Edward Peck: ‘Golden age over? I’m not so sure’

Well one big own goal for the sector is the TEF and its reliance on student satisfaction, hence the grade inflation that is identified here with the concomitant pressure on staff by students and administrators to improve grades. My University requires a report if the percentage of "good" grades fall below a certain extrenely high threshold for instance. The biggest own goal which this chap does not address of course is the scandal of VC and senior executive pay. But, oddly, it is hardly ever mentioned now in the THES as if it's not a problem. With public money funding these exorbitant and unjustifiable salaries at some stage something will have to be done and the longer its is left to fester the worse it will become and the more painful the correction. So come on Ed do the decent thing now!!

Well Ed Peck is of course a former VC himself so he may be in denial about the issue of VC and Senior management pay I am afraid but it is quite extraordinary that he does not mention it as an issue that is poisoning the sector as a whole and souring relations between management and staff and students. Why did not the THES reporter raise the issue? it's the job of a reporter to ask the difficult questions and not simply serve as a platform for powerful voices surely? Why this extraordinary deference? It's not like he's prince Andrew or anything is it?

"The Committee encourages universities to exercise pay restraint at senior levels, given the difficult financial situation which universities find themselves in.” Most principals earn well over six figures despite needing to cut staff and restricting the number of Scots students, with Edinburgh University Principal Sir Peter Mathieson being one of the highest paid in Scotland, netting £418,000 per year, which is more than the Prime Minister and the First Minister combined." From a Letter to Ben McPherson Higher Education Minister Scottish Govt from MSPs on Education Committee. Now if this is not an own goal I really dont know what is!

The Golden Age is certainly not over for Ed and for VCs with their enormous salaries funded by the taxpayer. It's the gift that keeps giving. GREED!

Yep expect more of the same from Ed Peck overpaid and keen to tell everyone what to do and enjoy his power trip as a regulator. Meanwhile academic pay is cut in real terms for yet another year and workloads facing academics increase as student to staff ratios continue to rise. Too many bureaucrats and too many useless and clueless overpaid people at the top. A regulator should be doing something to redress the balance but Ed is one of the overpaid.