Higher Education and Research Bill

Baroness Wolf of Dulwich Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 11th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Cohen of Pimlico (Lab)]

My Lords, I support all the amendments and in particular the comments that my noble friend has just made. For the university of which I am chancellor, part-time study is a key part of the business model, and for my noble friend Lady Blackstone it is a key part of her business model at Birkbeck. Why, we ask ourselves, are part-time students reducing in numbers? I have to say that I do not have a good answer to that, but it is enormously important. It would be very hard to find anybody who does not support the extension of part-time teaching, but we do not seem to be getting it right—even those of us whose core business it is. I would like to ask the Government to think about this.

[Baroness Wolf of Dulwich (CB)]

My Lords, I also would like to support this amendment and all the amendments in the group, one of which bears my name. The comments we have just heard go to the core of the problem. Everybody believes that part-time and mature students are very important—the Government believe it and every previous Government in my memory believed it—and yet, at the moment, we see not a rise but a decrease in their numbers, and they are not more evident as part of the higher education system but less so than they were quite recently. My view is that the root cause of this lies with the current funding system for higher education, which clearly cannot be dealt with by this Bill. However, the Bill can and should make explicit the responsibilities of the OfS to make these groups central to its concerns and mission and not, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, said, something to be added on at the end.

I will mention one other group mentioned in the amendment: workplace students. Again, those students are tremendously fashionable in political statements but do not tend to be very numerous in reality. Twenty or 30 years ago, we had a well-developed ONC/HNC route for those students, but we no longer do. Since I totally agree with those noble Lords who have underlined the rapidly changing nature of the jobs market, I think that this group, too, needs explicit attention from the Office for Students.

[Lord Desai (Lab)]

My Lords, I will make a short plea for something that has not been mentioned so far. Most people have spoken about part-time students as people who want a degree, a skill, a job and so on. I do not know where further education is in all this—perhaps it is not part of this debate. Many people go into further education not necessarily to get a diploma or a degree but to educate themselves. I had enough of primary, secondary and higher education to suit me for several lifetimes, but I did go to Morley College for a family French class with my children. Children and adults studied together and it was a very pleasurable experience—I even learned some French. So I think that there may be ways of learning without actually taking a degree.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough]

I asked a specific question about the transfer of students, using their acquired learning, on to courses in other universities. Despite what has been said in this House, the vast majority of universities, particularly in the Russell group, will not accept students whose prior learning comes from other organisations. If we are to deal with this issue, it is important that the Office for Students has the power within its overall remit to ensure that fair arrangements are made between universities to allow students to transfer.

[Baroness Wolf of Dulwich]

May I correct that? It may be true that this is not common but it is not true that the vast majority of Russell group universities will not accept credits. I want to make that clear for the record.

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough]

I would like to see the evidence for it.