The Nottingham University Samworth academy has a room packed with curiosities and puzzles that stimulate pupils' imaginations, and generate a sense of wonder
The large white 1950s telephone could have been a prop from the set of Mad Men. It shares a shelf with a vinyl-clad Vector Radio that looks as though it should be permanently tuned to Radio Luxembourg. Nearby is a black typewriter so old it might have been used in Billy Wilder's adaptation of The Front Page.
All three items seem to fascinate the young visitors to the Wonder Room at the Nottingham University Samworth academy (Nusa), a shiny new school sponsored by the university in Bilborough, a former council estate. The room is crammed with curiosities – the pre-war typewriter is particularly popular with pupils more used to the sleek and silent computer technology of the 21st century. "It seems so down-to-earth and real," says David Robson, 14. "I find it very satisfying to write on."
Dr Matthew McFall looks on, beaming. "Do you know," says the school's Agent of Wonder, "that the longest word that you can get from the top row of the keyboard is 'typewriter'?" He has dubbed this particular typewriter his "stealth literacy machine". And one of his many epigrams is: "To the digital native, the analogue becomes wondrous." Wonder is his business – stimulating curiosity through any number of apparently randomly assembled objects and organisms.
Some of the items have been contributed by members of the teaching staff, but most have come from the home of this inveterate hoarder. "I'm a lifelong collector of the weird and the wonderful," McFall says. And he is putting his collection to good use. "Research suggests that providing hands-on experiences raises questions, answers some, then raises more among inquiring young minds," he says.
The room contains all sorts of puzzles, including an interlocking metal device exported from Brazil in the 1980s and a wooden solitaire set with a full complement of marbles. "I've only ever done this on a computer," says Simon Ricketts, 12. "Never, you know, physically until now."
On the next table, Steffan Cotton, 13, is peering at a bee's tongue through a microscope. "It's awesome," he says. "Now I know how they lick up all that pollen." Around him are laid out odd-shaped pods and seeds, and on a shelf above is an African voodoo lily, which attracts flies by giving off the smell of rotting meat. "It only does it once a year, but the stench is obscene," McFall says with some relish. "The kids are horrified, but also fascinated. Never underestimate the yuk factor."
What he has created is akin to a museum inside the school. "Making part of the school another world means that you always have somewhere to visit," he says. "A room like this offers the opportunity to light upon things rather than be strictured into studying them." He says he has been obsessed with magic since his parents bought him a conjuring set when he was four. "I want to use that same sense of wonder to empower the children rather than having them feel they are stupid because they don't yet understand everything they encounter in life."
He firmly believes the idea should catch on. "I think every school should have a place where wonder can be celebrated. Being interested in seeds, literally and metaphorically, I'm keen to see this idea germinate and spread."
There seems little reason why it shouldn't at a time when schools are said to be cutting visits to museums and galleries because of the cost of supply teachers to cover staff absences.
Some are already thinking along the same lines. The Langley academy in Berkshire declared itself Britain's first "museum learning school" when it opened recently. It committed itself to 12 educational visits a year, and imported objects from dinosaurs to Edwardian bicycles.
The Sainsbury Centre at the University of East Anglia, meanwhile, has been taking its handling collection to schools across the region for the last three years. "They're mainly objects from Papua New Guinea," says marketing assistant Sam Morton. "They're used as ways to get children to think about their own culture and heritage."
John Reeve, chair of the museums education group at the Institute for Education, feels there's scope for other universities and museums to export their expertise in similar ways. "Mentoring in schools by students of archaeology or anthropology is another way of spreading enthusiasm for those subjects," he suggests.
Teachers from Nottingham and elsewhere have been visiting Nusa's Wonder Room in some numbers. And McFall's enthusiasm appears infectious, judging by some of the messages tied to a rack where visitors and pupils are invited to leave comments. "What a wicked way to be enlightened, provoked, puzzled and perplexed," reads one. Another visiting teacher told the Agent of Wonder that there wasn't an available room at her school, but she was determined to convert the toilet roll cupboard into what might be termed a cubicle of wonder.
The school's principal, Dave Harris, rarely misses an opportunity to talk about the Wonder Room. He first met his "agent" at the nearby campus where McFall is doing his second doctorate in "wonder and learning", based at Nottingham's Learning Sciences Research Institute. "I bumped into Matthew in a corridor there and we started talking about ways of engaging children and changing attitudes," Harris says. "We hit it off and the kids loved him. He's been coming into school since September – once a week because that's all I can afford to pay for. But the room is open at other times and children wander in during breaks between lessons."
The academy's teaching staff have been quick to spot its potential. "Some of us come here for inspiration or just to recharge the batteries," says Vanessa Tice, who is part of the behaviour support team. "We also use visits here as a reward for good behaviour or as a place to come and calm down. I sent two girls to the Wonder Room for mediation. They ended up discussing something of mutual interest and left the best of friends."
What appeals to the vice-principal, Alan Dewar, is the "subversive and unquantifiable" nature of the room. "You can't pin down with any precision what its value is, but anybody who's been here knows that it is valuable." A colleague in the English department, Clare Barlow, finds that value in stimulating stories and providing props.She once brought a low-ability group in here and aroused their interest by using the Drake Language Master – a recording device from the 1970s – to capture on magnetic strips the witches' prophesies from the opening scene in Macbeth.
McFall's prize exhibit is the inner ear of a whale. But that is currently on loan to a school in Essex. The wonder message is spreading.
Campaigners say new rules forcing asylum seekers to pay higher student fees with no access to grants or loans are 'deeply regressive'
Daniel was 14 when he arrived alone in the UK from Eritrea with just a few words of English. Ten years on, now a British citizen, he has a 2.1 from South Bank University in sports science, a well-paid job as a business developer for a management consultancy firm and has published a short story. While studying, he represented his university in table tennis and was a sports ambassador doing outreach work in local schools and running summer camps. In time, he wants to study for a master's in something related to occupational psychology, and possibly go on to do a PhD .
"I want to be able to do what a typical person wants to do – which is to make a success of my life," he says.
Had he been considering entering higher education this year, however, things would have been different. When he applied for university his application for asylum had still not been decided, but he was treated as a home student, eligible to pay home fees, for which he received a loan that he is now repaying.
Since a rule change in February, young people in this position, who have not been granted asylum but have been given discretionary leave to remain in the UK because it is not considered safe for them to return to their home countries, will be treated as overseas students, forced to pay higher overseas fees and with no access to grants or loans. As most of these young people came to the UK as lone children, with no money, and have been in local authority care, this locks them out of higher education altogether as they have no way of paying for their education.
Last year, 2,700 decisions were made on asylum applications from children aged 17 or under with no family to care for them in the UK, and of these, 1,935 were given discretionary leave to remain. Once children reach 17 and a half, they are allowed to stay, under their existing legal status, until a final decision is made on whether or not to grant them asylum, but because of a backlog of cases this can take years.
Kamena Dorling, manager of the Migrant Children's Project at the Children's Legal Centre, a charity that provides legal advice and representation to children and their carers, says: "Until these students are granted indefinite leave to remain, which may not be until they have been in the UK for over six years, they are cast into limbo at a crucial time in their lives."
She says the centre has been overwhelmed by calls from social workers concerned about the effects of the rule change.
Alison East, a solicitor working for the Migrant Children's Project, says: "Local authorities would normally be providing some on-going support of the sort that parents provide, but they cannot possibly meet the huge cost abyss that would open up if those young people cannot access student finance. This means they would fall out of education."
She says support from other sources is also getting harder to find as higher tuition fee charges mean many charities that previously supported migrant children through university have started supporting home students instead. Then, while some individual universities may agree to provide funding or charge home fees, "you have to be stellar for universities to go the extra mile, especially this year because of what's going on with the fees".
One charity that does support some of these students is the Helena Kennedy Foundation, which provides bursaries, mentoring and support to disadvantaged students from further and adult education.
Wes Streeting, chief executive of the foundation, calls the changes "deeply regressive".
"Ministers are expected to talk tough on immigration, and removing support for people who have discretionary leave to remain is part of that process," he says. "But they need to look clearly at the sorts of students being affected by this. We want to make sure that people who come to the UK having survived very difficult circumstances are given access to education because that is often how they can do what the British public wants them to do, which is turn their lives around and make a contribution to the country that took them in."
A spokesman for the Department forBusiness, Innovation and Skills says: "This change brings clarity to the system for those awarded leave to remain in the UK. It has been necessary in reviewing eligibility to ensure that limited financial resources are used effectively."
But Streeting says the changes represent just one aspect of the difficulty young people seeking sanctuary in the UK have in going on to university.
While February's rule change has particularly affected those who came to the UK unaccompanied, young people who arrived with their parents, but who apply to university before their parents' immigration status is resolved, have always been treated as overseas students, even if they have been living in the UK for many years. This has long made higher education unaffordable for them. Also struggling are those who receive settled status too late to meet the three years eligibility criteria for home fees.
The foundation is now trying to get every higher education institution in the UK to offer at least one place for students seeking sanctuary, to waive tuition fees until their status is resolved and to offer training and mentoring support.
Its project, named Project Article 26 after an article in the Declaration of Human Rights that states that everyone has the right to education, has just received more than £40,000 funding from The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund, which it hopes will enable it to work with more universities to offer a package of support for these students.
James Lee, employment and training policy adviser at the Refugee Council, says this kind of help is badly needed.
"A young person will be encouraged to go on to university because they will be doing well at A-levels or the equivalent, and will be considered a home student at school, but when they apply to university they are slotted into an international student category from then on," he says. "We think that's unfair."
He argues that it clashes with the government's encouragement of high-level skills and penalises students who have often had to overcome traumatic experiences in order to achieve.
"These are often people who are particularly dedicated students," he says. "Clearly if you arrive into a new educational system you have to work really hard both with language and academically."
Daniel, who is still too worried about the stigma of having been an asylum seeker to use his real name, says people often do not realise how tough and emotionally taxing the process of seeking asylum is. "The worst thing about it is the uncertainty," he says. "If you are unsure about what's going to happen tomorrow, you are always on edge."
David Willetts says he aims to de-regulate higher education. But though there may be increased market competition, there will still be plenty of regulation and control, says Roger Brown
In his spring speech to the vice-chancellors' conference, the higher education minister, David Willetts, said that the government's ambition was to make the new higher education framework "as de-regulatory as we can". In the continuing absence of a white paper, it is not possible to make a proper judgment. But a close reading of the speech and other official responses to last autumn's Browne report may offer some clues.
There can be little doubt that the overall thrust is to increase competition. Most direct funding for teaching will disappear, so that students will literally be purchasers of courses through a fee that will approximate to the cost of provision. Institutions will compete on the fees charged, as well as on quality and availability. Some institutions may be able to increase their numbers at the expense of others. New providers – FE colleges, private companies, even, in the longer run, schools – will enter the market. There will be much greater information for students at institution, subject and course levels. The implication is that the existing barriers to price competition, recruiting extra students and market entry will be removed or loosened up, with a reduction in regulation, bureaucracy and state control.
But wait a minute. The Office for Fair Access (Offa) is currently assessing the detailed access agreements through which most HE institutions need to satisfy the authorities each year about their performance on access or retention. Current rumours are that about a third have been referred back.
Next, if the Browne recommendations are followed, institutions that still receive direct government support for some of their teaching will experience tighter external control over the curriculum, with the new higher education authority "setting basic programme content requirements, eg the minimum number of laboratory hours for applied science courses".
When we turn to the entry of new providers, we find the minister thinking aloud about a "core plus margin" scheme to reward "those providers that offer students high-quality programmes at a price that represents best value". This sounds like the old Polytechnics and Colleges Funding Council funding method, which used vast resources in institutions bidding, HMI judgments, advisory committees, appeals mechanisms etc. The other ideas being mooted here – the recruitment of additional students "off quota", tariff-based systems – could also prove to be very bureaucratic.
Finally, it seems most unlikely that even if they prove to be feasible, the new information requirements will reduce institutions' compliance costs.
All of this is on top of the new institutional quality assurance regime due to come into force this autumn. This extends considerably the scope and intensity of external quality assurance, with institutional review judgments extended from two areas (academic standards and learning opportunities) to four (threshold academic standards, public information, learning opportunities and enhancement). And this is without the UK Border Agency.
In his classic text, The Higher Education System (University of California Press, 1983), the late Burton Clark described the state, the market and the academic oligarchy as alternative means of regulation. It looks as though under the new higher education framework we shall have lots of all three.
The awful irony is that the new framework is most unlikely to lead to improved quality. There are three main reasons for saying this.
First, the main threat to quality is prolonged underfunding. While various figures have been mentioned, there are as yet no official projections for the future unit of teaching funding or the share of GDP devoted to spending on institutions. In any case, the whole framework rests on the assumption that private funding will replace public funding, which is a gamble at best.
