• At seven of the UK's leading 20 research institutions - the Russell Group, less than 5% of students are from underprivileged backgrounds with little history of participation in higher education. Around 20% of the UK's youth are from such backgrounds, but constituted just 2.7% of Oxford's 2008/9 intake. Guardian


• The Health and Safety Executive is in court to prosecute North Yorkshire county council over the case of a 14 year old boy who drowned while potholing in an underground passage on a school trip. The prosecuting QC accused the council of 'complacency and lack of rigour' regarding the wild weather conditions which led to the death. Guardian


• Three quarters of self-employed home tutors have no intention of registering on a government database set up in the wake of the Soham murders to monitor those who work with children or vulnerable adults. They will be encouraged to do so, but 80% claimed it would not stop abuse, with one criticising the implication that tutors were 'guilty until proven innocent'. Guardian 


• Toby Young writes in the Guardian about his plans to set up a school as part of a 500-strong parent group in Ealing, why the Conservatives will get his vote and why bringing in commercial providers to operate schools is not Conservative radicalism, but allowed by Labour and built in to EU law. Guardian


• An argument for media studies to be taught in schools, to allow children to understand the pervasive advertising of an age of digital media. Guardian

• More than a fifth of university students fail to finish their degrees, despite taxpayer investment in their studies. The former polytechnics at the centre of the government drive to expand participation in higher education have the highest drop out rates -up to 45%. Mail

• Dame Joan Bakewell is to step down as the first official Voice Of Older People. She leaves with calls to the government to make it a full-time professional job, saying that someone needs to monitor the service being provided. There is currently an Older People's Commissioner in Wales and Northern Ireland. Times


• University researchers have found that toddlers aged between 9 and 36 months gravitate towards the toys stereotypically linked to their gender. The preferences exhibited have been interpreted as evidence that socialisation occurs very early, as well as that children have intrinsic, biological bias. Mail


• Has David Cameron sidelined 'broken Britain' for a more upbeat message of 'people power'? Guardian

back to top