The Econocrats

The previous post started with Trollope's commentary on how the finance system worked in the C19.  In a wholly unplanned segue, this one deals with how economics is taught and practised now.  To their immense credit, a group of students have got together to produce a detailed, evidence-based critique of the discipline: The Econocracy: the perils of leaving economics to the experts. Rethinking Economics is a movement which questions the assumptions on which most contemporary economics courses are based.  To be more precise, it challenges the fact that most economics courses never question their own, neo-classical, assumptions: that people behave as rational knowledgeable agents seeking to optimise their own advantage, and…
Read More

Malala working for free(dom), and negotiations

I went with my daughter yesterday to see the film He Named Me Malala.  It's an extraordinary mix: the unique, improbable story of Malala's path to the Nobel Prize (with detail of the titanium plate they had to insert into her head after the shooting, and all the efforts to recover the use of her muscles), and the her apparent capacity to maintain the life of an ordinary schoolgirl with two brothers, in a Birmingham home.  I found it moving, and for once inspirational is an appropriate description. The film is founded on the way her father encouraged her, and other girls, to carry on with their schooling.  He poses the…
Read More

Understanding fracking and climate change

Professor Averil Macdonald is the chairwoman of UK Onshore Oil and Gas, and emeritus professor of science engagement at the University of Reading.  She's just hit the headlines because she's attributed the fact that more women than men oppose fracking to their lack of scientific understanding.  Apparently only 31% of women think tracking should be allowed, compared with 58% of men.  According to Prof Macdonald, that's because they don't understand the science. She is certainly right that more women stop science at 16.  And it's quite striking that 85% of men correctly identified shale gas as the fossil fuel which is produced by tracking, compared with 65% of women.  The…
Read More

Qualifications, overqualification, etc

We've had the annual  pictures of  school leavers celebrating their A level results.  As usual most of the pictures feature girls, hugging each other or jumping in the air.  This is partly because girls have as always better results to celebrate, partly because they are more likely to be seen as photogenic.  I did see one  picture of a pair of boys congratulating each other, but the hug looked like a very awkward clinch from which both would break away as quickly as they could. The significant gender difference was quite a prominent theme amongst the comments.  Projections show us moving rapidly towards a 2:1 ratio in higher education, in…
Read More

Death, driving and competence

This week is Death Awareness week, and I went to a Death Cafe.  I've taken part in several of these over the last couple of years.  DCs simply provide an opportunity for people to meet and talk about death.  In the one I attend you gather round small tables for the first half of the evening, and then get into a wider circle for the second half.  The conversation can be about people's fear of death, or  about their need to process past experiences (though it is explicitly not a therapy session); or it may just take a direction of its own, according to what the participants bring to the table.…
Read More

Paying more

Some kind of prize to the Resolution Foundation for the cover of their recent report on how to boost low wages;  I say that even though the boosted person looks very male to me, so maybe doesn't fit best with the Paula Principle.  In fact as Susan Harkness' piece on women's wages makes clear, women's wages have dropped by less than men's, thus closing the gender gap but in a way that doesn't exactly call for hurrahs. Harkness argues that this convergence is partly due to the fact that it's more the male-dominated employment sectors that have borne the brunt of the recession and subsequent wage squeeze.  She also points our,…
Read More

Gaps

A quick post following a good meeting yesterday organised by UCU, on widening access to higher education, in the august surrounding's of the Dean's Yard Westminster.  (My last post came from the even more distinguished crypt of St Paul's - where will I find myself next?). Two key issues struck me.  One was 'trends in gaps'.    Helen Thornley of UCAS gave details of the latest figures on applications and entries to universities.    The gap between those from the most and least advantaged backgrounds is diminishing - though not very fast, and not o the 'high tariff' (i.e. elite) universities.  At the same time, the gap between female and…
Read More

Fair play

Chwaere Teg means  'fair play' in Welsh - a good title for an organisation that is doing excellent work promoting equality issues in Wales.  I was in Newport last night giving a lecture for them on Paula (and chapeau to them - they aim to alternate female and male speakers in their lecture series, though the audience was 90% female). We had quite some discussion on careers.  Chwaere Teg produced last year an excellent report, A Woman's Place, on women in the Welsh workforce.  Welsh women are upping their learning - 55% have recently taken part in adult education or training, compared to just 39% in 1996, and a full…
Read More

Learners’ achievements

Today will be full of news about A level results and what is happening to student access to higher education.  I hope at least some attention will be paid to the continuing plunge in mature student enrolments, and especially to the way in which part-time higher education has been harshly squeezed over the last years, but the focus will be on school leavers.  My firm bet is that a count of the images used in the press reports on exam results will show a big majority of girls.  One reason of course is that papers find them more photogenic , and they probably smile more easily than boys;  but another…
Read More

Self-employment: another area we need to understand

I've just been to a stimulating meeting at the Resolution Foundation, which always provides food for thought on employment issues.  This one was on self-employment, which now counts for over 15% of the workforce - some 4.5 million people. As Gavin Kelly, the FR's CEO, observed, when you have numbers of that kind routinely left out of most labour market analysis, it makes one query how robust the conclusions can be. Add to that the absurdity of using 16-64 as the age frame; and then pile on the limitations of the simplistic binary division between full-timers and part-timers and you reality begin to think that we need a radical rebuild…
Read More

The Econocrats

The previous post started with Trollope's commentary on how the finance system worked in the C19.  In a wholly unplanned segue, this one deals with how economics is taught and practised now.  To their immense credit, a group of students have got together to produce a detailed, evidence-based critique of the discipline: The Econocracy: the perils of leaving economics to the experts. Rethinking Economics is a movement which questions the assumptions on which most contemporary economics courses are based.  To be more precise, it challenges the fact that most economics courses never question their own, neo-classical, assumptions: that people behave as rational knowledgeable agents seeking to optimise their own advantage, and…
Read More

Malala working for free(dom), and negotiations

I went with my daughter yesterday to see the film He Named Me Malala.  It's an extraordinary mix: the unique, improbable story of Malala's path to the Nobel Prize (with detail of the titanium plate they had to insert into her head after the shooting, and all the efforts to recover the use of her muscles), and the her apparent capacity to maintain the life of an ordinary schoolgirl with two brothers, in a Birmingham home.  I found it moving, and for once inspirational is an appropriate description. The film is founded on the way her father encouraged her, and other girls, to carry on with their schooling.  He poses the…
Read More

