Focus on hardship, not fees

SCOTLAND.

Jane Denholm welcomes Scotland's debate on student privation, but says abolishing fees would not solve the problem and would benefit only those who are well-off.

In the past six months, higher education has experienced unprecedented public exposure in Scotland. The abolition of the undergraduate tuition fee was the central sticking-point in post-election negotiations between Labour and the Liberal Democrats, and it remains the key issue on which the coalition government might stand or fall. And in the short time since the establishment of the Cubie committee of inquiry into student finance, the Scottish media has been regularly filled with highly charged speculation.

Almost everyone agrees that students are suffering financial hardship, but fundamental differences arise in how to address it. Three of four of the main political parties, along with the three independent members of the Scottish Parliament, are committed to alleviating this student hardship by abolishing undergraduate tuition fees. For the Scottish National Party and the Conservatives, the possibility of inflicting a defeat on the government might get the better of their sincere concerns about hardship. Together with the Liberal Democrats, their combined votes could see this through.

It is a measure of how divergent the UK countries are becoming that this debate appears marginal to the rest of the UK. Certainly, there would be no immediate implications for cross-border flow since the proposals would all involve the parliament making the contribution on behalf of Scottish-domiciled and European Union students only. And at the residential conference of the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals last week, it was obvious that little of this issue has penetrated thinking in institutions outside Scotland.

In Scotland we have had to contemplate the threat of tuition-fee abolition and have been given the opportunity to conceive alternatives. The Committee of Scottish Higher Education Principals led calls to set up the Cubie committee, believing this a unique opportunity to address student hardship.

But the real issues are easily overlooked.

The approach adopted by Scottish universities and colleges has been based on three principles: that there is a problem of student hardship that must be addressed; that access to and participation in higher education must continue to expand; and that the Scottish higher education sector must not be compromised by further reductions in funding. In pursuing these, the need for the retention of the student contribution to tuition fees becomes clear. Where student hardship is concerned, tuition fees are not the issue.

It is the whole package of wider costs associated with studying that is the cause of hardship.

The "restoration of the principle of free education" features nowhere in this list because we do not believe that it is a realistic or logical proposition. Significant numbers of further education, postgraduate and many part-time students in post-school education have always had to make a contribution to their tuition costs so there is no principle of free education to restore.

To remove the requirement to pay from all Scottish-domiciled and EU students in further and higher education in Scotland would cost about Pounds 250 million a year. The discussion on abolition has focused on the Pounds 46 million it would cost to remove the need to pay fees from the 25 per cent of Scottish students who are full-time undergraduates, 40 per cent of whom are already exempt from the tuition contribution on the grounds of low family income. This focus implies a partial abolition, which is inequitable.

Most important of all, abolition in these terms would benefit students from the most affluent families while leaving the poorest, who are suffering the most, no better off. Coshep's survey of uses of the access funds in Scottish higher education institutions found that 75 per cent of supported new entrants in 1998-99 did not pay tuition fees - overwhelmingly the students in greatest need are exempt from paying tuition fees. Abolition would do nothing for them.

Nor would abolition be fair. Graduates in Scotland can expect to earn an average of Pounds 8,000 a year more every year than those who had the qualifications to enter higher education but did not. A contribution from the beneficiaries of higher education towards the costs of tuition is fair and reasonable.

The worst effects of the severe financial crisis looming before the Dearing inquiry were averted only by the income represented by the student contribution to tuition costs, and this still left higher education institutions facing annual efficiency gains of 1 per cent. Institutions will experience considerable additional financial pressures in the coming months and years. The sector is reliant upon this funding stream to sustain the quality and quantity of its provision.

Coshep is recommending that Cubie consider three other areas: whether there should be some form of non-repayable bursary to help students from the least well-off families with their living costs; the extension of the loan entitlement to help close the gap between the costs of studying and the public resources available; and the exploration of different ways to collect the contribution.

Last week, at the deadline for written submissions to the committee, there appeared for the first time to be a breakthrough in the understanding of the key issues. The media widened its focus beyond fees to the package of costs and an exploration of payback mechanisms. The Liberal Democrats appeared to indicate that, current policy notwithstanding, they would take a decision in the light of the inquiry's conclusions.

For now, the issue rests with Cubie, who is due to report on Christmas Eve.

The establishment of the committee was a triumph of devolution and the "new politics" whereby the Scottish Parliament would take decisions in an informed and considered manner. But ultimately, although Cubie and the sector can make all the arguments they like, parliamentary arithmetic means the decision will be taken on political grounds. Will enough politicians have the courage, in the face of the evidence, to admit they were wrong about fees?

