1. Social background of students:

Getting more working class students into universities, or giving them the opportunity: long term this is a matter of a more egalitarian secondary schools system, not the increasingly polarized one we have now, in which league tables within every local authority all over England widen the gap between the high achieving and low achieving schools as measured by GCSE and/or A-level scores. The correlation between the highest scoring schools in each locality (whatever their type, whether academies or community schools) and a low % of free school meals entitlement children, as a common measure of socio economic status, is well known. Until we replace league tables with fuller means of parent secondary school choice (this entails in the long run getting rid of 5 x A*-C GCSEs as a school-ranking criterion too, in moving toward no external 16+ exam) the situation will continue to get more not less unequal as better off parents are able to (struggle to) use every means to get their children into the schools at the top of each local hierarchy.

So devices to favour working class or state school children for university, over better off or private school ones, by postcodes or by intrusive UCAS questioning about parents, are no solution longterm, as well as unedifying and unfair-seeming, short term.

2. Financial questions

Since the 2004 Higher Ed Act raised fees and led to a fall in applications and admissions (England) in 2005/06, it seems that applications are back on track in 2006/07, because virtually all English universities have offered numerous means-tested bursaries and grants.

Even so, the financial situation of fees and loans and having to work to earn money at the same time as studying is extremely hard for students. The introduction of top up fees in 1998 started these problems and they have grown worse each year since then. The prospect or threat now is of variable uncapped fees rising to many £1000s over £3000pa, for tuition, not including the further costs of maintenance, life.

The aim surely is to replace this payment of fees up front, at the beginning of HE, with a socalled Graduate Tax arrangement under which payment will only be later when salaries reach a given level, ie when people can afford it. This is how other OECD countries finance HE and it makes sense both for HE institutions' funding and for students. Charles Clarke as Ed See in 2003 argued trenchantly for such a Graduate Tax till at the last minute switching to top up ie up front fees in 2004 (and pushing those through instead).

3. Quality of HE experience & education:

Since 1998 and particularly over the last year or two, a consumerist 'I want value for my money' attitude on the part of students has developed, understandably as they are paying so much and if working at the same time, suffering such hardship. The effect of this instrumental, demanding approach is pressure upon assessment, marks and grades, not just at the final degree point but throughout the course, as marks mount up and assessment is continuous. Litigious attitudes and threats or risks have generated a defensive marking reaction on the party of HE authorities, with plagiarism contracts forced on students and much bureaucracy devoted to covering the backs of markers. A kind of battleground has emerged spoiling traditional goodwill on both sides which has to struggle to persist.

Modules and semesters instead of year-long courses have fragmented HE in a strange and unanticipated way. Intended to enable mobility round the country and comparability between old and new universities (introduced 1992/3) the semester-long modules with assessment at the end of every module have produced year round re-assessment & assessment. This tail wags the dog, dominates university life for students and staff; and the tail wags the dog in another way too: these systems are run by IT and those costs have soared over the last decade, hence in part 2003's HE funding crisis.

4. The SEA opposes selection for secondary school. I would hope it also opposes selection within schools by streaming. Ideally it should also oppose selection for university entry by means of A-levels. This system is destructive for so many reasons -

a) it has a dire effect within schools both downward in spurring earlier selection, and sideways to non A-level students;

b) retaking A-levels (for better grades) and cramming for them exacerbates a narrow specialization, when breadth before tertiary specializing would make more sense, and would keep science & language options open (the present system's narrow specialization forecloses them)

c) they go ill with open entry 50% in HE targets, as part of the old selection for tiny elite numbers.

Instead why not aim at a secondary stage with all in education to 18, a secondary school leaving exam covering a broad range of subjects (passing which could mean HE entry) and then, diverse paths.

The 14-19 diplomas vision extends GCSE selection downwards to those "disengaged" from an earlier age, 14. Diplomas and off site work experience will not educate OR vocationally train or prepare them for modem day employment requirements. It reflects and entrenches the current divides between sheep & goats.

We need to see secondary and tertiary education structures together and to see the impact of so much selection, as rejection and therefore resentment and exclusion, at every point. The DFES's new euphemism is to call non academic 14+ young people "disengaged" (' so send them out of school to something off site') which is looking at the effects not causes of this horribly divided and polarized situation, and is blaming the children. Every UNICEF and OECD PISA study and inter country comparison notes how unequally we treat our young people. Tests at 4+, 7, 11,14, 16, 17, 18 (tests which select + reject) are part of that.

We need to tackle and end the 3 Ts: tables, tests, and targets.  

 

 

Jackie Lukes,  March 2007