News from the Education Community
Teaching new from around the uk from feeds from the BBC and the Guardian.
Interesting story regarding bouncers becoming supply teachers:
BBC News | Education | UK Edition
- Teacher qualifications 'too low'
MPs say entry requirements for teacher training courses in England are too low and damage the status of the profession. - Online safety for five-year-olds
Children as young as five are being targeted in a new online safety campaign by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre. - Graduate salaries 'stay at £25k'
Research suggests the average graduate salary will remain at £25,000 for the second year running. - University applications up 23%
University applications in the UK have risen by a fifth - days after funding chiefs warned of a drop in student places. - Tougher rules for student visas
Tougher rules are now in place to stop people abusing the student visa system to remain illegally in the UK.
- Thousands to lose jobs as universities prepare for cuts
β’ Post-graduates to replace professors
β’ Staff poised to strike over proposals of cutsUniversities across the country are preparing to axe thousands of teaching jobs, close campuses and ditch courses to cope with government funding cuts, the Guardian has learned.
Other plans include using post-graduates rather than professors for teaching and the delay of major building projects. The proposals have already provoked ballots for industrial action at a number of universities in the past week raising fears of strike action which could severely disrupt lectures and examinations.
The Guardian spoke to vice-chancellors and other senior staff at 25 universities, some of whom condemned the funding squeeze as "painful" and "insidious". They warned that UK universities were being pushed towards becoming US-style, quasi-privatised institutions.
The cuts are being put in place to cope with the announcement last week by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce) that Β£449m β equivalent to more than a 5% reduction nationally β would be stripped out of university budgets.
The University and College Union (UCU) believes that more than 15,000 posts β the majority academic β could disappear in the next few years. Precise funding figures for each university will be released on 18 March.
The chairman of the Russell Group of elite institutions, Professor Michael Arthur, vice-chancellor of Leeds University, warned that budgets would be further slashed by 6% in each of the next three years. Last month he described the cuts as "devastating".
The savings envisaged include:
β’ More than 200 jobs losses at King's College, London, around 150 at the University of Westminster and, unions claim, as many as 700 at Leeds, 340 at Sheffield Hallam and 300 at Hull.
β’ Entire campus closures at Cumbria and Wolverhampton universities, where buildings will be mothballed and students transferred to other sites.
β’ Teesside University scrapping Β£2m worth of scholarships and bursaries that would have helped poorer students. It will also share services with a further education college in Darlington.
β’ Postponing plans for a Β£25m creative arts building at Worcester and Β£12m science block at Hertfordshire.
β’ Under-subscribed arts and humanities courses are being dropped. The University of the West of England has already stopped offering French, German and Spanish; Surrey has dropped its BA in humanities.
β’ Student/lecturer ratios are expected to rise, with more institutions using postgraduates and short term staff filling in for professors made redundant.
Ballots for industrial action are due to be held or are pending at the University of the Arts, Sussex University, the University of Gloucestershire and King's College London. Lecturers at Leeds β where 750 posts are at risk β voted by a large majority to strike this week.
Higher exam pass marks will be required to win a place at university, according to the survey of academic principals. The cap on student numbers β set at 2008 levels β is restricting entry just as youth unemployment is peaking and intensifying competitive pressure.
Peter Mandelson, the business secretary who is in charge of universities, accused the principals of "gross exaggerations" and "extreme language", but would not be drawn over whether he would make further cuts to higher education. Universities had to do "no more than their fair share of belt-tightening," he said.
"We know that universities have a vital contribution to our economic growth, so we are not going to undermine them. We are asking for savings of less than 5% and we expect universities to make these in a way that minimises the impact on teaching and students. I am confident they will."
Mandelson also denied claims by vice-chancellors that he was letting arts and humanities courses close and cared only about maths and science degrees.
On Monday it was announced that an extra Β£10m would go to the teaching of science, technology, engineering and mathematics to support universities "that are shifting the balance of their provision towards these subjects".
Mandelson said: "I am an arts graduate myself. We don't dictate to universities which courses they put on. They tailor courses to meet demand. We want universities to play to their strengths, but we also want to keep this country civilised."
