A timeline of major policies and publications for UK HE from 1962 on.
Created by StephenP on 23/09/2008
Last updated: 12/03/10 at 02:25
A report by Kent University published last week found that one third of graduates from the of 2003 earn no extra money as a result of their qualification.
The degree system has been called "rotten", the Student Loans Company has been described as "incompetent", and graduate salaries rose last
year by only 1.8 per cent – the smallest increase in years – while the new £3,000-per-year tuition fees mean than some middle-income students will finish with
debts of £30,000.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/higher/are-degrees-worth-the-paper-theyre-printed-on-922410.html
Beyond the honours degree classification.
'recommends that the Higher Education Achievement Report (HEAR) should become the main vehicle for measuring and recording a student's achievement. The report proposes that the "HEAR should be developed and tested over a four-year period alongside the existing degree classification system, which encapsulates student achievement in a single number."
http://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/Publications/Documents/Burgess_final.pdf
The Review sets out a compelling vision for the UK. It shows that the UK must urgently raise achievements at all levels of skills and recommends that it commit to becoming a world leader in skills by 2020, benchmarked against the upper quartile of the OECD. This means doubling attainment at most levels of skill. Responsibility for achieving ambitions must be shared between Government, employers and individuals.
http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/independent_reviews/leitch_review/review_leitch_index.cfm
The Higher Education Act 2004 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which introduced several changes to the higher education system in the United Kingdom, the most important and controversial being a major change to the funding of universities, and the operation of tuition fees, which affects England and Wales and Northern Ireland. University funding is a devolved matter for Scotland under the Scotland Act 1998.
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2004/ukpga_20040008_en_1
Secretary of State for Education and Skills Charles Clarke requested Professor Steven Schwartz, Vice-Chancellor of Brunel University, to conduct an independent review of the options which English institutions providing higher education should consider in assessing the merit of applicants for their courses.
www.admissions-review.org.uk/
Over the next five years, the Government will be working with professionals in schools, colleges and partner organisations to transform our education system into one of the world’s best.
The 2005 White Paper '14-19 Education and Skills', and subsequent announcements, set out the scope of the reforms needed to achieve this.
These reforms represent the biggest changes in educational opportunity in a generation. They aim to raise the education and skills levels of students by delivering a curriculum which gives them life and social skills, sets stretching and challenging targets, and better prepares them for a fast-changing world.
http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/14-19/documents
The Lambert Review of Business-University Collaboration was a report published by HM Treasury in the UK in 2003, which made “a series of recommendations aimed at smoothing out the path between Britain’s strong science base and the business community” [HM Treasury 2003a]. The Lambeth Review concluded that the UK's dual support system acts as a disincentive to business-university collaboration [HM Treasury 2003, p5] and that the biggest single challenge for knowledge transfer is in boosting the demand for research from non-academic communities, rather in increasing the supply of and services from universities [p10].
http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/CONSULTATIONS_AND_LEGISLATION/LAMBERT/CONSULT_LAMBERT_INDEX.CFM
1999 manifesto, pledged that by 2010, 50 per cent of Blair manifesto pledge under-30s would have gone through higher education.
The 1988 Education Reform Act, which abolished the University Grants Committee and created the Polytechnics and Colleges Funding Council and the Universities Funding Council (now the Higher Education Funding Councils)
...concluded that the free provision of higher education should end. Maintenance grants were scrapped and students were charged £1,000 per term for tuition fees. From 2006, students were expected to pay just over £3,000 per year. Students can expect to graduate, on average, £17,500 in the red. And the
Student Loans Company, which arranges and collects student loans, was recently accused of incompetence when they continued deducting money from
graduates' salaries even after their debt had been repaid.
Curriculum:
Picked up on Robbin's breadth and depth concern - encouraging all institutions to carry out a review to ensure a 'better' balance. Also recognition that breadth was a positive attribute, albeit so that specialists could "understand their specialism within context" ) p.132 The overarching principle was the primacy of discipline specialisation as determined by academics with little central steer.
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/ncihe/
The Robertson Report recommended more widespread adoption of modularity and credit transfer schemes. Reference: Higher Education Quality Council. Choosing to change: extending access, choice and mobility in higher education: the report of the HEQC CAT development project. London, HEQC, 1994
Established the future strategy for publicly funded research and pushes for links with industry and other non-academic users.
The Flowers' Report considered questions of semesterisation and the possibility of a three semester academic year. Reference: Committee of Enquiry into the Organisation of the Academic Year. The review of the academic year: a report. Bristol, HEFCE,1993.
The Follett Report reviewed library provision across the higher education section. Reference: Joint Funding Councils' Libraries Review Group. Report. Bristol, 1993.
The 1992 Further and Higher Education Act which created the higher education funding councils, and granted university status to the polytechnics. References: Education Reform Act, London, HMSO, 1988; Further and Higher Education Act, 1992. London, HMSO, 1992.
Sets out the audit procedures for quality assurance and the new government agency, and recommended that new funding councils should be given the responsibility of ensuring the quality of teaching and learning in higher education.
Some point the finger at John Major. Shortly after he became Prime Minister, he sent a note round the Department of Education: Major wanted suggestions for a policy that would be both popular and cheap. The department responded with the suggestion that the binary divide between universities and polytechnics could be removed. There would no longer be universities and polytechnics, only universities and new universities. John Major did not have a degree; he left school at 16 with three O-levels – in History, English Language and English Literature. He had no snobberies about higher education, and thought the policy sounded good: it was cheap, it was inclusive.
Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA) introduced the Credit Accumulation and Transfer Registry brought about work-based learning for academic credit. The principle on which the framework was built was that assessed learning of a given standard and volume wherever it occurs should be given HE credit.
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=178999§ioncode=26
The Reynolds' Report, in the pre-1992 university sector, laid down guidelines on good practice relating to quality assurance in universities. Reference: Academic Standards Group. Academic standards in universities; universities' methods and procedures for maintaining and monitoring academic standards in the context of their courses and in the quality of their teaching. London, CVCP, 1986.
The Jarratt Report, a response to the growing need for universities to provide evidence of efficiency and accountability for public funds, impacted widely on the management of universities after its report. Reference: Steering Committee for Efficiency Studies in Universities (Chairman Sir Alex Jarratt). Report. London CVCP, 1985.
The Robbins Report set the tone for the expansion of higher education from the 1960's, outlining the principle that higher education should be available for all who would be able to benefit from it; leading to the creation of the 1960's green field universities and the granting of university status to several Colleges of Advanced Technology; and leading to the establishment of the mandatory grant for first-degree students. Reference: Committee on Higher Education. Higher education: report of the Committee appointed by the prime-Minister under the chairmanship of Lord Robbins, 1961-63, London, HMSO, 1963 (Cmnd. 2154, and five appendices). Curriculum: Too the view that academics were best placed to make curriculum decisions "It is good that they [universities] should be free to make their own experiments and to develop the subjects most congenial to their leading spirits" p. 233 Commented on tension between breadth and depth o curriculum.
The Education Act of 1962 awarded maintenance grants to students in most full-time courses.
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