Guardian Education News

London children least likely to go to chosen school, says Guardian survey

One in six families will learn tomorrow that they have not received their first choice of secondary school amid intense competition for places at the highest performing state schools across England.

London children are worst hit, with more than four out of 10 pupils have not got their first choice school in parts of the capital.

Today is "national offer day", the deadline for local authorities and schools to allocate secondary places. Letters will go in the post to parents reaching most by tomorrow.

Every one of an estimated 560,000 pupils who have applied this year are guaranteed a place at a state secondary from September but in areas of the country where the credit crunch is fuelling applications from pupils who might otherwise have gone to private school, competition has become tougher. Areas with high performing schools and grammar schools places are particularly affected.

Outside London that impact has been offset by a decline in the population of 11-year-olds, easing pressure on school places.

The Guardian contacted 150 local authorities in England. By lunchtime today 59 had responded providing the complete figures for the proportion of applicants for secondary places who had secured a place at their preferred school. A decline in numbers of applications overall has meant the proportion failing to get a first choice school is likely to fall from one in five last year to one in six this year, but nearly 100,000 families will still have to settle for second best.

The figures for all London councils will be published this evening through the Pan-London Admissions Authority, but those that provided the figures directly to the Guardian revealed some of the most intense competition in the country.

In Westminster the proportion getting their first choice has slipped from 65.6% last year to 64% this year. In Kingston upon Thames just 57% of pupils have got their first choice, in Kensington and Chelsea 60% have, in Richmond 62% and in Tower Hamlets 72% have won their top choice of school.

In Blackburn, Middlesbrough and Sandwell a quarter of pupils have not got their first choice. In Derby and in Windsor a fifth have not been successful while in Darlington, Gloucestershire and Northamptonshire one in six have failed.

In Brighton, where the introduction of the controversial lottery system last year preceded a drop to 78.2% of pupils getting their first choice of school, there has been a sharp rise in successful applicants with 88% getting first choice places for September.

The schools secretary, Ed Balls, acknowledged on Sunday that the system would never be fair until there are further improvements in school standards so that no child was consigned to a low-performing secondary. He insisted that an admissions code introduced two years ago had made the system fairer and announced a review of the lottery system for allocating school places, which was first sanctioned under the code.

"I have sympathy with the view that a lottery system can feel arbitrary, random and hard to explain to children in years 5 and 6 who don't know what's going to happen and don't know which children in their class they're going to going on to secondary school with," he said.

A Guardian/ICM poll of votes today revealed scepticism about the fairness of the schools system with nearly half of people saying they did not believe every child has a fair chance of a good place at a school. Some 60% reported believing that standards in state schools are declining and one in four think that private schools should be scrapped.

• Additional reporting by Peter Kingston

For a team who found themselves mercilessly crushed under the wheels of Corpus Christi college's one-woman "intellectual blitzkrieg", the losers of this year's University Challenge final have proved remarkably graceful in defeat.

Not only have the Manchester University students expressed their admiration for the winning Oxford team, led by the formidable Gail Trimble, they have now also rejected calls for a rematch after it became clear that one of her fellow intellectual howitzers was not even a student for much of the competition.

The Observer revealed yesterday that Sam Kay - one quarter of the Corpus Christi team - had graduated in June 2008 but still took part in three later rounds of the quiz show, helping his team sweep a 275 to 190-point victory in the final. Last Monday's culmination of the quiz, which was watched by a record 5.3m people, was filmed two months ago while Kay was working as a graduate trainee for the business services firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

"We have no intention of playing a rematch," said their captain, Matthew Yeo. "The last thing we want would be to give the idea that we didn't have fun. We thoroughly enjoyed the game against fantastic opponents."

He added: "Reuben, Simon, Henry and I are firmly of the opinion that the best team won on the day. Any decision about eligibility is a matter for the BBC, but we hope any decision does not detract from what was a thrilling final won by a truly tremendous team."

The BBC said it was investigating whether there had been a breach of the rules. "We understand the allegations made and are taking the issue seriously," said a spokeswoman. "However we need time to investigate fully, so we will do so and report our findings early next week."

Kay said that he didn't think he had broken any rules.

"I was a student when I applied to be on the show and on the day when we filmed the first two rounds, so I don't think I've done anything wrong," he said.

Some fans of the show have called for the Oxford team to be disqualified. One commentator on guardian.co.uk suggested that clues as to eligibility might be found in the programme's title: "It is called University Challenge ... which rather implies that the people involved are currently at university."

PWC confirmed that Kay had been working for the company as a graduate trainee since September. A spokeswoman for Oxford university said Kay's eligibility was a matter for the BBC to decide.

Under the system of internships, those who cannot afford to work for nothing emerge from university to a closed door

MPs this week attacked leading UK universities for being "elitist", citing evidence that twice as many children from rich families go to university as those from poorer backgrounds. This is a damning indictment of the lack of social mobility in modern Britain – but it is not the only one.

Many of this year's 400,000 upcoming university leavers are about to discover that even having achieved a degree, there remain significant blocks to social mobility in Labour's Britain.

As things stand, university leavers wishing to work in journalism, politics, public policy or related fields can expect their first year of work to be unpaid. Those wishing to enter the legal profession can also expect long periods of unremunerated work – after paying thousands in graduate course fees. The same is true of many other professions.

The current internship system is therefore a substantial block to social mobility. The vast majority of internships are offered in London, with interns receiving expenses for lunch and travel at best. Yet the cost of living in London is notoriously high, and the cost of renting accommodation the highest in the country.

This state of affairs means that internships are de facto open only to the wealthy. Only those with family in London that they can stay with for free, and who are economically supported during months of unpaid work, can enter the present system. Given that most top-end middle class professions now demand periods of unpaid interning, it doesn't take a genius to see this is a recipe for social immobility.

There are scores of young people from lower-middle and working class families who have worked hard to graduate with good degree qualifications – only to find that the doors to many professions are firmly locked. For as well as the financial barriers to the current interning system, there's another truth to be reckoned with: being offered an internship will often depend more on who you know than what you've done.

It is tempting to blame the organisations employing unpaid interns. But the fact is, this free labour is now such a staple part of so many professions that relying on it is a basic component of most business models – even for employers who find the practice dubious. Reform is only possible if the government imposes it, either by legislating to end the practice or providing substantial income support for those unable to work for free.

There is good reason to welcome the government's plan, announced last January, of creating new internships for university leavers during the recession. This will help graduates entering the most hostile job market for a generation. But even if Labour's words are followed up with action, current proposals aren't enough.

All that is being mooted at present is the creation of an unspecified number of new internships with pay deals keeping graduates at their university income level. This does nothing to address the issue of the existing internship industry, which will presumably go on as before, and continue once this recession is over.

Yet if we are to have a society in which the class of one's birth ceases to determine one's socio-economic horizons, a wholesale reform of the system is required. The government is right to demand that more students from poor backgrounds make it to university. But it must be reminded that it is no good sending students to university if once they have graduated their parents are too poor or ill-connected to make their degrees count for anything.

Schools minister calls for end to placing twins in different schools through random selection

The government is to order a review of the use of lotteries to allocate school places, prompted by concerns that they have had a "destabilising" effect on children. Ed Balls, the schools secretary, has also demanded an end to what he called the "ridiculous" situation where twins are split up and placed in different schools.

