There are some big issues for the higher education sector to grapple with in the news this week.<\/p>\n
BUDGET<\/strong><\/p>\n You won\u2019t have missed this week\u2019s budget statement<\/a> by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with its associated plan for economic growth. Of particular relevance to the higher education sector, the government has published a consultation<\/a> on reforming tax relief for research and development; there is an expansion in the eligibility criteria for the Global Talent Visa, which could include a fast track for those with research, innovation and technology skills<\/a>; and there is confirmation of a scheme for SMEs to access training from business schools.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n PENSIONS<\/strong><\/p>\n USS published a report<\/a> on 3 March which estimated the deficit of the scheme to stand between \u00a314.9 and \u00a317.9 billion and said that this would necessitate a rise in employer and staff contributions from 30.7% of salaries to between 42.1% and 56.2%. At a national level, UCU has accused USS<\/a> of taking an overly pessimistic view of the sector: THE reports<\/a> on potential industrial unrest. There is widespread coverage of this issue in the national media (see the BBC<\/a> for one example).<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n COVID<\/strong><\/p>\n The Home Office has laid immigration rules<\/a> under which the deadline by which this year\u2019s international students have to be in the country to qualify for the new graduate immigration route has been pushed back to 21 June 2021. For students starting their studies after Christmas, the deadline is now 27 September 2021.<\/p>\n Wonkhe has some useful analysis<\/a> of the implications of the government\u2019s road map out of the latest lockdown for higher education. It also unpacks the implications for universities of the decision to award A-levels by teacher assessment<\/a> this year. Meanwhile, THE has an article highlighting concerns from admissions officers about grade inflation<\/a> in relation to the decision on A-levels (spoiler alert: the article features comments from the Director of Admissions at Bath, Mike Nicholson).<\/p>\n The Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education (OIA) has published a new set of case summaries<\/a> on student complaints related to Covid-19. These are intended to be illustrative of the approach OIA will take to determining a reasonable outcome in such cases.<\/p>\n THE has a long read<\/a> on the impact of Covid-19 on student mobility.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n STUDENT ISSUES<\/strong><\/p>\n Thursday 4 March was University Mental Health Day and OfS marked it with a blog<\/a> about the work it is doing to promote effective practice on student mental health support. On Wonkhe there is a reflective piece about the impact<\/a> of courses with a competitive element on mental health.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n SECTOR DEVELOPMENTS<\/strong><\/p>\n Controversy surrounding the government\u2019s plans to introduce a Free Speech Tsar at OfS rumbles on. THE has an article<\/a> arguing that a \u201ctop down\u201d approach is not the right one. If you want to cut through the debate, the House of Commons Library has a very useful research briefing<\/a> on the subject.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n EDI, WIDENING PARTICIPATION<\/strong><\/p>\n An Education Policy Institute study<\/a> suggests A-level candidates from disadvantaged areas are at a three-grade disadvantage compared to peers from more advantaged areas and that the gap has increased as a result of the pandemic.<\/p>\n The Higher Education Policy Institute has published proposals from the VC at London South Bank University to introduce a social mobility index<\/a> for English universities. It has also published a blog post<\/a> from the Commissioner for Fair Access Scotland, outlining his criticism of the proposals.<\/p>\n Advance HE has launched a new podcast on tackling structural race inequality<\/a> in higher education, which you can access from their website. Meanwhile, London Metropolitan University has published a race equity strategy plan<\/a> for the next four years, which commits \u00a315 million in investments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There are some big issues for the higher education sector to grapple with in the news this week. BUDGET You won\u2019t have missed this week\u2019s budget statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with its associated plan for economic growth....<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1542,"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-7","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\/7","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\/1542"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/council-digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/council-digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/council-digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/council-digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/council-digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}