Last updated 27/04/2006
SCHOOLS
Academies 'risky way to give £2m'
BBC News - 25/04/2006
City academies may not be the best places to put money into for people wanting to spend £2m to help education in England, a charity says.
Axing of faith schools rejected
BBC News - 18/04/2006
Teachers have rejected calls to end state funding for faith schools.
Councils win powers to improve poor schools
Independent - 13/04/2006
Councils are to be given radical powers to intervene in thousands of schools that appear to be successful but should be doing better.
Dyslexic man loses damages claim
The Guardian - 12/04/2006
A dyslexic man who says he suffered educational neglect as a child today lost his claim for damages. Judge Seymour QC, sitting at the High Court in London, ruled that the action of Richard Smith, 27, against two local authorities for £500,000 compensation had been brought too late.
NUT threatens national strike over trust schools
Independent - 17/04/2006
Tony Blair is facing the threat of national strike action by teachers over his plans for a network of independently run "trust" schools and academies.
Teachers being 'bullied' by heads who invigilate them
Independent - 16/04/2006
Teachers are being driven out of their jobs and into ill-health by headteachers who bully them with repeated inspections of their lessons, a teachers' union conference heard yesterday.
Teachers receive 'record payouts'
BBC News - 12/04/2006
Teachers from one of the largest unions were awarded a total of over £7.6m in compensation last year in personal injury claims and employment tribunals.
FURTHER EDUCATION
College lecturers call off strike
The Guardian - 25/04/2006
The lecturers' union, Natfhe, has called off its planned two-day strike next week, which could have seen further education colleges closed for most of the week.
HIGHER EDUCATION
Bangor bids for big time with new posts
THES - 13/04/2006
Bangor University has unveiled plans to appoint more than 50 academics, including 23 professors, in its biggest expansion for decades.
Blair launches drive to attract 100,000 more overseas students
The Guardian - 18/04/2006
The Prime Minister will today announce ambitious plans to bring 100,000 extra international students to the UK by 2011, when he launches the second phase of an earlier, successful recruitment drive.
Brussels delivers blow to Reed Elsevier
The Guardian - 19/04/2006
Scientific research funded by the European taxpayer should be freely available to everyone over the Internet, according to a European commission report - a blow to the lucrative scientific publishing operations of media groups such as Reed Elsevier and Germany's Springer.
Government unveils plans for two-year degrees
The Guardian - 18/04/2006
Students will be able to gain an honours degree in just two years under Government plans to boost numbers at university and ease the worsening burden of student debt.
Two-year degree will raise costs and workloads, say universities
The Times - 19/04/2006
Universities will press the Government to increase their levels of funding so that they can deliver fast-track degrees. While students and lecturers welcomed the greater flexibility, concerns were raised that universities could lose out over the shorter courses without government compensation.
Lawyers to cash in if degrees derailed
THES - 21/04/2006
Lawyers are using the increasingly bitter academic pay dispute to show students how they could sue institutions for "breach of contract" if their degree course is disrupted, it emerged this week.
Lecturers agree to mediation talks
The Guardian - 20/04/2006
Striking lecturers last night agreed to mediation talks with their employers, providing renewed hope that long-awaited pay discussions may finally begin.
Living wage victory for London cleaners
THES - 13/04/2006
Queen Mary, University of London, has become the first university in the capital to pay its cleaners a "living wage". From this week, contract cleaners at Queen Mary will be thousands of pounds better off under the agreement, which will take their pay from the minimum wage of £5.05 an hour to £6.70 by the end of 2007.
Millionaire pair's spin-off triumph
THES - 21/04/2006
Synoptix, a firm spun-off from Leeds in 2003 with help from intellectual property firm IP Group Plc, is about to double its workforce to 8 only a month since its flotation on AIM.
New Buy-for-Uni mortgage for students in Bath
Independent on Sunday - 23/04/2006
Bath Building Society have introduced a 'Buy for Uni' mortgage, exclusively for university students, which aims to help re-ignite demand among first-timer buyers by offering 100 per cent loans.
Staff in boycott could be sued
THES - 21/04/2006
Abertay Dundee University has warned staff that it could sue them for taking industrial action short of a strike. Abertay appears to be the first institution to have publicised such a warning. But a legal expert has told The Times Higher that if the action continued beyond 12 weeks, universities could fire staff even if the industrial action was legal.
Students split over lecturers' boycott of exams
Financial Times - 22/04/2006
University student unions are threatening to split from the National Union of Students over its support for an exam boycott by dons seeking a 23 per cent pay rise.
Sussex prepares for crunch meeting on chemistry
The Guardian - 25/04/2006
A rescue plan for the embattled chemistry department at the University of Sussex will go before an emergency academic meeting next month.
Universities stall takeoff of spin-offs
THES - 13/04/2006
Spin-off companies are not as successful as they could be because universities take too large a proportion of shares for themselves, a conference heard last week.
