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].
This blog has been kindly written for HEPI by Dr Alex Bols, Deputy Chief Executive of GuildHE. The recent HEPI paper, Opportunities to improve university governance in England (HEPI Report 155), by Dr Alison Wheaton, is an insightful look into how we can improve university governance in England. It suggests that there…
Naimat Zafary came to the UK as a Chevening Scholar on one of the last flights from Kabul as the Taliban took Afghanistan. He is now studying for his PhD at the University of Sussex. This article was written with Ruth Arnold, Head of External Affairs at Study Group and…
This blog has been kindly written for HEPI by Tom Fryer, Steve Westlake and Professor Steven Jones. On 12 January, UCAS released Future of Undergraduate Admissions, a report that contained details of five upcoming reforms. In the report, UCAS proposes to reform the free-text personal statement into a series of questions. This…
This blog was kindly contributed by Sam Fankhauser, Professor of Climate Economics and Policy at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford. At COP27 in Egypt this November – officially, the 27th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change – a sobering…
This blog has been kindly written for HEPI by Kim Eccleston, Head of Strategy and Reform – Strategy, Policy and Public Affairs, at UCAS. HEPI’s recent paper on reforming UCAS personal statements is here. At UCAS, we are continually working to improve the admissions service to serve applicants better and…
This blog was kindly contributed by Rob Stroud, Director of Quality Assessment, England at the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education. In their recent HEPI blog, Professor Sir Malcolm Grant and Mary Curnock Cook rightly highlight some of the challenges that independent challenger institutions have faced entering the higher education…
Not for the first time, Leicester lays claim to be a unique place in the UK. According to the 2021 Census data, it has emerged as the first plural city in the UK where no ethnic group has a majority. In the blog below, Professor Nishan Canagarajah, President & Vice-Chancellor…
Like many people, I am sceptical that a graduate tax is a good answer to either the funding crisis affecting higher education institutions and students or the political challenges faced by Keir Starmer and others who have spoken of getting rid of tuition fees in England. Promising a big new tax…
This week, the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak promised to make Maths compulsory to the age of 18, which would need a lot of extra Maths teachers… Here, writing in a personal capacity, Pam Tatlow looks at the current state of teacher training in England. Pam is on Twitter @Pam_Tatlow. The…
This blog was kindly contributed by Sarah Stevens, Director of Policy at the Russell Group (@RussellGroup). Many would say that the UK higher education system dodged a bullet at the recent Autumn Statement, with the deferral of significant fiscal restraint until after the next election meaning no immediate shift to austerity-style…