(to serve until 31 December 2012)
Postnominals
BA MA
Nick.Poole@cilip.org.uk
Biography
Nick Poole is Chief Executive of the Collections Trust, an independent UK charity working with libraries, archives and museums. He also represents the UK at the Member States Expert Group for Digitisation at the European Commission and is responsible for advising a number of European agencies and Governments on digital priorities in Culture and libraries.
Prior to joining the Collections Trust in 2005, Nick held a number of roles at the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA), including responsibility for Regional policy development and as a National ICT Adviser. Before this, he worked in the financial services sector. In addition to his role within CILIP, Nick is a Councillor of the Museums Association and a Trustee of the UK part of the International Council of Museums.
Nick is a regular lecturer at several Universities and has published on subjects ranging from the economics of cultural services to international Copyright and Cultural Property law. He studied Languages at Cambridge University and holds postgraduate qualifications in Historical Linguistics and Fine Art & Illustration. He also studied the History and Philosophy of Science at Birkbeck College.
In his spare time, Nick enjoys reading, spending time with his family and hosting a successful regular music and poetry event. He also works with a number of HE and FE providers in an advisory capacity on the implementation and use of eLearning systems and Virtual Learning Environments. He was previously compere of a successful comedy club in London’s West End.
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(to serve until 31 December 2012)
Postnominals
BA
Biography
I grew up in Crewe and spent much of my freetime at school helping in the school library. This gave me an early taste of many aspects of librarianship and helped ignite a passion for the profession.
While studying English at Cambridge University, I worked in the Peterhouse library as a Library Assistant. After graduating I spent a year working a law costs draftsman, before getting a job as a Graduate Trainee Librarian at Exeter University.
A fun year at Exeter convinced me that librarianship was what I wanted to do and I applied for a masters course at Loughborough University.
Since graduating from Loughborough, I've been working in West Sussex as a Trainee Librarian. I served on the South East branch committee as one of the newsletter editors for roughly a year and the positive nature of this experience was what encouraged me to stand for election as a trustee.
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(to serve until 31 December 2011)
Postnominals
BA DipLib MCLIP
Dion.Lindsay@cilip.org.uk
Biography
I was born and brought up in the west of Northern Ireland in the 50s and 60s, and went to university in glorious Aberystwyth in the mid 70’s. So glorious that I stayed an extra year to study librarianship at CLW (1977-78). Then 23 years in Government Departments in London (Agriculture, Cabinet Office and Health), moving towards running high value-added information units for specialists. I spent 1997-2001 as Senior Librarian in various posts in Department of Health, then made the big move away from the Civil Service and London - to Northampton as Knowledge Manager for the Motor Neurone Disease Association.
I had a great time there introducing formal and informal km techniques (we invented some of the latter on the fly – that’s what a creative, motivated group can do!). In 4 years we grew from a £6m to a £9m organisation.
I realized that the best bit was internal consultancy - intervening to make a sustainable difference, and decided my skills and experience were robust enough to become a full time consultant. Now I'm consulted mainly by medium sized organisations in London and the Midlands who want knowledge management to help them in their learning and growth aspirations.
I'm delighted to have been elected as a CILIP Trustee. I'm enjoying playing my part in ensuring that society and the workplace grasp the opportunities we as professionals offer. I believe that a refreshed CILIP and a committed membership provide us with power to create a new and powerful impact.
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(to serve until 31 December 2011)
Postnominals
BSc MA FCLIP
Biography
Jill Lambert began her career as a weekend assistant at Ilkeston Public Library in Derbyshire. After a science degree at Bristol University, she worked for the Paint Research Association, subsequently taking a post graduate diploma in librarianship at Liverpool John Moores University.Her first professional post was with the University of Westminster, followed by the appointment as Science and Technology Librarian at Northumbria University. During a career break for two children, Jill studied for an MA in Librarianship. For several years, she was a visiting lecturer in the Department of Library and Information Studies at Birmingham City University. On returning to academic libraries, she worked at Birmingham City and Staffordshire Universities, before moving to Aston University. In the Library & Information Services (LIS) at Aston she was responsible for public services and academic liaison for life science and engineering for 10 years until retiring as Assistant Director in autumn 2007. She is a Fellow and Life Member of CILIP.
Her interests centre around three areas:
Acquiring knowledge of practice elsewhere has always been one of her key aims. Jill has made two international study visits, one funded by the British Council to Dutch academic libraries and one by the EU to the James Hardiman Library, part of the National University of Ireland. This Library is a leader in professional practice in Ireland, and the visit enabled her to benchmark her own service in terms of mode of staffing, and IT developments such as federated searching.
Jill has been actively involved in the profession over many years, acting as Secretary of the Midlands Branch of the Institute of Information Scientists for 3 years, and a member of the Annual Conference Organizing Committee in 1987. She was Treasurer of the JIBS User Group (JISC Assisted Bibliographical Data Services), covering electronic content of interest to Higher and Further Education institutions, from 2001 to 2006.
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(to serve until 31 December 2012)
Postnominals
BA (Hons) LLB FCLIP
Biography
My career has been a mixture of circumstance, luck and planning – as with many people’s!
Having spent a lot of my childhood in libraries they seemed the natural place to go career-wise. I did the SCOTVEC National Certificate in Library and Information Science at Telford College in Edinburgh, loved it, and went straight on to do the undergraduate degree level course at RGU in Aberdeen.
The fact that I have become a law librarian was initially part-accident, but quickly then a chosen career choice which I have actively followed.
I wrote to all the Special Libraries in Glasgow looking for holiday work and ended up at The Royal Faculty of Procurators in Glasgow. And after the initial terror of not knowing anything of specific relevance I really enjoyed it and it started me out on my current path which has involved professional legal society, court and law firm libraries and led to all kinds of time-intensive decisions later on like doing a law degree.
Just over a decade ago I had my first and only part-time job for a wee bit. I got bored and allowed myself to be talked onto Career Development Group (Scottish) Committee and somehow I came out of the pub an hour later as three different Officer posts and the learning curve started. Thus my second simultaneous parallel professional life was born, though I didn’t know it. Ever since I’ve done more and more CILIP-related doing’s (everything from CDG President to Governance Review to CILIPS Council) and it does take over life, but I’ve discovered I really believe in progressing things (not good at doing nothing), and I quite like tilting at professional windmills and the unknown, I’m interested to see what will happen and what’s on the other side.
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(to serve until 31 December 2013)
Postnominals
BA MCLIP OBE
Biography
As a child in Manchester I went to Harpurhey Library recently replaced by North City Library. At 13, wise teachers sent me on my first quest to Central Library for a history project. Learn to learn was the real purpose – and that’s how I’ve felt about libraries ever since. I read Spanish at Leeds including a year in (Franco’s) Madrid.
In Manchester I worked reshaping library services in the diverse inner city, addressing literacy, reading, learning, community information. Supporting cohesion from within the community, we 60’s kids had become committed community librarians.
1986 to St Helens, to manage libraries, archives and museums in a refreshed community leisure service. Great colleagues who knew the place, its needs and the legacy of a closing coal industry.
In Birmingham from 1990, eventually taking responsibility for the city’s huge and elaborate library and archive services, we were responding to a youthful, dynamic city of a million people. Brilliant experience. Latterly I oversaw adult education, youth service, early years, family and lifelong learning.
I was seconded to the LIC (1997) with fantastic leadership and a great team, to devise what became The People’s Network. Subsequently implemented by MLA, this was the most transformative intervention in public libraries for decades.
From 2000 I started to plan the Library of Birmingham. Not merely big, this would be a new library model for learning, heritage, cultural and community services, in spatial design, digital technologies, partnership, staff and community engagement.
From 2006 I headed library policy at MLA but chose to move on in the 2008 restructuring. While there I was privileged to assist with national developments in Bulgaria and India – unique, gratifying experiences.
Recently, consultancies include library and regeneration projects. More of this in 2011. I am an Honorary Fellow at the Department of Information Studies at Aberystwyth.
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(to serve until 31 December 2013)
Postnominals
BA MCLIP
Biography
Andy is a Senior Teaching Fellow at UCL, where he is Programme Director of the MSc Information Science and MA Electronic Communication and Publishing programmes, and Director of International Relations and Projects for the Department of Information Studies. He originally studied English and Linguistics before working for a year in Lambeth Libraries and then going on to do postgraduate study in LIS at Loughborough.
Once qualified he spent 15 years in industry running information and library services for large multinational companies such as Phillips Petroleum and Taylor Woodrow, where he also became a qualified lead assessor for QA and led the Taywood Information Service to gain the first independent BS5750 (ISO9000) quality accreditation for library and information services in the UK. Active in Aslib for many years, he served on Aslib’s council from 1986-1993 and worked for over 20 years on the Aslib Computer Group committee, including long spells in all its executive roles. He was one of the founders of the Information For Energy Group of the Energy Institute and has served as its treasurer since 1986.
He is a chartered member of CILIP and was previously a member of both the LA (since 1982) and the IIS (since 1987). His professional interests focus around information retrieval, human-computer interaction and systems design, and quality systems, and he is an advocate of drawing together the different strands within the information professions, focusing on commonalities rather than differences, and encouraging hybridisation.
In such little spare time as he has, he is also active in netball, playing in mixed leagues as well as being a qualified coach, umpire, and President of the Mixed Netball Association; rides a motorcycle to work daily in all weathers; plays bass guitar rather badly in a rock and roll band; and eats too much chocolate!
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(to serve until 31 December 2012)
Postnominals
BA MA PhD FCLIP FRSA
Biography
John Crawford has worked in public, school and academic libraries. He was formerly the director of the Scottish Information Literacy Project. He became interested in information literacy in 2002 and it has been his main focus of activity since then. He served on the Concil of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) from 2002 to 2007 and during this time served as chair of its Professional Practice Committee and was a member of its Executive Board. He also serves on the CILIP Disciplinary Committee. He is former chair of the Library and Information History Group, is still a committee member and has a strong interest in membership activism. He has written extensively in professional and academic journals and has authored two books. He serves on the editorial board of two scholarly journals and regularly referees journal submissions to a number of refereed journals.
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(to serve until 31 December 2011)
Postnominals
BA MA PhD AlMgt MCLIP ILTM
Judy.Broady-Preston@cilip.org.uk
Biography
Dr. Judith Broady-Preston is Senior Lecturer, Chair of the Management Research Group and a member of the Senior Management Team (2000-) at the Department of Information Studies (DIS), Aberystwyth University, where she has been employed since January 1990. From July 2000 to October 2007 she was Departmental Director of Learning and Teaching. Prior to 1990, she worked at Leeds Metropolitan and Sheffield Universities. Before becoming a full-time academic, Judith worked originally as a health services librarian and subsequently as an academic librarian.
Her research interests are value, quality, impact, performance measurement and services marketing. She has published extensively in a range of international journals, presented numerous conference papers and undertaken national and international consultancy projects.
