Higher Education: EUC Report

Baroness Young of Hornsey Excerpts

Thursday 11th October 2012 Lords Chamber

Moved By

[Baroness Young of Hornsey]

To move that this House takes note of the Report of the European Union Committee on The Modernisation of Higher Education in Europe (27th Report, Session 2010-12, HL Paper 275).

[Baroness Young of Hornsey]

My Lords, Sub-Committee G on Social Policies and Consumer Protection produced this report just before it was wound up, following a reorganisation of the House’s committee functions that took effect at the beginning of this Session. While the responsibility for European education policy has now passed into the capable hands of Sub-Committee F, its Chairman, my noble friend Lord Hannay, has kindly agreed that I, as the Chairman of Sub-Committee G when the inquiry was conducted, should move this Motion.

The sub-committee turned its attention to higher education last October, shortly after the Commission published a communication on the subject. We aimed to complete the inquiry and publish our report ahead of the Bologna ministerial conference in Bucharest on 26 and 27 April. David Willetts, the Higher Education Minister who provided us with the Government’s perspective during our inquiry, attended that conference and took note of the report’s recommendations. The report also considered student mobility, which was examined by a joint steering group that reported to the Government around the same time that our report was published. I will reflect upon these developments and our position on them in due course.

The debate continues about whether international student numbers should continue to be included in the Government’s net migration targets. Universities UK and other stakeholders have called for their removal in order to create a clear differentiation between temporary and permanent migration, to help universities whose international character is essential to their future success and to contribute to economic growth. While David Willetts has recently responded to these calls by making a commitment that overseas student numbers would be disaggregated from net migration figures, it is not yet clear whether this means that international student figures will be completely removed from the reduction targets. I know that many of your Lordships have strong views on these matters, which I look forward to hearing during the course of this debate.

On the Bologna process, from the very beginning of our inquiry we were conscious that the EU, with its treaties, legislation and enforcement mechanisms, and the more informal Bologna process—of which the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, was the UK signatory as Higher Education Minister in 1999, and which relies upon voluntary engagement between Governments and stakeholders and adopts decisions by unanimity—were two very different European organisations. Despite its voluntary nature, we were genuinely impressed by how much has been achieved through the Bologna process without structures equivalent to the EU being in place. However, we also took note of the overlaps between the two entities. Alongside the 47 European Bologna countries, the European Commission is a member in its own right and has aided its development through sponsoring mobility schemes such as Erasmus and other instruments, such as the European credit transfer scheme and diploma supplement.

While concerns have been raised in the past about the effectiveness of the Bologna process as a purely intergovernmental system, we received no evidence from any of our witnesses to suggest there was any desire to reconstitute the Bologna process on a more formal, bureaucratic or legalistic footing. We also received no evidence to suggest that the Commission would like a stronger role in European higher education or in the Bologna process itself. Instead, many of our witnesses raised concerns about the boundaries becoming blurred between the EU and the European higher education area, which was the outcome of the Bologna process. As a result, we emphasised the importance of retaining a clear demarcation between the two entities in our report.

While the UK already complies with much of the Bologna process, and many of our witnesses were positive about its role in principle, we developed the impression that the Government and many universities were yet to realise and fully embrace its potential benefits. We also considered that policy-makers in Whitehall should take more account of the European dimension when framing their approach to higher education reform. However, in other respects we acknowledged that the European frameworks sometimes struggled to accommodate the particularities of the UK system, namely the one-year masters degree, which more commonly takes two years to complete in the rest of Europe and therefore does not always fit neatly into the credit accumulation system. The Government assured us that they were working with their European partners to iron out such conflicts.

An obvious manifestation of the EU’s role in higher education in Europe, particularly in the UK, is the provision of research funding through the seventh framework programme, known as FP7. With this in mind, and conscious of the role of research and development funding in achieving economic growth, our report supports the allocation of a bigger proportion of funds to research, innovation and education—including the successor programme to FP7, Horizon 2020—under the next long-term EU budget for the period 2014-20. This support is subject to reductions being made in other areas of the EU budget and overall restraint being achieved. While we considered that the Commission’s preferred allocation of €80 billion during this seven-year period may be unrealistic, we were concerned that the Government’s drive for overall budgetary restraint may prove to be counterproductive by diluting the disproportionately large allocation of funding that UK universities currently receive from this part of the EU budget. While we appreciate that the MFF negotiations are still ongoing, I would welcome the Minister’s response to this particular point.

As part of our inquiry, we visited the University of East London’s Docklands campus, developed in part due to EU funds and where the development of entrepreneurs from the student body and local communities was being supported. We considered that the EU could make a valuable contribution to fostering greater collaboration between universities and businesses, resulting in increased economic growth, and we urged the Government to take more account of various EU initiatives in this area, including knowledge and innovation communities and European innovation partnerships. We also called upon the Government to play a full role in the further development of the European research area, allowing for the greater mobility of researchers, better cross-border co-operation and competition and harmonised career structures. The European University Association, whose secretary-general provided evidence for our inquiry, is one of the main driving organisations behind this initiative.

As noble Lords will already be aware, there are presently a substantial number of first-class universities in the UK, which are second only to US institutions in global rankings. However, this should not make the UK higher education sector complacent, particularly in the light of recent global ranking figures that showed some UK universities slipping down the top 100. On the subject of ranking, the Commission’s proposal for a new European university ranking, U-Multirank, elicited strong reactions from most of our witnesses. While we considered that the proposal had some positive characteristics, including its intention to rely upon a greater number of indicators than simply research output, we came to the view that it should not be considered a priority at this stage. We noted, however, that existing rankings, which depend on multiple indicators such as the Times Higher Education world university rankings, can make a valuable contribution to assessing the relative merits of universities around the world.