The moves come in the same week that half a million 11-year-olds will be told which secondary schools they will attend in September. Last year one in five failed to get into their first-choice school.

Balls has asked the new chief schools adjudicator, Ian Craig, to investigate whether the lottery system is being abused and used too freely. If it is found to have a harmful or unfair effect it will be banned, he said.

Random allocation by lottery has been used by around 25 local authorities. In an exclusive interview with the Observer, Balls said they should only be used as a last resort. "Allocating within bands on a lottery or allocating all places on a lottery ... I think that most parents would see that as being pretty arbitrary, pretty unfair and very destabilising for their children," he said.

"If there's no other fair differentiator, then in the end a lottery is the only way to do it. But that is absolutely the last resort and you'd expect it to happen on rare occasions, not every year, not for every school and only in a handful of cases."

Lotteries were seen as a way of stopping middle class families buying their way into oversubscribed schools by paying inflated prices for homes nearby. In Brighton, where Labour lost control of the council as they were attempting to change the rules, it prompted bitter feuds between parents. Lotteries are also used in Hertfordshire, Northamptonshire, Milton Keynes, Derbyshire, Bristol, North Somerset and Dorset.

Balls said: "It's never going to feel fully fair to parents when they can't get their child into their first-choice school. That happens to a minority of parents, still. Until we can get to good schools where there isn't a concentration of oversubscription then there is always going to be disappointment."

He said that through the academy programme and the National Challenge Scheme to eliminate underperforming schools, they were moving closer to that goal. Balls accused the Conservative party of wanting to preserve a system which had favoured a minority of "powerful" parents by allowing them to play the system and gain a place at the expense of less vocal parents. He added: "A system where a minority was able to jump the queue is not a fair approach."

He said reports that more families were applying to state schools to avoid paying private school fees during the recession was testimony to their rising quality. "The reality is that there are lots of parents in cities these days who five or 10 years ago would have assumed that there was no state school for them," he said. "Now they are actually thinking: 'That academy down the road - look at the building, look at the headteacher, look at the results. Actually this may be a better educational as well as a wider lifestyle choice for us'."

John Dunford, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: "It's absolutely right to institute an inquiry because this is a new development which needs proper evaluation. There is a world of difference between using a lottery to decide the last few places and allocating the majority of places randomly."

He said that the problem of middle-class families buying their way into popular schools had been put on ice because of the depressed housing market. "Schools keep a very careful eye on false addresses to look for families renting flats nearby to get a place."

Schools will sometimes compare a child's home address with the address recorded with their primary school to ensure that they match.

Proposals part of new initiative intended to ensure Britain produces 'the great scientists of tomorrow'

Gordon Brown today pledged to ensure that 90% of state schools teach physics, chemistry and biology as separate subjects within five years.

The prime minister said the move would ensure Britain produced "the great scientists of tomorrow".

"One of the biggest stumbling blocks in science education is that in the
comprehensive sector only a minority of schools offer three separate
sciences as opposed to combined science qualifications," Brown said in a speech at Oxford.

This meant pupils were less likely to get good science A-levels, or to go on to
study science at university, he added.

Brown argued that investment in science was key to the UK's future
competitiveness.

He also signalled his ambition to shift the UK economy away from its
overdependence on financial services and towards science and technology.

The prime minister said he would not to let science become "a victim of the recession", vowing to protect its funding from competing demands for government support during the downturn.

He announced initiatives to encourage graduates with science, maths and IT
degrees who lose their jobs during the recession to retrain as teachers –
part of a drive to ensure that almost all state schools offer physics,
chemistry and biology as separate subjects within five years.

"The time has come to build a society that seeks high-value engineering,
not financial engineering," he said.

"A nation that values Britain's great history of scientific achievement and
that backs Britain's capacity for scientific discovery.

"We have a scientific record to be proud of. The question now is how we
build on this strength to make Britain the best country in the world in
which to be a scientist in the months and years to come.

"Some say that now is not the time to invest, but the bottom line is that
the downturn is no time to slow down our investment in science."

Brown also promised to "promote a positive public debate about the proper
role of science in the service of humanity" in order to improve public
understanding and awareness of science.

And he also set a new target of increasing the number of young people
sitting A-level maths from 56,000 now to 80,000 by 2014.

• Evidence for games is weak, says Which? report
• Experts say they are no better than a crossword

People who spend money on "brain trainers" to keep their minds agile may get the same results by simply doing a crossword or surfing the internet, according to research published today.

A panel of experts, including eminent neuroscientists, found there was no scientific evidence to support a range of manufacturers' claims that the gadgets can help improve memory or stave off the risk of illnesses such as dementia.

Devices such as the Nintendo DS, endorsed by the actor Nicole Kidman and the singer Cheryl Cole, have enjoyed a surge of popularity recently. But the experts employed by the consumer group Which? concluded that much of the evidence supporting the claims was "weak" and that in some cases other activities, such as playing standard computer games, could have the same effect.

Importantly, none of the "brain training" claims were supported by peer-reviewed research published in a recognised scientific journal.

Which? asked a panel of scientific experts to examine gadgets and their claims. They included Dr Kawashima's Brain Training, Mindfit and Lumosity.

Martyn Hocking, editor of Which?, said: "If people enjoy using these games, then they should continue to do so - that's a no-brainer. But if people are under the illusion that these devices are scientifically proven to keep their minds in shape, they need to think again."

Which? members who had written to the organisation about brain training were asked to try the products for a month. One of the experts, Dr Adrian Owen, assistant director at the Medical Research Council's cognition and brain sciences unit in Cambridge, said of the research involving one group: "If they'd been asked to play Space Invaders for a month and improved at it - as surely they would - would we have concluded this was a beneficial form of brain training? Probably not."

Michael Scanlon, a neuroscientist from Lumosity, defended the company's research standards, and said: "We would never say Lumosity is proven to improve day-to-day living, but there is more and more evidence it does. We have actually conducted our own clinical trials to measure effectiveness of the product."

Also under the spotlight was Mindfit, a CD-Rom endorsed by the scientist Lady Greenfield. Two of the three studies it used to support its claims that it improved mental performance were found to be flawed. It also claimed that "cognitively challenging" activity protects against Alzheimer's. Bruce Robinson, chief executive of MindWeavers, which produces MindFit, said: "If you look at the wider evidence in the field the broad conclusion is that brain stimulation is working. With the MindFit product, a study was done by an independent medical centre in Israel which supported that evidence. We are not claiming MindFit will stop Alzheimer's."

Nintendo said: "Nintendo does not make any claims that Brain Training is scientifically proven to improve cognitive function. What we claim is the Brain Training series of games, like playing sudoku, are enjoyable and fun. These exercises can also help to keep the brain sharp."

Tried and tested

Dr Kawashima's Brain Training (Nintendo) £110 including DS console:

Instructions say it can help consolidate memory and creativity

Which? No evidence that using this product will have any functional impact on your life whatsoever

Mindfit (PC CD-ROM) £88

Company claims "exercises important abilities known to decline in later life"

Which? Tests didn't show using it was significantly better than playing Tetris

Lumosity (online training system) Luminos Labs, £4.99 a month

Company says: "Exercises ... designed to stimlulate neuroplasticity that leads to improved cognitive ability"

Which? Does not mean improvements on tasks will lead to improvements in day-to-day living

Adults should be wary of criticising young people for spending time on the internet. They are taking control of their lives

There are some strange things being said at the moment about the mind-warping dangers of young people using the internet too much, especially for social networking purposes.