The pattern of cutbacks is not uniform, with some universities insisting they have been preparing for the downturn. Many have already dropped more vulnerable subjects such as music and history, increased fees for part-time students and expect to become even more reliant on income from higher, overseas student fees.
The vice-chancellor of Southampton, Professor Don Nutbeam, told the Guardian: "This [decision by Hefce] is one of a series of insidious cuts that have been made to higher education."
Professor Geoffrey Petts, vice-chancellor of Westminster University, said: "After a decade of huge successes in higher education we suddenly have to rethink."
Tomorrow the Universities and Colleges Admission Service (Ucas) is due to announce record numbers of applications for places this autumn. It is expected that as many as 300,000 applicants will be turned away.
The surge in demand comes as a government-commissioned independent review considers whether to raise tuition fees from Β£3,225 per year to up to Β£7,000. Over three years total cuts will amount to at least Β£950m.
The policy adopted by the government is in stark contrast to the response in the US where President Obama this week proposed a 31% increase in education spending for next year in order to combat unemployment and develop skills.
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- University applications up a fifth
Hundreds of thousands will be disappointed after a cut in the number of undergraduate places
Hundreds of thousands of would-be students are likely to be left without a place at a UK university this year, as undergraduate applications reach record levels for the fourth year running.
Applications for university are almost a fifth up on last year, according to the latest figures from the university admissions system Ucas. So far, over 570,000 students have applied for a place at university this autumn, an increase of more than 100,000 on the same time in 2009. Applications close in June.
Last year, about 480,000 people got a place at university, after 633,000 applied. This year, the Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce) has confirmed there will be 6,000 fewer places for full-time undergraduates, meaning that hundreds of thousands will not be accepted on to a undergraduate degree course. UK applicants are up 22.1%, while overseas applicants have risen from 55,245 to 71,105 (up 28.7%). The biggest increases are among students from Lithuania (102.3%), Ireland (50.4%), Germany (23.7%) and China (22.4%).
Mary Curnock Cook, Ucas's chief executive, said: "This cycle will be very challenging and competitive for applicants. There has been a steady increase year-on-year since 2007, but this year shows a sizeable leap in applications.
Part of the increase in demand for university places may be due to the recession. Applications from the over-25s jumped 63.4%, while those from 21- to 24-year-olds rose 44.8%. There was also a 45.5% increase in people reapplying.
Curnock Cook believes "the current economic situation is causing people to apply to higher education as a way of retraining to ready themselves for the job market once the economy picks up. For instance, social work has seen a 41.3% increase and nursing a 73.7% rise."
Professor Steve Smith β president of Universities UK, the body that represents vice-chancellors β said: "With this further jump in demand and the continued cap on student numbers in England, it's inevitable that we are going to see even more pressure on places this year β and the strong possibility of many well-qualified students missing out."
The figures have fuelled calls on the government to halt its planned higher education cuts.
Sally Hunt, general secretary of the lecturers' union UCU, said: "The government is abandoning a generation who, instead of benefiting from education, will find themselves on the dole alongside sacked teaching staff."
Paul Marshall, executive director of the 1994 Group of universities, said the government must not respond to the record demand with unfunded expansion. "With universities already having to cope with significant funding cuts, unfunded expansion could leave universities unable to ensure the high quality experience that students rightly demand. Any further expansion must be fully funded.
And the presdent of the National Union of Students, Wes Streeting, backed his call: "Last year, the government urged universities to expand without providing the funding to match, leading to a serious applications crisis. This year there must be no unfunded expansion, or the situation will be even worse.
But Professor David Green, vice-chancellor of theUniversity of Worcester β where applications are up 35% on last year β said many other universities would be happy to take on additional students for no extra funding if it meant "giving more people the chance to enter higher education at this time of national economic stringency".
"Universities and higher education colleges need to be allowed to recruit more full-time undergraduate students, without penalty," he said.
"Many will do so, even if we receive no additional government funding for these additional students, as we appreciate the real needs of the potential students concerned. We are fully committed to the policy of widening participation in higher education and we are prepared to make sacrifices at a time of real economic difficulty."
The minister for higher education, David Lammy, said: "There is a record number of students β over 2 million β at university. That's 390,000 more than in 1997 and next year we expect there will be more students than ever before.
