David Kernohan
@dkernohan.bsky.social
Him off of @Wonkhe. Sky Cards Rare Master.
If you are missing silly season on this first day of September, I did a thing on why REF is a lot like competive brass band playing over the weekend - in honour of one of Chris McDonald's impressively niche hobbies. wonkhe.com/blogs/what-b...
NEW on Wonkhe: New science minister Chris McDonald loves brass bands. Will he grow to love the REF in the same way? buff.ly/CMrX5Db
I endorse this. Also: write a proper report, don't just send out a press release promising one (looking at you, Taxpayers Alliance!)
Stanley Pignal@spignal.bsky.social · 4d agoSO YOU'VE WRITTEN A BIG REPORT and you want us to care about it. Please, if you are targetting journalists etc, do these few very simple things. - include a date - make it easy to navigate (no fancy animation stuff) - single column! - charts should link to data - contact info of relevant authors
That Meta climbdown is unexpected, unprecedented, and enormous. www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cy... It undoes (for children, at least) about a decade of dark-pattern social media orthodoxy.
NEW on Wonkhe: On 3 November Wonkhe will host The Collaboration Question in London. Debbie McVitty assesses where the conversation has got to and where it needs to go from here buff.ly/AtmJYU5
Some thoughts on Burnham’s first few weeks and how post-18 education still lacks co-ordination even to be successfully devolved. Also, quite a bit about Vladimir Lenin. wonkhe.com/blogs/the-se...
wonkhe.com
NEW on Wonkhe: It is the sector's most underused, and most misunderstood, data collection. David Kernohan wants to get it back on TRAC buff.ly/ffRlDFI
Updated clearing stats for the first weekend after JCQ results day. Record clearing performance from high tariff providers: wonkhe.com/wonk-corner/...
A busy UCAS clearing for 2026
All the news from the UCAS clearing data releases
wonkhe.com
NEW on Wonkhe: Fraud headlines, franchise growth and a court defeat are dots that rarely get joined up. Jim Dickinson pulls together the data on the weekend delivery cohort - who was funded, by whom, and on whose terms buff.ly/Kdn6KWz
New clearing data has dropped, and things do not look good for low and medium tariff providers: wonkhe.com/wonk-corner/...
A busy UCAS clearing for 2026
All the news from the UCAS clearing data releases
wonkhe.com
NEW on Wonkhe: It's DK's annual data spectacular on JCQ (A level and other level three outside of Scotland) results day. buff.ly/SeZPTaL
NEW on Wonkhe: Less students are choosing to study computing. BCS' Steve Pettifer explains why this trend, and the myths that underpin it, should concern us all buff.ly/CfjJsW3
Happy JCQ day to all who celebrate! Here's everything I spotted in data released by JCQ, Ofqual, DfE, and UCAS. wonkhe.com/blogs/a-bump...
A bumper crop of higher education entrants, but is university becoming less popular among the better off?
It's DK's annual data spectacular on JCQ (A level and other level three outside of Scotland) results day.
wonkhe.com
A lot of institutions seem to be doing this right now.
Charlotte Lydia Riley@lottelydia.bsky.social · 3w agoHeartened to see that my university is ending its contract with Turnitin before the next academic year, because Turnitin is going to use student submissions to train AI models. Institutions can and should resist this stuff!
Could we all please spare a though for UK teenagers expecting A level results tomorrow and - oblivious to the eclipse - see the sky going dark unexpectedly the evening before? People always say that the world doesn't end if you don't get the results you hoped for. It may look like it is.
NEW on Wonkhe: Five universities attempted to bring about a review of the ineligibility of weekend-delivery students for maintenance loans. As David Kernohan reports, the court wasn't keen buff.ly/Yj0GvaK
Five universities tried to bring about a judicial review of the weekend delivery issue. They were not succesful. wonkhe.com/blogs/weeken...
Weekend delivery rules won't be judicially reviewed
Five universities attempted to bring about a review of the ineligibility of weekend-delivery students for maintenance loans. As David Kernohan reports, the court wasn't keen
wonkhe.com
NEW on Wonkhe: To address the very really inequalities in higher education we need to "call in" meaningful conversations rather than "call out" problematic behavior. Josephine Gabi and Sarah de Sousa explain. buff.ly/IdESE8b
NEW on Wonkhe: Omar Khan traces the contours of two contradictory national discussions on higher education - on buff.ly/MWMnC7W
The Intergenerational Foundation report on student finance is very good and you should consider reading it. wonkhe.com/wonk-corner/...
The graduate repayment burden is growing and becoming more regressive. Here's how to fix that
A genuinely impressive higher education report in mid-August
wonkhe.com
👏. I was extremely lucky to do my PhD at Sussex, where the study of cognitive science was of equal importance to the study of broader psychology (or at least it felt that way). I learned about the history of cognitive science, philosophy of science, AI (or not).
Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ@olivia.science · 4w agoThey keep trying to make "correlation is cognition" happen. Through asserting: 1️⃣ models with only correlationist powers (data and correlations over that data) work well & 2️⃣ our own cognitive powers are no different to these machines, which can only rehash the past. @andreaeyleen.eurosky.social 1/
New from me: Britain’s graduate earnings premium is falling, cue “too many go to university!” But non-university outcomes are also bad, cue “we must reform vocational routes!” Both miss the point: people used to think education drove economic outcomes, but the economy drives educational outcomes.
