IT IS KNOWN AS the Trojan Horse plot, but it is less subtle. Late in 2013 an anonymous letter was discovered, outlining a hardline Muslim plan to œoverthrow teachers and governors in several government schools in Birmingham and replace them with people who would run the schools on orthodox Islamic lines. The furore has grown, eventually involving Peter Clarke, once the head of counter-terrorism in London™s Metropolitan Police, who will lead a government investigation.
The letter may be a fake, but something has certainly gone wrong in Birmingham™s schools. Leaked reports about several academies (schools that are state-funded but independently run) by Ofsted (Office of Standards in Education), suggest that in some classrooms boys and girls are seated apart, that sex education is ignored and the theory of evolution dismissed. Ofsted is investigating 25 schools in the city. This is more than a local problem, because it hints at flaws in England™s otherwise rather commendable education reforms. What has gone wrong in Birmingham is related to what has gone right elsewhere.
The last Labour government set some schools free from control by local authorities, which had often run them shoddily. The Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition that has ruled Britain since 2010 has gone much further. About 60 percent of secondary schools are now independent academies. A further 173 are ˜free schools™, never under local government control. Parents and local business folk have been encouraged to become more involved in running schools. So too have religious groups.
Their influence is both formal and informal. Formally, Anglicans, Catholics and Jews, who have long-run state schools are being joined by others. Between 2011-2013 there were 831 applications to open free schools. The British Humanist Association, a secular outfit, has identified the religious affiliation ” or lack thereof ” of 659 of the applicants. They include 32 linked to the Church of England, almost half of which were approved. Fully 80 Muslim groups applied to run schools, although a mere five were granted approval (none of the schools under review in Birmingham is a religious school).
Informally, Muslim parents are becoming more involved in schools of all sorts. In the London borough of Tower Hamlets, the Collective of Bangladeshi School Governors encourages it. Ibrahim Mogra, a Leicester imam who has served as governor in several schools, says there is a place for faith schools, as long as they teach the national curriculum and abide by the law. But in areas with large Muslim populations, he argues that secular state schools can serve pupils just as well if parents keep in touch with teachers to ensure the curriculum is taught in a way that causes least anxiety.
Much of this is to the good. Exam results of Bangladeshis have improved so dramatically in recent years that they now outscore whites in GCSE exams taken at age 16 ” astonishing for a mostly working-class group.
THE™s 100 under 50
East Asian universities continue to lead a ranking of the world™s top 100 universities under 50 years old, which provides insight into which nations could be poised to challenge traditional Anglo-American dominance of higher education. The top four institutions in the Times Higher Education ˜100 Under 50™ rankings all retain their position from last year, with South Korea™s Pohang University of Science and Technology ” known as Postech ” taking the top spot for the third consecutive year.
Switzerland™s Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne is in second place, with the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (Kaist) positioned third. Hong Kong University of Science and Technology retains fourth position, while Singapore™s Nanyang Technological University strengthens the Asian dominance of the top five by jumping three places to fifth.
œThe academy™s traditional, ancient elite should be warned, says Phil Baty, THE rankings editor. œThe data proves that nations can, in a matter of years, with the right support and vision, create world-class universities to compete with traditional institutions that have had many centuries to develop.
Some of the ˜plate-glass universities™ established in the UK in the early 1960s are now too old to feature in these rankings, meaning that there has been a steep decline in the country™s representation in this year™s results. It now has 14 institutions, compared with 18 last year. Just one UK institution, Lancaster University, makes it into the top 10 (10th, up from 14th last year).
Australia now ties with the UK as the most represented nation, with 14 institutions (up from 13 last year), while Spain increased its representation from six to seven institutions. Of the five ˜BRICS™ nations, three ” Russia, mainland China and South Africa ” fail to make the grade, although there is good news for India, with the Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati, breaking into the top 100.
œWhile they may not have had centuries to accumulate wealth and cannot draw on generations of alumni and rich traditions of scholarship to drive their reputations, they are free from the burdens of history, says Baty. œThey are free to be more agile, lean, flexible and risk-taking, giving them an advantage in a rapidly changing global marketplace; free to offer innovative teaching and focus their research on niche, high-impact areas.
(Excerpted and adapted from Times Higher Education)