Coalition policies have led to a surge of interest in debating the purpose of higher education
William von Humboldt did it in 1810, Cardinal Newman did it in 1852 and Lord Robbins did it in 1963. Now recent changes to UK higher education policy have led to a surge of interest in doing it again – with concern in some quarters that it is not being done enough – that is, defining what universities are for.
Two events are taking place tomorrow that address the issue. The Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (Crassh) at the University of Cambridge launches a public lecture series, entitled The Idea of the University, to commemorate its 10th anniversary. Then, at the University of East London, a public discussion on "University Futures" will consider the purpose of a university education and who should pay for it.
Simon Goldhill, director of Crassh, who has lined up speakers including the intellectual historian Stefan Collini, astronomer Sir Martin Rees and universities minister David Willetts over the next few weeks, says the lectures are timely "because government policy is an attempt to change the nature of the university as we have it".
Stephen Anderson, director of the Campaign for Social Science, which is organising the London debate, says "there is a sense of living in a real-time experiment", that while the government has created a market economy in higher education it is not yet clear how that constantly moderated market will work. He suggests that potentially far-reaching changes are being made for reasons of financial expediency, without any thought of what their wider effect will be. "What we are all looking for is a greater vision for what the end product might look like," he says. "What is it we are all trying to work to?"
For Humboldt, a German philosopher and diplomat, a university was to do with the "whole" community of scholars and students engaged in a common search for truth. For Newman, it was about teaching universal knowledge. For Robbins, an economist commissioned by the government of the time to draw up a report on the future of higher education, universities had four objectives: instruction in skills, promotion of the general powers of the mind, advancement of learning, and transmission of a common culture and common standards of citizenship.
For Collini, "one way to begin to think about their distinctiveness is to see them as institutions primarily devoted to extending and deepening human understanding". This, he suggests "is a pretty outrageous idea: no other institutions have this as their primary purpose". He wants to discuss their role "in more fruitful terms than the cliches about 'contributing to economic growth' which currently dominate public debate on the topic".
But Mike Rustin, professor of sociology at the University of East London and a speaker at the London discussion, has a problem with this. He says opposition to the government's higher education policy from people such as Collini has so far been expressed in very traditionalist terms – with the idea that a university has an intrinsic value and good.
"On the one hand, you have the marketised view of universities as equipping people to earn their living, and on the other hand, a traditional view that universities are about pure learning," he says. "But the students we have here have always seen benefits beyond learning for its own sake."
This is also the view of Liam Burns, president of the National Union of Students. "We have really hard evidence to show that students are fairly clear about why they want to go to university – and for the vast majority, it is about getting a better job and having a successful career," he says. "A lot of people say what about learning for learning's sake? I find that problematic. Everyone has a purpose for why they want to learn."
Carl Lygo, chief executive of the private higher education provider BPP, agrees, basing his view of university on personal experience. Brought up in a single-parent family and on free school meals, he was the first in his family to attend university, and chose to study law because it offered a clear career path. The fact that more students from his kind of background are now going on to higher education means that the purpose of a university has become more utilitarian, he suggests, but he regrets the emphasis now given to its effect on future earning power. "I'm looking forward to when great public universities return to thinking about the wider good," he says.
What they all seem to agree is that not all universities are for the same thing, that the "great public universities" are about something very different from BPP.
For the philosopher Onora O'Neill, who will give one of the Cambridge lectures, diversity is here to stay, "even if you regard some if its manifestations, such as MacDonald's University and company in-house programmes, as probably a bit impertinent". She argues that what is needed is more clarity about precisely what these diverse missions are.
As tuition fees begin to differ substantially from one institution to another, the need for clarity about what universities do has been transferred from the government to individual institutions, she argues. Yet the sector has inherited a system that measures them all against the same criteria. Why should inner-city institutions that take large numbers of disadvantaged students be measured on drop-out rates, for example, in the same way as those with a much more traditional student body?
What is Willetts's idea of what a university is for? He describes universities first as "one of our great national assets", but adds: "They push forward the frontiers of knowledge. They transform people's lives. And they contribute to the health and wealth of our nation through their deep involvement in wider society and the economy." He also stresses their autonomy. "That is the key to their continuing success and their world-class status."
• On Tuesday the universities minister will be live online to discuss what universities are for in 2011. To provide qualifications? Or for the sake of learning? Is their purpose changing? Post your question now
A sculpture using children's milk teeth is at the heart of a bid to inform the public about stem cell research
From a distance, it will look like a fairy-tale castle that has been covered by the sea and grown organically to develop the characteristics of a coral reef. Close up, however, it will become apparent that those white clusters clinging to the walls are not barnacles. They're teeth. Milk teeth – thousands of them, donated by children from all over the UK and beyond to enhance a two-metre square glass resin sculpture that is intended to stimulate a debate on the possibilities for regenerative medicine created by research into stem cells.
From December, the sculpture will be the centrepiece of the Palaces exhibition that will feature at galleries in London, Liverpool and Coventry over the following year and a half. It represents an inventive collaboration between the artist Gina Czarnecki and the biologist Professor Sara Rankin from Imperial College, London.
They met at Imperial when Czarnecki attended one of Rankin's stem-cell workshops. Rankin's research, funded by the Wellcome Trust, adopts a pharmacological approach to regenerative medicine. Within the adult bone marrow there are specific subsets of stem cells that promote tissue repair, and Rankin has recently identified a novel drug combination that mobilises those subsets from the bone marrow into the blood.
Conscious that there is public apprehension about the use of body parts in medical research, Rankin is committed to engaging with the public from an early age. She goes into schools and talks to children from seven upwards about the possibilities of inventing new medicines to help the body repair itself. Meeting Czarnecki helped Rankin to realise the possibilities of using art to "capture children's imagination and get them involved".
Scientist and artist also realised that they had much in common, not least both having children of a similar age who had recently lost milk teeth. "Milk teeth are a sign of transition and growth," Czarnecki points out. "Everything else that falls off the body is a sign of decay."
But are milk teeth a useful source of stem cells? "Any tissue from the human body, be it the heart or fat or a tooth, will contain stem cells," says Rankin, who points out that it's still unclear whether the tissues from teeth are as effective in organ repair as those from, say, bone marrow. "But you could ultimately use them to develop a new tooth in laboratory conditions."
She's keen to stress that she does not deal directly in teeth, but she knows a man who does. He is Professor Paul Sharpe from the Craniofacial Department at King's College, London. "My lab," he says, "is working on several different projects aimed at understanding more about these cells, how they are activated to repair teeth and also using them to try to generate new teeth."
"Shed" cells – stem cells from "human exfoliated deciduous teeth" (milk teeth) – are obtained by taking the soft inner tissue, otherwise knows as the pulp. They are then grown in a nutrient substance and later frozen and put into storage for future use.
Companies all over the world are building up tooth banks for stem cell research, Sharpe points out. One of them, BioEDEN, wanted to supply Czarnecki and Rankin with milk teeth for the exhibition, but the offer was declined. "This project is about participation," Czarnecki explains.
Being mothers, both women are well aware that most children will expect a donation from the tooth fairy. Vouchers that can be left under pillows are available on the Palaces website and at donation boxes at the galleries involved.
For Czarnecki, that's further evidence that milk teeth will provide a stimulus to public discussion. "The artwork," she says, "will … increase awareness, understanding and informed debate about these new biomedical possibilities and their social, cultural and ethical implications."
• Further details of how to donate and where the exhibition will be shown at http://palaces.org.uk
How Professor Steven Ng-Sheong Cheung devised a theory about man's struggle with corruption and governments
Steven Ng-Sheong Cheung, because of his adventure with the legal system – not despite it – sets a high standard for economists. The economics profession is often accused of concocting clever theories that don't resonate in the lives of real people. Professor Cheung devised a theory about man's struggle with corruption and governments. He wrote about his theory, with relish. The US government shone a spotlight on Professor Cheung's thoughts, when it issued a warrant for his arrest.
Back in 1996 Professor Cheung – who was then head of the University of Hong Kong's School of Economics and Finance, and an economist at the University of Washington in Seattle, in the US – published a paper called A Simplistic General Equilibrium Theory of Corruption, in the journal Contemporary Economic Policy.
The very first sentence of that paper says: "The author's simplistic view of corruption is that all politicians and government officials – like everyone else – are constrained self-maximizers. They therefore establish or maintain regulations and controls with the intent to facilitate corruption, which then becomes a source of income for them."
Professor Cheung dives deep into the matter. A few pages later he explains: "I made the now famous statement that it is no use to put a beautiful woman in my bedroom, naked, and ask me not to be aroused. I said that the only effective way of getting rid of corruption is to get rid of the controls and regulations that give rise to corruption opportunities."
A press release issued on 25 February, 2003 by the Seattle office of the US Department of Justice bears the headline (in all uppercase letters): ARREST WARRANTS ISSUED FOR ECONOMIST AND WIFE FOR THEIR FAILURE TO APPEAR. That press release reported:
"A federal grand jury returned an indictment against the CHEUNGs on January 28, 2003. STEVEN N.S. CHEUNG was named in all thirteen counts of the indictment, charging him with Conspiracy to Defraud the United States, six counts of filing false income tax returns, and six counts of filing false foreign bank account reports."
These days Professor Cheung lives in China, where he is a newspaper columnist and blogger, having joined a new profession that enjoys almost as much public confidence and respect as his old one.
Thanks to Yoram Bauman for bringing this to my attention.
• Marc Abrahams is editor of the bimonthly Annals of Improbable Research and organiser of the Ig Nobel prize
Experts are divided over controversial proposals to change the school curriculum and the way pupils are assessed
England's national curriculum review, which is to produce a new map of "core knowledge" that millions of five- to 16-year-olds must be taught from September 2013, has been relatively low-profile so far. But this seems about to change, with potential arguments about major changes likely to come out into the open.
Already there has been a delay in the planned "pre-release" of the new curriculum for English, maths, science and PE, as experts and ministers grapple with the details. The reforms are also likely to herald a radical and controversial change in how pupils' progress is directed and assessed.
England's national curriculum dates back to 1988, when the Conservative government judged that our traditional system of leaving teachers and local authorities to decide what pupils should be taught had to be replaced. The current review, the fifth, aims to address the perennial criticism that it is overloaded with content. The plan is to define only "core knowledge" and concepts expected of pupils. This is widely known and has proved relatively uncontroversial so far.
But what is expected of pupils by way of mastering these concepts, and particularly how these expectations are expressed, is poised to change radically. And this is where contention may begin.
For the review, which began in January, has been considering plans to scrap the system of national curriculum levels – the eight-point scale through which millions of children have progressed in their learning since 1988 - in favour of a new structure. This would lay down expectations of what all children should know as they get older. The review is likely to propose setting down year-by-year expectations.
The key difference is that the current structure is not directly age-related: a child can be deemed to have reached level 3 in reading, for example, at the age of seven or at the age of 14. Children are therefore supposed to progress through the levels at different rates according to their abilities. The philosophy behind the new system would be that all children should be mastering key aspects of each subject at specified points.
Tim Oates, director of research at the exams group Cambridge Assessment, who is leading the review, gave a flavour of the thinking at a conference in Bournemouth last month. He said the levels system, though set up with good intentions, had become "defective". He argued that the numerical levels did not communicate meaningful information – to pupils or parents – about what children actually understand.
Oates believes the very act of assigning individual levels to each child can serve to lower teachers' expectations of many pupils, especially low-achievers. The review is looking at international evidence, and Oates contrasted the English approach of focusing on individual levels with that in Asian countries such as South Korea, where teachers concentrate on the whole group making progress together.
This philosophy is cautiously backed by some teachers. Alison Peacock, head of Wroxham primary in Potters Bar, Hertfordshire, says that primary schools have long grouped pupils around tables according to their national curriculum level. She likes the idea of stressing high expectations for all, rather than gearing expectations according to pupils' perceived abilities.
She says: "Ability groupings quite often put limits on what children can do. As soon as you are assigned to a group, it is natural for children to just work to the level that they are expected to work to."
However, the review is not going to advocate completely undifferentiated teaching – teachers will still need to tailor provision for those above or below the national expectations.
The proposed system is already provoking debate. One source says: "This will effectively result in uniform targets for pupils for the end of each year, with children possibly adjudged either to have passed or failed them. There are going to be quite a lot of kids failing all of them one year, then the following year, and so on. The effect of that needs to be considered."
Subject teaching experts are wary of the influence of Nick Gibb, the traditionalist minister for schools. He is said to be keen on the teaching of long division in primary schools, despite near unanimous opposition from maths teaching experts consulted by the review. Another source said the teaching of speaking and listening looked like it would also have a traditionalist flavour, emphasising "standard English". Questions are being asked about the right of a review influencing the education of millions to be shaped by the personal views of one minister.
Timing is another problem. In June, Michael Gove, the education secretary, pledged that first drafts of the programmes of study in English, maths, science and PE would be sent to teachers' subject associations in August. This was put back until early October, and now apparently until later in the autumn. A notice on the website of the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics said last month: "The department has decided to delay this pre-consultation phase until the programmes of study have been developed to a more advanced stage."
Formal consultation on the draft curriculums for these subjects is scheduled to begin in January 2012, with the details finalised with schools in September, for first teaching a year later. A new curriculum for other subjects will follow a year later.
Oates, who says a well-designed curriculum should last 30 years, concedes that the implementation timeframe is tight, and it it is still unclear how the curriculum is to be phased in: whether all school years will begin it from September 2013, or whether some will start later.
Annette Smith, chief executive of the Association for Science Education, says decisions need to be made very soon. "Is it going to completely wipe out the old [science] curriculum from 2013, in which case it would be a huge change for schools, or not?" she asks. "These decisions need to be taken urgently because of the support that will need to be put in place to enable schools to make the transition. We do not, either, know the nature of the support that is going to be made available to teachers. This concerns us a great deal."
With many other issues for the review to consider, including the relationship between the curriculum, assessment and league table pressures on schools, the coming months are going to be challenging for Oates and his team.
At least 25 universities confidently assert they are in the 'top 10'. Let's move away from 'tribes' and encourage solidarity, says Peter Scott
Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson's The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better, published two years ago, hit neoliberal economics – and neo-conservative politics – where it hurt. For three decades after the election victory of Margaret Thatcher, the lucky and the privileged had consoled themselves that equality simply could not work – so they were off the hook.
Then Pickett and Wilkinson's book convincingly demonstrated, with graphs piled on charts piled on tables, not only that equality could work, but that it did work. More equal societies were not just fairer but more efficient – and everyone, rich as well as poor, did better.
But still the message has been resisted. Maybe there are two reasons for this. The first is that wealth generation, growth and efficiency were always a cover story. Instead of being a cruel necessity, the sad price that had to be paid, inequality is the end, not the means. Power, privilege, hierarchy – they are the whole point.