Understanding fracking and climate change

Professor Averil Macdonald is the chairwoman of UK Onshore Oil and Gas, and emeritus professor of science engagement at the University of Reading.  She's just hit the headlines because she's attributed the fact that more women than men oppose fracking to their lack of scientific understanding.  Apparently only 31% of women think tracking should be allowed, compared with 58% of men.  According to Prof Macdonald, that's because they don't understand the science. She is certainly right that more women stop science at 16.  And it's quite striking that 85% of men correctly identified shale gas as the fossil fuel which is produced by tracking, compared with 65% of women.  The…
Read More

Qualifications, overqualification, etc

We've had the annual  pictures of  school leavers celebrating their A level results.  As usual most of the pictures feature girls, hugging each other or jumping in the air.  This is partly because girls have as always better results to celebrate, partly because they are more likely to be seen as photogenic.  I did see one  picture of a pair of boys congratulating each other, but the hug looked like a very awkward clinch from which both would break away as quickly as they could. The significant gender difference was quite a prominent theme amongst the comments.  Projections show us moving rapidly towards a 2:1 ratio in higher education, in…
Read More

Death, driving and competence

This week is Death Awareness week, and I went to a Death Cafe.  I've taken part in several of these over the last couple of years.  DCs simply provide an opportunity for people to meet and talk about death.  In the one I attend you gather round small tables for the first half of the evening, and then get into a wider circle for the second half.  The conversation can be about people's fear of death, or  about their need to process past experiences (though it is explicitly not a therapy session); or it may just take a direction of its own, according to what the participants bring to the table.…
Read More

Paying more

Some kind of prize to the Resolution Foundation for the cover of their recent report on how to boost low wages;  I say that even though the boosted person looks very male to me, so maybe doesn't fit best with the Paula Principle.  In fact as Susan Harkness' piece on women's wages makes clear, women's wages have dropped by less than men's, thus closing the gender gap but in a way that doesn't exactly call for hurrahs. Harkness argues that this convergence is partly due to the fact that it's more the male-dominated employment sectors that have borne the brunt of the recession and subsequent wage squeeze.  She also points our,…
Read More

Gaps

A quick post following a good meeting yesterday organised by UCU, on widening access to higher education, in the august surrounding's of the Dean's Yard Westminster.  (My last post came from the even more distinguished crypt of St Paul's - where will I find myself next?). Two key issues struck me.  One was 'trends in gaps'.    Helen Thornley of UCAS gave details of the latest figures on applications and entries to universities.    The gap between those from the most and least advantaged backgrounds is diminishing - though not very fast, and not o the 'high tariff' (i.e. elite) universities.  At the same time, the gap between female and…
Read More

Fair play

Chwaere Teg means  'fair play' in Welsh - a good title for an organisation that is doing excellent work promoting equality issues in Wales.  I was in Newport last night giving a lecture for them on Paula (and chapeau to them - they aim to alternate female and male speakers in their lecture series, though the audience was 90% female). We had quite some discussion on careers.  Chwaere Teg produced last year an excellent report, A Woman's Place, on women in the Welsh workforce.  Welsh women are upping their learning - 55% have recently taken part in adult education or training, compared to just 39% in 1996, and a full…
Read More

Learners’ achievements

Today will be full of news about A level results and what is happening to student access to higher education.  I hope at least some attention will be paid to the continuing plunge in mature student enrolments, and especially to the way in which part-time higher education has been harshly squeezed over the last years, but the focus will be on school leavers.  My firm bet is that a count of the images used in the press reports on exam results will show a big majority of girls.  One reason of course is that papers find them more photogenic , and they probably smile more easily than boys;  but another…
Read More

Self-employment: another area we need to understand

I've just been to a stimulating meeting at the Resolution Foundation, which always provides food for thought on employment issues.  This one was on self-employment, which now counts for over 15% of the workforce - some 4.5 million people. As Gavin Kelly, the FR's CEO, observed, when you have numbers of that kind routinely left out of most labour market analysis, it makes one query how robust the conclusions can be. Add to that the absurdity of using 16-64 as the age frame; and then pile on the limitations of the simplistic binary division between full-timers and part-timers and you reality begin to think that we need a radical rebuild…
Read More

The Econocrats

The previous post started with Trollope's commentary on how the finance system worked in the C19.  In a wholly unplanned segue, this one deals with how economics is taught and practised now.  To their immense credit, a group of students have got together to produce a detailed, evidence-based critique of the discipline: The Econocracy: the perils of leaving economics to the experts. Rethinking Economics is a movement which questions the assumptions on which most contemporary economics courses are based.  To be more precise, it challenges the fact that most economics courses never question their own, neo-classical, assumptions: that people behave as rational knowledgeable agents seeking to optimise their own advantage, and…
Read More

Malala working for free(dom), and negotiations

I went with my daughter yesterday to see the film He Named Me Malala.  It's an extraordinary mix: the unique, improbable story of Malala's path to the Nobel Prize (with detail of the titanium plate they had to insert into her head after the shooting, and all the efforts to recover the use of her muscles), and the her apparent capacity to maintain the life of an ordinary schoolgirl with two brothers, in a Birmingham home.  I found it moving, and for once inspirational is an appropriate description. The film is founded on the way her father encouraged her, and other girls, to carry on with their schooling.  He poses the…
Read More

Understanding fracking and climate change

Professor Averil Macdonald is the chairwoman of UK Onshore Oil and Gas, and emeritus professor of science engagement at the University of Reading.  She's just hit the headlines because she's attributed the fact that more women than men oppose fracking to their lack of scientific understanding.  Apparently only 31% of women think tracking should be allowed, compared with 58% of men.  According to Prof Macdonald, that's because they don't understand the science. She is certainly right that more women stop science at 16.  And it's quite striking that 85% of men correctly identified shale gas as the fossil fuel which is produced by tracking, compared with 65% of women.  The…
Read More

Qualifications, overqualification, etc

We've had the annual  pictures of  school leavers celebrating their A level results.  As usual most of the pictures feature girls, hugging each other or jumping in the air.  This is partly because girls have as always better results to celebrate, partly because they are more likely to be seen as photogenic.  I did see one  picture of a pair of boys congratulating each other, but the hug looked like a very awkward clinch from which both would break away as quickly as they could. The significant gender difference was quite a prominent theme amongst the comments.  Projections show us moving rapidly towards a 2:1 ratio in higher education, in…
Read More

Death, driving and competence

This week is Death Awareness week, and I went to a Death Cafe.  I've taken part in several of these over the last couple of years.  DCs simply provide an opportunity for people to meet and talk about death.  In the one I attend you gather round small tables for the first half of the evening, and then get into a wider circle for the second half.  The conversation can be about people's fear of death, or  about their need to process past experiences (though it is explicitly not a therapy session); or it may just take a direction of its own, according to what the participants bring to the table.…
Read More

