It's all very well announcing an all-age careers service, but where's the funding to go with it, ask Tony Watts
The coalition government's early policy statements on career guidance were widely welcomed. It declared its commitment to establish an all-age careers service, and to revitalise the professional status of career guidance practitioners. For young people, it indicated that it would safeguard the partnership model between schools and external career guidance providers.
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) has retained its commitment. Its contribution to the new all-age national careers service is to be £84.4m. But an all-age service requires two departments to tango, and it is clear that the Department for Education is refusing to dance. Not only that, but it appears to be removing, by stealth, almost all funding from existing career guidance services for young people.
The assumption had been that BIS's contribution would be complemented by the existing funding for the career guidance component of Connexions services, estimated at £203m. But a parallel funding announcement from DfE has been conspicuous by its absence. Fears are growing that its contribution will be confined largely or wholly to the £7m currently given to the telephone/web-based services of Connexions Direct.
A convenient smokescreen for this has been provided by school autonomy. For the crucial face-to-face services, the DfE has indicated that in future it expects schools to purchase such services. Yet there has been no discernible transfer of funding for such services to schools. And the overall budgets of many schools are being cut. Meanwhile, without a clear policy steer from the DfE, many local authorities have announced big reductions and even closures of their Connexions services, including massive staff redundancies.
The preoccupation with school autonomy is also weakening careers provision in other respects. The essence of the partnership model is that schools provide careers education, while external providers offer impartial guidance. But in the new education bill, the statutory duty for schools to provide careers education is being withdrawn.
It is being replaced by a new statutory duty for schools to "secure" independent career guidance for their pupils, either from the all-age service or from other providers. This converts the partnership model into a contractor-supplier relationship. The model is undermined further by a recent announcement that schools can appoint their own careers adviser if they wish, and that access to external guidance can be confined, at a minimum, to access to web-based or telephone services.
Whatever the evidence may be for school autonomy in terms of pupil attainment, there is no indication that it applies to effective career guidance.
Indeed, the evidence is to the contrary. International studies demonstrate that school-based guidance systems tend to have weak links with the labour market, to view educational choices as ends in themselves rather than as career choices (which they are), to lack impartiality, and to be patchy in extent and quality. In two countries that abandoned the partnership model in favour of school commissioning (the Netherlands and New Zealand), the outcome was significant reductions in career guidance provision.
This now seems highly likely in England, too. Unless an overt and credible announcement on initial DfE funding for the all-age service is made soon, with stronger policy levers on schools than those indicated to date, DfE will be open to charges of collective deceit and hypocrisy.
• Professor Tony Watts is an international policy consultant on career guidance and career development
Next week our University Guide will appear online and in the Education supplement
Are you thinking of applying to university? You need the Guardian's University Guide 2012, next Tuesday
In the Education supplement
We will have hot insider tips on how to make your application stand out; how to choose your university and the best course for your interests and needs; plus the vital low-down on the new fees and finances involved in going to university in 2012.
Online
• Interactive subject tables showing which universities are best at teaching the courses of interest to you - partly judged by students themselves
• An overall ranking showing which universities perform well in teaching across all subjects
• An A-Z of campuses and what they have to offer, from clubbing to kayaking
guardian.co.uk/education
The charity Skill: National Bureau for Students with Disabilities, praised by users, FE organisations and government as a vital information and support service, announces its closure
Toby Morrison says his dreams of academic success and a career as a welfare worker were thwarted at school by teachers who saw only his disabilities. They were misguided, says the 19-year-old, now an occupational therapy undergraduate at Coventry University. "Their comments made me all the more determined to succeed – but didn't make it any easier."
The odds were certainly stacked against Morrison. Born with bleeding on the brain and hydrocephalus, he suffers lifelong problems including cerebral palsy, weakness on his right side, tunnel vision and partial epilepsy. His family gave all the support they could. But pursuing his ambitions in the wider world, he says, "was like doing the 100 metres with your shoelaces undone".
Then everything changed. As a BTec national diploma student, he was on work experience at the charity Action for Kids when he was introduced to staff from Skill: National Bureau for Students with Disabilities. "They told me: 'forget you have a disability, don't let it get in the way of what you want, do the best you can'."
The personal attention and appreciation of his aspirations this charity gave him were just what he needed. "It has given me the biggest boost of confidence," says the young man, who soon became a youth ambassador for the Skill Volunteer Voices programme, visiting schools and colleges to encourage other disabled students.
So he was appalled to learn that Skill had run out of cash and was closing. In the fragmented world of charitable support for the disabled, Morrison is pessimistic that the well-focused campaigning and policy work of Skill will be taken up by others. It is a concern shared by many leading organisations in FE, some of which have had to take tough cost-cutting action for survival and have little flexibility left.
Relatively generous funding and support from business, colleges and other agencies, plus contracts for research and development, helped to sustain Skill for 40 years, and to fund a helpline for the disabled and a strong policy team with influence on government decision-making. But, says Peter Little, chair of the board and a trustee for 20 years, given the economic crisis, "the general fundraising climate grew difficult. We took a hit last year and were not able to replace those funding streams no longer available".
On 7 June, the trustees and 500 active members of Skill will gather for the formal closure meeting. "We are in discussion with BIS [Department for Business, Innovation and Skills] to see where they can support others taking on the services," says Little.
The skills minister, John Hayes, has expressed dismay at the closure and says: "The government remains committed to ensuring the needs of disabled students are met and we are in discussions with other organisations in the sector about taking this work forward."
Skill is no ordinary charity, says Yola Jacobsen, programme manager for the National Institute for Adult Continuing Education, which itself recently had to make huge reductions. "It is a vital information and support service that has campaigned successfully for disabled people on so many fronts – promoting equality in education, training and employment. It has given people the power of self-management and the ability to participate."
Its demise could not come at a worse time, she says, given the need for close scrutiny of new public duty regulations arising from the Equality Act and the special education and disability green paper, now before parliament.
But there are even deeper concerns for the future rights of disabled people, says Jacobsen. Skill tackles a big long-term problem facing disabled people – the disproportionately high numbers kept out of work and in poverty by the high costs of skills training. "It is not about intelligence and ability, but access and financial support."
A powerful example of Skill's effectiveness is its helpline. Over 50% of inquiries are about finance for learning, and it acts as an early warning alarm when systems fail. For example, when the Student Loans Company failed to make payments on time last year, Skill could identify 12,500 disabled students in England waiting for grants to pay for specialist equipment.
The small intelligence team sustained by Skill has been an essential service for FE organisations, working through the mire of legislation and regulations. "It was the only organisation in that niche and served a key role," says Jacobsen. "I get many inquiries on technical issues and would confidently refer people to their free helpline. Who now will offer support for disabled students?"
Her biggest fear is the impact on student access of the 25% cut in college budgets – the sort of issue on which Skill was sharp-eyed, she says. "Colleges have to run as businesses and make the sums work. People who need extra support will lose out big time."
College leaders agree there is a need for vigilance to alert ministers and funding agencies to any difficulties. Debbie Ribchester, a senior policy manager at the Association of Colleges, says: "We have concerns about the complexity of the system for people with disabilities and the SEN and disability green paper is seeking to address many of these issues."
With Skill's closure, other agencies such as the Institute for Learning and the Disability Alliance are looking to take on some of the work. But Toby Morrison fears it will "completely vanish. Maybe there will be pockets of support, but I don't think any organisation could match the amazing level of work Skill did. It's hard to comprehend how much they have done – for millions of people across the country".
Lord Baker gives some reassurance on university technical colleges, plus the school I'd like, and British studies
I am glad Estelle Morris supports the University Technical Colleges (Opinion, 26 April). She raises some questions about their impact.
Who will UTCs recruit? Students at 14 will themselves decide whether they want to go to a UTC. When speaking to students at the JCB academy, the first UTC, I found most seem to have learned about it through local radio. JCB was seeking to recruit 120 students and was oversubscribed in the end. In the second year, there was no need to advertise: it was overwhelmed with applications.
The general academic education at a UTC is as important as its specialism. GCSEs in English, maths, and science are central, together with bridging studies in business, finance and entrepreneurial skills alongside a language such as German – for engineering, not Goethe, and the history and geography of engineering and science to cover humanities.
I can assure Morris that a student's choice at 14 is not irrevocable. Any youngster who has started at a UTC but feels it is not for them will be able to transfer to another school at 14 or 15, or take a different course when they are 16.
As regards the impact upon other schools, we are learning as we go along. Three or four years ago, many schools were suspicious of UTCs since they would attract some of their students, but a UTC requires a wide catchment area and this means no individual secondary school is affected too greatly. Recently, we have had schools approaching the Baker Dearing Trust to say they are willing to have a UTC in their area because there are youngsters who would like and benefit from a highly skilled technical education.
These are early days but there are encouraging signs. At the JCB academy, by the end of the second term there was a distinct improvement among students in English and maths. And truancy has disappeared.
The attractions have caught on and I believe we will see a growing number of applications in the years ahead.
Lord Baker of Dorking
Baker Dearing Trust,
London SW1
Last week we published the Children's Manifesto – a list of things to make a dream school drawn up by a panel of children. It is part of The School I'd Like project, which has been running for 10 years.
Well done, everyone. I really enjoyed your article. I'm glad you expect us teachers to be experts – it's what most of us have spent our lives trying to achieve. I'm also glad you like a quiet voice and no shouting – though sometimes we do get provoked...
Quaestor via EducationGuardian.co.uk
• Great to see such support for hot school meals, international food and cooking lessons!
SchoolFoodTrust via EducationGuardian.co.uk
• Fascinating article. The uncanny thing is that much of what the children are asking for are things that home educating families are providing.
RossMountney via EducationGuardian.co.uk
Zoe Corbyn asked whether UK universities should think about introducing British studies courses.
