Category Archives: Education

Liz Truss pledges crackdown on unions but is accused of ‘Tory fantasy’

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Labour dismisses Conservative leadership hopeful’s plan for minimum service levels as unworkable

Liz Truss has promised a further crackdown on trade unions, widening restrictions to a significant new number of industries, but her proposals were immediately criticised as the “biggest attack on civil rights” since the 19th century.

Truss said she would legislate for minimum service levels on critical national infrastructure in the first 30 days of government under her leadership. The pledge would go further than the Tories’ 2019 policy, which promised a minimum service should operate during transport strikes.

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Tory contest shows government levelling up agenda is dead, Lisa Nandy to say

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Shadow minister to say PM hopefuls are vying ‘for the mantle of Margaret Thatcher, promising tax cuts for the wealthy’

The shadow communities secretary, Lisa Nandy, will claim the Conservative leadership contest has shown the government’s commitment to levelling up is dead, as she announces plans to give local communities the right to buy up assets such as empty shops.

Nandy will use a speech in Darlington to say Labour would press ahead with handing power to communities outside London and the south-east in an attempt to rebalance the UK’s economy.

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Pupil numbers in England set to shrink by almost 1 million in 10 years

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Government forecast anticipates 12% decline, mainly due to fewer births, with surplus school places in years ahead

England’s school population is set to shrink by almost a million children over the next 10 years, according to the government’s latest data, raising the prospect of surplus places and school closures in some areas of the country in the years ahead.

Department for Education figures reveal that predicted pupil numbers, already in marked decline according to earlier modelling, have had to be revised down further in line with projections of fewer births than expected.

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Record numbers of disadvantaged UK students apply for university

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Ucas data also shows surge in applications from Nigeria, India and China but fall in nursing applications

Record numbers of disadvantaged students in the UK have applied to go to university this year, according to official figures that also show international recruitment has held up with a surge in applications from Nigeria, India and China.

According to data published by the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (Ucas), overall applications for UK 18-year-olds have exceeded all previous records, raising concerns about competition for places on the most popular courses as some universities try to rein in numbers after over recruiting during the pandemic.

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Liz Truss criticised for saying her Leeds school ‘let down’ children

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Local MP and councillor angered by comments about Roundhay school, rated ‘satisfactory’ when foreign secretary attended

Tory leadership candidate Liz Truss has been criticised for comments about the quality of education at her Leeds school, which she claims caused children to be “let down”.

Speaking at the launch of her economic plan, the foreign secretary is expected to describe seeing “children who failed and were let down by low expectations” during her time at Roundhay school in the 1990s.

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Getty opens access to 30,000 images of black diaspora in UK and US

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Photos dating back to 1800s made free to allow telling of black history stories beyond enslavement and colonisation

A collection of almost 30,000 rarely seen images of the black diaspora in the UK and the US, dating from the 19th century to the present, has been launched as part of an educational initiative to raise awareness of the history of black people in the UK.

The Black History & Culture Collection includes more than 20 categories of images including politics, hair, education, female empowerment and LGBTQ+.

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UK school Latin course overhauled to reflect diversity of Roman world

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New edition of Cambridge Latin Course to include more prominent female characters and better reflect empire’s ethnic mix

A popular Latin course used to teach generations of British schoolchildren has undergone its biggest overhaul in 50 years to include more prominent female characters and better reflect ethnic diversity in the Roman world.

A fifth edition of the Cambridge Latin Course (CLC), a mainstay of mainly private schools since the 1970s, is being published later this month, in response to concerns from teachers, academics and students about the representation of women, minorities and enslaved people in earlier versions.

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Australia news live: fourth covid vaccine dose to be offered from 11 July; NSW rain and flood risk move north

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In his speech, Jason Clare also lamented the fact that although the target of 40% of people aged 25 to 34 having bachelor degrees had been achieved, a separate target for 20% of enrolments to be from people from low socioeconomic backgrounds had not.

Instead, it had “barely moved” from 15%, from when the target was set in 2008. Indigenous enrolment was less than 10%.

I don’t want us to be a country where your chances in life depend on your postcode, your parents, or the colour of your skin. None of us want that. But that’s where we are today. I am not naive, I know this is hard to shift.

And that, at its core, is what the Australian Universities accord will be about: a reset. And an opportunity to build a long-term plan for our universities, together. Drawing on the advice of the leadership in this room, your staff, unions, business, students, parents and all political parties.

Looking at everything from funding and access to affordability, transparency, regulation, employment conditions and also how universities and TAFEs and other higher education and vocational education providers and training institutions work together.

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50 Chinese students leave UK in three years after spy chiefs’ warning

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MI5 chief says Chinese communist party targeting intellectual property across west

Fifty Chinese students have left the UK in the past three years after Britain tightened its procedures to prevent the theft of sensitive academic research, the head of MI5 said in a speech about the espionage threat posed by Beijing.

Ken McCallum, the director general of the spy agency, also said that MI5 had “more than doubled” its effort against Chinese activity over the same timeframe, as part of an unprecedented joint warning with his counterpart at the FBI.

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Human traffickers ‘using UK universities as cover’

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Overseas students have vanished from courses and then been found working in exploitative conditions

Universities have been urged to be on high alert for human trafficking after suspected victims brought to Britain on student visas vanished from their courses and were found working in exploitative conditions hundreds of miles away.

In a recent case, Indian students at Greenwich, Chester and Teesside universities stopped attending lectures shortly after arriving in the UK, according to a report by the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority (GLAA) seen by the Observer.

