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      Coronavirus: Universities to be asked to abandon face to face teaching ahead of Christmas break

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      Universities are to be asked to move all teaching online in the run up to Christmas in a bid to get students home safely and prevent mass Covid-19 outbreaks across the country.It follows fears the migration of students into campuses in recent weeks has helped drive a sharp spike in cases.Tens of thousands of students across the country have since tested positive for coronavirus.  A number of institutions have also reported significant outbreaks.Reports suggest universities could be asked to abandon face-to-face tuition as early as 8 December.Some will already have finished for the year at that stage.
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      Stephen Cohen obituary

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      The scholar of Russian history and politics Stephen Cohen, who has died aged 81 of lung cancer, challenged the orthodox western analysis of the Soviet Union and post-Soviet affairs. In his magisterial book Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives (2009), he demolished the claim that Leninism led inevitably to totalitarian dictatorship under Stalin and that the Soviet system of one-party rule and state ownership of property could never be reformed.He cited three periods when developments could have gone differently from what actually happened: in the late 1920s, when debates within the Politburo came to a head over the New Economic Policy (NEP), which allowed for private enterprise and ownership of land and property; in the early 60s, when Nikita Khrushchev launched key political reforms; and in 1990 and 1991, after Mikhail Gorbachev introduced a mixed economy and social democratic solutions based on political pluralism in place of the Communist party’s monopoly of power.With his sense of humour, gravelly voice and iconoclastic arguments, Cohen entranced generations of students from his academic perch at Princeton University for the three decades from 1968, in which he rose to be professor of politics and Russian studies, and then at New York University (1998-2011).He wrote a column in the Nation, under the byline Sovieticus from 1982 to 1987 and in recent years hosted a weekly radio broadcast on Russian-American relations, which he feared were leading to a new cold war. He blamed Bill Clinton and policymakers in Washington for failing to include Russia in a new European order after the Soviet Union came to an end and for expanding Nato eastwards in a spirit of “we won” triumphalism. George W Bush and Barack Obama compounded the failure by siting US anti-ballistic missile systems on Russia’s borders.During the Soviet period Cohen was unusual among western specialists on Russia in having friends among dissidents as well as reformist intellectuals in the Moscow thinktanks. His book The Victims Return was based on interviews with dozens of survivors of Stalin’s labour camps about their problems in returning to freedom.Amid the new freedoms permitt- ed by Gorbachev after 1985, Cohen and his wife, Katrina vanden Heuvel, the publisher and editor of the Nation, made frequent long trips to Moscow and got to know the new Soviet leader personally. At one of the last May Day celebrations in Red Square, Gorbachev invited them both to stand beside the Lenin mausoleum to watch the parade. More

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      Coronavirus: Students breaking social guidelines 'on the whole' behind university spikes, minister says

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      Thousands of students have been told to self-isolate following outbreaks at UK universities. Michelle Donelan, the universities minister, said while the “vast majority” of students had been following the rules in place to limit the spread of coronavirus, a minority had been “sometimes socialising in a way that is not fit with the guidance”.“That is why we have seen some of these spikes on the whole arising,” she told the Education Select Committee on Tuesday. Hundreds of Covid-19 cases have been reported at universities since term started. Read moreMore than 750 are self-isolating at Northumbria University after testing positive, while around 500 cases have been confirmed among Sheffield University students and staff.When asked when concerns arose over a potential spike in demand for testing at universities, Ms Donelan said: “A lot of this depends on student behaviour in terms of the outbreaks.”The Conservative MP said some spikes could be down to students arriving at university unaware they had coronavirus. “But on the whole, it is the socialising,” she added.“We always knew there would be cases of Covid, we are in the midst of a pandemic,” Ms Donelan told the committee. “Our job is to minimise that risk as much as possible, which we have done,” she said, citing guidance provided to universities to make sure campuses are Covid-safe, as well as the move to blended learning.Additional reporting by Press Association More

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      'Time is running out' to plan for next year's GCSE and A-Level exams, unions warn

