The new computers use 80% less electricity than the previous IT set-up - giving the college a financial and environmental advantage. The initiative means that young people at Linkage College in Lincolnshire can use the devices to keep in touch with their friends and family using signing and talking, which gives them more privacy as they no longer have to rely as much on staff help.
The story of how the new system came to be – and the benefits for the students and college – has just gone live as the 300th case study on the Excellence Gateway, a portal for good practice as identified by JISC’s regional support centres (RSC's) in partnership with the Learning and Skills Improvement Service.Young people at Linkage College can use the devices to keep in touch with their friends and family using signing and talking
The case studies on the Excellence Gateway showcase innovative uses of technology by further education, sixth form and specialist colleges, as well as adult, work-based and community learning providers.
Angela Harvey, JISC RSC Services co-ordinator, says: “Reading, hearing or seeing how a colleague in another learning provider has used technology to good effect in their work, or how a learning provider has used technology on a wider scale to improve its effectiveness, can be enlightening.
“One of the roles of the RSC's is to help share the good practice around the country and these case studies are an excellent way to do that.”
Visitors can browse the case studies to find those relevant to their area of interest or to the type of technology they want to explore.
Rob Wye, LSIS chief executive, adds: “The good e-practice case studies section consistently appears in the top 10 most accessed content on the Excellence Gateway and we receive feedback from users on how useful they are for inspiring improvements in their day-to-day work. What is important is that most of the case studies offer supporting files and advice from the featured providers themselves, which will help anyone wishing to replicate the good practice.”
Over the past year alone, the good e-practice case studies section has received 130,204 views, averaging around 10,000 views per month.
Find out more about the initiative at Linkage College
Explore the other good practice case studies on the Excellence Gateway
via Jisc news
The needless use of long words, and other problems that obscure scientific writing
Some sociologists looooooooooove long words. And some love to poke sharp sticks at their serpentine-tongued fellows. Harvard sociologist Talcott Parsons (1902-1979) was one of the profession's biggest, most favourite, piñatas.
Three years after Parsons composed his final few hundred thousand words, Hugh P Whitt and James C Creech, sociologists at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, wrote a shortish monograph paying tribute to their late colleague. It begins with three quietly gleeful statements:
"Sociologists have often been criticised for their inability to make themselves understood. Talcott Parsons, in particular, has been singled out for his alleged incomprehensibility. As a consequence, his name has achieved legendary stature for more than his theoretical contributions."
Whitt and Creech quote other sociologists: Stanislav Andreski "cites Parsons as the 'prime example of obscurity', maintaining that 'he can make the simplest truth appear unfathomably obscure'."
Whitt and Creech published their paper in the Mid-American Review of Sociology with the title Gunning Down the Fog – A Test of the Unintelligibility and Illiteracy Hypotheses and summarised it: "The present inquiry examines Parsons' writing style using the Gunning fog index of readability, finding that Parsons was indeed unintelligible as a writer."
The Gunning fog index is a recipe devised by a reading consultant, Robert Gunning, and introduced in his 1952 book The Technique of Clear Writing. For any passage of text, the formula tallies the words in each sentence, and the syllables in each word, then roughly estimates how offputting it is to read that text.
In 1969, Gunning wrote a triumphal essay with the dry, yet damp title The Fog Index After Twenty Years. Whitt and Creech, after applying the Gunning fog index to several of Parsons's books, concluded that "with [only] one exception, Parsons became more unintelligible with each new book".
Many people, not all of them sociologists, write dense, foggy prose. Daniel Oppenheimer, a psychology professor at Princeton University, wondered whether this helps or hampers them.
Oppenheimer published a study in the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology, giving it the title Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly.
For this he was awarded the 2006 Ig Nobel Prize in literature. At the Ig Nobel ceremony Oppenheimer gave what may be a perfect acceptance speech. Here it is in its entirety: "My research shows that conciseness is interpreted as intelligence. So, thank you".
• Marc Abrahams is editor of the bimonthly Annals of Improbable Research and organiser of the Ig Nobel prize
Funding costs may hit postgraduates next, as course costs rise with no support for students
With all eyes on rising undergraduate tuition fees and the protests against them, little attention has been paid to postgraduate funding. But the sector is fearful of the damage that may be caused by looming cuts to teaching money and the prospect of universities having to raise postgraduate course fees to cover any shortfall.
"Postgraduate students have so far been missing from the funding debate," says Paul Marshall, executive director at the 1994 Group of smaller research-intensive universities. "While undergraduate students will be able to pay for tuition out of subsidised loans and a host of support measures, no such mechanisms are in place for those looking to study at a more advanced level.
"However, postgraduate courses are not going to be spared the impact of cuts to the teaching grant. Put bluntly, course funds are going to be chopped without any support for students whose contributions will have to replace them."
Roughly £100m provided by the government to part-fund master's programmes is due to be wiped out because classroom-based (band D) students will not receive any funding. Marshall wants to see the government either give postgraduate students the same benefits as those enjoyed by undergraduates, or exempt postgraduate funding entirely from any cuts.
Postgraduate funding is an issue for all universities, since most have taught – or master's – courses, if not big research programmes. According to Les Ebdon, vice-chancellor of Bedfordshire University and chair of the thinktank Million+, all universities are concerned about what will happen. "The removal of over 80% of teaching funding by the government in the comprehensive spending review will hit postgraduates particularly hard as they are not eligible for fee loans," he says.
Ebdon suggests universities may be forced to charge the full cost - fees of £9,000 or more - of running postgraduate programmes such as masters degrees. Without fee loans for postgraduate students, their wallets will be hit doubly hard as they have to pay for courses up front rather than after completion, as with undergraduate degrees. "Coupled with the greatly increased debts of future graduates, it looks bleaker than the Arctic in winter," he says.
But according to Ebdon, modern universities may fare better than most as they offer the majority of part-time programmes (recent Million+ research found that 37% of all postgraduates study in modern universities) and continuing professional development, which can be incorporated into postgraduate awards. The future for home postgraduates may well be in greater financial support from employers, Ebdon suggests.
What is to happen to public funding of postgraduate research is equally unclear. It is widely believed that a quality threshold for any university financial support is to be reintroduced. This could mean, for instance, that universities with departments rated less than a 3* in the last research assessment exercise would lose out on postgraduate supervision funding.
Ministers' grant letter to the Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce) in December clearly stated the need to support the "next generation of researchers" – an encouraging sign –but it said Hefce should be "selectively funding on the basis of only internationally excellent research", which many fear will mean a tighter concentration of funding on a limited number of universities.
The Russell Group of research-intensive universities has argued in favour of this focus on excellence, favouring – as it would – its universities and agrees that postgraduate teaching and research are underfunded. Its vice-chancellors are also awaiting further clarity from both Hefce and ministers.
Last year's Browne Report, which recommended removing the cap on tuition fees, suggested that higher fees would have no real impact on the numbers of postgraduates. But the National Union of Students believes postgraduates will be deterred. "For those graduating with upwards of £30,000 of debt as undergraduate fees are raised, the prospect of ... finding funds for postgraduate study or taking even more debt at commercial rates will put a great many off furthering their study," says Aaron Porter, NUS president.
"The inconsistency with which the government's support for those in higher education is being applied is shocking. As the government decimates university teaching budgets, universities will look to areas where they can raise extra capital, and postgraduate courses will be one such area. We could see some astronomical upfront fees being levied on those who wish to continue their studies beyond undergraduate level, with virtually no financial support from government."
Browne has recommended monitoring the effect of higher undergraduate fees on the postgraduate system. Research done after the introduction of tuition fees found little impact on postgraduate numbers, but this was partly down to mistaken accounting of international students taking master's degrees, numbers of which have gone up year on year.
Dr Martin Gough, convenor of the Society for Research into Higher Education postgraduate issues network, agrees that higher undergraduate fees will almost certainly deter students from pursuing postgraduate education. "It will be a problem for postgraduates who are not supported by their employer and those wanting to develop a research career," he says. "There's a good argument for compensation for those graduates who do go into postgraduate education to offset the additional debt – call it a bronze handshake, because it wouldn't be much money."
Postgraduate education is big business for universities. There are roughly 180,000 full-time master's students and many more studying part-time who are ineligible for government support. According to last year's postgraduate review by Adrian Smith, the government's director-general, knowledge and innovation, taught postgraduate provision alone brought in income of over £1.5bn for universities in 2008-09. Postgraduate numbers have grown by 36% over the last 12 years – faster than undergraduate growth. Nearly a quarter of students in UK universities are studying at postgraduate level and half of international students in the UK are taking a postgraduate qualification.
The government has refused to comment on any of the issues, but a spokesperson said a response on postgraduate funding – and the recommendations made by both the Smith and Browne reviews – will form a key part of the white paper on higher education expected in March.
As funding falls away, the arts and humanities risk becoming the playground of the wealthy
Anyone visiting a university library at 9am might wonder where all the students have gone. The science doctorates will be in their labs, most undergrads will still be in bed, but arts PhD students could once have been relied upon to be toiling amid the tomes. No longer. Demand for arts doctorates so enormously outstrips funding that PhD students are more likely to be earning their keep during the 9-5 period, with research to follow after hours.
"I don't know any doctorate students who don't have another job," says Duncan White, 31, who has just handed in his PhD in English literature at Oxford University. "People teach, design websites, work in cafes and bars – anything to earn money in a way that hopefully leaves time for study. I applied for funding from the AHRC [the government funding body, the Arts and Humanities Research Council] but didn't get it. That meant in my first year I had to pay fees of about £5,000 plus more than that on living costs," he says. "Although I then won a faculty scholarship, which paid my fees, my rent and living costs were still very expensive. I had hoped to finish my PhD in three years, but soon realised the expense meant it would be impossible."
White worked as a sports journalist for two or three days each week, and taught undergraduates for another five hours. "But that took far longer once I'd done all my marking and preparation. I ended up worrying about when I'd be able to fit in my research. There's no question the quality of my PhD work was affected."
