The Guardian (Free subscription) | 24/12/2008
Peter Kingston meets the world-renowned Monteverdi Choir to find out about their recently launched apprentice scheme
The Guardian (Free subscription) | 17/12/2008
Lois Osborne still does not know how her son Patrick, 12, performed in his Sats tests this summer. His school in Wells, Somerset, had to wait until the end of October to get the full results for their key stage 2 tests, having been sent another school's marks in the meantime. It asked for four of the papers to be remarked – as it was entitled to – and is awaiting the verdicts. "We cannot officially...
The Guardian (Free subscription) | 16/12/2008
If you went to university 10 years ago, your chances of bumping into someone there from the poorest economic class - or indeed of being such a person yourself - were pretty remote. The records show that the year Labour came to power, barely one in a hundred students in higher education came from social class V. Indeed, 62% of the student body came from social classes I and II. Universities have come...
The Guardian (Free subscription) | 09/12/2008
For years, the nation's sixth-form colleges have claimed to be the best in their field - and now comes official confirmation. Of all types of institution serving the 16-19 group, they appear far and away the most effective, according to research by Ofsted. The verdict comes as the 95 sixth-form colleges (SFCs) across the country are poised to achieve separate legal status for the first time in their...
The Guardian (Free subscription) | 25/11/2008
The bill allowing further education colleges to award their own foundation degrees (FD) faced some turbulence as it passed through the House of Lords a couple of years ago. Some peers with university connections were clearly fearful about what they saw as the thin end of a long wedge that would skewer higher education's jealously guarded monopoly. Now it looks as if their anxieties might have been...
The Guardian (Free subscription) | 09/12/2008
The number of students applying for degrees in engineering and technology has risen by 7% in the last five years. So said the Engineering and Technology Board (ETB) yesterday. And so far, so good. UK plc needs engineers more than ever to, among many other things, secure our supply of energy, boost our production of biofuels, and switch to identity cards. But let's just take a "reality check", one...
