University of Sussex
Submission to the National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education (1996)
SECTION 1: The Definition and Purposes of Higher Education
Q1.What should be the aims and purposes of higher education over the next twenty years?
There is already wide agreement as to the purpose of the universities. Universities advance human knowledge and convey knowledge to their students and to society. They question the presuppositions and values of society, promote culture and the arts and help advance civilisation. In so doing they contribute to individual, social and economic development and to the training of young people to take their place in society and the workforce and to the further training of mature members of society. They have international, national and regional constituencies. Universities provide environments in which scholars both individually and collectively question, challenge, argue and promote theses. To that extent they need protection from political and state interference. Their purposes are timeless and of enduring importance: the purposes of universities need no specific conditioning to respond to the needs of the next twenty years. Rather, we need to ensure the survival and stability of universities so that they can continue to fulfil those purposes.
Q2.What features are, or should be, distinctive of higher education as opposed to other levels of education or training?
Universities are distinctive in that they seek to advance human knowledge through their research missions. They do not exist merely to convey extant knowledge. In their teaching role universities prepare people to learn and to challenge rather than merely to master a particular body of knowledge or set of skills. They are concerned about training to learn, to question, to enquire and not solely with a set of facts or particular professional or vocational skills. A university education is distinctive because of the intellectual synergy between teaching and research.
Within these generic considerations of distinctiveness there needs to be a diversity of universities to meet the diverse and rapidly developing needs of society and of individual students. At Sussex the special emphasis has always been on interdisciplinarity and on learning within clearly identified contexts. Given the complexity of contemporary society and the pace of technological change this interdisciplinary emphasis remains relevant and appropriate, and helps to provide the breadth of intellectual experience which increasingly will be required.
SECTION 2: Teaching and Research within Higher Education
Q3.What forms of higher education provision will students need access to over the next twenty years?
For the post-school entrant the standard mode of delivery of higher education for the post-school entrant will remain the first degree of three or four years' duration. Lengthening degree courses to expand knowledge delivery or, for example, to add a business, management or technological element should be firmly resisted. The aim should be to maintain existing standards without lengthening of courses. Maintaining existing standards means that two-year degree courses cannot be contemplated for this category of student.
That said, we expect alternative modes of delivery and attendance to become of greater significance and, partly to accommodate this, the structure of courses is likely to become modularised and accompanied by credit accumulation and transfer arrangements. Moves in and out of higher education may be needed to ensure the supply of a trained and re-trained workforce rather than mobility between institutions. Universities should certainly concentrate on the former aspect.
There is concern for the balance of subject provision and especial attention must be focused on the continued supply of numerate graduates, scientists, engineers and technologists. The UK needs a better approach to schooling in mathematics and science at both primary and secondary levels, and to training, recruiting and retaining science teachers. They must be paid more! Universities, particularly in the short term, need to modify their first-year curriculums (to enable
less well-qualified candidates to enter) and enhance the value-added element, and provide more foundation years in mathematics, science and engineering, either in universities or associated further education colleges.
Q4.What knowledge, skills and aptitudes will those leaving higher education need over the next twenty years and how can these be best delivered?
Undergraduate courses of three and four years' length will be required to cover the range of knowledge and skills which graduates will require. A broad knowledge base combined with a capacity to seek out, identify, process and apply highly specialised knowledge will be needed, and graduates of all disciplines should be capable of good oral and written communication, which encompasses an enhanced numeracy (both an understanding of and a capacity to use numbers) in subsequent professional life. A balance will be required between emphasis on personal development and growth of understanding and confidence within a subject, and specific and general skills training. The extent to which students are prepared for specific work situations (ranging from self-employment to work in small and medium-sized companies) will be a factor of the degree of specific vocational relevance of the degree course, with obvious differences of approach between, say, philosophy and business studies. Final responsibility for curriculum content, mode of delivery and forms of assessment must rest with the universities, who will continue to seek support and co-operation from the professions and pay close attention to professional accreditation. More attention will be paid to the views of current and former students.
