tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/labour-education-policy-12097/articlesLabour education policy – The Conversation2015-11-04T14:41:47Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/501452015-11-04T14:41:47Z2015-11-04T14:41:47ZWhy Jeremy Corbyn is love-bombing Liverpool – and university campuses<p>Since winning the Labour leadership, Jeremy Corbyn’s criss-crossing of the country to address public meetings has slowed, but not stopped. His speaking engagements as leader have already taken him to Bristol, Leicester, Blackpool, Manchester and Scotland. His next visit takes him to the University of Liverpool to address around 900 people at an event organised by Labour Students and hosted by the Guild of Students.</p>
<p>Corbyn can expect a positive reception in Liverpool, where Labour seats are as safe as they come. Labour <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2015/results">won 15 of Merseyside’s 16 constituencies in 2015</a>, securing “ultra-safe” majorities of more than 20% in 13. You do not need to be a psephologist to wonder if Corbyn speaking to Liverpool’s students is the electoral equivalent of carrying coals to Newcastle. Rather than racking up more votes in Liverpool, Labour needs to win back voters in towns such as Nuneaton, Carlisle and Swindon, far from the metropolitan core and the big university campuses.</p>
<h2>A radical city, of sorts</h2>
<p>But there is more to Corbyn’s visit to Liverpool than an electorally futile exercise in preaching to the converted. While his views will resonate with much of his audience, Corbyn will not be speaking to an echo chamber. Certainly, Liverpool has a reputation for left-wing radicalism, to which <a href="http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/jeremy-corbyn-tells-echo-i-9774468">Corbyn fondly alluded</a> when he addressed more than 1,000 people at the city’s Adelphi Hotel in August. </p>
<p>Liverpool’s radical traditions, however, need some qualification. True, the city often goes against the political grain, but that does not always mean it tacks left. For example, when New Labour won a landslide victory in 1997, Liverpool’s electors responded by returning a Liberal Democrat-controlled council for almost all of Blair’s 10-year premiership.</p>
<p>Equally, the University of Liverpool is not known for radical student activism. It is not a Sussex or a SOAS. On balance, the student body is left-leaning, but not to the exclusion of other political viewpoints. </p>
<p>Labour is the largest of the party political student societies, but it is dominated by moderates, and students with rival political affiliations are just as visible. While there is no left-wing surge among the student body, a more general awakening of student interest and engagement in politics is evident. </p>
<p>This semester, students have met at the Guild each Wednesday at noon to watch Prime Minister’s Questions. Among those attending, there is sympathy for Corbyn’s attempts to foster a “new politics” – but few feel he is managing to achieve it.</p>
<h2>Why Liverpool?</h2>
<p>If Corbyn’s visit will take him at least a little out of his comfort zone, it may also be more strategic than is immediately obvious. In May 2016, the devolved and local elections will provide the first major test of his leadership and it is crucial for Project Corbyn that the party performs well in the big mayoral contests in London, Bristol and Liverpool. Corbyn has already visited Bristol, where <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-34226500">Labour hopes to win the mayoralty from an independent</a>. Liverpool’s Labour mayor faces no serious challenge, but a dent in his majority would cause real concerns among northern Labour MPs.</p>
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<p>While Corbyn is in Liverpool he will meet <a href="https://news.liv.ac.uk/2014/07/31/university-appoints-new-vice-chancellor/">Professor Janet Beer</a>, the University of Liverpool’s vice chancellor and the vice-president of Universities UK. Along with other vice chancellors, Beer <a href="http://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/highereducation/Pages/LettertotheTimeshighlightingconcernswith%C2%A36,000tuitionfeesproposal.aspx#.VjnzhaCLTIU">expressed clear reservations</a> about Labour’s 2015 manifesto commitment to reduce student fees to £6,000. During the leadership campaign, Corbyn proposed to abolish fees altogether. If his plans are to be credible, he needs to win over senior figures in higher education.</p>
<h2>What do they want? When do they want it?</h2>
<p>Like the vice chancellor, Liverpool’s students will also want Corbyn to clarify his stance on tuition fees, which has moved from fully-costed plans for free university education to a review which <a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.com/blog/jeremy-corbyn-serious-about-free-higher-education">“rules nothing in or out”</a>. There will also be a very real interest in what he has to say on the big international issues of the day, notably the environment, the refugee crisis and how to respond to Islamic State. If Corbyn can advance credible ideas for tackling these concerns, he may win more activists to his cause. </p>
<p>Corbyn’s political strategy depends on mobilising younger voters and activists. It won’t be easy, but universities are the obvious place to start. Expect to see JC on a campus near you shortly.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/50145/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stuart Wilks-Heeg has previously received research funding from the Electoral Commission, the ESRC, the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust. He is Head of the Politics department at the University of Liverpool. </span></em></p>The Labour leader is hoping to recruit a new generation of activists in one of his party’s strongest cities.Stuart Wilks-Heeg, Head of Politics, University of LiverpoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/396652015-08-14T05:35:29Z2015-08-14T05:35:29ZFirst wave of academy schools created under Labour boosted grades<p>Struggling schools that were given more autonomy by being converted into academies under the former Labour government have seen improved exam results compared to similar schools that did not become academies, according to <a href="http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/dp1368.pdf">our new research</a>. </p>
<p>The question of whether giving schools more autonomy to innovate will push up educational standards has enormous policy importance. Many countries, from the United States with its <a href="https://theconversation.com/charter-schools-fabulous-or-failures-35995">charter schools</a> to the UK with grant-maintained schools in the 1980s and 1990s, have deviated from the orthodox model of the “local” or “community” school controlled by a government education authority in an effort to increase pupil achievement. </p>
<p>Academy schools first appeared in early 2000s under the Labour government through education policy aimed at struggling schools. Under the following Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government, academies became widespread following the <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/32/contents">Academies Act 2010</a>, and there are now more than <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/open-academies-and-academy-projects-in-development">4,500</a> academies. This new wave of “mass academisation” is no longer primarily targeted at struggling schools. </p>
<p>The original Labour programme – the subject of our research – replaced existing schools with a new type of state school, run outside of local authority control, funded directly by central government and managed by a private team of independent co-sponsors. Academy sponsors contributed some of the schools’ capital costs and delegated management of the school to a largely self-appointed board of governors who had responsibility for employing all academy staff, agreeing levels of pay, deciding on the policies for staffing structure, career development, discipline and performance management. </p>
<p>This represented a drastic increase in autonomy for the majority of the schools that converted. </p>
<h2>Improving grades</h2>
<p>Between the 2002-2003 and 2008-2009 academic school years, 116 of England’s state secondary schools gained academy status. A further 17 new schools were opened as academies and a small number of independent schools became academies. In <a href="http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/dp1368.pdf">our research</a>, we studied 106 schools that converted from state-maintained secondaries to academies under the Labour government. </p>
<p>The vast majority of these schools were performing below the national average in terms of the performance of pupils at GCSE level – also known as Key Stage 4 – and were operating in disadvantaged local education authorities. For instance, in 2002, at the 106 academies that we looked at, 35% of pupils achieved five A* to C GCSE grades, against a national average of 51%. At these schools, 32% of pupils were eligible for free school meals, compared to a 17% national average.</p>
<p>Estimating the effect of attending an academy on pupil performance is difficult. A straight comparison of pupils in other state-maintained schools with those attending academies is unlikely to give causal estimates of the impact of attending an academy due to the non-random nature of both the school’s decision to become an academy and the pupil’s choice to enrol in one. </p>
<p>To address these concerns we focused on outcomes for pupils who, although they sat their Key Stage 4 exams in an academy school, enrolled in the school prior to it becoming an academy. We then compared outcomes for these pupils with those attending similar schools that became academies later, in the 2009-10 and 2010-11 school years.</p>
<p>We found that those attending an academy scored better in their GCSEs than those who did not. The results were the equivalent of their best eight grades going from eight Cs to six Cs and two Bs. These effects are stronger when the pupil attended the school for longer and when the school attended gained relatively more independence upon gaining academy status. </p>
<p>The more marked gains were for those who had spent four years at academies that had converted from community schools. The increase was roughly equivalent to a child’s eight best grades at GCSE jumping from eight Cs to seven Bs and one C. This translates into a 16 percentage point increase in the probability of achieving 5 A*-C at GCSE. </p>
<h2>Autonomy matters</h2>
<p>Two other aspects also have an impact on grades. When we looked at the results for schools that already had some autonomy from LEA control before academy conversion, such as foundation or voluntary-aided schools, we found little positive impact on grades following conversion. The strongest impact was on community schools, who were in full LEA control, and then became academies. This strongly suggests that the level of autonomy gained determines the impact of academy conversion on pupil performance.</p>
<p>A further effect is that once a school converts to an academy, it attracts pupils who had achieved better test scores in primary school. We found that in the year of a school’s conversion to an academy, there was a jump in the average scores on the tests its new Year 7 intake took at the end of primary school (Key Stage 2 tests). Thus pupil composition changes and emphasises the need in research to look at pupil performance for pupils already enrolled in the school prior to conversion.</p>
<p>To sum up, the Labour government’s sponsored academies programme gave struggling schools more freedom and stronger leadership, leading to significant improvements in pupil performance. The greater the autonomy gained the more pronounced are these effects. The Labour academies studied in our research are, for the most part, very different from the new academies set up by the coalition government and there is no reason to suppose the results should carry over to them. </p>
<p>In fact, our paper concludes with a warning not to translate the findings over to the new coalition academies which are mostly different to the disadvantaged schools that converted to academies under the first wave of the programme. Studies of the newer academies, and free schools, will be an important research agenda in the coming years.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/39665/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Machin has received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council and Department for Education grants for economics of education research, but this article does not reflect the views of the research councils. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Eyles does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Struggling schools that were given more autonomy in the early 2000s improved GCSE results for their pupils.Andrew Eyles, Researcher , London School of Economics and Political ScienceStephen Machin, Professor of Economics, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/406082015-04-22T10:20:48Z2015-04-22T10:20:48ZThere’s more to primary school place shortages than the cost of free schools<p>The furore over a looming primary school place crisis has intensified during the election campaign, with <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/apr/16/labour-conservatives-primary-school-place-crisis">Labour accusing the Conservatives</a> of causing a crisis in primary school places because of the high costs of their free schools policy. </p>
<p>The issue is already beginning to bite hard: initial figures from local authorities across the country <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/11541524/Primary-school-places-thousands-miss-out-on-first-choice-school.html">on primary school national offer day</a> showed that in many authorities, far fewer children were offered their first choice school than in the past.</p>
<p>If – as the pundits suggest – the May 7 election produces another form of coalition government, tensions surrounding what to do about the provision of places for all are likely to increase along with the ongoing debates into <a href="https://theconversation.com/have-we-devolved-too-much-responsibility-for-our-schools-36671">local accountability</a> over education. Should they form part of the next coalition, the Liberal Democrats have already <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/11550508/Nick-Clegg-I-want-Lib-Dem-Education-Secretary-and-no-more-zany-Gove-gimmicks.html">stated their intention</a> to fight for a Lib Dem education secretary and to get rid of unelected school commissioners who are in charge of overseeing academies – moves that will be bitterly disputed should they enter into another coalition with the Conservatives. </p>
<p>Labour has squarely placed the blame for the issue of a school place shortage at the door of the coalition’s free school policy. According to freedom of information requests to local councils submitted by the Labour party, four in five of the new free schools opening this academic year had not filled all their places on opening <a href="http://www.laboureducation.org.uk/cameron_s_classroom_squeeze_almost_one_in_five_schools_is_over_capacity_as_parents_rush_to_meet_deadline_to_apply_for_a_primary_school_place">with just two of the new mainstream primary</a> free schools pupils up to full capacity. Labour has <a href="http://www.laboureducation.org.uk/cameron_s_classroom_squeeze_almost_one_in_five_schools_is_over_capacity_as_parents_rush_to_meet_deadline_to_apply_for_a_primary_school_place">also pointed to</a> the rise in children between five and seven being taught in classes with at least 31 children. </p>
<p>This has undoubtedly caused more than a frisson of fear for most teachers, not to mention parents, desperate to get their children into a good local school. Conversation headings on the Mumsnet discussion list over the past five <a href="http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/primary/1448712-Primary-school-places">years indicate rising levels of concern with</a> the whole system responsible for allocating places.</p>
<h2>Population explosion, or just bad planning?</h2>
<p>Establishing whether the current situation is down to bad planning by the Department for Education (DfE) is not straightforward. The UK population as a whole is set to increase to 73m by 2028, a rise of 10m on the 2011 census. This is largely down to a combination of <a href="http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/interactive/uk-national-population-projections---dvc3/index.html">longevity – more births than deaths</a> – and migration. Of the 808,000 births in the UK in <a href="http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/fertility-analysis/childbearing-of-uk-and-non-uk-born-women-living-in-the-uk/2011/index.html">2011, there were 612,000 births</a> to UK born women and 196,000 to non-UK born women.</p>
<p>This combination, according to the <a href="http://www.local.gov.uk/media-releases/-/journal_content/56/10180/6893341/NEWS">Local Government Association</a> (LGA), means that schools are reaching a tipping point and will struggle to find space for almost a million more pupils over the next decade. Its analysis showed that funding the extra places for the predicted 900,000 pupils will cost in excess of £12 billion.</p>
<p>The government has already committed £7.35 billion to create extra school places, but the LGA say that this will still leave a shortfall. It says that while local authorities created 90,000 school places in 2012-13, <a href="http://www.local.gov.uk/media-releases/-/journal_content/56/10180/6467602/NEWS">an analysis</a> based on an online survey of chief finance officers among its members, revealed that a further 130,000 places would still be needed by 2017-18. This was in addition to the 80,716 new secondary places needed by 2019-2020.</p>
<h2>An erosion of local control</h2>
<p>There’s no doubt that the free school programme has been a costly one. Capital funding needed to set them up has been estimated at £6.6 billion per free school <a href="https://theconversation.com/first-job-for-the-next-education-minister-avoid-a-teacher-strike-over-school-budgets-39820">almost double the original planning assumption by the DfE</a>. But it is the system for the funding and planning for free schools and the gradual erosion of local authorities in planning for new schools that appears to have led to a situation which is ripe for implosion. </p>
<p>An authority can <a href="http://www.local.gov.uk/documents/10180/5854661/The+council+role+in+school+place+planning/998e5667-6218-4a94-aa57-2633010edc51">direct the expansion of community and voluntary controlled</a> schools, but not others. The process for establishing and funding free schools is completely outside the control of local councils. Although many try to work with potential free school sponsors to make sure that new schools are established in areas of need, so far this has taken place on a very ad hoc basis. </p>
<h2>Political divisions</h2>
