LONDON, Aug 3 — Universities are failing to safeguard standards leading to a rapid rise in top degrees, a committee of MPs said in a report yesterday.
The committee said the system for safeguarding quality was out of date and inconsistent and said they was complacency in leadership.
Universities rejected the accusations and said the report was “ill thought-through”.
The Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee said it was unacceptable that vice-chancellors could not give a straightforward answer to whether degrees awarded at different universities required the same intellectual standards.
“The public purse supports higher education to the tune of £15 billion (RM88.57 billion) and it is essential those studying at higher education institutions are awarded degrees that measure accurately and consistently the intellectual development and skills that students have achieved,” the report said.
Last year 61 per cent of degrees awarded were either first or upper seconds, while the proportion was just 53 per cent in 1997.
“We are extremely concerned that inconsistency is rife and there is a reluctance to address this issue,” said Phil Willis, the committee chairman.
The report said the body which oversees standards needed radical transformation and should be transformed into an independent body with a specific remit to maintain academic quality.
“Maintaining standards is absolutely vital but we reject the suggestion that the way to improve the system that protects standards is to create some super-quango,” said Diana Warwick of Universities UK.
“The raft of centralising recommendations appear to us ill thought-through, disproportionate to the scale of any problem identified, and made without supporting evidence.” – Reuters
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