Higher Education and Research Bill (Second sitting)

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

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

[The Chair]

Okay Mr Lewis, thank you very much. You have made your point in a very articulate way, but lots of people want to ask questions.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

Q Can I probe Chris a little bit more on the teaching excellence framework? When we conducted an inquiry on the Select Committee into teaching quality, there was uniform agreement that it is good for the Government to focus on teaching excellence, but concern about the metrics. It is welcome that Government thinking has been evolving and did so during the course of our inquiry. You were suggesting there is room for further evolution. I am thinking particularly about how satisfied you are with the pretty crude metrics around employment retention and the national student survey. There is also the balance between the quantitative metrics and qualitative assessment.

Professor Chris Husbands: My brief is to deliver the TEF in a transparent, robust and reliable way. What I said and what I would defend is that the three broad areas—teaching quality, learning environment, student destinations—are absolutely the right place to look. I am also comfortable with the fact that we have started with already existing datasets: essentially, the national student survey and the destination of leavers from higher education. That gives us a purchase on what are some really difficult issues.

My professional judgment is that, as we go forward, we will refine the metrics within those broad indicators. The TEF will work by getting the initial fix on institutional performance from the core metrics. There is then a providers’ submission, which allows providers to draw on a range of quantitative and qualitative data that will allow them to gloss those data or throw further light on them in ways that paint the institutional picture.

I am broadly comfortable that this is a very difficult task that we have started in broadly the right place. As ever in these things, as you take the logic of applying this technically, bringing professional judgment into play, we can deliver this in a way that does what it is intended to do—providing better information for students; encouraging an institutional focus on teaching quality; and drawing all that together in a frame that looks at student outcomes.

[Paul Blomfield]

Q You mentioned earlier a comparison with the REF. To get to the current stage with the REF took a considerable amount of time. Do you think we are rushing it with the TEF before moving on to stages two and three?

Professor Chris Husbands: At the risk of giving a slightly technical answer, the REF always began with peer review and it has increasingly supplemented that with metrics. Given the range and amount of data we now have across the sector, the TEF is doing this the other way around, starting with metrics and supplementing it with peer judgments.

We have a published timetable. We look at institutional judgment in year 2; judgments that we will reach in the early part of next year. We will then work with the sector to work out how we can most effectively move that to institution level and probably at a slightly later date move that to incorporate postgraduate teaching quality as well. I am broadly comfortable with the timetable, while accepting that these are technically difficult questions.

[Paul Blomfield]

Q Will you be able to take account of the work that HEFCE is doing on value added?

Professor Chris Husbands: We will certainly be able to take account of the HEFCE learning-gain work. There is some really interesting stuff coming out of that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ben Howlett]

Any comments from anyone else?

Neil Bates: I just wanted to pick up on the gender issue as it is a real issue. We always start by asking, “What is the problem that we are trying to solve?” As a practical example, in the rail industry there is a huge shortage of technician engineers, partly the result of having an ageing workforce that is about to retire without the investment in training over the last decade, and they are finding it extremely difficult. Yet at the same time there are no more women working in the rail industry than there were at the end of the first world war: only 4% of women are technician engineers. We need to be saying to employers, “You’ve got to play your part. There is 50% of the workforce that you are largely ignoring.” We can do some of that work in producing those pathways for young women to go through into that industry because we are connected to the local economy.

Professor Philip Wilson: One thing that alternative providers do very well is the recruitment of students from a very wide, diverse background. It is not death by UCAS points, because we are smaller. To judge an 18-year-old on 16 hours—which is eight exams on four A levels—is short-sighted, because they have been on the planet for 18 years, and we look at people with a holistic approach. In the same way, if you apply for a job your degree or your postgraduate qualification gets you in through the door but you are employed based on who you are as an individual, and that is what employers look for.

We do very well on that: we have got 94% employability for our graduates. On the day of graduation last year, 90% of our graduates already had a job. That is because we recruit people who are suitable for the industry because we ask the industry and then fold that back into the way we recruit the students, so we work on being work ready for day one. That encourages people from very diverse backgrounds.

I would probably also touch on the reporting of the ranking of how institutions are perceived. Take what is called “good honours”—first class degrees and 2:1 degrees. If we are going to look at wider participation, then the dichotomy is that we get clobbered at the other end by having students with lots of 2:1s, 2:2s and thirds. For me, the impact on an institution is: what does that institution do for a young person for three years in their building? If you have a good public institution that recruits people with straight As and they all go through an automatic path and get first class degrees, where is the impact? If you get students from a wider participation background and they get a 2:2, that could be the absolute pinnacle of their academic achievement, and will change their life. So the way that educational success is understood needs to be examined at the other end of the process.

