Today's news

Student hit by police car dies
A student at Oxford Brookes University has died after being knocked down by a police car answering an emergency call. Emily Higson, 22, received multiple injuries after being hit by the patrol car as she walked through Oxford shortly before midnight on Sunday. The officers were not hurt. Ms Higson, a final-year undergraduate studying sociology and anthropology, was taken to the John Radcliffe Hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 3am yesterday. A police inquiry is being held.
( Times, Daily Mail )

PM stands firm over top-up fees
In his keynote speech to the CBI conference in Birmingham yesterday prime minister Tony Blair claimed his plans to introduce university top-up fees were both "fair" and "right". He told business leaders: "The blunt truth is that universities need more money. It either comes from the general taxpayer, the parents or the students themselves when they become graduates. We have chosen the last course. We shall stick to it."
( Daily Express )

Ministers braced for tense reform votes
Many Labour MPs representing marginal middle-class seats fear that pressing ahead with top-up fees, against a manifesto commitment, could damage their re-election prospects. More than 70 Labour MPs have put their names to a motion by Anne Campbell, the Cambridge MP, calling for a flat-rate, deferred fee, which some ministers are believed to support. However, Mr Clarke and Mr Blair see the differential fee as central to the reform.
( Financial Times )

'Failing' exams system to get £100m update
A programme costing £100 million to modernise England's examinations system was announced yesterday by Charles Clarke, the education secretary. The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, will lose responsibility for setting and marking national curriculum tests. That task will pass to a new National Assessment Agency, with the QCA acting purely as a regulator to maintain standards.
( Times )

Charlotte Church in privacy plea at Oxford
The 17-year-old singer Charlotte Church became the youngest person ever to address the Oxford Union when she made an appeal last night for a privacy law to protect under-18s from media intrusion.
( Independent )

British university's global reputation tested
Politicians, academics and students from six continents give their opinions on whether Britain's universities are world class and whether they will remain so.
( Guardian )

Medical researchers criticise funding system
Academics are calling for a more transparent and generous funding system for clinical research.
( Guardian )

Spectacle clue to secret of Turner's style
Viewers have been puzzling over JMW Turner's singular vision of the world for over 200 years. Now a opthalmic surgeon James McGill, who has been studying Turner's work for years, is suggesting that there is no mystery; Turner, suffering from early, slight colour-blindness and later cataracts, was painting exactly what he saw. The debate over Turner's eyesight has been revived by the argument over a battered pair of Victorian spectacles, to be auctioned at Sotheby's next week.
( Guardian )