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Tories dispute government's number of losers in student grant shake-up

Up to 130,000 students could lose out in next year's grants shake-up, according to Conservative party claims.

The Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (Dius) was forced to admit in October it had underestimated the number of students who would qualify for maintenance grants.

As a result, the universities secretary, John Denham, announced cuts to the thresholds of those eligible for grants.

When ministers announced the cuts, they estimated only 10% of students would be affected, leaving 35,000-40,000 with no grant.

But the Conservatives claim the government is misleading the extent of the cuts and as many as 130,000 students stand to lose out.

Dius revised the upper limit of family income for receiving grants from £60,000 to £50,020 in 2009-10, claiming it would mean up to 40,000 potential students losing grants of up to £524 a year.

Denham insisted two thirds of students would still qualify for some form of financial support.

But the shadow universities secretary, David Willetts, has accused the government of hiding the extent of the cuts.

"When the government announced the cuts to student grants a few weeks ago, they said 35,000 to 40,000 students would lose out," he said.

"But this is far from the full picture. Our calculations using the new Student Loan Company (SLC) data reveal the number of losers will be over three times as high – 130,000 students starting university next year will be worse off than they expected. It's not only the government whose debts are getting bigger."

The SLC figures show that 29% of students were on partial grants this year and Dius expects to see a significant rise in this proportion when final figures are released.

With all the income band thresholds changing, all those that are eligible for a partial grant will get less than they would have done.

The Tories suggest that once the policy is fully implemented, more than 390,000 students will lose out each year.

Students from households with a £50,000 annual income stand to lose the most. Originally, they would have received £538; under the new regime they will get £50 a year in 2009-10.

Students with a family income of £40,000 will lose £312, getting a new grant of £711 instead of £1,023.

A spokesman for Dius said: "The government is committed to growing student numbers and to ensuring finance is no barrier to going to university. That's why last year we committed to provide two thirds of students with a full or partial grant.

"We have exceeded our expectations and, as a result, have made some adjustments to the eligibility thresholds to make sure we can continue to meet this commitment and support those in most need.

"We will still spend £100m more on student support next year than we expected last year and students starting next year with a family income of up to £57,000 will get more total support than they would have received if they started in 2007."

Left-handers' lower test scores

Left-handed pupils do less well in tests than their right-handed peers, a study from Bristol University suggests.

Left-handers' lower test scores

Left-handed pupils do less well in tests than their right-handed peers, a study from Bristol University suggests.

Snow shuts schools as forecasters warn of worse to come

Bookies cut odds on white Christmas as wintry weather sets in

Pupil behaviour: Plan is working, government insists

The government has defended its flagship programme to improve children's social skills, despite a claim by researchers that it has had little impact on pupil behaviour in primary schools.

Researchers at the University of Manchester said parents and teachers have seen little or no effect on the key social skills targeted by the Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (Seal) programme.

But a spokeswoman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families, insisted schools implementing the programme had seen a "marked improvement" in pupils' interactions.

The Seal programme is aimed at improving the social and emotional skills that underpin effective learning, positive behaviour, regular attendance and emotional wellbeing.

It is used in more than 80% of primary schools and, in July, ministers announced £13.7m would be put into rolling out the programme to secondaries over four years.

The research, led by Dr Neil Humphrey at Manchester's school of education, found "no evidence of impact for any of the core skills targeted".

While all the interventions showed improvements, the "average effect size was small", it found, and parents did not notice any improvement at home.

But the report suggests small group work does help and interventions produce different outcomes than those that were first proposed.

"There is statistically significant evidence that primary Seal small-group work has a positive impact," it said.

The report recommends schools set aside enough time and space for small-group work in a secure setting, and stick to the national guidance.

The DCSF spokeswoman said: "This research has given us an insight into one strand of the Seal programme.

"Seal is working well in many schools across the country, helping to tackle the causes of bad behaviour and bullying by helping all children to develop self-control and good relationships."

She said many schools that had implemented the programme had seen a marked improvement in the way their pupils interacted with one another, both inside and outside the classroom.

"We have received very positive feedback from schools, and from independent researchers at the Institute of Education," she said.

"The programme is also supported by Ofsted and leading experts on psychology."

Off the menu

A Welsh college withdraws foie gras after complaints

Julian Astle: Poorer students need educational, not financial help

Julian Astle: The Lib Dems want to scrap higher education tuition fees, saying it will encourage poorer students to study. They are wrong

Thinktank asks Lib Dems to drop opposition to tuition fees

The Liberal Democrats should drop their "regressive and ineffective" opposition to tuition fees because the policy has no bearing on whether poor students go to university, a thinktank has suggested.

