Cambridge University asks former chief crown prosecutor to open Arday review

Nazir Afzal to focus in review’s first stage on support given to professor in immediate period before his death

The University of Cambridge has asked Nazir Afzal, a former chief crown prosecutor for north-west England, to lead the first part of its review into the death of the scholar Jason Arday.

Arday died at his home in south London on 14 August, nine days after his resignation as a Cambridge professor amid swirling allegations of plagiarism and inconsistencies in statements about his career.

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Higher education regulator apologises for imposing £585,000 fine on university

Office for Students made decision to punish University of Sussex with fine last year after claiming it breached free speech regulations

England’s higher education regulator has apologised for a string of mistakes in its decision to punish the University of Sussex with a record fine that was later overturned by the high court.

The Office for Students (OfS) tried to impose a £585,000 fine against Sussex last year after claiming the university breached free speech regulations involving its former professor Kathleen Stock. It was forced to back down in April after a judicial review initiated by Sussex found the OfS “had closed its mind” and acted with bias.

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Teenager in Wales given detention sentence for stabbing teacher in head

Judge voices concern about possible copycat incidents after boy, 16, found guilty over attack at school in Pembrokeshire

A judge has expressed concern over possible copycat attacks on school staff as he sentenced a teenager who stabbed a teacher in the head to four and a half years in youth detention.

Judge Thomas KC said it was the second such attack in south-west Wales in two years and that the authorities might have to consider what security measures were in place to protect teachers.

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UK houses near top state secondary schools cost £40,000 more, research reveals

Premium of nearly 10% paid by housebuyers comparable with cost of a cheaper private school over seven years

A house near a top state secondary school costs an extra £40,000 on average, according to research that reveals education premiums that rank alongside some private school fees.

The average property in a postcode district that includes a top 50 state secondary commands a price tag of £415,791, compared with £375,217 across the wider local authority areas in which those schools are located, a UK-wide analysis by the estate agent Yopa found.

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French high schools rush to put Macron’s phone ban into force

Unions say ban will take time to enact, while president also wants under-15s social media ban as key legacy

French high schools are rushing to put in place a ban on mobile phones this week as Emmanuel Macron pushes for children to spend less time in front of screens.

Education unions warned that banning mobile phone use in lycées – where children are aged 15 to 18 – would be hard to implement quickly.

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Jason Arday accuser given three-month teaching ban but can continue research

Nathan Cofnas told by Ghent University to work remotely as US ambassador claims credit for lifting of suspension

Prof Jason Arday’s accuser Nathan Cofnas has been barred from teaching on Ghent University campus for three months but has been allowed to continue his research position.

Cofnas, an American academic, was suspended from his postdoctoral research position at the Belgian institution earlier this month pending a “preliminary investigation” launched after Arday’s death.

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Burnham to chair growth meeting call at No 10 North – UK politics live

The PM will be working alongside chancellor John Healey, Lou Haigh, Angela Rayner and Sally Jameson with regional mayors expected to be involved

The UK government ran a larger than expected £1.8bn deficit in July, underlining the challenges facing the chancellor, John Healey, as he draws up his first budget.

City economists had expected a shortfall of zero for July, a month when Treasury receipts tend to be swollen by self-assessment income tax payments.

Burnham said yesterday that fly-tippers will be forced to pay for the clean-up when they dump waste illegally. The prime minister laid out his plans to crackdown on waste crimes as he visited an illegal dump in West Yorkshire.

Racism and sexism have become normalised in Britain, the equalities minister has said, as she warned that young men were being sucked into violent misogyny by the “cesspit” of social media. Bridget Phillipson said she was increasingly worried about how commonplace misogyny and racism had become, fuelled by online interactions and statements by politicians she said would not have been acceptable a few years ago.

Phillipson suggested her sweeping reforms to special educational needs provision could be adapted to give parents greater protections if they are unhappy about the service being provided for their children. The former education secretary told the Guardian ministers were open to making changes to the plans, which were announced earlier this year but which have since been subject to consultation.

Education Lucy Powell on Thursday addressed the GCSE gender gap, which shrank to its narrowest point this century. Almost one in four boys in England received top grades in maths while results in English improved across the board. “The white working-class review that was recently done, that was one things it found, that more boys need to see the purpose of education, they need to see the line of sight into work,” Powell told the Press Association.

Meanwhile, Burnham told reporters that funding for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s security arrangements on their return to the UK was a “private matter”, the Press Association reports. Harry and Meghan are expected to return to live in Britain later this month. After six years in the US, they will be moving with their two children, Prince Archie, seven, and Princess Lilibet, five, to a non-royal residence outside London.

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Leaders attack ‘demotivating’ plan to make pupils who fail GCSEs retake maths and English

Government announce plan for ‘stepping stone’ qualification as 620,000 year 11 students face retaking maths or English after failure to achieve grade 4

The government’s plans to make young people continue studying maths and English if they fail GCSEs could be demotivating and ineffective, according to education experts and school leaders after retake pass rates slumped this year.

Only one in seven students in the age group retaking GCSE maths after a previous failure got a grade 4 or above this summer, while only one in six managed to pass English, meaning the majority will have to retake the exams next year if they remain in education or training.

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Tens of thousands pay tribute to Jason Arday at Trafalgar Square vigil

MPs, friends and campaigners gathered to remember former Cambridge professor after his death on Friday

Tens of thousands of people gathered in Trafalgar Square in London to remember and pay tribute to Jason Arday, the former Cambridge professor who died on Friday.