Second, variable fees will exacerbate the already considerable resourcing and status differentials between institutions. These increased differentials will put paid to the assumption that underpins the current regulatory regime, that all institutions should be judged by the same criteria. (Willetts alluded to this in his speech, suggesting that institutions with "a good track-record" might have less frequent reviews, something which is bound to lead to more bureaucracy, with consultation on published criteria, appeals panels, further reviews etc.)
Third, and most seriously, market competition is bound to threaten, if not undermine, the main plank on which quality assurance has always been based, academic peer review. Indeed Willetts has already indicated that new applicants for degree-awarding powers will not need to have any experience of teaching. Deregulation, anyone?
• Roger Brown is professor of higher education policy at Liverpool Hope University
New allegations surface about The Manchester College's courses at a second young offender institution
New allegations have been passed to ministers claiming that the country's biggest FE college and major provider of prisoner education has received public money to which it is not entitled.
Crispin Blunt, the prisons minister, has asked the Young People's Learning Agency (YPLA) to examine accusations that The Manchester College (TMC) may have been paid for non-existent courses at Wetherby Young Offender Institution (YOI), near Leeds.
The new allegations have surfaced before the ink is even dry on another investigation into The Manchester College's affairs – at Reading Young Offender Institution. This was ordered in January by the further education minister, John Hayes.
Hayes has received the Skills Funding Agency's report on Reading, but says he will not release its findings until the outcome of any possible investigation into Wetherby. The new matter has been raised by Rob Wilson, MP for Reading East, who is calling for a comprehensive audit of TMC's activities across youth offender learning.
Wilson received a letter of complaint and other documents from a whistleblower at Wetherby YOI, which houses 15- to 17-year-olds. Officials at YPLA say they are considering the material they've received before deciding whether or not to launch a Reading-style investigation. "I would be astounded if they don't," says Wilson.
The future of TMC as the country's major provider of prison education could in any case be in doubt following Hayes's review, Making Prisons Work: Skills For Rehabilitation, published earlier this month, which, among other things, calls for a far wider range of providers. Local prison governors should have much more say on skills and education provision, and in holding providers accountable, it says. The review was highly critical of overall standards within offender learning.
The current system of prison education, the Offenders' Learning and Skills Service (Olass), which awards contracts, was set up in 2006 with a remit to improve basic numeracy and literacy.
Hayes's office has played down suggestions that his review, originally due to be published last December, was shaped by complaints about The Manchester College. But one MP told Education Guardian: "The minister's approach is to create a system that avoids the possibility of a TMC problem occurring. The minister has said that this can't happen again."
Wilson has written to both Hayes and Blunt. In his letter about Wetherby, Wilson writes: "I am extremely concerned about the apparent widespread misuse of public funds by TMC. I'm convinced that this matter needs to be taken extremely seriously.
"There is, I would suggest, a pattern to the events taking place at YOIs where TMC is the main training provider. I believe a thorough audit of TMC's involvement at all YOIs is highly desirable."
Wilson has also contacted the Public Accounts Committee, one of whose members, Richard Bacon, Conservative MP for Norfolk South, has reported the allegations to Amyas Morse, comptroller and auditor general of the National Audit Office.
In a letter seen by Education Guardian, the whistleblower at Wetherby refers to "courses that are on the books but as yet do not exist" and queries the payments for hours worked on a motor mechanics course "whose tutor, although being employed for the past 11 months, has had no groups, but been made to fill in for … courses he is not qualified to teach."
Timesheets sent to Wilson were passed to Hayes and Blunt. They show hours claimed for delivering maths and English to young inmates on the motor mechanics course. The whistleblower says that payments were made for hours not worked on eight separate dates in February.
The whistleblower has alleged that TMC is holding "three-hour lessons forced on young men between the ages of 15-18 who have no wish to be in education". Morale and standards at Wetherby are said to have slumped from January 2010 after a new management team from TMC took charge.
A TMC spokesman said he was unable to discuss details of the matters raised. "The college has not been informed by the Young People's Learning Agency of an inquiry set up to investigate any allegations in relation to HMYOI Wetherby," he told Education Guardian.
"As such, the college is seeking to clarify the issues that have been raised and consequently as this stage we are not in a position to comment."
The Skills Funding Agency spent four months investigating the claims of irregularities at Reading YOI. There, a whistleblower alleged that the college regularly claimed payments for teaching a wide range of basic "diagnostic topics" to inmates such as punctuation and spelling, when often only a few topics had been attempted.
TMC has denied any wrongdoing. Earlier this year, it told Education Guardian nothing was amiss at Reading, and that diagnostic testing had been funded on "an actual delivery hours basis".
In a letter to Wilson about Wetherby, Hayes says he takes the new allegations "extremely seriously". Intelligence from Reading will be made available for any subsequent investigation, he adds.
In his review of offender learning, Hayes said that little progress in standards had been made since 2008, when the National Audit Office found "no evidence that resources devoted to learning in individual prisons correlated to the levels of learning and skills needs there".
"The system is not performing well, as confirmed in many reports from the Independent Monitoring Boards (IMBs) and the Prison Inspectorate," said Hayes.
The contracts of providers that were due to run until 2014 will be re-tendered in August 2012 "to enable greater local influence on provision". "We will encourage the engagement of charities, the private and voluntary sectors and social enterprises to make sure their capacity and expertise is utilised," said Hayes.
TMC said it "welcomed" the review. However, it declined to comment on why several IMB reports, including at HMP Downview in Sutton, Surrey, and at HMP High Down, had been critical of its provision, or to say whether the college would bid for all its existing prison contracts next year.
"Working with offenders is a key contributor to the college's mission of 'raising aspirations, expectations and achievements to enable economic success and social inclusion'," the spokesman said. "We have an excellent track record of working with local prison governors prior to the introduction of Olass."
Paid internships, student debt, university funding
Last week Rachel Williams reported on student and graduate internships that are bought for large sums of money.
If we ban my solicitor next-door-neighbour taking my other neighbour's son to work during the summer holidays to spend three months in a law firm, that's way too authoritarian (assuming such a law is not flouted or circumvented) and it's not an area into which the state should be intruding. The internship inequality problem is like the nice house with a view inequality problem. Anyone who aspires to live in a free society must surely regard political interference in these areas as a step too far.
MrBendy via EducationGuardian.co.uk
• I find it ironic, if not disturbing, that one of the paid-for internships was for a "fair trade" company. If they're promoting paying the producers of their products fair prices, they should pay a living wage to their workers.
oooh via EducationGuardian.co.uk
• There is nothing new in having to pay for work training. In the 1860s, my 14-year-old great-grandfather had to find £20 to be apprenticed to a coach-painter in Canterbury. Because his father was dead, the money was paid by a charity.
Andrew Belsey Whitstable, Kent
Jonathan Black, head of careers at Oxford University, argued that the government has no long-term strategy for higher education, as dons prepare for a no-confidence vote in the minister, David Willetts
By shifting the burden of debt on to the individual student, the message the government is sending to the youth of today is "you are not worth this country's investment". They should be careful. In 30-40 years' time it will be the youth of today running the country. At that point, the youth may return the favour and decide that pensioners are "not worth this country's investment".
InebriatEd via EducationGuardian.co.uk
• Willetts is joining illustrious company. In 1985, Margaret Thatcher's cuts in higher education spending and abolition of tenure resulted in her being the first Oxford-educated postwar prime minister not to be awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Oxford, after a vote of the governing assembly. Hopefully sooner rather than later we will get a viable policy for higher education based on an accurate appraisal of the nation's needs, and the aspiration of building a fairer society for all, rather than on an outdated neoliberal dogma.
MikaelBlomkvist via EducationGuardian.co.uk
Harriet Swain notes Durham's plans to increase our numbers of non-EU students, implying that the plans are a way to boost funds (Any currency? 24 May). Our strategy, developed well before the current changes to university funding, will have only a small effect on the overall size (around 800 additional students), but it will significantly enhance our diversity. We are well on target to achieving this.
Increasing the number of international students is not at the expense of UK/EU enrolments. Regrettably, the number of UK/EU students is capped by government and we are compelled to turn away many students we would like to accept. Furthermore, international students do not bring any significant financial benefit: the fees for UK/EU undergraduates will not be dissimilar to those for our international undergraduates.
Anthony Forster
Pro-vice-chancellor Education, Durham University
Nearly every family in the UK is descended from migrants. Find out more on the Guardian Teacher Network this week
The history of migration to and from the UK is as old as British history. As Barbara Roche, former Labour immigration minister and leader of the Migration Museum Project, puts it, "We are all migrants. If you want to celebrate Britain you have to celebrate migration."
Even children who see themselves as 100% English, Welsh, Scottish or British are likely to have ancestors who were Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Danes, Flemish, Plantagenets from Anjou, or from Germany in the 17th century or Italians, Armenians and Black Africans in the 19th century. Today around 11.5% of the UK population was born overseas.
On the Guardian Teacher Network, our new resources website, you can find a series of primary lesson ideas to stimulate ideas on migration. The resources were produced by the Migration Museum Project, which is seeking to create Britain's first Migration Museum.
In a series of activities that fit with the citizenship, history and English curriculum, children are encouraged to explore why people migrate and given the tools to make a class migration map and local history project. What would children take and leave if they were migrating to another country?
The teaching ideas include poignant case studies, from the story of a young man who left Scotland in the 1860s for Canada to the moving story of Sado, who was just eight when she fled from Somalia to London in the early 1990s.
You can find the primary resources and also a lesson on migration for 14- to 16-year-olds here
Children who explore the resources will discover that every family in the UK has their own migration story. The Migration Museum Project is asking schools and families to enter the 100 Images of Migration competition, which they are running in connection with the Guardian. The competition asks people to turn these migration stories into pictures. Entries can be paintings, collages, photographs of objects or people or anything else. Winning pictures will be printed in the Guardian's Weekend Magazine.
The Migration Museum Project website is full of moving stories and images as well more as information about the competition and the proposal to create this new museum.
• The Guardian Teacher Network offers free access to more than 70,000 pages of lesson plans and interactive materials. This content is being added to every day by teachers and specialists. More than 30,000 teachers have already signed up. To see (and share) for yourself, go to teachers.guardian.co.uk
What is the risk of picking up bacteria when shaking hands? The answer is tiny, researchers find
How many pathogens per handshake? Is it dangerous to shake hands at a school graduation?
Dr David Bishai and a team at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, in the US, did a small experiment. They wanted to gauge whether the people most at peril should worry about it.
Their report, Quantifying School Officials' Exposure to Bacterial Pathogens at Graduation Ceremonies Using Repeated Observational Measures, has been published in the Journal of School Nursing.
"This study was designed to measure the degree to which principals and deans are potentially exposed to the risk of pathogen acquisition as part of their occupational duties to shake hands."
The write-up has some small human touches.
The team recruited officials who had leading roles in graduation ceremonies at elementary, secondary, and post-secondary schools in the state of Maryland.
Fourteen authority figures agreed to be the subjects of the experiment. Beforehand, each of the 14 washed with an alcohol-based sanitiser. Then, and afterwards when all the handshaking was done, "each of the participant's hands was set on a clean drape and swabbed from the base of the thumb to the side of index finger and then around the edges of the other fingers to account for all possible areas for hand contamination during a handshake".
The risk is pretty small, the results imply. Only two of the 14 school officials had pathogenic bacteria on hand post-graduation – and only one of those was on the right, shaking hand. Twirling the numbers for perspective, the study explains there is a "0.019% probability of acquiring a pathogen per handshake".
The researchers point out many reasons why their study is just a preliminary, quick sketch of the story. They examined only a few school officials, and tested for only two kinds of pathogens. Medical science is not clear yet on the prevalence of those pathogens on people's hands in general. Nor is it clear that the microbes' mere presence on the outside (rather than inside) of the body is indicative of danger.
And school graduations are just a sliver of the human experience: "Graduates may have a different level of infectiousness from other members of the community with whom one might shake hands, making our results less useful to politicians, business executives and clergy."
• Marc Abrahams is editor of the bimonthly Annals of Improbable Research and organiser of the Ig Nobel prize
The government should outlaw branded cigarette packs to discourage smoking, research finds, as smokers train themselves not to see health warnings
No one would drink a glass of poison if it was emblazoned with large letters warning that it would kill them. But millions of people every day ignore similar warnings on cigarette packets. Do seasoned smokers ignore the stark health warnings that declare "smoking kills", "smoking seriously harms you and others around you" and "smokers die younger", or are their eyes trained not to see them? That's what academics at the UK Centre for Tobacco Studies – based at Bath and Bristol universities – decided to investigate using eye-tracking technology. Their aim was to find out whether the government's introduction of health labels – which began in the 1970s with the message, "Warning by HM Government. Smoking can damage your health" – was effective at preventing the habit or encouraging addicts to stop.