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      Geoff Barton from the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) told The Independent the government “needs to show a greater sense of urgency” on the matter. On Monday, five education organisations put forward a series of proposals over next year’s exams, including having contigency plans if pupils cannot take exams or their preparation was badly disrupted, and giving students more choice over what questions to answer. The group – which includes the ASCL and the school leaders’ union NAHT – also suggested students due to take GCSEs and A-level exams in 2021 should be prioritised for Covid-19 testing to reduce “ongoing disruption” to their learning. Reports have suggested there could be a delay to the exam timetable next year to help deal with disruption caused by coronavirus – which kept some pupils out of school for months this year. Read moreHowever, unions have suggested different changes are needed amid the fallout from the pandemic. “Qualifications awarded on the basis of a series of exams, where students’ experiences of teaching and learning next year could be very different because of local lockdowns or other restrictions, will be unfair and may lead to additional disadvantage for some students compared to others,” Paul Whiteman from the NAHT said.“The right approach to alleviate this issue is the adjustment to assessments and exams in 2021 to take account of the fact that students may not have covered the full course content.”The NAHT’s general secretary added: “However, there is now a very short timeframe of opportunity to achieve this.”Mr Barton from the ASCL told The Independent: “The benefit of shifting exams to a later date is really quite marginal compared to the scale of what has happened.”The return to school last month was the first time all students were allowed back in the classroom since March. Mr Barton told The Independent: “There has to be a robust contingency plan for those who are unable to sit exams or whose preparation over the next few months is very badly disrupted.”Watch more“We are proposing some form of staged assessment in the autumn or spring term to provide a basis for awarded grades for students in these circumstances.”He added: “But time is running out and the government needs to show a greater sense of urgency.”Mr Williamson told the Education Select Committee there will be an announcement this month concerning the 2021 exams.Days later, a government U-turn meant students could take their Centre Assessed Grades if higher than their moderated ones.The Independent has approached the DfE for comment. Additional reporting by Press Association More

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      Coronavirus: One in nine pupils absent from school as lack of testing drives fears of ‘lockdown by default’

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      More than one in nine pupils were absent from school last week, government figures show, as teachers and unions warned a lack of available coronavirus tests meant more schools would be forced to close, leading to “lockdown by default”.After schools reopened in England following six months of closure during the pandemic, education secretary Gavin Williamson touted the fact that 99.9 per cent of schools were open to at least some pupils.But absence rates were more than double that of pre-Covid times, with Department for Education (DfE) statistics suggesting 12 per cent of pupils were not in attendance on 10 September.Some 92 per cent of state schools were fully open, the DfE estimates, providing face-to-face teaching for pupils all day with no groups self-isolating. In these schools, 90 per cent of pupils were in attendance.“The best place for children and young people to learn is in the classroom, and it’s encouraging to see that last week more than seven million pupils were back with their classmates and teachers at schools around the country,” Mr Williamson said, adding: “The fact that the vast majority of our schools are fully open is testament to the hard work of staff throughout the summer holidays in preparing for a safe return.”Read moreBut reports emerged of individual schools being forced to send hundreds of pupils home after identifying cases of coronavirus, in lieu of the affected pupils and teachers being able to access tests.As chaos in the testing system — described by one MP as a “bloody mess” — dominated the Commons on Tuesday, with Twickenham’s MP saying constituents had found the only way to access a test in west London was to pretend to live in Aberdeen, health secretary Matt Hancock announced tests were being rationed.Acknowledging “operational challenges” in the system, Mr Hancock said there would be “prioritisation” of tests for people with acute clinical need and those in social care settings.With a prioritisation list not due for several days, this was widely interpreted to mean schools would be even less likely to be able to access tests.One union warned of widespread school closures and “a return to lockdown by default”.“We are getting reports of bubbles of 250 children being sent home. People on the ground are telling me this is not sustainable and they cannot keep their schools open,” said the Association of School and College Leaders’ general secretary, Geoff Barton.”Children are being sent home who cannot get tests, and parents are being forced to take two weeks off to look after them. We will end up in an effective lockdown. There is an escalating sense that we will end up with a return to lockdown by default.”In outrage over the lack of tests, teachers were set to hold a “staggered protest” outside the DfE on Wednesday afternoon in a demonstration organised by the Education Solidarity Network.“I’m a teaching assistant in Bristol and have been off with cold-like symptoms. I now feel well enough to go back but I can’t. I’ve been trying to get a test all day but with no luck,” one supporter told the i newspaper.
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      in US Politics

      Dear Joe Biden: the student loan crisis is exploding. We need real action | Various