The second, perhaps more forgivable, reason may be that, post-Thatcher and post-Blair, acceptance of inequality has become a mindset from which it is difficult to escape. It has seeped into our collective view of the social fabric. Certainly something like this seems to have happened in higher education.
A new vocabulary has been invented – "top" universities, as opposed to the rest; "world-class" research, as opposed (presumably) to lousy research; and now "top" students, in other words those with AAB grades at A-level (who in fact often under-perform at university compared with their ungilded peers).
Such language was hardly used in the past – although there has always been a pecking order of universities; successive research assessment exercises have identified research excellence for more than a quarter of a century; and universities have always used A-level grades as a self-congratulatory sieve.
Of course, it has its funny side. At least 25 universities confidently assert they are in the "top 10", and 25 more aspire to be there in the very near future. Methodologies that would be rejected in an undergraduate essay are uncritically accepted in league tables, provided they produce the "right" result. The main attraction of the Russell Group (of "top" universities – naturally) and other so-called mission groups, as of all clubs, is not what happens inside them – invariably dreary – but that they keep other people out.
But, returning to The Spirit Level, this enthusiasm for inequality has its darker side. First, inequality featherbeds the fortunate. So we are expected to believe that Newcastle is better than Durham or Liverpool than York, simply because Newcastle and Liverpool are members of the Russell Group. Similarly, supposing that historically determined hierarchies are orders of contemporary merit is silly. Of course, Cambridge is "better" than London Metropolitan; it has had seven centuries' start.
Second, and more seriously, enthusiasm for inequality undermines the solidarity of higher education which, following Pickett and Wilkinson, is a source of strength not weakness. Most obviously, it allows politicians (and Treasury cost cutters) to divide and rule. It is truly remarkable – and shameful – that the armed services, despite being divided into three warring branches, work together better than universities, which have much less to separate them in the competition for resources.
But, more fundamentally, the efficiency, success and strength of higher education depend on habits of solidarity. The standard of degrees is maintained by a cat's cradle of external examiners. The quality of research applications, and of books and other publications, relies on academic referees. Lectures and seminars also depend on this culture of academic altruism.
There is already alarming evidence of the breakdown of these habits of solidarity. Altruism no longer applies outside narrowing "tribes" of universities. Russell Group universities are beginning to choose only referees from other Russell Group universities on appointment or promotion committees, or as external examiners. Other "tribes" also favour their own (or, if they go outside, trade up – but hardly ever down).
If these habits become entrenched, everyone will be a loser – "top" universities and ex-polytechnics alike – just as both rich and poor suffer in unequal societies. Too late, perhaps universities may discover that people are more willing to go the extra mile for the common good, whether of their academic peers or professional community, than they are on the orders of corporate bosses in the Brave New World higher education market.
• Peter Scott is professor of higher education studies at the Institute of Education
School leavers could do worse than use economic theory to decide if going to university is worth the massive debt they will rack up
When I started studying economics at school, I was delighted to be handed a textbook called An Introduction to Positive Economics by Richard Lipsey. Fantastic! After all, I didn't want any of that negative stuff.
It was only as a graduate student in philosophy that I realised the contrast to "positive" was not "negative", but "normative". Lipsey was going to tell us how things are, not how things ought to be. Economists are straight talkers, not peddlers of values. But curiously, when economists do tell us how things are, it never looks good.
Thomas Carlyle famously called economics "the dismal science". I saw this in action when on a panel, interviewing health economists. We decided to ask all candidates an amusing "unexpected" question at the end: "Which concept from economics should be better known by the general public?"
Any economist reading this will already know how they all answered: "opportunity cost". In judging whether it is right to spend money in a particular way, you should first think what else you could be doing with it. Could you squeeze out a little more value or enjoyment? Health economics is dominated by considerations of opportunity cost. When the government created a new fund for cancer treatments, for example, economists immediately asked what we would have to give up to pay for it.
Worrying about alternatives foregone is fair enough, but also pretty joyless. Imagine living your life under the shadow of opportunity cost. Any time you want to go to the cinema, you'd have to ask whether there is some other way of getting more out of your time and money. If there is, then you'll make a net loss, even if you'd really enjoy your evening out.
Economics didn't start out trying to spoil our fun. A key idea from Adam Smith is "gains from trade", explained to me at primary school. My teacher told us that when we handed over our shilling for a packet of sweets, we were better off because we would rather have the sweets than the shilling, and the shopkeeper was better off because she would rather have the shilling than the sweets. Trade is a little miracle.
Try as I might – and I did try because even at the age of nine I was pretty argumentative – I couldn't find any major flaw in this reasoning. Of course, you might not like the sweets. Nevertheless, the general case that trade makes both sides better off without harming anyone else seemed to be secure, even if there are exceptions.
The notion of gains from trade should be called "positive economics" and opportunity cost "negative economics". A sensible life is probably to be found somewhere in the middle. Life is too short to fixate on opportunity cost and seek out the best all of the time. Good enough, for most ordinary purposes, is good enough.
With this deep understanding of economics, we now turn to the future of undergraduate education. From now on, students will acquire large debts in coming to university, and typically they will start to pay back in their mid-20s and possibly even into their early 50s, depending on how much they earn. In return, they will acquire new skills and knowledge, a qualification to put on their CV, an expanded address book of potential wedding guests, and if they are lucky or subsequently unlucky, have the best three years of their lives.
Writing this column shortly after attending our graduation ceremonies, I'm still convinced that going to university is the right thing for many school leavers, even given the debt they will incur. But I also know that it is not for everyone. At the moment too many school leavers just drift in, and have a thoroughly frustrating three years. Thinking about the opportunity cost of the time and money spent on a degree might well help them to focus. The dismal science, I have to admit, can have its uses.
• Jonathan Wolff is professor of philosophy at University College London. His column appears monthly
A new take on Shakespeare and Pinter's political plays are among the highlights of this term's theatre offerings
A new term and a new adventure awaits those intrepid enough to brave the stalls with children in tow. The autumn seasons at the majority of UK theatres offer a fairly traditional diet of Shakespeare, novel adaptations and family Christmas shows. However, there are still a few bold options for the brave theatregoer: a new production of The Tempest that restores the original music to Shakespeare's text and a site-specific staging of some of Pinter's political plays. If it's a production of a set text you're after, here are our top picks.
George Orwell, adapted by Peter Hall
Theatre Clywd, Mold, Flintshire
CH7 1YA. Tel 0845 330 3565
13 Oct to 5 Nov. Tickets £10 to £19.50
Carol Ann Duffy
Hampstead Theatre, Eton Avenue, London, NW3 3EU. Tel 020 7722 9301
1 Dec to 7 Jan. Tickets £12 to £24
Last year's hit Christmas show is back at the Hampstead Theatre for another outing: sensitively and wittily staged, Beasts and Beauties puts a contemporary spin on much-loved children's stories.
Jonathan Harvey
Royal Exchange Theatre, St Ann's Square, Manchester, M2 7DH. Tel 0161 833 9833
9 Nov to 3 Dec. Tickets £9 to £33
CP Taylor
Royal Exchange Theatre, St Ann's Square, Manchester, M2 7DH. Tel 0161 833 9833
12 Oct to 5 Nov. Tickets £9 to £33
CP Taylor's rarely-revived play about an academic struggling to remain "good" in Nazi Germany is staged at the Royal Exchange. Ideal for students of history and theatre studies.
Charles Dickens, adapted by Neil Bartlett
The Watermill Theatre, Newbury.
Tel 01635 46044. www.watermill.org.uk
Until 5 Nov. Tickets £14.50 to £26
William Shakespeare
Young Vic, 66 The Cut, London, SE1 8LZ
Tel 020 7922 2922
28 Oct to 21 Jan. Tickets £10 to £29.50
Harold Pinter
Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, CV37 6BB. Tel 0870 609 1110. www.rsc.org.uk
Until 15 Oct. Tickets £5 to £32
A top-drawer production of Pinter's play about chickens coming home to roost.In the intimate setting of The Swan Theatre, David Farr's production brings one of modern drama's most fascinating families to vivid life.
Tim Crouch
Swan Room, Stratford-upon-Avon, CV37 6BB. Tel 0870 609 1110. www.rsc.org.uk
19 to 23 Oct. Tickets £5 to £10
Tim Crouch's Shakespeare shows for young people are always a thoughtful treat: his new piece I, Malvolio examines the workings of Twelfth Night from the perspective of one of its most intriguing characters. I, Peasebottom runs at the same venue over the same dates.
Oscar Wilde
Old Rep Theatre, Station Street, Birmingham, B5 4DY. Tel 0121 236 4455
Until 22 Oct. Tickets £10 to £28.50
William Shakespeare
West Yorkshire Playhouse, Playhouse Square, Quarry Hill, Leeds, LS2 7UP
Tel 0113 213 7700. www.wyp.org.uk
Until 22 Oct. Tickets £11 to £27
Tim Pigott-Smith takes to the stage in Leeds to play one of Shakespeare's most demanding roles.
William Shakespeare
Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, CV37 6BB. Tel 0870 609 1110
Until 6 Nov. Tickets £14 to £58
William Shakespeare
Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, CV37 6BB. Tel 0870 609 1110
Until 5 Nov. Tickets £14 to £58
Harold Pinter
Shoreditch Town Hall, 380 Old Street, London, EC1V 9LT. Tel 020 7638 8891
16 Nov to 11 Dec. Tickets £18
Brighton-based company Hydrocracker bring their pioneering site-specific work based around a selection of Pinter's short political works to the stunning surroundings of Shoreditch Town Hall. Ideal for students of English and theatre studies.
William Shakespeare
Crucible Theatre, 55 Norfolk Street, Sheffield S1 1DA. Tel 0114 249 6000
Until 15 Oct. Tickets £12 to £25
Daniel Evans's new production of Othello reunites The Wire's Clarke Peters and Dominic West in what promises to be a fascinating examination of jealousy, insecurity and naked ambition.
Jane Austen, adapted by Tim Luscombe
Salisbury Playhouse, Malthouse Lane, Salisbury, SP2 7RA. Tel 01722 320 333
20 Oct to 12 Nov. Tickets from £12 to £21
Bertold Brecht
Playhouse Theatre, Williamson Square, Liverpool, L1 1EL. Tel 0151 709 4776
Until 22 Oct. Tickets from £12 to £21
Edward Bond
Lyric Theatre, King Street, London, W6 0LQ. Tel 0871 22 117 29. www.lyric.co.uk
6 Oct to 5 Nov. Tickets £12.50 to £30
A rare revival for Bond's seminal and shocking play. Saved isn't suitable for younger audiences, but more mature groups are sure to be engaged by the boldness and ambition of this modern classic.
William Shakespeare
St Giles Cripplegate, Fore Street, London, EC2Y 8DA. Tel 020 7638 8891
Until 22 October. Tickets £21
This production of The Tempest aims to restore much of the original music that Shakespeare's audience would have enjoyed to the theatre experience. For those who prefer their productions a little more traditional, Ralph Fiennes plays Prospero at The Haymarket.
Caryl Churchill
Trafalgar Studios, Whitehall, London, SW1A 2DY. Tel 0870 060 6644
Until 29 Oct. Tickets £20 to £45
Kenneth Grahame, adapted by Alan Bennett
The Lowry, Pier 8, Salford Quays, M50 3AZ. Tel 0843 208 6010
2 Dec to 14 Jan. Tickets £8.50 to £18
Federico García Lorca, adapted by Anthony Weigh
Gate Theatre, 11 Pembridge Road, London W11 3HQ. Tel 020 7229 0706
9 Nov to 17 Dec. Tickets £10 to £20
A new version of Lorca's play about longing and loneliness promises to fill London's tiny Gate Theatre with colour and life.
• This article was amended on 4 October 2011. The original said The Wind In The Willows will be at the Library Theatre, Manchester. This has been corrected.
Read the survey in full
Nearly 2,000 teachers responded to a Guardian Teacher Network survey asking how they feel about their jobs. Many wrote: 'I love teaching but...'
Disrespected, often bullied, fed up with governments that don't trust them and despairing of the decline in parenting skills, you'd think teachers would be scouring the jobs columns for other careers, but, according to the Guardian Teacher Network survey published today, the reason they aren't in larger numbers is because so many of them still love teaching.
If there is a single message that sings out loud and clear, it is a plea from teachers to be treated as professionals, rather than infantilised by short-termist governments and political philosophies.
Teachers who have come from other professions wonder openly about the lack of trust in their professionalism. One former solicitor, now questioning the sense of the career switch, said: "There is a profound lack of respect by senior staff and parents for the quality of work and quantity of work undertaken by teachers.
"I have never before worked in a place where I have not been treated as a professional. My every move is monitored. I am not trusted to do the job I have trained and gained qualifications to do. It has had a great impact on my confidence to do the job. As a solicitor I was trusted to do my job once I had the qualifications and experience, why is this not the case in teaching?"
Nearly 2,000 teachers – most of them members of the growing Guardian Teacher Network – filled in the survey during late August and September. There was a free text box at the end for extra comments and it was here that teachers, like that former solicitor, poured out eloquent testimony of what it feels like to be a teacher in the UK today. In the first five hours after the survey went live, 600 forms were returned, many with very detailed comments.
Time and time again, they began: "I love teaching but …" or "This is the best job in the world but …" And they were big buts – government targets and interference, senior managers who bullied colleagues to achieve those targets, Michael Gove and Conservative party policy, league tables, Ofsted, bureaucracy, unsupportive parents, declining parenting skills, deteriorating student behaviour, disappearing pensions and lack of respect.
There are relatively few references to wanting more money for the long hours teachers work – a third cited working weeks in excess of 50 hours – more often there is a straightforward recognition that they have a vocation to teach and they came into teaching because of that drive.
The despairing voices are there – those who can't wait to retire ("Three years to go and counting...") and those who yearn to get away ("I am an NQT. I'm already looking forward to a way out") – but they are not the loudest. Most simply feel frustrated that they are not trusted to do their job.
Cary Cooper, professor of organisational psychology at Lancaster University, who has done major studies on workplace stress, is not surprised by the findings. "Global evidence is clear – lack of control and autonomy in your job makes you ill. It is stressful to be in an occupation where you feel you have people looking over your shoulder and where you can be named and shamed. All those characteristics were there in teaching 10 years ago, but it is worse now because jobs in the public sector are no longer secure.
"Teachers want autonomy and respect – the people who go into it have a real vocation; they don't do it for the money.We should train all our headteachers in engaging their staff in the decisions that affect their jobs, and the government needs to stop dictating top-down to teachers and instead discuss ideas with teachers. It should then undertake systematic pilots of ideas, which are evaluated. It needs to start treating teachers as professionals."
