* The Quality Assurance Agency is being called in to review foundation degrees.
Sir Howard Newby, chief executive of the Higher Education Funding Council for England, states in a letter to vice-chancellors: "We wish to review and evaluate foundation degrees during the academic year 2002-03 to ensure public confidence in the quality of the new qualification, to further investigate and disseminate good practice and to inform the development of the initiative."
The QAA will examine a sample of the programmes to assess quality, identify the features that distinguish them as foundation degrees and identify good practice and issues for development.