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      Dear Joe Biden,We write to you as the first generation made worse-off because of higher education. Student debt is a national crisis that destroys lives, drags down the economy and fuels the racial wealth gap.No one should be forced to mortgage their future for an education, yet 45 million of us have been forced to do just that. Today the total amount of student debt stands at $1.7tn, and it keeps growing. This is a direct result of decades of divestment in public funding and the privatization of higher education into a for-profit industry. This broken system has shifted the burden of financing higher education on to individual students and households, disproportionately harming Black, Brown, immigrant and low-income communities. Bold solutions are required to address the harms this policy failure has caused. These solutions can start with the personnel staffing the US Department of Education.As bad as Betsy DeVos is, most of the problems with our higher education system predate her. When President Obama was in office, debtors and advocates sounded the alarm about soaring tuition, mounting student debt, predatory loan servicers, criminal for-profit colleges and more, but their warnings went unheeded.Under the leadership of Arne Duncan, John King and Ted Mitchell, the Department of Education fundamentally failed to listen to and protect their constituents. Under their watch, the total amount of student debt doubled, surpassing the total amount of credit card debt for the first time in history. They sat by and allowed impoverished and elderly borrowers’ social security to be garnished. Several Obama administration officials became investors in the predatory for-profit Apollo Education, including Tony Miller, Obama’s former deputy secretary of the education department. And despite public outcry over abuses, Ted Mitchell fought to keep predatory for-profit schools alive, approved the sale of these schools to ECMC (an abusive debt collection company), and now serves as president of the American Council on Education lobbying against mass student debt cancellation.Meanwhile, the students who were defrauded by predatory for-profit schools continue to wait for justice. The education secretary, Arne Duncan, promised them: “If you’ve been defrauded by a school, we’ll make sure that you get every penny of the debt relief you are entitled to through … as streamlined a process as possible.” He broke that promise. And there are hundreds of other Obama Department of Education officials with a history of failing students who are just waiting to waltz back in through the revolving door.Student debtors cannot afford another Democratic administration that sells them out and sells them short. A Biden administration must make a clean break from this history. It is time for a new Department of Education staffed with champions who will fight for students. You should appoint strong advocates to fight for students and real solutions to the student debt crisis.Additionally the Department of Education Organization Act allows the president to appoint up to four assistant secretaries of education. As president, you should fill all four of these positions.You should commit to appointing:A secretary of education who will use the authority Congress has already granted the secretary to cancel student debt on their first day in office. During the primary, Elizabeth Warren promised to use the department’s full “compromise and settlement” authority to provide student loan relief, and in March the Trump administration actually did, though the relief they provided was woefully inadequate. Nevertheless, the move was significant because it is a further recognition of the government’s broad power to cancel student debt. A Biden administration will be inheriting an economic depression and a global health crisis, alongside Mitch McConnell promising to be the “grim reaper” killing any policies designed to help people. Canceling student debt via the Department of Education bypasses McConnell, and is a direct way to stimulate the economy (estimated at a $1tn stimulus over 10 years) and create millions of new jobs. With people’s lives – and livelihoods – at stake, it would be cruel and unnecessary for the Department of Education to continue profiting from student debt. We cannot afford the economic damage this debt causes to American households.An assistant secretary of education dedicated to enforcement. As president, you should appoint an assistant secretary dedicated strictly to enforcing the regulations already on the books. By simply enforcing its own regulations, the Department of Education could fundamentally reshape how higher education functions and is financed. For decades now, it has tolerated a wild west approach, allowing scam accreditation agencies, predatory for-profit schools (which amass huge profits by exploiting low-income communities), and law-breaking debt collectors and loan servicers to flourish. We need someone at the Department of Education who can shut down these corrupt agencies, for-profit schools and abusive servicers and debt collectors once and for all.An assistant secretary dedicated to racial justice and racial equity. This goes beyond merely protecting civil rights; our education system is fundamentally racist, from the disparities in K-12 funding, to persistent “legalized” segregation, to discriminatory enrollment practices and the deeply racialized nature of student debt. (Study after study after study after study after study after study have shown that student debt is a driver of the racial wealth gap, and that the more student debt we cancel, the better it is for Black and Brown borrowers.) This position should be given full rein to examine how white supremacy functions at every level of our educational system and how our system must change on deep structural levels to repair and redress these inequities.By making these commitments you can show the 45 million voters struggling with student debt and the millions of would-be college students that you take their pain seriously. During the Obama administration we organized protests to mark what we called “1T Day,” the day student debt surpassed $1tn. Unless real solutions like College for All are enacted, we will be marking 2T Day during a Biden administration.A generation ago, college was basically free. As a result, many elected officials were able to graduate without taking out student loans. Over the last few decades, millions of students have suffered from a policy failure that developed on their watch – a policy failure that we know how to fix. You can show that you are committed to staffing a Department of Education that will fight for students, stand for racial justice, and help build a fair, equitable and debt-free higher education system.Sincerely,The Debt CollectiveSunrise MovementJustice DemocratsDemand ProgressAction Center on Race & the Economy (ACRE)The Project on Predatory Student Lending at Harvard Law SchoolProgressive Democrats of America (DPA)Council of UC Faculty AssociationsRutgers AAUP-AFTStudent ActionNYC DSA Debt & Finance Working GroupThe LeapSocial Security WorksStudent Loan JusticeRoots ActionPeople’s ActionThe Progressive Change Campaign CommitteeMoney on the LeftJolt ActionOur RevolutionScholars for Social Justice More

