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Higher Education Policy

A collection of 6 issues

HEC and the Summer Ballot

by: several UCU Commons members of HEC who are not currently on holiday On 1 August 2023, UCU members received an email from the General Secretary (GS), Jo Grady, informing them that the Marking and Assessment Boycott (MAB) had not moved employers enough on our ongoing pay and conditions (‘Four

Anti-Casualisation at Congress 2023

By Ben Pope, NEC representative of casually employed members in HE until the close of Congress 2023 (with thanks to David Harvie, serving honorary treasurer since Congress closed) UCU Congress 2023 took place in Glasgow on 27–29 May, and over 90 pages of motions were discussed over those three

Moving On: the 17 March HEC Decision and Next Steps

In this blog, as members of UCU Commons on the Higher Education Committee (HEC), our priorities are to outline our position on the questions that were before HEC on 17 March and to suggest some ways forward. But we also understand that there is significant demand for a clear and

Student Distribution Recap and Update

This post was by Bijan Parsia with lots of corrections and feedback by various UCUCommons members. As #UCURising progresses, I’ve seen several people raise the critical issue of student distribution in HE. This is particularly important in the pay and conditions dispute, because, for example, student-starved programmes face elimination,

We're Fighting The Chaos

Note: This post discusses some matters from the UCU HEC meeting on 12 May 2022. Most of that meeting is highly confidential, but we checked with the chair that it was ok to share this bit and she confirmed that it was fine as it is not directly and immediately

Why STEM Practitioners Need to Stand Up for Arts, Humanities and the Social Sciences

by Nicholas Chancellor A recent narrative which has proved popular with Tory politicians and their supporters (see for example: this announcement) is that students are being duped by 'low value' degrees in arts, humanities and social sciences. The idea is that these degree programs lead to hapless students