‘Lecturers are better at smaller universities’
ELITE universities dramatically plunge down national rankings when judged on their quality of teaching, a study has revealed.
They are beaten by small campuses and newer institutions after students’ experience is favoured over standards of research.
Critics have previously accused top universities of putting research first and using their ‘designer label’ to attract undergraduates.
Institutions are set to be banded according to their teaching ability, with those in the top tier allowed to charge the highest fees.
The shake-up, outlined in a government White Paper last month, is intended to encourage universities to raise standards of teaching.
But an analysis of 120 universities by the Times Higher Education magazine shows that new accountability measures result in many top institutions falling down league tables.
Loughborough University comes out on top, followed by Aston University, Birmingham, and De Montfort University, Leicester.
Not a single university from the elite Russell Group appears in the top ten and just three – Cambridge (12th), Durham (16th) and Birmingham (18th) – make it into the top 20. Oxford is ranked 28th and Imperial College London in 37th place.
This contrasts to the magazine’s annual world league table, which focuses more heavily on research performance and currently has Oxford in first place among UK institutions, Cambridge in second and Imperial College third.
Times Higher Education took three core measures under the Government’s planned Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) – student satisfaction, graduate employment and retention – to rank the universities. Universities in the Russell Group and some ‘select’ pre-1992 universities ‘perform well’ according to the raw data, the study reveals.
But when they are benchmarked against expected performance, taking into account factors such as the range of courses, entry qualifications and ethnicity – as will happen in future – they slump down the rankings.
Magazine editor John Gill said: ‘While many in higher education have doubts about the TEF proposals, the fact is that the Government is pressing ahead with its plans, and our analysis shows how challenging it could be for universities that have built their reputations on research strength alone.’
But Dr Wendy Piatt, of the Russell Group, said: ‘It would be wrong to attach any weight to the results in these tables which are based on only one year’s data (compared to the Government’s preferred three years) and on a methodology which doesn’t meet Office for National Statistics standards. Until the data are fit for purpose, any analysis is likely to be inaccurate and misleading.’
‘Reputations for research’