20 years ago

A lecturer has become one of the first victims of student evaluation after a questionnaire found him to be below standard. The director of Wolverhampton Polytechnic's education research unit has recommended that the lecturer should not be re-employed because a high proportion of summer-school students criticised his teaching. They described his inability to understand what he was talking about, saying he did not prepare his lectures or follow up on key lectures. Wolverhampton Polytechnic director Michael Harrison said: "I think we are definitely moving towards a situation in which performance evaluation is coming on to the agenda."

Strathclyde University will become the first Scottish institution to offer a course in managing aggression in the workplace. The programme consists of a two-day seminar run by the director of the university's Addiction Research Group, Argus. The primary aim of the programme will be to give people more confidence, and to prepare them to defuse a difficult situation.