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Nadhim Zahawi makes U-turn on schools bill after criticism

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Minister scraps plans to increase DfE control of academy trusts, derided as ‘ridiculous attempt to centralise power in Whitehall’

Ministers have announced a U-turn on key elements of the government’s schools bill, scrapping or amending clauses that would have given the Department for Education (DfE) greater control over “virtually every aspect” of academy trusts in England.

The schools bill, launched by Nadhim Zahawi, has run into opposition from Conservative and crossbench peers for giving the education secretary a veto over appointments of school trustees, the power to rescind funding agreements and even determine the length of the school day within each trust.

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Increasing public sector pay in line with inflation would be ‘reckless’, says No 10 – UK politics live

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PM’s spokesperson says workers should not be ‘chasing inflation with wages’ as that would increase inflation

Moderna has announced that it will open a vaccine research and manufacturing centre in the UK. In a visit to mark the announcement, Sajid Javid, the health secretary, said:

We all saw during the pandemic the differences that cutting edge vaccines and treatments can make and we all particularly saw that the mRNA technology has been very transformational. It has literally saved millions of lives over the last couple of years.

And that’s why I’m thrilled to announce this new partnership between the UK government and Moderna, where Moderna will established here in the UK, a global R&D facility with over £1bn for investment in this cutting edge technology, and also a huge manufacturing centre, their largest outside of the US, and so this is a great investment in the UK, and gives huge confidence to our life sciences sector already leading in Europe.

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British history should not be treated as a ‘soft play area’, says David Olusoga

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Writer and broadcaster says teaching about the past must not be a way of making people feel good about themselves

Britain’s relationship with history is “not fit for purpose”, according to a leading historian who said too many pupils are still taught a “dishonest version” of the nation’s past that left out uncomfortable truths.

David Olusoga, the writer and broadcaster, told school leaders that Britain often saw its history as “recreational … a place that we go for comfort, a place to make us feel good about ourselves”, leading to ignorance about the history of its empire, and to immigration scandals such as Windrush.

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New strike chaos as teachers and NHS staff warn of action over pay

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Rail unions set to walk out on Tuesday, as clashes loom over public sector pay offers falling short of inflation

A wave of 1970s-style economic unrest is threatening to spread from the railways across the public services, as unions representing teachers and NHS workers warn of potential industrial action over pay.

With the country preparing for rail strikes on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday which will see half the network shut down, the biggest teaching union, the National Education Union (NEU), told the Observer that unless it receives a pay offer much closer to inflation by Wednesday, it will be informing education secretary Nadhim Zahawi of its plan to ballot its 450,000 members. The move could lead to strikes in schools in England in the autumn, the union said.

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London state school pupils train to take on private schools at rugby fives

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Bold experiment uses sport to boost social mobility while bringing organised games to state schools

St Paul’s and Winchester are facing a new rivalry at fives – the handball game that for hundreds of years has largely been the preserve of the most rarified public schools.

Children at Stoke Newington school in Hackney, east London, are leading a new wave of state school rugby fives players who have started training to take on their privileged counterparts in matches that will reach across one of the UK’s most entrenched social divides.

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Britons not bitterly polarised over trans equality, research finds

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Study reveals majority agree schools should talk about trans issues and one in four knows trans person

The British public are not bitterly polarised over trans equality, according to new research, which found a majority agreed schools should talk to pupils about transgender issues and that one in four knows a trans person personally.

Thought to be the most in-depth UK study to date of public attitudes to what has become a notoriously toxic discourse in politics and on social media, the report from More in Common identifies a radically different attitude among ordinary people, who approach issues of gender identity from a position of compassion and fairness, often informed by their own relationships with trans people.

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Infant free school meals funding rises by just 7p a meal in England

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Campaigners says uplift falls way short of inflation and only applies to youngest pupils in school system

The government is to increase the funding rate for universal infant free school meals (UIFSM) by just 7p a pupil, it was announced on Tuesday, a move immediately branded “inadequate” by the sector.

Following an outcry over the government’s new food strategy, which did not include the hoped-for expansion of free school meals, the education secretary, Nadhim Zahawi, announced that funding for free school meals for all pupils in reception, year 1 and year 2 would go up from £2.34 to £2.41 a meal.

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Student loan interest rate to be capped at 7.3% in autumn, says DfE

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Ministers intervene to stop interest rate in England and Wales reaching 12% with inflation by September

Ministers have intervened to reduce a sharp rise in interest rates charged on student loans, after the recent increase in inflation which meant rates would treble for many graduates by the autumn.

The Department for Education said the maximum rate from September is to be fixed at 7.3% rather than the 12% it would have reached by September, based on earlier inflation figures plus 3%.

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First post-Covid school leavers face fight for fewer university places

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Parents and teachers say some students predicted to gain A* grades are being rejected after a surge in applications

The first post-Covid cohort of school leavers face a summer of uncertainty that “threatens to hold back a generation”, as students compete for fewer places on popular university courses.

After A-level grade inflation during the pandemic forced universities to take on more students, institutions are now retrenching in popular subjects despite a surge in applications.

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Nearly one in three children in north-east England on free school meals

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Figures shows 10% rise in FSM across England and school leaders say real child poverty level is even higher

Nearly one in three children in the north-east of England are receiving free school meals (FSM), according to figures that reveal a 10% rise across England, as school leaders say the real level of child poverty is even higher.

The figures released in the Department for Education (DfE) annual school census show that 22.5% of state school pupils are on FSM, up from 20.8% last year, reflecting the increasing number of households receiving universal credit and earning less than £7,400 a year after tax.

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