Wolverhampton to cut up to 250 jobs

How about saving through cutting of administrative jobs, in particular, upper administrators with high salaries? Why should those who made or sanctioned the errors in misreporting to HEFCE be protected from job cuts while lower level administrators and teaching staff suffer the brunt of the cuts, to the detriment of the student experience? It's time there was some personal accountability at the level of the administration, as in the VC, Prof Caroline Gipps. After she and other bureaucrats are made redundant, then, if there are still budget shortfalls, we can talk about making teaching staff redundant.

Howard Fredrics In can understand your arguments except that the data originates from depts and from the lecturer in the trenches. Drop outs are high in new universities (some widening acccess arguments when these drop out) and progression decisions are suspect. This has happened in another university proving that these univesities are in the numbers game.

This has happened at another 'new' university, but it is total rubbish to assert that two instances at two different institutions proves anything whatsoever about 'new' universities in general. Teaching staff at these instituions face challenges that those at more 'elite' / selective institutions rarely do. They often have high teaching loads, are under constant pressure to improve retention, and work with students who are at significant risk of non-completion due to financial pressures that the well-heeled young things that predominantly populate Russell Group institutions rarely worry about. The 'new' universities are improving opportunities for the disadvantaged, whereas the 'elite' mainly (not exclusively) serve to reinforce the advantages of the already privileged. We need much greater levels of student support to enable all students to study. We should abolish tuition fees. Education is a right not a privilege. And it does matter.

I agree with 'Business Balderash and Bunkum' that education is a right not a privilege and admire them for suggesting to abolish the tution fees. However, who is going to pay for the shortfall in the revenue of academic institutions if tution fees are abolished? I guess the money will come from the government which in turn will increase the taxes or may be the staff and faculty members(including the administrators) can be pursuaded to take pay cut in order to abolish the tution fees. Unfortunately, there are compelling arguments for increasing tution fees because of the ever esclating costs in HE sector. In Canada students, who can not afford the expense of HE work part time during the academic terms and full time during the vacations and are provided student loans at generous terms by the provincial governments to fund their studies.I guess this is the only practical solution in the current economic climate.

"They often have high teaching loads, are under constant pressure to improve retention, and work with students who are at significant risk of non-completion due to financial pressures " So non-completion has nothing to do with poor academic ability of students which universities like this recruit in thousands without bothering with their entry qualifications because the university wants to "widen access" to them. Yes education is a basic right, hence come in students even if your entry qualification is primary school pass. In 3 years we at the Wolverhampton U will convert you into degree holders of the calibre of oxbridge students. Who said primary school pass is not adequate for university entry?

@Another new university in the news.. The marching orders to inflate retention/pass rates and to misreport these rates comes from one place and one place only -- Senior Management, who transmits this order to Deans, who transmit it to Heads of School, to Department Heads and finally to Lecturers, who are faced with the untenable choice of complying with the fraud or losing their jobs. Most don't have the courage or legal support to fight back and so they dutifully comply. Why do Senior Mangers and their minions do this? Because they get big fat bonuses, promotions and other perks for doing so.

'poor academic ability', my friend, actually means ill-prepared for the HE system. Why are they ill-prepared? Well, for a variety of reasons, the most important of which is that they do not have access to the culture and language of privilege. Why are they denied this? Beacuse the cultural background of (still) the majority of people in this country is not the same as the (still) elitist culture of HE which is (still) a watered down version of medieval academicism. In other words - if you don't know the lingo, and you haven't acquired thr right culture, traditions, ways of behaviour/doing things, its much much harder to get on. There is (still) a clash of cultures between the masses and the culture of education. Bernstein's ianalysis is as right as ever. We have a tiered education system, with each offered an 'education' appropriate to his class/culture. Only an idiot can claim that those without qualifications are 'naturally' not intelligent or academic. They are simply those who have not been initiated into the right cultures. Dumped at schools where aspirations are low and intellectual achievement is utterly alien, hundreds of thousands of young people are annually denied the opportunity to 'maximise their potential'. And I too do believe in high standards. Just with eyes open to the injustice of those who prefer to exclude in order to preserve their own position of advantage.

