Thank you, convener. We welcome the opportunity to speak to the committee, because we have serious concerns about the legislative consent motion, which will link Scottish institutions with the United Kingdom Government’s Higher Education and Research Bill. The UCU has been opposing that bill at UK level because, basically, it introduces the teaching excellence framework. It does not actually reference TEF, but it provides the mechanism to allow the framework to come into being. That will be a competitive and marketised way of measuring education. At UK level, the reason for the teaching excellence framework is supposedly to measure quality, but it allows institutions in England to increase tuition fees. It seems ironic that, in Scotland, where the Scottish Government has enabled Scotland-domiciled students to access education without tuition fees—which the UCU has welcomed—we have a legislative consent motion that will allow Scottish universities to sign up to the teaching excellence framework.
We feel that the metrics in the framework, which are around student destinations after university and student satisfaction, are flawed. There is a lot of evidence that raises questions about the value of student satisfaction surveys. The legislative consent motion will allow universities in Scotland to sign up to a system that the UK Government says that it will introduce, and that is about increasing tuition fees. That is a real difficulty. To be fair to our institutions in Scotland, they have been put in an unfortunate position, because they want to be attractive and to compete globally and in the UK. We get the sense that some institutions are thinking that they need to be in TEF because they need to have their teaching graded and assessed in that way. TEF will put institutions into a gold, silver or bronze category based on their teaching. Institutions such as the University of Edinburgh and the University of St Andrews feel that they will be left behind if they do not sign up.
Our theory is that there will be a domino effect among all other institutions in Scotland, which will think that they need to participate. In fact, however, Scotland already has effective quality assurance mechanisms to review teaching. Those are very much peer reviewed and they look at quality. They involve a holistic assessment to look at and measure teaching. Obviously, my colleagues will speak for themselves, but I am confident that they will say that Scotland has a very effective quality assurance mechanism to measure our teaching.
We have heard worrying comments from the UK Government about linking the award that TEF will give institutions to their ability to bring in more overseas students—that is, it will be linked with immigration issues. The UK Government’s narrative on immigration has been deeply worrying, as has been hearing that in the dialogue on TEF.
The Scottish Government is reviewing education governance and early years school education. In the documents for that, the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills says:
“Evidence shows that co-operation and collaboration, not competition or marketisation, drives improvement.”
I absolutely agree with the cabinet secretary on that point, but it is really worrying that we have a legislative consent motion that seeks to enable Scottish institutions to participate in a system that we think will be flawed, that we will not have effective controls and influence over, and that is really to do with privatisation, marketisation and the ability to increase tuition fees in England. That will inevitably have a knock-on effect in Scotland.