Learning Teaching and Access

Transcription

1 Learning Teaching and Access 1.What more do universities need to do to respond to a new generation of students schooled under the Curriculum for Excellence? 2. How can we work more closely with universities to encourage greater recognition of the more varied and flexible routes to university entry, based on the SCQF? 3.How do we reform our systems to encourage more flexibility around the learner journey? Can this be done through incentives in student or institutional support to encourage advanced and/or early entry? Can more be done to encourage young people at school to take more Advanced Highers and the Scottish Baccalaureates? 4. Can we stimulate more flexible provision and links with business on teaching? 5. What more can be done to ensure that articulation links are increased and that the potential barriers to articulation in both colleges and universities are reduced? comparability? 6. Would there be merit in some institutions doing more to deliver early parts of a degree outwith the university environment where there is academic comparability? 7. Could our universities be required to demonstrate how the quality of their teaching leads to graduate employment opportunities or other forms of outcomes? 8. Within the new Scottish Solution where should we focus our investment and activity to raise aspirations and widen access to university? 9. Should more work be done to encourage young people at school to aim for higher education and by so doing seek to increase access? Other comments Research and Knowledge Transfer 1. Do we need to retain research in all of our universities? How would we continue to ensure that teaching is informed by research? What impact would this have?

2 2. Is it a more sustainable approach to move towards even greater concentration as opposed to supporting a spread of research? 3. Would a focus of funding on Government priorities have a greater impact on increasing sustainable economic growth? 4. How best can we ensure research pools increase their focus on international collaboration and knowledge exchange? 5. How could existing good practice in researcher training be more widely adopted? 6. Is it appropriate for Scotland to adopt a radical approach in applying the REF to funding? Could the impact aspect of the REF be used for knowledge transfer? 8. How can we increase Scottish universities take of EU research funds? International Contribution 1. Do you consider that there would be value in promoting higher education under a single banner? 2. How do we best support the expansion of Scottish universities aboard? 3. What are the benefits of a Team Scotland approach to international activity? 4. Do you agree that Scottish students and staff should be encouraged to pursue opportunities overseas? 5. How can Scotland retain more international students after graduation? 6. Can more be done to make the international fees more transparent? 7. Should we set up Scottish University Alumni Networks for China, India and North America? 8. How do we create a wider army of international ambassadors for Scotland and Scottish education?

3 9. Would you support the removal of limits of international students studying medicine and dentistry? If so how best might this be managed? Students Support 1. Should we operate a simpler bursary system with one bursary pot weighed on a range of circumstances? Should students be given more choice on whether they receive loans or grants or a mixture of both 2. Should a new support product be considered to encourage more lifelong learning? 3. Should we provide more loans to cover part time fees? How could businesses be incentivisied to support part time study? Should we encourage more part time study? 4. What incentives in the student support system would encourage more flexible provision? 5. Should graduates have an increased interest rate on student loans? 6. Should the interest rate vary depending on a graduate s income? 7. The choice on repayment levels is: do we make it easier for the graduates on lower earnings by raising the threshold or should we choose instead to retain the existing threshold which would give us more money to spend on loans? 8. Should we increase both the interest rate and the threshold for repayment on student loans? 9. Should we explore centrally subsidised travel for eligible students? 10. Should we allocate support to institutions to manage on behalf of their student population rather than direct to individual students? 11. Should the current system a mix of entitlement and means tested grant be replaced by guaranteed support? 12. Do you believe that Government should pursue private financing options to deliver support? Funding

4 1. Is the present system still viable at a time when the number of graduates has risen? If not should some form of graduate contribution be considered for Scotland? 2. Can such a scheme be designed in such a way that it brings in funds in time for the start of the academic year ? 3. Do you agree that we should rebalance the fee levels in Scotland to broadly maintain current levels of cross border flows within the UK? 4. What should the fee level be set at? 5. Should the SFC consider matchfunding initiative for donations? 6. If you believe that Scottish businesses should invest more in higher education, how do you envisage this happening? What incentives do we need to provide to employers? How do we encourage more meaningful interaction and stronger collaboration between universities/ business, schools and employers? 7. What could the sector do to realise efficiencies? 8. Should we consider the possibility of a private finance model to support a graduate contribution? 9. Should we be looking at a fairer system of support where other UK and EU students are treated more equally? 10. Should any new funding mechanism look to put more funding behind the learner to make student demand the key driver of provision? 11. What behaviour should focus on encouraging through the funding mechanisms collaboration? Incentivising a shorter learner journey? Recognising teaching excellence? Any other prioritise? 12. Should the SFC develop more of a purchasing role with university provision? Other comments The basic ethics seem clear enough. Higher education is a public good that should be, and can still be, funded by the state out of general taxation. Graduate contributions or some such compromise would only open the door to fees further down the line. It is the principle of undergraduate education free at point of use that must be maintained. Exactly the

5 same as the case for health care free at point of need. This is fair and everyone, at least in Scotland, knows it. England (plus Wales and Northern Ireland) now has the highest student debt in Europe; it will soon be far, far worse. Indeed, tuition fees may soon be even higher than in the United States, the fine but erratic country England has blindly followed on this issue, as on others. A great university system has been turned upside-down and its uniqueness unnecessarily compromised. Young people (and others) in the rest of the UK no longer have a genuinely free choice of subject or university; it is largely down to pecuniary calculations already. The only group which will not suffer from fees/graduate contributions is the very rich, precisely those who have done so well since income tax was brought down. Everyone else, ordinary hard-working middle-income earners as well as the underprivileged, will face a lifelong worry and hurdle. Do we really want that? Most ordinary lecturing staff, of whom I am one, wish to keep Scottish universities on their current path. If Universities Scotland argues otherwise, it will not be representing the voice of the majority. The real solution? If we want to keep out evils like tuition fees/graduate contributions, and universities cannot live within their means, then surely the Scottish Government should exercise its tax-raising powers to make this possible. Shape and Structure 1. How do we encourage and incentivise sector led institutional change? 2. Is a more centrally planned approach to funding desirable? 3. Do we need a map of provision? If so how should it be used? 4. How can we better recognise the vital role of colleges in HE provision?

6 5. Should we consider the level of student numbers? 6. Should institutions be allowed to opt out of the arrangements for managing places? 7. How do we improve public information in the future? 8. How do we remove or further limit Privy Council control on governance? 9. Should there be changes in existing mechanisms of university governance? 10. What impact do all these changes mean to SFC and SG?