AKA ‘bums on seats’. A timely topic as we approach Thursday.
Who’s responsible for the phenomenon? We touched on the nascent structural machinations of the English HE sector in last month’s TAP Cubed, but this really very astute article from Smita Jamdar in The Guardian’s ‘Opinion’ section makes the issue worth revisiting. Jamdar very convincingly turns Sam Gyimah’s critical comments about unconditional offers back on the Conservative education policy that spawned them. Essentially, she makes the point that you can’t criticise a market that you create. Or can you? Read in conjunction with this piece from The Chronicle of Higher Education to get a US perspective and to explore the longer-term effects of a marketised HE system.
