demonstrates, all universities
work to widen participation, using a wide variety of means, including
extensive efforts to support attainment in schools and colleges
through mentoring, classroom support, curriculum materials, providing
access to specialist facilities, and supporting teachers through
programmes of continuing professional development and opportunities
to work alongside subject specialists in universities. Many universities
are involved in partnering schools, including through sponsorship
of academies and trusts. These initiatives to raise attainment
in schools complement long-standing work to raise aspirations
and encourage applications to higher education through, for example,
summer schools, compact arrangements and student ambassadors.
Increasingly, universities approach widening participation as
a long-term activity, many starting with primary school pupils.
Achieving change may take several years and requires strong partnership
with schools and colleges to raise levels of attainment.
11. Government initiative funding has undoubtedly
brought benefits particularly in supporting universities to widen
participation through initiatives such as Aimhigher, Aimhigher
Associates, the widening participation allocation, and financial
support for students. The funding provided by DIUS for higher
education sector-led initiatives such as SPA and the Delivery
Partnership is also valued. However, the total funding of £364
million for universities to support widening participation activities
for widening participation (including access, retention, and for
students with disabilities) is insufficient. The additional costs
to institutions of such targeted initiatives are 31% above the
cost to institutions of recruiting and retaining traditional students.
However, it remains a pressing challenge to ensure the right balance
is struck by freeing universities to set their own agendas through
block grant funding and providing the right policy incentives
to help the sector develop.
12. Widening participation forms a key part
of Government policy but it still appears that in public debate
the focus is on the issue of fair access, ie the percentage of
pupils from lower socio-economic groups who enter institutions
with a large number of selective courses. We would urge Government
to focus on the wider context. Research by the Sutton Trust for
the NCEE shows that each year 360,000 16-year-olds do not achieve
the standards to stay on to do A-levels, and of these around 60,000
were in the top 20% at some point whilst in school.
13. It is also important to note that, although
higher education policy continues to focus to a large extent on
the full-time 18-year-old undergraduate, universities have considerably
diversified the range of students they attract and support. Between
1997 and 2007 the number of students in higher education grew
from 1.8 million to 2.4 million. In the same period the number
of part-time students grew from 618,000 to 911,000, and the number
of students aged over 21 from 1.2 million to 1.6 million. Despite
this, completion and post-graduation employment rates for UK students
remain well above the average for other countries in the OECD.
In Universities UK's recent submission to the DIUS HE Debate,
we have urged the Government to do more to recognise the range
of ages and modes of study which characterise UK higher education,
and to give consideration to moving towards a mode-blind system
of fee and financial support. A copy of our submission to the
DIUS HE Review debate is enclosed.
THE BALANCE
BETWEEN TEACHING
AND RESEARCH
University-based research
14. Universities UK welcomes the substantial
additional investment, both recurrent and capital, that has been
provided for research over the last 10 years. The Government's
ongoing commitment to research and innovation is a good news story.
However, as we stated in our submission to the 2007 Spending Review,
there remains a continuing need for funding in support of high
quality teaching, including infrastructure, and at the very least
maintenance of the unit of public funding.
15. In the UK funding for research is selective
in the way it is allocated, based on the criteria of excellence,
and highly concentrated. It is critically important that we continue
to support high quality research wherever it is found, so that
we can remain internationally competitive. However, research funding
is currently concentrated to an extent where if it goes any further
we could risk endangering the system as a whole. Any further concentration
could, for example, lead to a significant loss of high quality
provision, reduce the capability to develop future capacity and
substantially limit the flexibility needed to respond to new demands.
Moreover, success in the RAE is only one part of the picture:
other centres of excellence exist beyond those for research, and
a suite of appropriate measures that can recognise and reward
excellence in all its forms are therefore required. In relation
to the Committee's concerns for this enquiry, further concentration
of funding could also jeopardise the vital link between research
and teaching in universities.
