Poor students at top universities up by 49%
The number of students from the poorest backgrounds entering Britain's top universities has increased by nearly 50 per cent since Labour came to power, according to an analysis of institutions' admissions records. Poor neighbourhoods sent 49 per cent more youngsters to Oxford, Cambridge and 11 other leading institutions between 1997 and 2002. There were 2,587 students from the poorest areas in 2002 out of a total intake of 33,575, compared with just 1,741 in 1997. The poorest students now make up eight per cent of the intake to those universities. This compared with six per cent in 1997, according to the analysis by the Sutton Trust, the educational charity founded by Sir Peter Lampl, the millionaire philanthropist.
Independent, Financial Times
Oxford wins 'no-go zone' against animal rights protesters
Oxford University yesterday won a significant victory against animal rights protesters after it was granted a High Court injunction banning any harassment of its staff and students and any protests within the city centre. The university, which acted after its new research laboratory came under attack, has been granted a 50-yard exclusion zone around the building and a 100-yard exclusion zone around the home of anyone connected to the university. The injunction extends protection to contractors and sub-contractors working on the university as well as their shareholders and offices. The use of emails to harass anyone connected to the university is also banned.
Daily Telegraph, Financial Times
Professor led gang that took EU millions
A criminal gang of professionals and academics led by a Sicilian professor defrauded the European Union of millions of pounds in a fake youth training programme, Italian police claimed yesterday after a string of dawn raids across the country. Among those arrested was the ring's alleged mastermind, Professor Salvatore Messina, 51, a Sicilian academic with the Université Paris 13 in France, who also lectures at the University of Palermo. Professor Messina is president of the Permanent Observatory for Tourism in the Mediterranean, and edits a quarterly entitled Sicilia, L'isola del Tesoro (Sicily, the Treasure Island), which the observatory publishes.
Daily Telegraph
York students scoop media prize again
York Vision , the University of York student newspaper, took the top accolade at the Guardian 's student media awards last night for a record third year running. The paper's editor, Jon Bentham, was named student journalist of the year. Jacob Mukherjee of Nouse , a rival publication to York Vision at the same university, won student diversity writer of the year. Other top winners included Isis of Oxford University, which took the award for student magazine of the year; Ruaridh Arrow from the Glasgow University Guardian , who won the Sky News reporter of the year award; Thomas Whipple from the Cambridge Student at Cambridge University, who took student feature writer of the year for the second year in a row; and Esther Teichmann from the Royal College of Art in London, who won student photographer of the year.
Guardian
Man of many faces
Feature on Howard Davies, vice-chancellor of the London School of Economics.
Independent