Queen’s speech tomorrow

But will it contain a higher education bill? queries Alison Goddard.

The Queen is due to open Parliament tomorrow. She is expected to announce an EU referendum bill, an immigration bill, a city devolution bill, a counter-extremism bill and many other pieces of legislation that are likely to affect universities. But although a higher education bill that concentrates mostly on regulation has been drafted by officials, it has yet to be announced by politicians and could thus be omitted from the Queen’s speech. If so, measures such as postgraduate loans will be introduced without any primary legislation and universities will have to muddle along with the present arrangements for the private provision of higher education.

Undergraduates may be assessed using an American-style grade-point average rather than the British degree classification system, according to an article in The Sunday Telegraph. It says that the Higher Education Academy is due to publish its report on the subject in the next few days and quotes Sir Bob Burgess as saying that all universities will migrate to the new marking scheme within the next decade.