Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20
- 39)
MONDAY 23 MARCH 2009
PROFESSOR GERALD
PILLAY, PROFESSOR
MICHAEL BROWN
AND PROFESSOR
JON SAUNDERS
Q20 Chairman: Even if they were coming
back to you?
Professor Saunders: They would
not be asked to. We have systems to prevent examiners from being
in that club, they cannot come back within a period of time, they
cannot be associated, so there is a degree of holding people at
a distance. Of course in a professional area you will know the
people and you will know the people who have the ability to determine
quality, but I do not think people pull any punches if they find
things that they do not like.
Q21 Graham Stringer: Is there not
a disincentive for punching in as much as if you as an external
examiner find a paper which is either above or below standard,
not the standard you expect—
Professor Saunders: You mean in
the form of the questions or in the assessment of the answers
by the external examiner?
Q22 Graham Stringer: I was meaning
the students' standards in the form of the answers, but it is
an interesting point you make about the questions as well. In
terms of levels being awarded, is there not a disincentive in
as much as if you think one paper is at the wrong standard you
have to then go through all the papers, and external examiners
are not well paid, are they?
Professor Saunders: I do not think
any external examiner does it for the money. I think it is done
as an obligation to the profession and to the sector. Most external
examiners that I know, including myself, one would read a range
of papers in all classes, either sampling or reading the whole
cohort. The monetary return to an external examiner is not a factor,
in my experience.
Q23 Graham Stringer: But the work
might be. Correct me if I have got this wrong, you are normally
looking at borderline firsts/2:1s, but if you find the central
standard of the 2:1s is not what you would expect it to be, and
a person should be getting a first or a 2:2, you would then have
to read through the whole papers if you thought the standards
were incorrect, and that must be a disincentive surely?
Professor Saunders: Usually one
would read more than just the borderline papers. One would read
a range of papers in all the classes that have been determined
internally to see whether they agree with your perception of the
standards and all the evidence that is available. If one felt
there was any systematic failure to align and calibrate correctly,
one would raise that at the time. My experience is that usually
what happens is that it is down to individual interpretations
of a small number of questions over a small number of students
where there is ambiguity about what the mark should be. Sometimes
because the internal markers have disagreed, you act as an arbiter
between those markers.
Q24 Graham Stringer: Just as a final
point, it has also been brought to our attention—and I ask
you this because you are a member of the Russell Group—that
Russell Group universities only use Russell Group external examiners.
Is that correct and is that fair?
Professor Saunders: I would not
like to generalise about the Russell Group. There may be some
universities that do that, but it is not true of my own institution.
Examiners are whoever the most appropriate person is. I happen
to know Russell Group university members of staff who act as external
examiners in all sorts of universities across the country. There
is no systematic thing in my own institution. I cannot speak for
the Russell Group in general and if that has been said, I am not
sure of the evidence.
Professor Pillay: I think Mr Stringer's
questions are absolutely pointed and therefore we need to ask
constantly how robust the external examining systems are. That
there will be lapses and there will be not the same rigour everywhere
is quite possible. The problem is what is the alternative? If
we take away this traditional convention that still governs the
best university systems in the world, what is the alternative
if we do not have an external examining system? If we have a national
exam in each discipline like the GCSEs and A levels it will be
a travesty of the academic freedom of institutions.
Q25 Chairman: Could I turn this round
because I think this is important. What all three of you have
said is that the integrity of our current higher education system
really depends on the internal processes of having academics working
to the very highest standards, demanding the highest possible
standards from their students, and then reporting those areas
where students do not meet up or people within their departments
do not meet up to the relevant standards. Yet the information
that we have had to our inquiry indicates that in some universities
academics who do challenge standards are disciplined, sometimes
they are removed, and certainly they are scapegoated. Is that
an acceptable situation?
Professor Pillay: I cannot imagine
in what conditions that would happen, Chairman, but I do know
that at this university all of those reports go into an annual
monitoring report, and that annual monitoring report goes to the
meeting of all the heads and deans. It then goes to the Senate.
we ask for that level of rigour, that would be encouraged in a
place like ours, and I am sure at the other two universities as
well.
Q26 Chairman: Professor Saunders,
can I speak to you specifically, has that occurred where academics
have challenged things?
Professor Saunders: Academics
by their nature challenge everything. I know of no case where
an academic has been disciplined for challenging anything of that
nature. It is part of academic life that people discuss these
matters.
Q27 Chairman: It is inconceivable
that an academic who said, "We are marking too leniently,
we are passing too many students at 2:1s," or those borderline
cases, would be told to be quiet?
Professor Saunders: They would
not be told to be quiet. If they were saying that in the face
of evidence then—
Q28 Chairman: Obviously.