He is not alone in that predicament. Demand for non-science PhDs has rocketed – last year, 32,735 students were working on arts and humanities doctorates in the UK, according to the Higher Education Statistics Agency, 23% more than in 2002. But funding has not kept up. The AHRC says it is currently paying for the studies and living costs of around 2,100 PhD students, who receive about £15,000 a year. Some of those are through collaborative awards with organisations such as the British Museum, National Trust and city councils. Whilst other educational trusts and funding bodies are also helping some students, the vast majority are paying their own way. And some postgraduates are worried that arts PhDs are becoming the preserve of the wealthy.
"It's definitely a concern that it's infinitely easier – and increasingly common – for the better-off to do arts and humanities doctorates," says Jonathan Theodore, 25, who is doing a PhD in history and film at King's College London. "It's a real shame – not just because so many able people are missing out, but also because we're in real danger of our academic and intellectual horizons becoming the preserve and playground of the wealthy."
Having unsuccessfully applied for AHRC funding at the start of his course, Theodore says: "The process is a lottery. I've known brilliantly gifted students who haven't had a penny of it for years. It appears to be much easier to obtain for scientists, but then it's arguably easier to justify the immediate practical value of their work." He now earns most of his living costs through tutoring work, and says his fellow PhDs do everything from cashier work to online poker. But he adds: "The balance between work and study is tough to strike – particularly as a doctorate really requires intense focus and concentration – and I don't always succeed at it.
"The double threat of rising fees and further planned cuts to funding are only going to exacerbate this trend. Ironically, it's quite common for unfunded students to have to take an extra year or two to complete their course because of their employment commitments – which further adds to the final cost of the degree, and creates something of a vicious cycle."
After a shake-up to the system in 2009, the majority of the AHRC's £32m in funding is now distributed to students from university departments. Most is paid out via the Block Grant Partnership scheme, where universities submit proposals for five years' worth of award allocations, and then academics themselves decide which students should receive them. "We do not have exact figures in place yet for the next four years, but funding is likely to be comparable to the current level of £32m per annum to support PhD researchers," its spokesman says.
Yet even sticking to existing levels leaves a significant discrepancy between supply and demand. White worries that the quality of PhDs themselves is being hit by the shortfall. "Your doctorate work shouldn't be just about an exam you're passing to become an academic, but should itself be worthwhile," he says. "But as money becomes more pressurised, more people just aren't able to put in the time and do as much research as they want to."
That's the situation faced by Cathy Riggle (not her real name), who is doing an arts PhD at the University of Hull, and subsidises her studies through part-time jobs as a bookseller, market researcher, library assistant and IT helper. "It's tough," she says. "You need money, so when shifts are offered it can be very difficult to say no, but you also need time to work, and picking up unexpected shifts tends to be bad for the dissertation. Every PhD student I know has a job, and I think they have all gone part-time. I don't know any full-time PhD students any more.
"I was quite resigned to funding it myself the entire time, but hoped for some bits and pieces of funding," she says. "But what surprised me was the hoops through which one had to jump for funding that wasn't in any way certain, or for very little gain. After a time I realised that my time filling out forms would be better spent on the dissertation or working."
Tim Simpson, 25, is also at Hull, working towards a PhD in modern British drama. He, too, is self-funded and says only his passion for the subject meant he was prepared to pay his way. "I was surprised by the lack of funding – the arts can offer so much for society and yet the government find it easier to cut funding from the arts and not science," he says.
Others are worried that another side-effect of funding cuts – the dearth of jobs in academia – may also deter potential arts postgraduates. "Because you're not in any way guaranteed a job at the end, the huge cost of paying for three or four years of study can be a real barrier to entry," says Theodore. His hope is that enthusiasm for education will be enough to sustain the arts in higher education. "The people I've known, who were really passionate about arts and humanities but lacked private money or funding, have been working for a few years to save up enough to pay for it themselves ," he adds. "That isn't ideal, but at least they haven't given up yet."
Just as The King's Speech puts a spotlight on children who stammer, services to help them are being cut
"Brilliant", said my son at the end of The King's Speech. "People might feel what it's like having gremlins in your mouth that stop words coming out." Max is 19 and has stammered since he was five.
Thanks to Colin Firth's searingly accurate portrayal of stammering, people are beginning to understand that this isn't just an annoying inconvenience. It can stifle a child's personality and crush his confidence.
"It's unseen and unheard", says Norbert Lieckfeldt, chief executive of the British Stammering Association. "Stammering masks your ability and your intellect. It's a layer between you and the world through which everything gets filtered. It's a serious disability."
In the film, speech therapist Lionel Logue sees King George VI as deeply damaged by his unhappy childhood. Nowadays, stammering is believed to be multi-factorial – partly genetic, partly physiological and compounded by negative experiences.
It's a bitter irony that just when The King's Speech has raised awareness about stammering, frontline services that help children with stammers or other speech difficulties are being slashed.
The Communication Trust says more than one million children and young people – two to three in every classroom – have some form of long-term, persistent speech, language and communication difficulty. In an ideal world, children with speech disorders would be picked up early and get support from trained teaching staff, and those with persistent problems would be referred to speech therapists.
The real picture is quite different. Many parents and teachers don't recognise when a child's speech is delayed or impaired. When they do, they have to fight for access to speech and language services, where they exist. We were lucky. Max was referred to the Michael Palin Centre for stammering children by our GP and benefited hugely from the therapy and support there.
Jean Gross was appointed government communications champion following an independent review of speech and language services for children and young people published in 2008. Since then, she has visited 70 local authorities and says: "Provision is uneven and inconsistent. There's a postcode lottery. Some services are provided by the NHS, some by local authorities and some by schools. Children are falling through the cracks. We need community-wide strategies and we need health and education to work together."
She cites examples of good practice: a multi-agency initiative in Sheffield that has early intervention and intensive support for children with speech impairments; a joined-up approach to tackle the high incidence of speech and language difficulties identified in Stoke-on-Trent.
But the general trend is that services are being cut. In a UK survey carried out by the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists in November 2010, of the 159 respondents, 84% had been asked to reduce their services, with cuts of up to 30%. In Nottinghamshire, all speech and language therapy for children over six with autism has stopped. Gross's warning to local authorities is: "Don't cut these services. If you do, the bill will come later when these children are unemployed or if they develop mental-health problems.'"
When they finish primary school, only 25% of children with speech, language and communication needs reach the expected level in English, compared with 80% of children generally.
The college has launched a campaign, Giving Voice, to persuade decision-makers to safeguard early screening and guarantee access to therapy for all children who need it. The chief executive, Kamini Gadhok, says: "There is inaccurate messaging from the government that it is protecting the NHS budget. Shifting the budgets to schools will make things more fragmented and services could disappear. Communication is not a luxury that we can do without'.
Specific stammering services are also being axed. Of the 15 primary care trusts contacted by the British Stammering Association in December, four had no adult services, two had a very limited service. Newham PCT has cut its service altogether for children over six who stammer.
So why are these services considered dispensible? Lieckfeldt says: "If they cut A&E or cancer services, people are up in arms. Speech and language therapists can change lives, but they don't have a powerful lobby. Many people aren't aware they exist."
To increase understanding in schools of stammering, the British Stammering Association has produced a new online resource for all teachers and school support staff in England and Scotland. It includes guidance on how to identify children who stammer and short, clear strategies on how to support them in both primary and secondary schools.
The Michael Palin Centre has also produced a resource for teaching staff, the Stammering Information Programme. The centre, currently the only one of its kind, receives referrals from throughout the UK. Gross says: "Outside London there is a gap in expertise. We need more Michael Palin centres, more experts in stammering in every area." Michael Palin, whose own experience of his father's stammer inspired him to support the centre's work, says: "Every child in the country should be able to get specialist help, to ensure that, unlike my father, they are spared the agony of a lifelong stammer."
There are plans to open a specialist centre in Leeds that will provide therapy to children throughout Yorkshire. The Michael Palin Centre also hopes to double its capacity to train speech therapists working with children in the south-east. Its director, Frances Cook, says: "We want specialist therapy to be very accessible because these children need therapy as early and as quickly as possible."
While speech and language services are being cut, the government has announced 2011 as the National Year of Communication. At the end of this month, Gross will launch a government-backed campaign, Hello, which aims to make children's communication development a national priority. It will be run by the Communication Trust, a coalition of 40 speech and language organisations. It will also provide materials for school staff, including information on speech development, advice about warning signs and where to go for help.
The future for children with stammers and other speech difficulties looks mixed. Lieckfeldt hopes The King's Speech will create a debate. "This film gives us a once-in-a-generation chance to create a step change in the public's perception of people who stammer. We're just the same as everyone else, sometimes we just can't get our mouths to do what we want them to do."
Learners who find digital information difficult to manage in today’s high tech world, perhaps because of a disability, could enjoy more independence thanks to two new developer competitions.
JISC Techdis is launching the competitions today after consulting the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Technology Strategy Board, joint sponsors of the initiative.
The first competition ‘Plain Sailing’ asks developers to create technology to help people produce and access their own personalised digital information anytime, anywhere.
The second ‘Making Waves’ competition challenges developers to come up with technologies to ensure that learners with communication difficulties can function effectively and independently.
JISC Techdis director Sal Cooke said: “Digitisation has opened up access to a mass of information for a vast number of people across the globe. Yet, in spite of legislation, accessibility standards and guidelines, equality of access is still denied to millions of people.”
The winning contract for each competition is worth £250,000, and will be chosen by a panel of independent experts.
John Hayes, minister for further education, skills and lifelong learning, said: "In today's world, those who find it difficult to engage with digital information also find it increasingly hard to access life, learning and employment opportunities. These competitions not only represent a fantastic opportunity for companies to help learners overcome these obstacles and make a real difference to their lives, but also for the companies taking part to improve their prospects."
