Examination of Witnesses (Questions 480
- 495)
WEDNESDAY 6 MAY 2009
SALLY HUNT,
DR NATALIE
FENTON, VERONICA
KILLEN AND
DR GAVIN
REID
Q480 Dr Harris: I am keen to focus
on the issue of the reputation of the institution rather than
bullying and harassment, and whether that is a good process. Dr
Reid, on that question of feeling that you would be in trouble
if you brought that in.
Dr Reid: There is no doubt there
is nothing an institution values more closely than its external
reputation, and they are very protective of that. I know people
certainly feel as though they cannot speak out; they cannot even
speak out in their own department's staff meetings, never mind
to colleagues from The Times Higher who may be interested.
Q481 Dr Harris: Is it getting worse?
Dr Reid: There is no doubt about
it, yes.
Q482 Dr Harris: Sally, has the UCU
done a survey to get any harder sense than the assertions and
anecdotes that we might consider?
Sally Hunt: We have evidence through
casework, Evan. We have constant monitoring of this in terms of
our work at a regional and at a local level. I am acutely aware
that it is not necessarily possible for us to go public on that
rather than simply in generalities. If the Committee think it
would help we could supply you with that kind of information.
Q483 Dr Harris: A summary of the
sorts of things.
Sally Hunt: I would stress that
we would class that as highly sensitive.
Q484 Dr Harris: If you anonymise
it and just give us a summary, perhaps.
Sally Hunt: That is something
that we can do, but our colleagues certainly are telling us it
is getting worse.
Q485 Dr Harris: A final question
on that before I hand over to Gordon Marsden to talk about access
issues. This question of feeling restricted in what you can say:
is that overflowing at all into academic freedom and freedom to
publish in your own area, or would you say it is a discrete issue
that you have all agreed is a problem?
Veronica Killen: I think there
is more and more pressure put on academic staff to publish that
which fits in with the school or university agenda. That has an
impact upon academic freedom because it is becoming more and more
difficult to actually do research that members of staff individually
want to do or even present papers at various conferences, and
the like.
Q486 Mr Marsden: Thank you, Chairman.
As my colleague, Evan Harris, said, I want to probe you on the
issue of access and admissions, which obviously we have been talking
quite a lot about. If I could start, perhaps, with you, Dr Reid,
and then come on to Veronica and Natalie. (Sally, I am not excluding
you but I will come back to you on something else, if I may.)
What I want to get out of this, because we have had a lot of discussion
in the previous session and elsewhere about the changing nature
of the student body, the changing nature of the demography of
students, and so on and so forth, is a sense from your experience
as to how that has affected your teaching, your approach, in,
say, the last five to 10 years. What are the pluses and minuses
of a more diverse student body, from your position as a teacher?
Dr Reid: Certainly in my subject
area, we do not have the luxury of selecting from students who
come in with straight-As; we have always had a very diverse base,
of necessity. It is quite a regional base and we are recruiting,
mostly, out of local and regional schools rather than schools
from the city centre in Leeds. Those students, almost invariably,
have had very little advice at school level about what subjects
to take at A level; they know they are interested, say, in studying
chemistry but they do not have any math, they do not have any
physics and they have never been advised at school level that
that might be a good idea. So the weaker end of the spectrum,
if you like, we would take from is a student who has got a C at
A level in chemistry, no A level maths and no A level in physics,
and we are expected to retain those students through the system
and deliver them a degree at the end. The pressure on us is supporting
students who, quite frankly, are ill-prepared for university,
and an awful lot of staff time goes into doing that, very much
on the math side, particularly.
Q487 Mr Marsden: Veronica, your teaching
is in a very different area, which I assume has always had a substantial
number of mature and continuing students. Indeed, I think, in
one of our previous sessions we had a student who has come from
that background. Again, how have things changed for you in the
last 10 years, and has that been a positive or negative process?
Veronica Killen: It is very obvious
that there has been a change in the students that are coming through,
both in their ability to have the skills that they need in order
to study at higher education level and, also, their ability to
cope with a very demanding course as well. Again, because many
students are having to work and study at the same time, it has
a big impact.
Q488 Mr Marsden: Is that a good or
a bad thing—that they are being stretched?
