2010.03.06 School admissions: more parents facing 'fraud' investigations
An increasing number of parents are being investigated over suspected
admissions fraud after attempting to cheat to get children into the best
schools, it can be disclosed.
Local councils across England
have revealed how children's school places had been cancelled or frozen amid
concerns families lied on application forms.
Many parents are suspected of submitting false addresses in the catchment
areas of the most sought-after secondary schools.
The admissions watchdog has already suggested that the use of relatives’
addresses – normally grandparents with the same surname – is among the most
common scam by parents attempting to play the system.
Other families have been found renting homes close to the best schools or
even swapping houses with friends.
More than one-in-10 councils contacted by The Daily Telegraph said they
had already uncovered examples of cheating in secondary school admissions. The
numbers are expected to climb further in coming weeks as schools submit fresh
evidence.
As many as one-in-six children missed out on their first choice school amid
fierce competition in some areas.
Some faith schools, grammar schools and new-style academies are believed to
have received as many as 10 applications for every place.
The competition has forced some parents to go to extreme lengths to maximise
children’s chances of getting in.
This week, councils told the Telegraph that they had already uncovered
suspected fraud.
Hartlepool, Reading, South Tyneside, Telford
and Wrekin, Derby and the London boroughs of Hackney and Barnet were
among those confirming cases.
Telford council said it was investigating
around six instances in which “parents have tried to use a false address”,
adding that figures could rise.
A spokesman for the Learning Trust, which runs education in Hackney, east London, said it believed
that some parents were “trying to use other relatives’ addresses”.
Derby Council said up to 10 families were still being investigated.
Barnet said it had seven cases of suspected admissions fraud, while Lincolnshire said it was
acting on “less than 10”.
Children can be stripped of places if parents submit false information on
application forms.
The disclosure follows the publication of a report by the official
admissions watchdog last year that suggested as many as 3,500 families may have
lied to get children into schools in 2009 – but only around 1,100 were caught.
In a report, Ian Craig, the Chief Schools Adjudicator, said many parents
were employing “quite bizarre” tactics to cheat the system.
Using grandparents’ addresses on admissions forms was the most common
method, followed by parents who rented homes near the school gates. Some
married couples even pretended to separate, with one moving into the catchment
area of a good school.
Friends and neighbours often colluded to “play the system”, Dr Craig said,
and in one case multiple false applications were traced back to parents at the
same pre-school.
Some councils already carry out their own doorstep inspections of parents to
ensure information on application forms is accurate.
But they claim that attempts to crackdown on cheating is being undermined by
the lack of proper sanctions, other than taking away the place.
Dr Craig was asked by Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, to draw up a list of
suggested new powers to clampdown on the problem.
His recommendations will be published later this month, but he will stop
short of suggesting criminal prosecutions for suspected admissions fraud.
Speaking last week, Dr Craig said: “Although I had initially started off
thinking that criminalisation might be a good thing, I think it became very
clear that no political party was going to imprison parents for fraudulent
applications.”
The report is expected to call for improved detection techniques and a media
campaign to highlight the fact that other children lose out when families jump
the queue for school places.
It follows an attempt by Harrow Council to prosecute a parent for fraud
after she used her mother's address in the catchment area of PinnerParkFirstSchool.
She denied the charges and the case was dropped on advice from lawyers that
it was unlikely to succeed.
Susan Hall, deputy leader of Harrow Council, said: "If these reports
are true, this is deeply disappointing and effectively will act as an open
sesame to all those parents who believe they don't have to abide by fair play
when it comes to getting a school place.
“It would appear we remain in legal limbo with no effective sanctions
against those who want to play the system.”
2010.02.24 Nepal education minister removed over corruption claims
Nepal's Education Minister Ram Chandra
Kuswaha has been removed from his post amid allegations of corruption.
The
bribery allegations against Mr Kuswaha led to international donors
suspending millions of dollars in funding for schools.
He denies
accepting bribes from more than 1,000 teachers to secure them jobs in
the schools of their choice.
He also denies receiving payments
from a textbook printing firm. Impoverished Nepal relies heavily on
foreign aid.
The government replaced Mr Kuswaha on
Wednesday amid growing controversy over the corruption allegations.
The
education minister left his job "based on the recommendation" of his
Terai Madhes Democratic Party, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Minendra
Rijal told AFP news agency.
Mr Kuswaha strenuously denies any
wrongdoing.
"I have not committed any irregularity. There is only
a suspicion, they have only expressed suspicion," he told the BBC
Nepali service on Tuesday.