British studies would be pointless. If you're looking at any period of history from 55BC onwards, British history, politics, culture etc is intertwined with the rest of Europe. A lot of America's foreign policy blunders have stemmed from the fact they don't appreciate the context that their empire sits in. Studying Britain out of context won't help that. European studies would make sense though.
Polhotpot via EducationGuardian.co.uk
Mobiles are commonplace in secondary schools, but can they be used for teaching? Find out on the Guardian Teacher Network this week
If there's one thing you'll find in the pocket or bag of every young person in secondary school, it's some kind of mobile device.
From the smartphone to the iPad to the Nintendo 3Ds, the range of mobile devices is growing. The education secretary, Michael Gove, wants to ban mobiles from school. But while some see them just as entertainment, many teachers and educators know that they can be used in exciting ways in class.
On the Guardian Teacher Network, Doug Belshaw, a researcher at Northumbria University, a former history teacher and one of the driving forces behind the viral backlash to the education secretary's comments, "govephonehome", has prepared a guide to how mobile devices can be used for learning. What about asking students to record their ideas to play back later? Or the application that features all the works of Shakespeare and other classics that students can use for reading along in class?
To see the full guide go to the Guardian Teacher Network.
• The Guardian's new education resources network offers access to 70,000 pages of lesson plans and interactive materials all absolutely free. This content is being added to every day by classroom teachers and educationalists. Nearly 30,000 people have already signed up. To see (and share) for yourself, go to teachers.guardian.co.uk
From free school meals to leader of a university: Carl Lygo the head of BPP is setting an example. By Janet Murray
Carl Lygo is used to being misunderstood, he says. As the CEO of BPP University College, one of just two private universities in the UK, he knows that handling suspicion and criticism comes with the territory. It's mostly ideological, he says, the idea that a profit-making company could provide higher education – and do a good job – just doesn't sit well with some people. "We get rapped, but people don't want to look at the whole story and at the fact that we have done it all properly."
He says the University and College Union, for one, "continues a campaign of misinformation". On the UCU website, mentioning BPP, it says: "Private companies have no tradition of academic freedom, are exempt from Freedom of Information legislation, and are not subjected to the same academic rigour or public scrutiny as UK universities."
This angers Lygo, especially the bit about academic freedom. "Have you ever tried to tell a barrister or a solicitor that they can't do something? If you tell them they cannot research what they are particularly interested in, then they will go and work somewhere else."
Lygo is an amiable man, who jovially says he "enjoys a fight" and what keeps him going under fire is his stubborn streak. "I get a thrill out of leading a university that is different. If people think I can't do something, I try to find a way around it."
Existing universities now feel they must justify their increased tuition fees and a promised higher education white paper is expected to relax the rules on university titles and encourage for-profit organisations to enter the market. BPP — along with the other the only other private provider, the University of Buckingham – could find it is not the "bad guy" any more. In fact, it may find existing and new providers looking to emulate its business models. When Lygo stood up to speak at the Guardian's Higher Education summit recently, his opening words to university chiefs were: "Welcome to the real world!"
In this new era of higher education, some universities will try to improve their kerb appeal, says Lygo. But students don't want swimming pools or swanky coffee bars, he says. "They want more contact time, more feedback, smaller groups, a tutor who knows their name and the chance of a job at the end."
Inevitably, the fee rise will lead to a dip in the number of young people going to university and a big shift in how higher education is delivered, he says. "I suspect the Open University, FE colleges and the private sector will all have a role to play in moving towards more career-focused degrees."
Last month, the government announced plans to extend tuition fee loans available to students at private universities, in a bid to encourage more companies to enter the education market. Ministers hope this could put pressure on publicly funded universities not to pitch their fees too high.
But Lygo doesn't believe students will shun the universities charging the highest fees. "The typical student is not necessarily a rational buyer. It may be, for example, that some Russell Group universities haven't got great teachers, but students will choose to go there because it looks good on their CV."
BPP is yet to announce its fees for the coming academic year, but Lygo hints there could be some surprises. "We haven't decided yet, but it may be that it is radically different from the rest of the sector," he says with a twinkle in his eye.
Lygo, born in Doncaster, was raised by his mother, a sewing machinist in a local factory. He learned to read alongside her at the local FE college when she took basic literacy classes. It was his parents' divorce that sparked his interest in studying law. "I had an exposure to authority figures who were looked up to in society, and I thought it would lead to a job."
While his mother was supportive, a school careers adviser told him to go into the building trade.
He did well in his exams, getting A grades in both O- and A-level law (he won't be drawn on his results in other subjects), but it is clear that he feels he could have done better. "I had not appreciated when I rocked up for my exams that you were actually supposed to revise for them. Nowadays there is a whole industry in preparing kids for exams at all levels."
Asked where he went to university, he replies: "You are the first person in 15 years who has asked me that. It becomes irrelevant after a while, where you studied."
For a man of 43, Lygo has packed plenty into his life and career so far. After a first-class law degree from the University of Central Lancashire (Lancashire Polytechnic) he did a master's at UEA while teaching trainee solicitors part-time. He then moved to London to train as a barrister specialising in personal injury and clinical negligence law. An MBA followed, including a spell at Michigan State University, before he moved into full-time teaching at London Guildhall University (then City Polytechnic).
What drove him into the private sector, he says, was the fact that in a publicly funded institution, teaching wasn't valued as much as research. During his 15 years at BPP, he has held a number of posts, including chairman of the BPP Law School.
He travels daily from his home in Canterbury, but is often at his desk by 7.30am and rarely home before 9pm. With five children aged seven and under, there is little time for leisure, he says, although he admits to a heavy metal habit that helps him let off steam and it's not unheard of to hear Motorhead or AC/DC blasting out of his office.
With his softly-spoken, unassuming manner it is much easier to imagine Lygo in the classroom than in court and he is keen to stress that he is a teacher first and foremost. Being the boy-done-good from Doncaster, who is "best mates with a white van driver" meant he found life in chambers wasn't always easy. "The Oxbridge-style dining environment was extraordinarily alien to me. I remember lacking confidence and wondering if it was or me, but I had good mentoring from someone from a similar background who gave me the confidence to get involved."
For that reason, he says, he has always felt the need "to shine a path, and offer a helping hand for others like me".
He admits his background is "very different from what you might expect of someone leading a private sector organisation." So as someone who, in his own words, had all the "grants and passes" he needed to complete higher education, how does he reconcile the idea of students paying up to £9,000 a year? He points out that students are not required to pay up front. But the sector does need to do more about scholarships, he says. BPP spends "upwards of half a million a year" helping students from disadvantaged families with bursaries, and as fees go up universities will need to think harder about how they support this group.
Lygo refuses to be drawn on his politics, but describes the balance of "left and right" in his life. His grandfather was a trade union official, while his grandmother drove a bus through a picket line during the general strike. And BPP is staffed by people of all political persuasions, he says.
He is not willing (or able, he says) to comment on claims that the Apollo Group, the American owner of the university, is under investigation by the US government over its "recruiting, admissions and financial aid practices".
His belief is that "there are lots of opportunities and it is just a case of the individual taking them". "The American dream does live in the UK. It is possible to achieve what you want through hard work and perseverance – and perseverance is the key for getting on in life."
The ham sandwich theorem has intrigued mathematicians for more than half a century, but research now has tied up some loose ends
The Ham Sandwich Theorem has been a treat and a spur to mathematicians for more than half a century. There was a bit of a kerfuffle about who invented it, but that question did get settled.
The Ham Sandwich Theorem cropped up in a branch of mathematics called algebraic topology.
The theorem describes a particular truth about certain shapes. Most published papers on the topic make a hash of explaining it to anyone who is not an algebraic topologist. But the authors of a 2001 paper called Leftovers from the Ham Sandwich Theorem wrapped up an important little leftover – they put the idea into clear language.
The Ham Sandwich Theorem, they wrote, "rescues the careless sandwich maker by guaranteeing that it is always possible to slice the sandwich with one cut so that the ham and both slices of bread are each divided into equal halves, no matter how haphazardly the ingredients are arranged".
For a while, most ham sandwich theorising dealt with simple cases. A paper called Computing a Ham-Sandwich Cut in Two Dimensions, published in 1986 in the Journal of Symbolic Computation, is typical. It considered only ham sandwiches that had been flattened flatter than even the chintziest cook would dare to devise. Mathematicians often do things this way, first considering the extreme cases, digesting those thoroughly, and only then moving on to more substantial versions. Indeed, the Computing a Ham-Sandwich Cut in Two Dimensions paper itself contains a section called Getting Rid of Degenerate Cases.
People did solve the mystery of slicing a thick ham sandwich. And, inevitably, they developed a hunger for more substantial problems.
In 1990, Yugoslavian theorists were writing in the Bulletin of the London Mathematical Society about An Extension of the Ham Sandwich Theorem.
Two years later a theorist at Yaroslav State University in Russia published a paper called A Generalization of the Ham Sandwich Theorem.
That same year, a team of hungry American, Czech, and German mathematicians assembled a master collection of recipes for slicing ham sandwiches. Mathematicians almost never use the word "recipe", so they called their paper Algorithms for Ham-Sandwich Cuts. You'll find it in the December 1994 issue of the journal, Discrete and Computational Geometry.
Research then moved on to exotic, distantly related questions, exemplified by a 1998 monograph called Green Eggs and Ham.
And who started this? A 2004 paper called The Early History of the Ham Sandwich Theorem took care of a lingering leftover: it identified the inventor. Mathematico-historians WA Beyer and Andrew Zardecki of Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico say that it was a Jewish theorist who introduced the ham sandwich into mathematical theory. Beyer and Zardecki trace the theorem back to a 1945 paper by the Polish mathematician Hugo Steinhaus that "represents work Steinhaus did in Poland on the ham sandwich problem in World War II while hiding out with a Polish farm family".
(Thanks to Stanley Eigen for bringing the ham sandwich research to my attention.)
