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A UK Teacher Got Terminated After Offering To Pray For A Leukemia Student

AZ — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 07:59:37 +0000

Olive Jones, 54, gave lessons in mathematics to a 14-year-old who suffers from leukemia in the student’s home. In November, Jones spoke about miraculous healings and offered to pray for the girl in front of his mother.

When the mother, Stephanie Lynch, said the family is not religious, Jones said he dropped the subject. Jones believed that was the day on good terms with the family, but hours after his company, Oak Hill Short Stay School and enrollment services, called her and told her mother had lodged a formal complaint against him.

His employer told him that his offer of prayer could be seen as “bullying”.

Unlike Jones, Lynch said he had repeatedly asked the math teacher to stop “preaching” to her daughter. Lynch also said his daughter was “traumatized” and “deeply upset” by the views of Jones, especially after the math teacher, said young people go to heaven after death to the comfort of the student whose friend had died.

“The meetings with Mrs. Jones became increasingly traumatic and decided it was not appropriate for this woman to come to my house,” Lynch recently told Britain’s The Telegraph.

Jones, however, said he was surprised to hear parents had problems with sharing their Christian faith with her daughter.

“I just wanted to encourage them to be open to prayer, but if not then I do not want to force it down their throat,” Jones said in defense, according to the BBC.

The suspension comes after the equal diversity and recent legislation in the UK that require public officials to “promote” equality and “respect” for diversity.

Jones said he is not angry with his employer, who is trying to interpret the new equality and diversity policies, not bitter toward the mother, you’re just doing what he felt was right. Rather, Jones is upset with the system of political correctness in the UK whereby a person can not even talk about their faith.

“I am surprised that a country with a very strong Christian tradition has become a country where it is difficult to talk about their faith,” Jones said.

From Jones only works part time for short periods the Oak Hill school and has a contract with the company, was released by his employer immediately after the filing of the complaint. The home-visiting professor of mathematics expressed fears that the incident has left a “black spot” in its name and character and make it harder for her to find another job.

“If I had done something criminal, I think the reaction would have been the same,” he said.

The defense of the teacher is the Christian Legal Center.

“Whatever you think of the facts, the reaction here is totally disproportionate,” said Andrea Williams, a lawyer and the director of Christian Legal Center, according to the Telegraph. “Mrs. Jones was a supply teacher for nearly five years we are looking into what legal recourse we have to seek reinstatement or damages.”

Williams said: “This is a clear discrimination on grounds of faith.”

The service said Oak Hill School is the creation of an interview with Jones to further investigate the incident.

Psychology students are more funny than others [Clever]

AZ — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 06:06:39 +0000

An eccentric philosophy professor gave a review of a final question, after a semester dealing with a wide range of topics.

The class was already seated and ready for when the professor took his chair, slumped on his desk and wrote on the board: “Using everything we have learned this semester, prove that this chair does not exist.”

Fingers flew, erasers erased, notebooks were filled with a furious manner. Some students wrote over 30 pages in an hour of trying to disprove the existence of the chair. A member of the class however, got up and finished in less than a minute.

Weeks later, when the notes were issued, the rest of the group wondered how he could have got one thing “A”, when he had written to all. His response was two words:

“What chair?”

The University of Oxford – College Life [Video]

AZ — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 05:00:22 +0000

Oxford University is the oldest university in the English speaking world and has been educating world changing leaders for over 800 years.

Oxford University slipped down to 5th place in University ranking

AZ — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 06:19:35 +0000

Oxford University has declined an international classification of the world’s best universities, which also revealed the progress of academic institutions in Asia, soon to be a challenge to the Ivy League and Oxbridge.

Oxford fell from fourth to fifth place with Imperial College London in the QS / Times Higher Education rankings, released today, the widening gap with those in Cambridge who rated second in the world. University College London (UCL) jumped Oxford next quarter after Yale, Cambridge and Harvard.

Overall, the UK still blows above its weight, second only to the U.S.. There are four of the 10 slots and 18 in the top 100. But there has been a significant drop in the number of North American universities in the top 100, 42 in 2008 to 36 in 2009. The number of universities in Asia in the top 100 increased from 14 to 16. University of Tokyo, at 22, is the highest ranking of the University of Asia, ahead of the University of Hong Kong at 24.

Major Universities UK said institutions in Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong “hot pursuit” of Western institutions saying they needed more funds to compete on the world stage.

Earlier this week, the outgoing vice chancellor of Oxford, warned that the university needs more than £ 1bn investment over the next decade to “not fit for purpose” facilities to a world-class quality. John Hood, said the university was the budget to make a loss for the fourth consecutive year.

