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How to be a showbusiness reporter - and how to regulate the media. Discuss

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A couple of dates for your diaries, though the events are very different in content...

Do you want to interview a star?

Women In Journalism is staging a discussion about showbusiness reporting chaired by Katie Hind, showbiz editor of The People.

The website blurb announcing the event says:

"Do you turn first to the gossip pages? Is your dream job to write about celebs?

Do you fancy interviewing stars in an LA hotel? Learn from the experts what it's really like to be a showbiz journo. And what are the pros and cons of specialising in this area?"

Evidently, budding journalists may learn what it's like to work in one of tabloid journalism's most competitive arenas.

Other speakers lined up to take part are Nicole Lampert of the Daily Mail, Jane Ennis, editor of Reveal, and Johnathon Hughes, editor of All About Soap

It will take place on 5 October at the Hearst magazines office in London's Soho. Tickets are £10 for WiJ members and £15 for guests. For more details, contact wijuk@aol.com

Where next for media regulation?

City University journalism department is hosting another of its 'speed-debating' events on 1 November: Media regulation - new ideas.

It is a joint enterprise with the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University (RISJ) and is timed to coincide with the launch of a report commissioned by RISJ and City that advances new ideas on press regulation and how these ideas might eventually develop into a longer-term regulatory framework for convergent media.

The main points from the paper, 'Regulating for trust in journalism: Standards regulation in the age of blended media', will be presented by its author, Lara Fielden.

Then the event will focus on the issue of press regulation and begin by interviewing Peta Buscombe, out-going chair of the Press Complaints Commission about her ideas for reform.

Then there will then be a panel discussion with Peter Preston, Lord (Guy) Black, Kelvin MacKenzie and myself.

In a separate section, there will be a look at models of press regulation outside the UK with the chairman of the Australian press council, Julian Disney, and the Irish press ombudsman, John Horgan.

Among others expected to speak will be Eve Salomon of the Internet Watch Foundation, Michael Grade (a current PCC commissioner), Stephen Whittle, John Lloyd, and the irrepressible David Elstein,

It will kick off at 2pm, and end at 5pm, in the Performance Space at City University London. Numbers will be limited. More information will be on this blog when available.


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Cribsheet: 26.09.11

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Has Ed Miliband gone far enough with his offer to cap university tuition fees at £6,000?

Education news from the Guardian

Tuition fees

Ed Miliband has pledged that Labour would cut university tuition fees from £9,000 a year to £6,000 if they win the next election, but the National Union of Students (NUS) has said this might not reduce the overall cost for many of the poorest students.

The fees reduction would cost £800m, which Labour proposes to pay by reversing the recent cut in corporation tax, and by charging graduates earning over £65,000 a higher rate of interest.

The universities minister, David Willetts, described the announcement as a "monumental U-turn":

"Ed Miliband has now accepted that tuition fees should be doubled to £6,000 a year. He has consistently supported a graduate tax and Labour MPs were whipped to vote against higher fees at the end of last year. This monumental U-turn is evidence of weak leadership."

But Miliband told the BBC he endorsed a graduate tax when possible, and he would cut fees further if he could find a way to do so:

"If we can do more by the time of the election [in 2015], we will. But this is an important first step."

Willetts asked if the repayments would be lower for the lowest earning students.

Liam Burns, president of the NUS, said:

"You have to think who this benefits. Because of the 30-year cut-off – in which your debt would be written off under the system being proposed – actually taking the cap down to £6,000 would benefit the richest the most."
The NUS judgment was based on figures which showed that the alteration made no difference for students earning under £35,000. Under a £9,000 or £6,000 cap, students earning under £35,000 would be exempted from paying off the full debt.

Underperforming schools

Liz Sidwell, England's schools commissioner, has identified white working-class communities in coastal areas as a major concern. Sidwell said that attempts to turn around schools in these areas often struggled against a culture in which generations have been out of work and parents have low aspirations. She told Jeevan Vasagar, the Guardian's education editor:

"In particular seaside areas and coastal areas, they don't have the energy – they haven't come from a culture where they've got work, they think there's a more limited range of things they can aspire to.
"You have to open their minds that they can go to the city, they can go abroad. You can't turn around a school without turning around a community."

Reality Check with Polly Curtis

Are primary schools being forced to teach sex education?

The Telegraph and Daily Mail report today that primary schools are being forced to teach sex education by local authorities. Polly Curtis looks for the facts behind the story.

More education news from the Guardian

Poor school Olympics take-up casts fresh doubt on London 2012 legacy

One week before it opens the University of Salford is gearing up to become an 'innovation ecosystem'

Letters: The arresting and detention of student protestor Edd Bauer is an attempt to criminalise peaceful protest and to dissuade other young people from taking part in movements to defend education.

From the Manchester Guardian archive

The first ever issue of the Guardian - which was then the Manchester Guardian - carried a list of schools in Manchester and Salford. It detailed the number of pupils and the average annual spend. The newspaper's aim was to document educational provision. Here's what the Guardian's present day data editor, Simon Rogers, said about it on his datablog:

In today's world of Ofsted reports and education department school rankings, this list would not seem unusual. In 1821, it caused a sensation. Leaked to the Guardian by a credible source only identified as "NH", it showed how official estimates of only 8,000 children receiving free education were inaccurate - in fact the total was nearer 25,000.
The list that the Guardian printed gave a true picture for the first time. NH's reasons for supplying the data were clear: without knowing the state of society, how can things ever get any better? This was using data to help fight for a decent education system.

Simon would very much like to hear from anyone who knows anything about the schools on the 1821 list. Information can be posted on the blog.

Education comment

Don Boyd defends those who choose to study film:

"Studying film is still seen by many as a scam. And yet my granddaughter Tilda makes films on my iPhone. Egyptians changed their political regime with short films posted on the internet. Mike Tindall is compromised on CCTV thousands of miles away from his royal wife. And, of course, all of us can make and upload a film on to YouTube with our mobile phones. Commercials on TV, movies in cinemas, video lectures in the classroom – all examples about how film has progressed spectacularly from being a remote form of industrialised entertainment to become a medium for self-expression available to all; one perhaps as powerful as the spoken and written word."

• Nobody asks a runner or swimmer why they want to be the fastest, but time and time again people question the thirst to know for the sake of knowing. As he takes up his position as the principal of Hertford College, Will Hutton makes a passionate defence of Englightenment principles.

Britain has absent-mindedly acquired – relative to its size – more great universities than anywhere else, with 14 of the world's top 100 universities. It is a national asset that we need to protect and cultivate. Instead, the university world feels beleaguered and undervalued. The popular view of our universities is poisonous: peopled by idle, ivory tower academics who are careless of their students and who only with the greatest of prodding can be induced both to teach and furnish the ideas that industry can commercialise and so drive the economy forward.

In tomorrow's Education Guardian pages

• Newly qualified teachers this year are finding 40% fewer vacancies. Are we simply training too many? Dorothy Lepkowska reports on calls for a moratorium on training to clear the backlog... and talks to unemployed teachers about the misery of the jobsearch.

Estelle Morris calls on the Labour party to make a policy commitment to having an independent watchdog, following Michael Gove's selective use of evidence to back up his "prejudices"

Education news from around the web

• 20% of freshers have never washed their own clothes before and 14% cannot even boil an egg, according to a survey carried out by Sainsbury's Finance which has been written up in The Independent.

• A teacher found embracing a schoolgirl at Dulverton school in Somerset has avoided a prison sentence, the BBC has reported. 49-year-old James Bond admitted that he had kissed the young teenager on previous occasions. The jury was told he also sent her explicit videos, and chatted to her on Facebook. Judge Graham Hume Jones told Bond:

"Girls of that age are flattered by the attention of teachers and also they are to be protected against themselves."

• American school children who are having trouble getting up early are being offered celebrity wake up calls. In October Get Schooled is launching a series of telephone messages from education ambassadors in the pop world. Rap artist Wiz Khalifa; singer, and entrepreneur Nicki Minaj, and Singer, record producer and actor Trey Songz, have all record pep talks.

Minaj's message is: "Good morning students, this is Nicki Minaj, and it's time to get up and get schooled", other callers say: "You've gotta get up to get ahead", and "Showtime, come'on, let's go, let's work, let's work".

From the Guardian's Higher Education Network

Lib Dem conference: will universities face consequences for drop-out rates?