• Marc Abrahams is editor of the bimonthly Annals of Improbable Research and organiser of the Ig Nobel prize
Twitter is playing host to a group of teachers who meet weekly to swap top tips and advice
It's Thursday evening and hundreds of teachers are engrossed in a training session. The topic is pupils using mobiles in class; more than 1,000 questions and answers are pinging back and forth. "If students text in your lesson and aren't engaged, leave the profession – you're not cutting it," says one. "The kit in their pockets is often better than school equipment," says another. "Give a pupil an encyclopaedia and they get so much knowledge.
"Give them tech and wow – exponential learning," enthuses a third.
The teachers – who work in schools dotted around the country, from urban academies to tiny primaries – enter and exit the training at various points.
They do so without disturbing anyone. Not because they're expert tiptoers, but because they're not in the same room.
This is UKEdChat, a weekly congregation of teachers on Twitter. It began when Colin Hill, a year 2 teacher at Birkdale primary school in Southport, saw US teachers tweeting about their work at a particular time every week.
"The time difference made it tough to actively participate," Hill explains.
"But I was keen to attract UK educators to a similar chat session, discussing subjects and policies more related to our side of the Atlantic."
Hill approached teachers on Twitter, plus colleagues he knew from outside the micro-blogging community, about a UK version. He posted an online poll asking teachers for their ideal time, and settled on Thursdays between 8pm and 9pm. Each week, a volunteer moderator would pick five questions for a poll on the UKEdChat website. Then, at 8pm, teachers nationwide would log into Twitter on laptops, iPhones and BlackBerrys to debate the poll-topping issue. Sessions so far have included "homework: waste of time or limitless opportunity?", pupil feedback to enhance learning, and encouraging reading.
"The impact has been amazing," says Hill. "It's surprising how colleagues from primary, secondary and beyond share similar issues or problems." Some weeks, UKEdChat invites experts to host sessions, including Michelle Treagust, who works for The Reading Agency (@readingagency) and responded to questions about adult literacy. Each tweet contains the hashtag #ukedchat, so participants search that to see all comments all the time. After each pacey session, the moderator uploads all the tweets to the UKEdChat website.
"Twitter is a brilliant way of bringing innovative and inventive teachers together," says Jackie Schneider, a primary teacher in Merton, south London.
"Most schools have a really dull, top-down culture in which the senior management try to 'manage' learning. But on Twitter there's a huge generosity of spirit where teachers help out complete strangers with lesson resources purely for the love of learning.
Fresh air
"It's invigorating for old lags like me. I discovered that innovative cookery teachers in secondary schools are making their own YouTube videos to inspire kids, and did the same, and was directed towards a range of free online music resources perfect for my year 4 students. I really value the community – it's a breath of fresh air compared to traditional forms of teacher improvement."
Across the UK, Glen Gilchrist, head of science at Newport high school, says he "instantly fell in love" with UKEdChat because "schools hold their cards close to their chest and LEAs [local education authorities] are inefficient at spreading good practice".
He explains: "I have Twitter running on my laptop all the time. When faced with a question about pedagogy during an 'out of specialism lesson', like maths, I tweet the question and within minutes have the answer. Whether you need inspirational classroom management techniques or want to discuss Bloom's Taxonomy, there's always an audience at UKEdChat."
Hill is working on plans for a live conference for tweeting teachers later this year. In the meantime, UKEdChat is becoming more established online. As Gilchrist puts it: "The more teachers start using the #ukedchat tag, the more useful it becomes."
• Find out more at www.ukedchat.wikispaces.com. Non-tweeters can read past sessions at www.ukedchat.wordpress.com . Follow Lucy Tobin on Twitter: @lucytobin
If your school rates highly, we want to know about it
How does your school match up to the Children's Manifesto?
If you think your school scores highly, let us know why. We'll profile some of the highest-scoring schools, so we can all learn from those that listen to children.
Just email school.i'd.like@guardian.co.uk. Please include a contact phone number.
CILIP accredits undergraduate and postgraduate library and information courses in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Successful completion of an accredited course will help you get professional posts in the UK and elsewhere in the world. It will also enable you to register to Charter with CILIP.
The primary purpose of accreditation is to confirm the relevance of the course to current and developing practice in librarianship and information science, including in very specialist sectors, and thus improve your employability. Courses are assessed using the Accreditation Handbook and the CILIP Body of Professional Knowledge.
Please contact CILIP for the latest information on the accreditation of courses: quals@cilip.org.uk.
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Who drew up the Children's Manifesto? Meet our panel of 10 children who oversaw and edited all the submissions
Markus Heinonen, 6, Cambridge
Children should be listened to because they sometimes have better ideas than adults. That is because the children's brains are new and not old.
Oliver Stewart, 12, Cornwall
I think having nice teachers is the most important because lots of children don't like certain subjects because of the teacher, and then that influences them on jobs in later life.
Zarah Yesufu, 8, London
It's important to listen to children because you have to treat them with respect if you want them to have respect for you.
Linda Epstein, 15, London
I think the most important point is having expert teachers, because if you have people who are passionate and well known in their subject they are more likely to engage and motivate the students into excelling in the same way as them.
Alice Nutting, 16, Lincoln
Why should schools listen to children? Well, why shouldn't they? Government ministers and teachers don't always know best: pupils will be happier with something they've contributed to.
Sofia Lockwood, 7, Guernsey
Being comfy is important, because if you weren't comfy you wouldn't really like it and if you didn't like it you wouldn't want to go to school.
Jake Swinburne, 8, Hartlepool
It's really the children's school, and the children would be able to do things better if it was the way they liked it.
Vishane Mendis, 9, Essex
I think it's important to listen to children since we have a really big imagination and we could have ideas on how to make lessons fun. And the teachers may be able to learn something from us since they don't know everything.
Michael Anning, 11, Norfolk
Children would be more confident if the school encouraged them to express their views and showed them they had listened. It would feel as if everyone was part of a team.
Jessica Stewart, 18, Berwick-upon-Tweed
An ideal school is inclusive of everyone. I think that's important in the modern world we live in.
From milk cows to after-school clubs, ideas flooded in from children all over the country about the kind of school they would like. Here is their manifesto
★ Active – with lots of different sports, including judo, dance, karate, football and abseiling, and a swimming pool with slides. Playgrounds with climbing frames and treehouses where you could learn about nature.
"Rock climbing could help your education because you have to think where to put your hands and feet."
★ Calm – with a chill-out room; music instead of bells, and a quiet place inside at playtime for drawing, reading and board games.
★ Comfortable – with beanbags, big enough chairs, small enough chairs, slippers, and somewhere personal to store things. There should be cold drinks in the summer and hot drinks to warm you up in winter.
"Pink fluffy carpet so we can walk around in our socks."
★ Creative and colourful – with lots of room to make and display art, bright painted walls in corridors and dining rooms, and flowers in the classroom.
"I would like to ban the colours black, brown and grey from our school."
★ Expert - with teachers who don't just read up about their subjects, but live them, and visiting celebrities to talk about what they do.
"In the classroom we should have Stephen Hawking to teach us science. I would like Gordon Ramsay to cook our lunch, but he would have to promise to zip his mouth. I would like Besse Cooper to teach us history, according to the internet she is the oldest person alive today so she could tell us about her life."
★ Flexible – with more time for favourite subjects, no compulsory subjects apart from maths and English, and more time for art and sport.
"If we're doing something that needs a lot of thinking, there should be enough time to finish."
★ Friendly – with kind teachers who speak softly and don't shout, and special members of staff that you can go and talk to. You should be allowed to sit with your friends in class and assembly.
"The cool thing is the friendship bench. If anyone sits on there sad, someone comes up to them and always says what's wrong and they will sort it out with a big cuddle and go off and start playing together."
★ Listening – with forums for classes to express their views and also chances for pupils to have quiet chats with teachers. Don't just listen, but take children's comments seriously and make changes as a result.
"I like the idea of having a suggestion box because we can share each other's ideas with the school council."
★ Inclusive –with pupils of all achievement, ability and background learning together. Everybody should learn in one room, with opportunities for small group or private work.
"I think it's unfair that only the people who are good at writing stories have their stories displayed in the school hall. I think everyone should have their work displayed. That way no one feels left out."
★ International – with food from all over the world on the dinner menu and pupils from all over the world in the classroom; with opportunities to go abroad to learn languages and about other cultures.
"At lunchtime a buffet with Namibian, Chinese, Indian and French food would be served on flower-shaped plates and we would listen to music from that country as we ate."
★ Outside – fortnightly school trips (without worksheets), animals to look after like chickens, sheep and horses, and greenhouses to grow fruit and vegetables to eat at school and sell to raise funds.
★ Technological – with iPads to read and work on, MP3 players for relaxing during breaks or to help concentrate while working alone, and usb sticks to take work home (and save paper).
"There should be digital recorders available for lessons, so if you go to the toilet, when you come back you can catch up on what you have missed."
What the perfect school would have
★ No homework (all the work would be finished at school)
★ A flexible timetable
★ An hour-long lunchbreak
★ Pets
★ First-aid lessons
★ A choice of uniform to express your personality
★ After-school clubs in all sorts of subjects
★ Hot dinners
★ An iPad for each pupil
★ A football field
★ Fewer tests (but not no tests at all)
What makes the ideal school? After entries from all over the country, Dea Birkett reveals the Children's Manifesto of ideas, from comfy beanbags to soothing music and pets
In January we launched the School I'd Like, asking schoolchildren what would make their perfect school. Hundreds of young people let us know in emails, essays, poems and pictures. From these ideas, we've compiled the Children's Manifesto for the school we'd like, overseen and edited by a panel of 10 children. Some of the ideas are blue-sky thinking: horses and sheep in playgrounds may never be the norm. But many are small and easy to implement. First-aid lessons, a choice of uniform and music instead of bells at break time involve little cost or effort.