“From a financial perspective that these are really worrying,” he said. “Government budgets are very stressed and equipment are very volatile, as are the markets for our business.” Oxford yesterday expressed surprise at his fall from the table. A spokesman said: “Placement of the league table can vary as they often use different methods to measure success, but the position of the University of Oxford Oxford is surprising given that … is first in each table national league.

The rankings are based on a survey of 9,000 international academics, how influential the institution’s research and quality measures of education and the ability to hire staff and students abroad.

Wendy Piatt, director general of the Russell Group of Universities, said: “The overall message of these tables is clear – the leading research universities in the UK are held in high esteem internationally, but countries like China and Korea, are investing heavily in their best institutions are heels.

“The accuracy of classification tables like this can be debated, but certainly a warning alarm that our success is at risk if we as a nation do not take measures against such fierce competition.

He added that the UK was less resources than its competitors and, by reducing public spending budgets hit they would be under increasing pressure. Universities are calling for better funding in the next revision of the student finance system, to be launched by the government within weeks. Increasingly, calls for fees to be increased to safeguard the quality of their teaching.

The rates of the league table of teaching quality according to the ratio staff / student. A recent report by the Higher Education Funding Council for England suggested some students were struggling to get enough contact time with tutors.

Phil Baty, deputy editor of the Times Higher Education magazine published tables, said: “Oxford comes out with a perfect score on the reputation of staff appointments, but have fallen slightly, while the UCL has improved dramatically. It is very tight on top of a relatively small change can move the pecking order. Spending on higher education in Asia is phenomenal and that’s why we see their results is increasing. ”

In past 7-years graduation rates have stalled at 39% in UK

AZ — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 03:11:13 +0000

The UK is crumbling international classification of graduation rates and now sends a smaller proportion of young people leaving school at the University of the Slovak Republic, Ireland and Portugal, according to a major study of global education.

In the last seven years graduation rates have stagnated at 39% and has leap-frogged the other 11 countries, the OECD study comparing the educational systems of developed countries found.

The UK has a higher rate of young people leaving education, employment or training of most OECD countries, except Italy, Mexico and Turkey. This leaves young people in Britain more vulnerable to the effects of the recession.

A ten-year increase spending on schools in the United Kingdom, the growing number of graduates and improvements in pre-school teacher available now in danger of being eclipsed by other countries that have copied the educational policies of the United Kingdom . If the investment is reduced by the contraction of public spending in the UK will lose its historic leadership position in the world, the report warns.

Andreas Schleicher, author of the annual education report from the OECD, said that in 2000 the UK has one of the most dynamic education systems, but now risks being left behind. “Now there are many countries that have accelerated more and are going through the UK,” he said.

The report compares OECD countries – including the UK, USA, France, Japan, Germany and Turkey – according to its investment in education and reap rewards for people to stay in school and study more beyond the age of 18.

It also concluded that that:

• Class sizes in the state funded primary in the United Kingdom are higher than all other OECD countries plus Turkey and Japan, with about 26 children per class on average,

• Class sizes in private schools in the UK are half the size of those in the state sector

• Teachers’ starting salaries in England are above average in primary schools, but below average in secondary

• The UK spends 5.5% of GDP on education – above average for schools, but below the average for universities

• 30% of people who begin in higher education fail to complete their course – something the authors blame low completion rates in vocational courses rather than traditional titles

• On average in OECD men with degrees can expect to earn a lifetime award from $ 186,000 (£ 112,914) compared to $ 134,000 (£ 81,346) for women

People who have a degree are more likely to have a job, earn more and enjoy better health, the agency said. Schleicher said the report was a warning to governments and youth in the recession that the price of not getting a good grade on the rise. The report is based on data from 2007, before the global economic slowdown began.

“People who are left out will pay higher prices than in the past. The competition for jobs is increasing and this is a warning that this could worsen. The penalty for leaving is bound to rise further ‘ he said. He added that “makes sense” to expand the universities during a downturn in students taking more and empower people in recovery. This summer the government level student numbers despite an increase in requests for check up to 60,000 well-qualified applicants turned away.

But the report also suggests that demand for graduates had fallen. Since 1998, the proportion of youth with a degree in the job has slipped by 3 percentage points. Schleicher said there was no way of knowing whether this was due to over supply of graduates, or the changing labor market.

