A former universities minister has criticised the Westminster authorities for singling out “poor-quality degrees” within the King’s Speech as a “dog whistle to the culture warriors”.
Laying out the federal government’s legislative agenda for the approaching parliament, the King’s Speech mentioned “proposals will be implemented to reduce the number of young people studying poor-quality university degrees” in England.
Concerns have been raised that the high-profile reference, learn out by the monarch, could deter international students from coming to the UK.
Speaking at an occasion at King’s College London, Lord Johnson, who was universities minister between 2015 and 2018 and once more in 2019, mentioned: “This is a continuation of language that we’ve been listening to for fairly a while so in that sense it’s not very new – it’s a continuation of a canine whistle to the tradition warriors.
“That’s the basic intent, however by way of precise coverage it’s tougher to see the place the federal government goes to take this by way of devising coverage that may stand up to problem.
“I think the government is obviously doing damage to the sector by these sort of broadsides against it and it’s not serving the interests of the sector as a whole.”
Lord Johnson mentioned the English regulator, the Office for Students (OfS), had processes to evaluate high quality already by means of the Teaching Excellence Framework and its B3 high quality metrics.
Ministers have mentioned they intend to cap the number of students on so-called “rip-off” degrees that fall quick on these metrics – protecting scholar continuation and completion and graduate employment – however have parked proposals to to introduce a minimum entry requirement for students to be eligible for Student Loans Company funding, which many within the sector had warned would require complicated exemptions to keep away from penalising teams akin to mature college students.
Lord Johnson mentioned it was proper that, the place there have been high quality issues, the regulator “does pile on in” and addressed them to uphold the status of the sector.
However, at a time when the participation hole between essentially the most advantaged and the least advantaged quintile of scholars was round 30 proportion factors, Lord Johnson mentioned, the sector must be cautious of “a policy that would throw the engines of social mobility in higher education into reverse”.
“I hope very much that this line in the [King’s] speech isn’t softening us up for an attempt to reimpose number controls,” he mentioned.
Also talking on the occasion, hosted by the ResPublica thinktank, Steven McGuire, dean of the business faculty at Sussex University, mentioned it was necessary that the sector had strong regulation and strong outcomes.
“We all want high-quality education – I think the UK has an outstanding reputation for that and it’s a credit to all the system,” he mentioned.
Professor McGuire mentioned he nervous what the reference within the King’s Speech would do to the status of UK increased schooling, however he nervous much more that it could create incentives for universities to chop access and participation schemes, and cut back their consumption of non-traditional college students or these from deprived backgrounds.
