Institute of Education, University of London
Submission to the National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education (1996)
1Definition and Purpose of Higher Education [Section 1]
1.1It is inevitable that the society of the twenty-first century will be 'a knowledge society' or 'an information society'. Indeed, it could be said to have already arrived. The fax machine, the desk-top PC, the laptop computer and access to the Internet are spreading rapidly. Private and public sector organisations already know that the flow of knowledge and information is the key to success or failure. Politicians of all parties recognise the importance of the information revolution.
1.2Though an information society is a certainty, there remains enormous uncertainty about what benefits it will bring and to whom. For certain, only the well educated will be able to act effectively as citizens or employees in an information society.
1.3It is this that demands that we create a learning society, in which everyone is able both to benefit from and to contribute to the flows of knowledge and information on which our future depends. In other words, a learning society is one in which every person is an active learner and has an equal opportunity to develop their education. A learning society in this sense, unlike an information society, is not inevitable. We have to decide whether we want it and, if we do, we will have to create it. In short, it is a question of policy. Indeed, for the Dearing Committee it could be said to be the central question.
1.4If this is right, then understanding of teaching, learning and education will become critical to every organisation, not just traditional providers of education but businesses, companies and voluntary organisations too. To prepare for this kind of world, higher education ought to provide many more opportunities at both undergraduate and graduate level for students to learn about the role of learning in all organisations. This could involve, for example, providing undergraduate modules available to all students in education, not as preparation necessarily for becoming a teacher but as preparation for working in all organisations. It could also mean an expansion of post-graduate provision in professional education and organisation learning. This also has implications for research and in our view enhances the case for the establishment of an Education Sub-Committee of the Economic and Social Research Council with a broad brief, a theme to which we return later (para 3.2).
1.5One particular theme this argument raises is the increasingly important role of information and communications technology in higher education. This has implications both for the organisation and provision of HE but also for the nature of pedagogy at all levels in the education service and indeed in other organisations too. We believe this is a potentially rich seam for research and the development of new HE provision, which needs to achieve higher priority in the medium and long term. It will need, for example, to take account of the increasing understanding of the range of human intelligences (Gardner 1984, 1993) and of the potential of learnable intelligence (Perkins 1966).
1.6Finally, it is important to recognise that the days of straightforward vocational education as preparation for a career in a particular line of work are coming to an end. This applies at both FE and HE level. The learning society places a premium on core skills and on dispositions or attitudes to learning. Clearly these should not be promoted at the expense of knowledge but nevertheless they need to become explicit outcomes of HE.
2Teaching and Research Within Higher Education [Section 2]
2.1In the last 20 years the proportion of students entering higher education at undergraduate level has risen dramatically, to one-third of the age cohort. The number of postgraduate students has risen even more rapidly and now comprises 20 per cent of all students. Education is increasingly regarded as a lifelong process and this, combined with pressure from employers to obtain further qualifications, will lead to increases in demand for postgraduate courses in the future. The Institute welcomes this development both within the field of Education and more generally and hopes that the committee will recognise the very important place such education will increasingly occupy in the 21st century.
2.2Nearly all the taught courses at the Institute (other than the PGCE) are now modular in structure and there is an increasing trend for students, most of whom are mature professionals in busy full-time employment, to wish to follow courses that allow them to study at weekends and in blocks of time e.g. in holiday periods, and with breaks in registration between modules. In future students will wish to study at times that are convenient to them rather than to their institution. This will pose a challenge to the organisational skills of universities and to the needs of academic staff who also have a responsibility to pursue scholarship and research. If universities are to continue to receive large amounts of government funds this is a challenge to which they will need to rise.
2.3As far as courses of teacher training are concerned the Institute strongly supports the partnership arrangements between HEIs and schools and colleges. Each brings a particular contribution to provision in terms of the development of different skills and of professional expertise. However, there have been enormous changes in the relationship between HEIs and schools during the last five years and it is important that there should now be a period of stability so that these new arrangements can be given an opportunity to bed down.
2.4It is equally important that teaching should remain an all graduate profession. This has been a requirement for new entrants since the late 1970's, although it will not be until the next century until the careers of all non-graduate teachers come to an end. The benefits of prospective teachers taking intellectually demanding undergraduate studies alongside those who will be entering other professions, and going on to take a full time course of professional training, should not be underestimated. The four year preparation (for integrated B.Ed. courses or for an honours degree in a subject plus a one-year professional course) is considerably shorter than in many other countries. In the view of the Institute it would be detrimental to the education offered in schools and colleges if the teacher shortage, forecast to occur by the turn of the century, led to proposals for a reduction in the quality and rigour of the academic and professional training undertaken by those seeking to be teachers.
2.5The Institute's Mission Statement provides that teaching and research should have equal status and this is reflected in various policy documents relating, for example, to promotion. It is essential, however, that all staff undertake research and have the opportunity to keep up to date with their scholarship despite the increasing pressures of teaching and other areas of work. The Institute considers it essential that teaching in HE, especially at post-graduate level, should be informed by research and the Institute has adopted a range of strategies to ensure this interaction. Teaching does, however, require different skills from carrying out research and the Institute considers that all teachers in HE should undergo training for teaching, for which they would receive a certificate or diploma or some form of professional accreditation. Such training could be either institutionally based or, in view of the need for specialist inputs, could be organised on a regional basis.
