Winning public battles on what it means to be a student today

by Conor Ryan

New thinking about students will be needed from universities in a period of constrained public funding. But there is also an important challenge in explaining to the public both the expectations that are placed on students and the contribution that widening participation programmes make to social mobility.

The price of quality

By Bahram Bekhradnia

Tim Melville-Ross, the HEFCE Chair, is such a likeable man. Rather than subject his new Chief Executive to delivering a Chief Executive’s report after only six hours in post, Tim effectively did that job. Among other things he asserted that maintaining the unit of resource for teaching is absolutely key for maintenance of quality. This is encouraging.

MPs need to be educated, too

By Bahram Bekhradnia

Much of the audience discussion on day one of the conference was dominated by the university vice-chancellors who had appeared before the select committee in the course of the latter’s investigation of universities and students.

School links may be the key to improved participation

by Conor Ryan

Another of the issues touched upon by Tim Melville-Ross in his speech this afternoon was that of widening participation. Although universities and higher education colleges are now spending over £200 million on access measures, most of this is being spent on bursaries, as a recent Office for Fair Access report showed.