Regional Editor of two international journals, Library Management and Journal of Education, Media & Library Sciences, she is also a member of the editorial boards of Library and Information Research and Performance Measurement and Metrics. A regular reviewer of journal and conference papers, Judith has been a member of numerous national and international conference planning committees, and assesses new monographs for five commercial publishers.
Secretary of BAILER (1997-2004) she has also been involved actively in professional associations, beginning with election to the IIS Southern Region Committee in 1994, being a member of the final General Council of the IIS. On the inauguration of CILIP, she was firstly Honorary Treasurer of CILIP Cymru/Wales, then Vice-Chair and Chair of CILIP Cymru/Wales (2006-December 2007) until election to the new model CILIP Council in December 2007. She was subsequently elected as the first Leader of Council and re-elected to Council for a three year term in December 2008. In 2009, she was elected to the IFLA Management and Marketing Section Committee for a four year term.
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CILIP's governing body is its Council, which manages the affairs of the Institute.
Council is comprised of 12 Councillors elected directly by the Membership in accordance with the Bye-laws and General Regulations. Councillors are also the Trustees of CILIP so the terms may be used interchangeably. There is provision for up to three co-options on Council.
Council Decisions: Transparency
To enhance its communication with members:
Click on the 'Council Meetings' link to the left to see details of the meetings, such as agendas, papers and minutes.
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Hundreds of academics have signed a document that warns of the dire consequences of the government's white paper on higher education. Their names are below
In Defence of Public Higher Education was prepared by a working party of academics and students representing the following campaigns:
Campaign for the Public University,
Oxford University Campaign for Higher Education,
Sussex University Defends Higher Education,
Warwick University Campaign for Higher Education,
Humanities Matter,
No Confidence Campaign,
Cambridge Academic Campaign for Higher Education.
The document was drafted by John Holmwood.
David Barclay, Bruce Beckles, Gurminder K. Bhambra, Thomas Docherty, Naomi Eilan, Robert Gildea, Juliet Henderson, Tim Horder, Howard Hotson, Laura Kirkley, James Ladyman, William McEvoy, Andrew McGettigan, Martha Mackenzie, Dave Legg, David Mond, Kate Tunstall, Simon Szreter, Bernard Sufrin.
Additional contributions from:
Stephen McKay
Claire Callender.
As well as the above campaigns, the document was endorsed by the following groups and associations:
British Association for American Studies (BAAS);
British International Studies Association Board of Trustees (BISA);
British Philosophical Association (BPA);
Committee of the Free University of Liverpool;
Education Activist Network Steering Committee;
Feminist and Women's Studies Association (FWSA);
Goldsmiths UCU Executive;
Institute of Education UCU Branch;
International Relations Department, University of Sussex;
Justice Violence and Rights Centre, University of Sussex;
King's College London Branch of the University and College Union;
Local Schools Network;
National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts;
Political Studies Association Media and Politics Specialist Group.
It has also been endorsed by the following individual signatories:
Professor Jane Aaron, English, University of Glamorgan, FEA, FLSW
Dr Christine Achinger, German Studies, University of Warwick, WUCHE
Professor Sharon Achinstein, Renaissance Literature, Fellow of St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford, OUCHE
Professor Patrick Ainley, School of Education and Training, University of Greenwich
Dr Anne Alexander, Buckley Fellow, Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Daniel Allington, English Language Studies and Applied Linguistics, The Open University
Dr Sarah S Amsler, Sociology, Aston University
Dr Gary Anderson, Liverpool Hope University
Pura Ariza, Institute of Education, Manchester Metropolitan University, UCU MMU Branch Secretary (personal capacity)
Dr Esther Asprey, Research Associate, English Language, Aston University
Revd Professor J Astley, Director, North of England Institute for Christian Education, Honorary Professor, Theology and Religion, Durham University
Dr Hugues Azerad, Fellow and College Lecturer, Magdalene College, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Professor Les Back, Sociology, Goldsmiths, University of London
Dr Paul Bagguley, School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Leeds
Dr Michael Bailey, Sociology, University of Essex
Professor Zenon Bańkowski, Edinburgh Law School, University of Edinburgh
Professor Zygmunt G Baranski, Serena Professor of Italian, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Clive Barnett, Human Geography, The Open University
Professor Ronald Barnett, Emeritus Professor of Higher Education, Institute of Education, University of London
Dr Leah Bassel, Sociology, University of Leicester
Dr John Bates, University of Glasgow
Dr Matthew Beaumont, English, UCL, CACHE
Bruce Beckles, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Duncan Bell, Politics and International Studies, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Erin Bell, University of Lincoln
Mark Bergfeld, Education Activist Network Steering Committee, NUS National Executive Council (personal capacity)
Dr Gurminder K Bhambra, Sociology, Director of the Social Theory Centre, University of Warwick, CPU, WUCHE
Professor Gargi Bhattacharyya, Sociology and Public Policy, Aston University
Dr Michael Biggs, Sociology, Fellow of St Cross College, University of Oxford, OUCHE
Professor Simon Biggs, Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh, OUCHE
Professor Peter Biller, History, University of York
Dr Chiara Binelli, Economics, University of Southampton, Research Associate, Institute for Fiscal Studies
Dr Ruth Blakeley, International Relations, University of Kent, Trustee for BISA
Dr Claire Blencowe, Sociology, University of Warwick
Dr Kasia Boddy, English, University College London
Dr Andrea den Boer, International Politics, University of Kent
Dr Vikki Boliver, Sociology, Durham University
Professor Joanna Bornat, Emeritus Professor, Open University
Dr Elizabeth Boyle, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Maud Anne Bracke, Modern European History, University of Glasgow
Dr Michael Brady, Philosophy, University of Glasgow, Director of the British Philosophical Association
Professor Bob Brecher, Humanities, University of Brighton
Professor John D Brewer, MRIA, FRSE, AcSS, FRSA, Sociology, University of Aberdeen, President of the British Sociological Association
Professor David Bridges, Emeritus Professor , University of East Anglia, Professorial Fellow, University of Cambridge Faculty of Education
Casey Brienza, Doctoral Researcher, University of Cambridge
John Brissenden, Branch Secretary, Bournemouth University UCU (personal capacity)
Professor Roger Brown, Liverpool Hope University
Dr Joseph Burridge, Sociology, University of Portsmouth
Dr Felicity Callard, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London,
Professor Claire Callender, Birkbeck and Institute of Education, University of London
Dr John R Campbell, Head of Department, Sociology & Anthropology, School of Oriental and African Studies
Mark Campbell, London Metropolitan University, UCU NEC (personal capacity)
Dr Fenella Cannell, Social Anthropology, LSE
Mark Carrigan, Doctoral Researcher, Sociology, University of Warwick, CPU
Professor Gerry Carruthers, University of Glasgow
Dr Dario Castiglione, University of Exeter
Dr Olga Castro, Translation Studies and Spanish, Aston University
Professor Nickie Charles, Director of the Centre for the Study of Women and Gender, Sociology, University of Warwick
Michael Chessum, NUS National Executive (personal capacity)
Dr Timothy Chesters, School of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures, Royal Holloway, University of London
Dr Andrew Chitty, Philosophy, University of Sussex
Dr Jean Chothia, Selwyn College, Faculty of English, University of Cambridge
Dr Tom Chothia, University of Birmingham, CACHE
Dr Mike Clark, Therapeutic and Molecular Immunology, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Professor Martin Cloonan, Music, School of Culture and Creative Arts, University of Glasgow
Dr Fabienne Collignon, University of Glasgow
Dr Philip Connell, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Daniel Conway, Politics, Loughborough University
Dr Timothy Cooper, University of Exeter
Professor Andrea Cornwall, School of Global Studies, University of Sussex
Professor Jane K Cowan, Anthropology, University of Sussex
Dr Ruth Craggs, St Mary's University College
Brandon Crimes, Tourism Management, Deputy International Recruitment Manager, Business School, University of Hertfordshire
Dr John Croft, Brunel University
Dr Justin Cruickshank, University of Birmingham
Dr Jan Culik, Czech Studies, University of Glasgow
Dr David Cunningham, English Literature, University of Westminster
Dr Wini Davies, Aberystwyth University
Dr Lucy Delap, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Mahmood Delkhasteh, Independent Researcher
Dr Ipek Demir, Sociology, University of Leicester
Dr Leigh Denault, Churchill College, Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Ana Cecilia Dinerstein, Social and Policy Sciences, University of Bath
Professor Thomas Docherty, English and Comparative Literatures, University of Warwick, WUCHE
Dr Anneliese Dodds, Public Policy, Aston University
Professor Danny Dorling, Human Geography, University of Sheffield
Dr Giuseppina D'Oro, Philosophy, Keele University
Richard Drayton, FRHistS, Rhodes Professor of Imperial History, King's College London
Synne Laastad Dyvik, DPhil Student, International Relations, University of Sussex
Dr Nadia Edmond, Education, University of Brighton
Professor RJ (Dick) Ellis, American and Canadian Studies, University of Birmingham
Dr Ben Etherington, Research Fellow, English, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Karen Evans, School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Liverpool, UCU NEC (personal capacity)
Dr Max Farrar, Emeritus Professor, Leeds Metropolitan University
Professor Theo Farrell, Vice Chair, British International Studies Association, King's College London
Dr Michael Farrelly, Open University, CPU
Professor Natalie Fenton, Media and Communications, Joint Head of Department, Goldsmiths College, University of London
Dr Christine Ferguson, School of Critical Studies, University of Glasgow
Professor Stephan Feuchtwang, Department of Anthropology, LSE
Dr Marianne Fillenz, Senior Research Fellow, St Anne's College Oxford
Professor Robert Fine, Sociology, University of Warwick, WUCHE
Dr Des Freedman, Media and Communications, Goldsmiths, University of London
Professor Maureen Freely, English and Comparative Literatures, University of Warwick, WUCHE
Rob French, Branch Treasurer, UCU, University of Sussex (personal capacity)
Dr Bernhard Fulda, Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, CACHE
Professor Mark Furse, Competition Law and Policy, University of Glasgow
Dr Ian Gadd, Bath Spa University
Dr Steve Garner, Sociology and Public Policy, Aston University
Dr Sue Garton, Aston University
Professor Nick Gay, Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Charlie Gere, Lancaster Institute for Contemporary Arts, Lancaster University
Prof Mark Georgeson, School of Life & Health Sciences, Aston University
Peter Ghosh, History, Fellow of St. Anne's College, University of Oxford
Professor Robert Gibbs, Art History, University of Glasgow
Professor Robert Gildea, FBA, Modern History, Fellow of Worcester College, University of Oxford, OUCHE
Professor Vincent Gillespie, JRR Tolkien Professor of English Literature and Language, Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford, OUCHE
Dr Andrew Goffey, Media, Middlesex University
Professor Simon Goldhill, Cambridge University, CACHE
Dr Jane Goldman, English Literature, University of Glasgow
Dr Christina Goldschmidt, University of Oxford
Professor Heather Glen, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Martin Golding, Peterhouse, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Priyamvada Gopal, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Hugo Gorringe, Sociology, University of Edinburgh
Dr Norman Gray, SUPA School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Glasgow
Dr Marci Green, Course Leader, Sociology, University of Wolverhampton
Dr Claudia Gremler, German, Aston University
Dr Daniel JR Grey, Junior Research Fellow in World History, Wolfson College, University of Oxford, OUCHE