Paying more

Some kind of prize to the Resolution Foundation for the cover of their recent report on how to boost low wages;  I say that even though the boosted person looks very male to me, so maybe doesn't fit best with the Paula Principle.  In fact as Susan Harkness' piece on women's wages makes clear, women's wages have dropped by less than men's, thus closing the gender gap but in a way that doesn't exactly call for hurrahs. Harkness argues that this convergence is partly due to the fact that it's more the male-dominated employment sectors that have borne the brunt of the recession and subsequent wage squeeze.  She also points our,…
Read More

Gaps

A quick post following a good meeting yesterday organised by UCU, on widening access to higher education, in the august surrounding's of the Dean's Yard Westminster.  (My last post came from the even more distinguished crypt of St Paul's - where will I find myself next?). Two key issues struck me.  One was 'trends in gaps'.    Helen Thornley of UCAS gave details of the latest figures on applications and entries to universities.    The gap between those from the most and least advantaged backgrounds is diminishing - though not very fast, and not o the 'high tariff' (i.e. elite) universities.  At the same time, the gap between female and…
Read More

Fair play

Chwaere Teg means  'fair play' in Welsh - a good title for an organisation that is doing excellent work promoting equality issues in Wales.  I was in Newport last night giving a lecture for them on Paula (and chapeau to them - they aim to alternate female and male speakers in their lecture series, though the audience was 90% female). We had quite some discussion on careers.  Chwaere Teg produced last year an excellent report, A Woman's Place, on women in the Welsh workforce.  Welsh women are upping their learning - 55% have recently taken part in adult education or training, compared to just 39% in 1996, and a full…
Read More

Learners’ achievements

Today will be full of news about A level results and what is happening to student access to higher education.  I hope at least some attention will be paid to the continuing plunge in mature student enrolments, and especially to the way in which part-time higher education has been harshly squeezed over the last years, but the focus will be on school leavers.  My firm bet is that a count of the images used in the press reports on exam results will show a big majority of girls.  One reason of course is that papers find them more photogenic , and they probably smile more easily than boys;  but another…
Read More

Self-employment: another area we need to understand

I've just been to a stimulating meeting at the Resolution Foundation, which always provides food for thought on employment issues.  This one was on self-employment, which now counts for over 15% of the workforce - some 4.5 million people. As Gavin Kelly, the FR's CEO, observed, when you have numbers of that kind routinely left out of most labour market analysis, it makes one query how robust the conclusions can be. Add to that the absurdity of using 16-64 as the age frame; and then pile on the limitations of the simplistic binary division between full-timers and part-timers and you reality begin to think that we need a radical rebuild…
Read More

The Econocrats

The previous post started with Trollope's commentary on how the finance system worked in the C19.  In a wholly unplanned segue, this one deals with how economics is taught and practised now.  To their immense credit, a group of students have got together to produce a detailed, evidence-based critique of the discipline: The Econocracy: the perils of leaving economics to the experts. Rethinking Economics is a movement which questions the assumptions on which most contemporary economics courses are based.  To be more precise, it challenges the fact that most economics courses never question their own, neo-classical, assumptions: that people behave as rational knowledgeable agents seeking to optimise their own advantage, and…
Read More

Malala working for free(dom), and negotiations

I went with my daughter yesterday to see the film He Named Me Malala.  It's an extraordinary mix: the unique, improbable story of Malala's path to the Nobel Prize (with detail of the titanium plate they had to insert into her head after the shooting, and all the efforts to recover the use of her muscles), and the her apparent capacity to maintain the life of an ordinary schoolgirl with two brothers, in a Birmingham home.  I found it moving, and for once inspirational is an appropriate description. The film is founded on the way her father encouraged her, and other girls, to carry on with their schooling.  He poses the…
Read More

Understanding fracking and climate change

Professor Averil Macdonald is the chairwoman of UK Onshore Oil and Gas, and emeritus professor of science engagement at the University of Reading.  She's just hit the headlines because she's attributed the fact that more women than men oppose fracking to their lack of scientific understanding.  Apparently only 31% of women think tracking should be allowed, compared with 58% of men.  According to Prof Macdonald, that's because they don't understand the science. She is certainly right that more women stop science at 16.  And it's quite striking that 85% of men correctly identified shale gas as the fossil fuel which is produced by tracking, compared with 65% of women.  The…
Read More

Qualifications, overqualification, etc

We've had the annual  pictures of  school leavers celebrating their A level results.  As usual most of the pictures feature girls, hugging each other or jumping in the air.  This is partly because girls have as always better results to celebrate, partly because they are more likely to be seen as photogenic.  I did see one  picture of a pair of boys congratulating each other, but the hug looked like a very awkward clinch from which both would break away as quickly as they could. The significant gender difference was quite a prominent theme amongst the comments.  Projections show us moving rapidly towards a 2:1 ratio in higher education, in…
Read More

Death, driving and competence

This week is Death Awareness week, and I went to a Death Cafe.  I've taken part in several of these over the last couple of years.  DCs simply provide an opportunity for people to meet and talk about death.  In the one I attend you gather round small tables for the first half of the evening, and then get into a wider circle for the second half.  The conversation can be about people's fear of death, or  about their need to process past experiences (though it is explicitly not a therapy session); or it may just take a direction of its own, according to what the participants bring to the table.…
Read More

Paying more

Some kind of prize to the Resolution Foundation for the cover of their recent report on how to boost low wages;  I say that even though the boosted person looks very male to me, so maybe doesn't fit best with the Paula Principle.  In fact as Susan Harkness' piece on women's wages makes clear, women's wages have dropped by less than men's, thus closing the gender gap but in a way that doesn't exactly call for hurrahs. Harkness argues that this convergence is partly due to the fact that it's more the male-dominated employment sectors that have borne the brunt of the recession and subsequent wage squeeze.  She also points our,…
Read More

Gaps

A quick post following a good meeting yesterday organised by UCU, on widening access to higher education, in the august surrounding's of the Dean's Yard Westminster.  (My last post came from the even more distinguished crypt of St Paul's - where will I find myself next?). Two key issues struck me.  One was 'trends in gaps'.    Helen Thornley of UCAS gave details of the latest figures on applications and entries to universities.    The gap between those from the most and least advantaged backgrounds is diminishing - though not very fast, and not o the 'high tariff' (i.e. elite) universities.  At the same time, the gap between female and…
Read More

