Review of Russell Group entry metric for schools ‘long overdue’

A Westminster government commitment to review the metric it uses to measure school performance by how many pupils they send to Russell Group universities is “long overdue”, according to sector leaders.

In its response to a House of Lords Committee report on the future of education for 11- to 16-year-olds, ministers said they were looking at whether schools will still be required to report on the proportion of pupils who go on to secure places at one of the 24 members of the research-intensive grouping.

The document says the inclusion of the “proportion of students progressing to a Russell Group university as a performance measure is due to the term ‘Russell Group’ being generally understood as a reference to high-tariff universities”.

But, given that another performance measure already looks at the proportion of students progressing to universities that are in the top third of Ucas tariffs, “we will review if a separate Russell Group destination measure is still required”, the document says.

Non-Russell Group institutions have long argued that the performance measure reinforces the view that membership of the self-selecting grouping is seen as a marker for quality in the UK sector.

Russell Group universities have grown rapidly in recent years – often at the expense of those outside the grouping – with places coveted by aspirational applicants, and their parents.

Sir David Bell, vice-chancellor of the University of Sunderland and a former permanent secretary at the Department for Education, said reviewing the metric was “long overdue”.

“It assumes that there is a category of ‘good’ universities, and the rest are irrelevant to potential school-leavers,” he said.  

“While Russell Group universities excel in many ways, the same is true of others as evidenced by important measures such as TEF [Teaching Excellence Framework] outcomes and NSS [National Student Survey] results.”

Sir David said the metric “also has the effect of encouraging schools to push their pupils towards Russell Group institutions even when a more appropriate course would be available at another university”. 

“The mix of subjects varies across different types of universities and so where is appropriate to go for a particular student may depend on what they want to study,” he said.

Alex Bols, deputy chief executive of GuildHE – the representative body for smaller, specialist institutions – agreed it was time to review the metric as it “disproportionally skews behaviour of schools, parents and students”.

“There are many excellent universities and highly specialised providers across higher education, many of whom aren’t eligible for Russell Group membership, and so the high-tariff Ucas metric is a more robust data-driven metric,” he added.

tom.williams@timeshighereducation.com