So, to some of the key statistics. Around 85% of respondents felt teachers had less respect from society in the UK than in some other countries. Just over half of the sample had considered leaving teaching and of these, 62% quote excessive government interference in schools as the reason; 50% blamed student behaviour; 44% workload or exhaustion; 30% parent behaviour; 25% lack of career prospects and just 22% had considered leaving for a job where they could earn more money.
A massive 90% complained of teacher bullying – nearly two-thirds cited bullying from senior management, just over half cited parents as the aggressors, 40% students and 35% colleagues.
Around 60% of the teachers said that student behaviour had become worse during their teaching career, with teachers outside London more likely to say it.
And the theories offered for the decline in student behaviour? Teachers point a sharp finger at the shape of British society. 81% blamed a decline in the nuclear family and 75% the growing influence of dubious and negative role models for young people.
Just under half felt parents had become less supportive of teachers during their time in the profession, with teachers in the south-west of England and in Scotland most likely to say it.
Asked why they felt they had less parental support, 79% of this part of the sample pointed at declining parenting skills; 65% said parents' perceived value of education had diminished; 59% said that long hours at work had affected the time parents spent with their children.
A picture of some senior management as unsure of their rights, or not wanting to get into trouble, also emerged, with 68% blaming worsening student behaviour on lack of support in imposing discipline from senior staff.
But care for their students shines through, with appeals for more vocational opportunities and concerns that some students are put on courses that will meet school targets rather than their individual needs. Only 10% in the survey wanted to see GCSEs abolished, but 65% wanted to see an end to Sats.
Just 22% thought their career prospects were good. Only 14% wanted to be headteachers ("Many are very reluctant to aspire to headteacher posts because too much is now expected") and 44% had considered teaching abroad.
A DfE spokesman said: "We're making teachers' lives easier and stopping breathing down their necks – by slashing bureaucracy and thousands of pages of statutory guidance; we're giving them greater freedom over the curriculum; and transforming the quality of career development training. Good schools know best – not politicians or bureaucrats."
Daniel Hartley has been teaching for three years. He studied for his PGCE in secondary history at the University of Exeter and is head of history and religious studies at Chulmleigh community college in Devon
"There is so much that frustrates many teachers. It feels as if we face a constant tide of change, forced on us from above.New governments always feel they have to put their own stamp on education – for me this means that while we wait for the new curriculum to come out in 2014, I am wary even of spending cash on text books – there is no certainty. Everything seems to change at a rate of about 200mph so it is a constant struggle to keep up with new initiatives, which are often just regurgitated old ones with a sexy new name.
My school is pretty good so I don't suffer with many of the problems that I know other teachers do. What I find annoying is that the government and others don't take into account the hours of paperwork, the re-jigging of schemes of work, professional development sessions and effort that go into reacting to these changes … that then suddenly are made worthless by a white paper. It can be totally exhausting. I also find alarming the focus on league tables and targets. For my GCSE students we use a computer program to predict grades. This takes no account of social problems the students might face and so can often spit out a grade that might not be achievable. For example, if you have a student who just doesn't turn up, you still have to give him/her a grade and when they don't achieve that, the quality of your teaching is scrutinised. It is tough on them, too, to be given expectations they can't meet.
You still can't help but look at your targets sometimes after the exams and question if you still have the ability to teach. That constant feeling that you have to defend yourself can be demoralising. Teachers can feel totally undervalued and even bullied when targets aren't met.
I feel we're missing a trick. Surely if we support colleagues rather than berate them, and focus on delivering engaging lessons, we will have a much happier staff whose love of what they do will rub off on the pupils.
I feel sad that many teachers are now, more than ever before, expected to be social workers, parents and teachers all rolled into one as there is a lack of parental support. Children are hoofed into schools and we have to do the groundwork of teaching them manners and how to behave properly.
Surely the school should just be one link in the chain? Parents, teachers and society at large all have a role to play in producing rounded, responsible members of society."• For more details or to join the Guardian Teacher Network, see http://teachers.guardian.co.uk/
Wendy Berliner is head of the Guardian Teacher Network
Swearing provokes a physical stress response, researchers have found … even when it's an accident
I have a friend who can't say "fuck". She never has been able to and shakes her head helplessly when teased and dared to give it a go. She's not a prude. But she has such a strong reaction to the word that she cannot bring herself to utter it.
Using the f-word in the first sentence of this article wasn't done for gratuitous effect. But how did you react to reading it? Would it have been more agreeable to see the euphemism "the f-word" instead? Do some "bad" words make you more uncomfortable than others?
It has been known for a while that people fluent in two languages respond far less strongly to swear words in their mother tongue than in their second language.
But a new study of people's reactions to a "bad" swear word – fuck, for example – compared a euphemism that they understood to mean the same thing, now suggests our strong emotional reactions to swear words happen as a result of early verbal conditioning, rather than the meaning that is conveyed. This raises the possibility that young children may note their parents' reactions to taboo words before they understand what the words mean.
All sorts of emotions are associated with the sound of swear words as we are growing up, says Jeff Bowers at the University of Bristol, who carried out the research.
The results of his study, Bowers says, throw some light on a question often debated by linguists and psychologists: do the words you say affect the way you think and perceive the world?
Bowers wired volunteers up to a machine that would assess their stress levels by measuring their sweat. He then asked them to say swear words and their euphemisms aloud.
Even though everyone involved had volunteered for the study and was fully briefed as to what was involved, and therefore presumably not likely to be offended, participants showed higher stress levels when they were asked to swear than when asked to state the common euphemism.
Bowers says the difference in stress levels between swear words and euphemisms shows that we don't only respond to the meaning of a swear word. The furore in December last year when James Naughtie made an unfortunate slip of the tongue while introducing culture secretary Jeremy Hunt on the Today programme demonstrates his point.
After the slip-up went out live on air at breakfast-time, the BBC was inundated with complaints. Presumably nobody imagined the presenter had intended to use the c-word, but many were still so shocked that they called, wrote and emailed to tell the broadcaster of their dismay. The BBC felt bound to apologise.
"In our view, euphemisms are effective because they replace the trigger – the offending word form – with another word that is similar conceptually," says Bowers.
A conversation reported in one of John Pilger's books, Bowers says, gives a good example of how word forms, rather than their meanings, affect how we think and act. At an arms fair, Pilger describes asking a salesman to describe how a cluster grenade works.
"Bending over a glass case, as one does when inspecting something precious, he said, 'This is wonderful. It is state of the art, unique. What it does is discharge copper dust, very, very fine dust, so that the particles saturate the objective …'''
What was that "objective"? asked Pilger. "Whatever it may be," replied the salesman. "People?" asked Pilger. "Well, er … If you like" was the salesman's response.
Pilger observes that salesmen at these events "have the greatest difficulty saying 'people' and 'kill' and 'maim'".
It's doubtful there is any confusion in the minds of buyers or sellers about the function of weapons, notes Bowers. "Nevertheless, the argument we'd make as a result of our research is that the euphemisms allowed business to be conducted with minimal discomfort."
If people feel uncomfortable with certain words – it doesn't have to be swear words; it might be bodily functions or the names for genitalia, or indeed, saying "kill" and "people" at an arms fair – they may go to great lengths to avoid using them, Bowers explains, including not entering into discussion of a particular subject at all.
This, he says, is a perfect example of how what you say – or what you find too excruciating to say – affects the way you think and act.
In demonstrating that taboo words can create a physiological effect, Bowers's study highlights how two words that mean the same thing can provoke different responses from us, and, he says, in terms of human relationships, how "subtle differences can make all the difference in the world".
• Swearing and Linguistic Relativity is freely accessible at www.plosone.org
On the Guardian Teacher Network this week you can find resources from the Global Campaign for Education, and a chance to enter the Steve Sinnott Award and win a trip to Africa
In 2000, world leaders promised universal primary education by 2015. At that time more than 100 million children were out of school. The number has been reduced to 67 million, but there are only four years to go to meet the pledge. More than half of the children missing school are girls – it's expected that 50 million girls will be out of school 2015.
The Global Campaign for Education (a coalition of international aid agencies including ActionAid and Oxfam, teachers' unions and civil rights groups) has created some powerful resources to help children explore and understand the issues at home and in the classroom as part of their Send My Friend To School campaign. This year they have rebranded the campaign Send My Sister to School to highlight the barriers that girls in the developing world have in accessing education. You can find all their resources on the Guardian Teacher Network hereSee the Voices of Tanzania resources to look into the particular benefits of educating girls and the Class of 2015 lesson and accompanying activity sheets exploring the reasons why girls in Nigeria miss out on education.Also find a fascinating lesson here aimed at KS2/KS3 citizenship, geography and history lessons which compares and contrasts the access to education in Victorian Britain with education in Nigeria, including the powerful personal stories of Nigerian girls Kaltume and Hadiza.
You can get more information on all these teaching resources and view videos here Two year-10 pupils and their teacher could win an amazing opportunity to visit Africa in February 2012 with the charity ActionAid and the Global Campaign for Education if they enter the Steve Sinnott Award. UK schoolchildren aged 14 and 15 are invited to apply through their school.
The winners, and their teacher, will get the chance to investigate for themselves the barriers to education that many children face. They will meet children who are missing out on school completelyand those who are struggling to attendand hear from them about the challenges they are facing. They will also meet project workers, community leaders and politicians.
On their return to the UK the young campaigners will help spread the word by speaking at conferences and to the media. They will also feature in a short film, which will form the centerpiece for next year's Send My Friend to School Campaign, organized by the Global Campaign for Education, to inspire schools across the country to help get free, quality primary education worldwide by 2015. This year thousands of UK pupils in over 5,000 schools took part in the campaign.
To enter You can enter here and for more details go to www.sendmyfriend.org. The closing date is 14 November2011.
• The Guardian Teacher Network has more than 70,000 pages of lesson plans and interactive materials. To see and share for yourself go to teachers.guardian.co.uk. There are also hundreds of jobs on the site and schools can advertise free: schoolsjobs.guardian.co.uk
Baffling medical mystery of the poultry worker who stank for five years
Four doctors in Wales rose to fame because of a man who pricked his finger and smelled putrid for five years.
The doctors were hit nose-on with one of the most baffling medical mysteries on record. It all started with a chicken. The case ended happily – yet mysteriously – half a decade later, the stink having vanished. The Lancet published an account of this called, accurately, A Man Who Pricked His Finger and Smelled Putrid for 5 Years.
The report, written by the relieved but puzzled physicians, ends with a plea: "We ask assistance from colleagues who may have encountered a similar case or for suggestions to relieve this patient's odour."
Here's what happened. In September 1991, a 29-year-old man who dressed chickens for a living cut his finger with a chicken bone. This fateful prick cause his finger to soon become reddish and smelly. The man got himself to the Royal Gwent Hospital, in Newport, Wales, where Drs Caroline Mills, Meirion Llewelyn, David Kelly and Peter Holt took him under their care.
The doctors treated the man with the antibiotic flucloxacillin. His hand still smelled.
Then they tried a different antibiotic, ciprofloxacin. His hand still smelled.
Next came erythromycin. Still his hand smelled.
Next up: metronidazole. The smell persisted.
The doctors delved into the hand surgically, but found nothing there of interest. They did a skin biopsy and cultured the microorganisms from it, hoping to discover some noxious bug. Here, too, they found nothing of interest.
Meanwhile, the man continued to stink.
The doctors took stool cultures. These stank, too, but only in the ordinary way.
The doctors tried everything they could think of: isotretinoin, psoralen, ultraviolet light treatment, colpermin, probanthene, chlorophyll, and even antibiotic withdrawal to allow restoration of normal flora. All to no avail.
As they put it: "Although the clinical appearance improved, the most disabling consequence of the infection was a putrid smell emanating from the affected arm, which could be detected across a large room, and when confined to a smaller examination room became almost intolerable."
After five years the man still stank. The doctors wrote up a description of this curious case, and published it in hopes that some physician somewhere had encountered a similar problem and could suggest a way to relieve the patient's distress.
For treating, and of necessity smelling, the unfortunate man who pricked his finger and smelled putrid for five years, the doctors – together with their unnamed patient – won the 1998 Ig Nobel prize in the field of medicine.
Their acceptance speech spoke of their hope to advance medical knowledge: "We published this case to seek help. Despite enormous amounts of correspondence, nobody had ever seen anything like this before, and no suggestions were effective. Our story, however, does have a happy ending.
Our patient no longer smells putrid. Thank you very much."
• Marc Abrahams is editor of the bimonthly Annals of Improbable Research and organiser of the Ig Nobel prize
Hundreds of academics have signed a document that warns of the dire consequences of the government's white paper on higher education. Their names are below
In Defence of Public Higher Education was prepared by a working party of academics and students representing the following campaigns:
Campaign for the Public University,
Oxford University Campaign for Higher Education,
Sussex University Defends Higher Education,
Warwick University Campaign for Higher Education,
Humanities Matter,
No Confidence Campaign,
Cambridge Academic Campaign for Higher Education.
The document was drafted by John Holmwood.
David Barclay, Bruce Beckles, Gurminder K. Bhambra, Thomas Docherty, Naomi Eilan, Robert Gildea, Juliet Henderson, Tim Horder, Howard Hotson, Laura Kirkley, James Ladyman, William McEvoy, Andrew McGettigan, Martha Mackenzie, Dave Legg, David Mond, Kate Tunstall, Simon Szreter, Bernard Sufrin.
Additional contributions from:
Stephen McKay
Claire Callender.
As well as the above campaigns, the document was endorsed by the following groups and associations:
British Association for American Studies (BAAS);
British International Studies Association Board of Trustees (BISA);
British Philosophical Association (BPA);
Committee of the Free University of Liverpool;
Education Activist Network Steering Committee;
Feminist and Women's Studies Association (FWSA);
Goldsmiths UCU Executive;
Institute of Education UCU Branch;
International Relations Department, University of Sussex;
Justice Violence and Rights Centre, University of Sussex;
King's College London Branch of the University and College Union;
Local Schools Network;
National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts;
Political Studies Association Media and Politics Specialist Group.
