This guest post has been kindly written for HEPI by Tom Sperlinger, who is Professor of Literature and Engaged Pedagogy at the University of Bristol and co-author of Who are universities for? I have never cheered out loud when reading a review of higher education funding before. But I did…
It would be a great pity if the bulk of the Augar review were to be rejected as a result of criticism of its headline recommendations on student fees, or completely lost in the general hubbub generated by the Conservative leadership race. While the concern expressed in the report about…
This is a guest blog kindly contributed by Dan Holloway in response to HEPI’s recent research on well-being. Dan sits on the Oxford University Disability Advisory Group and has been an adviser to the financial sector on debt, mental health, and financial inclusion for more than a decade. He gave the…
Yesterday’s Augar review praised the track record of Further Education Colleges’ Access to HE courses, which it argued, provide better value for money than University foundation year courses. This timely guest blog by Rt. Hon Sir John Hayes MP, former Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning discusses the…
A guest blog kindly contributed by Dr Liz Morrish, author of today’s new HEPI Occasional Paper 20: Pressure Vessels: The epidemic of poor mental health among higher education staff. There has recently been a significant amount of media concern surrounding the poor mental health of academics. In February 2018, Paul…
A guest blog kindly contributed by Scott Caizley, who is a PhD researcher at Kings College London looking at the experiences of low-income state school pupils at elite UK music conservatoires. Access and participation amongst state schooled students in UK conservatoires throughout the past years have remained at an all-time…
Lucian J. Hudson writes in a personal capacity. He is interim Director of Public Affairs and Communications at Oxford University, and a past Director of Communications at The Open University and Foreign & Commonwealth Office. In Lampedusa’s novel, The Leopard, chronicling upheavals in Sicilian society, one of its characters offers…
This book review has been kindly contributed by Francis Green, Professor of Work and Education Economics at UCL Institute of Education, and co-author, with historian David Kynaston, of ‘Engines of Privilege. Britain’s Private School Problem’, (Bloomsbury 2019). Private school leaders and sector authorities are sometimes more informative and thought-provoking when…
A guest blog from Patrick Mulrenan, the course leader for the BSc Community Development and Leadership at London Metropolitan University. One of the challenges of policy making is that issues are sometimes defined in stereotypes. This is particularly true of university education. Television programmes such as Fresh Meat have portrayed…
This guest blog responding to yesterday’s media stories about independent schools and university entry has been kindly contributed by Chris Ramsey, Headmaster of Whitgift School, and spokesperson on universities for the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference (HMC). Journalists’ headlines are fair game of course, and always have been, but sometimes you wince a bit more than usual, and reading…