Mike Ratcliffe is a higher education historian and career academic administrator, who has held senior posts at Nottingham Trent, Winchester and Oxford Brookes universities. Having become unnaturally interested in universities in themselves, he is particularly fascinated with their history and philosophy and has been doing postgraduate study at the UCL Institute of Education on the history of the university curriculum.
21 pieces
Newest first, since January 2015 · page 1 of 2
· Comment
You’re not on the list
Registration rules are changing – but what does registration actually mean for providers, students, and government. Mike Ratcliffe asks the difficult questions
· Analysis
The freedom of speech act in practice
The Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act is now law. “Now what?” asks Mike Ratcliffe
· Comment
Is the LLE your ticket to ride?
Is the lifelong loan entitlement actually a flexible travel card, or is it more like a weekend service on Transpennine? Mike Ratcliffe has a copy of the National Routing Guide
· Analysis
Registration time at OfS
Has the OfS approach to registering providers worked? Mike Ratcliffe examines the evidence
· Comment
The multiverse of degree apprenticeships
The interest in Multiverse getting degree awarding powers ignores the popularity of degree apprenticeships provision across the sector. It has registered with Mike Ratcliffe
· Comment
University or university centre?
Mike Ratcliffe celebrates the growing number of university centres, and finds out how providers get to use the word “university” in their name
· Comment
Why all the silence on higher education provider information?
Mike Ratcliffe is keen to see more information on the Office for Students’ approach to the information it provides about the universities and colleges it regulates
· Comment
The evidence against conditional unconditionals doesn’t stack up
The controversy over conditional unconditional offers continues apace. Mike Ratcliffe sets out the evidence on their impact on students at his university
· Comment
Why my university is glad to be awarding fewer first class degrees
OfS has challenged universities to look critically at why they are awarding more first class degrees – as Mike Ratcliffe describes, some are responding.
· Podcasts
The Hidden History of HE
In this special bonus edition of the podcast we have the whole season of Mike Ratcliffe’s Hidden History of HE
With Team Wonkhe
· Analysis
Let’s go fly a kite: Teaching and learning
Top wonks from across the sector share interesting ideas on teaching and learning within UK higher education
With Camille Kandiko Howson, Charles Heymann and Louis Coiffait
· Analysis
Another hole in the regulatory bucket
The OFS register is a key part of the regulation system, and Mike Ratcliffe wonders why hundreds fewer providers are going to be on it than previously predicted?
· Comment
Understanding differences in student outcomes
Mike Ratcliffe of Nottingham Trent University suggests what HEFCE’s final report means for how institutions support outcomes for all students.
· Comment
Is Britain’s university system really a timebomb?
Mike Ratcliffe defuses that UK2020 report, and offers a critique of the way it has been constructed. He argues that we need to address these arguments, despite their low quality, as they are continuing to catch the atten
· Analysis
Ministers must stop spreading bogus news about bogus colleges
The government regularly claims that it has cracked down on hundreds of ‘bogus colleges’ offering student visas, but is that really the case? Mike Ratcliffe has looked into who really has been coming on and off the Tier
· Analysis
The end of the binary divide: reflections on 25 years of the 1992 Act
The ‘binary divide’ between universities and polytechnics proved to be unsustainable, but the challenges it created are still with us today. Mike Ratcliffe evaluates the 1992 Act’s background and legacy.
· Comment
From burgers to bouncers: new providers, another new analogy
Jo Johnson’s decision to compare universities to bouncers has raised some eyebrows. Mike Ratcliffe argues that the minister’s latest metaphor is misguided.
· Analysis
Universities no longer for ever?
Read between the lines of the HE Bill and you might find the OfS can revoke university titles as well as award them. Mike Ratcliffe investigates what this might mean particularly for ancient universities.
· Analysis
New providers, new analogy
With the Green Paper indicating that the Government is seeking to further break down barriers to entry for private providers, Mike Ratcliffe tries to compare apples and oranges. Or Byron and McDonalds. Or chalk and chees
· Stacks
The university portrait
Mike Ratcliffe gives a brief history of the university portrait looking at the ways in which the tradition has changed over time.