What they discovered won't please the tobacco giants. The academics' findings suggest that the best way to stop non-smokers from picking up the habit is to force cigarette-makers to box up their fags in plain packets devoid of any branding whatsoever. The work was carried out by Marcus Munafò, professor of biological psychology at Bristol University, and Linda Bauld, professor of socio-management at the University of Stirling, who noticed that tobacco firms had enjoyed significant surges in sales after jazzing up their packet designs.
The academics point out that, as governments around the world bought in increasingly strict restrictions on cigarette adverts on billboards, TV, cinema and more, tobacco firms began spending more time and money investigating new ways to attract customers. And, slowly but surely, their cigarette packaging became increasingly imaginative.
Munafò points to an example of when Sterling introduced price-marked packs to emphasise their value in 2008. "Its market share increased from 5% to 6.1% in four months," he says, before going on to flag up a limited edition "Celebration" pack of Lambert & Butler in 2004, which included pictures marking the brand's 25th anniversary. That, say the academics, helped to increase Lambert & Butler's market share by 0.4% – or some £60m – during four months on sale. Munafò points out that a couple of years later, Benson & Hedges Silver introduced a new "slide pack", which opened via a side panel rather than flip-top, and saw sales rocket 25% over six months, then a further 32.5% (or more than £74m) after a year. "In the latter two cases, spokespeople for the producers, Imperial Tobacco and Gallaher, explicitly attributed sales success to the packs," Munafò adds. "And an industry paper, Tobacco Journal International, pointed out that 'tobacco packaging is no longer the silent salesman it once was – it now shouts.' The tobacco industry clearly acknowledges that the pack is a marketing tool."
So Munafò and Bauld called in 43 non-smokers, light smokers and daily smokers to look at both plain and branded cigarette packets to help them to work out the different effects. All of their research packs featured health warnings, but while the branded packets were samples from 10 of the UK's most popular cigarette-makers, the others were simple, unadorned white packets, with their brand name and number of cigarettes displayed only nominally in a standard font. The academics then fitted their volunteers with eye-tracking technology to see how they responded to the packets.
"We measured the number of times each person viewed the top half of the pack, which contained the brand information, and the bottom half of the pack, containing the health warning information," explains Munafò, who as an experimental psychologist specialises in investigating the cognitive and biological basis of addictive behaviours. After analysing their findings, the researchers found that non-smokers and light smokers paid more attention to the stark health warnings on plain packs than on those adorned with names like Marlborough. By contrast, the frequent smokers did not – Bauld and Munafò believe they might have conditioned themselves to ignore them.
It might not sound surprising that stark health warning stood out more, and had a more significant impact, on plain packets, but the researchers say their evidence adds support to the idea that the government should force the tobacco industry to dump decorative packaging. Munafò reckons if the likes of British American Tobacco, maker of Dunhill, Kent, Lucky Strike and Pall Mall, amongst others, were forced to standardise the colour and design of cigarette packaging – with all branding removed apart from a standard typeface including the name, relevant legal markings, and health warnings – it would boost the effectiveness of warnings. He adds that previous research suggests that the deterrent of plain packaging would be most powerful among children and young people, or those who believe they are smoking "healthier" cigarettes.
"Studies with teenagers – those not yet smoking or not smoking regularly – have found that they are brand-aware, including awareness by cigarette pack colour and design alone," says Munafò. "And smokers can believe that some brands of cigarettes are less harmful than others due to packaging, for example substantial false beliefs about the relative risks as a result of terms such as 'light' or 'mild', brand descriptors of 'taste' or lighter colours being used on packaging. Plain packaging reduces levels of these false beliefs."
The government has committed to consulting on the idea of introducing plain packaging. Bauld and Munafò have sent their findings to the Department of Health for discussion with its tobacco policy team. But other countries are ahead of us: in January next year, Australia will be the first to introduce plain packaging for cigarettes.
In the meantime, Bauld and Munafò are furthering their research, including using brain imaging to look at how the brain responds to plain and branded packs. But Munafò is clear about what he thinks the health secretary, Andrew Lansley, should do. "The government should introduce plain packaging of tobacco products and maintain text and visual health labels on packs," he says. "There is good independent evidence on the impact of visual warnings on attitudes to smoking and smoking behaviour."
Switching to academy status may seem daunting to some, especially small, schools. Those who were first in the queue offer some advice on how to make it as painless as possible
It's about a year since New Labour's academies programme abruptly turned into the Conservative academies programme. What started as a plan to help struggling schools became more about autonomy for more successful ones, including primaries.
Lord Adonis, it emerges, the architect of the original scheme, is now writing a book entitled: Academies and the Transformation of English Education. Meanwhile Michael Gove, the education secretary, is forging ahead, trying to persuade ever more schools to convert.
In the last year, 384 schools have changed their status. Some 650-odd are currently approved for academy status and are now busily sorting out the admin required to make the switch; more are awaiting the nod from the Department for Education before embarking on the task.
But there is still angst expressed around the country about the amount of red tape involved in the conversion process, and concern that schools lacking the capacity or confidence to cut through it will be picked off by private companies delighted to take the burden off their hands – for a price.
What do the first schools to convert have to say about their experience since opening their doors as academies in September 2010? What is their advice about how to do it?
The pioneers – those headteachers who applied the minute they could – say they appointed specialists as soon as they heard they had been approved, simply because of the amount of detail in the process. At Hardenhuish school in Wiltshire, for example, the headteacher, Jan Hatherall, appointed lawyers the very next day, and at Durand academy in Lambeth, the headteacher, Greg Martin, says his team was supported through the conversion process by "a communications agency and property and TUPE [specialist employment] lawyers".
Mythologies, however, have built up around the costs involved, say heads who have made the switch. Stephen Davis, deputy head of Lampton academy in Hounslow, points out that schools are given £25,000 to effect the conversion, and though Lampton was fortunate to have a vice-chair of governors whose hard work cut down their legal fees, even a colleague in Brent without any expertise received a bill from the same firm of solicitors that Lampton used for less than £10,000.
Though solicitors might ease the workload, too much of a meal can be made of the difficulty of the paperwork involved, insists Jim McAtear, head of Hartismere school in Suffolk. He scrutinised the legal requirements carefully beforehand and decided a DIY approach was perfectly viable. "The way the DfE has set up the process actually strengthens the infrastructure of those schools," he says. "The difficulties entailed are largely illusory."
Lots of queries arise during the process of conversion relating to each school's individual circumstances, and Hatherall says the support she received from her school's DfE adviser was "outstanding". However, she says she is "hearing now that as more people are queuing up, it's less good". Schools wanting to convert might do well to look to those who have already made the leap for the benefit of their experience.
The impetus for these first heads to cut and run as fast as they could seems to have come from disappointment and anger with services provided by local authorities. The money the schools have pulled back – between 8% and 14% of their total budget – and what it would allow them to do is the central reason all these heads cite for choosing academy status.
That money, they say, means that they have the buying power to get expert professionals into school fast. Vulnerable and distressed pupils are no longer falling behind in their education for want of appropriate and timely support.
The sums these new academies have gained are considerable. At the first school in the country to convert, the Premier academy in Milton Keynes, Warren Harrison, headteacher, now has £330,000 more to work with – 13% of his school budget – that he feels he got virtually no value out of before.
As a foundation school prior to conversion, Harrison acknowledges that he already had considerable freedoms, and he outsourced certain administrative services to private providers, but the extra money means he has been able to increase staffing, extend payscales – so that good teachers can choose to remain in the classroom rather than move into management to increase their salaries, and employ a dedicated social worker on site who ensures that children with social and educational needs get complete continuity of care, which wasn't available via the local authority's social work team.
"We probably don't get things cheaper, but we can move faster," he says.
"The enhanced funding allows us to purchase services that give best value for money, including those provided by the local authority, but we will not be constrained by having one provider who has a monopoly on a service irrespective of quality or cost."
It's this type of freedom, he says emphatically, that has made the conversion to academy status "incredibly worthwhile".
There has been just one downside, he says. The new academies were initially unable to retain VAT – the DfE says this wasn't the policy intention, and they will get a refund backdated to 1 April. But Harrison's finances may still be badly hit because his school converted in the middle of a big capital build programme, and he has had to pay VAT on all construction costs invoiced between September and March.
The transfer of the local government pension scheme has also required heads to accept potentially huge, if unlikely, financial risks. "We carry a notional liability for our non-teaching staff pensions on our balance sheet, and it's a big figure," says Lorraine Heath, headteacher at Uffculme school in Devon.
There's a steep learning curve involved in conversion no matter how capable your management team, it seems. Having complete financial responsibility – and an extra £700,000 to account for – has entailed Stephen Davis learning how to present the school finances in a manner acceptable to auditors; to ease the process, the school purposely awarded the contract to a company that was willing to be involved in guiding staff along the way.
What about the worries that private companies will raise prices once they realise that schools will be purchasing services in far smaller quantities than local authorities were able to buy?
Higher costs haven't yet been a problem, says Davis. Private companies, he believes, are starting to offer more competitive and flexible services in response to schools' ability to shop around: Lampton's human resources and legal costs, he confirms, are already cheaper than they were last year.
Competitive pressure resulting from the new academies' independence is now having an effect at council level, too, says Hatherall. "Under the old regime, nothing had ever been done about some things that weren't good enough, whereas now, there's an awful lot of activity at our local authority to make sure services are good enough so that we will buy them in," she says.
Converting to an academy, however, won't be an automatic choice for all schools, says Davis. Local context and capacity should be the deciding factors. "We have special staff to do the admin – two bursars and a finance adviser – and most big schools will have that," he says. "For a small rural primary or secondary, it might be harder."
"And if you're stretched in other ways, challenged in terms of quality of teaching and it's all hands on deck, say, then taking on academy status might be a stretch too far. And some local authorities are fantastic and provide brilliant services, so why would you?"
A dispassionate assessment of the situation your school faces is vital to make the right decision, agrees McAtear. "We looked at the improvement we had made as a school, and we then looked at what part the local authority had contributed to it, and we could not identify one thing," he says.
"So we then looked at the value for children of the local authority's input and we decided that they did us very little harm, but no real good. If local authorities are honest, they will admit they were already running down services. In a sense, we didn't leave the local authority, the local authority left us. There wasn't that much to lose."
Given their experiences over the academic year, what would this first cohort of academy heads say to others feeling trepidation about converting?
"I don't think it will worry leaders; I think it would worry managers," says Harrison. "If the relationship between this school and the local authority had been better, we wouldn't have done it so fast. But if you're contemplating it, get on with it – there are huge gains financially to be made now, which might not be available in the future."
• Additional reporting by Jessica Shepherd
• This article was amended on 1 June 2011. It originally said that Hardenhuish school was in Devon. This has been corrected.
The pressure to get experience on their CV leads students not only to work for free in internships, but to pay for the privilege… if they can afford it. Rachel Williams reports
About a decade ago the word internships was barely used in a British context. There was work experience, but that was something you did for a couple of weeks while you were at school and was more than likely to involve an unfulfilling stint fumbling with the photocopier at a local business.
If you had dreams of a career that required you to get some practice, you might devote some of your summer holidays to it. But formal intern positions were something largely associated with the US, or Bill Clinton.
Today, internships are both ubiquitous and highly contentious. There are campaigns denouncing the ethics of requiring young people already saddled with thousands of pounds of debt from their degree studies to do unpaid work, and debate over the morality of a system that allows those from well-to-do families to exploit their connections and secure opportunities that give them even greater advantage over those from humbler backgrounds.
Last month, the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, called for the trend to be reversed, only for it to turn out that as a teenager he himself had got a placement through his father's influence.
Yet with competition for graduate jobs more intense than ever – last week a survey showed applications were likely to be up by a third this year – internships are still widely accepted as crucial for those seeking the best positions after university. Demand shows no sign of dropping – and now it seems increasingly that the pressure to bag a career-boosting placement is leading students not just to work for free, but to pay for the privilege.
Growing numbers of recent graduates are paying thousands of pounds to companies that specialise in securing placements overseas. And auctions held in aid of charity continue to offer internships to the highest bidder, Education Guardian has discovered, despite controversy over previous sales.
Work experience placements donated to four charities by the auction house Christie's over the last year have each raised up to £3,000, while, in November, the charity Pilotlight, which sends volunteers from the world of business into small charities to help them work more efficiently, attracted a top bid of £3,000 in an online auction for a week at GQ magazine.
