A piece prepared for the ECC by the Institute of Welsh Affairs
Higher Education policy is devolved to Wales, however the impact of English policy persists in placing the Welsh Government in a difficult position when it comes to our Universities.
Higher education policy in Wales has been defined over the last three years by the Government’s separate approach to tuition fees policy and a distinct move against the English grain. In England funding for Universities was cut in 2010 by 80%, with Universities being asked to make up the difference with higher fees. The Welsh Government decided to cushion Universities in Wales and limited the cut to 12%. Nonetheless they raised their fees by the same amount as English
Universities, partly in order to avoid being seen as a ‘cheap alternative’.
In 2010 (a year before the Assembly elections) the Minister for Education and Skills, Leighton
Andrews, announced that Welsh students would be protected from the rise in fees. With basic fees rising to £6000 and most Universities in Wales set to charge close to the maximum of £9000, the
Welsh Government committed to subsidise any increase over the previous flat rate of £3290 per annum (adapted according to interest annually). Notably this applied to Welsh students who study in
Wales and those who leave to study across the border, which on average costs the Welsh
Government £4500 per student annually.
The tuition fees subsidy has proved controversial, with concerns that this policy would result in a
‘brain drain’ from Wales, whilst money from the Welsh budget was funding Universities in England.
After the introduction of the subsidy in 2010, figures from UCAS show that the number of Welsh students studying in Welsh institutions had dropped 15.3% from the following year with the number of Welsh students on courses at English institutions increasing 12.6% over the same period.
In January 2014 Higher Education Wales claimed that Universities in Wales could lose a further
£7.1m to English institutions by 2015/6 following a predicted increase in Welsh students studying in
Wales due to the removal of the cap on recruiting for English Universities by UK Chancellor, George
Osborne.
The resignation of the Education Minister Leighton Andrews - the architect of the policy - in the summer of 2013 opened the way for a fresh approach. The new Minister, Huw Lewis, commissioned a review into the way higher education is funded in Wales in November 2013, by Sir Ian Diamond.
This has been heavily criticised by the main opposition party, with the Welsh Conservatives who responded to the move stating that, "While this announcement is being dressed up as a wider review of HE funding, it looks like wolf's clothing for scrapping Labour's unsustainable £3.6bn tuition fees policy, which had been due to run for nine years.
”. The Liberal Democrats however, have welcomed the review saying that it shows that the Welsh Government have recognised that their Higher
Education policy is unsustainable.
A point of criticism from the other parties too was that the Diamond Review was initially not expected to report back to the Welsh Government until after the next Assembly election in 2016.
However, in February it was announced that a factual summary of findings will be published in
Autumn 2015. This has meant that all three opposition parties in the Assembly have now agreed to be involved in the review after previously refusing to do so due to the time scale.
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Another feature of the Welsh Government’s Programme for Government commitments to Higher
Education policy is the emphasis on creating a smaller number of stronger universities. Last year, the
University of Glamorgan and the University of Newport finally merged creating the University of
South Wales, where 35000 students currently study. Controversy at this time, however, was rife following the Education Minister’s consultation on the merger which touted that the two merge with another University, Cardiff Metropolitan, who publicly opposed this pressure. Following the threat of judicial review the Government did not force the point and Cardiff Metropolitan University remains an independent institution.
Wales faces an ongoing challenge in competing with larger institutions, where more choice is available. Given these factors it is not surprising that so many chose to study across the border. In the Guardian’s annual league tables for higher education institutions, Cardiff University, the only
Russell Group University in Wales, polled at 29th in the UK, the highest polling institution in Wales.
Only two other institutions make the top 100, Swansea (60) and Aberystwyth (88).
The run up until the Assembly elections in 2016 looks set to mark a time of change for higher education institutions in Wales. The Further and Higher Education (Wales) Act became law on the
27th January 2014, and will seek to ‘enhance the autonomy of higher education institutions in
Wales’. It will also reverse classification changes to FE institutions undertaken by the ONS in 2010.
Crucially the Act will also reconfigure and expand the role of the General Teaching Council for Wales to include the registration and regulation of school teaching support staff and all lecturers and support staff in the FE sector.
With changes here yet to be fully implemented, a new Minister appointed in July 2013 and the forthcoming review into Higher education funding in Wales, Higher Education institutions look set to face changes that will take higher education policy in Wales further still away from the policies in
England.
Prepared by Jessica Blair,
Policy Analyst at the Institute of Welsh Affairs.
February 2014
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