Christine Blower, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said: “If the government considers the reversal of the hard-won gains in education spending will return to the UK to be massively disadvantaged when it comes to the level of skills and knowledge needed to compete globally. ”

Michael Gove, shadow schools secretary, said: “The OECD study confirms once more that as a country we are falling behind our international competitors.

David Lammy, higher education and skills minister, said there were no more students than ever before in the UK universities. “We remain committed to ensuring that no young are left behind in these difficult times,” he said.

12 Q&A from Real Students [Funny]

AZ — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 06:25:42 +0000

1. What happens to your body as you age?
When you get old, so do your bowels and you get intercontinental.

2. What happens to a boy when he reaches puberty?
He says goodbye to his boyhood and looks forward to his adultery.

3. What is artificial insemination?
When the farmer does it to the bull instead of the cow.

4. How can you delay milk turning sour?
Keep it in the cow.

5. How are the main parts of the body categorized?
The body is consisted into three parts – the brainium, the borax the abdominal cavity. The branium contains the brain, the borax contains the heart and lungs, and the abdominal cavity contains the five bowels, A,E,I,O and U.

6. What is the Fibula?
A small lie.

7. What does “varicose” mean?
Nearby.

8. What is the most common form of birth control?
Most people prevent contraception by wearing a condominium.

9. Give the meaning of the term “Caesarean Section.”
The caesarean section is a district in Rome.

10. What is a seizure?
A Roman emperor.

11. What is a terminal illness?
When you are sick at the airport

12. Give an example of a fungus. What is a characteristic feature?
Mushrooms. They always grow in damp places and they look like umbrellas.

Women are achieving better grades at university

AZ — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 06:56:37 +0000

Women are outperforming men at university according to research by the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI).

The study shows that female students of all ages and social and ethnic groups now outstrip male undergraduates in almost every subject including law and medicine. They are also more likely to go to leading universities and achieve better grades.

More than 49 per cent of women now go on to higher education compared to 37.8 per cent of men who study for degrees.

Women have almost reached the Government’s target of half of all young people becoming graduates, but the low percentage for men drags the overall figure down.

Researchers found that the gap between the sexes is widening most dramatically between the poorest.

They argue that GCSE exams, which heavily favour female styles of learning, exacerbate the differences in performance later in life. They warn that plummeting achievement among young men risks creating a disillusioned and excluded male generation — particularly among the working class.

The number of women undergraduates first overtook men in 1992-3 and they now outnumber male students at every university except Oxford and Cambridge, where the balance is about level.

The strides taken by women in higher education have been matched by soaring numbers of men underperforming, the report suggests.

The study says that the situation reflects a “mindset that continues to see males as advantaged and females as disadvantaged.” It concludes: “Whatever the truth in society at large — that is emphatically not the case in higher education.”.

Women are outclassing men at university, according to research by the Higher Education Policy Institute. They are also outstripping men in most subjects, including law and medicine, and are more likely to go to leading universities.

Adjustment to UK student life

AZ — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 05:49:34 +0000

Walking into a crowded student union bar can Bea daunting experience for a Chinese student, coming from a culture where bars are not necessarily socially acceptable.

Although China’s changing and becoming more westernized, life’s much more tightly structured and the influence of peer group sand the authorities is strong.

Students, who are used to living in same-sex dormitories on campus, may feel daunted at the freedom of the UK campus and find it hard to adjust to a busy social life unconnected with their studies.

The idea of having a special classmate is very important and this relationship is regarded as lifelong. The “cooler” nature of UK universities can leave students feeling isolated.

The severity of the Chinese classroom contrasts with the warmth and friendly relationships outside.”Students and lecturers may eat dinner together,go out together and develop close personal mentoring relationships,”says Turner.

Despite all this, the survey showed that many manage to adjust their attitude and orientation quickly to life in the UK and certainly feel they can be successful in their new learning environment.

Top schools boycott ‘biased’ Durham

AZ — Wed, 27 May 2009 07:31:29 +0000

SOME of the country’s most academic schools are discouraging pupils from applying to popular courses at Durham University in protest at what they see as an admissions system “fixed” against them.

The pupils are being told that they are likely to be overlooked for some courses because Durham uses a handicap system, based on mathematical formulae, to favour candidates from schools with poor grades.

As a result, candidates from high-performing schools – whether state or independent – are penalised.

Durham, Oxford and Cambridge are among those universities that have adopted formulae that use GCSE results data specially compiled by Ed Balls’s Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF). The system gives a rating to the GCSE performance of every school in the country which is used to “weight” the scores of university applicants.