Jane Denholm is depute secretary of the Committee of Scottish Higher Education Principals.

viii Higher education trendsThe Times HigherJSeptember 24J1999 Scotland Academic-related staff St Andrews undergraduates: there is agreement that students suffer hardship, but no consensus on how to address it Academic related staff are the unassuming backstage professionals of university life. They keep the computer systems running, help students find their way round libraries and the growing use of IT-based learning, maintain the estates, juggle the finances, do the donkey work for admissions, research assessment, and quality assurance, and a host of other tasks which keep higher education going.

Two events this year have turned the spotlight on them, rather than the lecturers and researchers who normally occupy centre stage in university life - events with important implications for the future of higher education and its staff.

First there was the publication of the Bett report, which provided accurate data for the first time on the numbers and employment conditions of academic related staff, and made controversial recommendations about their future status.

Then there was the establishment of the Institute for Learning and Teaching in higher education. From this month academic and related staff with experience in teaching and the support of learning will be able to apply for membership of the ILT.

Until Sir Michael Bett and his team turned their attention to pay and conditions in higher education, no-one had a clear idea how many academic related staff there were in UK universities, let alone their conditions of employment. The Higher Education Statistics Agency, the universities' number crunching outfit, simply ignores them.

The Bett report unearthed 20,000 academic related staff - such as administrators, librarians and computer staff - in the pre-1992, or "old", universities. There were a further 45,000 administrative, professional, technical and clerical staff in the post-'92 and Scottish conference institutions, around one third of whom carry out similar work to old university academic related staff. In all, academic related staff make up more than 10 per cent of employees in higher education, compared with teaching and research staff, who comprise about 45 per cent of the total.

Of the related staff in the old universities, Bett found that one third were employed on fixed term contracts and just under half were women. Fixed term contracts were far more prevalent for junior staff. Women outnumbered men in the junior grades, and within each grade, women were consistently paid less than men.

Among the senior APT&C grades, the proportion of staff on fixed term contracts was much lower than for old university related staff. The proportion of female employees generally decreased with the seniority of the grade; the proportion of women on fixed term contracts was slightly higher than for men. The average salary of female full-timers was consistently lower than that for men.

In short, the Bett survey provided widespread evidence of poorer career opportunities for female academic related staff, and a high level of casualisation in the pre-'92 universities. Little wonder that the universities have preferred to remain in the dark about this group of employees, and that Bett recommended comprehensive data on all staff be collected on a regular and systematic basis.

Bett also proposed a national framework for determining the pay and conditions of staff in higher education, with separate pay spines for academic and non academic staff. The trouble is, how do you decide which staff are placed on which spine?

At the moment, in the pre-'92 institutions, academic and related staff are on linked pay spines. This underlines the belief and practice, particularly in the old universities, that the work of academic and related staff is bound together in a professional partnership in the provision of higher education. Bett recommended that the academic spine should be limited to teachers, researchers and others whose primary function is to contribute directly to student learning. There should be "benchmarking" based on job evaluation to link the pay of those at the top of the non-academic spine with those on the academic spine.

If Bett's recommendation on the pay spines is implemented, it will mean a double fracture of the professional team responsible for delivering higher education. Yes, the spines will be linked, but the mechanism of that link - job evaluation - has so far failed to prove a transparent, stable and reliable way of comparing roles in higher education.

What we will get is academic related staff separated in employment terms from academic staff, and senior related staff separated from their junior colleagues. This will mean that the approach to higher education provision based on partnership and team working, as supported by the Dearing report, will be undermined, and the promotion of academic related staff from the lower, training, grades, will be hamstrung by the imposition of the job evaluation linkage.

Besides direct contribution to learning, the Bett report suggested other criteria for separating academic from the non-academic staff, such as whether staff are normally recruited in a national or local labour market, and their eligibility for membership of the ILT.

Here too there are problems. The great majority of academic related posts are recruited from a national job market. And the more inclusive approach towards membership adopted this summer by the ILT will make a large number of related employees, especially computer and library staff, eligible to apply. The professional world of higher education envisaged by Dearing and supported by the ILT - with a growing involvement of related staff in teaching and learning, and the erosion of historic staff categories and pay structures and distinctions between academic and support staff - could,ironically, be stymied by the employment review Dearing recommended. The hope is that post Bett negotiations over the future shape of employment in higher education will produce a system which enables flexible professional career patterns, and flexible teams of staff engaged in supporting teaching and learning, to flourish - not wither because of artificial divisions.

Stephen Court is senior research officer at the Association of University Teachers.