Higher Education and Research Bill

Debate between Carol Monaghan and Roger Mullin

3rd reading: House of Commons & Legislative Grand Committee: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 21st November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Carol Monaghan]

Certain rogue institutions—particularly private FE colleges—have in the past not complied with visa regulations, but there is little evidence that the HE institutions in the scope of this Bill have any record of non-compliance, so I do not accept the points the right hon. Gentleman makes.

[Roger Mullin]

In last week’s Westminster Hall debate, I specifically challenged the Home Office Minister to name any institutions in Scotland that could be said to fall into the behavioural category the right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) suggested, and he said he could not name one.

[Carol Monaghan]

The 19 higher education institutes in Scotland have a strong record in attracting international students and a strong record of compliance, so I agree 100% with my hon. Friend.

Higher Education and Research Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Carol Monaghan and Roger Mullin

Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 6th September 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Roger Mullin]

Ladies first.

[Carol Monaghan]

Q Thank you very much for coming. I know you have come at short notice this afternoon, so we appreciate you taking the time to be here. One of our concerns is that at the moment Scotland’s quality assurance in higher education is distinct. We have concerns that that is not being recognised in the TEF. Do you think that Scotland’s distinct quality assurance is being considered fully and is there provision for further work to be done on that?

Alastair Sim: It might be helpful if I describe what the sector leadership is thinking about this. We think that the Bill has presented us in Scotland, with the TEF, with what one might describe as a bit of a cleft stick. On the one hand, we are not sure that the TEF is exactly right for Scotland; on the other, there are strong competitive pressures. If institutions are going to get markings for being very high quality in terms of their teaching in England, there is a competitive disadvantage to Scottish institutions in not being part of that. The reasons that we have reservations about TEF is because we think that what we have in Scotland is, in some respects, quite special. It is a very collaborative system, which involves students very much at the heart of assessing whether quality and enhancement is what it should be. It is very enhancement-driven; it is about institutions learning from themselves, from peers and from international panellists on enhancement review panels about how to make the system better and how to collaborate across the system—for instance, produce graduates that are more employable and respond to that sort of challenge. There is a strong feeling in Scotland that we want to protect the best of what we have, but we also wonder whether, given this competitive pressure, institutions will end up deciding to go into the TEF. We do not know the answer to that yet. Given that that is also a possibility, we are working with the Department for Education to make sure that as the TEF is engineered, it does not have metrics in it that are perverse to Scotland, that sufficient recognition is given to the way things are done in Scotland and that potentially an equivalence is drawn between an evolution of the quality enhancement framework in Scotland and the teaching excellence framework in England.

Dr John Kemp: To be clear, there is no intention to get rid of the Scottish quality system. We will retain a distinctive Scottish quality system. However, we are keen to make sure that the possibility exists, should institutions in Scotland and the Scottish Government wish, for Scottish institutions then to have the TEF. For comparative reasons internationally, and also because a substantial number of students at Scottish universities come from England, that might be valuable; but we have no intention of changing the Scottish quality system and replacing it with the TEF. The TEF would sit alongside, rather than replace it.