Immersion is a difficult lesson
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It was an ambitious plan pushed through by Malaysia’s leader, Mahathir Mohamad, despite fierce opposition. Five years on the decision that all Malaysian children should be taught maths and science in English still causes heated debate.With an election looming, nationalist politicians are again seizing on the charged issue of language in an ethnically diverse country [...]
Popularity of boring geography on wane
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Geography teaching is in decline, with schoolchildren claiming it is “boring and irrelevant” and teachers avoiding field trips due to health and safety concerns, school inspectors report today.Pupils are failing to gain an understanding of climate change, environmentalism and global citizenship through lessons which are too often led by non-specialists, according to the study from [...]
Two worlds collide
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“Charities must not be ‘exclusive clubs’ that only a few can join.” That judgment hardly sounds controversial. It tallies with all teaching about charity, from the good Samaritan to the Qur’an. But its inclusion in official guidance published yesterday raises big questions for some organisations enjoying charitable status - and the tax breaks that come [...]
Teaching unions consider strikes over threeyear pay offer
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Teaching unions are considering industrial action in response to a three-year pay offer which they claim will leave teachers worse off.Ministers yesterday unveiled a 2.45% rise - more than the 2% Gordon Brown has ordered for all public sector workers. The National Union of Teachers, which has called for a minimum of 4% to keep [...]
New rival to Alevels due to get goahead from exam watchdog
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The exams watchdog is preparing to back a controversial alternative to A-levels designed to prepare an academic elite for university, it is claimed today.The Cambridge Pre-U is intended to help top-scoring candidates trump their A-level rivals in the rush for the most competitive university places by teaching them traditional exam and study skills over modern [...]
How best to support parents will be key
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Three years ago Ruth Kelly made her first keynote speech as education secretary and pledged to put parents at the heart of education. It was met with a mixture of cynicism and optimism. The idea of parent power was not new, but the renewed emphasis from a politician who was also a young mother gave [...]
A question of quality
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Is the Quality Assurance Agency (a) a safeguard designed to maintain and improve academic standards or (b) the “worst thing to happen to higher education in recent times - and perhaps ever”?If you answered (a), you may have accepted that universities couldn’t expect to remain independent of any external monitoring system for ever. If you [...]
Cribsheet
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The bar is half-empty”Don’t head off into town and spend a fortune on weekend-priced drinks, when you can come to your very own union instead. New this term: fantastic, better-than-ever drinks promotions - trebles+mixer (incl Red Bull) for %26pound;2.50 - new DJ line-up, stilt-walking, stage dancers and fire performers.”This rather desperate promotion for the Newcastle [...]
Unhappy nursery tales
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It is hard to make dreams come true, but when you are a lone parent with a young child and jobless, the task is even harder. Yet, with the right support, dreams can become reality - as one student found out. “I’ve always wanted a career in fashion,” says Lydia Karema, from Greenwich, London, who [...]
Intellectual literacy hour
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Research libraries have long been the proud curators of historic print collections and regarded as places of quiet study. But with the explosion of the internet and electronic publishing, users are increasingly turning their backs on libraries as a physical space, using them as virtual, digital environments instead. Libraries’ role in warehousing large book collections [...]
