The battle is raging over whether competition is a good way to drive up quality in the sector. If we accept Lord Browne's (and presumably the government's) view that it is, why exclude science,...
Vernon Bogdanor repeats the Browne Review's assertion that, since 2004, there has been a "significant and sustained" increase in participation in higher education by people from disadvantaged areas...
We are very concerned that some of the recommendations in the Browne Review could prevent disabled students from accessing university.The proposed £3,750 upfront loan for living expenses does not...
I wonder where Baroness Warnock has been all these years ("The review's reverberations", 28 October)? She sounds like Margaret Thatcher who, as education minister in the 1970s, was told that some of...
Where, I wonder, are the vice-chancellors in responding to this grave threat to the public cultural role of universities? When the vital interests of the armed forces are at grave risk, the chiefs of...
A component element in the UK's poor performance in modern languages is that many British academics are monolingual and unable to either present their work in foreign languages or read research done...
Many believe that above a certain threshold of competence, the award of research council grants has become almost a lottery ("Grant award? It could be you", 30 September).The success rate is very low...
When someone of Martha Nussbaum's pedigree speaks publicly about a forthcoming educational and political crisis, we had better take notice ("World crisis in humanities, not many hurt", 21 October). I...
Am I the only long-time reader of Times Higher Education who finds the use of "the academy" to mean universities or the higher education system irritating? It is difficult to believe that it is so...
I was most surprised to read that in the UK, the American Civil War "is not at the centre of a single undergraduate course" ("Blues and Greys in the UK", 28 October). As it happens, my second-year...
In competitive times, it's hard to avoid hype in a prospectus, says Tim Birkhead
I wonder what university teaching will look like in, say, 10 years?Will the age-old system continue, in which a lecturer pontificates from a lectern for an hour or two and tutors of varying ability...
A weekly look over the shoulders of our scholar-reviewers
Willetts vaunts flat-cash victory for science, but research councils still face operating-budget cuts. Paul Jump reports
Any doubts that world university rankings are influencing institutions’ strategic thinking are likely to be dispelled by news that academics in Taiwan have developed a tool that predicts the outcome...