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From opera at La Scala to football at the San Siro stadium, from the catwalks of fashion week to the soaring architecture of the cathedral, Milan is crowded with Italian icons. Which makes it even more of a cultural earthquake that one of Italy’s leading universities – the Politecnico di Milano – is going to [...]

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IT is the sort of louche behaviour Brideshead Revisited’s Sebastian Flyte might have revelled in during his Oxford days. But today’s pyjama-clad students drifting in to the dining hall for breakfast at Brasenose College face a dressing down. Laminated signs have appeared warning students to end the  ‘slovenly practice’ of eating breakfast in their night [...]

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Like most loving parents, Chris and Kathy Coker were anxious when their son Bradley embarked on his gap-year trip around the world. Even though they knew he was sensible, it was hard not to worry about what could go wrong. And so, the Cokers recall, they breathed a sigh of relief when they learned that [...]

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Mega-wealthy Chinese parents are paying out hundreds of thousands of pounds for their children to have lessons in the art of chit-chat – to help them get into Oxbridge. The families are doing their utmost, including paying out the huge sums to British ‘education consultants’ based in China in order to give their children the [...]

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You might not have realised it, but men are being oppressed. In many walks of life, they are routinely discriminated against in ways women are not. So unrecognised is this phenomenon that the mere mention of it will appear laughable to some. That, at least, is the premise of a book by a South African philosophy [...]

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Stubbs, 51, made her name as an actress with the Royal Shakespeare Company and had notable roles as Desdemona in Othello and Viola in Twelfth Night. But she admitted she could often find the texts impenetrable and it could be “frustrating” to get into character.   Stubbs told the Radio Times: “Shakespeare can be terrifying, [...]

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Ocado has said there is not enough IT talent in the UK – and is turning to Poland to fill the gap. The online supermarket plans to hire workers from the central European country to staff a new technical office it is opening there. Its chief executive insisted the Waitrose offshoot had been forced to [...]

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Johann Lamont will say that the huge cost to the taxpayer of providing Scottish and EU undergraduates with a degree has forced universities to balance their books by recruiting more fee-paying students from elsewhere.   She will claim this has restricted places and opportunities for Scottish school leavers but will warn that SNP ministers are [...]

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My son is 21 and stopped going to college last year. Our problem started a very long time ago when we failed to secure a place for him in the secondary school to which he passed the entrance exam. We had to send him to another private school, where he was not welcomed and lost [...]

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With fewer than 80 days to go until the start of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games it would be easy to conclude amid the hype that the “future” of sport is restricted to only a few weeks in July and August. However, those involved in the industry are already looking beyond the games [...]

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The author of a report on international higher education has questioned whether UK universities can remain world leaders without more funding. The report for Universitas 21 rated the UK 10th best at providing higher education in a ranking of 48 countries. The study put the UK second for university research and teaching but 27th for [...]

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The exams watchdog said the system was an effective way to test large amounts of information alongside pupils’ English language skills. It was claimed that multiple-choice exams played a key part in assessments employed by other nations and greater consideration should be given to their use in England.   But the regulator admitted that over-using these [...]

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A man who moved from Yugoslavia to New York without even knowing English is now graduating with an honors degree from an Ivy league university. Gac Filipaj, 52, first moved to the United States in 1992 when his home country was in the midst of a massive civil war. Upon his move state-side, he started [...]

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The law could allow hundreds of thousands of students to win free places by taking Republic of Ireland citizenship and applying as EU students, which would result in their fees being paid under European equality law.   Almost 625,000 people living in England and Wales claimed Irish ethnicity in the 2001 census, and as many [...]

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An Oxford undergraduate is following in the footsteps of best-selling author JK Rowling – after landing a six-figure book deal with the Harry Potter writer’s publisher. English undergraduate Samantha Shannon, 20, has signed a contract with publishing powerhouse Bloomsbury for the release of her novel, The Bone Season, and two sequels. But she doesn’t plan [...]

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Homeless, abandoned by her parents and once declared a high school dropout, a hardworking 18-year-old has turned her life around earning her acceptance into Harvard University with scholarship this fall. High school graduate Dawn Loggins says her life in Lawndale, North Carolina first started out in decay, among bullying and a broken home surrounded by [...]

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A University of Texas student was hit by a bus during a campus-wide duel and lived to tell the tale. Freshman Nick Engmann was participating in the Austin ritual to culminate the end of the semester, when a Capital Metro bus ran a red light and crashed into him as he led the charge across [...]