In any other industry/enterprise those responsible for this error would have been sacked, but not the case at the above HEI. Instead, the staff pay the price. Wolverhampton does have a history of workplace bullying, and it is not surprising that the management got it wrong again.

Business Balderdash and Bunkum What a pathetic apologist! Parents are not responsible and students are not responsible either. What a delirious socialist rant!

"Wolverhampton does have a history of workplace bullying, and it is not surprising that the management got it wrong again" Close these institutions.

Well said "What a pathetic apologist". It is this stupiid idea that everyone deserves and should have a University Education which has led to the dumbing down of standards. All "utopians" should be shot!!

Business Balderdash and Bunkum: Talk some sense please....

HEFCE are recovering funding for non-completions because Wolverhampton have presumably not ensured that students are attempting the final piece of assessment in all their modules (note attempt not pass - this means just turning up to the final exam or handing something in as a final piece of coursework). This is the critical part of HEFCE's funding definition. It would appear that Wolverhapton have chosen to ignore this requirement. No doubt this would be the fault of upper/middle management in not implementing appropriate processes OR the fault of academics if they have been failing to monitor and control retention and ensure students stay on course with their studies and attempt all module assessments. If the latter, whilst I have sympathies with the argument that Higher Education is now run as a business and as such there is potential for negative impact upon pedagogic freedoms but the harsh reality is that budget control is king and by ignoring critical funding definitions you are all effectively signing your own P45s.

FOr all the unthinking tory boys who criticised Balderdash... You can't see the picture he described because it is beyond your ken. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist, merely that it is an area of understanding you don't have yet. What he/she says is absolutely true, that skills and knowldege from the most basic - i.e understanding what Universities do and how the learning style differs - to the most fundamental - that resources and opportunity varies as to wealth class and background (if you think wealth doesn't give advantages .. you would.t be so concerned about holding on to it). IN areas like wolverhampton, many people going to university will not be from university families, and so their perception of university is skewed and/or drawn from their experience of School-age education. This transition should be helped and is managed better in the established universities - so that demonstrates that it is something that can be delivered. The consequencs of not delivering are greater when students have more incentives to not complete - money and progress in career is one of them. INvesting in a Uni degree takes at least £55,000 in lost salary and fees and expenses, that can take up to 20 years to catch up on if your salary is not enhanced by the degree.

@Hero: Would a degree from Wolverhampton enhance your chances of getting a good job? We really need to start to close these places down and concentrate resources in the best 50 universities, return to free education and degrees that have value.

Separate point. I don't agree that we should 'concentrate resources in the best 50 universities until we deal with the fact that almost all public school entrants regardless of ability will fill up places in these universities to the exclusion of the best and most talented students. You are arguing for a 'return to the old days' without appreciating how terrible that was for the country - you seem to forget how terribly managed our industries were with relatively untalented oxbridge types at the helm - british rail, british steel, british leyland etc etc etc.

" Many fewer" Hero is it? What nonsense you are talking. Best and the most talented students are still poor and do not come from middle class. Best not to post ignorance.

To " Many fewer" Hero: these best and most talented students coming from all families go to good universities including oxbridge. Talented students can be found every where middle class, upper class, working class etc.. Hence don't be a class warrior. As for failure of industries there are many reasons.

Well said, Whippet. Let's go the whole hog and close all the redbricks too; then we could fill the remaining handful with nice-but-dims.

To Greyhound You want to close the redbricks too, because of saying that these dyfunctionals and corrupt places like Leeds Met, London Met, LJMU etc.. which have students with no academic abilities but indulge in an industrial scale plagiarism. Read the postings by LJMU academics who dared to stand up to plagiarists? No wonder we are importing thosands of immigrants outside from the EU on workpermits.

"To Greyhound": you miss the point entirely.

Greyhounds simply run chasing a moving object!

