Higher Education
Department for Business, Innovation and Skills Higher Education: Teaching Excellence, Social Mobility and Student Choice (May 2016) Proposal to change the higher education landscape
• Increasing access and success rates in higher education for those individuals that are disadvantaged, or are within under-represented groups. • Establishing new safeguards to protect students and the sector’s reputation, using a risk-based approach to regulation. • Introducing a range of reforms to create flexibility so that providers can award their own degrees. This will also allow high quality new providers to start up, achieve degree awarding powers, and secure university title status more quickly, after three years of operation.
618 responses have been received. Overall there was broad support for the overall policy objectives and the focus on teaching excellence, widening participation and putting students at the heart of the system was largely supported. Within areas such as the Teaching Excellence Framework, ongoing consultation with stakeholders throughout the transition to the new arrangements was regarded as important. There was a strong recurring message within the responses of the need to ensure that the value of the UK degree and its world class reputation must be retained. University fees to rise (July 2016) BBC News has reported that all universities will be able to charge a new upper limit on tuition fees of £9,250 per year from 2017. This increase could also apply to students who have already started their courses. Universities are not allowed to charge over the current limit of £9,000 per year until the change has been formally agreed by government.
The white paper sets out a range of reforms to the higher education and research system and builds on the proposals stated within the earlier green paper. In certain cases these plans are subject to Parliamentary approval. • The introduction of a Teaching Excellence Framework that aims to link teaching funding to quality, in order to deliver better value for money for students, employers and taxpayers. • Establishing the Office for Students (OFS) as the new regulator for all higher education providers.
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