Latest UK news

Gap-year youth exploited
Youngsters who work abroad or take a gap placement overseas are often exploited or paid low wages. A survey for BBC Essentials also found that one in 20 people questioned said they had suffered sexual harassment. Boys were twice as likely to be hassled as girls. One in ten of the 500 questioned was not paid.

Star don lands literary professorship
Literary critic Terry Eagleton, holder of the Thomas Warton chair of English literature at Oxford University, is to be professor of cultural theory at the University of Manchester. Professor Eagleton was born in Salford. After graduating from Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1964 he became the youngest fellow at Jesus College since the 18th century.

Days numbered for college system
The growing ranks of scientists at Oxford University spell doom for its long-cherished college system, a senior academic has warned. Historian Sir Keith Thomas writes in the Oxford Magazine that the rapid expansion of science at the university has outstripped the ability of the colleges to absorb the number of new researchers.