The placement was one of 20 up for grabs via an online auction that saw a week at the offices of the handbag designer Anya Hindmarch go for £2,600, and a week at Bruce Oldfield's workrooms for £2,250. A week at leading international law firm Herbert Smith, sitting with an associate solicitor and taking part in "real client work", was billed as "arguably a great opportunity". It sold for £1,150.
Meanwhile firms offering to arrange internships abroad for a fee, usually in China or Australia, are growing in size and number. One, CRCC Asia, has increased the number of placements it offers in Beijing and Shanghai, in areas including law and green technology, fivefold in three years.
This year, 3,600 students applied for its one or two month internships, easily filling the 1,300 places. It expects to expand further next year and possibly start offering opportunities in Hong Kong. Students, who are assessed for suitability, pay £1,495 for a month in Bejing and £100 more for Shanghai. As well as a fee for arranging the placement, the figure includes accommodation, a visa and other extras. But students must cover their flights and living costs while in China, separately.
The firm's London director, Edward Holroyd Pearce, says employers in the UK are particularly impressed by students who can offer insights into working in China given its importance as a fast-growing economy.
The one-year-old company Standout Internships offers placements in Sydney, in everything from finance, banking and law to fashion and event planning. Jonathan Manning quit his City job to co-found the firm with a friend after seeing graduate friends struggle to get jobs because of a lack of work experience.
Interest in its programmes – an 11-week summer internship costs £3,000, including accommodation but excluding flights – is growing rapidly, Manning says. They have fielded over 1,000 inquiries this year, although, so far, actual applications total just 20. "The fact that students are doing an internship helps them in their applications for a paid job. You need the experience to get the job and if you have to pay for it then it is worth it."
Critics disagree. Already concerned that unpaid internships put poor students at a disadvantage, they say asking students to spend large sums for such opportunities harms social mobility even more.
"It's incredibly worrying that we're moving from a situation where people don't just have to work for free but are having to pay to work," says Ben Lyons, the co-director of Intern Aware, which campaigns for interns to be paid the minimum wage. "It puts these experiences and opportunities out of reach of the vast majority of young people."
Sophie Corcut applied for an internship through CRCC Asia after studying history and French at Bristol and finding herself unsure what career she wanted to pursue. While at university she had already done several unpaid placements, mostly arranged through personal contacts .
Using a combination of savings, paid work and a loan of £1,500 from her parents, she got together the £3,500 she needed to cover the trip, including flights, and spent two months in Beijing doing a marketing internship at a fair trade company. On her return she was quickly accepted on a graduate scheme at management consultants Accenture.
Corcut says she is sure the internship played a big role in her getting the job. "Coming back from China, you've got this one thing on your CV that makes you stand out," she says. "I was asked a lot about it and I was keen to use it. I suppose it shows you have some get up and go."
The 23-year-old, who went to a fee-paying school near her family home in Pinner, north west London, says she appreciates she was lucky in having contacts who could get her placements, and her parents' help to pay for her China experience upfront. She believes it was a worthwhile investment. "If you really want to do something you can make the money, however long it takes you."
That was true for Laura Palmby. After finishing her law degree at the University of Northumbria, she decided to sign up with Standout Internships after having no luck securing an internship in the UK.
"I thought 'I'm going to have to get some kind of work experience to make myself stand out a bit'," she says. "Law is all I've ever wanted to do, but it's so competitive. You're half expected to work for free, and you have to do everything you can to get some kind of competitive edge."
At the end of June, she will go to Sydney for two months to work at a law firm, and hopes it will help her to get a job on her return. She is paying for the trip using savings and money she has earned in an admin position since moving back to her mother's house in Downham Market, Norfolk, last summer.
"I don't have lots of money and I'm not from a rich background, but I've saved to be able to do it," she says. "It really comes down to motivation. The way of the world is that it's not what you know, it's who you know. But if I work hard enough I can make my own contacts."
Martin Birchall, managing director of High Fliers Research (HRF), says it's no surprise graduates are so keen to find placements. "Employers have been looking for more than just the basic degree for some time, and the recession accelerated that process," he says. "In the past work experience was a 'nice to have'. Now it has, in effect, becoming a pre-requisite."
The NUS's vice-president for society and citizenship, Susan Nash, is concerned that young people may be having to resort to funding opportunities abroad.
"People shouldn't have to pay to find work experience that enables them to get into the job market," she says. "The government must wake up to the fact that there needs to be more attention to this area."
Paul Redmond, head of careers and employability at Liverpool University, accepts the increased importance of experience, but says: "Students should never have to work for free – and higher education institutions must work to ensure they don't have to.
"We take widening participation really seriously. The use of internships as the crude oil of the job market can keep people out of it. The value of experience is rising ever higher, so it is the responsibility of universities and career services to offer some kind of internship for everyone."
Lyons says if Clegg is serious about making internships fairer, he should crack down on auctions selling them, a trend that started in the US. The website charitybuzz.com, which sells placements alongside a variety of other items and experiences, recently raised $14,400 for the RFK Center for Justice and Human Rights with a two- to three-month internship at the Huffington Post.
Plenty of British bidders use the site too, according to communications director Glenda Luft, with a few dozen chasing after internships at workplaces like Rolling Stone and Elle magazines in the past. Someone in the UK recently bid $500 for a chance to spend five weeks at designer Lulu Guinness's studio in London, but has already been outbid. Another British bidder once offered $26,000 for a package that involved three weeks interning for Richard Branson, followed by three weeks with hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, but was quickly outbid in a sale that eventually reached $85,000.
Pilotlight stresses that the work experience placements it auctions have been created especially for the charity, so are not taking opportunities away from anyone else.
A spokesman for Christie's says that while it does occasionally offer special work experience placements to raise money for charity, its formal internships, which anyone can apply for, are paid.
And Holroyd Pearce says CRCC Asia offers scholarships on its programmes and is encouraging universities and corporations to sponsor places.
But critics' concerns are unlikely to be easily quelled. "Giving people the chance to pay for an internship, whether through an agency or auction, actively excludes those who may be just as talented but don't have the hundreds – often thousands – of pounds which will guarantee them this incredibly valuable introduction to the world of work," says Becky Heath, the chief executive of Internocracy, a youth-led social enterprise. "It is a crucial issue if we are to achieve a fairer, more open internship system."
Toni Pearce, NUS's feisty new head of FE is determined to see further education get the attention it deserves
Toni Pearce has a reputation for being a bit feisty. In fact, she is supposed to be so ferocious that someone has set up a Twitter account to lampoon her — a backhanded compliment usually only accorded to politicians and celebrities. Her virtual alter ego, Toni_fierce, gets drunk on cheap cider and picks fights with people in the street.
The real Pearce seems anything but fierce. In person, she seems nervous and jittery, perhaps because this is her first interview as the FE vice-president for the National Union of Students (NUS).
Pearce officially starts the job next month, replacing Shane Chowen, who led the NUS campaign against the scrapping of the education maintenance allowance for 16- to 19-year-olds from low-income families, and went on to stand unsuccessfully for election as the union's president. The EMA campaign resulted in a partial U-turn by the government, which managed to find an additional £180m to help those already receiving EMA.
Pearce says Chowen's are "big boots to fill" and – despite her comfortable win in the election — says she is surprised to have got the job. She fell into student politics by accident, after experiencing health problems during her first year of A-levels, which meant missing a lot of college. She went to the student union for advice and ended up volunteering, first as a class rep and later as chair of her campus team.
As union president at Cornwall College, she sat on numerous boards and committees, including the governing body. But she has never been intimidated by "the men in suits who dominate the most senior roles in further education, as they do in many walks of life," she says, with a hint of that reputed feistiness.
Being a 21-year-old woman with a trendy haircut and Top Shop wardrobe means she is often misjudged, she complains. "You're seen as a class president or head girl, who doesn't really understand the sector, the politics, the funding or the law – it is quite nice proving them wrong."
Her decision to run for vice-president was motivated by a passion to see FE get the attention it deserves, she says. Top of the list of her priorities for the coming year is engaging the hardest to reach, such as work-based learners, part-time students and those doing higher education courses at FE colleges, many of whom have been badly hit by government cuts. These include cuts to adult learning funding.
Also high on her agenda is continuing to fight cuts – to the EMA, English language courses for speakers of other languages, adult learner and entitlement funding (which covers the cost of pastoral care, tutorials and extracurricular activities for 16- to 19-year-olds) and local authority transport subsidies, to name just a few.
Many colleges – which now have to decide how the £180m EMA replacement fund will be distributed to students – have dug deep to fund support packages for students, but Pearce believes this should not be their job. "They are going to look like the bad guys when they have to say they haven't enough money left or when they don't think someone's case is good enough," she says.
When David Cameron visited Cornwall College last year, in the run-up to the general election, he personally assured Pearce, who played a key role in Chowen's EMA campaign, that the allowance would not be cut. "It was the classic 'Labour want to cut EMA, but we can promise you that we won't – it's not in our plan'," she says bitterly.
On the same day, a Cornwall College student threw eggs at Cameron, about which she says: "I don't condone it at all," with a barely suppressed grin.
And she has little time for many of Cameron's colleagues, either. The deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, gets a pasting for his "barefaced lies" on tuition fees; the universities minister, David Willetts, for his recent comment that feminism was probably the "single biggest factor" in the lack of social mobility in Britain and Cameron for his dismissive "Calm down dear," to the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, Angela Eagle, during prime minister's questions. Politicians in general are not her favourite creatures. "You turn on the Politics channel and it's like looking at zoo animals braying about who did it first and who started it. I just think: 'you are not playing, these are people's lives'."
But one politician she does admire is Andy Burnham. In fact, her dream job would be to work for him as a policy researcher. "I think he is genuinely someone who got into politics because of what he believes in," she says. Friends and colleagues say she has a crush on Burnham, she admits. "That's what everyone says. It is a bit of a running joke."
Despite her passion for education, Pearce, who grew up in Cornwall with her parents, an ex-Navy aircraft engineer and a chartered management accountant, will not be going to university, she says. "The idea of taking three years out of your life, full-time, when you can't earn much money … just to get yourself into debt? It's just not attractive to me. Neither of my parents went to university and they are two of the most inspirational people I have ever met."
One of the most daunting things about her new role, she says, is the amount of public speaking she will have to do, which she admits she doesn't really enjoy.
And she is worried that being in the limelight will also lead to an increase in unwanted male attention. In fact, she is meeting former NUS president Gemma Tumelty to discuss that very topic over lunch right after our interview.
Pearce's first NUS blog post in her new role is entitled "I am proud to be a feminist – and this is why". In it, she says that since she has been elected, she has had to deal with "dozens" of cases of sexual harassment where union officers and students have approached her expecting her to have sex with them because they "elected me and pay my wages". She wants to make it clear to all that "NUS does have a zero-tolerance policy on sexual harassment".
When asked about the need to say this, she complains: "If a man said what I have said he would be considered assertive and powerful. When a woman does it, she is called brave or strong, as if it is an emotional reaction. I don't want to be seen as a feminist warrior, but I am not afraid to say what I think."
At the end of her year in office, what Pearce would most like to be remembered for is staying true to what she believes in. "There are too many people in politics at the moment who are prepared to change their beliefs to win votes or popularity. I'd hate to be seen as a career politician, doing the job just to further my own career. My job is to work for my students and I want to do my very best for them."
Oxford dons are lining up to vote in a no confidence motion against David Willetts. So what does this mean for the government's higher education strategy? Asks Jonathan Black
Oxford dons are to vote on a motion of no confidence in David Willetts, but I believe behind this discontent is an increasing loss of confidence – in the purest sense of the word – in the coalition government and, just perhaps, in the direction of our society. It remains unclear whether the government has a joined-up strategy for higher education, economic wellbeing and quality of life. These are big, national issues that the government is expected to address, debate and lead on. Instead, there is disappointment and some disbelief that over this first year in office, ministers have been distracted by single issues that they engage on with rapidly considered solutions and little apparent thought as to the knock-on effects on other parts of the economy or society. Are ministers capable of developing strategy, specifically in higher education, to address long-term economic and social doldrums? Or are we collectively condemned to four more years of frenetic trench warfare between government, universities, schools and students, against a background of continuing gradual national decline?
The result of the last few months in higher education funding policy has been to convince students that university is a financial transaction: £27,000 cost set against a future profit of a graduate salary premium. Reducing education to the implicit but increasingly flawed "learn to earn" contract is having its effect: this year's national student survey reported that gaining employability skills has become one of the highest priorities for students.
Senior university administrators are becoming concerned about students' rising preoccupation with jobs, to the seeming exclusion of all the long-term benefit a university education offers. Furthermore, we see evidence that should be alleviating students' concern: HighFliers' recent report and our latest vacancy data show both a historic and forecast growth in graduate jobs.
So, if there are more opportunities and increasing engagement with employability issues, what purpose is served by making students more focused on short-term job prospects?