"I want a proper investigation on the
issue to determine any wrongdoing. If the money hasn't gone where it was
meant to go, that should be investigated. And after the investigation,
the irregularities found should be annulled."
Correspondents say
losing the funds for schools would be a major blow for Nepal.
The
country is one of the world's poorest and depends on foreign
governments and aid agencies for nearly 25% of an education reform
programme which will cost an estimated $4bn over the next seven years.
01/01/2010 Jobs blow for graduates as companies refuse to hire
90% of small and medium size businesses said they will not recruit recent graduates during the recession
Recent graduates were dealt another blow today as a poll revealed that nearly 90% of small and medium-size businesses will not be hiring them this year.
A survey of 502 companies by consultants the Centre for Enterprise found that 88% were not planning to recruit graduates during the recession. Even more – 89% – have not recruited a recent graduate in the last year.
The results inflict another wound on recent graduates who have fared the worst in the recession. Small and medium size businesses account for 99% of all companies in the UK and three-fifths of private sector employment. They typically employ between two and 249 staff.
The survey also revealed that some firms did not understand the differences between A-levels and degrees. Thousands of graduates may be being overlooked, the poll showed, as almost a third – 29% – of businesses think A-levels are graduate-level qualifications, while 18% think GCSEs are equivalent to a degree.
Data published by the Liberal Democrats last month showed that unemployment is rising fastest among 18- to 24-year-olds who have degrees. In the three months to September, one in five unemployed 18- to 24-year-olds had a degree – up from one in six three years ago.
This has prompted ministers to launch initiatives to provide jobs for these graduates. These have included funds to support 10,000 internships in small businesses and a scheme that matches graduates with employers looking for interns — the Graduate Talent Pool.
But almost a third – 32% – of the firms surveyed that said they were not hiring graduates told the pollsters that nothing would make them recruit a graduate in the next year.
Almost half – 48% – said they had no job vacancies at any level and 39% said they did not need graduate-level skills in their businesses. Twenty-nine per cent said they would need to change their business strategy to require a recent graduate, and 11% said they wanted more experienced employees than recent graduates.
However, 48% said they would consider recruiting graduates if the government offered them a subsidy to do so.
Most of the businesses in the poll said they selected employees according to the skills and experience they had, rather than their degree classification and subject. Thirty-eight per cent of the firms said they did not set out to recruit graduates, but had done so in the past because they were stronger candidates than non-graduates.
James Kewin, joint managing director of the Centre for Enterprise, said: "There is not a clear or shared understanding of the term graduate among small and medium size businesses. There is a clear need to rationalise the plethora of qualification frameworks, levels and agencies that currently litter the education and skills landscape and to develop an easily understandable summary of what is and what isn't a graduate-level qualification."
He said efforts to boost the proportion of graduates in jobs could have only a marginal impact. "Most small and medium size businesses that do not recruit reported that lack of demand, rather than inadequate and unsuitable supply, was their primary reason for not recruiting," he said. "This suggests that the trend for increasing the employability skills of graduates will, in isolation, have only a marginal impact. The same is true of initiatives aimed at promoting, subsidising or improving access to graduate recruits. While they may lead to a short-term reduction in graduate unemployment, they do not address the fundamental barrier – lack of business need – that prevents most small and medium size businesses from recruiting."
Peter McAleer, transport manager at Prolink, a haulage company that employs 26 people, said he had not hired a recent graduate for at least two years. He said: "The cost of employing them is too much. I don't think they give added value. They haven't got the experience. Working life doesn't revolve around the knowledge in a textbook."
In July, the Association of Graduate Recruiters found that graduate vacancies had fallen by a quarter and that, on average, 48 applicants were competing for each job. In November, the Higher Education Careers Services Unit reported that graduate unemployment had risen by 44% in the last year and was at record levels.
Thousands of university students have taken to the streets across Germany to protest at education reforms.
Around-the-clock occupations at more than 20 universities have been going on for days now, with students and some teachers angry at the introduction of high tuition fees, less time allowed to complete courses, and the replacement of centuries-old qualifications by a US style bachelor’s and masters degree system.
“The timetables are so full, there’s such a poor syllabus we have no choice. We can only do what’s presented to us, and must work under high pressure with no possibility of free development or self-fulfilment. This must be changed.”
“I’m only a diploma student so the problem for me isn’t so great, but I’m supporting the strike by the masters and bachelor students who have big problems finishing their courses in the time allowed, and with little money. It’s a catastrophe,” were two opinions expressed by striking students.
Government and professors blame each other for overcrowding and student stress. Students are furious five-year courses have been shortened to three with no corresponding cut in the workload, and at the new 1500 euro tuition fees. Previously Germany’s 16 state governments, who entirely fund higher education, only imposed token charges or none at all.