Fair play

Chwaere Teg means  'fair play' in Welsh - a good title for an organisation that is doing excellent work promoting equality issues in Wales.  I was in Newport last night giving a lecture for them on Paula (and chapeau to them - they aim to alternate female and male speakers in their lecture series, though the audience was 90% female). We had quite some discussion on careers.  Chwaere Teg produced last year an excellent report, A Woman's Place, on women in the Welsh workforce.  Welsh women are upping their learning - 55% have recently taken part in adult education or training, compared to just 39% in 1996, and a full…
Read More

Learners’ achievements

Today will be full of news about A level results and what is happening to student access to higher education.  I hope at least some attention will be paid to the continuing plunge in mature student enrolments, and especially to the way in which part-time higher education has been harshly squeezed over the last years, but the focus will be on school leavers.  My firm bet is that a count of the images used in the press reports on exam results will show a big majority of girls.  One reason of course is that papers find them more photogenic , and they probably smile more easily than boys;  but another…
Read More

Self-employment: another area we need to understand

I've just been to a stimulating meeting at the Resolution Foundation, which always provides food for thought on employment issues.  This one was on self-employment, which now counts for over 15% of the workforce - some 4.5 million people. As Gavin Kelly, the FR's CEO, observed, when you have numbers of that kind routinely left out of most labour market analysis, it makes one query how robust the conclusions can be. Add to that the absurdity of using 16-64 as the age frame; and then pile on the limitations of the simplistic binary division between full-timers and part-timers and you reality begin to think that we need a radical rebuild…
Read More

The Econocrats

The previous post started with Trollope's commentary on how the finance system worked in the C19.  In a wholly unplanned segue, this one deals with how economics is taught and practised now.  To their immense credit, a group of students have got together to produce a detailed, evidence-based critique of the discipline: The Econocracy: the perils of leaving economics to the experts. Rethinking Economics is a movement which questions the assumptions on which most contemporary economics courses are based.  To be more precise, it challenges the fact that most economics courses never question their own, neo-classical, assumptions: that people behave as rational knowledgeable agents seeking to optimise their own advantage, and…
Read More

Malala working for free(dom), and negotiations

I went with my daughter yesterday to see the film He Named Me Malala.  It's an extraordinary mix: the unique, improbable story of Malala's path to the Nobel Prize (with detail of the titanium plate they had to insert into her head after the shooting, and all the efforts to recover the use of her muscles), and the her apparent capacity to maintain the life of an ordinary schoolgirl with two brothers, in a Birmingham home.  I found it moving, and for once inspirational is an appropriate description. The film is founded on the way her father encouraged her, and other girls, to carry on with their schooling.  He poses the…
Read More

Understanding fracking and climate change

Professor Averil Macdonald is the chairwoman of UK Onshore Oil and Gas, and emeritus professor of science engagement at the University of Reading.  She's just hit the headlines because she's attributed the fact that more women than men oppose fracking to their lack of scientific understanding.  Apparently only 31% of women think tracking should be allowed, compared with 58% of men.  According to Prof Macdonald, that's because they don't understand the science. She is certainly right that more women stop science at 16.  And it's quite striking that 85% of men correctly identified shale gas as the fossil fuel which is produced by tracking, compared with 65% of women.  The…
Read More

Qualifications, overqualification, etc

We've had the annual  pictures of  school leavers celebrating their A level results.  As usual most of the pictures feature girls, hugging each other or jumping in the air.  This is partly because girls have as always better results to celebrate, partly because they are more likely to be seen as photogenic.  I did see one  picture of a pair of boys congratulating each other, but the hug looked like a very awkward clinch from which both would break away as quickly as they could. The significant gender difference was quite a prominent theme amongst the comments.  Projections show us moving rapidly towards a 2:1 ratio in higher education, in…
Read More

Death, driving and competence

This week is Death Awareness week, and I went to a Death Cafe.  I've taken part in several of these over the last couple of years.  DCs simply provide an opportunity for people to meet and talk about death.  In the one I attend you gather round small tables for the first half of the evening, and then get into a wider circle for the second half.  The conversation can be about people's fear of death, or  about their need to process past experiences (though it is explicitly not a therapy session); or it may just take a direction of its own, according to what the participants bring to the table.…
Read More

Paying more

Some kind of prize to the Resolution Foundation for the cover of their recent report on how to boost low wages;  I say that even though the boosted person looks very male to me, so maybe doesn't fit best with the Paula Principle.  In fact as Susan Harkness' piece on women's wages makes clear, women's wages have dropped by less than men's, thus closing the gender gap but in a way that doesn't exactly call for hurrahs. Harkness argues that this convergence is partly due to the fact that it's more the male-dominated employment sectors that have borne the brunt of the recession and subsequent wage squeeze.  She also points our,…
Read More

Gaps

A quick post following a good meeting yesterday organised by UCU, on widening access to higher education, in the august surrounding's of the Dean's Yard Westminster.  (My last post came from the even more distinguished crypt of St Paul's - where will I find myself next?). Two key issues struck me.  One was 'trends in gaps'.    Helen Thornley of UCAS gave details of the latest figures on applications and entries to universities.    The gap between those from the most and least advantaged backgrounds is diminishing - though not very fast, and not o the 'high tariff' (i.e. elite) universities.  At the same time, the gap between female and…
Read More

Fair play

Chwaere Teg means  'fair play' in Welsh - a good title for an organisation that is doing excellent work promoting equality issues in Wales.  I was in Newport last night giving a lecture for them on Paula (and chapeau to them - they aim to alternate female and male speakers in their lecture series, though the audience was 90% female). We had quite some discussion on careers.  Chwaere Teg produced last year an excellent report, A Woman's Place, on women in the Welsh workforce.  Welsh women are upping their learning - 55% have recently taken part in adult education or training, compared to just 39% in 1996, and a full…
Read More

Learners’ achievements

Today will be full of news about A level results and what is happening to student access to higher education.  I hope at least some attention will be paid to the continuing plunge in mature student enrolments, and especially to the way in which part-time higher education has been harshly squeezed over the last years, but the focus will be on school leavers.  My firm bet is that a count of the images used in the press reports on exam results will show a big majority of girls.  One reason of course is that papers find them more photogenic , and they probably smile more easily than boys;  but another…
Read More

Self-employment: another area we need to understand

I've just been to a stimulating meeting at the Resolution Foundation, which always provides food for thought on employment issues.  This one was on self-employment, which now counts for over 15% of the workforce - some 4.5 million people. As Gavin Kelly, the FR's CEO, observed, when you have numbers of that kind routinely left out of most labour market analysis, it makes one query how robust the conclusions can be. Add to that the absurdity of using 16-64 as the age frame; and then pile on the limitations of the simplistic binary division between full-timers and part-timers and you reality begin to think that we need a radical rebuild…
Read More