Professor Saunders: —that
would be wrong. The place where those things are discussed would
be the examination boards for the subjects. If people have objections
that is where they should be raising them. Normally examination
boards are composed of all the people who teach that subject,
so if they have been involved in the process they should be able
to say that there, and not do it privately, they should be doing
it through the proper channels.
Chairman: Gordon?
Q29 Mr Marsden: Thank you, Chairman.
Can I repeat your thanks to Liverpool Hope for hosting us today.
In the memoranda that we have received to the inquiry there has
been a continuing theme of a clear connection between good teaching
and good research, and perhaps I could start with you, Professor
Saunders, and ask if you can give us any evidence of this connection?
Professor Saunders: A central
theme of teaching in a research-intensive university, as it is
in many other universities, is that research informs the teaching.
Research facilities are an integral part of the teaching in terms
of the library and all the other assets that are used for research
and teaching. Where that becomes embedded is particularly in the
third and final year of programmes where students do projects,
normally in the STEM subjects, at least as part of the research
teams, so they are undergoing an apprenticeship in the research
activities, in real research labs, not those put on especially
for them, so they can experience that. That is a prime example
of where the research element impinges on the student experience.
In order to get to that level, of course they have to go through
acquiring the knowledge appropriate to the discipline and the
skill-set they need before they can engage at the higher level
research.
Q30 Mr Marsden: Some of those people
who are rather critical of the balance that is struck in universities
such as your own between research and teaching might say that
from the point of view of the student experience the downside
of that—and I accept that you took a particular example—is
that students do not, as it were, get the full benefit of the
research-intensive lecturer until their third year. Would that
be a fair criticism or not?
Professor Saunders: No, it would
not. Not all staff can teach every single cohort of students in
their first or second year but normally those jobs are distributed
around the staff. It is quite common for a very intensively research-active
professor to be lecturing to first-year students. That is how
they get exposed to that area of science or whatever it is.
Q31 Mr Marsden: So you do not have
anybody on the staff at Liverpool University who has been hired
as a research professor purely for their research capabilities
who does no teaching, as has been alleged at some other universities?
Professor Saunders: We expect
all our staff to participate in the teaching activity. It may
well be that individuals have lead fellowships which prevent them
from doing their teaching duties, as it were, and that is covered
for. We do not appoint people on the basis that they do not have
an obligation to teach. We might well appoint people as teachers
who do not have an obligation to do research, but that is different.
Q32 Mr Marsden: So this so-called
"transfer fee" culture that has been alleged in some
universities does not exist in yours?
Professor Saunders: Throughout
the entire sector people are trying to recruit the best staff
they can acquire, both as researchers and teachers. Those things
come at a price in many disciplines and that is what universities
have to decide when they are recruiting people. It is no more
a transfer fee culture than in any other activity of life.
Q33 Mr Marsden: Professor Brown,
if I can move on to you because at Liverpool John Moores you obviously
come from a post-1992 university perspective as a former polytechnic,
but you have actually embraced the research culture quite strongly
in terms of the RAE output and all the rest of it. Do you feel
that the emphasis and resources which the RAE process has given
to research means that the attention given to teaching has suffered?
Professor Brown: No, I do not.
It is perfectly true that we were a polytechnic until 1992. That
did not mean however that we did not do research and enjoy funding
in research. "We were created equal to, but different from,
universities", so, frankly, I bridle at this arbitary division
between before 1992 and after. Why do we not talk about 1947 when
three-quarters of the universities in this country did not exist?
Q34 Mr Marsden: With respect, before
you include us in the bridling, perhaps I should just say that
the reason that I chose that particular example is because many
policy-makers—and I am not going to name names—have
argued that there should be a strong division between research-intensive
universities and teaching-intensive universities (and I accept
the point that you are making) and have rather crudely characterised
that as pre-`92 and post-`92. The reason I asked you the question
was that you seem at John Moores, if I can put it provocatively,
to be having your cake and eating it, in the sense that you have
a reputation for being strong on teaching but you are coming up
fast on the sidelines on research. Would that be a fair assessment?
Professor Brown: Let me answer
the question in a slightly different way. I take the view and
my board takes the view that a university worthy of its salt does
three things: it does teaching; it does research and scholarship;
and it does knowledge transfer, transferring knowledge for the
benefit of humankind, in whatever way that is, and all of our
staff are encouraged to do all three. We do not think that modern
teaching is going to be as effective as it should be unless the
staff member in that subject area is doing research and scholarship
to some degree, otherwise the students could get it from books
or from the web. What our teachers are about is "inspiring"—it
is an old-fashioned word—getting the students to go beyond
where they could get to by themselves. To do that they have to
have subject mastery and they have to understand what they are
doing and they have to love it. Part of that is therefore to have
everybody in the university doing research or scholarship at some
level. We cannot fund it everywhere at world leadership level,
although we do research at world leadership level. Part of the
university's reputation—and universities live or die on
their reputation—is having large pockets of world-class
research which people recognise and give a stamp to. From that
we then get contract work in research, from industry and commerce.
