Higher Education and Research Bill

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Baroness Wolf of Dulwich

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

[Baroness Wolf of Dulwich (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendments 62 to 66, 88 and 93, tabled by the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, and Amendment 72, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, to all of which I have added my name. I declare my usual interest as a full-time professor at King’s College London, but also note that I am a founding editor and editorial board member of Assessment in Education, a leading international academic journal in the field.

I have listened with interest to all the remarks made by other noble Lords and have agreed with the overwhelming majority of them. I just want to comment on an issue that is at the heart of the amendments to which I have added my name. It concerns the profound difference between using a single composite measure and having a wide variety of measures that are reported separately.

One of the prime rules of assessment—indeed, of measurement—is that you do not throw away information if you can avoid it. The Government have, rightly and repeatedly, emphasised their commitment to transparency and to giving students better information about teaching quality and other aspects of the higher education courses to which they might or do subscribe. But the trouble is that a composite measure is the opposite of transparent. It is also a problem that it is seductively simple: three stars, four stars—how can one resist it? We believe it is somehow objective because that is how we respond to a single number. In modern societies, we love rankings. But if we add up measures of different things and produce a single number, we are not being transparent and we are not being objective. What we are presenting to people, first, throws away large amounts of information and, secondly, imposes our value judgment on those different measures. When we use different indicators, add them up and create a single rank or score, we are denying other people the chance to see how it was done. It is irrelevant whether you gave equal weight to each measure or decided to do all sorts of clever things and weighted one thing at threefold and another at a half; the point is that by doing that, you have imposed your judgment. The students for whom these are designed—the students we want to help—may have different interests from you, as the noble Lord, Lord Storey, has pointed out.

That is why I support the proposal from the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, that a scheme to assess quality must report individual measures individually. It is also why I completely agree with the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, that the last thing we want to do is impose on Governments, quite possibly for the next 30 years, the obligation to create rankings.

In this case, we are not even adding apples and oranges, which at least are both pieces of fruit. We are adding up things that are completely different. If the numbers are measuring or representing different things—and doing so with varying degrees of error, as is always the case—adding them up will compound the error. Obviously it would be nice to have a wonderful single measure, but the fact that we would all like one does not mean that it is better to have an unreliable one, rather than not have one at all. On the contrary, it is worse.

We know why most universities have signed up to this. On Monday, the Minister pointed out that if they do not agree to link TEF scores to fees they will,

“lose £16 billion over the course of the next 10 years”.—[Official Report, 6/3/17; col. 1140.]

Universities are in a corner and over a barrel—as we have heard, that is exactly how you would feel if you were the vice-chancellor of Warwick.

It seems to me that this is all quite unnecessary. The Conservative manifesto did not commit to rankings, to a single measure or to labelling people as gold, silver or bronze. It said that students would be informed of where there is high-quality teaching. That is something to which everybody in this House would sign up. I very much hope that the Government will continue to listen and will move away from a current commitment that can only be harmful, for all the reasons that people in this House have talked about so eloquently this afternoon.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been a passionate debate, which reflects accurately that this is the most contentious part of the Bill—certainly the email traffic that all of us have experienced would bear that out.

As we have heard from many noble Lords, the metrics proposed for the TEF are flawed, and confidence in their effectiveness remains extremely low among academic staff, students and more than a few vice-chancellors. The noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, referred to the University of Warwick. I have to say that that is more reflective of the general view than that sent out in the rather unconvincing letter from Universities UK and GuildHE a few days ago.

We on these Benches have consistently said that we are of course in favour of a mechanism that enhances the quality of teaching and of the general student experience. But, due to the differentiation of tuition fee levels, the TEF as it stands—even with the improvements made thus far—is not fit for purpose. In view of these uncertainties, and because the reputation of UK higher education institutions needs to be handled with particular care in the context of the upheaval that will result from our impending departure from the EU, it would be inadvisable to base any form of material judgment on TEF outcomes until the system has bedded down.

