The education secretary will say that the UK’s schooling system must be challenged over why “white British disadvantaged boys” are the least likely of any ethnic group to make it to university. Officials said Damian Hinds would push university and business leaders to take action over the issue at a meeting on Monday, as he also announces £24m to boost standards in the northeast of England. The Independent reported earlier this year how the number of white people accepted at universities has dr...

A new app, called GrantFairy, has been created to find scholarships that students are eligible to apply for based on their personal profile. Developers say that, so far, users are typically matched with at least £85,000 in funding opportunities, which they say prospective students are often missing out on because they aren’t told about the cash. Read More.

School spending claims by the Department for Education are being investigated by the UK's statistics watchdog. It follows BBC News reports which showed figures quoted by education ministers defending their record on state school spending included the money spent by university students on tuition fees and parents on private school fees. This has been confirmed by the OECD think tank that compiles the international comparisons of spending figures. Head teachers' leaders have accused the dep...

Chris Ramsey, head of the £37,860-a-year Whitgift School in south London, said that Russell Group institutions are increasingly giving places to 18-year-olds regardless of whether they meet their offers or not. Mr Ramsey, who chairs the universities committee at the Headmasters' and Headmistress' Conference (HMC), said that there is growing concern among schools about the practise. "The biggest gap at my schools was five grades down  from the offer admitted," he told headteachers at the an...

The Office for Students has called for universities and employers to improve degree apprenticeship opportunities so they are available to all who could benefit from them. This follows research which shows that degree apprenticeships are providing opportunities in parts of the country that are under-represented in other forms of higher education and for students who want to learn whilst they are in work later in life. Degree apprenticeships are on the increase, as more employers, colleges and uni...

The government should fund colleges to offer GCSE and A levels for all learners, regardless of age, to help plug the country’s skills gap, a new report suggests. In its Filling in the biggest skills gap report, the Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) identifies that there are major skills shortages at levels 4 and 5 and suggests that a reason for this is a shortfall of learners progressing from levels 2 and 3. A government review of provision at level 4 and 5 is currently ongoing. The repor...

Government reforms to the curriculum and exam assessment are out of kilter with good educational practice and the wider skills and competencies that employers’ organisations like the CBI have identified as being a desirable outcome of the education system (We need an alternative to universities, 17 August). To this list can be added the fragmentation of the school system, an obsession with academies and grammar schools, school performance indicators fixed to favour progression to a limited numbe...

Universities are asking for relatively lower grades under the international GCSE than they are for the reformed GCSE, Tes can reveal. With independent schools allowed to take the IGCSE but state schools barred from doing so, the entry requirements favour some privately educated pupils over their state sector peers. The news comes on top of renewed speculation that the IGCSE may be an 'easier' course than the reformed GCSE. ‘IGCSE’ is a term used as shorthand for a family of alternative key stage...

There’s been a lot of talk of degree apprenticeships as a great alternative to university. Just this morning, education secretary Damian Hinds tweeted that there is a “huge range of opportunity” for students collecting results today, “whether it’s university, college, starting an apprenticeship or entering the world of work”. With degree apprenticeships typically paying salaries of £15,000 – £20,000, compared to annual tuition fees of £9,000, the finances make sense. Plus, you get to work in you...