Having kicked off in 2022, the collection of OfS quality assessment reports into business and computing provision are now complete – with the publication of a report into business provision at RTC Education Limited (better known as Regent College London).
The front page of the Regent College website trumpets that 93 per cent of students are satisfied with teaching quality. We all know that it is easy, given the removal of the overall NSS question, to mash together any survey indicators to build a “teaching quality” metric – but a glance across Regent College’s 2024 results suggests that these numbers aren’t wide of the mark (even if you look at business provision alone). The provider got a Bronze (both sub-ratings were Bronze) in the last TEF.
Key concerns
So – what gives? An OfS examination of four key courses (BA Business Management, BSc Business Management – both with foundation year variants) yielded six concerns:
- Concern 1: All students did not receive a high quality academic experience
- Concern 2: Academic staff resource was often not sufficient or deployed effectively, leading to inadequate resourcing if modules and poor provision of support to students.
- Concern 3: Staff resource in the HubX model did not consistently ensure that students received academic support for a high quality academic experience and success in and beyond higher education.
- Concern 4: Teaching room facilities and study spaces were insufficient to support students successfully participating in their studies.
- Concern 5: A lack of physical and digital library resources, including access to course reading materials.
- Concern 6: Academic practices relating to summative assessment meant that some students were not assessed effectively and some assessments were not valid and/or reliable.
As always with these things, the provider in question had the right to appeal against the wording used in the report – so these fairly damning findings have been subject to a great deal of cross-checking and testing. The findings relate specifically to the period of the review (between November 2022 and 16 May 2023).
If you know the OfS register, you will be aware that Regent College does not have degree awarding powers – the BA is a qualification awarded by Buckinghamshire New University (since 2018), the BSc is awarded by the University of Bolton (since 2019, and Regent College is marketed by Bolton as the University of Bolton London Academic Centre). In 2022-23 Regent College taught 4,055 students (across all business courses, mostly mature students from economically deprived areas) and employed 88 (FTE) academic staff to deliver business provision.
Over at Companies House we learn that the ambition of RTC is to gain degree awarding powers and university title (Regent Hill University) by 2030 (it expects to be fueled by “the metaverse and Web 3.0”, for whatever that is worth). In the 2022-23 financial year it had a total income of £54.5m (of which the majority was fees income, and £1.3m was an OfS capital grant), spent £18.5m on staff costs (of £45m expenditure, which would have included university partnership fees) – and reported earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) of £11.8m. Eleven members of staff were paid more than £100,000.
It’s also worth noting the stellar advisory panel. We learned today that former OfS Chair James Wharton will join former secretary of state Gavin Williamson (£50,000 per year plus a £25,000 bonus), Bolton vice chancellor George Holmes, and St Mary’s University (another RTC partner) vice chancellor Anthony McClaren in providing advice to the executive team.
Academic course delivery
OfS investigators found that disproportionate numbers of contact hours within modules were being devoted to assessment preparation and revision – in some cases less than a third of teaching time was used for the delivery of new module content. In four modules one entire session was devoted to module feedback and other non-academic material. The OfS team were concerned that:
the module sessions reviewed that were dedicated to revision and assessment support, were not only excessive in number but were often focused on priming students to complete and pass assessments, rather than on requiring students to develop knowledge and understanding of the subject matter.
And on it goes – one session took 30 minutes to complete a class register for 13 students. When teaching did happen, in many cases it involved bullet points being read from slides, and videos shown, without context or further explanation. Students generally had a list of sessions (and expected coverage) in module handbooks, but this often did not match up with what was actually presented that week.
Eight of a sample of 11 modules (on the BSc) did not have comprehensive reading lists: an indicative reading list was at the level of journal names and textbook titles. Only one module provided a weekly reading list linked to scheduled teaching. Things were slightly better on the BA – seven of ten modules provided weekly reading lists. Overall, over half of these readings were (in the judgement of assessors) outdated – using media sources dated earlier than 2018, and a core textbook dated 2010.
Feedback on assessed work (in all cases) should have been returned within 15 days – the team found that this limit was routinely exceeded (in one case, feedback took two months to appear). When feedback was finally presented, it could be ad hoc (with some students receiving feedback significantly before others).