The Econocrats

The previous post started with Trollope's commentary on how the finance system worked in the C19.  In a wholly unplanned segue, this one deals with how economics is taught and practised now.  To their immense credit, a group of students have got together to produce a detailed, evidence-based critique of the discipline: The Econocracy: the perils of leaving economics to the experts. Rethinking Economics is a movement which questions the assumptions on which most contemporary economics courses are based.  To be more precise, it challenges the fact that most economics courses never question their own, neo-classical, assumptions: that people behave as rational knowledgeable agents seeking to optimise their own advantage, and…
Read More

Malala working for free(dom), and negotiations

I went with my daughter yesterday to see the film He Named Me Malala.  It's an extraordinary mix: the unique, improbable story of Malala's path to the Nobel Prize (with detail of the titanium plate they had to insert into her head after the shooting, and all the efforts to recover the use of her muscles), and the her apparent capacity to maintain the life of an ordinary schoolgirl with two brothers, in a Birmingham home.  I found it moving, and for once inspirational is an appropriate description. The film is founded on the way her father encouraged her, and other girls, to carry on with their schooling.  He poses the…
Read More

Understanding fracking and climate change

Professor Averil Macdonald is the chairwoman of UK Onshore Oil and Gas, and emeritus professor of science engagement at the University of Reading.  She's just hit the headlines because she's attributed the fact that more women than men oppose fracking to their lack of scientific understanding.  Apparently only 31% of women think tracking should be allowed, compared with 58% of men.  According to Prof Macdonald, that's because they don't understand the science. She is certainly right that more women stop science at 16.  And it's quite striking that 85% of men correctly identified shale gas as the fossil fuel which is produced by tracking, compared with 65% of women.  The…
Read More

Qualifications, overqualification, etc

We've had the annual  pictures of  school leavers celebrating their A level results.  As usual most of the pictures feature girls, hugging each other or jumping in the air.  This is partly because girls have as always better results to celebrate, partly because they are more likely to be seen as photogenic.  I did see one  picture of a pair of boys congratulating each other, but the hug looked like a very awkward clinch from which both would break away as quickly as they could. The significant gender difference was quite a prominent theme amongst the comments.  Projections show us moving rapidly towards a 2:1 ratio in higher education, in…
Read More

Death, driving and competence

This week is Death Awareness week, and I went to a Death Cafe.  I've taken part in several of these over the last couple of years.  DCs simply provide an opportunity for people to meet and talk about death.  In the one I attend you gather round small tables for the first half of the evening, and then get into a wider circle for the second half.  The conversation can be about people's fear of death, or  about their need to process past experiences (though it is explicitly not a therapy session); or it may just take a direction of its own, according to what the participants bring to the table.…
Read More

Paying more

Some kind of prize to the Resolution Foundation for the cover of their recent report on how to boost low wages;  I say that even though the boosted person looks very male to me, so maybe doesn't fit best with the Paula Principle.  In fact as Susan Harkness' piece on women's wages makes clear, women's wages have dropped by less than men's, thus closing the gender gap but in a way that doesn't exactly call for hurrahs. Harkness argues that this convergence is partly due to the fact that it's more the male-dominated employment sectors that have borne the brunt of the recession and subsequent wage squeeze.  She also points our,…
Read More

Gaps

A quick post following a good meeting yesterday organised by UCU, on widening access to higher education, in the august surrounding's of the Dean's Yard Westminster.  (My last post came from the even more distinguished crypt of St Paul's - where will I find myself next?). Two key issues struck me.  One was 'trends in gaps'.    Helen Thornley of UCAS gave details of the latest figures on applications and entries to universities.    The gap between those from the most and least advantaged backgrounds is diminishing - though not very fast, and not o the 'high tariff' (i.e. elite) universities.  At the same time, the gap between female and…
Read More

Fair play

Chwaere Teg means  'fair play' in Welsh - a good title for an organisation that is doing excellent work promoting equality issues in Wales.  I was in Newport last night giving a lecture for them on Paula (and chapeau to them - they aim to alternate female and male speakers in their lecture series, though the audience was 90% female). We had quite some discussion on careers.  Chwaere Teg produced last year an excellent report, A Woman's Place, on women in the Welsh workforce.  Welsh women are upping their learning - 55% have recently taken part in adult education or training, compared to just 39% in 1996, and a full…
Read More

Learners’ achievements

Today will be full of news about A level results and what is happening to student access to higher education.  I hope at least some attention will be paid to the continuing plunge in mature student enrolments, and especially to the way in which part-time higher education has been harshly squeezed over the last years, but the focus will be on school leavers.  My firm bet is that a count of the images used in the press reports on exam results will show a big majority of girls.  One reason of course is that papers find them more photogenic , and they probably smile more easily than boys;  but another…
Read More

Self-employment: another area we need to understand

I've just been to a stimulating meeting at the Resolution Foundation, which always provides food for thought on employment issues.  This one was on self-employment, which now counts for over 15% of the workforce - some 4.5 million people. As Gavin Kelly, the FR's CEO, observed, when you have numbers of that kind routinely left out of most labour market analysis, it makes one query how robust the conclusions can be. Add to that the absurdity of using 16-64 as the age frame; and then pile on the limitations of the simplistic binary division between full-timers and part-timers and you reality begin to think that we need a radical rebuild…
Read More

The Econocrats

The previous post started with Trollope's commentary on how the finance system worked in the C19.  In a wholly unplanned segue, this one deals with how economics is taught and practised now.  To their immense credit, a group of students have got together to produce a detailed, evidence-based critique of the discipline: The Econocracy: the perils of leaving economics to the experts. Rethinking Economics is a movement which questions the assumptions on which most contemporary economics courses are based.  To be more precise, it challenges the fact that most economics courses never question their own, neo-classical, assumptions: that people behave as rational knowledgeable agents seeking to optimise their own advantage, and…
Read More

Malala working for free(dom), and negotiations

I went with my daughter yesterday to see the film He Named Me Malala.  It's an extraordinary mix: the unique, improbable story of Malala's path to the Nobel Prize (with detail of the titanium plate they had to insert into her head after the shooting, and all the efforts to recover the use of her muscles), and the her apparent capacity to maintain the life of an ordinary schoolgirl with two brothers, in a Birmingham home.  I found it moving, and for once inspirational is an appropriate description. The film is founded on the way her father encouraged her, and other girls, to carry on with their schooling.  He poses the…
Read More

