FE News
The announcement of a new private university in the UK doesn’t come as much surprise.
Any government, especially a coalition, will shirk responsibility for its decisions when it can lest it be saddled with something that it can’t shift come coalition-meltdown and fresh elections.
The tired mantra of the free market is a trusty friend at such [...]
•
Comment
Given that not one single person among Lord Browne-nose’s Comedy Tuition Fees Review, the Blue Rinsers or the Yellows is currently brave enough to actually make an announcement regarding the issues of student finance in the future, it’s surprising that the media have been so kind.
If we were current or future students, we’d be a [...]
•
Comment
According to the Beeb, ‘British citizenship tests: One in three immigrants fail’.
Well, actually, no. One in three immigrants WHO TOOK THE TEST failed. That is very different to saying 1 in 3 of ALL immigrants failed the test as the Beeb headline implies.
We’re not saying that’s intentional but an emotive subject such as [...]
•
Comment
Due to an unusually high number of requests received recently, we are posting the following message.
We wish to make it clear that EducationState is run on a not-for-profit basis and that any revenue generated from advertising is used solely to maintain the running of our website.
May we also make it clear that, under normal circumstances, [...]
•
Comment
Academies, radicalism, what else? Ah yes, freedom.
The Gove-nor doesn’t get it. They never do. Balls-Up was no different. It isn’t managerial tinkering that the Education system needs. ‘Wearing a new tie doesn’t a new man make’.
The Education system needs leaving alone. Now that would be truly radical. An Education system run by educators [...]
•
Comment
With the Russell Group and other selfish and ungrateful universities continue to persuade the Government that charging students more is the only way to maintain the UK’s competiveness in research, future students must be thinking that all is lost.
Despite the fact that all the middle-aged people working at UK universitities didn’t pay a penny towards [...]
•
Comment
It has been revealed that two-thirds of the new UK cabinet went to Oxbridge.
As concerning is the fact that only 4 of the 23 are women. There is also only 1 from an ethnic minority. And how many of them went to private, fee-paying schools?
In the UK, social difference is something to be [...]
•
Comment
ROKTalk, the text-to-speech service for websites designed to ‘make websites talk’ through converting written text on websites into real-time, real voice, audible speech, has today announced it is to gift the service to up to 5,000 primary and secondary schools across the UK this year through it’s not-for-profit organization, The ROK Foundation.
There are approximately 30,000 [...]
•
Comment
The announcement of a new private university in the UK doesn’t come as much surprise.
Any government, especially a coalition, will shirk responsibility for its decisions when it can lest it be saddled with something that it can’t shift come coalition-meltdown and fresh elections.
The tired mantra of the free market is a trusty friend at such [...]
•
Comment
According to the Beeb, ‘British citizenship tests: One in three immigrants fail’.
Well, actually, no. One in three immigrants WHO TOOK THE TEST failed. That is very different to saying 1 in 3 of ALL immigrants failed the test as the Beeb headline implies.
We’re not saying that’s intentional but an emotive subject such as [...]
•
Comment
With the Russell Group and other selfish and ungrateful universities continue to persuade the Government that charging students more is the only way to maintain the UK’s competiveness in research, future students must be thinking that all is lost.
Despite the fact that all the middle-aged people working at UK universitities didn’t pay a penny towards [...]
•
Comment
It has been revealed that two-thirds of the new UK cabinet went to Oxbridge.
As concerning is the fact that only 4 of the 23 are women. There is also only 1 from an ethnic minority. And how many of them went to private, fee-paying schools?
In the UK, social difference is something to be [...]
•
Comment
It has come to our attention that the outdated and counterproductive managerialism found in schools shows no sign of crawling back under the rock that it came from.
This dogmatic and wholly unedifying way to treat fellow human beings is at the heart of the peculiarly sickening manner in which ‘efficiencies’ are made in education. Doing [...]
•
Comment
Interesting to note that Michael Gove will be the next Education Secretary in the UK.
A fine party member he may be but he most certainly didn’t go to a state school – although his bio conveniently said he did at one point – and isn’t a former teacher – he’s a journo – so what [...]
•
Comment
Pretend to listen and they shall not kick up a fuss:
http://hereview.independent.gov.uk/hereview/
What a joke!
Lord Browne-nose, how about explaining why students whose parents have paid taxes all their lives now face fronting up more cash so their kid can go to university? And how about explaining why kids with high grades should pay fees and loans [...]
•
Comment
To the TUC, teachers work the most hours of any profession and a significant proportion of that being unpaid OT.
It is then worrying to note the latest research on the effects of OT published on the BBC News website. Working 10 to 11 hour days increases your risk of heart failure by two-thirds.
Recruitment campaigns [...]
•
Comment
Fewer state pupils at Oxford – The Independent
Fewer state school pupils gain Oxford places even though more apply – The Times
Or, alternatively,…
Majority of ’state’ pupils at Oxford (still under-represented) will have gone to selective schools in middle-class areas and not to inner-city comprehensives – EducationState
Without mandatory quotas, Oxbridge colleges will do nothing – EducationState
•
Comment
We again, as we do every year, make a point of reminding Joe Public how overworked and underpaid teaching professionals are with an article ‘Teaching professionals most likely to clock up unpaid overtime’ taken from the University and College Union (UCU) website.
“Teaching professionals are the group most likely to clock up unpaid overtime, according to [...]
•
Comment
EducationState have little time for education inspectors.
And why would we? They create unnecessary amounts of stress and bureaucracy. They waste time, money and other resources. And they are used an instrument of fear and control by Government.
It has dawned on us, moreover, that they bear many similarities to some rather unpleasant characters who extort money [...]
•
Comment
“Truancy rate reaches record level” declares the BBC education website.