Like student careers, economies are long games. Others have written extensively on the relative merits of the UK focusing on financial services while Germany, China and others have built economies on manufacturing. The Bank of England foresees several years of low growth. While not advocating a central command economy, perhaps the collective loss of confidence lies in the absence of any sense of overall direction, neither signing up to today's situation nor rejecting it, but relying on the invisible hand of the market.
Maybe Oxford dons' confidence could be restored if there were a clear sense of strategic direction from which an internally consistent plan for all parts of our nation, including higher education, would clearly flow. Doing nothing will leave UK plc with business as usual: high pay attracting the brightest students to the City. For the students, it is definitely not business as usual. Tripling fees will be counter-productive, increasing anxiety, leaving social mobility unchanged and driving short-term behaviour: £50K jobs in the City will usually trump science, engineering, teaching and healthcare graduate jobs.
Confidence is dropping in ministers' ability to set strategies for how higher education can support the long-term health, wealth and happiness of us all. As we have seen, this government is evidently capable of pausing, reviewing and even reversing its initial plans: it may not be too late to take time now to initiate a strategic review, with a full and open discussion on how higher education can help to build a cohesive, functional, content and economically buoyant society.
• Jonathan Black is director of the careers service, University of Oxford, and Fellow of New College, Oxford
Many colleges are under pressure to subcontract work, but they must remember the financial scandals of the 1990s, says Nick Linford
The 1990s was a decade of turmoil for further education colleges. Stories of fraud and scandal filled these pages and others. Funding was inadequate and many colleges, with the encouragement of their funding body, the then Further Education Funding Council (FEFC), entered into franchising arrangements.
Colleges subcontracted out the teaching, training and assessment of students, claimed the public funding and passed on a portion to the subcontractors. The arrangement filled colleges' coffers with much-needed funds and was justified as a means of widening participation.
It all ended in tears when the Serious Fraud Office was called in to investigate a number of colleges when allegations of misuse of millions of pounds of public money surfaced. The misuse consisted of phantom students, phantom training providers, courses that never ran or were never fundable, and more. It's quite a list. Simply web search "FEFC fraud" and the sorry tales will appear.
In some cases, colleges were subcontracting more than half of their entire budget, and, as a result, they were sued for millions. Some colleges rebranded, others merged and some collapsed.
It's a grim tale and I know it's history, but its recentness makes it all the more surprising that subcontracting in the learning and skills sector is de rigueur once again in 2011.
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) is positively encouraging colleges to subcontract. It believes that when colleges and training providers work collaboratively they can exploit efficiencies and deliver more innovative training, more cheaply.
Disguised through something of a rebrand, it's the same flawed process dressed up as a new initiative. The most shocking thing, to my mind, is that the government is not imposing a limit on the percentage of funding that could be subcontracted.
Given the proven risk to the public purse, you might expect there to be solid evidence that subcontracting was still a great idea. Yet, to the best of my knowledge, no such evidence exists. Relationships can, and do, go wrong.
In December, Sparsholt College terminated a £4m contract with Luis Michael Training to provide sports apprenticeships because of "perceived irregularities". Luis Michael Training has since threatened legal action, saying the termination was unjustified.
In truth, the resurgence of subcontracting is a direct result of the SFA being told by the government that it needs to cut its own administrative costs by 33% over the next few years.
With fewer staff to manage individual funding contracts, the agency is introducing a new minimum contract level policy of £500,000 next year.
Several hundred training providers are being forced to quickly become subcontractors in order to carry on delivering apprenticeships and courses to learners.
I have a degree of sympathy with the SFA, given that at present nearly half of the contracts it manages are below £500,000 (about 600), which represents just 4% of the funding it distributes.
It's also clear to me that the SFA is (unsurprisingly) jealous of its colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), who will often only manage contracts of £20m and upwards. However, passing on the contract management costs to others will not support efficiencies, and at a 100-strong conference on subcontracting held last week, more than half of those colleges and training providers managing contracts said they were concerned about the quality and financial stability of their subcontractors.
In the rush to respond to new government directives associated with ambitious pre-employment and apprenticeship targets, many colleges are naturally looking for help from new partners to whom they can subcontract the work. Will some colleges respond to the time and cost pressures by cutting corners when undertaking due diligence and contracting processes?
No one in the learning and skills sector wants another round of massive contract management fees, whistle-blowing and scandals associated with subcontracted courses, but without learning the lessons from the past, it seems to me depressingly inevitable.
• Nick Linford is managing director at Lsect, a company specialising in post-16 funding and performance, and author of The Hands-on Guide to Post 16 Funding
Universities are recruiting overseas students in greater numbers – and not just to boost funds, they say, but to ensure a diverse student body
Access to university should be based on ability to learn, not ability to pay, the prime minister, David Cameron, insisted earlier this month. Denying reports that the government would allow universities to recruit above their student number limit so long as the extra students paid higher fees, he was adamant. "There is no question of people being able to buy their way into university," he said.
But universities are already allowed to recruit extra students who pay higher fees – if those students are foreign. With students carrying more of the burden of funding in future, as home and EU tuition fees rise to up to £9,000, and with government support for humanities subjects being withdrawn, will foreign students become ever more valuable as cash cows?
"Most universities' costs are close to £9,000 or very nearly," says Les Ebdon, vice-chancellor of the University of Bedfordshire and chair of the university thinktank Million+. "Many people feel that by the time they have made provision for the spending required by access agreements and the abolition of the Hefce [Higher Education Funding Council for England] central grant, they will be getting less from home students than they are at the moment, so it makes them even more interested in the international market."
The average overseas student fee for 2010-11 was £11,435 – more than £2,700 higher than the average home/EU fee expected to be charged from 2012. Unlike for home students, there is no cap – Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial College, London, all charged more than £18,000 for lab-based subjects last year – and no obligation to ensure fair access for different social groups. Institutions can recruit as many international students as they like and recruitment is positively encouraged by the government as foreign students contribute an estimated £8bn in fees and other spending to the UK economy.
Financial forecasts published by Hefce last month showed that universities' income from overseas students had more than doubled over the last 10 years, rising to 9.6% of the higher education sector's total income by the end of 2009-10. For 2010-11, English higher education institutions aimed to increase this income still further, from £2.1bn to £2.3bn, a rise of 9.5% – higher than for any other income source.
While 21 institutions forecast a reduction in overseas income this year, they were in the clear minority, and the same number were expecting this source of income to increase by more than 25%, prompting Hefce, which will publish the sector's longer-term forecasts in July, to warn of "optimism in current growth forecasts".
Among those looking to increase overseas recruitment are Durham, which aims for a 97% increase in the number of non-EU undergraduates by 2015, increasing their proportion of the student body from 9% to 16%; Exeter, which plans a 28% rise in the same timescale – 73% in colleges other than the business school – and Middlesex, which recently won a Queen's Award for Enterprise for outstanding achievement in international trade, after growing its overseas income by £10m over the last three years. It has overseas campuses in Dubai and Mauritius and a new centre opening near Delhi in October.
Michael Driscoll, Middlesex's vice-chancellor, says: "Because of changes to the way English universities will be funded, the success of our international operations is more important than ever."
Ebdon echoes this sentiment. Bedfordshire, which also received a Queen's Award this year, has nearly trebled its number of international students in the last three years to nearly 4,000, and wants to increase this by another 1,000. "We spent some time concentrating on growing our home market and then growth in the home market was stopped, so it has been the only growth area available to us," says Ebdon.
He says that, like other universities, Bedfordshire is looking to offer a wider range of programmes on its UK campus that appeal to students from different countries, such as international business and law programmes, and possibly a degree programme in Islamic banking, and is also considering partnership arrangements with campuses overseas.
But Shaun Curtis, director of International Exeter, a new internationalisation strategy at the University of Exeter, says that his university's plans to increase overseas student numbers from just under 3,000 last year to 4,000 by 2015 is not about raising money – he argues that the shrinking differential between home and overseas student fees will actually make this less of an issue. Instead, it is about ensuring a diverse student body.
"We believe that if we want to be a global university as opposed to a national one we have to recruit the best students, not just around the UK but around the world," he says.
Exeter has just become the first British university to open an office in Bangalore, and in the last couple of years has opened offices in Shanghai and Beijing. But its Chinese offices are looking not at recruitment, but at employability options for returning Chinese and home students, raising Exeter's profile and keeping in touch with alumni.
"With the new fee regime, the pressure on universities to demonstrate value for money in the student experience is going to be immense and every good university is going to want to be able to offer a proper international experience," he says.
Durham University also insists that recruiting more international students is less about the bottom line than about ensuring that "all of our students benefit from the diverse educational environment which produces global citizens".
Matthew Andrews, academic registrar at Oxford Brookes University and chair of the Admissions Practitioners Group, says that all universities recognise the importance of having dynamic international student bodies, but they also realise that having too many overseas students could put pressure on facilities and make for a worse student experience.
As a result, he does not anticipate that the new fee regime will lead to huge increases in overseas recruitment. "Universities want to maintain their overseas numbers, and that's certainly our position at Oxford Brookes," he says.
For many institutions, simply maintaining numbers is becoming more difficult. While the exchange rate has been in their favour in recent months, they are facing increasing competition from within the UK and abroad, and must now cope with changes to the visa system.
These state that from July, foreign students at private colleges will no longer be able to work during their studies, and the right of foreign students at all institutions to work in the UK after graduating will be restricted.
Dominic Scott, chief executive of the UK Council for International Student Affairs (Ukcisa), says that these changes will make the UK a far less attractive option for overseas study and predicts that many private feeder colleges could go under by the summer, with knock-on effects for universities.
Worst hit are likely to be poorer overseas students. While foreign students from wealthier backgrounds tend to go to Russell Group institutions, he says, those who are less well-off often choose private colleges in the UK that charge much lower fees for franchised courses.
"The ones going into the private colleges will be the ones no longer entitled to work part-time," he says. "The sad thing is, those kids will suddenly realise that the package doesn't add up any more."
He suggests that some will calculate that it is worth paying a higher fee for a university course if it means they can work part-time, which could benefit some universities lower down the league tables. Others could choose to study elsewhere, or stay at home.
Whatever the government's intentions for home students, when it comes to international students, ability to pay and ability to learn have long been hard to separate.
• This article was amended on 24 May 2011. In the original, the London School of Economics was mistakenly included in a list of institutions that charged more than £18,000 for lab-based subjects in 2010. This has been corrected, and the picture has been changed to reflect this.
Children seem to have slipped down the government's list of priorities, ousted by academies and free schools. That is a mistake, argues Estelle Morris
If the aim of a website is to give a clear indication of an organisation's priorities, the Department for Education wins hands down. Whether it is celebrating the latest recruits, recording the running total, mapping present provision, profiling new sponsors or "busting myths", it is coverage of academies and free schools that dominates. It is clear to all what occupies the energy and resources of ministers and civil servants.
It is an approach to politics that is in many ways admirable: stick to the priorities, focus the resources and don't get distracted. It's an effective way of driving policy and, in this case, if the rise in academy applications is anything to go by, has led to some success.
Given that Michael Gove has been clear about his priorities from the start, there really should be no surprise in all of this. He is sticking to his original intentions.
Two consequences, however, are worthy of reflection. First is the impact on how schools make decisions. It is difficult to argue, as ministers do, that choosing academy status is a decision for schools and schools alone – the pressures and incentives that attach to high-stakes government priorities are considerable. If a majority of secondary schools become academies, which seems likely, it will be as much a reflection of headteachers' ability and skill in adapting to the prevailing winds as it will be passion for the cause.
Second, and potentially more difficult, is a problem that faces all governments with rigid priorities. Not only do other equally important areas suffer because they are, by definition, not a priority, but we can miss the important connections between different policies and practices that are crucial for success.
Concentrating, for example, only on subjects in the baccalaureate rather than a broader curriculum means you are less likely to achieve the original objective: the schools that make best use of increased autonomy are often those that are most successful at working with others. Delivering change and improvement at the highest level means understanding and managing how initiatives fit together.
It is worth looking at what is happening to the broader children's services, Every Child Matters agenda. I've never been an uncritical supporter of this initiative. Local authority departments risked becoming too large and unwieldy; resources were delivered through a number of separate initiatives and inspection became too complex.
Yet at its core is an unmistakable truth. If you are serious about raising standards for every child, or closing the social class attainment gap, you have to address what's happening to children's development outside school as well as what's happening to their learning inside – and schools can't do it by themselves.
At their best, extended schools and wellbeing activities, far from distracting from the task of raising standards, were an essential prerequisite for it. They worked to remove barriers to children's learning and went some way to compensate for the inequalities that children bring to school with them.