Some "experts" have told us that young people are missing out on crucial benefits of physical proximity because of their enthusiasm for virtual social worlds, forgetting, perhaps, that they also spend several hours a day crammed into classrooms together. We've also been told that they are compromising their attention spans by spending so much time on sites such as Bebo and Facebook.

These questions are entirely legitimate and deserve to be asked, but ideally not in the spirit of setting off another moral panic. It is not, after all, as if no-one has thought of them already. A considerable number of social scientists have been working in this area throughout the world for quite for some now.

A team of us at Oxford University's department of education are involved in such research, as part of a programme of work organised by Becta (a government body) in support of its "harnessing technology strategy".

Our project is looking at how young people aged 8 to 19 use technologies in their own time, at home. For the most part, what we are seeing is far from the anxiety-inducing picture presented in the media.

The experiences of young people change as they grow older. Eight-year-olds engage in very little social networking, and for the most part are watched over and guided by parents who are only too aware of the dangers of letting their children loose in the cyber world.

Many teenagers do begin to spend regular time on Bebo, a junior version of Facebook, as well as on MSN, sending chat messages to one another. They often play interactive online games in which the communication with other players is far more important than the details of narrative. It is far from obvious that these are negative experiences.

Alongside such activities, youngsters are using their computers as the focal point for many other things they do each day: homework, watching TV on demand, listening to music and following personal interests such as video editing, composing music and surfing the web. It is clear to us that young people like the freedom, and the responsibility, that comes with being able to take control of these sources of communication, entertainment and knowledge for themselves. We have also been struck by the large proportion of them who are only too keen to get out and do other things. We are not seeing a generation of young people wasting their leisure time hypnotised in front of screens.

Not everything they do, or encounter, on the internet is what any of us would judge as desirable, and not all of them spend their time wisely. However, we see a lot of evidence to suggest that, far from infantilising young people, the computer and the internet together provide a powerful means by which young people can begin to take control of their lives in ways which adults should be very cautious about condemning so readily.

• Dr Chris Davies is course director for the MSc in e-Learning at the University of Oxford's department of education.

Central London protest for abolition of tuition fees goes against policy of National Union of Students

Buoyed by their recent action on Gaza, thousands of students are set to march through central London today demanding the abolition of tuition fees for university and college education.

The organisers have split with the leadership of the National Union of Students, which believes abolishing tuition fees is "unfeasible".

A wave of university sit-ins against the Israeli attack on Gaza resulted in several student demands being met.

Now students from universities, colleges and schools across Britain are joining to protest against tuition fees of more than £3,000 a year.

They hope to prevent, at least, any increase in fees that could come as the result of the review promised by the government this year.

It is led by a coalition of campaigners and renegade student unions at diverse institutions across the country and is the first such national demonstration organised by students in ten years.

Student unions from 20 universities including Bradford, Cambridge and Goldsmiths, as well as Dunstable college, are supporting the campaign.

Rosie Isaac, a fourth-year medical student at Southampton University and one of the march organisers, said: "Tuition fees rule out the possibility of seriously expanding access to universities, force most students who do get to university into debt and push many into exploitative low-paid work."

Tom Wills, a second-year international relations student at Sussex University and one of the leaders of the campaign, said: "This is a grass roots student movement that we hope will be the start of a bigger campaign.

"As an immediate aim we would be happy if we prevent the raising of the cap.

"The NUS's policy is flawed logic – you don't win concessions by trying to appease the government, you need to put pressure on them.

"With the march, we want to put this on the agenda and make sure free education is talked about on every campus, especially next term as the review raises the temperature on the debate around tuition fees. We need to make fees an election issue."

He said the fact that several student demands were met after the sit-in protests on campus was "inspiring".

"With the economic crisis the future is already uncertain and students want to feel part of shaping that future," he added.

Ed Maltby, a final year student from Cambridge University and national secretary of the education not for sale campaign, said: "For as long as you've got fees, the logic of the system is to move to a market. Merely asking government to keep the cap isn't a solution.

"Higher education is a social good. A degree is not a matter of an individual ticket to a better-paid job. Society should pay through progressive taxation on the rich and big business not ordinary working class people.

"The NUS has abdicated its responsibility to members by giving up on mass campaigning."

Wes Streeting, the president of the NUS, has faced criticism from campaigners over his refusal to back the campaign and his condemnation of the recent Gaza protests.

He said: "The NUS is standing alongside several other trade unions today to protest against 1.5 million cuts in adult education places.

"If the student movement gets campaigning tactics (over fees) wrong in 2009 there will be no chance of stopping the lifting of the cap.

"Some people say we have small ambitions but a fundamental overhauling of the way the system is funded isn't small.

"We've made a bold and brave decision to focus on how graduates contribute and eliminating the market rather than getting rid of fees, which is unfeasible."

The economic climate would make it unrealistic to argue for the abolition of fees, he said.

"It looks like cloud cuckoo land. The fight has got to be to ensure the market in fees doesn't go further and to defend investment in universities and colleges. That's a campaign we can win."

The march was due to assemble at midday outside the School of Oriental and African Studies.

Head of funding agency says that government needs to invest in further education and maintenance grants instead

The elaborate system of university bursaries has no effect on student choices at age 18 and the government needs to concentrate on inspiring younger teenagers, the head of the body responsible for widening access to higher education warned today.

Sir Martin Harris, director of the Office for Fair Access (Offa), stopped a fraction short of calling for the abolition of his own quango but urged the government to switch its main efforts to advising and encouraging young people from age 14 and even earlier.

Despite government efforts over the past decade and the expenditure of more than £364m over the past five years, participation in higher education by students from poor families has remained stubbornly low.

Harris's comments come as widening participation is under renewed scrutiny from the public accounts committee this week and all political parties are gearing up for a highly charged debate on whether to raise tuition fees in England.

Offa was established when the Labour government introduced tuition fees of up to £3,000 as a concession to MPs worried that students from poor families would be deterred from applying to university because of the cost. It monitors the bursaries that universities in England provide, which amount to 25% of the extra income from fees.

The job of monitoring had been done, he told a seminar held by the Higher Education Policy Institute. "The principle task of Offa that no students should be deterred at the age of 18 by financial worries seems to have been largely successful. This leads to the question of what would be the best areas of increased support for widening access much earlier in the educational system rather than continuing to focus on age 18," he said.

Education maintenance allowances, designed to encourage teenagers to stay on in education, were doing more to help widen access to university than an extra £100 on a bursary at 18, argued Harris. "The underlying problem of widening participation and fair access is as important as ever but it needs to be tackled earlier in the education system."

He added: "Obviously, I believe that both grants and loans and university bursaries are vital in encouraging young people to enter high education." But he felt the functions of Offa could in future be carried out by the Higher Education Funding Council for England.

Financial support for poor students was more generous than it had been for decades, said Harris. There was no evidence that fianncial differences in packages between universities had any effect on student choices. "And there is little evidence that any financial package at 18 makes any difference to whether a young person goes into higher education."