Jen Grogan, PhD Student, University of Nottingham
Dr Jonathan Grove, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Stacey Gutkowski, Middle East and Mediterranean Studies, King's College London
Jo Halliday, PhD Student, Goldsmiths College, University of London
Dr James Hampshire, University of Sussex
Professor Jane Hardy, Political Economy, University of Hertfordshire
Dr Sophie Harman, International Politics, City University, Trustee of the British International Studies Association
Andy Harper, Goldsmiths, University of London
Professor Barbara Harriss-White, Director, Contemporary South Asia Studies Programme, University of Oxford, OUCHE
Dr Richard Harris, School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol
Dr Kate Haworth, Applied Linguistics, Aston University
Sarah Hayes, Learning Technologist, Aston University
Dr John Heathershaw, Politics, University of Exeter
Juliet Henderson, English Language and Communication, Oxford Brookes University
Dr Anita Herle, Senior Curator for Anthropology, University of Cambridge, Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, CACHE
Dr Naomi Hetherington, Birkbeck, University of London
Dr Lyndsay McLean Hilker, ESRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow, School of Global Studies, University of Sussex
Dr Tracey Hill, Head of Department of English & Cultural Studies, Bath Spa University
Professor Robert Hinde, St. John's College, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Tamsin Hinton-Smith, Research Fellow in Sociology, University of Sussex
Professor Johannes Hoff, Philosophical Theology, Prof. Dr. Habil, DiplTheol, MA, TRIS Department, University of Wales Trinity St David
Dr Edward Holberton, Girton College, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Professor John Holford, Robert Peers Professor of Adult Education, University of Nottingham
Professor John Holmwood, AcSS, Sociology, University of Nottingham, CPU
Dr Hannah Holtschneider, Jewish Studies, University of Edinburgh
Dr Nick Hopwood, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Professor Howard Hotson, Early Modern Intellectual History, Fellow of St Anne's College, University of Oxford, OUCHE
Dr Muir Houston, FHEA, Social Justice, Place and Lifelong Education Research, University of Glasgow
Dr. Michael Hrebeniak, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Professor Maggie Humm, University of East London
Dr Emma Hunter, Gonville and Caius College, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Keith Hyams, University of Exeter
Dr Dan Jackson, The Media School, Bournemouth University
Dr Mark Jackson, School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol
Professor Richard Jackson, International Politics, Aberystwyth University, Secretary, British International Studies Association
Professor Mary Jacobus, FBA, Professor Emerita, Churchill College, University of Cambridge, MH Abrams Distinguished Visiting Professor, Cornell University
Professor Simon Jarvis, Gorley Putt Professor of Poetry and Poetics, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Professor Patricia Jeffery, Sociology & Centre for South Asian Studies, University of Edinburgh
Professor Roger Jeffery, Sociology, and Dean International (India), University of Edinburgh
Dr Alana Jelinek, AHRC Fellow in the Creative and Performing Arts, Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Juan J Jiménez-Anca, Spanish, Aston University
Professor Bob Jessop, Distinguished Professor of Sociology, University of Lancaster
Aylmer Johnson, Engineering, Clare College, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Brenda Johnston, Senior Research Fellow, Southampton Education School, University of Southampton
Professor Ron Johnston OBE FBA, School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol
Dr Bryn Jones, Sociology, Business & Community Programme, University of Bath
Dr Christopher Jones, Institute of Educational Technology, The Open University
Dr Eleanor Jupp, Health and Social Care, Open University
Dr Alexandre Kabla, Engineering, Cambridge University, CACHE
Anne-Sophie Kaloghiros, DPMMS, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Lauren Kassell, History & Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge
Ralph Kellas, Postgraduate Student, Sussex University
Dr Steve Kemp, Sociology, University of Edinburgh
Dr Christian Kerslake, Philosophy, Middlesex University
Professor Desmond King, FBA, Andrew W Mellon Professor of Government, Fellow of Nuffield College, University of Oxford
Dr Lawrence King, Sociology, University of Cambridge
Professor Richard E King, Religious Studies, University of Glasgow
Paul Kirby, LSE
Dr Vassiliki Kolocotroni, University of Glasgow
Professor Susanne Kord, German, School of European Languages, Culture and Society, UCL, OUCHE
Professor Peter Kornicki, Deputy Warden, Robinson College, Cambridge, CACHE
Professor James Ladyman, Head of Department, Philosophy, University of Bristol
Andrea Lagna, International Relations, University of Sussex
Gabriele Lamparter, PhD Student, University of Exeter
Richard Lane, DPhil Candidate, International Relations, University of Sussex
Joel Lazarus, University College, University of Oxford
Dr Yann Lebeau, University of East Anglia
Professor Dennis Leech, Economics, University of Warwick, WUCHE
Dave Legg, former student, Worcester College, University of Oxford, OUCHE
Professor David Lewis, Social Policy, London School of Economics
Dr Conrad Leyser, History, Fellow of Worcester College, University of Oxford, OUCHE
Dr Eleni Liarou, Birkbeck College, University of London
Alison Light, Visiting Professor, Newcastle University, CACHE
Merle Lipton, Associate Fellow, Chatham House & Visiting Research Fellow, King's College, London
Dr Jo Littler, Media and Cultural Studies, Middlesex University
Dr Michael Loughlin, Applied Philosophy, Manchester Metropolitan University & Visiting Professor of Applied Philosophy, University of Buckingham
Dr Charlie Louth, Queen's College, University of Oxford
Dr Matthew Loveless, Comparative Politics, University of Kent
Dr Pam Lowe, Sociology, Aston University
Paddy Lyons, English Literature, University of Glasgow
Dr David McCallam, French Eighteenth-Century Studies, University of Sheffield, OUCHE
Dr William McEvoy, English, University of Sussex, SUDHE
Dr Cheryl McEwan, Durham University, CACHE
Dr Robert Macfarlane, Cambridge University Faculty of English, CACHE
Phil MacGregor, The Media School, Bournemouth University
Professor Patrick McGuinness, St Anne's College, Oxford (longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2011)
Professor Stephen McKay, School of Social Policy, University of Birmingham
Dr Iain MacKenzie, University of Kent
Dr Monica McLean, Higher Education, Principal Investigator, Pedagogic Quality and Inequality in University First Degrees (ESRC), University of Nottingham
Professor Gregor McLennan, Sociology, Director, Institute for Advanced Studies, University of Bristol
Dr Laura McMahon, Film, University of Aberdeen
Dr David McQueen, Media, Bournemouth University
Dr John McTague, English, University of Oxford
Dr Mary Madden, Wounds Group, Health Sciences, University of York
Marta Magalhães, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Jonathan Mair, Manchester University
Professor Willy Maley, English Literature, University of Glasgow
Dr Suhail Malik, Art, Goldsmiths, University of London
Dr Victoria Margree, Humanities, University of Brighton
Dr Lee Marsden, Political, Social and International Studies, University of East Anglia
Professor Luke Martell, Sociology, University of Sussex
Dr Cheryl Martens, Media School, Bournemouth University
Dr Andy Martin, French, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Laura Martin, Comparative Literature, University of Glasgow
Richard Martin, Birkbeck, University of London
Herminio Martins, Emeritus Fellow, St Antony's College, University of Oxford, Honorary Research Fellow, Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon, OUCHE
Dr Joanne Massey, Sociology, MMU
Dr Kamran Matin, University of Sussex
Dr Sinéad Garrigan Mattar, Girton College, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Emma Mawdsley, Cambridge University, CACHE
Professor Tim May, Director, Centre for Sustainable Urban and Regional Futures (SURF), University of Salford
Lucy Mayblin, Sociology, University of Warwick
Dr Saladin Meckled-Garcia, Political Science, University College London
Dr Shamira A Meghani , English, University of Leeds
Dr Leo Mellor, English, Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge
Jane Melvin, University of Brighton
Professor Hugh Miall, International Relations, University of Kent
Laura Miles, UCU NEC (personal capacity)
Professor Barbara A Misztal, Sociology, University of Leicester
Kevin Moloney, Media School, Bournemouth University
Professor David Mond, Mathematics Institute, University of Warwick, WUCHE
Professor Philip Moriarty, Physics, University of Nottingham, EPSRC Leadership Fellow and Chair of the Nanoscale Physics and Technology Group of the Institute of Physics
Dr Nathalie Mrgudović, School of Languages and Social Sciences, Aston University
Dr Subha Mukherji, English, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Jane Mulderrig, Applied Linguistics, University of Sheffield
Dr Kathryn Murphy, English, Fellow of Oriel College, University of Oxford, OUCHE
Dr Simon Murray, Theatre Studies, University of Glasgow
Trevor Murrells, Statistician, Research Data Manager, National Nursing Research Unit, Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery, King's College London
Dr Karma Nabulsi, Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, Fellow of St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford, OUCHE
Dr Daniel Neep, Politics, University of Exeter
Professor Simon Newman, Brogan Professor of American History, University of Glasgow
Dr Jane Nolan, Sociology, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Professor David Norbrook, Merton Professor of Renaissance English Literature, Fellow of Merton College, University of Oxford, OUCHE
Professor Michael Northcott, New College, University of Edinburgh
Grainne O'Connell, University of Sussex
Kathleen O'Donnell, Imaging the University, Architectural and Urban Studies, University of Brighton
Kirsty Ogg, Art, Goldsmiths, University of London
Dr Daniel Orrells, Classics and Ancient History, University of Warwick
Professor William Outhwaite, Sociology, Newcastle University
Dr Patricia Owens, University of Sussex
Damien Page, Principal Lecturer, University of Greenwich
Professor Joe Painter, Head of Department, Geography, Durham University
Maïa Pal, DPhil Candidate, International Relations, University of Sussex
Chrysi Papaioannou, Administrator, King's College London, and Postgraduate Research Student, University of Leeds
Professor Inderjeet Parmar, Government, University of Manchester, Chair of the British International Studies Association Board of Trustees
Dr John Parrington, Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology, Fellow of Worcester College, University of Oxford, OUCHE
Dr Ian Patterson, Queens' College, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Professor David Pattie, University of Chester
Jennifer Peet, Doctoral Researcher, Sociology, University of Edinburgh
Jethro Pettit, Research Fellow, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex
Professor Kees van der Pijl, International Relations, University of Sussex
Dr James Pope, Media School, Bournemouth University
Dr Alison Phipps, Director of Gender Studies, University of Sussex, FWSA
Professor Malcolm JW Povey, FInstP, CEng, Food Physics, University of Leeds, UCU NEC Member (personal capacity)
Dr Line Nyhagen Predelli, Social Sciences, Loughborough University
JH Prynne, Cambridge University, CACHE
Dr Dinah Rajak, Anthropology and Development, University of Sussex
Dr Deana Rankin, English and Drama, Royal Holloway, University of London
Professor Keith Reader, Emeritus Professor of French, University of Glasgow
Professor Ian Reader, Japanese Studies, University of Manchester
Professor Diane Reay, Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge
Dr Madeleine Reeves, RCUK Research Fellow, University of Manchester
Dr Nicky Reeves, University of Cambridge
Michael Rice, PhD, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Charlotte Lydia Riley, PhD Student, UCL
Aurélia Robert, French, Aston University
Professor Ian Roberts, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Professor Eve Rosenhaft, German Historical Studies, University of Liverpool
Dr Enzo Rossi, Research Fellow, Social Ethics Research Group (SERG), University of Wales
Dr Julia Round, The Media School, Bournemouth University
Dr Srila Roy, School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Nottingham, FWSA
Dr Lucia Ruprecht, Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Professor Jonathan Rutherford, Professor of Cultural Studies, Middlesex University
