The UK government should learn from the US¡¯ mistakes when looking at ways to reform its higher education system and measure teaching and learning quality, a conference has heard.

Richard Garrett, director of the Observatory on Borderless Higher Education (OBHE), said that although there is ¡°often ill-informed reverence for the US system¡±, it would benefit the UK to ¡°truly understand the details and nuances¡± rather than to ¡°assume the elite schools somehow characterise the entire system¡±.

Answering questions at last week¡¯s OBHE annual conference in London, after a session on how other countries¡¯ experiences could inform?England¡¯s teaching excellence framework, Mr Garrett said: ¡°The US has some real lessons and warning signs as to what can go wrong when you try to innovate without adequate regulation or recruit very non-traditional students without regulating the student experience.¡±

He added: ¡°There¡¯s not enough centralisation [in the US]. There¡¯s perhaps excessive diversity at times. The relationship between price and value isn¡¯t very clear. So I think the UK is trying to get the best of greater diversity and more flexibility on price, but without inheriting some of the downsides.¡±

ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ

During his speech, Mr Garrett said that ¡°most countries seem to be trying to emulate the US in some way¡±. ¡°The UK, for example, is moving away from essentially zero fees to more market-based fees. [There is] diversification of provision, more private provision,¡± he said.

However, he warned, there is ¡°growing anxiety and tension¡± over return on investment in the US. He presented data showing that students under the age of 21 who study full-time have more than an 81 per cent chance of graduating within six years. But, he said, as you get ¡°more non-traditional¡± by delivery mode or by age, ¡°the chance of graduating gets slimmer and slimmer¡±.

ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ

He also spoke about the , which provides data for each US university on measures such as graduation rates, tuition fees and graduate salaries, with the aim of allowing prospective students to compare institutions.

¡°What¡¯s striking is there is really nothing about the actual student experience,¡± Mr Garrett said. ¡°The government is trying to capture something it really can¡¯t capture. That makes schools anxious, and ultimately students don¡¯t have a particularly full picture of what¡¯s going on.¡±

Carolyn Campbell, a?senior consultant at the OBHE,?also spoke at the conference. She suggested that the UK should wait until the outcomes of the Higher Education Funding Council for England¡¯s?¡°learning gain¡± projects have been revealed before ¡°setting some of the measurements and metrics for teaching excellence¡±.

ellie.bothwell@tesglobal.com