A guest blog kindly contributed by Chris Ramsey, Headmaster of Whitgift School and chair of the Universities committee at HMC, a professional body for Headmasters and Headmistresses of Independent Schools. Whenever you review something big – a school curriculum or an admissions philosophy, or an Irish border – you always…
This guest blog has been kindly contributed by Dean Machin, who is the Strategic Policy Adviser at the University of Portsmouth. In 2015, he wrote a report for the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission on data-sharing entitled ‘Data and public policy: trying to make social progress blindfolded’. Tomorrow, UCAS…
Last week, the first look at the annual data collected on staff at UK universities was published by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA). As well as the usual information on the profile of staff, new statistics are available on staff who are on zero-hour contracts and those who are hourly-paid,…
The Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) has worked with the polling company YouthSight on a survey of attitudes towards Brexit and political parties among full-time undergraduate students. The research shows students are overwhelmingly in favour of remaining in the European Union – 76% opt for remaining in the EU compared to…
Over the past week, HEPI has been at the centre of a social media storm about academic selection. Last week, we published a report in our Occasional Paper series which looked at the question of how different school types fare in access to higher education, especially selective higher education, including…
A guest blog kindly contributed by Peter Ainsworth, Managing Director of Equimatrix, and author of Universities Challenged: Funding Higher Education through a Free-Market ‘Graduate Tax’ published by the Institute of Economic Affairs. 2019 appears set to be a defining year for the Higher Education sector. After years of plenty following…
A guest blog kindly contributed by Dennis Sherwood, who runs the Silver Bullet Machine consultancy. Last August, 811,776 A level and 5,470,076 GCSE grades were awarded to candidates in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. What happened next was sometimes jubilation (“B in history! Fantastic! I’m in!”); sometimes despair (a 3 in GCSE maths can close many doors).…
Most previous research on grammar schools has focused narrowly on eligibility for Free School Meals as a measure of disadvantage. But with 45% of pupils at grammar schools coming from families with below median incomes, a broader consideration of the impact of grammar schools on social mobility is necessary. The…
Like many people, I feel conflicted about grammar schools. I live in a part of the country where they are a mainstream part of the school system. The minority of local children who pass the 11+ have high chances of thriving at one of our three local(ish) grammar schools, but…
A new paper published by the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) looks at the impact of selective schools in ensuring progress to higher education. The Impact of Selective Secondary Education on Progression to Higher Education, HEPI Occasional Paper 19, by Iain Mansfield shows grammar schools increase the likelihood of progression…