Dr Christopher Ryan, Philosophy, London Metropolitan University
Dr John Sabapathy, Medieval History, University College London
Dr Duna Sabri, Visiting Research Fellow, Education and Professional Studies, King's College London
Dr Tony Sampson, University of East London
David Sancho, DPhil Candidate, University of Sussex
Professor Andrew Sayer, Social Theory and Political Economy, Lancaster University
Dr Andrew Schaap, Politics, University of Exeter
Dr Marie Isabel Schlinzig, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, University of Oxford
Professor Justine Schneider, Mental Health & Social Care, University of Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust
Dr Franziska Schroeder, School of Creative Arts, Queen's University Belfast
Dr Gregory Schwartz, School of Management, University of Bath
Dr Jason Scott-Warren, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Andrew Shail, Film, Newcastle University, FWSA
Professor Martin Shepperd, Brunel University, CACHE
Dr Robbie Shilliam, Queen Mary and Westfield, University of London
Professor John T Sidel, Sir Patrick Gillam Professor of International and Comparative Politics, London School of Economics and Political Science
Professor Barry Smart, Sociology, University of Portsmouth
Dr Alexander Smith, Sociology, University of Huddersfield
Professor Lorraine N Smith, Nursing, University of Glasgow
Dr Ewen Speed, University of Essex
Dr James Sprittles, Research Fellow, University of Birmingham
Professor Fiona Stafford, English Language and Literature, Fellow of Somerville College, University of Oxford, OUCHE
Dr Anna Stavrianakis, International Relations, University of Sussex
Professor Deborah Lynn Steinberg, Sociology, University of Warwick
Dr Adam Stewart-Wallace, St John's College, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Laurie Stras, Faculty of Humanities, University of Southampton
Professor Lucy Suchman, Anthropology of Science and Technology, Co-Director, Centre for Science Studies, Sociology, Lancaster University
Bernard Sufrin, Emeritus Fellow of Worcester College, University of Oxford, OUCHE
Dr Judith Suissa, Institute of Education, London
Dr Jill Steans, POLSIS, University of Birmingham
Dr Susan AJ Stuart, University of Glasgow
Dr Carole Sweeney, English and Comparative Literature, Goldsmiths, University of London
Dr Bronislaw Szerszynski, Sociology, Lancaster University
Professor Oliver Taplin, FBA, Emeritus Professor of Classical Languages and Literature, Fellow of Magdalen College, University of Oxford, OUCHE
Dr Trudi Tate, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Benno Teschke, International Relations, University of Sussex
Dr Helen Thaventhiran, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Deborah Thom, History, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Pamela Thurschwell, English, University of Sussex, CACHE
Dr Rowan Tomlinson, French, Bristol University, OUCHE
Professor David Trotter, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Kate Tunstall, French, Fellow of Worcester College, University of Oxford, OUCHE
Dr Ed Turner, Politics, Aston University
Professor John Urry, Distinguished Professor, Sociology, Lancaster University
Isobel Urquhart, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Rosa Vasilaki, University of Bristol
Dr Bert Vaux, Phonology & Morphology, University of Cambridge, Fellow in Linguistics, King's College, CACHE
Dr Vincenzo Vergiani, Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Professor Alain Viala, French Literature, Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford, OUCHE
Keith Walker, Education, Manchester Metropolitan University
Sean Wallis, Senior Research Fellow, Survey of English Usage, UCL, Branch Secretary UCL UCU
Dr Caroline Warman, French, Fellow of Jesus College, University of Oxford, OUCHE
Dr Christopher Warnes, Faculty of English, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Sam Waterman, Postgraduate Student, University of Sussex
Dr Peggy Watson, Sociology, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Professor Alan Weir, Philosophy, University of Glasgow
Dr Karen West, Public Policy and Sociology, Aston University
Professor John White, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy of Education, Institute of Education, University of London
Patricia White, Research Fellow in Philosophy of Education, Institute of Education, University of London
Dr Mark Wilkinson, Royal Society University Research Fellow, Physics and Astronomy, University of Leicester
Gavin Williams, Emeritus Fellow, St Peter's College, University of Oxford, OUCHE
Dr Hannah Williams, Junior Research Fellow, History of Art, St John's College, University of Oxford, OUCHE
Dr Wes Williams, French, Fellow of St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford, OUCHE
Dr Edward Wilson-Lee, Sidney Sussex College, University of Cambridge, CACHE
Dr Stuart C Wimbush, Physics and Chemistry, University of Cambridge
Dr Aaron Winter, Sociology, University of Abertay Dundee
Dr Jim Wolfreys, French and European Politics, King's College London
Howard Wollman, Honorary Fellow, School of Social & Political Science, University of Edinburgh and Vice Chair, British Sociological Association (personal capacity)
Peter Woodward, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London
Dr Jens-Uwe Wunderlich, International Relations, Aston University
Professor Brian Wynne, Sociology, Co-PI, UK ESRC Centre for Economic and Social Aspects of Genomics, Cesagen, and Professor of Science Studies, Lancaster University
John Yandell, Local UCU Branch President, Institute of Education.
As they publish their own 'alternative white paper' for higher education, academics claim the government's plans are fundamentally misguided. Read answers to your questions from the academics behind the paper
Hundreds of academics have signed a document, published today, that warns of dire consequences should the government's white paper on higher education become law.
The document, In Defence of Public Higher Education, endorsed by a wide range of prominent academics, including Stefan Collini, of Cambridge University, and Howard Hotson, of Oxford, offers an alternative to the government's vision for the sector in the form of nine propositions about higher education's value to society. Drawing on recent research, it also argues that the changes proposed are based on ideology rather than financial necessity, and will make no lasting savings.
Campaigners hope it will lead to an autumn of debate and protest over the white paper's proposals, which are due to come into effect next year. "The hope would be that it provides a well-formulated agenda on the future of higher education, in contrast to the one the government has railroaded through," says Simon Szreter, professor of history and public policy at the University of Cambridge, who helped to draw up the document. "It is a counter to the breathtaking speed of the government programme and its reliance on an atrociously flimsy document, the Browne Review."
Today's publication argues that the Independent Review of Higher Education Funding, chaired by former BP chief executive Lord Browne of Madingley, and the subsequent white paper, completely ignore the public value of higher education, concentrating instead on "the private benefits to individuals in the form of higher earnings deriving from investment in their human capital, and to the 'knowledge economy' in terms of product development and contribution of economic growth".
It suggests that this focus on students as consumers attacks the very values the prime minister believes would reverse the "moral decline" blamed for the recent riots.
And it accuses the mission groups representing different kinds of universities, including the Russell Group and the 1994 Group of leading research universities, of lack of leadership and of failing to defend the values of public higher education while for-profit providers have successfully lobbied for their own interests.
Nearly 400 academic campaigners, members of professional bodies such as the British Philosophical Association, and individuals have signed the "alternative white paper", which was drawn up over the summer by a working group led by John Holmwood, professor of sociology at the University of Nottingham and founder of the Campaign for the Public University.
He says: "The people signing up are very senior academics. They are saying, 'At last there is a voice talking about public higher education and something other than questions of economic expediency'."
The document's nine propositions are that higher education has public as well as private benefits and these public benefits require financial support; that public universities are necessary to build and maintain confidence in public debate; that public universities have a social mission and help to ameliorate social inequality; that public higher education is part of a generational contract in which an older generation invests in the wellbeing of future generations; that public institutions providing similar programmes of study should be funded at a similar level; that education cannot be treated as a simple consumer good; that training in skills is not the same as university education – something the title of a university should recognise; that a university is a community made up of different disciplines and of different activities of teaching, research and external collaboration; and finally that universities are not only global institutions, but also serve their local and regional communities.
A separate appendix makes the case that switching the costs of tuition from grants to loan-backed fees may reduce the deficit in the short term, but is an accounting trick. In the long term, debt could increase as students default or write off loan repayments, and tax revenues from those who reject higher education as too expensive are lost.
It also accuses the government of wanting eventually to introduce a pricing mechanism based on how much of the loans made to students studying specific degrees at specific institutions are repaid.
"The commodification of higher education is at the secret heart of the white paper," it argues. "The government seeks a differently funded sector, one which can provide new outlets for capital that struggles to find suitable opportunities for investment elsewhere."
Publication of the document comes a week after the end of formal consultation on the white paper and amid increasing criticism of government plans for HE.
Responding to the consultation, Universities UK warned of "unintended consequences for students and universities" from the proposals, with potentially adverse effects on social mobility, student choice, institutional subject mix and the future viability of some institutions".
The 1994 Group warned that high-quality places for students could be lost, and science subjects could be badly affected. A higher-education thinktank, Million+, called for the withdrawal of plans to introduce a market in university places, while the British Academy, the UK's national representative body for the humanities and social sciences, said the plans could damage the international reputation of UK higher education.
Howard Hotson, professor of early modern intellectual history and a founding member of the Oxford University Campaign for Higher Education, says: "We offer fantastic value for money. The UK university system is astonishingly good. There is no intellectual justification whatsoever for radically overhauling it, and if you radically overhaul it, you can guarantee to make it worse."
He calls on academics and students to join forces to oppose the moves and predicts a "winter of discontent" including actions by students and academic unions. Another campaigner, Kate Tunstall, said she expected further motions of no confidence in the universities minister, David Willetts, to follow votes at Oxford, Cambridge, Leeds and Bath earlier in the summer,. She is among those who want to encourage parents and the general public to join the debate.
The Local Schools Network has already backed today's document. Melissa Benn, its co-founder, says: "Education is bigger than self-interest and a race to the top. If we sacrifice the idea of the education system being at the very centre of the social fabric we will pay a price in the long term."
Stefan Collini, professor of English literature and intellectual history at Cambridge, who has written a series of critiques of government higher education policy, warns that the proposals in the white paper misunderstand what universities are about. "It's very important that academics who see the ways in which this policy is fundamentally flawed and misguided try to explain this and work for the long-term development of a better-grounded policy," he says. "For that reason the alternative white paper makes a very valuable contribution."
