Higher Education and Research Bill

Baroness Eccles of Moulton Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 6th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Eccles of Moulton (Con)]

I must start by saying what a pleasure it was to listen to the maiden speech of my noble friend Lady Sugg at very close quarters. I congratulate her.

It is a long time since HEFCE succeeded the Universities Funding Council and an equally long time before this Bill began to make its way through Parliament. Big changes in the sector and the world around us mean that it is timely and necessary, not least because the introduction of student tuition fees has greatly affected HEFCE’s main function. Now the Bill has arrived with us and we are getting on with it.

We know that Ministers have been listening—and still are. They are open to hearing of ways in which the Bill can further be improved. This has also been demonstrated by the response to the evidence given in Committee in another place and the subsequent amendments to the Bill. There is more work to be done by us and we are hopeful of a good response.

The importance of institutional autonomy and academic freedom has been referred to many times already. They are recognised in the Bill and there are safeguards to protect them. The safeguards must be strong and constantly borne in mind as the Bill progresses so that there is no chance that less scrupulous Administrations in future could weaken these vital traditions. Questions have already been asked about the distinction between quality and standards by my noble friend Lord Renfrew, the noble Baronesses, Lady Blackstone and Lady Warwick, and the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Finsbury. In this context, I will say something about degree-awarding powers.

As I understand it, it is an important principle that the Office for Students’ responsibility for assessing quality and standards does not undermine the prerogative of universities to determine their own academic standards. At the same time, it will be made clear that they must meet the threshold standards set out in the Frameworks for Higher Education Qualifications, a document agreed by the sector. The Minister was quite clear in Committee that this was the case. The inclusion of standards in the Bill is about making sure that the overall quality of higher education in this country is not undermined by providers offering substandard qualifications. It is not about the Government or the Office for Students setting academic standards at individual institutions. There will be no cap on the academic standards that any institution wishes to adopt for its degrees, but the inclusion of standards will help the OfS ensure that minimum standards for a UK degree are maintained. Is it made clear in Clause 43 that autonomy is not being challenged unnecessarily?

I will say a word about postgraduates, who have not been mentioned much. It is important to note that those working for doctorates—and all postgraduates—will be affected by the changes. It is proposed that the OfS will be responsible for protecting the interests of all postgraduate students and the quality of all regulated provision, working with the designated quality body. It will be the funder of taught postgraduate education, including the teaching grant currently allocated for this purpose through HEFCE.

To finish, I will say a final word about use of language, about which we probably all feel quite strongly. Now that students have become self-funding there is a temptation to represent them as consumers, presumably to encourage the sector to become more competitive. It is surely not necessary to rename students and to identify universities with marketplaces. Trains tried “customers” but went back to “passengers”. Hospitals tried “consumers” but changed back to “patients”. Of course, the word “markets” has a more general use. Even so, it can conjure up an image of open-air stalls with mountains of fruit and vegetables, and cheap, plastic, mass-produced goods. My plea is that we should continue to dignify universities and students with their traditional names. We are in for an interesting time as we progress through the stages of the Bill and I am sure that we are all looking forward to it.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Baroness Eccles of Moulton Excerpts

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

[Baroness Blackstone (Lab)]

My Lords, I want to add a few words to what has already been said. I very much agree with most of the amendments in this group, and especially with what the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, and other speakers said about gold, silver and bronze. I also support my noble friend Lord Blunkett’s amendment, which is a very thoughtful way of trying to approach an exceedingly difficult subject.

I will repeat what I have said on numerous occasions. It is vital that teaching is given the kind of support and effort that goes into research. One thing that we have perhaps got wrong in our universities is that we have been inclined to reward research much more than good teaching. One reason for that is that it is rather easier to measure. We have publications and all the metrics that go with looking at citations and so on, which do not exist for teaching. But if we are going to go down this route, we have to get it right, because if we fail we will abandon any kind of effort to improve teaching, and that would be a tragedy.

One thing that is wrong with the approach that the Government have taken is that it feeds what is, in my view, an insatiable need for grades and ratings. There is much too much of this, and it fails to look at the very important nuances of what constitutes good seminar teaching, good lectures, a good learning environment—whether it is laboratories or libraries—and good assessment and appraisal of students. That will get lost in these sorts of gradings.

There are a couple of things that have not been said, I think, by anybody in this debate. What is the impact of this on students? What happens to the students in a university who are suddenly told, “We are very sorry, but your university has been rated bronze”? This is not like going to Which? or a consumer advice organisation and deciding that you have made a mistake in the vacuum cleaner you have bought. You can go out and buy another vacuum cleaner, but these students are stuck in the same institution, which may or may not improve. Actually, I suspect that many of them will not improve because it does not motivate academic staff to be labelled in this way. People get better in response to praise, not this sort of rather crude criticism. I am rather taken by what the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, said, about it being fine to indicate those institutions or departments within them that have done extraordinarily well, because that is giving praise and those institutions should be asked to be role models and support some of their neighbouring institutions that are not doing quite so well.

It is a bad system that is being created for academic staff and students, let alone for universities in their international recruitment. Everything that has been said about that is absolutely right. People trying to decide where to study who live in a small Indian provincial city do not have all the information that might be available to potential students living in this country so these sorts of labels will have a very big impact, and they will last for a long time. Even if an institution gets better, it will be stuck with this label for a long time before it can escape from it.

Finally, this sort of crude denomination, labelling and grading will also affect employers, who, again, do not have all the information they might need to make the rather subtle decisions about the students they want to recruit and where they have come from. They will use this and decide that a student coming from a bronze institution is not going to be as good a recruit as a student from a gold institution. That, again, seems a very undesirable situation and will damage the students not only during their time at the institution but in terms of where they are going to go in their initial and early careers.

[Baroness Eccles of Moulton (Con)]

My Lords, I want to say a few words about the teaching excellence framework, but before I do that, I want to add my comments to those already made about the huge amount of effort that has been put into the Bill already. It is very obvious that the department has been listening. Some wise words have been said today already about improving the teaching excellence framework, and I am sure they will be listened to as well. I have just a bit to add, which is more by way of explanation than of questions to the Government and suggestions for improvement. Several suggestions have been made already, which I am sure will be listened to.