Examination of Witnesses (Questions 400
- 419)
WEDNESDAY 6 MAY 2009
PROFESSOR MICHAEL
ARTHUR, PROFESSOR
MICHAEL DRISCOLL
AND PROFESSOR
ROGER BROWN
Q400 Dr Harris: Yes.
Professor Driscoll: It is there;
it gives people something to think about. Because they are not
achieving the benchmark I do not think it means that they are
not trying. The colleagues I speak to at Oxford and Cambridge
are doing somersaults, metaphorically speaking, to try to encourage
applications from a broader spectrum and to achieve their benchmarks.
If we did not have the benchmark then we cannot make progress.
I guess that the essence of any system that is trying to progress
is to set as clear a target as possible and then to ask people
to produce the strategies that will achieve that. The strategies
we use at the moment may be failing and we may need to rethink
how we can get closer to those as targets.
Q401 Dr Harris: I just want to deal
with one of those strategies. Professor Arthur, you explained
that at Leeds you offer a discount on A Level scores for certain
cases from a poor educational background, you might say. What
is the discount?
Professor Arthur: It is two grades
on A Levels; so if the course is requesting three As then we would
offer an A and two Bs. The student has to pass a 10 credit level
zero module during a weekend at the University before the offer
is made.
Dr Harris: So you have a relatively simple
but transparent system where schools know—it is generally
the schools—that if they qualify they know the broad categories
you have explained. Do all the other universities in the Russell
Group do the same thing?
Professor Arthur: I could not
speak for the entire Russell Group. I am aware that we are partnering
with 10 other institutions up and down the land, many of which
are in the Russell Group that have a similar programme and we
are arranging to swap students, as it were. So if a student does
well in our 10 credit module and we make an offer and that student
does not wish to come to Leeds and wishes to go to another university
they can transfer that credit across.
Q402 Dr Harris: It is the discount
I am talking about.
Professor Arthur: The discount
would be the same or similar across the university institutions.
Q403 Dr Harris: Let us say that you
are doing the right thing, by saying in advance so that people
know; otherwise it is relatively pointless because you want to
try to attract applicants knowing that they will have a fairer
hearing by a few points, as it were. If you are doing the right
thing—and let us say you are—should not every university
that is particularly failing to get those students in, obviously,
or according to their benchmark, do the same as you? In other
words, if the university does not do that or does it on an ad
hoc basis for a student after application, is it not by extension
that they are not doing the best thing or the right thing? You
cannot both be right.
Professor Arthur: I think other
universities can do other different and equally fair and just
systems. There are systems in other universities that will transparently
offer points and discount A Levels; so they may use a different
system to get there but they have schemes that do that.
Q404 Dr Harris: If your university
offers a discount of two points for people from poor socioeconomic
backgrounds—and let us say we assume that that is fair—then
if the same student applies to another selective university that
does not offer that discount, even though they may do other things,
and essentially they are going to have to get three As then that
cannot be fair on that measure at least. So should there not be
a degree of uniformity, both in terms of saying in advance and
doing the same thing and then evaluating it obviously?
Professor Arthur: It would be
nice to see the scheme extend, of course. We have the advantage
that we have interacted with the student and we have the security
of having taken them through one of our own modules and we have
seen the results; so we have evaluated their potential in a way
that we are confident about the course. Whether other universities
will be confident about our activities is up to them.
Q405 Dr Harris: You are doing the
right thing by your terms, but other universities are not doing
that. Professor Driscoll.
Professor Driscoll: I think the
issue that Dr Harris is pressing here is one that has been given
a very high profile within Parliament and outside, but I have
to say that it is very much a second or third order of importance
to the unfairness of people who do not get a place in any university.
At this very moment we are faced with record applications and
over the next three years, if there is no lifting in the numbers
cap, 15,000 students, mostly—
Q406 Dr Harris: That is a different
question—
Professor Driscoll: It is a very
important point that students who could get a place in university
will not get a place—
Q407 Dr Harris: Professor Driscoll,
I actually agree with you.