[Paul Blomfield]

Q You made a very powerful point, and contributed to the discussion that we have been having around the TEF and its metrics. I wanted to raise a different point which is around part-time students, because whatever the other impacts of the 2012 changes to fees and student funding, which we could debate, the consequences for part-time students have been devastating—I think everybody agrees on that. Do you see anything in the Bill that addresses that issue?

Dame Ruth Silver: It depends on who else you let into the sector. The Bill is predicated on a very traditional model of HE. It is not systematic or systemic reform. So bringing in new providers, particularly colleges, is quite important. It is easier for FE students locally to manage some of the costs. There is quite a gap to be caught up with since 2012, and it has been difficult for part-timers to do this. Full-timers are much easier to serve. So there is a real catch-up there, but this notion of “local is easier, flexible is easier, part-time is easier” will, on the whole, happen in non-traditional HE.

Neil Bates: I do not have the exact figures, but if you looked at participation at levels 4 and 5 in FE some 10 years ago, you would have seen large numbers of people who were in work, coming into their FE colleges in the evenings, attending twilight sessions to get their HNCs and HNDs and so on. That whole system evaporated as colleges were driven towards full-time students and away from workforce training. We are living with the consequences of that now.

Dame Ruth Silver: May I comment on the disconnect between the skills world and the reforms going on there? There are 3 million apprentices to be trained: those are high-level, in great part. The Institute for Apprenticeships is about to start as well. That is not connected to this. It is a traditional model but it is also a very closed system of higher education, and it is in the other areas where you find a more flexible, responsive curriculum on offer. That responsiveness is key to dealing with the long problem we have had here relating to technicians in the economy and also high-level skills qualifications.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

Q I wonder if it is entirely accurate to categorise universities as boarding schools, having no links with business and not having employability as part of their agenda. The picture of HE is actually quite diverse, and that is creating a bit of a problem for the TEF. I wonder whether some of the issues that you are raising could be addressed by making employability, for example, central to the TEF.

Dame Ruth Silver: It depends which part of the UK you look at. I know you have got colleagues coming from Scotland where the third highest number of graduates come through the FE sector and come through a relationship jointly with universities called articulation at high-level skills qualifications. Wales is different as well. It varies; there are national variations in what is going on.

What has happened with all the reforms in universities is that today it is easier to take more and more bachelor degree, full-time younger people. There is an impact. It depends where you are looking for impact. I am very focused on access and social mobility and those are the things that universities are not strong at, certainly in England. They are very closely connected to employers in postgraduate roles and in research.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ben Howlett]

Q Going back to some of the points raised earlier by Professor Ebdon in relation to the independence of OFFA, how does the Bill deliver true independence and actually enhance independence?

Professor Les Ebdon: I am not arguing for independence in the sense that we have independence now. I quite value the coherence that bringing the Office for Fair Access activity into the office for students brings. I am concerned about the authority of the director for access and participation. Based on my experience, you need to have the authority to sign off or not to sign off on an access agreement and for that to be untrammelled, other than the usual opportunity to appeal against a totally unreasonable decision. That does not guarantee it.

I also think that it is important, if you are going to get a high-profile director for access and participation, that that authority is enshrined. The responsibility lies with the director. One of the reasons I can be successful is that I am a former vice-chancellor. I know most of the tricks; in fact, I invented one or two. Therefore, that gives me greater authority in dealing with universities. That is my concern.

[Paul Blomfield]

Q I was going to ask much the same question as Ben, so perhaps I could drive that home a bit further. Since you were not an uncontroversial appointment by David Willetts, you have been extremely successful. What do we have to hang on to from that success, in integrating the Office for Fair Access into the office for students?

Professor Les Ebdon: A single focus. I do not have to worry about things other than access and participation. We need to ensure there is independence; that the role is not trammelled by an interfering chief executive or chair of OFS, for example—or indeed, dare I say it here, a Secretary of State or Minister.

You need somebody who is going to be a champion of fair access, keeping it high up on the agenda. One reason we are successful now is because it is recognised as a vitally important aspect of modern society that we build a fairer, more inclusive society. That is all about championing fair access and participation.