EDUCATION
UK. 2014: a year of education in numbers
Term has ended and, as 2014 slowly draws to a close, it gives us a chance to look back on the year that was.
As seems to be the norm these days, 2014 was a year of tumultuous change that left teachers and their schools facing a fresh set of obstacles and challenges.
UK. Foreign exchange trips are becoming passé for UK schoolchildren
Budget cuts and safety fears mean only 40 per cent of schools now run programmes.
A report from the National Foundation for Educational Research last year revealed that students in England reached the lowest level of language competence in foreign languages out of 14 European countries surveyed.
Richard Garner, The Independent, 18 November 2014
UK. Will teacher survey reveal secrets of Shanghai’s success?
City’s decision to take part in Talis labelled ‘game changing’. Shanghai has become a byword for educational excellence after topping international education rankings.
But even as politicians vie to replicate its success, little is known about the working lives of the people who make it possible: its teachers.
W. Stewart, TES magazine, 19 December 2014
UK. Cultural confusion costs foreign parents dearly
Misunderstanding of donation system fills private school coffers.P
rivate schools in the UK are at risk of being “corrupted” by large donations from foreign parents who believe that paying more money will provide a better education for their children, it has been claimed.
Rich Russian, Chinese and Kazakh parents are more likely to make sizeable donations to their child’s school in a mistaken belief that this will ensure preferential treatment, a leading education consultant has said.
I. Barker, TES magazine 19 December 2014
PRIMAIRE- SECONDAIRE
UK. 22,000 pupils improve their reading, writing and maths since 2013
Attainment rises and gap between disadvantaged pupils and peers continues to close in primary schools.
Department for Education, Press release, 11 December 2014
UK. Ofsted chief says struggling schools ‘no better off’ under academy control
Sir Michael Wilshaw says trusts and local authorities can neglect schools as inspectors highlight issue of poor behaviour.
Sir Michael Wilshaw, the Ofsted chief inspector, has hit out at a key plank of the government’s education policy, arguing that struggling schools are no better off in academy chains than under local authority control.
Richard Adams and Sally Weale, the guardian, 10 december 2014
UK. Shield staff from Ofsted pressure, headteachers told
Minister laments burden placed on teachers in TES webchat
Headteachers must stop piling more work on teachers in a bid to please Ofsted inspectors, schools minister David Laws warned this week.
Richard Vaughan, TES magazine, 19 December, 2014
UK. Free schools’ failure to attract pupils is creating educational crisis, says Labour
Shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt says four-fifths of free schools opened in 2014 failed to attract enough pupils.
Andrew Johnson, The guardian, 27 December 2014
UK. £1m of public money spent on 21 free schools that have never opened
More than £1m of public money has been spent on free schools that have failed to open, new figures revealed last night. Statistics show that 21 free school projects have been cancelled or withdrawn. One free school closed while another has partially shut because of poor performance.
Jane Merrick , The Independent, Sunday 28 December 2014
UK. 85% of primary school students take up offer of free school meals
Liberal Democrats welcome figures after initiative to provide free dinners to all children regardless of wealth of their parents. The Liberal Democrats have welcomed figures showing that 1.3 million more children are now eating school dinners since the party introduced its flagship free school meals policy in September.
Frances Perraudin, Thursday 18 December 2014
UK. Abolish GCSEs or face talent crisis, warns head of CBI
John Cridland’s end-of-year message focuses on education, EU and spending cuts
GCSEs should be scrapped if the UK is going to properly nurture the business leaders of tomorrow, and an overhaul to the EU is needed for companies to thrive, according to an influential business leader.
Simon Neville, The Independent, 29 December 2014
UK. « Simple and consistent should be our bywords”
As the participation age is raised, we must follow the example of the Netherlands and take a coherent approach to 14-19 education
Louise Evans, TES magazine, 19 December, 2014
SUPERIEUR
UK. The 20 most-read Times Higher Education articles of 2014
We reveal the stories that have topped the THE website’s most-read lists over the past twelve months. For UK higher education, 2014 was the year of the research excellence framework: the year we finally found out who had prospered and who had perished in the jaws of the research assessment behemoth.
Chris Parr, Times Higher Education (THE), 25 December 2014
FR. Classement universités : La France face au rouleau compresseur
A chaque nouveau classement international des universités, la presse commente la faible représentation des établissements français, alors même que leur production en recherche est reconnue au niveau mondial.
Marie-Anne Nourry, L’Etudiant.fr, 5.01.2015
FR. L’Institut Montaigne veut marier les business schools à l’université
Le think tank libéral estime dans un rapport qu’il faut mettre fin au système bicéphale français avec les universités d’un côté et les écoles de commerce de l’autre.
Kira Mitrofanoff, Challenges, 12.11.2014
FR. Ecoles de commerce: les 5 enseignements du palmarès 2014 du Financial Times
Le classement 2014 des business schools d’Europe compte 19 françaises. Il est marqué par la progression des écoles fusionnées Kedge, Neoma et Skema.
HEC perd sa place de leader.
Laure-Emmanuelle Husson , Challenges, 01 décembre 2014
UK. RefME: The new app which could revolutionise student essay bibliographies.
A new app, designed to overcome the time-consuming task of referencing secondary material for essays, is set to top the Christmas wishlist for students following its official launch yesterday.
The free tool, named RefME, uses scanning technology to create essay bibliographies – and has already attracted half a million users across its six-month testing period.
Harriet Bignell , The Independent, 10 December 2014
UK. 79% of students will struggle financially this Christmas
Students are planning to spend an average of £170 this Christmas – with £119 devoted to buying presents and £51 left over for socialising.
Despite acknowledging their financial situation, only 57 per cent of students have been saving cash to tide them over into the New Year.
Harriet Bignell , The Independent, 22 December 2014
UK. Universities need more collaboration, less competition
David Willetts calls for academics to work together during a debate on the REF and the state of higher education
Chris Havergal, THE, 11 December 2014
UK. University funding reform ‘will cause brain drain’ to London
Unfashionable areas of study face funding cuts under new proposals.
Ministers have been warned of a potential “brain drain” of researchers away from smaller universities and a further concentration of talent in London and the south-east if they go ahead with a major funding reform.
Daniel Boffey, The guardian, 21 December 2014
RECHERCHE
UK. Ref 2014: which subjects are producing the best research?
Science departments in UK universities have the highest proportion of excellent research, while health studies come out top for their impact success. The results from Ref 2014 are out, provoking sighs of relief (or despair) from university staff across the country. But amid the flurry to decide which UK institutions have ranked top, we take a closer look at how different subject areas have fared.
Rebecca Ratcliffe, Claire Shaw, The Guardian, 18 December 2014
UK. Rethink reliance on self-funded postgraduates
Plans to raise researcher numbers at risk if study is unaffordable, universities warned. Almost 40 per cent of research students are self-funded, according to data presented at the event. “This is the area that we will probably see shrink in the next few years,” he said, reasoning that students paying to gain a postgraduate research qualification will soon be carrying forward significant undergraduate debt.
Holly Else, THE, 11 December 2014
UK Too many postdocs, not enough research jobs
Fears rise in the US that talented early career scientists are being driven out of the sector because of lack of opportunities. Two separate trends – an increase in the number of graduates with doctoral degrees, and a decline in the number of jobs available for them – have converged to create a glut of postdocs in the US that experts fear could discourage some of America’s brightest young minds from pursuing careers in science.
Sabine Cros, 5 janvier 2015
