Category Archives: Education

Social mobility prospects for young people ‘disappearing’, says research

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Chances of homeownership and higher incomes undermined by pandemic and cost of living crisis

The postwar dream of doing better in life than your parents has faded, with the UK now a country where opportunities for upward social mobility and economic advancement are increasingly limited, research has claimed.

It contrasts with the golden age of social mobility enjoyed by the UK in the early years of the Queen’s reign when an expanding economy allowed a generation to take professional jobs and own their own homes.

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Visa scheme for graduates from top 50 non-UK universities is launched

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‘High potential individual’ route will allow eligible individuals to come to Britain without a prior job offer

Graduates from the world’s top 50 non-UK universities can apply to come to Britain through a new visa scheme.

Ministers hope the “high potential individual” route, which launches on Monday, will attract the “brightest and best” at the beginning of their careers to work in the UK.

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Longer work visa could tempt more foreign students to UK, survey finds

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Chancellors urge review of two-year visas as overseas graduates say three-year offer would be more attractive

International students would be more likely to consider studying in the UK if they were allowed to stay and work for three years instead of two, a survey suggests.

Foreign students have been able to stay on and work in the UK for two years after completing their course since 2019, when the government reinstated the two-year post-study work visa after years of pressure from universities.

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Government ‘pushing universities out of teacher training’ over leftwing politics

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Higher education leaders say ministers think departments are full of ‘Marxists’, as top universities fail accreditation process

Leaders in higher education said this week they believed the government was trying to push universities out of teacher training for political reasons because ministers thought their education departments were “hotbeds of leftwing intellectualism” and full of “Marxists”.

Under changes announced last summer, all initial teacher training providers in England must be re-accredited by the Department for Education to continue educating teachers from 2024. However, two-thirds of providers, including some top universities, were told this month that they had failed the first round of the new accreditation process. The DfE said last week that just 80 providers, out of 216 who are understood to have applied, had made the cut.

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Office for Students chair didn’t know he was sharing platform with far-right journalist

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James Wharton says he didn’t know Hungarian talkshow host Zsolt Bayer was speaking at rightwing event

The chair of England’s university regulator, who was criticised for participating in a conference in Hungary on the same platform as a notorious far-right journalist accused of antisemitism, has said he did not know who he was appearing alongside.

James Wharton, chair of the Office for Students (OfS), addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference (Cpac) via a video message last Friday, on the same day as Zsolt Bayer, a talkshow host who has called Jews “stinking excrement”, referred to Roma as “animals”, and used racial epithets to describe Black people.

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Bolivia’s perennial student leader clung to post for decades without graduating

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Max Mendoza has been arrested after a judge said his 32-year enrollment at university on a government salary may be a crime

Max Mendoza has been a remarkably persistent student – and a profitable one: he has been enrolled at a public university in Bolivia for 32 years but never graduated, much of it while being paid a government salary to serve as a student leader.

On Monday, though, he was detained and sent to jail after a judge ordered a six-month investigation into allegations his tenure as a state-paid student leader constituted a crime.

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UK’s ‘strictest headmistress’ fears schools will stop teaching Shakespeare

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Katharine Birbalsingh says move to decolonise English curriculum could mean Shakespeare replaced with black and female authors

The headteacher of a school described as the strictest in Britain has warned that William Shakespeare will disappear from classrooms as schools in England come under pressure to decolonise and diversify the curriculum.

Katharine Birbalsingh, the controversial headteacher at Michaela community school in north London, said Shakespeare had already been “lost” in many places in the US and cautioned: “We are following America in this way.”

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Bristol University found guilty of failings over death of student

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Parents of Natasha Abrahart argued Bristol failed to make allowances for their daughter’s severe anxiety

A leading university has been ordered to pay £50,000 in damages to the parents of a vulnerable student who took her own life, after a senior judge ruled it had discriminated against her.

In a landmark case that has deep implications for other higher education institutions, the parents of Natasha Abrahart successfully sued the University of Bristol under the Equality Act.

In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. Other international suicide helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org

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Japanese university told to compensate 13 women after exam discrimination

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Juntendo University medical school made it harder for females to pass entrance exams

A medical school in Tokyo that made it harder for female students to pass entrance exams has been ordered to pay compensation to 13 women for gender discrimination.

Juntendo University said in 2018 that it had raised the bar for women in the exams to “narrow the gap with male students”, as a scandal over medical school admissions uncovered improper practices at several institutions.

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‘The cost has become astronomical’: UK schools struggle with rising food prices

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Heads reluctant to increase burden on families already caught in cost of living crisis

At St Jude’s, a small Church of England primary school in south London, the morning breakfast club is exceptionally busy. Over the past six weeks the number of pupils coming in to have porridge, scrambled egg and fruit smoothies before the school day begins has climbed from eight to 22 – nearly a quarter of the Southwark school’s population.

Families hit by the cost of living crisis are increasingly desperate, says the acting deputy head, Matt Jones. They need help with their debts; they can’t pay their bills. Staff are making more and more referrals to StepChange, a debt charity, and the school has made discretionary payments to help families unable to afford gas, electricity or nappies.

