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News round-up: Tensions grow over the return of staff and students to university campuses
Once again, the return of staff and students to university campuses has dominated Higher Education news. UCU insist that the risks of spreading Covid-19 is still far too high, especially without proper Track and Trace and testing protocols in place. Meanwhile, the DfE...
News round-up: Universities prepare for the reopening of campuses
As the government scrambles to save face after the A-levels fiasco, universities are preparing to reopen their campuses to staff and students. UCU have called on the government to halt in-person teaching completely, warning that the mass movement of over a million...
Might selective English universities now wean themselves off A-levels?
Words by Steven Jones, Professor of Higher Education at the University of Manchester. One reason that the government took so long to U-turn over this summer’s A-level debacle is that the qualification itself holds a much loftier status in society, particularly among...
News round-up: A-levels fiasco causes chaos for universities
After thousands of A-level and BTEC students were downgraded on results day, Gavin Williams and Ofqual - in a highly predictable U-turn - scrapped the algorithm and allowed students to use Centre Assessed Grades (teachers' predictions) instead, allowing many to secure...
Universities need to end their silence
Statement from the Council for the Defence of British Universities on A-level results. English universities have been remarkably silent about the fiasco over Ofqual’s determination of A-level grades. Universities UK issued an extraordinarily misjudged...
News round-up: Academic freedom, student safety, and widening inequality for Scottish students
This week, Policy Exhange published a new report which claims that academic freedom is being stifled at UK universities, the SQA has been heavily criticised for lowering exam grades for 125,000 students - many of whom feel they have been unfairly targeted because they...
We need to talk about academic freedom
Words by Eric Lybeck, Presidential Academic Fellow at the Manchester Institute of Education. Yesterday, Policy Exchange published a report on academic freedom in British universities drawing on a flawed survey with inconclusive results. This did not stop major...
From Regulation to Regime: Are we seeing a government takeover of universities?
Words by Liz Morrish, independent scholar. One thing governments have learned over the last 30 years is not to let a disaster go to waste. In the guise of offering a survival strategy for universities in the pandemic, the Department for Education has issued a...
TEF in the time of pandemic
This blog post was kindly contributed by Professor Dorothy Bishop. It was originally featured on her personal blog, which you can find here. An article in the Times Higher today considers the fate of the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF). I am a...
News round-up: Government “restructuring regime” threatens university autonomy
The government recently published their 'Restructuring Regime' for universities facing financial collapse, causing many to question whether university autonomy is a thing of the past. The petitions committee announced that there will be no automatic tuition fee...