The Lib Dems are the only party promising to abolish fees in the hope that it would draw more students from low-income households into higher education.

But research by CentreForum suggests that taxpayers would have to pay for 'free tuition' which would effectively mean redistributing money from poor to rich people.

The estimated cost of abolishing tuition fees is £2.3bn, which is expected to rise to £3bn by 2010.

"The Liberal Democrats must therefore decide whether their fees policy, formulated in the middle of a sixteen-year period of economic growth, remains a priority in a recession.

"After all, every £1 of the £2bn it would cost to abolish fees, is a pound that cannot be spent enhancing services, or reducing the tax burden, for families further down the income scale," the report states.

Tuition fees do not deter poor students, the report found, rather they fail to go to university in greater numbers because too few achieve the exam results they need, the study found.

Julian Astle, CentreForum's director and the report's author, said: "It would be one thing if this deeply regressive policy were likely to achieve its stated objective: getting more children from low income families into the higher education system. But all the evidence suggests it will not.

"If the party is serious about widening participation in higher education, it should take most of the £2bn it would cost to abolish fees at the time of the next election, and use it to raise the attainment levels of deprived school pupils instead."

The Liberal Democrat universities spokesman, Stephen Williams, said he hoped the report would spark a much-needed debate on the future of higher education funding ahead of next year's fees review.

"Although I agree that a key barrier to participation in higher education is attainment at school, the debt burden is a real worry for many students and something we will continue to address," he said.

A Lib Dem working group is looking at the party's higher and further education policy that will be debated at its spring conference in Harrogate next year, he added.

Many more affected by grants cuts

Changes to means-tested university grants mean far more students than thought are likely to be affected.

Schools closed after heavy snow

Snow forces the closure of about 200 schools across north-west England.

Celebrities and business people who dropped out of school

The school leaving age is about to be raised to 18. But does dropping out of school early lead to a life of manual work and penury? It didn't for this lot …

The road to university: Questions about preparation for interviews

Our step-by-step guide to the application process by John Beckett

Ros Asquith cartoon on missing libraries in schools

Ros Asquith on missing libraries in schools

Wells Cathedral choristers rehearse for Christmas

Boy and girl choristers, aged eight to 15, at Wells Cathedral in Somerset rehearse O come, O come, Emmanuel for the annual Advent carol service. They usually sing separately but for major feasts and other big occasions, boys and girls combine to form the Great Choir.

O come, O come, Emmanuel

O come, O come, Emmanuel
Redeem thy captive Israel
That into exile drear is gone
Far from the face of God's dear Son
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, thou Branch of Jesse, draw
The quarry from the lion's claw
From the dread caverns of the grave
From nether hell, thy people save
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, O come, Adonai
Who in thy glorious majesty
From that high mountain clothed in awe
Gavest thy folk the elder law
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

State urged to help deprived children to communicate

The state should intervene to help bring up the nation's most disadvantaged children, to tackle a cycle of deprivation which has its roots in poor parenting, according to a report from two thinktanks.

Pupils starting primary school increasingly need to be taught to speak because they have heard little language at home beyond the "daily grunt" from their parents, according to the report. It also says that children growing up in the most deprived homes need lessons in empathy and self-control. Schools are increasingly teaching pupils social skills usually learned at home, but such lessons are most effective when they involve the parents, the report argues.

The 90-page pamphlet, Getting in Early: Primary Schools and Early Intervention, is published jointly by the leftwing Smith Institute and right-of-centre Centre for Social Justice. Its contributors include former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith, Labour MP Graham Allen and Liberal Democrat education spokesman David Laws, as well as academic and educational experts.

Research shows that success in school is largely dependent on communication skills, but in poorer homes children hear 500 different words a day, against 1,500 in a rich household, the report says.

"Headteachers speak of increasing numbers of children who hear little language at home beyond the 'daily grunt'. As a result, it is estimated that one in 10 children start school unable to talk in sentences or understand simple instructions," says a chapter written by Jean Gross, an educational psychologist who runs early intervention programmes for children at risk of falling behind.

In some parts of the country up to 50% of four- and five-year-olds cannot speak in sentences when they start school, the report says.