I do not understand why frontline lecturers are blamed when incorrect data has been given to HEFCE. HEFCE returns are prepared by the university management, not by frontline lecturers. As for the comments about those bad bad bad lecturers who do not ensure that students take the final component of a module, they are ill-founded and ignore all the efforts that go into retention measures in many universities. It is very difficult and time-consuming to keep students from disadvantaged backgrounds on board. Sometimes, it is not possible for many reasons beyond the control of lecturers. That is something that those who work in universities attended by wealthy students find hard to understand apparently.

@Hero: Are you a member of Class War!

HEFCE returns are based on lecturer's raw data in the trenches. Some universities cook it in various stages and others do not. Yet I have not seen any lecturer or the UCU potesting on record as this has been happening over 5 years now. As to., "It is very difficult and time-consuming to keep students from disadvantaged backgrounds on board" Well, if the students are academically able and not wealthy ( it is a jaundiced view that all academically able students are wealthy, I was not, my children are not and my friends' children are not) retaining them in courses is not difficult. No need to massage the drop out figures. The problem with the new universities are that they fill their courses just with any one who calls himslef/herself a student, entry requirements are relaxed to ridiculously low UCAS points ( "disadvantaged background quoted) and all of them are waved in during clearing. Two of us work as hourly-paid lecturers in two universities, the first is in top 5 of the Times league table ( old university) and the second in the bottom 10 of the same league table ( new university). We deliver the same lectures in the two places and the syllabuses are the same as they follow a standard text. In the old universiity class all of them have A levels with good grades and to my knowledge except 4-5 the rest are not considered as wealthy. They come from comprehensive schools. There are no drop outs, lecture classes are attended promptly coursework are handed in promptly and students do work hard to prepare for exams, and the pass rate is 96%. In the new university class, only 30-40% of students attend, the rest no one knows where they are, we take attendance regularly, students submit coursework late, many were caught on grounds of plagiarism, the pass rate is 20%. These students are recruited with no A levels, lack study skills and inspite of many tutorial classes ( twice as many in the old university) which only 40% attend, still have problems as they do not work. Don't be a class warrior and wealth is not the issue these days to go to a good university ( laons become grants for the poor) but the academic ability is. If the studenrts have diasadvataged background a term invented by NU Labour and hence is an excuse for not having academic ability why admit them directly to 1st year degree courses? Why can't they be in HND courses( which these new universities abolished) so that it will prepare them for the degree courses.

Perhaps facts should speak. Data is often collected electronically by systems that management have bought. This data is input as clean correct data. If management put there own interpretation on it then they are corporately responsible for the errors. Secondly, was a defecit outturn forecast for the institution mentioned? if not can we believe any figures. I was under the impression that the University in the story was already an outfacing organisation working with industry and commerce, with many lecturers with industrial/ commercial backgrounds. It seems that a blame culture is bouncing around, is it the fault of the workers for being paid? when they are actually trying to spend time with customers to help them improve themselves, sometimes from difficult start points. It must be remembered that there is some difficulty in forcing a customer into doing work, they are big people now and if they are not engaging then they are failing themselves. One must accept that there may be a range of abilities and support given by teaching and other staff but this is not enhanced by time taken filling forms in or tracking incorrect data or working on systems that are poor in comparison to some schools in terms of effectiveness. It is a management responsibility to manage and decsions are taken that affect an organisation at that level, if the data and the decisions are not effective then where would you point the finger?

"if the data and the decisions are not effective then where would you point the finger? " All, from VC to the hourly paid lecturer.

What on earth are people talking about? If Vice Chancellors want to be recognised as "leaders" and CEOs, if they want to be the decision-makers, the public face, the innovators etc, how about they adopt a little corporate responsibility? To be sure they claim credit - and pay increases - when things go well, so how about they get sacked when scandals like this happen? How about they have their assets seized to pay compensation to the staff they have to sack as a result of their mismanagement?