That is why Amendments 67 and 68 in the names of my noble friend Lord Lipsey and the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, calling for delays in the implementation of the TEF and the linkage of any fee increases to it, are sensible. As we on these Benches have argued consistently, we do not believe that there should be such linkage. In many ways, using student feedback as part of a framework that leads to fee increases, while at the same time purporting to represent and embody the interests of students, is contradictory. My noble friend Lord Blunkett has outlined why it is appropriate for the Secretary of State and not the Office for Students to bring forward a scheme to assess the quality of teaching.

In Committee, we tabled an amendment which sought to ensure that any rating scheme had only two categories: “meets expectations” and “fails to meet expectations”. So we welcome the fact that that principle is incorporated in my noble friend’s amendment. The amendment has the benefit of being straightforward without a confusing system of three categories, all of which would be deemed by the OfS to have met expectations—to different extents, of course. However, as many noble Lords have said, that is not how it would appear either to potential students, to those awarding research grants or to the world at large.

Amendment 72 also highlights the need for consistent and reliable information about the quality of education and teaching at institutions. The fact that what is proposed in the Bill would guarantee neither is a major reason why so many have opposed the TEF in its current form. The requirement to have the data and metrics on which the TEF is based subject to evaluation by the Office for National Statistics was advocated in Committee, but it merits reconsideration today. Without a firm base on which to establish the TEF, it is unlikely to gain the confidence not just of institutions but of staff and students, on whose futures it will have great bearing.

The future standing of higher education in the UK will depend on the Government rethinking their approach to these issues. It has to be said that not one noble Lord in the debate this afternoon has spoken in favour of the TEF as proposed. I ask the Minister and his colleague Minister Johnson to give that fact due weight of consideration.

Technical and Further Education Bill

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Baroness Wolf of Dulwich

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 27th February 2017 Grand Committee

[Baroness Wolf of Dulwich]

I am happy not to press my amendment, but I would like some clarification on why a private company which is often entirely dependent on public funding should be in some sense exempt from any requirements. This does not seem to be consistent with much of what goes on elsewhere in the public sector and what it requires of people.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

I think the Minister has sat down now and that the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, is very pertinent. From what has been said over the past half-hour or so, it is likely that we will return to this subject on Report. I have no doubt that the Minister and his officials will be looking at this in greater detail because the question of accountability is very important. Whether or not these are corporations, they are, as the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, said, dealing with public money.

My noble friend Lady Cohen asked what recourse students have if they are dissatisfied. The Minister did not answer that point. Again, this comes down to accountability. People have to have some come back if they do not get what they thought they were getting. I am talking about situations that fall short of the provider collapsing into insolvency. Many people may feel that they are getting an inferior product and that has to be something that can be followed up.

I take the Minister’s point in respect of Amendments 16 and 18 about the institute being independent and having the freedom to decide how it delivers. However, he went on to say that there would be two panels: one for students and one for apprentices. That is what our Amendment 16 asks for and it goes no further, other than to say that it need not be limited to those two panels. The Minister has conceded the point, as did his colleague Robert Halfon in another place, as I said earlier. We knew that, but it would be helpful to have a commitment because—we say this in respect of many pieces of legislation—we may get a commitment from Ministers now, but what about the Ministers or Government who follow them? There is nothing to fall back on should views change. That is why it is important on occasions such as this to have it written into the legislation.

The same could be said about Amendment 18 on employers. The Minister said—I wrote it down—that there would be a range of employers. We are asking for almost the same wording,

“a number of employers who, taken together, comprise a broad range of employer types”.

We are surely talking about the same thing and I do not understand the reluctance. The Minister clearly wants to see a broad range; so do we.

I think we might want to revisit these matters because we are capable of reaching a situation where both sides are satisfied. We want to make sure that this works and works well: that the boards are representative and that the standards set are proper and reached with the full support of the sector. They have to be acceptable to employers within each of the 15 occupational groups and seen to be representative of their needs. We have a bit of common ground but there is some ground yet to be made up before we reach what either side might find a satisfactory outcome. At this stage, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.