The higher education sector is becoming increasingly global in character. In this vein, the Commission intends to produce an internationalisation strategy. While we can see potential value in this move, we believe that care should be taken to avoid duplicating work already being carried out by individual universities and member states and concentrate on areas where it can truly add value, such as fostering greater collaboration between universities across continents.

Lastly, we considered mobility. While we considered that placements abroad produced a range of benefits for individuals, such as increased confidence, improved social skills and employability, we were presented with evidence that indicated there were a number of barriers that prevented UK students participating in Erasmus and other mobility schemes to the same extent as those of other member states.

Our report urges the Government to address the UK’s prevailing monoglot culture by making language learning compulsory in primary and secondary schools, thereby aiding the development of a UK student mobility culture; ensuring the continuation of the Erasmus fee waiver scheme; and supporting the development of the proposed masters-level student loan guarantee facility—all of which we believe could aid the ability of more students to take advantage of the opportunity to study in Europe. We also considered that universities and the Commission could do more to increase participation by promoting mobility opportunities far more widely and by making the length of Erasmus placements more flexible. We welcomed the Commission’s Erasmus for All proposal and considered that, as with Horizon 2020, funding to this area should be prioritised under the next multiannual financial framework.

Apart from financial and linguistic barriers to student mobility, the report also recommended that the Government could do more to overcome other socioeconomic and cultural barriers to participation in mobility programmes. Despite the rapid expansion of participation in higher education over the past half- century, the proportion of students from disadvantaged social backgrounds participating in study in Europe has remained frustratingly static. While some aspects of the new tuition fee regime could alleviate the financial burden on prospective students from less privileged backgrounds, debt aversion and low expectations are more difficult to overcome. HESA data also demonstrate that these students, as well as those from ethnic minorities and those with disabilities, are less likely to participate in Erasmus and other mobility schemes. I trust that the Minister will outline what the Government are doing to widen participation in this respect.

We also noted the recent growth of courses taught in the English language by universities in mainland Europe, particularly at the postgraduate level, which is a feature of the increasingly competitive global market for international students. To reference one example, Maastricht University has recently stepped up its efforts to recruit students from the UK and toured some English schools last Easter in order to recruit new students. While their significantly lower tuition fees will no doubt appeal to cash-strapped parents up and down the country, it would lessen students’ chances of improving their language skills. It also means that the UK can no longer guarantee that it will retain its competitive edge in attracting foreign students. While greater competition is not necessarily a bad thing, our report urges the Government and UK universities to be vigilant and actively to promote the benefits of the UK higher education sector within Europe and internationally.

The Government’s response to our report was published in May 2012, and there is clearly much common ground between our respective views on the report’s themes that I have already mentioned. In particular, we welcome the commitment that David Willetts has already made to increasing outward student mobility. A joint steering group, chaired by Professor Colin Riordan, who gave evidence to our inquiry, produced a series of recommendations last March to increase outward mobility. The Minister confirmed that from the beginning of the academic year 2014-15, students studying overseas on Erasmus or other international mobility schemes will be required to pay a student contribution for the first time, which is not as generous as the existing scheme.

I am conscious of time, so I shall move to a conclusion, leaving out a few points that may be raised by noble Lords during the debate.

In conclusion, we reached the view that while the EU can continue to make a positive contribution to the modernisation of European higher education, it must nevertheless be pragmatic and concentrate only on the areas where it can truly add value. For their part, the Government should also place higher education at the centre of their growth agenda, domestically and across Europe, by maximising the potential opportunities presented through engagement with both the EU and the Bologna process. We welcome the progress that the Government have already made in this area. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Young of Hornsey]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who took part in today’s debate. I, too, am conscious of the time and that everybody has been very diligent in listening to all the analysis and critiques that we have heard this afternoon. It makes me sad that I no longer have any responsibility for this subject directly within the EU Select Committee structure but I will, no doubt, be working with my noble friend Lord Hannay, who I wish well in his work, in following up on this debate and on the report, as is customary.

I shall make a couple of very quick points in shorthand. We recognise, but were not able to put fully into the report, how complex student mobility is. It is not just about finance; it is about economics and social and cultural factors and the rich interplay of all those different factors in presenting barriers to many of our students going to study in Europe.

I shall say no more on U-Multirank, except that in a sense I understand that the impulse to develop something less oriented towards particular kinds of institutions was not necessarily a bad idea, but how that is to play out is to be seen.

Our remit and title were determined by the communication from the European Commission, so although there might be problems around the use of the term “modernisation”, it is not necessarily of our doing and I distance us slightly from that.

On language competence, I shall say only that it is not merely about the language and linguistics; it is also about culture. Even if everybody in the world were able to speak English as well as other languages, we would be impoverished if we could not communicate in languages other than our own native tongue.

I thank the Minister for her thoughtful reply. I shall not address those areas where we might still be in disagreement. Like her, I shall be looking at Hansard and thinking through what some of those responses mean.

To conclude, I thank hugely the members of Sub-Committee G who I worked with. In particular, for today, I thank the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, who was so supportive on that committee. I am really glad that he is able to follow that through on the committee of my noble friend Lord Hannay. I, too, give due credit to Michael Torrance, Alistair Dillon and Mandeep Lally, who were admirable support for Sub-Committee G.

The debate has been stimulating and wide-ranging. The one thing we all agree on is that higher education has a huge role to play, one way or another, in trying to get us out of this ongoing crisis in which we find ourselves, which is not only to do with the financial crisis—although that is obviously at the forefront—but also our environmental crisis, and social and cultural issues, too.

I thank everybody for their participation.

Motion agreed.