There was conspicuously little talk of higher education from politicians, until Vince Cable suggested high-drop out rates are likely to face scrutiny, says Kim Catcheside

Education seminars from Guardian Professional

The Guardian Teacher Network runs training sessions for teachers throughout the year in Yorkshire and London. Upcoming courses include:

Is your school thinking of becoming an academy?

This seminar will provide an independent view of the advantages and disadvantages of converting to academy status. It will look at the process of conversion, the implications of academy status, and the support and funding available. November 30, in London. February 21, 2012 in Yorkshire

Protecting young people in a digital age

Led by school digital safety experts, this one-day course will provide safeguarding policy and Ofsted criteria updates, as well as looking at social media and offering practical advice to help your school develop its digital safety policies. February 1, 2012 in London. February 8, 2012 in Yorkshire.

For a full list visit the Guardian Teacher Network

Teachers seminars from the Guardian Education Centre

Reading for pleasure – bringing classics to life

This half-day conference for secondary school teachers will explore the use and teaching of classic books from Dickens and beyond. Keynote speakers will be Simon Callow, actor and Dickens enthusiast and Judy Golding, daughter of William Golding, author of Lord of the Flies.

20 October, London

Insight into digital journalism

Spend a day at the Guardian and find out how an international news media organisation works. The seminar will focus on aspects of digital journalism including writing and editing for a news website, the relationship between print and web journalism, live blogging, the use of social media, podcasting and video production.

2 November, Kings Place, London

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University applications: which subjects are up and down?

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More students in the UK are going to university than ever before. Which subjects are the most popular? How have staff numbers changed? Find the latest education figures here
Get the data

More UK students are going to university than ever before, according to the latest Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) figures.

Over 500,000 students started university in 2009/10 with the number of first time degree students increasing steadily year on year since 2006/07. UCAS saw a 8.7% increase in student applications from the previous year.

With rising tuition fees due to be put in place in 2012/13, it's not clear if the jump in applications will continue at the same rate. However university applications on the lead-up to Christmas 2010 did see a surge in numbers.

Despite UCAS applications, acceptances and the number first time full degree students increasing, those starting part-time HE courses dropped in 2009/10 by -2.7%.

Mathematical sciences recorded the biggest percentage increase on the previous year as 26,225 students opted for the subject in 2009/10 - a 26.3% increase on 2005/06.

Business & administrative studies, mass communication & documentation and engineering & technology saw the biggest rises after mathematical sciences for full-time undergraduate students. For post-graduates, both architecture, building & planning and mass communications & documentation reported over 20% increases in subject selection.

The number of part-time staff at HE institutions increased by 3.4% whereas full-time staff increased by a slight 0.4%. The number of part-time staff has grown considerably since 2005/06 - there has been a near 20%, whereas full-time staff have increased by a mere 5.8% over the same period.

HESA have published a range of interesting data looking at student numbers, subject choices, staff and institution incomes across the UK. The latest data is for academic year 2009/10 and shows change on year for certain indicators. The table below shows which subjects full-time and part-time undergraduates and post-graduates have been choosing.

We have compiled a range of the data in our spreadsheet - you can find the latest data on student numbers, staff, leavers, funding and the income for higher education institutions.

What can you do with this data?

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Why brain extraction is not as bad as it sounds

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Research into 'brain extraction' turns out to be about seeing clearly what modern imaging machines are showing, rather than any gory dissection

Scientists marvel at how other scientists – the ones who study something other than what they themselves study – give strange meanings to common words.

Evan Shellshear, at Fraunhofer Chalmers Centre in Gothenburg, sent me an example, a study called Fast Robust Automated Brain Extraction.

Shellshear said: "I stumbled across this article somehow [whilst] looking for optimal code to quickly compute the distance between two triangles in three-dimension space for computer games. It sounds almost like something out of a game itself … After careful reading, [the paper] justifies the initially shocking title."

The author is Stephen M Smith who, back in 2002 when the paper came out, was at the Department of Clinical Neurology at Oxford University's John Radcliffe Hospital, and is now a professor of biomedical engineering.

Certain details might give you the willies, if you are unpractised in the ways and words of Dr Smith's line of research. Especially in this age when zombies are so much in the public mind.

One section of the paper carries the conceivably disturbing headline "Overview of the brain extraction method".

The abstract could plausibly have been written by Dr Phibes or any of a hundred other horror-movie body-part-snatching researchers. It says:

"Brain Extraction Tool (BET)... is very fast … [I give] the results of extensive quantitative testing against 'gold-standard' hand segmentations, and two other popular automated methods."

That phrase "hand segmentations" suggests lots of lengthy, laborious tedium. But in some contexts "hand segmentations" could be a handy euphemism – in a discussion, say, of how to pluck out only the choicest parts of a cadaver's brain after you've smashed open its skull.

Smith acknowledges that doing his deed by hand has one advantage over letting a computer do it: "Manual brain/non-brain segmentation methods are, as a result of the complex information understanding involved, probably more accurate than fully automated methods are ever likely to achieve."

But he explains that, financially, it's better when a computer does the dirty work. "There are serious enough problems with manual segmentation," he warns. "The first problem is time cost. Manual brain/non-brain segmentation typically takes between 15 minutes and two hours."

"Fast Robust Automated Brain Extraction" is not about sucking brains out of people's skulls, alas.

Published in a journal called Human Brain Mapping, it's about perceiving more clearly what's in the pictures produced by modern imaging machines. These magnificent devices give such a profusion of detail that doctors sometimes can't tell where one body part ends and another begins.

Smith explains that in a brain scan, "the high resolution magnetic resonance image will probably contain a considerable amount [of] eyeballs, skin, fat, muscle, etc". The image can become more understandable, more useful "if these non-brain parts of the image can be automatically removed".

Thus a report that gives the heebie-jeebies to some scientists gives, instead, hope and cheer to those who have the specialised brains to appreciate it.


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What it means to be 'un-American'

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The concept of 'un-American' activities has existed almost as long as America. But does anyone know what it means?

Dr George Lewis could have been forgiven for swallowing hard and turning pale when finally given access to the collected files of the House of Un-American Activities Committee during the period 1945 to 1975. "There was 1,245ft of archive material," he recalls. "That's the equivalent of three-and-a-half feet of box files a month every month for 30 years."

The director of American studies at Leicester University has embarked on what he believes to be the first sustained historical analysis of the term "un-American", so he first took a look at HUAC's attempts to define their terms. "I discovered that they were still trying to work out exactly what 'un-American' meant three decades after someone had set up a committee to investigate it."

The term "un-American" goes back a long way – almost to the dawn of the republic, Lewis has discovered. "'It was in use pretty well as soon as the term 'American' was coined," he says. "To be American became an expression of ideology as well as nationalism."

And of course, it's still in use today, particularly by supporters of the Tea Party movement in their critiques of President Barack Obama's healthcare reforms. It was the use of the term by Michele Bachmann – now a declared candidate for the presidency – in 2008 in reference to Barack Obama as "un-American" that convinced Lewis of the need to try to pin down the nebulous concept.

Lewis is two-thirds of the way through a three-year project, supported by £111,000 from the British Academy, which also funded an inter-disciplinary conference at Leicester last week for scholars from both sides of the Atlantic. One of the more intriguing subject headings was When Modern Art Was Un-American.

"There was a big campaign against modern art in California in the 50s," Lewis explains. "On the east coast, meanwhile, there was a move against jazz as un-American. Harlem became the den of un-American filth in the rightwing imagination. Later, there were similar campaigns against rock 'n' roll. One of the things that got me interested in this project is that it's not just a top-down phenomenon. Being 'un-American' influenced rhetoric at every level of society."

For research purposes, Lewis has been witnessing Tea Party rallies at first hand with their placards referring to Obama's "un-American" healthcare programme. "It has become a coded word for them," he says. "If they want to infer that his programme is 'socialised medicine' then that's what it will be taken to mean. If they want to remind people that he's black, then that's what it'll be taken to mean. Ditto: the implication made when they say his second name is Hussein."

Talk-show hosts during the 2008 election, he points out, never asked Obama's Republican opponent, John McCain, about his middle name. "(It's Sidney.)" But then an elderly "President McCain" could have been a heart attack away from handing the keys of the White House to his running mate, the all-American Sarah Palin. Having weighed that up, floating voters decided that Obama was American enough for them.


