The House of Commons Education Committee has been urged to hold an inquiry into the operation and performance of the Office for Students<\/a>, to ensure that it is fulfilling its role and responsibilities within the sector as a fully independent regulatory body, discussed by the THE<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Department for Education and the Office for Students have updated their Framework Agreement<\/a> in line with recent Treasury changes to the template agreement for non-departmental public bodies. Though most of the changes are minor it is notable that language on the need for OfS to work closely with UKRI has been removed.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Ucas personal statement<\/a> is to be replaced by a series of questions following concerns that it was too stressful for UK students.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n An extraordinary growth in income has been caused by higher enrolments and post-Brexit fee uplifts and bolsters finances of Russell Group institutions<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A study conducted by LSE Consulting on behalf of the Office for Students (OfS) highlights the role institutions play in enhancing and supporting the experience of international students<\/a> studying in the UK.\u00a0 The OfS has also published a topic briefing<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Teaching students basic life coping skills<\/a> may help boost grades and graduation rates, especially among low-income and minority students.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Welsh government will increase student maintenance<\/a> support by 9.4 per cent for the 2023-24 academic year, more than three times the rate of uplift for England, also discussed on Wonkhe.<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n OfS\u2019 Director for Fair Access and Participation John Blake has written a blogpost<\/a> on the initial findings of the regulator\u2019s research into the impact of the cost of living crisis on students, noting \u201cparticular concern that those student groups already facing the greatest risks to equality of opportunity are experiencing greater levels of hardship\u201d.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Charity Animal Aid has released a resource showing which UK universities<\/a> conduct experiments on animals based on Freedom of Information requests. The website claims to provide students and applicants with information about \u201chow their tuition fees are being spent\u201d and to promote alternative methods in science.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Universities are increasingly committed to equality, diversity, and inclusion work, discussed here<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Wonkhe discusses creating inclusive spaces<\/a> for black, Asian, and minority ethnic (BAME) staff and students and also looks at the latest OfS proposals on widening access<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n There has been a sharp increase in the number of antisemitic incidents at UK universities, according to a report by the Community Security Trust<\/a> (CST) with THE commentary<\/a> available. \u00a0The UK\u2019s National Union of Students has not been a welcoming place for Jewish people<\/a> for \u201cat least a decade\u201d, according to an independent report into antisemitism, also covered by the BBC<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A new online portal<\/a> has launched to promote opportunities for refugees and people seeking asylum in the UK to access university.\u00a0 The Displaced Student Opportunities UK website \u2013 created by Refugee Education UK, Student Action for Refugees, and Universities of Sanctuary \u2013 is intended to showcase academic scholarships, grants, short courses and mentoring for displaced students.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Details of staff employed at higher education (HE) providers<\/a> in the UK for the academic year 2021 to 2022 were published by the Department for Education and the Higher Education Statistics Agency.\u00a0 The sector has seen a growth in the use of zero hours contracts, that just 0.7 per cent of professors are Black and a sharp rise in the proportion of academic staff with teaching only contracts, fully explored on Wonkhe<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The University and College Union (UCU) committee backs escalating action in February and March<\/a> after rejecting employers\u2019 initial pay rise offer.\u00a0 The first day is confirmed as Wednesday 1 February<\/a>, covered by the THE.<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The number of academic staff working in the UK<\/a> who were originally from countries in the European Union has fallen for the second year in a row, new figures show.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Peer reviewers for a leading Royal Society journal will receive a \u00a3100 voucher for every paper they assess<\/a>, which can be used to reduce future publishing costs.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Researchers from marginalised backgrounds \u201cface systemic barriers to securing research funding\u201d created by funders and universities, a new report from the University of Oxford<\/a> has found, discussed further in THE<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Think tank HEPI has released a policy note<\/a> on how to improve the relationship between researchers and policymakers based on interviews with former ministers, special advisers and officials.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Catapults are getting more funding and more political attention. But what do they do and what are they for<\/a>?\u00a0 Structuring research funding around big, exciting \u201cmissions\u201d<\/a> is getting a lot of political traction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Regulators The House of Commons Education Committee has been urged to hold an inquiry into the operation and performance of the Office for Students, to ensure that it is fulfilling its role and responsibilities within the sector as a fully...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1701,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/council-digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/council-digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/council-digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/council-digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1701"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/council-digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/council-digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/council-digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/council-digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/council-digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Student recruitment<\/h2>\n
Student issues<\/h2>\n
Equality matters<\/h2>\n
Staff data and pay<\/h2>\n
Research<\/h2>\n