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].
HEPI ran a blog in June by Jessica Hayball, who is delivering mandatory pastoral support training to personal tutors and doctoral supervisors at the University of Bath. Publishing the blog prompted a question about whether this work should fall on the shoulders of academics. I previously worked as a secondary…
I have been invited by HEPI to write this blog on the occasion of its twentieth anniversary and in the wake of the report commemorating this achievement, and I am delighted to share some thoughts in this context. I suggest that there are six conditions a think-tank – which is…
It has been a long time coming. Theresa May announced a review of post-18 education in her ill-fated 2017 Conservative Party Conference speech. In 2019, the Augar panel reported. In 2022, a higher education reform consultation occurred, which closed 14 months ago. Now, via a press release heralded by the Department for…
Ahead of the government’s long-anticipated higher education reforms, knives are out for “low value” university courses with supposedly little economic return. Degrees are expensive and students are right to worry about careers. But viewing university through a purely economic lens underestimates its value not only to the people who go…
The apprenticeship market for universities – including degree apprenticeships – has been the focus of much attention in recent years, as ministers and institutions seek a more diversified post-18 offer. Barely a week goes by without Secretary of State Gillian Keegan or Robert Halfon, Minister for Skills, Further and Higher…
It would be easy to think that this year is a normal Confirmation and Clearing period. Exams are underway and arrangements are largely similar to what they were prior to the disruption of Covid-19. However, the majority of students are sitting formal exams for the first time, after their GCSE…
Universities are a global business. Traditionally this is where established knowledge is stored and where new knowledge claims are evaluated. It’s also where the future of knowledge is handed from old scholars like me to the next generation of knowledge creators and workers who are here to learn their crafts.…
*** Sign up for our webinar with Unite Students, taking place tomorrow (Tuesday, 11 July) from 10am to 11am, here *** It’s important to state at the outset that universities are not opposed to robust regulation. A sector with no regulatory oversight is unlikely to be a healthy one and…
In May 2023, the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 came into being after two years of parliamentary debate, media and think tank speculation, and a large serving of consternation from within HE. However, the Act crossed the legislative finishing line largely intact, and the baton (or chalice) is…
The results of the annual Graduate Outcomes Survey are upon us again, and across the sector we scramble to analyse our performance in terms of highly skilled employment outcomes and how this might affect our internal performance measures and external league table standings. But it is worth looking beyond the…