A report examined trends in applications for postgraduate study in England, and considered the possible impact of student debt on future trends.
Source: Exploring Student Demand for Postgraduate Study, Research Report 154, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills
Links: Report
Date: 2013-Dec
A think-tank report examined the impact on demand for full-time higher education as a result of the changes in student support and fee levels introduced in England by the coalition government in 2012. The report considered policy options.
Source: John Thompson and Bahram Bekhradnia, The Impact on Demand of the Government's Reforms of Higher Education, Higher Education Policy Institute
Links: Report | HEPI press release
Date: 2013-Oct
The government announced changes to the bursaries and scholarships for graduates who train to teach in 2014-15.
Source: Press release 17 October 2013, Department for Education
Links: DE press release
Date: 2013-Oct
Funders announced that fifteen universities would receive £19.5 million for teaching quantitative methods in the social sciences. Funded by the Nuffield Foundation, the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), the 'Q-Step' programme was designed to promote a step-change in quantitative social science training, aimed at addressing the shortage of quantitative analysis skills in the sector. A total of 53 new full-time posts would be created as a result of the programme, with centres to begin planning and rolling out their programme of activities in October 2013.
Source: Press release 2 October 2013, Nuffield Foundation
Links: Nuffield Foundation press release | List of universities | HEFCE press release | British Academy press release
Date: 2013-Oct
The government announced that from April 2014 the new 'pupil premium plus' would increase funding for children in care by £1,000 to provide £1,900 additional funding per pupil. The new funding would cover children as soon as they entered care. Children adopted from care and those who left care under a special guardianship order or residence order would also attract the funding.
Source: Press release 1 October 2013, Department for Education
Links: DE press release | NCB report | Action for Children press release
Date: 2013-Oct
A paper examined recent academic evidence from developed countries on the effect of school resources on student outcomes. Increases in resources were usually, though not ubiquitously, found to be more effective in disadvantaged schools and/or for disadvantaged students at all phases.
Source: Stephen Gibbons and Sandra McNally, The Effects of Resources across School Phases: A summary of recent evidence, DP1226, Centre for Economic Performance (London School of Economics)
Links: Paper
Date: 2013-Jul
A think-tank report said that there was 'no correlation at all' between education spending and outcomes, in terms of value added by schools, quality of teaching, or exam results. The ring fence around the schools budget was in fact damaging education by preventing schools from thinking hard about how best to use their budgets. An 18 per cent cut in education spending would be 'reasonable' and need not lead to lower standards, either generally or for pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Source: Lauren Thorpe, Kimberley Trewhitt, and James Zuccollo, Must Do Better: Spending on Schools, Reform
Links: Report | BBC report | ASCL press release | ATL press release | NAHT press release | NASUWT press release | Public Finance report | Telegraph report
Date: 2013-May
A report by a committee of MPs said that the funding system for independent academy schools had not operated effectively alongside the local authority system, and had made it hard to establish whether or not academies were receiving more money than they should. Of the £8.3 billion spent on academies from April 2010 to March 2012, some £1 billion was an additional cost that had had to be met by diverting money from other departmental budgets: some of this money had previously been earmarked to support deprived local authority schools.
Source: Department for Education: Managing the Expansion of the Academies Programme, Forty-First Report (Session 2012-13), HC 787, House of Commons Public Accounts Select Committee, TSO
Links: Report | Committee press release | AOC press release | ASCL press release | ATL press release | Labour Party press release | NASUWT press release | NUT press release | BBC report | Guardian report | Public Finance report | Telegraph report
Date: 2013-Apr
A think-tank report said that the Scottish Government would have to invest significantly more in the education system if the country were to have a world-leading 'learning society' by 2025.
Source: By 2025, Scotland Will Be Regarded as a World-Leading Learning Nation, Scotland s Future Forum/Goodison Group
Links: Report | SFF press release | BBC report
Date: 2013-Feb