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Staying in education longer makes people smarter and results in better memory later in life, it was claimed. But the research – based on an analysis of adults who left school in the 40s – says that extra tuition fails to make people happier. The disclosure comes amid mounting pressure on young people to stay in [...]

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Staying in education longer does not necessarily make someone happier, according to new research. The UK and German study of people who as teenagers stayed in education until they were 15 in the 1940s did find they had a better memory later in life. But the study in the Economic Journal found no “statistically significant” [...]

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A West Yorkshire lollipop man is studying for his second PhD, on top of 11 degrees. Bruce Berry from Wakefield graduated with his first degree from Manchester University in 1963. Speaking of his “thirst for knowledge”, 70-year-old Mr Berry said: “I like to keep an open mind – anything which catches my interest, I go [...]

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Madeline Grant, a 19-year-old former model, attempted to win votes for the post of Union Librarian by writing a “draft manifesto” which contained references to her breasts. Miss Grant, who is reading English literature and languages at St Hilda’s College, wrote in the campaign material: “I don’t hack, I just have a great rack.” Her comments [...]

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Bertie Gladwin was just looking for something to defy the onset of senility. He ended up becoming Britain’s oldest recorded graduate at the age of 90, having left school at 14 to work as a greengrocer’s delivery boy. The country’s previous oldest graduate was a mere 89 (“a youngster”, according to Bertie) although a 96-year-old [...]

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When my partner asked if I wanted children, I would rather have thrown myself into the traffic than say yes. For me, mother-hood was what other women did,  alongside baking and taking anti-depressants. But by this time I had realised my boyfriend was The One and I didn’t want my refusal to have a child [...]

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A West Yorkshire lollipop man is studying for his second PhD, on top of 11 degrees. Bruce Berry from Wakefield graduated with his first degree from Manchester University in 1963. Speaking of his “thirst for knowledge”, 70-year-old Mr Berry said: “I like to keep an open mind – anything which catches my interest, I go [...]

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Modern, educated women are reversing a 50-year trend in feminist behaviour by starting a family rather than remain childless, new economic research shows. It could mark a new age in which ambitious women begin to realise they do not have to give up raising a family in order to achieve their other goals, it suggests. [...]

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This autumn, many English students will get some form of means-tested support through bursaries or fee reduction depending on their parents’ incomes. Each university has designed its own system to soften the rise in fees, which is up to £9,000 in most cases. Almost all these bursaries or fee reductions involve significant “cliff edges” in [...]

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Public debate about the purpose and practice of higher educatation is currently dominated by a discourse of employability which privileges the financial rewards of achieving a HE qualification over the personal and social rewards associated with the experience itself. Critics of this discourse argue that attempts to isolate preparation for employment from other aspects of [...]

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Elizabeth Fillmore is in her final year at school in England but, despite offers from top UK universities, she will not be staying in the country for her degree. Rather than take up a place at the London School of Economics or Bristol University, she has chosen to study at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. [...]

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A Scottish government spokesman has confirmed that sixth form pupils in the UK who hold Irish passports qualify for free university tuition in Scotland. Fees are rising to a maximum of £9000 across the UK but in Scotland, pupils who have lived there for at least three years do not have to pay fees. This [...]

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The students at London Metropolitan University said the prospective alcohol ban was “ill-advised and misleading”, demonising them and exacerbating “Islamophobia” at the university and in wider society. They warned the proposals had created such ill-feeling amongst students that it is “only a matter of time” before a Muslim student is assaulted. They accused Vice Chancellor [...]

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A student who was suffering from a brain tumour was repeatedly turned away by doctors who insisted she was just ‘homesick.’ Megan Thompson, who was just three weeks into her childhood studies course at Leeds Metropolitan University, complained of terrible headaches and walking problems and made repeated trips to the doctor. However, it wasn’t until [...]

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Last week ministers of education from 47 European countries met in the Romanian capital, Bucharest, to agree the next steps in the long-running Bologna process, the crab-like progress towards creating a European higher education area (EHEA) spanning half the globe, from Reykjavik to Vladivostok. The original aim of Bologna was to introduce the bachelors-master’s course [...]

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About 200 people watched as the piano, a baby grand, fell six storeys from a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) building, before smashing into a second piano positioned below. Onlookers then scrambled for keys, hammers, strings and splinters to keep as souvenir pieces. The tradition, which began at the Baker House dormitory in 1972, was observed sporadically [...]

