Widening participation in higher education has led to the global expansion of universities, increased student and program diversity, and greater provision of flexible pathways into university. Critical to supporting a growing student body is helping all students develop their ability to communicate confidently and effectively in their academic…

We study the pay of chief executives of higher education institutions in the UK, known as Vice Chancellors (VCs), over a ten-year period. As different institutions might have different missions and follow different performance objectives, we use the LASSO method in a novel way to choose which performance parameters are most strongly associated…

The benchmarking toolkit for Technology-Enabled Learning (TEL) developed by the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) is designed to assess TEL practices in higher education institutions. This study evaluated the content validity, internal consistency, and inter-domain relationships of the toolkit using a survey of 355 practitioners across 21…

Drawing on the critical discourse analysis of journals and working papers from 2011-2020 referring to the at-risk of poverty or social exclusion composite indicator (AROPE), we shed light on how benchmarks technicize academic discourse, particularly in its part contributed by economists. First developed to measure progress towards the poverty…

Although an increasing amount of research has focussed on the relationship between student language proficiency and English-medium instruction (EMI) programme outcomes, there has been little focus on the broader assessment of progress and learning within EMI programmes, especially in Asia. The purpose of this study was to determine the kinds of…

In this paper we document the various strategies universities have undertaken or are currently undertaking in their Indigenising practices across the Australian higher education sector by screening university websites for their strategies, principles and initiatives. It serves as a vital stocktake, audited in November 2023, for institutions aiming…

Centralized (re)assignment of workers to jobs is increasingly common in public and private sectors. However, these markets often suffer from distributional problems. We propose a new strategy-proof mechanism that efficiently improves individual and distributional welfare over the status quo. We justify our constructive and practical approach by…

The number of families in England choosing to withdraw their children from school has grown significantly since 2016. In this manuscript, we present findings from action research with purposefully sampled home educating young people (n = 9), parents/carers (n = 16), staff from Career Connect (n = 4), staff from schools and colleges (n = 4), staff…

The pursuit of decolonial scholarship in academia can be impacted by the pressure to attain international recognition as a requirement for academic promotion. Academic promotion for scholars is often linked to publishing in "high-impact journals," which frequently lack African representation. This paper critically examines the…

Entrepreneurship Development in Higher Education (EDHE) conferences and students' entrepreneurial intervarsity competitions have brought awareness and insight to students, academics, and other higher learning institution (HEI) stakeholders to the value that entrepreneurship can provide them and their communities. A reflective practice account on…

This study explores the establishment of communities of practice within teaching and learning centres (TLC) as strategies for advancing faculty development in higher education, examining their implementation in the US and Europe, with a specific focus on Italy. Utilising organisational benchmarking, we employed an explanatory, comparative, and…

The UK's universities matter now more than ever. They are integral to the prosperity of their local communities, regions, the UK and to the global community. They drive economic growth, equip graduates with opportunities for a more prosperous life, help solve some of the most fundamental challenges of our age, and drive social mobility across the…

School-leaving and higher education admission assessments in South Africa are typically summative and normative, comparing students for admission into university. However, we argue that these assessments need to be transformative, impacting the curriculum and empowering students to explore their own agency. This study is a reflective contribution…

Quality assurance (QA) studies have introduced different strategies and standards established to help higher education institutions (HEIs) meet their goals. However, in Saudi Arabia, insufficient data on the National Commission for Academic Accreditation and Assessment (NCAAA) and its practices regarding establishing quality standards after the…

The main objective of the current study is to establish a justifiable data-driven students-faculty ratio (SFR) benchmark for higher education institutions (HEIs) in the Sultanate of Oman. This is established based on analyzing selected secondary data from three sources using purposive sampling. This study reflects quantitative research adopting…