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].
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…
It may seem difficult to believe now that, only 30 years ago, there was limited interest in the working and funding of the nation’s universities or in the opportunities they offer to their students. By the start of the twenty-first century though, that had changed and there was a role…
In the spring of 2002 I approached Sir Howard Newby, recently appointed Chief Executive of the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), where I had been Policy Director for more than 10 years, with the proposition that HEFCE might support me in establishing a think tank devoted to higher…