Higher Education 22: 189-194, 1991. �9 1991 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

Higher education in the UK: a crit ical examination of the role of the CNAA

Review article

ROGER KING Director and Chief Executive, Humberside Polytechnic, Hull, HU6 7RT, U.K.

Harold Silver (1990). A Higher Education. The Council for National Academic Awards andBritish Higher Education. 1964-1989. Basingstoke: The Falmer Press. 294 pp. s 12.95 Paperback, s 28.00 Hardback.

This book is much more fascinating and illuminating than I expected it to be. Not because it is written with style, fluency and intelligence. From Harold Silver I would have been surprised at anything less. But rather because the book makes one realise that the Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA) has been a major agency in the policy environment of higher education in the United Kingdom for over two decades. Consequently its history reflects more than simply the life of one, albeit important, organisation.

The development of the CNAA, and this expert analysis, informs many of the key issues in higher education: binary policy, the 'idea' of a university, the endemic conflicts between managerial authority and academic autonomy (and between political direction and institutional freedom), the concern for standards, the requirement for public accountability, and the tension between supplying the needs of the economy for trained personnel and the provision of a broader, often more critical, education. The absence of strategic discussion by successive governments with responsibility for higher education, and the accumulation of ad hoc and fragmentary policy responses as a result, ensures that these issues come round as regularly as clockwork.

Take binary policy. Once the binary division in higher education was formally enunciated by Crosland in the late 1960s, it set the seal on the CNAA's operations for the next twenty years. Silver argues that the CNAA became crucial to the full development of the polytechnics and the wider range of courses that required validating. The CNAA, and its predecessor - the National Council for Technologic- al Awards (NCTA) - helped to establish and then maintain binary policy through the establishment of a formal, nationally-recognised system o f degree awards outside the University sector and the resulting growth in maturity and status of those institutions offering such awards. Unlike the well-established University of London external degree system, which comprised an examination against a uniform syllabus, the NCT and CNAA were primarily 'recognising' bodies. Colleges had

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responsibility for devising and proposingcourses, and this helped to encourage innovations in curricula design (sandwich degrees, project work, multidisciplin- arity), as well as confidence and esteem.

The key to the establishment of the binary line in England and Wales was not so much the creation of a formal distinction between the universities and local authority-maintained colleges offering vocational CNAA degrees, as the unwilling- ness by government to allow polytechnics to be absorbed into the university sector once they had matured. A league system with two divisions, but no promotion or relegation, is a recipe for thwarted ambition. It leads either to calls for promotion and relegation, or to demands that the two divisions be formed into one Super League. In Britain, the Robbins Committee in the 1960s had argued for the former, and this reflected earlier policy decisions around that time to designate the leading Colleges of Advanced Technology (CATS) as universities. More recently, in Australia for example, the St~per League approach has been adopted by abolishing the binary line and creating a unitary system of higher education. United Kingdom governments, of varying political colourations, have preferred to develop a more vocational, cost-efficient, accessible and expanding form of higher education in an alternative sector to that of the universities.

There are at least two differing, and contradictory, explanations for this stance. One suggests that two competing sectors of higher education (especially the existence of a rising 'mass' form of higher education in the polytechnics), allows ministers to exert resource and accountability pressures on the universities. Proponents argue that as more and more students are taken into the polytechnics, the universities are forced into competing in the same markets - by offering access and more relevant, cost-efficient degrees. In time, so the argument runs, pressure builds up for a common unit of teaching and the establishment of one funding system (and one funding council), for open competition for research monies which become exclusively channelled through the Research Councils, and for the increased prospect of transbinary mergers. Thealternative, perhaps more cynical theory, suggests that the binary policy in the United Kingdom serves another purpose: it aims to defend the traditional elite role of the universities by protecting them from moves towards mass forms of higher education and the demands of the economy for specifically-trained personnel.

Undoubtedly there is a grain of truth in both arguments. The attitude of successive administrations to the universities has been ambiguous, with contrasting tendencies at work at any one time. There is little doubt that ministers have wished to see the universities better managed, their resources used more efficiently, and picking up at least a small part of the access strain from the polytechics. Yet governments have not wished to erode traditional academic standards in the universities, or to generally challenge the type of higher education that they offer. The 1990 Autumn public expenditure settlement for the two sectors, with less than a 1% differential in favour of the latter, hardly appears to be rewarding the polytechnics for growth and penalising the universities for recalcitrance.