Katherine Weare, emeritus professor of education at the University of Southampton, writes that parents in deprived communities sometimes struggle to bond with their children. "They may feel alienated from a child they did not want, be depressed by their circumstances or not be functioning socially and emotionally because of drugs or alcohol. The effect of this lack of attachment is disastrous." Allen, MP for Nottingham North, said: "Every child needs the social and emotional literacy that middle-class children and most working-class children take for granted. It will save us millions of pounds and thousands of miserable lives. There is massive interference in people's lives now, but it's too little, too late."

The report says the proportion of teenagers experiencing "conduct problems" has more than doubled from 7% to 15% in a generation. Separate figures show that the number of pupils permanently removed from mainstream schools and placed in pupil referral units for poor behaviour has risen from 7,740 in 1997 to 16,010.

Education letters: December 2 2008

The truth about abortion | Trip into the unknown | A management mistake | For the record

Rachel Pugh on a music theatre project helping children with Asperger's syndrome

Children with Asperger's syndrome are being given a chance to forge friendships - some for the first time, writes Rachel Pugh

The insiders: Child protection officer, Cornwall College, St Austell campus

Glynis Kelly, child protection officer, Cornwall College, St Austell campus

Who's moving where in higher education - December 2 2008

Who's moving where in higher education

The impact of the Bologna process on the academic job market

Francesca Billiani first encountered UK academic life as an Erasmus student at Reading University. She enjoyed her time in the UK so much that after she completed her undergraduate degree in Italian literature at Trieste University, she came back to Reading to complete her doctorate.

Now a lecturer in the Italian department at Manchester University, Billiani says she has had better opportunities in the UK than would be possible if she had stayed in Italy.

"I could see the problems in Italy, where it would have taken until I was 40 to get a permanent position," she says. "Academia in the UK is more dynamic; you can have a career faster here."

Billiani is one of a growing number of academics taking advantage of the EU's efforts to open up national higher education systems.

Freedom of movement

The Bologna process, which began in 1999, is supposed to create a single market for higher education by 2010, so that academic staff and students can move between institutions more easily. Efforts to make degrees more comparable have attracted the most political and media attention, but the Bologna process is equally about facilitating the free movement of academics and research.

While more and more British universities have opened their doors to foreign staff, it is much harder for UK academics to pursue a career abroad. Even for EU nationals coming to the UK, there are a number of hurdles to overcome. "There are a lot of entrenched problems with a single market in academic services," says Michael Kelly, head of the school of humanities at Southampton University.

Much of this is to do with the practicalities of moving abroad. "We are concerned with the difficulty of building transnational careers: problems such as the portability of pensions, access to health and social services and re-entry issues," says Paul Bennett, a senior national official at the University and College Union (UCU).

Finding a job abroad is not always easy. "A lot of countries do not recognise lecturers as being of equal status to those who are home-grown," says Kelly. And as lecturers are often civil servants, permanent jobs are only very rarely given to foreigners.

"A permanent post in an Italian university is a tenured state job. Once you're in, it is very difficult to get rid of you. This makes it fairly natural for institutions to tend towards hiring people they know, given that they will probably be stuck with them," says Chris Rundle, a lecturer in translation at Bologna University. "I had to work a number of years as a contract teacher/lecturer, while trying to build up my academic profile and develop the contacts needed to get tenure."

It is a similar picture in France, where university ranks are still dominated by French citizens and anybody who moves away puts themselves at a serious disadvantage in terms of lost seniority, pension rights and social networks. It also means that French and Italian academics who work abroad (particularly if they complete their PhD in another country) will find it notoriously difficult to move back again.

It seems to be much easier to get a research post abroad. According to a 2005 report by the Higher Education Policy Institute, two-thirds of immigrants to the UK and emigrants were researchers and just 21% were lecturers. Very few professors and senior lecturers worked abroad.

Demand for English

There are signs that some higher education systems are opening up. According to Bennett, universities in Nordic countries and the Netherlands are increasingly offering master's degrees in a whole range of disciplines that are taught in English. Other EU member states are considering following suit. This is creating a burgeoning demand for British academics.

Permanent careers are not the only form of mobility, and the Bologna process is also supposed to stimulate academic exchange. According to a report by Conor Cradden for Let's Go!, a campaign run by the federated union Education International and the European Students' Union to promote mobility for staff and students, UK institutions have favoured jobs over exchange.