It has also been endorsed by the following individual signatories:
Professor Jane Aaron, English, University of Glamorgan, FEA, FLSW
Dr Christine Achinger, German Studies, University of Warwick, WUCHE
Professor Sharon Achinstein, Renaissance Literature, Fellow of St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford, OUCHE
Professor Patrick Ainley, School of Education and Training, University of Greenwich
Dr Anne Alexander, Buckley Fellow, Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Daniel Allington, English Language Studies and Applied Linguistics, The Open University
Dr Sarah S Amsler, Sociology, Aston University
Dr Gary Anderson, Liverpool Hope University
Pura Ariza, Institute of Education, Manchester Metropolitan University, UCU MMU Branch Secretary (personal capacity)
Dr Esther Asprey, Research Associate, English Language, Aston University
Revd Professor J Astley, Director, North of England Institute for Christian Education, Honorary Professor, Theology and Religion, Durham University
Dr Hugues Azerad, Fellow and College Lecturer, Magdalene College, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Professor Les Back, Sociology, Goldsmiths, University of London
Dr Paul Bagguley, School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Leeds
Dr Michael Bailey, Sociology, University of Essex
Professor Zenon Bańkowski, Edinburgh Law School, University of Edinburgh
Professor Zygmunt G Baranski, Serena Professor of Italian, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Clive Barnett, Human Geography, The Open University
Professor Ronald Barnett, Emeritus Professor of Higher Education, Institute of Education, University of London
Dr Leah Bassel, Sociology, University of Leicester
Dr John Bates, University of Glasgow
Dr Matthew Beaumont, English, UCL, CACHE
Bruce Beckles, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Duncan Bell, Politics and International Studies, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Erin Bell, University of Lincoln
Mark Bergfeld, Education Activist Network Steering Committee, NUS National Executive Council (personal capacity)
Dr Gurminder K Bhambra, Sociology, Director of the Social Theory Centre, University of Warwick, CPU, WUCHE
Professor Gargi Bhattacharyya, Sociology and Public Policy, Aston University
Dr Michael Biggs, Sociology, Fellow of St Cross College, University of Oxford, OUCHE
Professor Simon Biggs, Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh, OUCHE
Professor Peter Biller, History, University of York
Dr Chiara Binelli, Economics, University of Southampton, Research Associate, Institute for Fiscal Studies
Dr Ruth Blakeley, International Relations, University of Kent, Trustee for BISA
Dr Claire Blencowe, Sociology, University of Warwick
Dr Kasia Boddy, English, University College London
Dr Andrea den Boer, International Politics, University of Kent
Dr Vikki Boliver, Sociology, Durham University
Professor Joanna Bornat, Emeritus Professor, Open University
Dr Elizabeth Boyle, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Maud Anne Bracke, Modern European History, University of Glasgow
Dr Michael Brady, Philosophy, University of Glasgow, Director of the British Philosophical Association
Professor Bob Brecher, Humanities, University of Brighton
Professor John D Brewer, MRIA, FRSE, AcSS, FRSA, Sociology, University of Aberdeen, President of the British Sociological Association
Professor David Bridges, Emeritus Professor , University of East Anglia, Professorial Fellow, University of Cambridge Faculty of Education
Casey Brienza, Doctoral Researcher, University of Cambridge
John Brissenden, Branch Secretary, Bournemouth University UCU (personal capacity)
Professor Roger Brown, Liverpool Hope University
Dr Joseph Burridge, Sociology, University of Portsmouth
Dr Felicity Callard, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London,
Professor Claire Callender, Birkbeck and Institute of Education, University of London
Dr John R Campbell, Head of Department, Sociology & Anthropology, School of Oriental and African Studies
Mark Campbell, London Metropolitan University, UCU NEC (personal capacity)
Dr Fenella Cannell, Social Anthropology, LSE
Mark Carrigan, Doctoral Researcher, Sociology, University of Warwick, CPU
Professor Gerry Carruthers, University of Glasgow
Dr Dario Castiglione, University of Exeter
Dr Olga Castro, Translation Studies and Spanish, Aston University
Professor Nickie Charles, Director of the Centre for the Study of Women and Gender, Sociology, University of Warwick
Michael Chessum, NUS National Executive (personal capacity)
Dr Timothy Chesters, School of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures, Royal Holloway, University of London
Dr Andrew Chitty, Philosophy, University of Sussex
Dr Jean Chothia, Selwyn College, Faculty of English, University of Cambridge
Dr Tom Chothia, University of Birmingham, CACHE
Dr Mike Clark, Therapeutic and Molecular Immunology, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Professor Martin Cloonan, Music, School of Culture and Creative Arts, University of Glasgow
Dr Fabienne Collignon, University of Glasgow
Dr Philip Connell, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Daniel Conway, Politics, Loughborough University
Dr Timothy Cooper, University of Exeter
Professor Andrea Cornwall, School of Global Studies, University of Sussex
Professor Jane K Cowan, Anthropology, University of Sussex
Dr Ruth Craggs, St Mary's University College
Brandon Crimes, Tourism Management, Deputy International Recruitment Manager, Business School, University of Hertfordshire
Dr John Croft, Brunel University
Dr Justin Cruickshank, University of Birmingham
Dr Jan Culik, Czech Studies, University of Glasgow
Dr David Cunningham, English Literature, University of Westminster
Dr Wini Davies, Aberystwyth University
Dr Lucy Delap, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Mahmood Delkhasteh, Independent Researcher
Dr Ipek Demir, Sociology, University of Leicester
Dr Leigh Denault, Churchill College, Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Ana Cecilia Dinerstein, Social and Policy Sciences, University of Bath
Professor Thomas Docherty, English and Comparative Literatures, University of Warwick, WUCHE
Dr Anneliese Dodds, Public Policy, Aston University
Professor Danny Dorling, Human Geography, University of Sheffield
Dr Giuseppina D'Oro, Philosophy, Keele University
Richard Drayton, FRHistS, Rhodes Professor of Imperial History, King's College London
Synne Laastad Dyvik, DPhil Student, International Relations, University of Sussex
Dr Nadia Edmond, Education, University of Brighton
Professor RJ (Dick) Ellis, American and Canadian Studies, University of Birmingham
Dr Ben Etherington, Research Fellow, English, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Karen Evans, School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Liverpool, UCU NEC (personal capacity)
Dr Max Farrar, Emeritus Professor, Leeds Metropolitan University
Professor Theo Farrell, Vice Chair, British International Studies Association, King's College London
Dr Michael Farrelly, Open University, CPU
Professor Natalie Fenton, Media and Communications, Joint Head of Department, Goldsmiths College, University of London
Dr Christine Ferguson, School of Critical Studies, University of Glasgow
Professor Stephan Feuchtwang, Department of Anthropology, LSE
Dr Marianne Fillenz, Senior Research Fellow, St Anne's College Oxford
Professor Robert Fine, Sociology, University of Warwick, WUCHE
Dr Des Freedman, Media and Communications, Goldsmiths, University of London
Professor Maureen Freely, English and Comparative Literatures, University of Warwick, WUCHE
Rob French, Branch Treasurer, UCU, University of Sussex (personal capacity)
Dr Bernhard Fulda, Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, CACHE
Professor Mark Furse, Competition Law and Policy, University of Glasgow
Dr Ian Gadd, Bath Spa University
Dr Steve Garner, Sociology and Public Policy, Aston University
Dr Sue Garton, Aston University
Professor Nick Gay, Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Charlie Gere, Lancaster Institute for Contemporary Arts, Lancaster University
Prof Mark Georgeson, School of Life & Health Sciences, Aston University
Peter Ghosh, History, Fellow of St. Anne's College, University of Oxford
Professor Robert Gibbs, Art History, University of Glasgow
Professor Robert Gildea, FBA, Modern History, Fellow of Worcester College, University of Oxford, OUCHE
Professor Vincent Gillespie, JRR Tolkien Professor of English Literature and Language, Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford, OUCHE
Dr Andrew Goffey, Media, Middlesex University
Professor Simon Goldhill, Cambridge University, CACHE
Dr Jane Goldman, English Literature, University of Glasgow
Dr Christina Goldschmidt, University of Oxford
Professor Heather Glen, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Martin Golding, Peterhouse, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Priyamvada Gopal, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Hugo Gorringe, Sociology, University of Edinburgh
Dr Norman Gray, SUPA School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Glasgow
Dr Marci Green, Course Leader, Sociology, University of Wolverhampton
Dr Claudia Gremler, German, Aston University
Dr Daniel JR Grey, Junior Research Fellow in World History, Wolfson College, University of Oxford, OUCHE
Jen Grogan, PhD Student, University of Nottingham
Dr Jonathan Grove, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Stacey Gutkowski, Middle East and Mediterranean Studies, King's College London
Jo Halliday, PhD Student, Goldsmiths College, University of London
Dr James Hampshire, University of Sussex
Professor Jane Hardy, Political Economy, University of Hertfordshire
Dr Sophie Harman, International Politics, City University, Trustee of the British International Studies Association
Andy Harper, Goldsmiths, University of London
Professor Barbara Harriss-White, Director, Contemporary South Asia Studies Programme, University of Oxford, OUCHE
Dr Richard Harris, School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol
Dr Kate Haworth, Applied Linguistics, Aston University
Sarah Hayes, Learning Technologist, Aston University
Dr John Heathershaw, Politics, University of Exeter
Juliet Henderson, English Language and Communication, Oxford Brookes University
Dr Anita Herle, Senior Curator for Anthropology, University of Cambridge, Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, CACHE
Dr Naomi Hetherington, Birkbeck, University of London
Dr Lyndsay McLean Hilker, ESRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow, School of Global Studies, University of Sussex
Dr Tracey Hill, Head of Department of English & Cultural Studies, Bath Spa University
Professor Robert Hinde, St. John's College, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Tamsin Hinton-Smith, Research Fellow in Sociology, University of Sussex
Professor Johannes Hoff, Philosophical Theology, Prof. Dr. Habil, DiplTheol, MA, TRIS Department, University of Wales Trinity St David
Dr Edward Holberton, Girton College, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Professor John Holford, Robert Peers Professor of Adult Education, University of Nottingham
Professor John Holmwood, AcSS, Sociology, University of Nottingham, CPU
Dr Hannah Holtschneider, Jewish Studies, University of Edinburgh
Dr Nick Hopwood, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Professor Howard Hotson, Early Modern Intellectual History, Fellow of St Anne's College, University of Oxford, OUCHE
Dr Muir Houston, FHEA, Social Justice, Place and Lifelong Education Research, University of Glasgow
Dr. Michael Hrebeniak, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Professor Maggie Humm, University of East London
Dr Emma Hunter, Gonville and Caius College, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Keith Hyams, University of Exeter
Dr Dan Jackson, The Media School, Bournemouth University
Dr Mark Jackson, School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol
Professor Richard Jackson, International Politics, Aberystwyth University, Secretary, British International Studies Association
Professor Mary Jacobus, FBA, Professor Emerita, Churchill College, University of Cambridge, MH Abrams Distinguished Visiting Professor, Cornell University
Professor Simon Jarvis, Gorley Putt Professor of Poetry and Poetics, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Professor Patricia Jeffery, Sociology & Centre for South Asian Studies, University of Edinburgh
Professor Roger Jeffery, Sociology, and Dean International (India), University of Edinburgh
Dr Alana Jelinek, AHRC Fellow in the Creative and Performing Arts, Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Juan J Jiménez-Anca, Spanish, Aston University
Professor Bob Jessop, Distinguished Professor of Sociology, University of Lancaster
Aylmer Johnson, Engineering, Clare College, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Brenda Johnston, Senior Research Fellow, Southampton Education School, University of Southampton
Professor Ron Johnston OBE FBA, School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol
Dr Bryn Jones, Sociology, Business & Community Programme, University of Bath
Dr Christopher Jones, Institute of Educational Technology, The Open University
Dr Eleanor Jupp, Health and Social Care, Open University
Dr Alexandre Kabla, Engineering, Cambridge University, CACHE
Anne-Sophie Kaloghiros, DPMMS, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Lauren Kassell, History & Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge
Ralph Kellas, Postgraduate Student, Sussex University
Dr Steve Kemp, Sociology, University of Edinburgh
Dr Christian Kerslake, Philosophy, Middlesex University
Professor Desmond King, FBA, Andrew W Mellon Professor of Government, Fellow of Nuffield College, University of Oxford
Dr Lawrence King, Sociology, University of Cambridge
Professor Richard E King, Religious Studies, University of Glasgow
Paul Kirby, LSE
Dr Vassiliki Kolocotroni, University of Glasgow
Professor Susanne Kord, German, School of European Languages, Culture and Society, UCL, OUCHE
Professor Peter Kornicki, Deputy Warden, Robinson College, Cambridge, CACHE
Professor James Ladyman, Head of Department, Philosophy, University of Bristol
Andrea Lagna, International Relations, University of Sussex
Gabriele Lamparter, PhD Student, University of Exeter
Richard Lane, DPhil Candidate, International Relations, University of Sussex
Joel Lazarus, University College, University of Oxford
Dr Yann Lebeau, University of East Anglia
Professor Dennis Leech, Economics, University of Warwick, WUCHE
Dave Legg, former student, Worcester College, University of Oxford, OUCHE
Professor David Lewis, Social Policy, London School of Economics
Dr Conrad Leyser, History, Fellow of Worcester College, University of Oxford, OUCHE
Dr Eleni Liarou, Birkbeck College, University of London
Alison Light, Visiting Professor, Newcastle University, CACHE
Merle Lipton, Associate Fellow, Chatham House & Visiting Research Fellow, King's College, London
Dr Jo Littler, Media and Cultural Studies, Middlesex University
Dr Michael Loughlin, Applied Philosophy, Manchester Metropolitan University & Visiting Professor of Applied Philosophy, University of Buckingham
Dr Charlie Louth, Queen's College, University of Oxford
Dr Matthew Loveless, Comparative Politics, University of Kent
Dr Pam Lowe, Sociology, Aston University
Paddy Lyons, English Literature, University of Glasgow
Dr David McCallam, French Eighteenth-Century Studies, University of Sheffield, OUCHE
Dr William McEvoy, English, University of Sussex, SUDHE
Dr Cheryl McEwan, Durham University, CACHE
Dr Robert Macfarlane, Cambridge University Faculty of English, CACHE
Phil MacGregor, The Media School, Bournemouth University
Professor Patrick McGuinness, St Anne's College, Oxford (longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2011)
Professor Stephen McKay, School of Social Policy, University of Birmingham
Dr Iain MacKenzie, University of Kent
Dr Monica McLean, Higher Education, Principal Investigator, Pedagogic Quality and Inequality in University First Degrees (ESRC), University of Nottingham
Professor Gregor McLennan, Sociology, Director, Institute for Advanced Studies, University of Bristol
Dr Laura McMahon, Film, University of Aberdeen
Dr David McQueen, Media, Bournemouth University
Dr John McTague, English, University of Oxford
Dr Mary Madden, Wounds Group, Health Sciences, University of York
Marta Magalhães, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Jonathan Mair, Manchester University
Professor Willy Maley, English Literature, University of Glasgow
Dr Suhail Malik, Art, Goldsmiths, University of London
Dr Victoria Margree, Humanities, University of Brighton
Dr Lee Marsden, Political, Social and International Studies, University of East Anglia
Professor Luke Martell, Sociology, University of Sussex
Dr Cheryl Martens, Media School, Bournemouth University
Dr Andy Martin, French, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Laura Martin, Comparative Literature, University of Glasgow
Richard Martin, Birkbeck, University of London
Herminio Martins, Emeritus Fellow, St Antony's College, University of Oxford, Honorary Research Fellow, Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon, OUCHE
Dr Joanne Massey, Sociology, MMU
Dr Kamran Matin, University of Sussex
Dr Sinéad Garrigan Mattar, Girton College, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Emma Mawdsley, Cambridge University, CACHE