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      A-levels news: Government-backed gap years for students who missed university places this year

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      The government is to set up schemes for students who have to defer their university place following this year’s chaotic awarding of A-level grades.The universities minister Michelle Donelan said she had been working to “make available a range of opportunities for development” for those who end up having to take a gap year. A new grading system was set up this year after exams were cancelled due to coronavirus.Ms Donelan wrote in The Telegraph that both universities and herself “want to keep the number of students deferring to a minimum”.Read more”I am sure, however, that those who do defer will have concerns about the options available to them for the next year,” she said.”I want these students to know that I have been working across government and with the higher education sector to make available a range of opportunities for development that will provide young people with an additional string to their bow.”Ms Donelan said information on the available options would be shared “shortly”.The Department for Education has been approached by The Independent over what these gap year schemes could entail. Universities were told they would be given extra funding to help increase capacity on a number of courses after warning they had limited space for students who saw their results increase.However, leading institutions warned eligible students may be asked to defer if they do not have the space. Additional reporting by Press Association More

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      Face masks: Headteachers left 'picking up the pieces' after government leaves them to make decisions

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      School leaders have expressed concern over the government’s approach to face masks in schools, with headteachers deciding what approach to take as students start coming back to school.Richard Sheriff, the chief executive of a trust of Yorkshire schools, accused the government of passing the buck by leaving the decision up to individual schools.“I think it is a very uncomfortable position,” he told The Independent. “It feels like the buck has been passed to headteachers. We will now individually take the stick from parents, children, communities, about whatever stance we choose to be appropriate in these circumstances.” Pepe Di’Iasio, a headteacher in Rotherham, told The Independent he had received several letters from concerned parents after opting against face masks in school because of “relatively low infection rates” in the local area.Read moreMeanwhile, school leaders elsewhere will have discretion to make face coverings compulsory if they believe it is “right in their particular circumstances”. The shadow education secretary, Kate Green, accused Mr Johnson of trying to “pass the buck” to headteachers with last week’s face mask changes.“What they have done is left headteachers like myself with a barrage of emails saying, ‘Why are you doing what you are doing? Why are you making this decision?’” Mr Di’Iasio, who also claimed the changes came too late, said. The Wales High School headteacher added: “We have been left to pick up the pieces of the difficulties that parents face right now in an already uncertain time.”Mr Sheriff, from Red Kite Learning Trust, said: “Headteachers should not have to take responsibility for clinical decision-making in a public health setting.” He added: “We’ve been left by the government to make decisions which feel to me way beyond my geography teacher competence.”Mr Sheriff said he is not asking students to wear face masks at all across 12 out of 13 of his sites – with the one affected having particularly narrow corridors.Read moreWhile he said he is happy that headteachers can decide for themselves what their schools should do, he is less happy about Mr Johnson’s comments, which came shortly after the government scrapped its advice against wearing face masks in schools.“Having given heads discretion, he then rubbished some of the things that we have decided to do,” the Framwellgate School Durham headteacher told The Independent.England’s deputy chief medical officer, Dr Jenny Harries, commented last Friday on the issue of face masks for school pupils, saying: “The evidence on face coverings is not very strong in either direction.”She added: “At the moment the evidence is pretty stable, but it can be very reassuring in those enclosed environments for children, and for teachers as well, to know that people are taking precautions.”A Department for Education spokesperson said: “We have consistently been guided by the latest scientific and medical advice, and we recently updated our guidance on face coverings following the statement from the World Health Organisation.“In local lockdown areas children in year 7 and above should wear face coverings in communal spaces and corridors. Outside of local lockdown areas, face coverings won’t be required in schools, though schools will have the flexibility to introduce this if they believe it is right in their specific circumstances. Face coverings will not be required in the classroom as they hinder communication and pupils’ education.”Additional reporting by Press Association More