Government reform of Higher EducationWritten evidence submitted by the Open College of the Arts
1.0 Summary
The case for a review of higher education extends beyond how it is funded and the role of government in its funding. Driven by changes in working patterns, an increased retirement age and technological advances, the model of higher education delivery which was fit for purpose in the 19th century is now outdated.
Employers are not sufficiently involved in shaping higher education provision. If universities are to diversify their funding base, the entrepreneurialism which characterises successful businesses is needed within higher education institutions (HEIs). The sponsoring of undergraduates by some large organisations is a move in the right direction, but employers remain on the whole dissatisfied with the quality of graduates entering employment.
OCA believes that the pre-eminence of STEM subjects at the expense of arts, humanities and languages is misguided. We argue for the withdrawal of funding for the teaching of these subjects to be reconsidered, on the basis of the net economic benefit they bring.
The assumption that for most students 18 or 19 years of age is the optimum time to study at higher level is one that OCA questions. Reforms in the higher education sector need to take account of career changes occurring with greater frequency for future generations than has been the case in the past.
Greater use of technology, particularly in creating online student communities, could bring down the cost of delivering higher level education in arts and humanities subjects in particular. More attention needs to be given to this in the proposals laid out in the Browne Report.
There is significant scope for private companies and third sector organisations of all sizes to become niche providers, creating routes to higher education and widening participation and access. This potential is underexploited in the current proposals on access and participation.
2.0 There is a Need for New Delivery Models for Higher Education
2.1 The accepted model of higher education delivery in the UK is that undergraduates spend between three and seven+ years being physically present in a university building and living either on the university campus or within easy travelling distance of the university premises.
2.2 The longevity of the current delivery model for higher education can be accounted for in part at least, by the innate conservatism of the sector. The Russell Group universities in particular exert a disproportionate hold over admittedly powerful arguments for maintaining the HE sector’s international reputation for quality in both teaching and research.
2.3 The increase in the student population since the 1970s from approximately 14% of young people leaving school at 18 to around 30% over the last 10 years means that this is a model which is no longer financially sustainable. New models of delivery are required if higher education provision is to be available for all students with the intellectual aptitude for higher level study.
2.4 Although the student population is likely to decrease from current levels from 2012–13 onwards as a result both of the increase in tuition fees and the creation of up to 75,000 new apprenticeships a year by 2014–15, it is still the case that higher education is largely structured around a model which was fit for purpose in the 19th century and most of the twentieth century.
3.0 Employers are Not Yet Sufficiently Involved in Shaping HE Provision
3.1 The announcement by accountancy firm KPMG in January this year that it is to fund 75 undergraduate students to take degrees in accountancy at the University of Durham is a welcome one. Other sponsors of degrees at specific universities include supermarket chains Morrisons and Tesco, retailer Harrods and pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline.
3.2 Almost half the firms questioned by Education Development International for the CBI’s 2010 Education and Skills Survey, Ready to grow: business priorities for education and skills (www.cbi.org.uk) were dissatisfied with the quality of STEM graduates. However, only 43% of businesses value the opportunity to help shape higher level courses, while 59% of employers recognise the benefits of employer-university engagement in attracting high quality graduates. Enlightened employers, according to the CBI’s research, recognise that by sponsoring degree students they are able to exert a direct impact on the quality of higher education provision in those subjects essential to their future business growth. In the opinion of OCA, it should be seen as a priority by the current government to work with business to further increase the participation of employers in shaping the future of higher education. They are one of the main consumers of higher education and should not look exclusively to government as an intermediary to improve the quality of HE provision.
3.3 Indeed, it may be counterproductive to do so. Collegial Entrepreneurialism in Pro-active Universities: Lessons From Europe (Clark, Burton R, Change, v32 n1 p10–19 Jan-Feb 2000, ERIC# EJ611487) concludes that a diversified funding base is one of five factors that need to be present if an HEI is to achieve an effective entrepreneurial culture. This conclusion argues for the diversifying of funding streams away from grant-in-aid funding. In the UK, there are both positive and negative lessons to be learnt from universities endeavouring to reduce their reliance on state funding.
3.4 OCA believes, however, that there is a clear role for government to fund and publish research which:
3.4.1 provides data at macro-economic level to inform the development of the HE sector as a whole; and
3.4.2 assesses holistically the quality and impact of HE provision within the context of economic growth and employer satisfaction.
