Education Update - News September 2008

Published: 3rd October 2008

New strategy unveiled
The LSC has released a new Strategic overview and the Further Education Funding Policy Documents 2008-09. They are available at

http://www.lsc.gov.uk/providers/funding-policy/strategic-overview/index.htm

Government ministers plan to expand the flagship academies programme beyond the initial target of 400 academies by 2011 despite strong opposition by teachers' unions. The number of such privately sponsored state schools could increase at the rate of 100 a year after 2011 according to Andrew Adonis, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Schools and Learners. Teachers' unions are threatening strike action if academies result in interference with their pay and conditions.

Better late than never
The Learning and Skills Council has confirmed that all eligible students who apply for the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) and who may have experienced delays with the processing of their application form will get all the payments for which they are eligible. All payments will be backdated and no-one will miss out.

The EMA, managed by the LSC, was set up to keep students from less well-off families in education to improve their job and life prospects.

Every year hundreds of thousands of teenagers are eligible for the allowance. This year there have been some delays in the processing of the applications, managed by the contractor Liberata.

Research Data shows the haves from the have nots
Twenty research-led universities attracted more than 63 % of the grants on offer from the research councils. In the THE league table the top 20 HEIs took nearly two thirds of the total number of grants awarded in the 2007/2008 financial year. The bottom 20 netted less than 1% of the number on offer.

In another report six research councils showed a 13% rise in the number of applications for research funding in 2007/2008 compared with the previous year. A total of 12,707 grant applications were lodged, nearly 1500 more then the previous year, and around 3500 were successful.

However, the success rate fell from 30.5% to 28% causing some commentators to question the quality of the research on offer.

Last year the chances of being approved by the Arts and Humanities Research Council was 34%, this year it was just 23% meaning that researchers applying to the AHRC now have less chance of securing a research grant than those who apply to any other research council.

RCUK are encouraging institutions to set up internal peer review processes to ensure only the best applications go forward, although you've got to query whether there are any institutions that aren't already doing this.

EPSRC open the wallet
The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is making available a pot of £55 Million over three years to pioneer new knowledge transfer accounts (KTAs).

The call for proposals for universities looking to secure accounts is deliberately non-prescriptive because the EPSRC wants universities to find the best way of exploiting their existing projects themselves.

Bids for a KTA are expected to be in the form of a single institutional bid and there can only be one account per university. However, bids can make a series of business cases for the work each university intends to exploit. There is no limit on the number of business cases and they can, if there is justification, include work undertaken in collaboration with other universities - a good way for smaller institutions to become involved.

The call for bids closes on 5 November.

UK Border Agency sticks its oar in
We've already reported that the UKBA has stated that by the end of this year, students from outside the European Economic Area (EEA) would no longer be able to enter the UK to study wherever they please. Instead, visas will only be granted for study at named institutions licensed by the UKBA. Universities and colleges will be required to "sponsor" students to whom they wish visas to be issued.

The institution will be obliged "to report where the student fails to enrol or stops attending". British universities have rarely needed to complete student attendance registers in the past, but they will clearly need to do so in the future to counter claims of discrimination.

Where compliance does not meet the standard, the UKBA will name and shame on its website and a vice chancellor could even face criminal charges and imprisonment.

Increase in School leaving age
The autumn 2008 term's Year 7 children are the first who are legally required to stay in education until the age of 17, under changes announced by Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families Ed Balls that also include new diplomas incorporating both applied and academic learning, in the following five strands: information technology; construction and the built environment; society; health and development; creative and media; and engineering.

PFI needs better managers
The Commons' public accounts committee said ministers and officials should work harder to make sure that private finance initiative (PFI) deals offer the taxpayer value for money. A report from the committee says many contract managers lack commercial expertise and more than 15 per cent of projects are not being managed on a full-time basis. The cross-party group of MPs says it was inevitable, over 25 to 30 years of operation, that PFI projects would need "significant" changes.