The higher education sector, perhaps more than any other, is renowned for its acronyms. It’s one of our ways of showing how clever we are and of protecting our special things. It’s also a great way to avoid talking about election issues, post-election issues or indeed getting things done.
There are more created every year and all self-respecting wonks need to work hard to stay on top of the alphabet challenge. It has been a while since our last acronym quiz and therefore it seemed about time to offer another (not remotely seasonal or election-related) one. So how well do you know your HE acronyms? Here are 20 to test your hard core HE wonkery.
DEQAR
NICEC
INQAAHE
DLSG
SAUL
ETER
AQRF
USTREAM
PIAAC
EURITO
CIQG
EQAR
ELIR
ISCED
BFUG
AfriQAN
And a selection from the distant past
CDP
NAB
CUA
APA
See how many you can get without Googling and put your score in the comments section below – we’ll see who really knows best. Answers here.
So, how many did you get?
17-20 Outstanding. First class wonkery
13-16 Pretty good. Your wonk apprenticeship is assured
8-12 You really do need to focus a bit more on the things that matter
< 8 Oh come on.
Oh dear, I need to focus more… but then I have been up most of the night and now have PTSD because if the election.
A pedant writes… Not all of these are acronyms. DLSG and AQRF for example are mere abbreviations. An acronym is pronounceable as a word. I cannot, however, identify a single one of them.