This week, a new universities minister takes the helm – and despite a gradual rise in students from disadvantaged backgrounds attending university, the top public schools still dominate Oxbridge entry   Eton and Westminster among eight schools dominating Oxbridge The Guardian, 07/12/2018, Sally Weale Eight top schools in the UK get as many pupils into...Read More

The themes playing out in the higher education debates in the houses of parliament seem strangely familiar, writes Professor David Midgley HERB 2.0 (the Higher Education Research Bill) has been playing in both houses of parliament recently. Like HERB 1.0, which enjoyed a twelve-month run between May 2016 and April 2017, HERB 2.0 has tended...Read More

The government believes that university courses can be rated according to the level of teaching intensity they provide. Professor GR Evans detects a lack of joined-up thinking “Prospective students deserve to know which courses deliver great teaching and great outcomes – and which ones are lagging behind,” said the minister for higher education launching a...Read More

The universities minister says that students should be compensated for missed teaching time as a result of the pensions strike, and a report says that there should have been greater scrutiny in the appointment of Toby Young to the board of the Office for Students   EU ‘should forge wider research community after Brexit’ Times Higher...Read More

The newly-published regulatory framework runs to 167 pages – but still leaves many questions unanswered, writes Professor GR Evans At last the Office for Students (Ofs) has published its Regulatory Framework. It will be laid before Parliament but essentially this is subordinate legislation of the Henry VIII kind. There will be no automatic debate or...Read More

Professor Jo Wolff goes hunting for positive remarks from Jo Johnson about universities – and offers some advice to successor Sam Gyimah ‘Farewell unis and science’, tweeted Jo Johnson, channelling Private Eye’s E.J. Thribb. Academics were astonished by such an honest statement of government policy. Relief flooded in when it was realised that it was...Read More

It’s been a busy week in higher education. We’ve rounded up some of the most interesting stories, from a possible cut to tuition fees to the revelation that a diploma mill in Pakistan has been selling degrees to British nationals Universities expect sharp drop in student applications i, 16/01/2018, Richard Vaughan University leaders are braced for...Read More