Prisoners already have the right to vote – they just can't get out to the ballot box
The people who sit with me in my classroom in the prison are just like you. They are individual specks in a hugely varied society, just like you. Prisons are not full of rapists and murderers, and the hysterical rhetoric shrilling its way out of the House of Commons last week was both intellectually bankrupt and socially destructive. It is just silly to argue from worst case to general policy. Even sillier to sloganise: "those who break the law should not make the law". The electorate do not make the law, that is what MPs do, and of course none of them have ever broken the law.
"Most of us," said Ian, "are not in prison because we have done something vile, we are in prison because we've been convicted."
"And crime," said Casey, "is socially constructed."
"Oh come on," Steve was a bit down about the whole business, "why get stressed out about it?"
"Because it's worth it. They're saying, 'You're not like us, you're less than us, all of you'."
"When is a human being not a human being?" said Casey.
"If I get released on election day, do I suddenly become fully human again, magically, so that I'm worthy to vote?"
"Listen," Steve again, "fair enough, I don't count. And I don't."
"But that's not a good way to be."
"And I don't count when I'm on the out either. Most people don't count."
"No," said Ian, "you can't think like that. Did you see Question Time? The audience applauded when the panel talked about rehabilitation. Ordinary people, they don't want to grind us into the earth."
"Eighty odd thousand in jail," I can't remember who this was, "that must mean that a lot more have been in jail and been released. The way we're going, there won't be a working-class family in the land that hasn't had a family member banged up."
"Did you notice who it was who spoke about rehabilitation?"
"Who?"
"John Prescott. And what is he? He's a working-class person. All the millionaires were just heaping more and more opprobrium on us. Just attacking us. That narrow political elite that takes the piss out of him and won't invite him for dinner."
"Can't see them inviting us, either."
"Anyway," said Casey, "we do in fact have the right to vote. The problem is that the government won't give us the means to do it."
'"What?"
"Absolutely. If you happened to be out on a day's leave on election day you could go and vote. If you were in Cat D you could go and vote."
"If you were registered."
"That's right."
"Take a bit of arranging."
"But this is how silly it all is. If you gave prisoners the vote, how many do you think would do it? And then you've got the MPs voting that the government should break European laws. That's what this amounts to."
"'Those who break the laws should not make the laws'."
"You're damn right."
"We could invite him."
"Who?"
"John Prescott."
"We couldn't," Ade is looking round at our bare room, "receive him."
Then there was a certain amount of speculation about whether or not he would wear his ermine robe. I know who is going to have to write the letter. I know who will get the blame if he says no.
• Alan Smith teaches philosophy in a prison
Sussex University academic's tours of Brighton's murky past have been given a boost by new film version of Graham Greene's classic novel
Geoffrey Mead of Sussex University's Centre for Community Engagement is wearing his trademark trilby. It's black, matching his long overcoat, and endowing him with a suitably noirish appearance in his role as guide for a tour of Brighton's "Greeneland" – the area of town whose 1930s razor-toting gangsters inspired one novel and two films. The latest cinematic interpretation of Graham Greene's Brighton Rock has been increasing the demand for Mead's specially adapted tours of his home city.
Mead is well qualified to truffle out the hidden alleyways, the murky, unconsidered corners and the legacy of long-gone slums. He combines the knowledge of a native of 61 summers with the academic rigour of an MA in local history. He lectures on landscape studies and has just completed his doctoral research into the changes that occurred in and around Brighton during the inter-war years. His tour helps to explain how Greene, a Catholic convert, came to present prewar Brighton as a purgatory of cheap thrills and transitory pleasures with something literally and metaphorically deeper lapping relentlessly against its shifting shoreline. Also how a city that has a reputation for being open to trends and pleasures of all kinds hasn't changed quite as much as its outward appearance might suggest. "That mixture of glamour and sleaze, innocence and criminality is still there," he says.
Mysterious fires
The great old West Pier is no longer there, only its charred skeleton. Also gone is the luxurious Bedford Hotel, thought to be the model for the Cosmopolitan where Greene sets up the meeting between the suave London mobster Colleoni and Pinkie Brown, small-time local gang leader and aggressively precocious product of the crammed and stinking streets that once tumbled up the hillsides just off the London Road. "The Bedford, too, was a victim of one of Brighton's mysterious little fires," Mead reveals, having just retrieved his trilby from the effects of a powerful sea breeze as we approach the Palace Pier.
The Palace has changed beyond recognition since the 1940s when the Boulting Brothers first filmed Brighton Rock. So has the stretch between the two piers. Beach bars, clubs, restaurants and even galleries now line the front where mods and rockers once fought their pitched battles. In search of more period detail, Rowan Joffe, director of the latest film of Brighton Rock, chose to film in Eastbourne as well as shifting the action from the 1930s to the 60s. Mead can talk about that era with some personal experience. "I used to ride my Lambretta along the front in my fur-lined parka," he grins. "But my mum insisted that I wear a crash helmet and she made sure I was out of the way when the gangs came down from London on a bank holiday."
A formidable woman, his mother was a cleaner and his father was a lorry driver. Young Geoffrey passed the 11-plus but hated grammar school. Despite scraping five O-levels together, he left at 16 and took menial jobs in supermarkets. "But I loved walking on the Downs to get away from strip-lights and deep freezers," he recalls. "In 1977, I went to a night-school course on the making of the Sussex landscape and I was transfixed." Three years later, he made it to Sussex as a mature, unqualified student at what was then the Centre for Continuing Education. "I just fell into university life," he goes on. "I was being paid to read books and I loved it."
So much so that he went on to join the staff. Financial restrictions, including cuts in government funding for second degrees, have caused some universities to discontinue their commitment to continuing education. Sussex has chosen instead to change its emphasis. Along with degree courses, it also offers shorter introductions to higher education. As the new name suggests, the Centre for Community Engagement is a way of bridging the gap between the campus, the city and the county beyond. Mead was able to consult with colleagues such as Professor Fred Gray, an expert on the social history of seaside resorts, and his walks are a good example of how academics can shed new light on familiar settings for residents and visitors.
I find my knowledge of Brighton and appreciation of the novel enhanced from the moment we step out of the city's handsomely restored and soot-free station. Packed trains from London were disgorging passengers here on the fateful Whit Monday of the novel's gripping first page.
Greene was researching Brighton Rock as the slum clearance programmes of the mid-1930s were under way. Mead suggests that he could well have witnessed the demolition of streets that spawned Pinkie and Rose, the drab, doomed waitress who marries him. Now covered with social housing, these hillsides behind London Road would have been crammed with properties thrown up by speculative builders in the 1820s to accommodate the families pouring into Brighton from the surroundings areas. "There was a big Catholic-Irish population as well," my guide points out. Rose and Pinkie's Catholicism is the one thing they share with the author.
As we stroll back through the Old Steine, with its 1930s bus shelters, Mead reminds me that the ambitious Pinkie had moved away to the west side of town. "Then and now that borderland with Hove has always been a zone in transition; a place for drifters where nobody asks any questions; a place of bedsits and dark alleyways off handsome squares."
East side
We're still on the east side but, as if on cue, we come to a narrow alley behind the Royal Albion Hotel. A kitchen worker taking a cigarette break behind one of the restaurants on East Street eyes us suspiciously. This has evidently been a spot for nefarious activities since long before Greene breezed into Brighton. There's a telling contrast between its seediness, the crested frontage of the hotel and the welcoming interior of the restaurants.
I find myself contemplating one of Mead's observations about the British resort "with its veneer of sophistication" being a "vehicle for a shifting underclass". That's one thing that hasn't changed since the 30s, he would argue. "The geographical settings are backdrops to the story and not essentially part of the plot." But being shown around what remains by an academic steeped in community engagement can illuminate a 1930s novel as well as a film that reimagines 1960s Brighton in 21st-century Eastbourne.
Historical tours by academics are not on every university's list of essential projects, but Mead believes they make good adjuncts to existing courses and are also a way to engage a community in the work of a university.
"They are not for everyone to do as you need to be able to work in the open with no notes in all weathers, and importantly be a bit of a showman," he says.
Sadly, though, "community education in higher education seems to be a fading flower these days".
• Geoffrey Mead can be contacted at g.mead@sussex.ac.uk. His tours last around an hour and a half and cost £30 for groups of up to six.
A new research project is documenting thousands of endangered languages – before we lose them forever
You'll never again hear anyone speaking Laghu, and anyone yearning to communicate in Old Kentish Sign Language is out of luck: it, too, has gone the way of the dodo. But there's still a chance to track down a conversation in Gamilaraay, or Southern Pomo – if you're prepared to trek to visit to one the few native Americans still speaking it in California. Of the 6,500 living languages currently being used around the world, around half are expected to be extinct by the end of this century.
It was concern about the cultural and historical losses that result from a language disappearing that inspired the World Oral Literature Project, an online collection of some of the 3,500-plus "endangered languages" struggling for survival in the world.
The heart of the project, run by Cambridge University, is a large database listing thousands of languages alongside details such as where they are spoken and by whom, plus audio clips. On the site, surfers can discover that Laghu was a language spoken in the Solomon Islands until it disappeared in 1984, Old Kentish Sign Language was a precursor to the modern-day version, and Gamilaraay is still used by the Kamilaroi tribe of New South Wales.
The project is the brainchild of Mark Turin, 37, a research associate at Cambridge University's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. He grew up in London speaking Dutch and English and had planned to study linguistics at university, but on a gap year in Nepal realised he was interested in "what language unlocked, not just the nuts and bolts of linguistics", and switched to anthropology.
"We know very little about most of the world's languages, and an incredible amount about the histories and changes of a handful of western European languages," Turin explains. And he has devoted his academic career to trying to open up little-known languages. "Most endangered languages are primarily oral, and are vehicles for the transmission of a great deal of oral culture," he says. "That's at risk of being lost when speakers abandon their languages in favour of regional, national or international tongues."
So the World Oral Literature Project aims to document vanishing languages – and everything about the culture and society they convey – before they disappear. Its database used three major sources to collate the information about the disappearing languages, including Unesco's Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger. About 150 of its listed languages are in an "extremely critical" condition, where the number of known living speakers has slipped to single figures, or even just one.
"As soon as a scholar declares a language to be extinct, you get a phone call from someone furious who says 'my mother still speaks it'," Turin says. "But in a way, these corrections are all part of the process of drawing attention to the cause and the sense of urgency involved in careful documentation and description of endangered speech forms the world over."
The project also provides funds for local fieldworkers in countries including Malawi, India, Mongolia and Colombia to collect data and recordings about little-spoken languages. In the past, Turin says, major collections of recordings were lost because they weren't deemed important. He sees the new site as a "safe haven" for fieldwork on languages that might otherwise be lost. "The vast majority of tapes are just kept in dusty boxes, but to put them on our database we digitise and hopefully future-proof them," he adds.
"All manner of people have been getting in touch to give us their collections, including missionaries, retired scholars and community activists." One early donor was Reverend John Whitehorn, a former missionary and Cambridge linguist who lived with an indigenous community in Taiwan in the 1950s. "When he came back to England, he walked into Cambridge's Museum of Anthropology and said, 'I've got books, textiles and tape recordings, are you interested?' The museum took it all apart from the recordings because they didn't know what to do with them," Turin explains. "He went home and stored his collection around the house in plastic carrier bags, where they stayed until he walked into my office with the bags under his arm, and asked, 'do you want them now?' The tapes are brilliant, with songs and interviews and linguistic information that might otherwise have disappeared."
The database is currently updated exclusively by academics (though users are encouraged to send in contributions), but Turin hopes that it will ultimately become a Wikipedia-style web 2.0 project "that people want to contribute to", with user uploads, recordings and discussion to help keep languages alive. To that aim, Turin organises lectures and workshops for linguists, librarians, academics and members of the public to discuss the best strategies for collecting and protecting languages and their research.
But he worries that, in academia, funding pressures mean the importance of languages is being overlooked. "These days, students are in a huge rush to finish their PhDs due to time and funding requirements," he says. "They often don't have the time to develop a linguistic awareness for the people they're studying, and have to rely on interpreters and translators. But it's just not the same."
