The HEPI Blog aims to make brief, incisive contributions to the higher education policy landscape. It is circulated to our subscribers and published online. We welcome guest submissions, which should follow our Instructions for Blog Authors. Submissions should be sent to our Blog Editor, Josh Freeman, at [email protected].
Knowledge of languages is the doorway to wisdom, as the medieval English philosopher Roger Bacon is reported to have said. Bacon’s achievements were such that he was known as ‘Doctor Mirabilis’, and he is widely credited as one of the earliest European advocates of the modern scientific method. Languages, scientific…
On Thursday, university offer holders from England, Wales and Northern Ireland will wake up from their summer slumbers and head to their school or college to collect their exam results. They might expect three things: falling grades, high competition, and to be attending university with more international students than before.…
In this blog, I want to provide some context and challenge to two erroneous statements that are made about exam grades: For teenagers, exam results days mark major milestones. For most GCSE, A level and BTEC students, the grades they get awarded this summer represent a passport which will either…
At the time of HEPI’s foundation in 2003, higher education was one of the key issues in politics and public policy. Student issues were at the centre of this. A new White Paper, The Future of Higher Education, was published by Charles Clarke, a Secretary of State who had himself…
*** Sign up now for our webinar with UCAS Chief Executive Clare Marchant, taking place at 11am on Monday 14th August. *** Central to the expansion of higher education is how it is funded and who pays. This debate predates HEPI’s launch 20 years ago and continues today. At stake…
The university sector in the UK is, despite its status in popular and political discourse, only one part of a much broader spectrum of post-secondary education. This spectrum of tertiary education and training also includes further education (FE) colleges and other higher education institutions (HEIs). Neither has the nature of…
There was recently a row when a 25-year old, Keir Mather, won the Selby and Ainsty by-election for Labour. The Conservative MP Johnny Mercer took to the airwaves to protest against Parliament becoming ‘like the Inbetweeners.’ In the US, there are stringent minimum ages for elected politicians – you must…
There was certainly a plan. Some said it was scrawled on the back of a beer mat or a cigarette packet. It was more likely to have figured on a blackboard in Sanctuary Buildings, though that could have been in words, a chart or a formula. A public version of…
After teaching for 31 years in primary and middle schools, including eleven as head teacher, I retired (at the age of 52) in 1997 and a year later created my first website, which contained, in addition to an assortment of personal material, an education section consisting of the essays and…
To measure is to know Attributed to William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin (1824–1907) As HEPI marks 20 years of debate and constructive criticism on matters relating to higher education in the UK and beyond, it has invited expert researchers, practitioners and commentators to reflect on the way that tertiary education…