Many seem to agree with the students, but the reforms have been EU-driven to bring the German system into line with the rest of Europe, in the so-called 1999 Bologne process, and better meet the needs of the jobs market.
11/18/2009 Corruption rife in war-torn nations: some EU states criticised
Public sector corruption in Afghanistan is getting worse and the country is now seen as the most corrupt nation on the planet after Somalia.
The findings come from Transparency International and published in its Corruption Perceptions Index.
Sylvia Schenk, from Transparency International said:
“It’s clear by the rankings that countries hit by war and strife, which causes instability and the breakdown of law and order, are the places where corruption is flourishing.”
Examples of graft range from selling jobs and justice to bribes for goods and services.
The corruption league contains 180 countries and some of the worst performers are not all scarred by conflict, Italy, a G8 member, stands at 63 with only fellow EU member states Bulgaria, Romania and Greece fairing worse.
A report into Greek public administration concluded that urban planning, state hospitals and town halls are the areas where corruption is rife.
The least corrupt is New Zealand, which tops the table with EU member Denmark in second spot. Singapore and Sweden tie for third with Switzerland in fifth.
Albania ranks 95th, Moldova - 89th, Serbia - 83rd, Macedonia and Bulgaria - 71st and Croatia - 66th in the Corruption Perception Index.
11/12/2009 In South Korea, Nation Stops For Mega Exam
This Thursday was one of the most stressful days of the year in
South Korea: Nearly 700,000 high school students took the national
college entrance exam.
The test, which is given once a year,
largely determines a young person's future. It is so important that
aircraft are barred from flying near the test site, and the workday
begins an hour late, to prevent traffic jams that might make students
late.
A police officer on a motorbike could be seen escorting a
tardy student to Bosung Girls High School, one of more than 1,100 exam
locations throughout the country. On the cold and windy morning, a
mother shouted words of encouragement to her daughter. Other parents
stood outside a gate holding coffee cups, and watching as students ran
to their tests.
Some students carried seat cushions. Others had
bottles of water stuffed inside plastic bags. Many were clearly anxious
to get this day over with.
Kim Ga-hee, 18, said she has been studying five to six hours a day outside of school in preparation for this test.
"I'm really nervous now, but I think it'll feel good when it's over and these nerves are gone," she said.
Kim wants to get into Hongik University, a school known for its fine art programs.
"Now
I'm feeling this is the most important test in my life, and from
university to everything else, it's all going to be changed by this,"
she said.
The pressure of this test can have tragic consequences.
Every year, there are reports of stressed students taking their lives,
including a 19-year-old who jumped to his death early Thursday.
At
Jogyesa, the largest Buddhist temple in Seoul, monk Bon Gong performed
a ceremony where parents prayed for high scores on their children's
college placement exams. Some had been praying for the past 100 days.
As
parents and grandparents chanted, they knelt and bowed, facing three
statues. Many concentrated on a thin prayer book with a photo of their
child or children. Some had prayer beads, called yumju, circling the
pictures.
Kim Ji-sook said this exam day is hard on her 18-year-old daughter, Park Min-sun.
"It's
so hard that my kid doesn't want to raise a kid in this country," she
said. "But nothing can be done about it; that's just the way things
are."
Kim said she just wants her child to succeed in life. She
said she is grateful that the South Korean government has many measures
in place to help students do better on the exams.
"I'm thankful.
Children here, unlike in other countries, don't get various
opportunities to decide their academic future, only one test, only one
day," she said.
Kim Bo-yup, who is with the Ministry of Education, said South Korea's passion for education is the highest in the world.
"As
of now, 83 percent of our high school graduates go on to university,"
he says. "That's how great the demand for higher education is, and the
desire to get a great education for their kids on the part of our
parents."
The state test took roughly nine hours, and will determine college admissions by next spring.
SooAh Kim, Jiyoon Choi and Yoojung Lee contributed to this report.
11/11/2009 Youth unemployment: a generation of graduates to the dole queue
With youth unemployment at record levels, Max Davidson considers the bleak outlook for students who thought a degree would be a passport to prosperity
"I'm a little worried about my future," said Dustin Hoffman in The
Graduate. He should be so lucky. All he had to worry about was whether
to have an affair with Mrs Robinson. In the halcyon Sixties, that was the
sum total of post-graduation anxiety syndrome.
Hoffman's modern counterparts are not so fortunate. The Mrs Robinsons aren't
sitting around at home any more, seducing graduates. They are out in the
workplace, doing the high-powered jobs the graduates want, but cannot get.
