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…
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…
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…
New report says more can be done to prepare young people for university. The first major survey of its kind, Reality Check: A report on university applicants’ attitudes and perceptions, produced by the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) and Unite Students, shows a significant gap between what university applicants think higher education…
HEPI Policy Note 1, Misunderstanding Technical and Professional Education: Six Category Mistakes, considers six areas: Parity of esteem: The new T-Levels are supposed to give technical education the same status as academic education. But they have a different purpose and structure to A-Levels. So they will succeed only if they…
In a new report for the Higher Education Policy Institute (www.hepi.ac.uk), Mary Curnock Cook, the former Chief Executive of UCAS, says the Government must address six big gaps in technical education policy to raise skills and productivity. Mary Curnock Cook, the author of Misunderstanding Technical and Professional Education: Six Category…
Nick Hillman, Director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, said: ‘The Teaching Excellence Framework would have comprehensively failed if it had simply replicated existing hierarchies. It was always designed to do something different to other league tables and rankings – namely, to show where there are pockets of excellence that…
A few days ago, we imagined how the first conversation between a new Universities Minister, should there be one after the election, and his most senior official might go. Here, Dr Dean Machin, Strategic Policy Adviser at the University of Portsmouth, imagines the same conversation taking a rather different course. Minister: So what is our most…
The UK-wide HEPI / HEA Survey was first undertaken in 2006. This year’s results are challenging, showing students have: falling perceptions of value for money; continue to display relatively low wellbeing compared to the rest of the population; and have yet to love England’s high-fees model of funding undergraduate education. There are…
The 2017 Student Academic Experience Survey, published today by the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) and the Higher Education Academy (HEA) reveals: how hard students are working; how satisfied they are with their lives; and what they think of recent government policies. Over 14,000 full-time undergraduates took part in the survey…