Category Archives: Education

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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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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Children embrace Cornish language as it enjoys ‘remarkable resurgence’

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Go Cornish Celebration engages younger generation as council finalises strategy to boost everyday use of Kernewek

Seven-year-old Albie, a pupil at Trewirgie infants’ school in Redruth, did not hesitate when asked why he liked learning Kernewek, the Cornish language.

“We used to talk this way in the old days,” he said. “And I like speaking now. I enjoy the songs we sing, the Cornish books we read, all the words. It’s fun.”

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Screen time can damage under-twos’ development, landmark study suggests

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Exclusive: Researchers call for urgent investigation of risks to babies of tablets, smartphones and other digital devices

Screen time for babies and toddlers under the age of two has been linked with long-term negative effects on health and quality of life and should be avoided, according to a landmark study.

It warns that using screens during that period may lead to wide-ranging developmental concerns and calls for further urgent investigation of the risks smartphones, tablets and other digital devices pose to infants.

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Unions urge teachers to strike as French school exams go ahead in up to 40C heat

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Claims health of staff and children at risk as France struggles to adapt heat-trap school buildings

Teachers in France are risking their own and students’ health in overheated schools as a severe heatwave sets new record temperatures, education unions said, urging staff to strike over “unacceptable working conditions”.

Several teaching unions on Thursday issued a joint statement denouncing a “blatant lack of preparation” by the government, after teachers have had to work in classrooms where temperatures reached up to 40C.

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Harvard and Bard face fresh questions from lawmakers over ties to Epstein

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Democrat Jamie Raskin seeks ‘comprehensive accounting’ and requests interview with outgoing Bard president

Harvard University and Bard College are facing new questions about the institutions’ relationship with Jeffrey Epstein amid allegations that the convicted child sex trafficker leveraged his ties to the universities and their faculty to traffic women, while also burnishing his reputation to avoid detection.

Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House judiciary committee, said in a statement that Harvard and Bard had both previously attempted to investigate the role their universities and leadership played in facilitating Epstein’s abuse, but that those attempts either failed or fell short of a full accounting of what occurred.

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Attacks on education, pupils and staff around the world up by 40%, says study

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Cases reported in 83 countries, with at least 10,600 students and staff killed, injured, abducted or arrested, GCPEA says

Attacks on education globally have surged by 40% with more than 8,556 recorded incidents and 10,600 students and staff killed, injured, abducted, arrested or otherwise harmed in 2024 and 2025, according to new research.

Attacks were reported in 83 countries, with the highest incidences recorded in Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Haiti, Palestine and Ukraine.

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UK school leavers and new students to be offered meningitis B vaccine

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One-off programme to begin in July after recent MenB outbreaks in Kent, Dorset and Berkshire killed three people

Teenagers in their final school year and young people starting university will be offered two doses of a vaccine to protect them against meningitis B, the government has announced.

The one-off vaccination programme, which will begin in late July, comes after an unprecedented outbreak of meningitis B in Kent earlier this year along with clusters of cases in Dorset and Berkshire that, together, led to the deaths of three young people.

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Children hit by parents more likely to bully others, research finds

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The UCL study also found physically punished children were more likely to struggle in school

Children smacked by their parents struggle to get good exam results and are more likely to bully others, causing a negative impact on society, according to new research calling for smacking to be banned.

The study by University College London (UCL) found that children in England who were physically punished at the ages of three, five and seven were significantly less likely to pass GCSE exams compared with other children, even after factors such as family background were taken into account.

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