TERM-TIME WORKING SURVEY FOR ALL STUDENTS 2018/19

Are you a student in a university or further education college who works part-time during term-time?

Is this affecting your studies and progress?

Please use this link to complete a very short questionnaire.

CLICK HERE TO COMPLETE A SHORT SURVEY - 8 simple questions in 2-3 minutes.

Feel free to complete this even if you have no part-time job in term-time.

It is completely anonymous and the data will only be used by TEFS to compile an overview report as part of its campaign to seek equality of opportunity. Your input and help in assessing the situation more fully is appreciated.

Please feel free to add any more information on your situation with regard to part-time employment and your studies.

If working during term-time is causing problems for you, approach a tutor or student support as soon as possible and seek help from the university or college.

Finally, best wishes and best of luck with your efforts.

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Ofqual holding back information

Ofqual has responded to an FOI request from TEFS this week. They held a staggering twenty-nine board meetings since March. Despite promising the Parliamentary Education Committee over a month ago they would publish the minutes “shortly” after their meeting on 16th September, they are still not able to do so. They cite “exemption for information that is intended to be published in the future” for minutes that are in the “process of being approved for publication” . More concerning is they are also citing exemption under the “Public Interest Test”. This means they might not be published, and Ofqual will open themselves up to legal challenges. If both the Department for Education and Ofqual are prevented from being more open, then public interest will lie shattered on the floor and lessons will not be learned. Ofqual finally responded to the TEFS Freedom of Information (FOI) request to publish the minutes of its board meetings on Tuesday. It should have been replied to by 17th Sept...

Higher Education and the ‘intelligent plumbers’ theory

A common tactic when found out is to divert attention elsewhere. The release of student data from 2018/19 by the Department for Education (DfE) yesterday, ‘Widening participation in higher education: 2020’ and ‘Statistics: further education and skills’ tells the same sorry tale of a wide gap in access to universities between the most and least advantaged students. To divert attention from these stark facts in advance, the government used a diversionary tactic by attacking the effectiveness of universities and thus pointing the blame for poor social mobility someplace else. Advocating improvements in further education, something cut back by the same regime for years, hides the real intention. It seems that class divisions will be further exacerbated and any concession to universities fuelling improved social mobility has been abandoned. But the flawed theory is that at least the elite rulers will get access to intelligent plumbers . Three years ago, I heard a leading ‘You...

Students working in term-time: Commuter students and their working patterns

This article and analysis shows that commuter students are more likely to be employed in term time and also more likely to work longer hours. Two recent studies of commuter students ( one a quantitative and the other a qualitative analysis ) attending six universities in the London area revealed that commuter students were at a disadvantage in terms of outcome when compared to their peers. There is an urgent need for institutions to consider the actual time that their students have to study as the main measure. This is a way to integrate the time pressures of other activities such as commuting and employment that all add up to less time for studying. The general conclusion of the two studies was that “travel time remained a significant predictor of student progression or continuation for UK-domiciled full time undergraduates at three of the six London institutions”. This is perhaps not surprising for someone who spends much of the day travelling and the recommendation is that ...

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