Turin is used to hearing sceptics dismiss the research. "I get a lot of people saying that they think this work is pointless as all minority languages that have no utility are better off dying off anyway – a kind of social Darwinian position," he says. "But I usually ask them whether they feel the same about all the old churches and buildings that Heritage Lottery money is helping to restore – or the plight of species around the world. Our work means we're helping not only endangered languages to stay with us, but all the culture and history that they denote."
Watch the video
www.oralliterature.org/database
Small plastic rulers were thought to be imprecise by metrologists; now, researchers have shown that most meet the official standards, but that these are 'shockingly poor' themselves
Complimentary small plastic rulers, being imprecise, innacurate, flimsy and defaced with advertising, draw only a measured amount of respect from metrologists. In 1994, two metrologists took measures to see just how much respect the rulers deserve.
Metrologists are the people who come up with more accurate, more precise ways to measure things.
The metrology community incessantly tussles about new standard definitions for the intimidatingly important, never-quite-as-good-as-they-ideally-could-be standards – most famously, the kilogram, the metre and the second.
The father-and-son team of TD Doiron and DT Doiron looked, briefly, at a neglected standard. Their report, called Length Metrology of Complimentary Small Plastic Rulers, drew some measure of interest at the Measurement Science Conference in Pasadena, California.
Theodore Doiron was a member of the Dimensional Metrology Group at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Daniel was, at the time, a high school student.
The Doiron/Doiron report implies two simultaneous and opposite truths. Metrologists sometimes express contempt for small plastic rulers (known in the trade as SPRs), because they are made of cheap polystyrene and manufactured to loose tolerances. But metrologists also, down deep, harbour respect for these stylish, useful, slim, flat-bottomed objects, with the four straight-edge working surfaces and the top that boasts a sufficiency of both inked markings and raised graduations, said graduations being located at the outer edges of the beveled top sides.
The Doirons explain this ambivalent attitude:
"There are virtually no active scientists or engineers who do not have a number of SPRs in their desks which are used continually for developing the earliest and most basic designs of virtually every object manufactured. A quick survey of engineers will show that these early sketches, the very basis of our manufacturing economy, are largely dependent on the use of SPRs. While there is a federal standard for plastic rulers, Federal Specification GG-R-001200-1967 and the newer A-A-563 (1981), there has never been a systematic study of the metrology of this basic tool of the national measurement system."
Doiron and Doiron studied 50 rulers they had "collected over a long period of time at conferences and from colleagues". They discovered that the government specification was itself so shockingly poor that they could point to a key passage and say: "We cannot figure out what this statement means."
After measuring things as best they could (and being good metrologists, they could measure things well indeed) the Doirons reached a pair of conclusions. First, that most of the complimentary small plastic rulers "quite easily" met the official (albeit murky) standard. Second, that "the older the ruler" was, the more accurate it was likely to be.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (Nist) itself, an official told me, once ordered a batch of complimentary small plastic rulers that turned out, upon arrival, to be wretchedly calibrated. As a measure of caution (they have a reputation to protect), and perhaps with some umbrage and embarrassment, Nist returned them to the manufacturer.
• Marc Abrahams is editor of the bimonthly Annals of Improbable Research and organiser of the Ig Nobel prize
More ideas are coming in for our Children's Manifesto. Have you sent yours yet?
Calling all classes: tell us about your dream school!
Sofia Lockwood, six, who goes to Hautes Capelles primary, Guernsey, wants more toilets for girls and to wear her slippers all day. She says:
"Our school should have a pets zoo in a garden with birds and flowers and trees. On Friday you can take a pet home to look after. The playground will be full of climbing frames. At lunchtime you can eat your cake first and sandwiches last. There is a cinema with popcorn for when it's cold outside. More toilets for the girls, the boys have enough but we always have to queue. No shoes inside, just slippers – and for the teachers, too."
We want to hear your ideas. Send them to school.i'd.like@ guardian.co.uk by 4 March. We will read them all and some of the children with imaginative ideas will be invited to join a panel to draw up a new Children's Manifesto
It doesn't clash with lectures and pays up to £300 a night. Rowenna Davis talks to students who are funding their studies by lap-dancing
Joy Nilsson is a student protester, but not as we know it. She has just started an MSc at a London university. Today she is bundled up in a puffa jacket and a fluorescent waistcoat outside Hackney Town Hall, marching along with a group carrying signs and shouting through megaphones. But this protest is not about tuition fees or higher education funding cuts. These women are here to oppose a plan to clamp down on east London's menagerie of strip and lap-dancing clubs. If the plan goes through, Nilsson says she will struggle to be able to pay for her postgraduate course, because she is funding it with her job as a professional lap-dancer.
"If they close the clubs many women will drop out of higher education," she says. "I don't want to owe £50,000 when I graduate, and I know other women feel the same. I love my job and I'm very proud of what I do – it fits perfectly with my studying, it's very flexible and you get your money up front. What other jobs give you that kind of freedom?"
Lap-dancing for degrees is becoming a common phenomenon. A recent study of over 200 lap-dancers carried out by Leeds University found that one in three of those surveyed were working to fund education. The majority of these were younger women, with 14% working to fund undergraduate study; 6% were on postgraduate courses and 4% in further education. At a time when fees are about to increase, there is widespread expectation that more women will turn to this industry to fund their studies.
Patricia Barnes is one example. A 19-year-old in her first year at Southampton Solent University, she started dancing at a local club, Aqua Lounge, to pay off debts that started mounting when her student loan arrived three months late. With no space available in over-subscribed student halls, Barnes rented a shared house in the private sector, which cost a good deal more. She maxed out her overdraft and credit card in the process. Her mother had already got into debt trying to help her, and Barnes says there was no way she could ask for more. Now when her mum asks where she's getting her money, Barnes simply tells her she's working part time for a communications company.
"No one wants to see their kids doing it, but I know why I'm here," she says. "In my last job I wasn't guaranteed £20 for three hours; here I could make £200. I've paid back the deposit on my house, started paying back my credit card and kept up with my rent. I can make my rent in three days here. Without that I'd still be in a lot of debt."
Good money
Barnes says she got into dancing during a night out. She and some friends went into the club for fun, and got talking to one of the dancers. When her eyes widened after hearing that it was possible to make £300 a night, the dancer said they were looking for more women, and introduced her to the manager.
"I had to audition on a client in the club, but I practised on one of the girls beforehand. She gave me some tips, like doing more floor work. You have to be completely naked. That was the worst part – getting comfortable with everything. I practised on my housemates, too, after a few drinks – I figured if I could do it for them it was OK. I was embarrassed at first, but that went away. The girls are great, and my manager is excellent."
Barnes has mixed feelings about what she is doing. "At work I'm proud of dancing, but out of work I feel a bit ashamed," she says. "People can judge you – it's the picture it paints: she's a stripper so she's a slag … I haven't told anyone apart from my best friends, and my mum's religious so I definitely wouldn' t tell her."
The club's manager, Vicki Andrews, also paid her way though university as a dancer, working for eight years before she opened Aqua Lounge in 2005. Now she says she's in a position to provide opportunities for others, and would give priority to students looking for work. "We've had a lot of inquiries from younger girls since the [student] protests started," she says. "From 18-year-olds who think they'll be off to study soon and they need to do something to help fund it. Some are worried about paying for accommodation, and many parents are not in a position to help. We rarely turn anyone down, but if we reached saturation point I would prioritise those who felt most hard pushed trying to fund their education."
In the research study by Leeds, most women worked between two and four eight-hour shifts a week, and the average earni ngs were £232. However, there was huge variation between clubs, reflecting the diversity of work available. While Barnes generally makes £60-£80 a night to help fund her degree dancing privately for individual clients in her underwear, Nilsson can often earn up to £200 a night for her MSc by putting on collective shows for large audiences in a strip club that offers something much closer to burlesque entertainment.
Three quarters of all the dancers surveyed reported good job satisfaction, but interviews took place only in clubs where open access to staff had been granted by the management, so a high rate of satisfaction could be expected.
"Dancing is a strategy," says Dr Kate Hardy, who helped to undertake the research led by Dr Teela Sanders on behalf of the Economic and Social Research Council. "A large proportion of the women we spoke to were dancing to continue education or to balance inconsistent work, often in the creative arts. Most saw it as a bit of fun because it wasn't for ever – after studying, the idea is to move and get a graduate job. The money isn't easy, but 80% of the women said they liked the work because they earned more than in other jobs and 88% said that they liked the flexibility – there's no need for them to go in when exams or essays are due in."
The hours mean that students are able to lead something of a double life, engaging with lectures and studies during the day and working evening shifts late into the night. "I don't think anyone has any idea what I do," says Nilsson with a smile. "Sometimes I go to lectures with a bag full of kinky outfits so I can go straight to work. During the day I don't even wear any make-up. It just shows that you never know."
But Nilsson insists that her decision to keep her dancing secret has nothing to do with shame. "I'm an artistic performer not a sex worker, and I'm very proud of what I do," she says. "It doesn't make me feel cheap or used."
For some women, doing this work gives them a sense of independence. Twenty-eight-year-old Jen Richardson, who works at Brown's club in Hackney, started lap-dancing when she was a student at Oxford University studying English and French literature. "I'm not a brazen hussy or a bad person, I just don't like borrowing money," she says. "When I was a student, money was an immediate problem and dancing offered an immediate solution. I didn't want to ask for more handouts from my parents, and I was under a lot of stress trying to pay the rent. I can't speak for women in all clubs, but I'd much rather pay my own way."
Tuition fee increases
The department for Business Innovation and Skills did not want to speculate about whether the rise in fees would push more women into lap-dancing establishments, simply reiterating that "students do not pay anything for their tuition upfront". Oxford Brookes, London South Bank University and Southampton University declined to comment on their students' choices of part-time work. Portsmouth expressed concerns that some women "may be involved in working in these clubs". Oxford University pointed to its generous bursary schemes, and a spokesman for Southampton Solent encouraged any women who were concerned to "contact their university careers service, who can identify student jobs available both on campus and in the region", or to talk to the student support team for extra funding.
But Olivia Bailey, the women's officer for the National Union of Students, says this issue does worry her. "Obviously there is a concern for the welfare of the women," she says. "It's outrageous that any student feels forced into sex work to fund their studies, and students should know they can talk to their women's officers if they have any concerns or visit www.hiddenmarks.org.uk.
"I'm worried that as women find it harder to fund their studies they may feel forced into this kind of work."
The Leeds study also picked up on concerns from lap-dancers themselves. Irregular hours and high levels of commission being taken by managers were the chief sources of complaint, with women frequently being charged between £20 and £100 just to get into the club to work. On-the-spot fines for anything from turning up late to chewing gum were also reported by some women, some of whom have been known to leave work with less money than they started with.
Today the pressure on dancers continues to grow. Nineteen-year-old Barnes says that she's hoping to give up lap-dancing next year by transferring to another university that will allow her to live at home. But she's worried that other female students will look for different ways to fill the gap. "Women can do a lot worse than dance to make their rent. But I've heard of girls in other clubs being offered to do "extras" for more money. That's really horrible, but if my money problems got worse I can imagine being tempted."
All students' names have been changed
Postgraduate courses remain in demand, but is one right for you? Our new guide will help you to decide
"It helped me stand out from the crowd and get a job," says Gitte Pedersen of her master's degree in international marketing. The fact that she's talking about the course from her office at advertising giant Ogilvy reinforces her point. "I learned a lot and became more motivated," Pedersen adds, "but the best thing about it was definitely that it helped me go straight into work."
Pedersen, who is 28 and originally from Denmark, was offered the job last year, while mid-way through her master's at London South Bank University. "I had picked the course for its industry links," she says. "I knew the course director had regular contact with alumni working in marketing, and that that led to a lot of job opportunities. I hoped that as well as improving my knowledge and boosting what I could offer a firm, the course would give me access to a whole secret network of jobs, and it did. Ultimately, that led to my job offer as an ad operations executive – I don't think I'd have heard about the position otherwise."
Not all postgraduate courses have such a happy ending, but students are still heaping their dreams on them. The spike in demand for postgraduate education during the recession is still in evidence. Almost 353,500 students enrolled in postgraduate studies in 2009-10, according to the Higher Education Careers Service Unit (Hecsu). Demand for master's degrees was up 7.4%, and the number of PhD students grew 1%. Hecsu has not yet published last year's admissions figures, but says anecdotal evidence suggests even higher student numbers.