Understanding fracking and climate change

Professor Averil Macdonald is the chairwoman of UK Onshore Oil and Gas, and emeritus professor of science engagement at the University of Reading.  She's just hit the headlines because she's attributed the fact that more women than men oppose fracking to their lack of scientific understanding.  Apparently only 31% of women think tracking should be allowed, compared with 58% of men.  According to Prof Macdonald, that's because they don't understand the science. She is certainly right that more women stop science at 16.  And it's quite striking that 85% of men correctly identified shale gas as the fossil fuel which is produced by tracking, compared with 65% of women.  The…
Read More

Qualifications, overqualification, etc

We've had the annual  pictures of  school leavers celebrating their A level results.  As usual most of the pictures feature girls, hugging each other or jumping in the air.  This is partly because girls have as always better results to celebrate, partly because they are more likely to be seen as photogenic.  I did see one  picture of a pair of boys congratulating each other, but the hug looked like a very awkward clinch from which both would break away as quickly as they could. The significant gender difference was quite a prominent theme amongst the comments.  Projections show us moving rapidly towards a 2:1 ratio in higher education, in…
Read More

Death, driving and competence

This week is Death Awareness week, and I went to a Death Cafe.  I've taken part in several of these over the last couple of years.  DCs simply provide an opportunity for people to meet and talk about death.  In the one I attend you gather round small tables for the first half of the evening, and then get into a wider circle for the second half.  The conversation can be about people's fear of death, or  about their need to process past experiences (though it is explicitly not a therapy session); or it may just take a direction of its own, according to what the participants bring to the table.…
Read More

Paying more

Some kind of prize to the Resolution Foundation for the cover of their recent report on how to boost low wages;  I say that even though the boosted person looks very male to me, so maybe doesn't fit best with the Paula Principle.  In fact as Susan Harkness' piece on women's wages makes clear, women's wages have dropped by less than men's, thus closing the gender gap but in a way that doesn't exactly call for hurrahs. Harkness argues that this convergence is partly due to the fact that it's more the male-dominated employment sectors that have borne the brunt of the recession and subsequent wage squeeze.  She also points our,…
Read More

Gaps

A quick post following a good meeting yesterday organised by UCU, on widening access to higher education, in the august surrounding's of the Dean's Yard Westminster.  (My last post came from the even more distinguished crypt of St Paul's - where will I find myself next?). Two key issues struck me.  One was 'trends in gaps'.    Helen Thornley of UCAS gave details of the latest figures on applications and entries to universities.    The gap between those from the most and least advantaged backgrounds is diminishing - though not very fast, and not o the 'high tariff' (i.e. elite) universities.  At the same time, the gap between female and…
Read More

Fair play

Chwaere Teg means  'fair play' in Welsh - a good title for an organisation that is doing excellent work promoting equality issues in Wales.  I was in Newport last night giving a lecture for them on Paula (and chapeau to them - they aim to alternate female and male speakers in their lecture series, though the audience was 90% female). We had quite some discussion on careers.  Chwaere Teg produced last year an excellent report, A Woman's Place, on women in the Welsh workforce.  Welsh women are upping their learning - 55% have recently taken part in adult education or training, compared to just 39% in 1996, and a full…
Read More

Learners’ achievements

Today will be full of news about A level results and what is happening to student access to higher education.  I hope at least some attention will be paid to the continuing plunge in mature student enrolments, and especially to the way in which part-time higher education has been harshly squeezed over the last years, but the focus will be on school leavers.  My firm bet is that a count of the images used in the press reports on exam results will show a big majority of girls.  One reason of course is that papers find them more photogenic , and they probably smile more easily than boys;  but another…
Read More

Self-employment: another area we need to understand

I've just been to a stimulating meeting at the Resolution Foundation, which always provides food for thought on employment issues.  This one was on self-employment, which now counts for over 15% of the workforce - some 4.5 million people. As Gavin Kelly, the FR's CEO, observed, when you have numbers of that kind routinely left out of most labour market analysis, it makes one query how robust the conclusions can be. Add to that the absurdity of using 16-64 as the age frame; and then pile on the limitations of the simplistic binary division between full-timers and part-timers and you reality begin to think that we need a radical rebuild…
Read More

The Econocrats

The previous post started with Trollope's commentary on how the finance system worked in the C19.  In a wholly unplanned segue, this one deals with how economics is taught and practised now.  To their immense credit, a group of students have got together to produce a detailed, evidence-based critique of the discipline: The Econocracy: the perils of leaving economics to the experts. Rethinking Economics is a movement which questions the assumptions on which most contemporary economics courses are based.  To be more precise, it challenges the fact that most economics courses never question their own, neo-classical, assumptions: that people behave as rational knowledgeable agents seeking to optimise their own advantage, and…
Read More

Malala working for free(dom), and negotiations

I went with my daughter yesterday to see the film He Named Me Malala.  It's an extraordinary mix: the unique, improbable story of Malala's path to the Nobel Prize (with detail of the titanium plate they had to insert into her head after the shooting, and all the efforts to recover the use of her muscles), and the her apparent capacity to maintain the life of an ordinary schoolgirl with two brothers, in a Birmingham home.  I found it moving, and for once inspirational is an appropriate description. The film is founded on the way her father encouraged her, and other girls, to carry on with their schooling.  He poses the…
Read More

Understanding fracking and climate change

Professor Averil Macdonald is the chairwoman of UK Onshore Oil and Gas, and emeritus professor of science engagement at the University of Reading.  She's just hit the headlines because she's attributed the fact that more women than men oppose fracking to their lack of scientific understanding.  Apparently only 31% of women think tracking should be allowed, compared with 58% of men.  According to Prof Macdonald, that's because they don't understand the science. She is certainly right that more women stop science at 16.  And it's quite striking that 85% of men correctly identified shale gas as the fossil fuel which is produced by tracking, compared with 65% of women.  The…
Read More

Qualifications, overqualification, etc

We've had the annual  pictures of  school leavers celebrating their A level results.  As usual most of the pictures feature girls, hugging each other or jumping in the air.  This is partly because girls have as always better results to celebrate, partly because they are more likely to be seen as photogenic.  I did see one  picture of a pair of boys congratulating each other, but the hug looked like a very awkward clinch from which both would break away as quickly as they could. The significant gender difference was quite a prominent theme amongst the comments.  Projections show us moving rapidly towards a 2:1 ratio in higher education, in…
Read More

Death, driving and competence

This week is Death Awareness week, and I went to a Death Cafe.  I've taken part in several of these over the last couple of years.  DCs simply provide an opportunity for people to meet and talk about death.  In the one I attend you gather round small tables for the first half of the evening, and then get into a wider circle for the second half.  The conversation can be about people's fear of death, or  about their need to process past experiences (though it is explicitly not a therapy session); or it may just take a direction of its own, according to what the participants bring to the table.…
Read More