David Willetts, the Conservative higher education spokesman, welcomed Harris's comments and said many state school pupils missed out on the chance of going to leading universities because they did the wrong GCSEs and A-levels.

He said: "I am focusing on the problem of por information and the virtual collapse of the careers service. For middle-class children there is a well trodden route via Ucas to university. That route is harder to use if you are from a background that doesn't know how the system works."

Current system does not supply students or employers with the skills they need, says universities secretary

Universities should offer more vocational degrees because the current system is not supplying students or employers with the skills they need, the universities secretary, John Denham, said today.

Research funding will continue to be concentrated in the academically elite universities, while others need to develop new types of degrees to train people for the world of work, he said.

Although the system would result in greater specialisation of institutions, Denham insisted that the plans do not signal a wholesale return to the the divide between academic universities and vocational polytechnics that existed prior to 1992.

In a speech to vice-chancellors today setting out the future for universities, he said that higher education would look radically different in 10 years' time.

"In return for increased investment, public or private, wider society will demand that higher education meets the personal, educational and training needs of individuals and our economy," Denham said. "Both employers and students will certainly become more discerning, more demanding and more willing to exercise choice."

He added: "We do not think the future is gradually diluting the concentration of research, and spreading it thinly and evenly across the board.

"High levels of research concentration are going to be necessary in the future within institutions."

Despite a rapid expansion of the number of people who go to university, there are questions about whether they are studying the right kinds of qualifications, Denham said.

"It is not clear that our publicly funded degrees offer the range and balance of qualifications which students and the wider economy require," he said, adding that with more students applying to university with vocational qualifications, universities would have to provide degrees that built on that.

He said: "The fact that I do not believe that all institutions will meet this need in equal proportion does not mean that I am calling ... for the re-establishment of the polytechnic divide."

A spokesman for the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills added that while there would be a greater degree of specialisation, they did not expect the pre-1992 divide to re-emerge and that a lot of older universities would also be expected to move towards vocational degrees.

Denham dismissed concerns that vocational education would detract from liberal education and "personal enrichment, enlightenment and development", saying that universities should teach in any way that "excited" people about ideas and taught them to think critically, which was equally achievable through more vocational ways of learning.

He also suggested more changes to how people do degrees in the future. "We will surely need to move decisively away from the assumption that a part-time degree is a full time degree done in bits," he said. "I don't have any doubt that the degree will remain the core outcome.

"But the trend to more flexible ways of learning will bring irresistible pressure for the development of credits which carry value in their own right, for the acceptance of credits by other institutions, and for the ability to complete a degree through study at more than one institution."

Wes Streeting, president of the NUS, said: "We agree with John Denham that we need a much more flexible higher education system in the future, with more provision for part-time study and credit-based learning.

"Of course, such a radical vision of the future of higher education will require an equally radical overhaul of the way it is funded, and we hope the government keeps an open mind on this in its forthcoming review. It will also require the whole of the higher education sector to be prepared to work together, with every institution playing its part."

The 1994 group of small research-intensive universities has appointed Prof Paul Wellings, vice-chancellor of Lancaster University, as chair for the next three years.

Wellings, who has been at Lancaster since 2002, will take over from Prof Steve Smith, the vice-chancellor of Exeter University who is to be the next president of umbrella group Universities UK (UUK), on 1 August.

Wellings advised the government on intellectual property in universities as part of the review of the future of higher education launched by the universities' secretary, John Denham, last year.

His appointment comes as Denham faces criticism for proposing to increase the differentiation between research and teaching universities in the sector.

This would confirm the growing divisions between groups of universities, highlighted by lobbying organisations such as the 1994 and Russell groups which act for research-intensive universities, Million+ which acts for new universities which rely mainly on teaching income, and the recently formed University Alliance which acts for institutions seeking to balance teaching and research.

Wellings is chair of the Higher Education Funding Council for England's Research and Innovation Committee and also serves on the council's board, as well as being a board member of UUK and chair of its International and European Policy Committee.

After degrees at the universities of London, Durham and East Anglia, Wellings began his career as a Natural Environment Research Council research fellow and moved to Australia as a research ecologist at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), becoming chief of the Entomology Division in 1995.

From 1997 to 1999 he was head of the Innovation and Science Division, Department of Industry, Science and Resources, Canberra, and became deputy chief executive of the CSIRO in 1999, before returning to the UK.

Wellings said: "I am proud and excited to be entrusted with leading the 1994 group at a crucial time for the higher education sector.

"The results of the research assessment exercise 2008 demonstrate that the 1994 group is second to none for research excellence.

"We are also recognised for our outstanding teaching and have a great record of delivering very high levels of satisfaction within the student experience.

"In these challenging economic times, our members' internationally-renowned, innovative research mean that they are ideally placed to play a full role at local, regional, national and international level.

"I am very much looking forward to building on Steve Smith's success in strengthening the impact of the group and setting the agenda for higher education."

Inspectors name the schools that are performing best in deprived areas, claiming their 'vision and conviction' should be an inspiration to others

Strict discipline, strong leadership, staff training and helping pupils achieve their best can help schools be outstanding against the odds, government inspectors have said..

An Ofsted report highlighted the characteristics shared by 12 secondaries in deprived areas that have been judged to be "outstanding" at least twice in their past three school inspections.

The report found that schools put pupils first, invested in staff and their communities and applied consistently strong values and expectations. They all prohibit knives, alcohol and drugs and typically have strong links with the police.

One of the secondaries, Middleton technology school in Rochdale, will not admit students with "shaven heads or emblematic patterns in their hair, trainers which bear brand marks and conspicuous designs and other manifestations of group or gang culture".

Paul Grant, headteacher of Robert Clack school in Dagenham, excluded 300 pupils in his first week to improve behaviour, speaking to each parent to explain why and find solutions.

He also drove the school minibus around the town looking for truants, so concerned was he about the 70% attendance rate.

The successful schools, which are based in cities in England, track pupils' progress against targets and do everything possible to help them succeed and support them if they slip behind, the report found. They also make a priority of appointing effective teachers and providing training.

They have good links with parents, a high proportion of excellent and imaginative lessons, an effective curriculum and rigorous evaluation, planning and monitoring.

Many introduced internal observation of lessons, with experienced teachers acting as mentors for new recruits. Others insisted on meeting with parents of repeat absentees and held breakfast clubs and after-school activities.

The report underlined the need for effective leadership at all levels and a belief that every student matters.

The report is intended to inspire other similarly disadvantaged schools to improve, rather than use their circumstances as an excuse for low standards.

The government's target is for 30% of pupils to get five A* to C grade GCSEs, including English and maths.

Christine Gilbert, the chief inspector of schools, said: "These schools show that excellence doesn't happen by chance. It is due to the vision and conviction of their leaders and the inspired, effective teams they have built.

"Much of what they do is already widespread in schools but in each case they do everything well. They show how to balance discipline with what one head movingly calls the 'healing and invigorating power of praise and celebration'.

"I hope the example of these schools will inspire others across the country so that all young people, regardless of where they go to school, will have the same opportunity of an excellent education."

Five of the schools singled out were in London. Sir Mike Tomlinson, the government's chief advisor on London schools, said this showed how much London schools had improved.

