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, Rose Stephenson, at [email protected].
Introduction The role of Head of Academic Department/School is one of the most important senior leadership roles in any university with responsibility for managing education and student experience and research and enterprise activities. Academic leaders at this level play a pivotal role in disciplinary leadership, strategy development, business planning and…
It was with great excitement and trepidation that I opened the Student Academic Experience Survey report last week – this was the first time we have a national data set that gives us comparative analysis for care-experienced students. A seminal moment for those of us working in this space. Unless…
After months of media speculation about proposed policy changes affecting international students studying in the UK, May 2023 finally saw a UK Government statement of intent – namely, to restrict the number of dependents coming to the UK with international students on postgraduate taught programmes. This has now been reflected…
Since the 1990s, China has enacted state policy that has encouraged Chinese institutions of higher learning to cooperate with foreign institutions of higher learning, setting up joint programmes and institutes, which now reach over 1,400 active partnerships at the bachelor’s degree level and above. This is known as ‘Chinese-foreign cooperation…
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…