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Ed Miliband's £6,000 tuition fee pledge is a stopgap | Liam Burns

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It is right to try and combat the coalition's plans right now – but come the election Miliband will have to be far braver

It would be easy to judge Ed Miliband's £6,000 fees policy as a piece of political manoeuvring, a U-turn that sets up another U-turn, and a cheap shot at the government by a party years from a general election. But I think, and hope, there's more to the proposal than that.

What Miliband is demonstrating to the government is that there are easy ways, right now, to make sure that the likelihood of those from poorer backgrounds being put off by tuition fees is lessened, and to reintroduce a measure of state funding for higher education. I'm not denying that reducing fee levels would have a positive effect on decision-making. Research has shown that reducing levels of fees to below £7,000 has a demonstrable effect on whether fees are perceived as a major barrier. The problem is that it doesn't go nearly far enough, nor does it correspond to what Miliband has already promised for young people.

Miliband reached out to students during his leadership election campaign with the promise of adopting a graduate tax as a fair way of funding universities, and led Labour party MPs in voting against the rise in tuition fees. He saw and contributed to the criticism of the Liberal Democrats who betrayed students after the last election, and should be well aware that he is not above such vitriol should he fail to keep his word to fight for the abolition of "sticker price" fees at and after the next election. Students who note his previous commitment to abolishing fees will not suddenly be won over to the party that introduced them when it suggests merely doubling rather than trebling them in this parliament. Any system of funding for higher education based on "sticker price" fees will always act as a major disincentive to students from debt-averse backgrounds.

A policy of a £6,000 cap would not do any favours for Labour going into the election. It cannot be a long-term policy stance. However, as an immediate solution to the government's white paper proposals, this is a very welcome suggestion. This partial halting of the rise in fees, coupled with equivalent reintroduction of public funding, would stabilise funding, rebalance the long-established compact between state, graduate and employer in paying for higher education and halt the creation of a fees market, which has the effect of encouraging poorer students towards institutions where less will be invested in them – a reverse "pupil premium". With fees limited to £6,000, there would be no need to embark on a risky and untested auction of university places which would create a "stack em high, sell em cheap" pool of sub £7,500 fees and an elite group of those who can select from the high-attaining AAB+ A-level pool of school leavers. So in the short term, Miliband's proposal is both timely and would be incredibly helpful if implemented.

But by the next election, all political parties who are looking for votes from young people and their families must be ready to abolish tuition fees altogether, replacing them with a funding system that doesn't present costs, notional or otherwise, before a student even opens a prospectus. More immediately, they must look at the disastrous system of student support that sees universities incentivised towards fee waivers that keep much-needed funds away from students' pockets and no party can truly claim to be investing in future generations until they have reversed the abolition of the education maintenance allowance. The debate over how to properly invest in the future of young people is far from over and while it's not a perfect answer, the government should listen to Miliband and reduce the burden on students and graduates straight away. Equally, Labour must be far braver in challenging the system more fundamentally come the next general election.


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Remedial sleeping

Dave Crolla obituary

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My friend Dave Crolla, who has died suddenly aged 62, had a capacity for mischief and plain-speaking that was matched only by his contribution to the world of automotive engineering. Despite prodigious academic achievements, his status had to be prised out of him by friends. When a group of his fellow musicians discovered his promotion at Leeds University, they produced T-shirts bearing his picture and the words: "If this man's a professor my arse is a banana."

It typified the down-to-earth and colourful language associated with this most genial of Yorkshiremen. Despite his northern bluntness, Dave was hospitable, inclusive and generous, giving everyone the chance to be themselves and to be heard. He was a man of action who arranged things and got things done, be it hiking, biking or busking.

An international authority on the ride, handling, safety, stability and braking of vehicles, he worked on the Bloodhound project to set a 1,000mph land speed record. While returning from one of the team's meetings in Bristol, he was captured by a roadside camera. To avoid further points on his licence, the man involved in designing the fastest car in the world was forced to attend a speed awareness course. He later complained about having to listen to someone "boning on for hours" about the effects of speeding.

A talented bouzouki player, guitarist and singer, he pulled off the musical equivalent of sending coals to Newcastle – taking traditional Irish music to Ireland with his Bradford-based band the Wild Geese. It was a measure of Dave's warmth and charisma that Matt Molloy, flautist with the Chieftains, flew over from Ireland to play at his funeral.

Dave was born in Bradford, where he attended St Bede's grammar school. He won the Queen's Scout award and was a member of the Great Britain Junior Olympic canoe team. After obtaining a first-class honours degree at Loughborough University, he worked in agricultural engineering research while studying for his PhD. He became a lecturer at Leeds, where he gained a prestigious higher doctorate and was made professor of automotive engineering in 1993. He worked there until 2005.

Dave was a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, wrote numerous books on his subject and was editor-in-chief of a forthcoming encyclopedia of automotive engineering. He was a visiting professor at the universities of Cranfield and Sunderland, a keen hiker and cyclist, and shared his time between his homes in West Yorkshire and the Yorkshire Dales. He died on the first day of a cycling tour of the West Country while passing through the Cheddar Gorge with a group of friends.

He is survived by his wife, Stephanie, whom he married in 1973, his daughters, Rachel and Rebecca, and granddaughter Heather.


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Wangari Maathai obituary

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Kenyan winner of the Nobel peace prize for environmental efforts to help the poorest

For a young Kikuyu girl growing up in the early 1940s, the small village of Ihithe, in the lush central highlands of Kenya, was next to perfect. There were no books or gadgets in the houses, but there were leopards and elephants in the thick forests around, clean water, rich soils, and food and work for everyone. "It was heaven. We wanted for nothing," Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan environmentalist and Nobel peace prize winner, who has died of cancer aged 71, told me when I saw her last in Nairobi. "Now the forests have come down, the land has been turned to commercial farming, the tea plantations keep everyone poor, and the economic system does not allow people to appreciate the beauty of where they live."

Maathai was lucky. If she had been born even a year later, she and her family would have probably been caught up in the Mau Mau uprising that raged around Ihithe, and it is unlikely that she would have got any kind of education at all. "You would see me there now: I most likely would have stayed in Ihithe, married, had children, and continued to work the land. I would not tell stories, because they have been replaced by radio, books and TV," she said.

As it was, her family sent her away to a primary school run by Italian nuns, where she excelled. But her remarkable academic rise to become the first woman to run a university department in Kenya was due entirely to her closeness to nature. It was the land that showed her and taught her everything, she said.

After graduating in 1959, she won a scholarship to study in the US, as part of the "Kennedy airlift" in which 300 Kenyans – including Barack Obama's father – were chosen to study at American universities in 1960. After further study in Germany, she returned to a newly independent Kenya in 1966, and five years later become the first woman in east and central Africa to obtain a PhD from an African university. There followed a tumultuous personal and public 40 years in which she ran the University of Nairobi's veterinary department, was imprisoned several times, stood for president, became a minister and won the Nobel peace prize.

Her early work as a vet took her to some of Kenya's poorest areas, where she saw firsthand the degradation of the environment and the stress it put on the lives of women who produced most of the food. Kenya's forests were being cleared and replaced by commercial plantations. The result was more drought, loss of biodiversity and increased poverty. The experience, she said, made her determined to address the linked, root causes of poverty and environmental destruction.

It also coincided with her marriage to Mwangi Mathai, a young Kenyan politician who had also studied in the US. The union, she said later, was "a catastrophe", but it led to her championing the cause of women for the rest of her life: "I should have known that ambition and success were not to be expected in an African woman. An African woman should be a good African woman whose qualities should be coyness, shyness, submissiveness, incompetence and crippling dependency. A highly educated independent African woman is bound to be dominant, aggressive, uncontrollable, a bad influence."

Mwangi Mathai left her in 1977, suing for divorce and saying she was too strong-minded and that he was unable to control her. When she later, perhaps unwisely, referred in a magazine interview to the divorce judge as "either incompetent or corrupt", she was charged with contempt of court and sentenced to six months in prison. She only served a few days, but when her husband demanded she drop his surname, she defiantly chose to add an extra "a".

Realisation that communities were destroying their own resources led her to work directly with the poorest. It was the women, she reasoned, who experienced the worst impact of a degraded environment. In 1977, she set up the Green Belt movement, more in hope than expectation that it would grow.

"They lack wood fuel, water, food and fodder. They are poor, have no cash income and are confined to rural life," she told me. "They find themselves in a vicious cycle of debilitating poverty, lost self-confidence and a never-ending struggle to meet their most basic needs." 

