Judgment day
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How far is the government prepared to go in its effort to make sure that diplomas bed down and take root? Would it, for instance, squeeze the number of A-level courses in further education colleges in the expectation that students would have to sign up for the new qualifications?That suspicion is growing in the further [...]
Three levels of terror risk
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All colleges are going to have to assess what risk they face from violent extremism and terrorism, according to guidance issued by the Department for Innovation Universities and Skills (Dius) yesterday.However, universities, which were recently issued with similar guidance, are not required to carry out risk assessments. This is not because universities are in a [...]
The basics no longer suffice
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Marcel Pusch, 19, pushes the button of the CNC lathe machine. Under the watchful eye of his teacher, the machine whirrs to life and the computer screen flashes up the programme that will ensure that the plastic plug is produced to the correct specifications.Pusch is one of the lucky ones. He left school with only [...]
The science of success
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While the Queen enjoys her 60th wedding anniversary, celebrations at City and Islington College have been focusing on an earlier royal milestone.The north London college is one of the 20 winners in the seventh round of the Queen’s anniversary prizes for exceptional achievement in higher and further education, instituted in 1993 to mark her 40 [...]
The long march towards common ground
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In public, the government can sound pretty single-minded about what it wants from further education.The notion that colleges are engines of “social inclusion”, which used to feature high in every ministerial speech, has had less of a hard plug lately. But it hasn’t gone away. In fact it is quietly making a comeback, with a [...]
Further expansion on the cards
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Nobody likes to lose a monopoly, especially if it includes social status as well as money.Whatever other reasons universities have had for objecting to colleges being granted the right to award their own foundation degrees, part of the chagrin sounds like the resentment of the exclusive club member affronted at the sort of people being [...]
Learning on the job
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What are the rascals going to get their corporate clutches on next? When councils are weighed down with PFI bills, and when the NHS is paying for private operations that are not carried out, it is a reasonable question to ask. The fear that education would fall prey to the profiteers emerged yesterday after it [...]
Know your place …
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The English education system is sliding back into Victorian times with today’s schools almost as segregated by social class as they were in the 19th century, a controversial new book argues. The Education Debate, published tomorrow, draws a parallel between today’s academies, faith and comprehensive schools, and the elementary, grammar and public schools of more [...]
Logical new plan or a betrayal
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The University and College Union (UCU) is six months old, and the two unions that merged to form it still seem far from becoming one. New proposals for restructuring the union from the general secretary, Sally Hunt, have been met with fierce criticism, and a special meeting of the executive has been called next week [...]
Disputes simmer ahead of pay claims
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Whatever sympathy college lecturers might feel for schoolteachers in their pay grievances will no doubt be blunted by an old sense of unfairness.Further education teachers continue to resent the gap between their salaries and what their counterparts in schools earn. Though this has narrowed from 10% or so five years ago to between 6% and [...]
