Category: Universities

It’s a question of degrees

It’s a question of degrees

If further evidence were required that the university system is not fit for purpose, then research from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) makes it clear. It has found that one in five bar staff are graduates – up from three per cent 30 years ago. Nearly 20 per cent of waiters are…

Read More Read More

There’s mortar education than university

There’s mortar education than university

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair, author of the catchphrase ‘education, education, education’, has waded into this debate again as he pauses from his globe-trotting. During his premiership, he made it a policy to have 50 per cent of young people attend university – a wrong-headed ambition in my view. That figure has now been achieved,…

Read More Read More

Why universities are wrong to downgrade the importance of grammar

Why universities are wrong to downgrade the importance of grammar

Standards at universities should be high and academic excellence ought to be the aim. However, in order to ‘decolonise’ the curriculum and ensure ‘equity of opportunity’, the theory of ‘inclusive assessment’ has infected our once-great institutions of learning. This phrase is a euphemism for the further erosion of standards – the opposite of what universities…

Read More Read More

Vocation, Vocation, Vocation

Vocation, Vocation, Vocation

When Tony Blair came to power in 1997, he famously said that his government’s priority would be ‘education, education, education.’ But what kind of education did he mean? The answer was simple: a university education. His target was to send half the nation’s students to university – and it’s been achieved. But what did Tony…

Read More Read More

Budget gives welcome boost to FE colleges but education needs major reform

Budget gives welcome boost to FE colleges but education needs major reform

In the current economic uncertainty caused by the Coronavirus crisis, education was never going to be the main focus of yesterday’s Budget. I was pleased to see the funding initiatives that were in there – from investment in FE colleges to scrapping the reading tax – but I’m hoping to see more radical reform over…

Read More Read More