"It's down to the hard work of teachers and headteachers but London Challenge gives teachers and headteachers tailored support – whatever they need appropriate for that school, not just one-size-fits-all parachuted in," he said.

The shadow schools secretary, Michael Gove, said: "These schools demonstrate that disadvantage should not mean low standards.

"Schools that have excellent headteachers with strong discipline policies and high expectations can help children thrive regardless of their economic background.

"We should celebrate this achievement and give parents the power to ensure that these approaches are adopted more widely across the state sector."

Prisoners who want to gain qualifications while inside are not always given the support they need

There was this joke doing the penal rounds in the 70s. Set in a pub, where two criminals are propping up the bar.

One turns to the other with a question: "I believe Bodger's back on the streets?"

Two: "Yeah, he came out last month; copped for parole after getting a degree from the Open University, in criminal psychology I believe."

One: "Good for Bodger, does that mean he's going straight?"

Two: "Nah, he's still robbing banks, difference being that now he knows why he does it."

I pass on this old joke, not to take the mickey out of prisoners who gain educational qualifications inside, but to stress the fond place held by the Open University (OU) in the penal estate.

Although prisoners have long formed productive relationships with prison educators, there have always been tensions between inmates in search of education (and the people who want to teach them) and the custodians of the country's jails. The difficulty is balancing security with the flexibility sought by those involved in education in prisons. There are many areas of tension, and clashes between the two sides are not uncommon.

Last month, a long-term prisoner, Keith Rose BA (Hons), wrote to Inside Time, the highly regarded monthly newspaper that goes into all prisons. Rose, a lifer, is currently held in Long Lartin, a maximum security jail, near Evesham. He said that, as the OU had offered programmes in prisons since the 1970s, prison managers ought to be familiar with the rules governing the compulsory three-hour final exams. However, according to Rose, some prisons fail to provide even the most basic exam facilities and he cites Long Lartin as an example.

Last October, he writes, the prison failed to provide any higher-level OU student the minimum three-hour time period for their finals despite "repeated requests and warnings that the exams were impending".

"Staff refused to allow students more than an average two and a half hours in their finals, often with frequent interruptions and/or arguments between prison staff and exam invigilators."

The OU confirms Rose's account of the problems at Long Lartin, saying that "special circumstances affected the exam arrangements for seven students at Long Lartin in October. Of those, five passed and two will be allowed to resit". And both the Prison Service and the jail's governor acknowledge that the examination process was beset with problems.

Mike Rookes, the OU regional director, West Midlands, says the relationship between the OU and the Prison Service and education staff works well most of the time, but occasionally the rigours of the prison regime clash with the educational needs of the students. "This happened in the case of prisoners at Long Lartin last year and the university very much regrets incidents like this," he says.

Ferdie Parker, governor of Long Lartin, says the incident was a one-off. In response to a query from the Prisoners' Education Trust (PET), he said that OU courses do assist in the prison's strategy for reducing the risk of reoffending. He admitted that during the last round of OU exams, in 2008, a "regime anomaly foreshortened some of the exam periods set". He says protocols have now been implemented to ensure such a situation does not occur again. A spokesman for PET described the OU scheme in prisons as extremely valuable and said it was absolutely crucial that prisons supported OU students and education staff.

Although many jail staff recognise the importance of education in the prison system, there is little doubt that some - especially those from the old school of prison officers - see it as a soft option. A senior prison governor recently told me that some staff would prefer to see their charges sewing mailbags, rather than furthering their education. And the system itself often seems geared to obstruct rather than assist prisoner-students. Overcrowding in jails means that prisoners who are studying may be forced to move jails, often at short notice, and can end up in a prison that does not run the course they were taking in their previous establishment.

The results of a survey, conducted by Inside Time and due to be published next month, show that 41% of prisoners blamed such moves for their failing to complete educational courses. A further 24% cited frustration, through lack of materials and/or support. And those who have managed to achieve academic success in prison often say the system was not always on their side. One life-sentence prisoner is now entitled to call himself Dr Ben Gunn, BSc, MA, PhD - all qualifications gained inside. He says: "By and large, the Prison Service has benignly neglected my efforts."

And the Guardian's own Erwin James is on record as saying his success in journalism happened "in spite of the prison system, not because of it."

During the years I spent in prison, I recall many occasions when a prison was short of staff (the prison service has one of the highest absenteeism rates in the public sector) and educational classes were, invariably, the first casualty of the daily regime.

For those prisoners who gain qualifications, the achievement often marks a huge turning point in their lives. Like so many of the prison population, David (not his real name), 35, missed out on normal schooling. A product of a broken home, he was in and out of care in his adolescence and "kicked out of school and children's homes" before treading the familiar path of youth offending and custody. A series of jail sentences culminated in him falling foul of the "two strikes and you're out" system and he received a life sentence for wounding. Following his release last year, he is on the verge of graduating after completing the OU social science course he started in prison.

David now has a full-time, well-paid job in the drug and alcohol field, "helping others avoid my mistakes", plus a company car and phone. He cannot speak highly enough of the opportunity he was given to change his life. "It's amazing that the OU is there - in prison - and free. I used to think I was not good enough to be a normal person, with a normal job. That was part of another world and somehow it wasn't for me. Now it is."

A spokesman for the Prison Service said the purpose of prison is to punish but also to reform, and that the service is committed to rehabilitating those in its custody.

BSc courses in homeopathy are closing. Is it a victory for campaigners, or just the end of the Blair/Bush era?

Can a blog force a university to close a degree course? David Colquhoun, the University College London pharmacology professor behind the "Improbable science" blog would like to think so. Since 2003, Colquhoun has used his blog, along with freedom of information requests, to draw attention to universities running courses in complementary and alternative medicine (Cam). He argues that the treatments are unproven, degree courses unscientific, and universities wrong to award students bachelor's or master's of science qualifications.

"It's particularly offensive that they're called BSc," he says. "You have to address the question: 'Is it worth lying to patients to get that placebo effect?'. They keep publishing what they call trials but are actually customer satisfaction surveys - you have no means of knowing how many people would have got better anyway. Students are learning the very opposite of critical evaluation. And they have to believe the homeopathy story in the end in order to go out and practice."

Disappearing courses

The long and time-consuming campaign by Colquhoun and fellow scientists may finally be making a difference. Last month, Salford University dropped its course in homeopathy for which the vice-chancellor, Professor Michael Harloe, won the praise of big-name scientists in a letter to the Times. Westminster University is strengthening the "science base" of its courses, while the University of Central Lancashire (Uclan) suspended its homeopathy degree last year and is now undertaking a review of other courses.

No one from Salford would comment. But a university statement acknowledges the criticism of the scientific establishment. It says, however, that the decision was made for "financial and strategic reasons", and it will "continue to encourage and promote research into complementary and alternative medicine". Uclan declined to comment until after its review ends in April. But a course leader last year said the university had been "the subject of many attacks by the anti-homeopathy league".

For Colquhoun, the VCs are the ones at fault. "We'd been contacting Harloe since spring last year and I'd given up hearing anything back. It really does show that a bit of persistence makes things happen."

In the case of Westminster, the "idea you can put science into courses when they are simply anti-scientific is completely barmy", Colquhoun adds. "If they recruit more scientifically rigorous staff who are supposed to understand science, then the courses would crumble." He claims research to prove the effectiveness of Cam treatments is not done because academic practitioners "know that they would fail, but they say it's because the methods of randomised clinical trials are unsuitable".