Initially, the Green Belt movement's tree-planting activities did not address issues of democracy and peace, but it soon became clear to her that responsible governance of the environment was impossible without democratic space. The tree became a symbol for the democratic struggle in Kenya and a way of challenging widespread abuses of power, corruption and environmental mismanagement. She and others planted trees in Uhuru park, Nairobi, to demand the release of prisoners of conscience and a peaceful transition to democracy.

But as she became more vocal in her criticism of Kenyan elites, she ran headfirst into the corruption and casual brutality that surrounded President Daniel arap Moi. There had been attempts before to dismiss her as mad or foolish, but she came to prominence in 1989 when she led a campaign to stop the construction of a multimillion-pound office development in Uhuru park, Nairobi's equivalent of Hyde park in London. The complex, backed by the media tycoon Robert Maxwell, was about to be built when Maathai and other pro-democracy individuals challenged Moi in the courts. The international campaign succeeded and the development was scuppered. Moi and the political establishment were furious.

In 1992, she found herself on a list of people targeted by the government for assassination. For protection, and as a defiant statement, she publicly barricaded herself in her home for three days before the police broke in to arrest her. She and others were charged with sedition and treason, and were only released after a campaign orchestrated by the Kennedys.

Maathai and the rest did not stop there. They took part in a hunger strike in Uhuru park, which they labelled Freedom Corner, to pressure the government to release political prisoners. After four days, she and three others were beaten up by the police. This time Moi called her "a mad woman" who was "a threat to the order and security of the country". For the next few years she lived in fear of her life, and was increasingly threatened and vilified by political leaders. In 1993, she was forced into hiding after Moi claimed she was responsible for leaflets inciting Kikuyus to attack Kalenjins.

As her political thinking developed, she became increasingly critical of worldwide governance. Her falling-out with politicians in Kenya reflected her deep disillusionment with the World Bank, the IMF, Britain and other former colonial powers. Increasingly she sided with the world's poorest people, becoming a hero of the worldwide ecological and African democracy movements.

"The elites have become predators, self-serving and only turning to people when they need them. We can never all be equal, but we can ensure we do not allow excessive poverty or wealth. Inequality breeds insecurity," she said.

By this time, the Green Belt was flourishing. What began as a few women planting trees became a network of 600 community groups that cared for 6,000 tree nurseries, which were often supervised by disabled and mentally ill people in the villages. By 2004, more than 30m trees had been planted, and the movement had branches in 30 countries. In Kenya, it has become an unofficial agricultural advice service, a community regeneration project and a job-creation plan all in one.

In the early 1990s, Maathai moved into mainstream Kenyan politics. She set up Mazingira, the Kenyan Green Party, winning 98% of the votes in her constituency, and then joined the coalition that finally overthrew Moi in 2002. She was a junior environment minister in the government of President Mwai Kibaki between January 2003 and November 2005. She later planned to run for president but claims she was tricked out of it.

In 2004, seemingly out of the blue, she was awarded the Nobel peace prize, to the consternation of many politicians and governments who still did not see the "peace" connection between human rights and the environment. It gave her an international profile and a strong platform to travel the world, pressing home the message that ecology and democracy were indivisible. In 2006, she led a Unep tree-planting scheme that has resulted in more than 7bn trees being planted across the planet.

In her last years, she took on the commercial palm plantations that have destroyed so much of Indonesia and Malaysia and badgered politicians to address climate change, which she said was hurting women the most.

"The tree is just a symbol for what happens to the environment. The act of planting one is a symbol of revitalising the community. Tree-planting is only the entry point into the wider debate about the environment. Everyone should plant a tree," she told me.

She is survived by two daughters, Wanjira and Muta, and a son, Waweru, as well as her granddaughter, Ruth.

• Wangari Maathai, environmental activist and politician, born 1 April 1940; died 25 September 2011


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Labour could build trust by committing to evidence in education policies

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Education ministers can choose evidence to back their own prejudices, says Estelle Morris. Labour would do well to show a commitment to using evidence properly

The government claims to be developing an evidence-based education policy, which has to be a good thing. But can we be sure they can be trusted to get it right? Ministers continually refer to national and international sources of evidence to justify their decisions. So much so that announcements from Pisa (the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment), Timms (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) or the management consultants McKinsey now seem to exceed Ofsted in their importance for education. How can we know that Michael Gove is drawing the right conclusions from the available evidence? What is to stop him selecting the evidence that supports his political views and casting the rest aside?

Take some of the government statements in support of its key policies. Charter schools in the US are used to justify the free schools policy. And when minsters talk about the success of charter schools such as the Harlem Success Academy in New York, they are not making it up. There are some truly outstanding charter schools that should inspire us all.

Yet what about the research from Stanford University, which shows that over three quarters of charter schools deliver similar or worse results than traditional state schools? What should we really make of the evidence?

The same can be seen with that other flagship policy – academies. The government is fond of quoting the success rates of chains of academies like the Harris schools in south London. Again, this is true. Based in challenging areas, Harris schools have produced some outstanding results and are a real example of what can be achieved. Yet so are the results of schools in Tower Hamlets, the poorest borough in the country, which now regularly outperforms the national average – and has no academies. What is this evidence telling us?

Then there is Michael Gove's use of Singapore's slimmed-down curriculum as evidence for his own curriculum review, but he's less likely to mention the national textbooks that accompany teaching in Singapore. Is it also misleading to cite evidence from Pisa in support of autonomous schools but fail to add that the same organisation finds that competition between schools doesn't necessarily lead to better results?

Contradictory evidence and the selective use of it is nothing new – I doubt there is an education minister who has not succumbed to the temptation. Neither is the practice peculiar to education. The problem exists elsewhere – but other government departments have been prepared to do something about it.

The Department of Health has established the independent National Centre for Clinical Excellence (Nice) to make sure clinicians and the public have access to quality information and best-practice evidence. The Treasury has the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), which provides an external challenge and scrutiny to government's financial assumptions and forecasts. Then there is the Institute for Fiscal Studies, to which commentators and the public can confidently look for a balanced interpretation of economic information.

These organisations take the job of interpreting evidence out of the hands of ministers and so give the public greater confidence in its validity.

No one will believe that the government is serious about being guided by evidence as long as ministers are free to select and interpret that evidence at will. It's not difficult to spot a successful school and use it to justify what you already believe. It's far more difficult to determine exactly what it is that makes that school successful and craft it into an evidence-based policy that can influence all schools. That's why quality evidence and the proper use of it are so crucial.

Education is an increasingly evidence-rich policy area. How we use that evidence could determine our future success. It is not about taking politics out of education, but about re-drawing the boundaries between the two.

As Labour continues the task in Liverpool this week of rethinking its approach to education, it could do worse than show that it understands the crisis in the relationship between education evidence and policy-making. A commitment to examine the way evidence is used in education would give it firm foundations for its policy review and build trust in the profession and with the public.

We urgently need the education equivalent of Nice or the OBR so we can be confident that when ministers talk about evidence they aren't simply providing cover for their own prejudices.


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Speed read of the latest education news

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Want to be an MP's apprentice? Plus girl guide's survey shows girls are turning away from education

Apprentices to the stars

Nick Clegg's pledge to end unpaid internships, announced earlier this year, appears to have little sway with his Westminster colleagues. Politicians have continued to advertise unpaid roles, the most recent being Lyn Brown, the Labour MP for West Ham. Her website boasts she has "campaigned tirelessly for a living wage for all", yet she has advertised for a "voluntary Westminster worker" whose duties – including research, dealing with constituency enquiries and clerical support – sounded uncannily like a job.

But the days of unpaid internships, a practice deeply ingrained in the corridors of Westminster, could be numbered. Next month sees the launch of the first parliamentary training programme. Dubbed the "school of apprentices", it will offer 16- to 19-year-olds the chance to spend up to three days a week working in Westminster, along with two days working towards a level 3 apprenticeship (equivalent to A-level) in business administration. MPs who recruit from the apprentice school will have to pay the minimum wage for apprentices (£2.50 an hour) but the London living wage of £8.30 an hour is recommended.

The project was the idea of MP Rob Halfon and the charity New Deal of The Mind. "The aim is to open up politics to young people from a much broader background and get them a decent qualification at the same time," says Halfon.

