Author

Alec Charles

Press, PR & Comms Officer, QAA

22 July: Stressing that, under new proposals, universities will be obliged to release details of their franchising incomes, THE reports: "Universities will have to publish how much they earn from franchise partnerships under new plans from the English regulator, which has warned that some institutions are still mismanaging these arrangements. The Office for Students has proposed that providers with more than 100 students registered on their subcontractual courses would be required to 'maintain a single comprehensive source' of information that sets out their policies and procedures relating to their partnerships. Institutions may also have to be 'more transparent' about the nature of the partnerships and the 'flow' of money to each partner, the regulator said, as part of a new condition of registration." Meanwhile, Wonkhe's David Kernohan welcomes the OfS consultation on subcontracted provision: "The current concerns with this style of provision have developed precisely because agreements and fee-splitting agreements can remain obscure – a bit of public accountability for these kinds of decisions would do a lot to separate out the good and valuable subcontractual arrangements from the more questionable partnerships." He goes on to suggest that "a big chunk of the documentation that OfS is asking for here… is basically documentary proof that a provider is compliant with principle 8 of the UK Quality code (including the QAA's recent guidance)".

23 July: HE Professional publishes the second in a series of three blogs by QAA's Tom Yates and Andy Smith looking at this month's collections of Quality Code Advice & Guidance – this time focusing on operating partnerships.

23 July: Bucks New VC Professor Damien Page tells THE why he has reviewed and refocused his institution's franchising arrangements, an area of provision which has been worth more than £20 million to the university: "We had more franchise students than anyone else in the country – twelve-odd-thousand – which is just far too many, and the balance just wasn't right… Our financial sustainability has been predicated upon franchise. Now for us, that's not independence. We still want to do franchise but we don't want to have to be relying on it."

20 July: Warwick student newspaper The Boar covers the publication of research which finds that that "international students have raised serious concerns over whether enrolling in UK universities is worth the expense, amid rising visa charges, increased tuition burdens, and reduced quality of the university experience".

21 July: THE reports that Milan's Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti plans to open its first international campus in East London next year. Meanwhile, The PIE reveals that "the University of Southampton's new campus in Delhi has received applications from Nepal, Myanmar and the UAE, with its first cohort set to begin in August 2025".

22 July: Bournemouth's Daily Echo reports that former British Council Chief Executive Sir Martin Davidson has been appointed Chair of the Board of Bournemouth University.

24 July: NDTV covers a meeting between the British and Indian premiers during which Mr Modi noted that six UK universities are opening campuses in his country.

23 July: Seeing the OfS guidance on free speech as offering an opportunity for "depoliticizing the academy", The Critic's Ian Pace writes: " The… heavy politicisation of teaching… is not strictly excluded according to the OfS guidance, though discrimination against students on political grounds, or requirements for academics to conform to a political agenda, are. Nonetheless, seeing some teaching which makes no attempt to convey any type of balanced perspective and neither incorporates views which differ from those of particular academics, is not an edifying spectacle, and the dissolution of scholarship into politics may be a reason for diminishing wider public confidence in universities as institutions. At the very least, further thought is needed to ensure universities remain politically plural environments, and how to ensure wider academic requirements do not disadvantage those of heterodox but scholarly views."

23 July: The Times, the FT, the Standard, The Independent, BBC News and THE are among the outlets which cover former Labour Culture Secretary Chris Smith's election to the Cambridge Chancellorship and his mission to "use his ten-year term to defend and promote free expression". The Telegraph headlines Lord Smith's credentials as having been the UK's first openly gay Cabinet minister and highlights the fact that one of his rivals for the Cambridge role had been QI host Sandi Toksvig.

24 July: Calling on institutions to appoint free-speech champions, Leeds lecturer Mark Butterick tells THE: "Free speech in UK universities is like the wi-fi on campus: technically available, but good luck using it without getting kicked off. I say this after 30 years of wandering academic halls, sipping bad coffee in seminars, and politely disagreeing with people only to be labelled 'problematic'." He goes on: "tiptoeing. Say something 'controversial' (i.e., anything more nuanced than a motivational poster), and suddenly you're a pariah. Taboo topics abound – Tiananmen Square? Uighur persecution? Dalit discrimination? Might as well yell 'fire' in a crowded lecture theatre. Want to discuss immigration or transgender rights? Only if you enjoy career suicide as a hobby. And then there's the 'decolonise the curriculum' movement. Great idea, in theory. Like kale smoothies. But when applied with all the grace of a sledgehammer, it turns into yet another monologue, not a conversation."

