New Mums 'Abandoned' During Labour

One in three new mothers is left alone during or just after labour because maternity services are overstretched, according to a survey.

The poll of 3,500 mums found almost half (43%) said they did not have access to a midwife after giving birth.

More than a third (35%) of those questioned by The Royal College of Midwives (RCM) and parenting website Netmums.com said they had been abandoned during or after labour at a time when they felt worried.

Sally Russell, co-founder of Netmums.com, said: "This survey's results should demonstrate to the Government just how stretched maternity services are.

"It shows that our members want, need and deserve one-to-one care from midwives but they are not getting this and are left alone and feeling abandoned during labour, and especially in the vital post-natal period."

    All women can expect individual support from a midwife, supported by a wider maternity team, throughout her labour and birth.

Health Minister Ann Keen

One mother said of her labour: "There were too many people on and off shifts.

"There was no continuity of care, therefore no-one was able to make sound decisions.

"I (had) seven different midwives involved just during labour. I ended up having an emergency Caesarean section."

In 2007, the Government said all women in England should be supported by a midwife they know and trust throughout their pregnancy and after birth.

Ministers promised that "by the end of 2009" women would be able to choose where they give birth and have better continuity of midwifery care.

But the survey found only 68% of women were offered a choice of where to give birth.

Baby buggy

Some mothers felt abandoned

There were some positive responses in the research, including 83% of women saying they had the name and telephone number of a midwife they could contact if they were worried.

And 72% said they had their first appointment with a midwife as soon as they wanted it.

RCM general secretary Cathy Warwick said she was pleased some aspects of maternity services were rated highly but that overall the results painted a "worrying and disturbing picture".

Reacting to the survey, Health Minister Ann Keen said: "There has been record investment in the NHS in recent years including an additional £330m for maternity services.

"All women can expect individual support from a midwife, supported by a wider maternity team, throughout her labour and birth."

NEWS BY:http://news.sky.com

Has this mother of three changed the face of British education?

Furious at her son’s struggle to  get into a grammar school, Sarah Shilling launched a petition to build the first new one for 50 years. Yesterday, the revolution began!


Decrepit and semi-derelict, The Wildernesse School doesn’t have to try hard to live up to its name. Since it was swallowed up by a local girls’ school in 2010 to form a new academy elsewhere, the days when Strictly Come Dancing’s Anton du Beke — a former pupil known back then as Tony Beke — skipped through its corridors seem a very distant memory.

Hard to imagine, then, that this sprawling site on the outskirts of Sevenoaks, in Kent, could soon provide the spark for a revolution in British education.

Yesterday, a petition raised by thousands of parents in Sevenoaks calling for the building of what is effectively a new grammar school — though technically it will be an ‘annexe’ of an existing one — won overwhelming support in a vote taken by Kent County Council.

The petition was started by a mother of three from Sevenoaks called Sarah Shilling, who despaired at the hoops her son had to jump through to gain a grammar school place.

Now, a formal proposal will be drawn up by the council to identify potential sites for the school — with Wildernesse the favourite — and to establish which existing grammar schools may want to run it.

If such a new school opens, it will be the first of its kind in England for 50 years.

For families in Sevenoaks, this is a big deal indeed. They have long complained that because of the lack of local provision, more than 1,000 children from the town must take buses and trains every day to make journeys of an hour or more to schools  elsewhere in the county.

And yet the opening of a grammar in Sevenoaks will have a significance far beyond the purely local, because it forces the controversial issue of selective education — an idea so hated by the Left — firmly back on the national political agenda.

It puts selective schooling back on the agenda

Even before the decision was taken,  the discussion of the Sevenoaks plans provoked howls of protest from all the usual suspects.

Stephen Twigg, the shadow Education Secretary, has angrily accused Government ministers of attempting to expand  academic selection, and vowed that if Labour got back in to power it would reverse any move in that direction.

‘Instead of focusing on a few grammar schools, the Government should be trying to raise standards in all the 24,000 schools in England,’ he said.

Meanwhile, Fiona Millar, partner of former Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell and seasoned education activist, was quick to join the fight, furiously peddling the argument that grammar schools limit rather than promote social mobility.

‘The most successful systems in the world are fully comprehensive,’ she claimed. ‘Bringing back selection is the wrong solution to problems that still exist in our school system, most of which can still be addressed in all-ability schools with the right leadership, teaching, curriculum and commitment from central government.’

Their fear is that what is happening in Kent could be just the start of an expansion of the grammar-school system and that Education Secretary Michael Gove is secretly keen to give this the green light.
Government approval: Michael Gove has spoken of his support for the grammar school system - much to the outrage of some education activists who believe they endanger social mobility

Government approval: Michael Gove has spoken of his support for the grammar school system - much to the outrage of some education activists who believe they endanger social mobility

Supporters of grammars argue that these are the schools parents want — and that it is the Government’s duty to deliver them.

