Examination of Witnesses (Questions 300
- 319)
MONDAY 30 MARCH 2009
MR GREGORY
ANDREWS, MR
DAVID CHILD,
MS VICTORIA
EDWARDS, MS
MEAGAN PITT,
MR JUN
RENTSCHLER AND
MS SALLY
TYE
Q300 Chairman: Okay. Gregory.
Mr Andrews: My name is Gregory
Andrews, I am in year two architecture. I chose architecture to
do first before I chose my university but I chose Brookes because
it was the only university of the ones which I applied to that
had a 24-hour access pass that you could get, it had a proper
studio environment where the work was done at Brookes as opposed
to the other universities where you came in for your tutorial
or came in for your lecture and then you went home and did your
work where you lived, in your accommodation and so forth. Brookes
has a studio work environment and it puts that first before anything
else. There is also quite a large input, there are 120 students
in first year, 20 in two years and 100 architects so there is
also quite a large year to learn from. It was more the studio
work environment that I chose first.
Q301 Chairman: This is a question
really to those of you who have come to Oxford Brookes straight
from school, which is four or five of you.
Mr Rentschler: I had a gap year.
Q302 Chairman: If I start with you,
Gregory, what sort of careers advice did you get which helped
you make your decision about (a) the course and (b) university?
Be as frank as you can.
Mr Andrews: We used to have a
careers lesson once a week in that they assessed the current subjects
that you were studying for A-level and then pointed you in the
direction of which courses were suitable. We also used certain
internet websites to help us make a choice.
Q303 Chairman: Was it good enough?
Mr Andrews: Yes, I think so.
Q304 Mr Boswell: Can I just ask if
I may, in these answers can you factor in a comment about whether
anyone gave you exposure to the alternative routes, either to
vocational education or straight into work. Was it just seen as
you must go to HE and this is where you could go or was it a balanced
choice?
Mr Andrews: My school definitely
chose HE first.
Q305 Chairman: Did you get any vocational
advice?
Mr Andrews: No.
Q306 Chairman: David.
Mr Child: To answer that question
the school I was at definitely pushed towards higher education
for the majority of students; in the cases where they saw it was
not appropriate or there was a sensible other route they would
push other people that way, but certainly as far as I was concerned
they never really pushed any other options. As far as selection
of the university and the school pushing me towards one or the
other, there was not really any help, if I am frank. They misunderstood
what I was going to university for; they thought I wanted to become
a mechanic and not an engineer, so consequently tried to push
me away from that. What actually made the decision for me was
my father really. He did electronic engineering for his degree
quite a few years ago and he always wanted to do what I am doing,
but at the time was pushed away for exactly the same reasons as
the school tried to push me away from it. I am very glad that
he stepped in and told me this is actually what you want to do.
Q307 Chairman: Sally, what about
you?
Ms Tye: We had an enrichment session
every week where they had lots of different people come in and
talk to us. It was mainly geared towards higher education but
we also had a lot of the Forces because where I live is quite
a Force-based area—the Army, the Air Force and things would
come in. If you were a student of a certain grade band you were
very much pushed to go into higher education. My younger sister
is just going through it at the moment; she does not want to go
to university, she wants to get a job, but because of her grades
the school has actually been very difficult and her form tutor
has not been very good with her at all about trying to get her
into other things. In terms of doing more vocational subjects,
if you have a certain grade area you are not really encouraged—not
at my school anyway—to go and do vocational things or even
things at college, it is all university, university.
Q308 Chairman: Meagan, can I just
say on this last round you had obviously made the decision to
do law, you fancied a career in law and you applied to Oxford
Brookes and had a place at Oxford Brookes.
Ms Pitt: Yes.
Q309 Chairman: Was it laid out to
you who would be teaching you, how many contact hours you would
have, what would be the nature of the programme, and has it lived
up to expectations, or did you not even bother about that?