"The recruitment of permanent staff from abroad has been privileged over traditional academic exchange, whether outward or inward," he says. "Certainly, the UK's exemplary openness in terms of the recruitment of non-UK staff is to be commended, but this does not in itself compensate for relatively poor performance in other areas. Participation in Erasmus teacher exchange, for example, is very low, at 58% as a host nation and 57% as a sending nation."

Still, despite these teething problems, the Bologna model is catching on elsewhere - the North Americans are looking to implement a version, while the Asians are looking to have one in place within the next decade.

How to be a student: The art of using Facebook

There's no point in social networking if the only thing you can think of writing on your site involves how much time you spend social networking, says Harriet Swain

Jonathan Wolff yearns for the brevity in writing formerly honed by the precis exam

I'll keep this brief, as I know we're short of space, writes Jonathan Wolff

The growing need for town planning courses to teach terror attack managment

Academics call for more courses to teach town planners how to prevent and mitigate terrorist attacks. Louise Tickle reports

Legendary climber Reinhold Messner talks about setting up mountain culture museums

Reinhold Messner would pass unnoticed on a British high street; but set him loose anywhere in central Europe and he'd almost certainly be mobbed. This isn't the simple question of national identity it may first appear. Yes, Messner is from the South Tyrol, the German-speaking outpost of northern Italy and, yes, we Brits are notoriously immune to the achievements of foreigners, but the real issue is one of culture. With a highest peak of just 1,344 metres, Britain has no real empathy with mountains; they are places we rarely visit and the people who climb them a race apart. Even the great British climbers such as Chris Bonington remain largely anonymous in their own country.

With the Alps and the Dolomites pretty much in their front garden, the Italians, French, Swiss, Austrians and Germans have grown up with a sense of self that is partially shaped by the mountains; they appreciate their culture and mythology and understand the men and women who prove themselves on their summits. And when it comes to climbing, Messner is in a league of his own, his achievements overshadowing all the other mountaineering greats. In the course of a career that began in his teens, he has gone on to become the only person to climb Everest solo without oxygen and the first to climb all 14 8,000-metre peaks. His greatest achievement of all, though, may be that he is still alive. In a sport where legends are all too often snuffed out in the pursuit of the challenging, Messner has bucked the trend.

With his full head of curls and his trademark beard largely untinged with grey, Messner looks a great deal younger than 64. But his age is etched on to his body - in the ends of his fingers and the toes that have been lost to frostbite, and the creaking joints - and his days of extreme altitude are long over. His most recent trip, the crossing of a Patagonian glacier, is more than four years in the past and the only climbing he still does is the odd gentle alpine ascent in the company of his 18-year-old son. Yet mountains are still very much in his blood, and over the past 14 years or so Messner has been working on a unique project: setting up a mosaic of museums dotted around the South Tyrol dedicated to all aspects of mountain life.

Bound to fail?

When Messner was first researching the idea, he went to visit curators in Zurich and Rome, who told him he would fail unless he sited his museum in a city where there was a far better chance of pulling in the punters. He nodded politely and carried on doing what he wanted. "What was the point of having a mountain museum in a city?" he says. "It would have been ridiculous. Besides, the Alps and the Dolomites attract about 5 million tourists a year, so there were plenty of potential visitors."

And what was the point of having five museums (four are already open - Firmian, Juval, the Dolomites, Ortles - and the fifth, dedicated to mountain people, is scheduled to open in 2010) when he could have made do with one? He smiles, and you can't help feeling that the answer is the same one he has been giving to people all his life. Because he felt like it and because he can. "I've had no subsidies for these museums," he says. "Everything that has been created exists either because I funded it or because I persuaded a regional government to part with a building. Mountain culture is an increasingly important area of study; the museums aren't just full of bits and pieces of equipment from famous expeditions.

"Many of the world's great religions have links to the mountains, so one museum explores these spiritual links; another is situated near the foot of a large glacier and is dedicated to ice, while the one soon to open celebrates the culture and way of life of mountain people around the world. My aim is not just to help preserve what is left of mountain life, but to create a centre where people can study and learn about it."

Not that Messner will necessarily be around to see that through. In three years' time, he hopes to hand over the entire running of the museums to someone else, leaving him free to concentrate on his next project, making movies about his climbing experiences. Messner is a strange mixture of strong-willed idealism and financial realpolitik. After his ascent of Nanga Parbat in 1970, during which his brother, Gunther, died, Messner carved out a career for himself as a freelance climber. He got to do the climbs he wanted in the way he wanted, and in exchange he became extremely media-savvy at giving his sponsors and the public what they wanted. So a move from museums to movies isn't as extreme as it may sound; in both cases, he's trading his name and experiences to have a go at something he fancies.