‘The areas that have retained selection top the league tables year after year, providing the standards that parents want, and opening opportunities for children from all backgrounds,’ Graham Brady, a Conservative MP and long-time supporter of grammars, told me.

The fact that the latest developments have caught opponents of grammar schools somewhat by surprise is a result of their belief that they had largely won the argument against selection.

Having promised to open new grammars as part of his 2005 leadership campaign, two years later Mr Cameron abruptly changed tack saying that he did not think they were a good idea after all.
This U-turn was interpreted by some as being a carefully-planned ‘Clause Four moment’ — a reference to Tony Blair’s decision to cut ties with Labour’s socialist past when he became leader.


More...

    HYWEL WILLIAMS: A grammar school revolution on the way to Kent

Cameron’s strategists calculated that by ditching an educational policy associated with Tory diehards, it would appeal to voters who had never voted Conservative before. In fact, all it achieved was a backbench rebellion and simmering resentment among supporters of selective education from all political backgrounds.

In an ICM poll in 2010, 76 per cent of respondents said that they would support the creation of new grammar schools.

Instead, Cameron decided to back Michael Gove’s academies programme — the creation of independent state schools, run by head teachers outside of council control.

Opponents have been caught by surprise

But in a separate move, new admissions rules were introduced late last year, meaning that councils can no longer block the expansion of existing schools — be they state comprehensive or grammar.
With school rolls rising across many parts of England as the effects of immigration and a higher birth rate take effect, the rule changes have been jumped on by councils and parents.

Currently, across England there are 164 grammar schools educating some 160,000 pupils. Kent, with 33, has the largest proportion of them, attended by some 28 per cent of the county’s children.
In Year Six, the final year of primary school education, all pupils in Kent have the option of sitting the 11-plus examination. Those who pass the exam can then choose a grammar school to attend.

If they have passed with very high marks, they can apply for a handful of the grammars that are ‘super-selective’ — those which base their intake on performance in the exam rather than a pass and a pupil’s proximity to the school.

In Sevenoaks, a prosperous commuter town half-an-hour’s train journey to the south-east of London, there are two schools.

One is the private Sevenoaks School, whose boarding fees are now a shade shy of £30,000 a year; the other is a mixed-ability state school, Knole Academy, formed just over a year ago from a merger of two struggling comprehensives (one being Wildernesse, whose pupils vacated their old premises). There are no grammar schools in the town.


NEWS BY:http://www.dailymail.co.uk

Top universities 'admitting fewer state school students'

Figures show the vast majority of top research institutions turned more places over to pupils from independent schools in 2010/11 and fell dramatically short of Government admission targets.

Amid an unprecedented scramble for degree courses, it emerged that around two-thirds of universities belonging to the elite Russell Group recruited proportionally fewer state school students.

This includes the universities of Bristol, Cambridge, Imperial College, the London School of Economics and University College London.

At Oxford, Cambridge and Durham, fewer than six-in-10 places went to state school students.

Alternative figures showed just over half of top universities also recruited fewer pupils from the very poorest families.

The disclosure will come as a blow to the Government which has piled pressure on the most selective universities to create a more diverse student body.

Last year, Nick Clegg warned that top institutions had a duty to ensure “British society is better reflected” in their admissions to justify state funding.

But the Russell Group defended the figures, insisting that large numbers of well-qualified students from state schools failed to apply.

Wendy Piatt, director general, said: “These statistics are a reminder of the particular challenges faced by Russell Group universities as we work hard to increase fair access. Every year we pump millions of pounds into our outreach work such as summer schools and access schemes to encourage poorer students to apply and attend our universities.

“But we can only admit students who apply and who have the right grades in the right subjects.”

According to the Higher Education Statistics Agency, some 88.7 per cent of university places were awarded to pupils from state schools last year, down slightly on 88.8 per cent a year earlier.

It coincided with a record rise in the number of students applying to university in 2010.

Figures show that fewer state school students were admitted by 16 out of 24 Russell Group universities. The group expanded from 20 to 24 earlier this month.

Those witnessing a drop were Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Exeter, Imperial College, King's College, Leeds, the LSE, Manchester, Newcastle, Southampton, UCL, York, Cardiff, Glasgow and Queen's University Belfast.

The propotion of state school students at Birmingham dropped from 77.6 to 76.1 per cent. It meant 3,235 were admitted to the university last year compared with 3,420 a year earlier.

The LSE turned over 70.8 per cent of places to state pupils in 2009/10 compared with 66.5 per cent 12 months later. It represented a drop from 515 to 445. Cambridge fell from 59.3 to 59 per cent, taking 1,560 state school pupils, down by 30.

Only Oxford, Durham, Edinburgh, Nottingham, Queen Mary College and Warwick saw their proportion of state school students rise, while Sheffield and Liverpool remained unchanged.