"But getting a place at university has always been, and should be, a competitive process. Not everyone gets the grades and some decide university is not for them. It's early days and students haven't even sat their A-levels yet.
"University is not the only choice for young people. The government has hugely increased the range of equally worthwhile opportunities for young people: 100,000 foundation degree places; 35,000 new advanced apprenticeships over the next two years; and 104,000 new jobs through the Future Jobs Fund."
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- Let Sikh pupils wear daggers, judge says
Britain's first Asian judge Sir Mota Singh says Sikhs should not be banned from wearing kirpans to school or work
Britain's first Asian judge has called for Sikhs to be allowed to wear their ceremonial daggers to school.
The comments by Sir Mota Singh QC, come after a number of cases of Sikhs being banned from wearing the daggers β known as kirpans β and other religious artefacts in schools or workplaces.
"Not allowing someone who is baptised to wear a kirpan is not right," Singh told the BBC Asian Network.
"I see no objection to a young Sikh girl or boy, who's been baptised, being allowed to wear their kirpan if that's what they want to do."
In October last year a Sikh police officer won a discrimination case against Greater Manchester police after being told to remove his turban for riot training.
In the same month a 14-year-old Sikh boy was banned from wearing his Kirpan β which under Sikhism is one of five "articles of faith" which must be carried at all times β to his school in Barnet, London.
In 2006, schoolgirl Sarika Watkins-Singh won a high court judgment allowing her to wear the kara, a slim steel bracelet which she argued was central to her faith, to her school in south Wales. She had previously been excluded for breaking a "no jewellery" rule after refusing to remove the bangle.
"The girl not allowed to wear the kara is a petty thing for the administrators to have done and it doesn't do them any good," Singh said. "It is the right of every young girl and boy to be educated at the school of their choice. For him or her to be refused admission on that sort of ground, as far as I'm concerned, is quite wrong."
Singh, who was awarded a knighthood in the 2010 New Year honours list, said he wore a kirpan.
"I've always worn it for the last 35 to 40 years, even when I was sitting in court or visiting public buildings, including Buckingham Palace.".
In addition to the kara and kirpan, the other articles of faith are kesh (uncut hair), kanga (a wooden comb used for keeping hair in place under the turban) and kachera (specially designed cotton underwear).
The kirpan, which can range in length but is commonly 7.5cm (3in) long, is carried in a sheath and strapped to the body, usually under clothing.
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- Beware the market experiment with schools
Forget about parent choice, says Fiona Millar, the free market in schools will just let some succeed at the expense of pupils in others
The debate about free schools, new school places and parent promoters rumbles on. Having now had the dubious privilege of discussing these proposals with several protagonists for what is rapidly becoming the centrepiece of opposition education policy, the ulterior motive is becoming clearer.
Forget about parent choice or even diversity; this policy is the fulfilment of a long-standing dream. Free marketeers have always wanted to run the school choice experiment in its purest form, with enough surplus places to prove that competition and the unlimited movement of "consumers" will drive up standards, expand and close individual schools. The result of the general election may mean that Christmas comes early for them this year.
Of course, if you think of school places as a commodity, like baked beans or sliced bread, it is obvious that you can't satisfy all consumers unless supply is elastic enough for numbers to be expanded and contracted at will.
One reason why so many parents feel cynical about promises of more choice is that they know that, with limited places in the most sought-after schools, the majority end up disappointed. Places are rationed and schools in effect do the choosing, often in a way that creates barriers to the neediest families.
However, in free markets, supply and demand of beans and bread is determined by many factors; quantity, price and the need and desire of suppliers to make a profit.
Once the "experiment" is under way, anything is possible β be warned. But at the moment, the price of school places doesn't float freely, the resources that fund them are limited and suppliers don't make profits, quite rightly, because the children who fill them aren't tins on supermarket shelves, they are human beings with feelings, pride, self-esteem, individual needs and certainly not commodities to be traded.
So, my prediction about "the experiment" is as follows. Money will be diverted into new schools. Popular and oversubscribed schools will continue to do well, but will be unlikely to expand significantly. Why should they?
