Widening Participation
Widening participation (WP) in higher education can be a component of government education policy. It consists of an attempt to increase the number of young people entering higher education, and improve equality of opportunity for students from all backgrounds. Widening participation is one of the strategic objectives of the UK's Office for Students (OfS). The Office for Students is pursuing this policy through a number of measures, including the payment of financial incentives to universities. This policy is linked to the previous Labour government's target of increasing participation in higher education to 50% by 2010. Criticism The issue of widening participation became a political issue after the Laura Spence Affair, which hit the headlines in 2000, and after the University of Bristol admissions controversy in 2003, which concerned alleged biases against and in favour of state schools, respectively. See also * Academic inflation * Office for Students The Office for Stud ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Higher Education
Tertiary education (higher education, or post-secondary education) is the educational level following the completion of secondary education. The World Bank defines tertiary education as including universities, colleges, and vocational schools. ''Higher education'' is taken to include undergraduate and postgraduate education, while vocational education beyond secondary education is known as ''further education'' in the United Kingdom, or included under the category of ''continuing education'' in the United States. Tertiary education generally culminates in the receipt of Academic certificate, certificates, diplomas, or academic degrees. Higher education represents levels 5, 6, 7, and 8 of the ISCED#2011 version, 2011 version of the International Standard Classification of Education structure. Tertiary education at a nondegree level is sometimes referred to as further education or continuing education as distinct from higher education. UNESCO stated that tertiary education focu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Government
A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a State (polity), state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive (government), executive, and judiciary. Government is a means by which organizational policies are enforced, as well as a mechanism for determining policy. In many countries, the government has a kind of constitution, a statement of its governing principles and philosophy. While all types of organizations have governance, the term ''government'' is often used more specifically to refer to the approximately 200 list of sovereign states, independent national governments and government agency, subsidiary organizations. The main types of modern political systems recognized are democracy, democracies, totalitarian regimes, and, sitting between these two, authoritarianism, authoritarian regimes with a variety of hybrid regimes. Modern classification systems also ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Equality Of Opportunity
Equal opportunity is a state of fairness in which individuals are treated similarly, unhampered by artificial barriers, prejudices, or preferences, except when particular distinctions can be explicitly justified. For example, the intent of equal employment opportunity is that the important jobs in an organization should go to the people who are most qualified – persons most likely to perform ably in a given task – and not go to persons for reasons deemed arbitrary or irrelevant, such as circumstances of birth, upbringing, having well-connected relatives or friends, religion, sex, ethnicity, race, caste, or involuntary personal attributes such as disability, age. According to proponents of the concept, chances for advancement should be open to everybody without regard for wealth, status, or membership in a privileged group. The idea is to remove arbitrariness from the selection process and base it on some "pre-agreed basis of fairness, with the assessment process being ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Office For Students
The Office for Students (OfS) is a non-departmental public body of the Department for Education of the Government of the United Kingdom, United Kingdom Government. It acts as the regulator and competition authority for the higher education sector in England. History The regulator was established by the Higher Education and Research Act 2017, coming into existence on 1 January 2018. It merged the Higher Education Funding Council for England and the Office for Fair Access, and formally inherited their responsibilities, while 'working in the interests of students and prospective students' and having 'a wider remit ... taking charge of the granting of degree awarding powers and university title.' The OfS inherited HEFCE's funding responsibilities (aside from those for research which passed to United Kingdom Research and Innovation), and OFFA's responsibility for promoting fair access to higher education. Responsibilities The OfS website lists its main areas of work as: # Helping st ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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University
A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Universities typically offer both undergraduate education, undergraduate and postgraduate education, postgraduate programs. The first universities in Europe were established by Catholic Church, Catholic monks. The University of Bologna (), Italy, which was founded in 1088, is the first university in the sense of: *being a high degree-awarding institute. *using the word (which was coined at its foundation). *having independence from the ecclesiastic schools and issuing secular as well as non-secular degrees (with teaching conducted by both clergy and non-clergy): grammar, rhetoric, logic, theology, canon law and notarial law.Hunt Janin: "The university in medieval life, 1179–1499", McFarland, 2 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party, often referred to as Labour, is a List of political parties in the United Kingdom, political party in the United Kingdom that sits on the Centre-left politics, centre-left of the political spectrum. The party has been described as an alliance of social democrats, democratic socialists and trade unionists. It is one of the Two-party system, two dominant political parties in the United Kingdom; the other being the Conservative Party (UK), Conservative Party. Labour has been led by Keir Starmer since 2020 Labour Party leadership election (UK), 2020, who became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom following the 2024 United Kingdom general election, 2024 general election. To date, there have been 12 Labour governments and seven different Labour Prime Ministers – Ramsay MacDonald, MacDonald, Clement Attlee, Attlee, Harold Wilson, Wilson, James Callaghan, Callaghan, Tony Blair, Blair, Gordon Brown, Brown and Starmer. The Labour Party was founded in 1900, having e ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Politics