Professor Driscoll: That is a
scandal. And getting more working class kids into Russell Group
universities is really absolutely irrelevant.
Q408 Dr Harris: That is not the question
I asked and this is not a soap box for you; I actually happen
to agree with you and I agreed with you when you made the point
at the HEPI[2]
breakfast. But I have to get through some questions and so this
is not an opportunity—
Chairman: Let us go to the next question.
Q409 Dr Harris: The next question
was about success rates. Would you be happy with the situation,
Professor Arthur, in your universities where the success rate
of students from state schools who were suitably qualified, who
applied—because I know part of the problem is application
and I know the biggest problem is achievement, but once you get
over those hurdles would you be happy if the success rate was
lower for state school applicants, or comprehensive school applicants
than it was for independent school applicants after they have
applied and on the same predictive scores?
Professor Arthur: Personally I
would not be happy. I would like to see an evenness between the
application rate and the offer rate and the admissions rate of
students with the same level of qualifications from different
parts of the sector. That would be my preference.
Q410 Dr Harris: Is there data among
the Russell Group for the success rates for students who finally
get to apply but whether they are then successful in getting in?
Professor Arthur: I am not aware
of any systematic collection of data.
Professor Brown: On this point,
Chairman, a few years ago HEFCE did a study and they found that
once pupils got to university, if anything some pupils from some
state schools did better than some pupils from independent schools.
That was quite a well written up study and I am sure the reference
could be supplied. That was across the sector as a whole.
Q411 Mr Boswell: Can we whip through
on to what might be called marketisation of standards and ask
Professor Brown first. You comment in your memorandum on how little
the impact of developments such as the expansion of student numbers
on quality has been seriously studied and evaluated. First of
all, confirm that that is the case. I cannot see any evidence
that the Academy, QAA, UUK or HEFCE has done this work. It is
not that many years ago since we were all talking about "more
means worse". Why is this area so neglected?
Professor Brown: I think there
are a number of reasons. I will be very brief. First of all, to
be quite crude about it, it is not really in anyone's interests
to do so; it is not in the interests of individual Vice Chancellors
because they are in competition with one another for students
and income. It is not in the interests of the representative bodies
because we all know the importance of overseas students in particular
to the balance sheet of British higher education and the reputation;
and it is not in the interests of government departments for various
and all sorts of reasons. So first of all I think that without
a genuinely independent voice that looks at these matters there
is not a great market for it. Secondly, I think there is a specific
reason. The former Higher Education Quality Council, of which
I was Chief Executive, had both an accountability arm and an enhancement
arm and we therefore did conduct inquiries into these matters
in our Graduate Standards Programme, as you will recall, because
you were the Minister at the time, I seem to recall, and actually
was the foundation of a quality infrastructure which has now been
adopted here, within Europe and even in America. But when HEQC
came to an end the QAA picked up the accountability baton but
no one, in my view, satisfactorily picked up the enhancement baton
or put the two things together. Basically, until you have an independent
agency which can report independently on the impact of funding
and other matters on policy then that work will not be done. You
need one agency which is responsible for the public funding of
the sector and another which is responsible for reporting to Parliament
on the use that is made of that funding and we do not have that
at the moment.
Q412 Mr Boswell: That would be funding
both at the institutional level, it would seem, and at the sectoral
level and collectively across the sector?
Professor Brown: Yes that would
operate essentially at the sectoral level.
Professor Driscoll: My institution
has just undergone an institutional audit from the QAA and I am
glad to say we came out of it very well, but enhancement was very
much part of their review, so I have to correct Professor Brown
about that; they do address that, and increasingly stress the
importance of enhancement in this audit cycle, and one would expect
to see that strengthened in the future. People can challenge the
adequacy of that and suggest that it may be strengthened in certain
ways, but to say that it does not exist is simply wrong.
Professor Arthur: My view would
be that there is no wholesale problem with the standards in British
Higher Education.
Q413 Mr Boswell: If I may interrupt,
how would you know?