Willetts has responded to critics by arguing that the success of British universities in research has been the result of a system that places intense competition in a wider legal framework and that the government's proposals aim to achieve the same for teaching and the student experience.
In a letter published in the London Review of Books in July he "pleaded guilty to believing in choice and competition", but said that these should be rooted in a national culture, strong institutions and a set of moral understandings.
• This article was amended on 27-28 September 2011 to correct a reference to "the Millennium+ thinktank" and to attribute the following prediction - reported in the original piece - to an individual campaigner, Kate Tunstall: Campaigners expect further motions of no confidence in the universities minister, David Willetts.
On the Guardian Teacher Network this week you can find useful resources linked to Black History Month
October is Black History Month, when schools and organisations will be focusing on the achievements of great black people in history and today. The month has also become a time to look at wider "political" black issues of equality, for example LGBT and travellers' rights.
On the Guardian Teacher Network, we have a wide range of resources to help investigate Black History Month in class or at home.
For primary school-aged children, we have an introductory lesson to Nelson Mandela from the Citizenship Foundation's Go-Givers team.
There are some new teaching resources that make use of the archives of the former British Empire and Commonwealth Museum. Suitcase stories is a resource aimed at upper primary school-aged students exploring stories of migration and the search for a better life, including archive photographs and audio. Teachers can also book out loan boxes of real archive material and handling objects for a small fee on a variety of subjects including the slave trade.
The People's History Museum has a pack on immigration and racism that links to their Living History workshops, but can also be used as a standalone resource.
For a great introduction to Black History Month heroes, see the Guardian's black history month microsite http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/blackhistorymonth, including this very useful timeline of events in black history over the last 2,000 years.
Black History Month goes beyond history, and an interesting approach for teachers and young people might be to look at current campaigns.
The Show Racism the Red Card campaign has grown from focusing on racism in football to a far wider tackling of the issues in society. They have developed a range of powerful education packs that highlight the causes and consequences of racism and help teachers to equip their pupils with a range of skills to challenge prejudice. There is also a thought-provoking pack especially written for trainee teachers.
The Guardian Teacher Network also has history lessons for 14- to 16-year-olds on the implementation of apartheid and the end of apartheid http://teachers.guardian.co.uk/ViewLesson.aspx?id=2351, which will help children to understand the impact of petty apartheid laws on the lives of ordinary people through an examination of primary sources including newspapers and oral accounts.
Check out the Taking Liberties interactive by the British Library, which takes secondary school-aged children and adults through the UK's 900-year-old struggle for rights and freedoms – from the suffragettes to the Black Panthers – a struggle that continues today. The interactive puts the user into the centre of some of today's most contentious human rights issues using 3D graphics and is sure to lead to classroom debate on how to balance order in society with individuals' right to freedom. Teachers' notes can be downloaded and there is an interactive.
The Association of Citizenship Teachers (ACT) works hard to help the teaching of citizenship in school, giving practical advice and best-practice recommendations.
The GTN offers more than 70,000 pages of lesson plans and interactive materials. To see and share for yourself go to teachers.guardian.co.uk. There are hundreds of jobs on the site and schools can advertise free: schoolsjobs.guardian.co.uk
Readers respond to David Willetts's defence of the coalition's policy on higher education funding
Last week, David Willetts defended the coalition's policy on higher education funding, saying that other countries are watching to see if they could follow suit.
• If a third of the money loaned to students will never be repaid, who will be charged with paying off the debt – the taxpayer? We are told the reforms mean that many students will have to pay back less. If that is the case, how can the reforms achieve savings overall? I just don't understand the spin – debt is bad, which is why reducing the deficit is the mantra, yet it is fine for our young people to saddle themselves with massive debts at the start of their adult lives.
Richard Drinkall
Lincoln
• A university graduate pays at least £100,000 more in tax over their lifetime than a non-graduate. If these policies were about deficit reduction and the future of the British economy, the government would be putting more money into education, not less.
smootthisland via guardian.co.uk
• My criticisms of the government's higher education policy would be:
1) If, as Willetts says, less than a third of the debt will be repaid, and this over the course of 30 years, how can it possibly help with deficit reduction?
2) Poorer students will inevitably pay more for their degrees than richer ones when you factor in interest on loans. In addition, poorer students will end up with higher loans to cover their living expenses.
Accasha via guardian.co.uk
• There is no upfront fee; maintenance grants (not repayable), plus tuition fees don't have to be repaid until you are earning a decent amount. In my opinion, the only thing likely to put off poorer students is people (for purely political reasons) constantly banging on about how they should be put off, with nothing to support that view.
OldBristolian via guardian.co.uk
• Willetts says it is a "misconception" that the government's policies do not value arts and humanities. However, the Arts and Humanities Research Council has found it necessary to include the government's failed "big society" programme in its delivery plan for strategic research funding priorities. What kind of model is this for other countries to emulate? Note: I led a petition to remove the "big society" from the Arts and Humanities Research Council's delivery plan.
Dr Thom Brooks
Newcastle University
• I seem to remember that student loans were "interest free" when they began, as a replacement for grants that covered living costs. Then the government decided to sell these debts on, then capped interest on these loans was introduced, and then the cap on interest was raised. What makes anyone think the same thing won't happen with tuition fee loans? This whole thing is part of the transfer of debt from public to private ownership.
Nigelad via guardian.co.uk
• I am not surprised that so many people want to understand the UK government's higher education changes. I suspect the truth is that most want to avoid the mistakes the current government has made.
The changes are unfair because students will be faced with hugely increased debts on graduation; many analysts are suggesting an average debt of £60,000 per student. According to Browne Review advisers London Economics, middle-income earners will have to pay back more over their lifetimes than those on higher incomes. The Sutton Trust predicts some of the brightest of the next generation will be deterred from going to university. The Higher Education Policy Institute highlights that social mobility will be the "victim" of these proposals.
The massive 80% cut to university teaching budgets is grossly disproportionate to cuts being made elsewhere and is a huge economic mistake. Most of Britain's competitors are increasing funding for their higher education and research budgets to encourage economic growth.
And the quality of higher education is being put at risk. The government wants to cut core university places, by 20,000 initially, and then auction them off to the lowest bidder; cutting places from universities with international reputations.
In addition, the science budget is being cut by 10% in real terms over the next three years and research councils have already axed the funding for over 1,400 postgraduate places.
Gareth Thomas MP
Shadow minister for higher education
London SW1
Newly qualified teachers are finding that there are up to 40% fewer jobs this year. Are we simply turning out too many?
It never crossed Haley Pilkington's mind that she wouldn't be starting work as a teacher this month. After successfully completing a first degree in French and Spanish at the University of Newcastle, she received a £6,000 bursary to do a PGCE in modern foreign languages at Chester University.
"The bursary, together with the renewed emphasis on languages in the English baccalaureate, suggested that I might be in demand," she says. "But it has been harder to find a job than I'd imagined. Perhaps I've been naive."
Pilkington has applied for 10 jobs in the last year and has had four interviews. "Each time, there were more candidates than I'd expected. In one school, we were warned at the start that they had had a very strong field of applicants and the standard had been higher than anyone could remember."
She has registered with supply agencies. "I was confident I'd be starting a job this term. I have to remain optimistic and believe it's just a matter of time," Pilkington says. "Everyone told me there would be a rush of jobs becoming available once we neared the end of our courses, but that never happened."
Her experience is all too familiar. Newly qualified teachers entered the employment market this year, having paid annual tuition fees of £3,375 – set to rise to up to £9,000 next year – to find approximately 40% fewer full-time jobs available. According to one set of figures, between January and August alone the number of posts advertised across all sectors fell by about 2,500 on the same period last year, with significant regional variations.
Among the worst-hit areas is the West Midlands, where there were more than 700 fewer posts advertised than the previous year, followed by the north-west, with 552 fewer vacancies. London had one of the lowest discrepancies year on year, with 188 fewer posts, with only the north-east faring better, with just 40. Wales had more vacancies this year than in 2010 – 993, compared with 871.
Professor John Howson, director of Data for Education, which monitors teacher recruitment, visiting professor at Oxford Brookes and the Institute of Education, and senior research fellow at Oxford University, says there are simply no longer enough jobs to go round.
"The majority of those who are looking for jobs are NQTs, and many schools don't want new, inexperienced teachers if they know they have an Ofsted inspection coming up," he says. "The market is very complex at the moment. In schools with budget problems, for example, teachers are being moved sideways when colleagues leave to avoid redundancies, so space is not being freed up for new recruits.
"We are now in a boom-and-bust situation and we can expect two or three years of this over-supply. I'm afraid that anyone who began their teacher training thinking they would easily get a job was misinformed, as that situation has not existed for the last five years."
It's not long since we all saw TV commercials encouraging people to become teachers. But Howson says: "There is no longer any such thing as a shortage subject, and the jobs market has been tightening across the board for a while."
That is not the impression held by many aspiring teachers, however. Sarah Carpenter was a registered child minder, foster carer and teaching assistant before signing up for a PGCE in primary education at the University of Gloucestershire, at the age of 41.
"I was told by a headteacher that I'd be snapped up in no time," she says. But despite submitting 18 applications, she has had just one interview.
Carpenter believes that schools simply cannot afford to invest the time and money required to hire NQTs. "Although we are cheaper on wages, we present a huge commitment to schools in terms of time and training.
"We are entitled to time away from the class, which has to be covered, and our local training centre for NQTs has recently been shut because of cuts, so it would be up to schools to organise that themselves.
"I hear that universities are taking on even more trainees for next year. Someone needs to put a stop to this because they can't keep training people if there are no jobs."
Another primary teacher, Christina Sinclair, has just completed a BA in education at Oxford Brookes University. She has applied for 15 jobs, and believes that one post she went for had attracted 170 applicants. "The alarm bells starting ringing at my teaching placement," she says. "I heard one of the senior management team complaining to a colleague that the existing NQT didn't know anything and what a hassle it was to have to train her, like she was a burden on the school.
"How can we get any experience when no one will employ us?"
Government plans to pass teacher training directly to schools are unlikely to have an impact, as it is still unclear how many training schools there will be and where these will be located. Schools currently seem reluctant to take up the mantle until they know what mechanisms there will be in place to allow them to award PGCEs, how many trainees they will be expected to take on and how they will be funded.
James Williams, lecturer in science education at Sussex University, says schools increasingly favour experienced teachers over cheaper new recruits. "They say they want outstanding teachers, but that's ridiculous – it's like saying to pass your driving test you have to be an advanced driver."
Williams believes the government should reform the system to match supply and demand. One way might be to make teacher training a two-year course, where students do the first year at university and the second year in school.
"This would guarantee that new teachers are employed in a school for at least a year, and would allow them to complete their induction."
He also wants to see more regional planning. Currently, the system relies on new entrants being flexible and moving to where the jobs are. "More mature entrants to teaching with home and family commitments may not be so mobile," he says.
Howson advocates a complete moratorium on all training for a year or two to allow the backlog to clear. But fundamentally, he says, a complete re-think is required of how teachers are trained.