Professor Tim May, Director, Centre for Sustainable Urban and Regional Futures (SURF), University of Salford
Lucy Mayblin, Sociology, University of Warwick
Dr Saladin Meckled-Garcia, Political Science, University College London
Dr Shamira A Meghani , English, University of Leeds
Dr Leo Mellor, English, Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge
Jane Melvin, University of Brighton
Professor Hugh Miall, International Relations, University of Kent
Laura Miles, UCU NEC (personal capacity)
Professor Barbara A Misztal, Sociology, University of Leicester
Kevin Moloney, Media School, Bournemouth University
Professor David Mond, Mathematics Institute, University of Warwick, WUCHE
Professor Philip Moriarty, Physics, University of Nottingham, EPSRC Leadership Fellow and Chair of the Nanoscale Physics and Technology Group of the Institute of Physics
Dr Nathalie Mrgudović, School of Languages and Social Sciences, Aston University
Dr Subha Mukherji, English, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Jane Mulderrig, Applied Linguistics, University of Sheffield
Dr Kathryn Murphy, English, Fellow of Oriel College, University of Oxford, OUCHE
Dr Simon Murray, Theatre Studies, University of Glasgow
Trevor Murrells, Statistician, Research Data Manager, National Nursing Research Unit, Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery, King's College London
Dr Karma Nabulsi, Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, Fellow of St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford, OUCHE
Dr Daniel Neep, Politics, University of Exeter
Professor Simon Newman, Brogan Professor of American History, University of Glasgow
Dr Jane Nolan, Sociology, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Professor David Norbrook, Merton Professor of Renaissance English Literature, Fellow of Merton College, University of Oxford, OUCHE
Professor Michael Northcott, New College, University of Edinburgh
Grainne O'Connell, University of Sussex
Kathleen O'Donnell, Imaging the University, Architectural and Urban Studies, University of Brighton
Kirsty Ogg, Art, Goldsmiths, University of London
Dr Daniel Orrells, Classics and Ancient History, University of Warwick
Professor William Outhwaite, Sociology, Newcastle University
Dr Patricia Owens, University of Sussex
Damien Page, Principal Lecturer, University of Greenwich
Professor Joe Painter, Head of Department, Geography, Durham University
Maïa Pal, DPhil Candidate, International Relations, University of Sussex
Chrysi Papaioannou, Administrator, King's College London, and Postgraduate Research Student, University of Leeds
Professor Inderjeet Parmar, Government, University of Manchester, Chair of the British International Studies Association Board of Trustees
Dr John Parrington, Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology, Fellow of Worcester College, University of Oxford, OUCHE
Dr Ian Patterson, Queens' College, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Professor David Pattie, University of Chester
Jennifer Peet, Doctoral Researcher, Sociology, University of Edinburgh
Jethro Pettit, Research Fellow, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex
Professor Kees van der Pijl, International Relations, University of Sussex
Dr James Pope, Media School, Bournemouth University
Dr Alison Phipps, Director of Gender Studies, University of Sussex, FWSA
Professor Malcolm JW Povey, FInstP, CEng, Food Physics, University of Leeds, UCU NEC Member (personal capacity)
Dr Line Nyhagen Predelli, Social Sciences, Loughborough University
JH Prynne, Cambridge University, CACHE
Dr Dinah Rajak, Anthropology and Development, University of Sussex
Dr Deana Rankin, English and Drama, Royal Holloway, University of London
Professor Keith Reader, Emeritus Professor of French, University of Glasgow
Professor Ian Reader, Japanese Studies, University of Manchester
Professor Diane Reay, Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge
Dr Madeleine Reeves, RCUK Research Fellow, University of Manchester
Dr Nicky Reeves, University of Cambridge
Michael Rice, PhD, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Charlotte Lydia Riley, PhD Student, UCL
Aurélia Robert, French, Aston University
Professor Ian Roberts, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Professor Eve Rosenhaft, German Historical Studies, University of Liverpool
Dr Enzo Rossi, Research Fellow, Social Ethics Research Group (SERG), University of Wales
Dr Julia Round, The Media School, Bournemouth University
Dr Srila Roy, School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Nottingham, FWSA
Dr Lucia Ruprecht, Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Professor Jonathan Rutherford, Professor of Cultural Studies, Middlesex University
Dr Christopher Ryan, Philosophy, London Metropolitan University
Dr John Sabapathy, Medieval History, University College London
Dr Duna Sabri, Visiting Research Fellow, Education and Professional Studies, King's College London
Dr Tony Sampson, University of East London
David Sancho, DPhil Candidate, University of Sussex
Professor Andrew Sayer, Social Theory and Political Economy, Lancaster University
Dr Andrew Schaap, Politics, University of Exeter
Dr Marie Isabel Schlinzig, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, University of Oxford
Professor Justine Schneider, Mental Health & Social Care, University of Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust
Dr Franziska Schroeder, School of Creative Arts, Queen's University Belfast
Dr Gregory Schwartz, School of Management, University of Bath
Dr Jason Scott-Warren, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Andrew Shail, Film, Newcastle University, FWSA
Professor Martin Shepperd, Brunel University, CACHE
Dr Robbie Shilliam, Queen Mary and Westfield, University of London
Professor John T Sidel, Sir Patrick Gillam Professor of International and Comparative Politics, London School of Economics and Political Science
Professor Barry Smart, Sociology, University of Portsmouth
Dr Alexander Smith, Sociology, University of Huddersfield
Professor Lorraine N Smith, Nursing, University of Glasgow
Dr Ewen Speed, University of Essex
Dr James Sprittles, Research Fellow, University of Birmingham
Professor Fiona Stafford, English Language and Literature, Fellow of Somerville College, University of Oxford, OUCHE
Dr Anna Stavrianakis, International Relations, University of Sussex
Professor Deborah Lynn Steinberg, Sociology, University of Warwick
Dr Adam Stewart-Wallace, St John's College, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Laurie Stras, Faculty of Humanities, University of Southampton
Professor Lucy Suchman, Anthropology of Science and Technology, Co-Director, Centre for Science Studies, Sociology, Lancaster University
Bernard Sufrin, Emeritus Fellow of Worcester College, University of Oxford, OUCHE
Dr Judith Suissa, Institute of Education, London
Dr Jill Steans, POLSIS, University of Birmingham
Dr Susan AJ Stuart, University of Glasgow
Dr Carole Sweeney, English and Comparative Literature, Goldsmiths, University of London
Dr Bronislaw Szerszynski, Sociology, Lancaster University
Professor Oliver Taplin, FBA, Emeritus Professor of Classical Languages and Literature, Fellow of Magdalen College, University of Oxford, OUCHE
Dr Trudi Tate, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Benno Teschke, International Relations, University of Sussex
Dr Helen Thaventhiran, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Deborah Thom, History, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Pamela Thurschwell, English, University of Sussex, CACHE
Dr Rowan Tomlinson, French, Bristol University, OUCHE
Professor David Trotter, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Kate Tunstall, French, Fellow of Worcester College, University of Oxford, OUCHE
Dr Ed Turner, Politics, Aston University
Professor John Urry, Distinguished Professor, Sociology, Lancaster University
Isobel Urquhart, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Rosa Vasilaki, University of Bristol
Dr Bert Vaux, Phonology & Morphology, University of Cambridge, Fellow in Linguistics, King's College, CACHE
Dr Vincenzo Vergiani, Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Professor Alain Viala, French Literature, Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford, OUCHE
Keith Walker, Education, Manchester Metropolitan University
Sean Wallis, Senior Research Fellow, Survey of English Usage, UCL, Branch Secretary UCL UCU
Dr Caroline Warman, French, Fellow of Jesus College, University of Oxford, OUCHE
Dr Christopher Warnes, Faculty of English, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Sam Waterman, Postgraduate Student, University of Sussex
Dr Peggy Watson, Sociology, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Professor Alan Weir, Philosophy, University of Glasgow
Dr Karen West, Public Policy and Sociology, Aston University
Professor John White, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy of Education, Institute of Education, University of London
Patricia White, Research Fellow in Philosophy of Education, Institute of Education, University of London
Dr Mark Wilkinson, Royal Society University Research Fellow, Physics and Astronomy, University of Leicester
Gavin Williams, Emeritus Fellow, St Peter's College, University of Oxford, OUCHE
Dr Hannah Williams, Junior Research Fellow, History of Art, St John's College, University of Oxford, OUCHE
Dr Wes Williams, French, Fellow of St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford, OUCHE
Dr Edward Wilson-Lee, Sidney Sussex College, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Stuart C Wimbush, Physics and Chemistry, University of Cambridge
Dr Aaron Winter, Sociology, University of Abertay Dundee
Dr Jim Wolfreys, French and European Politics, King's College London
Howard Wollman, Honorary Fellow, School of Social & Political Science, University of Edinburgh and Vice Chair, British Sociological Association (personal capacity)
Peter Woodward, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London
Dr Jens-Uwe Wunderlich, International Relations, Aston University
Professor Brian Wynne, Sociology, Co-PI, UK ESRC Centre for Economic and Social Aspects of Genomics, Cesagen, and Professor of Science Studies, Lancaster University
John Yandell, Local UCU Branch President, Institute of Education.
As they publish their own 'alternative white paper' for higher education, academics claim the government's plans are fundamentally misguided. Read answers to your questions from the academics behind the paper
Hundreds of academics have signed a document, published today, that warns of dire consequences should the government's white paper on higher education become law.
The document, In Defence of Public Higher Education, endorsed by a wide range of prominent academics, including Stefan Collini, of Cambridge University, and Howard Hotson, of Oxford, offers an alternative to the government's vision for the sector in the form of nine propositions about higher education's value to society. Drawing on recent research, it also argues that the changes proposed are based on ideology rather than financial necessity, and will make no lasting savings.
Campaigners hope it will lead to an autumn of debate and protest over the white paper's proposals, which are due to come into effect next year. "The hope would be that it provides a well-formulated agenda on the future of higher education, in contrast to the one the government has railroaded through," says Simon Szreter, professor of history and public policy at the University of Cambridge, who helped to draw up the document. "It is a counter to the breathtaking speed of the government programme and its reliance on an atrociously flimsy document, the Browne Review."
Today's publication argues that the Independent Review of Higher Education Funding, chaired by former BP chief executive Lord Browne of Madingley, and the subsequent white paper, completely ignore the public value of higher education, concentrating instead on "the private benefits to individuals in the form of higher earnings deriving from investment in their human capital, and to the 'knowledge economy' in terms of product development and contribution of economic growth".
It suggests that this focus on students as consumers attacks the very values the prime minister believes would reverse the "moral decline" blamed for the recent riots.
And it accuses the mission groups representing different kinds of universities, including the Russell Group and the 1994 Group of leading research universities, of lack of leadership and of failing to defend the values of public higher education while for-profit providers have successfully lobbied for their own interests.
Nearly 400 academic campaigners, members of professional bodies such as the British Philosophical Association, and individuals have signed the "alternative white paper", which was drawn up over the summer by a working group led by John Holmwood, professor of sociology at the University of Nottingham and founder of the Campaign for the Public University.
He says: "The people signing up are very senior academics. They are saying, 'At last there is a voice talking about public higher education and something other than questions of economic expediency'."
The document's nine propositions are that higher education has public as well as private benefits and these public benefits require financial support; that public universities are necessary to build and maintain confidence in public debate; that public universities have a social mission and help to ameliorate social inequality; that public higher education is part of a generational contract in which an older generation invests in the wellbeing of future generations; that public institutions providing similar programmes of study should be funded at a similar level; that education cannot be treated as a simple consumer good; that training in skills is not the same as university education – something the title of a university should recognise; that a university is a community made up of different disciplines and of different activities of teaching, research and external collaboration; and finally that universities are not only global institutions, but also serve their local and regional communities.
A separate appendix makes the case that switching the costs of tuition from grants to loan-backed fees may reduce the deficit in the short term, but is an accounting trick. In the long term, debt could increase as students default or write off loan repayments, and tax revenues from those who reject higher education as too expensive are lost.
It also accuses the government of wanting eventually to introduce a pricing mechanism based on how much of the loans made to students studying specific degrees at specific institutions are repaid.
"The commodification of higher education is at the secret heart of the white paper," it argues. "The government seeks a differently funded sector, one which can provide new outlets for capital that struggles to find suitable opportunities for investment elsewhere."
Publication of the document comes a week after the end of formal consultation on the white paper and amid increasing criticism of government plans for HE.
Responding to the consultation, Universities UK warned of "unintended consequences for students and universities" from the proposals, with potentially adverse effects on social mobility, student choice, institutional subject mix and the future viability of some institutions".
The 1994 Group warned that high-quality places for students could be lost, and science subjects could be badly affected. A higher-education thinktank, Million+, called for the withdrawal of plans to introduce a market in university places, while the British Academy, the UK's national representative body for the humanities and social sciences, said the plans could damage the international reputation of UK higher education.
Howard Hotson, professor of early modern intellectual history and a founding member of the Oxford University Campaign for Higher Education, says: "We offer fantastic value for money. The UK university system is astonishingly good. There is no intellectual justification whatsoever for radically overhauling it, and if you radically overhaul it, you can guarantee to make it worse."
He calls on academics and students to join forces to oppose the moves and predicts a "winter of discontent" including actions by students and academic unions. Another campaigner, Kate Tunstall, said she expected further motions of no confidence in the universities minister, David Willetts, to follow votes at Oxford, Cambridge, Leeds and Bath earlier in the summer,. She is among those who want to encourage parents and the general public to join the debate.
The Local Schools Network has already backed today's document. Melissa Benn, its co-founder, says: "Education is bigger than self-interest and a race to the top. If we sacrifice the idea of the education system being at the very centre of the social fabric we will pay a price in the long term."
Stefan Collini, professor of English literature and intellectual history at Cambridge, who has written a series of critiques of government higher education policy, warns that the proposals in the white paper misunderstand what universities are about. "It's very important that academics who see the ways in which this policy is fundamentally flawed and misguided try to explain this and work for the long-term development of a better-grounded policy," he says. "For that reason the alternative white paper makes a very valuable contribution."
