News and Updates

There was a headline in the Guardian recently which ran: Global school tests under attack as OECD accused of killing 'joy of learning' It began:  Leading academics have accused the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) of acting as...

I'm no great fan of Druids, particularly the Wiltshire set who always seem to be claiming far too much for themselves in terms of their presence in, and influence on,  antiquity, and even pre-history.  Time spent in the museum in...

To coincide with celebrations for International Workers’ Day, NUS recently launched a Commission on the Future of Work which is a call for evidence from students and stakeholders from across the private, public and not for profit sectors on the...

Rumours abound that the new(ish) HEFCE CEO, Madeleine Atkins, has been slicing and dicing the funding council's commitments to sustainability.  She wants, it's said, more of a hard-edged focus on the environment and less attention given to fluffier social justice stuff...

The outline programme of WSSD-U-2014 to be held in Manchester this September is now availableAs the conference maître d, Walter Leal (Filho) has not managed to find anyone good enough to provide the inaugural lecture, he's going to give it...

The Higher Education Academy's first Green Acdemy change programme was launched in 2011 to help higher education institutions to embed education for sustainable development (ESD) into the overall student experience.  This second evaluation report (the first was carried out in 2012)...

Sometimes, it’s hard to know what to make of the EAUC.   For example, it is smart enough to have persuaded the Scottish Funding Council [SFC] to part with £400k over 3 years to: “deliver support for Scottish institutions on carbon reduction...

In 1971, Philip Larkin was commissioned to write a prologue to a UK government report, How Do You Want To Live?  This was one of the UK's papers submitted to the iconic 1972 UN Stockholm conference.   Larkin was always going to...

Last week’s GulfNews – essential reading I find – reported a “leading educationalist” as saying that … “The UAE is among the top five countries in the world in sustainability education, inspiring students to take part in advanced sustainability coursework...

Rio 2 is set in the Amazon, and I watched it over Easter with my grandchildren.  It was technically brilliant, of course, full of smart tributes to Holywood, and, appropriately for a film whose messages were so black and white,...