<p>The issue of school places will be a key priority for the new government. The manifestos are mixed on this issue: while the <a href="https://www.conservatives.com/manifesto">Conservatives</a> show no inclination to slow down their erosion of the powers of local government when it comes to school places, <a href="http://www.ukip.org/manifesto2015">and UKIP make little</a> mention of it in relation to education, <a href="http://www.labour.org.uk/manifesto">Labour</a> want to return power to local authorities along with <a href="https://www.greenparty.org.uk/">The Greens</a>. The <a href="https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/libdems/pages/8907/attachments/original/1429028133/Liberal_Democrat_General_Election_Manifesto_2015.pdf?1429028133">Liberal Democrats</a> are very specific on where they stand in relation to the issue: proposing to give democratically accountable local authorities clear responsibility for local school place planning. They also want to scrap the rule that all new state-funded schools must be free schools or academies.</p>
<p>The crisis over school places is not as Labour suggests, solely rooted in the free school programme – although there is little doubt that this has exacerbated the problem. It stems from the ideology of the market that has infused education policy since the Education Reform Act in 1988. An ideology that supposedly places parental choice above any other consideration – a poignant irony in the case of the recent debacle over <a href="https://theconversation.com/parents-at-durham-free-school-are-paying-a-high-price-for-the-ideology-of-school-choice-36630">The Durham Free School</a> in which all parental choice was removed when the government shut down the school.</p>
<p>The Conservatives are not the only party to buy into the idea of schools as a marketplace: Labour and the Lib Dems have supported elements of it to varying degrees. What is certain is that turning back the clock now and restoring some semblance of local control with regard to school places planning will be both costly and complex. It will also require the DfE to relinquish its stranglehold on control of the opening new free schools and academies. Such a move would represent a substantial departure from present practices. </p>
<p>It is only by admitting that the wholesale application of market principles in education is not working in the interests of parents and their children – that the the biggest crisis in English education can be avoided.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40608/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Working out how to solve the school place shortage will be a key priority for any new government.Jacqueline Baxter, Lecturer in Social Policy, The Open UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/401332015-04-13T17:49:17Z2015-04-13T17:49:17ZManifesto Check: Labour resurrects past education policies, but will they work?<p>Labour sees education as an investment, in terms of both personal fulfilment and economic prosperity, and intends to protect the education budget from early years to post-16 education. It also acknowledges that the education of half of the school population in secondary schools needs serious re-thinking. Its <a href="http://www.labouremail.org.uk/files/uploads/bfd62952-9c4f-3394-3d41-cf94592816d2.pdf">manifesto</a> identifies six key policy areas as:</p>
<ul>
<li>Introducing a new Technical Baccalaureate for 16 to-18-year olds<br></li>
<li>Protecting the education budget from early years through to post-16 education<br></li>
<li>Guarantee that all teachers in state schools will be qualified, with the re-introduction of qualified teacher status<br></li>
<li>Appointing Directors of School Standards to drive up standards in every area<br></li>
<li>Capping class sizes for five, six and seven-year-olds at 30 or under</li>
<li>Ensuring all young people study English and Maths to age 18</li>
</ul>
<p>It is certainly the case that <a href="http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1393172?uid=3738032&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21105986650851">post-16 education is a mess</a> and needs significant attention. Labour’s plans are for flagship Institutes of Technical Education as trail-blazers, but how they will raise the standard and status of vocational and technical education, a worthy aspiration, is unclear. </p>
<p>To convince employers this will be a “gold-standard qualification” and they will provide accreditation. Face-to-face careers advice and the promise of work experience for 14 to 16-year-olds and more apprenticeships is attempting to tackle a very real issue, but the logistical and financial challenge of this should not be underestimated.</p>
<h2>Zombie policies</h2>
<p>Qualified teacher status will be compulsory again, with teachers able to gain “Master Teacher” status, but will also be required to keep their knowledge and skills up to date, presumably monitored by the new College of Teaching, which Labour also endorses. Teach First also gets a thumbs up, so presumably the diversity of routes into teaching will remain.</p>
<p>It looks like the National College for Teaching and Leadership is going to be rebranded as the School Leadership Institute, just how similar this will be to the former National College for School Leadership (or even the National College for Leadership of Schools and Children’s Services) has yet to be seen; how this will work with the new College of Teaching is unclear. Where will the responsibility for teacher recruitment lie? This will certainly be a challenging issue with increasing rolls and poor teacher retention.</p>
<p>This <a href="https://theconversation.com/state-of-the-nation-impact-of-education-reforms-will-take-decades-to-play-out-39526">table tennis of reinstating policies and bodies</a> may well be frustrating for the profession. We will see yet more sparkle with “gold-standard” headship qualifications, just so long as they don’t call it the National Professional Qualification for Headteachers (NPQH) which was (briefly) made mandatory in 2009.</p>
<p>Smaller class sizes, always popular with parents, are assured, with a cap at 30 re-introduced for five to seven year olds, but no acknowledgement that smaller classes are a <a href="https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/toolkit/toolkit-a-z/reducing-class-size/">poor investment in most circumstances in England</a>. Evidence-based policy may face something of a threat.</p>
<h2>Gold standards?</h2>
<p>A few other policies seem to echo the Conservatives. Directors of School Standards will be appointed at a local level to monitor performance and intervene in under-performing schools to support them to improve. We already have eight regional schools commissioners, who take on key decisions regarding academies and free schools, so perhaps the number and remit will change, especially as the free schools programme will be terminated.</p>
<p>What’s missing, of course, is the detail on how they will achieve this, both in terms of what “gold standard” means for the Technical Baccalaureate, how accreditation by employers will work, where the half million or so work placements will be found each year as well as other crucial issues such as how the budget will be “protected” in times of fiscal squeeze. </p>
<p>Will careers advisors and work experience placements receive additional funding, or will this need to be found from existing, but protected budgets? The devil will also be in the detail of how the assessment and inspection of the technical route is balanced with the academic assessment currently undertaken by Ofsted. How will they ensure that pupils are sufficiently challenged to achieve and that schools do not game the system (as some have understandably become expert at) between the academic and vocational, so that disadvantage does not become synonymous with vocational?</p>
<p><em>The Conversation’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/manifesto-check-2015">Manifesto Check</a> deploys academic expertise to scrutinise the parties’ plans.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40133/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Durham University received funding from the Sutton Trust to produce the Pupil Premium Toolkit. This has subsequently been developed into an online resource, the Teaching and Learning Toolkit, by the Education Endowment Foundation who provide funding to Durham University. He has also led and managed projects where Durham University has received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council, the Department for Education and the National College for Teaching & Leadership. This article does not represent the views of the research councils. The Conversation's Manifesto Checks are produced in partnership with Nesta and the Alliance for Useful Evidence. </span></em></p>Can Labour get by on zombie policies, when it comes to education.Steve Higgins, Professor of Education, Durham UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/398372015-04-10T14:34:40Z2015-04-10T14:34:40ZHard Evidence: what happens to student applications when university fees go up?<p>The coalition government’s increase of university tuition fees in England in 2012 has led to lively debates on how the cost of higher education affects university applications, particularly for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Labour has <a href="https://theconversation.com/labours-6-000-tuition-fee-proposals-would-reverse-social-mobility-38129">brought this issue back</a> to the centre of their election campaign, by pledging that if it is elected, tuition fees would be cut from a maximum of £9,000 a year to £6,000 a year. </p>
<p>By looking at the variation in university tuition fees in England and Scotland, <a href="http://ftp.iza.org/dp8364.pdf">my research</a> has attempted to measure the effect of fees on applications and attendance. </p>
<p>The situation is very different on each side of the border because of two reforms. In 2001, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2004/jan/27/tuitionfees.students">the Scottish government removed</a> upfront tuition fees, replacing fees of £1,000 a year with an endowment scheme that required students to pay a total of £2,000 after graduation. This endowment scheme was <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/6747811.stm">itself eliminated in 2007</a>, meaning that Scottish students do not pay any fees to attend university in Scotland. In England, the coalition increased fees from a maximum of £3,375 a year to <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11483638">£9,000 in 2012</a>. </p>
<p>Using data on applications from the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service for the period 1998-2013, I found that the removal of upfront fees in Scotland in 2001 increased applications by about 26%, while the increase in fees in England in 2012 reduced applications by about 19%. These results imply that a 1% increase in tuition fees leads to a fall in applications between 0.14% and 0.26%. </p>
<p>In England, applications dropped in 2012 and <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/jan/31/university-applications-record-high-ucas">then picked up</a> in 2013 and 2014. But the question is whether they would have increased by more in the absence of the reforms. If they had followed the same trend as in Scotland, then they should have increased by more in 2013.</p>
<p>To test whether this effect differs by institution and subject, I merged applications data separated by gender, institution and subject area, with information on average salaries and average employment rates of students six months after they graduated from their first degree. </p>
<p>Applications to institutions and subjects that lead to higher salaries and higher employment rates after graduation – such as medicine, dentistry and engineering – are much less affected by changes in fees. These results are consistent for the 2001 Scottish reform and the English reform in 2012 and suggest that students respond to higher fees by choosing courses that offer better employment prospects after graduation.</p>
<h2>No drop off for disadvantaged students</h2>
<p>To examine whether the increase in fees in 2012 had a disproportionate effect on students from less advantaged backgrounds, I looked at data from the <a href="https://www.hesa.ac.uk/stats">Higher Education Statistics Agency</a> (HESA) on the number of first-year undergraduates by ethnic group and by local authority for the period 2008-2013. </p>
<p>Although students from ethnic minorities are less likely to go to college, they were actually less affected by the increase in fees in 2012: the number of first-year black undergraduates fell by about 5%, between 2008 and 2013, compared with 28% for white students. </p>
<p>There is also no evidence that attendance has decreased more among students from local authorities with lower rates of participation in higher education. This suggests that fair access schemes and the provision of student loans are improving access for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.</p>
<h2>Impact of any future cuts</h2>
<p>The results of this study suggest that the Labour party’s proposal to reduce the cap on tuition fees in England from £9,000 to £6,000 could increase applications by between 5% and 9%. However, a reduction in fees would mean that a larger share of university funding would need to come from general taxation. </p>
<p>The Labour party has said the estimated £2.7 billion gap would be plugged by <a href="http://www.labour.org.uk/blog/entry/labours-plan-to-cut-tuition-fees-five-things-you-need-to-know">raising extra taxation</a> by restricting pension tax relief on those with the highest incomes. Other parties <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b05qnz2y/question-time-09042015">have questioned</a> how to ensure any money raised in taxation is passed onto universities. </p>
<p>If most of the benefit of a university degree is social – because society as a whole benefits from having well-qualified doctors, nurses and teachers – it makes sense to charge lower fees and fund universities out of general taxation. But if students are the ones who benefit the most from having a degree, it would make sense to charge higher fees, particularly for courses that lead to better paid jobs after graduation.</p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/hard-evidence">Hard Evidence</a> is a series of articles in which academics use research evidence to tackle the trickiest public policy questions.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/39837/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This research project has been funded by a British Academy small grant. Filipa Sa is affiliated with the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).</span></em></p>Research comparing reforms in Scotland and England shows higher university fees reduce applications.Filipa Sá, Senior Lecturer in Applied Economics, King's College LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/398202015-04-07T16:08:01Z2015-04-07T16:08:01ZFirst job for the next education minister: avoid a teacher strike over school budgets<p>The next government may have a teachers’ strike on its hands within months if it fails to address what unions have called a schools funding crisis. The National Union of Teachers has <a href="https://news.tes.co.uk/b/news/2015/04/06/nut-backs-strike-ballot-over-school-funding-cuts.aspx">backed a motion</a> to ballot members over strike action if no progress is made through talks on the issue with the new government by the autumn statement.</p>
<p>The fate of the schools budget has become a line dividing the major political parties. However, <a href="http://election2015.ifs.org.uk/schools">analysis by the Institute of Fiscal studies</a>, based on analysis of political parties’ spending pledges, <a href="http://election2015.ifs.org.uk/article/school-spending-per-pupil-in-england-protected-to-date-cuts-of-7-or-more-possible-in-next-parliament">indicates estimated cuts of 7% or more are likely</a> within the next parliament.</p>
<p>The next government will face four key education challenges, all requiring money: a growing population set to place enormous pressure on school places; firm action to close the achievement gap between rich and poor; an evolving education system with few effective mechanisms for accountability; and last, but not least, protection of the amount of funding attached to each pupil in the state system.</p>
<h2>Spending and promises</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.ifs.org.uk/bns/bn121.pdf">Spending on education</a> as a proportion of GDP rose steadily in the period 1997-2009, reaching its highest point of 6.2% of GDP in the period 2009-10 during Gordon Brown’s New Labour government, according to the IFS. Since then it dropped back to 5.5% of GDP in 2013-14.</p>
<p>A recent report by the <a href="http://sticerd.lse.ac.uk/dps/case/spcc/wp13.pdf">Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion</a> looked back at education promises under the coalition government, examining to what extent they had remained true to their proposals in terms of both spending and results. </p>
<p>Their conclusion was that the coalition has kept its promises to protect school spending. On the plus side, total expenditure rose 1% from £46.1 billion in 2009-10 to £46.6 billion in 2013-14 (in real terms at 2009-10 prices). This allowed pupil-teacher and pupil-adult ratios to be maintained. On the negative side, capital spending fell by 57% on 2009-10. This effectively meant that the remainder was redirected away from projects to refurbish all schools, and used to repair those schools with the most dilapidated premises.</p>
<h2>Not a penny less?</h2>
<p>Although it is still early days, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-31431456">Labour</a> and the Liberal Democrats have committed to protecting the education budget for three to 19 year-olds, covering early years, schools and education for 16 to 19 year-olds.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.libdems.org.uk/liberal_democrats_to_protect_education_spending">Lib Dems have set out</a> their plan to extend the free early years entitlement to all two year-olds – rather than just for those children whose parents receive income support and other benefits – and to introduce a fair national funding formula to ensure areas that are currently underfunded get their fair share. </p>
<p>Labour intends to increase free childcare for three and four-year-olds from 15 to <a href="http://www.labour.org.uk/issues/detail/childcare">25 hours a week</a> and has announced plans to get independent schools to <a href="https://theconversation.com/labours-attack-on-tax-breaks-for-private-schools-is-timely-34677">work more in collaboration with the state sector</a> – although what this will offer in financial terms is far from clear.</p>