Behind these specific, modest requests lie big ideas. The most important aspect of education children want changed is the timetable. They wanted their educational experience to be tailored to them. Sausage-machine schooling, with a one-size-fits-all schedule, is their biggest complaint. They don't want to do less work (although Friday afternoons off was a popular request). They just want work that enthuses and means something to them.
About half the entries were from individual children; the rest were coordinated by teachers. Malorees infant school, London, asked their school council members, aged four to seven, to speak to their classes to find out what their perfect school would be like. The year 4 teacher at St Peter's Church of England primary in West Sussex, a small rural school, said: "Our pupils are actively involved in various aspects of school life. However, they were very excited at the prospect of having their voice heard by a wider audience." The only doubts about the project came from grown-ups. "Should we expect children to be able to think strategically about 'what is best for society' rather than 'what I quite fancy'? No, of course not," wrote one irate parent.
There's some truth in this; a few children asked for chocolate fountains and popcorn counters. But strategic thinking lies behind many of their suggestions. Imogen Jagathesan, aged nine, thought it would be a good idea to have cookery lessons, but not just to bake cakes. "It means you may be able to cook healthy food. If grown-ups keep buying junk food for their children, the government will be paying out lots of money because they will get ill when they are older," she explained. This degree of forward thinking was surprising; most entries were from primary pupils. Secondary pupils' concerns were similar, but the older they were, the more they wanted to bring an end to same-sex schools, streaming and segregation.
There was a similar strength of feeling around inclusion for all 10 years ago, when this paper ran an earlier School I'd Like. (The Observer had run a 1967 competition under the same title.) In 2001, the built environment was also paramount in pupils' concerns, with comfort at its core. Feeling comfortable is still important, with endless pleas for beanbags. But there are major differences over the last decade. In 2001, the most advanced technology requested was a laptop. Now an iPad is the most sought-after item. Behind these Christmas-list demands are sound educational aims. "With your homework on the iPad you can do it in the car, on the train, or at home," wrote Thomas Williams, 10. Thomas Yardley suggested: "Children could have MP3 players so it would be soothing when you are working. I think it is a good idea because it would stop people distracting each other."
There's a practical streak running throughout the submissions, with a keen sense of value for money and budgetary restrictions virtually absent 10 years ago. "I would like our schools to have free choice in what we buy. In assembly we could have a vote on what we would like and what we do not want, only if it is within the school budget," wrote 12-year-old Sam Gritt. Many children thought of the commercial opportunities in their classroom. The year 6 writing club at Burdett-Coutts and Townshend primary wanted a book club and gift shop, stocked with things they'd made themselves. "Every class should have a cow so they can sell the milk from the cow and improve the school," wrote Joshua Kennedy, 11.
In 2001, before the launch of Jamie Oliver's school dinners campaign, the most desired meal was chips and pizza. Now it has a far more international flavour, with Asian food particularly popular. And as canteens close, almost every entry asked for the return of hot school dinners.
Some children wrote in to say their school was near-perfect (although this was nearly always as part of a school-led project). It's clear that schoolchildren are increasingly being listened to. Many let us know about their school councils, although as many said they were tokenistic and had no real power. But there were examples of young people's real influence. "They do ask what we'd like sometimes. When we were getting a new teacher, we had a lesson from three teachers and we were asked which one we liked the best. They did choose her, so they listened to us," reported Hannah Stott, 10.
Young people now declare they have rights – an argument they didn't put in 2001. "The children of the modern day are getting more and more rights such as having the right to say their opinion, and this is mine," began Joshua Kennedy, before saying that "you should be allowed to say what you think to the teacher without being criticised or given a detention". Those who fear a breakdown of adult authority wouldn't be heartened by the children's ideas. Many said they shouldn't have to call their teachers Miss, Mrs and Mr if they get called by their first names. "Children would be equal to the teachers and opinions would be listened to by everyone," wrote Rachel Dengate, 12.
What will we do with this wealth of ideas? When The School I'd Like was launched earlier this year, we didn't only ask for ideas. We promised to listen to them. After all, this is still one of the largest informal surveys of children's attitudes towards schooling ever conducted in this country. We will now present the Children's Manifesto to opinion formers, asking for their feedback. Who knows, perhaps we will end up with horses and sheep in the playground after all.
• Find out more about The School I'd Like from www.guardian.co.uk/education/series/the-school-i-would-like
Until our political culture changes to something less adversarial, says Peter Scott, higher education funding will continue to suffer
In two days' time, we all get to vote on whether to substitute alternative voting for first-past-the-post – although many of us may not actually bother. Our choice has also been presented as a matter of great constitutional significance, even if in the last few days the choice has been trivialised as a squabble between Conservatives and Liberal Democrats.
But an even bigger constitutional change would be to junk our present hyper-adversarial mode of politics, which exaggerate often modest differences into massive issues of principle. The debate about the future funding of higher education is a case in point. The superficial impression is of high-stake "culture wars", with the government hell-bent on destroying public higher education in general, and the arts and humanities in particular, and its opponents conducting a Verdun-style defence of the "public good".
In fact, the differences between the government's proposals for higher fees – in practice, student vouchers repayable by graduates (which a very large minority will never actually repay in full) – and Ed Miliband's counter-proposals for a graduate tax (which, very sensibly, he has left vague) are nothing like as great – although it grieves me to admit it. No mainstream political party in England is fighting for "free" higher education funded out of general taxation.
The truth is that at the general election a year ago, no party had a credible policy for higher education. The poor LibDems had a "protest" policy, abolishing fees, which they never imagined would come even close to being implemented. The Conservatives had no discernible policy at all, none they were prepared to share with the voters, at any rate. Labour was stuck with fees, having reintroduced them in the wake of the Dearing report.
In any case, Peter Mandelson, helped by David Willetts, had conspired to keep higher education off the election agenda by setting up the Browne Committee. With hindsight, Mandelson would have done much better to establish a royal commission – or something else suitably dignified. But the one thing that rival politicians caught up in our hyper-adversarial political culture agree on is that what we need are short-sharp committees, chaired by businessmen "resting" between corporate cock-ups, rather than long-winded royal commissions chaired by the great and the good, who strive for common-sense consensus.
So the tragedy unfolded. The Browne recipe, ill-considered but not unintelligent (if you believe the market is the answer to everything), was politically unacceptable. The government's alternative, a £9,000 cap feebly policed by non-legally binding access agreements, is unworkable – as has already been demonstrated by the clustering of fee levels close to that maximum. The Treasury is insisting on tight controls on student numbers to curb public spending – which, perversely, by rationing demand will rescue low-esteem universities that charge too much.
The policy environment produced by these events can only be described as a de-stabilising mixture of a Stalinist five-year plan and the California gold rush – not a comfortable place for a higher education system that is (still) world-class in terms of scientific productivity and teaching quality, and which has also made great strides towards becoming more open and socially inclusive.
Is it too late for Willetts to pick up the phone to John Denham, his shadow and penultimate predecessor, to try to sort out some kind of sensible compromise? After all, both are perfectly reasonable people. Their policy objectives are not so very different. Both the government and the opposition agree – sadly – on the need for "cost sharing", ie higher student fees. They agree on the need for research funding to be better targeted. They agree about putting greater emphasis on teaching, and even about the means to achieve this – more robust student/customer feedback.
Neither really wants to infringe the autonomy of universities or further degrade the arm's-length principle represented by the buffer body, the Higher Education Funding Council for England. They could probably even agree on the need to get the Treasury to take its tanks off their lawn.
But, of course, this is not going to happen – not because Willetts and Denham are unreasonable men, but because both are prisoners of a hyper-adversarial political culture. And it is this that is the true obstacle to constitutional reform. Until that culture changes, the agony will continue for higher education – and the health service, local government...
• Peter Scott is professor of higher education studies at the Institute of Education
Universities must look at mediation to settle disputes rather than spending vast sums of money, time and energy fighting claims by staff or students
Not long ago, the University of St Andrews spent more than £200,000 on legal fees in successfully defending a claim for constructive dismissal by a lecturer. He claimed he had been forced out by bullying and intolerable working conditions. But the legal fees were 10 times the amount the university might have paid in compensation had it lost the case.
Disputes in academia tend to arouse powerful emotions, as the reputation of an institution or the intellectual credibility of an individual is often at stake. The desire to protect these is understandable, but is it excessive pride that drives people and institutions to seek vindication in the courts and tribunals? They go to extremes to achieve "justice" or "fairness", waging war on "matters of principle".
Higher education institutions are still investing vast sums of much-needed funds fighting claims by students, staff, or governing bodies, just to maintain their institutional and professional integrity. But with the recent National Audit Office report warning universities of the high risk of financial failure, continuing such expenditure in the future will be little short of scandalous.
In 2006, an eminent professor, aggrieved at his marking being subject to two reviews, brought proceedings for constructive dismissal against Bournemouth University. After the case had been through the employment tribunal and the appeal tribunal, the court of appeal finally decided in the professor's favour. It took four years of litigation and countless time, energy and costs on both sides.
In 2005, a student with a sleep disorder lodged a disability discrimination complaint against Salford University. After five years of litigation, judgment was given in the university's favour. But the judge commented: "The engagement of a suitable mediator at an early stage could result in a rapid and satisfactory resolution from the point of view of all parties before positions become entrenched."
Mediation is a way of resolving disputes quickly (in a matter of days) and effectively (approximately 85% success rate) while maintaining the reputation and credibility of higher education institutions, and keeping staff "on side".
A 1998 survey by Professor Dame Hazel Genn showed that 65% of successful litigants were dissatisfied with the outcome: either their compensation was inadequate, or it came too late, or the process had been too costly and damaging.
The mediation works like this: a trained mediator acts as a "facilitator", seeing and listening to both parties in confidential sessions. Both sides are helped to arrive at a resolution themselves. Any settlement is legally binding, with the force of a contract or court order. This system provides an opportunity for a candid exchange of views – and for venting rage if necessary – in a safe environment. A skilled mediator can cut through emotional blockages and effectively deal with those "points of principle" that can cause parties to dig in their heels.
