Oliver Dowden says everyone must follow rules after Labour urges promise on ‘unfair’ restrictions
University students should be able to return home to their families at Christmas if the country “pulls together” and observes the new coronavirus rules, a cabinet minister has said.
The government is under pressure to guarantee young people are not confined to their halls of residence over the festive period because of Covid-19 outbreaks on campuses.
Continue reading...From asking students to report illicit gatherings to expanded online teaching, educational institutions continue to adapt
From overcrowded lecture halls in France to a ban on sleepovers in Ireland, special coronavirus apps in the UK, snitching on dorm parties in the US and shuttered campus gates in India, students face a range of experiences when – or if – universities reopen.
Authorities around the world have introduced different measures to try to balance the needs of third-level education with those of public health amid an autumnal surge in Covid-19 infections. Students will encounter new rules, tensions and scrutiny in response to fears that universities and colleges will open the pandemic’s floodgates.
Continue reading...New infections in UK growing by 4% to 8% every day; measures to come into force in three areas in Wales this weekend; London placed on watchlist
A further 33 people who tested positive for coronavirus have died in hospital in England, bringing the total number of confirmed deaths reported in hospitals to 29,871, NHS England said on Friday.
The patients were aged between 56 and 93 and all except two, aged 84 and 88, had known underlying health conditions.
The mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, has called for financial support from the government for areas under extra restrictions.
At his weekly press conference, he told reporters:
These restrictions in our case have been in place for a number of weeks, getting on for seven to eight now, and they are having an impact on people’s lives but also on people’s jobs and people’s businesses.
There was not any compensatory support for many of those people announced yesterday and I think this is an unacceptable situation.
Ucas says institutions have seen a 9% increase, as 44,300 students are set to start studies
UK universities are on course to recruit record numbers of international students during the global pandemic, defying predictions of financial disaster, the latest admissions figures reveal.
The Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (Ucas) said UK universities enjoyed a 9% increase in the number of undergraduate students from outside the UK and the EU starting their studies this autumn, rising to a new record total of 44,300.
Continue reading...Find a course at one of the top universities in the country. Our league tables rank them all subject-by-subject, as well as by student satisfaction, staff numbers, spending and career prospects
Continue reading...This year’s report sees Oxford moving up from third to first for the first time in a decade
Oxford University has vaulted into top place in the Guardian’s annual universities guide for the first time in a decade, thanks to new employment data showing that more Oxford students are moving into graduate-level jobs after completing their studies.
This year’s Guardian university guide sees Oxford moving up from third to first, while the University of St Andrews stays in second place and Oxford’s ancient rival Cambridge drops to third after occupying the top spot for nine years.
Continue reading...Pitt Club, founded in 1835, faces financial crisis after losing rental income from Pizza Express
It has survived a wartime recruitment crisis, a disastrous fire and a “horrible scarcity of whisky”. Now a Cambridge University members’ club is facing a surprising new challenge to its survival: the lockdown misfortunes of Pizza Express.
One hundred and eighty-five years after it was founded, the university’s Pitt Club – whose alumni include John Maynard Keynes, John Cleese and the Prince of Wales – is so close to financial catastrophe that it has been forced to make a desperate appeal to its lifetime members.
Continue reading...Indolence project is serious look at societal values of success versus sustainability, says Hamburg arts college
A German university is offering “idleness grants” to applicants who are seriously committed to doing sweet nothing.
The University of Fine Arts in Hamburg advertised three €1,600 scholarship places on Wednesday to applicants from across Germany. The applicants can submit their anonymous pitches until 15 September and will have to convince a jury that their chosen area of “active inactivity” is particularly impressive or relevant.
Continue reading...Education secretary forced into humiliating reversal on A-level and GCSE grades in England
Gavin Williamson has tried to lay the blame for the exams fiasco at the door of the regulator Ofqual after a humiliating climbdown that overturned up to 2.3m grades but left thousands of pupils in limbo.
Two days after saying there would be “no U-turn, no change”, the education secretary apologised and ordered a complete reversal whereby pupils in England will be able to revert to the A-level grades recommended by their teachers, if those are higher.
Continue reading...Synairgen’s share price rises 540% on morning of news of successful drugs trial
Three professors at the University of Southampton school of medicine have this week made a “major breakthrough” in the treatment of coronavirus patients and become paper millionaires at the same time.
Almost two decades ago professors Ratko Djukanovic, Stephen Holgate and Donna Davies discovered that people with asthma and chronic lung disease lacked a protein called interferon beta, which helps fight off the common cold. They worked out that patients’ defences against viral infection could be boosted if the missing protein were replaced.
