This guest blog has been kindly written for HEPI by Mary Curnock Cook. Follow Mary on Twitter – @MaryCurnockCook. There’s much for higher education watchers to take note of in Damian Hinds’ speech on 6 December. It starts to map out a more coherent view of technical education pathways to support…
Responding to the news that Chris Skidmore is to the new Minister for Universities, Nick Hillman, Director of the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI), said: This is an interesting appointment. No one predicted it, but it’s not a radical departure. Chris’s impressive bibliography as an author of Tudor history, his…
Imagine the following scenario. First, a Prime Minister lacking a clear parliamentary majority feels obliged by electoral forces to bring a particular policy to Parliament for MPs to vote on. This policy is a notable u-turn from her previous position. The new policy is also an uneasy compromise. It does…
The 17th day of December is a fairly momentous day in history. According to a website called infoplease, France first recognised America then, the first heavier-than-air plane was flown by the Wright brothers and NAFTA was signed. A different website records it as the day of the first ever heart, lung…
On Thursday evening, Sam Gyimah gave an entertaining speech at the Times Higher awards. It showed a shrewd grasp of the main issues facing the sector. He also told us he was due to leave for Brussels at 5am the next day for meetings. Perhaps it was the prospect of…
Yesterday the long anticipated (at least by those of us with an interest in HE data) Office for Students (OfS) data strategy was published. This provides greater clarity on the OfS understanding of their future role as they approach the halfway point through their transition year. Much within the data strategy…
On Thursday, 29thNovember 2018, the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) publishes Fairer Funding: The case for a graduate levy (Policy Note 10) by Johnny Rich, which outlines a radical new approach to funding higher education. In order to balance the cost more fairly between students, taxpayers and employers, the paper proposes…
The 2018 HEPI Annual Lecture and subsequent reception were kindly sponsored by Pearson, to whom we are very grateful. Introduction When reflecting on the legacy of Nelson Mandela, the founding father of South Africa’s post-apartheid democracy, now one-hundred years since his birth and almost five years since his passing, I…
Last week, I wrote a blog predicting our newest paper, which looks at the uses of tuition fees, would turn out to be one of our most controversial ever. That prediction has already turned out to be true, but not for the reasons I outlined. I had thought challenge would…