2.6The present teaching quality assurance mechanisms are over elaborate and result in considerable inefficiency and duplication. The Institute strongly supports the proposal to establish a single quality assurance agency.
3Research [Section 3]
3.1The Institute of Education is a research-led institution, with 25 professors and 13 Readers in Education and over 80 research staff. It is responsible for 17% of all the externally funded research in Education in the UK. Rigorous selectivity in funding is essential to maintain the UK's position as a centre of excellence in research. Although the Institute has received the top rating in all three research assessment exercises, its annual HEFCE funding for research fell by over £1m following the last RAE. This financial outturn is contrary to the principle of selective funding for high quality research. This problem will need to be addressed by HEFCE. Despite these problems, it is essential that the R component in the HEFCE grant should continue as this funding enables HE to undertake fundamental research which would be unlikely to find support elsewhere. In this respect there has been too great a shift in research funds from HEFCE to the research councils.
3.2At present the subject Education falls under the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). It is very difficult for that Council to be able properly to judge the relative merits and demerits of proposals in such a range of disparate areas. The subject of "Education" itself has a large number of areas of study as the Institute's own areas of research expertise demonstrates. The Institute accordingly proposes that an Education Sub-Committee of the ESRC be established with ear-marked funds.
3.3As stated above the Institute has over 80 members of research staff many of whom are "career researchers". The expertise and understanding of research that such staff bring to projects is particularly valuable and the Institute has sought as far as possible to bring their terms and conditions into line with other staff. There is, however, no specific funding for this either from HEFCE, the research councils or other funders and overheads are not sufficient to cover these costs. The additional moneys transferred to Research Councils will not cover these costs.
4Funding Issues [Section 4]
4.1Universities have responded significantly to the Government's call for an increase in student numbers over the last fifteen years. The Government has not, however, responded in terms of funding for universities. As employee costs amount to over 70% of a university's expenditure this funding shortfall has affected both staffing numbers and staff salaries. The effect on staff numbers has meant larger classes and less individual tutorial time. Recruitment to university posts is becoming more difficult as pay levels fall further behind those areas with which universities are in competition for staff. As school teachers, particularly those on scale posts, now earn more than university lecturers, it is becoming increasingly difficult to recruit to the Institute bright, able members of the profession who could bring both scholarship and professional expertise to lectureship posts. It is now essential for university funding to increase - through a combination of government and other sources. As students at the Institute of Education (other than those registered for the PGCE) are largely self funding the Institute considers that there is very little scope for fee increases at this level.
4.2The 1994 Education Act established the Teacher Training Agency (TTA) which has responsibility for allocating both student numbers and funding for initial teacher training courses (at the Institute this means the Postgraduate Certificate in Education with 1000 students) and for some in-service training courses for teachers. The Institute has established a good relationship with the TTA and staff of the Institute serve on several TTA advisory boards. The TTA is, however, required to operate within a very tightly defined remit and the courses it funds have to be directly related to improving the performance of teachers in the classroom.
4.3The field of Education is both an academic as well as a professional discipline and much of the scholarship and research undertaken at the Institute of Education does not fall within the remit of the TTA. Many of our 1,100 Master's students and 500 research students are not funded by the TTA as they are working in such fields as Policy Studies, Philosophy of Education, Psychology of Education, Sociology of Education, Special Needs Education, Further Education, Adult Education and Higher Education. In addition, a substantial proportion of the Institute's students are professionals from abroad and a good deal of the research and publication produced by the Institute both concerns and is consumed outside the UK. It is essential, therefore, that HEFCE should continue to be responsible for the allocation of student numbers and funding for teaching and research in Education except for initial teacher education strictly defined. The present arrangement, whereby institutions can choose which funding body their courses and research fall under, should be maintained. If this were not to be the case scholarship and research in the field of Education could be significantly diminished. Furthermore if this were to happen to studies in Education, it could set a precedent for the formation of separate funding arrangements in other vocationally related fields such as Law, Engineering, Medicine and Social Work. Whilst there are strong arguments for universities to offer professional courses which can draw on and be informed by the basic research that they are undertaking, the situation must not be allowed to develop whereby university work in those areas is funded only if it is directly professionally related, as this will lead to the demise of the basic research which provides the foundation for subsequent developments in the professional areas.
4.4An important step the Government could take to encourage life-long learning, which will be crucial to Britain's success in the next century, would be to allow students to claim tax relief on any fees they pay for post-school education. This would exclude most undergraduates whose fees, at present, are paid by LEA's and those taking an Initial Teacher Education course, whose fees are similarly paid. It would, however, be of great help to those students wishing to take post graduate courses, probably part-time, who may already have large debts from their undergraduate days. In order to keep the scheme simple this tax relief should apply to all courses - both academic and vocational.
4.5The Institute has commented in the returns to the recent HEFCE consultation documents on the funding of teaching and research about the additional costs of HE in London. The Institute considers these to be substantial and has argued for appropriate provision to be made to recognise them. The Institute very much regrets that the Teacher Training Agency in its funding methodology has chosen not to implement the recommendation of the Coopers & Lybrand report with regard to the allocation of additional funding to recognise the extra costs of HE in London.
4.6Another important funding issue relates to VAT. Currently most aspects of teaching and research are exempt for the purposes of VAT. The Institute strongly recommends that teaching and research become zero rated. This would provide the twin benefit of reducing both bureaucracy and non staffing costs. The reduction in costs would enable HEIs to meet some of the other funding issues already raised.
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