4.0 Changing Patterns of Employment Demand Changing Patterns of Higher Education
4.1 Richard Riley, the former secretary of the US Department of Education, estimated that today’s learners will have had 10 to 14 jobs by the age of 38 (quoted in Shift Happens, Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iu1kbNdjics). Comparable future employment patterns are expected in the UK. This predicted career fluidity has two main implications for the delivery of higher education in terms of student age and degree course term-times and course duration.
4.2 Student age: the majority of 18–19 years olds, the age at which most undergraduates begin their higher level study, will not be preparing for the career from which they will be earning a living at, say, 35 years of age. This means that the HE sector has to become more responsive to designing provision for adults across the age spectrum. Last summer the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills consulted on its proposals for phasing out the current UK default retirement age of 65. The proposal comes into effect in October this year: employers will no longer be able to ask an employee to retire on the grounds of age alone. Employees who choose to continue to work beyond 65 will be entitled to do so, opening up the possibility that people in their 60s and 70s may opt for additional or even first-time higher level study. The only large-scale HEI in the UK which designs HE provision with mature students as its starting point is the Open University.
4.3 Degree course term-times and course duration: full-time study is currently the norm. However, as the average age of undergraduates rises, universities will need to provide the flexibility for students to begin courses at a time that fits in with their work and caring commitments. Routes to finance to support higher level study will also need to become more flexible in response to the demands of students. OCA believes that the government should consider inviting banks to provide the service currently provided by Student Finance England and equivalent bodies, to enable students to take advantage of the banks’ superior capacity to invest in product design and technology.
5.0 Online Communities are Already Changing the Delivery—and Delivery Costs—of Higher Education
5.1 The conventional student age is the age of the Facebook generation. Research into social networking usage trends published by Comscore in August 2009 found that the number of 15–24 year olds in the UK visiting social networking sites had reached 6.8 million, an increase of 14% in 12 months. (www.comscore.com)
5.2 It is not the case that all academic subjects can only be taught effectively in a lecture theatre, seminar room or laboratory. It would be difficult to build up an argument for the teaching of medicine, chemistry or veterinary science by distance learning, but the same is not true of arts and humanities subjects or of antique and modern foreign languages, which need to be seen differently. In many cases, these subjects can be taught through the use of technologies which support the creation of online communities and foster peer support.
5.3 OCA has a student community of 3,000, 95% of whom are based in the UK, and studying a range of creative arts subjects at undergraduate level. In 2009, 90% of OCA’s total taught hours were by distance learning, including web forums and blogs. Only 10% took place face-to-face at workshops and in 1:1 meetings between students and tutors.
5.4 OCA is already demonstrating that in the humanities, operating costs can be reduced substantially. The only estate OCA has to maintain is a unit in a business park on the outskirts of Barnsley, South Yorkshire and its headcount is 47 full-time equivalent posts. All students have a 1:1 tutor who as well as being qualified to teach at higher level is also a practitioner in his or her own right in the student’s chosen creative discipline. At £4,500, fees to reach degree level are between a sixth and a quarter of what it will cost in fees to reach degree level at a conventional university in England from 2012–13. Currently, 93% of OCA student enrolments are from those over 25 years of age, while only 7% are from those who are 25 years of age or under. OCA is one HEI that welcomes the opportunity for growth that we believe is presented by the likely reduction in student places for creative arts subjects in the conventional university sector.
6.0 Arts and Humanities Graduates Contribute to the Net Economy as Well as STEM Subject Graduates
6.1 We take issue with the downgrading of humanities subjects by the coalition government, demonstrated through the total withdrawal of teaching funding for these subjects. The evidence of the contribution to the UK economy made by the creative industries is clear. Here are two examples. In September 2010, “The Value of the UK Fashion Industry” report, commissioned by the British Fashion Council, found that the direct value to the UK economy of the fashion industry is £21 billion each year. The third report of the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee, published in February 2011, states that the UK music industry alone was worth £4 billion in 2009.
7.0 If Students are to Become Consumers, Delivery Models for Higher Education Need to Diversify Accordingly
7.1 In an article published in The London Review of Books last November, Stefan Collini, Professor of English at the University of Cambridge, challenges the focus of most commentators on the impact of Lord Browne’s proposal on individual students, turning his attention instead to what he sees as a fundamental change in the perception of higher education by government:
“Essentially, Browne is contending that we should no longer think of higher education as the provision of a public good, articulated through educational judgment and largely financed by public funds (in recent years supplemented by a relatively small fee element). Instead, we should think of it as a lightly regulated market in which consumer demand, in the form of student choice, is sovereign in determining what is offered by service providers (ie universities).” (http://www.lrb.co.uk/v32/n21/stefan-collini/brownes-gamble).
