Don't blame it on the gene
The obsession with genetic explanations is a cheap and convenient way of dealing with complex human behaviour. Sociologist of science Dorothy Nelkin tells Gail Vines why she has chosen this issue for...
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Tomes come home
Dramatic settings, intricate plot, money, politics and colourful characters - yes, it's the story of the new British Library, which opens next week. Harriet Swain reports The final chapter of a very...
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Sixth of the best beat colleges
SIXTH form colleges have squeezed general further education and tertiary colleges out of all but 11 of the top 50 post-16 places, according to the Department for Education and Employment. General...
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Time's up for the comatose watchmaker
The empirical evidence is against Darwinism's mechanism of random mutation and natural selection as defined by Richard Dawkins, argues Phillip E. Johnson An otherwise splendid exhibit in the National...
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Passion and PhDs under the dome
Only one person I know claims to have "made out" in the Reading Room of the British Library. He, as the phrase suggests, was an American. As I sit in the rather empty but characteristically noisy...
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Study aims to improve impact of warning signs
REACTIONS to danger warning signals is to come under the spotlight of researchers at Plymouth University. Backed by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and led by human factors...
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Governors don flak jackets
QUALITY assurance, franchising, downsizing: the academic world is prone to latch on to the latest management mantras long after the private sector and is inclined to have trouble handling them....
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Labouring under a new challenge
The recent report from the House of Commons education and employment select committee recognises that there is a teacher recruitment problem developing that will, if the trend continues, make it...
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Long on vision, short on cash
So further education is to get only an additional Pounds 83 million next year to tide it over while the government completes its spending review and hones plans to rebalance post-16 education to...
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Time to break the grip of the old boys' club
A modernised, more anonymous process of application for research funds is required, writes John Smith. The system of allocating research funds through peer review is one of those "old world"...
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RAE goes Forth and multiplies
A consultation paper on the future of the Research Assessment Exercise has been issued. Bahram Bekhradnia describes its purpose. The research assessment exercise has some of the characteristics of...
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Quality drive blunted by cuts
Colleges' efforts to improve standards and access were checked this year simply because of cash cuts and financial worries, according to the annual Further Education Funding Council inspection report...
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Classes for the masses
Economic success and social cohesion can be boosted by widening the base of further and higher education, argues Helena Kennedy Tony Blair's call for an additional 500,000 places in further and...
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Is it time for the many not the few?
Ministers have placed the Fryer group looking into lifelong learning into virtual purdah, but Phil Baty identifies the problems it is seeking to address The long-awaited lifelong learning white paper...
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Raising an army with demoralised officers
Sue Berryman applauds the government's plan to swell the ranks of further education but urges it to alleviate the plight of the sector's demoralised and underpaid staff The prospect of at least 400,...