A report in the Times today, ‘PM’s foreign student plan to shore up economy; Increase in working hours to plug job vacancies’, has certainly raised a few eyebrows in our universities. It reveals a reckless disregard for the time needed…
The crude strategy of the government appears to be one of keeping student maintenance funding below what is needed to survive and thus push families to fill the gap. The reality is that many students put in more hours in…
The chair of the Social Mobility Commission, Katharine Birbalsingh, resigned at the end of last week in the latest episode of an increasingly dysfunctional organisation. She follows in the footsteps of other chairs who gave up and resigned when they…
The increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools in education is causing some considerable disquiet amongst educators who see it as ‘cheating’. This could be in the context of writing assignments or in taking shortcuts in assessment of the same…
A free TEFS calendar for 2023 can be downloaded from HERE. The biggest single event for the UK in 2022 was the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, the end of the Elizabethan era and the beginning of a new Carolean…
The events post budget in the last month have shown what happens when free market ideology collides with the stark reality of our times. It’s not good, and the collision will probably slide well into 2023 as recognition of a…
The Office for Students (OfS) ‘Consultation on a new approach to regulating equality of opportunity in English higher education’ closed at noon today. It marks an ‘upping the ante’ on universities that are already under severe pressure. By putting the…
Now the dust is beginning to settle this week after the skirmishes surrounding the leadership of the Conservative party, it appears that the Department for Education (DfE) will begin to turn around in a major way. Prime minister Sunak’s pledge…
News emerged last week that T-level examinations turned out to be ‘unreliable’ this summer. One assessment organisation, the Northern Council for Further Education (NCFE) has been plagued by gremlins to such an extent that there had been rumblings and complaints…