Student support and resources
Provision was found to be inadequately resourced. There were insufficient numbers of academic staff (a student staff ratio of around 44:1 – although RTC claimed 11:1 in publicity materials this figure included non-academic staff), who were ineffectively deployed. Module tutors changed frequently (students reported three or four tutors on some modules) – with staff generally employed on “Module Unit Contracts” (fixed term, temporary, often recruited with insufficient time for induction and training). Unlike in most other prices, RTC had no concept of a “module leader” – overall responsibility for a given module was unclear. Students frequently experience sessions where an unexpected tutor, or no tutor at all, arrives to take a session.
Resources were often provided late, even when they referred to assessments – and guidance provided on completing assessments was unclear and contradictory. There was a sense that tutors did not understand what they were meant to be teaching (in terms of content and level), what mode of teaching was expected, or even whether there would be a lesson the following week.
Even getting access to the VLE was frequently delayed (in once case more than four weeks after the course started), and timetables appeared after teaching had started.
At RTC, student support was delivered via the HubX model: students were split into groups of around 200-250 students and allocated a dedicated customer service officer (a remote team, based in India), who would monitor student progress and provide first-line support. Queries can be passed on to an academic support officer, central support services, or other specialist staff. As with academic staff, these roles (which are meant to develop a single ongoing relationship between students and a responsible support staff member) were hit by frequent staffing changes and unclear guidance.
With mature and international students, you would imagine that academic support and English language support would be a central expectation. However, there were concerns about very low staffing levels. Even with English language required at a level below what is usually expected for higher education study – two advertised English language support modules appeared not to have run at all.
Teaching rooms did not appear to offer the facilities students needed to learn – the choice of furniture made it difficult to use a laptop as required. This sounds like a small point, but had been the subject of repeated student (and staff) complaints to no avail. One campus had no space for private study – students were advised to use a local public library. Though RTC has a digital library, this was managed in such a way that students could not access all the materials they needed. Core textbooks were often available only in the physical library of a partner institution.
Assessment
The idea of providing formative feedback on a draft of summatively assessed work is generally a good one as new students get used to the idea of university level study. However, Regent College went beyond this, offering multiple opportunities for academic staff to look over a full draft of an assessment before it was submitted. This was against the guidelines in place at both partner institutions.
We’ve already seen that significant proportions of academic contact time were devoted to assessment preparation, which – as the assessors noted – “led to a narrow focus on completing and passing the assessment itself”. Students were provided with guidance on “paraphrasing” material to avoid similarity detection on Turnitin. A tutor on a level 6 module advised students to use ChatGPT “in general” to complete assignments – one module VLE linked directly to an “essay mill” website. One group were provided with summative examination questions before the exam in question, another saw the questions and model answers in class before the exam.
These issues, plus the phenomenon of very generous marking noted by external examiners, could be explained by terms in contracts of employment that linked payment to an “achievement expectation rate” of 85 per cent – in other words, tutors were paid based on the marks their students were awarded.
In the assessment team’s view, this requirement had the capacity to create conflicts of interest for markers and was incompatible with the aim of an impartial marking and quality assurance process, undermining the reliability of summative assessments
In conclusion
Wonkhe has covered the results of published “boots on the ground” investigations as they have been published, in May, earlier in 2024 and on multiple occasions when released in 2023. We have also examined the process by which these assessments are made.
We have yet to cover regulatory action based on these reports, primarily because we are yet to see any. As things stand there are five business studies focused reports (including the RTC one) waiting for a regulatory response, and two computer science reports. Though there are issues of concern in each of the outstanding reports, none are at the level of what the OfS team found at RTC.
We understand that Regent College has made some changes as a result of this report:
- Additional staff training has been provided, assessment guidance has been developed, and more academic staff have been recruited
- HubX has been replaced by a personal tutor system
- Classrooms have been refurbished
Selva Pankaj, the director of RTC Education Ltd, told us:
OfS carried out their review in the academic year 2022/23 starting in November 2022. Nearly two years on from OfS’s initial visit for this assessment, we are confident that the many of the concerns they have raised have been addressed.
