Written evidence from Study UK (QHE 74)
1. Study UK is the membership organisation and national representative body for quality-assured independent providers of further and higher education. Study UK’s 130+ members offer provision including: university-validated higher education, industry-specialist vocational education, university foundation courses and study abroad programmes. Study UK members are represented in England, Wales and Scotland, with centres in over 30 locations across the UK. In 2013, more than 50,400 students took courses of study at Study UK member colleges, and our members were collectively responsible for employing over 5,800 staff.
What issues with quality assessment in Higher Education was the Higher Education Funding Council for England's (HEFCE) Quality Assurance review seeking to address?
2. The UK is currently lacking a clear direction of travel towards a coherent model of quality for the student experience. Through consultation with our members it has become evident that the myriad of different quality measures within the system has exacerbated already existing issues with quality provision and left high quality providers overburdened by quality regimes. Finding a balance between rigour and burden is a key area the HEFCE review was attempting to address. Even more so, the review sought to find a quality solution for expansion of new entrants into the higher education system, specifically those who would become eligible for public funding and their courses designated for student finance.
3. For example, some providers who are too small to have their own degree awarding powers, but teach specialist subjects in key areas such as technology and the creative industries, are assessed separately under no less than three separate quality regimes and in some cases more. Each regime covers what has become an increasingly similar process and requires similar data but each in a different way. This means that smaller providers with limited staff available to work on quality management can be overwhelmed by quality processes every year asking for the same things, but defined slightly differently. As a result they may lack the time and opportunity to focus on enhancing quality and improving the student experience as they become forced to focus on tick-boxes, metrics and visits from external reviewers. The HEFCE review sought to address this issue and find a way to align existing rigorous quality processes and reward those proven to focus on enhancing quality with a more flexible and less frequent system of review.
4. Many providers subject to the existing confused quality regime must still compete with providers who are not subject to rigorous quality regimes but are permitted to use the reputation of UK higher education as a brand and to compete for students who will then not be guaranteed the same level of quality. While HEFCE’s most recent consultation was concerned primarily with arrangements for the publicly funded higher education sector, the clear aim is to establish a framework to protect the student academic experience across the entirety of the sector and with it the reputation of UK higher education. We believe that the model established will have significant implications for those beyond just ‘established providers’ (as defined by the most recent consultation document) and this is something that absolutely needs to be addressed.
5. We also urge the funding bodies to consider a wide definition of ‘new entrant’ as this model should and could provide much needed opportunities for high-quality, established independent providers to enter into the publicly funded higher education system in a clear, transparent process which recognises the responsibilities they have undertaken prior to entry.
Will the proposed changes to the quality assurance process in universities, as outlined by HEFCE in its consultation, improve quality in Higher Education?
6. There are several key areas within the process outlined in the HEFCE consultation document which will, if undertaken efficiently, improve quality in Higher Education. We believe the rapid intervention process, working efficiently with an improved metrics analysis, will allow regulators to identify early signs of concerns and work with institutions to improve situations. It is important for both of these systems to work together as intervention must be based on clear evidence rooted in an understanding of the provider and their mission.
7. Members with courses which have received designation by BIS for student support purposes especially welcomed HEFCE’s proposals to verify a provider's approach to maintaining quality using student metrics and internal processes, and the expectation that this would lead to a lighter touch but more teaching-focused oversight regime. This principle should allow those who can prove a strong quality methodology and internal governance arrangements to move to a more appropriate monitoring system, regardless of whether they are monitored by HEFCE and QAA as a publicly funded body or because their course is designated for student loans. It will also allow new entrants to be more efficiently monitored as metrics are a far better indication of the student experience than processes, which currently stand as the primary quality measurement.
8. We strongly agree with the need for a baseline requirement for the quality of the student academic experience, as many of our members find themselves in competition with providers who are, without any clear rationale, not subject to the same level of scrutiny. The baseline established must take into account the desirability of diverse and specialised provision in the HE sector, and should minimise the burden on smaller providers. Crucially it must also address the significant and unacceptable differences between existing quality assurance regimes. There exist too many quality assurance regimes in HE and this variance not only causes confusion, but also increases the likeliness of poor quality not being effectively identified and addressed. That being said, it is not possible to judge any proposed baseline as being sufficient or excessive without a clear indication from the funding bodies on what would qualify providers to meet this baseline.
9. We also agree with HEFCE that the system should not continuously test established providers against the baseline standard, but some Study UK members are concerned that in the absence of such testing the ways in which universities exercise their powers to set and maintain academic standards may become too autonomous. Specifically, a divergence of approaches to quality by different universities could have a significant impact on providers who partner with multiple universities for their validation processes as they do not have degree awarding powers. In order to guard against such problems, we recommend that the UK Quality Code for Higher Education continue to be considered an essential component of any new framework, so as to maintain a parity of process for measuring and assuring academic quality across the sector.
What should be the objectives of a Teaching Excellence Framework ('TEF')?