16. Universities UK also recognises the importance
of the relationship between teaching and research. This issue
was explored in depth by a Research Forum, set up following the
2003 White Paper, chaired by Sir Graeme Davies. We would suggest
the Committee revisit this report as part of their inquiry, as
many of the issues raised are still relevant.
QUALITY AND
STANDARDS
17. The UK's international reputation for
high quality teaching is of key strategic importance. Universities
themselves have the responsibility for maintaining the standards
of their awards and the quality of the learning opportunities
which support students to achieve against those standards, and
they work hard, both collectively and individually, to fulfil
those responsibilities. The processes by which they do this are
described in detail in Universities UK's recently published document
Quality and standards in UK universities: A guide to how the
system works. A copy of this publication is enclosed.
Quality assurance
18. All UK universities have systems in place
to ensure that new courses meet the right standards, and that
courses are regularly reviewed, by looking at evidence from students,
graduates, employers and external examiners. The QAA conducts
regular visits to universities to scrutinise how they do this.
QAA reports are publicly available and include judgements about
the confidence that can be placed in universities' management
of quality and standards. All universities subscribe to a set
of common tools called the "Academic Infrastructure".
This includes: Frameworks for higher education qualifications,
describing standards represented by each qualification; Subject
Benchmark Statements, setting out how those standards apply
in particular subject areas; and the Code of Practice for the
Assurance of Quality and Standards in Higher Education, which
gives detailed guidance on the management of quality under ten
sections, covering everything from external examining and assessment
practice to careers education and guidance.
19. While universities have the primary responsibility
for the quality of the education they offer, Government and taxpayers
clearly have a legitimate interest in how public funding for teaching
in higher education is used. HEFCE has a statutory responsibility
to "secure that provision is made for assessing the quality
of education" it funds. Since 1997, it has fulfilled that
responsibility by contracting with the QAA to carry out assessments
on its behalf. Universities UK believes that the involvement of
an independent, expert agency to advise on quality and standards
is a significant strength of the UK system, which is one of the
most comprehensive and sophisticated in the world. Indeed, the
UK quality assurance system has provided the model for the development
of quality assurance arrangements in many other countries, including,
for example, Australia.
Standards
20. There is no national curriculum in UK
higher education and universities have developed a range of subjects
and learning approaches to reflect the expertise of their academic
staff and the priorities of students and employers. Degrees are
different and more diverse with far more choices available to
students and employers than in the past, but all courses are subject
to the same processes to ensure a minimum "threshold standard"
is maintained.
21. Degree standards have been developed by universities
and described by the QAA so that, while the content of courses
may differ, the level of understanding required in each case across
different universities will be broadly equivalent. Each level
of award is defined in one of the two Frameworks for Higher
Education Qualifications.
22. The frameworks for qualifications
are underpinned by Subject Benchmark Statements which describe
what gives a discipline its coherence and identity. The statements
also define what can be expected of a graduate in terms of the
abilities and skills needed to develop understanding or competence
in the subject. Benchmark Statements for some subjects, such as
Chemistry, include core content. Others, such as History, allow
for a more varied curriculum. Where appropriate, benchmark statements
combine or refer to professional standards required by external
professional or regulatory bodies in the discipline.
23. All universities assess students against
the intended "learning outcomes" of a programme of study
(what students know, understand and can do) and the way they do
this is also underpinned by the QAA Code of Practice. This ensures
that universities have mechanisms in place to ensure that student
performance is properly judged against appropriate standards.
Assessment mechanisms and regulations will vary, by necessity,
between disciplines. However, many of the QAA's Institutional
Audit reports record efforts made by universities to improve the
consistency of assessment arrangements, while identifying this
as an area where further work is needed.
24. Universities in the UK have a long history
of cross-checking the quality and standards of their own provision
with that of other institutions through a system of external examiners.
The involvement of external examiners is recognised internationally
as a key mechanism for ensuring comparability across the UK higher
education system.
