Higher Education Reform

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Monday 28th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I absolutely agree with my noble friend about the importance of autonomy, but I hope he agrees with me that there is also a real responsibility to have transparency and for students to be really clear on the impact of this major decision and financial commitment they are making and what their future career and further education prospects are, based on the choice of course. We are not aiming to restrict university autonomy. We are aiming to improve transparency and, through transparency, to see that autonomy translate into even higher quality than we have today.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I welcome HE reform and have no objection to, for example, introducing minimum academic eligibility requirements to go to university, although linking access to student finance seems a cheap avoidance of winning the arguments for the virtues of the academic purpose of university. Is linking the value of a course’s quality to good jobs not a philistine undermining of knowledge for its own sake, turning universities into glorified job training centres? Is there a danger of a technocratic version of social mobility that instrumentalises the purpose of university, confirming that the only way to improve your social standing is to get a degree or go to university—the very opposite of what I assume the Government intend?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I apologise to the House if I was not completely clear in my earlier answer. I hoped and intended to refer to both the quality of jobs and the further education opportunities. Absolutely, our R&D is critical for the future of the country, and the quality of our thinking and debate, which I know the noble Baroness supports profoundly, is also really important. This is not just about jobs. But equally, I was made aware of six computing courses where the dropout rate is over 40%. Is that not something we should look at, compared with other courses where the dropout rate is much lower?