Both competitions are part of the small business research initiative programme, which encourages innovative solutions to specific public sector needs by engaging a broad range of companies in competitions that result in technology development contracts.
The closing date is 15 March 2011.
via Jisc news
As realtime online teaching resources are becoming increasingly popular with students, a series of online surgeries will help lecturers looking for advice on screencasting.
Screencasting allows you to capture what you are doing on your computer and package this screen capture as an effective and accessible learning resource. Especially in online and distance learning screencasts containing slides, onscreen examples and an audio track covering the core lecture material can be more helpful for students as a way to reinforce the classroom experience and allow them to move at their own pace as they can pause and rewind.
There are many technical, as well as pedagogical considerations when making your own screencasts, and your goals will define what capabilities these should offer. “An overview of the whole workflow, good forward planning and preparation are all very important”, explains Gavin Brockis from JISC Digital Media; “even at the early stage of planning you should bear in mind where you want to end up, the needs of your audience and how they are going to access your screencast”.
To help you better understand screencasting, over the next few weeks JISC Digital Media's online surgeries will focus on a number of topics:
| Date | Online surgery |
|---|---|
| 19/01/11 | The major technical issues surrounding screencasting |
| 26/01/11 | Considerations for screencasts as teaching and learning support resources |
| 02/02/11 | Using a screencast as a lecture capture tool |
| 09/02/12 | Using a screencast to provide feedback |
Find out more or join any or all of the online surgeries
Contact JISC Digital Media with any questions
via Jisc news
Headteachers are angry about the sudden introduction of the English baccalaureate and the way it will affect secondary school league tables
Headteachers across England, it seems, are furious. And Ron Munson, head of Taverham high school, in Norwich, is among them. "I really do not understand what the government is doing. And why is it doing it retrospectively, without having carried out any consultation, and without having published detailed plans beforehand?" he says.
The object of his ire is the "English baccalaureate" (Ebac), a new GCSE performance measure, being introduced in school league tables to be published tomorrow.
Announced formally only seven weeks ago in the government's schools white paper, this will rank schools on the proportion of their pupils achieving A*-C passes in five subject areas specified by ministers: English; maths; two sciences; ancient or modern history or geography; and a modern or ancient language. In future, pupils will achieve certificates rewarding their performance on this measure, the government says.
This might seem innocuous. But the plans are already provoking serious disquiet in many schools, and not just because tomorrow's rankings will show low proportions of pupils achieving the new benchmark in most institutions.
The national results will show around 15% of pupils hitting the new benchmark, with fewer than 10% in many schools. Many of Labour's academy schools, in disadvantaged areas, are likely to be near the bottom of the rankings.
Hundreds of schools will see drops of at least 40 percentage points in the proportion of their pupils achieving the government benchmark under the new measure, an analysis of last year's results suggests: this lists performance in the individual subjects of languages and science but not on the combined new English bac measure. Last year, more than one in five state secondaries – including 57 of the 123 academies – had fewer than 10% of their pupils passing a modern language at C or better, meaning that achievement on the English bac last year would have been at least as low as this for these schools.
One school spoken to by Education Guardian had more than 70% of its pupils achieving five GCSE A*-Cs, including English and maths, in 2010. This drops to 3% achieving the English bac, caused largely by small numbers of pupils there passing humanities subjects.
Inquiries by Education Guardian have uncovered not only widespread unhappiness among school leaders, but also predictions that the new measure is already leading to radical, and often controversial, changes in the curriculum offered by at least some schools.
The new move seems driven by a concern that pupils have been pushed towards non-traditional academic subjects in recent years because of the way league tables have worked.
With the rankings hitherto centring on the proportions of pupils achieving five A*-C grades, in GCSEs or vocational equivalents, including English and maths, the incentive has been for schools to focus on English and maths and, it is claimed by teachers of these subjects, avoid "harder" GCSEs such as history or languages.
When he first spoke about the English baccalaureate last September, Michael Gove, the education secretary, said it would "dramatically strengthen the position of core academic subjects in our schools, and stop the shift to less challenging courses driven by the current perverse accountability system".
The white paper then set out the government's expectation that "every pupil should have a broad education (the English baccalaureate)".
The coalition government is particularly concerned about the position of languages, the white paper pointing out that the proportion of pupils studying a language dropped from 79% in 2000 to 44% in 2009, Labour having allowed pupils to drop the subject at the age of 14 in 2004.
However, many heads argue that the move conflicts with a drive, promoted by Labour, to offer as broad a range of options to pupils as possible.
In effect, some argue, they are being penalised for following that aspiration under these new league tables, which will show, in many schools, that relatively few pupils now take all English bac subjects. Instead, pupils have opted for subjects such as religious studies, information technology and vocational courses, and even "short-course" language GCSEs, which do not count towards the new measure. Yet the results will suggest that institutions where few pupils achieve the English bac are underperforming.
Heads feel particularly aggrieved that the league tables are being reformed retrospectively, ranking schools on exams taken before the new measure was announced.
Munson says: "The fact that they've done it retrospectively is just crazy. We are talking about a qualification that we knew nothing about, and yet we are being measured against it."
Munson says his current curriculum, praised by Ofsted, offers pupils a "huge amount of choice", with many youngsters opting for vocational qualifications that do not feature in the English bac. Around 99% of pupils are allowed to follow subjects they have chosen, he says.
He says he will resist pressure for this to change now the English bac has been introduced. But many schools would not. He says: "Schools will force pupils to take certain subjects."
There are already signs that this is happening. John Pout, head of Rainhill high school media arts college in Prescot, Merseyside, says that, because of the new measure, as of September, the school plans that the "top half of the year group" starting GCSEs will all take a curriculum designed to give them the English bac.
He predicts that, as a result, a host of subjects, including business studies, ICT, sociology, product design, construction, health and social care and catering, will decline in pupil numbers.
The school currently has some students who have specialised in curriculum areas – by studying more than one language GCSE, or both history and geography. But this will now become very difficult, says Pout, given the time the English bac takes up.
"It will constrain the ability of pupils to specialise in areas of the curriculum they enjoy," he says.
Asked why any school should force pupils to take subjects because of a league table measure, Pout responds: "There is significant pressure on schools to perform through league tables."
The effect on subjects not included in the new measure could be serious.
A senior teacher at a comprehensive in east London, who has extensive contacts with other professionals, says that her school is still undecided over whether to continue to offer citizenship as a subject for 14- to 16-year-olds, given that it will not feature in the new qualification.
The teacher says the school is also unsure about offering the diploma qualification, introduced under Labour, which pupils will find almost impossible to take alongside the English bac. "What do we do? Pull out of all our diploma partnerships even though these have benefited students?" she asks.
More widely, she predicts that many schools will require pupils to take either history or geography. But because most humanities departments are no longer staffed exclusively by teachers trained in these subjects – employing many religious studies and citizenship teachers – many pupils will end up taught by less well-qualified teachers.
Not all schools are unhappy. Carolyn Roberts, head of Durham Johnston comprehensive, in Durham, is quoted on the website of the Association of School and College Leaders saying that, "infuriatingly", she agrees with Gove because league tables have encouraged schools to discourage pupils from taking "harder" GCSEs.
Brian Lightman, general secretary of ASCL, says: "We have had a massive amount of correspondence about this from our members. Some people in quite challenging areas have said that more emphasis on [the English baccalaureate] subjects will be helpful, particularly for pupils who may not have had access to the best universities in the past.
"The rest of the correspondence is very negative about the whole thing.
"The white paper says that tweaking things around the edges is not an option. And yet, here we are, with a curriculum review about to start and with no detailed overarching philosophy having been set out, tweaking things in performance tables. Schools are already changing their curriculums and taking reactive decisions, because of league table pressures rather than through a holistic view of their needs.
"This feels rushed. It's not the way to implement curricular change."
Munson says he is confused as to whether the government wants to force pupils to take certain subjects or not, while he also believes the selection of subjects for the English bac is backward-looking.
He says: "If the government believes modern languages should be compulsory, it should make them compulsory, instead of trying to introduce change by the back door like this.
"And, under the English baccalaureate, someone doing subjects such as Latin and ancient history is going to get recognition for it, while another doing ICT and engineering will not. That's a fine example of a modern, forward-thinking government, isn't it?"
Concerns have also been raised by the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust, which wrote to Gove before Christmas asking him to postpone the new measure's introduction until 2013.
Even some associations representing subjects included within the English bac have voiced reservations. Linda Parker, director of the Association of Language Learning, says there are worries about pupils who did well in many subjects but narrowly missed achieving the benchmark, and also that pupils unlikely to gain a C grade would still miss out on the chance to study languages.
An education department spokeswoman says: "The EBac represents a core that we think all schools should be making available to their pupils. We do, however, recognise that the full range of EBacc will not be suitable for all pupils and that is why we have not made it compulsory. We recognise the wider benefits that studying other subjects and qualifications can bring and we will encourage all pupils to study non-English baccalaureate subjects alongside the core English baccalaureate in order to get a well-rounded education."
League table changes would appear to be easy for ministers to put into effect. But their detailed implications, as Gove is now being reminded, are often complicated and highly contentious.
Financial incentives to schools to convert to academies are beginning to look less enticing, says Fiona Millar
There wasn't much that was positive about being struck down with the recent flu bug apart from missing several weeks of news, then subsequently trying to work out what had been going on. Were the school sports partnerships really saved? Was the money for Book Start reinstated or not, and will schools be better or worse off with a flat cash settlement, rising inflation and a very modest pupil premium?
The answers to all these questions are still unclear. Michael Gove seems to specialise in sowing dismay, relief, then confusion, which has a political cost, but also a plus side. Nothing is ever quite as it seems and the fuss over relatively small U-turns provides a distracting smokescreen behind which bigger changes can be slipped through.