<p>Although the Conservatives have stated that <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/feb/02/tories-will-protect-per-pupil-spending-says-cameron">school cash</a> per pupil would remain unchanged, David Cameron, speaking at <a href="http://www.kingsmeadschool.org/home/1087-prime-ministers-visit-to-kingsmead-school.html">Kingsmead school in Enfield</a> in February, admitted that in real terms, English schools face budget cuts. Some calculations have put the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/feb/02/conservatives-cut-school-funding-david-cameron-education-budget">cost of this as high as 10%</a>.</p>
<p>In real terms, this means that schools would have to pay 5% more to fund rising teachers’ pension and national insurance contributions, according to the IFS. </p>
<p>This is worrying as pupil numbers are expected to grow by 7% between January 2016 and January 2020, while economy-wide inflation between 2015-16 and 2019-20 is currently forecast at 7.7%. Neither Labour nor the Conservatives have announced whether they would protect schools spending into 2016–17 and beyond. But the growth in pupil numbers alone will no doubt place significant pressure on the schools budget under any future government. </p>
<p>The fate of the pupil premium – extra money from outside the schools budget aimed at improving the life chances of disadvantaged children – is far from clear. The overall spend on pupil premium rose to £1.25 billion by the end of the coalition. This was a rise of 72% since the period 2011-12 and allowed for increases of 4.3% to the most deprived schools, while leaving those in the least deprived areas with real terms losses of 2.5%. </p>
<p>Although <a href="https://theconversation.com/fact-check-is-the-pupil-premium-narrowing-the-attainment-gap-39601">it is too soon to say</a> whether the fund is reducing the achievement gap for the disadvantaged, early indications are that some progress has been made. Only by retaining this funding in some form will it be possible to monitor not only how it is spent but more importantly what impact it has on pupil attainment.</p>
<h2>Costs of more school choice</h2>
<p>Plans to expand the academies programme are not without cost – and the coalition’s drive towards academies has cost more than anticipated. <a href="http://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/010013-001-Academies-programme_with-correction-slip.pdf">The National Audit Office</a> reported in March 2013 that between 2010-12 the academies programme cost the DfE £1 billion more than planned and in 2012-13, mistakes in budget payments by the DfE to academies led to a further £174m overspend. </p>
<p>The free schools programme is <a href="http://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/10314-001-Free-Schools-Book-Copy.pdf">also not without its financial issues</a>. The DfE seriously underestimated the total capital funding needed to establish them: it initially bid for £900m in the 2010 Spending Review for free schools’ premises, but was only able to earmark £450m following a particularly tough capital settlement. It subsequently increased this to £1.5 billion, just over 8% of its total capital budget, through additional funds from the Treasury and savings in other capital budgets. So at £6.6m per free school, the average unit cost of premises is more than double its original planning assumption. </p>
<p>Since 2011, the DfE used a number of different approaches in efforts to cut these costs but capital costs per school place still rose by 35% by the time the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/approved-free-school-application-forms-wave-3">third round of free schools</a> was announced in January 2015. This was due to schools in areas with high property prices and the inclusion of free schools with special and alternative provision that bring higher costs per place. The reduction of capital costs for any ongoing programme will be a major challenge, whoever takes power in May.</p>
<p>There will be no honeymoon period for the new government on education spending – particularly if the unions do vote to strike over the issue. Turning rhetoric into reality will be a tough call – public spending cuts show no sign of letting up and the combination of rising demand for school places, lack of accountability and cuts to education budgets in real terms will need careful consideration if we are to improve standards and equity in education within the next administration.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/39820/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
The next government may have a teachers’ strike on its hands within months if it fails to address what unions have called a schools funding crisis. The National Union of Teachers has backed a motion to…Jacqueline Baxter, Lecturer in Social Policy, The Open UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/391022015-03-20T16:16:48Z2015-03-20T16:16:48ZThe spectre of ‘British values’ and education policy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75502/original/image-20150320-14639-147pfmv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Teaching children to uphold British values is at the head of parties' agenda.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Boy with Union Jack cap via Funny Solution Studio/www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/ofsteds-future-at-stake-after-trojan-horse-scandal-25936">Trojan Horse affair</a> in Birmingham schools last year has left an indelible mark on the education system and the ensuing debate on the need for schools to uphold “British values” has infused parties’ proposals for education. This is despite a <a href="http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201415/cmselect/cmeduc/473/47302.htm">final report</a> into the affair by the House of Commons education committee which concluded that apart from one incident, no evidence of extremism or radicalisation was found in any of the schools involved and there was “no evidence of a sustained plot”. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/guidance-on-promoting-british-values-in-schools-published">Guidelines for schools</a> on embedding British values were introduced in November 2014 and were designed to: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Tighten up the standards on pupil welfare to improve safeguarding and on spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of pupils to strengthen the barriers to extremism.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These guidelines were also an attempt to shore up a national identity at a time of increasing threats from fundamentalism. But the move has caused anger in religious schools such as St Benedict’s Catholic Secondary School in Bury St Edmunds, which <a href="http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2015/02/03/catholic-school-downgraded-by-ofsted-named-one-of-the-best-in-britain/">was downgraded</a> by the schools’ inspectorate Ofsted last year for failing to prepare students for life in modern Britain.</p>
<h2>Conservative backlash</h2>
<p>The whole idea of British values may have been conceived by the former Conservative secretary of state for education, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/jun/20/what-do-michael-goves-new-rules-on-british-values-mean-for-schools">Michael Gove</a>, but feelings in his party on the issue are running high. Edward Leigh, Conservative MP for Gainsborough, <a href="http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/tory-mp-attacks-ofsted-inspections-8864568">recently argued in the House of Commons</a> that Ofsted was waging a war against faith schools with the policy, citing the recent <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/feb/25/durham-free-school-to-close-education-secretary">announcement to close</a> the Christian-ethos Durham Free School. </p>
<p>This tension between nationalism and faith places the Conservatives in an uncomfortable position. Although the party has declared its intention to <a href="http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/education-31791485">forge ahead with the expansion</a> of its academy and free schools programmes (many of which will presumably be faith-based), it has vacillated in its support of Ofsted in a number of areas, including the policing of British values. </p>
<p>The Conservatives have been seemingly content to use the inspection system to drive their academy and free school programme, by enjoining schools judged to be weak to <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/teacher-blog/2014/feb/11/schools-resisting-academy-status-forced-conversion">become academies</a>, yet also reluctant to allow it to perform thorough inspections of academy chains. Recent developments have moved the inspectorate a <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-30952906">little closer to doing this</a>, but Ofsted still has to stop <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/11179995/Nicky-Morgan-clashes-with-Ofsted-chief-over-academies.html">short of offering an actual judgement</a> on the overall performance of multi-academy trusts. </p>
<h2>Diverging views</h2>
<p>Meanwhile, UKIP has specifically mentioned British values in its proposals for education, <a href="http://www.ukip.org/policies_for_people">stating</a>: “UKIP supports the principle of free schools that are open to the whole community and uphold British values.” This infers that those schools found to be lacking in this area would not be supported. UKIP also states that parents and governors would have the power to trigger snap inspections, potentially exacerbating Ofsted’s already contentious role in this issue. </p>
<p>In contrast, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/12/school-inspections-political-meddling-gove-ofsted">Labour’s Tristram Hunt</a>, writing in The Observer, described British values as a ministerial fad and announced Labour’s intention to reform and de-politicise Ofsted. </p>
<p>The Liberal Democrats have spoken out on a number of occasions about their concern in labelling values as specifically British. In an interview last June with The Independent, its leader <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nick-clegg-teaching-british-values-in-schools-could-upset-moderate-muslims-9552742.html">Nick Clegg</a> expressed concern that imposing British values in schools could alienate moderate Muslims. But since then the whole issue surrounding British values has not been confined to those holding Muslim beliefs but has been the subject of heated discussion <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/11292905/Catholics-demand-apology-after-Ofsted-makes-unsubstantiated-extremism-claim-against-school.html">within a number of other faith groups too.</a> </p>
<p><a href="http://policy.greenparty.org.uk/ed.html">The Green Party</a> talks in terms of human values rather than British ones but firmly declares that, “no publicly funded schools shall be run by a religious organisation” and that “privately run schools run by religious organisations must reflect the inclusive nature of British society.” It also states that faith schools will not be allowed to opt out of equality and diversity legislation, nor will they be allowed to promote homophobia or transphobia on the grounds of religion. </p>
<p>The Greens are also proposing that Ofsted be dismantled and replaced by a local system of accountability shared between each local authority and a new National Council of Educational Excellence. <a href="https://news.tes.co.uk/b/news/2015/02/16/scrap-ofsted-and-the-national-curriculum-says-green-party.aspx">Speaking to the TES</a> in February, Green leader Natalie Bennett argued that Ofsted has become very damaging and that parachuting inspectors in every few years was not an appropriate form of accountability.</p>
<h2>Governance issues</h2>
<p>It is somewhat ironic that the incident that initiated the whole issue around British values and their promotion in education is not only widely viewed as a hoax, but also rooted not in extremism but in <a href="http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201415/cmselect/cmeduc/473/47302.htm">inadequate governance and oversight</a>. </p>
<p>Debates around incorporation of the policing of British values into the inspection schedule, Ofsted’s heavy-handed approach in policing them and the conflation of the whole idea of British values with the fight against extremism, are not going to disappear overnight. Nor are the accusations that what began as a failure of governance in 21 Birmingham schools has since been used to downgrade and close many others. </p>
<p>In considering any future policies on accountability and oversight, the next government will have to think very carefully about what is to be done with the spectre of British values or wake up with a severe post-election hangover from the last administration’s policies.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/39102/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
The Trojan Horse affair in Birmingham schools last year has left an indelible mark on the education system and the ensuing debate on the need for schools to uphold “British values” has infused parties…Jacqueline Baxter, Lecturer in Social Policy, The Open UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/385462015-03-09T14:23:48Z2015-03-09T14:23:48ZCreativity could be the clear blue water between Labour and Tories on education<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74174/original/image-20150309-13550-1fzijnc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Labour is putting creativity centre stage. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hands with pain via michaeljung/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Labour has made a move to put creativity back at the centre of the education agenda in the lead-up to the May general election. </p>
<p>In a recent speech, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/feb/23/ed-miliband-pledge-universal-entitlement-arts-education">Ed Miliband drew attention</a> to the reduction in arts education in primary and secondary schools and the lack of opportunities for creative subjects that had been squeezed out by the education reforms of the former Conservative education secretary, Michael Gove. He said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If you believe in social justice, if you believe in a more equal society, the access to the arts and culture is not an optional extra, it is essential – not simply because of the worlds it opens up, but because of the wider impact it has.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Under Miliband’s proposal, Ofsted would look at “creativity” within its inspection regime. Schools would only be able to achieve an outstanding grade if they offered a broad and balanced curriculum, including the arts and cultural subjects. Contrast that with the Conservatives’ emphasis on expanding the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-31791485">free school</a> and academies programme and the current secretary of state Nicky Morgan’s insistence on <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-31079515">times tables and rote learning</a>, and there are clear positions being taken here on the election battleground. </p>
<h2>Creativity vs McDonald’s</h2>
<p>The current debate about the role of the arts, culture and creativity in schools is not new. Ken Robinson’s game-changing 2009 book <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Element.html?id=fb2YEz-oeKoC">The Element</a> begins with a story of a girl who didn’t “fit” into school. This girl goes on to become a world-renowned choreographer through the intervention of local GP who identifies her as a “dancer” and in need of a ballet school rather than her local primary school. </p>
<p>Robinson, particularly through his <a href="https://www.ted.com/speakers/sir_ken_robinson">engaging TED talks</a>, has stressed the importance of creativity in developing young children and counter-posed this against “traditional” forms of schooling. He puts forward a view of schools where the personal talents of children and young people are valued above standardised testing regimes, which he argues is a throw back to an industrial age of factory production lines and therefore inappropriate to the needs of the 21st century.</p>
<p>His argument is not unique. Organisations such as <a href="http://cprtrust.org.uk/">Cambridge Primary Review Trust</a> and the <a href="http://sloweducation.co.uk/">Slow Education movement</a> (started by a teacher at Eton School) have emphasised the importance of enabling all children to fulfil their potential (whatever that might be) and to develop their aptitudes and talents. This is often counter-posed against a system of education currently structured by exams, assessments and measurement – likened to a <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/2015/mar/08/uk-education-mimics-the-worst-aspects-of-a-mcdonalds-production-line">MacDonald’s system of schooling</a>.</p>
<h2>Value to the economy</h2>
<p>So creativity is now an important element in debates around the role that schools and the curriculum play in equipping young people for the demands of the 21st century. But also in the role of the arts and creative industries in the broader economy. </p>
<p>According to the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/creative-industries-economic-estimates-january-2015">government’s own statistics</a> released in January this year, while the return to job creation has been slow overall, the creative industries have bucked the trend, contributing over £76 billion to the economy while continuing to create jobs at a rate significantly above the rest of the UK. These government estimates show a rosy picture for this sector with rising employment rates, expanding exports and a significant contribution to the economy.</p>
<p>Alongside the government’s economic analysis of the role of creative industries, the University of Warwick, Ken Robinson’s alma mater, launched the report <a href="http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/research/warwickcommission/futureculture/finalreport/">Enriching Britain, Culture, Creativity and Growth</a> in February. Again, the arts in the widest sense was emphasised as being key to both the economic prosperity of the country and the way of ensuring a 21st century approach to education.</p>
<p>In an election campaign too close to call, it may be that Labour’s emphasis on the arts, creativity and culture will mark clear blue water between them and the other political parties. Labour does have a history of putting forward arts and culture as key elements of a broad and balanced curriculum for children. In the heady early days of the last Labour government, the 1997 white paper <a href="http://www.educationengland.org.uk/documents/wp1997/excellence-in-schools.html">Excellence in Schools</a> stated:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If we are to prepare successfully for the 21st century we will have to more than just improve literacy and numeracy skills. We need a broad, flexible and motivating education that recognises the different talents of all children and delivers excellence for everyone.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Creative use of creativity</h2>