Willetts has responded to critics by arguing that the success of British universities in research has been the result of a system that places intense competition in a wider legal framework and that the government's proposals aim to achieve the same for teaching and the student experience.
In a letter published in the London Review of Books in July he "pleaded guilty to believing in choice and competition", but said that these should be rooted in a national culture, strong institutions and a set of moral understandings.
• This article was amended on 27-28 September 2011 to correct a reference to "the Millennium+ thinktank" and to attribute the following prediction - reported in the original piece - to an individual campaigner, Kate Tunstall: Campaigners expect further motions of no confidence in the universities minister, David Willetts.
On the Guardian Teacher Network this week you can find useful resources linked to Black History Month
October is Black History Month, when schools and organisations will be focusing on the achievements of great black people in history and today. The month has also become a time to look at wider "political" black issues of equality, for example LGBT and travellers' rights.
On the Guardian Teacher Network, we have a wide range of resources to help investigate Black History Month in class or at home.
For primary school-aged children, we have an introductory lesson to Nelson Mandela from the Citizenship Foundation's Go-Givers team.
There are some new teaching resources that make use of the archives of the former British Empire and Commonwealth Museum. Suitcase stories is a resource aimed at upper primary school-aged students exploring stories of migration and the search for a better life, including archive photographs and audio. Teachers can also book out loan boxes of real archive material and handling objects for a small fee on a variety of subjects including the slave trade.
The People's History Museum has a pack on immigration and racism that links to their Living History workshops, but can also be used as a standalone resource.
For a great introduction to Black History Month heroes, see the Guardian's black history month microsite http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/blackhistorymonth, including this very useful timeline of events in black history over the last 2,000 years.
Black History Month goes beyond history, and an interesting approach for teachers and young people might be to look at current campaigns.
The Show Racism the Red Card campaign has grown from focusing on racism in football to a far wider tackling of the issues in society. They have developed a range of powerful education packs that highlight the causes and consequences of racism and help teachers to equip their pupils with a range of skills to challenge prejudice. There is also a thought-provoking pack especially written for trainee teachers.
The Guardian Teacher Network also has history lessons for 14- to 16-year-olds on the implementation of apartheid and the end of apartheid http://teachers.guardian.co.uk/ViewLesson.aspx?id=2351, which will help children to understand the impact of petty apartheid laws on the lives of ordinary people through an examination of primary sources including newspapers and oral accounts.
Check out the Taking Liberties interactive by the British Library, which takes secondary school-aged children and adults through the UK's 900-year-old struggle for rights and freedoms – from the suffragettes to the Black Panthers – a struggle that continues today. The interactive puts the user into the centre of some of today's most contentious human rights issues using 3D graphics and is sure to lead to classroom debate on how to balance order in society with individuals' right to freedom. Teachers' notes can be downloaded and there is an interactive.
The Association of Citizenship Teachers (ACT) works hard to help the teaching of citizenship in school, giving practical advice and best-practice recommendations.
The GTN offers more than 70,000 pages of lesson plans and interactive materials. To see and share for yourself go to teachers.guardian.co.uk. There are hundreds of jobs on the site and schools can advertise free: schoolsjobs.guardian.co.uk
Readers respond to David Willetts's defence of the coalition's policy on higher education funding
Last week, David Willetts defended the coalition's policy on higher education funding, saying that other countries are watching to see if they could follow suit.
• If a third of the money loaned to students will never be repaid, who will be charged with paying off the debt – the taxpayer? We are told the reforms mean that many students will have to pay back less. If that is the case, how can the reforms achieve savings overall? I just don't understand the spin – debt is bad, which is why reducing the deficit is the mantra, yet it is fine for our young people to saddle themselves with massive debts at the start of their adult lives.
Richard Drinkall
Lincoln
• A university graduate pays at least £100,000 more in tax over their lifetime than a non-graduate. If these policies were about deficit reduction and the future of the British economy, the government would be putting more money into education, not less.
smootthisland via guardian.co.uk
• My criticisms of the government's higher education policy would be:
1) If, as Willetts says, less than a third of the debt will be repaid, and this over the course of 30 years, how can it possibly help with deficit reduction?
2) Poorer students will inevitably pay more for their degrees than richer ones when you factor in interest on loans. In addition, poorer students will end up with higher loans to cover their living expenses.
Accasha via guardian.co.uk
• There is no upfront fee; maintenance grants (not repayable), plus tuition fees don't have to be repaid until you are earning a decent amount. In my opinion, the only thing likely to put off poorer students is people (for purely political reasons) constantly banging on about how they should be put off, with nothing to support that view.
OldBristolian via guardian.co.uk
• Willetts says it is a "misconception" that the government's policies do not value arts and humanities. However, the Arts and Humanities Research Council has found it necessary to include the government's failed "big society" programme in its delivery plan for strategic research funding priorities. What kind of model is this for other countries to emulate? Note: I led a petition to remove the "big society" from the Arts and Humanities Research Council's delivery plan.
Dr Thom Brooks
Newcastle University
• I seem to remember that student loans were "interest free" when they began, as a replacement for grants that covered living costs. Then the government decided to sell these debts on, then capped interest on these loans was introduced, and then the cap on interest was raised. What makes anyone think the same thing won't happen with tuition fee loans? This whole thing is part of the transfer of debt from public to private ownership.
Nigelad via guardian.co.uk
• I am not surprised that so many people want to understand the UK government's higher education changes. I suspect the truth is that most want to avoid the mistakes the current government has made.
The changes are unfair because students will be faced with hugely increased debts on graduation; many analysts are suggesting an average debt of £60,000 per student. According to Browne Review advisers London Economics, middle-income earners will have to pay back more over their lifetimes than those on higher incomes. The Sutton Trust predicts some of the brightest of the next generation will be deterred from going to university. The Higher Education Policy Institute highlights that social mobility will be the "victim" of these proposals.
The massive 80% cut to university teaching budgets is grossly disproportionate to cuts being made elsewhere and is a huge economic mistake. Most of Britain's competitors are increasing funding for their higher education and research budgets to encourage economic growth.
And the quality of higher education is being put at risk. The government wants to cut core university places, by 20,000 initially, and then auction them off to the lowest bidder; cutting places from universities with international reputations.
In addition, the science budget is being cut by 10% in real terms over the next three years and research councils have already axed the funding for over 1,400 postgraduate places.
Gareth Thomas MP
Shadow minister for higher education
London SW1
Newly qualified teachers are finding that there are up to 40% fewer jobs this year. Are we simply turning out too many?
It never crossed Haley Pilkington's mind that she wouldn't be starting work as a teacher this month. After successfully completing a first degree in French and Spanish at the University of Newcastle, she received a £6,000 bursary to do a PGCE in modern foreign languages at Chester University.
"The bursary, together with the renewed emphasis on languages in the English baccalaureate, suggested that I might be in demand," she says. "But it has been harder to find a job than I'd imagined. Perhaps I've been naive."
Pilkington has applied for 10 jobs in the last year and has had four interviews. "Each time, there were more candidates than I'd expected. In one school, we were warned at the start that they had had a very strong field of applicants and the standard had been higher than anyone could remember."
She has registered with supply agencies. "I was confident I'd be starting a job this term. I have to remain optimistic and believe it's just a matter of time," Pilkington says. "Everyone told me there would be a rush of jobs becoming available once we neared the end of our courses, but that never happened."
Her experience is all too familiar. Newly qualified teachers entered the employment market this year, having paid annual tuition fees of £3,375 – set to rise to up to £9,000 next year – to find approximately 40% fewer full-time jobs available. According to one set of figures, between January and August alone the number of posts advertised across all sectors fell by about 2,500 on the same period last year, with significant regional variations.
Among the worst-hit areas is the West Midlands, where there were more than 700 fewer posts advertised than the previous year, followed by the north-west, with 552 fewer vacancies. London had one of the lowest discrepancies year on year, with 188 fewer posts, with only the north-east faring better, with just 40. Wales had more vacancies this year than in 2010 – 993, compared with 871.
Professor John Howson, director of Data for Education, which monitors teacher recruitment, visiting professor at Oxford Brookes and the Institute of Education, and senior research fellow at Oxford University, says there are simply no longer enough jobs to go round.
"The majority of those who are looking for jobs are NQTs, and many schools don't want new, inexperienced teachers if they know they have an Ofsted inspection coming up," he says. "The market is very complex at the moment. In schools with budget problems, for example, teachers are being moved sideways when colleagues leave to avoid redundancies, so space is not being freed up for new recruits.
"We are now in a boom-and-bust situation and we can expect two or three years of this over-supply. I'm afraid that anyone who began their teacher training thinking they would easily get a job was misinformed, as that situation has not existed for the last five years."
It's not long since we all saw TV commercials encouraging people to become teachers. But Howson says: "There is no longer any such thing as a shortage subject, and the jobs market has been tightening across the board for a while."
That is not the impression held by many aspiring teachers, however. Sarah Carpenter was a registered child minder, foster carer and teaching assistant before signing up for a PGCE in primary education at the University of Gloucestershire, at the age of 41.
"I was told by a headteacher that I'd be snapped up in no time," she says. But despite submitting 18 applications, she has had just one interview.
Carpenter believes that schools simply cannot afford to invest the time and money required to hire NQTs. "Although we are cheaper on wages, we present a huge commitment to schools in terms of time and training.
"We are entitled to time away from the class, which has to be covered, and our local training centre for NQTs has recently been shut because of cuts, so it would be up to schools to organise that themselves.
"I hear that universities are taking on even more trainees for next year. Someone needs to put a stop to this because they can't keep training people if there are no jobs."
Another primary teacher, Christina Sinclair, has just completed a BA in education at Oxford Brookes University. She has applied for 15 jobs, and believes that one post she went for had attracted 170 applicants. "The alarm bells starting ringing at my teaching placement," she says. "I heard one of the senior management team complaining to a colleague that the existing NQT didn't know anything and what a hassle it was to have to train her, like she was a burden on the school.
"How can we get any experience when no one will employ us?"
Government plans to pass teacher training directly to schools are unlikely to have an impact, as it is still unclear how many training schools there will be and where these will be located. Schools currently seem reluctant to take up the mantle until they know what mechanisms there will be in place to allow them to award PGCEs, how many trainees they will be expected to take on and how they will be funded.
James Williams, lecturer in science education at Sussex University, says schools increasingly favour experienced teachers over cheaper new recruits. "They say they want outstanding teachers, but that's ridiculous – it's like saying to pass your driving test you have to be an advanced driver."
Williams believes the government should reform the system to match supply and demand. One way might be to make teacher training a two-year course, where students do the first year at university and the second year in school.
"This would guarantee that new teachers are employed in a school for at least a year, and would allow them to complete their induction."
He also wants to see more regional planning. Currently, the system relies on new entrants being flexible and moving to where the jobs are. "More mature entrants to teaching with home and family commitments may not be so mobile," he says.
Howson advocates a complete moratorium on all training for a year or two to allow the backlog to clear. But fundamentally, he says, a complete re-think is required of how teachers are trained.
"As people are now expected to pay for higher education, it's unfair that they make sacrifices only to find they have no job afterwards," he says. "You wouldn't expect this of a civil servant, or a police officer. If you are taken on as a trainee, then you should have the guarantee of a job at the end of it.
"Furthermore, we risk losing some of the best applicants altogether. There is no mechanism for ensuring that the best trainees get the jobs and that we can hang on to them."
There appear to be no such safeguards in the pipeline. Neither the Department for Education nor the Training and Development Agency for Schools acknowledge there may be a problem. A DfE spokesman said: "Getting a job as a teacher can be a competitive process. We carefully analyse the level of demand for teachers each year when deciding how many new teacher-training places to make available."
Meanwhile, the TDA said that targets for teacher-trainee places "reflect the number of newly qualified teachers that are required to meet the demands of schools".
"The targets are based on the Teacher Supply Model, which considers a range of data such as falling/rising pupil numbers, existing teacher numbers by age groups and people taking career breaks and people returning to teach," a spokesman said.
But someone has to seize the initiative, Howson says. "The government and providers have a responsibility. The reality is that training colleges need to admit students to remain financially viable, while no government sees it as its problem if there are too many teachers. So we are at something of a stalemate."
*Some names in this article have been changed at the request of the teachers involved.
"When a bottom year 9 set asks you if you're a qualified science teacher because they're fed up of supply staff, you know that things in that school aren't right. Children can't be fooled – they just want to know they are being taught by a 'proper' teacher."
Hannah McLean completed her PGCE at Liverpool Hope University in 2010, having done a degree in history and a master's in medieval and renaissance history at the University of Liverpool. But she has failed to get a permanent job and has been doing supply work for the last year in north London.
No amount of delivering outstanding lessons or excellent interview feedback has secured her a full-time post.
McLean has applied for about 30 jobs, but had only seven interviews. "In the last one, I was told by the head of department that my lesson was outstanding, but the job went to the PGCE student who had just completed her placement there," she says.
The constant process of applying for jobs is starting to take a toll. "I am seriously considering whether to carry on," McLean says. "My love for teaching remains undiminished and it's all I've ever wanted to do, but coming up against up to 80 applicants for each job is really grinding me down. I just don't understand why we're training so many teachers if there are not enough jobs."
Want to be an MP's apprentice? Plus girl guide's survey shows girls are turning away from education
Nick Clegg's pledge to end unpaid internships, announced earlier this year, appears to have little sway with his Westminster colleagues. Politicians have continued to advertise unpaid roles, the most recent being Lyn Brown, the Labour MP for West Ham. Her website boasts she has "campaigned tirelessly for a living wage for all", yet she has advertised for a "voluntary Westminster worker" whose duties – including research, dealing with constituency enquiries and clerical support – sounded uncannily like a job.
But the days of unpaid internships, a practice deeply ingrained in the corridors of Westminster, could be numbered. Next month sees the launch of the first parliamentary training programme. Dubbed the "school of apprentices", it will offer 16- to 19-year-olds the chance to spend up to three days a week working in Westminster, along with two days working towards a level 3 apprenticeship (equivalent to A-level) in business administration. MPs who recruit from the apprentice school will have to pay the minimum wage for apprentices (£2.50 an hour) but the London living wage of £8.30 an hour is recommended.
The project was the idea of MP Rob Halfon and the charity New Deal of The Mind. "The aim is to open up politics to young people from a much broader background and get them a decent qualification at the same time," says Halfon.
Over the past few weeks, all 650 MPs have been sent a letter asking them to take on an apprentice. So far, eight have agreed. Interestingly, with the exception of Diane Abbott, they are all Liberal Democrats or Conservatives. A further 14 have expressed a strong interest. David Cameron and Ed Miliband are said to be "thinking about it".