Paying more

Some kind of prize to the Resolution Foundation for the cover of their recent report on how to boost low wages;  I say that even though the boosted person looks very male to me, so maybe doesn't fit best with the Paula Principle.  In fact as Susan Harkness' piece on women's wages makes clear, women's wages have dropped by less than men's, thus closing the gender gap but in a way that doesn't exactly call for hurrahs. Harkness argues that this convergence is partly due to the fact that it's more the male-dominated employment sectors that have borne the brunt of the recession and subsequent wage squeeze.  She also points our,…
Read More

Gaps

A quick post following a good meeting yesterday organised by UCU, on widening access to higher education, in the august surrounding's of the Dean's Yard Westminster.  (My last post came from the even more distinguished crypt of St Paul's - where will I find myself next?). Two key issues struck me.  One was 'trends in gaps'.    Helen Thornley of UCAS gave details of the latest figures on applications and entries to universities.    The gap between those from the most and least advantaged backgrounds is diminishing - though not very fast, and not o the 'high tariff' (i.e. elite) universities.  At the same time, the gap between female and…
Read More

Fair play

Chwaere Teg means  'fair play' in Welsh - a good title for an organisation that is doing excellent work promoting equality issues in Wales.  I was in Newport last night giving a lecture for them on Paula (and chapeau to them - they aim to alternate female and male speakers in their lecture series, though the audience was 90% female). We had quite some discussion on careers.  Chwaere Teg produced last year an excellent report, A Woman's Place, on women in the Welsh workforce.  Welsh women are upping their learning - 55% have recently taken part in adult education or training, compared to just 39% in 1996, and a full…
Read More

Learners’ achievements

Today will be full of news about A level results and what is happening to student access to higher education.  I hope at least some attention will be paid to the continuing plunge in mature student enrolments, and especially to the way in which part-time higher education has been harshly squeezed over the last years, but the focus will be on school leavers.  My firm bet is that a count of the images used in the press reports on exam results will show a big majority of girls.  One reason of course is that papers find them more photogenic , and they probably smile more easily than boys;  but another…
Read More

Self-employment: another area we need to understand

I've just been to a stimulating meeting at the Resolution Foundation, which always provides food for thought on employment issues.  This one was on self-employment, which now counts for over 15% of the workforce - some 4.5 million people. As Gavin Kelly, the FR's CEO, observed, when you have numbers of that kind routinely left out of most labour market analysis, it makes one query how robust the conclusions can be. Add to that the absurdity of using 16-64 as the age frame; and then pile on the limitations of the simplistic binary division between full-timers and part-timers and you reality begin to think that we need a radical rebuild…
Read More

The Econocrats

The previous post started with Trollope's commentary on how the finance system worked in the C19.  In a wholly unplanned segue, this one deals with how economics is taught and practised now.  To their immense credit, a group of students have got together to produce a detailed, evidence-based critique of the discipline: The Econocracy: the perils of leaving economics to the experts. Rethinking Economics is a movement which questions the assumptions on which most contemporary economics courses are based.  To be more precise, it challenges the fact that most economics courses never question their own, neo-classical, assumptions: that people behave as rational knowledgeable agents seeking to optimise their own advantage, and…
Read More

Malala working for free(dom), and negotiations

I went with my daughter yesterday to see the film He Named Me Malala.  It's an extraordinary mix: the unique, improbable story of Malala's path to the Nobel Prize (with detail of the titanium plate they had to insert into her head after the shooting, and all the efforts to recover the use of her muscles), and the her apparent capacity to maintain the life of an ordinary schoolgirl with two brothers, in a Birmingham home.  I found it moving, and for once inspirational is an appropriate description. The film is founded on the way her father encouraged her, and other girls, to carry on with their schooling.  He poses the…
Read More

Understanding fracking and climate change

Professor Averil Macdonald is the chairwoman of UK Onshore Oil and Gas, and emeritus professor of science engagement at the University of Reading.  She's just hit the headlines because she's attributed the fact that more women than men oppose fracking to their lack of scientific understanding.  Apparently only 31% of women think tracking should be allowed, compared with 58% of men.  According to Prof Macdonald, that's because they don't understand the science. She is certainly right that more women stop science at 16.  And it's quite striking that 85% of men correctly identified shale gas as the fossil fuel which is produced by tracking, compared with 65% of women.  The…
Read More

Qualifications, overqualification, etc

We've had the annual  pictures of  school leavers celebrating their A level results.  As usual most of the pictures feature girls, hugging each other or jumping in the air.  This is partly because girls have as always better results to celebrate, partly because they are more likely to be seen as photogenic.  I did see one  picture of a pair of boys congratulating each other, but the hug looked like a very awkward clinch from which both would break away as quickly as they could. The significant gender difference was quite a prominent theme amongst the comments.  Projections show us moving rapidly towards a 2:1 ratio in higher education, in…
Read More

Death, driving and competence

This week is Death Awareness week, and I went to a Death Cafe.  I've taken part in several of these over the last couple of years.  DCs simply provide an opportunity for people to meet and talk about death.  In the one I attend you gather round small tables for the first half of the evening, and then get into a wider circle for the second half.  The conversation can be about people's fear of death, or  about their need to process past experiences (though it is explicitly not a therapy session); or it may just take a direction of its own, according to what the participants bring to the table.…
Read More

Paying more

Some kind of prize to the Resolution Foundation for the cover of their recent report on how to boost low wages;  I say that even though the boosted person looks very male to me, so maybe doesn't fit best with the Paula Principle.  In fact as Susan Harkness' piece on women's wages makes clear, women's wages have dropped by less than men's, thus closing the gender gap but in a way that doesn't exactly call for hurrahs. Harkness argues that this convergence is partly due to the fact that it's more the male-dominated employment sectors that have borne the brunt of the recession and subsequent wage squeeze.  She also points our,…
Read More

Gaps

A quick post following a good meeting yesterday organised by UCU, on widening access to higher education, in the august surrounding's of the Dean's Yard Westminster.  (My last post came from the even more distinguished crypt of St Paul's - where will I find myself next?). Two key issues struck me.  One was 'trends in gaps'.    Helen Thornley of UCAS gave details of the latest figures on applications and entries to universities.    The gap between those from the most and least advantaged backgrounds is diminishing - though not very fast, and not o the 'high tariff' (i.e. elite) universities.  At the same time, the gap between female and…
Read More