"What on earth are people talking about?" This is Britain where mediocre lackeys are jealous of anybody called leaders and any one who is rich by own effort. This is called "politics of envy" and the university academics, mostly the new university ones, the fodder for UCU, are expert practitioners in this "politics of envy". Take for example the case of Wolverhampton which is cutting the jobs. Well, these lackeys including an American academic resident here blame the senior management for submitting the wrong data. OK, but if you examine how this data came about originally in raw form they wriggle, mutter words which do not make sense but we know that those university staff who blame their senior management supplied the raw data and if it is wrong they supplied it. All are from the VC to the lowly junior lecturer is responsible at the end. These new universities majority of them are the abode of these lackeys are a joke. Welcome to the Britain of 2009 and the weird and dysfunctional world of new universities. Not suprising these universities are in trouble.

As someone who works as a fairly senior manager in a large University and has responsibility for data and funding returns I find it very odd that people are suggesting that academic staff are somehow cuplable for inaccurate funding & data returns. It is the responsible managers role to ensure that the systems around data recording and collection and the subsequent returns are robust and compliant with guidance. The managers at these institutions should have put in place guidance and procedures for identifying students who have not attempted modules. One of my former institutions lost funding recently and I know through staff there that the VC sanctioned an incorrect HESA return in order to avoid holdback i.e. they were told to include a proportion of students who had not submitted in all of their modules. It is clear to me where the responsibilities lie.

I agree with the above, but with a note of caution. Academics at institutions I work with are often given authority over processes and often will block activity (such as setting up effective reporting systems) to collect data. HOWEVER central administrative functions still should maintain better control over reporting despite this. One of the difficulties is that some academics view the University as their hobby, they will teach if people can be bothered to come and they don't care if they don't .. so why should they bother recording it (their loss etc etc)... some academics have a more responsible and attentive view. My personal view is that effective monitoring should be expected by students as part of the package that going to a University includes - keeping people stimulated and on track is part of teaching. I also have a caveat here - one institution I work with has large holes in its data collection, rarely thinks whether figures are realistic and only checks data against records held that are derivative of the main set. Again this brings me back to my point that the recruitment of arts students with a PhD in a non-relevant degree should not be in charge of managing large amounts of management information if they are not competent at that task.

HofP As a senior manager you do not seem to be literate at all. The person/s who suggested that lecturers are partly respsonsble do say that the raw data comes from them, not the form which was presented to HEFCE. The raw data is often not correct it is because they with the senior academics in the dept do count absentees as continuing students, as they do not want the student numbers on courses on paper at least to appear less , which is often the reality. They fear this may close the coursse which always leads to job losses. Perhaps you do not know what raw data is in which case you are not fit to be in the position you hold or you are not a senior manager at all but one of the UCU hatchetperson who blames just about any senior manager. Now you accuse the VC of your previous institution and your explanation what happened there is nonsense as what you assert is different from what happened. Could it be you were also guilty as a manager there and hence quietly moved to escape the fall out as the recrimination and redundancies follow.

To Hero Remember " many fewer" sentences make what you post clear. It is obvious you cannot say what you want to say in these large postings.

Your comments say'I want to annoy Hero'. You are evidently stupid.

To Hero Not as stupid as your long-winded posting which reeks of ignorance. Hence " many fewer" is the answer

I worked for 16 months in Newcastle upon Tyne Polytechnic and then for over nine years in the Polytechnic of Wales, Pontypridd. I moved to Concordia University in Montreal, Canada in 1982. I belive that these two institutions became universities at the time polytechnics in the UK were upgraded to universities. In the good old days polytechnics were playing a very useful role in the HE sector. However, most of them did not have the research culture expected in a university. Redesgnating polytechnic directors as VC's and heads of departments as professors did not change the culture of most of the new universities. If it is possible to reverse the process then these institutions should be reverted back to polytechnics.

I would like those who accuse lecturers of being responsible for inaccurate HEFCE returns to be more precise in their accusations. Are lecturers being accused of claiming that a student took the last component of a module whereas (s)he actually did not? To repeat myself, in my institution for example, lecturers are not involved in the compilation of HEFCE returns. With regard to generating raw data, we have attendance registers - and I have never seen anyone deliberately keeping inaccurate records and claiming that all students were present during the whole year. We also have a software that we use to enter students' marks - again, I have never heard of anyone inputting marks for students who did not do any work. So I would like those who claim that everyone, from the junior lecturer to the VC, is responsible for inaccurate HEFCE returns to explain what they mean by that. Otherwise, this sounds very much like a conspiracy theory to me.