With graduate unemployment at a 15-year high, it's little surprise that students want to further their education in the hope of finding employment. There are, however, growing fears in academia that the rise in undergraduate fees and the end of schemes such as the education maintenance allowance will leave domestic students too indebted to afford a postgraduate education in the UK, which could become the preserve of foreign students.
For now, those opting to return to academia are, like Pedersen, fanatically focused on one thing: employability. Recruiters like master's courses, but only if graduates can prove their value. "If post-graduate qualifications are undertaken for the right reason and graduates are able to explain their worth to prospective employers, they can be very worthwhile additions to a CV," says Carl Gilleard, chief executive of the Association of Graduate Recruiters. "But motivation is important. If it's just to delay the job search or as a last resort after failing to secure a job, then it's not worthwhile."
If you're considering a higher degree, Education Guardian's Postgraduate Guide, launched today, will help your research. It lists course fees, staff-student ratios, completion rates and expenditure per student. More than ever this year it's crucial to ensure you're getting the best value for money – not necessarily the cheapest fees, but a place on the course that is most likely to lead to the job you want, at an institution with good industry links, careers advice and student satisfaction levels.
"If you're serious about investing your time and money in a postgraduate course, ensure you're making an informed decision," advises Laura Hooke, careers consultant at City University London. "If you are motivated by the sheer enjoyment of study and a love of the subject, that's great. But if you see further study as a means of getting employment, proceed with caution. A job ... is not guaranteed."
If you do decide to proceed, pick your course with your career objectives in mind – whether that's work in academia or a particular industry sector. "Find as specific a programme as possible," advises James Intriligator, senior lecturer at Bangor University. When his psychology department switched its master's in "consumer psychology" to one in "consumer psychology and business", it saw a marked increase in the number of students securing jobs at the end. "Employers take notice of highly relevant, specialised programmes," says Intriligator. He also highlights the value of courses that include hands-on experience. "Our students do a semester-long project with a local company, which gives them something 'applied' to talk about in interviews," he says.
Would-be postgraduates should also look into the details beyond graduate employment numbers. "Write to your top few courses and ask what kind of careers their graduates tend to pursue," says Intriligator. "Ask how successful they have been, and ask for examples. Many will not answer you, but if you continually get no response, this should tell you something about the university." Past and current students are another useful source of advice, but try to track them down through student forums, Twitter or Facebook rather than just those beaming out of the prospectus: they're more likely to be honest.
Looking back on her own postgraduate experience, Pedersen says the best thing she did was secure work experience before picking her course. "You can select modules that are based around what you want as a career," she says.
This is something Katarina Palin did not do. Palin, 25, completed a PGCE teaching qualification at Sheffield Hallam University last June. She embarked on the course after graduating with a degree in business administration and sociology from Aston University. "After mild career panic, I thought I needed a vocation, and decided – with minimal knowledge of what it really entailed – that teaching would be it," Palin explains. "I found out there were still spaces on Sheffield Hallam's PGCE course and applied without really putting much thought into it."
Palin quickly regretted her decision. "On my first placement, I had a minor breakdown about whether I really wanted to continue, but I convinced myself I should carry on. I was trying so hard just to keep my head above water and was literally counting the days until the end of the course. Deep down, I knew I didn't really want to teach. After graduating, I ended up going back to recruitment agencies. I secured some admin work at a university, where I am now. I'd like to build a career here."
Palin says potential postgraduate students should not start a course in the vague hope it leads to a career. "I feel like I wasted a year. It was a path I chose out of blind panic, the idea that I needed a career – I'd never advise anyone to choose a postgraduate course because of that."
Spending time weighing up the pros and cons of a master's is all the more important when you consider the cost. The average fees for a one-year course for a domestic student rose to £4,000 last year; an MBA costs an average of £12,000. And experts predict that the cost of postgraduate courses will rise when tuition fees triple from 2012, as universities won't want to offer master's qualifications that are cheaper than undergraduate ones.
While bursaries are available for some, many need to take out a career development loan, worth up to £10,000, to fund two years of study. Alternative options include long-distance learning or part-time study, which can be juggled with paid work, or studying abroad: some European universities' fees are far lower than those in the UK.
Whatever postgraduate path you pick, make sure you're committed to the hard work. "At least 70% of what you get out of a master's is directly related to how much you put in," says Intriligator. "Be prepared to make things happen on your own – set up study groups, read widely, and engage. If you don't feel ready to take responsibility for learning on your shoulders, and don't feel interested or excited by the topic, then don't waste your time and money."
Our online Postgraduate Guide covers master's degrees and other qualifications, and can help you to decide what's right for you
Today on our website we publish the Guardian Postgraduate Guide 2011, covering master's degrees, including MBAs and qualifications such as the postgraduate certificate in education (PGCE). The tables are compiled in association with EducationGuardian.co.uk by Intelligent Metrix, an independent consultancy specialising in measures of higher education performance and activity, which also compiles our undergraduate University Guide.
Our postgraduate tables focus on master's degrees. Doctoral research degrees (PhDs) are very different. For anyone interested, the key criterion to look at will be the department's research rating. Tables based on the latest research assessment exercise (RAE 2008) appear at www.guardian.co.uk/education/table/2008/dec/18/rae-2008-results-uk-universities. In today's tables, readers can compare universities against the following criteria:
Number of postgraduate students
Full-time and part-time study are often very different, and the balance of provision can vary widely between departments with similar numbers.
Percentage of overseas students
Depending on the subject, this may indicate the international standing of a university.
Expenditure per student
We do not publish actual figures. This score is marked out of 10 in bands to allow for comparisons, where the departments with the highest rate of expenditure score 10. Spending on medical students is always going to be higher than on historians, for instance. Spending is based on combined figures for undergraduate and postgraduate teaching, including central academic services. It does not include the costs of academic staff, as these are already counted in the staff/student ratio. The amount of money is divided by the number of students given as full-time equivalents (FTEs); numbers of part-time students are converted to FTEs, so that part-time students contribute proportionately to the ratio.
Staff/student ratio
This is based on combined figures for undergraduate and postgraduate teaching in each subject.
Completion rates
The figures show the proportion of leavers who achieved the qualification that they had set out for (or a qualification of equivalent or superior status).
Tuition fees
For UK/European Union and overseas students. These figures are compiled by Mike Reddin, who publishes an annual survey (www.publicgoods.co.uk). The figures relate to master's courses and are general guidelines only.
• Please note that the Higher Education Statistics Agency does not accept responsibility for any conclusions derived from its data by third parties.
Queries about the tables? Email:
university.tables@guardian.co.uk
Want to know more detail about the methodology? http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/feb/15/postgraduate-tables-2011-methodology
Find the tables at www.guardian.co.uk/education/series/postgraduate-subject-tables-2011
Details of the methodology used in compiling the Guardian postgraduate tables 2011
The methodology focuses on subject-level summaries of the taught postgraduate provision taking place at each institution in the UK. Eight pieces of information are provided for prospective students. Some of these commonly have value judgments associated with them (completion rates, for instance) but others are simply for reference (fees, proportion of overseas students). There is no aggregate teaching score calculated for each department and hence no ranking at subject level. There is no overall institutional table.
Volume of provision
This simply shows the number of full-time and part-time students taking a course, and illustrates the size of the department and the mode of study options it provides. Distance learners are included in the part-time figure and all numbers are headcounts of taught postgraduates from the 2008-09 academic year, the latest for which data is available.
Students from outside UK
This measure shows the proportion of postgraduates studying in 2008-08 who have their permanent domicile outside of the UK. Thus the statistic includes both EU and non-EU students but excludes foreign students who resided in the UK before commencing their studies.
Part-time and full-time students are both included in the figures, but it should be remembered that very few students from outside the EU study part time.
Expenditure per student
The amount of money that an institution spends providing a subject (not including the costs of academic staff, since these are already counted in the student-staff ratio) is divided by the volume of students learning the subject to derive this measure, which applies to all students and not just postgraduates.
Added to this figure is the amount of money the institution has spent on academic services over the last two years, including library and computing facilities, divided by the volume of students enrolled at the university in each of those two years. At least 25 (full-time equivalent) students must be counted in the calculation for it to be accepted and year-on-year inconsistency or extreme values can also cause results to be considered non-credible.
Points are assigned to the expenditure-per-student values according to how that value compares with the average for the subject, given the standard deviation of average expenditures in that subject. The resulting standardised scores are then converted into points using the Standardised Score Boundaries table.
Student-staff ratios
SSRs compare the number of staff teaching a subject with the number of students studying it (at all levels), to get a ratio where a low SSR is regarded positively. At least 25 students and two staff (both FTE) must be present in an SSR calculation. Year-on-year inconsistency and extreme values at either end of the spectrum cause several SSRs to be considered non-credible.
FT completion rate
This statistic refers to the population of full-time postgraduate students (not including those aiming for institutional postgraduate credits or "no formal postgraduate qualification") who either completed their qualification in 2008-09 or who were in the standard registration population and had a leaving date within that year. This will include students who completed after writing up their dissertation in 2008/09 having received the taught element of their course in the previous year. Such students, as well as students who fail to complete after a period of dormancy, are counted in the calculation of completion rates but not in the full-time and part-time "volume of provision" fields.
Once the population is defined, a comparison between qualification aim and any qualification awarded determines the leaving status of the student. Students who are awarded the qualification they sought are treated positively along with students who were awarded a similar or superior qualification to the one they were aiming for. Students leaving with a lesser award or no qualification at all are treated negatively.
PT completion rate
This statistic is identical to the FT completion rate but for part-time students only. The greater flexibility of part-time modes of study often results in lower or slower completion rates, so combining FT and PT rates would be likely to unfairly penalise departments that predominantly offer part-time courses.
Tuition fees for home students
This statistic looks at 2010/2011 data compiled by Mike Reddin who publishes an annual survey and represents it at subject level, showing course or subject-specific variance where this is available. Taught postgraduate home/EU fees are used for all subjects, while the Business & Management Studies table also shows the maximum fees charged for an MBA course.
Tuition fees for overseas students
This data also comes from Mike Reddin's fee compilation. There is some resolution of subject-specific fees, with classroom-based or arts subjects having fees distinct to those of lab-based or science subjects.
For the purposes of this guide, the lab-based fees have been applied to these subjects:
Medicine, biosciences, engineering: materials and mineral, dentistry, chemistry, engineering: civil, veterinary sciences, physics, engineering: electronic and electrical, anatomy and physiology, agriculture and forestry, engineering: mechanical, nursing and paramedical studies, earth and marine sciences, mathematics, psychology, engineering: general, computer sciences and IT, pharmacy and pharmacology, engineering: chemical, architecture
Arts or classroom-based fees have been applied to:
Social work, modern languages, drama and dance, business and management studies (MBA fees shown separately), archaeology, philosophy, law, classics, geography and environmental studies, sociology, religious studies and theology, social policy and administration, politics, anthropology, economics, history and history of art, media studies, communications and librarianship, English, sports science, art and design, building and town and country planning, education, music, and tourism, transport and travel.
Thresholds for inclusion
An institution must meet three criteria to be included in a subject table:
• First, at least 35 postgraduate students (headcount of FT and PT) must have been assigned to the subject. The process for students being assigned to subjects uses a mapping of JACS codes, which institutions have the opportunity to tailor to reflect their own boundaries of provision.
• Second, the cost centre that has been assigned to the institution's department must contain at least 25 FTE students. Again, universities and colleges can control which cost centre is used.
• Third, the department must have at least a full-time or part-time completion rate.
• Intelligent Metrix is an independent consultancy specialising in measures of higher education performance and activity.
By focusing on behaviour management, a select committee report misses a real opportunity to support behavioural change in vulnerable children
Terry (not his real name) is 10. For most of his school life he has been on the edge of trouble, sometimes up to his neck in it. He has found learning hard and is resistant to instruction because he fears failure. At times he is a wild presence and at others is curled up in a sad silence. His father disappeared long ago. His mother rarely manages to collect him from school on time and gives him the attention he craves by yelling at him.
At home, Terry has had little chance to develop confidence or hope. But his experiences at school are making a difference. There have been signs of progress in his behaviour. "He climbed on a cupboard recently," says his teacher. "I told him he had made a bad choice but now he could make a good choice by coming down. He knew he wasn't going to be yelled at." Terry came down without a fuss. "He wouldn't have done so a few years ago."
