HEPI has occasionally published hard-to-find and interesting historic educational documents, such as Anthony Crosland’s 1965 Woolwich speech heralding polytechnics and Ken Baker’s Lancaster speech extolling the virtues of expanding higher education. Another important but often overlooked historical document is the expansionary education white paper of 1972. It includes a section…
Iain Mansfield, a senior civil servant working on higher education and now an interesting contributor to public debate, has written an article on Wonkhe about influencing policymakers successfully. There is a huge appetite to know more about this: my own piece on the subject has been more widely read than anything…
Today’s report from UCAS highlights the stratospheric rise of unconditional (U) offers on the university admissions scene. Since 2013, when the University of Birmingham made the first controversial move, the practice of confirming places for students before they get their exam results has grown exponentially. According to UCAS, 2018 saw…
Six under-reported points in today’s debate about the sharp rise in unconditional offers for applicants to higher education. The autonomy of universities over whom to admit is enshrined in primary legislation. This was confirmed in the most recent higher education act, which was passed just over a year ago. This…
Earlier this week, I was privileged to take part in the Advance HE Teaching and Learning Conference Annual Debate on ‘This House believes that for the future of higher education to be truly global, education must be free for all’, hosted at Aston University. As a speaker on the opposition…
This guest blog has been kindly provided by Dr Andrew Hindmarsh, Head of Planning at the University of Nottingham. His responsibilities include providing management information and statistical returns to official bodies. Previously, he was Head of the Undergraduate Admissions Office at the University of Sheffield. He is also the Chair…
All eyes are on the Review of Post-18 Education and Funding and the independent panel of experts headed by Philip Augar that is feeding into the Review. Select committee reports keep emanating from Parliament aimed at the Department for Education and with an eye on the Review panel. There have…
This guest blog responds to HEPI’s recent survey on attitudes towards illegal drugs. It has kindly been contributed by Dr Keir Irwin-Rogers. Keir is a lecturer at the Open University, a researcher on alternatives to imprisonment and the author of a forthcoming paper on ‘Drug prohibition, Inequality and Consumer Capitalism: A Toxic Trap.’…
The Higher Education Policy Institute and the University of Buckingham have worked with YouthSight on a survey of attitudes towards drugs among full-time undergraduate students. The research shows a majority of students think illegal drugs cause problems for individuals and society – 88% think drug usage causes problems ‘for the…
In a marked reversal of a five-year downward trend, students in the United Kingdom are reporting statistically significant improvements in perceptions of value for money from their higher education experience. This is the headline finding from the 2018 Student Academic Experience Survey (SAES) published today by Advance HE and the…