The Eiffel Tower in the middle with the logos of the Labour and Conservative Parties in the sky on either side

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In: Education, HE policy, Politics, Skills
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Reflections for the higher education sector from the Autumn Labour and Conservative Party conferences The story goes that the French writer Guy de Maupassant ate lunch every day in the restaurant at the top of the Eiffel Tower. Not out of any fondness for their croques monsieur, but rather because it was the only place in Paris where he didn’t have to look at the tower as he dined. So it is with party conferences. You can only really see what went on from a safe distance. In the midst of the assault on your sleep, diet and liver, it’s hard to read the room.Read More →

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In: Admissions and access, Education, Fair access, HE funding, tuition fees, & student loans, HE policy
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BBC Radio 4 reported this morning a leak from the current Augar Review of Post-18 Education Funding. They claimed that a ‘source’ had supported a report in The Times last week that the review would propose that tuition fees should be capped at £6,500 and the “shortfall would be made up by capping student numbers”.  For starters, the way this is worded makes no sense as capping numbers would only make funding shortfall worse, not better because of loss of economies of scale. I put this down to the BBC’s over-simplified description. More worryingly, this would be a disaster for any course costing more to run.Read More →