Higher Education: Quality Assurance (Hansard, 9 March 1999)

§ The Minister of State, Department for Education and Employment (Baroness Blackstone)
My Lords, the report by the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, and his colleagues in July 1997 proposed a range of new developments for quality assurance in higher education. We support the work of the Quality Assurance Agency in implementing the new arrangements.

§ Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, how much further does the Minister think that the new bureaucracy should go? The other week I saw a paper which proposed to apply to postgraduate education the same language of "key stages" and "levels of development" that was developed for the control of primary schools. That does not seem necessarily the best way to control or to examine PhDs. No doubt the Minister is fully familiar with all the jargon of QAA, QCA, TQAC, SACCA, SCQF, SCOTCAT, NICATS, InCCA and so on and so forth, which is rolling over us, but does she accept that the cost of imposing on universities all those new controls and procedures may become excessive?

§ Baroness Blackstone
My Lords, we need to strike a balance between ensuring value for the money spent on higher education—a great deal of public money is involved, as the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, well knows—and that the burden of scrutiny is as light as possible. It is also important that prospective students and employers have accurate information about the quality of the work carried out by universities with regard to both research and teaching. Perhaps I can reassure the noble Lord that the new arrangements that the QAA will be putting into place will allow universities and colleges of higher education to work jointly with the QAA to try to reduce that burden of scrutiny and to produce a programme which links in with an institution's internal scrutiny arrangements.

§ Lord Beloff
My Lords, does the Minister agree that one reason for the excessive bureaucracy to which the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, refers is that the standards of a number of institutions are so low that it is necessary to control them in great detail, but that the price that we pay for that is that perfectly respectable universities which, for decades or centuries, have managed to look after their own standards are penalised by their staff being engaged in unnecessary form-filling when they should be either teaching or engaged in research?

§ Baroness Blackstone
My Lords, I do not entirely agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, has just said. Indeed, I am sure that he will not be surprised to hear that. I am glad to say that the QAA has found that 119 the vast majority of universities, whether new ones or old-established ones, have very good quality teaching and are performing well in that respect. However, at the same time, I accept that there are differences in standard. We now have a much more diverse system of higher education, with nearly 35 per cent. of young people going to university at this time. This means that the intensity of scrutiny ought to vary according to the internal quality assessment procedures of universities, and any other evidence. So some universities will need only a very light touch in terms of such scrutiny, while others will need rather more careful attention.

§ Lord Peston
My Lords, I am surprised at the answer of my noble friend the Minister. Certainly my experience has been that all that such scrutiny does is impose a burden on academics who are trying to get on with their job. I know that one should not dwell on the past, but one cannot help but reflect on the time when an academic really engaged in academic work. Does my noble friend have any evidence about the amount of time that academics are now required to spend on filling in such forms? I have seen no evidence to suggest that it achieves anything, but I do know that it occupies a great deal of people's time when they could at the very least be doing some teaching.

§ Baroness Blackstone
My Lords, perhaps I may point out to my noble friend that my experience is slightly different to his. I actually believe that this sort of external scrutiny can be most helpful to institutions and, indeed, to academics who are working in them. However, at the same time, it should not be so burdensome and so onerous that it prevents them getting on with their work. There is a sensible balance to be obtained. I repeat what I said earlier: universities are in receipt of a great deal of public money and, like everyone else who is in receipt of such moneys, they have obligations to ensure that what they are doing is of the highest possible standard. They should welcome those who come in to check on this.

§ Lord Elton
My Lords, in the hope that the weight of inspection can be varied with the quality of the work being inspected, can the Minister say whether she accepts that the whole edifice of our education system—including higher and further education—depends on the quality of teaching in primary and secondary schools? Therefore, can the noble Baroness say with what weight and care inspection of the teacher training institutions, which are responsible for the level that that teaching eventually achieves, will be carried out?

§ Baroness Blackstone
My Lords, what happens in primary and secondary education is vital. It is primary and secondary schools which will deliver good students to our universities and to our colleges of further education. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Elton, is well aware, Ofsted is responsible for the inspection of the teacher training element of education courses. But the QAA—the Quality Assurance Agency—is responsible for other aspects of the work of education departments and their quality in terms of what they 120 provide as far as concerns teaching and the nature of the courses that they offer. That partnership is a good one; indeed, they need to work collaboratively together.

§ Lord Glenamara
My Lords, does my noble friend the Minister agree that the quality control in British universities now is tougher and more stringent than it has ever been? Indeed, if nothing else, this has placed the University of Northumbria well up in the top section of "Division One" of all British universities.

§ Baroness Blackstone
My Lords, I entirely accept what my noble friend said about the University of Northumbria. Indeed, I am delighted to say that there are many new universities, which were formed recently following legislation earlier this decade, that are similarly performing extremely well in terms of the quality of their teaching.