25. One of the principal barriers institutions
face in adapting to meet the changing needs of students and maintaining
the quality of the student experience is the huge cost of modernising
the teaching infrastructure, including providing learning spaces
that accommodate advances in learning technology and parallel
changes in pedagogical approach. While research infrastructure
has received a relatively large injection of public capital investment
over recent years, the teaching infrastructure has lagged behind.
This is particularly acute in the post-92 universities which have
poor quality inherited infrastructure, and where the pressures
on resources are compounded by the fact that many institutions
in this part of the sector have pioneered new forms of pedagogy
and flexible modes of delivery in order to support the education
of a more diverse student body. In 2007, Universities UK's Spending
Review submission calculated that the investment backlog amounts
to about £5 billion.
THE DEGREE
CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM
26. It is important to distinguish between
"standards" themselves and "how student performance
against standards is described". There is no compelling evidence
of declining standards in higher education. Indeed, the relatively
recent efforts to define the standards expected at each qualification
level, and to describe how they apply in different subject areas,
constitute a step forward in terms of both safeguarding standards
over time and ensuring some minimum level of comparability.
27. The proportion of first and upper—second
class degrees has increased, but only by 6% over the past 14 years.
This could be explained by a number of factors. Assessment practices
have changed (as they have in schools) towards more coursework
and continuous assessment, which may lead to students performing
better. The shift towards the use of "learning outcomes"
to define what students are intended to achieve has been accompanied
by a shift in marking away from "norm referencing"—ie
comparing one student with another— to "criterion referencing"
which measures students performance against the intended learning
outcomes. In theory, under this approach, all students
could achieve the highest grades, rather than a set proportion
of the cohort. Universities have also been working hard to improve
the quality of teaching and support. At the same time, there is
a widespread perception amongst students that they need "the
essential 2:1" to be even considered by employers. That has
undoubtedly driven students to work hard towards reaching that
threshold.
28. Any system which attempts to summarise
the achievement of students on a wide variety of programmes in
a large number of institutions to a single, common, summative
judgement will be a blunt instrument. We agree with the finding
of the Burgess Group (led by the Vice Chancellor of the University
of Leicester, Professor Bob Burgess), established by Universities
UK and GuildHE in 2004, that the current undergraduate degree
classification system does not adequately represent the achievement
of students in a modern, diverse higher education system. However,
as the Burgess Group found, it is easier to identify the problems
with the current system than it to reach consensus on what should
replace it.
29. Our quality assurance system is not
static. It evolves in the light of experience. Annex A of Quality
and standards in UK universities describes its evolution over
the last two decades. More recently, Universities UK, GuildHE
and HEFCE have worked together to improve the quality assurance
system through the Quality Assurance Framework Review Group,
which looked at different aspects of the system and made recommendations
about how they could be improved.
30. The QAA also supports improvements in
HEIs by collecting together the information gathered through Institutional
Audit and publishing papers in a series called Outcomes from
Institutional Audit, drawing attention to common lessons which
can be learned from their experience of reviewing quality management
in HEIs across the sector. Universities UK and GuildHE are working
with the QAA to improve the usefulness of this aspect of the QAA's
work by creating a forum in which key findings can be discussed
with the heads of institutions, in addition to the range of other
ways in which the QAA already communicates with the sector and
its representative bodies.
31. This focus on working continuously to
improve academic quality includes work to support excellence in
teaching. The Higher Education Academy (of which Universities
UK is one of the "owners") works to support professionalism
in teaching in a range of ways and has made a separate submission
to this inquiry.
STUDENT SUPPORT
AND ENGAGEMENT
32. Universities UK is working in partnership
with the National Union of Students on student engagement issues.
Central to this is the establishment of the Cross-Sector Student
Engagement Forum which includes representation from UUK, Guild
HE, NUS, DIUS, HEFCE, the National Postgraduate Committee, the
Office of the Independent Adjudicator (OIA), the QAA and the Higher
Education Academy. A project commissioned by HEFCE is mapping
student engagement in institutions. The outcomes of the project
will be launched at a conference in February 2009. We expect the
project to highlight existing good practice in institutions and
to act as a catalyst for future practical support for the development
of student engagement across the HE sector.