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More than half of state school teachers are failing to encourage their brightest pupils to apply to Oxford and Cambridge, according to a survey out today. They ‘rarely’ or ‘never’ advise their most gifted pupils to apply to the elite institutions, prompting fears that hundreds of youngsters are being held back. The survey results suggest [...]

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Almost six-in-10 teachers are failing to push their most academically-gifted teenagers towards Oxford or Cambridge, it was revealed. The study suggests that opposition towards the ancient universities – regularly ranked among the world’s top five institutions – is rising among the teaching profession.   When the research was last carried out five years ago, only [...]

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The Supreme Court on Wednesday said an older employee was indirectly discriminated against on the grounds of age when he was denied access to a new top salary band at work, because he did not have a law degree.   The judgment ruled that Terence Homer, an ex-police officer who worked as an adviser on [...]

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So many column inches are wasted on pupils applying to Oxford and Cambridge. I wish there were a silver bullet to the problem of accessibility to narrowly academic universities, but we’re embedded so much into our own institutions it’s difficult to have a clearer strategy or more co-ordinated approach. For the moment, different institutions are working [...]

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Youngsters starting university this year may rack up more than £4,000 in interest before they finish their course. Students starting in the autumn are set to be charged 6.6  per cent interest on their loans, it has been revealed. It means those who borrow the maximum £9,000 would accrue £612 interest in their first year. If [...]

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Bo Guagua, who is currently studying at Harvard in the United States, has come under intense scrutiny since his father Bo Xilai and mother Gu Kailai became implicated in the biggest political scandal to hit China in decades. His partying and alleged extravagant lifestyle have triggered criticism in a country where the rich-poor divide is [...]

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By any reckoning, TV historian Lucy Worsley has done pretty well for herself. In addition to her day job as chief curator of Historic Royal Palaces, the 38-year-old has written three books, made umpteen TV programmes – and has also found love, sharing a London riverside flat with her architect boyfriend.  Just about the only [...]

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Parents around the country could be forgiven for feeling more than a little frustrated at the news that the number of students dropping out of university rose 13 per cent last year – the first time since records began a decade ago that the number has crept above 30,000. It is the equivalent of throwing [...]

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As students, we are lampooned for our lack of culinary ability. There is some truth in the cliche. We’re overly dependent on can openers, have a liberal attitude towards best-before dates and aren’t great at washing up. With exams looming, things are just getting worse. A heavy exam schedule makes you feel like there’s simply [...]

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One in three parents is sacrificing their own pension pot to help their adult offspring, with some forfeiting £51,000 for every child they carry on supporting in adulthood. Parents are shelling out on children aged over 18 for university, weddings, house deposits, debts and other general expenses – ultimately diverting savings that could go into supporting [...]

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More teenagers in Wales are choosing to stay on in full-time education, according to latest figures. A survey of 65,450 high school pupils shows 85.1% continued their education beyond Year 11 in 2011, compared with 82.8% in 2010. Advisers say over the last five years they have seen an 8% rise in those staying in [...]

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They may be young and gifted but research at the elite institution has found that female undergraduates are shying away from applying to jobs in banking, finance, management consultancy, engineering and resource management.   Partly as a result, starting salaries for women when they graduate are on average £2,000 to £3,000 lower than their male [...]

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She has appeared in five Harry Potter movies and makes her London stage debut tonight, but Katie Leung is going back to school — to learn how to act. Following her run in Wild Swans, an adaptation of the bestselling book, Leung, 24, will take up a place at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in [...]

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No one pretends educating today’s children and young people is easy – that’s why it’s a job for the top performing graduates of today. It’s a profession that will test you to the limit, draw on all your resources and challenge you to the hilt – but you are supported every step of the way. [...]

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New figures show that the number of schools offering the Pre-U – a course devised by Cambridge University’s exam board – has increased by a third in two years. For the first time in 2012, it was revealed that almost as many state schools opted for the qualification as those in the fee-paying sector. The [...]

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You’ll never find a queue for the ladies’ at a technology conference, says Cary Marsh, who runs a software company. “As a technology entrepreneur, I often find myself at conferences where I’m one of only a handful of women among hundreds of men.” It’s concerning not only because women are missing out on a dynamic [...]

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Graduates from top universities would get financial incentives to opt for careers in engineering and manufacturing instead of the City, under plans being considered by Vince Cable. The Business Secretary is studying proposals for “Manufacturing Technology Scholarships” to be offered to engineering students at Oxbridge and other leading universities. The plans will be set out on [...]

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