In any case, there's little chance of Messner ever leaving the mountains behind. He was born in the South Tyrolean town of Bressanone and now lives in a converted castle high in the Dolomites - "it's not as grand as it sounds, I bought it for next to nothing in 1983". He also owns a farm in the Alps, which he rents out to local people to raise yaks. "The high alpine meadows are all disappearing as local farmers struggle to get cows to graze there," he says. "So I've imported some Tibetan yaks, which exist quite happily with next to no maintenance at that altitude."

The mountains were never just part of the scenery for Messner as he grew up. "My father had been a Wehrmacht officer in the second world war," he says, "and was a violent and damaged man. He never talked about himself and would take out his anger by beating his nine children. I found my escape in the mountains; they were a world I understood and in which I felt safe."

Messner made his first 9,000-foot (2,700m) ascent when he was five years old, and by the time he was in his late teens, he and his younger brother, Gunther, had climbed many of the classic routes in the Dolomites. "I learned a lot from more experienced mountaineers, such as Peter Habeler, but by the time I was about 21 I reckoned I had learned all that I needed to make me technically self-sufficient anywhere."

While many mountaineers had begun to adopt a siege approach, using bolts to open up routes that were previously impossible, Messner advocated a more purist style. "Siege climbing took all the fun away," he says. "For me, climbing has always been about adventure and that involves difficulties, danger and exposure, so I deliberately set out to climb with as little equipment as possible."

It was an approach that almost saw him come unstuck a few years later when he and Gunther were climbing in the Dolomites. "We were attempting an extreme route up a sheer rock face and I got to a point where I could see no way forward of backwards for the next four metres," he says. "It was a desperate situation and I just hung on for half an hour wondering what to do. Eventually I spotted the tiniest of edges that I could jump up to. I committed myself, hung on by my fingernail and pulled myself up to a better hold. A short while later, we finished the climb and my brother was mad at me, saying I was crazy for taking such risks. We fought, but I had to agree with him, though I consoled myself with the thought that no one would ever climb that line again."

The following year, Gunther wasn't so lucky. Messner had agreed to make a solo summit bid on Nanga Parbat when he was told the weather was closing in, and was astonished to find his brother coming up behind him a few hours later. They made it to the top, but got caught in worsening weather on the way down and had to make their way off the other side of the mountain. It was a race against time and avalanches, and Gunther lost. "I knew my brother was dead and at first all I could think of was how I was going to tell my parents," he says. "Then I started to hallucinate he was still alive and following me down the mountain, and by the end, as the hunger and the exposure got to me, I was reduced to crawling down on my hands and knees. I wasn't terrified. I knew I would probably die as well, but something just made me carry on."

Defying the odds

This bloody-minded triumph of the will lies at the heart of Messner's personality. He could have given up climbing after Nanga Parbat; instead, he concluded that from now on everything would be on his terms. There would be no more climbing as a member of a large team with climbers he didn't trust; rather, he would climb the mountains he wanted in the style he wanted. And that's what he has done. The doctors said he would die above 8,500m without oxygen; Messner went almost 400m higher to conquer Everest. His stubborness has sometimes got him into trouble. He was widely criticised when he came back from Everest for not flying the national flag at the summit. He has also risked ridicule by publicly saying that he's seen a yeti.

For Messner, the sense of adventure will never die. Since his great climbs, he's crossed the Antarctic and the Gobi desert and has even done a five-year stint as an Italian MEP for the Greens. Now, he does what he must to keep the museum on track, whether it's addressing a bunch of Swiss agrichemists or talking at the Kendal Mountain Film Festival in the Lake District. It sounds as if it might be easier just to go back to Tibet to nab a yeti and bring it home. They would be queueing the length of Italy to see that. His eyes light up. With Messner, you wouldn't bet against it.

Curriculum vitae

Age 64

Jobs Mountain climber, MEP, museum curator

Books The Crystal Horizon, The Naked Mountain

Likes reading, adventure

Dislikes accounts

Married with four children

Alison Wolf on the merits of reintroducing individual learning accounts

Central planning has failed. It has not spotted and filled the nation's "skill gaps" or raised productivity, or ensured economic growth by delivering qualifications, says Alison Wolf