This week on the podcast we investigate the government’s plan for a new science agency, discuss transnational education, talk about the Office for Students’ Insights report into disabled students and their Disabled Students’ Commission, and consider how we might meet demand for higher education over the next decade.
With Ben Vulliamy, CEO of the University of York’s Students’ Union; Kate Wicklow, Policy Manager at GuildHE; and Jim Dickinson, Associate Editor at Wonkhe.
Items this week
- New science agency
- Transnational Education
- Disabled students’ commission and Insights Report
- Why is no the hardest word in higher education policy?
Yes, but does it correlate?
Two of DK’s favourite things are the HESA Estates record and coming up with spurious rankings. So he’s got two questions for the panel this week – the first is whether total power consumption correlates with the overall number of graduates? And the second is – which provider sits at the top of my spurious efficiency ranking – using the least energy (in kilowatt hours) per graduate?
On the correlation, the answer is yes – r squared is about 0.5 which suggests a moderate correlation. But both variables correlate more strongly with the internal area of campus buildings in meters squared – so he’d suggest that this would be the link. On the top of the spurious efficiency ranking, that’d be Bishop Grosseteste University, producing one graduate per 1,638,410 kilowatt hours.
Data is from the HESA estates and student record, so covers the whole UK (though in the ranking he’s omitted providers with less than 100 graduates). And where the data doesn’t exist, he’s not plotted it.
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