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The Guardian - UK

National

Judy Friedberg

Cribsheet 07.04.11

Didn't take long for "he's a changed man" Toby Young to return to his bombastic ways. He's launched a vitriolic attack on Francis Gilbert (@wonderfrancis) for daring to suggest that modernising Shakespeare might make the bard more accessible. Here he goes:

"Good grief! Is Gilbert really so arrogant that he believes he's a better judge than Shakespeare of which information in a scene is "essential" and which "inessential"? Does he rate his own powers of composition so highly that he thinks he can rewrite Shakespeare's dialogue to make it more "lively"?

Does he really have so little faith in his pupils that he thinks they'll be quite unable to grasp Shakespeare's language in the original? I think it's safe to say that, yes, this is "dumbing down" and, no, we won't be doing it at the WLFS."

And his friends-and-influence mission nosedives further, with something @tothechalkface has pointed out:

" Evening Standard calls Toby Young a 'creep' and a 'novelty educator'. Ouch."

Here's a flavour of Richard Godwin's (@richardjgodwin) Standard column on Young's rightwing Rally Against Debt planned for May 14.

"I can see Trafalgar Square resounding to cries of 'You said it, Osborne!'

White Bloc anarchists will prance up and down Whitehall crying "Whose streets? Your streets, sirs!"

The quiet majority are generally the ones who get on with their lives, dealing with job losses, tax rises, doctors' waiting rooms and school runs with dignity. This lot are not them. They are simply a bunch of creeps."

Education news from the Guardian

• Vince Cable has told vice-chancellors that if they opt to charge high fees without good reason, they will find their student numbers cut. At the same time, he'll allow those who "offer good value" to recruit more students as a reward.

A paper by the thinktank CentreForum proposes that rather than having a fixed quota of places, universities should be required to make bids, stating the fee they would charge. An auction of places, in other words. Cribsheet is thinking a raffle might be fairer…

• Teachers are on strike today over pupils' bad behaviour. The students are impossible and senior staff undermine us, say the 70 striking teachers at Darwen Vale high school. Katharine Birbalsingh feels vindicated and explains why in the Telegraph.

• In a report out today, three academics accuse police of heavy-handedness in their dealings with protesters at demonstrations in Brighton in November. Police complain that the researchers did not give them a chance to contribute to the study.

The academics recorded instances of protesters

"being struck with hands, batons, and shields, being kicked, pushed to the ground, thrown, placed in headlocks, threatened by dogs … yet there are no recorded incidents of protesters harming or threatening members of the public, or other protesters".

"The level of violence used by the police against demonstrators … was disproportionate and unjustified, given the relatively peaceful nature of the protest."

• Lots of fun is being had at Nick Clegg's expense over his lachrymose interview with Jemima Khan. Apparently he's not happy that students don't like him.

• If you like children and butterflies (and I'd like to know what sort of monster doesn't), then you'll like our beautiful new picture gallery featuring Hackney pupils who were among the first visitors to the Sensational Butterflies exhibition at the Natural History museum in London.

On the Higher Education Network

The immigration cap heralds the beginning of a brain disdain that will have long-term consequences for universities in Britain, argues Tamson Pietsch on the Guardian's new network for higher education professionals.

Education news from around the web

• The Mail carries details of an interview with David Eastwood in the Times, in which he calls for an expansion in the number of student places to drive down the amount tuition fee charges.

Eastwood, vice-chancellor of the University of Birmingham, says putting more students into universities would not cost the Treasury more money - on the contrary, expanding places to meet demand would actually drive fees down.

"I would like to see an unequivocal commitment by government to deregulating numbers control."

• And, while it is being helpful, the Mail conducts its own research to test the theories of academies at York University, who contend that vertical stripes are not more flattering than horizontal ones. The Mail puts its very own readers through rigorous testing and finds that, for once, the eggheads are right. Check out the pictures and decide for yourself.

• Hefce is fining 19 universities for over-recruitment, according to the THE. The report says four universities will lose more than £1m each in public funding this year and 15 others face smaller clawbacks after exceeding their limits on student places. London South Bank will have £2.2m docked from its annual grant.

• Teachers who fall victim to malicious allegations should no longer have their DNA samples, fingerprints and photographs retained on the police national compute, Nasuwt claims following a High Court ruling in a case involving one of its members. Dorothy Lepkowska (@DotLepkowska) has the full story in today's Sec Ed.

• Oxford Brookes has announced £9,000 fees.

• About 500 pupils at a school in Cornwall are to be given antibiotics after a young girl died from meningitis and another pupil was admitted to hospital with a suspected case of the disease, the Independent reports.

• Allan Beavis (@allanbeavis) reports that the Westminster Adult Education Service, the largest local authority provider of adult education in London, will be left homeless as Westminster Council hands over over its premises to a new free school.