Take the funding of academies and free schools. High-profile campaigns on other issues have pushed this one to the sidelines and the rush to convert has not been as dramatic as originally predicted. In spite of the hyperbole last week about academy numbers, more than half of the 407 now open are still Labour academies and a far cry from the 2,000 that were being predicted last summer.
Some governing bodies are still agonising over whether to jump, and trying to persuade often sceptical local communities that the financial benefits mean they have no alternative but to swallow their principles and take the money.
But is that right? The government's public claim that converting schools should not gain or lose financially, compared to maintained schools, is undermined by the fact that it is simultaneously doling out huge sums of money, which can only be described as hefty bribes, to converters. I know of one London school where governors were informed by the DfE academy "ready reckoner" that they would receive over £1m extra a year, around twice the amount to which they estimated they were entitled in lieu of council services.
Peter Downes, former president of the Secondary Heads Association and a county councillor from Cambridgeshire, whose call to arms at the Liberal Democrat conference last year led to an overwhelming vote against academies and free schools, has calculated that in his area converting schools are being promised £337 per primary pupil and £318 per secondary pupil annually, yet the amounts being recouped from the local authority are around £65 and £24 respectively.
That such large financial inducements are being offered at a time of cutbacks is shocking and raises other urgent questions. Where is the extra money coming from? Which services are losing as a result, and is it sustainable?
New guidance slipped out before Christmas, and, lost in an avalanche of other public spending announcements, suggested that extra cash guaranteed to academies and free schools until the end of the next financial year will come from a "top slicing" of all local authority general grants.
This means that the early converters, outstanding schools that are already serving children from largely privileged backgrounds, make a net profit, and receive protection from cuts that should otherwise be reflected in their budgets, at the expense of other council services such as libraries and youth services that may have benefited less advantaged young people.
To add insult to injury, local authorities with few or no academies and free schools will be subject to the same top slice, with no visible method for reclaiming money they shouldn't have lost in the first place. And we are all in this together!
No doubt there will be heads and governors who will think they should grab any money while they can and stash it away, regardless of the effect on the less-privileged neighbours. The government must be gambling that these bribes will lead to a tipping point in conversions. However, the conversion process is taking longer than anticipated. At the current rate it would take 150 years to convert every school into an academy and, in less than 18 months' time, some form of national funding will almost certainly be introduced, possibly wiping out the cash advantages currently being (mis)used to sell the benefits of academy status.
As time ticks by, the long-term benefits, set against liabilities schools must assume, are not as clear as they once were. Six months ago, the rush to convert may have seemed an enticing prospect. Now it looks almost reckless, while sitting tight with the local authority, watching the true picture emerge, may be the sensible, as well as the principled, thing to do.
Researcher wants the government to ban point-of-sale displays – but the tobacco companies are lobbying hard
In the last series of Mad Men, the directors of Sterling Cooper stopped just short of hurling themselves from the 23rd floor down on to Madison Avenue in a collective suicide pact after hearing that they had lost the contract to advertise Lucky Strike cigarettes. Some 45 years on in the real world, and tobacco advertising is banned on this side of the Atlantic and severely restricted in the US. Canada has gone further by banning attractive, back-lit displays of cigarette packets near the tills of shops and supermarkets. So, too, have Iceland, Norway, some Australian states and the Republic of Ireland. Not the UK, however. Not yet anyway.
"The legislation was passed by the last government with the intention that supermarkets would have had to remove these displays in 2011, and small retailers two years later," says Professor Ann McNeill, deputy director of the UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies. "However, the coalition hasn't yet committed itself to implementing that legislation."
She is surprised by that. "They said in their health white paper: 'Reducing smoking will continue to be a focus for public health'. Also, they claim they're committed to reducing health inequalities. Given that tobacco accounts for half the differences in life expectancies between social groups one and five, you'd think ministers would want to do everything they can to nudge the public towards healthier choices."
McNeill is a psychologist based at Nottingham University, the lead in a consortium of nine universities that make up the UK Centre. For 25 years she has worked with experts in other fields, including toxicology, pharmacology and marketing, to find ways of countering the harmful effects of what she calls "the only consumer product, apart from guns, that kills if used as the manufacturer intends".
She wants to ensure that there is plenty of evidence to counter the intense lobbying of the tobacco industry as it seeks to preserve point-of-sales displays as one of its few remaining marketing gambits. Accordingly, she was only too glad to accept a commission from the Office of Tobacco Control in Ireland to evaluate the effects on adults, retailers and, particularly, children since the ban on displays was introduced there in July 2009. "The budget was too small to commission primary research," she admits. "So we used existing data sets and augmented them with some questions of our own."
Over 180 teenagers, aged between 13 and 15, were interviewed a month before the Irish legislation came into effect and a month afterwards. "We found that there was a significant drop in their recall levels when it came to tobacco displays," McNeill goes on. "Over 80% of them were aware of the displays before the legislation was passed. Afterwards, only 22% thought they'd seen something to do with cigarettes when they went to the shop."
But why did they think they'd seen anything at all if the displays had been removed?
"They could have been thinking about a vending machine, or it might have been the leather-bound menu of brands that Irish retailers now produce if anyone asks for cigarettes and they're not sure of the brand they want."
Further questioning revealed that the majority of youngsters thought it was more difficult for anyone under age to buy cigarettes since the new law came in. "Our survey of Irish retailers backed that up," says McNeill. "Children could no longer come in, point to a pack in a display and say 'I'll have 20 of those'. There was an extra step involved that could undermine their confidence when it came to persuading the person behind the counter that they were over 16."
Between 30 and 40 retailers were interviewed. The researchers also wanted to find out how they felt about the removal of displays affecting sales and reducing their income. "There are three answers to that," McNeill says. "One is that profit margins are not great on cigarettes. Another is that tobacco sales have been declining markedly over the past few decades and retailers have been adapting. They know that if customers aren't spending on cigarettes, they'll have more to spend on other items. And finally, small retailers in particular are at the heart of their communities and increasingly they don't want to make profits from a product that they know is killing some of their customers."
So what did the adults surveyed feel about the removal of tobacco displays?
"We used a survey of 1,000 adults carried out by the Office of Tobacco Control and added a couple of questions of our own. Had they noticed any difference since the displays were removed? And did they support the legislation?"
Support rose from 58% before the legislation came into force to 66% afterwards – not least because of the removal of temptation. "Those who were trying to give up found themselves wavering if they'd gone down to the shop to buy, say, a bottle of milk," the professor explains. "They'd be in a queue, look at the display and think 'I might as well get 20 Marlborough while I'm here'. And those who'd already given up felt that they could have been triggered into a relapse by those tempting displays."
Much to her frustration, that temptation looks set to remain for the foreseeable future – on this side of the Irish Sea, at least.
Free school meals bring with them extra funding – so heads want all eligible pupils to start applying
Parents who fail to claim for free school meals for their children, despite being eligible for them, are being urged by a secondary head to apply in order to boost school funding under the new pupil premium scheme announced last month.
Dr Christine Carpenter, head of Sacred Heart high school in Hammersmith, London – an 11-16 girls' Catholic comprehensive that boasts Tony Blair's daughter, Kathryn, among its former pupils – has told parents that the school budget is likely to be cut by up to £500,000 this year. But, she says, that could be reduced if more pupils took up their entitlement to free school meals – and while only 6% of the school's 820 pupils are registered for them, she believes the true figure of those eligible could be as high as 35%.
"It is more likely than not that many families who could claim free school meals have chosen not to ...[but] whatever the reason, I urge you to apply for free school meals anyway ... if we can increase the numbers eligible for free school meals to 35%, then the school will receive approximately £123,560, which will go some way to reducing the likely deficit we will otherwise experience," Dr Carpenter writes in a letter to parents.
Some families, she says, don't apply for free school meals because of the stigma attached to it. "You should know that I, too, had free school meals because of my family circumstances," she writes. "I don't believe this made me less successful or less socially adept – indeed, quite the contrary."
Carpenter tells parents: "You need to know that such a cut [ie, the budget cut] will have an impact on your daughters. The need to make such savings will inevitably affect provision and staffing."
But a "huge factor" in funding for schools now, she says, is the percentage of children who are claiming free school meals, and she is concerned that the figure at Sacred Heart is in all probability much lower than it should be. Getting a child who is eligible registered for free meals "will help the school in terms of the additional funding it brings," she writes.
A spokesperson at the Department for Education said the government encouraged people to claim benefits they were entitled to. "Children shouldn't be missing out – that's our position," he said.
Under the pupil premium scheme announced in December, schools in England will get an extra £430 a year for each pupil from a poorer background, and heads will be encouraged to spend it on reducing class sizes or on more one-to-one tuition.
It's unlikely ministers had foreseen that headteachers might start to appeal to parents to apply for free meals as a way of upping their funding – but several heads contacted by Education Guardian say they are thinking of following Carpenter's lead. And if more schools tell potential applicants that they are "doing something for the school", it could even help to end the stigmatisation that has long dogged attempts to encourage more pupils to take up the meal that is provided free of charge for them.
Brian Dow, of the School Food Trust, says there has always been a gap between the number of pupils entitled to free school meals and the number who actually register for them. "We reckon that nationally the number who register is about 80% of the total number who could do so," he says. "That might sound quite good, but it still means that 20% of our most vulnerable children are not receiving something they're entitled to. And what it will mean now, given the pupil premium, is that as well as not receiving the meals they're entitled to, the money that the school is entitled to won't follow them into that school."
What makes things particularly difficult in the current economic climate, says Dow, is that many parents would be going in and out of work, or maybe having to settle for part-time instead of full-time work, and that might mean that those who haven't claimed before now become eligible for free school meals. "People often don't realise what they're entitled to," he says.
"Our raison d'etre is that more children should eat healthy school meals – we want children to get what they're entitled to get, and for some vulnerable children the meal they get at school might be the only proper meal they get in a day."
