By Joe Rukin
Students have just one week left to hit back at Minister for HELL, Margaret Hodge via the online petition www.hodgewatch.co.uk, before it is handed over to the DfES. The petition was started in May after the Minister suggested that students were poor because they spent all their money on drink. Since then there has been an admission that this is a deliberate attempt to smear students, while some have accused NUS of being complicit. A senior Government source admitted: "We realise the idea of hitting middle-income families with top-up fees is unpopular. One major point in our favour is the amount of money students spend on alcohol. We want people to say: 'Why should we pay for them to go down the pub?'"
Hundreds of students from across the country have now signed the petition, as well as members of other groups as Hodge continues to spout rubbish. London Student editor, Clare-Marie White, said:
"The Minister said she would listen to students during the funding review, but her comments in recent weeks have shown that she is unwilling to accept the real causes of student hardship. Students are really suffering under the strain of trying to balance coursework and study with part-time jobs just to make ends meet. Any Minister who showed such utter disrespect for any other group of voters would be forced out of office in days."
Student Unions are being encouraged to send delegates to the Mature Student Conference at Campanile Hotel in Birmingham on the 25th and 26th of January 2003, with the burning issue for Mature Students is recognition and representation from and within NUS as the largest group of students in FE and HE. This was the highly emotive issue at last years Mature Students Conference and at the NUS NEC meeting on 13th November, the NEC voted though a request to create a new part time position on the NUS NEC with specific responsibilities for mature students and age related issues.
Despite Millions being lost in widescale criminal fraud on Individual Learning Accounts (ILAs), the government intends to give them another go. According to the National Audit Office (NAO) the £273m scheme to promote lifelong learning was "open to fraud from day one" and over budget by £93.6m. The intention, to give people individual accounts', which would go towards subsidising training from private training organisations, but as is so often the case in these scenarios, the private firms were outside the scrutiny of public bodies, meaning a host of unvetted organisations used the scheme to print money.
Money was awarded for courses which didn't exist with names of people that had been pulled out of the phone book. It becomes even more unbelievable that this was allowed to happen when many courses were awarded money, despite clearly not qualifying for ILA funds. The NAO used the examples of; Chronic Cats 2001, Creative Writing, Learn to Draw and Paint, National Powerboat Certificate, Exercise to Music, Transcendental Meditation, Summer Glastonbury 2001 and Crystal Healing.
Besides setting up false learning accounts, firms gave incentives to set up accounts, mis-sold inappropriate courses, or failed to provide genuine adult learners with any course at all. Just nine companies got a whopping £21 million in incentives for running a basic computing course. But the government blamed the whole farce last time on Capita, the private company who administered the scheme and also took the rap for the post-Soham teacher vetting system collapse. They will not be involved this time, and it is likely the scheme will go through the Learning and Skills Council. Capita made £55m out of running the scheme.
According to the NAO tens of millions of pounds of taxpayers' money has probably been defrauded from the ILAs. In total ten forces are investigating 98 people from the 133 companies which received £67m between them. So far there has been just one conviction and even the NAO cannot tell how many of the 2.6m ILAs were genuine. Head of the NAO, Sir John Bourn said serious mistakes had been made and blamed the DfES;
"The speed with which the department [DfES] implemented the scheme resulted in corners being cut. Poor planning and weak risk management by the department led to weaknesses in the system which made fraudulent activities possible."
This is London, Probe into adult learning fraud
Yorkshire Today, Cut corners 'led to huge adult education fraud'
Guardian, Troubled ILAs to be reinvented
Independent,
Individual learning 'wasted millions'
BBC, Millions lost on training scheme
Times, Fraudsters 'made millions' from adult learning scheme
Condomi are planning to pay students £100 a term to test their condoms. Students must be in a relationship already to qualify but sexuality doesn't matter.
Star, Student condom testers
Ananova, University students paid to test condoms
Nottingham Universitys' Jubilee campus will become the 'Sandhurst for teachers' according to PM Tony Blair. The £28m campus was officially opened by the PM and hopes to provide conference facilities and residential courses for up to 20,000 delegates a year. Incidentally, it has been reported that the library at Jubilee campus is sinking into the pond it is stood in, because the designers forgot to factor in the weight of the books into their plans!
BBC, Blair opens college for heads
On the subject of managing debt, the Student Loans Company is being asked to consider paying loans monthly so students can manage their finances better. Margaret Hodge was asked by a Labour member of the Education Select Committee, Jonathan Shaw;
"Rather than giving students who have the least experience and a small amount of money, all up front at the beginning of term, wouldn't it be better if we gave students a choice of actually having monthly payments and that would actually help them manage their finances much better?"
And without a hint of stage management, she replied
"I am delighted to inform you that I have asked the Student Loans Company whether or not that would be a feasible option for the future payment of loans".
Unfortunately, instead of shutting up then, she continued;
"Students should see the contribution they make to the cost of their education as an investment because over a lifetime they would earn £400,000 more than those who had not been to university. In that context if they incur costs of up to £10,000 it's a good investment, not a cost."
Ananova, Student loans may be paid monthly
Guardian, Student loans could be in monthly doses
The Learning and Skills Council has published guidance leaflets outlining the adjustments educational institutions need to make to meet the requirements of new disability legislation. Following the full implementation of the Disability Discrimination Act, local education authorities and colleges are legally bound to provide "reasonable adjustments" for those with disabilities. John Harwood, CEO of the LSC, said:
"The widening of disability legislation to parts of the sector has been enthusiastically welcomed by the LSC. Over the next three years, in the time it will take to introduce these changes to the Disability Discrimination Act, we hope to see an expansion in the participation by people with disabilities and learning difficulties in further education and adult learning. By September 2005, we can be confident that barriers to education for the group will be vastly reduced."
Guardian, LSC publishes guidelines on new disability laws
Altered Radio Sound Education, an Oxford University students radio station has been stopped from broadcasting by the Radio Authority, after they ordered the students to change their call sign, because it spelled ARSE.
Consultation has begun on plans for the 'NHS University', with consultation period ending in February. The Department of Health hopes to educate 2m NHS workers starting from th next academic year. The NHSU will not have University status, and will be surprise surprise, a corporate institution. As was expected the bulk of the training will be non-medical, with initial programmes including communication, literacy, numeracy, language skills, cleaning and infection control and management skills.
NHS University
Hospital Doctor, Consultation starts on 'NHS university'
Guardian,
NHS 'university' plans unveiled
BBC, Plans for the NHS university
