NUS drops free education doctrine
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Students today voted to get rid of the principle that the National Union of Students will only argue for free education.The newly-elected president, Wes Streeting, said the union would propose alternatives to the current higher education fees system, which is to be reviewed next year.”The government’s push for different markets has been disastrous. We will [...]
New NUS president voted in
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Wes Streeting was voted in as the next president of the National Union of Students (NUS) at its annual conference in Blackpool today in a move that will lend weight to the fight to modernise the union.Streeting, the current NUS education vice-president, received 496 of the 962 valid votes to win, while nearest opponent Kieran [...]
Just the job for learning
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“Employer engagement” - or getting employers to foot more of the bill for higher education - is the policy catchphrase of the moment, and one the government is pushing.Professor David Eastwood, chief executive of the England funding council, Hefce, announced %26pound;105m to back it up in February, telling the Conference of Northern Universities it was [...]
The art of becoming famous
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Unless you are aiming for a Nobel prize, a university education isn’t always the best way to become famous.Those three or four years could be better spent in a drink and drugs hell from which you later extract a harrowing memoir, or in having plastic surgery.But university is always a good place to practise future [...]
Clash of cultures
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When Keele lecturers demonstrate outside their council meeting on Thursday for the second time this year - this time swelled by lecturers from other universities - it will be about much more than saving the jobs of their colleagues.University proposals mean that 38 of the 67 academic staff at the School of Economic and Management [...]
Rise of the prodigies 50% increase in university students under 18
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The number of under-18s studying at English universities has gone up by over 50% in the past six years, according to figures that suggest that ambitious teenagers are taking advantage of new anti-discrimination laws to demand an early place.There are nearly 8,000 under-18s at university - up from less than 5,000 in 2002, figures obtained [...]
Government HE access target unrealistic say Tories
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The government’s pledge to have half of young adults in university by 2010 is doomed to fail as new figures show participation rates have hardly risen over the last eight years.Preliminary figures for the past academic year, released yesterday showed the proportion of 18- to 30-year-olds in higher education was just 39.8%, up from 39.2% [...]
Theres no shame in striving for excellence
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Excellence is good, elitism is bad was the overwhelming message from all sides of a politically diverse panel at a debate hosted this week by Education Guardian and the thinktank Agora on whether “elite” should cease to be a dirty word. It was obvious from the start that a panel who had studied at “elite” [...]
Building in a college Hire the locals says Denham
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Construction firms seeking building contracts in colleges will have to provide apprenticeships and training schemes for local people if public money is involved, ministers announced today.It is the first time in any major procurement programme that companies will be contractually obliged to invest in the skills and training needs of staff, said John Denham, secretary [...]
Second degree funding cuts flawed say MPs
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A cross-party committee of MPs today condemned the government’s controversial policy of cutting %26#163;100m for “second-chance” students.MPs on the Commons university committee said last September’s decision to cut the state funding universities get to subsidise the fees of students on courses equivalent to or lower than qualifications they already hold - ELQs - was “insufficiently [...]
