Universities

HC Deb 15 October 2002 vol 390 cc762-4W

Dr. Pugh

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what assessment is made by her Department of the pastoral care system in British universities; and how the Department monitors it. [73349]

Margaret Hodge

A new system of academic review has just been introduced by the Quality Assurance Agency for universities in England. Under this system, students will be encouraged to comment on their learning experience including the quality of pastoral support. QAA reports will include both students' views and their own findings. In addition, as part of our drive to give students more say over their education, there will be institutional and national student satisfaction surveys that will include their views on quality of pastoral support. The national surveys will be undertaken annually, from Autumn 2003 onwards, independently seeking the views of graduates. The Department has also recently undertaken a project to identify a range of effective approaches by Student Services. The project has been completed, and the results will be published in November.

Mr. Wray

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills which universities are allowed to set their own tuition fees; and what plans she has to extend the freedom for universities to set their own fees. [73383]

Margaret Hodge

The Government only controls the fee for undergraduate full-time courses at publicly funded higher education institutions. Privately funded institutions can set their own fee for these courses and all higher education institutions can set their own fees for post-graduate and part-time courses.

The ability to charge differential fees has been raised as an issue many times over the last decade as one way for universities to raise income, including in a recent report from the Education and Skills Select Committee. The Government will be publishing its response to the Committee's report alongside the HE strategy document later in the autumn.

Mr. Wray

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what assessment she has made of the impact of rises in tuition fees on poorer people; and if a family with a large number of children wishing to attend university is entitled to a reduction in fees. [73384]

Margaret Hodge

Students from lower-income families do not make any contributions to their tuition fees and have not therefore been affected by their uprating since 1998/99 in line with inflation. Any parental contribution to fees and maintenance is assessed on the basis of parental income and is shared between those children in the same family who are eligible for student support. By dividing the parental income by the number of children who are currently

	95–96 Estimate	96–97 Estimate	97–98 Estimate	98–99 Estimate	99–00 Estimate	00–01 Estimate	01–02 Estimate
Unit funding
(£)	3080	3200	3240	3370	3500	3890	4280

Projections for the next three years will not be available until the detailed 2003–06 Spending Review allocations are agreed in the autumn.

Information about sixth form colleges is not kept separately from FE colleges. The unit funding information on these is given in PQ 73961.

The unit funding figures for schools and FE colleges (including sixth form colleges) are not directly comparable, as they have not been calculated on the

attending university, the impact of tuition fees on families with a large number of children is fairly assessed.