This new pamphlet by Bill Rammell, Vice Chancellor for the University of Bedfordshire and a former Higher Education Minister, argues the Government’s obsession with market competition ignores the fundamental purpose of universities to serve the public interest. He argues that the public interest should be reflected in legislation and calls…
HEPI has published a new policy paper, Protecting the public interest in higher education, by Bill Rammell, Vice Chancellor of the University of Bedfordshire and the Minister for Further and Higher Education (2005-08) in the last Labour Government. The proposals in the paper include: changes to the new Office for Students to take greater account…
This guest blog on Ian Diamond’s review of university funding in Wales has been kindly provided by Lucy Hunter Blackburn, who is a Freelance researcher and postgraduate student at the University of Edinburgh as well as the author of the 2015 HEPI paper Whose to Lose?: Citizens, institutions and the ownership of…
A lot of nonsense has been expressed on both sides in the debate on grammar schools. But it can still be summed up like this: one side claims to have all the evidence while the other flounders when asked to provide any. Given this imbalance, the interesting question is not who is…
Students are less happy and more anxious than the general population, including other young people, and a minority suffer from serious mental disorders. It is stressful to live away from home without access to past support networks, while learning in new ways, taking on large debts and facing an uncertain…
A new HEPI report, The invisible problem? Improving students’ mental health, shows a majority of students experience low wellbeing, that depression and loneliness affect one-in-three students and that the number of student suicides has risen. The report calls for extra support from universities and the NHS. Nick Hillman, Director of the…
There are some universities that are excellent at research and others that are excellent at teaching. There are some that are excellent at both, where insights from new research brighten the lectures and vice versa. But the incentives for universities have been out of balance, with good research favoured over…
A new paper by the Higher Education Policy Institute considers the most controversial aspects of the new Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) and proposes substantial changes to make sure it works. Tackling Wicked Issues: Prestige and Employment Outcomes in the Teaching Excellence Framework (Occasional Paper 14) includes two essays, written by…
Successive governments have tried to improve teaching quality in universities. The proposed Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) is the latest attempt. This new pamphlet explores two of the most difficult issues that need more attention and offers some solutions. In the first chapter Paul Blackmore considers why research has a higher…
Hundreds of people (472 at 10.15am) have already responded to my new piece in the Guardian arguing against Owen Smith’s support for a graduate tax. It is not meant to be controversial but I didn’t expect everyone to agree with it, and it has definitely got some people’s goat. A small…