Rachael Maskell
Main Page: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)Department Debates - View all Rachael Maskell's debates with the Department for Education
(1 year, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Gillian Keegan
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We are continuing to close that gap, and we have made unbelievable progress—more in the last 13 years than ever in this country. We will continue to make sure that working class people get access to all high-quality routes into the workplace.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
The Government should address the reasons why some courses are struggling, not the consequences. Higher education funding is in crisis, and that is having an impact on the function of universities, not least the post-1992 universities. Will the review by the Office for Students look at the higher education funding model? How will it address the real symptoms that she is talking about?
Gillian Keegan
The hon. Lady makes an interesting point, but at the moment the OfS has 18 providers under investigation for poor quality. There are many more providers, and we have a standard fee. It will look at contextual aspects such as demographics, socioeconomics and mature students. It looks at all that in context, but there are 18 providers out of a much larger number.