Dear All
I spent considerable parts of last week poring over the individualised records behind the ELQ calculations, which HEFCE released last week, as I'm sure several of my colleagues are also doing.
One point which particularly concerns me is the way students with unknown entry qualifications have been treated. In principle the concept that funding for those with an unknown level of qualification should be removed pro rata to the numbers of ELQs in the population with a known qualification is ok. The issue if the qualifications that have been treated as being of an unknown level. Working through them;
21/22 OU and other HE credits.
The difficulty here is that in HESA 2005/6 we had no way of distinguishing the level of these credits. For most students the qualification they're aiming for is going to be higher than the credits they've previously obtained. I'm thinking particularly of students transferring from one institution to another as a "direct entrant" to the second or third year of a first degree. I'm not at all convinced that ELQs will be in the same proportion as for known entry qualifications.
28 Professional qualifications
Again, we had no way of distinguishing the level of the qualification. Accepting that many of these are at degree level, I'd still question whether funding should be withdrawn from students with such qualifications studying at masters level.
56/93 Other non-advanced qualifications/Mature student admitted on basis of previous experience
Paragraph 66 of the ELQ circular released recently addresses this ( http://www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/hefce/2008/08_13/ ), but I believe does so from an irrational basis. These codes should be used for students whose qualifications are below HE level or have no qualifications. The fact that a few institutions may not have used these codes properly is not reason for penalising those of us who have. If HEFCE feel they cannot rely on the accuracy of these codes to idenitfy students aiming for ELQ they should ask us to confirm, not make an assumption. This one in particular appears to be grossly unfair on institutions with a widening participation agenda.
97 Other Non-UK qualifications of unknown level.
Here's another can of worms. There are specific QUALENT codes for EU and other overseas degrees. We use those where students have them. We've used this code where they don't. Surely, by defintion a student with this studying for first degree or PGT is not aiming for ELQ. I think we'd be hard-pressed to see that even those aiming for an "other" qualification are aiming for ELQ. If we'd known in advance of this change, or if it had applied on the basis of this year's HESA return, we'd have been returning a lot of records as "A level equivalent" and in my view doing so incorrectly.
99 Not Known
This one I'll accept. A whole 9 records for us out of the 1000+ identified.
In short, I think that most of these assumptions on HEFCE's part are at best ill-founded, at worst plain wrong. I see that para 67 of the latest circular notes "Through basing the withdrawal of funding on historical data, we have sought to keep additional burden to a minimum." Given the amounts of money involved, I think reviewing/updating this data would have been a good investment of our time.
Can I check my logic with you good folks? Have I got my thinking straight and if so is it worth further pursuing these points with our friends at HEFCE?
Regards
Paul
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Paul Norris
Head of Planning
University of Bedfordshire
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