The government is urging us all to resolve disputes without the intervention of courts or tribunals. When will universities see that this is something they too need to learn?
Paul Randolph is a barrister at the chambers of Ami Feder and teaches mediation at Regent's College, London
Finances are preoccupying our sixth-form students preparing to head into higher education
Ignoring, for a while, the burden of long-term student debt she'll take on when she goes to university, it's the expensive cost of living outside of the parental home that has just come into focus for Zowie Pearce, one of the sixth-formers Education Guardian is following through the Ucas process. "I've done quite a bit of university prep recently, looking around a couple of campuses," says Zowie, who is 18 and goes to Cornwall College. "I found the accommodation fantastic, particularly at Bath Spa, but I've discovered that it's very expensive. Due to my health conditions [Zowie has cystic fibrosis and diabetes], sharing a bathroom isn't really an option, so I'm looking at £118 a week."
Zowie has received conditional offers from Plymouth, Bath Spa, the University of the West of England and Bournemouth, and has spent the last few months pouring over funding information and sending off a loan application to Student Finance England. As a result, she believes students from middle-income households face the biggest financial challenges. "University funding is pretty weak if you don't fall in the category of 'rich' or 'poor'," Zowie says. "Some can expect quite a bit of help from parents to fund uni, but some can't."
Zowie, whose mum works as a medical secretary and dad is a building site manager, will be the first in her family of five to go to university. "Even though my household income is enough to rule me out of much of a maintenance grant, my parents are not going to be able to fund my living costs, especially with the cost of living going up so much," she says. "One of the unis I've been reading about says a single student can work on day-to-day living expenses of £200-£225 a week. "That seems like a crazy amount of money. Of course, the average student will seek employment, but with my health status that just won't be possible, so the money side is worrying."
Zowie advises younger students to start putting money aside as early as possible. "I would suggest saving lots of money before university if you're in a similar situation to me," she says. "For disabled students seeking grants or financial help with travelling costs or extra facilities, help is not that accessible or straightforward. It takes many hours and phone calls to sort out, so ask questions and really look for things you are entitled to."
As A2 exams approach, Zowie has been coping with medical flair-ups as well as juggling revision and coursework deadlines. "My health hasn't been great and I've had quite a few weeks off, but I have stayed organised, so I am hoping it hasn't caused my education too much trouble," she says. "University is a major topic at college, it's a life change and everyone is nervous and excited to branch out. It's scary to think in a matter of months the little protective barrier of Cornwall will be removed and we are going out into a bigger world."
Also preparing to face the real world is Josh Kay, 17, who is studying A-levels at Stourport school in Worcestershire. He has just heard back from his fifth and final UK university on his application to read international relations, but the rejection letter from the London School of Economics wasn't the news he was looking for. Still, having already secured offers from Birmingham, Manchester, Swansea and East Anglia, Josh isn't too downhearted. "It doesn't bother me so much because after I still hadn't heard in February, I didn't think I would get in," he explains. "Plus I think finding accommodation and the expense of living in London would have been difficult."
But the sixth former is still waiting to discover whether his option with the longest commute – the University of Maastricht in Holland – is to offer him a place. "There was a problem with the administration in part of my application, so I'm waiting for a phone call from the uni sometime today or tomorrow – I might need to send in some extra details," he says.
On the UK side, he has clicked "confirm" for the final time on his Ucas form, selecting Manchester as his firm choice and Birmingham as his insurance option. "I might still go to the Netherlands – I don't have to decide until I receive my A-level results in August – but I think I will probably opt for Manchester if I get the grades, as I like the university a lot and the city is great," Josh says. "I'm feeling quite confident about university now, I've sorted out accommodation, so it's just about getting the grades. I spent a large part of Easter on revision and essay practice as my German speaking exam is coming up tomorrow."
Now that most universities have announced their new, higher tuition fees from next year, Josh's sense of bitterness about the cost of university has deepened. "I'm not surprised a number have decided to charge £9,000," he says. "The fact the government said only a few would charge the full £9,000 shows either how naive they are or how much they love to lie. While I am not affected, I feel sorry for all of those who will have to pay."
• Lucy Tobin's book, A Guide to Uni Life (Trotman, £9.99), is available now
David Hughes does not seem the ideal candidate to lead the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education, so why has he got the job?
The appointment of David Hughes to head the UK's leading campaigning body for adult education has raised many eyebrows. To the casual observer the man who has been senior executive of two national funding bodies is more readily associated with some of the harshest cuts to further and adult education in recent decades and a huge switch of funds from general learning to skills training, which cost colleges 1.4 million places.
So, what was it the board of the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education saw in Hughes, the former London regional director of the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) and currently a national director of the successor Skills Funding Agency (SFA)? The list of candidates to replace Alan Tuckett as Niace director was said to be formidable.
Hughes says Tuckett – who, 20 years ago, on a budget of £5,000, created Adult Learners' Week, which grew from being a local award scheme to a Unesco-endorsed international celebration of learning success in 55 nations – will be a tough act to follow, and is aware of the initial reactions to his appointment – summed up by the label "poacher-turned-gamekeeper-turned-poacher". "I'm looking to the new role [of poacher] with great enthusiasm," he says.
Having started in the voluntary sector in the late 1980s, training tenants in Liverpool's housing co-operative movement to speak up for their rights, he extended such work fighting for the rights of Australian aborigines. He returned to the UK to work with the National Council for Voluntary Organisations in Nottingham, joined newly created Learning and Skills Council in 2000 and rose rapidly.
The Niace board, it is understood, did not see Hughes as a hatchet man or political apparatchik, but as someone who had persuaded ministers that ex-offenders and many unemployed should be entitled to funding for "units" of study. Also, the government's decision to give the lowest achieving and least skilled adults fully-funded entitlement to progress from entry level 1 to level 2 (taking them to good GCSE-equivalent standard) was partly thanks to Hughes's efforts.
Another thing that is understood to have impressed the board was Hughes's success as a fundraiser for the voluntary sector during the repeated "efficiency" cuts under the Conservatives in the 1990s.
Much of what Hughes still wants for adults has echoes of New Labour's aspirational 1998 green paper, The Learning Age, authored by the then education secretary, David Blunkett. It includes learning entitlements at all stages of life, a robust adult qualifications system based on units accumulated over time, with short courses to help achieve certification. His aims are built on hard evidence, not whimsy, he says. "I know, for example, that by funding some units for offenders and the unemployed we enthuse them and bring them back into learning." But he also knows that times have changed. "We have three ministers who are passionate about adult learning, but we need to reposition the whole debate at a time of fiscal tightening."
So, what is his vision for Niace as he prepares to take over in August? "We need a more decisive push on higher education entitlements for low earners and part-timers," he says. "We also need to look more closely at what is happening with apprenticeships. There is a huge expansion programme (to over 400,000 places) and new standards for how they are to be designed and managed. I don't think any agency has critically appraised what this means for adult learning. Niace can fill that gap. For example, should a 16-year-old be doing the same as a 35-year-old?"
Similarly with the Wolf review of 14-19 vocational qualifications, "there is a need to consider whether the curriculum for a 16-year-old should be the same as for an adult returning to learning after five or 10 years in the workforce," he says. "We need to look much more closely at the implications for adults arising from changes in compulsory learning."
Niace has had an immense impact on areas of thinking and policy, he says. "For example, on English for speakers of other languages (Esol), Niace has made the case with government internally in a way no other agency has been able to. It must maintain its focus on disadvantage and disability and keep up the challenge to ministers, based on evidence. If there is one big challenge, it is to make Niace a lot more muscular on what it is good at."
Beyond a broad sweep of new ideas, Hughes says he want most of all to listen. "Niace is a membership organisation. That's its strength and source of persuasion. It would be very easy to come in and scare the horses with ideas of change."
Hughes was brought up on a north London council estate, but went to Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge University, and got a 2:1 in geography, together with a postgraduate degree in housing studies.
Professionally, he soon found that "listening" was the key to influence. Particularly in his role as a national executive for the SFA: if his aspirations for adults were driven by New Labour thinking, how could he influence a coalition government FE and skills minster such as John Hayes? The answer was to go with the tide of thinking, such as Hayes's now oft-repeated personal belief in "bite-sized chunks of learning to inspire the disadvantaged to learn".
His experience at the LSC taught him to weather change and disappointment. "When I went to the LSC, in my early 30s, I saw the vision in the Blunkett letter with The Learning Age and said: 'I can buy into this'. But the LSC never quite got to grips with it." Individual learning accounts, which gave people small grants to buy education and training, were closed in 2002 amid allegations of abuse and fraud. The demand for evidence to show that colleges and other providers had hit their targets led to mounting bureaucracy and red tape. Then, in 2006, the Leitch review of UK skills shortages led to big cuts in general adult education as up to £1bn in public funds switched to work-based training.
"My last three years there were spent dealing with issues around educational maintenance allowances, crises over capital spending and the creation of the new SFA," he says. "When I saw the Niace job, I got excited at the possibilities. It was time to move on."
Malcolm Gillies has spent much of his career supporting arts and humanities, but says that London Metropolitan University must now deal with present realities.
The vice-chancellor's spacious office at London Metropolitan University, dominated by a huge boardroom table, and overlooking the take-away joints of north London's Holloway Road, is strikingly functional.
Malcolm Gillies, who has occupied LMU's top job for just over a year, is a classicist and musician who has held prominent roles representing the humanities and written widely on their importance. But if the single picture on the room's broad back wall gives any indication of this hinterland it is too small to see.
Yet Gillies says his background as a professor of music made the decision last month to axe more than two thirds of the university's degree courses, including history and performing arts, "personally very difficult". "I have spent a lot of my life arguing for the strength and diversity of the humanities," he says.
