Asked by: Lord Johnson of Marylebone (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made, if any, of appointing an SME Champion within the governance structures of the Office for Students.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The Higher Education and Research Act 2017 specifies that the Office for Students’ (OfS) board consists of the following members appointed by my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education: a chair, the Chief Executive Officer, the Director for Fair Access and Participation, and between 7 and 12 ordinary members.
In appointing the chair and the ordinary members, the Secretary of State must also have regard to the desirability of the OfS’s members having a range of experience. The current board is therefore made up of members with a range of experience and expertise including Monisha Shah, the former chair of Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance, Monisha brings expertise and experience from a small provider perspective to the OfS board.
The OfS also works closely with Independent HE, along with other higher education sector mission groups, to understand how regulation impacts higher education providers, including the challenges for small and specialist providers.
Finally, the OfS Director for Fair Access and Participation, John Blake, for example, recognised in his speech on 8 February that smaller providers found the access and participation plan process more challenging and that the OfS will work closely with them to ensure that regulation of them is proportionate, effective and fair, John Blake's speech is available to view at: https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/news-blog-and-events/press-and-media/next-steps-in-access-and-participation/.
Asked by: Lord Johnson of Marylebone (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have, if any, to compel the Office for Students to increase transparency through the publication of a Register of Validating Providers.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The Office for Students (OfS) Register provides information on which registered providers offer validated provision, and which registered providers offer validating services.
We are expecting the OfS to consider a review of the validation system in the coming financial year and expect that review to consider the case for intervention in the validation system in order to increase the availability of high-quality courses across England.
Asked by: Lord Johnson of Marylebone (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of potential benefits in enabling Indian Institutes of Technology and other accredited international providers to offer higher education in England.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The government’s update to the International Education Strategy, published in February 2021, sets out the importance of education partnerships and of identifying key opportunities for foreign direct investment into the United Kingdom. India is set out as a priority country for education engagement in this strategy. It is a key focus for the UK’s International Education Champion, Sir Steve Smith.
The 2030 Roadmap for India-UK future relations explicitly references education and research, and commits the department to expanding cooperation between its higher education institutions.
Asked by: Lord Johnson of Marylebone (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans, if any, they have to set out clear and accessible guidance on the regulatory process for foreign institutions to register to provide higher education in England.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The Higher Education and Research Act 2017 sets out that the Office for Students (OfS) must establish and maintain a register of English higher education (HE) providers. New providers wishing to register with the OfS must be, or intend to become, an English HE provider. The OfS publishes advice and application documents for providers seeking to register on its website. This is available at: https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/regulation/how-to-register/.
Asked by: Lord Johnson of Marylebone (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps, if any, they have taken to ensure that the Office for Students’ regulatory approach is supportive of start-up and scale-up businesses and offers a stable environment for long-term investment.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The Office for Students (OfS) considers financial sustainability and business plans when assessing providers during registration.
The OfS is planning further work on minimising regulatory burden on all providers, including those who are new and/or small, to support them to focus on high quality teaching and research. More detail on this, together with its regulatory approach, will be published later this month in the OfS’s new strategy for 2022 to 2025.
The OfS also currently minimises the impact of its regulatory approach on micro and new providers by limiting its registration fees for those providers.
The Higher Education (HE) (Registration Fees) (England) Regulations 2021 continue to contain a micro-entity exemption. This exemption protects the very smallest HE providers (employing up to 50 people) by providing a 100% registration fee exemption.
These most recent regulations also retain protections for new providers in relation to registration fees: the regulations continue to allow for the OfS to charge reduced fees to those new institutions who decide to register with it.
Asked by: Lord Johnson of Marylebone (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government (1) what was the average cost of validation per student, and (2) what assessment they have made of any increase in this cost, in each of the last five years.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Validation agreements are confidential commercial contractual arrangements between two parties and so neither the Department for Education, nor the Office for Students, holds this information.
Asked by: Lord Johnson of Marylebone (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps, if any, the Office for Students has taken to encourage new providers to seek New Degree Awarding Powers (NDAPs) as an alternative to a market for validation services.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The Office for Students has offered the new degree awarding power’s (DAPs) application route since 2018. Full information on this is available here: https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/regulation/degree-awarding-powers/.
Information about the new DAPs option for providers is also included in the regulatory framework, which was published in 2018.
