Higher Education and Research Bill

Debate between Lord Storey and Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 8th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood (CB)]

My Lords, I too very strongly support this group of amendments. I share the very great concern expressed around the House, particularly at the thought of blackening the names of a number of our universities, on which we depend so very much for all sorts of reasons. The criticisms made around the House are compelling as to the obvious deficiencies of the present scheme.

One hopes that this is not the case, but if at the end of this debate the Government remain disinclined to change the approach of using gold and silver stars, ratings and that sort of thing, I urge that universities at least—there are a group of clauses in the Bill which specify what an institution has to do to justify that title—should be spared from the nonsense involved in the scheme as presently envisaged. They should not have to do this. They are already assessed through more sophisticated, nuanced approaches, and they should not have to be ranked in the way that this absurd scheme proposes.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, first, I thank the Minister for listening and in some respects changing some of the issues. I was pleased to receive the briefing pack before coming into the Chamber, which was emailed to me as well. I want to talk about two issues: teaching and information.

I do not really get it. Quite simply, if you want to improve the quality of teaching, you do that not through ranking but through the individual who is teaching. We certainly expect a lecturer, professor or other member of staff at a university to have the academic ability and qualifications, or the renown, but we also expect them to be able to teach the subject. How do you do that? Presumably, it is not beyond the wit of universities to perhaps devise their own crash course in teaching. It was considered for FE—City & Guilds—so why could it not happen in universities? Why are we suggesting that a TEF will make an individual lecturer or professor a good teacher? It will not. Teaching skills, and the ability to teach, are not the same as having academic capabilities. This has to be about both, and if we want to improve teaching—which we need to do in our universities—then it will be through some form of teaching qualification.

Of course information should be available: the more information, the better, because in this day and age, particularly with social media, students look at the information to decide which university they go to. They also visit those universities, often with their parents, to decide which is the place for them. Your Lordships would be surprised by some of the considerations that they decide on—I have to say that whether the accommodation has en-suite facilities ranks very highly. I guess that it is increasingly through social media that students tell other prospective students what the place is like: whether the lectures are suddenly cancelled; whether assignments and dissertations are handed in on time and marked correctly; the numbers in lectures; the numbers in tutorials; and how competent and supportive personal tutors are.

Then we come to the issue of ranking. I like the analogy the noble Lord, Lord Smith, made with theatre and cinema stars. The difference is that there are different stars in different publications: one might give it three stars and one might give it one star. We cannot do that with these rankings: once you are a bronze, you are a bronze. I want the Government to understand why we oppose this. It is for a number of reasons. University teachers—lecturers—will want to teach at gold universities. That is human nature. They will not want to say, “I am at a bronze university”. It will affect social mobility. Students do not want to say, “My university was a bronze university”. I think it was the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, who said that praise is far better than wielding a stick.