The thinking is that because candidates from low-scoring schools have outstripped their peers, they deserve more credit than pupils who score a string of A* grades at a school where most pupils do so.

The extra points can be decisive in “tie breakers” for some of Durham’s most heavily oversubscribed courses, such as English and history, with more than 20 applicants per place.

Andrew Grant, chairman of the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference of independent schools and headmaster of St Albans school, Hertfordshire, said he had sympathy with the plight of the university, which has to reject about 3,500 applicants a year predicted to score at least three As at A-level. “None of us has any quarrel with making an allowance for serious disadvantage in individual cases,” he said. “What all of us object to is some spurious mathematical formula being applied across the board as if some kind of genuine accuracy is achievable.

“The message I and some colleagues are getting from Durham is that however brilliant your students are in English and history, send them somewhere else – we don’t want them.”

Barnaby Lenon, headmaster of Harrow school, London, said he was warning his brightest pupils they may not get offers for these subjects at Durham “because this year we have had a letter from them saying they are giving preference to pupils from low-achieving schools”.

The concern is spreading to the state sector. Martin Post, headmaster of Watford Grammar School for Boys – a comprehensive, despite its name – said the mathematical approach was flawed.

“How can you weight a school on the basis of these GCSE results? Do they take into account, for example, vocational courses for which the government often gives the same value as four GCSEs? Bless them, these people in higher education are probably unaware of the wangles that go on to improve league positions.”

Universities have been under strong pressure from the government to raise the proportions of students from state schools and deprived families. Use of the formulae is only one of the techniques used.

Durham has said its system was introduced partly in response to a report last year by the National Council for Educational Excellence, which was endorsed by Gordon Brown, Balls and John Denham, the universities secretary.

Sir Martin Harris, the government’s director of fair access, said he expected the GCSE points method to spread. “Will it help fairer access if universities bear in mind average performance of the school? . . . I imagine universities will go down that path,” he said.

However, Professor Alan Smithers, director of the Centre for Education and Employment Research at Buckingham University, said the methods were “antieducational”. He added: “The operation of these formulae is crude and unfair. Universities should be looking for those with the most talent. The country is making a grave mistake.”

Other universities using formulae include Cambridge, which uses government data to award variable points based on GCSEs. The university says no candidates win places solely on their modified GCSEs, but that it is “unarguable” that a candidate’s grades are affected by the school they attended.

Oxford also uses weighted GCSEs for admissions to medical degrees. On the course, which traditionally had a public school “rugger bugger” image, 50% of a candidate’s chances of being shortlisted for an interview depends on GCSE score, marked up if they attend a poorly performing school.

The Durham formula allows each candidate a maximum eight points for GCSEs. An A* scores one, with 0.6 for an A. The score is “modified” with up to 5.5 points to help candidates who have outperformed the average for their school.

Other universities that have requested GCSE figures include Leeds, Manchester, Bristol and Warwick.

Some departments at Bristol, including history, give extra points to candidates from poorly performing schools, although the government data are used only for research.

Some sixth formers believe they may have already been hit by formulae or similar methods. Jack Harman, 19, attended King’s College school, Wimbledon, a high-performing school in south London.

Even though he was predicted to gain three As at A-level, he was rejected by all five British universities to which he applied to read history – Oxford, Edinburgh, York, Warwick and King’s College London. He will now study in America instead.

His mother Emma Duncan said: “I cannot say the British universities are definitely biased . . . [but] calibrating the children’s results with the school record may be one reason Jack was turned down.It is bonkers he does not have a place in a good university here.”

Universities said weighted GCSE scores were vital to see a candidate’s grades in context.

A Durham spokesman said: “For some courses, competition is so fierce our selectors have to make choices between applicants who present themselves with identical credentials.

“The DCSF standardisation measurement allows selectors to see how an applicant has performed in relation to their school’s average. The results have been used to inform decisions in favour of fee [paying] as well as nonfee paying schools.”

A threat to excellence

The government formula used to analyse GCSE results, adopted by Durham and Oxford, is obviously flawed.

It is flawed for two reasons. First, because it assumes that all GCSE results signify an equal level of intellectual achievement. They do not. Many state schools enter their pupils for vocational qualifications which, if passed, are said to count as four good GCSE grades. This is a scam and it renders the whole concept of this government formula ridiculous.

Why, moreover, should a girl from a highly performing school who does slightly worse in her GCSE examinations than her peers, achieving, say, eight A grades against a school average of nine, be judged a weaker candidate than the boy from a less successful school who achieves five A grades against a school average of two or three? The latter candidate may be the stronger, but no mechanistic formula is going to establish the fact.