"As people are now expected to pay for higher education, it's unfair that they make sacrifices only to find they have no job afterwards," he says. "You wouldn't expect this of a civil servant, or a police officer. If you are taken on as a trainee, then you should have the guarantee of a job at the end of it.
"Furthermore, we risk losing some of the best applicants altogether. There is no mechanism for ensuring that the best trainees get the jobs and that we can hang on to them."
There appear to be no such safeguards in the pipeline. Neither the Department for Education nor the Training and Development Agency for Schools acknowledge there may be a problem. A DfE spokesman said: "Getting a job as a teacher can be a competitive process. We carefully analyse the level of demand for teachers each year when deciding how many new teacher-training places to make available."
Meanwhile, the TDA said that targets for teacher-trainee places "reflect the number of newly qualified teachers that are required to meet the demands of schools".
"The targets are based on the Teacher Supply Model, which considers a range of data such as falling/rising pupil numbers, existing teacher numbers by age groups and people taking career breaks and people returning to teach," a spokesman said.
But someone has to seize the initiative, Howson says. "The government and providers have a responsibility. The reality is that training colleges need to admit students to remain financially viable, while no government sees it as its problem if there are too many teachers. So we are at something of a stalemate."
*Some names in this article have been changed at the request of the teachers involved.
"When a bottom year 9 set asks you if you're a qualified science teacher because they're fed up of supply staff, you know that things in that school aren't right. Children can't be fooled – they just want to know they are being taught by a 'proper' teacher."
Hannah McLean completed her PGCE at Liverpool Hope University in 2010, having done a degree in history and a master's in medieval and renaissance history at the University of Liverpool. But she has failed to get a permanent job and has been doing supply work for the last year in north London.
No amount of delivering outstanding lessons or excellent interview feedback has secured her a full-time post.
McLean has applied for about 30 jobs, but had only seven interviews. "In the last one, I was told by the head of department that my lesson was outstanding, but the job went to the PGCE student who had just completed her placement there," she says.
The constant process of applying for jobs is starting to take a toll. "I am seriously considering whether to carry on," McLean says. "My love for teaching remains undiminished and it's all I've ever wanted to do, but coming up against up to 80 applicants for each job is really grinding me down. I just don't understand why we're training so many teachers if there are not enough jobs."
Want to be an MP's apprentice? Plus girl guide's survey shows girls are turning away from education
Nick Clegg's pledge to end unpaid internships, announced earlier this year, appears to have little sway with his Westminster colleagues. Politicians have continued to advertise unpaid roles, the most recent being Lyn Brown, the Labour MP for West Ham. Her website boasts she has "campaigned tirelessly for a living wage for all", yet she has advertised for a "voluntary Westminster worker" whose duties – including research, dealing with constituency enquiries and clerical support – sounded uncannily like a job.
But the days of unpaid internships, a practice deeply ingrained in the corridors of Westminster, could be numbered. Next month sees the launch of the first parliamentary training programme. Dubbed the "school of apprentices", it will offer 16- to 19-year-olds the chance to spend up to three days a week working in Westminster, along with two days working towards a level 3 apprenticeship (equivalent to A-level) in business administration. MPs who recruit from the apprentice school will have to pay the minimum wage for apprentices (£2.50 an hour) but the London living wage of £8.30 an hour is recommended.
The project was the idea of MP Rob Halfon and the charity New Deal of The Mind. "The aim is to open up politics to young people from a much broader background and get them a decent qualification at the same time," says Halfon.
Over the past few weeks, all 650 MPs have been sent a letter asking them to take on an apprentice. So far, eight have agreed. Interestingly, with the exception of Diane Abbott, they are all Liberal Democrats or Conservatives. A further 14 have expressed a strong interest. David Cameron and Ed Miliband are said to be "thinking about it".
"Be prepared" may be the guides' motto, but according to new research from Girlguiding UK, girls and young women feel anything but prepared for their future education. The annual girls' attitudes survey, in its third year, canvasses the opinions of more than 1,000 girls and young women aged 7 t o 21 throughout the UK, on a range of issues, including education.
This year's survey indicates the hike in university tuition fees has had an impact, with 50% of girls saying they are worried about paying for college or university fees compared to 30% last year. Two years ago, just 8% of 11- to 21-year-olds said the economic downturn had made them less likely to stay in education – this year it is 29%.
Janet Murray
Education ministers can choose evidence to back their own prejudices, says Estelle Morris. Labour would do well to show a commitment to using evidence properly
The government claims to be developing an evidence-based education policy, which has to be a good thing. But can we be sure they can be trusted to get it right? Ministers continually refer to national and international sources of evidence to justify their decisions. So much so that announcements from Pisa (the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment), Timms (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) or the management consultants McKinsey now seem to exceed Ofsted in their importance for education. How can we know that Michael Gove is drawing the right conclusions from the available evidence? What is to stop him selecting the evidence that supports his political views and casting the rest aside?
Take some of the government statements in support of its key policies. Charter schools in the US are used to justify the free schools policy. And when minsters talk about the success of charter schools such as the Harlem Success Academy in New York, they are not making it up. There are some truly outstanding charter schools that should inspire us all.
Yet what about the research from Stanford University, which shows that over three quarters of charter schools deliver similar or worse results than traditional state schools? What should we really make of the evidence?
The same can be seen with that other flagship policy – academies. The government is fond of quoting the success rates of chains of academies like the Harris schools in south London. Again, this is true. Based in challenging areas, Harris schools have produced some outstanding results and are a real example of what can be achieved. Yet so are the results of schools in Tower Hamlets, the poorest borough in the country, which now regularly outperforms the national average – and has no academies. What is this evidence telling us?
Then there is Michael Gove's use of Singapore's slimmed-down curriculum as evidence for his own curriculum review, but he's less likely to mention the national textbooks that accompany teaching in Singapore. Is it also misleading to cite evidence from Pisa in support of autonomous schools but fail to add that the same organisation finds that competition between schools doesn't necessarily lead to better results?
Contradictory evidence and the selective use of it is nothing new – I doubt there is an education minister who has not succumbed to the temptation. Neither is the practice peculiar to education. The problem exists elsewhere – but other government departments have been prepared to do something about it.
The Department of Health has established the independent National Centre for Clinical Excellence (Nice) to make sure clinicians and the public have access to quality information and best-practice evidence. The Treasury has the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), which provides an external challenge and scrutiny to government's financial assumptions and forecasts. Then there is the Institute for Fiscal Studies, to which commentators and the public can confidently look for a balanced interpretation of economic information.
These organisations take the job of interpreting evidence out of the hands of ministers and so give the public greater confidence in its validity.
No one will believe that the government is serious about being guided by evidence as long as ministers are free to select and interpret that evidence at will. It's not difficult to spot a successful school and use it to justify what you already believe. It's far more difficult to determine exactly what it is that makes that school successful and craft it into an evidence-based policy that can influence all schools. That's why quality evidence and the proper use of it are so crucial.
Education is an increasingly evidence-rich policy area. How we use that evidence could determine our future success. It is not about taking politics out of education, but about re-drawing the boundaries between the two.
As Labour continues the task in Liverpool this week of rethinking its approach to education, it could do worse than show that it understands the crisis in the relationship between education evidence and policy-making. A commitment to examine the way evidence is used in education would give it firm foundations for its policy review and build trust in the profession and with the public.
We urgently need the education equivalent of Nice or the OBR so we can be confident that when ministers talk about evidence they aren't simply providing cover for their own prejudices.
The concept of 'un-American' activities has existed almost as long as America. But does anyone know what it means?
Dr George Lewis could have been forgiven for swallowing hard and turning pale when finally given access to the collected files of the House of Un-American Activities Committee during the period 1945 to 1975. "There was 1,245ft of archive material," he recalls. "That's the equivalent of three-and-a-half feet of box files a month every month for 30 years."
The director of American studies at Leicester University has embarked on what he believes to be the first sustained historical analysis of the term "un-American", so he first took a look at HUAC's attempts to define their terms. "I discovered that they were still trying to work out exactly what 'un-American' meant three decades after someone had set up a committee to investigate it."
The term "un-American" goes back a long way – almost to the dawn of the republic, Lewis has discovered. "'It was in use pretty well as soon as the term 'American' was coined," he says. "To be American became an expression of ideology as well as nationalism."
And of course, it's still in use today, particularly by supporters of the Tea Party movement in their critiques of President Barack Obama's healthcare reforms. It was the use of the term by Michele Bachmann – now a declared candidate for the presidency – in 2008 in reference to Barack Obama as "un-American" that convinced Lewis of the need to try to pin down the nebulous concept.
Lewis is two-thirds of the way through a three-year project, supported by £111,000 from the British Academy, which also funded an inter-disciplinary conference at Leicester last week for scholars from both sides of the Atlantic. One of the more intriguing subject headings was When Modern Art Was Un-American.
"There was a big campaign against modern art in California in the 50s," Lewis explains. "On the east coast, meanwhile, there was a move against jazz as un-American. Harlem became the den of un-American filth in the rightwing imagination. Later, there were similar campaigns against rock 'n' roll. One of the things that got me interested in this project is that it's not just a top-down phenomenon. Being 'un-American' influenced rhetoric at every level of society."
For research purposes, Lewis has been witnessing Tea Party rallies at first hand with their placards referring to Obama's "un-American" healthcare programme. "It has become a coded word for them," he says. "If they want to infer that his programme is 'socialised medicine' then that's what it will be taken to mean. If they want to remind people that he's black, then that's what it'll be taken to mean. Ditto: the implication made when they say his second name is Hussein."
Talk-show hosts during the 2008 election, he points out, never asked Obama's Republican opponent, John McCain, about his middle name. "(It's Sidney.)" But then an elderly "President McCain" could have been a heart attack away from handing the keys of the White House to his running mate, the all-American Sarah Palin. Having weighed that up, floating voters decided that Obama was American enough for them.
Research into 'brain extraction' turns out to be about seeing clearly what modern imaging machines are showing, rather than any gory dissection
Scientists marvel at how other scientists – the ones who study something other than what they themselves study – give strange meanings to common words.
Evan Shellshear, at Fraunhofer Chalmers Centre in Gothenburg, sent me an example, a study called Fast Robust Automated Brain Extraction.
Shellshear said: "I stumbled across this article somehow [whilst] looking for optimal code to quickly compute the distance between two triangles in three-dimension space for computer games. It sounds almost like something out of a game itself … After careful reading, [the paper] justifies the initially shocking title."
The author is Stephen M Smith who, back in 2002 when the paper came out, was at the Department of Clinical Neurology at Oxford University's John Radcliffe Hospital, and is now a professor of biomedical engineering.
Certain details might give you the willies, if you are unpractised in the ways and words of Dr Smith's line of research. Especially in this age when zombies are so much in the public mind.
One section of the paper carries the conceivably disturbing headline "Overview of the brain extraction method".
