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A new HEPI report Going for Gold: Lessons from the TEF provider submissions by Diana Beech, HEPI Director of Policy & Advocacy, provides the first detailed analysis of the information submitted by universities for the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF).

The TEF ranks universities on teaching quality using data and 15-page ‘provider submissions’. In 2017, 46 leading higher education institutions achieved a Gold award, 67 secured Silver and 25 only managed Bronze. One-quarter moved up or down according to the evidence they submitted.

HEPI Director, Nick Hillman, said:
‘When the Teaching Excellence Framework was announced, the Government promised it would not be “big, bossy or bureaucratic”. It has become all three because universities don’t want to be measured on data alone.

‘Most institutions submitted a wealth of information, although a handful did not engage properly, with one submitting just four sentences out of a maximum 15 pages. It was worth engaging properly because many institutions jumped a category and one leapt from Bronze to Gold during the process. The best prepared submissions delivered success comparable with the famous “incremental gains” of the British Olympic Cycling team.

‘Jo Johnson, the Universities Minister, wants the TEF to be his legacy and it is not going to disappear any time soon. So this analysis is essential reading for any university seeking to move up our world-class higher education sector.’
Diana Beech, HEPI’s Director of Policy and Advocacy and the author of the report, said:
‘The TEF was especially challenging this year – its first full year – because institutions were not able to learn from earlier rounds. Although it is a constantly moving beast, the provider submissions are set to remain constant. So it is vital higher education institutions understand what worked this year if they […]

The Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) and the social mobility charity Brightside are jointly publishing a collection of essays by senior higher education figures entitled Where next for widening participation and fair access? New insights from leading thinkers.

Contributors include: Kirsty Williams AM, the Cabinet Secretary for Education in the Welsh Government; Vonnie Sandlan, the former President of NUS Scotland; and Peter Horrocks, Vice-Chancellor of The Open University. Les Ebdon, the Director for Fair Access, has contributed a Foreword.

The policies put forward in the chapters include: much bolder contextualised admissions policies for highly-selective universities (with AAA+ offers typically being reduced to CCC), more support for people in care with the potential to benefit from higher education and new Personalised Learning Accounts to meet demand for more flexible lifelong learning.

The Director of HEPI, Nick Hillman, who wrote the Introduction to the collection, said:
Despite the progress in opening up universities to people from under-represented groups, we have miles left to go. The current changes to higher education, including the closure of the Office for Fair Access, mean we could be in for a bumpy period. It is time to take stock by learning from all those working with disadvantaged people inside and beyond universities, being willing to change tack when initiatives are ineffective and incorporating new insights from areas like behavioural economics.
Anand Shukla, the Chief Executive of Brightside, said:
If we are serious as a country about having a higher education system that unlocks everyone’s potential rather than just helping a privileged minority, then bold proposals like radically reducing entry requirements for disadvantaged students will need to be embraced by universities and government.
In his Foreword, Les Ebdon, writes:
While we celebrate improvements in access for disadvantaged young people, we must […]

HEPI is today publishing The Comprehensive University (Occasional Paper 17) by Professor Tim Blackman, the Vice-Chancellor of Middlesex University. The report argues the comprehensive ideal is the best way to fix how the UK’s class-based university system is holding back social mobility.

The paper’s recommendations include:

measures to ‘desegregate’ and diversify universities, including quotas for the proportion of student places that can be subject to academic selection;
targets for universities to re-balance their skewed social class intakes, driven by levies on the most selective universities; and
a funding system that reflects the benefits of higher education to both the individual student and wider society.

Professor Blackman said:
The UK’s higher education system is said to be one of the best in the world, but it is failing to make the contributions to tackling social inequality and poor economic productivity that our universities could make if regulated in a different way. The root of these problems is academic selection, which has created a sector based on social class advantages rather than recruitment and teaching practices that equalise opportunities.

The narrative of “leading” and “top” universities has marginalised the transformational potential of higher education, which lies in adopting comprehensive principles. Mixing students of different backgrounds and abilities and teaching them together would force more universities to develop their teaching expertise, but there are many added benefits.

Evidence shows that less selection and greater diversity would create a better learning environment for all students, and it is much the best and most cost-effective way to widen access.
In a Foreword to the report, Matthew Taylor (a former head of the Number 10 Policy Unit and author of the recent report Good work: the Taylor review of modern working practices), says:
Tim Blackman’s case for comprehensive […]

In a new report for the Higher Education Policy Institute (www.hepi.ac.uk), Mary Curnock Cook, the former Chief Executive of UCAS, says the Government must address six big gaps in technical education policy to raise skills and productivity.

Mary Curnock Cook, the author of Misunderstanding Technical and Professional Education: Six Category Mistakes (HEPI Policy Note 1), said:

‘The success of the British economy, particularly after Brexit, will depend in large part on the quality of technical and professional education. In the past, this has generally been ignored, underpowered and underfunded.

‘Before the recent general election, skills policy was – rightly – placed at the heart of a new industrial strategy. Technical education is now being reorganised into 15 routes matching the main industrial sectors and new technical qualifications, called T-Levels, are being introduced.

‘I’d love to see this new attempt succeed because students and employers would welcome it. But there are some fundamental design flaws that need to be ironed out up front.’

Nick Hillman, Director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, said:

‘The Conservative manifesto promised to make British technical education “as prestigious as our world- leading higher education system”. That challenge has proved a particularly big conundrum for British policymakers, bedevilling past administrations.

‘Recent changes provide hope that we can raise our game, but they will not succeed without further improvements. In particular, if the new T-Levels are to be respected by students and employers, they need to be clarified, tweaked and explained.’

Notes for Editors

HEPI Policy Note 1, Misunderstanding Technical and Professional Education: Six Category Mistakes, considers six areas:

Parity of esteem: The new T-Levels are supposed to give technical education the same status as academic education. But they have a different purpose and structure to A-Levels. So they will […]