For those fresh out of university, desperate for work but unable to get it,
there is a savage imbalance between supply and demand. And there is no
narrowing of the gap in sight.
The latest
unemployment figures, released yesterday, show that 746,000 of 18-24
year-olds are unemployed – a record rate of 18 per cent. Many of those will
have graduated this summer. They are not panicking yet, but as the job
rejections mount up, they are beginning to feel alarmed.
Others – fewer in number, but now past the panic stage and plunged deeper and
deeper into depression – graduated in summer 2008, nearly 18 months ago. I
know one of them, the son of friends. He went to one of the country's top
grammar schools, got a place at Warwick University, worked hard, got a 2:1
in maths – maths, note, not something wishy-washy like media studies – and
is still living at home with his parents, doing shift work at the local pub.
The only maths he needs to know is the cost of a pint of bitter.
He would be a tragic figure, a one-man paradise lost, if his plight were not
so common. Graduates struggling to get jobs commensurate with their
qualifications are becoming sadly familiar.
My elder daughter is a medical student, two years from graduating. She should
be all right. We have not yet got to the point where there is no work for
doctors. But looking across the spectrum of her university friends –
studying a whole range of subjects, from history to theoretical physics – it
is hard to say that most of them can be 100 per cent sure of good
professional careers. There are too many obstacles in their path.
My younger daughter has just got a place at Oxford which, a generation ago,
was a fail-safe passport to a decent job. But she is studying theology, poor
lamb. Heaven only knows what a mere Oxford theology degree will be worth by
the time she graduates. She will just have to pray.
Of course, it is easy to blame the Government and, in particular, the target
that Labour has long trumpeted – 50 per cent of school-leavers in higher
education. That was not too smart. The Government has not only failed to
meet its target – the actual figure is still closer to 40 per cent – but it
has raised expectations to unrealistic levels.
Parents feel as badly let down as the young people themselves. Middle-class
families see their graduate offspring on the dole queue and wonder why they
bothered shelling out on school fees. Working-class families feel an even
keener sense of disappointment. For many such families, getting a child into
university was the fulfilment of a lifelong dream. It represented upward
social and financial mobility. It was proof that they were living in a
dynamic, economically successful country. That dream does not seem so rosy
now.
Graduate unemployment is not, ultimately, a political problem, susceptible to
easy political solutions. Job-creation schemes for graduates are very low
down in ministerial in-trays. If David Cameron's Conservatives had a
brilliant wheeze for guaranteeing every graduate a well-paid job, they would
have unveiled it by now. It is a social problem, though a more deep-seated
social problem than people perhaps realise.
The life of a student used to be pretty straightforward, all things
considered. You had to work hard at school to get into university, but once
you had got there, you were on a magic carpet that would take you, via a bit
of pot-smoking and binge-drinking, to the higher echelons of society: a
secure job; a decent income; your own flat by the time you were 25; your own
house by the time you were 30; a manageable mortgage; a pension plan; spare
cash for school fees; then the same magic carpet for your own children.
There wasn't room on the magic carpet for everyone, but almost anyone could
get on the carpet, provided only that they buckled down at school and worked
hard enough to get the exam grades they needed. Now, with mounting graduate
unemployment, schools will struggle to convince children that a Good
University, that shining city on the hill, is everything it is cracked up to
be. There is a whole world of anxiety and disillusion behind those bald
employment figures.
11/11/2009 Youth unemployment: 'We are producing people with degrees divorced from market reality?
Recruitment may take longer to revive than in previous recessions, warns Angela Monaghan, and many graduates are ill-equipped to compete.
By Angela Monaghan
Published: 7:58AM GMT 12 Nov 2009
With so much competition for the few jobs that are available, many students
are opting to sit this recession out, and stay in education rather than face
the jobs market. This explains the surge in the number of people classed by
the Office for National Statistics as "economically inactive".
According to John Philpott, chief economist at the Chartered Institute of
Personnel and Development, this is "almost certainly as an alternative
to the dole".
The sectors that have continued to take on graduates, albeit in much
diminished numbers, have tended to be the traditional hirers, including
retail and the professions. Once the economy starts to recover, more sectors
will return to the market, according to Harvey Nash, the recruitment
consultancy.
For now, advice from the business community is to embrace the unappealing
prospect of unpaid or low-paid work, as a means of gaining experience that
will be valuable later. "We would like to see more internships and work
experience. It is less costly for companies, but involves people in the
labour market," says John Cridland, deputy director-general of the CBI. "It
may be better to do that, even if there is a low earnings potential, than to
stay out of the market altogether."