"Be prepared" may be the guides' motto, but according to new research from Girlguiding UK, girls and young women feel anything but prepared for their future education. The annual girls' attitudes survey, in its third year, canvasses the opinions of more than 1,000 girls and young women aged 7 t o 21 throughout the UK, on a range of issues, including education.
This year's survey indicates the hike in university tuition fees has had an impact, with 50% of girls saying they are worried about paying for college or university fees compared to 30% last year. Two years ago, just 8% of 11- to 21-year-olds said the economic downturn had made them less likely to stay in education – this year it is 29%.
Janet Murray
Education ministers can choose evidence to back their own prejudices, says Estelle Morris. Labour would do well to show a commitment to using evidence properly
The government claims to be developing an evidence-based education policy, which has to be a good thing. But can we be sure they can be trusted to get it right? Ministers continually refer to national and international sources of evidence to justify their decisions. So much so that announcements from Pisa (the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment), Timms (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) or the management consultants McKinsey now seem to exceed Ofsted in their importance for education. How can we know that Michael Gove is drawing the right conclusions from the available evidence? What is to stop him selecting the evidence that supports his political views and casting the rest aside?
Take some of the government statements in support of its key policies. Charter schools in the US are used to justify the free schools policy. And when minsters talk about the success of charter schools such as the Harlem Success Academy in New York, they are not making it up. There are some truly outstanding charter schools that should inspire us all.
Yet what about the research from Stanford University, which shows that over three quarters of charter schools deliver similar or worse results than traditional state schools? What should we really make of the evidence?
The same can be seen with that other flagship policy – academies. The government is fond of quoting the success rates of chains of academies like the Harris schools in south London. Again, this is true. Based in challenging areas, Harris schools have produced some outstanding results and are a real example of what can be achieved. Yet so are the results of schools in Tower Hamlets, the poorest borough in the country, which now regularly outperforms the national average – and has no academies. What is this evidence telling us?
Then there is Michael Gove's use of Singapore's slimmed-down curriculum as evidence for his own curriculum review, but he's less likely to mention the national textbooks that accompany teaching in Singapore. Is it also misleading to cite evidence from Pisa in support of autonomous schools but fail to add that the same organisation finds that competition between schools doesn't necessarily lead to better results?
Contradictory evidence and the selective use of it is nothing new – I doubt there is an education minister who has not succumbed to the temptation. Neither is the practice peculiar to education. The problem exists elsewhere – but other government departments have been prepared to do something about it.
The Department of Health has established the independent National Centre for Clinical Excellence (Nice) to make sure clinicians and the public have access to quality information and best-practice evidence. The Treasury has the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), which provides an external challenge and scrutiny to government's financial assumptions and forecasts. Then there is the Institute for Fiscal Studies, to which commentators and the public can confidently look for a balanced interpretation of economic information.
These organisations take the job of interpreting evidence out of the hands of ministers and so give the public greater confidence in its validity.
No one will believe that the government is serious about being guided by evidence as long as ministers are free to select and interpret that evidence at will. It's not difficult to spot a successful school and use it to justify what you already believe. It's far more difficult to determine exactly what it is that makes that school successful and craft it into an evidence-based policy that can influence all schools. That's why quality evidence and the proper use of it are so crucial.
Education is an increasingly evidence-rich policy area. How we use that evidence could determine our future success. It is not about taking politics out of education, but about re-drawing the boundaries between the two.
As Labour continues the task in Liverpool this week of rethinking its approach to education, it could do worse than show that it understands the crisis in the relationship between education evidence and policy-making. A commitment to examine the way evidence is used in education would give it firm foundations for its policy review and build trust in the profession and with the public.
We urgently need the education equivalent of Nice or the OBR so we can be confident that when ministers talk about evidence they aren't simply providing cover for their own prejudices.
The concept of 'un-American' activities has existed almost as long as America. But does anyone know what it means?
Dr George Lewis could have been forgiven for swallowing hard and turning pale when finally given access to the collected files of the House of Un-American Activities Committee during the period 1945 to 1975. "There was 1,245ft of archive material," he recalls. "That's the equivalent of three-and-a-half feet of box files a month every month for 30 years."
The director of American studies at Leicester University has embarked on what he believes to be the first sustained historical analysis of the term "un-American", so he first took a look at HUAC's attempts to define their terms. "I discovered that they were still trying to work out exactly what 'un-American' meant three decades after someone had set up a committee to investigate it."
The term "un-American" goes back a long way – almost to the dawn of the republic, Lewis has discovered. "'It was in use pretty well as soon as the term 'American' was coined," he says. "To be American became an expression of ideology as well as nationalism."
And of course, it's still in use today, particularly by supporters of the Tea Party movement in their critiques of President Barack Obama's healthcare reforms. It was the use of the term by Michele Bachmann – now a declared candidate for the presidency – in 2008 in reference to Barack Obama as "un-American" that convinced Lewis of the need to try to pin down the nebulous concept.
Lewis is two-thirds of the way through a three-year project, supported by £111,000 from the British Academy, which also funded an inter-disciplinary conference at Leicester last week for scholars from both sides of the Atlantic. One of the more intriguing subject headings was When Modern Art Was Un-American.
"There was a big campaign against modern art in California in the 50s," Lewis explains. "On the east coast, meanwhile, there was a move against jazz as un-American. Harlem became the den of un-American filth in the rightwing imagination. Later, there were similar campaigns against rock 'n' roll. One of the things that got me interested in this project is that it's not just a top-down phenomenon. Being 'un-American' influenced rhetoric at every level of society."
For research purposes, Lewis has been witnessing Tea Party rallies at first hand with their placards referring to Obama's "un-American" healthcare programme. "It has become a coded word for them," he says. "If they want to infer that his programme is 'socialised medicine' then that's what it will be taken to mean. If they want to remind people that he's black, then that's what it'll be taken to mean. Ditto: the implication made when they say his second name is Hussein."
Talk-show hosts during the 2008 election, he points out, never asked Obama's Republican opponent, John McCain, about his middle name. "(It's Sidney.)" But then an elderly "President McCain" could have been a heart attack away from handing the keys of the White House to his running mate, the all-American Sarah Palin. Having weighed that up, floating voters decided that Obama was American enough for them.
Research into 'brain extraction' turns out to be about seeing clearly what modern imaging machines are showing, rather than any gory dissection
Scientists marvel at how other scientists – the ones who study something other than what they themselves study – give strange meanings to common words.
Evan Shellshear, at Fraunhofer Chalmers Centre in Gothenburg, sent me an example, a study called Fast Robust Automated Brain Extraction.
Shellshear said: "I stumbled across this article somehow [whilst] looking for optimal code to quickly compute the distance between two triangles in three-dimension space for computer games. It sounds almost like something out of a game itself … After careful reading, [the paper] justifies the initially shocking title."
The author is Stephen M Smith who, back in 2002 when the paper came out, was at the Department of Clinical Neurology at Oxford University's John Radcliffe Hospital, and is now a professor of biomedical engineering.
Certain details might give you the willies, if you are unpractised in the ways and words of Dr Smith's line of research. Especially in this age when zombies are so much in the public mind.
One section of the paper carries the conceivably disturbing headline "Overview of the brain extraction method".
The abstract could plausibly have been written by Dr Phibes or any of a hundred other horror-movie body-part-snatching researchers. It says:
"Brain Extraction Tool (BET)... is very fast … [I give] the results of extensive quantitative testing against 'gold-standard' hand segmentations, and two other popular automated methods."
That phrase "hand segmentations" suggests lots of lengthy, laborious tedium. But in some contexts "hand segmentations" could be a handy euphemism – in a discussion, say, of how to pluck out only the choicest parts of a cadaver's brain after you've smashed open its skull.
Smith acknowledges that doing his deed by hand has one advantage over letting a computer do it: "Manual brain/non-brain segmentation methods are, as a result of the complex information understanding involved, probably more accurate than fully automated methods are ever likely to achieve."
But he explains that, financially, it's better when a computer does the dirty work. "There are serious enough problems with manual segmentation," he warns. "The first problem is time cost. Manual brain/non-brain segmentation typically takes between 15 minutes and two hours."
"Fast Robust Automated Brain Extraction" is not about sucking brains out of people's skulls, alas.
Published in a journal called Human Brain Mapping, it's about perceiving more clearly what's in the pictures produced by modern imaging machines. These magnificent devices give such a profusion of detail that doctors sometimes can't tell where one body part ends and another begins.
Smith explains that in a brain scan, "the high resolution magnetic resonance image will probably contain a considerable amount [of] eyeballs, skin, fat, muscle, etc". The image can become more understandable, more useful "if these non-brain parts of the image can be automatically removed".
Thus a report that gives the heebie-jeebies to some scientists gives, instead, hope and cheer to those who have the specialised brains to appreciate it.
The custom of sons following their fathers to the same Oxbridge college has spread to institutions across the country. But what were the universities like for earlier generations?
"The room just sounded very familiar," says Eileen Drewe, 79, remembering a conversation three decades ago when her son described his digs at Exeter University. Anthony was living in Hope Hall, where Eileen had been herself as a student. "As he told me about the landing, and the lay-out, I realised it was my old room," Eileen explains. "Then, when I visited, I discovered almost nothing had changed – his armchair was the exact same one I'd had during my own time as an undergraduate."
Little else remained the same during the years between Eileen's student days and those of her son Anthony. When she started her fresher term in 1951, Anthony wouldn't have been allowed in: the halls were women-only. But like his mum, Anthony loved studying at Exeter and, a year later, his sister Janice followed suit – also moving in to Hope Hall. Fast-forward 30 years, and last year, Janice's son Solomon kept up the family tradition.
The Oxbridge generations of old, where sons would follow their fathers to the same colleges, are now spread across institutions around the country. When Eileen explains that when she enrolled at the University College of the South West of England (now Exeter University) to study maths: "I applied directly – no Ucas in those days. I didn't have an interview, my offer was based on my Higher School Certificate. I was the first in the family to go to university – it wasn't the norm – but when I got there, I found it quite similar to school."
University life was very structured. "A bell rang before dinner, and you had half an hour to get ready and put a dress on. Wednesday was sports afternoon so we had high tea at five o'clock, and on Thursdays there was supper, which you didn't have to dress up for." Lecturers wore academic gowns, and used blackboards. "It was very regimented," remembers Eileen. "Work had to be handed in after two days and you had to sign out in the evenings, and be back by 10.30pm, or 11 at the weekends. You couldn't have boys in your room."
Money was tight for post-war undergraduates too. "The grant allowed for a cup of coffee in Marks & Spencer on a Saturday, and a bus fare home once a term. On Saturdays there was a 'hop'." After graduating, Eileen taught, then brought up a family, before becoming a headteacher. And she saw Janice and Anthony off to their own studies at Exeter.
"I enrolled in English and education in 1980, a year after Anthony went to study zoology," says Janice. "We were very close, so I wanted to study where he was, and the family connection made my mind up. Mum encouraged me to apply.
Despite the family history, Janice says she "never dreamed" her son would follow her to Exeter. "I didn't guide him, but I think he'd heard us all talk about it so much, we indoctrinated him," she says. But in fact Solomon – Eileen's grandson – wasn't keen on following the family tradition. "I really wanted to go to Oxford or Durham," he says. "But that didn't happen, so I ended up at Exeter studying geography." Last year, Solomon too moved into Hope Hall. "My mum said she'd had a really good time there and so did my grandma, so I thought it must be good." The 20-year-old has plenty of family photos around him at university. "There are pictures up in the dining room of most graduation years," he says.
Sporting link
On the other side of the country, it was sport that attracted 80-year-old Jim Linehan, and his son and grandson, to study at Loughborough University. "I'd left school early to work in engineering, but I didn't like factory life, and got a job as a laboratory technician," Jim says. He enrolled at night school. Then, in 1950, aged 19, Jim began a three-year course in handicraft at Loughborough College. "I loved the fact that sport was so important there," he says. "I was a runner, and represented English universities in the half mile. So it was great that my halls of residence were near the athletics track."
University life was "more like public school back then," says Jim. "We had meals in hall and were waited upon, nothing like the cafe system nowadays. No women were allowed, except on Saturday evenings, when we'd invite ladies from the women's domestic science training colleges nearby to hops."
Some traditions remain: "I dressed up as a clown to collect for Rag, which still goes on," Jim says. "And even in my day, we had students from 50 different countries. But men on campus used to wear sports jackets, flannel trousers and black shoes. And students didn't have to fend for themselves so much – we got more help and guidance from staff." Jim was able to track the changes on campus because, after working as a teacher elsewhere, he returned to Loughborough in 1961 as a lecturer in education, and remained in academia there until he retired in 1989. "It was too good to get away from," he says.
That feeling ran in the family: Jim's son Mark opted for Loughborough for his MSc in recreation management. "I applied because of my dad's happy time there and the course, which was one of the best available," says Mark, 46. He has since been back to the campus – to visit his nephew, Jake, who embarked on a degree in sports science there two years ago. "The most consistent thing was that there are still loads of students walking round in purple tracksuits – the university colour," says Mark. "They were there when I was a kid and visited dad at work, when I studied there, and now, they're still there."
Jake is one. He picked Loughborough due to his own love of athletics, plus its strong reputation in sports science. "The athletics pavilion has a load of photos of my grandad," he says. "And if I had kids I'd recommend Loughborough to them – if it offered the course they wanted to do."
Close to home
Also keeping it in the family is Toni Griffiths, 23, who collected her degree – in anthropology – from the University of Sussex last month, becoming the third generation of her family to do so.
It was 1994 when Toni's grandmother, Rita Bennett, graduated as a mature student in French and Italian. "I left school half way through my A-levels in 1963," Rita, now 64, explains. I lived in a working-class environment and further education seemed like something other people did. But after marrying young I continued studying at night school. I did A-levels in English and Spanish, and some classmates suggested we all apply for university." Rita chose Sussex because it was close to her home and she could study more than one thing. "Having waited so long, I wanted to study everything at once. I loved discussing and developing ideas and the daunting piles of reading."
Rita began teaching, did a master's at King's College London, then moved to Italy to teach at the University of Salento and has embarked on a doctorate.
She was "overjoyed" when her daughter, Liesel Wilkes, decided to follow her to Sussex, also as a mature student. Liesel says: "I left school in 1983 with a poor academic record, flunked college, and was a depressed teenager struggling to cope with family breakdown. I left home aged 17 and had my daughter aged 19." She juggled bringing up her daughter with work, but felt her education held her back from a career, so at 29 embarked on an Access to Higher Education course at a local college. That inspired her to apply to university. "Sussex was close by and I knew it had a good reputation for taking on mature students, because my mother had gone there, so I applied. To my amazement, I was accepted."
