The HE week
Good morning. As QAA prepare to meet in in Leeds for its Annual Conference this week, big question marks remain about the future of the agency as well as future of quality assurance in UK HE more broadly. And the conference season continues with a bumper crop to keep sector colleagues busy.
On Wonkhe today I detail a huge debate going on behind the scenes about the future of quality. With a fresh HEFCE consultation expected soon, the sector is abuzz with talk of a new landscape for quality without institutional review, probably without QAA and with a completely reconfigured approach to quality itself. The consultation was expected last week, but has yet to surface. With QAA meeting at its Annual Conference this week and the frenzy of speculation and discussion doing the rounds, it seemed like a good moment to set out what's being talked about as well as to think about some of its implications. It's a longer read than usual, but there was a lot to get through - you can find it here and you can be sure we will return to this issue in great depth as the next phase of the consultation is published and more detail emerges.
The first cut is the deepest
Last week George Osborne announced a fresh round of in-year cuts including £450m planned to come out of BIS - that's about 3.5% of the budget. Andy Westwood thinks we shouldn't panic - yet and Andrew McGettigan predicts the money could be saved by converting maintenance grants to loans. But there's another budget to come on 8th July, an Autumn Statement and a spending review all coming soon, so as we await details of exactly how the axe will fall this time, there's much more to worry about around the corner. In the mean-time, further education is braced for catastrophe - having been squeezed over and over again, their exposure in BIS to this cut is matched by another £450m also due to come out of DfE - in which schools are protected.
Also on Wonkhe
Last week: Policy Watch: Universities are on target to meet access requirements and True Crime on Campus from Registrarism continues with a curious pot noodle incident. There's lots more planned this week on the site - follow us @wonkhe to stay in the loop.
Odds and sods elsewhere
According to the Daily Mail, China is using drones to watch over students to prevent cheating in exams. A row is brewing in Scotland about the extent of animal testing in Scottish universities. The New York Times has an interesting piece from the US 'Why I defaulted on my student loans.' The Telegraph has a piece by a close adviser to Theresa May 'It will take more than bluster to slash immigration'. And Vice has a piece on academic zero-hours contracts at British universities.
To feature in our new Monday morning briefing, to let us know what we're missing or to tell us what else you'd like to see here - please get in touch by replying to this email.
Mark
This week's higher education agenda
Monday
EVENT: SRHE Seminar Theory in the doctoral project seminar, Glasgow
EVENT: SRHE Seminar Widening Participation and employability, London
EVENT: Leadership Foundation BME Leadership in HE Summit, London
Tuesday
REPORT: BIS Graduate Labour Market Statistics
EVENT: UUK International student experience conference, London
EVENT: Westminster Education Forum Technology in education conference, London
EVENT: QAA Scotland Enhancement and Innovation in HE Conference, Glasgow
Wednesday
EVENT: National Science and Innovation Conference, London
EVENT: Wonkhe/Unite Data-Led Policy Debate, London
EVENT: UCAS Getting into HE, London
EVENT: SRHE Doctoral Supervision Dilemmas & Resolutions Workshop, London
EVENT: QAA annual conference, Leeds (until Thursday)
EVENT: PraxisUnico 2015 conference, Dublin
Thursday
EVENT: CASE Development for Deans and Academics, London
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