33. A recent OECD report[336]
states that the UK charges amongst the highest student tuition
fees (averaging USD 1,860) amongst the EU-19 countries, but these
are "far below the highest tuition fees charged among the
OECD countries, such as in Australia (USD 3,855), Japan (USD 3,920),
South Korea (USD 3,883) and the United States (USD 5,027)".
The OECD considers the UK to have well-developed student support
measures including a public loans system to national students.
The report states that in such systems, there are fewer financial
barriers for entry to higher education, and concludes that given
the shared public and private returns that higher education brings,
costs and responsibilities for its provision should be shared
between those who directly benefit, and society at large.
34. Although admission rates to UK HEIs
increased by 10% to 57% between 2000-2006, the rate was only slightly
higher than the OECD average of 56%, and was well below that for
Australia (82%). UK growth in enrolments over 1995-2005 has levelled
off at 33%, well below the OECD average of 40%.
35. A Universities UK report to be published
in early 2009 will explore the financial impact on universities,
students and Government of a possible increase in the tuition
fee cap. The report assesses the impact on these stakeholders
across a limited range of future scenarios for variable fees,
funding and student support that might be adopted in England following
the Government's independent review of fees in 2009.
36. Investment in high-level Information,
Communication and Technology (ICT) is a key component of a world-class
educational student experience. A lack of sufficient investment
in technologically-based learning could make existing universities
less attractive to home students and significantly limit universities'
ability to engage with the borderless market as part of their
proactive flexible response to demographic change. Maintenance
and development of a high-quality estate, particularly teaching
infrastructure as well as student accommodation, is essential
to the quality of the student experience.
37. HEFCE considers that the HE sector needs
a 3-5% surplus to invest in its future, and to continue to offer
students a world-class educational experience. New income, most
significantly from home and international student fees and recurrent
and capital investment in research, has reversed the sustained
erosion of university funding in the previous decade, but increasing
cost pressures, including pensions and other staff costs, mean
that overall the sector is in deficit by around 7.8% of reported
expenditure, or £1.4 billion. The sector also has to cope
with the rising domestic and international expectations of students
as consumers of teaching, research and other university services.
The UK invests 1.3% of its GDP in higher education, compared to
2.9% in the US and below the EU's 2% goal. Thus rising international
standards in higher education increasingly challenge UK universities.
38. Despite the current global economic
downturn, only by sustaining or increasing public investment in
higher education as a key wealth creator can the long-term economic
strength and competitiveness of the UK be assured.
January 2009
335 The Universities and Colleges Admissions Service
(UCAS) supports institutions through the provision of continuing
professional development and training for those involved in admissions
decision-making, both academic and administrators.
The Supporting Professionalism in Admissions Programme (SPA) leads
on the development of fair admissions. It provides an evidence
base and guidelines for good practice and helps higher education
institutions maintain and enhance excellence and professionalism
in admissions, student recruitment and widening participation.
The Delivery Partnership is a sector -led project to improve the
higher education applications process to increase the transparency,
effectiveness and efficiency of the current system for both the
applicant and institutions. This includes improvements to the
system such as the information available for applicants as well
as providing the opportunity for those applicants who have achieved
better results than required for their firm offer to apply for
a new course, if they wish, which best suits their needs and circumstances.
The Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) has developed, and recently
revised, a detailed code of practice for the admissions process.
It sets out what institutions are expected to do to ensure their
admissions procedures are fair, transparent, readily accessible
to all those involved in the admissions process and properly implemented.
The QAA, is also revising the code of practice on Careers Education,
pre-entry Information and Advice and Guidance. Back
336
OECD Briefing Note for the UK, (Education at a Glance 2008), www.oecd.org.edu/eag/2008 Back
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