Continue reading...Harper’s letter asserts way to ‘defeat bad ideas is by exposure, argument, and persuasion’, but critics accuse authors of censorious mentality
JK Rowling, Salman Rushdie and Margaret Atwood are among the signatories to a controversial open letter warning that the spread of “censoriousness” is leading to “an intolerance of opposing views” and “a vogue for public shaming and ostracism”.
Rowling, whose beliefs on transgender rights have recently seen scores of Harry Potter fans distance themselves from her, said she was “proud to sign this letter in defence of a foundational principle of a liberal society: open debate and freedom of thought and speech”.
Continue reading...After PM’s behaviour with the Bullingdon Club, evidence emerges of further antics at Union Society fundraiser
It may have only merited a few paragraphs in the student newspaper and have taken place 33 years ago, but an Oxford Union Society “slave auction” in which Boris Johnson and Michael Gove were involved is powerful proof of how politicians’ pasts can come back to haunt them.
“Union slave auction” was the headline in Cherwell, the journal for Oxford students, on 12 June 1987. The small story has escaped the notice of the two men’s biographers and their profile writers until now.
Continue reading...Unit based in No 10 will help researchers navigate post-Brexit immigration system
Downing Street is to set up a cross-departmental unit called the “office for talent” as a way to help leading scientists, researchers and others live and work in the UK in the post-Brexit immigration system.
The plan, which the Liberal Democrats said was simply trying to make up the damage caused by Brexit, is intended to “ensure excellent customer service across the immigration system”, a government announcement said.
Continue reading...Educational campaigner tweets about completing philosophy, politics and economics degree
The Nobel prize-winning campaigner Malala Yousafzai has expressed her “joy and gratitude” after completing her degree at University of Oxford.
The 22-year-old shared two pictures of herself covered in confetti on Twitter with the caption: “Hard to express my joy and gratitude right now as I completed my Philosophy, Politics and Economics degree at Oxford.
Continue reading...Few imperial icons, including Churchill, will escape the need to reappraise Britain’s past
The toppling of slaver Edward Colston’s statue has electrified a longer term – and already deeply polarised – debate among British historians and academics, with some celebrating a “moment of history” as others warned of dark consequences for society.
Inaction over figures such as Colston had bred anger that would be felt “all over Britain”, said Andrea Livesey, a historian specialising in the study of slavery and its legacies and who described the events in Bristol as “wholly justified”.
Continue reading...Candidate for ‘cake rep’ sparks anger after comparing killing of black man to flour shortages
An Oxford college has ordered staff and students to undergo training to combat racial bias after an undergraduate made a “joke” drawing a comparison between protests over the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and flour shortages.
The comments, described as racist and trivialising by witnesses, were made during a virtual hustings event by a candidate for the position of “cake rep” – a welfare position on the junior common room committee at Christ Church college.
Continue reading...Institution first to announce virtual teaching for next academic year
Cambridge has become the first university to set out measures for the full 2020-21 academic year, announcing that it will move all “face-to-face lectures” online for the duration. The institution added that it was “likely” social distancing would continue to be required.
The university said lectures would continue virtually until summer 2021, while it may be possible for smaller teaching groups to take place in person if it “conforms to social-distancing requirements”.
Continue reading...While campuses are shut by Covid-19, students are still being forced to pay for unused accommodation
Notttingham Trent University students Eleanora Brown and her boyfriend Nizar Ruiz are in lockdown at home in Norwich, with no prospect of returning to campus any time soon. The teaching buildings are closed and the university has released all of its tenants from paying rent this term. Yet their hall of residence, run by Collegiate, a private developer, is demanding £1,700 from each of its residents to cover the summer term.
While students at most university-owned accommodation do not have to pay rent for the third term, Brown and Ruiz are among thousands of students trapped in expensive contracts with private hall operators.
Continue reading...£500,000 government funding for project that ‘could revolutionise’ screening
Dogs are to be trained to try to sniff out the coronavirus before symptoms appear in humans, under trials launched with £500,000 of government funding.
Dogs have already been successfully trained to detect the odour of certain cancers, malaria and Parkinson’s disease, and a new study will look at whether labradors and cocker spaniels can be trained to detect Covid-19 in people.
Continue reading...Finding could help solve mystery of where plastic goes after it leaks into the sea
Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of mismanaged waste could be blowing ashore on the ocean breeze every year, according to scientists who have discovered microplastics in sea spray.
The study, by researchers at the University of Strathclyde and the Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées at the University of Toulouse, found tiny plastic fragments in sea spray, suggesting they are being ejected by the sea in bubbles. The findings, published in the journal Plos One, cast doubt on the assumption that once in the ocean, plastic stays put, as well as on the widespread belief in the restorative power of sea breeze.
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