All agree that a well-ordered classroom is desirable. A sense of purpose, engaged pupils, and a safe learning environment are worthy aims. Buried in the report of the education select committee, published this month, is an acknowledgement that these issues do matter - but the report itself is overwhelmingly focused on behaviour management: what you do when kids muck up, rather than how to promote the positive. Although it is important to have management strategies up your sleeve, these will be less effective if not delivered within the context of a healthy teacher-student relationship. This is not about being soft on pupils – it is about what works. High expectations are part of it.
The paper does not define the behaviour that is wanted. It focuses around "discipline". This has connotations of control, obedience to rules set by someone else, not negotiated. Pro-social behaviour is choosing to be co-operative because it makes sense to you within a community to which you feel you belong. This is the root of self-discipline and supported by rafts of research on what helps children grow into independent, responsible adults.
Concern is expressed in the report about the lack of mental health services for vulnerable young people, but little acknowledgement that a first line of mental health is in the classroom. Teachers can either promote or undermine a positive sense of self and sense of connection in their interactions with students. Maximising participation and emphasising choice rather than control, (though still being clear about boundaries and consequences), modelling wanted behaviour, helping students identify their strengths and encouraging them to set their own goals, showing that they are worthwhile and wanted are just some of the actions effective teachers take. It is not a quick fix, but this approach is in everyone's interests.
This was a real opportunity to support behavioural change for children at risk – it is a shame that doesn't seem to fit with the requirement to get everyone in line.
• Sue Roffey's latest book is Changing Behaviour in School: Promoting Positive Relationships and Wellbeing
A new government programme designed to cut the number of benefit claimants will place the financial burden on further education colleges
Colleges are by now used to getting paid by results. Their funding depends in part on students gaining a qualification at the end of their course, and training schemes for unemployed people can pay as little as 40% of money upfront.
Later this year, though, the stakes for colleges and other training providers will become even higher, as the first learners enrol for a new programme designed to reduce the numbers claiming jobseekers' allowance and other benefits.
Under the Work Programme, which will replace Flexible New Deal and other welfare-to-work schemes this summer, just 10% of money will be paid upfront. As part of a growing trend requiring training providers to find jobs for learners as well as teach them skills, the rest will be staggered over the next 18 months – and then only if the learners remain in employment. Within three years, all payments will be performance-related.
Given the economic climate and rising unemployment, you might think that colleges would be reluctant to take the risk of receiving only a fraction of what they hoped for because individuals do not find jobs or quit after a few months.
But, instead, there is disappointment in the sector that just one college – Newcastle – made it on to the shortlist of prime contractors. Others, such as Carlisle College, are hoping to work as subcontractors for the mainly private firms selected by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to bid for contracts in each region.
Newcastle's involvement in the Work Programme is based around Intraining, the college's private training arm set up three years ago.
Last year, about 40,000 learners participated in welfare-to-work programmes at Intraining's 60 centres across England. Its managing director, Phil Bonell, is upbeat about the new programme and optimistic it can achieve results by giving learners personal support before and after they find work.
The emphasis on payment by results, says Bonell, may come as a shock to some colleges, but reflects a trend in work-based learning over recent years. "For certain sectors such as FE, being paid in this way will be new if they've not been involved with the DWP in the past."
The Work Programme is being funded from savings the government hopes to make in the overall welfare bill. Claimants who refuse to take part could lose their benefits, with sanctions likely to be stepped up once job seekers' allowance and other income-related benefits are replaced by universal credit after 2013.
Jacq Longrigg, employment services manager at Carlisle College, says finding work for learners will be a challenge even though the jobs picture in Cumbria is better than in other parts of the country. "We have developed relationships with job centres and employers and feel quite confident," she adds.
As a college, Carlisle recognises that it is increasingly being judged on "hard economic outcomes", but sees these programmes as an important source of funds. "We have to generate income to survive," says Longrigg.
Carlisle is lined-up as a "job broker" by G4S, one of 35 prime contractors that will submit bids to the DWP over the coming months. Sean Williams, managing director of G4S's welfare-to-work team, says colleges "are very much part of the picture".
Those working for G4S as job brokers, by offering training and help finding work, will be paid by results in the same way as the prime contractor. But providers that offer specific vocational training and other advice may be paid upfront by G4S.
Funding for the Work Programme is the subject of an inquiry by the House of Commons work and pensions select committee. Strong criticism has come from the Association of Learning Providers, which warns that some trainers will be dissuaded from working as subcontractors.
Graham Hoyle, the ALP's chief executive, says: "There is anxiety that a programme that bears considerable financial risk for the prime contractor may also transfer an inappropriate amount of that risk down the supply chain."
Only organisations with a turnover of £20m were considered as prime contractors. A further eight college-led bids failed to make the DWP shortlist, including a consortium of 27 colleges in south-west England led by Petroc. David Dodd, the college's principal, says it was disappointed by the outcome and noted that "none of the college groups new to this type of scheme were awarded contracts".
Teresa Frith, senior skills policy manager at the Association of Colleges, says there is a "nervousness" in the sector, with many colleges waiting to see how things work out. But colleges generally are in a stronger financial position than other learning providers and could use alternative income to cover short-term costs.
Success will depend on the difficulties colleges and others face in finding jobs for learners. Payment by results, says Frith, is only fair if the goals are realistic and achievable. "The results have to be in the gift of the provider," she says.
Under the Work Programme, providers receive an attachment fee for each learner, plus a lump sum when the individual completes six months' work. Further payments are made every four weeks if the person remains in work.
For 18- to 24-year-olds on job seekers' allowance, providers will initially receive £400, followed by £1,200 when the person has been in work for 26 weeks, and up to13 'sustainment' payments of £170. For over-25s on JSA, 'sustainment' payments are worth £215.
By 2014, the attachment fee will be phased out so that all payments depend on job outcomes. A maximum of £14,000 will be available for people on incapacity benefit but, for those receiving JSA, payments will be about £3,000-£4,000 per learner.
When it comes to the government's new free schools, there is no freedom of information, opponents say
The education secretary, Michael Gove, barely had his feet under the ministerial table when he announced plans to allow parents, teachers, charities and other groups to set up their own schools last June. Eight months on, just how much is known about the free schools programme? According to those who oppose the new-style schools, not nearly enough.
Jane Eades, who is involved in the campaign against a proposed free school in Battersea, south London, says: "The whole free school movement is shrouded in secrecy. By the time many people hear there is going to be a free school in their local area, it has already been approved by the government."
What is known is that there have been 258 applications and 40 of these have been given initial approval (known as the "business case" stage). And at a time when many education organisations are having to make cuts, the government has allocated around £50m to fund them.
What those who oppose free schools would like to know is how that public money is going to be spent. Many believe the first stage of the application process to become a free school – known as the stage two proposal – should be in the public domain. But attempts to access this information have been largely unsuccessful.
Andrew Nadin, who is leading a campaign against a proposed free school in Bedford, says: "Any inquiries I have made to the DfE [Department for Education] have been blocked at every turn. You ask a question and they just go into shutdown."
The Freedom of Information Act gives individuals access to recorded information held by public authorities, subject to certain limitations. Until free schools are open to the public, they are not public bodies, which means they are currently exempt from freedom of information requests (FOIs). The remit of the New Schools Network, headed by Gove's former adviser, Rachel Wolf, is to provide guidance to those thinking of starting a free school. But because it is a charity, it is not obliged to respond to FOI requests either.
FOI requests made directly to the DfE have had limited success. Some have been denied and most have been only partially successful. Reasons given for withholding information include: data protection issues (such as naming individuals involved in projects), the need to "protect commercial interests" (that is, anything that might influence the department's bargaining power when buying goods or services) and, commonly, the information is due to be published at a later date.
Eades put in an FOI request last July requesting the details of the 62 proposals for free schools it had received to date. This was refused on the grounds that the information was "intended for future publication". Nadin has received a series of emails from DfE officials (seen by Education Guardian), dating back to last September, promising the imminent publication of all the stage 2 proposals. These have not yet been published.
A subsequent FOI request was no more successful. The DfE replied over two weeks after the deadline (public bodies are obliged to respond within 20 days of receiving an FOI request), and the information offered was edited, with so many sections blacked out, that it was "little more than useless", says Nadin. When he complained, in one email exchange, that it was a "whitewash", a civil servant replied "Can't win 'em all!" While this was swiftly followed by an apology, and reassurance that the email was not intended for Nadin, the gaffe has left him feeling that the DfE is not taking transparency seriously.
The Other Taxpayers' Alliance, a campaign group, had more success with its FOI request, which revealed that the DfE had failed to invite applications for a £500,000 grant to assist parents setting up free schools before awarding it to Rachel Wolf at the New Schools Network.
But as the Labour MP for Wigan, Lisa Nandy, points out, even this information was not easy to obtain. "It took several months, a freedom of information act request and an intervention from the House of Commons Procedures Committee before I got the most basic of answers to my questions about the process for setting up a free school. It is deeply worrying that there is such a lack of transparency around these schools given the impact they will have on children."
The secrecy around free schools is particularly baffling given the government's apparent obsession with transparency. Since the Coalition government came to power last May, the government has set up a Public Sector Transparency Board and Transparency Vision (whatever that is) and a Short Term Transparency Data Publication Plan (ditto).
As Martin Freedman, head of conditions at the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), puts it: "The government is saying it wants transparency and is publishing data sets on local authority spending and chief execs. At the same time, we can't find out a thing about free schools."
Wolf points out that the New Schools Network is an "advisory, and not a decision-making organisation". But the question of why the government has outsourced a key function to an independent organisation also remains unanswered.
Christine Blower, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, says: "Everywhere else we hear of draconian cuts to public services, yet there appears to be money available to bankroll this costly and unnecessary programme. This is about state schooling not state secrets, and we have a right to know how much money free schools will take from the education budget. This is money that should be going towards the education of the majority of children, not just a few. Free schools are one of the government's flagship education programmes. It is totally unacceptable for there to be no clear public information available on its cost."
The government has been accused of rushing through policies without thinking things through, and last week Gove was judged to have acted so unfairly by cancelling school building projects that it amounted to an abuse of power. Will this lead to a rethink over new schools policy? The DfE did not respond to questions before Education Guardian went to press.
But Toby Young, who is heading plans to open a free school in west London, has his own issues about transparency. "It strikes me as a bit rich that the NUT [National Union of Teachers], the GMB [union] and the Anti-Academies Alliance [AAA] are demanding more transparency about free schools when they are far from transparent. For instance, the most energetic opponent of the West London Free School is Nick Grant, the local NUT shop steward. In addition to being on the NUT's national executive, he is a member of the Socialist Workers Party [SWP] and co-founder of the Anti-Academies Alliance. The degree of Trotskyist infiltration of the NUT, the GMB and the AAA and the close links between the SWP and the anti-free schools campaign has yet to be brought to light."
• This article was amended on 15 February 2011. The original called the campaign group the Taxpayers' Alliance.
It's 10 years since Tony Blair said comprehensives were finished. But for many the ideal will never die
Ten years ago this week Tony Blair proclaimed the dawn of the "post-comprehensive era". Inspired by his belief in faith schools, the then prime minister urged comprehensives to develop "a distinctive mission, ethos and purpose", saying that diversity would be "not the exception but the hallmark of secondary education". His spokesman, Alastair Campbell, put it more bluntly: the days of the "bog-standard comprehensive" were over.
Campbell, a long-time champion of comprehensives, now dismisses the phrase as an "off-the-cuff accident", but it touched a nerve. It summed up many politicians' ambivalence towards comprehensives – schools unfamiliar to most of them – and it keyed into parents' anxieties. A decade later, have ambivalence and anxiety won the day? Did Blair succeed in wiping out the "bog-standard" comp?
The answer is, superficially, yes. The vast majority of comprehensives did Blair's bidding and diversified. Some 96.6% of secondaries are now specialist schools, which leaves just about 80 that have bucked the trend, according to the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust. The more entrepreneurial heads – 780 at the last count – opted for foundation status, distancing themselves from the local authority. Then there are the 400 academies and soon there will be free schools. Faith schools, backed by the current prime minister just as they were by Blair, also expect to see their numbers increase.
However, the real fate of the "bog-standard comp" is problematic. It doesn't help that Campbell's phrase is seen as an insult. By contrast, in high-performing Finland, the "bog-standardness" or uniformity of its schools is regarded as a virtue.