To Dr K Have you withdrawn students when they did not submit coursework and did not attend exams? How did you ensure that right progression rules were applied? How were resit decisions made? Were you and colleagues involved in this? If not why not? Just left to administrators and kept quiet? Did you ask any one in authority if you saw a student who you withdrew was progressed after the resit exam? If your answer is you simply followed the univeristy rules, all those mentioned above was not your concern etc. etc.. then you have no right to complain if the data submitted to the HEFCE was found to be in error. We did all that in my dept including loked all of the above issues in our dept staff meetings and our university data returns were kosher.

To Dr K ofcourse the lecturers are not responsible, ofcourse they did nothing wrong, ofcourse they did not know what was happening and ofcourse in these universities they were only coming 3 days a week and the rest of the week theywere " working from home".

Gosh, this is getting stroppy isn't it? Anyway, the solution to the public school disproportionality in elite institutions? Why not simply require anyone who opts out of the state education system (at school level) to forfeit their place in state higher education institutions? If you choose to go private, then good luck to you, but you're on your own. Buckingham and Apollo Group get ready for a surge!

Seems like a real socialist warrior! Public schools are not disproportionately in old universities, but students from grammar schools and better comprehensives, like Blair's sons, Jeremy Corbyn's sons., Jack Straw son, Harriet Horman's sons, Thornburry ( Islington South Labour MP), most of whom you socialists voted. Anyway, I saw a couple of Labor MPs in a private hospital recently. Labour has the tendency to preach and not practice what they preach. Private niversities will arrive, that is fact of life. This is not Cuba.

It seems obvious that there are some people responding who know what they are talking about, and with whom I agree, particuarly hofp. As to checking fairness I am sure that Dr.K would have been through the stream of meetings to confirm things were right and spent hours trying to correct sysytem "peculiarities" that some times defy sense. As to who is responsible it is the person at each level to ensure things are correct, if this is done then any final interpretation is the responsibility of the final reporter. As to the responder to lee Salter claiming that staff supply false data, would like to give any example then their comments may carry some weight, if not I am sure all readers will treat their comments with the regard they require.

To Staff Did it ever occur to you HoFp can be from the institution in London which is making news in this today and conveniently moved elsewhere after being involved shall we say some creative data generation Melanie reports says in her strand on this institution today. "One of my former institutions lost funding recently and I know through staff there that the VC sanctioned an incorrect HESA return in order to avoid holdback " I cannot imiagine a VC sitting in a room with a terminal in front of him/her and manipulating DB transactions to gernerate false data. These VCs are not that computer literate and one can imagine a battery of people including people like Hofp and also a set of registry pople( who alone know about the kind of data needed for HEFCE returns, and have the raw data) involved in this creative process. Ofcourse after the event one can move to another place, take voluntary redundancies for " family reasons" or go on a world tour " which one always wanted to do" etc.. Many reasons to escape the heat.

I am very angry about the way the university of Wolverhampton is being criticised. While it is true that a large proportion of students at Wolverhampton lack true academic ability and, arguably, should not be studying for a degree, there is a significant number of students who are academically bright, who are excelling in their studies, and who deserve a university education. This is because 100% of students go into that university with bad grades - for one reason or another - and then, with the help of the university's friendly and supportive environment and excellent lecturers, 20% come out of it confident, intellectually bright and with an excellent degree. Let me ask you, isn't that 20% worth it? The fact is that Wolverhampton has very good standards. Excellent lecturers and resources. Good teaching methods. And the university gives students, who would have been automatically rejected by all other universities, a chance to change their life and to succeed. And let me tell you, the university succeeds in that regard. Not for all students. Many of the students do not deserve to be there because they do not have the right attitude. But for some - a significant few - Wolverhampton gives them a chance that nowhere else would have. And for that reason, it should never, ever be closed down.