Behind many of these issues lies the question of 'what is a university?' Is there some unshakeable and inviolable sense of the term that essentially must be protected

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from change, or is it infinitely elastic and capable of continual refinement? Both defenders and detractors operate with often unstated conceptions of the purpose and role of a university. Silver, for example, outlines the explicit arguments on these matters in post-second world war Britain, and traces their influence on later binary policy and the establishment of the CNAA in the 1960s. These early discussions on the boundaries for university education, and dissent over their malleability, formed a crucial backdrop to the subsequent formulation of a polytechnic policy. For example, early debates focused on the extent to which the universities should be properly involved in 'professional training.' Was it too narrow and applied for a mission couched in more general, critical and often abstract terms? Often traditional professions (e.g., medicine) were acceptable, whereas newer, lower-status profes- sions (teaching, social work) had much more of a struggle to be seen as legitimate university subjects, and were sometimes regarded as best undertaken in specialist, but separate institutes (such as the later polytechnics). The 'two cultures' debates in Britain in the 1960s also raised the question of where did technology fit in the university schema. Did it at all? Some, such as Sir Eric Ashby, felt that the universities were ignoring the technological revolution, and thus were in danger of becoming irrelevant. It was a view quite at odds with the attitude subsequently that technology and its applications should be shunted off to a distinct polytechnic sector, thus preserving the classical cultural cohesion of the university. 'Dirty- hands,' technical education (confused with technological) was not be mixed with the higher meta-theoretical approaches of higher academe. However, Ashby and others of similar ilk wanted the universities renewed by an infusion of 'polytechnic-style' higher education.

Such resonances and discussions are less explicit these days. Perhaps there is a view that, at the level of curricula at least, these debates have been resolved and that universities have adapted academically to the new technological order. But also it is less easy today publicly to defend the worth of a university as lying in its community and cultural homogeneity, and its role in the transmission of elite values to Britain's leadership classes.

Similarly, a large expansion in student numbers can be construed by some as equally subversive to the traditional idea of a university. It attenuates standards and threatens culture. If it is conceded that an extension of, particularly, applied higher education is economically necessary in an advanced industrial nation, then it is better delivered in a different form of institution than a university. Silver suspects that officials at the Department of Education and Science have long harboured such views, feeling that, although student expansion is desirable, it is far better encouraged in the polytechnics. Moreover, for the binary policy to become truly effective, it has been necessary to prevent 'the flagships' (the major polytechnics) of the new sector from leaving and becoming universities (as occurred with the CATS, and as envisaged by Robbins).

Of course, these issues continue today, as some polytechnics press to be allowed to call themselves universities. The success of the CNAA's tutelage, the in- dependence conferred under the Education Reform Act (1988), the prospect of degree-awarding powers - these are factors that cause a straining at the polytechnic

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collar. It is a reflection of the ambiguity of the binary policy and CNAA's part in it. For the binary line and the CNAA to succeed the polytechnics needed to be encouraged and sustained (matured), until they could flee the nest. Rather like parenting, success is achieved when you are no longer needed. The CNAA and the binary policy have, through their achievements, fulfilled their role and can enjoy happy retirement on the DES equivalent of a SAGA holiday.

Thus, looking back, the CNAA has contributed rather more than ministers or their civil servants to the present erosion of the binary line. CNAA's early enunciation that its degrees 'be comparable to university degrees' ensured that, inevitably, polytechnics would come to demand both the title and powers (including degree-awarding) of their university counterparts. The raison d'etre of the CNAA has been to prepare the polytechnics for university status and ensuring that, in time, the public accepted this. Similarly, the long-term performance indicator of a successful binary policy is its eventual demise.

Not that the development of the CNAA has been some smooth example of Hegelian historicism. It has undoubtedly upset a lot of very influential decision- makers along the way. In its heyday (1970s and early 1980s), visiting parties (to institutions) and subject boards often payed more attention to academic boards and academic staff than to polytechnic management. Not surprisingly, as, at this level, the CNAA comprised mainly of networks of academics. But it meant that these manifestations of CNAA were regarded as in cahoots with departments in demanding more resources as a condition of validation. The celebrated case of Teesside Polytechnic, when the Director was criticised severely by a CNAA party, raised questions in the Committee of Polytechnic Directors as to what management expertise could be said to reside in such CNAA bodies that enabled or justified damning observations from, essentially, a mixed bunch of academics and CNAA bureaucrats. Yet, in return, the CNAA rightly has argued that academic issues cannot be considered outside a resource and management context. (Although this did not necessarily rebut the charge that the composition of CNAA boards did not allow this context to be fully understood.)