The decision follows a seven-month review of all aspects of LMU's undergraduate provision from recruitment to learning to assessment and graduation.
Careful and measured, with his executive officer, Jonathan Woodhead (a former researcher for David Willetts) at his side, Gillies says the result of this review was, first, the choice to charge lower tuition fees than most other institutions, at £6,850 on average, and to charge different prices for different courses. This is an option that most UK institutions have rejected in favour of a blanket charge, but one that has been the norm in Gillies's native Australia.
"Affordability is absolutely a key part of what we are here to do," says Gillies. "In our view, to charge a £9,000 fee for a large number of our courses would be really restricting the backgrounds of students."
Then, from September 2012, it will reduce its 577 different course arrangements to around 160, shutting history, philosophy, Caribbean studies, theatre studies, trade union studies, dance, parts of multimedia and performing arts. Closures to modern languages are under discussion. It will also move away from semester length to year-long modules of 30 teaching weeks, with more core learning in the early years of an undergraduate programme.
Gillies says the idea is to replace the "smorgasboard" approach of students picking from a huge range of courses to something more focused. Employability will be key – "our strapline does have the words 'building careers'" – and services such as learning support will be decentralised. The university will make more use of technology to communicate with students and will also become more geographically concentrated on its two main sites. A similar review of postgraduate education will take place in September.
Job losses are expected – he will not estimate numbers but says it will be in more than 10s – and some students are likely to have to transfer to different courses before the end of their degree, although this will have to be mutually agreed. Students expecting to start courses next September are now being notified of the closures and some are being offered alternative courses.
He insists that the decisions about which courses to cut and which new ones to introduce have been made on the recommendations of faculty deans – "this is not a central dictate" – and for different reasons, such as low student-staff ratios, or failure to hit the expectations of employers or student interest. He also warns that increasing competition from private providers and further education colleges has forced LMU to position itself more carefully.
But reaction from the University and College Union and students' union has been angry.
Yeashir Ahmed, president of the students' union, said: "This is a unique university because of its diversity and students from different backgrounds come because of the number of courses it offers. If you don't have those courses, those students won't come."
He said students would be lobbying a university governors' meeting in June when the proposals are to be finalised.
Cliff Snaith, UCU secretary at LMU, said the union, which is planning to ballot on strike action, believed the cuts were premature and elitist. "We think the way that they are targeted appears to be an attack on working-class students' opportunity to take non-vocational courses at university," he said. The union is holding a conference on Saturday at LMU to discuss the issue.
The news has also provoked lively debate on the blogosphere, with some suggesting that the university is doing the government's bidding both by charging its preferred level of fee and by pushing students from poorer backgrounds into vocational degrees.
There is also the suggestion that the move is just the last gasp of a doomed institution – one of the unnamed handful that Steve Smith, president of the universities representative body, Universities UK, predicted could go under as a result of the new fees regime.
Certainly, the future has sometimes looked bleak for London Met, which is still having to repay £30m to the Higher Education Funding Council two years after being found to have falsely claimed for students who never completed their courses.
"If London Met didn't go through a thorough revision of its courses, of the sort we've done, and a reassessment of the value it's giving to our students, I think it could have been at risk," says Gillies. "But we have gone through that and now I think we don't have that risk."
In fact, he suggests that its problems forced it to look in a more systematic way than other institutions at its costs – hence the decision to charge lower and differentiated fees – and at improving completion rates, which have been as low as 50-60%.
"I think we have positioned ourselves well to deal with the realities of the moment," he says. "Having said that, we don't know what will happen between now and September 2012."
The university has already had to revise its proposed fee levels upwards at the last minute after a jump in inflation and Gillies speaks of the difficulty of setting prices that will have to operate until at least 2013, without knowing what will happen to the economy, or international student numbers, or levels of future government support, or the outcome of the white paper on higher education. "This is a calculated risk we are taking," he says.
Earlier this year, Gillies wrote a well-received report for the Higher Education Policy Institute recommending that alumni should play a greater role in university governance to ensure a body that "actively and passionately represents the relative interests of the key university stakeholders" rather than its own interests. His sudden resignation as vice-chancellor of City University two years ago was also believed to be linked to his unwillingness to put the business over the academic needs of a university.
But critics of the changes at LMU now accuse him of concentrating too much on the bottom line. He says that while he does not regret that universities are becoming more businesslike, he does not want them to become more like businesses and is concerned that recent government policies push them too far in this direction.
"I want us to recognise that universities have many important roles – the most important of which is to be a neutral space in which people can test ideas and can invent in ways that don't immediately relate to government policy or to the dictates of business," he says. "That is hard to do when the government has withdrawn most of its funding."
He is keen to highlight a paper he wrote for a 2009 conference in Australia that argued strongly for the importance of the humanities, but suggested that multiple sources of public and private support would be better than becoming "a government-funded ornament".
He predicts that it is only going to get harder for universities to be sustainable over the next few years. "We do need to find the very best possible ways of being realistic about what the demand is, what the costs are, how ultimately that does lead to jobs or not, and I think there are ways of doing that, but they are hard ways and they are ways that we all have to find, each institution differently," he says. "Everything does have its price."
Another pupil is needed at a primary school that will lose a teacher if the magic number slips below 20
"One more pupil please!" reads the appeal sent out by Rebecca Ridgway, desperate to find a young family prepared to move to one of the emptiest places in Europe to stop the school roll falling below 20 at her children's primary.
Ridgway – who runs the adventure holiday company founded by her father, the yachtsman John Ridgway – takes her two children, Hughie, eight, and Molly, 10, to school each morning in an open boat with an outboard motor from their home in Ardmore, in Sutherland.
"It is great on a nice day, but not so much fun when there is a howling wind." Once on dry land, the children take a school bus to Kinlochbervie primary.
Fifteen years ago, there were 57 pupils. But the fishing industry has declined and, like many rural villages, the picturesque little port has a second-home problem.
The falling rolls problem now threatens what the headteacher, Jill Bruce, describes as: "Fantastic educational facilities. We are right on the edge of the loch. Everyone who sees the place is wowed. There is just one problem – not enough pupils."
This coming year, the primary roll falls to 19, one below the magic number of 20 that guarantees two teachers. Rebecca is concerned about the impact on the children of being taught all in one room with tinies. "That will be really difficult, and the older children may not be pushed as much as they would otherwise."
The fact that no children are arriving in primary one this autumn also poses a threat to the fully staffed secondary on the site, currently employing 14 teachers for 65 children. "If the numbers continue to fall, that must affect the high school down the line." The secondary was opened 14 years ago. Prior to that, children had to board at hostels many miles from home after age 11, which parents would hate to see again.
However, Mervyn Benford of the National Association of Small Schools, criticises the Highland Council threat to cut a teacher and damage the education of the remaining 19 pupils based on an "arbitrary" number.
He says that across the UK, rural schools were getting squeezed. "The evidence is that small schools do a really good job. Councils just divide the running costs of the school by the number of pupils and say that's too expensive."
But he says they failed to take into account the real costs of big urban schools, with truancy and other social problems. "Big schools spend a lot of extra money on doing things like reaching out to parents that small schools do anyway. " He says the pupil premium in England will create an even greater disparity.
Although in 2009 the number of rural school closures in England and Wales had fallen to less than 12 a year, Benford predicts that will rise. "Many councils in England are looking at closing small schools."
In Scotland, the picture is similar, with strapped councils looking for cuts. Argyll and Bute last year threatened 26 small schools with closure.
Parents at Lochdonhead on Mull, whose campaign was featured in Education Guardian last year, are among those who have fended off closure. Among their efforts was a successful campaign for a 16-home affordable housing development they hope will make the school more sustainable.
At Ulva, a tiny community also on Mull that boasts spectacular scenery, parents have come up with an even more innovative solution.
Parents at the eight-pupil primary were "terrified" by the thought of a 20-mile round trip on icy roads in winter and the hole the school would leave if closed. They decided to found a community housing association. Caroline Charington says: "This is a great place to have a holiday home or to retire to, and that pushes the prices up. There just aren't places round here that young families can afford. We aren't looking for a short-term fix. We are working on a 20-year plan for our community."
Kinlochbervie primary's parent council has also decided on a campaign to attract new blood.
They may have their work cut out. Kinlochbervie is seven hours' drive from Glasgow and, with an average population of one person per square kilometre, Sutherland is a wild and lonely place.
It is the region where Scotland's last wolf was killed – and where the last witch was burned. It was also home to Scotland's last saint.
However, it is close to the magnificent beach of Sandwood Bay and also to the famous mountain Ben Stack.
"It is wonderful place to live," says Ridgway. "The children have freedom and an outdoor life and the community is really friendly."
Academy status, essay-writing and the justification of arts
Last week, Warwick Mansell reported that the extra money being given to schools that convert to academy status seems more often to benefit grammar schools and those in affluent areas.
My son's grammar school academy status application was openly (at parents' consultation meetings) based upon the extra cash being available. In part, the case made was based upon claims that these schools had been missing out on "extra" funding that had not been made available to the selective schools over many years, leading to a sense of unfairness (ironic?) that the schools had been "subsidising" others in the borough.
peeceedee via EducationGuardian.co.uk
• One of my local schools was quite open and honest about it. They got the unions in and said they'd write into new contracts that they'd uphold the previous national terms and conditions of employment, even for new employees. They published details of costing on things like SEN provision, showing that it would remain steady. In other words, absolutely nothing has changed but they reckon they're about £85,000 a year better off. This is an outstanding school in a leafy suburb that gets around 85% 5A*-C [five GCSEs at grades A*-C]. Meanwhile, another school three miles away (mixed urban/suburban area, less able students at entry, 50% 5A*-C but still satisfactory with good features last Ofsted) has a shortfall of £105,000 in 2011-2012 from last year. And that's with 45 more students than it had last year.
I'd love Gove to explain that one.