Universities already convey to their students much that has broad vocational relevance. Without becoming prescriptive we support a sharpening of emphasis on more specific employment skills (including IT skills, problem solving and capacity for team work) building on a base provided during secondary schooling. Despite close relationships with the professions we think it unlikely that first degree courses will be tailor-made for specific employers or professional bodies, although this is likely to occur in post-experience provision. The Enterprise in Higher Education Initiative in which Sussex has successfully participated has done much to prepare the way.
Q5.How can effective teaching and learning be identified and how should they be encouraged?
There has been some good progress in recent years in enhancing the professionalism of teaching in higher education. The need for acceptable standards in teaching is now recognised in initial appointment procedures, university staff promotion criteria, staff development programmes, and reward mechanisms (for example, at Sussex through awards for teaching). More work is required on the implications for learning of technological development, including storage and retrieval of data and the integration of libraries and computing services into effective and efficient information providers. Best practice in handling student feedback and the use of teacher observation needs wider recognition. At Sussex a Teaching and Learning Support Unit has been established to help identify effective teaching and learning and to encourage best practice.
Q6.What is the place of scholarship (as opposed to teaching and research) in higher education?
We do not accept the definition of scholarship which is implied here.
At its heart a university is about research and teaching the next generation in which that teaching is subject to constant renewal through research findings. At Sussex an emphasis is placed on interdisciplinarity in both research and teaching and the synergy between them is demonstrated by teachers and students when they research, teach and learn successfully.
Q7.How can standards of degrees and other higher education qualifications be assured and maintained?
Over the last twenty years or so the work on quality assurance mechanisms, internally by universities, the former polytechnics and colleges, externally by CNAA and more recently by HEQC and through HEFCE's subject Quality Assessment arrangements, has demonstrated the high standards of UK degree courses. The work of professional institutions, moves to modularisation, franchising, further work on credit transfer arrangements, and further clarification of the relationship between the first degree and other further and higher education qualifications
(vocational qualifications, the National Diplomas), all add to the pressure on universities to articulate assessment standards and to make it much clearer what students must achieve before they graduate and achieve a particular honours classification.
A working partnership needs to be established between the new national agency and the universities, but at the end of the day it is individual universities which award degrees and which are responsible for the standards of students who graduate. So long as this is so, degrees from some universities will be prized more than others. This aspect of diversity is to be welcomed and valued. It is of much greater significance than standardisation of the subject curriculum which must be vigorously resisted.
Q8.What proportion of higher education resources is it reasonable to use to verify standards of awards and the quality of provision?
Sufficient resource needs to be available to enable universities to maintain an internal system of academic audit for all newly-proposed courses and periodic audit of continuing courses; the external examiner system for both taught courses and research degrees, and the new national quality assurance agency. Given that the fees now paid to most external examiners are very low (and that many travel and subsistence claims are now taxed on payment) and that more will need to be paid if the system is not to collapse, universities probably need to find a marginal increase in resource for quality assurance mechanisms.
We find it impossible to express the resource needed as a proportion to the total higher education resource. The best way to control costs here is to ensure that the new agency is fit for its purpose and provides value for money. It may be difficult, but it is essential to ensure that costs do not escalate.
Q9.How should research carried out in higher education institutions fit with the wider spectrum of research in the UK?
The vast majority of basic and strategic research and research training is undertaken in universities. This should continue. Industry and commerce will never support basic research in the volume required for a successful, modern, technological, liberal democracy. In particular, the private sector will not support the basic research in the humanities and social science on which much cultural regeneration and sustaining of civilised values depends.
The role of industry, other private sector providers and the charities is to support applied research. Where work of an entirely applied nature is undertaken and is unlikely to feed basic or strategic work an appropriate recovery of university overheads is entirely appropriate and should be charged. Contact with applied research is important in the education and motivation of under- and post-graduates who wish to develop careers in applied areas of science.
Q10.How should public funding for research in higher education institutions be distributed?