As well as Salford, Uclan and Westminster, the anti-Cam lobby has so far focused on the universities of Middlesex, Thames Valley, West of England, London South Bank, Napier and Southampton. But, in all, 16 universities across the country run a mixture of courses in subjects ranging from aromatherapy and herbalism to ayurvedic medicine and homeopathy.

Those teaching the courses insist they are academically rigorous and scientific. Dr Peter Davies, dean of Westminster's school of integrated health, says: "There's been a certain amount of pressure [from lobbyists] but it hasn't fazed us because we believe in what we're doing. And clinicians are referring people to complementary medicine therapists. Our job is to make sure practitioners are practising safely, competently, know their limitations, and can converse with healthcare professionals."

Davies says he welcomes the debate but it isn't as open as he would like. "The views expressed are intransigent, whereas practice on the ground is very different," he says. "There's no doubt that particular herbal remedies, Chinese or western, are extremely efficacious. The anti-science lobby has put most attention on homeopathy. But there are upwards of 450 medical doctors who practise it - I don't believe they are all wrong or this is just a placebo effect. Large numbers of people feel better having been treated by homeopathy.

"We need to understand these therapies in a much more critical way and that's what we're attempting to do. We encourage our students to be research-minded and deliberately set them assignments where results may look positive, but if they dig deeper they'll realise the methodology is flawed. Intrinsic is the notion of reflective practice. Half of orthodox medicine has not necessarily got an evidence base but it's observed that people get better - that doesn't remove the need to research thoroughly. We're attempting this by doing a clinical audit to establish a little more clearly what's going on. We're running a trial on Chinese herbs in the treatment of menopause supported by the Department of Health. We're trying to offer patients other choices."

George Lewith, professor of health research at Southampton University, has also felt under pressure. "A formal complaint of academic fraud made about me to my university and ethics committee was investigated for two years and dismissed," he says. "My VC wasn't sure whether to give me a personal chair because of what people might think, but our academic unit at Southampton received a 4* [top] rating in the research assessment exercise and was the third best in primary care in the country. There's considerable suspicion about Cam and it's completely unfounded."

Academic intent

All universities run courses in research methodology as part of their training, Lewith claims. "The quality of degrees is an open joke but there's academic intent in most of the new universities in relation to their degrees. There's little to choose between the clinical training of medics and practitioners. The anatomy, physiology and pathology chiropractors learn is of a similar standard. The courses of which I have personal experience are academically rigorous enough and turn out safe and sensible practitioners," he says.

But Professor Edzard Ernst, director of the complementary medicine centre at Exeter University's Peninsula medical school, which tests Cam therapies, says most of the subjects are so far removed from science they should not be taught as scientific courses.

"BScs in energy healing or homeopathy are not only out of line with science but profoundly the opposite of science. They could be taught in a scientific fashion but, as far as I can see, they aren't and that's disturbing. People are very cagey about disclosing the contents of courses. To teach at academic level, these courses need critical evaluators as teachers rather than promoters of it," he says.

"Academics could present the claims and then look at the evidence and plausibility of the concepts, and do this with scientific rigour. But the sad truth is that that's not happening. Students are unsuspecting victims of brainwashing, if you take it to the extreme, which is the exact opposite of an academic training."

So why are the courses taught? "To put it bluntly, there's a market for it," Ernst suggests. "This begs the question - what's more important, academic rigour or market forces? Sadly, I think the abundance of these courses seems to indicate that it's going the wrong way."

Colquhoun, however, is more optimistic. He believes the climate is starting to change after the Bush/Blair era where people believed in things because they wished they were true. "This has been going on for a generation and it's about time for a swing in the other direction," he suggests.

"Salford has set an example and it seems likely others will now follow. If Uclan does stop courses, that would be a big deal."

Government adviser estimates up to 10,000 teenagers across the country leave school early because they believe it 'has nothing to offer them'

Thousands of teenagers are leaving school before starting to study for GCSEs, a government adviser said today.

Sir Mike Tomlinson, the government's chief adviser on London schools, said it was "worrying" that so many young people disappeared from their school register at the age of 14.

He estimated that up to 10,000 teenagers across the country leave early because they believe school "has nothing to offer them".

This is despite laws which say children must stay in compulsory education until the age of 16.

From 2013 they will have to stay in school or training until age 17, and from 2015 until age 18.

Speaking at the Chartered London Teacher Conference today, Tomlinson, a former chief inspector of schools in England, said thousands of children "fall off" the rolls when they move from year 9 to year 10 (age 13 to 14).

"They are saying 'this is no place for me'," he said. "They end up in poorly paid jobs or with no jobs at all."

Each January, schools are required to fill out forms stating how many children are on the school roll or registered at that school on a particular day. This allows schools to track how many pupils are in each year as they move up through the school.

Up to year 8 or 9, the figures fluctuate only slightly, but there is a big gap between years 9 and 10, Tomlinson explained.

Speaking after the conference, Tomlinson said: "At 14 they are voting with their feet and saying 'actually, school has nothing for me'."

He added: "In general terms we don't know where they are. They may be in college, and have persuaded a further education college to take them on, they may be working in their parents' business, or they may be on the streets.

"When they leave school in July for the summer at the end of year 9, you expect them to be there in year 10.

"Schools do try to find out where they are. They have addresses and follow that up, but this obviously isn't successful, given that the figure then drops.

"They are very, very worrying figures."

The comments come following the news that truancy rates have risen in England and ahead of new goverment figures for 2007-08 due on Thursday.

Tomlinson told EducationGuardian.co.uk: "We have got to make key stage 3 more interesting and appropriate to the full range of abilities and, post-14, a curriculum which excites and motivates them and gives a reasonable chance of some level of success."

Tomlinson said the government's new flagship diploma qualification, introduced this year, did not offer enough vocational experience.

"Young people at 14 want to do something related to where their future lies and get practical experience and diplomas don't offer enough of it," he said.

"They are not doing what we hoped they would do."

The Liberal Democrat schools spokesman, David Laws, said: "This shows just how ludicrous it is for the government to raise the education leaving age when it can't even get 14-year-olds to turn up.

"Ministers need to get a grip on this problem and create a system which motivates and challenges all young people.

"Instead of producing more targets and gimmicks, ministers need to provide a better range of vocational qualifications and allow students to access college education from age 14."

Ministers announced 21,000 extra apprenticeships today in hospitals, schools and town halls across the country in 2009-10.

But the Conservatives attacked the government's "pathetic" record on public sector apprenticeships.

David Willetts, the shadow skills secretary, said: "Figures we obtained last year showed that there were hardly any apprentices in government departments and not a single one in John Denham's own department.

"Ministers have yet again been caught out not practicing what they preach.

"We've urged the government to raise their game on apprenticeships so we hope this announcement goes some way to doing that.

"But they have had 10 years of economic prosperity to prepare us for the hard times we now face and they comprehensively failed to do so."

Vice-chancellors fear unexpected rise in student visa fees will put off overseas students in what is an increasingly competitive recruitment market

The government is in danger of damaging British higher education by introducing new visa rules and raising charges without consulting the sector, vice-chancellors have warned.