<p>But we need to be wary of seeing “creativity” as an answer to all the nation’s education and economic ills. A critical article by educationalist Howard Gibson from ten years ago raised the stakes around romantic notions of bygone eras that have informed some of the debates around creativity and the arts. In <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8527.2005.00288.x/abstract">What creativity isn’t</a>, Gibson challenged the different definitions of “creative” and the way it is used to justify different and sometimes contradictory views.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Creativity, then, seems to be another of those ill-defined terms. Some use it to attack the centralising tendencies of the government. Some see it in terms of personal identity and self-expression. Others use it to describe a sort of life-style. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Given Gibson’s critique of the way “creativity” can be loosely defined and sometimes all things to all people, it’s no wonder that Miliband’s notion of creativity is one where the arts and culture act as a lever for tackling inequality. We should contrast that with the Conservatives’ emphasis on different types of schools and the expansion of academies and free schools and literacy and numeracy. But there is still time for the creativity debate to begin shaping the election campaign.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/38546/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Labour has made a move to put creativity back at the centre of the education agenda in the lead-up to the May general election. In a recent speech, Ed Miliband drew attention to the reduction in arts education…Kate Reynolds, Dean of Education, School of Education and Institute for Education, Bath Spa UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/382642015-03-03T11:50:54Z2015-03-03T11:50:54ZExplainer: when should children start to think about their careers?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/73594/original/image-20150303-31835-kbn4ub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What do you want to be when you grow up?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Children and future jobs via Rawpixel/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Labour’s shadow education minister Tristram Hunt <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/give-girls-career-advice-before-the-age-of-10-says-shadow-education-secretary-10077672.html">argued recently for the introduction of career education into primary schools</a>, particularly for girls. But should we start talking about the world of work at primary school or is this far too early to be meaningful or appropriate?</p>
<p>Career education in primary school is not the invention of a Labour politician. It has existed in various forms for decades in a number of countries including England. </p>
<p>In 2010, the Department for Education (DfE) published an <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/182663/DFE-RR116.pdf">evaluation of career education in primary schools</a> which found that young people who participated in career education increased their knowledge about the types of work and the pathways that could be followed to get there. It also found some evidence that pupils were more confident about their ability to achieve their aspirations. </p>
<h2>Careers can work in primary school</h2>
<p>School-based careers work has been <a href="http://derby.openrepository.com/derby/bitstream/10545/333866/1/Advancing%20Ambitions%20-%206.11.14.pdf">found to have a number of positive impacts</a>, including supporting increased attainment and engagement with school. The DfE’s evaluation of primary careers education found that this was also true for primary age children who became more positive about school. The evaluation also identified a decrease in stereotypical thinking about careers from pupils who participated. </p>
<p>This recent evidence in English schools suggests that career education can work in primary schools. The purpose of such career education is not to sort young people into particular careers, as critics often fear, but rather to increase young people’s awareness of a range of life opportunities and how to access them. </p>
<p>This kind of exploratory learning about the world and your place within it can sit very easily within the context of primary education. </p>
<h2>Aspirations start early</h2>
<p>A key rationale for starting career education early is drawn from evidence which shows that young people form their aspirations and ideas about careers long before they are ready to join the labour market. </p>
<p>Research by American psychologists Ashton Trice and Kimberly Rush <a href="http://www.amsciepub.com/doi/abs/10.2466/pms.1995.81.2.701?journalCode=pms">found that</a> four-year olds typically articulated a strong gender bias in their thinking about jobs, with boys tending to express interest in typically male occupations and girls in typically female occupations. </p>
<p>Research led by Vanessa Moulton at the <a href="http://www.llcsjournal.org/index.php/llcs/article/view/277">Institute of Education found </a> that most seven-year-olds had “realistic” rather than “fantasy” aspirations – for example, they want to be a police officer rather than a dragon. They also found that children’s aspirations had a relationship with their classroom behaviour.</p>
<p>In the 1980s, US psychologist Linda Gottfredson <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/cou/28/6/545/">theorised</a> about the process of identity formation, arguing that young people typically go through a series of age-related stages during which they, often unconsciously, shape their occupational aspirations in relation to social expectations. She argued that much of this process has occurred before young people reach secondary school.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/73595/original/image-20150303-31839-1dwtwxk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/73595/original/image-20150303-31839-1dwtwxk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73595/original/image-20150303-31839-1dwtwxk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73595/original/image-20150303-31839-1dwtwxk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73595/original/image-20150303-31839-1dwtwxk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73595/original/image-20150303-31839-1dwtwxk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73595/original/image-20150303-31839-1dwtwxk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Inspiring the next generation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Girl scientist via Andresr/Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In a series of articles, King’s College London education researcher Louise Archer and her colleagues have explored young people’s attitudes to science and science careers. They’ve demonstrated that <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/sce.20399/abstract?systemMessage=Wiley+Online+Library+will+be+disrupted+on+7th+March+from+10%3A00-13%3A00+GMT+%2806%3A00-09%3A00+EST%29+for+essential+maintenance.++Apologies+for+the+inconvenience.&userIsAuthenticated=false&deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=">identity is formed early</a> and that it typically intersects with gender, ethnicity and class in ways that do not support the government’s policy aspirations for social mobility.</p>
<p>The rationale for starting career education in primary school is therefore strong. If young people’s aspirations are to be broadened, this needs to happen at the point at which they are developing these aspirations. </p>
<p>This is not new to scholars of career education and guidance who typically pronounce that career education should start early and be in place well before young people have to make any decisions with lifetime impacts – such as GCSE choices at age 13.</p>
<h2>What’s the best age to start?</h2>
<p>There has been little systematic work looking at the age at which primary career education should start. But there are a number of studies that provide some insights. One <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1468-0122.00100/abstract?systemMessage=Wiley+Online+Library+will+be+disrupted+on+7th+March+from+10%3A00-13%3A00+GMT+%2806%3A00-09%3A00+EST%29+for+essential+maintenance.++Apologies+for+the+inconvenience">study</a> found that a programme aimed at Year 4 (eight and nine-year-old children) fitted well into the primary curriculum and that the children who participated in it were able to remember much of significance five months later. </p>
<p>Much guidance on good practice has emerged in this area, codified in the <a href="http://www.cegnet.co.uk/uploads/resources/ACEG-Framework-final.pdf">Career Development Institute’s curriculum framework</a>, which suggests starting formal career education at key stage two (age seven and up). This doesn’t mean that younger children shouldn’t have opportunities to learn about work, but at present this has generally been done informally or through occasional projects such “what do you want to do when you grow up” or “what jobs do your family do?”</p>
<p>There are strong reasons for starting career education early which relate to social equity. Primary career education has a long history, albeit one that is often interrupted by frequent lurches in policy. In general, educators have developed primary career education programmes from the age of seven and where they have been evaluated this has been found to be effective and to fit well into the wider primary curriculum.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/38264/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tristram Hooley is a member of the Careers Sector Strategic Alliance (a stakeholder body for the careers sector) and regularly advises government and professional bodies on career education and guidance. </span></em></p>Careers advice for primary school children helps bust stereotypes and boost aspirations.Tristram Hooley, Professor Tristram Hooley, Professor of Career Education and Head of International Centre for Guidance Studies, University of DerbyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/381292015-02-27T13:32:24Z2015-02-27T13:32:24ZLabour’s £6,000 tuition fee proposals would reverse social mobility<p>The Labour leader, Ed Miliband, has <a href="http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/education-31640592">finally announced</a> details of the party’s long-awaited policy to reduce tuition fees should his party win the election. He said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>From September of next year, the next Labour government will reduce tuition fees from £9,000 to £6,000 meeting our obligations to the next generation. It will benefit those starting courses next year. It will benefit those already at university. The average reduction in the debt will be around £9,000 per student, higher for courses longer than three years. And the national debt, the burden on taxpayers will be cut by £40bn by 2030. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Most of the politicians, civil servants, and analysts who are bickering over how to <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-five-options-for-student-tuition-fees-that-politicians-have-to-choose-from-32847">fund university tuition fees</a> also benefited from free tuition themselves. </p>
<p>When I was an undergraduate at the University College Hospital Medical School back in the early 1970s, my fellow students and I often worried about making ends meet, just like today’s students. Some received additional means-tested financial support and many of us worked in the holidays. But we did not have to find the cash for our tuition fees.</p>
<p>I know why things have changed. It’s obvious. A larger proportion of young people now receive a university education than was the case in my day. A little under 50% of 17 to 30-year-olds <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/347864/HEIPR_PUBLICATION_2012-13.pdf">attend university nowadays</a> – compared to about 5% of us when I was an undergraduate. In some other OECD countries the proportion in higher education is even higher.</p>
<p>Right now no one seems entirely sure how we are to continue to pay for that. And this worries me. Are we seriously going to tell youngsters that we have turned the clock back – and only a tiny percentage of them deserve tertiary education – just because those in power cannot agree on a sustainable funding solution? I certainly hope not.</p>
<h2>Status quo not sustainable</h2>
<p>I can see there is a question about how many graduates we actually need and how many graduate level jobs are available. My answer to that is that we live in a world of global competition for work. We simply cannot afford to have a badly educated workforce in which only a tiny elite of Britons are graduates. Indeed many of our graduates create new enterprises and generate jobs for others.</p>
<p>Proof, if any were needed, of how our overseas economic competitors prize tertiary education, lies in the number of overseas students who come to Britain to study. According to the latest data released by the Office of National Statistics, there were <a href="http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/migration1/migration-statistics-quarterly-report/february-2015/index.html">192,000 people immigrating</a> to the UK to study in the year to September 2014 – students who pay higher fees than our home students do. It is also evident that the emerging, rapidly growing economies in the world are investing heavily in higher education and research, building new universities and racking up spending on science. They know that the future is a knowledge-based economy.</p>
<p>At Sussex, around a third of our 14,000 students come from more than 120 different countries. Unlike <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30570248">some in the present government</a>, we consider our international students to be honoured guests, not immigrants. Britain’s university sector is one of the jewels of our national economic crown and consistently one of our biggest export industries.</p>
<h2>Fee cut will hit outreach</h2>
<p>Before we end up cutting tuition fees without a credible plan for filling the gap we should also remember where this cash is going. Tuition fees are <a href="http://www.hefce.ac.uk/whatwedo/invest/institns/annallocns/fees/#section1">already a maximum of £6,000</a> – which is the figure Labour has proposed to cut them to – unless a university can prove that it is investing generous amounts of cash in attracting students from disadvantaged backgrounds and is supporting them when they get here.</p>
<p>We spend huge amounts on outreach initiatives in schools in Sussex, London and beyond, on bursaries, careers assistance and work placements for the students once they arrive. This is social mobility in action – and it’s producing tangible results.</p>
<p>As vice chancellor, I don’t pay lip service to widening participation. Each of the UK’s 160 universities has to produce detailed and fully-costed plans for how we are going to attract and support students from underrepresented communities. We submit new plans annually to the Office of Fair Access before we receive permission to charge £9,000 per annum. </p>
<p>I can see that the existing tuition fee system is vilified as a bottomless pit of debt for students or a <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30570248">giant bill for tax payers</a> and I can see why. But I do not believe all the arguments stack up. It is absurd to imagine that a huge number of graduates will never earn above the £21,000 a year repayment threshold in the decades after they graduate. Wages have already started to creep up and <a href="http://www.slc.co.uk/media/788364/average_repayment_hmrc_per_year_by_country.pdf">student loan repayments</a> have sped up too.</p>
<h2>Why not a graduate tax?</h2>
<p>With a modicum of effort the existing system could be modified into a graduate tax. It need be no more complicated to collect than income tax or national insurance. We all have to pay tax on our earnings. Why can’t it be done through the tax code? Yes some graduates might flee overseas – but some do anyway. It is easy to exaggerate that danger.</p>
<p>This is the moment for the UK to invest in universities and all political parties seriously positioning themselves for a role in government should make their plans clear and costed before the general election. My dream is of a day when any student who is willing and able can come to university – absolutely regardless of background or wealth. I think the universities are doing their bit. My hope is that the politicians will do theirs.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/38129/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Farthing is a member of the General Medical Council. </span></em></p>Ed Miliband’s pledge to drop fees from £9,000 to £6,000 has been met with alarm by university vice chancellors.Michael Farthing, Vice Chancellor, University of SussexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/375602015-02-16T13:17:06Z2015-02-16T13:17:06ZIs it really worth investing in smaller primary school classes?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/72121/original/image-20150216-18469-1nj6lt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What's the optimum size?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Primary school via Air Images/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Ed Miliband’s pledge that Labour, if elected, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/feb/12/ed-miliband-labour-government-would-restore-blair-era-cap-on-class-sizes">would limit school classes</a> for five, six and seven-year-olds to 30 pupils reignites a core question about how best to spend money to improve education. </p>
<p>In making this a plank of Labour’s emerging manifesto, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/feb/12/ed-miliband-labour-real-terms-protection-education-budget">Miliband blames the coalition</a> government and, in particular, the former education secretary Michael Gove, for a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/schools-pupils-and-their-characteristics-january-2014">trebling</a> of the number of primary pupils in classes with more than 30 children from 31,265 in 2010 to 93,345 in 2014. </p>
<p>Labour’s policy – which <a href="http://www.labour-party.org.uk/manifestos/1997/1997-labour-manifesto.shtml">echoes a pledge by Tony Blair </a> in 1997 – might appeal to parents and teachers, but it is also backed by evidence that smaller class sizes do help push up attainment in the first years of primary school.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/335176/2014_SPC_SFR_Text_v101.pdf">average size</a> of a class taught by one teacher on the census day in January 2014 was 27.4. Overall in England, there are more than 58,000 Key Stage 1 classes (pupils aged five to seven) of <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/education-31437962">which almost 3,000</a> had at least 31 pupils in them about 12 months ago. So, although the number of students in classes with more than 30 children has trebled, we’re still only talking about one in 20 classes across the country.</p>
<p>One of the reasons why class sizes have risen is that there are more primary-aged children now. Since 2010, the number of Key Stage 1 pupils has risen by 11.2%, but the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/education-31437962">number of classes</a> has only grown by 8.1%. The coalition government changed the rules on admissions – meaning, for example, that schools have to accept pupils whose parents are in the armed forces or who move into an area where there are no surplus places.</p>
<h2>Small is best</h2>
<p>There is a growing body of research on how much class size matters to children’s attainment. Peter Blatchford, a researcher at the UCL Institute of Education, <a href="http://www.classsizeresearch.org.uk/cs%20psychology.pdf">notes that the issue comes round regularly</a>, with the debate frequently intense and sometimes angry. One reason that some parents send their children to private schools is because they have smaller classes resulting in more individualised teaching and a better working environment – or so the argument goes. </p>
<p>When asked, teachers usually say that large class sizes are counter-productive. There’s something about class size that makes it a controversial topic in other countries, too. Politicians in China, Japan, the Netherlands, Singapore, South Korea and the USA have brought in policies aimed at reducing class sizes. When New Labour enacted Blair’s promise after the 1997 election, the Scottish government went one step further and <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8269996.stm">set a maximum class size </a>of 25.</p>
<p>The evidence is clear but, perhaps, surprising. In the US, a <a href="http://rer.sagepub.com/content/73/3/321.abstract">team of researchers</a> randomly allocated pupils and teachers to one of three types of class within the same school. The three models were: “small” classes, which had 13-17 pupils; “regular” classes (22-25 pupils) with just one teacher; and “regular” classes which had a teacher and a full-time teaching assistant. The project involved more than 7,000 pupils in nearly 80 schools. The pupils were followed through four years of schooling, from kindergarten (aged five) to third grade (aged eight). Pupils in small classes performed significantly better than pupils in regular classes and gains were still evident after grade 4, when pupils returned to normal class sizes.</p>
<h2>Primary kids benefit most</h2>
<p>In England, Blatchford directed the <a href="http://www.classsizeresearch.org.uk/">Class Size and Pupil Adult Ratio</a> project which, instead of setting up an experiment, simply studied what went on in normal classrooms. Blatchford <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1080/0141192032000133668/abstract">and his team followed more than 10,000 pupils</a> in more than 300 schools. The pupils were tracked from when they entered school aged four to five-years-old, until the end of primary school, aged 11. </p>
<p>Class size made a difference – children did better in smaller classes in both numeracy and literacy during their first year in school. The effect was greater for the pupils who started school with lower attainment. At the end of the second year in school, the effect was still evident in literacy attainment but not numeracy. Yet by the end of the third year the effects were far less evident in either numeracy or literacy. So, the evidence suggests that smaller classes benefit pupils in their first years in primary school but the effect seems to disappear as students get older.</p>
<p>Yet while there is evidence that in the first years in primary school, the smaller the class size, the better. There is no clear evidence supporting an optimal class size, be it 20, 25 or 30.</p>
<h2>Impact of teaching assistants</h2>
<p>Other research has tried to unpick what impact other adults, such as teaching assistants, have on pupil attainment. The <a href="http://samples.sainsburysebooks.co.uk/9781136518430_sample_518110.pdf">evidence</a> is that in classes where there are teaching assistants, students, in general, do less well even when you take into account reasons why the assistants are there in the first place. </p>
<p>One reason for this counter-intuitive finding may be that teaching assistants are often employed to work with students who are under-attaining, when actually it is the classroom teacher who is probably more able to bring out the best in such pupils. The study’s findings led <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-teaching-assistants-can-give-a-boost-to-struggling-pupils-22923">other researchers</a> to find ways to involve teaching assistants more effectively in schools.</p>
<p>More research is needed into what actually happens in classrooms of differing sizes. We still don’t know enough about the impact of class size on pupil attitudes, motivation and self-belief. What we do know is that <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/13/class-size-debate-asks-wrong-question-simplistic">in larger classes</a>, lower attaining students are more likely to be off-task. What is needed is a study into which teaching practices work best in smaller and larger classes. Improving teaching might have more impact than simply reducing class sizes. </p>
<hr>
<p>Next read: <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-small-is-beautiful-when-it-comes-to-class-sizes-14786">Why small is beautiful when it comes to class sizes</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/37560/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Justin Dillon does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Ed Miliband’s pledge that Labour, if elected, would limit school classes for five, six and seven-year-olds to 30 pupils reignites a core question about how best to spend money to improve education. In…Justin Dillon, Professor of science and environmental education and Head of the Graduate School of Education, University of BristolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/373962015-02-13T14:56:55Z2015-02-13T14:56:55ZWould capping student fees at £6,000 be as damaging as universities make out?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/71844/original/image-20150212-13178-1ecmytj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Would it cripple university finances?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Education fund via Calvste/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Labour’s <a href="http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.aspx?storyCode=2018494">much anticipated</a> but yet-to-be confirmed policy to reduce the cap on university tuition fees from £9,000 to £6,000 a year will be highly expensive, could leave universities £10 billion out of pocket – and would only help richer graduates. That, at least, has been the tone of <a href="http://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/highereducation/Pages/LettertotheTimeshighlightingconcernswith%C2%A36,000tuitionfeesproposal.aspx">a growing chorus of alarm</a> sounding ahead of what might be one of Ed Miliband’s key pre-election pledges. </p>
<p>Universities are right to be concerned – they may well lose money out of this policy. It also appears a somewhat opportunistic move by Labour to please a proportion of the electorate. But despite this, there are reasons why the policy should not be totally condemned.</p>
<p>First, how expensive a £6,000 fee cap would be depends on how Labour choose to compensate universities for the loss of funding they would experience should the policy go ahead. Put simply, universities would lose around £3,000 per student per year – the difference between the current fee of around £9,000 and the proposed fee of £6,000 (the <a href="http://www.offa.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Access-agreements-for-2015-16-key-statistics-and-analysis.pdf">actual average fee</a> for 2015 is £8,735 per year). </p>
<p>If Labour chooses to make up this funding shortfall by compensating universities for the full loss, this could cost the exchequer as much as £10 billion over the course of the parliament, <a href="http://blog.universitiesuk.ac.uk/2015/02/02/big-funding-gap-fees-6k/">according to Universities UK</a>. Even with full compensation (which is by no means guaranteed), the country’s vice chancellors are not likely to be happy about this part of their funding being dependent on the government. </p>
<p>But of course, the current funding method is already dependent on the government, which – by freezing the fee cap at £9,000 since 2012 – has already been cutting university budgets in real terms because of inflation. </p>
<p>Universities UK has led calls for fees to rise in line with inflation, arguing that a £9,000 was <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-24771452">“not sustainable”</a>, while Oxford University has calculated the real cost of undergraduate degrees to <a href="http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/oxford-teaching-and-the-16k-question/1/2008179.article">be £16,000</a> per year.</p>
<h2>A look at the numbers</h2>
<p>But Oxford’s concerns are unlikely to reflect the majority of the sector. The fiscal position of universities may not be quite so troubling, depending on the reference point you take. Back in 2010, the Institute of Fiscal Studies calculated the maximum tuition fee that would be needed to compensate universities for the loss of income arising from the 2012 fee reforms. This figure was <a href="http://www.ifs.org.uk/bns/bn113.pdf">around £7,000 per year</a>. </p>
<p>As we know, the government decided to allow universities to charge £9,000 – the majority did, and the upshot was that universities came out £5,370 per graduate – or <a href="http://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/6220%20and%20http://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/6495">roughly £1,800 per year</a> – better off, according to the IFS calculations, once fee waivers and bursaries were taken into account. </p>
<p>A formidable coup, especially at a time when many in the public sector were facing a 20% cut in funding. So, given these figures, it is not clear why the Labour party would feel they have to compensate universities all the way up to £9,000.</p>
<h2>Would the well-paid benefit most?</h2>
<p>Second, whether you consider the policy of reducing the fee cap to be regressive also depends on your reference point. It’s true that for those who actually go to university, cutting tuition fees would be regressive. Many low-earning graduates <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-the-new-student-loan-system-more-progressive-than-its-predecessor-25468">don’t pay back their loans</a> in full because of the repayment terms put in place in 2012 – which mean that when graduates start earning above £21,000, they begin to pay their loan back at a rate of 9% on any earnings over that threshold. The government has actually attracted widespread criticism, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/student-finance/10981759/Nearly-half-of-students-will-not-pay-back-government-loans-warn-MPs.html">including from MPs</a> – precisely because of the cost of non-repayment to the taxpayer. </p>
<p>A cut from £9,000 to £6,000 would only benefit those graduates who earn enough to repay their loans in full, or who manage to pay back annual fee debts somewhere between £9-£6,000. London Economics <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-30922032">recently calculated this</a> as the top 70% of male earners. The remainder – low earning graduates, many of them female – will never earn enough to feel the benefit of a reduction in fees to £6,000. Labour’s policy will do nothing for them.</p>
<p>But this calculation changes if you start from the pre-2012 position – when fees were £3,000 per year (or even before that, when they were free). From this vantage point, moving to £6,000 per year – assuming we stick to a similar repayment system to the one we have now – would be progressive, impacting high-earning graduates much more than low earners. </p>
<h2>Impact on participation rates</h2>
<p>As many point out, participation among poor students <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/jan/30/low-income-students-likely-apply-university-ucas">has grown</a> at a faster rate than richer students since 2012. This is somewhat reassuring that higher fees don’t harm university access. But that is starting from a pretty small base – 13% of disadvantaged pupils who were eligible for free school meals applied to university in 2011, compared to nearly 30% of those who were not eligible, <a href="https://www.ucas.com/sites/default/files/2014-end-of-cycle-report-dec-14.pdf">according to UCAS</a>. In 2014 the figures had moved to 15.3% and 30.3% respectively.</p>
<p>What we can’t know is what would have happened to participation growth in the absence of £9,000 fees. Cutting fees back to £6,000 may result in even faster growth in participation among poorer students. So, Labour’s policy could still help the poor who currently don’t attend university because of fears about the cost. And these students would still be <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-31028467">receiving maintenance grants and loans</a>, which Labour has – presumably– no plans to cut.</p>
<p>Still, it is easy to see why vice chancellors are concerned. Universities face the threat of having their increase in funding taken off them only a few years after they have gained it, or at the very least they face huge uncertainty about future funding. And it is a concern for all of us that after 20 years of change in higher education funding policy, the focal point of the current debate on higher education still concerns the level of tuition fees. However you look at it, higher education finance remains a tough nut to crack.</p>
<hr>
<p>Next read: <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-five-options-for-student-tuition-fees-that-politicians-have-to-choose-from-32847">The five options for student fees that politicians have to choose from</a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/37396/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gill Wyness does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Labour’s much anticipated but yet-to-be confirmed policy to reduce the cap on university tuition fees from £9,000 to £6,000 a year will be highly expensive, could leave universities £10 billion out of…Gill Wyness, Lecturer, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/374332015-02-11T13:55:23Z2015-02-11T13:55:23ZFaith schools are not brimming with unqualified teachers<p>On <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b051zzq5">BBC Question Time</a> on February 5, Labour’s shadow education minister Tristram Hunt made a remark appearing to link weak, unqualified teachers to religious education, specifically Catholic schooling provided by nuns. It was not clear at the time what he was trying to say, because he was interrupted. And the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-31159643">subsequent uproar</a> in response has done little to clarify his point. </p>
<p>Hunt <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/tristram-hunt-meant-no-offence-by-arrogant-and-ignorant-comments-on-nuns-teaching-10028883.html">subsequently apologised</a> and said he meant “no offence” by his comments. But it is time for some facts about whether there are disproportionately more unqualified teachers in religious schools, and then some calmer consideration about whether it matters.</p>
<h2>Religion by religion</h2>
<p>We combined two datasets published in 2014 from the Department of Education – one on the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/school-workforce-in-england-november-2013">school workforce</a> and one on <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/schools-pupils-and-their-characteristics-january-2014">school characteristics</a> – and our analysis shows the number of teachers without recognised teacher training in each type of school in England. From the first graph below, it is clear that state-funded Roman Catholic schools – including those with nuns as teachers – are actually the least likely, on average, to employ unqualified teachers. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/71718/original/image-20150211-25714-6xcggf.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/71718/original/image-20150211-25714-6xcggf.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=319&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71718/original/image-20150211-25714-6xcggf.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=319&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71718/original/image-20150211-25714-6xcggf.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=319&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71718/original/image-20150211-25714-6xcggf.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71718/original/image-20150211-25714-6xcggf.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71718/original/image-20150211-25714-6xcggf.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Note: these figures include all state-funded mainstream primary or secondary schools for which there is data. Where known, trainees actually working in schools are excluded.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The long-standing schools of “no religious character”, and those with a Church of England or Catholic basis are at, or below, the national average for unqualified teachers. Rather, it is the relatively small number of schools for minority religions in England that have the most – with Muslim and Jewish schools well above the national average. These, if any, should be the target for Hunt’s concern. </p>
<h2>Free schools should be the target</h2>
<p>But if Hunt was really concerned about the prevalence of unqualified teachers in England’s schools – which <a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/tory-reforms-allow-hundreds-unqualified-4544944">Labour has criticised</a> in opposition – then an even clearer target than faith-based schools in general would be all schools not under local authority control.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/71715/original/image-20150211-25679-12gzzh6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/71715/original/image-20150211-25679-12gzzh6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/71715/original/image-20150211-25679-12gzzh6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=229&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71715/original/image-20150211-25679-12gzzh6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=229&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71715/original/image-20150211-25679-12gzzh6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=229&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71715/original/image-20150211-25679-12gzzh6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=288&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71715/original/image-20150211-25679-12gzzh6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=288&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71715/original/image-20150211-25679-12gzzh6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=288&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>Free schools and academies, supported by both the current and the previous administration in the UK, have been made “independent” of their local council. Their <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-information-war-raging-within-the-academies-revolution-29124">autonomy means they are unchallenged</a> by any state-representative organisation at local level. Rather, they are overseen directly by the Department for Education and the schools regulator Ofsted. </p>
