UK News

from FaithWorld:

Excerpts from pope’s London speech to Catholic teachers

Visiting a Catholic school in London on Friday, Pope Benedict said teachers should give their pupils not only marketable skills but also wisdom, which he said was inseparable from knowledge of God. Catholic schools and Catholic religious teachers play an important part in transmitting this wisdom, he said. He also stressed the need to protect pupils from sexual predators.

Following are excerpts from his address to the teachers:

"I am pleased to have this opportunity to pay tribute to the outstanding contribution made by religious men and women in this land to the noble task of education... As you know, the task of a teacher is not simply to impart information or to provide training in skills intended to deliver some economic benefit to society; education is not and must never be considered as purely utilitarian. It is about forming the human person, equipping him or her to live life to the full – in short it is about imparting wisdom. And true wisdom is inseparable from knowledge of the Creator, for "both we and our words are in his hand, as are all understanding and skill in crafts".

"This transcendent dimension of study and teaching was clearly grasped by the monks who contributed so much to the evangelization of these islands ... Since the search for God, which lies at the heart of the monastic vocation, requires active engagement with the means by which he makes himself known – his creation and his revealed word – it was only natural that the monastery should have a library and a school. It was the monks’ dedication to learning as the path on which to encounter the Incarnate Word of God that was to lay the foundations of our Western culture and civilization...

"Many of you belong to teaching orders that have carried the light of the Gospel to far-off lands as part of the Church’s great missionary work, and for this too I give thanks and praise to God. Often you laid the foundations of educational provision long before the State assumed a responsibility for this vital service to the individual and to society. As the relative roles of Church and State in the field of education continue to evolve, never forget that religious have a unique contribution to offer to this apostolate, above all through lives consecrated to God and through faithful, loving witness to Christ, the supreme Teacher."

A view to the future: investing in the young

Interesting to read today of a plan by The Co-operative Group to create more apprenticeships. With public funding for so many areas under threat in Britain’s austerity drive – including skills and education – what will others in the private sector do to ensure Britain has the workforce it needs to compete in the 21st century?

The Co-Op’s plan – which includes a promise to create 2,000 new co-operative apprenticeships, as well as investments in areas such as schooling – is also interesting for the approach it takes to young people.

At an event earlier this month, Steve Bell, Head of Policy for the Communications Workers Union, warned a conference I attended that future tension over austerity cuts “wouldn’t necessarily come from the trade unions” and pointed to the youth riots of the 1980s as a potential indication of what might happen in the UK when public spending cuts start to bite.

The Co-operative, perhaps aware of the potential problems that could be posed by a disaffected ‘lost generation’, is investing 2 million pounds in a programme called Truth About Youth – to challenge what it calls the widespread negative perception of young people.

The question has to be whether other bodies will follow suit. After all, one of the hopes for British growth is that private firms will mop up some of the public sector workers put out of work by government cutbacks, and provide services the government can no longer offer.

But the Co-op is not like other businesses. A mutual, it doesn’t have to answer to shareholders. It shares its profits with its 5 million plus members who drive company policy. Many large listed companies barely even listen to their shareholders, as recent attempts by investors to challenge executive payouts have shown.

Michael Gove’s radical academies plan

The Conservatives’ promise to give parents money to run their own schools won all the headlines ahead of the election. But the coalition’s new education secretary Michael Gove is likely to achieve a far more dramatic shake-up of education in England with his invitation to all schools to apply for academy status, given that parent-run schools are only likely to form, at most, a small part of the overall system.

Academy status means schools opting out of local authority control and becoming independent, but state-funded, institutions.

Originally reserved for the most poorly performing schools, Gove is now extending this privilege as a right to 2,600 top rated primary, secondary and special schools. Other schools can apply for the change, and Gove intends his renamed Department for Education to do all it can to help them.

It turns back the clock on more than 140 years of local political oversight of school education in England, dating back to the Victorian school boards and the local education authorities that replaced them in the opening years of the last century.

John Dunford, head of the Association of School and College Leaders, who has seen regular changes of education policy over the years, believes this time something significant is taking place.

“I think it will come to be seen as one of the most radical pieces of legislation for a generation,” he told me.

Prospective MPs go dating to woo voters

As a group of smartly dressed men and women take their seats, in pairs, at small round tables in the dining room of a converted textile factory in Nottingham city centre, some look nervous, some confident, and others just eager to get started.

But before they can, the rules of “speed dating” must be explained: every 5 minutes one person from each pair will rotate to the next table, until everyone has had a chance to speak to everyone else. A whistle is blown. “Let the first date begin,” cries the host and a hum of conversation quickly fills the basement room.

While there certainly seem to be some attempts at wooing going on, these “daters” have little intention of romance. In fact as I watch, some even appear to try and rile their dates, for half the attendees are prospective parliamentary candidates, hoping to win the Nottingham South seat at a general election expected on May 6, and the other half are voters, seeking to quiz the candidates on their education policies.

This is “political speed dating”, and I wouldn’t be surprised if such events become a more regular occurrence as the campaigning gets under way and politicians seek modern, innovative ways to connect with voters. In an election that is likely to be very tightly fought, such one-on-one interaction, particularly in possible swing or marginal seats, is the kind of opportunity most candidates can’t afford to ignore.

“The speed dating idea was a way of maximising the exposure of candidates to interested panellists in the minimum amount of time,” said Alastair Hunter, President of the University and College Union, who have organised a series of political speed dating events in marginal seats around the country. “The hope is doing it in these kind of constituencies would have a spin off effect.”

With the added pressure of having us prying journalists standing over their tables, listening in to their conversations and shoving our tape recorders and television cameras under their noses as they try to answer questions, I fear the pressure was probably more intense than the nerves induced by a real first date.