7.2 OCA has already outlined the case for government to play a lead role in determining the macro-economic drivers for subject supply (see 3.4 above). We are therefore sympathetic to Collini’s contention that student preference should not be the sole determinant of what university prospectuses offer and what university teachers teach.
7.3 The withdrawal of teaching funding from arts, humanities and modern languages from 2011–12 is, however, at odds with a policy approach that sees the student as consumer. Student application rates in these subject areas bear testimony to the demand, but the closure of some degree courses, and even some HEIs, is expected from 2012–13 onwards, when increased tuition fees compound the difficulties created for HEIs dominant in the provision of these subjects. According to a study by the Institute for Fiscal Studies in December 2010, 1% of the university market will disappear for every £1,000 increase in student fees. This means that a rise in fees to £7,000 would lead to 4% of the market disappearing—the equivalent of seven universities across the country closing. (http://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/5366)
7.4 Some commentators argue that a process of the commodifying of higher education began in the 1990s when the polytechnics were granted the status of universities. A necessary adjunct to students becoming consumers is increased choice of HE provider. Such choice, driven by a passion for improving standards and freeing teachers to teach, is at the heart of the government’s proposals for greater autonomy for schools and greater freedom for head teachers and teachers at both primary and secondary level (The Importance of Teaching, 24 November 2010, Department for Education).
7.5 Routes to greater autonomy for HEIs will be different from the academy/trust/free school formula on offer for schools. Nonetheless, the sector has the opportunity to consider what large organisations along with small, niche providers within the private and third sectors could bring to support the four objectives of maintaining academic excellence in teaching and research, bringing about financial sustainability, widening participation and achieving fair access, and increasing student choice.
7.6 Such a move would place government in the role of regulator in the areas of research and teaching quality, widening participation and achieving fair access, and provider competition.
10 March 2011
Note 1—about OCA
OCA is an education charity founded in 1987 by Michael Young (Lord Young of Dartington). He was one of the inspirations behind what became The Open University and the founder of the Consumers’ Association. OCA offers degrees by distance learning in creative arts subjects including painting, fine art, photography, composing music, textiles, sculpture and creative writing.
Learning with OCA is flexible and offers value for money. Students can enrol when it suits them and organise their studies to fit in with work, family and other commitments. At £4,500, fees to reach degree level are between a sixth and a quarter of what is will cost to reach degree level at a conventional university in England from 2012.
OCA aims to widen access to creative arts education at undergraduate and graduate levels through open and flexible learning, offering everyone the chance to take creative arts courses without prior qualifications or restrictions. 50,000 students have studied with OCA since 1987. In 2011, it has an active student community of 3,000+.
Subjects offered through OCA’s Bachelor of Arts Honours degree (BA) in Creative Arts are: art history, composing music, creative writing, fine art, photography and textiles. In summer 2010, OCA introduced specialist degrees in painting and photography. This move towards specialism continued in February 2011 with the introduction of specialist degrees in textiles and creative writing. All undergraduate degrees are accredited by Buckinghamshire New University. A Master of Arts (MA) in Fine Arts, OCA’s first postgraduate course and accreditated by the University for the Creative Arts, also began in February 2011.
OCA students are required to complete between three and 12 modules at Higher Education levels four, five and six for each subject chosen from the 40+ on offer. Students can study for a higher certificate, a higher diploma or a BA honours degree. Most of OCA’s 40+ modules are accredited under the Credit Accumulation and Transfer Scheme (CATs).
Note 2—about Gareth Dent, Chief Executive, OCA
After training as an economist, Gareth began his career at Guardian Newspapers, then joined the Government Economic Service in 1986. From 1995, he led lifelong learning development at the newly created Department for Education and Skills. In 1998, he joined the team set up to implement the Labour government’s vision of a “university for industry”. Ufi Limited was established in 1999, the year in which it launched learndirect. learndirect is, now one of the UK’s most recognised brands for adult learning. At Ufi, Gareth’s wide brief embraced developing the learndirect advice service. By 2005, the learndirect advice service was providing over six million advice sessions each year online and by telephone. Gareth Dent has been Chief Executive of OCA since 2008.