Universities

Lord Rees of Ludlow Excerpts

Thursday 14th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rees of Ludlow (CB)]

My Lords, we should welcome this debate on the excellent and thought-provoking report from UUK. It recommends that the long-term goal should be 70% of young people with qualifications at level 4 or above, to be achieved via flexible co-operation between higher and further education. I declare an interest as a member of Cambridge University, and I will focus on the university sector in my comments.

How best can our universities adjust? Despite their manifest general quality, there is currently a systemic weakness: their missions are not sufficiently varied. They all aspire to rise in the same league table, which gives weight to research as well as teaching. Most of their students are between 18 and 21, undergoing three years of full-time residential education and studying a curriculum that is too narrow, even for the minority who aspire to professional or academic careers. There is a contrast with the US, where there are several thousand institutions of higher education: junior and regional colleges, huge state universities—several are world class and some are highly innovative, such as Arizona State University—and the private Ivy League universities, supplemented by liberal arts colleges that offer top-rated undergraduate education but no PhD courses.

We should query the view that the standard three-year degree is the minimum worthwhile goal, or indeed the most appropriate one, for many young people. The core courses offered in the first two years are often the most valuable. Moreover, students who realise that the degree course they have embarked on is not right for them, or who have personal hardship, should be enabled to leave early with dignity and a certificate to mark what they have achieved. They should not be disparaged as wastage; they should make the positive claim, “I had two years of college”. Vice-chancellors should not be berated for taking risks in admissions nor pressured to entice them to stay, least of all by lowering degree standards.

There are many 18 year-olds of high intellectual potential who have had poor schooling and other disadvantages, and who do not have a fair prospect of admission at 18 to the most competitive universities. To promote fairness and diversity, therefore, universities whose entry bar is dauntingly high—Oxford and Cambridge in particular—should reserve a fraction of their places for students who do not come straight from school. This would offer a second chance to those who were disadvantaged at 18 through their background, or their choice of A-levels, but who have caught up by earning two years’ worth of credits online, at another institution or via the Open University. Such students could then advance to a degree at Oxbridge in two further years.

Moreover, everyone should have the lifelong opportunity to upgrade—to re-enter higher education, maybe part-time or online. This path could become smoother, indeed routine, if the Government were to formalise systems of transferable credits across the UK’s whole system of tertiary education. Incidentally, since I have mentioned league tables, let us not overrate salaries in those tables. If a talented young artist can be enabled to pursue their vocation as a career, after suitable courses, that is surely good for society even if they only just earn the living wage.

What makes Oxford and Cambridge unique assets to the UK is that they combine the strength of top world-class research universities with the pastoral and educational benefits of the best American liberal arts colleges. It is unrealistic to raise 10 more UK universities to the top of the international research league, but we could surely counterbalance the unhealthily dominant allure of Oxford and Cambridge to students, and promote regional balance, by boosting the funding of some of our smaller universities so that they can emulate US liberal arts colleges, and Oxbridge colleges, in offering high-quality intensive teaching.

Let us hope that the UUK report catalyses reform. As other speakers have said, higher education is currently one of the UK’s distinctive strengths and certainly crucial to our future, but it must not be sclerotic and unresponsive to changes in needs, lifestyle and opportunities. A rethink is overdue if we are to sustain its status in a different world.

Higher Education Funding

Lord Rees of Ludlow Excerpts

Thursday 12th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rees of Ludlow (CB)]

My Lords, the UK’s whole post-18 education system surely needs not only a greater funding stream but more institutional variety, and increased flexibility in its offerings.

There is currently a systemic weakness. The missions of individual institutions are not sufficiently varied. They nearly all aspire to rise in the same league table. Most of their students are between 18 and 21, are undergoing three years of full-time, generally residential, education, and are studying a curriculum that is probably too narrow even for the minority who aspire to professional or academic careers. Even worse, the school curriculum is too narrow as well.

Students should be able to choose their preferred balance between online and residential courses, and to access distance learning of higher quality. We need a blurring of the damaging divide between technical and university education, and a consequent shift towards the attitude that a vocational diploma has the same status as a degree. We should abandon the view that the standard three-year full-time degree is the minimum worthwhile goal. The core courses offered in the first two years are often the most valuable.

Moreover, students who realise that the degree course they have embarked on is not right for them, or who suffer problems of various kinds, should be enabled to leave early with dignity, with a certificate to mark what they have accomplished. They should not be disparaged as “wastage”. More importantly, they—and everyone else—should have the opportunity to re-enter higher education, maybe part-time or online, at any stage in their lives. This path could become smoother if there were a formalised system of transferable credits across the whole system, as urged in the Augar report supported by the previous Government, and a flexible grant or loan system.

Admission to the most demanding and attractive courses is naturally competitive, but the playing field is still far from level. Many 18 year-olds of high intellectual potential have had poor schooling and suffered other disadvantages, often dating from their pre-school years.

It will be a long slog to ensure that high-quality teaching at school is available across the full geographical and social spectrum. In the meantime, it would send an encouraging signal if UK universities whose entry bar is dauntingly high were to reserve a fraction of their places for students who do not come straight from school. They could thereby offer a second chance to those who were disadvantaged at 18 but have caught up by earning two years’ worth of credits at other institutions or online. Such students could then perhaps advance to degree level in two further years.

What about graduate-level education? In the US only a minority of universities have strong graduate schools. That is a model which, as other noble Lords have said, the UK should move towards.

I shall say a word here about foreign students. We should surely welcome talent at graduate level, especially from the global South—and not just for the money those students bring in. Indeed, we should foster international north-south collaborations in advanced teaching and research—in food science, health and clean energy, for example. This could prevent a widening gap and resist brain-draining of the talented students to the north, so that they can pursue careers that narrow their own nations’ gap with the north.

Universities are currently one of the UK’s distinctive strengths, but we should not be complacent. The sector must not be sclerotic. A rethink is overdue if we are to sustain its status in a changing world. It needs to be responsive to changes in needs, lifestyles and opportunities. It will then be able to offer springboards to the long-term prosperity not just of our nation but of the world.