Professor Arthur: Because we have
an internationally successful highly competitive higher education
system that is the envy of the world that other people are copying
and multiple international students wish to come here. I would
not sit here and pretend it is perfect. It has been changing for
800 years and it will continue to change and improve. I rely on
four different mechanisms to enhance quality and I think the key
thing about any quality assurance system is that it must lead
to enhancement. I have my own internal processes at the University
of Leeds, our learning and teaching reviews and our annual health
checks. I have the results of the national student survey; I have
the institutional audit and I have the external examiner system.
If you examine any individual part of that, it is not perfect
but if you put all four things together you have a really significant
programme of quality assurance that is aimed at enhancement rather
than policing, and that is how we keep up the standards of the
British higher education system.
Q414 Mr Boswell: You have listed
four; what about the international aspect? Other than by a market
test—we know students that come here, for example, from
other countries—how can you be sure that you are delivering
in contrast with institutions in other countries?
Professor Arthur: I think the
short answer is that it is difficult to answer that question,
except to look at the destinations and the activity and the impact
for our graduates around the United Kingdom and around the world.
So I think there is a really significant output issue that speaks
for itself.
Professor Driscoll: Just very
briefly, added to the list of the ways in which we can assure
ourselves about quality and standards, I guess in both our institutions
across the sector a large part of our curriculum is scrutinised
by professional bodies, in addition to the overviews provided
by our systems—quality assurance and so on. I think that
the nature of our systems, the extent of the involvement of employers
and so forth is unprecedented anywhere else in the world. That
is not to say that it cannot be improved and there are some things
that I was chatting with Roger about earlier on that he might
want to explore with you, which I think might be interesting ways
of strengthening the system; how we can assure ourselves in my
institution that the curriculum in a particular subject is up
to date, and in another institution and so on. I think there are
things that we could do that would help.
Chairman: I think we want to come on
to that.
Q415 Mr Boswell: To put what might
be a rather boring question out of the way—and I will ask
Professor Driscoll and others if they must add—comparability
of standards between your institution, for example, and one in
the Russell Group, what does that mean? What do you understand
by it and how is important is it formally? Is it something that
needs moderating by a market test, or what?
Professor Driscoll: I think we
get some assurance about that in terms of the content of the curriculum.
I am an economist; I actually went to a polytechnic and then I
went on to two Russell Group universities. I know that people
share experiences, and we have an external examiner system. So
there is a great deal of normalisation that takes place in terms
of the curriculum content. Also, the information sources, whether
at Oxford and Cambridge or at Middlesex, are of similar high quality
because increasingly information sources are online and on the
web, both in the formal library resource, and so on. So the difference
is in information content. I have no evidence to suggest that
teachers are better in some universities than others actually
in performing as an inspiration in the classroom; and given that
that is our bread and butter at a place like Middlesex we make
sure that they are inspirational and are keeping the students
interested. As regards standards, we do not give anything like
as many firsts and two-ones as they do at Oxford and Cambridge
and you would not expect us too. Oxford and Cambridge attract
some of the brightest and hardworking students in the country,
but we also have very bright and hardworking students who do get
firsts and two-ones, but not in anything like the same proportion.
If we were giving out the same number of firsts and two-ones I
think you might ask the question: what is going on here? So I
think there is strong evidence to say that degree standards, degree
levels, awards in similar subjects across the sector because of
the mechanisms that we have, the external examining system, and
because of the way in which people are networked through the centres
of subjects excellence bodies that we have in the country that
you get a normalisation of standards across the sector and that
is a great strength. And we can talk in this country about a British
higher education system and British standards in a way that they
cannot talk in the United States, where it is highly fragmented
and where there are different systems and different accrediting
bodies and it is difficult to know what you are getting. But here
I think people do.
Q416 Mr Boswell: Can I advance another
question on value added? Do you think that that is important and
can we measure it? It slightly joins together with the issue about
access and outcomes. Is that relevant to this?
