By tim, on June 17th, 2013 at 11:23 pm I read with interest earlier on today the news of the Social Mobility Commission’s report into access to higher education.
As I’ve said here before, improving social mobility is vitally important to fairness in our society and ensuring that wealth is both created and distributed more evenly. In other words, it’s not “Stronger Economy, Fairer Society” which we as Liberals ought to be shouting about, rather, we should be arguing that the creation of a fairer society is the best way to a stronger economy. Only then does our unwavering support for the reform of our democratic and economic institutions start to make sense. I happen to think that this is the only way we can build a narrative which will differentiate us from all other parties come the next election, but I’m not expecting a call from Lord Ashdown any time soon!
Back to the report. One of its headlines is that admissions to the Russell Group universities from state schools, as a proportion of overall enrolments, is down slightly since 2002/3. However, there are an additional 1,464 attending from such schools as total enrolments have gone up by 2,900 during the same period. It’s this statistic which is used to justify the claim that the Russell Group universities are becoming “less socially diverse”.
However, the proportion of students in private education has increased dramatically since 2002/3 – as an examination of the Independent Schools Council 2013 census (pdf) demonstrates.
 © 2013 Independent Schools Council Against this background maybe the Russell Group universities aren’t doing quite so badly after all. I’d go so far as to say that when these changes are taken into account, the report’s claims start to look like the use of a dodgy statistic to justify the imperative of improving social mobility. Using dodgy statistics, however well-intentioned, really doesn’t help the cause of social mobility at all(*).
I don’t make a habit of agreeing with David Willetts, but his comment in response to the report that “getting a university education should be based on ability, not where you come from” is exactly what we should be aiming for. However, this does assume that equality of opportunity is provided to all students at school, regardless of the sector they were educated in.
At the moment, even with additional money going to less advantaged school students by way of the pupil premium, we’re a long way from such an ideal.
(*) The sharp-eyed amongst you will have noticed that the bar chart from the ISC is a little “dodgy” too, as it compares pupils in ISC schools across the whole of the UK against the general trend in pupils numbers in England.
By tim, on June 10th, 2013 at 9:04 pm Well, that was underwhelming.
Having been alerted by the Times Higher Education last Friday to expect some real insights into how to address the crisis in part-time higher education (a 40% decline in new part-time enrolments since 2010), the IPPR’s report devotes just 4 out of 156 pages (between pages 83-88) to the concerns of the 35.7% of England-resident students who study part-time in higher education.
The first of these few pages are recycled statistics and a fairly shallow analysis of material already published elsewhere. To be honest, I think that even I’ve done a better job of covering the core issues surrounding part-time study than this think-tank has managed by assembling a range of HE experts. (See here and here, for example).
Page 87 consists of its recommendations for part-time study, which (paraphrasing) are:
- We don’t understand why part-time enrolments have declined so much in the last two years, so we can’t make any concrete recommendations.
- It might be a good idea to extend loans to part-time students already holding a degree – but only for ‘strategically important’ courses. A timid suggestion, even though the report offers evidence in a footnote that part-time students across all subjects are likely to overpay their loans by 8.5%.
- We probably need to reform the whole system surrounding part-time study, but we don’t really have any ideas about how to do it. The decline in part-time study has been the “unexpected consequence” of the reforms in HE that introduced the £9,000/year tuition fee cap aimed primarily at 18-21 year olds.
Unexpected consequence? They’ve clearly never canvassed the views of Open University students, that’s for sure.
And that’s it. No wonder these recommendations on part-time study didn’t even rate a mention in the top 23 the IPPR lists on its summary page and all that the mainstream media seem to think the report is about is reintroducing polytechnics.
And as for mature students? It’s not encouraging. The phrase “lifelong learning” is used just 3 times in the entire document.
I’m so disappointed that I really can’t face reading any more of this report tonight, but I do want to have a proper look at what they’re suggesting for postgraduate HE. If anything, this is in an even more dire state than part-time study. Maybe I’ll have calmed down enough in a couple of days to read and write about it then.
But on the basis of what I’ve read so far, I’m not holding my breath. This report seems far too easy for BIS to dismiss by damning it with faint praise – which is exactly the strategy the department seems to be following at the moment.
By tim, on June 7th, 2013 at 9:31 pm  The crisis in part time higher education in the UK, June 2013
By tim, on June 2nd, 2013 at 4:11 pm I’ve been finding writing difficult recently, culminating in the “Meh” post of a couple of days ago.
I’m not quite sure why. It’s not as if there isn’t lots happening in my own life at the moment, nor are then any shortage of things in the wider world which are either engaging me or frustrating me. The problem is, if I were to start to write on most of these topics at any length, you’d find them a very dull read or I’d simply become incoherent with rage far too quickly – and so be a very dull read.
A . . . → Read More: Writer’s block, sex at the OU and right wing isolationism
By tim, on May 30th, 2013 at 7:14 pm Meh.
(This post was inspired by a Facebook friend, in response to my whinge about having writer’s block)
By tim, on May 9th, 2013 at 12:23 pm I’m currently working my way through Alex Haslam’s book Psychology in Organizations – The Social Identity Approach. One of the more intriguing pieces of research it presents is on the impact of systematic and random leader selection on group performance.
A study conducted by Haslam and others(*) came to the conclusion that if a group has a specific goal to achieve and you want to maintain or strengthen that group, you’re better off choosing your leader at random – provided that the group already has a salient social identity and actually wishes to achieve the goal set.
Paradoxically however, leaders . . . → Read More: Don’t bother with selections or elections – the best leaders are picked randomly
By tim, on April 25th, 2013 at 9:51 pm A massive round of applause from me for Nick Clegg and his vetoing of the “Snooper’s Charter” – alternatively known as the Communications Data Bill. But can anyone understand this paragraph in his email to Lib Dem members?
There is always a careful balance to strike between security and individual liberty and I have always agreed that we must help our law enforcement agencies keep up with the challenge of policing in the internet age – like the technical issue of what to do when there are more mobile devices with not enough IP addresses to go round.
While it . . . → Read More: Say what, Nick Clegg?
|
English tuition in Derby Jane Holyoake
Friendly and professional tutoring services
|
Recent Comments