EDUCATION
Double funding blow for schools and colleges
Birmingham Post
17/06/2009
Both the Schools Secretary Ed Balls and Business Secretary Lord Mandelson have said that building plans face major delays due to the recession; but they insisted that the Government aims to continue to fund the Building Schools for the Future Programme.
New Secretary of State Peter Mandelson talks about the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills
Guardian
16/06/2009
Lord Mandelson discusses the mission of the new department (BIS) and how higher and further education fit in. Over the next few months BIS will publish a framework for the future shape of the higher education system, followed by an independent review on student fees. He also confirms the Government is committed to a ring fenced science budget and will keep the dual support system for research funding.
Personality test set to weed out weak teachers
Times Educational Supplement
26/06/2009
Teacher training applicants are to be set psychometric tests that will determine trainees' suitability for the profession. The pilot scheme will start in September.
Queen's birthday honours list: education
Guardian
13/06/2009
Head teachers, college principals, university vice-chancellors and school caretakers were among those rewarded for their work in the Queen's birthday honours.
Swine flu: updated guidance
BIS
15/06/2009
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) has published updated guidance on swine flu for higher education and further education institutions, following the move by the World Health Organisation to Phase 6 (which means that swine flu is now technically a global pandemic).
Universities reassured over future spending
Birmingham Post
17/06/2009
Lord Mandelson has addressed representatives from the higher and further education sectors at an event at Aston University. He said he would not reduce spending in further and higher education despite the recession.
EDUCATION - FURTHER EDUCATION
Collapse of government building programme leaves 160 colleges in limbo
Guardian
26/06/2009
The Further Education Minister Kevin Brennan has announced in a written ministerial statement that just 13 colleges have been given the go-ahead to proceed with rebuilding plans, following the collapse of the government's flagship Building Colleges for the Future programme. This leaves more than 160 colleges across England waiting until 2011 to find out if they can continue with their building projects.
College heads cast doubt on apprenticeships funding
Guardian
16/06/2009
Heads of colleges and training providers say they have applied for funds for apprenticeships from the Learning and Skills Council, but have been told money is running out.
Drop in apprenticeships a 'devastating blow for young people'
Guardian
26/06/2009
Official statistics released this week have revealed the number of teenagers starting apprenticeships has dropped by 8%, and the numbers of 16- to 24-year olds not in education, employment or training (so-called NEETS) has risen to 935,000, or 15.6% of that age group.
Extra funding will allow record numbers of young people to take up education and training this Autumn
DCSF
15/06/2009
Ed Balls has confirmed an investment of £655 million over 2009-2011, to enable more than 1.55million young people to stay on in education and training this September. This September will see an extra 72,000 funded places than predicted in November 2008.
Few college buildings to go ahead
BBC
26/06/2009
The Learning and Skills Council (LSC) have announced that only 13 college building projects out of 144 in jeopardy after a funding fiasco can go ahead this year. The projects approved will now have to reduce their costs.
Register planned to bust bogus colleges
Times Educational Supplement
19/06/2009
The Government is considering creating a register of officially accredited colleges in a bid to stamp out bogus institutions.
Review calls for free basic computer training for all
Times Educational Supplement
19/06/2009
The Independent Review of ICT User Skills has recommended free basic training for more than 11 million people, despite over-stretched further education budgets prompting cuts to key schemes.
Sixth form colleges to bac a rounder education
Times Educational Supplement
26/06/2009
Sixth form colleges are developing a Baccalaureate designed to differentiate the educational experience they offer from that provided by schools and general further education colleges.
EDUCATION - HIGHER EDUCATION
A levels are failing students, says think-tank
Times Higher Education
18/06/2009
Think-tank Reform recommends that universities should assume control of A-levels because the qualification no longer requires candidates to think for themselves and fails to prepare future students for tertiary education.
Academic mobility principle 'ignored' by some EU states
Times Higher Education
25/06/2009
European universities have been accused of failing to encourage freedom of movement for academics, resulting in an unfair system in which British scholars lose out.
Companies use FoI Act to trawl for commercial opportunities
Times Higher Education
18/06/2009
The use of the Freedom of Information Act to elicit details about the way universities are run has increased dramatically in the past year, particularly among commercial companies.
Design space to suit needs
Times Higher Education
25/06/2009
Universities are spending a fortune developing vast estates without researching the kind of space that is best suited to their staff and students, according to an environmental psychologist.
Drop-out students get help to finish their degrees at home
Guardian
24/06/2009
The government is to set up a £12m fund to give students at risk of dropping out a chance to complete their degree online helped by the Open University. It is a major expansion of the role of the Open University whose courses are now almost entirely web-based. It will partner other universities to design courses students can complete at home.
Established powers must link up with 'Latin tiger'
Times Higher Education
25/06/2009
Europe and the US could be sidelined if they fail to form research alliances with Brazil.
Foreign fees may founder as 'perfect storm' brews
Times Higher Education
18/06/2009
University heads fear recession, flu and visa rules will stop overseas students.
Gagging clause prevents inquiry into standards
Times Higher Education
18/06/2009
An academic who said he was dismissed after making allegations of plagiarism has stated that the Quality Assurance Agency told him it could not investigate because he had signed a compromise agreement.
How green is my tally?
Times Higher Education
18/06/2009
The 2009 People & Planet Green League table shows that many institutions are very serious about sustainability, and laggards are being pushed along by plans to link funding to progress in cutting carbon use.
Industrial collaborations: Success requires restraint
Times Higher Education
25/06/2009
Research conducted for the Council for Industry and Higher Education suggests that relationships with business pay off only when "universities do not attempt to appropriate the value of the relationship with excessive contractual intervention".