Statistics also reveal the number of universities that are failing to meet centrally-set "benchmarks". Targets cover areas such as how many state school pupils are admitted and numbers from the poorest homes.

The statistics show that 51 universities – around 41 per cent – failed to meet their benchmarks for recruiting state school pupils. This included 16 out of 24 Russell Group institutions.

From next year, universities could be stripped of the power to charge up to £9,000 in tuition fees for consistently falling short of admission targets.

A spokesman for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills said: "Demand for higher education remains strong, but we want to ensure that background is not a barrier to university. Our reforms expect institutions to do more to attract applicants from disadvantaged backgrounds.”

NEWS BY:http://www.telegraph.co.uk

Top Uni Says A-Levels Not Good Enough

One of the world's top universities is to trial its own entrance exam because A-level "grade inflation" has made it impossible to tell one straight-A candidate from another.

Sir Richard Sykes, Rector of Imperial, announced the move as he called for extreme action to "save" bright children from underperforming state schools.

He wantsgovernment money used to pay for them to go private.

Sir Richard said it was "frightening" that 40% of students at Imperial - recently ranked fifth in a global university league table - came from private schools, which teach just 7% of all pupils in the UK.

Speaking at the Independent Schools Council's annual conference in London, he said "grade inflation" had "destroyed" the role of A-levels in selecting undergraduates.

"Top institutions have great difficulty separating out the best students," he said. "Even if you interview all the students you still have a problem."

The university is trialling a new entrance exam for all students taking subjects other than medicine, where a separate test exists.

He said: "We are doing this not because we don't believe in A-level but we cannot use A-levels any more as a discriminatory factor.

"They have all got four or five A-levels."

The new exam will assess candidates' general intelligence and creativity and could be brought in from 2010, with other top universities said to be keen to follow Imperial's lead.

But Sir Richard warned the brightest children still stood a far better chance of getting into top universities if they were educated privately.

"We have got to do something radical if we are going to save children in 93% of our schools that somehow are just not getting the education they deserve," he said.

"We have in this country some of the best secondary education in the world but only a few percentage of people benefiting from it.

"Why don't we make it available to those kids who are really going to benefit.

"If the Government have got some sense they would allow that to happen. Just as we used to run scholarship schemes in the past, why don't we do that today for those bright kids?"

However, Schools Minister Lord Adonis insisted that educational standards were being maintained.

"The rise in numbers achieving higher grades is due to the increasing success of schools and should be celebrated," he said.

"To further underpin the quality of the qualifications system we have established the new independent regulator, Ofqual."


NEWS BY:http://news.sky.com

Britain Has 'Underestimated' Flood Threats

For the last 50 years we have been concreting over our countryside, neglecting our drainage systems and busily building on flood plains.In other words; living as if flooding is a problem that happens elsewhere.

Now, a new report from scientists at Durham University says the UK has been lulled into a false sense of security, when weshould have been preparing for a period of floods on a scale "beyond most people's living memory".

The scientists looked at rainfall and river flow patterns over the last 250 years, since 1753.

They found that the UK's weather fluctuated between very wet and very dry periods, each lasting for a few years at a time, but also between very long periods of a few decades that can be particularly wet or particularly dry.

They discovered that from the late 1960s to the late 1990s, the UK was relatively flood-free.

Now, they say records show we can expect a period of increased flooding, similar to that experienced before the 1960s.

Professor Stuart Lane from Durham's Institute of Hazard and Risk said: "We are now having to learn to live with levels of flooding that are beyond most people's living memory.

"More than three-quarters of country's flood records - on which risk estimates were based - started during the 1960s.

"We have not been good at recognising just how flood-prone we can be. We have probably underestimated the frequency of flooding much more often than we are used to."

May, June and July last year saw their highest level of rainfall since British records began.

A second report out today from the cross party Environment Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee says the infrastructure set up to deal with last summer's floods is in chaos and the eight hundred million pounds funding pledged by the Government is "inadequate."

The MPs said at the moment, no organisation has overall responsibility for surface water flooding at a national or local level, nobody was responsible for issuing flood warnings and it was unclear who was responsible for overflowing drains.

They also recommended that the Environment Agency should take a strategic role in dealing with surface water flooding nationally, providing advice and guidance to local authorities who should have a statutory duty to deal with surface drainage.

Chair of the Committee, Michael Jack MP said: "The public will not forgive the Government if it is not seen to be responding to the lessons learnt from the floods of last summer.

"Our report has shown how confused and chaotic was the infrastructure when it came to preventing and dealing with surface water flooding.

"The Government must bring clarity to this situation so that the public, wherever they live, can have peace of mind that every effort is being made to avoid a repeat of the fiasco of last summer."

The Local Government Association too has waded in.