For every pound the Funding Council gives us to underpin our research
we bring another £8 through the door, so the gearing is very
good, because we have that reputation in the first place. Our
portfolio of activities works together in having all three: research,
teaching and knowledge transfer.
Mr Marsden: I think the Chairman wants
to come in on that point.
Q35 Chairman: I just wanted to make
you bridle a little further, and that is I failed to give you
the opportunity in my last round of questioning to ask in this
pursuit of excellence whether academics at John Moores University
are discouraged from complaining if in fact they see standards
slipping within the university?
Professor Brown: Absolutely not.
There are mechanisms for them to go through the university to
bring in their grievances if they wish to raise them. They do
and, as John says, the very nature of academics is they will make
their points.
Q36 Chairman: So you are quite convinced
that in terms of this drive to improve the standing of John Moores
University you do not trample on the academics who raise major
questions about the integrity of what product you are offering?
Professor Brown: Absolutely not.
The ethos in the university is to be open and questioning.
Q37 Mr Marsden: Professor Pillay,
if I can come on to you again, continuing this theme of the balance
between research, scholarship and teaching. At Liverpool Hope—and
I am drawing now on the interview that you gave to the Guardian
just over a year ago—you made a great thing about the fact
that Hope has very strong links with Merseyside schools and that
potential undergraduates are spotted early and supported for up
to two years before they come to Hope. Those are things which
all of us who have been looking at this area think are vital in
terms of trying to widen and deepen participation. The fact of
the matter is that you do not actually get Brownie points in the
funding system for doing that very much at the moment, do you?
If you are a young academic in your 30s or 40s, for example, and
if you want to go out and teach in schools or to do social inclusion
work or community work, or any of the things that we now emphasise
very strongly that universities should do, there are actually
very few rewards in the system, certainly in the system that is
handing out funding from government, that encourage you to do
that? Is that not true?
Professor Pillay: Yes, I think
you are right, Mr Marsden, that is perfectly true, we are not
rewarded for that. We do that not because of the reward but because
of the mission of this university, which in the 19th century was
established for women when Oxford and Cambridge did not accept
women, and these early commitments to widening participation.
There were only six universities in 1844 when our first college
was started and in the genetic blueprint of this institution there
is a commitment to social justice. That is why we still exist
as the only ecumenical foundation in Europe. What drives all of
that is its mission and its values, which have now survived some
160-odd years. What we have also done, which follows from your
previous question, is we have widened participation without necessarily
increasing participation. There is a confusion in the country
about the two. We have raised the entry points. We have started
projects using our outreach network primarily to find those people
with prospects who are excluded because of socio-economic disadvantage
and get them into the system. That is our mission. We have also
raised the entry points and we have developed a research profile
as well.
Q38 Mr Marsden: That is your position
and I accept that. In terms of what the broader system does, would
you and your two colleagues agree with the fact that there is
not much in the system that encourages people to do that? Professor
Saunders, if I am a bright, young academic at Liverpool University
in my late 30s and I want to go out and do stuff in Toxteth and
all the rest of it, am I getting any benefit from the university
or from the system for that?
Professor Saunders: You would
not get any from the system but you would from the university.
It would be seen as part of your contribution to the university
when you came up for promotion. Without boring you with the details
of our scoring system, research and teaching are weighted equally
and then there is "other", which includes administration
and outreach of that kind. It would include that and I think we
need to develop that, but there is provision for it, and somebody
who is outstanding at it should be rewarded, I agree.
Q39 Mr Marsden: Can I come on finally
to talk about the issue of the RAE and whether it promotes too
much of a competitive culture across universities. At the moment
there is a controversy in and around your university—I will
put it no stronger—about the potential closure of various
department. It is being said that that is directly related to
the outcome of the RAE inquiry that has just taken place. Is that
the case or not?
Professor Saunders: Firstly may
I say that there is no proposal to make closures of anything.
I will say that the RAE has provoked self-analysis of our performance
with respect to the rest of the sector. By their nature, universities
are competitive, academics are competitive, and they wish to be
involved in excellence. We have examined our research activity
against the standards of excellence which we would like to move
to in the next assessment period. As part of that analysis we
have had a review document before our Senate and Council. That
document was modified in response to the comments of Senate and
has gone forward now. It does not—
| 