Fair play

Chwaere Teg means  'fair play' in Welsh - a good title for an organisation that is doing excellent work promoting equality issues in Wales.  I was in Newport last night giving a lecture for them on Paula (and chapeau to them - they aim to alternate female and male speakers in their lecture series, though the audience was 90% female). We had quite some discussion on careers.  Chwaere Teg produced last year an excellent report, A Woman's Place, on women in the Welsh workforce.  Welsh women are upping their learning - 55% have recently taken part in adult education or training, compared to just 39% in 1996, and a full…
Read More

Learners’ achievements

Today will be full of news about A level results and what is happening to student access to higher education.  I hope at least some attention will be paid to the continuing plunge in mature student enrolments, and especially to the way in which part-time higher education has been harshly squeezed over the last years, but the focus will be on school leavers.  My firm bet is that a count of the images used in the press reports on exam results will show a big majority of girls.  One reason of course is that papers find them more photogenic , and they probably smile more easily than boys;  but another…
Read More

Self-employment: another area we need to understand

I've just been to a stimulating meeting at the Resolution Foundation, which always provides food for thought on employment issues.  This one was on self-employment, which now counts for over 15% of the workforce - some 4.5 million people. As Gavin Kelly, the FR's CEO, observed, when you have numbers of that kind routinely left out of most labour market analysis, it makes one query how robust the conclusions can be. Add to that the absurdity of using 16-64 as the age frame; and then pile on the limitations of the simplistic binary division between full-timers and part-timers and you reality begin to think that we need a radical rebuild…
Read More

The Econocrats

The previous post started with Trollope's commentary on how the finance system worked in the C19.  In a wholly unplanned segue, this one deals with how economics is taught and practised now.  To their immense credit, a group of students have got together to produce a detailed, evidence-based critique of the discipline: The Econocracy: the perils of leaving economics to the experts. Rethinking Economics is a movement which questions the assumptions on which most contemporary economics courses are based.  To be more precise, it challenges the fact that most economics courses never question their own, neo-classical, assumptions: that people behave as rational knowledgeable agents seeking to optimise their own advantage, and…
Read More

Malala working for free(dom), and negotiations

I went with my daughter yesterday to see the film He Named Me Malala.  It's an extraordinary mix: the unique, improbable story of Malala's path to the Nobel Prize (with detail of the titanium plate they had to insert into her head after the shooting, and all the efforts to recover the use of her muscles), and the her apparent capacity to maintain the life of an ordinary schoolgirl with two brothers, in a Birmingham home.  I found it moving, and for once inspirational is an appropriate description. The film is founded on the way her father encouraged her, and other girls, to carry on with their schooling.  He poses the…
Read More

Understanding fracking and climate change

Professor Averil Macdonald is the chairwoman of UK Onshore Oil and Gas, and emeritus professor of science engagement at the University of Reading.  She's just hit the headlines because she's attributed the fact that more women than men oppose fracking to their lack of scientific understanding.  Apparently only 31% of women think tracking should be allowed, compared with 58% of men.  According to Prof Macdonald, that's because they don't understand the science. She is certainly right that more women stop science at 16.  And it's quite striking that 85% of men correctly identified shale gas as the fossil fuel which is produced by tracking, compared with 65% of women.  The…
Read More

Qualifications, overqualification, etc

We've had the annual  pictures of  school leavers celebrating their A level results.  As usual most of the pictures feature girls, hugging each other or jumping in the air.  This is partly because girls have as always better results to celebrate, partly because they are more likely to be seen as photogenic.  I did see one  picture of a pair of boys congratulating each other, but the hug looked like a very awkward clinch from which both would break away as quickly as they could. The significant gender difference was quite a prominent theme amongst the comments.  Projections show us moving rapidly towards a 2:1 ratio in higher education, in…
Read More

Death, driving and competence

This week is Death Awareness week, and I went to a Death Cafe.  I've taken part in several of these over the last couple of years.  DCs simply provide an opportunity for people to meet and talk about death.  In the one I attend you gather round small tables for the first half of the evening, and then get into a wider circle for the second half.  The conversation can be about people's fear of death, or  about their need to process past experiences (though it is explicitly not a therapy session); or it may just take a direction of its own, according to what the participants bring to the table.…
Read More

Paying more

Some kind of prize to the Resolution Foundation for the cover of their recent report on how to boost low wages;  I say that even though the boosted person looks very male to me, so maybe doesn't fit best with the Paula Principle.  In fact as Susan Harkness' piece on women's wages makes clear, women's wages have dropped by less than men's, thus closing the gender gap but in a way that doesn't exactly call for hurrahs. Harkness argues that this convergence is partly due to the fact that it's more the male-dominated employment sectors that have borne the brunt of the recession and subsequent wage squeeze.  She also points our,…
Read More

Gaps

A quick post following a good meeting yesterday organised by UCU, on widening access to higher education, in the august surrounding's of the Dean's Yard Westminster.  (My last post came from the even more distinguished crypt of St Paul's - where will I find myself next?). Two key issues struck me.  One was 'trends in gaps'.    Helen Thornley of UCAS gave details of the latest figures on applications and entries to universities.    The gap between those from the most and least advantaged backgrounds is diminishing - though not very fast, and not o the 'high tariff' (i.e. elite) universities.  At the same time, the gap between female and…
Read More

Fair play

Chwaere Teg means  'fair play' in Welsh - a good title for an organisation that is doing excellent work promoting equality issues in Wales.  I was in Newport last night giving a lecture for them on Paula (and chapeau to them - they aim to alternate female and male speakers in their lecture series, though the audience was 90% female). We had quite some discussion on careers.  Chwaere Teg produced last year an excellent report, A Woman's Place, on women in the Welsh workforce.  Welsh women are upping their learning - 55% have recently taken part in adult education or training, compared to just 39% in 1996, and a full…
Read More

Learners’ achievements

Today will be full of news about A level results and what is happening to student access to higher education.  I hope at least some attention will be paid to the continuing plunge in mature student enrolments, and especially to the way in which part-time higher education has been harshly squeezed over the last years, but the focus will be on school leavers.  My firm bet is that a count of the images used in the press reports on exam results will show a big majority of girls.  One reason of course is that papers find them more photogenic , and they probably smile more easily than boys;  but another…
Read More

Self-employment: another area we need to understand

I've just been to a stimulating meeting at the Resolution Foundation, which always provides food for thought on employment issues.  This one was on self-employment, which now counts for over 15% of the workforce - some 4.5 million people. As Gavin Kelly, the FR's CEO, observed, when you have numbers of that kind routinely left out of most labour market analysis, it makes one query how robust the conclusions can be. Add to that the absurdity of using 16-64 as the age frame; and then pile on the limitations of the simplistic binary division between full-timers and part-timers and you reality begin to think that we need a radical rebuild…
Read More