Higher Education (Information) Bill
Debate between Lord Johnson of Marylebone and Heidi Allen
The Minister for Universities and Science (Joseph Johnson)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Heidi Allen) on securing a place in the ballot, and thank her for her efforts in championing this important issue. I also thank Which? for its support for the goals of the Bill.
We have a world-class higher education system, and more new providers have entered the sector in the last five years than at any time since the big 1992 expansion. Allowing new entrants is part of our approach to creating a diverse and healthy market in which competition can drive up quality and deliver value to students, but a healthy market requires well-informed consumers. Applicants need to know what they can expect from a particular course, and be able to compare institutions across a wide range of criteria. Much information is already available, but the whole sector needs to go further. Improved information also needs to be supported by a regulatory framework that puts students at the heart of the system.
The Bill addresses many key issues, and I shall come on to say more about the type of information that students want. We know that information about what they can expect from university is crucial to young people who are making life-changing decisions. We recognise that higher education is not the only option for them, and that it is therefore essential for them to have the best information and support available so that they can make those huge decisions. If they are to make the best possible choices about where and what to study, individuals need access to robust, timely and objective information about the quality of teaching that they are likely to experience, and what it is likely to mean for their future employment.
As my hon. Friend rightly pointed out, league tables are not always an accurate reflection of the quality of education that is provided in a specific course. We also know that students require a wider range of information on such matters as course quality, teaching intensity, contact hours and the cost of living, all of which are relevant to them. Information from the National Student Survey—involving about 300,000 final-year undergraduates each year since 2004—and the annual Higher Education Policy Institute surveys, undertaken with the Higher Education Academy, provide some insight. Clear priorities for university students were more hours of teaching, smaller teaching groups and better learning facilities, but there is little information for them on such matters. Some 75% thought that they probably, or definitely, did not have enough information about the way in which tuition fees are spent.
The National Student Survey records scores for assessment and feedback, which have traditionally been the area of student experience with the lowest satisfaction levels. Following focused effort by providers, the level is now running at 74%, up from 64% in 2008. However, one third of undergraduates paying higher fees in England believe that their course represents very poor, or poor, value for money.
As part of our drive for more transparency and better value for money for students, we are developing a teaching excellence framework. As we have already announced, we will set out our proposals in a Green Paper later in the autumn. That will help students to make good choices, and to have ready access to transparent information. We believe that the framework—as promised in our manifesto—will act as a driver of increasing quality by enabling students to make more informed choices on the basis of better information about teaching quality and outcomes, and incentivising the sector in respect of teaching excellence.
Joseph Johnson
I want first to deal with the substance of the Bill, so that my hon. Friend will have the satisfaction of knowing the Government’s position.
While I support the spirit behind this well-intentioned Bill, I do not believe that it is the best way in which to achieve our objectives on behalf of students, or to provide them with the increased information on higher education that they need. We do not think it appropriate to put into legislation detailed data requirements which, by their very nature, would frequently be subject to change to reflect adaptations and improvements in the sector. We believe that our forthcoming proposals on the teaching excellence framework will address our objectives in a holistic way and tackle the range of issues that my hon. Friend has rightly raised, including the need for transparency in the sector and the rights of students and consumers to improve their overall experience. Indeed, Universities UK has stated in its briefing note for this Bill that the teaching excellence framework will be a vehicle for introducing many of those measures.
Before I go into the detail, I shall set out the existing work we have done on student information. But first, I will happily give way to my hon. Friend.