Higher Education: Funding and Student Finance

Lord Pearson of Rannoch Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wilcox]

I think that it may be as part of the national scholarship programme that we will engage with that.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords, as we need to save money in our higher education system, may I suggest that the Government take a close look at the humanities departments of the former polytechnics? I ask the question against the background of my 10 years on the Council for National Academic Awards, which validated all the courses in the polytechnics until those were miraculously changed into universities in 1992. That experience led me to see that, although the former technical colleges continued to provide excellent quality after they were subsumed into the polytechnics, many of the new humanities departments—that is, the “poly” bit of the polytechnic experiment—did not. As far as I am aware, there is no quality control in this area. There is quality assurance, but that is a very different thing. I welcome the fact that the Statement says that all universities will be expected to publish standard information on employment outcomes. Will the Government ensure that this information reveals any weaknesses in the areas that I have mentioned, so that the huge sums of money that currently support such departments could be released for better departments and better institutions in the system?

[Baroness Wilcox]

I think that I agree with all of that. All universities and colleges, whatever contribution they decide to make, will be expected to publish a standard set of information about their performance against the indicators that students and their parents value. Listening to how the noble Lord described the matter from a polytechnics background—which is where I am from—I think that that will drive through very well, and I can only agree with him.