Enigma variations
David Willetts wants more of them, but how much is really known about the UK's private providers? John Morgan uncovers a melange of institutions in a diverse and diversifying sector unbound by caps...
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Weapon of Mass Education
Some v-cs took fright when Les Ebdon stated his readiness to use the 'nuclear option' to enforce access agreements as head of Offa. What does that say about the state of the sector? asks Martin...
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Diary
CardiffA Provincial LifeFirst published (in censored form) in 1896, Anton Chekhov's story My Life: The Story of a Provincial is one of his longest and most openly political. At its heart is a...
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The Pick - WOW - Women of the World Festival 2012
WOW - Women of the World Festival 2012Southbank Centre, London, 6-11 MarchFrom the co-founder of Mumsnet to a woman determined to reform India's worst prison, by way of activists, astrophysicists,...
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'We know nothing' - QAA
"Hands off the Quality Assurance Agency."That was the robust response of Jamie Targett, our Director of Corporate Affairs, to the news that the QAA has absolutely no knowledge whatsoever of 63 out of...
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Clear thought about access lost in row (1 of 4)
The controversy over Les Ebdon's appointment as director of the Office for Fair Access has obscured the most important question: what is Offa for?For 2012 entry, it has collected about 0 access...
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Clear thought about access lost in row (2 of 4)
The debate around the appointment of the next director of fair access risks diverting attention from the successful efforts of all universities and colleges to widen access to higher education....
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Clear thought about access lost in row (3 of 4)
Might journalistic propriety have been better served in last week's issue by a bracketed reference, latched in place somewhere among the flurry of pieces on and opinions about Les Ebdon, to the fact...
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Clear thought about access lost in row (4 of 4)
Mike Goldstein's extravagant encomium for Les Ebdon misses the point (Letters, 23 February). Ebdon is on record as advocating that some students should be admitted to universities by having their A-...
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Consent agenda
The story of the Boston College subpoenas is a complicated one and understandably THE's account is incomplete ("Law and academy clash in the long shadow of the gun", 16 February). For instance, the...
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If it ain't broke, don't bin it
Timothy Gowers recently wrote about his decision not to work with Elsevier and his wish for an alternative to the academic journal as a tool for evaluating, sharing and preserving scholarship ("...
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Gift of tongues freely taken
"Arts and humanities offer Hobson's choice" (23 February) paints a gloomy and misleading picture of the health of modern languages in UK universities. The University and College Union survey Choice...
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Film review: Khodorkovsky
A film about Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky is surprising in its frankness, says Philip Dodd
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TV review: Those Who Kill
Matt Hills enjoys spotting the overlap as the Danish crime genre continues to bring home the bacon
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Daphne Brooker, 1927-2012
Described by former students as a "one-woman dynasty" and by colleagues as a standard-setter in her discipline, Daphne Brooker had a reputation for driving students to maximise their potential.After...