Identified Student Threats: New Degree Providers and a Deficient Regulation

A recent BBC News on Education brought into the spotlight the findings and recommendations of HEC’s report: Regulating Higher Education.

Spending eight months to scrutinise the existing regulatory “checks,” the Higher Education Commission or HEC came into this conclusion: “Regulation as it sits is not adequately prepared for the diversity of these current and future developments.”

This ‘diversity’ referred to the new entrants in the HE sector. These entrants are composed mainly of for-profit degree providers and online institutes. A key feature by which these entrants are deemed to hurt students and the UK-brand of higher education (as a whole) were inclusive of its “new funding system.”

This funding system, allegedly, supports the ‘skirting’ off of “fundamental protections for students.” Furthermore, with the recruitment of students being equated with the degree provider’s funding – coupled with the lack of regulation – there is obvious reason for students and parents to be alarmed.

The recommendations

Following these findings are HEC’s recommendations. In one umbrella-summation, the proposal were as follows: “The HEC calls on the government for urgent legislation to tackle the problems.” In specific, HEC gave three requisites to be put in place.

The first one is the “overarching regulatory body.” This entity should have an amalgamation of four existing entities (CHE, Hefce, Offa, and the Student Loans Company) and one new body, the Office for Competition and Institutional Diversity. The second requisite emphasised accessible and “better information;” while the last one implied a safeguarding measure for students (ie, provider’s insurance scheme).

In retrospection

The arrival of these entrants had long been forecasted and subsequently, feared. In another BBC article entitled, “Professors’ caution over for-profit universities,” UCU lecturers’ union had been surveyed to expose their take of the impending for-profit provider-boom.

One such result proffered an insight reminiscent of today’s debacle for regulation: “Two-thirds of those questioned said that for-profit institutions should be more tightly regulated than existing universities.”
Furthermore, the revulsion against the new degree providers is not just strong today; some UCU union members’ sentiments effectively expressed their uniform aversion for these entrants. Take for instance, University of Liverpool’s Anahid Kassabian: “The fantasy of a free market improving quality is just that – pure fantasy, with no substantiation in data or experience.”

Regulation is a key

Among other factors in play of these new arrivals, HEC inquiry co-chairman, Lord Norton, asserted the important role of government regulation:

Regulation is fundamental to the health and success of our HE sector and will make or break the effectiveness of the institutions that have made the UK a world leader in higher education.

With the student threats identified and the key issues cornered, everyone is eagerly waiting for the Government’s response. It would be an interesting undertaking for them – considering that, the government (through ministers) had been the one to permit the entry of these new degree providers.

Do these for-profit degree providers grant students with better channels and chances for high quality education?