Asked by: Lord Johnson of Marylebone (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government (1) how many higher education providers have offered validation services, and (2) how many institutions have been validated, in each of the last five years.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The Office for Students (OfS) holds data on validation arrangements although this is dependent on the reliability of data submitted to the Higher Education Statistics Agency and Individual Learner Record to remain data collections. Previous inaccuracies in the data and other changes in the sector such as mergers between providers and providers leaving the higher education sector means that it is not possible to provide meaningful information over a 5- year period.
In 2020/21 the OfS reports that:
It should be noted that providers may start and exit validation arrangements as they see fit and are free to negotiate these contracts between themselves. As a result, the OfS cannot accurately determine precisely how many higher education providers have offered validation services, only how many have current validation arrangements in 2020/21.
Asked by: Lord Johnson of Marylebone (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the additional cost to the Office for Students of collecting information on the progression of international students to (1) graduate employment, or (2) further study, by telephone, when responses have not been received by email.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Action 6 of the International Education Strategy 2021 update focuses on the employability of international students. Sector representatives are collaborating to build an understanding of the UK’s skills needs, international labour markets, and barriers to international graduate employability. They will also share examples of best practice across the sector.
The department supports these efforts by expanding data resources available in relation to international student graduate outcomes. My noble Friend will be aware from recent answers to Questions HL5793 and HL5795 that the department now publishes employment and study outcomes one, three, five, and ten years after graduation for all international students who remain in the UK after study and contribute to the UK economy.
Graduate outcomes surveys are carried out by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA). This includes international graduates surveys. In response to my right hon. Friend, the Minister for Higher and Further Education’s announcements on reducing bureaucracy for the higher education sector in September 2020 and lowering the cost to providers of participating in HESA data collections, there has been some scaling back of HESA’s graduate outcomes survey methodology. This impacts 2020/21 academic year graduates. The survey will be published in spring 2023.
Non-EU international graduates will continue to participate in the survey. The process of contacting international graduates by telephone, if they have not already participated online, is discontinued. This has resulted in a lowering of the subscription cost of graduate outcomes to higher education providers by approximately £350,000. HESA continues to explore and implement strategies aimed at increasing online response rates.
The value of the HESA graduate outcomes survey data is not solely determined by its response rates. The current response rate target for the survey of international graduates is at 20%. This is high for social surveys. Over the last three years, the survey has achieved on average a 30% response rate for this group. This is 5 percentage points above the previous target. Around half of these responses were collected over the telephone.
Conclusions drawn on the international graduate outcomes will be driven by how representative the students who respond to the survey are of the overall student population. The Office for Students intends to undertake research looking at the outcomes for international students. It will re-introduce telephone contact, should it significantly impact the conclusions that can be drawn from the data.
Asked by: Lord Johnson of Marylebone (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps the Office for Students is taking to improve survey response rates to questions relating to the destinations of international students graduating from higher education institutions in England.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Action 6 of the International Education Strategy 2021 update focuses on the employability of international students. Sector representatives are collaborating to build an understanding of the UK’s skills needs, international labour markets, and barriers to international graduate employability. They will also share examples of best practice across the sector.
The department supports these efforts by expanding data resources available in relation to international student graduate outcomes. My noble Friend will be aware from recent answers to Questions HL5793 and HL5795 that the department now publishes employment and study outcomes one, three, five, and ten years after graduation for all international students who remain in the UK after study and contribute to the UK economy.
Graduate outcomes surveys are carried out by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA). This includes international graduates surveys. In response to my right hon. Friend, the Minister for Higher and Further Education’s announcements on reducing bureaucracy for the higher education sector in September 2020 and lowering the cost to providers of participating in HESA data collections, there has been some scaling back of HESA’s graduate outcomes survey methodology. This impacts 2020/21 academic year graduates. The survey will be published in spring 2023.
Non-EU international graduates will continue to participate in the survey. The process of contacting international graduates by telephone, if they have not already participated online, is discontinued. This has resulted in a lowering of the subscription cost of graduate outcomes to higher education providers by approximately £350,000. HESA continues to explore and implement strategies aimed at increasing online response rates.
The value of the HESA graduate outcomes survey data is not solely determined by its response rates. The current response rate target for the survey of international graduates is at 20%. This is high for social surveys. Over the last three years, the survey has achieved on average a 30% response rate for this group. This is 5 percentage points above the previous target. Around half of these responses were collected over the telephone.
Conclusions drawn on the international graduate outcomes will be driven by how representative the students who respond to the survey are of the overall student population. The Office for Students intends to undertake research looking at the outcomes for international students. It will re-introduce telephone contact, should it significantly impact the conclusions that can be drawn from the data.