Bernard Barker was the first comprehensive pupil to become head of a comprehensive school. He is now emeritus professor of educational leadership at Leicester University. He says that unlike Finland "we have a deeply unequal, selfish and less trusting society. People wanted greater equality of opportunity and social mobility in the 1960s and 70s when comprehensives were established. They still want it now ... but only for themselves. The invention of all these new types of school in England has allowed parents to achieve some kind of market-place differentiation so they feel they are protecting their interests."
Peter Mortimore, former director of the Institute of Education in London, is also a comprehensive champion. He is exasperated that Blair chose diversity over uniformity, and that Labour did not dismiss as "nonsense" the talk about comprehensives failing. "If you look at what has been achieved, it's a success story. We should have been proud of bog-standard comprehensives instead of seeing the term as an insult and seeking alternatives."
The "post-comprehensive" era really began with Margaret Thatcher and the unleashing of market forces and consumer choice, says Barker. Open enrolment broke families' links with their local schools. Blair merely followed in her footsteps. Specialisation was a means of offering parents choice, as were league tables, though in reality, says Mortimore, "no one chooses schools on the basis of specialism. All choose on the basis of results".
League tables make parents constantly dissatisfied that they are not getting the best for their children, he says. "We have some of the best schools and teachers I've ever seen in the world, but they operate in a crazy system designed to create the maximum unhappiness. Sticking with the bog-standard comp would have been much better."
And that is what the Welsh did. Wales, says David Reynolds, professor of education at Plymouth University, is 99.5% comprehensive. There are no league tables, no specialist schools, no academies or foundation schools.
However, the Welsh system is currently struggling to produce good results. Welsh 15-year-olds are slipping down the international Pisa rankings of performance in science, maths and reading, and the gap between Wales and the other UK countries is widening. Reynolds blames this on a significant funding gap – a Welsh child gets £604 a year less spent on them than an English child – and a reluctance to innovate.
Improvements will happen, says Reynolds, and not through diversification, but through comprehensives. Are they "bog-standard"? "In Wales we prefer to call them community schools. There is a strong historical bond between communities and schools and children are far more likely to go to the school in their local patch."
Martin Wise, head of Holyhead high on Anglesey, the UK's very first comprehensive, opening in 1949, agrees that community links are vital. "A school has a responsibility to its community and should be the hub of it. Every town wants to see its school succeed and wants to support it. We offer a truly comprehensive education and we are very proud of our history."
Choice and league tables have strained such sentiments in England. Take, for example, Twyford CofE high school in Ealing, London, described last month as a "great comprehensive" by the education secretary, Michael Gove. Twyford specialises in music and languages. It is outstanding and heavily over-subscribed. In 2009, 85% of pupils achieved five A*-C at GCSE.
But Twyford casts its nets far beyond its local area. It takes pupils from seven authorities and 70 feeder schools. Few of its pupils qualify for free meals and the vast majority have had to prove their commitment to their faith with evidence of attendance at a place of worship going back to the age of six.
Alice Hudson, the head, says that Twyford is a comprehensive though she concedes that it has a larger than average proportion of children who, in days gone by, would have gone to grammar schools. "Schools that make it evident they care about academic achievement attract more able students."
For Blair, Twyford, with its faith and its specialisms, would indeed have been a "great comprehensive", but for those who opposed his agenda at the time, it would prove their fears justified. Roy Hattersley, former deputy Labour leader, warned Blair of the dangers of a two-tier system. But such warnings went unheeded. Today, says Barker, "schools reflect the working of the local market economy in education ...just as in the 1950s. Those at the top are doing very nicely. Those at the bottom of the pile are badly bruised and disaffected."
Now Labour is promising to heal the divisions and once more celebrate the comprehensive ideal. Andy Burnham, the party's education spokesman and former comprehensive pupil, blames the current government for setting schools and communities in competition with each other, and for fragmenting and segregating the entire education system. Has he forgotten the "post-comprehensive" era? Ten years is a long time in politics.
The Guardian is opening up its resources website learn.co.uk to give teachers free access to 70,000 pages of lesson plans and interactive teaching materials
Today the Guardian is embarking on an exciting new project that will give teachers access to 70,000 pages of lesson plans and modern interactive teaching materials, all absolutely free.
While others in the online media firmament are testing out the prospect for putting material behind paywalls, we've decided to go the other way. We're liberating premium content from our resources website learn.co.uk and making it completely free to teachers and schools.
From today any teacher can access our vast repository of resources free at http://teachers.guardian.co.uk. Our new Guardian Teacher Network comprises content covering every objective, age four to 18, in what used to be the national curriculum.
The content is varied and deep, and includes:
• Literacy and numeracy materials for primary children almost exclusively designed as whiteboard interactivities that can be used right in the classroom.
• Science whiteboard activities at secondary level devised to enable complete demonstration of key active concepts, such as calculating velocity, or developing shapes in three dimensions.
• Extensive video and game-style content. Other areas of the site, notably at GCSE and AS-level, are presented as a mixture of text and animation, which is particularly powerful for revision or students working in pairs.
• Testing made simple. We're making our immensely powerful test centre for secondary schools available free. It's a flexible bank of more than 20,000 questions that lets you build bespoke tests and deliver them online or on printed handouts.
• Animated Guardian material. We have digitised a huge archive of resources pages from back copies of Education Guardian for teachers to browse on the Teacher Network. And they're even better online because we've animated most of the diagrams.
All the content is developed by classroom teachers to address specific curriculum or examination objectives, and all has been designed by skilled web developers to run easily and work simply. There are roughly 33,000 individual lesson assets that teachers can pick out and do what they want with: incorporate in PowerPoint, "mash" into other lesson content, whatever you like.
And that's the point. The reason we've decided to make this material free is that it's now clear that the future for digital learning will lie, not in "solid state" material, but in content that individual teachers and students can manipulate and order to suit their own needs, in their own time. We have therefore loaded all our materials on to a straightforward-to-use learning platform that enables teachers to download content, timetable it, adapt it, add to it, upload it, review it, recommend it, pass it on … all the things a tweeting, networking, user-generating generation expects to be able to do.
If you're a teacher, it will now be your content, not ours. We're aiming for you to take it over and build and adapt it yourselves. We all know that the real value in online resource lies in collaborating our way to greater creativity and best practice. So we've made it easy to upload your own resources and access lessons developed by other teachers. It will also be your network – a place where we hope you will engage with each other on your own terms, talking about what matters to you.
To sign up, go to http://teachers.guardian.co.uk. Registration is quick and easy. If you're already registered at guardian.co.uk, you can simply sign in as usual. Enjoy what we are giving you. And please don't keep it a secret from your colleagues.
• Colin Hughes is director, Guardian Professional
Special needs children 'thrown to the wolves' and Chinese excellence
Last week Fran Abrams reported on fears that the government could reduce the number of children eligible for help with special needs
The powers that be want us to differentiate between students and find a way to teach them all, irrespective of differences. We identify how they learn best. We identify which subjects they're weaker in; whether support at home is lacking. We identify what needs to be done for each child. In many cases, if we can secure extra support for a child, whether this is in the form of an additional body in the classroom who can keep them focused, or someone to sit and encourage them to work, or more structured higher-level support for those with more complex needs, we do it. We do it because we have been told every child matters, and we try and meet that.
However, the SEN support is already woeful in many schools. As a supply teacher for a number of months I visited some schools with outstanding levels of support, and others that were quite proud to say that they offered nothing, and on parents' evening told parents "this is what we have. If you don't like it, apply somewhere down the road". There are already children slipping through the net. Yet it will most likely get worse. Not to mention that many schools are contemplating applying for academy status, and once they move out of LEA control, they no longer have any responsibility to protect the needs of their SEN pupils.
But what did we expect? They are the weak students who bring non-selective school results down. They are the drain on funding and resources, not to mention staff time. They are vulnerable, and we are throwing them to the wolves.
Calexandria via EducationGuardian.co.uk
Warwick Mansell looked at the success of children of Chinese (including Hong Kong) origin, regardless of social advantage, and wondered why more research was not done on the subject
I'm Chinese, I was born and brought up in the UK. My parents worked my sister and I very hard – idleness would not be tolerated. To give you an idea, my parents were appalled at the education I received at my state junior school. So they gave us two to three hours' homework a day in English grammar, writing and comprehension, maths, logic and basic science. This was in addition to one hour's music practice a day. TV and non-educational entertainment were strictly rationed. School grades had to be an A, otherwise serious disciplinary consequences would be incurred.
I remember my mother being told by white parents that she was a bad mother for making us work so hard. And yet we had varied interests, read widely, performed very well at school and university and we both now have professional jobs that we enjoy.
Chinese culture and identity is very homogenous regardless of financial standing, the same values are found whether you are rich or poor.
TianRiu via EducationGuardian.co.uk
• Me: "What's that on your arm?"
Student: "My father/mother beat me because I didn't get an A."
I've heard this far too many times in the schools I've taught in in Asia.
MSGlendinning via EducationGuardian.co.uk
• This study reveals that being poor is not a barrier to educational achievement if you have parental support and encouragement. Sort of blows away the prevailing leftwing ideas that "deprived" kids are severely disadvantaged at school.
Connacht via EducationGuardian.co.uk
Has your BlackBerry taken over your life, or your iPhone? Academics are trying to find ways to help
You're in the middle of reading a long, important document, but suddenly find you can't concentrate. It's not because the topic is snore-inducing or because it's chocolate o'clock, but due to a tiny, red light, flashing insistently in the corner of your eye. A BlackBerry silently screaming for attention forces you to stop reading to see what the messagesays. Two minutes later, you do the same again.
Whether it's an iPhone or a trilling landline or a pinging email, the latest technology interrupts us all the time. But if you've ever wondered exactly what effect the myriad interruptions have on your working day, research by academics at the University of Kent is a worthy interruption.
The faculty of psychology at Kent set up a "reading laboratory" with an eyeball-tracking camera to monitor eye movements. It then linked up just over 100 testers and asked them to read a passage of text on a computer screen, before interrupting the participants with one-minute messages – like phone calls. They were then told to return to the original reading, while the eye-tracking camera analysed how they did so. The researchers, led by Ulrich Weger, a senior lecturer in psychology at Kent, found that participants re-read a substantial portion of text before reaching the point where they left the original task – so much so, that each interruption caused an average 17% increase in the total time it took to read the whole passage.
Weger was inspired to carry out the research by his own procrastination. "I noticed how easily I was distracted when working on my computer," he explains. "I wasted time by reading emails whenever they came into my inbox. I noticed that once I had started reading the name of the sender, I read the first line of the text. Once I mastered that, I continued reading the entire message, and once I got to that point, I felt compelled to respond because there was no point in leaving an already half-finished task. Then sometimes I needed extra information to answer the message, so had to add other tasks."
Weger says his many disruptions meant he "often wasn't making any progress with what I was originally working on – and in the end felt quite breathless and exhausted. I thought I couldn't be the only person struggling with this." Talking to colleagues confirmed the scale of the problem, and Weger secured funding from the Economic and Social Research Council to start investigating.
He believes the Kent research is important because our modern working environment is "full of tempting – and sometimes not so tempting – sources of interruptions", but admits it's tough to find ways to deal with them. "The best thing to do is to try and avoid interruptions in the first place – often people don't really need to respond to an interruption, but do so because it's tempting," he says.
Weger's research showed that simply leaving a mark on the page before responding to an interruption can allow you to resume reading much more efficiently afterwards, cutting 10% from the time it takes to return to the same point in the text. The academics also looked at the impact of background speech and music, and found that when participants were exposed to simultaneous background speech while reading a text, it took them significantly longer to get through it. Some workers might seize upon those findings as a reason to kill off open-plan offices.
But Weger says there will always be other distractions. He advises turning off attention-sappers such as automatic email notifications, and arranging desks so they don't point towards anything interesting – like people walking around outside, but admits: "Sometimes these strategies come with their own costs – turning off your iPod or mobile, for example, can trigger a yearning or even pressure that can get quite distracting in itself.
"The best way to overcome our addiction to new information is to learn to control yourself: you can do exercises to help ... using thought-control exercises like concentrating on a simple imagined object for a few minutes every day," he explains.
