Are students at the heart of the system?

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Behind the positive rhetoric of empowering higher education students, the government's primary objective is to "reduce the country's deficit", a leading teaching union has claimed.

The government's long-awaited and much-delayed white paper on the future of higher education in England was published on 28 June 2011. This is a white paper for England only, because higher education is a devolved matter in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – although the proposals are likely to have implications for these devolved administrations.

The title of the white paper, Students at the Heart of the System, suggests that the proposed changes are student-centred and designed to enrich their experience of higher education and make universities more directly accountable to them. 

What this means in practice, however, is championing the role of students as 'consumers' and using their enhanced fee-paying status to promote more competition between higher education providers in an unabashed attempt to use market forces to improve quality of provision. Unfortunately, this will also put pressure on universities to reduce fees in an attempt to attract students, and such a strategy creates the danger of promoting a 'race to the bottom', which risks compromising quality.

Behind the rhetoric of putting students in the 'driving seat' is, of course, a desire to reduce the country's deficit. This is the real reason behind many of the proposals. The long-term health of the higher education sector is being sacrificed for the sake of short-term fiscal restraint. 

This does not bode well for the future of higher education in England. Education is a public asset, on which the economic and cultural prosperity of the country depends, and turning it into a tradeable commodity seems a dubious and disingenuous way of attempting to secure high-quality provision.

Other key proposals

In addition to previously-announced changes in tuition fees and student loans, some of the other key proposals are as follows:

·Caps on student numbers will be relaxed, with universities being allowed to compete for as many of the 65,000 students scoring the equivalent of AAB or above at A-Level as they are able to recruit. This is likely to benefit elite universities.

·Another 20,000 student places will be made available to institutions which charge no more than £7,500 in tuition fees. This will be of benefit to further education colleges that offer degree courses, and may also encourage new providers to enter the higher education sector.

·Additional places will be made available by making any employer- or charity-sponsored places supernumerary to any agreed quotas.

·The amount, quality and accessibility of information (such as contact hours and employment outcomes) available to prospective students will be increased to enable students to make more informed choices and to facilitate a more market-based approach to selection and recruitment.

·Institutions will be able to charge up to £9,000 per year in tuition fees as long as they agree plans to widen access to students from disadvantaged backgrounds, thus increasing social mobility.

·The regulatory framework governing higher education institutions will be simplified to encourage competition and innovation.

·Rules governing which institutions can award degrees and use the title 'university' will be relaxed to enable new providers (including private companies, further education colleges and overseas universities with bases in England) to compete in the marketplace more easily.

The government will be consulting on these proposals over the coming months.  Details are available on the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) website at www.bis.gov.uk/HEreform.

www.voicetheunion.org.uk/hewhitepaper

www.blog.voicetheunion.org.uk/?p=2924

Ian Toone, Senior Professional Officer (Education), Voice: the union for education professionals

Throughout recess, ePolitix.com will be focusing on a different policy theme each week. This week we are featuring articles with a focus on education.