Revalidation, validity and the tensions between

Chris Gale, Leeds Metropolitan University

The law undergraduate degree programmes at Leeds Metropolitan University fell due for revalidation in 2001-02 under the university's usual five year cycle. In preparing for this process the course development team felt the pulls and demands exerted by university regulations, mission statements and business plans, by professional body requirements and discussion documents, by potential employers with their rhetoric and apparently increasingly diverse agendas, and by government both directly and through other bodies it has set up such as HEFCE and the Quality Assurance Agency.

Many of these potentially conflicting demands either did not exist or were not so apparent five years ago when this process was last undertaken. The law is still the law and lawyers are still lawyers, but the process of students turning into lawyers, and the definition of a successful outcome in that process, is changing.

The course development team, charged with the task of revalidating the LLB, BA (Law with Information Technology) and the HND (Law with Information Technology), do not dispute the need to re-examine and appraise courses on a regular basis. However, they felt that these courses had been pretty well scrutinised throughout the last five year period, not only by staff/student and management team meetings, but because they have been examined in detail when the BA was validated in 1998, the LLB was validated for franchised provision in 1999 and the HND validated in 2001. It was hoped that the present process could be driven by an examination of the curriculum, of assessment method, by relevance to the student etc, rather than by pure process.

Early in the academic year it became clear that the above may have been a naive hope. Each course had been 'independent' to date, but sharing many modules to enable us to keep the same external examiners for the same modules, we had to place the courses into an overall umbrella called a 'scheme'. This was an acceptable piece of process until it was revealed that strategic planning approval (that which is needed to develop a new course) would be needed for the scheme, despite the fact that its constituent contents would not need such approval if they had been continuing as independent courses.

This involved the time consuming completion of a largely irrelevant form and the involvement of the deputy vice chancellor. In fact, the entire package of requirements disseminated from the academic registry seemed to be one of unnecessary bureaucracy throughout if these measures were needed for 'quality assurance', then there would be precious little time for reflection on the content of the course and issues which it is submitted are true quality matters.

At every turn, more meetings seem to be necessary, more process involved. An external view of the scheme is required, but the very people who may be 'expert' on it, the current and immediately retired external examiners, are apparently debarred from giving that external viewpoint, as are all their colleagues at whatever institution they teach. Font size and the colour of paper to be used seem more important than the debate on 'should we include more/less compulsory subjects and how should we asses them'. Assessment is to be considered in terms of progression, not in terms of what is best for the module it seems.

The frustration is that, at the end of the process, a slick, efficient scheme should emerge, but that its content, its soul, the part that academics are passionate about, seems less important than its packaging. This is not to 'knock' the academic registry at Leeds Metropolitan or any other university. They are simply putting into practice that which has been laid down by government and government appointed bodies.

When the discussion opened up at the conference, colleagues all seem to have been blighted with similar experiences. The opportunity to assess a course and really consider its benefit to students from the perspective of experience is dulled by the need for conformity with professional body and government regulations and the need to ensure that agendas such as retention and widening participation are addressed. The result is a sort of 'burger chain' law course similar to one you will find everywhere else, perfectly good for what it is, but lacking the originality and passion that could just fire some future Law Lord's imagination; and the fear is that we are all the poorer for it, even if the packaging is right and all the regulators pat the new scheme on its well presented back.