The abstract could plausibly have been written by Dr Phibes or any of a hundred other horror-movie body-part-snatching researchers. It says:
"Brain Extraction Tool (BET)... is very fast … [I give] the results of extensive quantitative testing against 'gold-standard' hand segmentations, and two other popular automated methods."
That phrase "hand segmentations" suggests lots of lengthy, laborious tedium. But in some contexts "hand segmentations" could be a handy euphemism – in a discussion, say, of how to pluck out only the choicest parts of a cadaver's brain after you've smashed open its skull.
Smith acknowledges that doing his deed by hand has one advantage over letting a computer do it: "Manual brain/non-brain segmentation methods are, as a result of the complex information understanding involved, probably more accurate than fully automated methods are ever likely to achieve."
But he explains that, financially, it's better when a computer does the dirty work. "There are serious enough problems with manual segmentation," he warns. "The first problem is time cost. Manual brain/non-brain segmentation typically takes between 15 minutes and two hours."
"Fast Robust Automated Brain Extraction" is not about sucking brains out of people's skulls, alas.
Published in a journal called Human Brain Mapping, it's about perceiving more clearly what's in the pictures produced by modern imaging machines. These magnificent devices give such a profusion of detail that doctors sometimes can't tell where one body part ends and another begins.
Smith explains that in a brain scan, "the high resolution magnetic resonance image will probably contain a considerable amount [of] eyeballs, skin, fat, muscle, etc". The image can become more understandable, more useful "if these non-brain parts of the image can be automatically removed".
Thus a report that gives the heebie-jeebies to some scientists gives, instead, hope and cheer to those who have the specialised brains to appreciate it.
The images have been digitised and catalogued by the British Cartoon Archive at the University of Kent, following a grant from JISC.
The seaside postcards are among a collection of 1,300 cards confiscated under the obscenity laws from 1951-61. Other images available online for the first time include British political cartoons from the last ten years, recent ‘pocket’ cartoons by cartoonists such as Matt of the Daily Telegraph, and images from Reg Smythe’s Andy Capp artwork for the Daily Mirror.
The new images come from the world’s largest collection of cartoons on political and social comment published in British press and held by the British Cartoon Archive. The Archive now offers free and easy access to more than 170,000 cartoons by by over 350 cartoonists, dating from 1790 to 2011 and featuring Prime Ministers from Pitt the Younger to David Cameron.
Also newly available are research and teaching aids on cartoons, including video interviews with leading cartoonists such as Stan McMurtry (Mac) of the Daily Mail, Nicholas Garland of the Daily Telegraph, Peter Brookes of The Times, Dave Brown of The Independent and Nick Newman of the Sunday Times and Private Eye.
Head of the archive Dr Nick Hiley said: ‘Our online catalogue already attracts more than 15,000 visitors a month, looking for cartoons for teaching and research, or just for enjoyment. The sheer volume of material - 19,000 cartoons from the 1970s alone - means that users can see several cartoons from the same day and on the same subject, by cartoonists from quite different newspapers.’
JISC programme manager Paola Marchionni said: ‘It's not just researchers who are demanding access to these collections; increasing numbers of teachers and lecturers are interested in using cartoons as a learning resource. The new tools to help teachers embed the cartoons into their lessons, both physical and virtual, will make these archives even more valuable for teaching, learning and research.’
Dr Hiley added: ‘Among our online cartoons are 1,594 Margaret Thatchers, which, perhaps surprisingly, is more than our 1,225 Winston Churchills. Of course, some of the cartoons of Mrs Thatcher show her dressed as Winston Churchill, but there are not as many as the cartoons showing Tony Blair dressed as Mrs Thatcher!’
Visit the British Cartoon Archive
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This is the first book to cover the current regulatory, legal and governance issues associated with managing records in global banking and finance businesses. Jeffrey Ritter, the founder of the online research and learning platform; The Ritter Academy, said, 'Records and information are the living history of how a financial institution steers its course in a brutally competitive market. This outstanding volume has achieved something important: the editors deliver a resource that provides reliable and trustworthy navigation through the diverse challenges of global banking and financial services and the rigour of specific national rules. Balanced, thorough, accessible - an essential tool for any professional.'
Written by a team of international experts from business and academia, the book offers strategies and examples of best practice to meet the recordkeeping challenges faced by corporate and commercial banking enterprises operating in global capital markets. The examples and cases studies encompass recordkeeping in investment banking, asset management, brokerage and other financial services which serve global markets
The key chapters cover:
Randolph A. Kahn, the award-winning author of Information Nation, said, 'Managing Records in Global Financial Markets is a great resource chock-full of useful information'. This book will be essential reading for records managers, archivists and information professionals who manage records in the financial sector. It will also be invaluable for individuals engaged in a wide range of disciplines who rely on records to meet the increasing number of legal and regulatory obligations to which institutions engaged in global banking and finance are now subject. These include: compliance professionals, data protection officers, governance professionals, regulators and risk managers, senior managers and directors, chief operating officers and IT specialists.
-ends-
Press contact:
James Williams, Marketing Manager, Facet Publishing
Tel: 020 7255 0597
Email: james.williams@facetpublishing.co.uk
Notes to editors:
1. Managing Records in Global Financial Markets (August 2011; 256pp; paperback; 978-1-85604-663-3; £59.95) is published by Facet Publishing. It is available from Bookpoint Ltd, Mail Order Dept, 39 Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4TD | Tel: +44 (0)1235 827702 | Fax: +44 (0)1235 827703 | Email: facet@bookpoint.co.uk | Web: www.facetpublishing.co.uk. The book is available in the US and Canada from Neal-Schuman Publishers www.neal-schuman.com
3. The book is edited by; Lynn Coleman, who was Regional Records Manager, Europe, Middle East & Africa for a global investment bank in London. She recently relocated to Australia where she undertakes records management projects; Victoria L. Lemieux, who is Director of the Centre for the Investigation of Financial Electronic Records and an assistant professor of archival studies at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada; Rod Stone, who is Records Manager–Global Policy & Oversight at the Royal Bank of Scotland in London and Geoffrey Yeo, who is an Archives and Records Management specialist at the Department of Information Studies, University College London.
4. All titles are available at 20% discount to Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals members. Remember to quote your Membership Number if claiming the discount.
5. Facet Publishing is the commercial publishing and bookselling arm of CILIP: the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, is the leading publisher of books for library and information professionals worldwide. At the forefront of library and information development, Facet Publishing has a comprehensive list covering all the major areas of professional activity.
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A new walking tour for the iPhone is set to help prospective students get to know a university virtually and help them settle in once they arrive – helping the institution meet its widening participation targets.
As part of its work to support open innovation, JISC funded the University of Bristol’s MyMobileBristol project in collaboration with Bristol City Council.
Mike Jones, senior developer in IT services research and development at the University of Bristol, said: “We are pleased that it has been so popular - the walking tour achieved 160 downloads from 21 countries in the first eight days of becoming available on the Apple iTunes website.”
The University plans to produce a printed version of the tour for people who can’t access the app, which is designed for iPads, iPhones and iPods.
Mark Newman, senior business analyst at Bristol City Council, said: “"The project to build a mobile website for central Bristol has helped forge greater links between Bristol City Council and Bristol University, created a great resource not only for all students studying in Bristol but visitors and the citizens of Bristol with a bonus of a fantastic Walking iPhones app."
It integrates information from partner websites and provides users with time and location-sensitive data helping them to get around the campus and the city more effectively.
Simon Whittemore, JISC programme manager, said: “This project is an excellent example of a University working in partnership with an external organisation – in this case Bristol City Council - for a shared objective and new business opportunities. The demonstrator delivered is an innovative use of web and mobile technologies that has already brought new benefits to – students, staff and visitors to the University’’.
If you’re interested in applying to run a similar project linking up with business or your local community, JISC has a call out now for bids
The code that the team used to design the software is now open source and other institutions have also been invited to a workshop to see how they could apply this to their own institutions.
The project is one of a series funded by JISC that challenged universities to use their ability to innovate to impact positively on their communities, working in partnership with outside organisations, by demonstrating the potential of integrated web services and online marketplaces.
The MyMobileBristol project also built a mobile website optimised for smartphones to assist people in finding their way around the University precinct and giving them information about buildings and facilities in the University and the wider city.
Download the walking tour from iPhones now
Read about the project on their blog
What are the best strategies for engaging with business and the community? Find out how JISC can help support your institution
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The custom of sons following their fathers to the same Oxbridge college has spread to institutions across the country. But what were the universities like for earlier generations?
"The room just sounded very familiar," says Eileen Drewe, 79, remembering a conversation three decades ago when her son described his digs at Exeter University. Anthony was living in Hope Hall, where Eileen had been herself as a student. "As he told me about the landing, and the lay-out, I realised it was my old room," Eileen explains. "Then, when I visited, I discovered almost nothing had changed – his armchair was the exact same one I'd had during my own time as an undergraduate."
Little else remained the same during the years between Eileen's student days and those of her son Anthony. When she started her fresher term in 1951, Anthony wouldn't have been allowed in: the halls were women-only. But like his mum, Anthony loved studying at Exeter and, a year later, his sister Janice followed suit – also moving in to Hope Hall. Fast-forward 30 years, and last year, Janice's son Solomon kept up the family tradition.
The Oxbridge generations of old, where sons would follow their fathers to the same colleges, are now spread across institutions around the country. When Eileen explains that when she enrolled at the University College of the South West of England (now Exeter University) to study maths: "I applied directly – no Ucas in those days. I didn't have an interview, my offer was based on my Higher School Certificate. I was the first in the family to go to university – it wasn't the norm – but when I got there, I found it quite similar to school."
University life was very structured. "A bell rang before dinner, and you had half an hour to get ready and put a dress on. Wednesday was sports afternoon so we had high tea at five o'clock, and on Thursdays there was supper, which you didn't have to dress up for." Lecturers wore academic gowns, and used blackboards. "It was very regimented," remembers Eileen. "Work had to be handed in after two days and you had to sign out in the evenings, and be back by 10.30pm, or 11 at the weekends. You couldn't have boys in your room."
Money was tight for post-war undergraduates too. "The grant allowed for a cup of coffee in Marks & Spencer on a Saturday, and a bus fare home once a term. On Saturdays there was a 'hop'." After graduating, Eileen taught, then brought up a family, before becoming a headteacher. And she saw Janice and Anthony off to their own studies at Exeter.
"I enrolled in English and education in 1980, a year after Anthony went to study zoology," says Janice. "We were very close, so I wanted to study where he was, and the family connection made my mind up. Mum encouraged me to apply.
Despite the family history, Janice says she "never dreamed" her son would follow her to Exeter. "I didn't guide him, but I think he'd heard us all talk about it so much, we indoctrinated him," she says. But in fact Solomon – Eileen's grandson – wasn't keen on following the family tradition. "I really wanted to go to Oxford or Durham," he says. "But that didn't happen, so I ended up at Exeter studying geography." Last year, Solomon too moved into Hope Hall. "My mum said she'd had a really good time there and so did my grandma, so I thought it must be good." The 20-year-old has plenty of family photos around him at university. "There are pictures up in the dining room of most graduation years," he says.
