What should we make of the recent UCAS release that a third of 18 year olds now receive unconditional offers for university places? School and college representatives are right to argue that this is a reflection of an ‘out of control’ market based higher education system where universities have to chase students or face financial […]
The countdown to Brexit has seen a 15% fall in the number of Eastern European workers residing in the UK – in all 154,000 fewer than for July to September 2017 and 173,000 fewer than the record high of 1.05 million for July to September 2016. This decline comes at a time when vacancies, after […]
Phillip Hammond’s budget remains firmly located within Neo-liberal economics. The principle aim is to reduce and finally eliminate the budget deficit and so lower the size of the National Debt. For the Neo-liberals public debt is a drag on the ‘real’ economy as it suffocates the private sector. But under pressure from Labour, some of […]
Book review: Who Are Universities For? Re-making higher education by TomSperlinger, Josie McLellan and Richard Pettigrew Patrick Ainley welcomes a book that rethinks the purpose of a university – and offers some radical suggestions of his own (Originally published by the Council for the Defence of British Universities http://cdbu.org.uk/ ) Everyone knows who universities are […]
Labour has published its national policy forum response on education. There’s a great deal to be welcomed, but for some areas, most notably post-16 and Further Education, proposals are largely absent and where they are addressed, are scant and uniformed. See the following quote on vocational and technical education for example: ‘ The Open University […]