To achieve that, the CBI would like to see the Government targeting funds at
creating apprenticeships, and supporting those employers that do so.
The reality is that the situation does not look much better for those set to
graduate in 2010. Recruitment may take longer to revive than in previous
recessions, because employers have cut hours and frozen pay to limit
redundancies. This could mean that companies do not start expanding their
staff bases as quickly as they have after previous recessions, and graduates
could be left out in the cold for longer.
As the private sector stages a fragile recovery, the soaring national debt,
which has underpinned the state support offered during the recession, will
have to come down. Up to 290,000 public sector jobs could go by 2014, the
research institute Centre for Cities has predicted. "The public sector
will not drive graduate jobs growth over the next decade. This means more
private sector job opportunities will be needed to bridge the gap,"
says Dermot Finch, the centre's chief executive.
More worrying are the longer-term problems. "There is an underlying
structural problem,"
Dr Philpott says. "We are producing graduates with the wrong skills, that
employers cannot always make use of, with degrees that are divorced from
market reality. Would some people be better off doing a practical
qualification? That is where the debate will be switching to, and it may be
accelerated by the recession."
According to the Department for Business, 43 per cent of 18-30 year-olds are
currently at university, up from about 33 per cent when Labour came to
power. The Government's aspiration is to extend that to 50 per cent.
A spokesman for the Conservatives said that although the party did not support
the "arbitrary target", it was not opposed to an increase in the
numbers attending university.
Inevitably the end of the recession will bring brighter days for graduates,
but not as swiftly as in previous decades.
11/10/2009 Tel Aviv University to probe claim right-wing students silenced
Tel Aviv University rector Dan Levitan said he would investigate whether right-wing students refrain from expressing their political views in class, fearing that lecturers perceived as left-wing may lower their grades.
"A considerable number of students complain bitterly that they are deeply offended by the presentation of materials that oppose their views, but are afraid of speaking out lest it harm their grades," the head of TAU's Curriculum and Instruction department Prof. Nira Hativa wrote in a memorandum last month.
Te memo sparked controversy among professors, some of whom said her comments were "generalizations" that right-wingers could use to justify attacks on the university.
Knesset Education Committee chairman MK Zevulun Orlev (Habayit Hayehudi) said the students' complaints are proof academia lacks academic freedom and freedom of expression.
Hativa wrote in the memo that the students who are afraid of speaking out "sit through class, frustrated and angry."
Replying to a question from Haaretz, Hativa said her statement was "based on feelings, intuitions and personal impressions, and may very well be wrong."
Yesterday, TAU issued a statement announcing that Levitan will "thoroughly examine" the allegations, as soon as Hativa returns to Israel in a week.
The university has received no complaints on this matter so far, the statement said.
"We've been dealt a stupid blow with no justification," a senior TAU professor said yesterday.
He said Hativa's comments were "not based on a statistical analysis of an explicit question put to all the students, right- and left-wing. They were based on complaints written by those who want to complain. It's a statistical bias, and it's impossible to know how representative it is."
Another lecturer said, "The definition of left-wing is very broad. Until specific statements or situations are examined, these are nothing but generalizations that right-wing people would gladly use to attack academia."
Orlev said, "If the university heads try to ignore the issue, we will probably discuss it in the Education Committee, in the hope that there will be enough courageous students to express their views."
11/10/2009 Call to fine exam boards which break the rules
Exam boards should face fines if they fail to stick to guidelines on
standards, the head of the Royal Society of Chemistry said today.
Awarding bodies are competing in a "race to the bottom" as they battle to make
their courses attractive to schools and students, Dr Richard Pike claimed.
He said boards should face penalties in the same way that Forumla 1 drivers
are banned if they break the rules, or as those who break competition laws
are fined.
Speaking at the opening of a new chemistry block at Millfield School in
Somerset today, Dr Pike will say: "Evidence gathered recently by the science
community has identified entire science papers with no underlying
mathematics, and science questions with no science. This is a blatant breach
of expected standards."
He will add: "As examining boards compete to makes their wares more attractive
to schools and pupils, it really is 'a race to the bottom', with each one
pushing the boundaries set by the regulators and sometimes going right
through them.
"Even attempts to make topics more relevant through the How Science Works
initiative, as demanded by specifications, have been largely abandoned in
some cases, as boards focus on simplicity and multiple choice questions.
"In any other endeavour, this would be unacceptable. Break the rules in
Formula 1, and you get banned. Contravene competition law, and you get fined.
"A million pound surcharge would focus the mind of any examining board chief
executive and overnight would do more than years of 'discussion between
stakeholders'."
