Higher Education

rose to call attention to the future direction of higher education; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, it is a privilege to open this debate. My purpose today is to paint a broader picture of the future direction of higher education as I see it. I am delighted that so many noble Lords, with their vast range of experiences in higher education, wish to participate, and I am grateful to all those individuals and groups who have given me much helpful advice. I declare an interest having been vice-chancellor of the independent University of Buckingham for five years in the 1990s. Since its foundation over 30 years ago, Buckingham has achieved much, in particular the two-year degree introduced by the first vice-chancellor, the late Lord Beloff. For two consecutive years the university has gained the highest rating for student satisfaction in a national student survey carried out by the Times Higher Education supplement. This reflects both the high motivation for students and the personal attention they receive with a staff-student ratio of 1:9. While I shall draw on my experience there, I must stress that, since Buckingham receives no taxpayers’ support, I am not advocating today that we follow that exact path. I was lucky enough to have three years at Cambridge and a fourth at Oxford in the late 1950s, when only 4 per cent of my age group were able to be at university. Since then we have seen a welcome revolution in higher education. Today 43 per cent of 18 to 30 year-olds are at university and more than 2.25 million students in total are in higher education, served by nearly 170 institutions. Equally remarkable is the vast diversity in the provision of higher education to meet immense social changes; in particular, the emergence of the knowledge society and the fact that we can expect to change jobs several times in our career and need ever-changing new skills arising from the technological and communication revolution. This has created the concept of lifelong learning. We now have more than 900,000 students in part-time education. We can get on and off the ladder of education and training at any stage in our lives. To help us, we have a wide range of institutions providing infinite types of degree courses of varying lengths, ranging from the more academic to the more vocational, supported by some excellent teaching. Distance learning, as in the highly successful Open University, plays a significant part in this process. I think these developments are excellent and exciting. I want everyone, from whatever background, who has the capacity to enjoy and value a university education to be able to do so. But inevitably changes of this scale produce new challenges. First, we need to revisit the question of what universities are for. In the 1850s Cardinal Newman in The Idea of a University provided answers which lasted until well into the 20th century—a liberal education, the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, training the intellect, seeking truth and the facility of self-education all remain valuable criteria. But today's demands also include the flexibility to handle an ever-changing career and to develop employable skills. This becomes even more important in an increasingly competitive world. I agree with the view of the late Field Marshal Lord Slim who, as chancellor of an Australian university, said: "““A university must do more than teach a man how to earn a living; it should teach him how to live””." Secondly, as the number of students has increased, so the taxpayers’ support per student has declined. This has challenged the quality of higher education and led us to accept that the taxpayer will never be able to provide enough support for the student. This means that the student is now asked to pay a proportion of the total cost of tuition and maintenance. One of the serious consequences of this trend has been a decline in staff-student ratios to an average today of 1:17 students. This means less personal attention, although modern technology can help to overcome this. I cannot resist keeping a sense of perspective by quoting these words: "““In the old days, when the name of universities was unknown, lectures were more frequent and there was more zeal for study. But now when you are invited into a university, lectures are rare, things are hurried and little is learned, the time taken for lectures being spent in meetings and discussions””." Those were the words of the chancellor of the University of Paris in 1218. Thirdly, it is something of a truism that universities still do better for the middle classes than they do for less well-off socio-economic groups. This has led to a somewhat unsatisfactory debate, encapsulated as excellence versus equity. The problem is merely made worse by social engineering, and I have serious doubts about targets for student participation. The key to greater equity, surely, is to remove all the obstacles in the way of those who aspire or have been deterred from aspiring to a university education. I acknowledge that the Government are trying to tackle this through measures to improve educational opportunities for 14 to 19 year-olds, including the introduction of diplomas and the Education and Skills Bill. It is also singularly important to help improve links between universities and schools, a notable example of which has been Liverpool University’s successful talent support initiative to increase the proportion of students from low participation neighbourhoods entering higher education. This leads me to my fourth point. Non-completion rates have increased in recent years to about 22 per cent. Although not out of line with international levels, this is high for the United Kingdom, but we must acknowledge that rates vary widely between institutions. Targeted help at school should ensure that the student is on the right course at the right place. For others who drop out, the concept of lifelong learning provides a valuable second chance. My fifth issue concerns teaching and research. Given finite taxpayers’ resources available for research, it is inevitable that in order to retain our international position, we have to focus research selectively on the universities most suitable for this purpose. This means that several universities must either concentrate mainly on teaching or, if they are well established in their region and community, look to local industry and neighbouring universities for joint research projects. This is already happening and should be encouraged. Sixthly, the funding system for students will of course be reviewed within the next two years, and we need to learn lessons from