Professor Driscoll: I think it
is highly relevant and I think we need to measure it and I think
there should be official measures. On the basis of peoples' past
performance and social background you can make some sort of prediction
about the likelihood of getting a particular classification. I
think if an institution can raise that for a significant proportion
of their student cohort then that is a measure of how they are
succeeding with their students. I think it is something that has
been neglected; it is neglected in league tables and I think undervalues
the contribution that universities that have focused on widening
participation, like Middlesex, make to raising skills and educational
levels in this country.
Professor Arthur: I want to come
back to the comment about the standards, if I may, and let me
say that I agree with a lot of what Michael said in the first
part of his answer about the way in which we can be sure across
different institutions. To go any further, though, would need
something that would potentially be quite damaging. So, for example,
if you really wanted to know if the first in a subject was the
same at Leeds and Middlesex then perhaps you would need a national
curricula and national testing, and I suggest that that would
be madness and it really would destroy the diversity and the creativity
of our autonomous higher education system, a system that other
European countries are now trying to emulate.
Professor Brown: I would like
to make one or two comments in response to the questions that
have been put and the remarks that have been made. First of all,
I stand by my comment about not having the information and the
evidence for that is in the HEPI surveys. Until the HEPI surveys
were done it was not clear—and it still is not actually
that clear—about the variability of the contact between
institutions etcetera. Another of my points in my submission is
that I believe that there has been a reduction in the overall
volume of teaching on courses in British universities, but I do
not know anyone has the interest in finding out whether that has
happened or not or whether that matters very much. That is my
first point. Secondly, I do not think that there is any evidence
of a general decline of quality or standards but I think there
are some longstanding difficulties, particularly in assessment,
and there are some worrying cases that have come to light. I think
given that we are now going into a pretty ferocious resource race
in British higher education the market for international students
is going to get tougher, etcetera and I think we have to strengthen
our quality assurance framework. I think with the greatest respect,
comparability is not the issue; the issue is minimum standards
really.
Q417 Mr Boswell: Thresholds.
Professor Brown: Thresholds, yes.
The issue is can we guarantee that anyone who takes a British
degree is getting a worthwhile qualification with a worthwhile
curriculum and that traditionally was ensured by external examiners.
In my view, external examiners were outmoded 10 years ago and
they are even more outmoded now. They became outmoded first of
all because of the basic weaknesses in the system and there will
be evidence from other bodies before you about that in this inquiry.
Secondly, because of the growth of multi-disciplinary and modular
courses which means that the external examiner is not in close
contact with the student on a piece of work, which was the original
rationale for the system. But then on top of that you have these
forces of competition which inevitably will make people cut corners.
I have set out in my submission what I think should be done about
it but the key point really is that the Quality Assurance Agency
basically looks at the procedures by which institutions ensure
standards and it does not actually look at standards. If we are
going to look at standards we have to look at them at the programme
qualification level and you have to look at all aspects affecting
standards—everything from the admission of students through
to the usual things about the design of programmes, etcetera,
and you have to look at things like resource allocation and marketing
and all those other things that affect standards. That cannot
be done at an institutional level; we have to do that at the department
and the programme level. It would be highly preferable if institutions
did that themselves instead of which, I am afraid, they tend to
rely upon external examiners and they are, I am afraid, incapable
of doing that particular job in the very diverse system that we
now have. What I would ideally like to see, which is what I did
to some extent at my university, is that you get academics in
a certain area of concern from an institution which has a broadly
comparable mission to look at all aspects of the curriculum in
subjects, as I say not just the teaching schemes and the assessment
schemes but the whole picture, and then advise the Vice Chancellor
about the currency of that particular curriculum in terms of their
level of knowledge in the subject in relation to the research
and that sort of thing, and they should report to the Vice Chancellor
and if necessary those reports could be published—I would
not favour that—and then the efficacy of that process is
picked through an enhanced system of institutional review. Otherwise
I do not think we are secure and we can be secure in making the
statements that we make, with the greatest respect to my Vice
Chancellor colleagues, about the standards of our degrees. I am
sorry, but that is my view.
