Higher Education and Research Bill

Earl of Listowel Excerpts

Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 18th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Cohen of Pimlico (Lab)]

My Lords, I remind the Committee that I am chancellor of the biggest private for-profit university in the country. We gain high marks in student surveys and in terms of employability. However, we regard both these things as at best very partial measures—student surveys, for all the reasons adduced by other Members of the House, and employability because we teach subjects, mostly law, accountancy and nursing, in which employability is slightly easier to expect. However, as part of getting degree-awarding powers, which took us four long years, we were assessed by the QAA. One of the things that was assessed was teaching quality. People who knew what they were talking about in terms of teaching quality, including from the Law Society and the Bar Council, sat in on lessons to see how we taught. When our licence was renewed in 2013, the whole thing happened again: people sat in on lessons and lectures to decide how well we were teaching. We passed with a very high standard. That might be the ideal supplementary measure because it is objective and is done by people who know what they are looking for. With the best will in the world, I do not think one can suggest that students, with their somewhat partial attendance, know what they are looking for. We need people with experience of teaching who know what they are looking for.

That leads me to the observation that the figure of 400 new entrants strikes me as amazingly high. The QAA says that it has passed through somewhere between 60 and 70 of us for degree-awarding powers since 2005, not more than that. Some of us have the title of university, some do not. These figures suggest to me that a much smaller number of higher education providers are outside the university sector than I thought. I wonder whether teaching quality assessment might not turn up as part of the duties of the new quality assessment committee, which appears later in the Bill. Might that not be part of its task, so that you have one expert assessment as opposed to the various useful consumer-type assessments which come from students liking and understanding what they are doing and getting jobs? I do not suggest that we should avoid those elements—they are excellent measures—but we need something objective as well to be sure that we are being fair to all institutions and that teaching quality is assured. I would like to come back to this later in the Bill.

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, I support what the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, said, which was echoed by the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick. These measures should not be used as a means to punish academics but should rather be used to support them in developing their game. As a trustee of a mental health charity that works with schools, I am well aware of the morale among teachers and head teachers and regret to say that it is very often extremely poor. They are of course at the opposite extreme. As a former Chief Inspector of Schools has said, we have the most measured pupils in the world, and we probably have the most measured teachers in the world. So many of them are worrying, “When is an Ofsted report going to come along to tell me how badly I’m doing?”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

I reiterate that the main way forward is that we want to link the issues of fees and performance. The TEF is a manifesto commitment, and I know that we are all agreed on the importance of recognising excellent teaching. As I have said very clearly to the Committee today, the Government have consulted extensively on the form of the TEF, and we will continue to listen to and engage with the sector as the TEF evolves. I say again that it is an iterative process, and that is why we do not need in primary legislation the detailed provisions that we have been discussing, as we believe they would hinder the constructive development that is already taking place. Therefore, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Watson, will agree to withdraw his amendment.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, is there a risk with the direction the Government are taking that, in supporting the thriving, successful and very good teaching universities and, some might say, putting in a bad light the less well-performing universities, we will move to a culture of universities that is less rich and diverse, with fewer local universities and specialisms, and just a few thoroughbred universities that everyone will want to go to and a diaspora of rather struggling universities? Is the Minister prepared to go away and think about whether that is a consequence that might result from this and whether that would be helpful?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

I thank the noble Earl for his point. However, I think it is right that we should be bold and look ahead to bring in the performance-related measures that we have been talking about—the sector has been waiting 20 years for this. We are bringing it in carefully, with some consideration, and I hope the Committee today recognises that there have been a lot of checks and controls in this. I do not think we should stick to the status quo, in which there is no consideration of assessing the performance of universities or teaching. It is very important to be sure that we raise the quality of teaching in this country.