In response to the EFRA Committee's report, they agree that under the current system, it is often unclear who has responsibility for managing flood risk and maintaining drainage systems.

They say that in some parts of the country a myriad of different bodies - including the Environment Agency, councils, private landowners and water companies - have these powers but often do not share information with each other.

They recommend that water companies should be forced to co-operate with local authorities to prevent a repeat of last summer's floods, council leaders said today.

For once, then, the MPs and the scientists are in firm agreement: rather than dismissing last summer's floods as a one off event, they say we must be prepared for worse to come.

NEWS BY:http://news.sky.com

Entertainment news: Revel Horwood to star in Swan panto

THE High Wycombe Choral Society heard their music played across the airwaves on Classic FM as part of a drive to celebrate some of the best amateur choirs across the UK. One of the tracks, Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, by Felix Mendelssohn from their Christmas CD was played on December 9. The station is joining forces with the charity, Making Music, and encouraging choirs to send in carol recordings. Ten choirs were chosen by John Brunning.

IF you fancy a wintry walk between Christmas and New Year to walk off all the turkey and mince pies, head over to Waddesdon Manor. The grounds, shops, restaurants and plant centre will be open daily from Tuesday, December 27 until Monday, January 2. And for those who just can’t get enough of Christmas the trees and displays inside the Manor will be still be open too. For more information, opening times and prices please see

CRAIG Revel Horwood will be playing The Wicked Queen in the Wycombe Swan's panto next year. The Swan have announced their panto next year as Snow White and The Seven Dwarves with the Strictly Come Dancing judge. The panto will run from December 7 until January 5. To book call 01494512000 or go to www.wycombeswan.co.uk. Lesley Joseph is currently playing the Fairy Godmother in Cinderella until January 8.

FOLLOWING the successful production of A Midsummer's Night Dream in Beaconsfield in 2011, which raised more than £9,000 for The Gardens Players nominated charity, they will be staging a new production of Twelfth Night in Beaconsfield from June 27-30, in aid of The Child Bereavement Charity. Read-throughs will take place at The United Reform Church hall in Beaconsfield Old Town on Wednesday, January 4 and at the Performing Arts Hall, Tennant Building, Davenies School, Beaconsfield on Tuesday, January 19 both commencing at 7.45pm. All are welcome. For further information, please contact Steve McAdam.

NEWS BY:http://www.bucksfreepress.co.uk

Dakota Fanning's perfume ad banned in the UK for being 'sexually provocative' - Poll

A perfume ad featuring "Twilight" actress Dakota Fanning clutching a bottle of perfume has been banned in the United Kingdom after the country's Advertising Standards Authority found it to be inappropriate and "sexually provocative" because of the 17-year-old actress' age and appearance, according to the BBC.

The board said in a statement that the ad "could be seen to sexualize a child."

"We noted that the model [Fanning] was holding up the perfume bottle which rested in her lap between her legs and we considered that its position was sexually provocative," the statement said. "We understood the model was 17-years-old but we considered she looked under the age of 16. We considered that the length of her dress, her leg and position of the perfume bottle drew attention to her sexuality."

"Because of that, along with her appearance, we considered the ad could be seen to sexualize a child," the statement continued. "We therefore concluded that the ad was irresponsible and was likely to cause serious offence."

The ad was for the Oh Lola! perfume by Marc Jacobs and it can be seen above. Coty UK, the company behind the perfume and the ad, said they had not received any complaints about it, despite the fact that it had appeared in several fashion magazines in the country.

The ad first began appearing in print on August 5, 2011. According to the ASA report, Coty UK "did not believe the styling in the ad suggested the model was underage or that the ad was inappropriately sexualized because it did not show any private body parts or sexual activity. They believed the giant perfume bottle was provoking but not indecent."

In August it was reported that Fanning had graduated from high school and was set to attend New York University in the fall.

She is enrolled at NYU's Gallatin School of Individualized Study, a college spokesperson told OnTheRedCarpet.com on Thursday, August 25.

The Georgia native rose to fame as a child actress when she appeared alongside Sean Penn in the 2001 movie "I Am Sam."

In 2002, she starred in the romantic comedy "Sweet Home Alabama," which featured Reese Witherspoon in the main role, and played Allie Keys in the mini-series "Taken" in 2002. Fanning starred in the 2005 reboot of "War of the Worlds" with Tom Cruise and in the 2006 film "Charlotte's Web." In 2009, Fanning starred in the movie "Push" and played the vampire Jane in "The Twilight Saga: New Moon," the second film in the hit series starring Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson.

In 2010, Fanning co-starred with Stewart in the music biopic "The Runaways" and reprised her role in the third "Twilight" movie, "Eclipse." Fanning plays the same part in the fourth and final installment, the two-part "Breaking Dawn." Part 1 is set for release on November 18.