What's happening now? There has been no ministerial announcement abandoning these policies and the children's services structure remains intact. Yet there has been precious little indication that this is important to the government's agenda. It is not a priority.
Teachers didn't need a Labour government to tell them that every child matters, and they won't stop believing it just because it's not the priority of a Conservative government. Yet the framework made important connections: between home and school; wellbeing and achievement and between different professions. It would be a shame if these lessons withered away through neglect.
I've no doubt that the government is right to focus on what it believes to be most important. But ministers should realise that it will take far more than the government's own political priorities to deliver success ... and a word of acknowledgement wouldn't go amiss.
The Guardian University Guide and the value of value-added, early applications, degrees in FE
Last week saw publication of the Guardian University Guide 2012, which ranks universities for their teaching performance and offers advice to applicants applying for 2012 entry. Cambridge this year overtook Oxford at the top of the table.
I think the value-added data should be removed from the tables. It is the one variable that is easy for a university or department to manipulate, given the weakness of the external examiner system. You are encouraging inflation in degree classification, with those departments who refuse to inflate losing out.
musigny via EducationGuardian.co.uk
• We have been told that 65% of our students must receive 2.1s or above as this affects our position in the league table. Look at the massive increase in the number of firsts awarded over the past few years. Your value-added section does not help. Add to this the fact that students, when paying enormous amounts for a degree, feel "entitled" to at least a 2.1. There is also an issue with students being encouraged to write positive reviews of their university experience or their "degree won't be worth as much". Much of what informs the league table is beyond teaching staff control - expenditure per student, student/staff ratio etc.
artemis24 via EducationGuardian.co.uk
• Anyone thinking of going into media studies should take a gander at the "job after 6 months" column. Do the universities offering these courses make clear that the chances of having a job soon afterwards can be below 30%? Or are they just happy to take the dosh?
Gerbilator via EducationGuardian.co.uk
Lucy Tobin sought insider tips from admissions tutors on applying to university.
Do apply early. I processed over 1,000 applications for my 65 places this year. It simply isn't possible to process them all together; those that arrive early will be most likely to get an offer, later arrivals may find that the quota is already taken. This is simply an unavoidable fact of life in the contemporary climate.
ratfinkabooboo via EducationGuardian.co.uk
• If a university makes offers to early applicants in preference to better qualified people who apply later (but still before the deadline), it is heading for trouble. We're expected to publish our criteria for selection and then apply them fairly to all applicants. If there are not clear criteria, or the criteria are not being applied to all applicants, both Supporting Professionalism in Admissions (SPA) and Ucas should talk to the institution.
skilltan via EducationGuardian.co.uk
• Skilltan simply isn't living in the same world as I am. What he (she) suggests would mean that I would not yet have made my offers since I'm still receiving applications. Even if we make a cut-off at the closing date, that would mean I could not make any offers until the date had passed. With over 1,000 applications to process this simply isn't feasible once semester two teaching has started.
ratfinkabooboo via EducationGuardian.co.uk
Jan Murray asked whether degree students are as well off at further education college as at university.
You don't deal with the fact that universities are institutions of research as well as teaching; they give students the chance to engage with experts in their field, to find out about cutting edge research from the people who are doing it; to enter academia themselves.
Queerling via EducationGuardian.co.uk
• The really sad part is the goverment is pushing higher education in FE as the great new saviour, a cheap option for the working classes to keep them away from "proper university".
Capaddona via EducationGuardian.co.uk
Independent Schools Council is under fire from its own members as it goes to court over charity status
The country's independent schools are, like Imogen Thomas and an unnamed footballer, having their day in court.
Expensive lawyers from Farrer & Co, legal advisers to the Crown, are engaged in the High Court in arguing the case that private schools should not have to tolerate the Charity Commission telling them how many bursaries for poor children they have to provide in order for them to keep their charitable status.
The case is being brought by the Independent Schools Council (ISC), the body that represents the 1,260 fee-paying schools that are charities. David Lyscom, the former diplomat who heads the ISC, has been sitting at the back of the court, doubtless pondering the irony that the moment of fame comes as his organisation is facing a mutiny by some of its elite members – the greatest internal turmoil since it was set up more than 30 years ago.
The threat to the ISC's role as the voice of independent schools to politicians and the wider public has come from the elite group of public schools that includes Westminster School and Eton College, The Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference (HMC).
The coup by HMC, which has voted to pull out of ISC at the end of August – has sent shock waves across the world of private education.
Not only will the ISC lose £600,000 of its £1.4m income, it will lose its credibility as an organisation that represents private education as a whole. At the moment, it is a coalition that includes most independent schools, from the small proprietor-owned schools in the Independent Schools Association to the likes of Eton College, with fees of £30,000 a year.
The vote by HMC is in reality an ultimatum that unless ISC makes radical changes and slims down its organisation, it will lose its most high-profile schools. The headmasters are reluctant to talk on the record about their reasons.
The ISC's critics complain that the organisation is frittering their money away – that over the last few years, the number of staff has increased but the core functions are not being efficiently performed. Others hint that they do not want an ISC that dictates policy and politics to its member organisations.
One headmaster, who did not want to be named, says: "It does things we don't want, like organising conferences, but it doesn't give us a good service in promoting independent education. It has become unwieldy and we want to see a restructuring."
The row seems to have begun over a minor rule change on membership agreed by the Association of Governing Bodies of Independent Schools, one of the eight organisations that fund the ISC. It was seen by some headmasters as a backdoor route to recognition by the ISC of academies or free schools, which are, of course, state schools.
The discontent that ISC was about to take in the government's favourite state schools became swept up into wider complaints about its cost and effectiveness.
Lyscom is maintaining a dignified silence, but he has already moved to deal with HMC's complaints. The ISC board has been expanded to include Geof Lucas, HMC's general secretary, and the general secretaries of the other school organisations.
Within the broader group of fee-paying schools – the girls' schools and boarding schools – there is greater support for ISC, partly because they are more dependent on its services.
Dr Helen Wright, president of the Girls' Schools Association (GSA) and head of St Mary's boarding school in Calne, Wiltshire, says: "We don't share HMC's views, but we do need the right people in the right place and we agree with HMC that there should be more direct accountability to the associations. I just hope there will be another ballot [of HMC] and they will think carefully before opting out."
The ISC has supporters among the top public schools. Barnaby Lenon, headmaster of Harrow School, says: "They have been extremely helpful on a number of issues. They worked with us when the Office of Fair Trading was investigating public schools accused of fee-fixing. They produced excellent research on the exam success of independent schools."
Others, such as Martin Stephen, who retires in August as High Master of St Paul's School in Barnes, London, believes there will always be tensions because the organisations that fund ISC often have few common interests and are in competition with one another. He says: "The organisations haven't evolved. We have HMC, which remains essentially a group of boys' schools that now take girls; we have GSA, which includes schools that are not as academically selective.
"The ISC has become a bit of a whipping boy for the failure of the different organisations to agree on what they want from an over-arching body."
The spat with HMC may be resolved over the summer. ISC's future may be more closely linked to the result of the case now being heard in the High Court. If the independent schools can stop what they see as the Charity Commission forcing them to provide free places, a grateful sector will continue to pay their contributions. If they lose, there will schools asking why such an expensive challenge was ever mounted.
The present government, which has a Cabinet stuffed with ex-public schoolboys, was never likely to be unsympathetic to the fee-paying schools. The political tide was already moving in their favour … but High Court judges are a law unto themselves.
Judges of the competition, run by Learnnewsdesk with Amnesty International, were overwhelmed by the quality of the entries, which explored human rights abuses in many different countries
Back in January, we announced the Young Human Rights Reporter of the Year 2011 competition. Learnnewsdesk (the Guardian's news website for schools) ran the competition in partnership with Amnesty International UK. We asked children aged seven to 14 to write up to 250 words on a human rights story.
We received almost 600 entries from schools all over the UK. The judging panel (which included Guardian journalists, teachers, human rights experts and last year's winners) were overwhelmed by the quality of this year's entries. Pupils wrote on an incredibly wide range of subjects, powerfully exploring human rights abuses across many countries, and themes from Burma to blood diamonds.
We are proud to announce the winners and runners-up of the primary and lower secondary age category of the competition.
The primary young human rights reporter of the year, 2011, is 11-year-old Isabella French, from Merryhills primary school in Middlesex. Isabella's piece on child labour in India moved the judges deeply. She put herself in the shoes of a child labourer of the same age and then presented her analysis of the issue:
"I take for granted the life I have. I wish that child labour like this could stop immediately. That is my wish."
The runners-up in the primary category are: Ellie Arden, 11, from St Ebbe's primary school in Oxford and Suraj Lall, 10, from Bablake junior school in Coventry. Ellie wrote a rousing piece on blood diamonds pointing out that the blood shed is often children's, and Suraj highlighted the plight of refugees with a stirring real-life account.
The lower secondary young human rights reporter of the year, 2011, is Angus Kirk, 13, from The King Edward VI school, Morpeth. His article on child soldiers impressed judges with its pace and power. His use of a quote from an ex-child soldier – "Two of my friends in the camp died because of the beatings. The soldiers buried them in the latrines. I am still thinking of them" – reduced at least two of the judges to tears.
The runners-up in the secondary category are Nicole Morgan, 13, from Bullers Wood school in Kent , who wrote a passionate piece arguing against corporal punishment, and Natasha Kelly, 11, from Belfast Royal Academy in Belfast, who analysed the uprisings in Egypt, from personal experience after a family holiday.
Congratulations to all the winners, runners-up, and all those shortlisted for the award.
You can read all the finalists' articles on EducationGuardian.co.uk. The winners will be showcased at the Amnesty Media Awards 2011 tonight in central London. See more details at the Be a reporter section of www.learnnewsdesk.co.uk (use "amnesty" for the login and password until the end of June).
• Emily Drabble is learnnewsdesk editor
Primary winner
Isabella French,11, Merryhills Primary School, Enfield
Primary runners up
Suraj Lall, 10, Bablake Junior School, Coventry
Ellie Arden, 11, St Ebbe's School, Oxford
Lower secondary winner
Angus Kirk, 13, The King Edward VI School, Morpeth, Northumberland
Lower secondary runners up
Natasha Kelly, 11, Belfast Royal Academy, Belfast
Nicole Morgan, 13, Bullers Wood School, Kent
Shortlisted in the primary category
Christina Cargill, 10, Knockmore Primary School, County Antrim
Daniel Galano, 10, St George's Roman Catholic Primary School, Middlesex
Kayla Bati, 9, Holy Trinity Cof E Primary School, London
Luke Walsh, 10, Badger Hill Primary School, York
Stefanos Stathis, 9, Holy Cross School, London
Alex Monk, 10, St Cedd's School, Chelmsford
Naomi Kerr, Putney High School Juniors, London
Shortlisted in the lower secondary category
Arian Thomas, 12, Kesteven and Sleaford High School, Sleaford
Conor Thompson, 14, Carre's Grammar School, Lincolnshire
Rhys Cahalane, 14, Archbishop McGrath High School, Bridgend, Wales
Orla Forde Bowden, 14, Princethorpe College, Rugby
Aisha Chowdhury, 13 Bancroft's School, Essex
Izabel Radley, 11, Gaynes School, Upminster
Sajjidah Perrier, 14, Paddington Academy, London
• The Amnesty International education team have created resources for the Guardian Teacher Network to celebrate the Amnesty/learnnewsdesk competition. The lessons are aimed at age 14+ and introduce students to the work of Amnesty International. They also explore the role of investigative journalists in exposing and raising awareness of human rights abuses. You can view them here.
The Guardian's new education resources network offers free access to 70,000 pages of lesson plans and interactive material. This content is being added to every day by classroom teachers and educationalists. Nearly 30,000 people have signed up. To see for yourself go to teachers.guardian.co.uk
If your school lives up to our Children's Manifesto, we'd like to hear about it
Is your school good at listening to children and acting on their wishes? Are the teachers friendly and not shouty? Is your school flexible, inclusive, technological, creative, comfortable, calm and active?
We want to hear from you!
We're looking for schools that meet the exacting standards of our Children's Manifesto, which was written by students themselves as part of Education Guardian's long-running project, The School I'd Like. The children have described their dream school. We want to visit schools that are living the dream.
To nominate your school, email us at: school.i'd.like@guardian.co.uk
Financial incentives are just one reason teachers are leaving the UK in droves to work in Abu Dhabi
Beverley Wade is poised to sever her final ties with Britain. She has sold her horse and her house in Kent. And got rid of the dog, too. It has been a heartbreaking process. Wade, an English teacher, saw no other way to clear her debts.
Wade is disillusioned with the cost of living and what she sees as a lack of respect for teachers. After 13 years teaching in secondary schools, she is also disenchanted with the education system. It has, she says, succeeded in building many "flashy" new schools, but failed to fix the more fundamental problems faced by many of the pupils inside them.
