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  • How COVID has created a new imperative for universities to work with edtech

    27 October 2020 by Mary Curnock Cook & Jack Hylands

    In this blog Mary Curnock Cook, Network Chair at Emerge Education, and Jack Hylands, Co-Founder/CEO of FourthRev, review the role of edtech and emerging opportunities for universities in the COVID era. You can find Mary on Twitter @MaryCurnockCook . Recent conversations with dozens of university leaders and faculty have confirmed…

  • The ‘engagement monitoring’ of university students in the context of blended learning

    26 October 2020 by Paul V. Smith

    This blog was kindly contributed by Dr Paul Vincent Smith, Head of Student Support Services, School of Social Sciences, University of Manchester. You can find Paul on Twitter @Paul27326740 Many universities, including my own, now monitor student interaction with a virtual learning environment (VLE) and are able to produce analytic…

  • Ron Barnett: Will the future ever come?

    21 October 2020 by Ron Barnett

    This blog was kindly contributed by Ron Barnett, Emeritus Professor of Higher Education, University College London Institute of Education and Honorary Fellow of St Mary’s University. His latest sole-authored book is The Ecological University: A Feasible Utopia. This blog is based on the thoughts offered by Ron at a recent…

  • Why Britain should become the first country in the world to institute higher education for all – by Sir Anthony Seldon

    15 October 2020 by Sir Anthony Seldon

    This blog has been kindly contributed by Sir Anthony Seldon, who was the Vice-Chancellor of The University of Buckingham from 2015 until last month and was previously head at Brighton College and then Wellington College. He is one of Britain’s leading contemporary historians, educationalists, commentators and political authors. Education is a…

  • New Report: The experiences of disabled students in higher education

    14 October 2020 by Megan Hector

    This blog is an edited transcript from the launch of ‘Arriving at Thriving’, a new report into the experiences of disabled students in higher education written by Megan Hector, Senior Researcher at Policy Connect. On Wednesday 7 October, Policy Connect’s Higher Education Commission published the report for our inquiry into…

  • Policymakers must not forget refugees’ higher education

    13 October 2020 by Phoebe Campbell

    This blog was kindly contributed by Phoebe Campbell, a final year Classics undergraduate at the University of Cambridge. On August 13 2020, many students in England were left devastated after opening a set of A-Level results calculated by Ofqual’s controversial algorithm. Although implemented to push back on grade inflation, this…

  • The importance of student friendships

    12 October 2020 by Jenny Shaw

    This blog was kindly contributed by Jenny Shaw, Student Experience Director at Unite Students. Yesterday, Saturday 10th October, was World Mental Health Day. Unite Students worked with Student Minds on a #uniteagainstloneliness student-led campaign to mark the day. As the new academic year begins under the long shadow of COVID,…

  • Dennis Sherwood: The broken school exam system needs an upgrade

    10 October 2020

    The consequences from this year’s Great Grading Disaster continue to rumble on. Many students still feel damaged as a result of the ‘internal moderation’ exercised by their schools before their ‘centre assessment grades’ were submitted, hence the petition that, although rejected by the Department for Education (DfE), will be debated…