Chairman: I am sorry; I have to stop
you there because we have to move on.
Mr Boswell: No, I think that is very
helpful.
Q418 Mr Cawsey: As you know, our
inquiry is looking at the student experience of universities and
I know that every university would say that the student experience
is caught in everything that you do. That seems an obvious thing
to say. These are different times and students have to get into
debt or pay fees and there is a drive to get more students into
universities, and it is that dilemma, if you like, that makes
us wonder how the experience of the student is changing in recent
times and in the future. My first question is quite a simple one
really. How do you keep in touch with what happens in your own
institutions to satisfy yourself of the student experience? It
is a long way, is it not, from somebody comes to the university
on the first day and is up in the hallowed office of the Vice
Chancellor.
Professor Arthur: I personally
visit every school in rotation constantly; I have been doing it
for five years and during those meetings I meet with a selection
of students of all different types—undergraduate, postgraduate,
postgraduate research—without the senior members of staff
present and I ask them to tell me what is going on and what it
is like. I do a series of open meetings with the students—one
a term—which are exciting and interesting and I can reassure
you about the talent of our youth. I also work with our own internal
audit systems of surveying our students and their views, as well
as the results of the national student survey. So I think I get
quite a good feel for what is going on in terms of student experience.
Professor Driscoll: Similar things
and in addition—apart from things on a national student
survey—internal surveys that focus directly on other aspects
of their experience and so on. I chair various committees that
deal with these things, including the university's academic board
where reports come though. I talk to staff and I talk to students.
So it is a variety of feedback mechanisms. Our students these
days are not slow to complain, I have to say, if they are dissatisfied,
and it does happen and it does get looked into and people get
taken to task if their teaching is not up to scratch or there
are concerns about slowness of feedback. In fact in the national
student survey this seems to be a sector-wide endemic problem
and I know my university and I know all of the universities are
working very, very hard to address that and to try to improve
the response we get from the students for the future. I know that
is a number one target in the sector. So we do take these things
seriously and we do try to act on them. There is one thing, Chairman,
that I know this Committee has raised in terms of students, and
it is an issue for students, and that is contact time and the
HEPI surveys, because we all know—and certainly the feedback
we get—is that students would like more contact; they would
like smaller classes; they would like to be able to interact more
casually and be able to knock on someone's door and get a bit
of advice about the essay they are writing or on some assignment
they have done, and so on. Professor Brown said that the volume
of teaching has gone down. Certainly throughout the 1990s it did
because the unit of funding was half; staff-student ratios more
or less doubled across the sector and it was inevitable when we
moved from smaller group teaching to larger group teaching. However,
what I would say, given that we have managed to maintain the unit
of funding over the recent years, is that I can point to no area
of my university where hours are being cut or have been cut in
the recent past. So I think there has been some stabilisation
here, but clearly it is a threat for the future.
Q419 Chairman: The HEPI study was
that there was a huge discrepancy between the number of hours
of study in total and the outcome of degrees.
Professor Driscoll: I think it
did not comment on the outcome, it commented really on the discrepancy,
the similar subjects and so on. A couple of things to say about
the HEPI studies. The ones that were carried out in 2006-07 surveyed
15,000 students. This latest update surveyed 2000 students; the
report does not even say how many responded. It is a woefully
small sample and I do not think that any statistician would stand
by those results. The other thing that disturbs me more seriously
about the conclusions of those HEPI reports is that they take
one statistic—that is formal contact hours—and extrapolate
some extraordinary statements about effort and the work that students
do. I think it is quite unreasonable. Bahram himself will know
that what is important is not just the contact hours, it is the
quality of those hours, and it is everything else that goes into
that. My institution—and I am sure this is true of most
institutions across the sector—produces course handbooks
and in those course handbooks it describes the contact, the nature
of the contact, the number of assignments they will have to do
and the nature of the assessment, and it provides all the other
information around the reading lists.
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