“The time is a pressure,” one candidate admits to me afterwards. “You worry you haven’t got across what you wanted to say in the right way in the time given.” The voters certainly seemed quick to cotton on to the fact that, at times, in order to get their next question in, they would have to interrupt the candidates, clearly already adept at the politician’s skill of giving long winded responses without really answering the question.

Is the cost of university too high?

With annual student debt soaring to 5,000 pounds a year, young people face tough prospects, according to a new study by Push, an online resource for students.

New university students should expect to owe 23,500 pounds at graduation, the 2009 Push Student Debt Survey shows.

By contrast, students who started university in 2008 can expect to owe nearly 21,200 pounds at graduation.

Teenagers receiving A-level results on Thursday will be particularly concerned as some sources of income have been drying up while debt rises, Push suggests.

About 80 percent of students rely on part-time or holiday jobs to supplement their income by an average of 2,000 pounds a year, the study says.

With data from the Department for Children, Schools and Families published in the Guardian showing that one in six young people in England aged 18 to 24 are now classified as “neets” — not in education employment or training — the increase in costs for students raises new worries.

A total of 835,000 young people, 100,000 more than this time last year, are classified as neets.

Do top professions favour the rich?

Professions such as law, medicine and journalism have a “closed shop mentality” and are increasingly open only to those from affluent backgrounds, a report into social mobility says.

Former Labour government minister Alan Milburn, who chaired the study on widening access to top professions, said that young people need better career advice to raise their aspirations and give them greater confidence. Mr Milburn told the BBC: “We have raised the glass ceiling but I don’t think we have broken through it yet.

“What we have got to do is open up these opportunities so they are available for everybody.”

The Fair Access to the Professions report also recommended that universities take into account the social background of their intake, criticised internships and work placements as acting as an easy way in for affluent and well-connected young people and called for increased monitoring of the background of those entering certain professions.

What do you think? Are these measures likely to increase social mobility? Is it right to look at a person’s background when considering them for a university place or professional position?

from MacroScope:

What me, British economist?

Time was when a British education had a cachet, especially among Britain's far-flung colonial territories.

But could the prestige of even a Cambridge or Oxford degree be a little dulled in these parlous days for the British economy, now labouring under massive public debt and a decade-high unemployment rate?

That appears to be the case in the former British colony of Singapore, whose rapid economic development since independence in 1965 has seen it accumulate hundreds of billions of dollars in reserves and attain a GDP per capita on par with Italy.

The city-state's newest opposition politician Kenneth Jeyaretnam has complained that the Singapore press -- often accused giving more favorable coverage to the ruling party -- has been referring to him as a "British-trained economist".

Jeyaretnam, like many members of Singapore's political establishment -- including the country's first prime minister and current prime minister -- went to Cambridge.

"I wonder why I have never read in the Singapore press, British-trained mathematician prime minister Lee Hsien Loong or British trained-lawyer, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew," Jeyaretnam said in a speech to the Singapore Foreign Correspondents Association earlier this month.

"Naturally I suspect that the mainstream media want to light up a subliminal marker in the people’s minds that a) I’m a foreigner and b) that my economics is suspiciously left-wing because it’s from a country associated with economic failure and the welfare state."

Prosecuting school queue-jumpers

How big a crime is lying to try and get your child into a good school?

Plenty of parents have tried it by falsely claiming they live in the school’s catchment area or by suddenly getting religion but the worst that happens up till now is that they get found out and their child is turned away.

Now Harrow Council in London wants to go further and prosecute them. It had to withdraw a test case for fraud against the mother of a five-year-old it accused of  lying about her address on the school application form but it wants new powers to enable it to take such parents to court.

“This is not a question of persecuting individuals,” said Council leader David Ashton. “We took the view we should prosecute, because we have to ensure there is a level playing field for all parents.”

Do you believe parents should be hauled before a court simply for wanting the best for their children?

Can you train a teacher in six months?

As the recession closes one door for bankers, another quickly opens.

The government’s latest educational wheeze is to allow teachers to qualify in just six months, half the current one-year time period.

Schools Minister Jim Knight wants to attract “more outstanding people” to the profession and hopes the scheme could help those such as bankers, who were excellent mathematicians and had been made unemployed, switch careers.

Predictably the unions are less keen on the proposal, arguing the truncated training period is too short to prepare new recruits for such a demanding profession.

“I think it demeans the position of people who are teachers at the moment. It doesn’t seem to be a sensible idea at all,” said Christine Blower, acting general secretary of the NUT.

But before signing on the dotted line, ex-bankers interested in taking up the government’s offer might think about taking a trip to the cinema and watch the Palme d’Or winner “The Class”.

Laurent Cantet’s cinematic tour de force portrays a Parisian middle school teacher’s struggles to educate a fiesty group of inner-city kids. If you thought the trading floor was a bear pit…….

Should SATs be scrapped?

Teaching unions have long hated SATs (Standard Assessment Tests) for seven, 11 and 14 year-olds, saying they give children a narrower education than they need because of the widespread practice of “teaching to the tests” in order to gain ground in school league tables.

The publication of national results this week and last has brought renewed calls for their abolition, coming after controversy over delays in the marking of this year’s exams.

The Association of Teachers and Lecturers said this week’s Key Stage 3 results for 14-year-olds were an “irrelevance”.

“No one will be interested in the results when young people apply for a job,” it said.

The Commons Schools Select Committee in May found that teaching to the test was widespread.

“The drive to meet Government-set targets has too often become the goal rather than the means to the end of providing the best possible education for all children,” it said.

The government says the national tests — only conducted in England — and external examinations at 16 are an important aspect of accountability in education. Good schools can focus on literacy and numeracy and take the tests in their stride, it believes.