I'm starting this last week of blogging after a shorter gap than usual, because otherwise there will be a very truncated set of posts during the week up to Christmas. Anyway, there's a lot going on across the university - as has also been the case over the last three weeks since I last made a post.  During that period I seem to have acted as PVC for snow, PVC for occupations, PVC for liasison with the Students' Union and a variety of other tasks. 

The PVC for snow task involved the Registrar and me being given the responsibility for making twice daily decisions (at 0630 and 1830) about the opening of the university for teaching activities during the half day but one to come.  I am not used to surfing the Met Office website and looking at local travel information at 6 in the morning, but there we are.

The PVC for occupations was a longer-term task - and one which had already started when I wrote my blog last month.  It took up a lot of time, and at one point I found myself driving down to the university on a Sunday afternoon to make a statement in front of a rally of around 150 people taking place in the occupied Richard Roberts lecture theatre - a new experience.

The House of Commons vote on tutiton fees has now taken place.  A lot of the emphasis in the debate has been around the likely impact on students from widening participation backgrounds, and the likelihood that they will be put off by their own debt-aversion and their unwillingness to see the fees bill clocking up against their names as they go through university.  Actually, I think that there is another measure being pushed through that is likely to be far more damaging to widening participation in higher education than the new fees regime - the elimination of the Educational Maintenance Allowance which pays up to £30 per week for every 16-19 year old in education who comes from a low-income household.  That sum is crucial in keeping many young people in education and thus providing the route for them to apply for entry to university.  If they don't stay on beyond the age of 16 they are largely lost to the HE sector - at least for some time to come.  The college where I am a governor - which has the third poorest catchment in England on some indicators - has around 75% of its students in receipt of EMA.  The 'more targeted' support that is being posited as a replacement to EMA will almost certainly reduce that to a very low level - or will result in much smaller payments being made.  Families will encourage their young people without EMA to get any sort of job to supplement household income.  Therein lies a very worrying possibility for this country, and for the future development of widening participation and the inclusive nature of higher education.