More than 50,000 international students started undergraduate degrees at UK universities in 2008 with similar numbers on postgraduate courses, bringing with them important financial, academic and cultural benefits.

But vice-chancellors fear that an unexpected rise in fees to apply for a student visa will potentially put off overseas students in what is an increasingly competitive recruitment market.

They are also concerned about the timetable for implementing changes and that the IT system being set up by the government to register international students will be burdensome.

The Home Office has increased the fee for applying for a visa to study in the UK in 2009-10 from £99 to £145.

Visa fees for extensions via postal applications in the UK will increase from £295 to £357 and in-person applications from £500 to £565 – with additional costs for dependents.

Diana Warwick, chief executive of vice-chancellors' umbrella group Universities UK, said she was "disappointed" in the fee hike that had been decided without consulting the sector.

She said: "The increase in fees will come at the same time as a number of other changes in the UK's immigration system and the UK government is in serious danger of sending out a message that it does not welcome international students.

"International students contribute far more to the UK academically, culturally and financially than they use in terms of public resources."

An increase in immigration fees would work against universities' efforts to recruit international students in a "highly competitive environment", she added.

British universities face increasingly fierce competition from American, Australian and even European universities that are running more degree programmes in English.

Universities are halfway through the admissions cycle for entry in 2009 and will have to implement policy aspects of the new system in March, while the IT system for overseas students has been delayed until the Autumn for some students and for all in February next year.

Universities have already encountered difficulties with the IT system for recruiting university staff from overseas and vice-chancellors warn that if similar problems occur with the students' system in July or August it would be disastrous for recruitment.

For instance, if a student expected to start a course in October but had problems getting a visa, they could opt to go to an Australian institution instead, where the academic year starts in February, rather than waiting another year to begin in the UK.

Institutions in the Russell group of large research-intensive universities recruit among the highest number of overseas students.

Dr Wendy Piatt, director general of the group, said that a "visa system which precludes international medical and other students from obtaining a visa for the duration of their chosen undergraduate course will deter these students from choosing to study in the UK".

Actual or perceived difficulties in obtaining a visa was one of the most important factors in determining applications from international students, she said.

Piatt urged a change to the visa rules to allow international students to be granted visas for up to five or six years – rather than the current four – to cover the full length of their proposed programme of undergraduate study.

If this did not happen, Piatt said, "there is a serious risk that the UK will fail to attract to this country the most talented international students, resulting in real damage to this country's medical research and education, to our universities, and to the UK economy".

Paul Marshall, executive director of the 1994 group, said: "International student recruitment is so delicate that something as small as changing the price of the visa application fee can have a large effect on applications if students are choosing between countries and we're charging a lot of money up front for a visa.

"It's one of the things that potentially puts people off coming here – it gives the wrong message."

The new system is expected to come into effect by the end of March, but vice-chancellors are concerned about the lack of detail available. Universities have received no final guidance about what is expected of them under the new arrangements and students still do not know exactly what the new processes will mean for them.

Overseas students that are already in the UK also face uncertainty and difficulties with extending their visas.

There have also been problems with the identity cards that overseas students are expected to hold, and delays in them being issued.

Spending your half-term back in the classroom isn't every child's idea of a good time. But 11 youngsters did just that as part of a 'fun with finance' course. And, as Huma Qureshi discovers, it really is fun

It's Monday morning, the first day of February half-term, but a group of children are sitting cross-legged in a circle on the floor at a north London school. "What is it called when a government gives money to the banks when they're in trouble? It starts with 'b'," says the teacher. "Begging?" asks seven-year-old Beth.

"Do you know what finance means?" whispers Beth to her best friend Aanya. Aanya shakes her head. "It means money," explains Beth, while rubbing her fingers together to gesture cash in her hands. "Money, money, money," she whispers before collapsing in giggles.

Beth and Aanya are the youngest of a group of 11 children, aged between seven and 14, who spent their half-term on the "fun with finance" course.

It is run by the Cool Head Company, a group of three women - two former bankers and a primary school teacher - who aim to make understanding money easy and relevant to children.

But this week-long programme isn't as simple as learning how to save your pocket money; instead, it covers subjects such as assets and liabilities and stocks and shares through simple, fun activities - and most of the children seem slightly over-excited about it.

"We're going to be rich!" shouts Nicholas, who wants to take a loan to buy a Nintendo DS and PlayStation 3.

"Gordie Brown's got all our money!" adds 11-year-old Nikhil.

We start with the basics by playing the economy game - which involves throwing balls into a bucket to demonstrate how money moves between the government, businesses, banks and tax-paying consumers. It's chaotic but constructive playground fun as money balls shoot from box to box.

David and Sophie are in charge of the business money balls. "Don't throw them to the consumer box, we don't have to pay them big salaries in a credit crunch," he mumbles in Sophie's ear.

Meanwhile, the government team is about to throw a load of money balls in the banks' direction and bail them out.

The Cool Head Company tailors its courses to suit the ages and needs of different age groups - during half-term holidays fun with finance combines play activities with learning, while in term-time it offers customised sessions on the credit crunch and budgeting for schools.

Kate Kuper, one of the Cool Head directors who used to work for the World Bank, believes it is crucial that all children learn about the relevance of money at a young age.

"Children are very aware of the news and they're being exposed to conversations about the credit crunch. When I told my eight-year-old stepdaughter we weren't going on holiday, she said, 'Oh, is it because of the credit crunch?' It's surprising how much they already know, and it gets them asking more questions about how the economy works and what their role is in it."

Primary school teacher and fellow Cool Head director Kelly Heymans agrees: "It needs to be instilled in children that money is important and it is interesting to learn about."

One of the most popular activities is Witches' Den, Cool Head's version of entrepreneur programme Dragons' Den. The children work in groups to come up with their own business ideas, film an advert, and present it to the Witches' Den board. "The younger ones come up with cute companies like hot chocolate and ice-cream shops," says Kuper.

"A group of boys had an idea for velcro wallpaper so they could throw their clothes on the wall rather than leave them on the floor and get told off. It's a fun game and they really enjoy it, but it also gets them thinking about whether a product is marketable, and whether it will make them a profit."

Later in the day, we watch a cartoon about a caveman called Ump who set up the world's first business selling clubs (Ump bought his wife a bigger cave with the profits they made) - his business grows as other cavemen buy shares.

"Who knows what a stockmarket is?" asks Kuper. Beth thinks she does. "There's a market near me where they sell burgers and clothes, is it like that?" Amber, 12, gets it right. "It's where you buy shares. A share is part of a company. If they make a profit, you make a profit."

Heymans says: "We took them on a day trip, and on the way, one boy stopped to buy a copy of the paper and check his shares. It just goes to show how much children do want to learn."

The course also includes a treasure hunt in the Bank of England museum, the chance to hold a gold bar, careers talks, design-your-own-currency games and strategy activities where the children pretend to be managing directors on a board.

Sarita, who at 14 is the eldest on the course, is busy tracking Cadbury's share price. "This isn't my ideal half-term, but it's not bad. We need to know about money stuff for when we get older and it's better to learn it now than to get into trouble over money later."

• The fun with finance course costs £50 a day, with discounts when booking for three or more days. For more information go to coolheadcompany.co.uk

Why, in order to get up-to-date buildings, must schools throw out excellent ICT systems?

