Introduction

  1. The Report of the National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education, Higher Education in the Learning Society, set a wide-ranging agenda for the development of higher education into the 21st century. The comments from the many interested organisations and people who submitted their views on the Report reflect a general consensus on the need to work through this agenda. This document is intended to bring together in a comprehensive statement the Government’s response to those recommendations addressed to it and a position report on those recommendations addressed to other bodies.

  2. This response is being published in parallel with the Green Paper The Learning Age. On current participation rates, 60 per cent of school leavers can expect to enter higher education at some time in their lives. The Government sees higher education playing a key role in lifelong learning and wants to see it making an even bigger contribution in future by:

    • increasing and widening participation, particularly from groups who are under-represented in higher education, including people with disabilities and young people from semi-skilled or unskilled family backgrounds and from disadvantaged localities;

    • offering opportunities later in life to those who missed out first time round;

    • increasing its contribution to the economy and its responsiveness to the needs of business;

    • collaborating more closely and effectively with other institutions and with the world of work;

    • exploiting new technology and flexible delivery so as to make itself more accessible and ensuring that maximum use is made of its facilities through longer opening hours.

  3. This is a challenging agenda. Universities and colleges, employers and employees, the private sector and Government will all need to work together to create a learning society in which many more people can benefit from world class education and training.

  4. The Committee set out a vision of a world class higher education system combining rigour and economic relevance. At the heart of this vision is the idea of a compact between universities and colleges, individual students, the world of work and society itself. The Government shares the Committee’s vision, which was widely supported in the many responses to the consultation on the Report.

  5. Higher education is an investment in our future. The Government has already taken difficult decisions to reform the funding of higher education in order to ensure that universities and colleges can continue to offer high quality learning, teaching and research. Proposals for new funding arrangements, designed to address the severe funding problems facing higher education, were set out in the Government’s initial response to the Committee’s Report on the day of its publication, 23 July 1997. The Teaching and Higher Education Bill, currently before Parliament, will give effect to these proposals. These build on the Committee’s proposals and on the proposals in the Labour Party’s evidence to the Committee, Lifelong Learning, and the Government’s manifesto.

  6. The new funding arrangements are based on the principle that the costs of higher education should be shared between those who benefit. But the Government has introduced important safeguards. There will be no contribution to tuition fees from students from lower income families; and there will be no increase in parental contributions from middle and higher income families. Students will have access to money to help with living costs when they need it. Repayments after graduation will be fairer and easier to manage than under the current scheme.

  7. These new funding arrangements will mean more money for universities; and the Government will ensure that savings are used to improve quality, standards and opportunities for all in further and higher education. As evidence of its commitment to fulfil that pledge, the Government has already announced extra funds for higher education for 1998-99 in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. These will ensure that generally across the UK the reduction in the unit of funding for higher education will be limited to 1%, thus meeting the Dearing Committee’s priority for additional funding. The Government is committed to maintaining and improving quality in higher education, as well as widening access.

  8. Where the Committee’s recommendations have funding implications beyond 1998-99, in particular on increasing participation and on research funding, the Government will announce decisions as soon as possible in the light of the outcome of the current Comprehensive Spending Review.

  9. The response published today addresses all 93 of the Committee’s recommendations, including recommendations on learning and teaching, quality and standards, research and links to the economy.

  10. The Government wants to emphasise the following points:

    • The Government is committed to the principle that anyone who has the capability for higher education should have the opportunity to benefit from it and will therefore lift the cap on student plans imposed by the last government.

    • The Government will monitor the impact of the new arrangements to ensure that its policies for increasing participation and widening access are working.

    • The Government sees the new Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education to be established by the HE sector as having a key role to play in enhancing the professional skills and status of teachers in higher education and spreading good teaching practice more widely. The Government’s long-term aim is to see all teachers in higher education carry a professional qualification.

    • The Government will invite the Institute, when established, to consider organising a national scheme to make more widely available the lectures of outstanding teachers on film, video or via broadcasting.

    • The Government welcomes the Committee’s emphasis on driving up quality and standards. The Quality Assurance Agency will be working with the higher education sector to define and verify standards; create a pool of recognised external examiners; and publish codes of practice for every institution to adopt.

    • The Government attaches great importance to a fair deal for students, and better information for student choice, and will be bringing together all concerned to establish what information is needed and should be available on higher education courses, their quality and standards, costs and benefits.

    • The Government is committed to maintaining a world class science base and to promoting high quality research.

  11. In addition to its 93 recommendations, the Dearing Report contained a considerable number of other proposals. It has not been possible in this document to comment on all of them. The Government shares the Committee’s hope that all concerned will follow up the many proposals which did not find their way into specific recommendations.

  12. As well as developing their local, regional and national roles, the Government wants to encourage universities and colleges to measure themselves against international standards and develop international partnerships. There are exciting opportunities both within the EU and further afield for universities and colleges to build on international links to enrich the programmes they offer their students and increase the effectiveness of their graduates in the labour market. Moreover, higher education has made a considerable contribution to the UK’s export achievements, and the Government expects that it will continue to do so.

  13. This document covers the whole of the UK. Where the Dearing Committee made recommendations specific to Scotland and Northern Ireland in the main body of its Report, these are addressed in the document. In addition, a Government response is being published in parallel to all of the recommendations of the Scottish (Garrick) Committee.

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