Archive for November, 2008
A criminal waste
Posted by Anastasia de Waal in Education on 07/11/2008
According to a report from the Common’s Committee of Public Accounts, moves to improve education amongst prisoners are failing dismally. The Times Education Supplement reports today that the committee of MPs have branded the body set up to reform prison education, the Offenders’ Learning and Skills Service (OLSS), as ‘having failed in almost every respect’.
Consumer choice and the regulation of medicine
Posted by James Gubb in Health on 06/11/2008
This Tuesday, a forum at Civitas heard the ideas of Bartley J. Madden, an independent researcher in the US. His big idea is a dual-track system that aims to speed up the time from trial to licensing for new medicines. Topical, given the recommendation of Mike Richards’ review on top-up payments this week to consider how PCTs can be better supported to make decisions on funding off-label drugs, Madden argued that drugs that have passed Phase I safety tests should be subject to two regimes…
Is grit just a chip off the old block?
Posted by Nick Cowen in Education on 04/11/2008
For a child to do well in school, more is needed than just intelligence. Successful study also demands strong will-power. Children need to be able to resist the perennial temptation that they all will invariably face from time to time to escape the rigours demanded by serious study for the sake of the short-term immediate gratification they can obtain through play, which includes their playing around in the classroom.
2009: a pivotal year for the EU?
Posted by Pete Quentin in European Union on 03/11/2008
The next European Parliament elections will take place in June 2009.
Direct elections for the European Parliament were introduced in 1979 in an attempt to increase the European Union’s democratic credentials – after all it is difficult for an appointed authority to lecture the developing world about the moral superiority and practical advantages of democracy (the European Commission and Council should take note). However at the last European Parliament election in 2004 turnout was only 45.6% across the EU, down from 49.51% in 1999 and 62% in 1979. In the UK only 38.9% of people voted. Raising voter turnout is crucial because the 2009 EP election will provide the only chance for EU electorates to have any say at all in the EU for the next 5 years.