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Further Education and Training Bill [HL]

My Lords, I shall address a number of points on Clause 19. I shall start by underlining the point made by a number of speakers—including the noble Lord, Lord Sawyer, the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, and my noble friend Lady Murphy—about the dangers of putting at risk the achievement that is already in the system: the good partnerships between universities and FE colleges. There is a myth that that is largely, perhaps only, to do with post-1992 universities, but that is not the case. I was in King’s College London this morning—and I declare an interest as pro-chancellor of the University of London, of which King’s is a significant member—where concerns were raised with me about precisely this point. King’s has invested a great deal in linking up with FE colleges and putting on foundation degree programmes that integrate well with its own degree offerings as part of the wider college. The word ““dismay”” would be too strong because King’s is a robust institution with a robust principal and good leadership, but there was some concern and uncertainty about the messages coming from this legislation to institutions already in this business. That being said, the main points I want to make in the core of my comments have to do with quality assurance in the Clause 19 proposals. Clause 19 covers the granting of powers to award both foundation degrees and honorary foundation degrees. I decided that it was a step too far to talk about quality assurance in the context of the award of honours, as that is a rather hot topic around this building these days, so I shall confine my remarks to quality assurance in foundation degrees. There are two separate tasks in quality assurance: to assure the quality of the process in the education being offered; and to assure quality in what we used to call standards, what are now called outcomes. Those are separate needs that must be met in any adequate quality assurance programme. It might be worth while to remind your Lordships how that works in the two parts of the education system that, so to speak, straddle the further education sector. The first is schools. There is a clear process for looking at how education is delivered in schools and providing an assurance of quality, and that is the mechanism of inspection. There is alsoa clear process for looking at how standards and outcomes are maintained across the system. That operates significantly through having a national curriculum and national external tests and examinations. In the school sector, those deal together with quality assurance in process and in standards and outcomes. In the university sector, quality assurance in process follows the academic audit route, which is the responsibility of the Quality Assurance Agency. Quality assurance in standards and outcomes is significantly the responsibility of external examiners. People may argue about how effective such mechanisms are, but there are mechanisms in place that can be used to test the quality of what is being delivered in process and in standards or outcomes. In the university sector, significant tests are set also by professional bodies such as those for accountancy, the General Medical Council, the General Dental Council, the institutes of engineering and so on. There are professional bodies that to help determine and assure the quality of outcomes and standards. One has to ask what equivalent processes are being proposed for the further education sector. I stress that there are two needs here: one is process, and one has to do with outcomes. Those have clearly not been thought through in any detail. Noble Lords would want some reassurance on how those processes are to be operated and indeed about what they are to be. I do not think that we can simply pick up the system operating in the schools or in the universities. However, there is a need to develop a means of assuring ourselves on process and on outcomes and the quality of both. Could the Minister—perhaps in his concluding remarks, but certainly in Committee—elaborate on how the Government envisage these processes taking place? If this system is to work—and I am not presently taking a view on whether we should go ahead with it, though it is clearly the Government’s intention that it should work—then quality assurance processes must be out in the open to give confidence about the system and to those who operate within it. I have two final, short comments. One does not have to be a card-carrying church member to see the point of what our two right reverend Prelates discussed. I am not sure that I would agree with them on every detail of what social, cultural, moral and spiritual education amounts to, but there is an issue there that they are addressing. As a non-card-carrying church member I simply underline the importance of those issues. Finally, I commend to the Minister the suggestions made by the noble Lord, Lord Baker, not simply about how Scots should vote—I do not know how that applies in this House—but about looking more broadly at the possibility of pilot studies of institutions operating for 14 to 19 year-olds in an integrated fashion. Now is the time for bold thinking. The Education and Inspections Act 2006 provides room to experiment with ways of conceiving new patterns of education. The 14 to 19 year-old bracket is one worth thinking about very seriously indeed. I look forward to the Minister’s comments on quality assurance.