The process was positive. We engaged constructively with OfS to understand the changes they wanted to see. We were already making improvements when OfS visited and implemented an additional action and monitoring plan in response to the draft report we received from OfS. As a result, the situation is significantly different to two academic years ago when OfS carried out their assessment. We have a close working relationship with all of our University partners in relation to academic management and academic governance and a plan going forward has been developed.
This is absolutely shocking. Students seem to have been completely ripped off. What’s still more shocking is that we are yet to see any regulatory action on this. The report itself is out nearly 18 months after the event. What on earth is going on at OfS?
This is an excellent summing up of the abject failure of the OfS regulatory model. It is not a risk-based approach. The same approach is taken with all providers – including new challenger partners such as this, the kind promoted by the previous government and in this case advised by a forner secretary of state for education – with no regular review (unlike QAA). There is similarly no proper oversight of the relationship between franchised and franchising partners (unlike with the QAA).
It has taken two years to get this far, with no actual regulatory action apparently taken. There are other providers with similar risks identified. All of this is what, 7 years into the OfS’ regulatory regime? How can we have a regulator which has spent so long on regulating outcomes, requesting so much from providers, with so many emerging scandals, and so little action taken? It is madness.
I am sceptical of the proposed solution, which seems to be, as always, to bring in onerous new data reporting requirements for all … validated partners (who don’t have direct access to loans – unless they are already registered with OfS and therefore subject to oversight – and who don’t therefore represent the same risk to the public purse, or suffer the same risk that poor practice is incentivised given potentially significant financial returns for all involved).
It’s a chance to generate more work, and likely break another market by making existing provision non-viable (with a resulting impact on smaller, local providers and access to HE), but I don’t see how it fixes any if the issues that are actually emerging (or rather, that were emerging 3+ years ago, having been repeatedly predicted via OfS consultation responses).
I do not understand how the OfS has been allowed to sit on this for so long with no discernable action.
Very well said
No surprises here really, these high volume private providers which target specific demographic groups are rife with this sort of low quality provision. The institutions which are franchising or validating this type of provision are at best naive, but in many cases turn a blind eye due to level of income they provide. Quality staff are often pressured both directly and indirectly, due to the need for this ‘partnership’ income, or are just under resourced to deal with the issues.
This is not a new issue in higher education, you’ve just got to look back at the infamous Greenwich School of Management for poor practice and facilitation of student loan fraud. FE colleges have dealt with this issue in the past with sub-contracting HND/C provision, though the ESFA have got a handle on this by limiting sub-contracting. If providers don’t get there own house in order, fully expect regulation in this area. Though that will likely be a blunt tool and impact the wide range of partnerships institutions offer.
Perhaps something for UUK to look at.
The more I learn about George Holmes the less trustworthy he appears: https://manchestermill.co.uk/p/a-rush-of-redundancies-multi-university
He is, of course, ‘the VC with the Roller’.
https://www.thetimes.com/article/bolton-universitys-paean-of-praise-to-its-dear-322-000-a-year-leader-gnt95hw87
It’s incredible how much profit these for-profit providers can still extract while the rest of the sector is going bankrupt.
Came across a registered charity who are struggling to get a franchise agreement as they cannot pay bribes or commissions. They say they are approached by agents and university insiders asking for a share in revenue to facilitate an agreement. So this is how brand new for-profit providers with no track record get their agreements.
Chukka: Does the regulator or the university partner care how many students these colleges recruit which they find it difficult to manage in terms of quality. Obviously, partner universities are thirsty for numbers rather than assuring quality. And they have a good match.
Regent College has celebrated World Teachers day with a press release. It says:
These [NSS] results reflect the immense effort our teachers put into delivering high-quality education and underscore our commitment to continuous improvement as we strive to become a British university.
Our faculty’s ability to inspire and motivate students is at the heart of these achievements. The NSS results stand as a testament to the lasting impact that great educators have on their students’ academic journeys and beyond.
https://www.rcl.ac.uk/news/celebrating-world-teachers-day-2024/
People who work at Regent do not recognise many of the steps which Regent claims to have taken ‘in 2024’. It’s almost as if they haven’t happened yet.