So Wade is off to the Gulf. Tempted by sunshine, a generous tax-free salary and a free furnished apartment, she has got herself a job in Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates. Oozing with oil dollars, the UAE is an oasis of relative political stability in this troubled region.
"From the moment I step on their soil, they're going to be putting me up in five-star hotels," says Wade. "I'm thinking of staying as long as possible. I'll be able to save money. The weather will be glorious and there'll be horses, too."
More than 70,000 teachers have left the UK for sunnier climes in recent years. Usually, they head for the fee-paying international schools, the rapidly growing sector that caters for the children of expats or wealthy locals. But Wade is not destined for quite such a comfortable setting. She is going to work in Abu Dhabi's state system.
The emirates' 300-plus state schools are the focus of an ambitious 10-year plan, launched in 2009 by the ruling Sheikh Khalifa. He aims to raise a sophisticated and entrepreneurial workforce. A new curriculum is being introduced and all children are to become Arab-English bilinguals – which is where Wade fits in. A recruitment drive swept up 1,000 English-speaking teachers last year and is aiming for another 1,100 this year. The recruits are lured by tax-free salaries of up to £40,000, depending on experience, and free accommodation.
Should Wade ever meet the Sheikh, she would discover that he shares her passion for horses – though he is unlikely to have got backache mucking out a stable on a wet winter's evening after a hard day at school. Similarly, with a fortune in excess of £10bn, he would probably struggle to relate to her difficulty financing her hobby.
"When I had the horse bug, I didn't save a penny," says Wade. "But now I haven't got anything. I've got to start from scratch and be sensible. In England, saving money is so difficult. You're usually locked into a mortgage, trying to run a car and chasing your tail trying to pay everything off."
Wade should be able to save about half her salary in Abu Dhabi, according to Diane Jacoutot, general manager of Teachanywhere.com, the recruitment company scouring the world for staff. Aside from the money, she says, the cities of Abu Dhabi and Dubai offer a relatively westernised society, with beaches, malls, bars and restaurants – never mind the opportunity to try hang-gliding, scuba-diving and dune-bashing.
For teachers with at least three years' experience, Jacoutot says this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. "It's really exciting and completely fascinating for a government to try to change its society through education."
Plus it's a good time for teachers to get out of the UK, according to recruitment expert John Howson. "We've been training teachers like crazy. Now there's a recession and secondary pupil numbers are falling. The era of plenty is over and people are being made redundant."
One of those is Sheelagh Lundy, another Abu Dhabi recruit. For nearly a decade, Lundy has worked teaching nine- to 12-year-olds at the Playing for Success centre at Manchester City football club. The after-school project, intended to raise standards in literacy, numeracy and ICT, ran at all the Premier League clubs for 11 years, but is now dead – a victim of the public-sector cuts.
"As a teacher at the top of the scale, I knew it would be hard to get another job in England," says Lundy. "My husband and I always wanted to travel – we're just doing it a little sooner than we intended."
Lundy says she is impressed by the way the leaders of the UAE "want their children to be able to compete with the western world and are willing to do what they can to achieve that.
"I'm not ignoring the financial incentives, but it is just as important for me to think that my skills are in demand."
Lundy concedes she is taking a big step – especially as not all the teachers in whose footsteps she is following have had good experiences. Some say they lacked support and were resented by Arab colleagues. Others complain about bureaucracy and the greed of the western companies helping to implement the 10-year plan.
The recruits also face the uncertainty of not knowing where they will be working until they get to Abu Dhabi. And the standard of state schools is variable. "You can get lucky and get a school that is well-resourced – the sort of school we're used to," says Alan Moody, who will be flying out with his wife and seven-month-old daughter. "I kind of hope I don't get lucky."
Before he qualified, Moody spent some time helping out at a Masai village school in Kenya. It made him determined not to work in an international school. "I need to be challenged," he says.
Since qualifying three years ago, Moody has worked at the outstanding Beeston Hill St Luke's primary in Leeds. But England was only ever going to be a stepping stone. "I grew up in Dublin and came over here to train as a teacher," he says. "I've always wanted to work abroad and, like everyone in public service, I want to effect the biggest change I can within my field. This is a great opportunity for me to be at the cutting edge of something new – a personal and professional challenge."
Is he worried about moving to the Middle East with a baby when parts of the region are in such turmoil? No, he says. "Though everyone else has a heart attack when we tell them. But we've always liked going against the norm and trying to prove people wrong."
Moody is not fazed by the prospect of walking into a classroom where no one speaks English. His experience in a multicultural primary has prepared him, he says, and he has had the foresight to get a Saudi Arabian friend to teach him all the swear words – "so I'll know what they're calling me".
In the longer term, Moody hopes his time in Abu Dhabi will help if he decides to do a master's in education reform. Lundy intends to use it as a springboard for more travel. Wade has different ideas. "I'm planning to save up and go part-time when I'm about 50. I'd like to settle somewhere warm – maybe Spain or north India. So long as I've got a home, a horse and some labradors, I'll be happy."
Researchers are on the hunt for Ireland's native hares, which are under threat from their European cousin
Irish hares entertain many a visitor to the country with their antics at airports. They have been known to venture on to the runway and pursue aircraft during take-off. There's a theory – yet to be proven – that they enjoy the vibration and noise.
Watch them scampering around in numbers and you'd find it hard to imagine that the creature's long-term survival could be under threat. That would be a sorry fate, for the Irish hare is unique, a great survivor, and one of the few mammals in Ireland not to have perished during the Ice Age.
But today the Irish hare is under attack from all sides. Just as the red squirrel has been ousted by the grey, which came from North America, the Irish hare's nemesis could be a foreign invader – its European brown cousin, first introduced in 1848, and known to be breeding with the natives. Researchers at Queen's University Belfast fear for the future of Ireland's endemic species, known to be at least 28,000, and possibly even 60,000, years old.
Moreover, in Northern Ireland the Irish hare's demise could be hastened by well-meaning politicians. Recently the Northern Ireland Assembly banned hare coursing, the sport in which hares are chased, and sometimes killed, by greyhounds. Few doubt the good intent, yet Queen's zoologist Dr Neil Reid, who has studied the Irish hare's ecology for seven years, reckons it is a bad move.
Reid has found that Irish hares appear to thrive far better in areas run by the Irish Coursing Club (ICC) than in similar countryside elsewhere. "ICC sites are managed favourably for hares – foxes are shot and other forms of hunting prohibited," he says. "They maintain enhancement of suitable habitat – for instance, hares like fields with rushes where they can hide.
"They're taken from the wild into captivity, treated for parasites, coursed, then put back into the wild. Coursing is perceived as a blood sport where animals die, and so they do – but only around four in 100. The ban wasn't based on the conservation debate, but on one surrounding animal welfare."
Reid's colleague, Professor Ian Montgomery, head of biological sciences at Queen's, also believes the Assembly's decision could backfire. "Without legal, well-organised and regulated coursing, much of the cost of conservation will fall exclusively on government," he says. Reid compares the situation with game reserves in Africa, where elephants are shot legally and populations managed. "Provided things are regulated, that benefits wildlife, because once wildlife starts to make money, it's secure."
One reason for introducing the European brown hare to Ireland was to add variety to the coursing stock. But a notable difference soon became apparent: unlike the Irish hare, the interloper doesn't run in a straight line, and so is of little sporting use.
Reid has just completed a comprehensive review of studies focusing on how the European brown impacts on native mountain hare species around the world. In Ireland, where the two already battle for food and space, the outsider has popped up in locations where there are no records of it ever being imported. "We don't know if they've spread or were introduced without us knowing," he says.
The European brown is "taller and lankier" than the Irish one, with longer ears, and sandy in colour rather than displaying the reddish brown of the native. While the Irish hare differs markedly from its closest relative, the mountain hare, by inhabiting lowland areas, it betrays a genetic similarity by developing white patches in winter.
Reid has witnessed European brown and Irish hares boxing in the wild, a pre-mating ritual that spells bad news for the latter's long-term survival. "Hybrids produce offspring that breed with the brown hare – they tend not to go back to the Irish hare," says Reid. "After several generations, only brown hares are being produced."
In parts of Sweden, the mountain hare has all but disappeared thanks to the European brown interloper, pushed up to the snow line, where it's safely out of reach. However, in Ireland there's no such high-altitude refuge.
So concerned are experts from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the world's foremost authority on threatened species, that drastic measures are now being considered to deal with the European brown. "We're talking about a trial cull that could, if feasible, lead to an eradication strategy," says Reid.
This may seem drastic when the last national survey of Irish hares, four years ago, calculated the population at around 650,000, while the most recent estimate of European browns, in 2005, was just 2,000, mainly inhabiting the heart of Northern Ireland. But Reid is acutely mindful of events in Sweden; and also of what has happened to Ireland's red squirrel, supplanted by the grey after just 13 of the latter were introduced 100 years ago at Castle Forbes, Co Longford. "If we're going to do anything about the European brown, now's the time," he says.
Reid's latest work was funded by the Northern Ireland Environment Agency, and he's eager to carry out more. "There's a lot to be done around land management. Irish hares need tall vegetation, such as rushes, for hiding and sleeping. However, they may mistake the grass of silage fields as a good spot for lying-up and giving birth."
Indeed, silage-making farmers could, unwittingly, be another enemy. The grass crop is usually cut in late spring and early summer when leverets (young hares) are often born. Reid suspects that some perish in the machinery, causing local populations to decline.
A simple agricultural change could be the answer. Were farmers to mow from the field's centre to its edges, young hares might stand a better chance of escape. "We haven't proof yet that existing harvesting methods (starting from the edge and working in) are causing a decline in numbers – it's speculation – so we want to do more work on that."
Odd though it may seem, airports, despite the swathes of tarmac and screeching planes, offer an ideal habitat. "The surrounding grass isn't treated with herbicide and is cut later than on farms," says Reid. "That gives leverets time to move away.
"They probably survive better – at Dublin, I once found five sitting around my car in the car park. They seem more sociable than European browns and unperturbed by human activity."
Ig Nobel prize winner has a new book out about his research into bear-proof suits
Troy Hurtubise, who was awarded the 1998 Ig Nobel prize in safety engineering for developing and personally testing a suit of armour that is impervious to grizzly bears, has a new book out.
Here's a passage that brings together some of the main themes. Troy tells secrets about the most advanced version of his suit, the fruit of 15 mostly unfunded years of fevered research and development.
"Electronically speaking, the M-7 was right out of a movie," he writes. "It sported an onboard viewing screen, an onboard computer built into the thigh cavity, a bite-bar on the right forearm, a five-way voice-activated radio system and an electronic temperature monitor. For protection against the grizzly's claws and teeth, the M-7 boasted an entire exoskeleton made up of my newly developed ... blunt trauma foam to dissipate the bear's deadly power. Testing on the M-7 [was] short and sweet. A 30-ton front-end loader in fourth gear smashed me through a non-mortared brick wall and I suffered not a bruise. The world watched the test on CNN, and then came the sheer stupidity that nearly cost me my life, the fire test. My bear research suits were never designed for fire."
Bear Man: The Troy Hurtubise Saga is Troy's magnum opus, the tersely told summary of his yearnings, frustrations, triumphs and philosophy. The book includes many of Troy's previous writings on these subjects, augmented with a powerful-as-a-riled-up-grizzly collection of previously private photos, philosophy, intellectualising, and emoting.
Troy shares with us a letter from Her Majesty the Queen, to whom he had sent some lightly fictionalised writings about his personal knowledge of angels. "This great lady of ladies found the time to read my novellas and to respond to me in a letter through her Lady in waiting," he writes. "I was so overwhelmed by Her Majesty's kindness that I dedicated the third novella from the series, The Canadians, in her honour ... As for her son, Prince Charles, his letter to me was stamped confidential."
Bear Man: The Troy Hurtubise Saga makes a lovely gift for any young girl or boy who might some day have to unexpectedly decide whether to devote a lifetime to inventing, testing, and informing the world about new ways to protect themselves against grizzly bears while doing no harm to the animals, all the while struggling to lead a good life and set a fine example for the youth both of today and of the future.
Troy's basic bear-suit research, which brought him the fame and respect he now enjoys, is best seen in the documentary Project Grizzly, produced by the National Film Board of Canada in 1996. You can watch it online at www.nfb.ca/film/project_grizzly.
• Marc Abrahams is editor of the bimonthly Annals of Improbable Research and organiser of the Ig Nobel prize
What happens next? Here's our guide
Mid-September 2011 – Ucas opens for 2012 entry.
15 October – Deadline for submitting an application to Oxford and Cambridge, and for dentistry, medicine, veterinary medicine and veterinary science courses.
