This book examines how policy has been made in British higher education and how the results of these policies have determined the shape of higher education.

This book examines the developments of the UK Higher Education system, from a time of donnish dominion, progressive decline and the increasing role of the market via the introduction of tuition fees. It offers a protracted empirical analysis of the seven new English universities of the 1960s: the Universities of East Anglia, Essex, Kent, Lancaster, Sussex, Warwick and York. It explores the creation of these universities and investigates how they each responded to a number of centrally-imposed initiatives for change in UK higher education that have emerged since their foundation. It discusses changes in system governance and how the Higher Education policies it generated have impacted upon a particular segment of the English university model. Divided into three parts, the book first deals with such topics as the control the University Grants’ Committee exercised in its heyday and how they initiated the launch of new universities. It then examines policy initiatives on government cuts on grants, research assessment exercises, quality assurance procedures and student tuition fees. The last part takes a broader approach to change by studying the significance and demise of Mission Groups, a changing system of Higher Education and more general changes regarding the state, the market and governance.

This book addresses three central questions in contemporary university governance: (1) How and why has academic governance in Anglophone nations changed in recent years and what impact have these changes had on current practices? (2) How do power relations within universities affect decisions about teaching and research and what are the implications for academic voices? (3) How can those involved in university governance and management improve academic governance processes and outcomes and why is it important that they do so? The book explores these issues in clear, concise and accessible language that will appeal to higher education researchers and governance practitioners alike. It draws on extensive empirical data from key national systems in the Anglophone world but goes beyond the simply descriptive to analyse and explain.

Book of the Week, Times Higher Education Forms of institutional governance critically shape the culture, creativity and academic outcomes of higher education. The book provides a new, updated and research based account of the changing face of the governance of British higher education. Historically, British universities were deemed amongst the most, if not the most, autonomous in Europe, with governance rooted in their collegial disciplinary structures. This assessment must now be decisively revised, although the belief systems deriving from it remain buried deep in university culture. Drawing on the authors' investigation of the governance of higher education in the four UK nations, including extensive on-site interviews, and discussions with government policy-makers, the book shows how global, national and system level pressures have changed the face both of the external governance of higher education institutions and how universities govern themselves. Government priorities, new funding methodologies and marketisation have all played a part in this process. Since the mid-1980s, there have been drastic changes in the external environment, reinforced by the increasing diversity within the higher education system as a whole and between the national sub-systems. In addition a new private sector of higher education has been created. New forms of institutional governance are emerging which may have profound effects on research and teaching and on academic creativity and innovation. The study discusses the effects of a state regulated system compared with the more heterarchical system which preceded it. It offers a comparison of the effects of devolved governance to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland on the respective higher education systems and their impact on institutional governance. The study concludes that England is becoming increasingly an outlier, and discusses the long term implications for the coherence of a British higher education system.

As one of the pioneers and leading advocates of neoliberalism, Britain, and in particular England, has radically transformed its higher education system over the last decades. Universities have increasingly been required to act like businesses, and students are frequently referred to as customers nowadays. Higher Education and the Student investigates precisely this relation between the changing function of higher education and what we consider the term ‘student’ to stand for. Based on a detailed analysis of government papers, reports, and speeches as well as publications by academics and students, the book explores how the student has been conceptualised within the debate on higher education from the birth of the British welfare state in the 1940s until today. It thus offers a novel assessment of the history of higher education and shows how closely the concept of the student and the way we comprehend higher education are intertwined. Higher Education and the Student opens up a new perspective that can critically inform public debate and future policy – in Britain and beyond. The book should be of great interest to scholars, researchers, and postgraduate students in the fields of higher education; educational policy and politics; and the philosophy, sociology, and history of higher education.

This handbook offers a global perspective on the historical development of educational institutions, systems of schooling, educational ideas, and educational experiences. Its 36 chapters consider the field's changing scholarship, while examining particular national and regional themes and offering a comparative perspective. Each also provides suggestions for further research and analysis.

Using an Open Marxist theoretical framework, this book provides a critique of the neoliberal reforms made to higher education since the late 1970s and the impact this has had on the sector. Rather than arguing for a return to the idea of the public university, the book argues that public and private models of higher education are both forms of capitalist accumulation and have historically perpetuated forms of oppression, exploitation and discrimination; thus, a more radical solution that addresses both the current crisis of higher education and the contradictory and exploitative nature of late capitalism is required. This book critically examines the autonomous learning spaces that emerged out of the UK student protests (2009-2010) and documents what can be learned from them to prefigure the idea of the university for a post-capitalist society.