<p>It is schools of this kind that have been the focus of faith-based alarms and scandals <a href="https://theconversation.com/trojan-horse-plot-exposed-a-fragmented-education-system-35583">such as the “Trojan horse”</a> affair in Birmingham. Perhaps not coincidentally, they also have markedly higher than average levels of unqualified teachers.</p>
<h2>Religious segregation is a social problem</h2>
<p>The Catholic and Church of England schools have been part of the state education system since it started. They are part of the reason why there is a universal school system. And, in many respects, they are very similar to bog-standard local authority schools with no religious character. But having them creates two current problems for the system as a whole.</p>
<p>First, the intakes of faith-based schools are somewhat <a href="http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415536905/">socially and economically stratified</a> in relation to the areas in which they recruit pupils, and this is especially true for Catholic schools. Given that they are <a href="https://theconversation.com/little-evidence-that-faith-schools-provide-a-better-education-27758">neither more nor less effective</a> in terms of public examination results than non-religious schools, this danger of social segregation between faiths and social groups is being run for no gain. </p>
<p>The newer faith-based schools, along with the much older schools for Jewish families, are even worse in this respect – often dividing children by ethnic as well as socio-economic characteristics. And this leads to the second problem. We cannot deny faith-based schools to some religions while permitting them for others. But to accept a multitude of different faith-based schools will likely splinter our schools and thus our society along sectarian lines. </p>
<h2>Remove state funding</h2>
<p>The only clear solution then is to remove the faith basis for all schools, making religion a personal, family or a place-of-worship issue. This would remove it from the organisation of a taxpayer-funded education system that is intended to equalise life chances and encourage the autonomous appraisal of evidence. </p>
<p>Abolishing the faith basis for all schools would deny no individual their freedom of worship, and cause no reduction in exam performance. It would remove a barrier to ethnic and social integration in society, remove at least six conflicting belief systems cluttering up the process of learning and might also lead to fewer unqualified teachers. </p>
<p>Of course, this might lead to a growth in small fee-paying schools with a strong religious basis and a high proportion of unqualified teachers, of a kind that already exist. But the quality of their provision is usually so poor that <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/School_choice_in_an_established_market.html?id=zqmcAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y">they do not survive long</a> in competition to the state sector and the larger, well-established private schools – which incidentally tend to have fewer unqualified teachers than their volatile counterparts. </p>
<p>But, as the issues in Birmingham suggest, abolishing the independence of free schools and academies – or at least their right to employ unqualified teachers – should be seriously considered. The so-called “Trojan Horse” schools were not ostensibly religious in character. It was, it seems, their autonomy from local oversight that allowed problems to arise. </p>
<hr>
<p>Next read: <a href="https://theconversation.com/you-wouldnt-want-an-unqualified-doctor-or-lawyer-so-why-are-untrained-teachers-ok-32450">You wouldn’t want an unqualified doctor of lawyer… so why are untrained teachers ok?</a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/37433/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Gorard is currently conducting research funded by the Nuffield Foundation, the Educational Endowment Foundation, and the National Literacy Trust. None of it is related to this issue. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Beng Huat See does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>On BBC Question Time on February 5, Labour’s shadow education minister Tristram Hunt made a remark appearing to link weak, unqualified teachers to religious education, specifically Catholic schooling provided…Stephen Gorard, Professor of Education and Public Policy, Durham UniversityBeng Huat See, Research Associate in the School of Education, Durham UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/374382015-02-11T06:22:23Z2015-02-11T06:22:23ZThe number of Sure Start centres is irrelevant – it’s quality that matters<p>It is predictable that the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-31203997">Labour Party’s election pledge to expand</a> Sure Start has turned into a row over how many children’s centres have actually closed since the coalition government took over in 2010. This is a sterile debate, be it the 720 that Labour says have closed, or 45 “outright closures” claimed by the Conservatives. </p>
<p>The number actually open is irrelevant if there is no agreement on what services are available for how many days a week and how many hours per day in what kind of neighbourhoods. </p>
<p>The original <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/CHI569/abstract">purpose of Sure Start</a>, launched by the previous Labour government in 1998, was to improve the life chances of children living in poverty by providing services that ameliorate the impact of poverty and encouraging parents into employment. Children’s centres became the delivery mechanism for achieving these aims.</p>
<p>As I understand it, Labour’s shadow education minister Tristram Hunt is promising to reinstate the requirement that the children’s centres in the poorest areas must provide childcare suitable for working parents. This requirement <a href="http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmselect/cmeduc/writev/852/m08.htm">was removed by the coalition government in 2011</a>. He is sensibly not arguing for more children’s centres, just a guarantee of a particular service in a specific group of centres – those in the poorest areas. </p>
<h2>Lurking problems on funding</h2>
<p>There are some very good reasons to welcome this announcement. Affordable childcare is essential for parents to get into work and is particularly hard to provide in low-income areas without significant public subsidy. The rationale for the original requirement on childcare was that for women using other support services in children’s centres the presence of childcare would itself provide encouragement into work, as it relieves one of the key barriers to employment. </p>
<p>Most of the centres in poor areas have had considerable capital investment. As Hunt points out, we should be making best use of this investment, exploiting local capital assets. Encouraging provision from the private, voluntary and independent sectors is also sensible, but not without its risks.</p>
<p>The downside, as ever, is funding. Even with <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24199711">Labour promising</a> an expansion from 15 to 25 hours of free childcare for three and four-year-olds, and the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/money/2013/sep/02/free-childcare-two-year-olds">free offer of 15 hours</a> for 40% of two-year-olds, it is unlikely that the public subsidy available per place will enable a cost-effective service, let alone a service that makes a profit. And that is the only reason the private sector would be willing to run such services. Even for the voluntary sector, making ends meet on childcare is challenging.</p>
<p>Extending the pupil premium – extra money given to schools for disadvantaged children – to three and four-year-olds will help, but is not enough. I am also unclear on the Labour position on pupil premium. </p>
<h2>Teachers should be reinstated</h2>
<p>But one vitally important part of the original childcare requirement seems to have been left out of the new commitment. Before the change in 2011, all children’s centres in poor areas were required to have a teacher. <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-26853447">Ofsted has urged that</a> school-based childcare is usually of higher quality than that provided by the private, voluntary and independent sectors and should be expanded. The main reason seems to be that school-based care always includes teachers in the staff team, a very expensive proposition for non-state providers. </p>
<p>Teachers <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Early_Childhood_Matters.html?id=1jaAubY39pMC&redir_esc=y">have been found</a> to bring a stronger learning focus in childcare settings, but are less likely to be employed in settings run by the private, voluntary or independent sectors. The childcare offered in children’s centres has been found to be of higher quality than in other non-school settings, probably because the funding for children’s centres included the cost of employing teachers. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/71627/original/image-20150210-24651-cc5zav.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/71627/original/image-20150210-24651-cc5zav.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71627/original/image-20150210-24651-cc5zav.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71627/original/image-20150210-24651-cc5zav.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71627/original/image-20150210-24651-cc5zav.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71627/original/image-20150210-24651-cc5zav.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71627/original/image-20150210-24651-cc5zav.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Give me quality care.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Three-year olds via fotomak/Shutterstock</span></span>
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<p>When the requirement for childcare was removed from these centres, so was the requirement for a teacher. Without funding to ensure <a href="https://theconversation.com/hire-graduates-to-close-quality-gap-facing-children-at-nurseries-in-poor-areas-27289">graduate teacher leadership</a> in centres with childcare, the care is unlikely to provide the boost in attainment promised with the expansion of high-quality early years provision. </p>
<h2>Number of centres is irrelevant</h2>
<p>I am personally not concerned if 700 or 800 children’s centres have closed. My recommendation is for fewer centres in better-off areas and, as Hunt has promised, centres in poorer areas offering childcare, along with a range of open access and targeted services so vital in poor areas: health advice, employment advice, citizens advice bureau surgeries, stay and play sessions. </p>
<p>The number of centres open is irrelevant if many of the “open” centres are delivering a limited range of services infrequently throughout the week. Mothers and fathers who need the services most are unlikely to keep abreast of odd opening times and a restricted range of services. </p>
<p>The worst of all worlds is to keep funding not very good centres with drastically reduced services. We need to concentrate investment in areas where it is needed most, and invest in improving the quality along with the quantity of childcare and other services that really makes a difference for children and families.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/37438/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Naomi Eisenstadt was the first director of the Sure Start Unit, which she ran for seven years. She is a trustee of Save the Children and of National Literacy Trust. </span></em></p>It is predictable that the Labour Party’s election pledge to expand Sure Start has turned into a row over how many children’s centres have actually closed since the coalition government took over in 2010…Naomi Eisenstadt, Honorary Research Fellow, Department of Education, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/366712015-01-26T06:15:16Z2015-01-26T06:15:16ZHave we devolved too much responsibility for our schools?<p>The thorny issue of what democracy is, what it’s not and whether it is an appropriate system for government has been <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-uk-has-little-to-celebrate-on-democracy-day-36410">at the top of the agenda</a> at the start of 2015. At the same time, we are in the lead-up to what’s likely to be a hard-fought and very unpredictable general election campaign. </p>
<p>Central to both are questions around the relationships between local and central government, the delivery of public services funded through taxation and how we create a modern economy for the 21st century.</p>
<p>It is an opportune moment to think about how our schools are run, how and to whom they are accountable – and how those relationships between central and local governments play out across the classrooms in our country. This is a peculiarly <a href="https://theconversation.com/does-englands-education-system-need-more-devolution-31991">English question</a>: in the rest of the UK, devolved governments have not adopted <a href="https://theconversation.com/goves-revolution-leaves-behind-a-fast-food-education-system-29190">many of the reforms</a> introduced in England by the former education secretary Michael Gove, such as free schools. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland continue to operate local authorities that have a close relationship with their schools.</p>
<h2>Confusion reigns</h2>
<p>The English school system now has a range of different organisations, structures and forms of accountability with sometimes confused systems of democratic control. The current government has <a href="https://theconversation.com/4-000-down-20-000-to-go-the-academies-drive-gathers-pace-26028">intentionally expanded the academies programme</a>, establishing independent maintained schools outside the remit of local authorities and therefore outside of local government. </p>
<p>Such schools – including free schools – although “independent” of local government, are under the remit of the department for education in Westminster. Some of these schools are “run” by external not-for-profit organisations such as <a href="https://www.cfbt.com/">CfBT Education Trust</a> or <a href="http://www.unitedlearning.org.uk/">United Learning</a> while others are collections of schools led by schools themselves. Under the academies and free school programme, these schools report to the Department for Education and to central government directly. </p>
<p>While this may give some autonomy at the level of individual schools, this does raise issues for their relationship to the local and regional community and the degree to which they are accountable to local people. It <a href="https://theconversation.com/failing-academy-chains-highlight-hole-at-heart-of-education-policy-23954">cannot be an effective way</a> of running a national education system with thousands of schools reporting directly to the central government’s civil service. </p>
<p>Even Gove recognised that running a plethora of schools with different governance and management and accountability arrangements direct from Whitehall may have its difficulties. As a result, he created six <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/policies/increasing-the-number-of-academies-and-free-schools-to-create-a-better-and-more-diverse-school-system/supporting-pages/regional-schools-commissioners-rscs">Regional Schools Commissioners</a> working between central government and individual schools.</p>
<h2>Schools forming partnerships</h2>
<p>Schools both in and outside the remit of local authorities have come together in various different partnerships and associations in the wake of the academies programme and the ensuing reduction of funding to local government that has followed. This provides them a means of support and collaboration – enabling them to share good practice in a <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-school-systems-need-to-be-more-like-the-tour-de-france-24604">schools-led system </a>and to attract external funding such as that from the <a href="http://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/">Education Endowment Foundation</a>. Teaching school alliances, multi-academy trusts, umbrella trusts and a range of informal and formal collaborations are all ways in which schools continue to work together.</p>
<p>But although this is testimony to the skills of their headteachers and staff, there are wider issues about the delivery of our publicly funded education system and how this should be accountable to the local community and wider region. The debate about English “devolution” resulting from the Scottish referendum and recently highlighted with <a href="https://www.politicshome.com/uk/story/46575/">the call</a> by two Liberal Democrat MPs for “mini-parliaments”, shows that there is an appetite to look again at the relationships between what gets decided by central government and how that is then made accountable at local level. </p>
<h2>Key election questions</h2>
<p>Events such as the Trojan Horse episode in Birmingham and more recent issues around <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/nov/19/schools-tower-hamlets-ofsted-wilshaw-extremism-threat">Tower Hamlets</a>, have raised issues about the governance of schools and the limited ability of local government to intervene in schools which are “independent”. </p>
<p>This is not merely about the governance of schools. It reflects a wider issue about who is responsible for our schools system and how we can strategically deliver a national education. Fundamental to this is the ability to have enough school places to educate our children and young people – a power which is vested in local authorities. Yet they cannot open new schools since <a href="http://www.local.gov.uk/media-releases/-/journal_content/56/10180/6893341/NEWS">all new schools must be academies</a> or free schools. </p>
<p>This will raise some key questions for politicians during the election campaign about how our school system is run and delivered. The Lib Dems and the Green Party are calling for greater accountability of schools at a local level. On the other side, the Conservatives and UKIP argue for a more school-led system, outside of local authority control. Despite their support for more devolved powers to a English system of government, these politicians see education as outside of that remit. </p>