Over the past few weeks, all 650 MPs have been sent a letter asking them to take on an apprentice. So far, eight have agreed. Interestingly, with the exception of Diane Abbott, they are all Liberal Democrats or Conservatives. A further 14 have expressed a strong interest. David Cameron and Ed Miliband are said to be "thinking about it".

Guided by girls' opinions

"Be prepared" may be the guides' motto, but according to new research from Girlguiding UK, girls and young women feel anything but prepared for their future education. The annual girls' attitudes survey, in its third year, canvasses the opinions of more than 1,000 girls and young women aged 7 t o 21 throughout the UK, on a range of issues, including education.

This year's survey indicates the hike in university tuition fees has had an impact, with 50% of girls saying they are worried about paying for college or university fees compared to 30% last year. Two years ago, just 8% of 11- to 21-year-olds said the economic downturn had made them less likely to stay in education – this year it is 29%.

Janet Murray


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New teachers are struggling to find jobs

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Newly qualified teachers are finding that there are up to 40% fewer jobs this year. Are we simply turning out too many?

It never crossed Haley Pilkington's mind that she wouldn't be starting work as a teacher this month. After successfully completing a first degree in French and Spanish at the University of Newcastle, she received a £6,000 bursary to do a PGCE in modern foreign languages at Chester University.

"The bursary, together with the renewed emphasis on languages in the English baccalaureate, suggested that I might be in demand," she says. "But it has been harder to find a job than I'd imagined. Perhaps I've been naive."

Pilkington has applied for 10 jobs in the last year and has had four interviews. "Each time, there were more candidates than I'd expected. In one school, we were warned at the start that they had had a very strong field of applicants and the standard had been higher than anyone could remember."

She has registered with supply agencies. "I was confident I'd be starting a job this term. I have to remain optimistic and believe it's just a matter of time," Pilkington says. "Everyone told me there would be a rush of jobs becoming available once we neared the end of our courses, but that never happened."

Her experience is all too familiar. Newly qualified teachers entered the employment market this year, having paid annual tuition fees of £3,375 – set to rise to up to £9,000 next year – to find approximately 40% fewer full-time jobs available. According to one set of figures, between January and August alone the number of posts advertised across all sectors fell by about 2,500 on the same period last year, with significant regional variations.

Among the worst-hit areas is the West Midlands, where there were more than 700 fewer posts advertised than the previous year, followed by the north-west, with 552 fewer vacancies. London had one of the lowest discrepancies year on year, with 188 fewer posts, with only the north-east faring better, with just 40. Wales had more vacancies this year than in 2010 – 993, compared with 871.

Professor John Howson, director of Data for Education, which monitors teacher recruitment, visiting professor at Oxford Brookes and the Institute of Education, and senior research fellow at Oxford University, says there are simply no longer enough jobs to go round.

"The majority of those who are looking for jobs are NQTs, and many schools don't want new, inexperienced teachers if they know they have an Ofsted inspection coming up," he says. "The market is very complex at the moment. In schools with budget problems, for example, teachers are being moved sideways when colleagues leave to avoid redundancies, so space is not being freed up for new recruits.

"We are now in a boom-and-bust situation and we can expect two or three years of this over-supply. I'm afraid that anyone who began their teacher training thinking they would easily get a job was misinformed, as that situation has not existed for the last five years."

It's not long since we all saw TV commercials encouraging people to become teachers. But Howson says: "There is no longer any such thing as a shortage subject, and the jobs market has been tightening across the board for a while."

That is not the impression held by many aspiring teachers, however. Sarah Carpenter was a registered child minder, foster carer and teaching assistant before signing up for a PGCE in primary education at the University of Gloucestershire, at the age of 41.

"I was told by a headteacher that I'd be snapped up in no time," she says. But despite submitting 18 applications, she has had just one interview.

Carpenter believes that schools simply cannot afford to invest the time and money required to hire NQTs. "Although we are cheaper on wages, we present a huge commitment to schools in terms of time and training.

"We are entitled to time away from the class, which has to be covered, and our local training centre for NQTs has recently been shut because of cuts, so it would be up to schools to organise that themselves.

"I hear that universities are taking on even more trainees for next year. Someone needs to put a stop to this because they can't keep training people if there are no jobs."

Another primary teacher, Christina Sinclair, has just completed a BA in education at Oxford Brookes University. She has applied for 15 jobs, and believes that one post she went for had attracted 170 applicants. "The alarm bells starting ringing at my teaching placement," she says. "I heard one of the senior management team complaining to a colleague that the existing NQT didn't know anything and what a hassle it was to have to train her, like she was a burden on the school.

"How can we get any experience when no one will employ us?"

Government plans to pass teacher training directly to schools are unlikely to have an impact, as it is still unclear how many training schools there will be and where these will be located. Schools currently seem reluctant to take up the mantle until they know what mechanisms there will be in place to allow them to award PGCEs, how many trainees they will be expected to take on and how they will be funded.

James Williams, lecturer in science education at Sussex University, says schools increasingly favour experienced teachers over cheaper new recruits. "They say they want outstanding teachers, but that's ridiculous – it's like saying to pass your driving test you have to be an advanced driver."

Williams believes the government should reform the system to match supply and demand. One way might be to make teacher training a two-year course, where students do the first year at university and the second year in school.

"This would guarantee that new teachers are employed in a school for at least a year, and would allow them to complete their induction."

He also wants to see more regional planning. Currently, the system relies on new entrants being flexible and moving to where the jobs are. "More mature entrants to teaching with home and family commitments may not be so mobile," he says.

Howson advocates a complete moratorium on all training for a year or two to allow the backlog to clear. But fundamentally, he says, a complete re-think is required of how teachers are trained.

"As people are now expected to pay for higher education, it's unfair that they make sacrifices only to find they have no job afterwards," he says. "You wouldn't expect this of a civil servant, or a police officer. If you are taken on as a trainee, then you should have the guarantee of a job at the end of it.

"Furthermore, we risk losing some of the best applicants altogether. There is no mechanism for ensuring that the best trainees get the jobs and that we can hang on to them."

There appear to be no such safeguards in the pipeline. Neither the Department for Education nor the Training and Development Agency for Schools acknowledge there may be a problem. A DfE spokesman said: "Getting a job as a teacher can be a competitive process. We carefully analyse the level of demand for teachers each year when deciding how many new teacher-training places to make available."

Meanwhile, the TDA said that targets for teacher-trainee places "reflect the number of newly qualified teachers that are required to meet the demands of schools".

"The targets are based on the Teacher Supply Model, which considers a range of data such as falling/rising pupil numbers, existing teacher numbers by age groups and people taking career breaks and people returning to teach," a spokesman said.

But someone has to seize the initiative, Howson says. "The government and providers have a responsibility. The reality is that training colleges need to admit students to remain financially viable, while no government sees it as its problem if there are too many teachers. So we are at something of a stalemate."

*Some names in this article have been changed at the request of the teachers involved.

'Competing with 80 others for each job grinds you down'

"When a bottom year 9 set asks you if you're a qualified science teacher because they're fed up of supply staff, you know that things in that school aren't right. Children can't be fooled – they just want to know they are being taught by a 'proper' teacher."

Hannah McLean completed her PGCE at Liverpool Hope University in 2010, having done a degree in history and a master's in medieval and renaissance history at the University of Liverpool. But she has failed to get a permanent job and has been doing supply work for the last year in north London.

No amount of delivering outstanding lessons or excellent interview feedback has secured her a full-time post.

McLean has applied for about 30 jobs, but had only seven interviews. "In the last one, I was told by the head of department that my lesson was outstanding, but the job went to the PGCE student who had just completed her placement there," she says.

The constant process of applying for jobs is starting to take a toll. "I am seriously considering whether to carry on," McLean says. "My love for teaching remains undiminished and it's all I've ever wanted to do, but coming up against up to 80 applicants for each job is really grinding me down. I just don't understand why we're training so many teachers if there are not enough jobs."


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Education letters

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Readers respond to David Willetts's defence of the coalition's policy on higher education funding

Who would copy this university funding policy?

Last week, David Willetts defended the coalition's policy on higher education funding, saying that other countries are watching to see if they could follow suit.

• If a third of the money loaned to students will never be repaid, who will be charged with paying off the debt – the taxpayer? We are told the reforms mean that many students will have to pay back less. If that is the case, how can the reforms achieve savings overall? I just don't understand the spin – debt is bad, which is why reducing the deficit is the mantra, yet it is fine for our young people to saddle themselves with massive debts at the start of their adult lives.