10. The introduction of the concept of a ‘Teaching Excellence Framework’ by Universities and Science Minister Jo Johnson has reinforced for Study UK the need to have one system for assuring quality in higher education that works across the sector and which does not, by design, disadvantage high-quality independent providers such as our members. As we have suggested above, there needs to be a clear quality system for teaching and the student experience, and this is reinforced by a move from students away from traditional, academic university models and towards more industry and teaching focused institutions such as many independent providers.
11. A TEF should seek to achieve three key aims:
12. The growth in the number of students at independent providers following the 2012 increase in the maximum tuition fee loan available for eligible courses took place in the absence of sufficient quality monitoring or transparent processes for achieving that eligibility. The more unified regulatory system which was envisaged in the 2011 white paper has not materialised, but a Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) could achieve what the 2011 white paper wasn’t able to: a unification of existing regimes and a clear identification of a quality provider, regardless of funding model. Unification would allow the TEF to become a definitive and authoritative source of information on the quality of provision across the HE sector in England, Wales or Northern Ireland.
13. Following unification of the regulatory system for teaching in higher education, it should become clear what minimum expectations are for providing a quality experience for students and these should be established as the primary gateway, or ‘Licence to Operate.’ The current quality regime, where providers are treated differently based on funding arrangements or traditional roles, presents a very negative image to the public. By its nature it implies that some providers are not capable of high-quality student outputs as it prohibits those providers from proving otherwise through the quality system. This only reinforces the perception that there is low-quality provision, instead of offering opportunities to demonstrate high-quality provision through a fair and transparent system of assessment.
14. Furthermore, the varied systems of quality assurance currently in place have allowed several institutions to complete their selected quality check and then subsequently be revealed to be participating in problematic practices – undoubtedly causing reputational damage to the sector as a whole. A TEF with a suitably rigorous and consistent barrier at the outset, which all providers must pass, would create a transparent system in which the parity of providers is based on actual, established quality and not on the quality regime they have chosen or are subject to by default. It would be capable of protecting the UK Higher Education brand at home and abroad, and ensure students a minimum level of quality regardless of institution.
15. Many independent providers, especially those with a long track record of validated provision in partnership with a degree-awarding body, have effectively been operating at the same or higher quality levels than publicly funded HE providers for many years. They undertook additional tests, mentoring and monitoring for no other reason than because access to degree awarding powers and university title were under moratorium or because their size makes the criteria for attaining this level of recognition unachievable.
16. A TEF should provide a process to recognise and reward all provision regardless of the current funding model and for this to be open equally to established independent providers as to new ventures from existing publicly funded universities. As it stabilises and unifies existing quality models, a TEF should also end the unhelpful distinction and division between publicly funded and independent higher education providers. This distinction is no longer relevant for students who pay for their degree wherever they study, particularly as many independent providers offer students greater value for money either in the experience they offer or the level of fees they charge. To achieve a system which benefits students and helps to guide their choices, it needs to be applied equally to all providers.
How should a TEF benefit students? Academics? Universities?
17. As mentioned above a TEF should seek to become a definitive and authoritative source of information on the quality of provision in England, Wales or Northern Ireland. Students would have clear information which was comparable across the sector and this would enable them to choose a course based on its merits and individual suitability. Academics too would benefit from a comparable source of information as they could choose institutions which match their own teaching mission.
18. For institutions, the TEF could provide an authoritative narrative in the public debates on both ‘quality outputs’ and more recently on ‘value for money’. It would allow those providers which provide excellent teaching to achieve a recognition currently denied by the sector’s recent preoccupation with research and fundraising. Many providers have achieved exceptional recognition within their particular industries of focus, but because they do not participate in the traditional research model, or because their size inhibits successful participation in metrics such as NSS or the Destination of Leavers in Higher Education (DLHE) surveys, they are sidelined within key sources of information used by applicant students.
What are the institutional behaviours a TEF should drive? How can a system be designed to avoid unintended consequences?
19. Under the current framework a higher education provider in the UK could undergo any number of regulatory processes depending on the responsibilities they undertake, including:
20. Each process identifies a set of institutional behaviours and rewards certain behaviours with benefits and greater responsibilities. The challenge currently is that few or none of these processes link to each other. This leaves providers who consistently take on greater responsibilities and the associated regulatory processes, with additional burden which is often duplicated and remains unrecognised by other regulatory processes. It also allows some providers to undertake minimum regulatory burdens, some of which are not sufficient on their own to assure quality for students.
21. A TEF should be designed to help bring these processes together. For example, if a provider was validated by a collaborative partner or a centralised validator for a number of years, and the metrics and regulation processes for this were matched into a larger framework, they could more effectively apply for greater responsibilities as they had proven they were able to meet or exceed quality expectations. New entrants to the publicly funded system or those ready for the responsibility of degree awarding powers, could be identified through a TEF which brings existing processes (such as course validation) into alignment, and allows them to feed into a central set of behaviours and rewards.
How should the effectiveness of the TEF be judged?
22. The effectiveness of the TEF will and should ultimately be judged on the extent of its impact both on student choices and on institutional behaviours. Teaching quality and student outcomes must be given at least equal priority with research across the higher education sector, not least as students now provide the majority of the funding within many institutions. Providers should be challenged to identify and address weaknesses in their provision, and receive acclaim and recognition for the things they do well, and particularly those successes that mark them out from other, outwardly similar institutions.
