Staff fears remain at Cardiff University about new courses following FoI disclosure

Martin Shipton

A Freedom of Information disclosure about new “Domestic Foundation Programmes” has failed to allay the fears of teaching staff at Cardiff University relating to academic standards, oversight, quality control and staff workloads.

The programmes – referred to as DFPs – are aimed at UK home students who do not achieve A-level (or equivalent) results good enough for admittance to existing courses.

The courses work by adding a “Year 0” to existing three- or four-year degrees which will then feed into Year 1 of programmes taught across Cardiff University.

Staff were shocked to learn that these degree courses had been rushed through planning, design, and ratification by the University Council to be offered to applicants who miss out on their required A-level grades for the 2026/27 intake.

After discussing the plans with academics at the university, we put a series of questions to the university.

The university has refused to release details of projected revenues from the courses, stating: “The university considers this information exempt from disclosure by virtue of Section 43 of the Freedom of Information Act entitled Commercial Interests. This section states: 43(2) Information is exempt information if its disclosure under this Act would, or would be likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of any person (including the public authority holding it).

“The information requested contains data that would give insight into the university’s activities that would be likely to prejudice its commercial interests. To disclose this information into the public domain would put the university at a commercial disadvantage by exposing its business model and key business information to competitors. Likewise, this would put the providers at a competitive disadvantage, with its own competitors during such a process. This would have the effect of distorting the market and give a clear advantage to those companies not subject to the FOI Act to exploit that information for their own competitive gain.”

Asked how many students are estimated to be recruited via the DFPs in 2026-27 and 2027-28, the university stated: “We do not hold this information.”

Asked whether reduced entry requirements on the DFPs, relative to higher standards on existing programmes, would affect the University’s performance in league tables or their wider reputation, the university also stated: “We do not hold this information.”

Asked whether new or existing staff would be hired to teach the new modules on these programmes, and if so how many, the university responded: “The programmes will be taught by a combination of existing and new staff. The university considers the number of staff information exempt from disclosure by virtue of Section 43 of the Freedom of Information Act entitled Commercial Interests.” ·

Scrutiny

Asked what scrutiny had been given to the academic quality of these degrees in terms of validation in particular (how long did the process of validation take, how many reviewers were involved, and how many rounds of changes were made before validation), the university said: “The programme was subject to the same scrutiny process as for any other new programme at Cardiff. The programmes followed the standard procedure for developing new programmes at the University.

“Staff members from a variety of Academic Schools, Colleges and Professional Services teams made up the development team who developed the Foundation programmes for stage 2 submission to the Programme Approval and Revalidation Sub-committee (PARSC). The PARSC meeting had four full members in attendance (three academic, one student) providing feedback, recommendations and conditions. Conditions were set for approval (Outcome 2 in the procedure) which were actioned prior to it receiving final approval by the Chair of the Academic Standards and Quality Committee.”

Asked what kinds of, and how much, scrutiny was given to the introduction of the new programmes by the University Senate, the university said: “Senate is not required to approve new programmes. New programmes are scrutinised by the Programme Approval and Revalidation Sub-committee and approved by the Academic Standards and Quality Committee.”

‘Thrown together’

An anonymous Cardiff University academic said: “The responses that were given under FOI will do little to allay staff fears about the remarkably quick way these programmes have been thrown together, and the issues this raises about academic standards.

“Hiding behind commercial sensitivity when it comes to things like the entry requirements to these degrees also looks like they have something to hide.

“And none of this new information addresses the worries colleagues have about skyrocketing workloads in the wake of hundreds of job losses over the past two years.

“We imagine that in many cases applicants who miss out on their A-level results won’t be too enthusiastic about paying an extra year of sky-high Uni fees when they could simply repeat the year in school or college for free and end up with a much more flexible set of qualifications without adding to the already huge debt they’ll be saddled with after graduating.”

---

Get more trusted Welsh news

Choose Nation.Cymru as a preferred source in Google News to see more of our journalism.