Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60
- 66)
WEDNESDAY 28 JANUARY 2009
PROFESSOR RICK
TRAINOR, PROFESSOR
MALCOLM GRANT,
PROFESSOR LES
EBDON CBE AND
PROFESSOR GEOFFREY
CROSSICK
Q60 Dr Gibson: Could you tell the
difference between a 68 per cent and a 70 per cent, given that
you never give anybody 100 per cent that I know of? You might
in mathematics or something where there is no other answer. I
think that I once awarded somebody 100 per cent and I always suspected
that he had read the proceedings of the National Academy the week
before and had got the answer! Mostly you know, you are taught,
or it just happens and you do not go above 75 per cent. Is that
true?
Professor Trainor: External examiners
and individual universities are always trying to encourage people
to use the full range of—
Q61 Dr Gibson: Let us talk about
external examiners. They come in on a Sunday; they go away on
the Tuesday or Wednesday, whatever, and in some universities they
may last longer. They do not read every paper for a start; some
of them conduct interviews with students and invariably the classification
from the paper mark goes up after they have met the student. They
say, "Actually I think they are first-class". "Would
you like to do a PhD with me?" I have heard said occasionally.
All these things go on in that kind of environment. Do you recognise
that?
Professor Trainor: I do not really.
There may be an occasional abuse, I do not know. In my time of
teaching in universities I never knew of a case of an individual
student meeting an external examiner before the result was finalised.
However, my point would be that it is not just external examiners;
there is a huge amount of double-marking that goes on and then
the usual practice is for borderline candidates to go to external
examiners; and I think it is entirely appropriate. We also have
to keep in mind that, for the last 20 years or so, external examiners
have been used by universities to look at the overall programmes,
to comment on changes to the curriculum as well as to monitor
the overall rates of attainment.
Q62 Dr Gibson: You do not think that
the external examiner system is an old boy/old girl network? I
have been an external examiner. "I'll do yours if you do
mine"—and you got 50 quid for it in my day.
Professor Trainor: You are very
poorly paid. It is a labour of love. People do it to uphold the
standards of the system. The external examiner is a very powerful
figure in UK higher education. I think that we do a discredit
to the country's higher education system if we ignore that.
Q63 Dr Gibson: Why do we not have
a register of externals and a price?
Professor Trainor: We have a system
of training external examiners, which is attaining the same objective
by a different route.
Chairman: It would have been wonderful
just to hear that there was some slight flaw in the higher education
system this morning. It is quite remarkable. I want to try to
leave the last word to my colleague Ian Stewart on one area that
you might feel is flawed.
Q64 Ian Stewart: Before I ask the
questions, Chairman, I have to declare an interest, in that I
am registered currently at Manchester University as a part-time
PhD student, self-funded. The reason that we want to ask these
questions is to see whether there is a different approach, or
any difference in approach, between the old and the new universities
towards funding for part-time students. Can you please put yourself
in the position of students in answering these questions as best
you can, rather than as a university? How would you justify the
different amounts of institutional bursary that the same student
with the same needs can receive from different universities? Are
you concerned that students in those universities that can only
provide the smallest bursaries will suffer academically because
they have to take more paid employment? Would a national bursary
scheme, for example, be the right answer if we are interested
in increased affordability and better outcomes for poorer students?
Professor Ebdon: The answer is
yes, we should have a national bursary system. It is completely
preposterous that students get a size of bursary not depending
on their need but depending on which university they go to. It
is as logical as getting a different-sized pension depending on
which post office you go to.
Professor Grant: Can I disagree
completely, for two reasons? One, there is a national bursary
scheme. If you are going to have a national bursary scheme you
should run it nationally. What I disagree entirely with was the
report from HEPI, which I think was very disappointing in its
analysis and in its conclusions, which suggested that the way
of rectifying the inequality of bursaries was to remove money
from those institutions who were paying higher bursaries and to
transfer it to those institutions who were paying lower bursaries.
In other words, I would need to explain to students coming to
UCL that part of their fee being paid to UCL would be paid to
support education at UCL and part would be paid to support education
elsewhere. Have a national bursary scheme—yes. Do not have
a cross-transfer which runs completely contrary to the whole point
of introducing variable tuition fees.
Professor Crossick: I agree entirely
with Professor Grant's position on this. I do think that we would
be confusing the two. The Government decided not to cover the
costs of this through taxation; they decided to do it through
fees associated with bursaries. A national bursary scheme could
be created. It would be something that came out of taxation and
we would be perfectly happy to consider that. One point about
the further weakness of a national bursary scheme, just to develop
what Professor Grant said, is that it would actually confuse the
funding contract. Students come to a university, pay their fees
to an institution, and for those fees then to be given to another
institution would undermine the relationship. I think that relationship
would be particularly undermined in the eyes of parents of 18
and 19-year-olds coming to university, who would ask what on earth
is happening.
Q65 Ian Stewart: Professor Trainor,
could you also pass comment about whether you think that part-time
students get a raw deal? What sort of improvements could be made
to assist them, and should the review of fees cover part-time
students as well as full-time students?
Professor Trainor: The position
of Universities UK is that we should be seriously considering
more generous funding for part-time students. If the pot remains
the same, of course, that is an acute difficulty because, as you
know, we have a large number of full-time students in the system
and I do not think that anybody is suggesting—certainly
not your line of questioning—that they are oversupplied
with funds. However, there is a good case to look more sympathetically
at funding for part-time students. As for the issue of national
bursaries, on the very few issues on which members of Universities
UK disagree I do not pretend to put forward a position that assumes
that that is not the case. However, it is important to remember—and
this is implied in part by Professor Crossick's statement—that
we ended up with a system of bursaries because of a desire to
get badly-needed additional money into the university system.
The bursaries were a way to try to keep the fees, which were to
lead to the additional money, from impeding fair access. I think
that the underlying difficulty, of getting adequate money for
learning and teaching into a system where the recurrent funding
and the infrastructure funding is much smaller than in our major
competitors, is something that we should be looking at alongside
the issue that you raise, Mr Stewart, about the fairness of the
bursary system.
Dr Harris: Is it fair to point out to
Professor Grant that it is transferring money from where there
are few poor students to universities where there are more poor
students? It is not generous versus ungenerous; it is the numbers,
and that is what the HEPI report shows.
Q66 Chairman: It is an issue which
we will clearly return to. I am sorry that it has been a very
tight session this morning. The purpose of it was to try to raise
those issues which we need to spend more time on. The trouble
is that every one of them comes into that category by the end
of the session. Can I thank you all very much indeed for your
evidence this morning?
Professor Grant: Chairman, you
have set yourself a very broad frame of reference for this inquiry.
We all stand ready to assist you with further information if we
can, and we look forward to a rigorous report.
Professor Trainor: And without
a hint of complacency, Chairman, because we want to improve the
system constantly.
Chairman: Thank you very much.
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