Politics () is the set of activities that are associated with decision-making, making decisions in social group, groups, or other forms of power (social and political), power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of Social status, status or resources. The branch of social science that studies politics and government is referred to as political science. Politics may be used positively in the context of a "political solution" which is compromising and non-violent, or descriptively as "the art or science of government", but the word often also carries a negative connotation.. The concept has been defined in various ways, and different approaches have fundamentally differing views on whether it should be used extensively or in a limited way, empirically or normatively, and on whether conflict or co-operation is more essential to it. A variety of methods are deployed in politics, which include promoting one's own political views among people, negotiation with other ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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University Of Bristol Admissions Controversy
The University of Bristol admissions controversy refers to a historic dispute over the admissions process for the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom which occurred in 2003. The 2003 incident was caused by concerns over bias in the admissions system that were perceived as favouritism towards state school studentsIn the United Kingdom a state school is a government funded school which provides education free of charge to pupils. In official literature they are known as maintained schools and include a wide variety of schools including faith based schools and grammar schools. All schools which are not state schools are independent schools. See State school. after the rejection of some students with strong academic records who attended private schools.In the United Kingdom a public school refers to a privately funded school funded by the payment of tuition fees. The terms "private school", "public school" and "independent school" are used fairly interchangeably to refer to ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Academic Inflation
Educational inflation, also known as credential inflation refers to the increasing overqualification required by employers beyond that which the occupations actually require. A good example of credential inflation is the decline in the value of the US high school diploma since the beginning of the 20th century, when it was held by less than 10 percent of the population. At the time, high school diplomas attested to middle-class respectability and for many years even provided access to managerial level jobs. In the 21st century, however, a high school diploma often barely qualifies the graduate for menial service work.Randall Collins, "Credential Inflation and the Future of Universities," Chapter One of ''The Future of the City of Intellect: The Changing American University'', edited by Steven Brint (Stanford University Press, 2002), pages 23-46. There are some occupations that used to require a primary school diploma, such as construction worker, shoemaker, and cleaner, but now ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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David Watson (academic)
Sir David John Watson (22 March 19498 February 2015) was a British academic and educationalist. He was Director of Brighton Polytechnic from 1990 to 1992 and Vice-Chancellor of its successor the University of Brighton from 1992 to 2005. In 2005 he was appointed Professor of Higher Education Management at the Institute of Education and was Course Director of the Institute's MBA in Higher Education Management. Between 2010 and 2015 he was Principal of Green Templeton College, Oxford and Professor of Higher Education at the University of Oxford. Early life and education Watson was born on 22 March 1949 in Broxbourne, England. He was educated at Cheshunt Grammar School before winning a Fleming Scholarship (paid for by Hertfordshire County Council) to attend Eton College. From January 1967-August 1968 he taught at a boy's secondary school in Minaki, Tanzania, returning to the UK to matriculate at Clare College, Cambridge, where he was a choral exhibitioner. He graduated with ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Educational Stages
Educational stages are subdivisions of formal learning, typically covering early childhood education, primary education, secondary education and tertiary education. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) recognizes nine levels of education in its International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) system (from Level 0 (pre-primary education) through Level 8 (doctoral)). UNESCO's International Bureau of Education maintains a database of country-specific education systems and their stages. Some countries divide levels of study into grades or Form (education), forms for school children in the same year. Organization Education during childhood and early adulthood is typically provided through either a two- or three-stage system of childhood school, followed by additional stages of higher education or vocational education for those who continue their formal education: *Early childhood education at preschool, nursery school, or kindergarten ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |