Introduction and key proposals
This chapter sets out our proposals for a higher education sector in which all students benefit from a high quality academic experience, and are able to make more informed choices about the courses and institutions which best meet their needs.
Our key proposals:
- We will expect higher education institutions to provide a standard set of information about their courses, and we will make it easier for prospective students to find and compare this information.
- We encourage higher education institutions to publish anonymised information for prospective and existing students about the teaching qualifications, fellowships and expertise of their teaching staff at all levels.
- We invite the Higher Education Public Information Steering Group (HEPISG) to consider whether a National Student Survey of taught postgraduates should be introduced, and whether to encourage institutions to provide a standard set of information for each of their taught postgraduate courses.
- We are asking HEFCE to improve Unistats, so prospective students can make more useful comparisons between subjects at different institutions. From summer 2012, graduate salary information will be added onto Unistats.
- We will ask the main organisations that hold student data to make detailed data available publicly, including on employment and earnings outcomes, so it can be analysed and presented in a variety of formats to meet the needs of students, parents and advisors.
- We are asking UCAS and higher education institutions to make available, course by course, new data showing the type and subjects of actual qualifications held by previously successful applicants. This should help young people choose which subjects and qualifications to study at school.
- We have asked the Student Loans Company and UCAS to develop a single application portal for both higher education and student finance applications.
We seek your comments on these proposals and the impact that they will have on students and the higher education sector. You can comment via the comment box to the right or by emailing HE.consultation@bis.gsi.gov.uk
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Students starting university are not well enough informed to play a determinative role in the funding of higher education. They should be allowed to make well-informed choices after they have entered the system and got some idea of what is on offer at the institutions they have chosen. But of course neither this nor any other system which places heavy debts on students will actually enable them to make choices based on experience.
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I am now a retired teacher,but can easily remember a raft of changes that came into being on a regular basis every few years. None of it really affected the standard of the individual teachers,who continued to do a good job in the main. I doubt if these new proposals will have any real impact outside of the offices they were conceived in. Look forward to the next set of ideas
1. AMOSSHE agrees that excellent information advice and guidance (IAG) must be made available to all students. This must be coherent and clear, and the Key Information Set (KIS) can usefully contribute to this.
2. Supporting statements will help users to contextualise the data in the KIS, and meet some of the information needs set out by potential users, in particular students’ information needs. It is sensible to allow institutions to highlight the data that is particularly relevant to different students, and enable them to include other sources of information. The more contextual information that can be provided in a way that is not burdensome to institutions and does not clutter the KIS is welcome.