Fanning recently filmed the independent film "Now Is Good" and has several more movies in the works - "Effie" with Emma Thompson, "Mississippi Wild" with Mickey Rourke and "Very Good Girls" with Dustin Hoffman." All films are due out in 2012.

NEWS BY:http://www.ontheredcarpet.com

Overseas students 'to increase in UK universities'

The number of overseas students in UK universities will rise by a further 10% this decade, says a study for the British Council.

Only Australia is set to have a bigger increase in overseas students.

It forecasts that India rather than China will send the most students in this lucrative global market.

Jo Beall, the British Council director of education, says the "next 10 years will be critical" if the UK is to take advantage.

Speaking ahead of the British Council's Going Global conference, Dr Beall says there is a "decade of opportunity" for the UK to benefit from an increasingly-mobile international student population.

Shifting power
"In an increasingly connected and inter-dependent world, a willingness and ability to collaborate internationally and to respond to changing trends are vital," said Dr Beall.

By the end of the last decade there were 3.5m students studying overseas - and even though the rate of increase will slow, the overall number is expected to continue to rise.

Setting out global trends in higher education until 2020, the British Council study forecasts an increasing importance for Asian countries, challenging the longstanding domination of the United States.

By 2020, China will have almost twice as many students as the United States.

But the British Council predicts that it will be India rather than China that will be key player for sending students overseas.

Figures from the Higher Education Statistics Agency show that currently China is by the far the biggest provider of overseas students to the UK -with 67,000 students in the UK, compared with 39,000 from India.

The figures from 2011 show that about 12% of students at UK universities are from overseas - which is categorised as being outside the European Union.

In terms of the potential market for higher education, the British Council highlights that by 2020, just four countries will account for more than half of the world's 18 to 22 year olds - India, China, the United States and Indonesia.

The British Council says that the biggest single expansion in overseas students is likely to be Australia, which it predicts will be teaching an extra 50,000 by 2020.

But it says that the UK could be the second-biggest in terms of increasing overseas student numbers, predicting a rise of 30,000.

The British Council also highlights how university research has become internationalised - with more than a third of research now involving international collaborations.

The forecasts are issued in advance of this week's Going Global conference in London, examining university globalisation, which will bring together 1,300 higher education leaders from around the world.

NEWS BY:http://www.bbc.co.uk

Madonna's heart is in the UK

Madonna plans to move back to the UK.

The Celebration singer - who moved back to her native US following her divorce from British film director Guy Ritchie in 2008 - plans to head back to Britain because she "feels her heart is" in the country, but she will have to apply to move back as she is no longer married to a UK citizen.

"Madonna has loved being back in the States since the divorce but England is where she feels her heart is now," a source said.

"She is deliberately focusing on work that will keep her in Britain.

"She has had meetings with her London legal team, Mischon de Reya, to arrange a visa that will enable her to move back for good. Now that she is no longer a British citizen by virtue of being married to Guy, she is having to apply like everyone else."

Madonna's eldest son Rocco, 10, is able to stay in Britain because he is Guy's son, but her other children - Lourdes, 13 and adopted kids David Banda, five and Mercy James, four - will need their mother to complete her visa application before they can live in the UK.

"The other children will automatically gain visas as Madonna's dependents as long as she can get past the paperwork," the source told the Daily Mail newspaper.

"The past couple of years have been the breath of fresh air Madonna needed after her divorce, but she is now ready to embrace the British lifestyle again."

Madonna is not the only star to be planning on a move to England - Lady Gaga is also said to be keen to uproot her life to the UK and purchase a castle in the country.

NEWS BY:http://tvnz.co.nz/entertainment-news

The Naked and Famous set to get more famous

Kiwi band The Naked and Famous are in the running for an influential music honour in the UK.

The five-piece band from Auckland features on the longlist for the BBC's Sound of 2011 along with 14 other rising stars of music.

With their synth-rock sound, the band burst onto the underground scene in 2008 with EPs This Machine and No Light. Last year they supported Nine Inch Nails and their pulsating single All of This got major airplay.

They followed up with Young Blood written for noisy album Passive Me, Aggressive You released in September, proving they were more than electro synth-rock band.

The band is made up of producer, singer and co-founder Thom Powers, producer Aaron Short, singer and co-founder Alisa Xayalith, bass player David Beadle, and drummer Jesse Wood.

The BBC list is put together by more than 160 UK tastemakers, including radio DJs and producers, TV presenters and producers, newspaper critics, magazine and website editors and respected bloggers, who were asked to name their favourite new acts.

The Sound of 2011 winner and top five are out in January.

Sound of 2011: The Longlist

James Blake
Anna Calvi
Daley
Esben & the Witch
Jessie J
Clare Maguire
Mona
The Naked & Famous
Nero
Jai Paul
The Vaccines
Warpaint
Jamie Woon
Wretch 32
Yuck .