Weger says a concentration exercise he found in a book written by Rudolf Steiner 100 years ago is still useful. "As soon as you notice that you have diverted to another thought, pull yourself away from the intrusive thought and turn back to the image straight away. After practice, you get more competent at shielding yourself against the countless tempting stimuli in our world of information overload." It sounds very virtuous, but Weger admits he still gets lured into the trap of time-wasting procrastination – even while writing up his research into it. "I still struggle with distractions all the time," he says.
And as for BlackBerrys and their smartphone cousins, Weger says they're not all bad, and have a "mixed effect". He explains: "The upside of these devices is that you don't have to go home to get the information you need. But the downside is that if you allow yourself to become dependent, they will haunt you. As with all things: if you can make use of something that makes your life easier while maintaining enough inner strength and freedom to avoid dependence, you are the master. If you do not cultivate this inner strength and freedom, you become the slave."
If you take a proper look at the university application figures, it's clear that many 18-year-olds are already shunning degrees and applying for apprenticeships
Are young people being turned off university? This may seem an odd question when the latest figures showed a record number of applicants. But closer analysis suggests that UK school-leavers are behaving differently from other groups over university admissions.
Indeed there is mounting evidence that apprenticeships are becoming a more attractive proposition for many 18-year-olds. And if that happens, then some universities could be in for a serious financial squeeze in the years ahead as the government forces them to rely on fee income instead of central grant to fund undergraduate courses.
On the face of it, the UK university application figures look healthy, showing an overall rise of 5.1% at the notional January deadline. This prompted the usual headlines about "record numbers" seeking university places. As this is the last year before the tuition fee cap is raised threefold, a surge in applications was expected.
Indeed it's precisely because commentators expected a rise in applications that they did not interrogate the figures. But if they did, they would find a different picture. For a start, the rise in applications is much smaller than at the same point in each of the last two admissions cycles. It is also much lower than as recently as last November, when applications were rising by 11.7%. Since then applications have nose-dived. By the summer there could even turn out to be no rise at all in UK-based applicants.
So what has happened? On 9 December parliament backed the government's plans to raise the tuition fee cap to a maximum of £9,000. The subsequent student protests ensured that everyone now knows about the fees rise. Add in widespread media coverage of graduate unemployment and perhaps some of those school-leavers decided not to fill out their Ucas applications after all.
Even though the fees rise does not affect this year's applicants, it has affected the debate about the value of a degree. This explains why applications from England were up by only 3.7% compared with applications from outside the EU (17%) and from non-UK countries within the EU (up 7.7%). Scotland, where the fees changes do not apply, had a rise of 6.5%.
When broken down by age, the differences are even starker. Indeed, the number of applicants aged 18 or under from England actually fell marginally, from 202,104 to 202,045. There were also falls from 18-year-olds in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
It's true that there are 3% fewer 18-year-olds in this year's cohort. But when there was a similar demographic decline in 2010, applications from 18-year-olds still shot up by almost 16,000. And with higher fees looming, it might have been expected that more school-leavers would delay their "gap year" and go for immediate entry.
One possible explanation for the slowing of applications might be that UK school-leavers are applying to universities on the European mainland, where fees are much lower and where several institutions are targeting UK applicants by offering courses taught in English.
But it's more likely that 18-year-olds are hearing what employers are saying. At a conference on employability skills, Jane Scott Paul, the head of the Association of Accounting Technicians, reported that "more and more of our employers are changing their recruitment policies, switching from graduates to training up their own school-leavers … could this be the tipping point for apprenticeships?"
Karen Liddle, who oversees financial recruitment at Procter & Gamble, says that, unlike many graduates, school-leaver recruits "genuinely want to be there, do not have unreasonable ambitions, and have no preconceptions". Applications to the company's finance apprenticeship for school-leavers doubled last year. Liddle says the pass rate for the apprentices is "much higher than for our graduates".
School-leavers are certainly applying in droves for apprenticeships. Last year 24,000 applied for the 220 places at BT and 65,000 applied for 600 apprenticeships at British Gas.
Of course, job scarcity partly explains these high figures. But there are other signs that employers are shifting to school-leaver recruitment. A survey of 500 companies by City & Guilds showed 52% of those already recruiting apprentices believed they offered greater value than graduates.
The government has promised to create 100,000 new apprenticeships. Not all will lure those who would otherwise apply for university, but the application figures for both apprenticeships and universities suggest we could indeed be at a tipping point.
Falafels are safe after all – in small doses, research on rats shows
A study called Effect of a popular Middle Eastern food (Falafel) on rat liver is now available to the public. Focusing strictly on the medical consequences (for rats) of eating "chickpeas paste seasoned with garlic, parsley, and special spices, then deep fried in vegetable oil", it's a 10-page journey from delight to despair, and finally to indifference.
Sana Janakat and Mohammad Al-Khateeb of the Jordan University of Science and Technology in Irbid, Jordan, wrote the report. It somewhat enlivens the February 2011 issue of the journal Toxicological & Environmental Chemistry.
Janakat and Al-Khateeb start with some cheery praise: "Falafel is considered the most popular fried food by all socio-economic classes in most Middle Eastern countries. It is consumed for breakfast, dinner, or as a snack. Among low-income families and labourers it is consumed on a daily basis, due to its availability, relatively low price, and good taste."
Then come several pages of unhappy news that lead to a depressing and technical conclusion: "Long-term consumption of falafel patties caused a significant increase in ALP [alkaline phosphatase], ALT [alanine transaminase], bilirubin level and increased liver weight/body weight ratio ... This indicates that consumption of large amounts of falafel on daily basis might lead to hepatotoxicity."
But wait! That's not the end of the story.
Here's what Janakat and Al-Khateeb say they did.
First they gathered falafel: "Frying oil samples and falafel patties were collected from 20 restaurants located in different socio-economic neighbourhoods from the city of Irbid."
They homogenized the falafel, soaked it for 24 hours, filtered it through cheesecloth and centrifuged it. This produced the experimental material – concentrated falafel – with which they performed two experiments.
The first experiment assessed the short-term effect of eating falafel, short term in this case meaning five days. Janakat and Al-Khateeb extracted the oil from some falafel patties, and force-fed it to some rats for the whole five days. Then they killed those rats, and did post mortems to get at the livers. The livers (happily, in a sense) looked in pretty good shape. Thus, the report says, the short-term effects of eating falafel are pretty benign.
The second experiment aimed to clarify the long-term effect of falafel consumption. A fresh batch of rats got to eat lots of falafel – as much as they pleased, whenever they wanted it – for a month. That was their entire diet: falafel, falafel, falafel. Then they were killed. Here, the post mortem results were ugly. The study intones that "long-term consumption of falafel patties (30 days) caused yellowish discoloration of the liver distinctive of liver necrosis", suggesting that "the consumption of falafel as the sole source of nutrition for a long period of time ... can generate a hepatotoxic effect leading to liver necrosis".
That may sound like bad news, but apparently it's not. The very next sentence – nearly the last thing said in the report – is this: "Falafel consumption in moderation and in conjunction with other food items or beverages containing high antioxidant levels can be considered as safe."
• Marc Abrahams is editor of the bimonthly Annals of Improbable Research and organiser of the Ig Nobel prize
In prison, enthusiasm can make a morning fly by, especially when it involves animal impersonations
God knows what we looked like standing there in the middle of the Grosvenor Centre, shaking hands and patting each other on the back. I was in my middleclass trendy kit: nice cashmere overcoat, a gaudy, devil-may-care scarf. He was a bit grubby in a shiny, dirt-seamed anorak, manky jeans and fraying trainers. But we were so pleased to see each other. All the people staring at us could see that quite clearly.
"Alan, Alan." This big voice had boomed out across the shoppers, and I turned, a bit confused, and there was this old guy leaping down the up escalator two or three steps at a time. He got to the bottom a bit unsteady, a bit breathless. "Alan." Arms outstretched. He saw that I was a bit startled. "Prison," he shouted. "Yes of course," I shouted back, thinking who the hell are you? Then the penny dropped. "You're the guy who taught me how to rob the supermarket." He was delighted to be so remembered and we went over the clever, delightful, guaranteed successful bit of larcenous methodology that had stunned one of my classes into an awestruck silence during break one Thursday afternoon. "I don't do that any more," he said. "Course you don't." "I'm afraid I did do another sentence, though, after I left you." "Oh well." "It was just a misunderstanding with an undercover policeman. Three years I got."
Then, out of that bit of gloominess, his face lit up; "I remember that Aristotle." "Good bloke, Aristotle." "Yeah. He was taught by Plato and Plato was taught by Socrates. That's right isn't it?" "Absolutely." "They think I'm brilliant in my house. It was on the telly the other night about the Greeks and I just told them all about it. I used to like philosophy." We rambled on a bit about the other guys in the class, shook hands again and off he went back up the escalator.
There's nothing like enthusiasm; it always cheers me up and just when I'm thinking of finishing with prison, feeling sick of the whole damn business, some enthusiast comes along and sets me going again.
Casey drives me nuts. I really want to retire. It's time. Then he bursts in with something he's been reading about and the morning is gone in a flash and he's made me promise to do something new. (Trotsky, he wants to know about Trotsky. My own fault for showing off, and now I've got all that reading to do.) "There's a guy on the wing, he's doing a maths degree. He's not here, he's not in the prison. You talk to him and he's OK, he's a good guy but he's somewhere else." Someone had lent Casey a book about anatomy and he, of course, had got into it in that obsessive way that real enthusiasts do. It came with a CD and so we took a look. It was absolutely brilliant. We all thought so, caught up in that lovely time-collapsing fascination that concentrating on something brings. Some of it was quite difficult to watch. There was a dissection of a cadaver: bones, red meat, sinew. "Does this," I wondered, "affect our belief in God?" "Not a bit," said Ian, "Science is entirely neutral. Only the moral arguments count." There was some mention of evolution and Casey made a strange point about lemurs and the way they move and, as no one understood him, he jumped up and did a lemur imitation. We made him do it again, pretending not to get his point. "Very balletic that," I told him. "Just, run it past us again." And he did: doing the lemur. "It's a proper dance," said Ade, "go on, do it again."
As parents and teachers nervously await a green paper on special needs, Fran Abrams visits a school that has one of the highest proportions of SEN students in the country
In the playground at the Northumberland Church of England Academy, 12-year-old Rachael Winch is running towards her mother, clutching a little silver scooter. She fixes her with a hard, close stare, nose to nose: "What are you doing here?"
It was clear before Rachael started school that she was going to need a lot of support. She has autism, and she's one of 50 statemented pupils with severe learning difficulties who attend a special unit within the school. "This facility is superb," says her mother, Ann. "Special needs children are all individual, and they need to have specialist teaching. But they've also got to be allowed to integrate."
In some cases, though, there's more doubt. Last autumn, Ofsted published a report that said too many schools were labelling pupils as having special needs when in fact they just needed to be taught better. There were even accusations from other quarters that schools were playing the system, putting pupils on their special needs registers to get extra funding or to boost their "contextual" scores in exam league tables.
The controversy might not have been all bad news for a government with plans to cut spending. A green paper is expected to set out the future of special needs education this month – and there have been suggestions that ministers could use Ofsted's findings to justify cutting the numbers classified as needing extra help. The proportion of pupils classified as "school action plus" – just short of a formal statement of special needs, but needing extra support from outside their schools – has risen since 2003, from 14% to 18%.
Phil Hearne, the executive director of the Northumberland Church of England Academy, which opened in 2009 sprawling across 10 sites and taking in 2,500 pupils aged three to 19, might be expected to be worried. According to the latest league tables, no fewer than 64% of his 2010 GCSE cohort were on the "school action plus" level – the highest figure for any school in the country. With another substantial slice of the year group on the lower "school action" level, in total nearly eight out of 10 were classified as having special needs.
But Hearne is unperturbed. Last year was an unusual year, he says – the academy had just opened, and it inherited big problems from its predecessor secondary school. The figure will be much lower for this year's GCSE year – about seven out of 10 are now classified as having special needs, he says, most in the lowest category and requiring only school-level support. In any case, he adds, the £200 per head extra funding which the "school action plus" label attracts is a drop in the ocean of the £18m annual budget he runs.
"Playing the system isn't how I would see it. What you are trying to do is to identify the needs of the child and then to look for ways in which you can fund them," he says. "If by happenstance it falls into a particular category and attracts funding, then so be it."