Stand Up to Racism, which organised the vigil, estimated that 30,000 mourners had gathered in the square to listen to emotional speeches from MPs, friends and campaigners on Arday’s life and legacy and join in a minute’s silence. Many were dressed in black and held flowers, which they were asked to leave beneath Nelson’s column. People also carried placards reading “rest in power”.

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Cambridge University defends its mental health support for Jason Arday

University says it continued to provide support after resignation of academic, who was found dead on Friday

The University of Cambridge has defended its mental health support for the academic Jason Arday.

The university said it had continued to provide Arday with extensive mental health support and security measures, including installing panic alarms and screening racist emails and post, after he resigned from his post as professor of sociology of education this month.

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Tributes paid to Jason Arday after former Cambridge professor’s death

Andy Burnham calls for reflection after ‘tragedy on so many levels’ in comments echoed by London mayor Sadiq Khan

Andy Burnham has called the death of Jason Arday, whose body was found at his home in south London on Friday, a “tragedy on so many levels”.

Arday resigned as a professor at the University of Cambridge last week after allegations of plagiarism, which he denied. He was pronounced dead just after 3pm on Friday.

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Behind England’s bumper A-level results lie record levels of regional disparities

Need for Burnham to tackle regional inequality could not be clearer as London becomes ‘educational outlier’

Andy Burnham has put regional inequality at the top of his agenda as prime minister, and nowhere is the need for doing so clearer than in education.

As England’s A-level results were published on Thursday morning, students across the country were pictured celebrating a bumper crop of results, with record rates of As and A*s.

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Parents of baby girl killed at nursery fear unsafe sleeping ‘rife’ in sector across England

Katie and John Meehan say responses to campaign they launched after death of daughter Genevieve must be ‘wake-up call’

The parents of a nine-month-old girl who died after being placed in an unsafe sleeping position at nursery said they feared poor practice may be “rife” across England.

Genevieve Meehan suffocated when she was strapped face down to a beanbag for an hour and 37 minutes at a nursery in Cheadle Hulme, Stockport, in May 2022.

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Cambridge academics reject university’s attempt to end row over Jason Arday

Group calls for ‘thorough and transparent investigation’ of hiring of professor who resigned after his claims came under scrutiny

The University of Cambridge has announced a review into the way it vets and hires senior academic staff in an effort to fend off external and internal criticism of its appointment of Jason Arday as a professor.

But a group of Cambridge academics quickly rejected the university’s response, saying: “We strongly believe that a thorough and transparent investigation into the wider circumstances of this damaging episode is essential.”

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Dons call for Cambridge leaders to take blame for Jason Arday appointment

Exclusive: Academics call for inquiry, saying university must be held accountable for ‘grotesque racism unleashed’

The University of Cambridge’s leaders deserve blame for the “grotesque racism unleashed” by Jason Arday’s appointment as professor, according to academics calling for the university to hold an independent inquiry.

The Guardian understands that senior dons at Cambridge are circulating a joint letter calling for an inquiry into the processes and circumstances around Arday being given the position, with many suggesting the university wanted a “quick fix” to improve the diversity of its staff.

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Danish pupils will have to orally defend essays in attempt to combat AI cheating

Government introduces several measures, including monitoring of computers, for pupils aged 16 to 19

Danish teenagers will have to make an oral defence of their written essays to combat AI cheating, the government has announced.

Pupils aged 16 to 19 at upper secondary school (known in Denmark as gymnasiet) will also be encouraged to do written assignments at school under controlled conditions, including monitoring of their computer screens, rather than at home.

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UK’s first ‘super-university’, merging Greenwich and Kent, to launch in September

The new London and South East University Group will be UK’s third largest higher education institution

The UK’s first “super-university”, which will merge the universities of Greenwich and Kent, is set to launch in September.

The new London and South East University Group, to be known as the LASEUG, will have more than 50,000 students on four campuses across London, Medway and Kent, making it the third largest higher education institution in the UK.

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Developing countries spend more repaying foreign debt than on education, UN reveals

Unesco report shows children lost out to servicing debt in 113 countries, with 18 spending five times more on loans

Most developing countries spent less on education than they did repaying debt last year, according to the UN, at the same time as global aid to education is predicted to decline by up to 30%.

More was spent on servicing foreign debt than on education in 113 developing countries in 2025, according to research by the UN’s culture and education agency, Unesco. In sub-Saharan Africa, countries spent 3.6 times more on debt than education.

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Overseas education project for women and girls axed by UK after two years

The programme, aimed at keeping 1m girls in school across Africa, Asia and the Middle East, withdrawn after aid cuts

A leading higher education programme, aimed at keeping 1 million girls in school across Africa, Asia and the Middle East, has been axed by the British government just two years after it was announced.

The scheme, Strengthening higher education for female empowerment (SHEFE), which was unveiled with some fanfare two years ago by the outgoing Conservative government, had a £45m budget to increase access to higher education for 1 million students worldwide. It has now had its tender withdrawn, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said.

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Outrage over ‘cruel’ Florida move to ban undocumented students from college

Critics condemn decision by education board aligned with hard-right Ron DeSantis to block access to college system

Immigration advocates in Florida have decried a “cruel and harmful” new rule by education officials aligned with hard-right Republican governor Ron DeSantis to ban undocumented students from state colleges and universities.

The Florida board of education voted on Tuesday to bar access to its 28 state-funded institutions to anybody not a US citizen or “lawfully present” in the country. It follows Florida’s move last year to strip discounted in-state tuition rates for certain immigrant students.

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