In the news this week: 11 September 2015

Tackling low pay and insecurity the key to improving status and quality of university teaching

UCU general secretary Sally Hunt said this week that if the government wanted to improve university teaching it needed to avoid creating a false battle between teaching and research. Responding to Jo Johnson's speech on higher education, she told the Guardian that: 'The reality is that over two-fifths of university teaching staff are on temporary or zero-hours contracts. Academic pay has fallen by more than 15% since 2009 and promotions, particularly at a senior level, focus on research.'

Don't rush to embrace for-profit providers

Speaking to the Financial Times, about Johnson's plans to open up the higher education market, Sally said she had "serious concerns" about for-profit education providers and urged the minister to study the problems being faced by American institutions before allowing further deregulation. '[In the US], for-profit institutions recruited just 10 per cent of students, consumed 25 per cent of government-backed loans, and delivered substandard courses and high dropout rates,' she warned.

Red faces at BIS after accusations government policy is made up and then evidence (sometimes) sought

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills was left red-faced last night after putting up a version of the Trade Union Bill Equality Analysis that appeared to show the government makes up policy and then tries to find some justification afterwards.

On pages 11 and 12 (in a section entitled "the evidence base"), the paper concedes that it might need some statistics to back up its position. Unfortunately, nobody came back to the draft effort with the necessary data. BIS did not manage to remove the offending item before the TUC's women's officer, Scarlet Harris, had taken the document to task.

Government training review could leave students "high and dry"

On Tuesday UCU warned that government plans to review the economic and educational needs of different areas of the country could leave students "high and dry" if their aspirations don't match those of ministers. The union was responding to the release of new guidance for area reviews, which set out a vision of fewer, larger colleges with a greater specialisation on professional and technical education.

Sally Hunt said: 'Our colleges should be focusing their energy and resources on delivering the best education for students, not deciding which course or campus to cut next. Colleges need stable investment to continue to help people of all backgrounds fulfil their potential.'