So a few weeks ago I was asked my opinion about some of the government reforms with regards to Higher Education. I had been meaning to write a blog about this for a while so I thought I’d kill 2 birds with one stone.
The government have recently introduced the first piece of Higher Education legislation for over a decade that enacts some of the most significant reforms to the HE sector for years. The HE Bill follows on from the Green Paper consultation and the White Paper which both outlined government plans to reform universities and the wider sector by taking forward proposals that require changes in legislation. It will change the face of the sector as we know it and not for the better. I’ll highlight some of the key things that have come out of this Bill for you.
One of the causes for concern is the introduction of private providers within the HE sector. With these reforms private providers can be granted the power to become a “University” and the ability to award degrees. The HE Bill has a focus on making access to the HE market easier for private companies by getting rid of many of the current rules and regulations thus making it easier for them to make a profit out of students. Now you might think why would anyone go to a “University” that has no reputation and hasn’t been around that long? Yes, universities within the Russell Group, and ourselves, will continue to provide an elite education and will consistently recruit plenty of students. However, private providers will aim to profit from disadvantaged students pushed into shorter technical courses. If a lecturer who is an expert in a very niche field wanted to, they could create their own “University” and monopolise that market forcing students who wanted to study that subject into going to their “University.”
We have already seen the HE sector open up to private providers with regards to housing in particular, and the worry is that these private providers will have less responsibility and less accountability over duty of care and providing welfare support for students. That is what we have seen within the housing sector, especially in Bath. Landlords are able to exploit students by increasing the rent year on year without improving living standards and in many cases still providing poor living conditions.
Another concern regarding private providers is in the likely event that they will collapse. If that is the case what will happen to their students, in particular to their international students? Will they get their fees back, will they be deported? The HE Bill doesn’t give any security to these students.
The next point I’ll highlight is this little thing called the TEF (Teaching Excellence Framework). This is a framework the government have devised in order to measure the quality of teaching at an institution – sounds good? Not really. You may be wondering, how can the government actually measure teaching quality? Well they can’t, not very well at least. The government claim the TEF can measure and improve teaching within an institution. However, some of the metrics they are using to ascertain the quality of an institution’s teaching are ridiculous.
One of these metrics uses employability data and average earning of graduates 6 months after graduating. This data doesn’t reflect teaching quality but it can certainly reflect social inequality. An individual’s employability data and salary can be affected by a person’s initial wealth, their background, any connections they may have or even just the state of the economy. Men on average get paid more than women for doing the same job, does this mean their teaching was better? Black people on average get paid less than white people for doing the same job, does this mean their teaching was worse? This metric doesn’t have a huge bearing on the quality of teaching they received. Take Bath for example, the employability of our students is one of the best in the country; this is due to the fact we do a placement – absolutely nothing to do with teaching quality and so we’re very likely to be employed with a well-paid job once we graduate.
Another of these metrics is related to retention rates. Supposedly the fewer students that drop out, the better teaching the University is providing… Yes we’ve all had some pretty poor lecturers but that’s probably not one of the main reasons for dropping out of University. Consider things such as mental health issues, illness, family issues, homesickness, financial issues, injury, a disciplinary or realising University just isn’t for you. Poor teaching comes pretty low down on that list wouldn’t you say?
The third one of these metrics is to do with the NSS (National Student Survey). This is a survey completed by final years where they state how satisfied they have been with various different aspects of the University (and the SU) including “Teaching on my course”, “Assessment and Feedback” and “Academic Support.” The first 12 questions in the NSS will be used as part of the metric (conveniently not including the section about “Learning Resources” that included questions about the library which the University took a battering on this year). The quality of teaching extends beyond the classroom so why is this not taken into account.
Now the problem with using this is that it is only filled out by final years. Last year 2500 students were eligible to fill out this survey, of that number 1911 students filled it out, which is 76.44% of final year students. It’s very likely that those who didn’t fill it in weren’t very happy with the University and so didn’t bother to fill it in. When you consider that we have a population of about 16500 students the survey is only a representation of just under 12% of our student body. How so few students can set the standards for teaching is baffling. As it is only final years who complete it, the likelihood is when filling it out, their most recent experiences will shape the answers they give. If they’ve had a fantastic experience in their final year they may well forget all the problems they’ve had throughout their time here and fill in the survey with purely positive messages. Or if they no longer had a lecturer they didn’t get on with earlier in their degree again, they might feel quite happy. Whereas a new first year with that same lecturer probably feels quite frustrated, yet the NSS doesn’t reflect this. NSS was never designed to measure teaching quality.
The University also have to submit a bid stating why they think their teaching is excellent. These TEF metrics are unreliable and contingent on all kinds of unrelated factors.
Now don’t get me wrong, as Education Officer I actively welcome improvements to teaching quality. However, there’s a very big problem with the TEF that I’ve yet to allude to and this is that the TEF is linked to an increase in tuition fees… You may have seen recently in the news that University tuition fees in England will rise to £9250 per year from 2017 and could apply to current students. For the first year of the TEF, it is not believed that any University has failed to meet the necessary quality threshold and so all universities will be able to charge a new upper limit of £9250 per year. This is because the government have said they want to protect the value of tuition fees from erosions by inflation. So the likelihood is that next year Bath will start charging our students more money…
Now that’s not the end of it; the next part of the TEF, TEF 2, introduces differential fees depending on how good the quality of teaching is within each University. By considering the metrics and the University bid, the quality of teaching will be assessed and the University will be given an award: Gold, Silver or Bronze. The award given will determine what level of fee increase English universities are allowed – up to a maximum of a rise in line with inflation. However, there has been a delay in the introduction of these differentiated fees until at least 2019. Coincidentally, the Times Higher Education published a league table that reflected where universities would rank with regards to the TEF and none of the “Top” universities were at the top.
