Regulate the regulators
Hetty ter Haar
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Regulate the regulators
It's time to streamline the way we do quality control, says Roger
Brown
Roger Brown
Tuesday October 9, 2007
Guardian
The government's recent decision to create an independent regulator
for, in effect, school academic standards appears to have taken people
by surprise. The secretary of state for children, schools and
families, Ed Balls, gave two reasons for the change. First, the
present arrangement involved the Qualifications and Curriculum
Authority in a conflict of interest, as both determiner of the
curriculum and judge of standards. Second, the public would not
believe what the authority said on standards as long as it was not
independent of government.
While the position in higher education is different - legally,
institutions with degree-awarding powers are accountable only to
themselves for their academic standards - similar concerns are being
raised. The recent Higher Education Policy Institute survey of student
workload reveals some remarkable variations between institutions and
subjects. At present, the appetite for serious regulatory reform is
limited. But there are at least two drivers that may lead to changes
sooner rather than later.
The first is the duplication between regulatory bodies: not only the
Quality Assurance Agency, but also Hefce, Offa, the TDA, the NHS and,
of course, professional and statutory bodies. While there has been a
series of reforms, none has really got to grips with the problem. (The
auditor in Southampton Solent University's last Hefce audit did not
even appear to know that the QAA had thoroughly reviewed the
institution's governance and management as part of an exhaustive
scrutiny for degree-awarding powers and university title).
The second is the impact of marketisation. Even without serious price
competition in the undergraduate market, we are already seeing
worrying increases in student complaints and appeals, in plagiarism
and other forms of cheating, as well as, almost certainly, in grade
inflation. If the fee cap comes off, as many expect it will, we can
expect these pressures to intensify.
So long as most institutions charge the same amount, even though
institutional resourcing levels vary considerably, the price/cost/
quality interactions can be discounted. When there is serious
competition, they cannot be. This will strengthen the tendency to take
risks with quality to protect revenue. At the same time, enhanced
consumer pressure is bound to lead to defensive judgments in the
academic profession, as it has in others. In any event, there are
bound to be pressures for closer regulation of universities.
One way of anticipating this situation would be to replace existing
regulators with a single body, as has happened in other sectors of the
economy, such as financial services. An Office for Higher Education
would have four main functions. First, to appoint, train and regulate
auditors. Second, to conduct audits of institutions (and, sometimes,
academic units) and publish outcomes. Third, to carry out value-for-
money studies, facilitate benchmarking, and so on. Fourth, to advise
parliament, the government, the funding council and other agencies
about quality and standards. It could also scrutinise claims made by
institutions about their quality and standards, and investigate
serious student and staff complaints.
The main focus would be on leadership, governance and management,
especially the means by which management at all levels satisfies
itself about the quality of educational programmes and the resources
used to achieve it. The effectiveness with which institutions select,
develop, remunerate and deploy their staff is strikingly absent from
current audit methodologies.
Such a system would have a number of advantages. By bringing all
higher education regulation under one roof, it would save money and
improve regulation. By concentrating on leadership and management, it
would focus on what the quality-improvement literature tells us is
crucial for organisational success. It would do away with the
artificial distinction between the scrutiny of general governance and
management (Hefce audit) and each institution's core business of
student education (QAA and others). By making the regulator directly
accountable to parliament, it would reduce susceptibility to
influences, formal or informal, from government. And, above all, it
would create a single body able to give an authoritative and
comprehensive view of quality in UK higher education.
· Roger Brown is co-director of the centre for research and
development in higher education at Liverpool Hope University, having
been vice-chancellor of Southampton Solent University and chief
executive of the Higher Education Quality Council
EducationGuardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007