Information and digital literacy in education via the digital path

This blog was kindly contributed by Kalwant Bhopal, who is a Professor of Education and Social Justice, the Director of the Centre for Research in Race & Education (CRRE) and BAME Academic Lead, in the School of Education at the University of Birmingham.Her recent book, ‘White Privilege: the myth of a post-racial society’ was published by Policy Press. 

On Thursday, HEPI will be publishing its first major paper on decolonising curricula.

The protests against the murder of George Floyd by police in the USA have been widely noted as marking a significant ‘moment’ in the history of race relations, not just in the United States but across the globe. The problem of such ‘moments’ is that we have seen so many of them before. #BlackLivesMatter itself was a response to a previous ‘moment’, the killing of Trayvon Martin in Florida. In the UK, the racism of police officers to cover-up the murder of Stephen Lawrence was another such ‘moment’. 

This guest blog has been kindly contributed by Professor Neil Morris, Chair in Educational Technology, School of Education, University of Leeds. He can be found at @NeilMorrisLeeds

The Unbundled University research project, funded by the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC grant number ES/P002102/1) and the National Research Foundation in South Africa (NRF grant number 105395), explored a range of issues in relation to the expansion of online education in universities in the UK and South Africa, including partnerships with private companies and the disaggregation of learning and teaching materials for delivery online (‘unbundling’).

Data were collected from interviews with senior leaders, academics, students and private companies in both countries. The data are being written up for publication in academic journals, but given the rapid shift to focus on online education as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, it is evident that some of the headlines from the research need to be put in the public domain rapidly.

The Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) has published a new report with original testimony and practical guidance for UK universities on decolonising higher education. The report establishes that the decolonisation of UK universities is vital for the improvement of course curricula, pedagogical practice, staff wellbeing and the student experience. 

Miseducation: decolonising curricula, culture and pedagogy in UK universities by Mia Liyanage is based on over 20 hours of interviews with leading figures in academia, student activism and higher education policy. The report’s recommendations include:

• Ensuring a better understanding of decolonisation and ending its conflation with equality, diversity and inclusion initiatives.
• Prioritising decolonisation in order to expand the curriculum and improve both teaching and course content.
• Increasing Government and university funding for BAME research and BAME-only scholarships.
• Tackling discrimination, hostility and unconscious bias against those working on decolonisation.
• Creating departmental roles to work specifically on issues relating to anti-racism and the decolonising of their department.
• Establishing channels for collaboration on these issues between students and faculty.

The Higher Education Policy Institute (www.hepi.ac.uk) is publishing a landmark report, Postgraduate Education in the UK (HEPI Analytical Report 1) by Dr Ginevra House, which has been produced with the kind support of the British Library.

Looking at how the UK postgraduate landscape has changed since the last similar report was published a decade ago, the new report uses previously unpublished data to reveal the state of UK postgraduate education in the years before the Covid-19 crisis struck. Compared to the past, a higher proportion of postgraduates are female, studying full-time and young.