December 2011/January 2012 – Interviews for Oxford and Cambridge and some courses at other universities.
15 January 2012- Deadline for all other courses, except some art and design courses (see below). If you do apply after the 15 January deadline, the individual institution can decide whether it wants to accept your application.
22 February to 4 July – If you have not received any offers or have declined all offers, you can apply for other courses, only one at any single time, through Ucas Extra.
24 March – Deadline for some art and design courses.
31 March – universities and colleges aim to send out final decisions for applications received by 15 January.
16 August – A-level and AS-level results. Firm offers accepted. Clearing opens.
September/October 2012 - University terms start.
Admissions tutors are the best people to advise students applying to university. Here are some expert tips on everything from humour to using Twitter
If you're thinking about applying to university, you're probably confused about what to expect. As part of the first cohort to be hit with tuition fees of up to £9,000 a year, you're likely to be wondering what the final bill will actually be and whether it's worth it, as well as the usual questions about where to go, what to study ... and will you get in?
Over the last five years, the number of applicants to UK universities has soared to a record high. Some 633,800 students want to start full-time undergraduate degrees this September, chasing around 490,000 places. That's partly due to candidates trying to get to university before tuition fees rise. A survey of current students found that half would not have bothered with university at £9,000 a year.
But student life is still an unparalleled educational and social experience. So if you want to go, you should be more determined than ever to get on to the best possible course at your ideal university.
But how to actually get a place? Read on. We've got exclusive tips from the very people who'll be reading your personal statements this autumn. They reveal what they really want to see on a Ucas form, and advise how to pick a course – and why following them on Twitter could put you on the path to a cap'n'gown.
Gloomy admissions statistics might leave you wondering whether the best course is the one that's most likely to offer you a place. It's not. Imagine dragging yourself to lectures to study something you hate for three or more years. Snoringly dull. Pick a course you'll be motivated to study – either a subject that fascinates you or a vocational course that sets you on the path to your dream career.
Make a list of possible courses by scouring prospectuses and speaking to teachers, students and lecturers. Think laterally: top courses such as economics and medicine fill up fast, but business studies or medical sciences might boost your chances. Finally, remember to use each of your five Ucas choices, cover a range of entry requirements, and be certain your qualifications (or predictions) fulfil them all.
• "Don't be afraid to contact a university to find out more – this shows interest and commitment," says admissions tutor John Wheeler at Staffordshire University. "Many universities make a record of personal contact, and may use it in their decision-making. We want applicants to show that they've really thought about the course – this can come through in the application form, at open days or through personal contact."
• The best way to get a place is to prove you love the subject and all it entails, says Lucy Backhurst, Newcastle University's head of admissions. "Be focused when making your choices," she adds. "Not all courses are the same. In medicine, for example, keep an eye out for words like 'problem-based learning', 'traditional' and 'case-led', and find out what they really mean."
• "Don't apply for lots of different types of courses," says Sheila Byrne at Anglia Ruskin. "This shows lack of commitment and not knowing what you want to do."
• "Use the 'entry profiles' on Ucas's website to make sure that the course you have earmarked to put as a choice is actually the course you want to study," advises Daniel Cox, admissions officer at City University London. "We get a lot of people interested in biomedical engineering, thinking the course is medicine-based. In fact, it's on the design of medical equipment."
Don't place too much authority on universities' glossy photos and grinning case studies – they're adverts. Check out academic credentials using Education Guardian's university tables, published today. Ask yourself what you want from a university; how far away from home do you want to be, and do you want to be in a big or small institution? At open days, ask the grumpiest-looking students their views: they're more likely to be honest. Check out extra-curricular activities, library facilities and bursary offerings, which differ according to university.
Some claim the application process is a marathon, not a sprint, and that universities consider all applications equally. Ignore that, and send your Ucas form as soon as possible. And don't restrict yourself to traditional institutions. Universities such as Birkbeck and the Open University offer part-time and flexible courses where you can work at the same time, while colleges are another, cheaper option.
• Nicola Rees, admissions tutor at Kingston University, says: "Never be afraid to ask questions, however intrusive you think they may be. Most unis have a live chat line for potential applicants staffed by current students or staff. Ask what are the rooms like, who will you share with, what facilities are there? An informed choice will be a better choice." She adds ominously: "Get your choice wrong and you will live to regret it."
• "Apply early," advises Philip Davies, head of admissions at Bournemouth & Poole College. "Don't leave your application until the new year. The best places fill up quickly – make sure you are in the first tranche." Unsurprisingly, Davies also recommends looking beyond traditional universities. "Don't forget colleges, which can offer you the same quality degree as a university, but usually a lot cheaper."
The Ucas statement – containing just basic facts about you plus your personal statement – is your precious tool to tell universities: pick me, one day I'll make a great addition to your alumni list. But don't go too far – avoid jokes at all costs. You can make yourself stand out before your application lands on their desk: universities are making a big effort with social media, and tapping into that flatters academic egos.
• "Have a look at course blogs to get a feel for what's happening," says David McSherry, a lecturer at the University of Lincoln. "Comment on them. Find out who the academics who teach on the course are, follow them on Twitter, introduce yourself. That way you'll already have had a dialogue with them before you meet them in the flesh at an open day."
• Struggling to start your personal statement? "The first paragraph should read like the first paragraph in a newspaper," says Ross Renton, head of recruitment at the University of Hertfordshire. "Grab the reader and get them interested in your story."
• "Humour is a risky strategy – your taste may not be shared by the person reading the application," says John Wright, admissions tutor at the University of Surrey. "Aim to devote the majority of the personal statement to academic achievement and motivations, but do include evidence of leadership skills, and situations where you have overcome problems to achieve goals. Avoid bullet-point lists. Admissions tutors tire of reading bland statements like, 'I am fascinated by science'. Give examples of situations where your interest has been aroused."
• "One of the most common reasons we turn down applicants is where personal statements contain little or no information about an individual's reasons for studying a particular course," adds City University's Daniel Cox. "Include your aspirations once you have those letters after your name. Don't use long-winded words to try to sound overly academic. The personal statement is just that, personal, not a University Challenge answer."
• "Plan, write drafts, ask someone to proofread your personal statement," advises Caroline McDonald, head of outreach at Birkbeck College. "Give concrete examples of things you've done to back up claims about your own abilities. Avoid self-help statements about how the course will help you to grow and develop, and management jargon. And don't mention hobbies and leisure activities unless they're specifically and obviously relevant."
Prepare as if you were applying for a job, consider what questions you'll be asked in advance, and constrain all accompanying family members.
• "Be enthusiastic, demonstrate a commitment to the discipline you're applying for, research the university and course and ask appropriate questions at interview," says Anglia's Byrne.
• Prepare for the obvious question. Newcastle's Lucy Backhurst draws on her personal experience just for you. "Think in advance about how you'd answer the question 'why do you want to be a doctor?' Don't say, 'I've just finished series 3 of House'."
• "If students come across as dominated by parents, we feel sorry for them, but it usually has a negative impact," says Anglia admissions tutor John Rayment.
Portray the gap in your education as something positive – and act fast.
• "Older students need to demonstrate that their skills and knowledge have prepared them for a demanding academic course," says Lee Hennessy at the University of Bath. He says courses such as the Access to Higher Education Diploma can help to do that.
• "Think laterally," says Birkbeck's McDonald. "If you've been out of education for a while or don't have traditional qualifications, it's likely you have valuable transferable skills through work and life experience."
• "Get your application in as soon as possible – you will be competing with school-leavers who are coached to do so," adds Jo Midgley, director of admissions at the University of West England.
If you're not successful with your application to university, don't crawl under a rock. Since many university courses begin in January or other times throughout the year, don't assume you'll have to wait 12 months: shop around.
"Seek feedback from admissions tutors as soon as possible," says Warren Turner at London South Bank University. "Don't give up. Consider other routes into higher education – a foundation course, apprenticeship, work-based learning – before submitting another application."
• Lucy Tobin's A Guide to Uni Life (Trotman, £9.99) is available now
Potential debt should not put students off university, advisers say, as there is plenty of financial help available
Late last year, when the government agreed to raise the tuition fee barrier, it saw fees rising from £3,375 a year for an undergraduate starting in 2011 to £7,500 on average in 2012. The aim was to create a market, with different institutions and subjects charging different amounts according to the perceived value of the degree they offered. It hasn't quite worked out like that.
As the deadline passed last month for universities to submit their 2012 tuition fee plans, it emerged that the overwhelming majority would be charging the £9,000 maximum for at least some courses, and only a few would be charging less than £8,000. Seventeen further education colleges are also planning to charge more than £6,000 a year for degree courses.
The Office for Fair Access still has to approve the plans, and final figures are not expected until mid-July. And around 40 institutions have still not declared their hand, which will delay Offa's response in their case further. Among those still to announce their charges are Staffordshire, Greenwich and the West of England. The London School of Economics will make its announcement at the end of the month and York after its council meeting at the end of June.
But it seems clear that most students starting courses in 2012 will have built up debts of at least £25,000 for tuition alone by the end of a three-year course.
For Jason Boucher, 18, who had to postpone for a year after failing to get the grades he needed, it is a daunting prospect. Now retaking A-levels in biology, physics, chemistry and maths at Gateshead College, he would like to study medicine at Cambridge, but is tempted to do chemical engineering at Teesside because both fees and living costs would be lower. Also tempting is a medical degree taught in English at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands, which charges lower fees and offers more grants.
Yet, if he decides to stick with the UK, Boucher will not have to pay fees upfront, nor will he have to pay his debt off until his annual salary hits £21,000. Even then, his monthly repayments will be exactly the same whether he has opted for a £9,000 course or a £6,000 one, at 9% of income above £21,000. So, if he earns £25,000, roughly the starting salary for a trainee doctor, he will pay 9% of £4,000 – £30 a month – and if he makes it to a senior consultant earning £100,000, he will pay around £590 a month.
Interest is also pegged to earnings. It is charged at the rate of inflation for those earning less than £21,000, inflation plus up to 3% for those earning £21,000 to £41,000, and interest plus 3% above that. So, apart from the psychological effect of a bigger debt, the only difference a higher fee makes is the time taken to pay it off.
And there is a strong chance that many will never pay the full sum. After 30 years, the debt will be automatically cleared.
Boucher remains unwilling to take on more debt than necessary. "On top of the debt, I would still have to pay high taxes, and would be trying to buy myself a house that I will need a loan for," he says.
Lynne Condell, chairperson of the National Association of Student Money Advisers, says: "It is probably the only time in my life I would say you shouldn't think about how much the cost is. You should think about what course you want to do."
Generous financial support in the form of bursaries or fee waivers should also be on offer from some institutions for less-well-off students, since Offa will only allow universities to charge above £6,000 if they can show that they are making efforts to improve participation by students from disadvantaged backgrounds. For example, Warwick, which is charging £9,000, is reducing this by half for students whose families have incomes below £25,000. A new £150m national scholarship programme, also for those with household incomes below £25,000, is being introduced to encourage universities to offer fee waivers, free foundation years, discounted accommodation and/or bursaries. Details of this and many other aspects of the new financial arrangements, including new rules for part-time students – who become eligible for tuition fee loans for the first time in 2012 – are still to be finalised.
But non-government forms of financial support remain worth investigating. As now, bursaries will be available from charities and professional bodies for students fitting particular criteria or studying certain subjects; the Educational Grants Advisory Service has details. Particular industries may also offer support to individual students, often in return for a period spent working for them, while extra money is available for those studying to be teachers or social workers or to work in the health service.
Maintenance grants and loans are being increased from 2012, with maximum loans rising to £5,500 for those studying away from home, £7,675 for those in London studying away from home and £4,375 for those living at home. Students with household income below £25,000 will receive non-repayable grants of £3,250, and other grants are available for those with household income of up to £42,600.
Boucher is concerned about how he will meet his living costs, since his parents' earnings are likely to be just over the eligibility threshold for a full maintenance grant. When he applied for grants for his college course, he found they earned around £120 a year too much. "It worked out that if one of them had lost their job, we would have been better off," he says.
Condell advises poring over university websites and asking plenty of financial questions at open days to find out what extra sources of help could be available.
Who is charging what? See our Datablog at guardian.co.uk/data
• So far, every university in England is planning to charge at least £6,000 a year. More than two thirds are expected to charge the £9,000 maximum fees for some or all courses.
• You won't have to pay the fees up-front, but will start repayments when earning £21,000 a year. Then, each month, 9% of your income above that threshold will be deducted to pay back the fees.
• If your debt isn't cleared 30 years after graduation, it will be wiped out.
• Grants to help cover living costs will be available, up to a maximum of £3,250 a year for students from households earning less than £25,000.
• Universities are supposed to offer students more financial aid than before.