The fact remains, though, that even without the 50 statemented pupils in its special unit, the school classifies a high number as having special needs – the national average for secondary-aged students is just under a quarter.
And there's no denying there's a high level of need here – the school is in a deprived area, and many of its pupils have both parents and grandparents who have rarely, if ever, worked. Its special needs staff give a striking range of reasons why children are placed in the higher-level "school action plus" category. For instance, some receive support from mental health services, while others have been referred to the school nurse because of persistent absence. Some are undergoing a formal assessment process for problems that might include being at risk of child abuse, and some are seeing an education psychologist because of behavioural problems. Others spend part of the week with an alternative education provider doing extra literacy and numeracy classes, while yet another group are supported by a team that helps teenagers at risk of dropping out.
According to Philippa Stobbs, principal officer of the Council for Disabled Children, the current special needs regime can sometimes encourage schools to play the system.
"At a school level, there are incentives," she says. "Take a school where perhaps overnight an additional 20 children are put on to the special needs register – it isn't unheard of. They immediately improve the performance of both their special needs and non-special needs groups, without any child learning anything. Because they move kids out of the bottom of the non-special needs group, into the top of the special needs group, and that's likely to close the gap."
She thinks there are problems with schools having very high numbers on their special needs registers: "It doesn't make any sense for a school to be defining so many children as having special educational needs. What does the special needs operation of the school do if it's got 80% of the kids on its books? No special needs department can do a sensible job with such a high percentage."
Along with other experts in the field, she suspects the forthcoming green paper may simply remove those children who receive in-school help from special needs registers – cutting the proportion of secondary students classified in this way at a stroke, from one in four to one in nine.
This will not stop the numbers from rising, according to Lorraine Petersen, chief executive of the national special needs association, Nasen. "Ofsted probably was right in terms of there being over-diagnosis, or over-identification," she says. "But some of that will come from parents. There's a tendency to say: 'You've got to offer this child x, y and z because he's dyslexic. Once a child has a label, there's extra pressure on the school to try to meet that particular label's requirements."
She believes there are also genuine reasons why there are more children with particular kinds of need these days: "We have more children than ever with mental health issues. We also have an increasing number with complex needs, overlapping needs. They may be on the autistic spectrum but may also have a behavioural difficulty, and because their teachers aren't trained to identify their particular needs, they're frustrated, so they're disruptive. And then you get into a downward spiral of bad behaviour and exclusion."
But Christine Blower, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, says schools are bound to do whatever they have to do to ensure their pupils' needs are met: "I wouldn't call it gaming or cheating. I would say there are perverse incentives here. If the key way to get resources for young people about whom there's significant concern is to make sure they are on the special needs register, schools will obviously do that," she says.
She believes resources are a central issue, and that the forthcoming green paper will add to the woes of schools already facing the effects of local authority cuts: "I'm not looking forward to the green paper with anything like the enthusiasm that I might, because I feel that it will simply be a cost-cutting exercise and it will be about showing that if teachers just get on with teaching the national curriculum all will be well.
"The fact is that resources are being cut as we speak. We know local authorities are cutting swathes of jobs – lots and lots of services for children with special needs, and the most vulnerable kids. Once the jobs go, so does the money – schools don't have the money to buy in these services."
The Northumberland academy's staff say their job is simply to ensure that all their pupils' diverse needs are met – and in recent years, resources have usually been available to support that. But recently, they say, they have begun to see that changing – even though the academy controls its own budget, a local authority reorganisation and further cuts to children's services are affecting some of the local services they buy into. "Already, support that might have been there a few years ago isn't there any more," says Peter Blackburn, principal director of the academy's secondary department. "Our challenge, if funding is cut, is to find out how we can continue these services."
Northumberland council says it is still making decisions about the future of particular services. But parents are worried about the future. April Orr, whose daughter Josie attends the school's special unit, benefited from a "portage" service – home-based support – and says she was guided and helped by local authority staff at every step when Josie was diagnosed with autism. But she fears that won't be there in future for other parents. "They're always saying early intervention is a big thing – and it's true. We get a lot of support – the staff we work with at the moment are great," she says. "But we know it's going to be cut."
• This article has been changed to say that Northumberland Church of England Academy has one of the highest proportions of SEN students in the country, rather than the highest
Scientists prove that your five a day make you more attractive – by subtly altering your skin colour
Most of us know that eating five portions of fruit and vegetables a day will do us far more good than 20 minutes on a sun bed or two hours basted with factor 10 and sprawled on a Mediterranean beach in high summer. But new research suggests that it will also make us more attractive to the opposite sex. Consequently, it seems far more likely to affect the dietary habits of the young than any amount of hectoring from the Department of Health.
"Currently we tell them to 'eat well or in 50 years you will have a heart attack'," says Ian Stephen, 29, assistant professor of psychology at Nottingham University's Malaysian campus. "Now we can say: 'eat fruit and veg and you will look better in six to eight weeks'." But he is adamant that he never set out to find a novel way of reinforcing medical advice. "I don't really care what people do," he insists. "I'm an experimental psychologist, not a public health PR man. However, our results suggest that eating well and staying out of the sun would make you look healthier."
How come? Well, the key component is the carotenoid, an antioxidant responsible for the red colouring found in, for instance, tomatoes, peppers, plums and carrots. That redness eventually imbues the human skin with yellowness, or rather a healthy-looking golden glow. "Carotenoids are stored in fat under the skin," Stephen explains. "They are also secreted through the skin in serum, and are then reabsorbed into the top layer of the skin, bestowing that golden colour."
Alert Guardian readers may have deduced by now that he is talking about Caucasian skins. "Yes, it has been pointed out to me, usually by social scientists, that there is something culturally imperialist about the research," he says. "Ironically, there's almost something racist in that suggestion because the implication is that you can't see the same colour changes in black faces. Of course you can. In West Africa, for instance, skin pigmentation is affected by consumption of red palm oil with high levels of carotenoids. We're hoping to do further cross-cultural studies in the UK, Africa and Malaysia."
The original study was carried out in Scotland, where the sun's rays are not over-intrusive. It just happens that Stephen did the first part of his PhD at St Andrews University. There he worked at The Perception Laboratory, dedicated to investigating "the many facets of face perception" – what makes one person appear more trustworthy than another, for instance, or more attractive.
In that regard, there has been plenty of work on shape, but very little on skin colour, he says. "There are two main pigments that affect the yellowness of skin. One comes from carotenoids, the other from melanin, which is yellow and dark, giving the brown colour that we associate with a sun tan. Using a scientific instrument called a spectrophotometer, I measured the colour change associated with changes in carotenoid levels and melanin levels in the skin. Then, using a computer programme, I allowed participants to adjust the levels of carotenoid and melanin colour in photographs of faces to make them look as attractive as possible. Participants chose to increase melanin colour slightly, but increased carotenoid colour lots.
In another part of the experiment, he used a questionnaire to estimate the amount of fruit and vegetables in the daily diet of another group of participants and then analysed skin tones to confirm that what might be called the golden glow was explained by changes in carotenoid levels and not other pigments such as melanin.
Just over 80 people took part in the dietary study, and 30 in transforming 51 faces on the computer. They were aged from 18 to 26, but Stephen maintains: "There's no reason to suggest that we wouldn't get similar results from older participants." Any gender differences? "The preference for light skin is stronger in women's faces than in men's. Which might indicate that the tanned and leathery look is not quite so off-putting to women as it is to men.
Overwhelmingly, though, the results suggested that a healthy golden glow was equated with attractiveness. "They didn't all give the same answer to three decimal points," says Stephen. "But there was enough common ground to indicate that there wouldn't be much value in extending the experiment to another 300 participants."
The wider implications, he suggests, are that some things haven't changed since Darwin pointed to skin colour as an element in sexual attraction. "The whole purpose of attractiveness from an evolutionary point of view is that the person doing the viewing is looking for a viable, healthy, high-quality mate," he says.
Professor David Perrett, who heads The Perception Lab at St Andrews, points out: "This is something we share with other species. For example, the bright yellow beaks and feathers of many birds can be thought of as adverts showing how healthy a male bird is. What's more, females of those species prefer to mate with brighter, more colourful males. But this is the first study in which this has been demonstrated in humans."
The study was funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and Unilever Research. But the ultimate beneficiaries may yet include the Department of Health and, indeed, the many under-30s who might suddenly see the benefits of tucking away their "five a day".
• This article has been amended to correct the spelling of St Andrews University
Tuition fee increases are bound to reduce social mobility, says Jonathan Black, as employers recruit school-leavers afraid of debt
In 1918, the Foreign Office Diplomatic and Consular Services wrote to the University of Oxford Appointments Committee (forerunner of today's careers service) to tell them: "It should be noted that it is no longer essential that candidates should possess a private income or allowance." Ninety-three years later, will the introduction of fees to attend university, at a level that resembles fees for independent schools, roll back the clock to the Edwardian era in terms of restricted social mobility and access?
The current government, and indeed members of the opposition front bench, have emphasised the need to increase access to higher education for those from underprivileged backgrounds. Universities, including Oxford, spend significant time and money encouraging school students from such backgrounds to consider applying, yet there have been hints about possible sanctions in restricting fee-raising power if universities do not achieve as-yet unspecified target proportions of students "representing all society". Universities, we infer, are to be the engine of social change. This is similar to a manufacturing organisation trying to inject quality into a product at the end of the production line.
The introduction of fees between £6,000 and £9,000 per year from 2012 is ushering in recognised changes in higher education generally, among them raised and different student expectations on "service" level, on their relationship with faculty, and an increased pressure to secure a well-paid job on graduation. I believe that there are likely to be equally significant secondary effects, probably on a longer time scale, that will have the effect of reducing social mobility.
Taking the supply side first: our experience at Oxford is that around one third of undergraduates and postgraduates don't know where to start in their career search; from our work in schools, we know the proportion is even higher in 16- and 17-year-olds. There is generally little high-quality careers advice and support in schools to help these children; although the "learn to earn" belief is strong, there will now be increasing worry by parents and children alike over how to justify a £20,000+ debt from a potential university education.
On the demand side, we observe employers driven to minimise their own employment and training costs to maximise short-term profits; there is little ethos of training for the national good, the recognition that while one employer may lose a worker they have trained, they will gain one that someone else has trained. We are beginning to see companies exploring ways to exploit (what others have called) the fear, uncertainty and doubt of studying a non-vocational course at university. For example, the accountancy firm KPMG recently announced it would sponsor 75 students through an accounting degree at Durham University; how long before employers recruit graduate-quality school-leavers direct from the sixth form, training them on the job, perhaps with day-release or modular courses at local further and higher education institutions?
The secondary effect of this apparently happy marriage of school-leavers and employers might be to generate a workforce that is narrowly trained in disciplines and techniques that are useful only for today's challenges. School-leavers, particularly from underprivileged backgrounds, will understandably be attracted to the apparently expedient option of employment with some training and qualification. It would be understandable if school-leavers from underprivileged backgrounds were overrepresented in such a group; this choice avoids university debts, secures employment and provides some training and qualification.
Government statistics and newspaper league tables measure student employment status soon after graduation, almost as if such a measure were the final word on the issue. Academics, students and colleagues I talk to are concerned about lifetime careers, not just the first six months. We know from our alumni that as people grow and develop they seek to expand their horizons and build a career applying their transferable skills to new challenges. I would worry that those who have taken a short-term route into a narrow discipline will find such mid-career development more difficult than if they had studied a full university degree and learned how to apply those transferable skills to their career for themselves.
I believe it is just those students from less privileged backgrounds, whom the government believes might be excluded from education and careers, who are more likely to end up in this form of indentured training – with limited options for the future. Other students from more privileged backgrounds who have been able to follow a more broad-based education are likely to be better equipped for a wider variety of roles. It is an attractive aspect of the British education system that career choice can be so wide from apparently non-vocational degree subjects.
It is said that half the jobs that exist today will have changed in form and content by the time today's 15-year-olds enter the world of work. Among many other things, we in universities teach and train core transferable skills useful in future employment. We may not all call them that, teach them directly, or issue formal certificates asserting that our students have gained these skills. However, we observe sophisticated employers continuing to recruit at all leading universities because they recognise the long-term transferable skills of our students – the result of a higher education system where school-leavers have chosen to study what interests them and thereby acquire skills for the future, unencumbered by the pressure of taking on large debts.
