Latest news

Healey plans revamp for ILAs
Individual learning accounts, which were scrapped suddenly last week amid allegations of fraud, are to be reinvented and may be extended to cover part-time higher education. Government officials are now redesigning ILAs, axed last Friday, and may look to Scotland, where ILAs have been used for part-time higher education courses, adult skills minister John Healey told MPs on the education and skills select committee today.

£10m brain centre opens at Bristol
A £10 million research centre aimed at improving scientific understanding of how the human brain learns and stores new information was being opened at Bristol University today. The Centre for Synaptic Plasticity is a joint venture between the Medical Research Council and the university.

Students teargassed in Zimbabwe demo
Zimbabwean students calling for the resignation of president Robert Mugabe have been teargassed as they prepared to march on parliament with a petition protesting at the death of a University of Zimbabwe student thrown from a moving train by soldiers.

Protest shuts Lebanon campus
Lebanese universities closed for a day in protest at a raid by security forces on the campus of the Saint Joseph University when police removed posters attacking Syria's military presence in Lebanon.    

MPs get reality check
Conservative education spokesman Alistair Burt is to be the first MP to take part in an experiment aimed at introducing politicians to the realities of running a university. He will spend about three weeks over the next year in four institutions chosen to represent different aspects of the sector.