While a handful of colleges have been given powers to award their own degrees, the majority remain at the mercy of a university partner to validate their programmes.
In recent years, the relationship between higher and further education institutions has, in many cases, been a tense one. Between 2012 and 2014, 24 colleges were left searching for new partners after Leeds Beckett University (formerly known as Leeds Metropolitan) terminated its accreditation agreements.
In March, Teesside University announced that it would stop validating the degrees offered by all its partner colleges outside the Tees Valley from 2017 - a move affecting 10 colleges, including some of the country’s largest FE institutions.
Now, with competition increasing between institutions on both sides of the HE-FE divide, a new partner has come to the rescue of several colleges: the Open University (OU).
The organisation, renowned for its distance learning programmes, validates HE provision for 30 partners. Of these, 12 are colleges, with two more deals in the pipeline, making it one of the main players in the sector.
According to Liz Marr, director of its Centre for Inclusion and Collaborative Partnerships, the OU has a total of 6,179 students registered in FE colleges. These figures don’t include five colleges added to its network in September.
Level footing
The wider policy context is a complex one. In May, the government announced in its HE White Paper that it would introduce new rules to make it easier for colleges to gain their own degree-awarding powers. At present, these powers are wielded by only a small minority.
While 244 colleges in England offer HE qualifications, only six have their own foundation degree-awarding powers. In September, one of them, NCG (formerly the Newcastle College Group), became the first college to receive full taught degree-awarding powers, putting it on a level footing with universities.
The impact of the White Paper proposals remains to the seen. Dr Marr told TES that the OU’s expansion of its validation programme would be affected by these external changes to the sector.
It is really important students get a choice of where and how to study, and [an FE college] is an option that is sometimes the only one that is open to a student
The OU’s current growth follows a period in which it reduced the number of outside providers it worked with. At its peak, these numbered more than 100.
“We have been in this business for a long time, since 1992,” Dr Marr said. “More latterly, we reduced quite a bit while we focused on how we pushed up the quality of the service.”
For example, the OU looked at how the procedures used for approval by validators could be more closely aligned. “That is one of the reasons we were able to move so quickly with New College Durham and Leeds City College,” Dr Marr added, “because they had been validated already and there was no reason for us to question that…
“The other thing we think is really important has to do with transparency, particularly around costing. We don’t charge per student, we charge for activity. So it costs the same [for colleges] with 10 and with 100 students.”
Opening up access to students who came from families where going to university was not the norm was also a shared goal for the OU and the FE sector, Dr Marr explained. “I feel it is really important students get a choice of where and how to study, and I am very aware that [an FE college] is an option that is sometimes the only one that is open to a student. It is very much about opening access, which is the mission of the Open University.”
Income incentive
The strategy is also pragmatic: it is designed to boost the university’s income in the face of a drop in part-time student numbers.
Nationally, the number of undergraduate part-time students in England decreased by 46 per cent between 2009-10 and 2014-15. With the OU being the institution of choice for more than half of all part-time students taking their first degree, the impact has been severe, making the need for it to find other income streams more acute.
“Of course, we would be disingenuous if we said we would do it if we didn’t get any money, but ultimately it is mission-oriented,” Dr Marr said. “Cynics might say that, because of the turndown in part-time student numbers, it might be a strategy we are using. And it would be disingenuous to say that wasn’t the case, but it is not the primary mover.”
Dr Marr insisted that ensuring the quality of provision the OU validated remained of paramount importance, and said the university didn’t have a target for how many college partners it wanted to attract.
“There should be choice and we shouldn’t be the only validators,” she said. “It is crucial that we maintain the standard of HE in the UK. Quality cannot be compromised. An Open University degree is an Open University degree. The student is entitled to expect that.”
@JBelgutay
