Strategy during a time of turmoil?
There are rumours doing the rounds in Dublin right now that the government is planning to publish the report of Dr Colin Hunt’s strategy group next week. This would, I think, be a serious mistake. There is no way that any political time could be given over the next few months to the issues raised in the report, and any value in the report and its recommendations would simply be lost.
In any case, right now I am highly sceptical that the report will contain anything much of value. It would seem to me to be far better to avoid publishing it for now, and then to subject the draft report to consultation within the higher education sector after an election, before finalising it and, perhaps, publishing it.
Explore posts in the same categories: higher education, politicsTags: Colin Hunt, election, strategic review of higher education
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University Blog 
November 24, 2010 at 12:19 pm
Actually it’s a perfect time to release it. The government are going to fall anyway, so cannot act on it. Not releasing it might look bad over the election season, and it’ll either leak anyway, or the opposition will release it once in office, so why not slip it out under all the confusion. It’ll sink without trace, only HE Wonks will ever read it.
If it was my hot potato, and I was unable to bury it, that’s what I’d do.
The fact that it’s been sat on might suggest it has something of interest in it, or at least, something unpalatable for the government. Perhaps an assertion that higher education actually requires money to operate?
November 24, 2010 at 1:16 pm
The non-release has served to dampen down any serious discussion of HE for a long period of time. Get the thing out there and we can talk about it, rather than having to put up with the endless air of superiority affected by so-called ‘education editors’ who claim to know what’s in it. If they know what is in it,why shouldn’t those who actually work in the sector. It will be non-binding on the new government in any case. Of greater impact than the Hunt report, I suspect, will be what’s happening on the student front in England as we speak.
November 24, 2010 at 6:11 pm
Is this to get it out of the way before they appoint him Chair of the HEA?
November 24, 2010 at 6:58 pm
Tis’nt good health to be dependant on the outcome of a report.
If one thinks out the Hunt report recommending fees, fees come in, who can/will afford it and who can/will fund it?
Is the expected demand post fees similar to the current situation?
November 24, 2010 at 7:57 pm
The second so called protests by students in England today, I hear is turning off many tax papers. The students are increasingly alienating even the hardcore of those who believed that there should be no tuition fee.
November 24, 2010 at 8:13 pm
When is a protest a ‘so-called protest’? I suppose it would be better to roll over and accept whatever the Tory govt throws at them. Or maybe they could write to their MPs or the Daily Telegraph?
Anyway, as we know from the discussions on this blog, fees are to the advantage of poorer students, so they are obviously misguided.
(Interesting that you label those who are sceptical about the egalitarian thrust of tuition fees as ‘hardcore’!)
November 24, 2010 at 8:48 pm
I can only sympathise with your rather limited understanding of the situation! As for Tory and Daily Telegraph, the less I say to a socialist the better.
November 25, 2010 at 8:11 am
Nonsense.
January 6, 2011 at 7:06 pm
[…] he has made the same point repeatedly on his blog (eg: 1, 2, 3). The Hunt Report should certainly be the starting point for any third level strategy devised […]