The temporary buildings at Camden school for girls are decades old. The drains desperately need an overhaul and there isn't enough dining space. The north London school is a hotchpotch of proud Victorian buildings, home to the first free education for girls in the country, crumbling studios and newer blocks - the result of fundraising. What is not in need of repair is the ICT system, in which the school has invested heavily since 2000.

So when the school was told that, as part of the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) deal to refurbish the school, it would have to outsource its ICT to a private company managing a network for schools across the borough of Camden, its management wanted to know what the benefit would be to the students.

"We asked whether what we were going to get would be better than what we have now. The answer came back, and it was clearly worse: more expensive and more old-fashioned," says Penny Wild, chair of governors.

"We will get £1,450 per pupil for new computers. But we're being told they will cost us £200 a year per pupil on a five-year contract, and we don't know what we will receive for that. The contract is with Camden council, not the school, and if we want to pull out or change it, it will cost us."

She adds: "What we're being offered is a one-size-fits-all model of delivery and it's de facto compulsory."

What has made the school so angry - and the reason it is now talking to Education Guardian - is that it was told that if it didn't sign up, the BSF deal for the whole borough would be delayed. Anne Canning, the headteacher, says: "Without question we felt we had no choice. Partnerships for Schools [PfS, the government body overseeing BSF] would look for the next local authority, which was more attractive to market, we were told. The implication was, you can pull out, but if you do the whole of Camden will not proceed within this round."

It created a divide between the school and others in the borough that were desperate for the new buildings. "This has split people very badly. It's not a transparent process in any sense," says Wild. Eventually, last month, Camden school for girls signed, but amended the contract to make it clear that it has a get-out clause, and is prepared to fight on.

A one-size-fits-all system

Camden school for girls is not alone in its experience. Malcolm Trobe, head of policy at the Association of School and College Leaders, says: "We have a significant number of schools, and groups of schools, voicing concerns that the system proposed isn't what they want to see. At a national level, Partnerships for Schools is saying that it's not a one-size-fits-all solution, but on the ground, in a number of places, schools are feeling pressurised into accepting managed ICT systems they are not comfortable with.

"People are very concerned that they are being pressurised into making decisions. We have cases where people are virtually being threatened to sign up or lose their new schools."

This has caused such concern in schools across the country that questions have been asked in parliament. Ken Purchase, Labour MP for Wolverhampton, raised it with the minister for schools, Jim Knight, whose response was unambiguous: "Partnerships for Schools does not have powers to prevent a school opting out of proposals for authority-wide ICT programmes. Where a school wishes to opt out of the managed service, it must submit an alternative business procurement case. This must demonstrate that the school's alternative provision will be at least of an equivalent standard to the managed service proposed by the local authority, that it is able to link up to the area-wide solution, and that it passes a value-for-money test to ensure taxpayers' money is being well spent."

Only two out of the 600 schools that have reached this stage in the BSF process have made the alternative business case; PfS says this is because there is not widespread opposition to the shared services. But there is little incentive to promote this option because the managed service is the most lucrative aspect of the deal for companies bidding to supply the systems.

"It's the long-term service, not the computers themselves, that is profitable, and that's why it's attractive to market," according to Martin Lipson, director of schools and BSF at 4ps, which works with local authorities to help set up privately financed initiatives.

Some schools have managed to side-step the ICT deal without making an alternative business case. Tollbar business and enterprise college in Lincolnshire felt so strongly about the issue that it told the local authority it would rather forgo the BSF money than have imposed an ICT system the school didn't want.

"We've got a very detailed ICT system, which we developed ourselves," says Tollbar's principal, David Hampson. "The pupil to computer ratio is two to one. We have a virtual learning environment and it's all been done at our expense. We were facing losing that and getting a centrally managed service, which I haven't seen work efficiently anywhere."

Under the centrally managed systems, schools would not necessarily have technical support on site and would have to use helplines when things go wrong. Hampson says: "The whole BSF provision is generating centrally managed services and taking our freedom and decision-making away. That's fine if a school is struggling with ICT or facilities-managed services. But I was not prepared to see all our ICT work go out of the window. We felt we were going to be entering an inferior service."

Hampson has had inquiries from about 40 other schools wanting to know how to opt out of managed services for ICT, and Tollbar is now considering doing the same for its facilities management - the cleaning, caretaking and building maintenance services that are also part of BSF.

"What people don't realise is that you are not dealing with government, but private companies. We want to remain autonomous," Hampson adds.

Lipson gives another view. "Sometimes schools are resisting because they are happy with what they've got. Sometimes they are resisting because they don't want to change," he says.

"BSF offers the latest in wireless handheld devices, networked across an authority. That is really important, as the work schools do comes together, not least in diplomas." The new diplomas, introduced from last year, see pupils moving between schools, making a strong argument for shared ICT systems.

BSF management

The contractual problems around the ICT deals focus on the Local Education Partnerships (LEP), the public-private body set up to manage the BSF scheme in each local authority. They include the local authority, BSFI (Building Schools for the Future Investments - a group formed by the government, and a sister organisation to PfS) and the private sector partner, which constructs and maintains the new schools. The private sector company builds or refurbishes the schools, installs the ICT systems and then manages the ICT, caretaking, cleaning and building maintenance over the period of a 10-year contract.

One problem is that schools have to agree to broad terms even before the companies come into the LEP, so that the contracts can be put out to tender.

Details in a damning report on BSF by the National Audit Office (NAO), published last week, suggest these problems are national. "Governance and contractual arrangements are complex, requiring early attention to how to manage the operational phase... Tensions from the negotiation process sometimes adversely affected relationships when the project moved from procurement to operation," it says.

The NAO report also highlights the problem of giving companies exclusivity within an LEP. "The exclusivity arrangements could make it harder to price projects economically, as the private sector partner will not typically need to demonstrate efficiencies by competing against rivals." Benchmarks are being developed but are not always available, it adds.

Benchmarking

Camden school for girls believes £200 a pupil per year for computers is expensive, but cannot tell this for certain because it has not seen the benchmarking. PfS would not release benchmarking details to the Guardian, saying they were "commercially sensitive".

A spokesperson for Camden council says: "All our schools have signed consents to be part, in principle, of the ICT managed service, which has meant that PfS has allowed the next stage of the BSF programme to proceed. We understand that a few schools remain concerned about the government's model of a managed service. We would like to assure all our schools that their concerns have been listened to and fed back to the Department for Children, Schools and Families and PfS."

A spokesperson for PfS says: "So that the private sector is able to price their bids accurately, a local authority's BSF proposition must clearly articulate how many schools are to be rebuilt and renewed, and the ICT needs. If there is uncertainty over whether a school will be part of the managed service, then this makes it very challenging to be able to be clear about the cost of a project.

"We therefore require clarity from local authorities about whether a school is taking part in the managed service or is submitting an alternative procurement business case, before a project can go out to the market." The contracts are only "in principal", and she insists schools such as Camden school for girls can make the alternative business case.

But this is not the experience on the ground. Wild says: "They [the local authority] were telling us that we would carry the responsibility for bringing Camden down because PfS would go to another authority. You are told you are operating within clear guidelines. They are not clear in reality."

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Fiona Millar: Let schools keep control; have your say online