Richard Drinkall

Lincoln

• A university graduate pays at least £100,000 more in tax over their lifetime than a non-graduate. If these policies were about deficit reduction and the future of the British economy, the government would be putting more money into education, not less.

smootthisland via guardian.co.uk

• My criticisms of the government's higher education policy would be:

1) If, as Willetts says, less than a third of the debt will be repaid, and this over the course of 30 years, how can it possibly help with deficit reduction?

2) Poorer students will inevitably pay more for their degrees than richer ones when you factor in interest on loans. In addition, poorer students will end up with higher loans to cover their living expenses.

Accasha via guardian.co.uk

• There is no upfront fee; maintenance grants (not repayable), plus tuition fees don't have to be repaid until you are earning a decent amount. In my opinion, the only thing likely to put off poorer students is people (for purely political reasons) constantly banging on about how they should be put off, with nothing to support that view.

OldBristolian via guardian.co.uk

• Willetts says it is a "misconception" that the government's policies do not value arts and humanities. However, the Arts and Humanities Research Council has found it necessary to include the government's failed "big society" programme in its delivery plan for strategic research funding priorities. What kind of model is this for other countries to emulate? Note: I led a petition to remove the "big society" from the Arts and Humanities Research Council's delivery plan.

Dr Thom Brooks

Newcastle University

• I seem to remember that student loans were "interest free" when they began, as a replacement for grants that covered living costs. Then the government decided to sell these debts on, then capped interest on these loans was introduced, and then the cap on interest was raised. What makes anyone think the same thing won't happen with tuition fee loans? This whole thing is part of the transfer of debt from public to private ownership.

Nigelad via guardian.co.uk

• I am not surprised that so many people want to understand the UK government's higher education changes. I suspect the truth is that most want to avoid the mistakes the current government has made.

The changes are unfair because students will be faced with hugely increased debts on graduation; many analysts are suggesting an average debt of £60,000 per student. According to Browne Review advisers London Economics, middle-income earners will have to pay back more over their lifetimes than those on higher incomes. The Sutton Trust predicts some of the brightest of the next generation will be deterred from going to university. The Higher Education Policy Institute highlights that social mobility will be the "victim" of these proposals.

The massive 80% cut to university teaching budgets is grossly disproportionate to cuts being made elsewhere and is a huge economic mistake. Most of Britain's competitors are increasing funding for their higher education and research budgets to encourage economic growth.

And the quality of higher education is being put at risk. The government wants to cut core university places, by 20,000 initially, and then auction them off to the lowest bidder; cutting places from universities with international reputations.

In addition, the science budget is being cut by 10% in real terms over the next three years and research councils have already axed the funding for over 1,400 postgraduate places.

Gareth Thomas MP

Shadow minister for higher education

London SW1


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How to teach Black History Month

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On the Guardian Teacher Network this week you can find useful resources linked to Black History Month

October is Black History Month, when schools and organisations will be focusing on the achievements of great black people in history and today. The month has also become a time to look at wider "political" black issues of equality, for example LGBT and travellers' rights.

On the Guardian Teacher Network, we have a wide range of resources to help investigate Black History Month in class or at home.

For primary school-aged children, we have an introductory lesson to Nelson Mandela from the Citizenship Foundation's Go-Givers team.

There are some new teaching resources that make use of the archives of the former British Empire and Commonwealth Museum. Suitcase stories is a resource aimed at upper primary school-aged students exploring stories of migration and the search for a better life, including archive photographs and audio. Teachers can also book out loan boxes of real archive material and handling objects for a small fee on a variety of subjects including the slave trade.

The People's History Museum has a pack on immigration and racism that links to their Living History workshops, but can also be used as a standalone resource.

For a great introduction to Black History Month heroes, see the Guardian's black history month microsite http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/blackhistorymonth, including this very useful timeline of events in black history over the last 2,000 years.

Black History Month goes beyond history, and an interesting approach for teachers and young people might be to look at current campaigns.

The Show Racism the Red Card campaign has grown from focusing on racism in football to a far wider tackling of the issues in society. They have developed a range of powerful education packs that highlight the causes and consequences of racism and help teachers to equip their pupils with a range of skills to challenge prejudice. There is also a thought-provoking pack especially written for trainee teachers.

The Guardian Teacher Network also has history lessons for 14- to 16-year-olds on the implementation of apartheid and the end of apartheid http://teachers.guardian.co.uk/ViewLesson.aspx?id=2351, which will help children to understand the impact of petty apartheid laws on the lives of ordinary people through an examination of primary sources including newspapers and oral accounts.

Check out the Taking Liberties interactive by the British Library, which takes secondary school-aged children and adults through the UK's 900-year-old struggle for rights and freedoms – from the suffragettes to the Black Panthers – a struggle that continues today. The interactive puts the user into the centre of some of today's most contentious human rights issues using 3D graphics and is sure to lead to classroom debate on how to balance order in society with individuals' right to freedom. Teachers' notes can be downloaded and there is an interactive.
The Association of Citizenship Teachers (ACT) works hard to help the teaching of citizenship in school, giving practical advice and best-practice recommendations.

The GTN offers more than 70,000 pages of lesson plans and interactive materials. To see and share for yourself go to teachers.guardian.co.uk. There are hundreds of jobs on the site and schools can advertise free: schoolsjobs.guardian.co.uk


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Labour must take the fight to the Tories, day in, day out | Polly Toynbee

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Labour doesn't need a bout of soul-searching. It must start delivering smart bombs down government chimneys

Labour is not an ex-government in waiting to be the next government. It is Her Majesty's opposition with an essential part to play in the proper functioning of democracy. Its job, its duty and its opportunity is to oppose this government, morning noon and night, with all its might, with heart and head, offering an alternative view of how the country could and should be run. Whether or not it wins at the next election, it has nearly four years in which to play that vital role.

Rarely has an opposition had such an easy task, an open goal wherever you look in every department. The NHS is tottering under David Cameron's great marketising re-disorganisation, costing £2bn and probably much more. Not a day goes by without bad news from some corner of this chaos, with worse results to come. Iain Duncan Smith's universal credit is at the top of the Treasury's risk list, with its costly new IT system in peril, while £18bn is cut from benefits – the disabled and children hit hardest.

The new planning laws are about to join a catalogue of policy failures, written by the property developer donors to the Tory party. Quangos have been abolished at high redundancy cost, only to be resurrected. Civil servants have been fired only for new ones to be hired and trained, notably tax inspectors who bring in many multiples of their salaries. The true cost of free schools, financed by cash stripped from local school budgets, will become a growing scandal.

Forests and school sports had to be rescued. What of the £100m (at least) spent electing police commissioners, who risk turning politically explosive? It doesn't take much effort to stumble across examples of this government's unexpected incompetence and casual cruelty. If Labour ministers had been a fraction as hopeless or reckless in 1997, they'd have been flayed. The opposition is spoiled for causes.

Yet Labour has been behaving recently as if it had a deep existential problem. Who is it? What's it for? Where should it go? The conference is knee-deep in tracts, books, pamphlets and magazines from all wings, penned with intellectual intensity, peppered with "isms" and "ologies", contorted with a self-doubt that never troubled Cameron or George Osborne. Labour must apologise – even for things it never did – many say, as they gorge on humble pie.

A few rousing reminders of all that Labour did could easily lift the spirits of delegates here, from right to roam to free museums, Sure Start, free nursery schools, civil partnerships, a million fewer poor pensioners, free swimming, tax credits, abolishing NHS waiting lists, restoring the splendour of city centres – and a great deal more.

Too many old soldiers are fighting old wars: the David Blunketts, Tessa Jowells and all the rest, wringing their hands in public, complaining that no one is listening to Labour. Instead of navel-gazing, they should use their considerable firepower for daily cannonades against the enemy. The likes of Blunkett, Jack Straw, Alan Johnson, John Prescott and the rest have the inside knowledge to deliver smart bombs right down the chimney of each department they used to run. Forget public advice to the new young leaders, people would listen to their experience if they devoted themselves to devastatingly forensic attacks on government policy. Otherwise, their silence would be appreciated.