Veronica Killen: It is bad because
it puts stress on the staff to try and raise the students up to
the level where they should be, and it is stressful for the students
as well. There are also issues to do with access and ELQ issues,
and that is affecting an awful lot of institutions. I teach in
the North East and we have one of the lowest local populations
that come into higher education, and that is a big worry. It is
getting people up to the level where they feel confident to apply
to universities, and, also, to be able to fund themselves as well
as they go through. So many of the universities are recruiting
international students, which, again, has problems, and many students
are not at the level where they should be to be studying higher
education, and the investment is not going in from the universities
to support those students either.
Q489 Mr Marsden: Natalie, if I can
come to you: looking at it, not just obviously from your own experience
of Goldsmiths but from the area you are studying and researching
in—and here I declare an interest, having taught as a part-time
course tutor for the Open University for nearly 20 years before
I became an MP—my experience there was, yes, those sorts
of part-time students were pressured because they did not have
the resources and support, as Veronica, perhaps, describes, but
what they had in spades, very often, over the people from the
18-21 cohort, was life experience and determination. We are getting
a very negative perspective of the situation.
Dr Fenton: It is the opposite,
really, and I think what is trying to be expressed is the fact
that these students bring other demands with them into the department
that it is very hard to manage, and really support properly. However,
as students they are brilliant and I think they are the best students.
If I went back (I have not done the research) and looked at those,
the ones who do really well who really commit to it are the ones
who come with less good A level results from more challenging
backgrounds, but actually bring so much more to bear on that course
that they are doing, and give so much more in lots of different
ways. So I think it is absolutely critical that we bring those
students in, and it is right and proper to do that. However, I
spend an enormous amount of my time dealing pastorally with the
problems that those students also have. I had a recent student
with all manner of difficulties and it took me years and years
to get her through her degree and she is finally going to graduate
this year and is a wonderful student, and should do very well,
but that has taken up the most extraordinary amount of time. If
you times that by 20 I reckon I have a dozen cases on the go at
any one time, of students that I have to ring regularly each week
to check they are okay.
Q490 Mr Marsden: Sally, I need to
bring this to a conclusion. Obviously, you have given us very
strong evidence supporting the broader access process and everything
that goes with it, and you have also heard from Natalie the sort
of agony and the ecstasy, if I can put it that way, of dealing
with that sort of cohort of students. What do you think we need
to do structurally to both continue that diversification—which
is going to happen anyway—but make sure that we have support
structures? In America, as we know, the community college network
is a very, very long-established network. We have not got the
same structure here; some FE colleges are very good at it and
some are not. What are the step-changes that we need to take?
Sally Hunt: Very quickly—that
is a heck of a question! You need to look very hard at what has
happened in terms of the definition of a successful academic,
because we have to look at the structures that are in place that
put demands and rewards that are based more on research than on
successful teaching, and we have to acknowledge that that has
an impact on how they deliver to students. We have to look at
the support that academics get in terms of external examiners—and
by that I mean independent, academic support—we have to
look at the governance issues. We have to look at them being secure.
That is the employment side. What I would say about students is
that what this country needs is a process that says it wants to
give people a hand up, not a pat on the head. A lot of the students
who are coming through are people that we should be fantastically
proud of, as a country; we should be incredibly admiring of what
they do, because the amount of juggling they are doing is phenomenal,
but we should, I think, be a lot more honest about the struggles
they are having in terms of debt; we should be a lot more honest
in terms of some of the policies which have been put through,
which have been used on the basis of justifying better access,
therefore we have to adjust what we do to support them, and sometimes
I think we have to say that we have been wrong. What we need is
a system that is clear, simple and gives support—not patronage—based
on where you are or whether you are competent enough to do it,
and if we can create that for students and a safe place to staff
to actually be their most talented—and sometimes that is
more teaching, sometimes that is more research—but able
to do that in a collegiate way, I think you would actually get
such a quality throughout this country that it would not be a
case of just picking one particular university or a group and
all the competition that happens between them (and you must hear
it all the time); what we need is something that actually acknowledges
that if we want to have a well-educated population that is going
to drive us out of recession—and God knows we need that—we
have got to have a university system that is safe for staff and
one that is secure for the students.
Q491 Dr Gibson: When you talk about
undergraduates, I do not want to put you down but there are postgraduates
too, which are rather important. Could you say one sentence, Sally,
about that? Is there something written you could send to us about
it? They are the lifeblood of universities.