the student fees cap of £3,145. The most glaring challenge is the probable increase in demand for part-time education and a dip in the number of 18 year-olds in the next 10 years. The system of support for part-timers is not sufficient to encourage this expansion and is made even worse by the Government’s decision to redistribute funds away from those studying for equivalent or lower qualifications, known as ELQ. Seventhly, we must acknowledge the importance of employers’ influence on the recruitment of graduates. It is perfectly reasonable for them to argue that, in addition to an academic qualification, they need skills such as interpersonal communication, problem-solving and teamwork. I am also struck by the healthy fact that for many employers, the all-round ability of a graduate is important, for we are often too obsessed by academic qualifications at the expense of developing the character. Nevertheless, universities should no more be agents of employers than of Governments, and employers should remember this. My eighth point is that the integration in the early 1990s of the former polytechnics into universities raises two issues. Universities are now so varied that there cannot just be one benchmark to judge their collective performance. We are entitled to look for excellence in all our universities, not against one standard but against the particular mission and objective of that university. We need universities of international repute to set the pace, but in a system providing a wide diversity of education, each university needs to perform outstandingly. Equally, the combination of well over 100 universities brings into play the contrast between academic and vocational education. In post-war years, we have been adversely affected by prejudice against the latter. Now is a chance to have a bonfire of our prejudices and to acknowledge parity of esteem between vocational and academic courses. As Confucius once said, in education there should be no class distinction. Lastly, it is worth noting where we stand internationally. We seem to lie somewhere between the European continent, with its centralised, state-oriented universities with high dropout levels, and the United States, with some very high-quality independent universities and many state universities, which are also well endowed with private funds. The educational system and the culture there is of course different, but there are lessons for us to learn. Noble Lords will no doubt suggest many adjustments to priorities in higher education. I conclude by making only one recommendation about the Government’s strategy. As a former Minister for the Arts, I was convinced that for the arts to flourish organisations needed to be as independent as possible of government. The job of a minister is to set the framework and climate for the arts but to remain at arm’s length from institutions. Exactly the same must apply to universities. Their very nature means that in order for them to flourish they must secure as much autonomy as possible from government. Again it is the Government’s job to provide the overall framework in which universities can succeed but otherwise to keep them at arm’s length. I want to see from the Government and the opposition parties a commitment to a strategy to secure the greater autonomy of universities. Governments must provide the framework, including acceptable systems of governance and accountability, but we should also recognise that universities have been independent for centuries, though often influenced by the church, state or industrial philanthropists. They are technically independent in that they are charitable bodies, but in practice many describe them as nationalised in that they are dependent on the Government for over 50 per cent of their resources and for direction. It is a matter of fundamental academic freedom to remind ourselves that universities are not, and never should be, agents of the state. There are two ways in which we could develop that autonomy. First, universities must be given every encouragement to diversify their sources of funding. At present they are dependent on taxpayers’ support, student fees and private donations for scholarships, building and research. The Government’s three-year scheme to provide £200 million for matching funding from private sources, which could yield £600 million, starting this summer is a good beginning. In the long term, however, we need a much more ambitious policy to help universities achieve endowment funds. To give some perspective, only eight British universities have endowments worth £100 million or more compared to 207 United States state and private universities. Stable and consistent taxpayers’ support must of course help to underpin the finances of universities. We have to acknowledge that public expenditure in the United Kingdom on higher education as a percentage of GDP is below the OECD average. The principle of student fees is now established and the cap will have to be raised to ensure that there are adequate resources to maintain quality. Of course the fact that students will be paying a higher proportion of fees means that they become more effective partners with their universities in working to achieve their ambitions. The loan system must remain progressive to encourage participation by the lower socio-economic groups. We must maintain and enhance the British tradition of an admissions policy based on students’ merit, whatever the parents’ level of income. Many universities here are already pursuing a positive policy on bursaries. We must also remember that 10 per cent of our students are from countries outside the EU. They make an important financial contribution and create good links for Britain. We must continue to compete worldwide by ensuring that we look after them properly and maintain the quality of our universities. Secondly, autonomy can also be undermined by government regulation and intervention. The performance of universities is undoubtedly affected by their measure of freedom from administrative and funding control. American universities, freer of such control, are generally thought to be of higher quality than those of the European continent, where there is much central direction. We need to review relentlessly the level of regulation for higher education. The original University Grants Committee could be regarded as a model. There is a growing recognition that more autonomy for universities, in both funding and management, will lead to improved quality of university education. I hope that the Government and all opposition parties will give a firm commitment to this strategy. I beg to move for Papers.