Great expectations: the challenge to prove the quality of British HE

Without binding quality assurance, there is a risk that consumer power will lower standards rather not raise them, says Kim Catcheside. The Telegraph newspaper's exposure of apparent irregularities in the conduct of exam boards in England and Wales has prompted difficult questions about the role of the market in the examinations system.

On Thursday, senior executives from the boards were grilled by the Commons education select committee. The Conservative chairman of the committee, Graham Stuart commended the Telegraph for carrying out a "public service in exposing the actions of some very senior examiners". He said the stories were "shocking and suggest there may be a need for radical changes". The education secretary, Michael Gove is conducting his own enquiry. It is striking how quick even the most ardent advocates market forces are to condemn, when competition shows its seamy side.
At the same time, the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) published the new UK Quality Code for Higher Education. The director of research, development and partnerships at the QAA, Jayne Mitchell explained: "We have worked with students and academic colleagues to identify the principles on which institutions should base the standard of their academic awards, the quality of their teaching, learning and assessment, and the information they make available. For the first time, we're including a set of Expectations that all UK higher education providers are required to meet."
I find the language quite interesting. How can one be required to meet an expectation? In my mind, expectation is more easily linked with hope than any sort of mandatory requirement. I confess these doubts had been planted on Wednesday by a lecture from Roger Brown, the professor of HE policy at Liverpool Hope University. He questions how binding the new code will be on universities, as he says: "Under existing UK law, institutions with degree awarding powers alone have the right to determine the conditions associated with their awards."
He contrasts the tough language of "requirements" with the far more mutable tone in the introduction of the new code which says: "The Quality Code gives individual higher education providers, who are independent and self-governing, a shared starting point for setting, describing and maintaining the academic standards of their higher education programmes and awards and for assuring the quality of the learning opportunities they provide for students. "This makes it possible to ensure that higher education provision and outcomes are comparable and consistent at a threshold level across the UK" (Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education, 2011b: 3).
Professor Brown takes issue with the government's faith that greater market forces in HE will raise academic standards, which he suggests is "nonsense on stilts". He argues that there is a contradiction between the quality assurance system which is based on shared principles and mutual professional trust and the market where competition and supposedly informed consumer choices are expected to drive improvements. Without binding quality assurance, there is a risk that consumer power will lower standards rather than raise them. It will be more difficult to fail students who have paid £27,000 for a degree. There are also flaws in the idea that students will hold universities to public account for their failings. It's not in the student's interests to undermine the brand or reputation of the institution they have invested so much to attend.
Years ago, I interviewed students about the NSS. I was struck by the testimony of several who said that although they were unhappy with the standard of teaching and assessment, they had not marked their university down in the survey because this could lower the value of their degrees to the outside world. There is a resonance in professor Brown's warning. Perhaps we should remember the fall of Barings Bank and how inadequate the cosy assumption of "gentleman's agreements" proved after the big bang.