Sally Hunt: I can send you pages,
but in terms of what is happening in the post-grad population,
I think they are being undermined by their ability to actually
take on further study. Those who want to go into an academic career,
I think, are being absolutely slaughtered, and that is something
that this Committee needs to be absolutely aware of. I am more
than happy to send you chapter and verse on that, Ian, if that
is what the Committee would like.
Chairman: Sally, this is specifically
on undergraduates, but Ian is absolutely right; constantly, throughout
this inquiry, the issue of postgraduates, MSc students and post-docs
has come up, and I think the Committee has to return to that at
some point.
Q492 Mr Boswell: Two quick industrial
questions: one, I think, you cannot open, and I would not expect
you to—the whole substance of the situation of the dispute
with the UCA. Could you just say a word about the attitude to
protecting students, if push does come to shove and there is a
formal dispute?
Sally Hunt: I am challenged, Tim,
because I thought Phil was going to tell me off if I raised that.
We are in a situation where we have spoken at length with the
National Union of Students because what we want is a situation
where we are not actually putting them at risk, and that is something
that is absolutely critical. However, we are also in a situation,
where I have to say, taxpayers' money is being used by the employers—and
by that I mean over 70 of all of the institutions that we are
dealing with—to even challenge our right to ballot our members
in support of us negotiating what is a job security agreement.
I think that with what we have got taking place at the moment,
we have to prioritise job security, and we want to do it with
the employers. NUS and we are united in that, and that is what
we will do. What I have to say, at the moment, is that the key
to this is to actually get us round the table and have some meaningful
negotiations. If we can do that a lot of this would not be something
that comes into reality.
Q493 Mr Boswell: Thank you for that.
Can I just ask, very briefly, wearing your hat as General Secretary
and, also, a member of the Executive TUC, you have both, as it
were, an industrial and, also, a wider interest in terms of input
into DIUS. We hear an awful lot about the importance of business,
and all that. How real do you think that relationship is, and
could it be improved?
Sally Hunt: The relationship with
business and education?
Q494 Mr Boswell: No, your relationship,
as the General Secretary, both on behalf of your membership but,
also, on behalf of, as it were, the university sector and the
input you can make into the kind of formulation of policy.
Sally Hunt: I have always said
that the department should, on a regular basis, listen to the
staff, because we are actually very clear that our job is to tell
the good news and the bad news; there are things that we think
the Government is doing very well, and there are things that we
are highly critical of. I think there is vast room for improvement,
if I am honest, in terms of the dialogue, and I think that is
something that we would welcome. Equally, I think, if you look
at what is taking place within the Department for Children and
the relationship with other education unions there, I think the
inter-relationship is much closer, and I suspect it is one that
has led to a much more cohesive and dynamic policy in terms of
education discussion within that department. I think that is something
that DIUS could learn from. All of the trade unions, at this point
in time, are very focused on the need for all parties to realise
that our clear responsibility is to protect our members' job,
whatever sector that is in, and to make sure that our members
are not asked to pay a price for something that they were not
responsible for. That is the same within education as it is elsewhere.
Certainly, I think that the more dialogue that we can have on
a specific basis within DIUS (because it is not just about jobs
for us; the jobs of our members, bluntly, are going to impact
on our country's ability to actually dig itself out of recession
and have a long-term future) and with the employers in a civilised
way rather than it being a case of us being challenged through
the courts because we want to raise the issue, the better I think
it will be for all of us.
Q495 Chairman: You got that in, Sally.
We have run out of time. Can I just say that I am confused (I
am often confused): we have less money in the sector, we have
larger teaching groups, we have fewer contact hours, and we have
a more diverse, as Natalie was saying, and demanding population
of students, yet the number of first-class degrees has doubled,
and the number of 2:1s has gone up by over 60 per cent in the
last 10 years. Something does not quite ring true to me on that,
but I will leave that hanging in the air and ask you all for a
simple yes or no, at the end. Gavin, do you think that every lecturer
in our universities, whether in a Million+ or a Russell Group
university, should, in fact, be trained to teach? Yes or no.
Dr Reid: Yes.
Sally Hunt: Yes.
Veronica Killen: Yes, definitely.
Dr Fenton: Yes. We all are.
Chairman: You all are, in your institution.
On that note of unanimity, could I thank you all very much indeed
for giving evidence to us this morning so frankly and fairly.
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