Box of delight

Perhaps it’s no surprise that there was so much talk this year about education, technology, and emotional health. I mean, 2017 really sucked, and we’re all feeling it.

As support services get axed and the social safety net becomes threadbare, our well-being – our economic and emotional well-being – becomes more and more fragile. People are stressed out, and people are demoralized, and people are depressed. People are struggling, and people are vulnerable, and people are afraid. And “people” here certainly includes students.

Despite what you might have read in the papers today, you don’t need to look to the USA or Australia to learn some lessons about loose regulation around alternative HE providers. England 2010-2015 provides more than enough evidence to suggest that funding outfits with little or no track record of undergraduate teaching is likely to lose money and create the conditions for malpractice.