This guest blog was written by Alison Baverstock, Associate Professor at Kingston University and Director of The KU Big Read. I’m feeling conflicted. Obviously this article is being published after internal consultation at Kingston University, but I am nevertheless aware that I’m in danger of revealing a significant Kingston USP,…
HEPI is today publishing The Comprehensive University (Occasional Paper 17) by Professor Tim Blackman, the Vice-Chancellor of Middlesex University. The report argues the comprehensive ideal is the best way to fix how the UK’s class-based university system is holding back social mobility. The paper’s recommendations include: measures to ‘desegregate’ and diversify…
In this hard-hitting paper, Tim Blackman, a serving Vice-Chancellor, calls for a much less hierarchical higher education sector. He shows how this will benefit students, the quality of learning and social mobility and, most importantly, he shows how to get there.
Tomorrow, Jo Johnson (the Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation) is delivering a speech to the Reform think tank on ‘Securing VFM for students in HE’. In plain English, VFM means ‘value-for-money’. So the speech could be ten times more interesting than it may sound. There are a number…
This guest blog comes from Jon Wakeford, Group Director, Strategy and Corporate Communications, at the University Partnerships Programme (UPP). It was originally presented as a speech at the 2017 HEPI Annual Conference at Regent’s University London on 7 June. With the numerous political and economic upheavals taking place in the UK…
When politicians associated with one particular policy or another change their mind, it is often a reason to cheer. This is because it tends to happen when they recognise some old evidence is correct after all or some new evidence comes to light and they respond to it. In general, our…
Our higher education institutions share a commitment to equality and diversity. In theory, this means they are united in their aim to create a balanced and inclusive culture, in which everyone, staff and students, feels valued irrespective of gender, ethnicity, sexuality, age or ability. The latest HEPI / HEA Student…
‘Ombudsmen in higher education are a growing and distinct cadre’, writes Rob Behrens, Visiting Professor at UCL Institute of Education and Independent Adjudicator and Chief Executive of the Office of the Independent Adjudicator (OIA) for Higher Education in England and Wales between 2008 and 2016. It is these eight years…
The Higher Education Policy Institute is working in partnership with Unite Students (http://www.unitestudents.com/) on the first major survey of the views of applicants to higher education. Students are regularly asked for their opinions, but there are far fewer robust and public sources of intelligence on the views of applicants, which…
Since 2006, HEPI has run the Student Academic Experience Survey, generally in conjunction with the Higher Education Academy. This shows a big gap between students’ prior expectations and their time in higher education. It also shows the degree to which prior expectations are met explains students’ perceptions of value for money and…