[ad_1]
The Committee’s report on the Office for Students (OfS) finds that the regulator has poor relations with providers and students, a controlling and arbitrary approach to regulation, and lacks independence from the Government.
The Committee’s Report
A new report by the Industry and Regulators Committee published today warns that the OfS and the Government are failing to act on the looming financial crisis facing the higher education sector.
After hearing from students, university leaders, current and former ministers, the OfS, the Quality Assurance Agency, and representative bodies, the Industry and Regulators Committee raises concerns that the sector has become dangerously dependent on international and postgraduate student fees to compensate for increased costs, tuition fee freezes for home undergraduate students, and reduced EU research funding.
The Committee’s report, Must do better: the Office for Students and the looming crisis facing higher education, also criticises the performance of the OfS, concluding that it is failing to meet the needs of students and is not trusted by many of the providers it regulates. It also raises concerns that the OfS lacks independence from the Government, and that its actions often appear driven by the ebb and flow of short-term political priorities and media headlines.
Whilst the Committee welcomes the OfS’ focus on value for money for students, it questions the OfS’ approach to regulation and whether it provides value for money itself to providers, particularly when higher registration fees partly reflect the regulator’s own expanding remit.
Key recommendations
The report calls on the OfS to:
Hold discussions with providers more regularly about their financial situation and ensure it is aware of the systemic challenges facing the sector;
Hold providers to account if they do not ensure prospective students receive clear, digestible information on their course, including its long-term costs and approximate contact hours;
Urgently align its framework for quality with international standards, including reinstating an independent Designated Quality Body;
Make clear how it has taken the institutional autonomy of providers into account when it regulates;
Build trust with higher education institutions and adopt a more strategic, less combative approach to its work;
Ensure that there are at least two student representatives on the OfS’ Board and open up more of its work to student involvement;
Conduct detailed scoping work, with students, on how it defines “the student interest,” and how this informs its work.
It also calls on the Government to:
Review how higher education is funded, setting long-term, sustainable funding and delivery models for the sector;
Consider making it a requirement that serving politicians resign any party political whip they hold before becoming Chairs of independent regulators;
Limit itself to providing higher level, strategic input to the OfS, rather than overly prescriptive guidance;
Reconvene the Higher Education Data Reduction Taskforce to reduce unnecessary burdens on providers.
Chair’s comments
Lord Hollick, Chair of the Industry and Regulators Committee said:
“At a time when the higher education sector faces a looming crisis caused by financial instability, increased costs, industrial action, and reduced EU research funding, it is vital that the sector’s regulator is fit for purpose.”
“However, it was evident throughout our inquiry that the OfS is failing to deliver and does not command the trust or respect of either providers, or students, the very people whose interests it is supposed to defend. We were surprised by the regulator’s view that the sector’s finances are in good shape, which is not an assessment that we or most of our witnesses share.”
Further information
[ad_2]
This article was originally published by a committees.parliament.uk . Read the Original article here.