NEWS BY:http://tvnz.co.nz/entertainment-news

Susan Boyle plans for musical

Susan Boyle plans to star in a musical about her life.

The Scottish singing sensation, who shot to worldwide fame after appearing on UK TV talent show Britain's Got Talent in 2009, is in talks to have her meteoric rise to fame chronicled in a new stage production and even hopes to take the lead role in the show.

She said: "I'm definitely going to be on stage. I'd rather that than having to sit watching people up there looking like me.

"I want to be doing the music parts, so I'll be coming in and out of the show. I'm looking forward to doing some live work. It'll be really nice to see so many of the people who have supported me in person."

Producers are reportedly planning to take the show - which will chronicle the 49-year-old star's modest upbringing in Blackburn, West Lothian, her period living alone with her cat and her rise to stardom - on a huge UK tour late next year as they believe it will be extremely popular.

A source told The Sun newspaper: "Susan has incredibly loyal fans. People will be travelling from all over the world to see her perform in her own musical.

"I wouldn't be surprised if some of them book tickets to watch it five nights in a row."

NEWS BY:http://tvnz.co.nz/entertainment-news

U.K. to back Innovation Universities project

The United Kingdom is committed to supporting India as it develops 14 world-class Innovation Universities, said David Willetts, British Minister for Universities and Science.

Addressing academics at IIT-Madras Research Park, Mr. Willetts said eight U.K. universities – Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, Essex, Birmingham, Newcastle, Exeter and the Open University – are eager to forge links during the design and eventual creation of the new Innovation Universities.

“We are keen to identify 14 British universities that can work alongside from the beginning. After talks with Kapil Sibal, I will go back to Britain to identify the 14 British universities to match up with the universities here,” the British Minister said.

Keen on flow of postgraduate and research students and academics between the two countries, Mr. Willetts said he would encourage the British academics to come to India. “There is scope for PG and Ph.D students to study in both countries to obtain a single award. Twinning arrangements between universities sharing staff and resources is beneficial,” he said, outlining the broad contour for collaboration.

The UK already has more than 80 university-related collaborations up and running in India, making it the most active international partner here.

To move things on substantially, Mr. Willetts said he would be visiting India again in November with leading UK university vice-chancellors to establish a framework for collaboration as India and the UK have a solid base to build on.

Recent commitments on co-funded research projects are worth about £60 million. Indeed, funding pledged by the UK bodies for collaboration with India this year has already approached 1 per cent of its science budget, a level that some argue should be the budget set aside for international collaboration, Mr. Willetts said. Jointly funded and administered research programmes will concentrate on priority areas for both countries – food security, water resources and sustainable energy. The UK has offered to commit up to £6 million for research in areas such as off-grid power generation technologies and ICT to improve services in, and the economic capacity of, rural communities in both countries. In the area of civil nuclear energy, the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and India's Department of Atomic Energy are collaborating on five new projects, including areas such as plant safety and nuclear waste management, the British Minister said.

Mr. Willetts held discussions with IIT-M officials led by its Director M.S. Ananth, and then visited facilities at the TeNet Laboratory and Research Park on the campus.

NEWS BY:http://www.thehindu.com

Universities say students may face earlier loan payback

Graduates could pay higher interest rates on their student loans and pay them back earlier to help avert a funding crisis, a report says.

The Russell Group of top universities says it faces a £1.1bn black-hole in its finances by 2012-13.

The claims are in its submission to England's official review of student finance and fees.

The National Union of Students said students already paid "more than their fair share".

President-elect Aaron Porter said: "These are elite universities that are simply turning around to students saying they have to foot the bill for cuts in government funding - but they should have anticipated this and thought about their provision".

The Russell Group represents the 20 most research-intensive universities in the UK, and includes the likes of Oxford, Cambridge and University College London.

It says that without extra income its members will be forced to make significant cut-backs.

The group has suggested the £900m-worth of cuts planned by the Labour government for the next three years would bring the UK's higher education sector to its knees.

But it kept its submission to the independent review of higher education funding and student finance secret until now.

The review will report to the government in the autumn.

Under-investment
Although this submission stops short of suggesting higher tuition fees for UK students, it appears to indicate that other solutions may not be fully workable.

It also argues that one way to make the student finance system more sustainable would be to charge students a real rate of interest on their loans.

This could be linked to the cost of government's overall cost of borrowing. It also suggests the threshold at which students start paying loans back could be lowered from the present £15,000.

The Russell Group says: "The lack of a real rate of interest on student loans" is a "subsidy which imposes high costs on the Government, and which exceeds the requirements of ensuring fair access to higher education".

It is set to make a number of submissions to the review in the next few weeks.

The group says variable tuition fees have enabled top universities to maintain high standards and widen access.

Future cuts
This funding, together with the package of loans covering the fees - now at £3,225 a year - has allowed many more students to attend universities, it says.