I believe there is a good chance that the introduction of higher fees will create deeper and longer-lasting splits in the working population that reinforce, rather than break down, social divisions. The privileged will continue to gain a broad education, which will give them choice and control over their careers; the less privileged will focus on expedient, short-term options that will give them narrow training, equipping them for fewer roles, offering ever declining choice in a fast-changing world.
• Jonathan Black is director of careers at Oxford University
Proposed changes would mean even less choice of school for parents – unless the Liberal Democrats stand up for their policies
It is almost exactly five years since the last Labour government introduced its controversial Education and Inspections Bill. It followed a highly contested white paper, which promised to create a system of independent non-fee-paying schools. Companies, faith groups, charities and parents were going to set up and run these new institutions with a much reduced role for local authorities. Sound familiar?
Before the bill was even published, more than 100 Labour MPs had threatened to rebel; they drew up their own "alternative white paper" and eventually ground a number of concessions out of a reluctant prime minister who once described the process as "hell".
As a small bit-part player in the process, I am still proud of the pamphlet I co-authored at the time with fellow campaigner Melissa Benn about the future of comprehensive education. We helped to focus attention on what thousands of schools with responsibility for controlling their own admissions might mean for parents and pupils, especially the least well-off.
By the time the bill appeared, local authorities had rightly regained some rights to propose new schools, the role of the schools adjudicator and local admissions forums had been strengthened and schools were required to act "in accordance" with the admissions code, rather than simply to "have regard" to it. Even then, it only passed into law with the support of Conservative MPs.
It now seems we are destined to celebrate the fifth anniversary of that piece of legislation rehearsing many of the same arguments. The latest education bill receives its second reading today and will in effect repeal many of the concessions wrung out of the Blair government.
If a new school is needed, academy/free school bids must be prioritised before any other school can be considered, the secretary of state will decide who runs it, local authorities are frozen out and new maintained schools will be almost impossible to achieve.
The government is also to give itself powers to transfer land directly to free schools, the requirement for locally established admissions forums is to be ditched, at a time when there may be an explosion of autonomous schools, the schools adjudicator will no longer be able to require schools to change illegal entry criteria and parents will no longer be able to complain to the local government ombudsman.
Translated into everyday life, these changes mean that, far from having choice, parents will have a very limited menu: an academy, or an academy called a free school; no say in who runs it; no local scrutiny of how it manipulates its admissions and no meaningful role for the local authority in planning places to meet local needs.
In a sense it is encouraging that the take-up of academies and free schools has been so sluggish that the financial carrot has now been replaced by a big stick. But these clauses, alongside the changes to the teaching workforce, and the curriculum, represent a massive power and land grab away from local communities and to central government, for which there is no mandate.
Tony Blair did at least win the 2005 general election, even if he didn't mention his plans for schools in his manifesto. The Tories haven't won an election since 1992; they are being propped up by a party that wooed thousands of floating teachers, governors and parents with promises about fairness, devolution of power and local accountability, but which has gone curiously silent in an area where its policies once commanded respect.
The bill will give Andy Burnham, shadow education secretary, the chance to define himself on some key issues, not least the role of local authorities in a modern education system and how we ensure fairness in resourcing, planning and admissions.
The big question is whether the Liberal Democrats will now step up to the plate, to try to regain credibility on policies they once called their own. We keep hearing about their new plan to define themselves in opposition to the Conservatives within the coalition. I can't think of a better opportunity than this education bill to put that New Year resolution into practice.
• www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk
From preferred A-levels and the English bac to colleges and academic redundancy
Last week Lucy Tobin reported on confusion over universities' "preferred" A-level subjects. A few days later, the Russell Group published a guide
I've helped out at Cambridge open days and it's a real shame to talk to potential applicants who want to do, for example, biological natural sciences and are doing biology and chemistry A-level without maths. Realistically, they don't have a chance, competing with private school applicants who have the "ideal" combination: maths, further maths and two sciences. Where does the problem start? Crap advice from teachers. Cambridge's website is good, but it takes a 15-year-old with a lot of foresight to be making A-level choices with the best university courses in mind.
umboose
• I've just found out that thanks to Gove and his "English bac", my son, a scientist through and through who will probably take maths, further maths, applied maths and physics for his As, will have some universities closed to him because he won't have a language GCSE. He's facing the prospect of losing a place to someone who may not have his aptitude for science but who has Latin.
chattykathy14
• If you are applying to a sixth-form college you have to apply in year 10 with a good, if not definite, idea of the subjects you wish to study. To expect anyone to make this choice at the age of 14/15 seems hard.
sunshinecandy
• We (universities) could help solve many problems by providing a Universities UK exams board for A-levels, with syllabi that are approved as rigorous.
Bobber1
From your article on Harlow College, it seems the adage about lies, damn lies and statistics eludes you (Bonkers? Maybe. Successful? Definitely, 25 January).
There are four measures of colleges' performance: achievement rates, which measure high grades; pass rates; value added; and success rates. Despite the name, success rates are no more than glorified retention rates. They measure how many students who began a course went on to pass it. Success rates make no distinction between grades A and E.
The fear of collapsing success rates means that students have been deterred by colleges from trying different courses, and teachers often compete to retain students when they should be objectively advising them. Then there are "exit strategies". If a student has no prospect of succeeding in their first choice of course, college managers can transfer them to a very short course which is nearly impossible to fail.
Anthony Carlyon
Ingatestone, Essex
• I am saddened by your infommercial for Colin Hindmarch. If you speak to just one man, you get one point of view: man comes in and saves college. Yet the 100 lecturers who left may have different stories to tell. Many felt so aggrieved that they took the meagrest of severance packages and left a college that they had dedicated years of their lives to.
Adam Amor
Harlow, Essex
Your advice to academics faced with redundancy (My old job? Ancient history, 1 February) covers a range of options, but fails to mention the one word that will really help: "strike".
Keith Flett, London N17
As getting into university becomes even harder this year, we track five students in their quest for a place
More students than ever before have applied to university this year. In a bid to beat the tuition fee rise – course costs may nearly treble from £3,290 to a maximum of £9,000 a year for those starting in 2012 – some 600,000 young people sent in a Ucas form this year. That is 5% more than the same time in 2010, when an estimated 200,000 students missed out on a place altogether.
With thousands more battling for the same number of places – around 479,000 – this year, even more students face rejection from all of their university choices. They will then have to decide whether to re-apply next year, and pay the higher fees, or give up the dream altogether.
So how does it feel to be in the thick of it? For the next few months, Education Guardian will follow five sixth-formers as they log in to Ucas, discover their offer progress, and decide how far they want to go to get a few letters after their name.
Zowie Pearce, 18, is studying A-levels in communications and culture and English literature and language at Cornwall College, St Austell. She already has A-levels in sociology, psychology and photography and has applied to read English at university.
"I found it quite difficult to sell myself to the universities, showing them that I'm hardworking and dedicated despite my illnesses," says Zowie, who has cystic fibrosis (CF) and diabetes. "And I'm a bit worried about my health, as starting university and leaving home is a big step." Zowie sent her Ucas form in early, in the first week of October, despite being in hospital the previous month. "It can be a problem as I miss so much study time," she says. "With weeks in hospital, I miss out on my education time. But when I want something I will do whatever it takes. Cystic fibrosis won't override my life."
Zowie's dad is a building site manager and her mum a medical secretary. She will be the first in her family to go to university. Her older sister opted to get a secretarial job after leaving school, so she talked to friends and teachers about her options. "I wanted to study somewhere where if I was ill it wouldn't take long to get to a hospital and with a CF centre close by," she says. "So I applied to Plymouth, Bath Spa, the University of West England and Bournemouth."
The extra hurdles Zowie has faced in her education so far means she brushes off concerns about tuition fee debt. "I'm a firm believer that if going to uni is something you are really passionate about, fees won't stand in the way – you deal with it however you can."
Christopher Howarth, 17, is studying English literature, Latin and chemistry A-levels in year 13 at Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School, a private secondary in Hertfordshire. He has applied to read classics at university.
Chris is already worrying about A2 results day in August. "Tearing open the envelope is always terrifying, you feel that there's so much potential for something to go wrong," he says. Both of his parents – who work as a civil servant and school administrator – went to university and expected him to do the same. Chris decided early on at secondary school that he wanted to study classics. "I think it's useful to have some idea of what you want to do, as it's all getting so competitive," he says.
Chris has already been to Cambridge for an interview. "I really enjoyed it," he says. "I was asked why Chinese uses a writing system based on symbols, and had no idea at first, but they kept giving me hints until I came up with a satisfactory theory." He was "elated" about being offered a place at Trinity College late last year. "But they asked for a minimum of two As and an A*, and more than anything I'm hoping I won't fall short," he says. "I know lots of very able people have slipped up on the day and missed out on a place."
Chris has also applied to Durham, Bristol, St Andrews and UCL. He's considering a career as a barrister but isn't sure yet, saying "the beauty of humanities degrees is that you don't have to make your mind up right away".
Josh Kay, 17, is studying A-levels in history, German, sociology, and English literature and language at Stourport school in Worcestershire. He has applied to read international relations.
Josh has been thinking about university since he was 12, although his dream course has changed from architecture to pathology to law to linguistics to international relations. "After university, I would like to either become a civil servant in the foreign office, or work within an embassy. I love travel and languages," he says.
That ambition led Josh to consider venturing to Europe for higher education. "After seeing an article about how Dutch universities were offering very generous grants to English students, I looked into Maastricht and Groningen universities," he says. "In October, I went to the Netherlands to have a look at both universities. I spoke to an English student at Maastricht about her experiences and how she was finding being a foreign student." Josh is now in the process of applying to both of those universities, as well as the London School of Economics, and Birmingham, Manchester, Swansea and East Anglia universities – the last four of whom have already offered him a place.
Josh says his parents – his dad is a carpenter and his mum works for an aerospace company – didn't go to university and are encouraging him and his 15-year-old brother to do so. They agree that "studying abroad would be a great opportunity to expand knowledge and my languages," as Josh puts it. He adds: "Moving to the Netherlands would be great for its multicultural edge, as well as its extremely generous grants. The fees are £1,500 a year, plus you receive a basic £221-a-month grant. The Dutch were friendly when I visited and their standard of English is excellent, which is especially helpful for me as my only Dutch is 'dank u'."
Danielle Fox, 17, is studying a two-year BTec subsidiary diploma in art and design plus photography A-level at Plymouth Marine Academy.
"I'm the first in my family to be thinking of going to university," says Danielle. "It is a big deal – my parents are really proud of how I've done so far and they're egging me on." Yet Danielle, whose dad fits power lines and whose mum is unemployed, would start university under the new fees regime and is worried about the cost.
"Although my parents will hopefully be able to help me a bit, I'd be doing most of it myself, with loans plus a job to pay for necessities. The new fees have made me think twice about uni. Since I'd have to do so much paid work, I'd worry about the impact on my studies – and with fees so high, it wouldn't be worth going to uni unless I could focus and do it properly."
Danielle plans to start looking into the full details of university when she has finished her first year of sixth form. "Right now, I am focusing on my current workload so I don't fall behind and start worrying – but I've started thinking about it in my spare time," she says. Danielle loves Japanese manga animation and wants to work as an illustrator.
Sam Jacobs, 17, is in year 12 at JFS, a mixed comprehensive in Kenton, Harrow, studying chemistry, biology, English literature and geography AS-levels. He wants to study medicine at university.
"Medicine has always been my passion – I'm fascinated by science and how it relates to mental and physical health," says Sam. He has found the jump from GCSEs to A-levels "challenging" and has been disappointed by his grades this year, despite a string of A* and As at GCSE. "But with hard work I'm improving on my grades and time management," he says. "I'm hoping to achieve top marks in my ASs, since they will play a crucial role in whether I get in to medical school or not."
Sam – who enjoys drama and debating at school – hasn't yet decided which universities to apply for, but has been to a residential course for students who want to be doctors at St George's, part of the University of London. Neither of Sam's parents went to university and he is an only child. "I especially want to make my parents proud," he says. "But my biggest worry is not making the final cut. University is getting harder to get into and more people are being turned away each year. Plus, coming from a working-class background, I'm worried about how I'll afford the tuition without amassing a huge amount of debt."
We will catch up with our students once a month until August
• Lucy Tobin is author of A Guide to Uni Life (Trotman, £9.99)