My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Desai, for tabling these amendments, which speak to concerns about unconscious bias in admissions and assessment, which I know we all take very seriously. As we have established, institutional autonomy is a vital principle for higher education, and academic freedom will continue to be protected through the Bill. I suggest the matters raised in these amendments are for individual institutions to take their own decisions on, as independent and autonomous bodies.
Amendment 133A would add a new requirement to Clause 13 to ensure that judgments made by higher education staff when making an assessment of a student’s work are not pre-determined by knowledge of the student whose work is under consideration. Under the current quality system, this is covered by the UK Quality Code. Expectations and guidance to ensure that judgments of student performance are based on the extent to which the student is able to demonstrate achievement of the corresponding intended learning outcomes are of course the essence of what is intended by that quality code. Indeed, all providers are expected to abide by the requirements of the quality code, and that will continue under the OfS. We would not want to undermine the flexibility of providers to achieve a fair assessment by introducing a new level of prescription, which the amendment would do. We do not feel that would be in the best interests of providers or indeed of students.
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Amendment 133 deals with admissions. I hope noble Lords will be reassured that the sector is committed to combating bias. UCAS produced a report last year showing that universities have a high level of awareness of the risks of potential bias in admissions decision-making, and are already employing a range of strategies to prevent such bias arising. Work is already under
way in this area by the sector, including developing good-practice guidance for universities and training materials for admissions staff, all of which is a significant contribution to improving the situation. Indeed, a pilot scheme for name-blind admissions is currently operating at a number of universities to gather evidence on the impact it might have. Additionally, the transparency duty will shine a spotlight on institutions’ admission practices so that, if there are any issues relating to unconscious bias, the institution will be made aware and can take action to address these matters. We can take stock of current practice by examining the results of the pilot and the transparency duty before suggesting that the sector should go further. I reassure the noble Lord, Lord Desai, that it is not as though nothing is happening. It is absolutely right to want to highlight this issue, but I hope I am managing to reassure him that some very good work is going on.
There is no doubt that the amendments are well-intentioned and speak to issues of great importance, but I suggest that the principle of institutional autonomy and the good work the sector is already doing in this area mean that it would not be appropriate to include them in the Bill. I therefore ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.