Talwo66 via EducationGuardian.co.uk
Secondary schools, not universities, must show more initiative and help to equip students like Daphne Elliston with the skills they need to realise their full potential (The lost art of essay writing, 26 April). The extended project, and in particular the way it has been developed at my school, has been enthusiastically welcomed because it does just that, readying pupils for undergraduate learning. By taking part in seminar discussions that address themes from science, ethics and philosophy, and then researching a question which they develop into a dissertation, those taking the course ... gain the ability to express their ideas clearly. The earlier students are encouraged to spread their academic wings, the easier their transition to higher education.
Patrick Derham
Head Master, Rugby school, Warwickshire
Jonathan Wolff wrote that it's difficult to justify the arts and humanities, but he wouldn't want to live in a world without them.
You'll find many scientists who agree with your distinction between instrumental and intrinsic worth and who are just as opposed to the philistine and flawed focus of Research Councils UK and the Higher Education Funding Council for England on "quantifiable" and predictable impact. Similarly, many scientists are aghast at the Arts and Humanities Research Council's supine inclusion of the "big society" as one of its key research priorities. (But, again, this is not so different from what's happening to science funding.)
Philip Moriarty via EducationGuardian.co.uk
Low-income families are having their first holiday in years, thanks to a charity. But should it be during term-time?
Ten-year-old Amelia Martin liked the croissants and the "crunchy" bread. But she didn't fancy the frogs' legs or the snails. "No, thanks," she shudders. "She made us try them, though," puts in her mother, Natalie. "They weren't as bad as we thought, and the frogs' legs tasted like chicken." The family lives just 40 miles from Dover, but last August's trip to a chateau in Normandy with seven other families of year 6 pupils from Delce junior school in Rochester was their first visit to France. In fact, it was their first holiday of any kind for five years.
"If I don't work, I don't get paid," says Martin, a beauty therapist. Her husband, Jason, works for a diamond drilling company. "He rarely gets home before 7.30pm," she says. "Spending a week together in France brought it home to us how little time we have together as a family. We had a wonderful time and Amelia wanted to know so much." At which point her daughter tells me about their trip to the Normandy beaches and a nearby cemetery for allied soldiers. "There were over 9,000 crosses," she says sadly.
For Amelia's headteacher, Karen White, the girl's response emphasises the importance of travel for education. "Seeing the ages of the soldiers on those tombstones adds a lot to their understanding of the second world war," she says.
White is a great supporter of the Family Holiday Association, a registered charity that helps around 2,000 low-income families a year to take a week's break. The FHA paid for the trip to France, which was unusual insofar as it was abroad (passport costs can be prohibitive for a family of four) and it was in the school holidays. Most holidays have to be taken in the UK. Never mind a French chateau; it's more likely to be a caravan near Skegness in term time, when prices are cheaper. And that means many headteachers would be concerned about attendance records. The FHA's director, John McDonald, knows this well. "We've held focus meetings with heads, and their only complaint is that so many of their pupils need holidays that Ofsted would go off the Richter scale if they allowed them all."
He believes that that there are at least two and a half million UK families who can't afford a holiday of any kind. But only those who have had no break for four years and have a total household income of below £26,000 a year qualify for help from the FHA. "Intuitively, we know that a week away makes a huge difference," McDonald says. "And schools benefit from that. Children become calmer, happier and more engaged with learning. Previously hostile parents can become allies of the school. Home support workers suddenly find themselves being welcomed. The anecdotal evidence for all this is enormous, but there's never been a robust, evidence-based survey to back that up."
Not yet, anyway. But two investigations are under way. One is a Commons select committee inquiry, due to begin taking oral evidence next month and to publish an interim report in July. It is chaired by Paul Maynard, who happens to be the MP for Blackpool North and Cleveleys. Boosting out-of-season trade is one of the bi-products of "social tourism", an area in which the French and the Spanish are said to be way ahead of us.
The other investigation is being led by Dr Scott McCabe, associate professor in tourism management and marketing at Nottingham University Business School. His two-year research project is looking at the effects of social tourism on wellbeing and the economy. "Not just the economy of the resorts where these families are sent," he stresses. "We're also trying to measure whether improved wellbeing helps to reduce the demand for prescription drugs and support services." McCabe's team are also asking whether schools should offer more flexibility to families wanting to take their children out of school for term-time holidays. And is there potential for weaving in learning opportunities?
"There's no reason why you shouldn't be able to build certain key stages into these holidays," he says. And when I suggest that a week in a cramped caravan with the rain hammering on the roof might cause more family tensions than staying at home, he already has five months of research to draw on for an answer. "I interviewed a family who had spent a week in a caravan in Yorkshire during one of those summers when there was an absolute deluge. The kids thought it was a fantastic adventure. Many of them come from the inner cities and they're not allowed to 'play out' at home."
Karen White is well aware of that. Before moving to Rochester, she was headteacher at Burbage primary in Hackney and remembers the insularity of children whose horizons were hemmed in by high-rise flats. Parents, too. "Showing them that there was a world beyond Hoxton Market was massively important to building up their confidence," she says.
In Rochester, her intake is more varied, but Delce juniors is on a former council estate with new blocks of social housing. Some 28% of pupils qualify for free school meals. "The insularity is not much different from the East End."
Last Christmas, White took around 100 children, parents and teachers on a day trip to Lapland, courtesy of the FHA and one of its commercial sponsors, Thomson Airways. "There was resentment from some of the families not chosen," she recalls. "We were accused of 'taking the naughty children'. We didn't, but perhaps it was understandable that they thought so."
A PR film made by Thomson shows a single father weeping at the end of the day. "This is the best thing that's happened to me," he sobs. "Ever, I think." Since then, his relationship with school staff has improved immensely. "He used to come in and shout at us. Now he smiles and comes to parents' evenings," says White. "And he listens."
The message would seem to be: if you want children to be more receptive and parents more amenable, give them a free holiday. But is it as simple as that? Not if you're running a large comprehensive school and some of your students are approaching GCSE year. The Westwood school, on the Canley estate in Coventry, has worked hard to boost its attendance figures from 89% four years ago to nearly 93% today. The headteacher, Roger Whittall, and assistant head, Steven Connor-Henning, are reluctant to grant holidays in term-time unless there are very good reasons. "We've had requests from parents whose children already have attendance records of below 80%," says Connor-Henning. "In those cases, we send a letter saying that we can't stop you going, but it will go down as yet more unauthorised absence."
On the other hand, both he and Whittall can see the value of expanding the horizons of students whose parents can't afford to take them anywhere. "I've given up asking what they did during the holidays," Whittall says. "Too many of them haven't been beyond Canley, let alone Coventry."
Why do people start yawning when others yawn? Let's take a look at the tortoise
Scientists know a bit more about contagious yawning – one of science's utter mysteries – than they did a year ago, thanks to a study called No Evidence of Contagious Yawning in the Red-Footed Tortoise, Geochelone carbonaria. The study's authors say their experiments, conducted with seven tortoises, might help eliminate some of the many competing theories as to why humans yawn when they see other humans yawn.
Writing in the journal Current Zoology, Anna Wilkinson, Isabella Mand and Ludwig Huber of the University of Vienna, Austria, and Natalie Sebanz of Radboud University in the Netherlands, explain: "This study aimed to discriminate between the possible mechanisms controlling contagious yawning by asking whether contagious yawning is present in a species that is unlikely to show empathy or nonconscious mimicry: the redfooted tortoise, G carbonaria.
The researchers say that although tortoises have not been known (by humans) to mimic each other, the animals do sometimes respond to things they see around them, making them "ideal subjects for examining this question".
The tortoises, named Alexandra, Moses, Aldous, Wilhelmina, Quinn, Esme and Molly, were not "experimentally naive, but they had never previously been involved in a contagious yawning task or any similar experiment," the study notes.
The researchers trained Alexandra to open her mouth whenever they waved a little red square near her head. "This took six months," they write, and "the resulting behaviour appeared highly similar to a naturally occurring tortoise yawn". Alexandra thus became the "demonstrator", the individual who yawned in plain view of her fellows.
In one experiment, the other tortoises watched as Alexandra yawned a single time. In a second, Alexandra yawned several times in succession. In the third and final experiment, the observer tortoises watched videos of a tortoise (a) yawning and (b) not yawning. The scientists conclude with the suggestion that "tortoises do not yawn in a contagious manner".
The monograph ends with a statement expressing gratitude to their colleagues. Perhaps lacking for warmth, it says, "Acknowledgements: The authors would like to thank the cold-blooded cognition group at the University of Vienna for their helpful comments."
(Thanks to Stefano Ghirlanda for bringing this study to my attention.)
• Marc Abrahams is editor of the bimonthly Annals of Improbable Research and organiser of the Ig Nobel prize
British studies is a growing field in the US, bringing together many different disciplines. Should UK universities have it too?
For the last few weeks, Philippa Levine has been an academic under siege. American journalists keep ringing up wanting her to say insightful things about the royal wedding. "But what do I know about William and Kate?" she asks exasperatedly. "It is really not what most of us study."
Welcome to life as a US British studies academic. Levine, a historian of Britain who arrived in the US 20 years ago from the UK, co-directs the British studies programme at the University of Texas, at Austin.
The field brings together academics from across all disciplines who study Britain and its empire – including its history, literature and politics –and puts them into critical discussion, explains Levine, who is also the president of the North American Conference on British Studies (the field's largest subject association).
British studies is, of course, a field that doesn't exist in the UK. "It is a weird thing, but no one in Britain knows what British studies is," says James Vernon, a Briton who set up the Centre for British Studies at the University of California, Berkeley in 2003. "There is no organised curriculum or research agenda around British studies."
Britain is simply so ubiquitously studied in humanities and social sciences departments in UK institutions that an interdisciplinary field called British studies barely makes sense. This is in stark contrast to the US, which, while dogged by worries that it is overly nationalistic, has a large "American studies" field.