The Labour conference is always a good reminder of who the party really is, as speaker after speaker in the hall and fringe meetings talk of what's happening on their patch, to their councils, to the people they work with and care for. These are not scary lefties or fist-waving ideologues. Listen to them and no one need write another pamphlet worrying about what Labour is for. They are more agitated, anxious and angry than their leaders, who exude too much caution. In search of credibility, Labour's officer class often says too little for fear of saying the wrong thing. But muffling the message is no way to be heard.

To be sure, Labour has problems. A reprise of the famous Southern Discomfort analysis by Giles Radice is a reminder that there are virtually no Labour MPs left in the south outside London. The question is: what would win the attention of voters in an age of disillusion, north or south? A shading of the difference between the parties surely is not the answer. Returning to nostrums of 1994 in this changed era won't help either. In truth, Labour is in not too bad a place, so soon after a catastrophic defeat. A little ahead in the polls with four more years of screw-tightening living standards, not split by rows, there is every chance of returning to power.

But the party needs to regain its self-confidence. The speeches are good, as shadow ministers one by one turn up the indignation – although their thunder can make the actual policies look pallid in contrast. Ed Balls's assault on the government's economic policy was a strong demolition, in theme and content. "An economic policy is only credible if it works. Osborne's economic plan is hurting, but it's not working" – this was a bullseye because it's plain for all to see. Unemployment is rising and the deficit fails to fall, the one the result of the other. His five-point plan was a good start, a firm pointer for a different direction of travel: 25,000 new homes, 100,000 jobs for the young, and cutting VAT all point the way to growth – even if these don't quite match the vehemence of his Keynesian assault on Osborne. The £3,000 cut in student fees is the right signal.

However, binding yourself to the mast of rigorous debt-reduction with spending policed by the Office for Budget Responsibility is an uneasy reminder of Brown's broken golden rule. Or, if it is to be believed, then it may be too harsh to ease the austerity he attacks. Ed Miliband is billed as declaring the end of 30 years of Thatcher/Reagan neoliberalism, under-regulated markets, small government and undertaxed wealth, to be replaced by a fundamentally better brand of capitalism. That promise will need a bold plan to match.

Labour can't produce a budget for an unknowable economic state four years in the future – but that frees them to say they would do more right now in this crisis. Credibility is not only earned by caution: it's earned by firing the public imagination with hope of a better alternative. A Labour team firing on all cylinders needs to return to Westminster leaving behind the apologies and self-doubt, certain of its duty to knock the hell out of a government doing such damage to almost everything it touches.

• Polly Toynbee has replied to comments here and here.


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Blue Labour peer returns with call to look again at European immigration

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EU treaties on movement of workers need to be renegotiated, Maurice Glasman tells fringe meeting

Half of Britain's universities should be shut down and turned into vocational colleges, and immigration treaties with Europe ought to be renegotiated, "blue Labour" peer Maurice Glasman has said in Liverpool.

Lord Glasman launched the ideas as part of a package of measures for Labour to improve opportunities for the working class, whose estrangement from the party has caused concern.

Speaking at a conference fringe meeting, Glasman talked about the "angry insurgent side" of Ed Miliband – the man who ennobled him – and sketched out the range of policies he had presented to the Labour leader to help re-engage with the working class. These included a rethink of what education people are encouraged to get and how much competition they face for work. He repeated comments on immigration he made in the summer and immediately recanted amid protests from other party members.

Despite intense criticism then and a period of silence in contrition, Glasman said : "I would like to see a discussion about movement of labour. The idea that workers in Poland are working in an equivalent economic space to workers here is just not true. Wages are far, far lower there, so the incentives to move and come where wages are higher – that disrupts family life, that disrupts economic growth in Poland and creates a dependent culture. I think we should have a treaty change to stop it. Renegotiating treaties. Going back to the roots of the EU protection of workers and land."

The peer is appearing at 10 events at Labour's conference as he attempts to explain to delegates the substance of concepts that have often attracted attention out of proportion to their detail over the last year. In a discussion with Channel 4's political editor, Gary Gibbon, the peer said: "The definition of economic benefit [under new Labour] was done on a corporate agenda. There was an exclusive focus on the economic benefits and those economic benefits were defined by the employment of cheap labour. I think there has to be a much wider discussion about how you engage with workers.

"At the moment the EU is blocking democratic action. We did believe free markets led to greater prosperity and greater growth for the benefits of everybody. We are now on the turn.

"We need to challenge the idea of globalisation which says that it is exclusively in terms of finance capital. We should not be intimidated by international treaties and technocratic arguments.

Glasman also criticised the unions: "People look at power elites. Murdoch is one, the City is another. We haven't addressed the anger about public sector unions and the role they have."

His criticism of them turns on how he believes unions defend even the negligent or poorly-skilled worker. Glasman claimed unions devoted 65% of their resources to defending the "worst 5% of workers".

"We've got to be balanced, to punch with both hands – reform unions and business power."

The peer, an academic most recently at London Metropolitian University, also suggested ways to correct the idea that a university degree is more valuable to the UK than some applied technical courses. "We don't honour vocation enough, so one of the things which I have put forward is a plan to halve the number of universities and turn the others into vocational colleges. I would like to put the law school and the medical schools into the vocational colleges just so that they are not second class.

"We don't recognise skills enough, so if you put in the doctors and the dentists and the lawyers and the accountants in the vocational colleges that would deal with the class issue or the inferior thing. You would also invite the private sector to get involved in the funding of these colleges."

Glasman told the audience his idea was unlikely to be adopted as party policy by Miliband: "It's part of a conversation but don't expect an announcement any time soon."

Glasman gave Gibbon his observations of the Labour leader, to whose house he is often invited for Sunday seminars. He said: "Ed is really passionate. He loathes the humiliation of people. He has got a very strong idea about how the market humiliates people. But he's probably much more conflicted than I am about the way the state humiliates people. Ed thinks for himself. He is a socialist. He is an intellectual and he really likes to talk about it. Capitalism has grown out of control and we really need a new strategy around that.

"Ed is a very different political being to David. He has definitely got more problems with new Labour. You don't usually see it but there is a genuine, angry insurgent side to Ed. You saw it with Murdoch – Ed did not hesitate to say this is wrong and needs to be taken on."

Glasman has spoken before about wanting to re-fashion British workplaces as mutuals encouraging joint worker and management stewardship of offices.

Glasman told Gibbon this should be extended to 50:50 representation of workers and management on the remuneration committees of big financial companies.

Glasman said: "Labour have neglected the fundamental problem with capitalism which is that it is an exploitative system which is very volatile and puts relentless pressure on human beings.

"[There] is now is a genuine conversation about capitalism within the leadership.

"There is a genuine understanding about how the market is leading to things like the degradation of the environment, the sexualisation of childhood – there is an understanding about the limits of the market but what we don't have yet is a constructive alternative. We have got two years to get there."


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Labour's tuition fees cap would benefit richest graduates, thinktank claims

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Lib Dem-aligned CentreForum claims gains from Ed Miliband's proposal would go to higher earners

Labour's pledge to lower the cap on tuition fees to £6,000 would benefit the richest graduates most, according to an analysis by a thinktank.

The move would also result in fewer loans being written off.

The analysis by CentreForum finds the majority of the gains from Labour leader Ed Miliband's proposal would go to the top 20% highest earning graduates, those with lifetime earnings of £2m.

The thinktank is close to the Liberal Democrats, although it is independent from the party. Its report says: "The gains of Labour's proposal go, in short, overwhelmingly to some of the richest people in Britain."

It adds that the proposal makes no student better or worse off while studying, because they do not have to pay upfront, but claims it is "clearly regressive" and represents a step away from a graduate tax because it will lead to an increase in the number of people who repay their loans in full.

Miliband made the announcement, which would see the maximum charge cut by £3,000, on the eve of the Labour party conference in Liverpool. He said the proposal would be funded by charging graduates earning more than £65,000 more interest on their student loans and ditching the government's planned cut in corporation tax.

The thinktank's analysis does not take into account the effect of a higher interest rate for those earning £65,000-plus. However, CentreForum says there are few graduates who earn more than this and are still paying off their student debt.

The analysis assumes all universities will move to charging £6,000 fees.

Under reforms put forward by the coalition government and agreed by parliament last December, English universities can charge up to £9,000 in tuition fees from next year. Graduates will begin paying back their loans once they are earning more than £21,000, with any unpaid debt written off after 30 years.

Ministers initially claimed that fees above £6,000 would be the exception, but official figures show more than a third of English universities have been granted permission to charge fees of £9,000 as standard from 2012.

