News and Updates

I'm told that £160,000 has come EAUC's way c/o HEFCE.  The HE funding council, in its death throes, has handed over its loose change to EAUC to do more of the same – and no doubt to be just as...

A long while back (somewhen in the 1980s I think), Jordanhill Teacher Training College* in Glasgow did an evaluation of some competency-related programme or other (the details of which escape me).  The providers of the programme identified what they claimed...

In an idle moment (and with inadequate data) I have been assessing the UK's performance against the SDG targets – doing this for UKSSD. I used RAG ratings which are "suggestion of performance" against the goal.  These are: Red -...

I see that the BBC is reporting (thanks, NAEE) that the new PISA tests assessing global competences will not be taken in England.  The DfE is, it seems, joining the United States, Germany, France, Denmark, the Netherlands, Finland and Ireland in deciding not to...

Volkswagen loses its moral compass was the headline of a Times article the other week about the latest scandal to hit the truly awful German car-maker when, as article noted: "... it emerged that VW and other German manufacturers had...

I hadn't realised that French school kids did so badly in the PIRLS tests, and that they've been getting worse at it over the last few years. PIRLS * is known as a reading test, but it's much more like a...

This is a brief review of the discussion paper that Susan Brown, from the University of Manchester, has written for Steady State Manchester [SSM], and which I wrote about on Tuesday. We learn from the Introduction to the paper (page 5) that...

This is the second post this week on Bedford 2045 which was first published as part of Huckle J. and Martin A. 2001. Environments in a Changing World (London, Prentice Hall). In Chapter 3 (Sustaining Development) of Higher Education and Sustainable development:...

As I read the Economist's 'The Big Squeeze', I thought back to a recent visit to the Tate and its magnificent exhibition of Soviet poster (and other) art.  The Tate's blurb noted: "After Stalin became leader in 1927, the propaganda...

After about 5 years of tireless effort by NUS and others (but mainly NUS) it was agreed (by HEFCE) that the current national (HE) student survey [*] could include questions on environmental sustainability (which is an increasingly odd phrase).  The...