The parent promoters I meet all claim they want small schools, and existing schools will almost certainly feel their success and popularity lies in their size. If a school has five applicants for every place, the logic dictates year groups of up to 1,000 pupils. Moreover, if schools grow exponentially, they will cease to be the school parents chose in the first place.
And the schools that are least desirable? They will slowly die, and for the children within them, it won't be a pleasant experience. Rolls will shrink, and because the money follows the pupil, so will the budget. Staff will be cut or will leave and become hard to replace. Empty places will be filled by children at early stages of learning English or disaffected youngsters excluded or transferred from other schools.
They may be good schools in which children continue to achieve and which some local parents will fight to save, but they will inevitably become subtly demonised in their communities, with unavoidable effects on the self-esteem of pupils. Re-badging them as academies may be a form of life-support, but if there aren't enough children to go round, the underlying problem will remain.
If schools shut down completely because shiny new competitors have opened up down the road, the experiment will be self-defeating because parents' options will be as limited as they were before.
In some parts of the country, expansion or contraction of places may be necessary in the next few years, and new schools may have a part to play in that. But the process of change needs to be properly planned with buy-in from the whole community, not just the most vocal and mobile members, with funding and support offered fairly to protect the interests of all children as the transition takes place.
Most young people carry their experiences at school with them through life. Governments, especially those that claim concern for parts of society that are "broken", have a responsibility for the wellbeing of every one of them during that formative time. Allowing the market to rip, and letting some schools succeed at the expense of pupils elsewhere, is irresponsible and morally wrong.
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- It is awful that we've given up on languages
It's time to end our linguistic ineptitude and make language study compulsory once again
I love lots of things about France; I just don't like speaking French. On a recent trip, I went to a chemist to buy Lemsip β or the French equivalent β for my friend.
"Bonjour, avez-vous le⦠ermmm⦠je voudrais⦠ermmm," I started. "Mon amis est malade," I tried, unable to think of the French for cold or flu. I moved on to mime: faking a cough, wrapping my arms around myself and pretending to shiver. The woman behind the counter held out some tablets but I shook my head.
Then it was tearing open an imaginary sachet, pouring it into a cup, adding water and drinking β blowing occasionally to indicate heat. She looked bemused. "Le flu?" I pleaded.
Finally β finally β she picked out what I was looking for and handed it over. I walked out feeling ashamed.
And that is French: a language I studied up to 16 and one in which I, unbelievably, achieved a top grade at GCSE. When it comes to German, I'm just glad that the answer to the only phrase I know β "Sprechen sie Englisch?" β is nearly always yes.
And I'm far from alone. One friend recently described watching a group of French locals break down in laughter as she tried to explain/mime that the gear lever in her car was stuck.
So we all know Brits are bad at languages but what are we going to do about it? The government's big idea in 2002 was to remove compulsory language studies after the age of 14 and instead drive resources into primary schools. That, they said, would enthuse children about languages and they would choose to keep studying them.
The numbers studying a language plummeted. And it took another seven years before the roll-out at primary even began. The result is a lost generation.
But even now, there is far too little focus on foreign languages. A survey published by Cilt, the National Centre for Languages, found that many English schools were abandoning a benchmark that aimed to ensure 50% to 90% of pupils studied a language at GCSE. It also found that the time 11- to 14-year-olds spent learning a language had fallen. And while four out of 10 schools arranged exchanges, many said they were becoming increasingly difficult.
Yet so many adults, myself included, look back at school with one big regret: that they left unable to converse in foreign languages. It is more than just being able to order a Lemsip. In terms of useful skills learnt at school, language ability is surely one of the most vital.
So here is what I'd like to see: languages embedded in primary schools, with not one subject but two compulsory at secondary school up to 16. And thinking about my French ability after a GCSE, I'm sure that is not enough. We need more hours in the classroom each week, more material for pupils to take home and more exchanges. It would be even better if A-level students, of whatever subject, had to take a language course on the side and were encouraged to live abroad.
I'm sure officials would say that there wasn't the money or expertise, but I really think the time has come to force language education up the agenda. After all, wouldn't it be nice to bring an end to that old joke, that the name for someone who speaks two languages is bilingual and the name for someone who speaks one is British?
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