23. Students should be properly informed about the aspects of provision that matter most to them as individual learners, whether this be the overall research reputation of a department, the specialist expertise of a course convenor, the teaching qualifications of the academic staff, or a provider’s track record of supporting students from disadvantaged backgrounds. They should be encouraged to consider providers which may not be the biggest household name or have the most impressive sports facilities, but which outperform others on the basis of measurable academic outcomes, career prospects, contact hours or staff-student ratios.
How should the proposed TEF and new quality assurance regime fit together?
What do you think will be the main challenges in implementing a TEF?
24. To make a TEF effective it must be seen to be united with or even supersede existing quality regimes and would ideally serve to align the full set of existing quality metrics and processes. It cannot be seen to duplicate the activities of quality assurance regimes or it will lose credibility with students while creating unnecessary additional burden for providers. The process of bringing together quality assurance regimes and aligning them with key gateways to additional benefits and responsibilities for providers will become both the most significant challenge and opportunity of the TEF.
25. By-products of the current approach to quality assurance will also make both a new quality assurance regime and the implementation of TEF challenging. The sector has developed in different directions due to the nature of the divided system and lack of a comprehensive legislative approach to higher education in the past 15 years. Implementing a TEF in the current system means addressing the issues created by a divided system such as the wild imbalance of validation relationships, a student loans system which cannot effectively accommodate innovation in delivery models, and a de facto devolution of responsibility for the quality of educational provision and academic judgements to UK Visas and Immigration.
26. A significant challenge in effectively implementing both a TEF and a new quality regime will be the greater emphasis proposed for the latter on institutional self-assurance instead of external review. As set out in our answer to question 2, this would lead to an increasing divergence of approaches to validation, leaving the independent education providers that Study UK represents more dependent than ever on their degree-awarding partner institutions, exacerbating the anti-competitive monopoly currently held by universities on the validation of higher education courses. For this reason it is essential to establish an independent national validating authority with the power to accredit new academic and technical degrees (and other higher-level provision), whether this be a new body or an evolution of activity already undertaken by a body currently operating within the HE system. This new authority and validation system should be developed alongside other quality assurance considerations.
How should the proposed connection between fee level and teaching quality be managed?
a. What should be the relationship between the TEF and fee level?
b. What are the benefits or risks of this approach to setting fees?
27. Any TEF needs to recognise the existing management of fee level by quality regimes and metrics. For example, by achieving a level of quality determined by BIS (and by extension HEFCE and QAA), providers become eligible to receive student loan finance for designated courses. For independent providers the amount of Student Loans Company funding they can receive for fees is capped at £6000, well below the cap for providers with public funding. This is annually assessed and providers must be re-designated each year regardless of their quality or student outcomes (in contrast to publicly funded institutions who enjoy automatic, institutional-level designation).
28. If we were to apply an improvement in this system to a TEF, one could conceptualise a process whereby a provider met an initial gateway for securing designation for student finance at a minimum level, but could secure an increasing level as a benefit of metrics which demonstrated either general ‘excellence' or some specifically desirable outcomes as in the performance of Widening Participation students. Independent providers could achieve multi-year designation or multi-year fee increases as a reward for consistently high achievement in metrics and review as part of the TEF. This would even out the playing field between providers at the same time as instilling greater public confidence in the government’s financial support of higher education through the loans system.
29. Ultimately the TEF could and should be developed to serve as an appropriate mechanism for increasing the level of student finance available at independent providers to the equivalent level at ‘publicly funded providers’ demonstrating the same quality of teaching and student outcomes. The ability to access student finance of more than £6000 per annum is currently contingent on efforts at Widening Participation, as set out in Office for Fair Access (OFFA) access agreements. Certain metrics encompassed within the TEF (such as proportion of WP students and ‘value added’) might be considered a reliable proxy for such efforts, and thus allow independent providers also to prove their achievements in this area and win the opportunity to access the same level of student finance for their courses.
30. Success in the TEF should also allow providers greater flexibility in their delivery models and associated funding models. Specifically, a proven ability to teach students well and secure good academic outcomes should win providers the opportunity to offer fully funded, accelerated and intensive courses, e.g. two-year undergraduate degrees. The tuition fee loan caps are currently set ‘per academic year’ rather than ‘per course’ or ‘per credit’, which makes it impossible to fully fund and properly support an accelerated degree programme from SLC loan finance alone. A modernised SLC system which gave providers access to the full ‘three-year’ funding available on a ‘per credit’ basis and on an appropriate schedule of payments would go a long way to improving the incentives for delivery model innovation.
31. For Study UK it is essential that the TEF address the disparity in regulations surrounding fees as independent providers are subject to a cap for student finance which is well below the cap for providers which are publicly funded and automatically designated for student support. This disparity is not based on quality of provision, value for money or any recognisable metric, but on an increasingly blurred and irrelevant distinction between public and private funding. The greatest benefit to this approach is the possibility that fee restrictions across the sector would be set using evidence and not categorisations of providers which is no longer relevant to students.
30 October 2015