22 July: The Telegraph observes: "While fewer students admit to using AI for direct help with their assessments, evidence of cheating is growing – even as it becomes harder to detect. Nearly 7,000 confirmed cases of students passing off AI-generated work as their own were recorded across universities in 2023-24. Experts warn these numbers represent only the tip of the iceberg. In the face of this looming threat to academic integrity, and to students' motivation to think for themselves, one might reasonably expect urgent action from the government, the university regulator or from institutions themselves. Instead, the Office for Students' position on AI, published last month, is to 'embrace innovation' and applaud students' excitement about the responsive support AI may facilitate. On the clear and present danger to academic integrity, it uses the Star Trek cyborg argument – 'resistance is futile'." It goes on to quote UCL Faculty of Laws Vice-Dean Dr Michael Veale: "Thinking requires foundational knowledge. Students who learn primarily to act as passive conduits for AI-produced information are not going to reach the potential they have to use the tool well, let alone the much broader potential they have as independent thinkers… There are voices arguing that heavy use of AI in, for example, coursework, is acceptable – these tools will be available in the workplace, so why should students not have access to them in a university? Perhaps they can be used in assessment, as long as they are acknowledged? We disagree. Students at UCL Laws are assessed on underlying abilities and skills rather than a capacity for 'content creation'.” The paper concludes: "In-person assessment may be the only way to guarantee that what is produced is the student's own work, but no one in higher education, including the OfS, knows the extent to which traditional exams still exist across universities compared with other forms of assessment. Many universities promote courses that are '100 per cent coursework'. While more academics may be putting their heads above the AI parapet to raise concerns and take action over their own small spheres of influence, they are up against passive university committees, powerful tech companies and what looks like a captured regulator. The debate goes on. But in the meantime, generative AI is being trumpeted from on high as the solution to the deepening shortcomings of our screen-addled, algorithm-assaulted brains."

23 July: The New World's Ros Taylor asks: "How can you test students if their work is being churned out by artificial intelligence?"

24 July: FE Week reports that the Department for Education last year for the first time overspent its apprenticeships budget – and notes that "experts now fear further apprenticeship spending restrictions may follow the scrapping of public subsidy for level 7 programmes and warned there is 'limited' headroom for funding non-apprenticeship courses through the reformed growth and skills levy".

25 July: Lancashire's Ramchandra Bhusal tells Wonkhe that the sector needs to stop treating degree apprenticeship students like traditional undergraduates and rethink approaches to curricula, assessment and institutional systems.

23 July: FE Week carries warnings that "tens of thousands of youngsters are at risk of falling through a 'qualifications gap' in key areas of the economy because of the government's plan to scrap BTECs" – noting that "BTECs in subjects such as health and social care, applied science and IT will be scrapped in 2026" – with engineering and business to disappear the following year. It adds that the government forecasts that 91,200 students will be studying for T Levels in 2027 – compared to the 277,380 currently studying for the qualifications due to be retired.

23 July: Nottingham's Kelly Vere tells Wonkhe that technical professionals can help lead and deliver the change which institutions need, as higher education should look to "harness the full breadth of talent available".

24 July: Wonkhe's David Kernohan considers the announcement that HESA's data records of higher education staff will be extended to include technical, professional and operational staff – a move which he describes as "good news for… staff visibility" – but "less good news" in terms of the additional administrative burden it will impose.