But outside the UK, British studies is flourishing, most particularly in the US. Since the early 2000s, in addition to Berkeley, research centres and programmes have been established at the University of Chicago (2003), the University of Utah in Salt Lake City (2005), Columbia University in New York (2007) and, most recently, Rutgers, the state university of New Jersey (2010). Yale, along with the University of Texas, at Austin and the University of Colorado, Boulder, have older programmes (the Texas one dates from 1975). And they are decidedly neither celebrating nor castigating Britain.
"Half a century ago, a lot of British studies in the States was motivated by a kind of Anglophilia, but this isn't the case any longer," says Steven Pincus, of the British studies faculty at Yale. Buoying the field in recent years has been a "new way" of looking at the British empire that is less sanitised and whitewashed, says Levine. British studies – which originated when the "area studies" model developed in the cold war era to study potentially threatening countries was latterly applied to America and then Britain – has gone from focusing on "little England" to being a much broader programme that studies the empire in all its facets.
Studying Britain is important for many reasons, say the academics, from the fact that Britain was the source of the industrial revolution, to the fact that English is so widely spoken, to the continued place of Britain in the world today. But, tempting as the idea is that British studies can actually "teach" contemporary America lessons as it grapples with its own position as a world superpower, most academics resist. If there is any lesson from British studies, it is that how the world works is a "peculiar condition of time and place", says Ethan Shagan, who recently took the baton from Vernon as director of Berkeley's centre.
As yet no one is offering British studies degrees (although Utah does an undergraduate minor and Colorado a certificate), but US academics teach plenty of British courses within their respective disciplines that are attracting growing numbers of students.
Certainly, a degree of Anglophilia does drive student interest, says Levine. While academics might have given up celebrating Britain to study it critically – a deference to kings and queens and tea parties pulls students in, just as many Americans are fascinated by British royalty. Likewise, a pop-culture version – where British music, film, TV and football teams peak interest – is also evident. There are also "heritage students" intrigued because their parents or grandparents have origins in Britain or its former colonies. More practically, students can study a new culture without needing a foreign language. Regardless of the lure, once in, the idea is to get students "somewhere more sophisticated", explains Alastair Bellany, who heads the British studies centre at Rutgers.
Robin Lam, who graduated in history last year from Berkeley, was drawn to study Britain because she "grew up reading about princes, castles and courts", but it was actually the "non-traditional" history courses she liked best. Last year, she travelled to Britain to research "fashion photography as a genre in postwar Britain". With an Irish family background Anne McGrath, currently studying history at Columbia, was interested in learning about the relationship between England and Ireland.
The material students study is intriguing. Nicholas Dames, who heads Columbia's programme, uses Victorian fiction to engage students in a discussion about "class", still a difficult subject to raise in America. Utah students visited London to consider the city itself as a work of theatre. Meanwhile, Vernon uses The Office as a way to understand masculine banter and the advent of 1980s management styles in Britain. Students' answers to what most encapsulates Britain range from Zadie Smith's White Teeth, to the inside cover of the Sun, to Blackadder, to the insignia of the British East India Company.
Among those funding the centres and programmes include Anglophile philanthropists, which can be tricky, says Vincent Pecora. Pecora heads the British studies programme at Utah, which was funded by an endowment started by the London-loving former president of the Mormon Church, Gordon Hinckley. Most of the academics working in the field are American, which can raise some British eyebrows. "I was not nearly as British as she would have liked," recalls Pecora of the time the British consul-general in Los Angeles paid a visit to his programme to find it led by an American. Many regularly travel to the UK for their primary research. Colorado University has just invested in a flat in Westminster so that faculty and research students at its centre for British and Irish studies have accommodation.
The academics believe, however, that their approach does bring something extra and they are freer than academics in the UK to see things in a larger framework. "It helps to study Britain from outside because you can think afresh," says Vernon. Unlike their British counterparts – whose study of their nation is simply taken for granted – US British studies academics have to answer questions about why their scholarship is important, which leads to "real differences" in the kind of work being done, says Pincus. Peter Mandler, a professor of modern cultural history at Cambridge, notes that American academics studying Britain will have their "own biases", too, but concedes that they can draw attention to things Brits themselves might neglect.
Meanwhile, Levine is adamant she would like to see the field expand its empire: "I would love to see British studies travel to Britain. I think it would be very healthy." Universities keen to attract overseas students might like to think it over.
Could it catch on here? Education.letters@guardian.co.uk
Is the Eurovision Song Contest just about music, or does it tell us all kinds of things about the new Europe?
Here's a question for you. Is the Eurovision Song Contest (a) a garish exhibition of musical naffness that nobody in their right mind would take seriously or (b) "a stage on which the realities of the new Europe are being played out"?
Dr Milija Gluhovic, assistant professor of theatre and performance at Warwick University, inclines towards b. Gluhovic is co-organiser of a group of academics from all over the world who have been gathering since 2009 to discuss aspects of the contest that may have passed many of us by as Terry Wogan drolly summed up another eye-popping performance by an Israeli cross-dresser or Finnish heavy metal monsters.
The contest, it seems, is a social barometer revealing fascinating insights into national identity. The academic project, says Gluhovic, aims to examine how the contest has forged cultural interconnections that cut across political divisions between nations and shape the contours of a cosmopolitan European identity.
Wogan has handed over the BBC baton to Graham Norton for this year's final on 14 May in Dusseldorf. But it's safe to say the BBC coverage will probably not focus too much on academic inquiry.
Gluhovic understands the majority attitude of British audiences – ironic detachment underscored by dark mutterings about conspiracies against us for reasons other than music. "Many British viewers will look on and laugh," he concedes. "But Eurovision attracts 125 million television viewers across Europe. How many events do that, apart from the World Cup?"
The project, financed by a grant of £35,000 from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, began with a workshop at Warwick two years ago bringing together sociologists, musicologists and experts on gender studies, as well as theatre studies. "Every discipline had something to bring to the table," Gluhovic says, "and we mapped out a wide field of interests, all connected to the contest. Eurovision gives an indication of what's going on in terms of aesthetics across the continent. But we're also looking at how nationhood expresses itself through the contest; how gender is represented; how historical alliances are still in place and new affiliations are being forged."
Although the contest has been around since 1956, it is the post-89 expansion to over 40 countries and the dominance of the east in recent years that particularly fascinates the researchers. Hence the project's title: Eurovision Song Contest and the New Europe. There have been two workshops since that initial gathering. One was at Royal Holloway, University of London, looking at the persistence of the notion of what Gluhovic calls "the barbarian east and civilised west" in current European public life – "the fear of widespread immigration from the east since the fall of the Berlin Wall". The other, held last month at Warwick's teaching facility in Venice, investigated the camp appeal of Eurovision under the title Queering Europe.
There has not been much clear agreement on how to interpret certain acts, Gluhovic admits. "Take Maria from Serbia, who won the 2007 contest in Helsinki with a song called Molitva, which means Prayer. Some commentators read it as a prayer for Serbia just after UN sanctions and the fall of [Slobodan] Milosevic. Others saw it as a coded lesbian performance with a butch-femme aesthetic. After all, she was in a suit, with short, cropped hair and glasses, while a chorus of very feminine women cavorted behind her."
And how did Gluhovic, who is originally from Sarajevo, see it?
"Like many academics, I was fascinated that a country like Serbia could have a representative of an ethnic minority – Maria has a mixed Roma and Serbian heritage – singing about same-sex love. Afterwards I talked to the distinguished theatre director from Serbia who had choreographed the performance and he conceded that he was playing with those aesthetics because he knew there was a strong gay following for Eurovision in the west."
That in turn is a measure of just how seriously the contest is taken by former members of the Soviet bloc, Gluhovic maintains. "From the early '90s onwards, countries from eastern Europe were very conscious of the PR value of sending good quality acts – or at least what they saw as good quality acts."
The Estonian and Ukrainian governments invested heavily in sending their acts on tours of Europe before going on to win in 2001 and 2004 respectively, he points out. "And the Russian government put on a lavish production in Moscow in 2009 to reassert its dominance and prestige. Beneath the shimmering glitz, however, academics picked out all sorts of coded and not-so-coded messages of defiance from former satellite states such as Georgia."
Gluhovic will be in Dusseldorf for this year's final, where there will be a third and final workshop under the title Feeling European. Together with Dr Karen Fricker from Royal Holloway, he will be co-editing for Palgrave-Macmillan a selection of essays inspired by the workshops.
"Eurovision is a night when Europe comes together and we start to think about how we see each other," he says. "To me that's very meaningful."
If you have experience or training as a mentor you can register straight away. CILIP Mentoring Workshops are being run by PTEG across the UK.
Support for mentors does not end with the initial training, the Personnel,Training and Education group organizes the Mentor Support Network.
Additional support is available through the mentor discussion list which, to facilitate open discussion, is restricted to registered mentors. This acts as a forum for you to share, and resolve, issues arising from your mentoring work with candidates for the range of CILIP qualifications. Details of joining the list are included in information sent to newly registered mentors.
As well as mentor training there are opportunities to attend an introduction to mentoring within CILIP's Framework of Qualifications featuring this slide presentation (352KB).
Being a mentor entails commitment and responsibility however it will contribute to your professional development, working towards Revalidation and Fellowship, furthermore it will broaden your own network.
If you would like to participate as a Mentor please complete an application form (Word, 97KB). In the statement you can say how many candidates you would be willing to take on, if you prefer them to be from the same sector or the same organization as you. More details including the Mentor contract are in the Mentor scheme guidelines.
If you have registered as a mentor or are applying to be a mentor you should read the Mentor scheme guidelines (120.0KB) closely.
One of your first tasks as a mentor is to help candidates put together a development plan. A slide presentation, Writing a Successful Development Plan, has been created to support this process.
Suggested reading
Making Mentoring Work an article published in Impact the journal of the Career Development Group, Winter 06
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