Dow was slightly surprised to hear that Dr Carpenter's letter advises parents to register for free school meals "even if your daughter never intends to eat a school lunch (though they are much better than they were)".
"It's not exactly a ringing endorsement for school meals, and what I'd say is that she should be doing all she can to ensure that the whole school meal experience is as positive as it could be, so that more pupils actually want to eat a meal in school," says Dow.
"Our research shows that what turns children away from school meals isn't the food, it's the atmosphere. Schools have to reduce the queuing, the noise, the rush of school meals, and more pupils want to have their lunch there.
"I'd be a bit concerned if I thought lots of heads were going to try to encourage families to register for free school meals without addressing how to improve the school meal experience. I think the best outcome here is for schools to do all they can to make school meals more attractive, so that more pupils register to get them free if they're entitled to that, and so that the money the school is entitled to then follows."
Tim Nichols, at the Child Poverty Action Group, says he welcomes anything that will improve the take-up rate for free school meals without leading to more stigmatisation. "It's good that schools seem to be getting more interested in the take-up of free meals," he says. "Although it does make you ask why they perhaps weren't so interested in the past.
"But we expect more families are going to become eligible for free meals with the new rounds of redundancies and pay cuts, so it's certainly a good time for heads to be making families more aware of their entitlements."
A market-driven regime will not help higher education quality, argues Roger Brown
One of the fascinating aspects of the Browne report and the subsequent government pronouncements has been the way in which the justifications for the new, market-driven funding regime have been gradually whittled away. Independent analyses by such respected bodies as the Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) and the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) have cast considerable doubt on claims that there will be savings for the taxpayer, that the new regime will be more progressive, and that it will widen participation. Defenders of the proposals have therefore been driven to give increasing emphasis to the argument that a market-based regime will improve quality by forcing institutions to "raise their game" (to quote Lord Browne) or face loss of custom. But what if this claim, too, is suspect?
There are several reasons for doubting it. To begin with, one of the very few things on which economists of all persuasions agree is that markets cannot function without proper information, in particular about the price, quality and availability of competing products. A market in student education would require the availability of information about the comparative quality of different courses, subjects and/or institutions. Yet the Browne report itself accepts that this does not exist. It states: "One option is to link funding to a measure of quality. However, there is no measure that we have seen that could function effectively across the whole range of institutions and courses ... Looking at student outcomes by institution can be misleading, as these reflect which students the institution selected as much as the value added by the institution."
If this is true, how can enhanced student choice drive up quality? If Lord Browne and his distinguished committee couldn't find a means of distinguishing between institutions or courses, how can students do so? The whole case is blown out of the water.
What we do know about markets is that where direct information about product quality is absent, customers and suppliers turn to proxies: indirect or symbolic indicators. In student education, it is prestige that is usually chosen, which has little or nothing to do with quality. In short, so far from being an indicator of quality, price in higher education is a substitute for it. Reports already suggest that universities aiming to charge the maximum £9,000 under the new regime would be requiring A* A-levels from all applicants from next year – high selectivity to justify high prices, without any educational justification.
Moving on, it seems clear that both the committee and the government believe that the main obstacle to raising quality is the lack of incentives. What is in effect a voucher system of funding is meant to remedy this. Yet nearly everyone who has studied it agrees that the main threat to the quality of UK higher education has been the prolonged underfunding of the system, and especially the unfunded expansion of the mid-80s to early 90s. This began to be corrected after 2001 and especially after 2006. Yet neither the Browne report nor the spending review contained any projections for the share of GDP that student education will represent in future years, or the future planned unit of funding.
At the moment, the issue is shortage of places, and last week's Ucas figures confirm a surge in applications for 2011. This may lead more universities to charge £9,000. However, the government asserts that this will be a minority, and that most will charge the "threshold" £6,000 (all these figures are not based on any research, by the way). Just as in 2004, the government would like to see real price competition, since otherwise the projected market "benefits" will not occur. Yet if institutions do charge different amounts, and especially if these differences are significant, this will be bound to lead to a two-tier system.
Finally, the new regime poses a clear threat to quality assurance. Hitherto the UK, like most other countries, has relied on self-regulation as the main means of protecting quality, with subsidiary roles for the state and the government. Although this has come under increasing pressure from market forces, in general it has served us well. But we now face an increase in both state and market regulation, which will almost certainly increase compliance costs without any corresponding gains in quality.
A market-based regime, anyone?
The Manchester College faces investigation after whistleblower allegations over prison education at Reading Young Offenders Institution
The country's biggest FE college and main provider of prison education is facing an investigation by the Skills Funding Agency (SFA) over a whistleblower's allegations into the way it runs its contract with Reading Young Offenders Institution, with claims that overpayments of public money are regularly being made.
The skills minister, John Hayes, passed on the information to the SFA, which will now look into the allegations.
Concerns about how The Manchester College (TMC) manages offender learning were first brought to Rob Wilson, Conservative MP for Reading East. Wilson says he was so disturbed by these that he sought meetings with Hayes and with the prisons minister, Crispin Blunt.
The SFA investigation, revealed by Hayes's office last week, follows a report by the Independent Monitoring Board in June 2010 in which it described the standards of education offered at Reading YOI by TMC as "unacceptable".
Wilson's source alleges that inaccurate paperwork may have led to overpayment by the SFA, through which government money is channelled into further education. For instance, it is alleged that classes described as not running because of "prison restrictions" in fact did not take place because TMC had not provided a tutor.
TMC denies any wrong-doing. It says that "all claims for payment have only been made for hours delivered on an actual basis".
"When the college undertook a recent internal audit, a 12-hour under-claim was identified," a spokeswoman said.
The whistleblower also alleges that of 14 "diagnostic topics" such as punctuation and spelling that TMC is paid to complete with inmates, "in many cases only a few are attempted". The whistleblower told Wilson that "[claims] sheets were signed off with only one topic attempted" and that a prison filing cabinet "was full of uncompleted sheets".
But TMC insists nothing improper has occurred and that its diagnostic testing "is funded on an actual delivery hours basis".
Shortly before Christmas, Wilson showed Hayes documents relating to the allegations. Wilson told Education Guardian he considered the papers to contain "strong and informed intelligence". "The reliability of the whistleblower and the documentation that person had access to make me believe it is probably very sound information," he says.
Among other matters raised by Wilson with Hayes was an instance where a prisoner meant to be receiving instruction was instead found in a room playing draughts alone, and the teacher reading a book.
TMC was "not aware of this". "Inherited historical practice allowed games in classes and the college has addressed this," the spokeswoman said.
TMC was awarded the Reading YOI contract by the Offender Learning and Skills Service (Olass) in August 2009. But, said the Independent Monitoring Board, "it appears no proper consideration was given ... to the capability and management span of control of TMC. Despite being awarded further substantial additional funds … TMC still failed ... to deliver an acceptable level of educational services."
The college says it inherited too few teaching staff to deliver everything expected of it, but by November last year was meeting its obligations in full. It adds that a meeting is due this month with IMB "to explore the factual accuracy of its report".
On acquiring new Olass contracts in August 2009, says the college, "it quickly became clear that there were unforeseen hidden costs that could not have reasonably been anticipated at the time of tendering, and that there was a need to save £5m from the budget, of which £2.467m related to the south-east". The former Learning and Skills Council, which used to fund further education, confirmed that there was evidence to support the college's claim.
Additional pressures had influenced the current changes, the TMC spokeswoman said. "Funding levels have remained frozen for four years whilst service requirements have increased. The college undertook a restructuring exercise, during which staff recruitment could not reasonably take place."
An Ofsted inspection into provision at Reading YOI in June 2009, two months before TMC took over, rated overall provision as grade 3 – satisfactory – describing achievement and standards as good. According to the IMB report, data showed that during July 2009, the last full month in which prison education was run by Milton Keynes College, 1,312 inmates attended classes. By March 2010, this had fallen to 641. TMC told Education Guardian: "This data is unfamiliar to the college as it does not correlate to any delivery hours, learner numbers or learner hours."
The IMB also reported "poor levels of support by TMC to … local management"; and actual manning at approximately 50% of that of the previous provider. Minimal focus on retention led to "low morale and high sickness levels within the staff" and the curriculum was in "a state of flux irrespective of manning levels".
The Manchester College says it has conducted a curriculum review resulting in "changes … essential to meet requirements of the Olass agenda … a focus on skills training … thereby contributing to the government's strategy of reducing re-offending".
"We now have an appropriate needs/employer-based curriculum with a suitably developed workforce," says the spokeswoman. "During this structural change, staffing levels were maintained and, more recently, a recruitment campaign for appropriately skilled staff has been implemented."
In November last year Hayes agreed that significant improvements had been made. In a letter to Wilson, he wrote: "I am assured that more effective partnership working with the governor and his team has led to an improved service at the prison (TMC delivered almost 96% of its profiled learning activity in October, for example)."
Meanwhile, Gavin Williamson, Conservative MP for South Staffordshire, has raised concerns with Hayes about prison education standards at HMP and YOI Brinsford, near Wolverhampton, also run by The Manchester College.
John Bunyard, a former part-time maths lecturer at Brinsford, told Williamson that his class time had suddenly been increased from one-and-a-half to three hours under TMC management. "I refused to teach under these conditions," he says. "To have prisoners in a numeracy class for three hours was likely to harm relationships with them and was potentially dangerous. On the one occasion when I had been given a three-hour session, students became very disruptive and there was a possibility of violence."
TMC's spokeswoman said the college had "inherited activity with no risk assessments or safe systems of work", but since taking over in August 2009 had implemented these. Some three-hour sessions were inherited from the previous provider, but TMC had introduced a new timetable with sessions of 1.5 hours.
Bunyard says he was told his numeracy class could swap mid-session with the literacy class. "On several occasions when staff were not available to teach the literacy classes, I was faced with teaching for three hours with one group and, after talking to the education managers on duty at the time, I went home. As a consequence, I was dismissed. After attending a disciplinary hearing … I was judged to have broken my contract – although I had not seen a written contract."
