Hard though it might be to feel cheery, trees are popcorning into blossom, spring is pretty much sprung and Education Guardian is doing what it does best - making googly-eyed bunnies out of wooden spoons. Go on, you know you want to. We've got a whole week of spring craft ideas for you to try - thanks to @RedTedArt.
Education news from the Guardian and Observer
• Lecturers at a third of English universities will go on strike over changes to their pensions tomorrow, Jessica Shepherd reports. Thousands of academics at 47 universities and higher education colleges will form picket lines to protest against the raising of the retirement age for academics from 60 to 65 and an end to final salary pensions for new members. An even bigger strike is planned for Thursday, when tens of thousands of lecturers from 63 universities are expected to stop work.
• The government is on a collision course with some of Oxford University's most prominent dons over demands that they "dramatically increase" the intake of disadvantaged pupils from the state sector. According to the Observer, one leading scholar described Nick Clegg's insistence that universities planning to charge top-level fees broaden their intake as "bollocks".
• George Osborne will announce a £300m package in Wednesday's budget to help fund training and work experience for some of the 974,000 young people who are unemployed. He's expected to fund 50,000 new apprenticeships.
• Peter Preston wonders if there's much nutrition in Michael Gove's pupil stew. Michael Gove and his minions tour the globe hunting for bright learning ideas to steal, says the Guardian's erstwhile editor. But can they work in Britain?
• Ofsted launches a consultation today on the inspection of maintained schools and academies in England. It says:
"The changes follow proposals announced in the 2011 education bill and aim to re-focus school inspection on what matters most: the quality of teaching and learning in the classroom, backed by excellent leadership and management, and good discipline and behaviour in schools. The consultation seeks views on the detail of how Ofsted will implement these changes."
The Association of School and College Leaders website comments:
"The recommendation to refocus school inspection in England on four key areas, outlined in the inspection framework consultation published today, is hugely sensible. However, proposals for a national website for parental feedback could unfairly skew the inspection system."
Education news from around the web
• New-style league tables are to be created showing how many children at each state secondary go on to graduate with an honours degree, Michael Gove says in an interview with the Telegraph. The idea is to encourage schools to make pupils "university-ready" and ensure they are given decent advice to enable them pick the correct courses:
"I know some people might say, how can I be held accountable for what happens in an institution over which I have no control?
"But, if you have educated someone to the age of 18 sufficiently well, and if you give them the right guidance so they make the right choices, then the chances are that they will find the right courses and succeed."
@informed_edu tweets:
"I think capturing this data is great. Turning it in to a league table is bonkers."
• The Daily Mail reveals that eight overseas students are arrested every day for breaching immigration rules. UK Border Agency figures show that more than 1,500 students from outside Europe were held over the six-month period April to October 2010.
• The former chief executive of the UK's largest retailer has invested in stuckonhomework.com, a video-based online teaching tool for GCSE students, the Telegraph reports, calling it his first significant investment since he left Tesco last June, saying he would concentrate on "private investment" instead.
• The biggest debt currently owed to the Student Loans Company is £66,150, the BBC has learned. A Freedom of Information request has revealed that the total sum of the 20 largest student debts is over £1m.
• @mikebakerhack asks: Can the government afford its own policy on tuition fees?
"This might seem an odd question in the week when universities received the details of their latest funding reductions, and as we move towards a system where more of the cost of degrees will be met by students (or more accurately by graduates).
But the reality is that the new higher fees will be much more expensive for the taxpayer too if the majority of universities charge towards the top end of the £9,000 fees cap.
That is because the new loans system means the government is committed to lending students the full amount of their fee."
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