England¡¯s higher education review may recommend the creation of a ¡°more hands-on¡± regulator for higher education which also oversees post-18 skills training, sector experts have predicted.

With the Office for Students only due to become fully?operational?in April after the hard-fought passage of legislation last year, ministers are unlikely to want to revisit the issue of a new higher education regulator.

However, the review¡¯s?, which call for a ¡°joined-up post-18 education and training sector¡­delivering the skills our country needs¡±, might make the recommendation of a new overarching tertiary education?regulator?inevitable, said Andy Westwood, professor of government practice at the?University of Manchester.

¡°If you want to look at developing the whole tertiary education sector, you have to look at the bodies overseeing it ¨C you cannot just wish for a better tertiary system,¡± said Professor Westwood.

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At present, the ¡°highly interventionist¡± Education and Skills Funding Agency in charge of post-18 vocational training and the ¡°light-touch, let the market rip¡± OfS are ¡°about as different as they could be¡±, he explained.

¡°For instance, the ESFA has stepped in to prop up a number of providers, but the OfS has promised that it will not do that,¡± he said, adding that these two bodies would need to be brought together.

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The focus on expanding technical-level qualifications was commendable but ¡°if you are going to intervene this much, then the OfS model is not going to work¡±, added Professor Westwood.

The inclusion of Baroness Wolf of Dulwich, author of the influential 2011 Wolf report on vocational education and Sir Roy Griffiths professor of public sector management at?King¡¯s College?London, on the review?also suggested that a more interventionist approach to rebalancing tertiary education could be among the final recommendations, said Professor Westwood.

Speaking on the BBC¡¯s?programme on 20 February, Lady Wolf said that the UK had an ¡°extraordinarily unfair, bifurcated system in which huge amounts of money go into higher education¡­and the technical and vocational sector [is] starved of funds¡±. She added that a ¡°core part of the review is to bring these bits [of post-18 education] together¡±.

However, Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, said Lady Wolf¡¯s ¡°diagnosis of problems within tertiary education seems to be stronger than her prescriptions to solve them¡±.

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¡°The issue with ¡®rebalancing¡¯ is that there is not a single pot of money that you can take from higher education and give to further education,¡± said Mr Hillman, who explained that the system of income-contingent loan repayments accessed by university students would not work for further education students. Professor Westwood¡¯s idea of a new regulator was a ¡°valid point¡± given the aims of the review, he added.

Given that the review¡¯s recommendations must be ¡°consistent with the government¡¯s fiscal policies to reduce the deficit¡±, they would ¡°almost certainly disappoint many people who want it to sort out part-time student funding [and] further education, reintroduce maintenance grants and reduce the burden of student debt¡±, Mr Hillman added.

¡°With all this, you would very quickly get a bill of ?10 billion, which is roughly what it would cost to scrap tuition fees,¡± he said.

jack.grove@timeshighereducation.com