Ms Pitt: They had a broad overview
in terms of what they would be teaching us and what the outcome
of that would be, so skills and in terms of the knowledge that
you would gain, but in terms of the amount of hours you would
be studying or who would be lecturing you, I was not aware of
any of that.
Q310 Chairman: Was it important to
any of you who you would actually be having as a tutor, as a lecturer,
who would be guiding you, how many hours you would have? Did anybody
say that was important?
Ms Tye: I actually chose history
at Brookes because of the research rating, the department is very
highly rated for research and I have actually seen the benefit
of that throughout my degree.
Ms Edwards: Getting a clear idea
of the hours involved and when lectures would be was incredibly
important to me because of child care, and even more so in my
second year as my mother who was doing most of my child care passed
away in the summer, so it has become more difficult for me. I
do not know whether partly it is because the tutor team for midwifery
is very small at five main tutors who are in a lot of contact
with us, they are easily contactable all the time, they do their
best to address any queries and are as flexible as they can be
with us. All of that was very important to me and I felt that
Brookes did all they could to give me the information I needed.
Q311 Mr Boswell: Did the others get
that sort of exposure at any stage? When you got here was there
a statement of what you would be expected to do and when you would
be expected to be here?
Ms Pitt: Yes.
Ms Tye: Yes.
Q312 Mr Boswell: And that was reasonable.
If you had any particular need, one might have had a religious
need or something else, would they try and accommodate that as
well?
Ms Tye: Yes, I would say so.
Q313 Chairman: I want to move on
now and bring in my colleague Ian Stewart about the quality of
teaching. We have been running an e-consultation during this particular
inquiry and this is what one post read: "At the university
I am attending the courses are pitched at a level that ensures
the least intelligent in the class is able to pass. We are frequently
`taught the exam in tutorials. Assignments and practicals are
poorly conceived. Feed back is rare. I believe this is a product
of the department having to meet pass rate targets in order to
secure funding." Does that ring a bell?
Ms Pitt: Not at all.
Ms Tye: No.
Q314 Chairman: If not, Jun, what
is the quality of your teaching here? Nobody is listening so you
are all right.
Mr Rentschler: I am in two different
fields because I am doing business and economics. I am very happy
with my teachers and my lecturers in the economics field but in
business it is more that I do not like business that much.
Q315 Chairman: You are not engaged
as a student.
Mr Rentschler: I am engaged but
I just prefer economics, so I am majoring in economics, I am taking
the majority of my modules in economics and I like my economics
teachers. Business is not really mine and I do not like the teachers
that well either.
Q316 Chairman: How would you describe
good teaching?
Mr Rentschler: You can really
tell a good teacher when he actually knows what he is talking
about and has all the background information but still can bring
it together and just give you a framework of what to study at
home, just give the important framework, the basic main points
of what the subject is about and then you can go home and you
know what to do, you know which gaps to fill. Obviously you cannot
cover everything in a lecture.
Q317 Chairman: Does it matter that
they are world-class researchers?
Mr Rentschler: It does not matter
to me at all. We have quite a lot of international teachers in
the economics field which is quite interesting because some of
them teach economics in their home country—economics in
Asian-Pacific countries for example—which is very good,
but then again we have some problems with language, some of the
lecturers are quite hard to understand, especially for me, because
I am not that familiar with English.
Q318 Ian Stewart: Your English is
better than mine.
Mr Rentschler: Talking and understanding
it is different.
Q319 Ian Stewart: Absolutely. Universities
are taking a lot of trouble to train lecturers but are there areas
where you would like to see developments in lecturers' training,
perhaps to meet needs that are not met for you?
Mr Andrews: I see particularly
in architecture that there are a lot of two tutors to one student;
every Monday and every Thursday it is one tutor to one student,
so you have one-on-one tutorials and although they only last 15
minutes as far as design work is concerned you learn more in that
than you would at any other time. My tutors also contact me on
Facebook and by email on a regular basis too.
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