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Headteachers fight for funds to shore up England’s dilapidated classrooms

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Hundreds of schools are queueing for cash to replace leaky roofs and failing heating. Yet each year only 50 will get money to rebuild

When it rains, the pupils at Wales high school, south Yorkshire, know to look out for numerous obstacles as they move around the building - buckets, lots of buckets.

“On a rainy day, it’s commonplace to see a dozen buckets around the school,” said headteacher Pepe Di’Iasio. “You can’t do anything long term. We’re just patching over the roof and doing the various things that we can. We have flat roofs, asbestos throughout the place and an old energy system that uses heavy amounts. We have a building that we heat up every day and the heating goes straight up out of the roof.”

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England’s crumbling schools are a ‘risk to life’, officials warn No 10

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Leak reveals that the education department is battling with the Treasury for £13bn needed for rebuilding projects

Many school buildings in England are now in such disrepair they are a “risk to life”, according to internal government documents leaked to the Observer.

Emails sent by senior officials working for education secretary Nadhim Zahawi to Downing Street show them raising the alarm on two occasions within the last six weeks.

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UK government suspends engagement with NUS over antisemitism allegations

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The education secretary, Nadhim Zahawi, said he was ‘seriously concerned’ by reports of alleged antisemitism within the organisation

Ministers have banned official contact with the National Union of Students over long-running allegations of antisemitism within the organisation, despite the NUS’s pledge to work with Jewish students in an internal investigation.

The allegations have become a focus for the government since the election of Shaima Dallali as the next NUS president, with groups including the Union of Jewish Students (UJS) raising concerns after alleged historic comments resurfaced.

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Too many first-class degrees awarded in England, regulator says

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Minister calls for universities to restore pre-pandemic award levels by next year

Universities in England have been for rebuked for awarding “excessive” numbers of first-class degrees during the pandemic, with ministers and regulators accusing the sector of undermining its own reputation.

The Office for Students (OfS) published analysis claiming that more than half of first-class degrees awarded in 2021 could not be explained by “observable factors” such as prior results or social background of students.

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Queen’s speech set to include crackdown on unregulated schools

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Proposals to include threat of jail and unlimited fines for proprietors who ignore safeguarding concerns

A planned crackdown on unsafe or unregulated independent schools is expected to be included in next week’s Queen’s speech, including the threat of jail sentences and unlimited fines for proprietors who ignore safeguarding concerns.

The Department for Education (DfE) said it was ready to submit legislation to give the government and Ofsted wider powers to investigate and close private schools in England, with plans to broaden its definition of a school to force more settings to officially register.

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Degrees underfunded by £1,750 per student, Russell Group says

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Group says deficit would widen to £4,000 under plan to freeze tuition fees in England until 2024-25

Each undergraduate costs England’s leading universities nearly £2,000 as tuition fees and teaching grants fail to fully fund a degree, and that amount is likely to double soon unless the government acts to fill the gap.

A submission by the Russell Group of research-intensive universities – including the University of Manchester and University College London – to a consultation on higher education funding revealed that the average cost per student was £1,750 more than they receive in tuition fees and teaching grants.

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UK faces childcare crisis as staff shortages force nurseries to close

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Early years providers can’t attract qualified workers and the crisis will put prices up, increasing the burden on struggling families

Nurseries across the UK are being forced to close or reduce their services at an alarming rate because they are struggling to recruit and retain staff, the National Day Nurseries Association (NDNA) has warned.

The crisis is only set to deepen as more childcare providers go out of business, increasing demand for places and pushing prices even higher for families struggling with the rising cost of living.

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Ban permanent exclusions from English primaries, says ex-children’s tsar

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Anne Longfield says ‘exclusions culture’ rewards removal of some vulnerable children from school roll

Primary schools should no longer permanently exclude pupils, and measures of wellbeing should be included alongside exam results in school league tables, according to a report by the former children’s commissioner for England.

The Commission on Young Lives, headed by Anne Longfield, argues that exclusions can be highly damaging to those affected, putting young people at risk of exploitation, serious violence and criminal activity.

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Exam board adds new plays by writers of colour to drama GCSE and A-Level

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The Empress by Tanika Gupta among new additions in attempt to diversify AQA’s offering for drama students in England

Drama students will have the opportunity to study a more diverse curriculum at GCSE and A-level with the addition of four new plays by writers of colour.

AQA, the biggest examination board in England, says the texts are part of a range of measures to update and revise its qualifications to ensure they better reflect the diversity of students and their teachers.

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Ofsted will step up early-years focus to address lockdown impact

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Young children thought to be lagging behind in communication and skills due to Covid disruption

The schools watchdog Ofsted is to increase its focus on early-years education as part of its new five-year strategy, to address the devastating impact of the pandemic on some of the youngest children in England.

Ofsted is concerned that children in early years are lagging behind in their communication and language skills owing to Covid disruption, while the sector is under pressure as thousands of staff have left since the first lockdown and childcare providers are down by 5,000.

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