It adds that much of the increased funding has been used by universities to compensate for a backlog of under-investment.

But it also claims the financial sustainability of the sector as a whole is severely at risk, with universities facing rising cost pressures, particularly related to salaries and pensions.

It says research intensive universities face particular pressures because of low staff-student ratios and high equipment and resource costs.

One Russell Group university loses an estimated £3,620 per chemistry student per year, it adds.

And figures like this lead the group to predict top universities will be £1.1bn in the red by 2012-13.

Russell Group director general Wendy Piatt said: "With funding reductions and the prospect of future cuts to manage, without clear means of increasing their income, meeting these challenges begins to look like an impossible task.

"There is now a real risk that we could lose academics who have been responsible for discoveries that have changed the lives of millions of people for the better."

Knowledge economy
The report says there are only three ways in which universities could reduce their annual deficits.

These are reducing costs by cutting staff; increasing income by recruiting more overseas students; or increasing income through domestic tuition fees.

It also suggests that graduates could pay back their loans earlier and at a higher interest rate.

Under the current system, students begin to pay back their loans when they start earning £15,000 a year or more, and at a low interest rate.

The public costs of funding the student finance system could be reduced by lowering the threshold at which graduates begin paying back loans, it adds.

A spokesman for the review of fees said it would consider the submission along with all the others. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills said it would respond to the review when it reported in full.

University and College Union general secretary Sally Hunt said: "We desperately need to overhaul how universities are funded and move away from the idea that the current review of student funding is merely a question of how much student fees go up by."

NEWS BY:http://www.bbc.co.uk

UK 'behind' on grandparent childcare provision

The UK is lagging behind other European countries by failing to recognise the role grandparents play in looking after children, a study claims.

The report by Grandparents Plus claims one in three mothers in the UK rely on grandparents to provide childcare.

It says the state gives little financial recognition for this caring role, unlike other European countries.

Grandparents should not be taken for granted as cheap childcare, says the report.

The study - written in partnership with the Beth Johnson Foundation and the Institute of Gerontology at King's College London - said many grandparents struggled to juggle work and childcare, without financial support.

It said that a number of EU countries had taken steps to help grandparents.

This included measures to allow parents to transfer parental leave to grandparents, letting working grandparents take time off if their grandchild is sick and, in some circumstances, paying them for the care they provided.

Flexible working
The report acknowledged that from April next year, grandparents in the UK would be able to claim National Insurance credits for the care they provided.

But it said they did not currently have a right to request flexible working and parental leave could not be transferred to them.

Parents also could not use childcare vouchers, which are taken from their salaries before they pay tax and National Insurance, to pay grandparents, the report said.

Research carried out for the report found that seven out of 10 grandparent carers thought they should be paid through tax credits or childcare vouchers for childcare.

Nearly half of all grandparents who looked after their grandchildren said they would opt for flexible working if they were allowed.

And 53% of grandparents aged between 45 and 54 thought grandparents should be given time off work when a grandchild is born.

Grandparents 'crucial'
Dr Karen Glaser, a specialist in ageing who helped write the report, said there needed to be a system in place whereby parental leave from work could be transferred to grandparents.

"There are more women in employment and grandparents are absolutely instrumental in terms of child care," she said.

"And lastly there have been significant changes to family lives, so in terms of increasing levels of divorce and one-parent families and a lot of research has shown that grandparents are absolutely crucial, especially at times of family crisis."

Sam Smethers, chief executive of Grandparents Plus, said: "National Insurance credits from April next year will certainly help to protect their [grandparents'] pension entitlement, but this won't help them now.

"We have to match it with steps towards transferable parental leave and flexible working if we really want to make it easier for them to combine work and care."

'Cheap childcare'
The Family and Parenting Institute also warned that poorer grandparents were at risk of being exploited by the state as a "cheap safety net for childcare".

Dr Katherine Rake from the institute said grandparents were not just expected to care for their grandchildren, but they were also increasingly having to support their adult children as well, as many were divorced and financially vulnerable.

The group said poorer grandparents were especially likely to feel the strain of helping care for their grandchildren, as they were more likely to become grandparents before they retired, while their own children were also more likely to be single parents and need extensive childcare support.

Dr Rake said: "These working-class women, who have attempted to juggle their family and their careers for decades, now find that grandmotherhood offers no relief.

"They will always want to contribute to the welfare of grandchildren - but they don't want it foisted on them by a state that either ignores or assumes their assistance.

NEWS BY:http://www.bbc.co.uk

Books: final chapter yet to be written

Printed works aren't about to be killed off by digital readers just yet, says global publishing expert

The reassuring news about printed books - for those who devour them - is they are not ready to surrender to the digital tide.

That's the perspective of a book lover who reads ebooks and who sits at the top of the world's publishing industry.

