AoC Policy Team

1. AoC Policy Team Nick Davy, HE Policy Manager

2. Context: Key Issues: • Funding –no reduction to teaching funding for 2013-14; reductions in ‘14 and ’15 (9% - ‘HE feels austerity pain’) • Recruitment and Trends • Quality Assurance/Access • Scholarship • Regulation/competition – OFT; AID • Access and Widening Participation • Projects • Policy Influence/Development AoC Annual HE Conference –March 4th/2015

3. Recruitment Trends • UK/EU FT entrants to HEI and FEC grew by 8 per cent in 2013-14 compared to 2012-13. According to UCAS - growth appears set to continue in 2014. • 21,000 fall in UK/EU entrants to other undergraduate courses made up 60 per cent of the one-year dip in numbers of entrants to FT undergraduate courses in 2012-13. • Since 2011-12 more full-time entrants to other undergraduate courses other than first degrees have been studying in FEC than in HEI. Only 6 per cent decline (08/09–12/13) in FT HE is accounted for by entrants to first degrees. Remainder - entrants to other undergraduate courses (HN, FD and short). FT foundation degree entrants have declined by 46 per cent in 2012/13; similar pattern in full-time and part-time numbers.

4. Recruitment: Policy/Economic Context PT UK/EU undergraduate entrant numbers in 2013-14 - almost half what they were in 2010-11. (less steep in FEC) Impact of a range of macroeconomic factors including falls in employment – particularly in the public sector. Importance of English policy changes – ELQ policy, higher tuition fees - alongside economic effects. Undergraduate PT study with employer support fell by almost half between 2011 and 2012. PT fees have risen significantly, but still tend to be lower than full-time fees. Greater variability in fees for part-time courses than for full-time courses. Part-time study appears to be more likely to suffer in a recession – but this is not inevitable. [Around half of ORCD countries saw growth in part-time between 2010 and 2011.]

5. Quality Assurance/Access QAA Degree awarding powers: Handbook for applicants First College Higher Education Reviews published in early May – positive to date – some issues around: • Quantity of documentation • Enrichment V Enhancement/Action Plan? • Aligning off/shelf HNs to HEI programme processes – aims/rationale-unit • Student Engagement; Culture of review teams • QAA Higher Education Review – several regions/sub-regions have set up informal QAA HER discussion/exchange of practicegroups. • OFFA How to produce an access agreement (AA) for 2015-16. (circa 30 colleges) • Access to HE Diploma – numeracy/literacy equivalence to GCSE C – withdrawn • Review of FHEQ – transfer of Pearson HNs to QCF – implications?

6. Scholarship in College HE HEA - Developing research-based curricula in college-based higher education - Report argues that a broader form of research and scholarship than is common in higher education (HE) is needed for the CHE sector – and that this may have implications for the rest of HE. QAA ‘Capturing an HE ethos in College HE practice’ - Hybrid scholarship in CHE around - Employer engagement, Localism, Vocational pedagogy Co-Learning “exploring ways in which staff and students might work together on projects which have connections with local industry and commerce; where staff and students disseminate their work locally with local industry and commerce; where students and staff work collectively on evaluating pedagogic practice; and where the development of research skills becomes a central focus within the classroom.” • MEG- Exploring scholarship and scholarly activity in college-based Higher Education. Including short practice guide.

7. Projects/Surveys Access and Widening Participation: Working with Action on Access to develop a College HE Access and Widening Participation (WP) Policy/Practice Group. Questionnaire circulated to capture colleges practice in this area. The NUS Student Engagement Partnership programme Working with NUS and partners such as QAA to support the 12 colleges who have been selected to be involved in the project - to develop models of student engagement relevant to the College HE sector. Website… http://tsep.org.uk/ AoC/BIS/UEL Part time college HE Research Programme: Thirty colleges have now been selected to be part of this programme and in-depth surveys with Heads of HE and college students will be taking place in April/May/June 2014. The website for the programme - http://www.uel.ac.uk/continuum/che/ (may need to use Mozilla Firefox) contains a useful literature review on College HE in the working papers section. Involvement in 2 Erasmus + project bids around HVE: (a) European Level 5 advice group (b) Employer engagement and HVE/German ‘dual universities’

8. Policy Influence/Development Higher Vocational Education Think-Pieces. The AoC commissioned think-pieces on Higher Vocational Education (HVE) - available on new AoC website. AoC Summer Publication 2014 will be focussed on Higher Vocational Education and circulated in June Vince Cable speech, including college case studies: “High-level vocational training has fallen through the gap between our HE and FE systems… relative to other countries, we are way behind where we need to be…we need to fill that high-level vocational gap” (April 23rd/Cambridge) National Technical Accreditation Council? – Institutional accreditation for the delivery of HVE courses? Maintaining dialogue with HEFCE on the KIS threshold rules Developing positive links with Liam Byrne/ShadowMinister for HE – “we’ve got to look at how we create a proper system of tertiary education, where our great FE colleges are much better inter-connected with our universities. Colleges will become the mission-critical partner in transforming the apprenticeship system” (AoC Think piece)

9. Any Questions? Nick Davy