Lecturers talk of students' 'shocking' abuse
Times Higher Education
18/06/2009
A study suggests that the student's 'consumer attitude' may be fuelling harassment, abuse and intimidation of lecturers.
Outside looking in
Times Higher Education
25/06/2009
Critique of the UK's external examiner system which is supposed to uphold standards across the sector.
Publisher 'threat' to open access
Times Higher Education
18/06/2009
A multinational journal giant is understood to be courting vice- chancellors in an effort to win their support for an alternative to open-access institutional research repositories. Elsevier is thought to be mooting a new idea that could undermine universities' own open-access repositories.
Strategic plan 2006-11: Updated June 2009
Higher Education Funding Council for England
23/06/2009
HEFCE's strategic plan 2006-11 sets out the strategy for the development of higher education in England to 2011 which has been updated for 2009-10. It includes the strategic vision and role mission statement, strategic aims and risks, and key performance targets and measures.
http://www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/hefce/2009/09_21/09_21.pdf
UK falls behind in alternative energy research
Times Higher Education
25/06/2009
The UK is lagging behind most of its major competitors in alternative energy research, according to a new ranking. The league table, devised by journal publisher Elsevier, assesses the work of 3,000 research institutions and universities around the world.
Universities are having trouble attracting pupils for their life-changing summer schools
Guardian
16/06/2009
Between 2008 and 2010 Hefce is funding £5m of summer school education, and they are free for underprivileged young people in its target group. This article considers why universities are finding it so hard to fill the places.
Universities set to go online for millions
BIS
23/06/2009
Higher Education Minister, David Lammy, has announced a new task force to ensure our universities become the first choice across the world for on-line distance learning. It will be chaired by Lynne Brindley, the Chief Executive of the British Library. It will be backed by a competitive match Open Learning Innovation Fund, with up to £10m from HEFCE. This aims to encourage universities to work collaboratively with each other and the private and third sectors, to bid for money to develop projects to help transform the way people can get a degree.
Vice-chancellors call for tuition fees to be raised
Guardian
23/06/2009
Vice-chancellors from the 1994 group of smaller research-intensive universities have called openly for the fee cap to be raised, in the first such public demand from a university body.
EDUCATION - SCHOOLS
A secret report says the government's replacement for Sats is 'incoherent'
Guardian
23/06/2009
A secret official report, seen by Education Guardian, lists "substantial and fundamental problems" with the Government's replacement for Sats test.
Appeal over teachers' CRB checks
BBC
17/06/2009
Teacher support groups and unions told the Commons schools select committee that teachers should have the right to appeal against unfounded allegations appearing on their Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) checks.
Concern over school medical care
BBC
15/06/2009
Schools are putting teaching assistants under increasing pressure to carry out medical procedures without appropriate training, a union warns. Unison is calling for the introduction of new, tougher guidelines setting out what support staff should and should not be asked to do.
Framework for the inspection of maintained schools in England from September 2009
Ofsted
15/06/2009
Among the aims of the Office for Standards in Education's revised framework that will apply to the inspection of maintained schools in England from September 2009 are to: promote improvement; evaluate the achievement and wider well-being of pupils as a whole; evaluate learning and teaching; assess how well schools promote equality of opportunity and how effectively they tackle discrimination; and check schools' procedures for safeguarding, keeping children and young people from harm.
Goggles for handling Blu-Tack among extreme health and safety rules, poll finds
Guardian
19/06/2009
A poll of 585 teachers for Teachers TV found 44.3% believe health and safety regulations now restrict pupils' education. The teachers gave examples of extreme health and safety rules for school pupils.
Heads could receive £200,000 in return for running more than one school
Guardian
23/06/2009
The schools secretary, Ed Balls, told the School Teachers' Pay and Review Body that he does not want a cap on pay for head teachers who run more than one school on a permanent basis.
Labour to junk Tony Blair's flagship school reform
Guardian
25/06/2009
Next week's education white paper will abandon the most significant education reform of the New Labour era in order to end the centralised control of schools, grant head teachers more power, and dramatically cut the use of private consultants currently employed to improve schools.
Partnerships for schools to manage all school building programmes
DCSF
16/06/2009
Partnerships for Schools (PfS) is to take over the management and delivery of all school building and refurbishment programmes from 1 October 2009 from DCSF.
Privately sponsored academy news
Private Eye
15/06/2009
More than two-thirds of privately sponsored academy schools have not received the money pledged to them by their sponsors, according to figures added to the House of Commons Library.
Sir Jim Rose present findings of review into dyslexia
DCSF
22/06/2009
Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families Ed Balls has accepted the recommendations of Sir Jim Rose in his review into the identification and teaching of children with dyslexia and literacy difficulties. DCSF will be committing £10 million to fund specialist teaching and support for schools and parents. 4000 teachers will be funded to train in specialist dyslexia teaching over the next two years - one for every local group of schools.
Teachers' body won't stop BNP working in schools
Guardian
20/06/2009
The General Teaching Council for England is accused by members of its governing body of failing to act to prevent British National party members from teaching in schools. The GTCE has refused to write a clause into its new code for teachers barring BNP members from working in state schools. This was after receiving legal advice that it could "prejudice" teachers who are party members.
Vetting scheme won't stop another Soham, says union
Times Educational Supplement
19/06/2009
The National Union of Teachers claims the new regulations designed to protect head teachers from employing criminals or paedophiles are a waste of money and will cause more problems than they solve.
Worst schools to be forced into mergers
Times
23/06/2009
The Schools Secretary Ed Balls has said that next week's education White Paper will contain measures to enable schools to pool budgets and force local authorities to consider handing control of the weakest schools to new management chains accredited by the Government.