Sporting link
On the other side of the country, it was sport that attracted 80-year-old Jim Linehan, and his son and grandson, to study at Loughborough University. "I'd left school early to work in engineering, but I didn't like factory life, and got a job as a laboratory technician," Jim says. He enrolled at night school. Then, in 1950, aged 19, Jim began a three-year course in handicraft at Loughborough College. "I loved the fact that sport was so important there," he says. "I was a runner, and represented English universities in the half mile. So it was great that my halls of residence were near the athletics track."
University life was "more like public school back then," says Jim. "We had meals in hall and were waited upon, nothing like the cafe system nowadays. No women were allowed, except on Saturday evenings, when we'd invite ladies from the women's domestic science training colleges nearby to hops."
Some traditions remain: "I dressed up as a clown to collect for Rag, which still goes on," Jim says. "And even in my day, we had students from 50 different countries. But men on campus used to wear sports jackets, flannel trousers and black shoes. And students didn't have to fend for themselves so much – we got more help and guidance from staff." Jim was able to track the changes on campus because, after working as a teacher elsewhere, he returned to Loughborough in 1961 as a lecturer in education, and remained in academia there until he retired in 1989. "It was too good to get away from," he says.
That feeling ran in the family: Jim's son Mark opted for Loughborough for his MSc in recreation management. "I applied because of my dad's happy time there and the course, which was one of the best available," says Mark, 46. He has since been back to the campus – to visit his nephew, Jake, who embarked on a degree in sports science there two years ago. "The most consistent thing was that there are still loads of students walking round in purple tracksuits – the university colour," says Mark. "They were there when I was a kid and visited dad at work, when I studied there, and now, they're still there."
Jake is one. He picked Loughborough due to his own love of athletics, plus its strong reputation in sports science. "The athletics pavilion has a load of photos of my grandad," he says. "And if I had kids I'd recommend Loughborough to them – if it offered the course they wanted to do."
Close to home
Also keeping it in the family is Toni Griffiths, 23, who collected her degree – in anthropology – from the University of Sussex last month, becoming the third generation of her family to do so.
It was 1994 when Toni's grandmother, Rita Bennett, graduated as a mature student in French and Italian. "I left school half way through my A-levels in 1963," Rita, now 64, explains. I lived in a working-class environment and further education seemed like something other people did. But after marrying young I continued studying at night school. I did A-levels in English and Spanish, and some classmates suggested we all apply for university." Rita chose Sussex because it was close to her home and she could study more than one thing. "Having waited so long, I wanted to study everything at once. I loved discussing and developing ideas and the daunting piles of reading."
Rita began teaching, did a master's at King's College London, then moved to Italy to teach at the University of Salento and has embarked on a doctorate.
She was "overjoyed" when her daughter, Liesel Wilkes, decided to follow her to Sussex, also as a mature student. Liesel says: "I left school in 1983 with a poor academic record, flunked college, and was a depressed teenager struggling to cope with family breakdown. I left home aged 17 and had my daughter aged 19." She juggled bringing up her daughter with work, but felt her education held her back from a career, so at 29 embarked on an Access to Higher Education course at a local college. That inspired her to apply to university. "Sussex was close by and I knew it had a good reputation for taking on mature students, because my mother had gone there, so I applied. To my amazement, I was accepted."
So 12 years ago, Liesel embarked on a degree in social policy. "I didn't get overly involved in university life, just focused on getting the right reading and study materials," she says. After graduation, she was in local government for a while and now works for a substance-misuse service. "I believe there's some advantage for youngsters in witnessing firsthand their parents applying themselves academically," Liesel says.
It certainly helped to inspire her own daughter, Toni. "I chose Sussex because both my nan and my mum had gone there and said it was a great university. I'd got to know it when they were there, and remember being in the library with my mum when I was quite young."
She worries, however, that there may not be another chance for the trio to gather at the graduation hall. "As for my kids going to Sussex, it sounds like a nice idea, but with fees going the way they are, I just hope it will be possible for my kids to go to university. It doesn't look too promising."
Doctors wouldn't let the government tell them how to treat patients, says Mike Baker, so why do teachers let the government dictate what is best for pupils?
If the government suggested to doctors which treatment they should prescribe to their patients, there would be an outcry. If politicians tried to tell lawyers how to handle individual clients' cases, they would face fierce resistance.
So why is it that when ministers recommended a particular choice of school subjects at age 14 – the EBacc, covering maths, English, science, a language and a humanity – over half of English schools jumped straight to it and changed their curriculum offer? Don't teachers have the same level of professional expertise as doctors and lawyers?
When the EBacc was announced a year ago, teachers and headteachers said it would mean undue pressure to direct pupils into subjects that would boost schools' performance in the EBacc league tables rather than guiding them towards the curriculum options most appropriate for their needs.
Yet recently published research, commissioned by the Department for Education, suggests that 52% of schools changed their curriculum offer in response to the EBacc announcement. Moreover, 45% of schools had withdrawn one or more courses or failed to recruit enough students to run it.
Ministers were delighted. But why are schools proving to be such a pushover? Are headteachers really so intimidated by government benchmarks that they put them ahead of what's best for students?
Perhaps the most alarming finding of the research into the EBacc effect, conducted at the end of last term by the National Centre for Social Research, was that it affected not only pupils then in year 9, but also some year 10 pupils, who appear to have switched subjects mid-course.
This allowed the government to trumpet the finding that, whereas in 2010 only 22% of the cohort took the EBacc combination, for those taking their GCSEs in this academic year (last year's year 10) the equivalent figure rises to 33%. For the cohort after that it rises to 47%.
In his start-of-term speech, the prime minister called for "real excellence" in schools. If ever there was a case of grade inflation this was it. When did "excellence" alone cease to be good enough? Or was this just a case of the spin-doctors drumming up interest in a speech that didn't say anything new?
However, the speech did reveal the contradiction at the heart of David Cameron's policy. He said he wanted to give schools "more independence" and that by becoming academies they would have the freedoms to "improve standards the way they see fit". He also insisted, quite rightly, that "every child is different, with different interests and different talents".
Yet, in almost the same breath, he told schools and teachers which "wrong-headed methods" they should stop using and which ones they should replace them with. Isn't that interfering with the very professional autonomy that, at the last election, Mr Cameron promised to restore?
So, come on headteachers and teachers, take Mr Cameron at his word: do what you think is right for your students, not just what will boost EBacc scores. I understand that this involves a big risk and the pressures performance tables bring, but you have the prime minister's word that he wants you to be autonomous.
For many students, maybe even most, the EBacc will be right. Certainly, all its constituent subjects should be available to everyone. No one should want students with an aptitude for academic study to be disadvantaged later on by a constrained choice of courses at age 14.
But for others (and this will be an individual-by-individual, not a school-by-school, or location-by-location, decision) a more creative, practical or vocational curriculum will be better. Central government, miles away in Westminster, cannot possibly know what is best and some students will be disadvantaged if the EBacc pushes out music, performing arts or BTec courses.
And, already, the effects are spreading. At a recent graduation event for newly-qualified teachers, I was told by teacher trainers that secondary school subject specialists in music and creative arts have been finding it particularly difficult to get posts this year because headteachers, with budgets getting tight, are cutting back on staffing in non-Ebacc subjects.
This is not the only element of sneaking central control in education. I'm hearing from some academy heads that they are being browbeaten by sponsors, particularly in the new "chains" of schools, into using one pedagogical approach over another. Some have even been told which curriculum consultants they can or cannot use.
None of this sounds much like trusting the professionals. Nor does it sound like trusting pupils or parents. Other professions would not tolerate it, nor would doctors' patients or lawyers' clients. So why should teachers, pupils and parents?
Conservative higher education reforms will deliver not just savings but also greater opportunity and fairness, says David Willetts
There are three clear lines of attack on the government's higher education reforms that I have seen, not least on the pages of Education Guardian. The first claim is that we are removing the public subsidy for higher education. The second is that we are explicitly seeking to copy the US system of higher education. And the third claim is that we are reductionists who value arts and humanities less than sciences.
Higher education cannot be entirely insulated from the savings necessary to reduce the deficit. So, in future, the key beneficiaries of higher education will pay more of the costs, but only where they can afford to do so and via a more progressive loan system. This does not mean the taxpayer is withdrawing from higher education. Around one-third of the money loaned to students will never be repaid because of the protections that are built in to protect low earners. The maximum maintenance grants paid to students from lower-income households will increase. We will continue to pay teaching grants to universities for more expensive and also vulnerable subjects.
According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the effect will be to shift from having 60% of the costs of higher education funded by taxpayers and 40% by private sources, to 40% funded by taxpayers and 60% by private sources. That is not a scorched-earth policy. We calculate that the total income of universities for teaching could rise by 10% between now and 2014-15. And none of these figures take account of the £4.6bn a year science and research budget, which has been ring-fenced for the next four years.
A key part of the reforms is to distribute the available resources so they follow the decisions of students more closely. We will, for example, liberalise the student number controls that are imposed upon each institution. Ensuring that funding follows learners is not some radical new idea. It is in line with the recommendations of all three major postwar reports on higher education – the Robbins report of 1963, the Dearing report of 1997 and the Browne report of 2010.
Many of the coalition's critics claim we are so bedazzled by America that we wish to impose their higher education system upon England. There are, of course, parts of that country's university system that we could do well to emulate – they lead the world in research output, knowledge transfer and attracting foreign students. But there will continue to be some really important differences between our higher education sector and theirs. For example, the US lacks our comprehensive student finance arrangements, our robust quality assurance regime and our focus on widening participation.
We do want to see a more diverse sector with new opportunities for alternative providers such as FE colleges and new entrants. But we are not proposing a free-for-all and we can learn from some of the quality control problems that have arisen in the US. Indeed, the level playing field for providers of all types that we are committed to could mean more requirements, not fewer, on private providers. If their students are to be entitled to student support, they will need to keep to the same quality assurance and fair access rules that apply to others.
The third misconception about our policies is that we do not value arts and humanities. I was scrupulous not to favour one set of disciplines over another in the science and research settlement. For teaching, universities currently receive a tuition fee of around £3,300 and a grant of around £2,750 for each arts and humanities student, making around £6,000 in total. In 2012 prices, this would be more like £6,350. So a fee of, say, £8,000 represents an increase of over £1,600 for each arts student. For other students the same fee would mean an increase of about £600.
As I travel around the world, I find that policymakers, academics and others want to know more about our plans to reduce the deficit, protect student numbers and deliver more support to the most needy students at the same time. We will go on learning from the best evidence from around the world as we roll out our reforms and as we prepare our forthcoming innovation and research strategy. But policymaking tends to be reciprocal, and I expect other countries to monitor our reforms closely and to learn from them when they prove to deliver more opportunity and more fairness.
• David Willetts is the universities minister
Is David Willetts right? Write to education.letters@guardian.co.uk. We will publish responses next week
