Alan Ryan
Whenever governments carve up Whitehall departments in the hope of greater effectiveness, words such as "deckchair" and " Titanic " spring to mind. Those of advanced years will recall Harold Wilson's...
Whenever governments carve up Whitehall departments in the hope of greater effectiveness, words such as "deckchair" and " Titanic " spring to mind. Those of advanced years will recall Harold Wilson's...
Among the familiar hazards of advancing age, one of the worst is the tendency to repeat oneself. Going on like a cracked record is not how most of us want to be known. On the other hand, another of...
There was a nice conjunction of stories last week. First, The Times Higher revealed that increasing numbers of institutions want to make their staff take psychometric tests to see if they have the...
First, the obligatory declaration: both my parents left school before their 14th birthdays, one grandfather drove trucks and the other was a shot-firer on the South Yorkshire coal field. Actually,...
It was William Bowen, the president of the Mellon Foundation, who passed on to my wife the aphorism: "If you want a job doing properly, give it to a busy woman." But it's nice to see the Corporation...
This is a season that tries the spirit. It's not just the inescapability of seasonal affective disorder, though how anyone in latitudes north of Watford survives the lightlessness of January and...
To begin with an obvious but improper question: was Oxford's rejection of the changes in governance proposed by the vice-chancellor a vote of no confidence? Not exactly. It was a vote of no...
The dust has settled, the freshers have arrived, viruses from all over the globe are merrily infecting their new hosts, and academics over the age of 50 are, it appears from all the press reports,...
Today is A-level results day. It was nice to see Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, getting his retaliation in not just first, but a whole month early: not waiting until the results were out to...
On Thomas Jefferson's gravestone, just three of his achievements are mentioned: that he was the author of the Declaration of Independence and of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom , and that...
On the face of it, PQA - post-qualification application - is the only rational way to handle university admissions. More information on an applicant is better than less; newer evidence is better than...
May 20 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of John Stuart Mill. Quite unimportant to anyone other than myself, it also marks the 50th anniversary of my first encounter with On Liberty. Faced...
Universities are quite dull places in which to work. In terms of excitement, they compare badly with intensive care units or operating theatres, let alone the trading pits of major commodity...
If I hadn't spent the previous fortnight managing my bit of the annual admissions round, I'd have enjoyed December's non-story about Oxford University admissions. The Daily Telegraph saw Gordon Brown...
Two-year degrees are not a financial quick fix, but they are worth trying for students who would prefer not to hang about A couple of weeks ago, there was an interesting exchange in the House of...