Poor quality teaching and student outcomes. But where?

It said that its investigation would look at whether:

1. the courses delivered by Leeds Trinity University’s subcontractual partners were high quality
2. Leeds Trinity University had effective management and governance in place for subcontractual partners
3. Leeds Trinity University had complied with the requirements relating to provision of information to the OfS

On Friday last week, we got news that OfS had imposed a monetary penalty of £115,000 on the university after that investigation identified that the university did not have effective arrangements in place to respond to rapid growth in its subcontractual provision.

The accompanying case report shows that there had been a period of significant and rapid growth in the total number of students taught in this way – from 3,600 students in 2020-21 to 9,400 students in 2022-23.

The investigation team concluded that the resources the university had in place to monitor academic assessment at its delivery partners were insufficient and that it could not effectively respond to the scale of concerns raised with the university.

This meant that key risks – including an increased risk of student academic misconduct – were not escalated appropriately to the university’s governing body.

It also did not properly consider the impact of a decision it took to pilot lowering the English language requirement for students who applied to study at some of its subcontractual partners or ensure arrangements were in place to enable these students to succeed.

As a result, partly because the university worked cooperatively with OfS throughout the investigation – accepting it breached OfS’ regulatory requirements relating to management and governance – the settlement in this case resulted in a reduced monetary penalty.

Its vice chancellor Charles Egbu said:

Improving student outcomes remains at the heart of Leeds Trinity University’s mission, and we are unwavering in our long-held commitment to widening participation and increasing access to higher education.

We fully accept the conclusions of this investigation, and we recognise that the rapid growth in our subcontractual partnerships created pressures that our systems and oversight processes were not fully equipped to manage at the time.

We welcome the OfS’s acknowledgment of the proactive steps we have taken and the significant progress that Leeds Trinity has made to strengthen the oversight of our subcontractual arrangements. This was a key factor in their decision to lower the financial penalty, and the improvements we have made should give partners and students confidence about the high quality of our courses.

The relevant conditions of registration in this case were E2(ii) and E2(iv) – adequate and effective management and governance arrangements. OfS highlights Public Interest Governance Principle 4 (academic governance) and 5 (risk management).

High quality?

If we look back at the original investigation notice, OfS has clearly drawn a conclusion over effective management and governance, but we don’t get anything on whether LT had complied with requirements relating to provision of information to OfS.

And crucially, we also don’t get anything on whether the courses delivered by Leeds Trinity University’s subcontractual partners were high quality.

That seems…odd.

OfS told me that as the investigation evolved, it became clear that its “primary” area of regulatory concern in this case was around the oversight arrangements, and so that’s where it decided to focus – partly because its oversight arrangements include a responsibility to ensure subcontracted courses are of high quality.

But that does mean that we have not heard a peep out of OfS about the quality of unregistered franchised provision since its inception.

And given its repeated warnings about quality risks, that does feel sub-optimal.

So far, we’ve seen eleven quality assessment reports – eight of which refer to business and management provision, three of which refer to computing provision, and all of which appear to be part of the original “boots on the ground” exercises announced in 2022.

When the first lot were announced, OfS press released “Regulator launches eight investigations into poor quality courses”, a headline now mysteriously deleted from its press release archive and replaced with the rather less judgemental “Regulator opens investigations into quality of higher education courses”.

Of the eight business and management reports, RTC education (trading as Regent College London) was itself on the register, and Bedfordshire’s courses delivered in partnership with LSC were “fully embedded” – but in all other cases, any franchised, subcontracted, or partnership-delivered provision was excluded from the assessment.

If we then turn to the three reports into computing provision, two exclude any courses delivered by partner organisations or transnational education, and Bradford College, though delivering for the University of Bolton, was itself on the register.

So of the eleven, it seems that the boots have not reached the ground of any provision not on the OfS register.

Risk-based?

In October 2023, we were told that OfS had turned its attention to business and management courses and courses delivered through sub-contractual partnerships.

But as far as we can see, there have been no reports from that round at all. And no news of other inspections since.

Yet back in September 2024, OfS’ insight brief on subcontractual arrangements in higher education said there was “substantial variation” between outcomes for students in subcontractual arrangements in terms both of their average rates in comparison with sector-wide averages and of their student outcomes measured against individual benchmarks:

So it seems strange, doesn’t it, that unless the partner happens to be on the OfS register, we’ve not seen any assessment of the quality of provision that OfS seems to think the signals suggest is risky.

Even in the Leeds Trinity material, OfS seems at pains to point out:

The case report is not intended to draw any findings about partners. Our investigation did not extend to LTU’s partners and no conclusion should be drawn about them based on the case report.

It may just be a coincidence. But it does mean that a student enrolling into an unregistered provider can’t usually see the outcomes for that provider as a whole (they are, in the main, still hidden given the relative size or age of the individual partnership), and OfS doesn’t seem to have looked at any of the provision itself despite being routinely worried about the outcomes.

You’re left speculating as to whether there’s been some sort of legal issue preventing OfS from having a look around.

Section 61 of the Higher Education and Research Act 2017 gives OfS powers to enter and search premises with a warrant, and these powers extend to “linked institutions” – which includes institutions that act on behalf of supported providers in delivering courses.

So OfS should have the legal authority to investigate many of these partnership arrangements where unregistered providers are delivering courses for registered institutions – but doesn’t seem to be using it.

And it just so happens that both DfE and OfS have been consulting on forcing a large number of these providers to have to register.

In its consultation, DfE said that there was deliberate misuse of public money, the recruitment of students with no intention to attend, a lack of transparency and accountability, and “poor-quality teaching and student outcomes”.

But neither consultation really explains why being on the register would make the difference, or what that would enable that is not possible now.

For the time being at least, it seems that students won’t get to find out which courses and providers are associated with poor-quality teaching and student outcomes – either because its quality teams haven’t been in, they have but OfS can’t publish, or they’ve tried and got a legal pushback.

Curiouser and curiouser.