By Bongani Nkosi. Extending degrees to prepare matrics for university may cut the dropout rate but would have cost implications for already cash-strapped students.
A Council on Higher Education proposal to extend tertiary undergraduate studies by a year to improve student performance stands a good chance of being snubbed by the government. More...

By Beckie Supiano. Income inequality in higher education has widened over the last 45 years. That’s the case made in a report released on Tuesday by the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education and the University of Pennsylvania's Alliance for Higher Education and Democracy.
The report, “Indicators of Higher Education Equity in the United States,” uses government data to illustrate disparities in the educational experience of students from different family-income backgrounds. More...

The UK funding bodies are committed to supporting and promoting equality and diversity in research careers.

Equality and Diversity Advisory Panel (EDAP)
EDAP was established to advise the funding bodies, the REF team and the REF panels on the implementation of equality measures in the REF.
EDAP reviewed institutions' codes of practice on the selection of staff and produced a report of good practice found in the codes.
EDAP's final report on the measures to support equality and diversity in the REF will be published in January 2015.
EDAP terms of reference and membership
Download the Equality and Diversity Advisory Group and terms of reference as MS Word (47 KB)

Equality and diversity policies and procedures
The REF team implemented a number of equality measures to assist the funding bodies in taking forward their committment to equality and diversity:

• Panel criteria. The 'Equality briefing for REF panels' was provided to panels for use in developing their criteria and working methods.
• Individual staff circumstances. 'Panel criteria and working methods' sets out the arrangements for enabling staff whose circumstances had constrained their ability to work productively throughout the assessment period, to be returned with fewer than four outputs without penalty in the assessment. These arrangements were applied consistently across the exercise.
• Codes of practice. 'Guidance on submissions' sets out requirements for institutions to develop, document and apply a code of practice on the fair and transparent selection of staff for their REF submissions. Institutions submitted their codes of practice for EDAP to review, and these have been published on the REF website.
• Assessment criteria. In assessing the research environment element of submissions, The REF panels considered how the submitted unit promotes equality and diversity.
• Analysis of staff selection. The selection rates of staff for the REF will be analysed at sector level.

The equality measures for the REF were developed in consultation with the REF Equality and Diversity Advisory Group. More...