Ministers, rightly, want more bright young people from disadvantaged homes to win places at top universities. They think, wrongly, that this can be achieved by forcing universities to implement admissions policies that discriminate against candidates from independent and highly performing schools.

In fact, of course, the solution lies in the schools disadvantaged children attend. Labour has failed to raise standards in such schools and now wants us to believe that the problem is the elitism of our best universities.

Great universities are, by definition, elitist. They are institutions that exist in order to promote academic excellence. That excellence will survive if the best candidates compete with another for the limited places available. Social engineering will destroy it.

How do I choose the best university course for me?

AZ — Fri, 22 May 2009 05:16:15 +0000

Many people look back on their time at university as the best days of their life, but a surprising number would take a different degree if they could choose again.

A survey of graduates three years on from leaving higher education indicates that more than a third wish that they had opted for a different course. In some subjects, more than half regretted their choice.

The study, published by the Higher Education Statistics Agency underlines the need for close scrutiny of both the content of your chosen course and the prospects for employment afterwards. Not surprisingly, the results are closely linked to graduates’ satisfaction with their early career experiences.

Medical and dental students, almost all of whom go into their chosen profession, are the least likely to regret their choice of degree, although nearly one in five does. However arduous the training, they are happy to have achieved their goal and were earning reasonable salaries, with the prospect of much higher pay.

Less predictably – in view of the frequent claims of low morale among teachers – education graduates are the next most satisfied. Nearly eight out of ten would make the same choice again and almost nine out of ten were satisfied with the first three years of their career. Indeed, education was the only subject where more than half of those responding to the survey declared themselves to be “very satisfied” at work.

Most of those in the education category in the table below are teaching at primary schools, rather than comprehensives, having completed a BEd degree. As with the medics and dentists, they were committed to their future from the outset, and those who took the one-year Postgraduate Certificate in Education – the usual route into secondary-school teaching – were even more satisfied.

At the other end of the scale, more than half of those who took media studies and other subjects in the category of mass communications and documentation regret it. Although only 2 per cent of them were unemployed, 40 per cent (the highest proportion for any group) said they were in jobs that did not require a degree.

Until now, the employment rates quoted for different subjects and universities have all measured activity six months after graduation, when many graduates are travelling, beginning postgraduate courses or casting around for a career through internships or temporary employment. But, although relatively small-scale, involving 16,000 people who graduated in 2003, the Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education longitudinal survey covers a period when most have settled into a career.

The sample was too small to produce figures for each subject, so they are grouped together in 19 areas.

Catherine Benfield, the HESA official responsible for the project, says the results tallied with those in the Government’s much larger Labour Force Survey and were seen as sufficiently reliable for the exercise to be repeated next year. “There has been a feeling for some time that six months after graduation is too soon to be the only measure of destinations and this exercise adds to our understanding.”

Fewer than half of the respondents had been in jobs requiring a degree throughout the entire three years since leaving university but 75 per cent had a graduate job by the time of the survey. Only 2 per cent were still unemployed, compared with 7 per cent six months after graduation, with an additional 2 per cent “not available for employment”.

Surprisingly, maths graduates were shown to be the most likely to have had a job not requiring a degree, more than a third having been in this position at some time in the three years. Even so, only one in 10 was less than satisfied with their career – one of the lowest proportions in any subject – and the proportion regretting their choice of degree was lower than average for all subjects.

Computer science, agriculture and social studies are the other areas where more than four out of ten graduates said they would be likely, or very likely, to choose a different subject. The findings for these subjects suggest that graduates’ attitudes are not all about success in the jobs market because in all three areas, those responding were relatively satisfied with their career.

Agriculture is particularly puzzling because, while 41 per cent would choose a different subject, more than 90 per cent are shown to be happy with their career. Only architects, builders and planners are more satisfied – and they are among the most content with their choice of course.

Even in computing, where applications have been dropping and 45 per cent said they would be likely to choose a different subject, 87 per cent were satisfied with their career. Social studies covers a variety of degrees, from economics to sociology, so it may be that some respondents feel that a slightly different emphasis would have interested them more.

Computing graduates (jointly, with those in the creative arts) are, it seems, the most inclined to wish they had chosen a different university. Almost a third felt this way, compared with a national average of just over one in five.

As with the subject questions, most graduates would not make a different choice if they had their time again, but enough had regrets for the survey to underline the importance of serious research at the application stage.

heystudents.com » uk

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