Jens Bammel, a German lawyer and secretary general of the International Publishing Association, watches the business of books from Geneva. He likens its condition to surfing an avalanche, given that the irresistible momentum of digital publishing is sweeping all before it.

In areas like trade publishing and highbrow scholarly works, the revolution is complete. Articles go directly online and users subscribe to a database.

The digital market for mainstream fiction, paperbacks and self-help works is big and getting bigger. Erotic titles are popular too. Bammel thinks the attraction might be that "no one sees what you're reading on screen when you're on the tube."

A standout space in bookshops, much to the delight of an industry under pressure, remains filled with cookbooks.

It's the same in Britain, where Jamie Oliver sells titles by the trolleyload, or New Zealand, where self-published Annabel Langbein had two titles in the top 10 last year.

"With cookbooks you are buying something that you can't replicate on a screen," says Bammel.

But publishing cannot survive forever on titles churned out by celebrity cooks. The industry remains under siege on several fronts, nervously watching the next move of Amazon.com and Apple, which typically has a dazzling new piece of technology called iBooks Author - now the target of much online heat.

Author Jonathan Franzen thinks ebooks are fouling the shelves of printed works. The bestselling novelist fears that as "a literature crazed person" the prospect of bound books giving way to letters on a screen means "it's going to be very hard to make the world work if there's no permanence like [the printed book]."

NEWS BY:http://www.nzherald.co.nz

Genetic Data Nix Folate Role in Heart Disease

The final nail may have been placed in the coffin of homocysteine-lowering therapy as a preventive measure for coronary heart disease.

The overall result from large, unpublished datasets shows lifelong moderate homocysteine elevation has little or no effect on coronary heart disease.

A comprehensive analysis -- including published and unpublished research that involved more than 236,000 participants -- suggests that even lifelong exposure to elevated homocysteine "has little or no effect," according to Robert Clarke, MD, of the Clinical Trial Service Unit at the University of Oxford, in Oxford, England, and colleagues.

The key finding is that, in several large unpublished datasets, genetic variation that increases or decreases natural homocysteine levels did not significantly affect the risk of coronary heart disease, Clarke and colleagues reported online in PLoS Medicine.

That was coupled with a null effect in an updated meta-analysis of 10 clinical trials testing the effect of folic acid, a homocysteine-lowering compound.

Taken together, that evidence suggests that a significant but modest benefit of lower homocysteine in an updated meta-analysis of 86 published case-control studies was an "artifact of publication bias," the researchers argued.

Clarke and colleagues noted that a common genetic variant -- named C677T -- in the methylene tetrahydrofolate reductase gene (MTHFR) markedly affects homocysteine levels.

Specifically, people with the TT genotype (individuals in whom both copies of the MTHFR gene have the nucleotide thymine at position 677) of the C677T polymorphism have natural levels that are about 20% higher than those with the CC variant. The CT variant has an effect that is intermediate but closer to CC than TT.

That suggests the possibility of a natural "Mendelian" experiment, and luckily the increasing use of large scale-genomics analysis has led to the creation of 19 large datasets -- with a total of more than 100,000 participants -- in which variation in the MTHFR gene was analyzed, although not as a primary focus.

Clarke and colleagues designated those studies as "unpublished" because odds ratios for coronary heart disease were not the primary aim and have not been reported. The studies had a total of 48,175 coronary heart disease cases and 67,961 controls.

If the associations seen in the earlier case-control studies were causal, the researchers argued, the 20% higher homocysteine in those with the TT variant should imply about an 8% increase in coronary heart disease risk, compared with CC carriers.

But a meta-analysis of the effect of the TT variant in the 19 studies showed a non-significant odds ratio of 1.02, with a 95% confidence interval from 0.98 to 1.07, they reported.

Even in the sub-population of participants who had not been given folate supplements in food, where the effect of the TT variant might be expected to be stronger, it remained non-significant, with an odds ratio of 1.01.

On the other hand, Clarke and colleagues reported, the updated analysis of the 86 biochemical studies -- with 28,617 cases and 41,857 controls -- suggested that having the TT variant increased the risk of coronary heart disease by 15% (odds ratio 1.15, 95% CI from 1.09 to 1.21).

The results of the two analyses are "discrepant," the researchers noted, and the discrepancy "is too extreme to be plausibly dismissed as a chance finding."

Instead, they argued for a "substantial" effect of publication bias.

To bolster the argument, they noted that their analysis of the 10 intervention studies, with a total of more than 50,000 participants, found that lowering homocysteine for at least five years had no significant effect on the risk of coronary heart disease. The odds ratio was 1.02 (95% CI from 0.96 to 1.08).

"Both the genetic studies and the trials argue against the use of (homocysteine-lowering agents) as a means of reducing coronary heart disease risk," they concluded.

NEWS BY:http://www.medpagetoday.com