The TEF traps students and staff in a lose-lose situation, if the University does well the fees are increased. If it does badly, they are penalised. Should a University receive consistently poor scores they could get less funding and eventually they could be shut down or ‘exit the market’ as the government likes to say. The institutions that fail and close down end up jeopardising jobs and student’s education based on unfair metrics. The government claim that the TEF is in the student’s best interest but how many students have you heard of asking for more fees?
The relationship between “excellence” and inflation leads to a confusing market.
We already know that the fee level has, to date, absolutely no reflection on the teaching quality of a course. The introduction of the TEF to a system where home undergraduate students pay an almost universal £9,000 means that future differentiation of fees will be down to a) when an institution “passes” the TEF and b) the inflation rate. Inflation is variable, which means so are fee increases. This means that the variation of fee levels will be mainly down to the state of the economy, not the quality of teaching.
For example: Imagine that the established University X did well in the TEF in year 1 and was allowed to raise fees. They do so in line with inflation for the next five years, with a steady inflation rate of 3%. Their fee moves from £9,000 in Y0 to £10,433 in Y5. University Y is a new provider, but over the course of five years improves dramatically and has some of the best teaching of any alternative provider. It can finally raise its fees in Y6, having passed the TEF, but in the same year inflation drops to just 0.5%. University Y’s fees stand now at £9,045, whilst University X charges £10,485. Can we really say that the fee difference here represents a difference in quality?
Fee rises at the institutional level do not reflect difference where quality happens – at the course level. There are likely to be important variations in teaching quality by subject and department. Yet, the TEF will set fee levels at the institutional level. This provides yet more perverse incentives. There is far greater difference in quality within Higher Education Institutions than between them, and the new proposed system does not reflect that.
Gordon Marsden MP, Shadow Higher Education Minster, said it well when he voiced his concerns about the TEF, calling it “a Trojan horse to increase tuition fees.” Recently the Officer team and 59 other SUs around the country signed an open letter calling for our Vice Chancellors to take a public stance on the TEF and to openly oppose introducing it. If fees are raised above £9000 then by 2026 they could be as much as £12000, there is no evidence that an increase in fees leads to a greater quality of teaching.
(I love Troy...)
There is evidence that higher fees lead to increases in mental health problems due to debt and stress. Already we have a problem that debt aversion is stopping students from coming to University. Should the top universities start charging even more this gives the message that you can only get access to a good education if you can afford it. The student loan system is definitely going to have a shake up soon due to the amount of people going to University, it is not sustainable when 70% of current students will not be able to fully repay their debts. Students are starting to be looked at more and more as consumers.
The last thing I’m going to discuss is the Office for Students (OFS). This is a body that is to be set up that will take over the responsibilities of the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and the Office for Fair Access (OFFA) in the sense that it will become the main funder and regulator of HE in England as well as dealing with access and widening participation. The powers of this body will include giving institutions degree awarding powers and the title of “University” (as mentioned before with the private providers), this currently sits with the Privy Council, as well as the ability to grant money to institutions. The move to grant these abilities to the OFS will result in a significant shift of power. The OFS will be the single regulatory body that will oversee the TEF.
Now naturally you may think, as the name suggests, that students would have some sort of say within this Office… Well you’d be wrong. The government have refused amendments submitted to the HE Bill that proposes to have a reserved place on the board for student representation. Currently there is a committee made up of 20 MPs 11 Conservative, 7 Labour and 2 SNP, who have been tasked with examining the HE Bill. The debates that have arisen from these sessions have exposed a lack of justification or evidence for linking assessments of quality with the level of tuition fees. The government have dodged many of the questions about these concerns that the opposition have posed to them.
A body with such power to change lives of students should not be devoid of student representation. Like previously mentioned there was an amendment proposed to the Bill to add 1 reserved place for student representation. This was debated and fell 11-9 with every single Conservative MP, including Bath’s own Ben Howlett, voting against the amendment. The committee also voted against removing the link between the TEF and fees. Further signs that the government is not interested in students and only care about their marketization agenda.
The NUS has constantly been trying to get invited to give evidence to this committee (ridiculous that they weren’t automatically invited to do so) going so far as to setting up their own OFS outside of parliament mocking the actual OFS. In a matter of hours they were invited to give evidence, yet it was only a very short period that they were actually allowed to speak and it was a joke that Ben Howlett was moaning that NUS had sent their VP HE rather than the President.
(https://twitter.com/nusuk/status/773858542776414208)
So it’s a bit of a worrying time really, I don’t see how crowding HE with private providers, under less scrutiny could be in any way a good thing. How does having a competitive market help when massive corporations can undercut universities that have been around for decades, forcing them to shut, with pretty significant consequences on their students and staff? Increasing fees yet again as a result of ridiculous metrics is just a bit of a joke really, especially when you have a government that just does not listen to reason.
