Last week I attended a funeral of Peter Wright who I had worked closely with over 20 years ago when I was a member of the Higher Education Quality Council's (HEQC) Quality Enhancement Group. Peter was the senior member of the team and very much a father figure who acted as a sort of mentor and intellectual guide to the rest of us who were at least ten years younger. He was a lovely man full of whit and endless anecdotes many of them very funny. I would often hear him talking to colleagues in the adjacent office and roaring with laughter. It made for a very enjoyable work environment and we were as a team seriously productive. During the last two years of our existence between 1995-97 we engaged in what was called the Graduate Standards Programme (GSP) a large scale research project into the way academic standards were perceived and the ways in which they were constructed and assured in a higher education system that had undergone massive expansion in the previous six years. It was my first taste of how to engage a whole higher education system in discussion as we all participated in conversations and discussions the length and breadth of the country. The numerous reports we produced informed the National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education Chaired by Sir Ron (later Lord) Dearing and some of the Committee's recommendations relating to assurance of standards that later became the foundation of the Quality Assurance Agency's regulatory framework, can be linked to the GSP work. Yet there is virtually no mention of this work on the internet, or HEQC for that matter. It's as if it never existed. So, as a tribute to Peter, and the work of our small GSP team, I decided to scan (with the help of my daughter) the two final reports published in 1997. REPORTS
The death of a friend and former colleague is always sad but it is a great stimulus for reflection and for reconnecting with people you once shared your life with and they with you.
The photo shows members of the Quality Enhancement Group in 1997 The core members of the GSP Team were Robin Middlehurst (leader - front row second from right), Peter Wright (back row third from left) Robin Jackson and myself (back row first and second from right), Alan Crispin (fourth from right) and Vivienne Rivis (back row second from left).
The death of a friend and former colleague is always sad but it is a great stimulus for reflection and for reconnecting with people you once shared your life with and they with you.
The photo shows members of the Quality Enhancement Group in 1997 The core members of the GSP Team were Robin Middlehurst (leader - front row second from right), Peter Wright (back row third from left) Robin Jackson and myself (back row first and second from right), Alan Crispin (fourth from right) and Vivienne Rivis (back row second from left).
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