• The schools boycott of the Key Stage 2 exams has been patchy. Unions had claimed that half of schools would not sit the test, after heads and deputies voted for a boycott, yet a BBC survey suggests that only around 15% of schools have not set the tests. The unions' aim is to disrupt the league tables which are compiled on the basis of the test results. Times
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• Fiona Millar reflects on how the hung parliament is likely to affect education policy. She hopes a compromise will emerge which recognises financial reality and will abandon plans to create surplus school places, will re-calibrate school funding to aid those children who start school with lower levels of attainment and engage in consultation which opts schools into rather than out of their local communities. Guardian


• There has been a 65% increase in spending on drugs to treat ADHD over the last four years. Worries that teachers are recommending the drugs as an easy alternative to dealing with bad behaviour may come to a head in coming years, as recourse to counsellors and psychotherapists becomes limited due to cuts. The long-term effects of the drugs on young brains remain unclear. Guardian


• Dear Mr Prime Minister: school children contribute their suggestions to creating a better education system. Guardian

• More than 60 internationally renowned academics have written to the dean of Middlesex university urging him to reverse his decision to close the philosophy department. These include Alain Badiou, Judith Butler, Slavoj Zizek and Noam Chomsky. There is an ongoing student occupation at the university. Guardian


• Chair of the University Alliance group argues that the debates around higher education have suffered by attempts to try and fix the car engine without working on an accompanying sales pitch. She proposes a new graduate contribution scheme which would make it explicit that there was no upfront cost to students and graduates would contribute through the tax system in line with their earnings. Guardian


• Academics in the US are debating a decision by Northern Arizona University to introduce a monitoring system which asks students to swipe into lectures and classes using cards. Low attendance may be reflected in students' grades. Guardian


• Obama, whose election victory was brokered in no small way using social media, has warned graduates against overreliance on technology. When using devices like iPods and Xboxes, he commented that 'information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment'. Guardian


• Forty years on, student advice service Nightline has expanded from 12 student volunteers at Essex University to 34 bases and a coverage of 124 colleges and universities. The issues bothering students don't seem to have changed much over the years. Guardian

• A grandmother has won a case in the High Court which gives her the right to be paid the same rate to look after her granddaughter as a foster carer with no family connections. Family lawyers have described the case as a landmark ruling; the child would have been taken into care had it not been for the grandmother's intervention in 2004. BBC


• Adult learning is at its highest level for two decades and despite recession cuts in staff training, 47% of the adult Britons are planning to study this year. Those likely to fear job insecurity are most likely to plan to study: 58% of those in part-time education and 75% of 17-24 year olds. Guardian
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• Nearly 2 million British airways passengers will face 20 days of strikes timed to coincide with the school half-term. Union Unite has called the strikes because of the airline's withdrawal of travel perks for those staff who joined strikes in March. Guardian


• A mother of seven tells of how she couldn't afford to stay married and lose £200 a week in benefits. Her current income is £30,000 in benefits but with a partner she would lose £11,000 of this. The IFS estimate that a single mother would lose a minimum of £15.89 a week if she began to cohabit. Mail


• Psychotherapist Susie Orbach deigns today's men's magazines to resemble the Cosmopolitan of 20 years ago, pushing 'the same rotten solutions to the problems of living that have been endlessly proffered to women'. She urges men to resist the visual grammar of body uniformity they are encountering. Guardian


• The Mail investigates whether South Asian women in Britain are being forced to go to India for late abortions of female foetuses, or are finding doctors who will carry out a test to analyse chromosomes before the 20 week legal limit on abortion in India. Mail

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