The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) has today opened a consultation on the key principles that should underpin its future criteria for a methodology for the funding of teaching at English institutions. It looks to confirm institution’s freedom to manage provision in a way that best responds to the needs of students, employers and society. It also promises to deliver teaching that serves the public interest and encourages flexible modes of study.
Commenting on HEFCE’s proposals, Alice Hynes, GuildHE CEO, said:
“GuildHE welcomes the opportunity provided by HEFCE for institutions and representative bodies in the FE and HE sectors to update a funding method that has managed to remain largely unaltered during a decade of rapid change in both the economic and the pedagogical landscape. The adaptations that have been made have created more complexity making it harder for stakeholders but also for participants to understand and in its present form it is not fit for purposes of 21st Century higher education. GuildHE will be a keen contributor to the consultation, which appears at a time of increasing pressure on public expenditure and when there is a need for an effective and more easily understood methodology.
“It is helpful that HEFCE, which distributes public funds on behalf of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, is undertaking this analysis at a time when an overarching set of considerations on funding for higher education and the financial support structures for students is being undertaken by Lord Browne.”
For more information, please contact:
Alice Hynes, CEO GuildHE
tel. 020 7387 7711
alice.hynes@guildhe.ac.uk
Notes to editors
1. HEFCE’s consultation on the principles and features that it should use to inform a revised methodology for funding teaching in English HEIs is available here
2. This is the latest in a series of consultations by HEFCE on revisions to the method of allocating a block grant of public money from the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills that has been in place since 1997-98, one year before the introduction of tuition fees.
3. The current method of funding of higher education is set out by HEFCE in its guide to ‘How HEFCE Allocates its Funds’
4. GuildHE is a recognised representative organisation within the higher education sector.
5. GuildHE members, lead institutions which emphasise a strong focus on teaching alongside research, are among the most dynamic and fastest-growing institutions in higher education. For a list of GuildHE institutions, please click here