In its submission to the Committee the 94 group of universities, of which Sussex is one, emphasised that excellence in research is not the preserve of a few large institutions. Sussex research is characterised by focus, flexibility, interdisciplinarity, niches, integration of teaching and research, and regional, national and international networking. This provides the university with a distinct and competitive role internationally. We urge the Committee to avoid recommendations which concentrate research funding in a few universities. Mechanisms are needed which support talent at whatever university it is located for the best research is not always done in the context of a large critical mass. Increased selectivity, which is needed if excellence is to be maintained and enhanced, should operate at the subject level and not at institutional level. Funding mechanisms which protect and encourage work in 4, 5 and 5* subjects are required.
Public support for basic research is a necessity and this should continue to be provided on the dual support principle through the funding and research councils. It is a system which is tried and tested. The current difficulty is that the volume of research needed to be carried and the cost of much scientific research is so great that current levels of public support have seriously undermined the capacity of the system to deliver a satisfactory product in sufficient volume.
Abolition of the dual support system would seriously damage the research base across the board. New and important scientific research is initiated within the universities funded by the QR stream; research councils target funding within the technology foresight exercise. The humanities, still without a research council, are largely dependent on the funding council's dual support element. Further transfer of research monies to research councils would further damage basic and strategic research.
Much work in the biological and medical fields which is funded by charities continues to require overhead support from public sources. Charitable funding plays a critical role in maintaining the excellence of biomedical research in the UK.
The research assessment exercises have led to acceptance of the need to assess research quality and are now an accepted part of quality assurance and resource distribution mechanisms. They are, however, time consuming, costly, and encourage universities to make decisions in the short-term to help achieve better assessment results. Ways need to be found to streamline and simplify these exercises and reduce associated costs.
The method of peer review for allocating research council resources is right in principle and has worked well until loss of resources has placed intolerable strain on the system. Any system short of thorough peer review would not command respect.
The Technology Foresight Exercise has helped to produce some priorities, especially in applied areas. It is important to recall that some basic research findings could not be identified through foresight exercises. For example, modern developments in the Biotechnology industry are
founded on discoveries in molecular genetics made in the course of basic research which were not foreseen and were made in projects which would not be selected for funding under strategic criteria.
Q11.How should the organisation of research activity be developed over the next twenty years?
University structures must promote rather than inhibit collaborative and interdisciplinary research. Collaboration is needed across subject boundaries, between universities, across the public/private sector divide and internationally. At Sussex the academic structure of Schools and Graduate Research Centres promotes interdisciplinarity. High standards, collaboration and an interdisciplinary approach will be achieved by the creation of Centres of Excellence, appropriately funded, especially with start-up resources.
The basis for European Union funding requires re-examination, including the level of overhead support.
Q12.How can the quality of research in higher education best be maintained and enhanced?
Quality must be assessed by international standards and public funding must be adequate to maintain those standards. Key issues are training of the future researchers and an attractive career structure for research staff. Recent initiatives such as the Harris report on postgraduate education and the CVCP/Research Councils concordat on career management for research staff are welcome.
SECTION 3: The Size, Shape and Structure of Higher Education
Q13.What should be the particular role for higher education in the context of changes in society, the economy and the labour market over the next twenty years?
An age participation rate of at least thirty per cent of students entering higher education direct from secondary schooling should be maintained and, marginally, expanded. Capacity should also exist for an expanding adult participation to meet the needs for retraining and post-experience education. Care will be required to maintain participation from all sectors of society, notably women, the disabled and ethnic minorities. More needs to be done to enable individuals from the less privileged parts of society to break into higher education. Provision for part-time study must be expanded. Too often under- and post-graduate courses are offered on the sole basis of full-time study and, where part-time provision is made, too often it is assumed that attendance modes can be organised as a fraction or variation of full-time study.
Q14.What factors should determine the appropriate level of participation in higher education?
Given the much increased age-participation rate and the increase in mature learners the precise levels of participation will have to be determined with regard to economic needs (demand for trained workforce), student demand and the need to sustain and enhance the wider, social benefits of universities. A guide to the levels of provision should be levels pertaining in other OECD countries and proportion of expenditure of GNP. Recent expansion at undergraduate level demand will impact at postgraduate level, and particular attention will need to be given to providing postgraduate students with access to loan funds to enable them to study.