Higher Education: Why Self-Regulation Is Not a Soft Option ; the New Changes to Quality Control in Higher Education Will Mean Hard Work for the Universities. and, Writes Lucy Hodges, Students Will Have Their Say on Degree Courses and Campus Facilities

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Last week, an important announcement slipped out of the Department for Education and Science with no fanfare. Journalists' attention was not drawn to it. It said a new system was being put in place to check up on quality in higher education; the gloss was that students were at the centre of it.

The announcement is important because it brings to a close a dramatic and tortured chapter in higher education policy which saw universities at war with the watchdog that was supposed to monitor them. Peace has broken out between the previously-loathed Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) and the universities.

In the process, much snarling has taken place; the watchdog has had …