As a professed defender of educational standards, the CNAA was always likely to run into adversity. It has been criticised by institutional managements for its rigid adherence to standards in the face of a diminishing resource base, yet it was also savaged by a Secretary of State (Keith Joseph) for allowing standards to decline when confronted in institutions by corporatist alliances of left-wing lecturers, student unions, trade unions and 'red-flag' local authorities. The Polytechnic of North London investigation undoubtedly exemplified CNAA at its best and, perhaps, government at its worst. A dignified and low-key investigation of the minister's allegations of bias and declining standards, followed by a studied rebuttal, served both the institution and the sector well.

However, the CNAA's experience with successive funding bodies has been less happy. Both the National Advisory Body (NAB) and the Polytechnic and Colleges Funding Council (PCFC) have been concerned to demonstrate to government that, within a context of declining resources, they had a concern for quality, and the will and capability to selectively reward excellence and to penalise that which was poor.

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As essentially small bureaucracies, lacking 'academic intelligence' of the system, inevitably they sought assistance from the CNAA. And the CNAA has never been quite sure how to respond. In part, facing a lingering death as the result of its success in building up the polytechnics, it has been tempted by the prospect of a miraculous restoration through a transformation into the academic arm of the sector's funding body. However, such Faustian pacts have generally been refused on the consistent grounds that CNAA served another purpose. Its prime role as a validating body is to ascertain whether courses or programmes have crossed a minimum threshold of acceptability, not further categorisation.

Of course, these competing influences occasionally have led the CNAA into real difficulties. Its attempt to signal the quality of Town Planning courses to NAB through a process of banding is one example. The ensuring fury from institutions and others undoubtedly stiffened the CNAA's subsequent resolve to stay aloof from funding decisions, leaving 'intelligence' gathering for these purposes to Her Majesty's Inspectors (HMI).

A further key factor in the declining influence of the CNAA can be traced to that period, a decade or so ago, when it was most active. For its mixed reaction from polytechnic managements also began to extend to the academics, too. Managerial opposition was to be expected, especially as the CNAA often has sought to countervail increasing managerial power in polytechnics and colleges with academic and professional claims to authority. Academic staff generally have been less enthusiastic in calling for the abolition of the CNAA than their bosses, particularly those participants in the CNAA's subject groups who found them offering valuable peer-exchange. Yet many of these erstwhile supporters, plus those course teams on the receiving end in the institutions, became disaffected with the increasing bureaucratisation of the CNAA. Nothing is more inimical to the academic than red tape. As with many large organisations, the CNAA developed a bureaucracy and an approach which lost it affection. Officer influence became increasingly marked in the 1970s as workloads grew, and emphasis on procedure ran up against resistance from academics with different views of the world and its priorities. It is doubtful that the abolition of the CNAA now would encounter resistance from academic staff.

The blurring of the binary line is likely to continue. As the number of students in the PCFC sector begins to outstrip those in the universities, the defence of cultural homogeneity and elite provision will weaken in some of the universities. Perhaps 15 or so will be able to maintain a strongly-research oriented and global role. But, in the rest, increased recognition by Vice-Chancellors that polytechnic clout has come with polytechnic growth in student numbers will focus attention on access and the marketability of courses. A convergence of mission with the polytechnics seems inevitable. Although different missions and strategies will continue, these will be categorised less across distinct sectors than across faculties in similar institutions.

These developments will be reinforced by exposure to the wider European Community throughout the next decade. In many European countries the idea of the university is different to that traditionally encountered in the United Kingdom. The same distinctions between universities and non-universities largely do not apply. Universities are not necessarily the most selective institutions (in France,

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entry to the grandes 6coles is much more competitive), and the majority of research is often undertaken in separate institutes to the universities. The trick, here and on the Continent, is to successfully find ways of reconciling the best forms of elite higher education with the economic need for higher volume at lower cost.

The success of the CNAA has been to accomplish the conditions where its demise appears natural. The skill in Silver's book is in lucidly outlining this development and in locating it within its wider policy-setting.