Education Guardian has seen comments from another former Brinsford lecturer written last summer, who confirmed Bunyard's claim that teachers were expected to remain with student prisoners for three hours if another teacher was absent.
Williamson has told Education Guardian that he hopes to secure a House of Commons adjournment debate to air his concerns. He also questions whether TMC "has delivered to the contract they signed up to" and said he felt that staff had been treated "incredibly shoddily".
The TMC spokeswoman says: "The college inherited a poor, underperforming service. It has implemented significant structural change to drive the service forward." New arrangements on pay, hours and leave were designed "to meet learner needs, improve quality of provision and minimise potential redundancies".
Forget the debate about whether charitable funds should replace government – there are college students in need of cash now, says Iain Mackinnon
I must admit to being in two minds about the green paper on "giving", which Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude published between Christmas and New Year. It was very clear to me even under the last government that public funds would never be sufficient to do everything our college could and should do, and I am just as clear that colleges should be doing everything we can to fill the gap in other ways – including from philanthropic giving. It's just that I'm not entirely comfortable having the government on my side – because giving its support to philanthropy at a time of public sector cuts might accidentally damage the cause.
The debate about where government action ends and charity begins goes back at least to the advent of the welfare state, and many readers will want to remind Francis Maude that charitable giving is no substitute for sufficient state funding of vital public services. Though Maude says clearly "this is not about providing public services on the cheap", to quote Mandy Rice Davies many years ago, "he would say that, wouldn't he?".
I don't want a promising initiative to get sucked into a routine argument about government cuts. My interest as a college governor is to help students who will not otherwise get helped. No one should be in any doubt that for all the earnest commitment to education from all three parties, there are people today who are missing out on a college education who would benefit from one. We could, for example, teach many more people English who want to learn, and there are far more unemployed adults keen to re-train than get the funds to do so. Money is by no means the answer to every problem, but it is important in addressing many of them. And it must be additional to what we get from the state, not a substitute for it.
What we need is a careful alliance between modest government incentive and a serious commitment by colleges to attracting philanthropic funds. Our universities benefit from a matched funding initiative for philanthropic giving: let's have the same for colleges.
When he was Labour's Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills, John Denham said: "I strongly believe that private individuals who have benefited from a university education, and who want to give something back later in life, should be encouraged to do so." The three-year matched funding scheme, which he launched in August 2008, was designed to help universities to make the most of this private philanthropy, with a total of £200m available to match donations.
It is clearly working and most universities have enthusiastically taken up the opportunity. Private giving to universities, from alumni and from business, raised no less than £532m in 2008-09: a hugely valuable contribution when funds are tight. It's a figure certain to grow.
We're a long way behind in further education colleges: I estimate that the equivalent figure for colleges is currently less than £1m a year, and very few make much effort to keep in touch with their alumni. But, most importantly, we are not starting from scratch: there are some great examples to inspire us.
Plumpton College in Sussex, for example, which has an international reputation for its wine-related training, was recently given £70,000 for research. Bournemouth and Poole College has raised over £1m in the last 15 years, from a wide range of supporters. The City Lit, London's most illustrious adult education college, raises tens of thousands every year, mostly from alumni, which it uses to help students with their fees. There must be many more examples to be dug out and shared.
Others may want to debate whether it is right for charitable funds to do what government will not, but college governors and managers should allow ourselves no such indulgence. There are people hurting now and we have a duty to do what we can to help them. Though fundraising is, today, a tiny part of the income of colleges, I am certain that it not only can, but should, become a major source of income for us, as it has for most universities in the UK.
• Iain Mackinnon is a governor of Ealing, Hammersmith and West London College and former chair of the governing body
Schools system, teenage girls and higher education
Your article sums it up. In many schools, underachievement is the norm for the poorest. Disadvantaged students have been, and continue to be, screwed. Harsh decisions are necessary. The private sector, selection and streaming, which may work for the few, cannot be at the expense of the many. We owe it to all our young people to provide an education that endorses equality.
Ann Moore
Stocksfield, Northumberland
• Rhonda Evans's article is salutary. In England, over the last 20 years, governments have pursued a highly eccentric policy approach. It is based on a search for the presumed Holy Grail of a free-for-all, stand-alone model of schooling similar to that of the elite private school sector and it attempts to destroy any vestiges of a co-ordinated system. This is inappropriate to publicly funded provision and has not brought success in international comparisons. Instead of abandoning this failed approach, the government is reinforcing it.
Ron Glatter
Emeritus professor, the Open University
Boxmoor, Hemel Hempstead, Herts
• While Alberta is pleased with its performance in international tests, we are not stuck on innovations made decades ago. Alberta is introducing a new school act this spring and has initiated an "informed transformation" of its education system because we are convinced that we cannot stand still. What is important is not to park one's brain and hold on to cherished management practices, but to carefully listen to parents and communities, consider the needs of children and to continuously improve.
Edmontonparent via EducationGuardian.co.uk
• Make state schools so good that private schools go out of business, or become part of the state system? That is definitely a good role model for England. Shame that Gove wants to do the opposite: privatise schools in the name of "freedom".
Decimal via EducationGuardian.co.uk
The only rule when raising teenagers is to pick fights with them only about things that will keep them safe. Piercings are temporary, no more important than how a girl wears her hair. As for searching their bags ... Er, just "no".
JClaire via EducationGuardian.co.uk
• If your child is under 18 they aren't allowed a tattoo by law, and if they're over 18 they can do what they want. And the "imagine what you'll look like at 40" argument is just not effective. When I was 17, I didn't expect to live that long.
Toadjuggler via EducationGuardian.co.uk
• By the time I left home my mum had more piercings than me plus two tattoos. Somehow I don't think the advice given would have been helpful for us.
gembird via EducationGuardian.co.uk
Jol Miskin, Sheffield
Worried about the crush for a place at university? As UK degrees become more expensive and places hard to get, more students are applying abroad as a back-up
Universities minister David Willetts admitted he wasn't surprised by official Ucas figures showing that thousands more students have applied to start university this autumn. Applications are up as students try to avoid the tuition fee rise that will see some courses cost £27,000 from 2012, and because thousands missed out on places last year. But the government might be more concerned about another growing trend in higher education: early signs indicate that thousands of sixth-formers are considering opting out of the UK system completely, and applying for what they see as a cheaper, better-funded degree from universities in the rest of Europe and the US.
Take Tom King, 17, an A-level student at Stourport sixth-form centre in Worcester. Until this summer, he had planned to apply to study politics at UK universities including the London School of Economics, York and City University London. But as news of tuition fee increases and funding cuts was released, he broadened his horizons. "I read about Dutch universities appealing to British students," King explains, "and found that universities in Holland have fees of ... a third of those here [even before the fees rise to a maximum £9,000 a year].
"I am willing to pay to go to university, but the fact that tuition fees are much lower makes universities overseas very attractive. And I think the fact that the government is making cuts to universities next year will cause severe difficulties and probably leave some of our universities less well funded than those abroad."
Now, as well as applying to UK universities, King is applying to read international relations at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. He believes recruiters will be just as impressed by a Dutch qualification. "I think employers will see the value of me having studied abroad and the different experiences and skills I would bring to a job," he says. "I think that learning Dutch, as I would hope to do, would make me a desirable employee."
King is not alone. As students in the UK press the "send" button on their Ucas forms ahead of Saturday's deadline, many are remembering the 209,000 wannabe undergraduates who missed out entirely on a university place last year, and are applying to overseas institutions as a back-up. European and US universities report soaring levels of interest from British students. According to the Fulbright Commission, which helps to co-ordinate transatlantic study, more than 4,000 students and parents attended its US college information day in September – 50% more than the same time last year. Traffic from the UK on the Fulbrightwebsite on how to apply to US campuses is 30% higher than it was last year.
It's tougher to obtain figures for study in European universities as applications tend to go in later. But individual institutions are reporting far more interest from the UK. At Maastricht University in Holland, for example, where fees are €1,672 a year (£1,500) for under-30s, admissions tutors report double the number of applications from UK students this year. Although applications for its earliest courses don't close until May, more than 100 British students have already applied for its English-language degrees in subjects including European law, IT, life sciences and econometrics. The umbrella body for Denmark's universities said it had also noted a "slight increase" in the number of degree students from the UK.
"British students and parents are feeling the squeeze between rising tuition and budget cuts at UK universities," says Lauren Welch, of the Fulbright Commission. "Students are going to study where they can get the most bang for their buck. More students are throwing their hats into the ring in other countries to increase their chances of having at least one offer come next summer."
Polina Borisova, 18, who is in year 13 studying five A-levels at Presdales school, a comprehensive in Hertfordshire, is doing just that. She is applying to study physics at Yale, Harvard, Columbia and MIT in the US as well as UK universities because, she says, she is worried about the impact of cost-cutting on universities here. "I always wanted to study physics, and last summer arranged work experience on a research project at the University of Hertfordshire," says Borisova. "I knew the science budget was being cut by as much as £600m, and the professors and PhD students I worked with supported my plans to go to the US to study science. Science seems to be one of President Obama's top priorities – a lot of research institutions are enjoying funding increases."
Borisova believes the cost difference may not be significant. "Whilst a US education is expensive, the UK is catching up," she says. "There's no point in staying here, paying as much money as in the US, but getting poor facilities and fewer opportunities. The tuition fees rise in the UK removed any doubts I had about applying abroad. I'm asking for financial aid at all the US universities, and at, say, Harvard the financial aid I could expect to receive is about $40,000 (£25,500) a year. The fees are about $50,000 so I'd still end up having to pay $10,000 (£6,400), but I think that would work out cheaper than paying the new rates in the UK."