<p>Labour’s position – set out in a policy paper <a href="http://www.yourbritain.org.uk/agenda-2015/policy-commissions/education-and-children-policy-commission">Education and Children</a> – hints that they may seek to bring in “local oversight” of academies and free schools. But as with all elections, the devil will be in the detail and the detail won’t play out until after the campaign is fought and won.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/36671/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
The thorny issue of what democracy is, what it’s not and whether it is an appropriate system for government has been at the top of the agenda at the start of 2015. At the same time, we are in the lead-up…Kate Reynolds, Dean of Education, School of Education and Institute for Education, Bath Spa UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/355832014-12-31T08:56:01Z2014-12-31T08:56:01ZTrojan Horse ‘plot’ exposed a fragmented education system<p>Any review of 2014 in education must examine a Trojan Horse bearing “British values”. The scandal that broke in April centred on the investigation of 21 Birmingham schools suspected of being involved in a plot to “<a href="http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/andrewgilligan/100268346/trojan-horse-schools-the-leaked-inspectors-report/">Islamise</a>” their children’s education. It was followed in November by <a href="https://theconversation.com/debate-over-national-values-is-a-threat-to-the-education-system-34635">the inspection</a> of seven schools in Tower Hamlets, which were also held to be at risk of Islamic radicalisation. </p>
<p>The inspections and investigations in Birmingham and Tower Hamlets did not uncover widespread extremism or radicalisation in schools, although they did find failures of governance and in some cases a reluctance to promote the rather ill-defined notion <a href="https://theconversation.com/promoting-british-values-opens-up-a-can-of-worms-for-teachers-27846">of British values</a>. The fallout from the investigations, after which a number of schools were put into “special measures” has revealed how increasingly fragmented the school landscape in England is in the run-up to the general election in 2015. </p>
<h2>Limitations of autonomy</h2>
<p>The supposed Trojan Horse “plot” has been examined extensively in relation to its implications for <a href="http://theconversation.com/ofsteds-future-at-stake-after-trojan-horse-scandal-25936">Ofsted</a>, <a href="http://theconversation.com/how-schools-have-been-pushed-to-front-in-preventing-extremism-34513">schools’ role in preventing terrorism</a> and <a href="http://theconversation.com/trojan-horse-snap-school-inspections-will-not-solve-wider-governance-issues-27824">school governance</a>. </p>
<p>In the recently published <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/ofsted-annual-report-201314-published">Annual Ofsted Report 2013-14</a>, the West Midlands regional report states that in several of the 21 schools inspected in Birmingham, children are “being badly prepared for life in modern Britain”. It concludes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The issues identified in Birmingham remain a significant concern. These inspections have called into question the nature and extent of the accountabilities associated with the high levels of autonomy currently enjoyed by academies. They also raise concerns about the effectiveness of the local authority to hold schools and governing bodies to account.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The final sentence is revealing. The concerns about the effectiveness of Birmingham as a local authority mask the fact that since 2010 local authorities’ capacity to hold schools and governing bodies to account has been severely curtailed – precisely because academies have been given such autonomy.</p>
<p>One of the priorities outlined in the 2010 Schools White Paper, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-importance-of-teaching-the-schools-white-paper-2010">The Importance of Teaching</a>, published by the Coalition was to create a “self-improving system”. Central to this ambition was the rapid expansion of the academies programme. </p>
<p>There were 203 academies in England in 2010. There are <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/open-academies-and-academy-projects-in-development">4,344 today</a>. Both academies and free schools, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/free-schools-open-schools-and-successful-applications">252 of which have opened</a> since 2010, are independent of local authority control and directly accountable to the secretary of state for education. Coupled with extensive public sector funding cuts, the result has been a drastic reduction in both local authority capacity and local oversight of schools. </p>
<h2>Where the blame gets laid</h2>
<p>As a result, we have an increasingly complex and fragmented school landscape, in which new <a href="https://theconversation.com/failing-academy-chains-highlight-hole-at-heart-of-education-policy-23954">“middle-tier” structures</a> and organisations, such as academy chains and teaching school alliances, have emerged to fill the vacuum between local schools and the Department for Education. Many of these may work well, but when things appear to go wrong, as in Birmingham and Tower Hamlets, the focus of national government, Ofsted and the media remains on the local authority, rather than on <a href="https://theconversation.com/pupils-at-academy-chains-being-failed-by-inspection-loophole-31584">academy chains, which are rather more difficult to hold to account</a>.</p>
<p>Six of the Birmingham schools and all those in Tower Hamlets were put into special measures after the inspections. But only one of the schools in each place is maintained by local authorities – the remaining schools in Birmingham are academies and independent Muslim schools in Tower Hamlets, outside of local authority control.</p>
<p>Considerable work is now needed to rebuild trust in both local schools and national government in these communities. Analaysis by <a href="https://birminghamcase.wordpress.com/2014/08/31/the-trojan-horse-affair-and-its-consequences-a-response-from-birmingham-case/">Birmingham Campaign for State Education</a> has shown that this has been made more difficult in Birmingham by the fact that many of the recommendations of the <a href="http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/trojanhorsereview">independent review</a> Birmingham City Council commissioned into the affair cannot be implemented because it has no authority over academies. As <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/jun/17/trojan-horse-affair-five-lessons-help-schools">Tim Brighouse</a>, former chief education officer in Birmingham, emphasised in June:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>So great have been the recent cuts in local authority expenditure that Birmingham and many other local authorities have neither the resources nor sufficient senior and experienced staff to carry out their role effectively. Worse, the arrival of academies and free schools has created an open season for lay people and professionals keen to pursue their own eccentric ideas about schooling.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is not uncommon. A recent <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/325816/DFE-RR359.pdf">“temperature check”</a> of local authorities revealed that they have had some success overcoming funding and staffing cuts in education by brokering local partnerships to support school improvement and planning for fluctuations in the number of school spaces needed. But authorities were rather less advanced in other key areas, such as supporting vulnerable children. The point is not that local authorities have always been highly effective, but that in the absence of other local structures, they should not be held accountable when they no longer have the power or capacity to act.</p>
<h2>Political positioning</h2>
<p>What does this mean for the future? As we move towards an increasingly uncertain election in 2015, Conservative party policy seems to promise more of the same for the increasingly fragmented middle tier. The current secretary of state for education, Nicky Morgan, has <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/nicky-morgan-speaks-about-our-plan-for-education">spoken recently of her commitment</a> to the “self-improving, school-led system”, characterised by bottom-up innovations coming from “networks of schools and teachers collaborating with one another to drive up standards”. As the Trojan horse incidents underline, rhetoric about localism continues to mask the increasing centralisation of power. </p>
<p>Labour’s recent policy document, <a href="http://www.yourbritain.org.uk/agenda-2015/policy-commissions/education-and-children-policy-commission/education-and-children-policy-consultation">Education and Children</a>, takes the fragmented schools system as a starting point to emphasise the need for “strong local accountability”. But while it advocates incentives for effective partnerships between schools, there is no indication of how the multi-layered local levels of trust necessary to support effective school-to-school collaboration will be created. Nor how the academies programme, to <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/best-schools-would-still-be-able-to-convert-to-academies-under-labour-says-tristram-hunt-9802257.html">which Labour remains committed</a>, will be overseen.</p>
<p>Add into the mix the unpredictability of smaller parties’ influence if the outcome of the election is inconclusive, and the future looks just as uncertain and fragmented as today. Without locally accountable structures to support and challenge schools, moral panics, like those we have seen in Birmingham and Tower Hamlets in 2014, are likely to recur.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>To read more of The Conversation’s coverage on the Trojan Horse affair from 2014, <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/trojan-horse">click here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/35583/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Jopling does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Any review of 2014 in education must examine a Trojan Horse bearing “British values”. The scandal that broke in April centred on the investigation of 21 Birmingham schools suspected of being involved in…Michael Jopling, Professor in Education, Department of Education and Lifelong Learning, Northumbria University, NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/346772014-11-27T15:25:14Z2014-11-27T15:25:14ZLabour’s attack on tax breaks for private schools is timely<p>The furore over the suggestion by shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt that <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/nov/24/private-schools-labour-warning-tax-breaks-tristram-hunt">private schools need to contribute more to state education</a> or face the removal of their tax breaks has been predictable. Representatives ranging from the <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7fe3d64c-74bf-11e4-a418-00144feabdc0.html">Independent Schools’ Council</a> to the <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/head-of-tristram-hunts-old-school-accuses-him-of-offensive-bigotry-9882825.html">headteacher of Hunt’s old independent school</a>, University College School in Hampstead, have lined up to defend the role of independent schools, insisting they are already involved in supporting the state sector.</p>
<p>There are roughly 2,600 private schools in the UK accounting for around 7% of the school student population,<a href="http://www.isc.co.uk/research"> according to the Independent School Commission</a>. The proportion of children attending such schools has remained relatively stable over the last two decades, according to the <a href="http://www.ifs.org.uk/bns/bn106.pdf">Institute for Fiscal Studies</a>. Such schools are diverse in their size and focus, ranging from small faith schools to the bigger, and more well-known, elite institutions such as Wellington College and Eton. The majority have charitable status which affords them a £700m tax break – the subject of Hunt’s recent speech. </p>
<h2>Existing tie-ups</h2>
<p>Alice Phillips, president of the Girls’ School Assocation <a href="http://www.independentschoolparent.com/pastoral/tristram-hunt-does-not-have-the-full-picture-private-schools-save-the-taxpayer-3-billion-on-top-of-fulfilling-their-charitable-status-says-president-of-the-girls-schools-association">has argued</a> that there are already a number of different ways private schools work with the state sector. These range from sharing expertise (both in terms of teachers and admission support for entry to top universities) through to Saturday schools, bursaries and the sharing of grounds and resources. </p>
<p>In addition, the private sector argues that these schools contribute indirectly to some <a href="http://www.isc.co.uk/Resources/Independent%20Schools%20Council/Research%20Archive/Publications/ISC_ECONOMICS_REPORT.pdf">£9.5bn of GDP</a>, according to a report prepared by Oxford Economics for the Independent Schools Council. </p>
<h2>Limited appetite for more</h2>
<p>It may be the case that some private schools do a tremendous amount to support their local state schools at an individual level. But it’s also clear that the head of schools inspectorate Ofsted, Michael Wilshaw, also doesn’t think that they do enough overall. </p>
<p>In his <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/teacher-blog/2013/oct/02/ofsted-michael-wilshaw-independent-schools">speech to the Headmasters’ and Headmistress’</a> conference in 2013, Wilshaw referred to the partnerships between private schools and state schools as “crumbs off your tables, leading more to famine than feast.” He pushed for more independent schools to get actively involved with the academies programme by sponsoring local state schools. </p>
<p>But to date, there has been a limited appetite from private schools to get engaged with the academies programme, despite notable exceptions with schools such as Wellington College intending to <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/9218310/Public-school-to-create-chain-of-happy-academies.html">create a chain of academies</a> branded with the private school’s ethos. Out of more than 2,000 independent schools, roughly 35 are engaged in some way with the academies programme.</p>
<h2>Domain for the super-rich</h2>
<p>An <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/11075612/Private-school-fees-have-soared-by-a-fifth-in-just-five-years.html">increase of private school fees by a fifth</a> in the past five years has become a concern for the sector itself, with <a href="http://www.spectator.co.uk/spectator-life/spectator-life-life/9085501/five-star-schools/">some arguing</a> that independent schools are becoming the preserve of the super-rich and that professionals who attended private schools themselves can no longer afford to send their children to one. Catering for a narrower and narrower elite must give us cause for concern.</p>
<p>According to research by the <a href="http://www.smf.co.uk/publications/open-access-an-independent-evaluation/">Social Market Foundation</a> published in July, private schools give their pupils a premium of just under £200,000 on their lifetime earning. A 2009 report by the <a href="http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http:/www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/media/227102/fair-access.pdf">Panel on Fair Access to the Professions</a> showed that more than half of the members of the professions had attended private schools. Part of the reason is the smaller staff-to-student ratios available in independent schools, funded through high fees. Another reason is the network, access and relationships that such schools have built up over decades and which help their <a href="https://theconversation.com/grammar-schools-dont-give-pupils-a-better-chance-of-getting-into-elite-universities-34467">students gain entry</a> into the top universities and professions. </p>
<h2>Ofsted’s role</h2>
<p>It is this central issue that both the Hunt and Wilshaw have emphasised in their challenges to independent schools to do more to involve themselves with the state sector. Such schools do fall under the remit of a <a href="https://theconversation.com/sending-in-ofsted-to-inspect-private-schools-could-level-the-education-playing-field-26832">“lighter” touch inspection framework</a>, but the current inspection regime could be easily altered to enable them to show how they are engaged with their local communities and supporting the state sector. </p>
<p>With clamours from some quarters for a <a href="http://www.publicfinance.co.uk/news/2014/10/lga-urges-independent-review-of-ofsted">review of the role and remit of Ofsted</a> and the impending general election next May, it may be that Ofsted could play a key role in shaping a new relationship between the private sector and state schools.</p>
<p>Combined with the increasing concern that the independent sector is in danger of becoming what Andrew Halls, headteacher of Kings College School in Wimbledon <a href="http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/education/article4275765.ece">has called</a> “finishing schools for the children of oligarchs”, this means it is time to reconsider the future role of such schools.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/34677/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kate Reynolds does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The furore over the suggestion by shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt that private schools need to contribute more to state education or face the removal of their tax breaks has been predictable…Kate Reynolds, Dean of Education, School of Education and Institute for Education, Bath Spa UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/328472014-10-14T14:36:46Z2014-10-14T14:36:46ZThe five options for student tuition fees that politicians have to choose from<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61682/original/dzy57dcn-1413284595.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Four years on, anger at tuition fees hasn't gone.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/ucloccupation/5217564046/sizes/l">ucloccupation</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As we approach the UK general election in May 2015, a number of options are on the table for politicians considering the future of university tuition fees. The parties have not yet fully set out their stalls, but it remains an important issue in the minds of many voters who remember the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/8123832/Nick-Clegg-admits-breaking-tuition-fees-pledge.html">Liberal Democrats’ U-turn on fees</a> only too well.</p>
<h2>1. A £9,000 status quo</h2>
<p>The first option is to keep the status quo of the fee cap set at £9,000 a year. Greg Clark, the new Conservative minister for universities and science, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/2014/sep/10/universities-minister-greg-clark-rules-out-increasing-tuition-fees">said he agreed</a> with predecessor David Willetts that £9,000 was adequate to cover the cost of university teaching. </p>
