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Monday 28 September 2026Home of the higher education debate

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Podcast: Minimum entry, governance, working class boys and girls

This week on the podcast reports suggest the Department for Education is considering restricting access to the student loan book to those who hold a pass in GCSE English

Podcasts|19/06/26
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Team Wonkhe

Team Wonkhe

News, analysis and explanation of higher education issues from our leading team of wonks
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  • Politics
  • The Wonkhe Show
Team Wonkhe
News, analysis and explanation of higher education issues from our leading team of wonks

This week on the podcast reports suggest the Department for Education is considering restricting access to the student loan book to those who hold a pass in GCSE English – a move that could prove financially devastating for institutions with large numbers of students who lack that qualification, many of them linked to franchised provision.

Plus, the Committee of University Chairs has published a revised Code of Higher Education Governance, and we discuss the Sutton Trust's latest research on opportunity which complicates the narrative around white working-class boys.

With Mike Ratcliffe, Interim Academic Registrar at Canterbury Christ Church University, Annie Bell, Associate Director Higher Education at Public First, and David Kernohan, Deputy Editor at Wonkhe, and presented by Jim Dickinson, Associate Editor at Wonkhe.

Opportunity is shaped by where you live, who you are, and how much money your family had

The Code of Higher Education Governance has had a complete rewrite

Is the government really re-immersing itself in the MERs debate?

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