Stephen Downes

Tony Hirst looks for and find evidence of cracks in the British higher education system. Here's the list (I am quoting Hirst here at length):

• Revocation of London Met's licence to sponsor overseas students (the lead in to Martin's post), along with suspensions over the last year of the licence's at Glasgow Caledonian University and Teesside University.
• New ways of fund raising: Universities Look to Bond Markets for Additional Funding?
• Consultation on dissolution of HE Corporations, "[t]he first involving the dissolution of both Cardiff Metropolitan HE Corporation and University of Wales, Newport HE Corporation and the second the dissolution of the University of Wales, Newport HE Corporation alone."
• Reconfiguration of the university groupings: Russell Group expansion leaves 1994 Group short
• A letter from HEFCE to HEIs from earlier this year: Collaborations, alliances and mergers in higher education: Consultation on lessons learned and guidance for institutions
• Councils working with universities to establish university colleges: 'University College Milton Keynes' to open in 2012
• Publishers such as Pearson and Condé Nast getting in on the private university act: The Business of HE Moves On…
• Academic wrappers around vendor certification – the OU has been doing this for some time with Cisco Networking, for example, but also appears to be extending the model to other vendors: Open University and Global Knowledge launch new postgraduate certificate in IT service management.