Intellectuals fight 'dumbing down'
Government policies for expanding higher education came under fire from academics, writers and administrators at a conference on dumbing down last weekend. The conference, organised by LM magazine...
Search
-
-
Quality chiefs fly access kitemark
Quality chiefs are trying to scotch the perception that widening participation to higher education lowers the calibre of university students with a new "kitemarking" scheme for Access to Higher...
-
The current system
The teaching quality assessment system (TQA) was designed to increase rigour when it was set up in 1995. It was to widen the net to catch failing courses, and to provide a clear early warning signal...
-
A quality game where cheating is allowed?
Are teaching quality assessments pointless? In the first of a two-part series, Phil Baty looks at the evidence. The credibility of the teaching quality assessment has been shaken badly by its...
-
The curse of high aspirations
Graduates are less happy in their jobs than people with fewer qualifications, according to research by Andrew Oswald and Jonathan Gardner at the University of Warwick. "Those with more schooling and...
-
Nineties kitsch, not sixties
Simon Lilley's "Dr Deadpan's bag of tricks" (February 26) said that a paper by Stephen Linstead of Sunderland Business School on how kitsch affects scientific/ social scientific thinking as well as...
-
Wanted: diary of a toddler, aged two
Researchers in Manchester are on the hunt for a toddler and his stay-at-home mum or dad to take part in a diary study to shine light on language development. Staff at the new Max Planck Child Study...
-
Madagascar fruit bat research a first
Two Aberdeen University zoologists are to carry out the first nationwide survey of fruit bats in Madagascar, with the aim of putting them on the conservation agenda. Research fellows Clare Hawkins...
-
Art schools form business bond
The London Institute, Royal College of Art and Wimbledon School of Art have formed a consortium to set up a learning and teaching centre, opening in August. The consortium is giving Pounds 80,000...
-
Dean was 'unfairly dismissed'
A dean of engineering found guilty of sexually harassing two secretaries was unfairly dismissed, a Glasgow industrial tribunal has ruled. But the tribunal said Ian Marshall of Paisley University had...
-
Designer survey debunks jobs myth
Nearly 90 per cent of art and design graduates have full-time jobs or are self-employed within three years of leaving college, says a report out next week. The findings, based on a survey of 2,000...
-
Open University joins US club
The Open University of the United States was given permission to start teaching students last week by the Middle States Colleges and Universities Commission. "This gives us power to extend our...
-
Russian crisis hits Marxist venture
A major international academic project to compile the definitive complete works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels is under threat because of the financial crisis in Russia. Funding for the Russian...
-
Danes move to bolster on-job teacher training
An umbrella university of educational theory and teaching will be created in Denmark if proposals to strengthen research and enhance in-service training for teachers and social educators are adopted...
-
Telecoms first for Finns
Finland's first fully-fledged degree course taught in English begins in September when the Helsinki University of Technology launches a two-year master's degree in telecommunications. The course,...