AUT foresees £2bn shortfall
Meeting the government’s target that half of all people under 30 should have gone to university by 2010 will cost billions of pounds more than is currently available, the Association of University Teachers warned today. In its submission to the comprehensive spending review the association said there would be a £2.1 billion a year funding gap within three years.
Four sacked by first minister
Jack McConnell, Scotland’s new first minister, has sacked four leading members of the cabinet. There was speculation that he intended merging schools education and lifelong learning in a single portfolio, but Wendy Alexander is now expected to continue as enterprise and lifelong learning minister.
Argentine students abandon studies
Up to 10,000 out of 82,000 students at the Universidad de La Plata in Argentina have given up their studies this year as a result of flooding, the national economic crisis and disruption of lectures by student and staff protests.
UCL close to radical cancer treatment
Scientists at University College London are on the brink of developing a radical treatment for breast cancer that would eliminate the need for weeks of radiation therapy. Under the technique a tumour is surgically removed and a device the size of a ping-pong ball is inserted into the breast. It provides 20 minutes of ionizing radiation before it is removed and the wound stitched up.