So 12 years ago, Liesel embarked on a degree in social policy. "I didn't get overly involved in university life, just focused on getting the right reading and study materials," she says. After graduation, she was in local government for a while and now works for a substance-misuse service. "I believe there's some advantage for youngsters in witnessing firsthand their parents applying themselves academically," Liesel says.
It certainly helped to inspire her own daughter, Toni. "I chose Sussex because both my nan and my mum had gone there and said it was a great university. I'd got to know it when they were there, and remember being in the library with my mum when I was quite young."
She worries, however, that there may not be another chance for the trio to gather at the graduation hall. "As for my kids going to Sussex, it sounds like a nice idea, but with fees going the way they are, I just hope it will be possible for my kids to go to university. It doesn't look too promising."
Doctors wouldn't let the government tell them how to treat patients, says Mike Baker, so why do teachers let the government dictate what is best for pupils?
If the government suggested to doctors which treatment they should prescribe to their patients, there would be an outcry. If politicians tried to tell lawyers how to handle individual clients' cases, they would face fierce resistance.
So why is it that when ministers recommended a particular choice of school subjects at age 14 – the EBacc, covering maths, English, science, a language and a humanity – over half of English schools jumped straight to it and changed their curriculum offer? Don't teachers have the same level of professional expertise as doctors and lawyers?
When the EBacc was announced a year ago, teachers and headteachers said it would mean undue pressure to direct pupils into subjects that would boost schools' performance in the EBacc league tables rather than guiding them towards the curriculum options most appropriate for their needs.
Yet recently published research, commissioned by the Department for Education, suggests that 52% of schools changed their curriculum offer in response to the EBacc announcement. Moreover, 45% of schools had withdrawn one or more courses or failed to recruit enough students to run it.
Ministers were delighted. But why are schools proving to be such a pushover? Are headteachers really so intimidated by government benchmarks that they put them ahead of what's best for students?
Perhaps the most alarming finding of the research into the EBacc effect, conducted at the end of last term by the National Centre for Social Research, was that it affected not only pupils then in year 9, but also some year 10 pupils, who appear to have switched subjects mid-course.
This allowed the government to trumpet the finding that, whereas in 2010 only 22% of the cohort took the EBacc combination, for those taking their GCSEs in this academic year (last year's year 10) the equivalent figure rises to 33%. For the cohort after that it rises to 47%.
In his start-of-term speech, the prime minister called for "real excellence" in schools. If ever there was a case of grade inflation this was it. When did "excellence" alone cease to be good enough? Or was this just a case of the spin-doctors drumming up interest in a speech that didn't say anything new?
However, the speech did reveal the contradiction at the heart of David Cameron's policy. He said he wanted to give schools "more independence" and that by becoming academies they would have the freedoms to "improve standards the way they see fit". He also insisted, quite rightly, that "every child is different, with different interests and different talents".
Yet, in almost the same breath, he told schools and teachers which "wrong-headed methods" they should stop using and which ones they should replace them with. Isn't that interfering with the very professional autonomy that, at the last election, Mr Cameron promised to restore?
So, come on headteachers and teachers, take Mr Cameron at his word: do what you think is right for your students, not just what will boost EBacc scores. I understand that this involves a big risk and the pressures performance tables bring, but you have the prime minister's word that he wants you to be autonomous.
For many students, maybe even most, the EBacc will be right. Certainly, all its constituent subjects should be available to everyone. No one should want students with an aptitude for academic study to be disadvantaged later on by a constrained choice of courses at age 14.
But for others (and this will be an individual-by-individual, not a school-by-school, or location-by-location, decision) a more creative, practical or vocational curriculum will be better. Central government, miles away in Westminster, cannot possibly know what is best and some students will be disadvantaged if the EBacc pushes out music, performing arts or BTec courses.
And, already, the effects are spreading. At a recent graduation event for newly-qualified teachers, I was told by teacher trainers that secondary school subject specialists in music and creative arts have been finding it particularly difficult to get posts this year because headteachers, with budgets getting tight, are cutting back on staffing in non-Ebacc subjects.
This is not the only element of sneaking central control in education. I'm hearing from some academy heads that they are being browbeaten by sponsors, particularly in the new "chains" of schools, into using one pedagogical approach over another. Some have even been told which curriculum consultants they can or cannot use.
None of this sounds much like trusting the professionals. Nor does it sound like trusting pupils or parents. Other professions would not tolerate it, nor would doctors' patients or lawyers' clients. So why should teachers, pupils and parents?
Conservative higher education reforms will deliver not just savings but also greater opportunity and fairness, says David Willetts
There are three clear lines of attack on the government's higher education reforms that I have seen, not least on the pages of Education Guardian. The first claim is that we are removing the public subsidy for higher education. The second is that we are explicitly seeking to copy the US system of higher education. And the third claim is that we are reductionists who value arts and humanities less than sciences.
Higher education cannot be entirely insulated from the savings necessary to reduce the deficit. So, in future, the key beneficiaries of higher education will pay more of the costs, but only where they can afford to do so and via a more progressive loan system. This does not mean the taxpayer is withdrawing from higher education. Around one-third of the money loaned to students will never be repaid because of the protections that are built in to protect low earners. The maximum maintenance grants paid to students from lower-income households will increase. We will continue to pay teaching grants to universities for more expensive and also vulnerable subjects.
According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the effect will be to shift from having 60% of the costs of higher education funded by taxpayers and 40% by private sources, to 40% funded by taxpayers and 60% by private sources. That is not a scorched-earth policy. We calculate that the total income of universities for teaching could rise by 10% between now and 2014-15. And none of these figures take account of the £4.6bn a year science and research budget, which has been ring-fenced for the next four years.
A key part of the reforms is to distribute the available resources so they follow the decisions of students more closely. We will, for example, liberalise the student number controls that are imposed upon each institution. Ensuring that funding follows learners is not some radical new idea. It is in line with the recommendations of all three major postwar reports on higher education – the Robbins report of 1963, the Dearing report of 1997 and the Browne report of 2010.
Many of the coalition's critics claim we are so bedazzled by America that we wish to impose their higher education system upon England. There are, of course, parts of that country's university system that we could do well to emulate – they lead the world in research output, knowledge transfer and attracting foreign students. But there will continue to be some really important differences between our higher education sector and theirs. For example, the US lacks our comprehensive student finance arrangements, our robust quality assurance regime and our focus on widening participation.
We do want to see a more diverse sector with new opportunities for alternative providers such as FE colleges and new entrants. But we are not proposing a free-for-all and we can learn from some of the quality control problems that have arisen in the US. Indeed, the level playing field for providers of all types that we are committed to could mean more requirements, not fewer, on private providers. If their students are to be entitled to student support, they will need to keep to the same quality assurance and fair access rules that apply to others.
The third misconception about our policies is that we do not value arts and humanities. I was scrupulous not to favour one set of disciplines over another in the science and research settlement. For teaching, universities currently receive a tuition fee of around £3,300 and a grant of around £2,750 for each arts and humanities student, making around £6,000 in total. In 2012 prices, this would be more like £6,350. So a fee of, say, £8,000 represents an increase of over £1,600 for each arts student. For other students the same fee would mean an increase of about £600.
As I travel around the world, I find that policymakers, academics and others want to know more about our plans to reduce the deficit, protect student numbers and deliver more support to the most needy students at the same time. We will go on learning from the best evidence from around the world as we roll out our reforms and as we prepare our forthcoming innovation and research strategy. But policymaking tends to be reciprocal, and I expect other countries to monitor our reforms closely and to learn from them when they prove to deliver more opportunity and more fairness.
• David Willetts is the universities minister
Is David Willetts right? Write to education.letters@guardian.co.uk. We will publish responses next week
Children in care could go to the best schools – but they hardly ever do. Why is the system failing them?
Dan is 11. This month he started at secondary school. He lives on the poorer side of town and his carers are sending him to the high school round the corner. It's in special measures and is undersubscribed, with results that are nothing to write home about. But Dan doesn't know that.
Dan has been in local authority care since he was a tot. As a looked-after child, Dan could have gone to any local authority school he chose. Children in care have had the "highest priority" in admissions since 1998. It's an entitlement the government insists it is preserving, but critics warn that it will be undermined by the greater control academies and free schools are being given over pupil entry.
Even as it stands now, "highest priority" hasn't got many of these vulnerable children into outstanding schools. England's 64,500 looked-after children, some of the most fragile in society, are paradoxically still far more likely to go to failing schools than their peers, as revealed by Department for Education figures.
A total of 16% of children in care, compared to 10% of their peers, go to the lowest-attaining primary schools, according to the DfE's new data tool for local authorities. At age 11, 10% go on to secondaries where fewer than 35% of pupils get five good GCSEs including maths and English, compared to 6% of all children.
Once there, many of them flounder. Last year, 49% of looked-after teenagers failed to get five GCSEs, compared to 7% of all pupils. While the situation is improving, the Adolescent and Children's Trust (Tact) estimates that it will take this fragile group 50 years to match the average achievements of other 16-year-olds. At age 18, the statistics are just as gloomy. Only 7% of looked-after young people make it to university, compared to 40% of their peers.
The admissions battle may have been won on paper, but not yet in reality, says Kevin Williams, chief executive of Tact. And it won't be won until foster carers and social workers develop the aspirations of "sharp-elbowed" middle-class parents.
Dan's carers, like many who provide temporary homes for the rapidly rising number of children in care, didn't flourish themselves academically. They view schools as all the same and books as boring. They don't press him to do his homework as "the poor lad's got enough on his plate already". Besides, they don't think he's going to be with them for long, as they're finding his behaviour challenging.
What Dan needs is a stable placement with carers who believe in education. "They must focus on education from day one. It's never too early to start talking to children about going to university," says Sonia Jackson, emeritus professor of social studies and education at the Institute of Education, London.
Sue Hains shares Jackson's aspirations. Head of Cambridgeshire's virtual school, Hains and her team of 15 teachers oversee the education of the county's 650 looked-after three- to 18-year-olds. These virtual "schools" – organisation tools, rather than buildings filled with pupils – were promoted by the last government. The pilots were evaluated positively in 2009, and they were praised for their valuable role.
Despite this, Hains returned to work this month with only half her team, courtesy of public-sector cuts. She is making the best of it, talking of working smarter and refocusing. But her teachers will have less time for face-to-face meetings with their vulnerable pupils. They'll have to prioritise the children who are struggling and keep their fingers crossed for the rest.
Such cutbacks anger Jackson, one of the team who evaluated the virtual school pilots in 2009. "Almost everything this government has done shows that it is completely unaware of the needs of looked-after children, indeed of all disadvantaged children," says Jackson.
Virtual schools like Hains's are at risk, she says, yet their relentless focus on looked-after pupils is making a difference. Central to their success is that most of them are led by staff from education rather than social services. "This gives them real clout … they can talk to heads of secondary schools on equal terms."
Clout matters when it comes to school admissions – an area where Michael Gove's education bill, currently going through parliament, is loosening up the rules. Looked-after children like Dan may remain top of the admissions list, still entitled to go to any school they wish. But the reality, says Hains, will be different.
"Increasing schools' autonomy over admissions will make life more complicated. Instead of dealing with one person in the authority, we're going to have to deal with each individual head. Some schools are cagey now when we're trying to place a difficult child. It can only get worse."
The charity Barnardo's also has worries – and not just about the education bill. Cutting back on the education of looked-after children is regarded as an "easy win" by some local authorities desperate to save money, says Louise Bamfield, its assistant director of policy and research. "Quality of service is going to be hit, resources are going to be stretched."
Already sacrificed is the looked-after children's personal education allowance (PEA), worth £500 a year, which was abolished in March. Many authorities used it to pay for "extras" such as school trips, music lessons and one-to-one tuition. Such extras are vital, says Hains, whose team also monitors out-of-school activities. What looked-after children do on Saturdays matters as much as what they do on Mondays if they are to have a chance of leading a fulfilling life.
Peter Doyle, head of Lancashire's virtual school, says he is lucky in that his county voted to keep paying the PEA. Elsewhere, he worries that the new pupil premium will not bridge the gap. As heads try to balance frozen budgets in the face of rising costs, he says, it risks being swallowed up in the general school pot – or used to promote academic achievement in the era of the English baccalaureate – rather than being spent on disadvantaged youngsters.
Barnardo's and Tact also fear that the education bill, in giving heads more power over exclusions, will be to the detriment of looked-after children, who are already nine times more likely to be excluded, according to Tact's response to the bill.
Ultimately, says Jackson, it's in heads' interests to throw out children who are disruptive or underperforming. If the bill gives heads more authority, they are more likely to do so. "They won't if they're a good person, but you aren't necessarily a good person just because you are a successful head. We're going to be going backwards to the era of Thatcher, with more homelessness, more beggars on the streets, more school exclusions."
On the Guardian Teacher Network this week you can find useful resources linked to the UN's International Day of Peace
In an unsettled world, the UN International Day of Peace on 21 September is an opportunity to reflect on peace and reconciliationboth globally and in our personal lives at school and home. It is also a day of practical action, to make acts of peace and observe a day of worldwide ceasefire and non-violence.
We have some powerful resources on the Guardian Teacher Network to use on Peace Day and beyond.
Peace One Day (POD), founded by filmmaker Jeremy Gilley, has some stirring and engaging resources. POD is launching its 365-day countdown for a Global Truce 2012 tomorrow and you can find its lesson aimed at secondary-school aged children here. Action led by POD resulted in a 70% reduction in violence in Afghanistan on Peace Day 2008. Students can talk face-to-face with Gilley over Skype, part of POD's outreach programme. Visit www.peaceoneday.org/en/education to find out more.
Amnesty International has produced resources on child soldiers aimed at 11- to 14-year-olds, which focus on the story of Ishmael Beah, who became a child soldier in Sierra Leone when he was just 13.
The People's History Museum has produced a citizenship lesson on campaigning for a cause, focusing on the birth of the British Peace Committee and of course making use of fascinating original sources.
And we have a set of assemblies by Christian Aid.
War Child has produced a powerful lesson on the impact of war.
See this Red Cross lesson on child soldiers and one exploring the recent and ongoing conflict in Libya.
Also see the UN's official International Day of Peace website's practical examples of actions and projects.
The Association of Citizenship Teachers (ACT) works hard to help the teaching of citizenship in school, giving practical advice and best practice recommendations.
• The GTN offers more than 70,000 pages of lesson plans and interactive materials. More than 42,000 teachers have registered; go to teachers.guardian.co.uk. There are hundreds of jobs on the site and schools can advertise free: schoolsjobs.guardian.co.uk