The students all point out that the financial benefits may go beyond cheaper fees. When King visited Netherlands universities' open days, English students already studying there told him about state grants paid to students needing paid jobs for more than a certain number of hours per week. "I may also qualify for very generous international student grants," he adds, "including a monthly allowance of €1,000."
Many employers approve of students' flight overseas, says Carl Gilleard, chief executive of the Association of Graduate Recruiters. "It takes plenty of self-confidence, determination and motivation to pursue your higher education overseas. I can't see it doing anything but good to career prospects."
Applying to foreign universities usually means extra leg work, including multiple applications as well as Ucas for European institutions (although deadlines tend to be spread out later in the year). For US universities, applications are even more demanding, often requiring several essays as well as admissions exams generally taken in year 13. King says he felt the disadvantage is "not having the expert guidance on the application system the school is able to provide with Ucas."
But it's not just undergraduates considering study overseas. Cai Weaver, 24, is in his final year of a politics degree at Aberystwyth University. "I was searching for master's courses in the UK, and was shocked by the prices," he says. "For master's courses the only funding available is a career development loan (CDL) of up to £10,000." Weaver's top-choice degree in the UK, diplomacy studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, charges fees of £12,810.
"Postgraduate education here seems to be for the privileged," he says. "I don't see the point of applying to UK institutions when they are underfunded, and the fees are too high for the amount of contact time and the standards of education." Instead, Weaver is applying for master's courses at universities in Finland and Sweden. "There are no tuition fees at all, which means I could use the CDL for money to live on," he says. "The future for higher education in the UK is bleak. Most of my friends are in the same boat with their postgraduate education – looking at foreign universities because they are cheaper and better funded."
The experience of being a novice boxer in a gym in Chicago encouraged a French sociologist to punch out a book
Loic Wacquant, perhaps the only French sociologist who spent at least three years in the Woodlawn Gym in Chicago, Illinois, boxing with both amateurs and professionals, emerged from the experience strong, spry and of a mind to punch out some books and papers.
Wacquant is now a researcher at the Centre de Sociologie Européenne in Paris, and a professor of sociology at the University of California at Berkeley.
His book, Body Soul: Notebooks of an Apprentice Boxer, published in 2003 by Oxford University Press, serves up more than 200 pages of detail. Wacquant writes that, prior to entering "a boxing gym in a neighbourhood of Chicago's black ghetto, I had never practised that sport or even considered trying it. I thus found myself in the situation of the perfect novice". That was in 1988.
Three to six sessions a week he trained – shadowboxing, working the speed bag, sparring – and eventually fought in a Golden Gloves tournament. "I even thought for a while of aborting my academic career to 'turn pro'," he writes, "and thereby remain with my friends from the gym and its coach, DeeDee Armour, who had become a second father for me."
The book grew in part from a paper Wacquant scribbled during his first summer there, "when getting my nose broken during a sparring session had forced me into a period of inactivity propicious to a reflexive return on my novitiate in progress".
We get analysis, but best of all we get a fist/hand account of the action: "Jabs from me, blocked by his fists, versus jabs from him, blocked by my nose. I'm better able to see his punches coming, but I still don't move fast enough. He lands another punch on my face, a right that makes my headgear turn sideways. DeeDee growls 'Move yo' head, Louie!' I'm trying!"
A second book, to be called The Passion of the Pugilist, will, Wacquant says, address "the dialectic of desire and domination in the social genesis of the boxer's vocation", "the work of the trainer as virile mothering", "confrontation in the ring as a homoerotic ritual of masculinisation", and other topics that did not fit or had not matured in time to go into Body Soul.
But one needn't entirely wait. Waquant has published monographs galore. The titles, like the text, are sweaty admixtures of sociologicalese and pulp non-fiction. Among his more hard-hitting papers one finds A Fleshpeddler at Work: Power, Pain, and Profit in the Prizefighting Economy and Pugs at Work: Bodily Capital and Bodily Labour Among Professional Boxers.
A paper called Whores, Slaves, And Stallions – Languages Of Exploitation And Accommodation Among Prizefighters, in the journal Body and Society, hard-boils down to this:
"The boxer's experience of corporeal exploitation is expressed in three kindred idioms ... The first likens the fighter-manager combo to the prostitute-pimp duet; the second depicts the ring as a plantation and promoters as latter-day slave masters; the third intimates that boxers are used in the manner of livestock".
• Marc Abrahams is editor of the bimonthly Annals of Improbable Research and organiser of the Ig Nobel prize
• The original picture used to illustrate this article was removed on 12 January as it had been captioned wrongly and was not relevant.
Funding cuts in state schools mean pupils will miss out on the best IT equipment
At an age when most children are learning how to hold a pencil, a class of five-year-olds at a school in Scotland are practising writing the numbers one to 10 on their iPads. The Cedar school of excellence in Greenock, an independent school, is thought to be the first in the world where all lessons are taught using iPads.
It is one of a growing number of independent schools and academies that are spending many thousands of pounds kitting their pupils out with mobile technology such as iPads and iPod Touches.
But as teachers eye up all the latest gadgets at the Bett technology show at Olympia in London this week, those in state schools may feel like the poor relations. Technology, one of the most expensive areas in schools, has been among the first affected by coalition austerity. One of Michael Gove's first acts as education secretary was to abolish Becta, the government's IT advisory body, and cut by £100m the Harnessing Technology grant, designed to help schools to pay for broadband connectivity and computer hardware.
In addition, schools are losing out through the scrapping of the Building Schools for the Future programme, which as well as investing in school buildings, also funded IT equipment.
Last month, the e-Learning Foundation, a charity, warned that two million children in Britain have no internet connection at home and said it feared the gap between rich and poor pupils' performance at school would widen.
The specialist schools programme is being abolished and, from April, dedicated funding for specialist technology schools will end and the funding will go into a central pot for all state secondary schools. Under Labour, specialist schools got around £130 extra per pupil per year.
Davison CE high school for girls in Worthing, Sussex, is one of these. As a specialist technology school, it had planned to run an e-learning programme in September, where all its year 9 pupils would use iPads across the curriculum. However, due to the cuts, it has had to abandon the project. "We wanted all our year 9 pupils to use iPads in their lessons and were researching how to create a network platform to support this device. It has been a difficult decision, but with some of our funding clawed back, we have had to mothball the project," says Andrew McDonald-Bowyer, deputy headteacher at the school.
McDonald-Bowyer believes using the iPad across the curriculum would have been extremely beneficial. "You only have to be in a classroom when you ask pupils to do a creative task. If they are doing it on a computer or laptop, they are far more engaged. Having a device like this, which you have to admit is quite cool, would really get them engaged. I am saddened that we are not going to be able to get the iPads," he says.
McDonald-Bowyer calls it "sad that we have technology constantly changing and evolving and yet the opportunities to take risks with IT are diminishing. I can see us going backwards and not even having the resources to do what we did in the past."
The school had been hoping to pay for the iPads with money from its budget and with parental contributions, after three-quarters of parents said they would be willing to take part in a two-year payment scheme.
As funding is cut, a growing number of schools are going down this route and asking parents to subsidise IT equipment. But this is an issue that polarises schools.
Pete Spencer, headteacher of Coedcae school in Llanelli, Wales, flatly opposes it. "It is not an avenue that would work for us. Things like that are OK in affluent areas, but what would we do about those children whose parents couldn't afford £10 a month? It would create a two-tier system in the school," he says.
Russell Hobby, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, also feels uneasy about it and sees it widening the gulf between the haves and the have nots. "Not every parent can afford it. The people who already have a lot will be able to afford it and their children will benefit and the people from disadvantaged backgrounds will go without," he says.
However, for Valerie Thompson, chief executive of the e-Learning Foundation, this is the only way forward.
Her charity helps schools in deprived areas to set up e-learning programmes to ensure all children have access to a computer and the internet at home as well as at school. To make it sustainable, parents are asked to make small donations.
She says: "I accept a lot of families can't afford £10 a month, but a lot can and do. Fifteen per cent of children in the UK are eligible for free schools meals, which means their parents are on less than £16,190.
"So, 85% of children have parents who are on more and can afford to pay. We are scrupulous in making sure that children whose parents can't afford to contribute can still take part in the programme."
She admits there are schools that do not do this and where there is a two-tier system in operation, but says for the most part this does not happen.
Her charity has also not been immune to the cuts, losing three quarters of a million pounds in government funding in August, which would have helped to provide computers for around 7,000 children.
One of the problems is that it is very difficult to show how positive the impact of IT is on a school.
Some schools point to improved GCSE results. Fraser Speirs, head of computing and IT at the 105-pupil Cedar school, where every child has an iPad, has found "iPad-based teaching is producing increased levels of engagement both in class and with homework and study at home".
The iPads are working particularly well with the youngest pupils in the school. "They pick it up and very quickly learn how to use it. They use it for things like phonics and it helps them with focusing and concentration. They spend more time doing tasks on an iPad than if they are using pencil and paper," says Speirs.
At Coedcae school, Spencer has bought two iPads for the school library and has been using them mainly as electronic books to encourage boys to read more.
"It is good to have something that they haven't got at home. But only two iPads among 1,100 pupils is not a very good ratio," he says.
He worries that with the funding cuts, children at "ordinary" state schools could miss out and says: "Sadly, I think the best we can achieve in a time when technology is becoming more impressive is to stand still. That is quite depressing."
Having new technology in schools is crucial, according to Brian Lightman, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), "as that is what they are going to be using in life".
He is increasingly concerned about the coalition government's commitment to IT and says: "Keeping up with technology is so important, and it is one of the areas where the coalition government has had very little to say."
Hobby voices similar concerns and says: "We have made great gains in technology in state schools over the last decade, but this government just doesn't seem to see the importance of technology.
"At the moment, mobile phones are seen by the government as a discipline problem, but for some schools they can be a learning opportunity. The government seems to be seeing technology as a problem, not a solution."
