Andrew Adonis’s criticisms of the Office for Students – first on Twitter and then in the Guardian (Office for Students? It’s the Office Against Students and it is not going to last, 23 January) – are wide of the mark. We are three weeks old, and begin operations in earnest in April. We are building an organisation that will be a transformative and independent regulator of English higher education. The OfS will put the student interest – short, medium and long term – at the heart of what we do and we will ensure that students get a great education from a world-leading sector. Judge us on our record in the coming months and years, not on the prevailing political winds of the day.
We are creating a bold and ambitious regulatory framework, which will give us the powers to ensure that students from all backgrounds – whatever, wherever and however they study – are able to have a fulfilling experience of higher education that enriches their lives and careers.
The comments about our chief executive, Nicola Dandridge, are wholly without substance. From the moment of her appointment she has prioritised the perspective of students and demonstrated robust independence from the higher education sector. She is a public servant of the highest calibre and will be fearless in advancing the agenda of the OfS in the student interest.
Michael Barber
Chair, Office for Students
• So Andrew Adonis thinks Michael Barber is the only ray of hope for the future of the OfS. I hope there will be no repeat of Sir Michael’s actions in 1995, when, appointed to an “Education Association” to consider the future and possible closure of Hackney Downs school, he wrote, before the decision to close had been taken, that this was “The school that had to die” (Times Educational Supplement, 17 November 1995). He thought that those campaigning to keep the school open were apparently influenced by “rent-a-mob activists and semi-professional fanatics” (see “Hit squad needs new set of rules”, Times Educational Supplement 22 December 1995).
I hope that any suggestion that a university would “have to die” will not be accompanied by rent-a-mob vice-chancellors and semi-professional staff protesting against any closure.
Sally Tomlinson
Emeritus professor, Goldsmiths London University
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