QAA replacement questions ‘add to uncertainties’ for English sector

Good Riddance to the misnamed Quality Assurance Agency. Do not replace it, the QAA created the bureaucratic nightmare of excess bureaucracy in UK universities. Instead of being run by academics they are now run by uselss bureaucrats that have too much power, too high wages, too little knowledge and too many of them. We can slash the number of overpaid middle managers, useless bureaucrats and senior management teams that breed like rabbits. This will free up resources to pay the academics that do all the research and teaching to get on with their jobs and pay them properly. So long as excess bureacrats on excess pay infect the Universities because of the need to keep the QAA and OfS happy, there will be no resources to improve things for studends and the academic staff. Don't get me wrong, some of the admin are needed and the ones that are needed do a good job and are underpaid and would also benefit from cutting ut the useless, negative value added bureaucrats.

An independent national quality body has played a vital role in the rise of higher education in the UK, particularly England, over the last two generations. The destruction of the national educational infrastructure within whose framework so many institutions flourished is proving to be a disaster. All this will turn to the advantage of those who wish to fight and win their 'culture war' which will result in fewer students going to University, significantly less independence from government, falling educational standards and a situation of 'endemic crisis.' There needs to be a serious discussion about what the national higher educational infrastructure should look like from 2025 onwards.

If the QAA is going to back out of its role regarding universities, what is it going to do? Or will we actually see the back of at least one over-paid QUANGO? interesting, too, that it had gone due to OfS antics not fitting with the European norm. Even more evidence, if needed, that OfS is not merely irrelevant and incompetent but a clear and present danger to UK universities. The sooner this discredited body is got rid of the better. So how to replace these? Back in the 1960s, there was a QUANGO called the NEDC (National Economic Development Council) which was supposed to bring government, businesses and the workforce (via trades unions) together to work for a brighter future. Government, of course, messed it up, but the idea was sound.. needless to say, Thatcher hated it and finally Major wound it up. Whatever body takes over the direction of Higher Education needs to be formed of a mix of academics, university administrators, & government - maybe add a few students in for good measure. Oh and if you are wondering why an admittedly ancient computer scientist knows of this obscure body, her father was the civil servant running it 1964–1968!