Lots of people are publishing manifestos on what they want to see from a new government's HE policy. I'm not up to writing a manifesto, but I do have one wish which though unlikely to be granted I still thought it was worth writing a post about. lefttomyowndevices.blog/2024/06/09/hop…

I've been re-reading the 1945 manifestos for a thing next week. The sections on education - written in the middle of an economic crisis, with a huge job of reconstruction ahead - make quite a contrast with the narrowly econometric vision we get today.

Things 8 to 10 well worth reading. Ten Things #13 open.substack.com/pub/cricketeta…

"I worry about the denigration of Higher Education by this gov't." A healthy, balanced attitude by Jonathan Reynolds and in stark contrast with Badenoch who says the state should be non-interventionist, while simultaneously dictating to universities what degrees are of 'value'. ~AA

Today seems to be Happy New Quality Day. Perhaps timely as this area may be up for discussion with a new government, but possibly with a slightly different emphasis than might be expected. A few thoughts in a new blog. lefttomyowndevices.blog/2024/06/27/eve…

Cricket, flexible/modular provision & LLE via PSBs, Take That, Michael Barber & James Carville lefttomyowndevices.blog/2024/07/13/opp…

Never realised that the Yorkshire Sculpture Park was in the grounds of what was Breton Hall College, so taken by surprise today to stumble across a piece of HE history. Nice to see, 17 years after closure, the continuing signs of registrar-ial authority! 😉

I know that it is far less work to have an opinion on the Freedom of Speech Act, but the proposed changes to quality assurance processes in higher education are very concerning for people who care about, er, academic freedom. wonkhe.com/blogs/the-sect…

A piece on how the The Office for Students (OfS) independent review misunderstands the capacity and expertise of the OfS to define and assess quality wonkhe.com/blogs/the-inde…

The independent review of the OfS may have the wrong prescription for quality assurance of HE. Here @Vicki__Stott emphasises the need for the system to meet international good practice. wonkhe.com/blogs/bringing…

First month of the academic year, and first post of 2024-25. Steering clear of the current glut of pieces on the financial outlook for universities, the post takes a step back to one of the underpinning features of the way English HE is regulated: lefttomyowndevices.blog/2024/09/09/sil…

There's rightly a lot of attention on financial sustainability challenges in HE. Underneath the day-to-day academic year rolls forward, including reflecting on/responding to NSS results. This set me thinking about NSS & worrying about what happens next: lefttomyowndevices.blog/2024/09/30/kap…

The blogosphere is in full bloom. The rest of the internet has wilted theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

Some thoughts on some recent research on project management, and it's relevance in universities for the way we manage projects - and other things: lefttomyowndevices.blog/2024/10/14/one…

OfS are gathering views on the 22/23 series of assessments. It’s important that the regulator’s work on quality & standards is impactful - maybe it would be helpful to have an independent evaluation of the process and its outcomes?

Last week I came across a statistic about the proportion of people referred under the Prevent Duty who were also neurodivergent being used in three different settings. This set me thinking and ultimately writing about why this causes me a little unease: lefttomyowndevices.blog/?p=945&preview…

Among the current financial challenges for HE, there has been a lot written about the debt taken on by universities & the uses to which it has been put. That's led to a bit of a light, & some heat, but I think an important aspect of this has been missed: lefttomyowndevices.blog/2024/11/04/ren…

Posting elsewhere from now on.