The CentreForum report compares Labour's idea against the new fee regime, which will see fees average £8,393 next year.

Under Labour's plan, graduates will not pay back less each month because monthly repayments are linked to income, not the level of debt. Instead, graduates are likely to pay back their loans quicker.

The analysis says the winners from Labour's proposal are older graduates. Those likely to benefit will do so 28 years after graduation and will be earning about £72,500.

"The largest reductions in monthly loan repayments occur 28 years after graduation," it says.

"It is at this point that reasonably significant numbers of graduates – around one in six – would still be paying under coalition proposals, but escape paying under Labour proposals. This group have an average income of £72,509."

Universities minister David Willetts said: "This timely analysis highlights the flaws in Labour's proposals. They don't help students and they don't help the economy."

Gareth Thomas MP, Labour's higher education spokesman, said: "Centre Forum have missed key parts of Labour's proposal. Their calculations, and their claim that the package is regressive, are incorrect.

"Analysis carried out by the House of Commons Library, using the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills' own model, found that our package would benefit the lowest 10% of earners the most. They would be 16% better off than under the Government's plans. The highest 10% of earners, those with incomes of £65,000 or more every year of their working lives, would be 2% worse off.

"This is because under Labour's proposals the highest earning graduates would pay more. All graduates would benefit from lower fees. But those who pay off their loan within 20 years and are earning £41,000 or more at the time, would make additional payments for two years. Combined with the increase in the interest rate for this group, it means that while 90% would be better off, for those in the top 10% the benefit of lower fees would be more than offset by their overpayments."


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Universities should make lower offers to poorer students, exam board urges

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AQA research shows students with lower A-levels from poorer schools do just as well as pupils from 'favourable circumstances'

Universities should make it easier to admit A-level students from poorly performing schools, according to one of the country's biggest exam boards.

Dr Neil Stringer of the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance (AQA), said research suggested students from less privileged schools did just as well at university as those from "more favourable circumstances".

A report authored by Stringer, the senior research associate at AQA's centre for education research and policy, cited a medical school at the University of London that offers lower A-level grades to pupils from poorer schools. St George's offers results of BBC rather than AAB to students who perform 60% better than the average for their school.

Dr Stringer said: "St George's reports that students from poorly performing schools who are accepted into medical school with lower grades do just as well as their peers with higher grades."

"This strongly suggests that students admitted through the adjusted-criteria scheme learned enough at A-level and are able enough learners to compete successfully with students who achieved higher A-level grades under more favourable circumstances."

Claire Ellis from AQA said the paper was "very much a thought piece" at this stage. She added: "It is an idea of looking at backgrounds and schools, and having a composite score to look at students on a more level playing field."

The paper is being handed out at party conferences to encourage politicians to discuss ways to get pupils who show academic potential at weaker schools to continue with higher education.


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Higher education white paper is provoking a winter of discontent

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As they publish their own 'alternative white paper' for higher education, academics claim the government's plans are fundamentally misguided. Read answers to your questions from the academics behind the paper

Hundreds of academics have signed a document, published today, that warns of dire consequences should the government's white paper on higher education become law.

The document, In Defence of Public Higher Education, endorsed by a wide range of prominent academics, including Stefan Collini, of Cambridge University, and Howard Hotson, of Oxford, offers an alternative to the government's vision for the sector in the form of nine propositions about higher education's value to society. Drawing on recent research, it also argues that the changes proposed are based on ideology rather than financial necessity, and will make no lasting savings.

Campaigners hope it will lead to an autumn of debate and protest over the white paper's proposals, which are due to come into effect next year. "The hope would be that it provides a well-formulated agenda on the future of higher education, in contrast to the one the government has railroaded through," says Simon Szreter, professor of history and public policy at the University of Cambridge, who helped to draw up the document. "It is a counter to the breathtaking speed of the government programme and its reliance on an atrociously flimsy document, the Browne Review."

Today's publication argues that the Independent Review of Higher Education Funding, chaired by former BP chief executive Lord Browne of Madingley, and the subsequent white paper, completely ignore the public value of higher education, concentrating instead on "the private benefits to individuals in the form of higher earnings deriving from investment in their human capital, and to the 'knowledge economy' in terms of product development and contribution of economic growth".

It suggests that this focus on students as consumers attacks the very values the prime minister believes would reverse the "moral decline" blamed for the recent riots.

And it accuses the mission groups representing different kinds of universities, including the Russell Group and the 1994 Group of leading research universities, of lack of leadership and of failing to defend the values of public higher education while for-profit providers have successfully lobbied for their own interests.

Nearly 400 academic campaigners, members of professional bodies such as the British Philosophical Association, and individuals have signed the "alternative white paper", which was drawn up over the summer by a working group led by John Holmwood, professor of sociology at the University of Nottingham and founder of the Campaign for the Public University.

He says: "The people signing up are very senior academics. They are saying, 'At last there is a voice talking about public higher education and something other than questions of economic expediency'."

The document's nine propositions are that higher education has public as well as private benefits and these public benefits require financial support; that public universities are necessary to build and maintain confidence in public debate; that public universities have a social mission and help to ameliorate social inequality; that public higher education is part of a generational contract in which an older generation invests in the wellbeing of future generations; that public institutions providing similar programmes of study should be funded at a similar level; that education cannot be treated as a simple consumer good; that training in skills is not the same as university education – something the title of a university should recognise; that a university is a community made up of different disciplines and of different activities of teaching, research and external collaboration; and finally that universities are not only global institutions, but also serve their local and regional communities.

A separate appendix makes the case that switching the costs of tuition from grants to loan-backed fees may reduce the deficit in the short term, but is an accounting trick. In the long term, debt could increase as students default or write off loan repayments, and tax revenues from those who reject higher education as too expensive are lost.

It also accuses the government of wanting eventually to introduce a pricing mechanism based on how much of the loans made to students studying specific degrees at specific institutions are repaid.

"The commodification of higher education is at the secret heart of the white paper," it argues. "The government seeks a differently funded sector, one which can provide new outlets for capital that struggles to find suitable opportunities for investment elsewhere."

Publication of the document comes a week after the end of formal consultation on the white paper and amid increasing criticism of government plans for HE.

Responding to the consultation, Universities UK warned of "unintended consequences for students and universities" from the proposals, with potentially adverse effects on social mobility, student choice, institutional subject mix and the future viability of some institutions".

The 1994 Group warned that high-quality places for students could be lost, and science subjects could be badly affected. A higher-education thinktank, Million+, called for the withdrawal of plans to introduce a market in university places, while the British Academy, the UK's national representative body for the humanities and social sciences, said the plans could damage the international reputation of UK higher education.

Howard Hotson, professor of early modern intellectual history and a founding member of the Oxford University Campaign for Higher Education, says: "We offer fantastic value for money. The UK university system is astonishingly good. There is no intellectual justification whatsoever for radically overhauling it, and if you radically overhaul it, you can guarantee to make it worse."

He calls on academics and students to join forces to oppose the moves and predicts a "winter of discontent" including actions by students and academic unions. Campaigners expect further motions of no confidence in the universities minister, David Willetts, to follow votes at Oxford, Cambridge, Leeds and Bath earlier in the summer, and want to encourage parents and the general public to join the debate.

The Local Schools Network has already backed today's document. Melissa Benn, its co-founder, says: "Education is bigger than self-interest and a race to the top. If we sacrifice the idea of the education system being at the very centre of the social fabric we will pay a price in the long term."

Stefan Collini, professor of English literature and intellectual history at Cambridge, who has written a series of critiques of government higher education policy, warns that the proposals in the white paper misunderstand what universities are about. "It's very important that academics who see the ways in which this policy is fundamentally flawed and misguided try to explain this and work for the long-term development of a better-grounded policy," he says. "For that reason the alternative white paper makes a very valuable contribution."

Willetts has responded to critics by arguing that the success of British universities in research has been the result of a system that places intense competition in a wider legal framework and that the government's proposals aim to achieve the same for teaching and the student experience.

In a letter published in the London Review of Books in July he "pleaded guilty to believing in choice and competition", but said that these should be rooted in a national culture, strong institutions and a set of moral understandings.

• This article was amended on 27 September 2011 to correct a reference to "the Millennium+ thinktank".


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Alternative white paper: In defence of public higher education

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Hundreds of academics have signed an alternative white paper which claims that the government's planned education reforms are fundamentally misguided



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