23 July: A security guard at a UK university talks to THE about his institution's decision to start outsourcing some temporary staff: "I'm puzzled by the economics of it... When we asked our directors, we were told it was cheaper to use temps than to employ guards full-time. When we asked how that was possible given that the temps receive higher hourly pay than we do, we were told the funding came out of a different pot. I'm not sure how that works. And while I can understand the need to be cost-effective given the financial crisis that UK universities are currently experiencing, it's difficult to get my head around the need to shave off a few pence per hour from staff like us when vice-chancellors' median total pay has risen by nearly £40,000 over the past three years to nearly £341,000." He adds: " One agency guard's eyes lit up… when we told him it was our job to issue parking fines on site. We later discovered he'd been sticking tickets on female drivers' windscreens, then taking their telephone numbers when they complained and giving them a personal assurance that he would text them with information on how to cancel the charge. The messages he sent, though, couldn't be described as professional." He concludes: " I like doing my job and will be gutted if I'm let go and replaced with someone on a zero-hours contract. But at least it will be a human replacing me – I won't be losing my position to a machine, a worry that at least one academic has confessed to us as artificial intelligence rapidly gets ever more sophisticated. Hopefully it will be some time yet before someone invents a drone that can stop a gang of teenagers from getting stoned in a disabled toilet."

19 July: THE reports that the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Students has said that "the UK needs to introduce an inflation-proof minimum student income linked to the living wage to combat 'crisis levels' of poverty". Meanwhile, the NUS's Alex Stanley and Saranya Thambirajah join Alex Sobel MP to tell HEPI about the collaboration between the NUS and that APPG.

22 July: Wonkhe's Jim Dickinson argues that universities should be held to account for publishing out-of-date information on the cost of living in their areas.

24 July: Wonkhe's Jim Dickinson depicts the LLE's plans for maintenance support as an "insult to anyone that doesn’t fit the dated norm".

18 July: The Economist argues that "too many British universities are obsessed with being world class" – supposing that "they should try being efficient and effective first".

18 July: THE reports that "around one in six institutions on the Office for Students' register were subjected to 'formal monitoring' by the regulator over their finances last year, while five had a 'student protection direction' imposed because of a 'material risk of closure'".

20 July: UUK's Viviene Stern tells RPN that "universities face profound changes but could be a source of optimism".

21 July: Wonkhe's Debbie McVitty looks at a new playbook from KPMG and Mills & Reeve promoting innovative structural collaboration between providers: "Both the sector and government have to answer the fundamental policy question of how to organise the post-16 education sector in such a way as to support the provision of the kinds of diversity of qualifications, subjects and modes of delivery that will enable the largest possible numbers to benefit from the opportunity to enhance their life chances. If there is a chance that broader and deeper structural collaborations across further and higher education can help to deliver that agenda, then at the very least boards and executive teams have to give those options meaningful consideration."

22 July: Open University VC Professor David Phoenix tells THE that the LLE could help ease some universities' cash flow worries: "If full-time degree courses are broken up into 30 credit modules, you could get your income in four times a year… If you're a university that currently doesn't have a lot of cash in the bank, then you're having to borrow money to get you through to the 50 per cent payment, so you're incurring interest charges… By levelling out the payments over the year, it could be really beneficial to the sector, without the government having to put more money in, it's providing a reduced need for borrowing for operating costs for some institutions."

22 July: THE covers the release of UCU research which suggests that "the number of job cuts that have been made in UK higher education could be much higher than previously thought, with more than 20,000 roles potentially affected". Meanwhile, RPN reports that new British Academy president Susan Smith has called on the government for urgent action in response to the sector's financial crisis. And in her regular column for The PIE, City St George's Diana Beech supposes that Labour's "message to universities has been loud and clear: adapt, absorb or be overlooked".

23 July: Talking to RPN, former universities minister Jo Johnson blames ministerial "dereliction of duty" for the HE funding crisis.

24 July: Arc Universities Group director Alistair Lomax tells THE that the sector's financial crisis could stymie the prospect of future "growth corridors". Meanwhile, Differentis's Richard Alexander tells Consultancy that university "mergers are inevitable". And THE reveals that the CEO of the Universities Superannuation Scheme was paid nearly £1 million for her first full year in the role.

25 July: Noting that ineffective governance arrangements are increasingly being blamed for universities' financial issues, RPN asks what's gone wrong. Meanwhile, writing for FE Week, NCG's Liz Bromley and Anderson Quigley's Paul Aristides observe that "FE colleges have honed strong, diverse governance rooted in community, efficiency, and accountability, while university boards struggle with financial tunnel vision" – and argue that "appointing college leaders onto HE boards could be part of the solution".