We are told that, “The truancy statistics for the first two terms of the last school year show 1.03% of school sessions were missed without permission, up from 0.97%” and “show the rate of unauthorised absences as running higher than any annual figure since 1994, when [...]
•
Comment
The Primary Review findings prove YET AGAIN that politicians don’t listen and would rather toe the party line than to use common sense and admit to errors of judgement. We at EducationState thought we’d do our bit to improve their listening skills by lending them some of these:
Or these:
•
Comment
Apparently, we shouldn’t be deriding the fact that McDonalds and other blue-chip companies are starting qualifications of their own.
Mike Baker, the BBC News Education spokesman, calls it “snobbery” to criticise these companies for trying to raise the esteem associated with non-academic, skills-based awards. Snobbery seemed a little inappropriate, however, so we’ve come up with some [...]
•
Comment
As this Government seem hell-bent on introducing league tables for absolutely everything, we thought it would be fun to come up with some of our own:
1. Weather fronts from March 6th to 27th
2. Fish eaten on Sundays before tea
3. Green vegetables that are boiled not steamed
4. Eyeliner
5. Cheese biscuits
6. Supermarket trolleys
7. Pieces of paper with [...]
•
Comment
Mr. Mandelson has today been on the radio and in Parliament preparing the ground for YET ANOTHER review of HE entitled Higher Ambitions that fails to offer anything we didn’t know.
First reactions to this have revolved around increased tuition fees and redirecting funds to on-line, mature and part-time students.
We’ve taken the statement made by [...]
•
Comment
Oxford to defer use of A* grade for admissions? Why bother? Still doesn’t deal with the more fundamental issue of whether grades can be awarded fairly. Changing the grades won’t alter the fact that the whole grading system of A levels and so on is ripe for reform.
As argued before on EducationState, the awarding [...]
•
Comment
We can only but admire the logic of a system designed to record progress and raise standards that in fact is costing £700 million and rising. Brilliant for those who provide the examinations e.g. Cambridge University, Edexcel, Trinity and so on.
Why is it costing so much? External agencies holding educational establishments to ransom? A National [...]
•
Comment
It has been revealed in The Guardian that from next year (2008/9) the running of Education will be placed in the hands of locally-appointed councillors, experts and teachers doing away with over 150 years of state control.
Explaining the volte-face Ed Balls MP, Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, explained that “the time is [...]
•
Comment
WE would like to offer our sympathies to all those hard-working teachers who have recently had to endure an observation grilling.
As a result WE have put together a list of reasons why observations, at least in their current form, make little sense:
1. They lack objectivity because objectivity is unattainable. The mere selection of criteria with [...]
•
Comment
Calls to raise tuition fees and increase parental contributions to education come as no surprise to us here at EducationState.
True to form, an organisation that no-one has ever heard of – Association of Graduate Recruiters – calls for radical changes designed to make the world a better place and then hopes that its members notice [...]
•
Comment
We thought our readers may be interested in this clever new website:
“Greetings,
I appreciate your dedication to higher ed and enjoy your blogs. I too love higher ed and have launched a new website www.campusleftovers.com. The website is free for everyone to use and is comparable to a “craigslist” for higher ed. Some unviersities have begun [...]
•
Comment
We have mocked the ineffectiveness of the NUS in years gone by but they are flexing their muscles again and we applaud them.
In today’s Guardian it is reported that, “Students will name and shame MPs who refuse to oppose rise in tuition fee”. Now modern-day students are not known for their radicalism and long gone [...]
•
Comment
Members’ biographies
Lord John Browne
John Browne was born in 1948. He joined BP in 1966 as a university apprentice. He holds a degree in Physics from Cambridge University and a MS Business from Stanford University, California. He is President of the Royal Academy of Engineering, and a Fellow of the Royal Society and The American Academy [...]
•
Comment
The BBC Education news desk and the The Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA) seem to believe that a recent ICM survey shows teaching is ‘under rated’.
This may be the case but the study does not show this. The study actually shows us not that teaching is under-rated but that prospects for career development [...]
•
Comment
If half a million parents and guardians have submitted appeals regarding dissatisfaction with Little Johnny’s school place then how much is spent responding to them?
The culture of choice is really an excuse to employ more civil servants – how very convenient for them. Nothing wrong with choice but how about cutting costs first. And how [...]
•
Comment
We at EducationState think that it is very, very sad that, according to the BBC, “Children as young as seven are to be offered careers guidance under a government scheme in England.”
Is this what children really need or will remember? Psychologists tell us that our automatic, non-conscious behaviour starts early on in life but we, [...]
•
Comment
We see that the “Tories back ‘Teach First’ scheme”.
It seems sensible to encourage ‘high-flying’ graduates to join the teaching profession so that they can pass on their skills and experience.
However, we would argue that this scheme is not the answer to teacher recruitment and retention. Improved working conditions especially eradicating all paperwork and restoring [...]
•
Comment
“Union leader calls for review of mobile phone ban in classrooms”, says the Observer. Really? Perhaps so. After all, the article later declares: “In schools where children were provided with handheld computers with phone and internet access to use in lessons, teachers have reported very little misuse, according to David Whyley, the headteacher consultant for [...]
•
Comment
We’ve received the following email from the BBC.
Anyone interested please contact them using the e-mail address below:
“Hi,
Sorry to bother you.
I work for the BBC’s Today programme and we were wondering if you’d be able to help us.
There was a story in the news yesterday (11 March 2008) that some schools were breaking the rules [...]
•
Comment
Great response to a BBC News article about what makes a good teacher.
The following response is indicative of the rest:
“I would have thought that it was quite obvious what makes a good teacher in this day and age. The ability to cope with enormous amounts of administrative paper-work including individual lesson plans for every lesson [...]
•
Comment