CBI supports Gove’s drive for numeracy June 29, 2011 EMPLOYERS’ organisation the CBI yesterday threw its weight behind Michael Gove’s pledge to put maths back at the heart of the curriculum. In a speech at the Royal Society, the education secretary said he would like to see the “vast majority”of students studying maths until the age of 18 within a decade. And he told City [...]
Cable risks a split with his line on strikes June 26, 2011 BUSINESS Secretary Vince Cable said yesterday he did not think it would be necessary to reform strike legislation and stressed that he had no plans to do so. “We’re not looking at that, and we’re not planning it, and we certainly don’t want to go down that road,” he said on Pienaar’s Politics on BBC [...]
Why the City must invest in maths June 29, 2011 THE refined surroundings of the Royal Society are a world apart from the scenes of protest that will dominate Westminster today. Yet this is where Michael Gove, the education secretary, has come to announce his intention to put maths at the heart of the curriculum. His aides say he decided to press ahead with the [...]
Businesses must back our campaign June 28, 2011 BRITAIN faces a huge challenge. Innumeracy and financial illiteracy are rife in this country, in an appalling indictment of years of failed educational policies. Tragically, millions of people are unable to grasp fully even the most basic of financial products, such as mortgages or savings accounts. In an era when self-reliance and financial independence are [...]
Fighting to reverse Britain’s decline June 29, 2011 THERE was a time when British governments of all political hues would relentlessly downplay the UK’s educational decline. No longer. Michael Gove, the secretary of state for education, was appropriately blunt yesterday in a speech to the Royal Society, in which he endorsed City A.M.’s appeal to raise money for maths teaching as part of [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING June 2, 2011 FINANCIAL TIMES LIBYA BET $1BN ON SOCGEN SHARES Société Générale structured a $1bn bet on its own shares for Libya’s sovereign wealth fund after the Jérôme Kerviel fraud, the Financial Times has learnt.Documents seen by the FT show the transaction – the Libyan Investment Authority’s biggest investment in five years – had lost 72 per [...]
We need a proper education industry April 20, 2011 IT is time to harness the profit motive to sort out the UK’s schools. That may sound hopelessly radical – but the seeds of a revolution have already been planted, and the green shoots they are generating remarkably promising. Britain’s current crop of private schools are not all charities. As a report out today from [...]
Dead-end courses slammed as Gove plans education shake-up March 2, 2011 HUNDREDS of thousands of teenagers in Britain study subjects that lead them towards a “dead end”, according to an influential report released today. The independent Wolf review, commissioned by education secretary Michael Gove, claims up to 400,000 16-19 year olds take courses that do not lead to higher education or good jobs. It says students [...]
Report says public service reform slow February 16, 2011 THE government’s public service reforms are “all over the place”, according to a scathing report out today. Reform, a think-tank focused on overhauling public services, said the pace of change in education and health was too slow and not radical enough. Although education secretary Michael Gove is introducing more academies and free schools – which [...]
Britain’s social mobility is far too low April 4, 2011 SOCIAL mobility is weaker today than it was in medieval England. That is the shock finding of research by Gregory Clark of the University of California, Davis. He uses surnames to trace whether descendants of the rich and poor of one generation have the same economic status as their ancestors or eventually revert to the [...]