As we look ahead to a tough financial year in 2011-12, JISC's annual conference in Liverpool is now open for registration with a packed programme on the theme of 'financial challenges, digital opportunities’.
The conference on Monday 14 and Tuesday 15 March 2011 will focus on how digital technologies can bring cost and efficiency savings to universities and colleges.
Vice chancellor of the University of Bristol, Professor Eric Thomas, will be delivering the opening keynote speech ahead of his appointment as president of UUK in August.
JISC EMBEDDED OBJECT
Alternative YouTube Version (Duration: 2.35)
Delegates can participate in a new preview afternoon of mini interactive workshops to get even more from the experience.
Professor Thomas' keynote will be followed by sessions combining strategic guidance on areas like digital literacy and shared services with more hands-on advice on topics like improving research management and student assessment.
There will be networking opportunities throughout the day and delegates can visit exhibition stands to find out how to make the most of JISC's own services and other organisations back in their home institution.Event tag - jisc11
Over 950 people from the UK and around the world watched the 2010 conference keynotes in London streamed live over the internet. For those following the conference online in 2011, there'll be the added chance to interact live via the dedicated Twitter feed and live microblogging, as well as the usual opportunity to see the keynote speaker and selected sessions.
Join the debate using the hashtag #jisc11
Register for the conference now
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Why are more and more straight men locking lips in public – and does it mean the end of homophobia?
When two students asked Eric Anderson, a sociology lecturer at Bath University's department of education, if he had heard of the game "gay chicken", he shook his head. "I had no clue what it was," he says. "So they showed me." The students – both men – went in to kiss each other.
"The challenge was that whoever pulled out first was the loser," Anderson explains. "But because men are no longer afraid of this, they ended up kissing." Anderson was inspired to carry out a new research project.
Growing up in the US, Anderson did his PhD on "the intersection of sport, masculinities and declining homophobia" after coming out at 25.
His research subjects caught the interest of students at Bath, hence the question about "gay chicken". Anderson discovered that the game had almost died out in the UK in the last few years "because nobody ever loses", and began to consider heterosexual university students' views of kissing other men. "I started going through my students' Facebook profiles, with their permission, and was inundated with hundreds of photos of men kissing on their nights out," Anderson reports.
He was intrigued, and decided to investigate further via formal research. He interviewed 145 students, a mixture of men studying sports-related subjects and every third man who left the library on a particular day, from two different universities, plus other male students from a sixth-form college. The results of his survey showed 89% of the polled men saying they were happy to kiss another man on the lips through friendship. And almost 40% added that they had engaged in "sustained kissing, initially for shock value, but now just for 'a laugh'."
"I started telling people about it, but found that a lot of academics literally did not believe me," Anderson explains. "One professor excused it as 'something in the water at Bath' – even though the research covered three different educational establishments. Others flatly told me that they did not believe me. From their 'adult' perspective, this action was unfathomable. They have been stamped with attitudes of acceptable behaviour as a part of their entry into adulthood, and kissing was not permitted between men when they were young. So although they had not been in students' clubs or pubs in 20 or more years, they assumed that nothing had changed. This is known as human plasticity theory; people are stamped with a belief system that they cannot easily shake."
In contrast, Anderson, 43, now believes homophobia is dying out on university campuses, and says attitudes to male kissing reflect that. "Sexual minorities have made tremendous cultural and legal improvements towards equality – the media is saturated with images of sexual minorities, and homosexuality is almost normalised today," he says. "This is particularly true of youth. Young people have disassociated themselves from homophobia the way they once did from racism.
"This is not to say that all youth are gay-friendly, but there's an awareness that anybody can be gay without the homohysteria – where men try to act in sexist, hyper-macho and homophobic ways to prove they are not gay – that used to exist. Young men are becoming softer and more inclusive."
Anderson says men are now kissing each other to show their "intimacy towards one another", but not in a homosexual way. "The kisses seem to be stripped of sexual connotation, and given the percentage of men doing them, they certainly do not indicate a hidden homosexual desire."
The trend, he adds, is not just in a few UK universities or even limited to Britain. "I've interviewed graduate students who did their bachelor degrees at other universities, and been to undergraduate clubs and pubs from Bristol to Birmingham to Edinburgh – I can definitively say that although the percentages might vary depending on the city, the class and the racial background, these kissing behaviours are happening all over the country. I have also found it occurring in a fifth of the 60 university soccer players I interviewed in the US, and have a friend who is beginning formal research into male kissing in Australia after recording it there."
The soaring popularity of male kissing is, Anderson believes, partly thanks to the behaviour of professional sportsmen, especially top football players. "That has been mimicked by footballers at lower levels – a kiss in a moment of sporting glory. When these men brought it into the pubs, their kisses made it OK for other men to do the same. The knock-on effect is that gay men can now kiss in student spaces as well." He believes that his findings indicate that the UK is "near the end of homophobia being acceptable for youth in the UK".
He explains: "You would be gravely mistaken to think that most youth are homophobic. Kids are coming out earlier and earlier – contact theory works: we all have gay friends and family members today. Homophobia is in rapid retreat – it's just not the issue it was when I was a kid."
He expects "many academics and executives will shake their heads at that statement". "When I say that homophobia is in retreat, people often point to one case and think every gay person is oppressed," he says. "One academic said to me last year, 'what about Matthew Sheppard?' [a gay American student who was beaten to death in 2001]. I replied, that was 6,000 miles away, and 11 years ago. We're very good at holding one case of bullying up as a belief that this is the common experience, but the common experience for gay kids is that they are treated just fine."
Anderson is now moving his research on to cuddling. "Last week, I was talking to my second-year students about two straight men cuddling; they laughed, 'what's the big deal about that'," he says. "I polled them, and found that 14/15 said they had spooned another man, in bed, sleeping all night long. Gone are the days in which men would rather sleep on the floor or head to toe; not only do they share beds and cuddle, but they are not homosexualised for this."
Imposing the version of schooling you experienced decades ago onto 21st-century children is a recipe for disaster, argues Phil Beadle
I've got a great new game to pass the dark, cold hours of wintry travel between cold home and colder school: it's called "fantasy education secretary". The rules are simple: you imagine yourself looking a little like Noddy on acid, and invent a series of education policies deliberately designed to destroy any chance of the education of children ever being a responsibility of the state again.
I've been playing it for about the same time as the current secretary of state, and have come up with a few pearlers. They're a little inchoate as a whole, but if you take them on a case-for-case basis, I think there's a fair argument to be made for each one.
First, under the new regime, which I've based on my own schooling, I've decided that all schools will have a genuinely comprehensive intake, so that the sons of accountants can receive their education alongside the sons of lorry drivers. However, the moment they enter the building, any notion of equality of opportunity conferred by the word "comprehensive" will be made purely cosmetic by the pupils being streamed, so that they never mix for "academic" subjects. In a school big enough to have an eight-form entry, we'll give each class a letter from A through to H, so that the top set may call themselves the A stream, the remedials may spend their time learning how to pronounce their class name properly and everyone else will know exactly their place in an immovable hierarchy. (Just like they did in the school I went to.)
The children will remain in these streamed classes for what we'll choose to call the "bac" subjects: English, maths, science, a foreign language (ancient or modern), and a humanity. (I'm still not quite sure what a humanity is, but we'll work that out later). This will ensure that we continue to teach children at least three subjects in which they have absolutely no interest, and which are unlikely to lead to any worthwhile job; as being pointlessly bored in an entirely futile exercise is, as a great man once said, the best training for the mind.
While the children will be properly socially segregated for the "bac" subjects, we'll grudgingly allow a social mix during any lesson of a vocational nature. This will allow a certain social levelling: the middle-class kids won't get to witness the working-class kids' pathetic attempts at declensions or conjugations, but the lower orders will have the chance to laugh at accountants' sons as they enter a losing battle with all manner of lathe, laser level and lump hammer.
Each class will have both an appointed class imbecile and class wreck (who may or may not be the same person – though it was the same person in my class when I was at school). They won't have been elected, but will have been caused by their own hubris to enter an alliance with the most evidently powerful member of the class. The powerful one will appear to give protection, but will openly spit on the shoes of their charge in front of the rest of the class. While doing so, he will give him the same pat on the back that a farmer might give a prize heifer.
We'll exclude anyone who is homosexual, or suspects himself of being so; persecute the ginger; and, in a reversal of the current education secretary's ideas, elevate team sports to a level above academic subjects: getting the younger years to deify the school's star centre-forward's boorishness.
Those who are perceived as physically unattractive will be constantly reminded of this; particularly those with freckles, who will be routinely greeted with cries of, "Hey spotty". And anyone opting to study sociology will be the object of tired satire. Teachers will compulsorily have to wear quasi-amusing braces and be instructed to wear their hair below the collars of their paisley shirts, which, by dictate of the secretary of state, will be of a regulation width. And deputy heads will be appointed on the basis of either their experience or their palpable narcissism.
Vandalism will be an optional subject, as will thievery, and year 10s will enjoy extra-curricular trips to WH Smith, wherein they may learn the beauties of liberating various items of stationery from local shops. Any status among the students of the school that is not dictated by presence in the school's first 11, will be obtained by inventing fictional tales of uncle's gangland connections and through bad impersonations of Terry Venables.
If I were education secretary, these policies would be rushed through before anyone had time to protest. If I were education secretary, we would be forcibly guided back towards a future that was the status quo 30 years ago. And if I were education secretary, I would hope that people would call rapidly for my early resignation, as all I would be doing is imposing the version of schooling I'd experienced generations ago in a south London comp onto 21st-century children, then having them judged on this basis.
As a basis for educational policy, reinstating and making universal your own experience is at best risibly unimaginative; at worst, it's a tissue-thin and profoundly unintelligent means of reinstating the perceived gap in quality between independent and state providers. Schools in Salford and in Canning Town are to be judged against a yardstick that includes their GCSE results in languages. It's clobbering time at the bottom, children.