Labour's legislation

There are two schools of thought relating to the design of a first programme of legislation after an electoral landslide. On the one hand, now is your moment to push through difficult or unpopular laws, taking advantage of post-election goodwill and a (mostly) unified party. The other approach is to take a mixture of useful and totemic bills that are eminently deliverable within a single year. Last week’s King’s Speech indicates that the new Labour government has adopted the latter approach.

Forty bills is a lot to take at a canter (Rishi Sunak’s last session had just seventeen) but getting them all through would underline a commitment to delivery and confirm that this is a government that will make things happen.

The first delivery for post-compulsory education will be a new arms-length body, Skills England, tasked with forecasting and coordinating skills provision, including identifying high-quality skills provision that employers could legitimately spend their Apprenticeship Levy on in addition to apprenticeships. Overnight we learned that Richard Pennycook – former chief executive of the Co-operative Group and a non-executive director of the Department for Education – will be the interim chair of the new body.

The Skills England Bill, when it arrives in the autumn, will link in to the planned English Devolution Bill, which will seek to complete the devolution map in England and put Local Growth Plans on a statutory footing – though, for the interim (at least) there is no massive shift of funding or power away from the centre.

As Universities UK chief executive Vivienne Stern observed on The Wonkhe Show this week, many of the bills proposed have a direct or indirect implication for higher education, as does the announcement of the formation of a new Industrial Strategy Council. For example, employment rights, planning and infrastructure, housing rights, digital information, pensions, mental health, and even buses are all topics higher education institutions might be expected to have a view on, and each bill is an opportunity for a debate as MPs and lords seek to influence the final legislation.

We would not have expected to see measures to address the sector’s financial instability in legislation plans, but hopes remain high of policy action from the Secretary of State. A rapid audit of the sector’s position, along similar lines to that already under way for the NHS, is a plausible first step, and would inform any subsequent stability measures.

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There’s a smattering of other planned legislation that would have an impact on the sector. David Kernohan runs through what is on the menu over on Wonk Corner.

As the government’s agenda crystallises, James Coe looks at the challenges and opportunities for universities in Labour’s big economic idea.

On Wonk Corner, Jim Dickinson looks at the ways in which a Mental Health Bill and a proposed “duty of candour” could impact universities and their staff.

Majority rules

National Student Survey results recently may have offered some reassurance to beleaguered educators. They may, at a more granular subject or course level, have indicated areas for concern, and at qualitative level a possible explanation of what was driving the results. What it cannot offer to any of the students who filled it out is the opportunity to have their concerns seen and addressed.

As “the student experience” is visibly more fragmented, and more and more students are facing financial and wellbeing challenges, and the more that is understood about how students’ experiences are filtered through their individual circumstances – and their sense of belonging and connection – the more the idea of using students’ collective voice as a means of assuring quality in retrospect feels like a low-impact use of resources.

The alternative, as evasys managing director Bruce Johnson sets out on the site this morning, is adopting survey practice that approaches students as individuals and seeks to respond to evidence of struggle and concern with action. Including examples of early module check-in surveys, whole-student surveys, and pre-arrival surveys, Bruce shows how student surveys can integrate into institutional strategies for student support, retention, and success.

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As more students struggle with their academic progress and wellbeing, Bruce Johnson explains why the majority view is not always the key data point.

Boom boom boom bust

With the list of ministerial responsibilities complete, one of the questions we’ve been musing on at Wonkhe towers is who will be handed the baton when a press enquiry or a backbench question comes in over student accommodation.

We’re pondering that partly because the last government seemed to play a game of pass-the-hot-potato between the education and housing departments whenever there was an issue – but with Labour set on recooking Michael Gove’s run at abolishing “no fault” evictions via a Renters’ Rights Bill, we’d all want to avoid Department for Education ministers saying that the state plays “no role”, while colleagues over in what is now the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government again draft reforms.

It matters because the issues of rent increases and the mismatch between supply and demand haven’t gone away – and after a couple of years where that see-saw was tipped towards undersupply, several cities now seem to be slipping into having too many beds. If your instinct is, “That will increase competition and bring down rents,” we have sympathy – but as Jim Dickinson points out on the site this morning, the reality is rarely that simple.

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With recruitment of international students under increasing pressure, Jim Dickinson interrogates what happens when the purpose-built blocks to house them fall empty.

International foundation years

Back in January, the press was fizzing with the news that international foundation years and international year ones exist. An investigation by the Sunday Times insight team (which probably won’t be a career highlight for anyone) leaned far too hard into the canard about displacing home students by secretly lowering entry requirements, but it did convince Universities UK of the need to demonstrate that the house was indeed in order via a commissioned review from the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA).

Last week saw the review published, and based on the examples seen by the agency, the sector has a broadly clean bill of health. Like any course delivered by an academic partner, comparability with traditional provision is not always perfect – and the key recommendation was for providers to check things like assessment plans and progression routes – but there is no systemic evidence that the international pathways require a lower academic standard to progress.

The caveat here is that the assessments were based on bespoke data delivered voluntarily. Neither Universities UK nor QAA had the power to compel providers to get involved, so the pool of evidence exhibits a pronounced sample bias. For established providers in good standing, there is no problem a few tweaks to admissions, assessment, and international recruitment codes couldn’t solve. But outside of the traditional universities, there is still an open question.

Read more on Wonkhe:

There may still be an underlying issue with pathway-focused international courses, but the QAA has found that – in mainstream providers at least – there is no cause for concern. David Kernohan reads the report.

On this week's HE agenda...

Monday 22 July

• In Westminster, the debate on the King’s Speech continues in both chambers.
• Secretary of State for Education Bridget Phillipson will make a written statement on skills reform.
• The Quality Assurance Agency will publish a resource exploring issues of sustainable development in transnational education.

Tuesday 23 July

• The King’s Speech debate continues in the House of Commons and the House of Lords.
• The Education Policy Institute will publish a report on tackling the attainment gap faced by disadvantaged 16- to 19-year-olds.

Wednesday 24 July

• In the House of Commons, it’s Prime Minister’s Question Time, followed by a debate on education and opportunity.
• GuildHE’s Human Resources Network will hold a conference in Birmingham.

Thursday 25 July

• The Office for Students will publish student outcomes data dashboards, updated TEF indicators, and the annual access and participation dataset.
• The Department for Education will release statistics on initial teacher training outcomes for 2022–23, and publish experimental statistics on apprenticeship starts by industry characteristics.

Friday 26 July

• The House of Commons will debate making Britain a clean energy superpower.