Education: Word of mouth

Fletcher's return

Strange, how some names from the past spring up again.Remember Neil Fletcher? He was the chap who ousted Frances Morrell as leader of the Inner London Education Authority just over a decade ago. And he held the position until the ILEA was abolished on April Fool's Day, 1990. He was snapped up by Nalgo, the National and Local Government Officers' Association, as its education officer, and disappeared from public view, playing it cool and accepting just one or two positions that allowed him to put his expertise to good use. So he became a governor of the London Institute and of the London School of Economics.Now he's been appointed powerful head of education at the Local Government Association, the single voice of local authorities following the merger of the Association of County Councils, the Association of Metropolitan Associations and the Association of District Councils.

Smiles all round

What on earth has Tony Higgins, Ucas chief executive, to smile about on the eve of the GCSE exams? I'll tell you. A survey of new undergrads has brought overwhelming approval for the university admissions system. Nearly 10 per cent of students found Ucas efficient and three out of four who phoned its Cheltenham HQ found it a fast, high-quality service. More slaps on backs to come: we on The Independent may also permit ourselves a wee smile. The survey of 1,000 applicants rated this newspaper the most popular source of info on courses, vacancies and universities and 63 per cent read the Indy for its annual official Ucas listings. So everyone's happy - but no one is smug or complacent. Tony Higgins even plans to improve the service by adding examples of completed Ucas application forms to its instructions. Whatever next? Exam crib sheets?

Best of Europe

At a time when university league tables are raising their ugly heads once again, it took a German news mag to ask all the right questions and conclude that British universities are the finest in Europe, with The Netherlands in second place, Germany in third and France in fourth. Der Spiegel asked more than 1,000 professors of law, languages, business studies and engineering: "Where would you send your own son or daughter to study the subject you teach?" Then they put 20 questions to 7,400 students about their institutions, including: Are your lectures well attended or not? How often do you see your tutor? Has the library convenient opening hours and has it the books you need? Are there plenty of computers to go round? Are you properly prepared for your exams? And so on. Britain can be proud of the result. Cambridge and Oxford feature in the top ten of all four subject categories, and three London University colleges are among the top twenty - University College London (ninth for languages, tenth for law, 17th for business studies); Imperial College (third for engineering) and the London School of Economics (seventh for law, 15th for business studies). Edinburgh University is Europe's sixth best for law and 11th for languages, and Southampton University comes 15th for engineering. Britain also tops the Euroleague for personal tutorial contact and for providing the shortest degrees (an average of 3.5 years compared with Germany's 5.4 years and Denmark's 6.3 years). All of which are much better than coming second in that song contest.

Another first

News that Anglia Polytechnic University has chosen a new name - University of Eastern England - should not surprise WoM readers. They knew about it as early as 19 March. The Privy Council now wants the university to make its title a little more specific, so the powers that be have suggested adding "at Cambridge and Chelmsford", where the two main campuses are located. Hm. UEECAC is a bit of a mouthful.

Grammar's back

A remarkable 60-page report has been distributed to schools by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (which used to be SCAA; why do they keep changing names?). The document deals with reintroducing grammar to the national curriculum, and two sentences caught my bleary eye immediately: "Research evidence from the Fifties and Sixties was widely perceived to have shown that grammar teaching is of little benefit to pupils. This evidence now appears less conclusive and reliable than generally supposed." Wow! Has it really taken more than 30 years to reach so astounding a conclusion? Let me quote a third sentence from The Grammar Papers, which is the title of the QCA report:"Several studies reveal that new teachers often do not have sufficient grammatical knowledge to teach the requirements of the English order." Well, of course they don't. They were among the many hundreds of thousands of pupils who missed out on sentence construction and the uses of such items as commas, apostrophes, semicolons, colons and quotation marks. The authors of the report, Sue Horner, Janet White and Alastair West, all principal officers of English at the QCA, would welcome comments and "practical ideas on ways to teach grammar" I know most teachers suffer from classroom stress and red tape, but I hope they will take some time to air their views on this vital topic and send them to: the English Team, QCA, Newcombe House, 45 Notting Hill Gate, London W11 3JB.

But not 'la plume ...'

It took Lord Dearing an hour to deliver a 39-page speech to a packed theatre at the University of Westminster last weekend. It was, he said, the "missing chapter" of his celebrated mammoth report on higher education, and dealt with the international dimension. I only wish I could give a resume of the many global issues he covered. He touched briefly on the rapid development of the Erasmus student exchange programme since its introduction in 1981. Numbers increased from 20,000 in the early days to 160,000 in 1996, and the growth is likely to continue, but he pointed out that "surprise, surprise, the number of incoming students exceeds those going abroad". This is, of course, because of Britain's "historic poor record" in mastering foreign languages. If you wanted to study a second language in South America, no problem: English.In Britain the decision is not as easy. The Blessed Ron might have added (but didn't) that we can't even master our own language, let alone la plume de ma tante or meines Onkels Bleistift. And if my prayers are answered and we are really going to return to teaching grammar, then why not pay more attention to the teaching of modern languages as well? You know it makes sense.

And finally ...

Overheard 1: One student to another on Waterloo East station: "The trouble with going to lectures is that you can't get an action replay."

Overheard 2: One student to another (from a different faculty) at De Montfort University: "I've actually had to read a book for my literature course because the bloody lecturer wouldn't give us a handout about it."