<p>This position needs to be understood alongside the announcement in last year’s budget (as yet <a href="http://www.hepi.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Clean-copy-of-SNC-paper.pdf">un-costed</a>) that a cap on the number of students universities can admit <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-we-must-challenge-notion-that-there-are-too-many-students-29616">will be lifted</a> from 2015 onwards. This could potentially increase the exposure of the student loan book. </p>
<p>Keeping the status quo is also the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/oct/07/university-tuition-fees-likely-rise-significantly-vince-cable">stated position of the Liberal Democrats</a>. They would maintain the existing arrangements that their secretary of state for business, Vince Cable, put in place while retaining a barely credible aspiration towards abolition at some unspecified future date.</p>
<h2>2. Higher fees</h2>
<p>The second option is for an increase in the maximum value of tuition fees payable through the Student Loan Company (SLC). There is no legal bar to any university setting its own fees in excess of £9,000 but to do so would make it ineligible for other forms of direct funding from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE). As a result, and even though that direct funding might be negligible, no vice chancellor has been willing to do this — yet.</p>
<p>There have been voices, such as Andrew Hamilton, vice-chancellor of Oxford University and Wendy Piatt, director general of the Russell Group, calling for an increase in fees <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/student/news/we-need-tuition-fees-of-up-to-16000-says-oxford-vicechancellor-professor-andrew-hamilton-8867323.html">to £16,000</a> a year. This increase, advocates argue, would cover the present funding shortfall of providing an “elite” education. </p>
<p>The reality of any comprehensive spending review in 2015 would be a further cut to non-ring-fenced Whitehall budgets (including the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills). This makes it all politically very difficult for any fees increase in the next parliament, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/oct/07/university-tuition-fees-likely-rise-significantly-vince-cable">despite Cable’s claims</a> at the Liberal Democrat party conference about the Conservatives’ intentions to introduce one.</p>
<h2>3. Fee increases, but not across board</h2>
<p>A further option, <a href="http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/graduate-earnings-human-capital-gains-subject-to-scrutiny/2010001.article">currently being researched by the Nuffield Foundation</a>, would be to allow a limited number of universities to increase fees. This might be based on the rate that graduates pay back their loans at a particular university. But this would be a fundamental shift in the way universities are funded and would be both politically toxic and very difficult to implement. Other universities would quickly find ways to make the case to access the criteria for increased fees and costs would soon accelerate. </p>
<h2>4. Cut fees</h2>
<p>The fourth option is a reduction of the fee and a making good of the subsequent shortfall to universities. This is the Labour Party’s current policy. There <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/10/will-labour-pledge-cut-tuition-fees">has been no advance</a> of Ed Miliband’s statement in 2011 of a proposed fee of £6,000. At this year’s party conference in Manchester, <a href="http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/labour-wont-have-fees-policy-hammered-out-soon/2015940.article">Liam Byrne the shadow spokesman on universities, said</a> that Labour would cover any subsequent shortfall in income.</p>
<p>Yet Labour have not as yet laid out their plans on fees. They remain torn between the demands of a shadow treasury team (which includes Shabana Mahmood, the previous universities spokesperson) who are eager not to be seen to make unaffordable promises and a political opportunity to put a radical offer on tuition fees at the centre of the Labour election manifesto.</p>
<p>This would likely include a degree of debt-forgiveness for loans taken out under the £9,000 dispensation, making it an even more expensive commitment. Labour also remains open to an entirely different funding mechanism in the future, such <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-can-defuse-the-student-loan-time-bomb-30990">as a graduate tax</a>, but that would be a long-term prospect and be subject to a further independent review, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/31999/10-1208-securing-sustainable-higher-education-browne-report.pdf">similar to that run by Lord Browne</a> in 2010.</p>
<h2>VC fears over fee reduction</h2>
<p>Vice-chancellors, in the form of their representative body Universities UK, have set their face against Labour’s plans. This is not because they would result in a loss of income but because of the conditions that might be placed around accessing the funding difference of £3,000. The restoration of a sizeable teaching grant is highly unlikely. Rather, Labour would want to incentivise the behaviour of universities around issues such as regional development, apprenticeship degrees, and social mobility. </p>
<p>Such a loss of autonomy makes this option unpalatable to <a href="https://theconversation.com/after-the-crash-who-owns-the-british-university-in-2014-30593">many higher education leaders</a> – but potentially good news for taxpayers. Given Miliband’s self-styled desire to <a href="https://theconversation.com/ed-miliband-banking-speech-is-incomplete-but-encouraging-22099">take on vested interests</a>, he might find an easy political target in facing down Russell Group vice-chancellors already struggling to justify their own pay awards. </p>
<p>Any Labour announcement on tuition will not happen until after the chancellor’s budget statement in December. Realistically, this means in February or March, only a few months out from the election.</p>
<h2>5. Abolish fees altogether</h2>
<p>The one option that no one is discussing is the abolition of fees. There is no politician, sector leader, or vice-chancellor making a serious argument for this. It would require the whole of the higher education budget to be funded by direct taxation. This might be the most progressive, most sustainable and cheapest option in the long run, but it would also expose universities to the short-term risks of cuts in public spending. </p>
<p>Cable stated at the Liberal Democrat conference that the sustainability of the present higher education funding arrangements <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-29515808">did not keep him awake a night</a> because he would be over 100-years-old when its consequences came home to roost. The outcome of such complacency will be that the generation of students attending university now will have to pay for higher education twice: once in the form of their own loans, and once in the form of cleaning up the debts left by this I.O.U policy. </p>
<h2>Inter-generational justice</h2>
<p>At a time when, despite the <a href="https://theconversation.com/happy-days-are-here-again-says-george-osborne-but-all-the-eggs-are-in-one-fragile-basket-29728">green roots of recovery</a>, the economic experience of many is still extremely challenging, and with the <a href="http://www.russellgroup.ac.uk/russell-group-latest-news/155-2014/8563-the-economic-impact-of-russell-group-universities/">Russell Group committing to a combined £9 billion</a> building and amenities programme in the next five years, it looks as if certain vice-chancellors just do not get it. The next parliament will see less spending on higher education not more. </p>
<p>In that context, the request for £16,000 fees looks quixotic. In the meanwhile, the value of the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/10417493/9000-cap-on-student-tuition-fees-is-unsustainable.html">£9,000 fee decreases each year with inflation</a>. </p>
<p>There are <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-the-new-student-loan-system-more-progressive-than-its-predecessor-25468">fiscal arguments</a> for and against income-contingent repayment loans, and their increase or decrease. But ultimately, how universities are funded is not a fiscal decision but a political one. The reason to argue against the present state of tuition fees is not necessarily the cost to the Treasury of a generous repayment threshold or even levels of graduate non-repayment. Rather it is a fundamental question of inter-generational justice. </p>
<p>This is the issue that a Labour election promise could tap into and which many vice-chancellors and the parties of the Coalition seem unexpectedly blind to. But it is questionable whether the political weather in advance of the next parliament is hospitable to this final option of abolishing fees. Germany has <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-germany-managed-to-abolish-university-tuition-fees-32529">recently abandoned all tuition fees</a> for its universities. But who in England will make the case for free higher education now?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/32847/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin McQuillan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As we approach the UK general election in May 2015, a number of options are on the table for politicians considering the future of university tuition fees. The parties have not yet fully set out their…Martin McQuillan, Pro-Vice Chancellor of Research, Kingston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/309902014-08-28T10:49:52Z2014-08-28T10:49:52ZWhat can defuse the student loan time bomb?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57563/original/3bypgh4s-1409156523.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Waiting to go off. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-182742503/stock-photo-closeup-portrait-of-busy-nervous-young-man-carrying-books-clock-and-piggy-stressed-from-paying.html?src=OtYsZHsWVTlcSxPhKoKBfw-1-97">Student debt via PathDoc/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>According to a new pamphlet issued by the Social Market Foundation, “the Tories’ student loan system that finances our universities, voted through by the Lib Dems, is a timebomb waiting to go off”.</p>
<p>The author Liam Byrne, Labour’s shadow minister for universities, science and skills, rues a “free-market experiment gone wild”, but offers few insights into Labour’s preferred alternative. There is no shortage of ideas out there for him to choose from. </p>
<p>The reason the system isn’t working is because, on <a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/increasing-involvement-of-private-finance-in-the-higher-education-sector-will-have-important-consequences-for-academic-institutions-in-the-uk/">current estimates</a>, 45p for every £1 borrowed will never be paid back. </p>
<p>In a recent <a href="http://www.russellgroup.ac.uk/russell-group-latest-news/155-2014/8571-bis-select-committee-report-on-student-finance-system/">statement</a>, the Russell Group dropped several hints about what Britain’s leading universities think should happen next in terms of student funding. Responding to a Business Innovation and Skills Select Committee <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/student-loans-system-is-collapsing-mps-warn-9620049.html">report</a> that also warned of an “increasingly fragile” system, the Russell Group pointed out that graduates currently pay back “only” 9% of their annual earnings above £21,000. This, they noted, was a “far” higher repayment threshold than under the previous system before the new fee regime was introduced in 2012. </p>
<p>The statement added that the government “can, of course, change these repayment conditions in order to increase the amount of money repaid, if they so choose.” With this line, the Russell Group acknowledged that the 2012 system requires change, but stopped short of calling directly for new thresholds for student loans to pay their loans back. The decision for that would remain the government’s, as would any subsequent blame. </p>
<h2>Who benefits from a lower threshold?</h2>
<p>Some, such as LSE’s Nicholas Barr, have explicitly <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2013/may/06/student-loans-repayment-level-lowered">advocated</a> a lower opening repayment threshold. £21,000 is an arbitrary figure, for which no specific rationale was ever provided. If it were cut to, say, £15,000, a graduate earning £20,000 per year would still repay only £37.50 per month (compared to nothing now). A graduate on £25,000 would pay £75 (compared to £30 now). </p>
<p>However, such benign calculations do not address the broader question of whether lower-earning graduates should be hit harder than their higher-earning counterparts.</p>
<p>The graph below is a crude initial attempt to visualise how a reduced repayment threshold would affect graduates’ total lifetime repayments. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57558/original/r6h3gw78-1409155143.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57558/original/r6h3gw78-1409155143.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57558/original/r6h3gw78-1409155143.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57558/original/r6h3gw78-1409155143.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57558/original/r6h3gw78-1409155143.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57558/original/r6h3gw78-1409155143.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57558/original/r6h3gw78-1409155143.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57558/original/r6h3gw78-1409155143.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">What lowering the repayment threshold would mean.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Steven Jones</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The blue blocks represent how much four types of earners would currently pay back, in today’s money, in return for borrowing £9,000 in fees, plus £5,500 maintenance per year, using the defaults currently set on a popular <a href="http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/students/student-finance-calculator">student finance calculator</a>. </p>
<p>The red blocks represent approximate total repayments under a lower £15,0000 threshold for the same four groups of earners. The groups are those with starting salaries of £20,000, £30,000, £40,000 and £50,000 respectively.</p>
<p>As the graph shows, a reduced threshold would hit lower earning graduates harder than higher earning graduates (excluding those whose incomes never rise above £15,000 and who therefore receive full debt forgiveness). Higher earning graduates would be slightly better off.</p>
<h2>Punishing middle earners</h2>
<p>Note that in neither system do the very highest earning graduates repay most. As explained by the University of Bristol’s Ron Johnston, the 2012 system is <a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/student-debt-and-the-next-generation-of-british-public-sector-professionals/">regressive</a> because high earning graduates complete their repayments earlier and thereby accrue less interest on their debt. Cutting the threshold at which repayments begin would both benefit and enlarge this group. They’d be the winners.</p>
<p>The losers would be graduates who aren’t high earners. As noted in the Sutton Trust’s report, <a href="http://www.suttontrust.com/our-work/research/item/payback-time/">Payback Time</a>, under the 2012 system an “average teacher” will pay back around £42,000 of student debt, and still be making repayment in their early 50s. Under the system that was withdrawn in 2012, the same teacher would have paid around £25,000 and complete at the age of 40. The danger is that tinkering with repayment thresholds makes the current system even more punishing for such graduates.</p>
<p>On the surface, keeping a loan-based system has its advantages. The Russell Group is right to <a href="http://russellgroup.ac.uk/russell-group-latest-news/151-2012/5372-four-uk-universities-in-world-top-six/">point out</a> that UK universities punch well above their weight relative to the proportion of GDP that comes their way, and though the 2012 system failed as an austerity measure, it has safeguarded overall funding levels for most students.</p>
<p>What’s more, fears that the 2012 fees hike would deter young people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds from enrolling on full-time degree programmes appear not to have materialised. This summer’s figures have shown <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/pa/article-2724970/More-poor-students-win-uni-places.html">an 8% increase</a> among the poorest groups (though the number of <a href="http://www.suttontrust.com/news/news/18000-fewer-mature-students-apply-to-university-since-fees/">mature</a> and <a href="http://www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/news/dramatic-fall-in-the-number-of-part-time-students-owed-to-a-suffering-uk-economy-and-resulting-changes-in-public-policy/">part-time students</a> has fallen alarmingly).</p>
<h2>Give graduate tax a go</h2>
<p>An alternative approach that receives less attention is that of a <a href="http://hewatch.wordpress.com/2014/03/28/are-counter-arguments-to-a-graduate-tax-wearing-thinner-with-every-new-rab-estimate/">graduate tax</a>. Understandably, some commentators have expressed <a href="http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/a-terrible-policy-at-a-terrible-time/2012324.article">concern</a> that “hypothecated” taxes (ones earmarked for a specific purpose such as a graduate tax) might be diverted elsewhere by capricious future governments. But the principle that England’s highest earning graduates should contribute the most (or, at least, as much as their middle earning counterparts) is one that would surely enjoy popular support.</p>
<p>Liam Byrne is right. Today’s students are, as he says: “highly anxious about taking on an average of £44,000 worth of debt in an uncertain job market where nearly half of employed recent graduates are in non-graduate jobs.” </p>
<p>Of course, a graduate tax would make it trickier for universities to compete on price and therefore sits uneasily within fashionable, “<a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/putting-students-at-the-heart-of-higher-education">student-as-consumer</a>” thinking. But the alternative is that the cost of higher education, having already been transferred from taxpayer to graduate, could be further shifted from those who benefit most to those who benefit less.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/30990/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven Jones has received research funding from the Sutton Trust.</span></em></p>According to a new pamphlet issued by the Social Market Foundation, “the Tories’ student loan system that finances our universities, voted through by the Lib Dems, is a timebomb waiting to go off”. The…Steven Jones, Senior Lecturer, Manchester Institute of Education, University of ManchesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.