London, England, United Kingdom (AHN) – University education will become more difficult to access for Briton youth in the coming years. The Office for Fair Access, the British government access watchdog, revealed on Wednesday that all of 123 universities and colleges in Britain plan to charge tuition of $9,000 (GBP 6,000) for full-time undergraduate degrees beginning autumn 2012.

Another 17 said they plan to charge more than $6,000. More educational institutions may still be added to the list since the universities have until Tuesday midnight to file their plan for tuition fee hikes to the watchdog.

The coalition government previously placed a $13,500 (GBP 9,000) cap on tuition. Universities Minister David Willetts said that despite the maximum amount, universities would likely charge different rates and the average would range from $11,250 to $12,000 (GBP 7,500 to 8,000).

But based on the information of schools that made public their plans, the average is at a higher $12,945 (GBP 8,630). Forty-nine of 73 universities plan to charge to maximum rate of $12,000, while 56 others will charge that amount only for some of their courses.

Because of the planned tuition fee hikes, a report to Scottish ministers warned of a funding gap of $303 million (GBP 202 million) among Scottish universities based on an average fee of $11,250.

The SNP and Labour parties pledged $139.5 million (GBP 93 million) to fill the funding gap, but the Liberal Democrats did not place such costing in their agenda.

Because of the tuition fee increase up to 36,000 British students are expected to miss out on degree courses.

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North Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom (AHN) – British Prime Minister David Cameron criticized Oxford University Monday for its alleged racially discriminatory admission policies. Cameron claimed the educational institution admitted only one black student in the last academic year.

The prime minister also hit other elite institutions for discriminating against high school graduates of state schools.

However, senior Oxford officials denied Cameron’s allegation. They said Oxford admitted 42 black students last year – 27 were black Africans, one was a black Caribbean and 14 of mixed race. The sole black student that Cameron referred to was the one from the Caribbean.

The university explained only 452 black students across Britain met the A-level results required by Oxford’s tough minimum entry standards for the 2009-10 academic year.

The Conservative chairman of the Commons Education Select Committee, Graham Stuart, said the reason behind the low acceptance rate by elite universities in Britain of minority group members is the lack of good education at the basic level. He said the problem could not be solved by forcing universities with higher benchmarks to lower the bar, but by improving the standards of state education.

Of 16,591 students enrolled last year at Oxford who disclosed their ethnicity, 12,671 or 76 percent were white, 1,477 (9 percent) were Asian, 1,098 (7 percent) were Chinese, 254 (1.5 percent) were of other ethnicities and 253 (1.5 percent) were black.

Downing Street eventually admitted Cameron was not precise in his wording, but just wanted to emphasize that it is not acceptable for elite universities such as Oxford to have very few students from black and minority ethnic groups.

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London, England, United Kingdom (AHN) – Britain’s Association of Schools and College Leaders warned Sunday that 20 percent of school staff could be declared redundant in response to large school budget cuts. As a result, senior teachers seeking advice on how to dismiss their colleagues now comprise one-third of calls received by the 24-hour hotline set up by the ASCL.

In anticipation of the rise in redundancies, the ASCL held five courses on the subject in 2010, and all courses were full of participants.

The ASCL legal consultant hinted that likely to be declared redundant are teachers of some vocational courses or non-English baccalaureate subjects.

The English baccalaureate is given to pupils who get at least a C grade on their General Certificate of Secondary Education in English, maths, two sciences, history or geography and a language.

Schools are assessed on the ratio of students who get their English baccalaureate.

The consultant added senior teachers are also at risk because declaring them redundant would save schools more money.

Aside from lesser school staff, schools also face the possibility that teachers belonging to the Association of Teachers and Lecturers may strike by summer over pension changes. The ATL is set to ballot its members if a national strike action will be taken, which would be a first time since 1979.

Aside from the ATL, three other teaching unions are set to announce their plans for an industrial action because of public sector pension cuts. These are the ASCL, the National Association of Head Teachers and the University and College Union.

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London, England, United Kingdom (AHN) – London School of Economics Director Howard Davies resigned his post Thursday because of the educational institution’s links with Libyan strongman Moammar Gaddafi.

Davies admitted the school’s reputation is under stake because of a $450,000 (GBP 300,000) research grant that LSE got from Saif al-Islam, Gaddafi’s son. The director received the grant when he visited Libya and advised the country’s leaders how they could modernize its financial institutions.

He visited Libya from 2006 to 2008 under a $3 million (GBP 2 million) contract between Tripoli and the Massachusetts-based Monitor Group.

LSE announced Wednesday that it has severed ties with the dictator’s family and would donate the money to struggling Libyan students. The school’s council also initiated an independent probe, led by former Chief Justice Lord Woolf, into LSE’s relationship with Libya and the Gaddafi family.

The investigation is also expected to establish guidelines for international donations to LSE because aside from the $450,000 research grant from Gaddafi’s son, a charitable foundation run by Saif donated $2.25 million (GBP 1.5 million) to LSE. The money was used to establish a north Africa research program, which LSE suspended last week.

Saif studied at LSE, but the school is investigating if the Gaddafi scion plagiarized his PhD thesis.

Davies, the former head of the Financial Services Authority and deputy governor of the Bank of England, admitted it was a personal error of judgment when he agreed to be an economic envoy and sovereign wealth fund adviser to Libya.

The LSE said Davies will remain in his post until a replacement is found.

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Leicester, United Kingdom (AHN) – Scientists at Britain’s University of Leicester and a Singaporean medical device maker have developed a more accurate blood pressure monitor that can be worn on the wrist.

A sensor in the device records the pulse wave of the artery and allows blood pressure close to the heart to be monitored. The pulse record fed into a computer is combined with blood pressure reading from a cuff to get the final reading.

The rate of blood pressure near the heart is more relevant than the BP in the arm in determining risk of stroke and heart disease, according to Professor Bryan Williams from the University of Leicester’s department of cardiovascular sciences at Glenfield Hospital.

Researchers at the university collaborated with Singapore-based medical device company HealthSTATS International to make the device.

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London, United Kingdom (AHN) – Worldwide obesity has doubled since 1980, with one in 10 of the adult population now considered overweight, according to a new study.

In 2008, an estimated 205 million men and 297 million women were obese, according to Imperial College London researchers.

The good news is that the proportion of the world’s population with high blood pressure fell modestly between 1980 and 2008. But because of population growth and aging, the number of people with uncontrolled hypertension rose from 600 million in 1980 to almost 1 billion in 2008.

The most impressive gains in controlling blood pressure were achieved in the United States, Canada, Australia and parts of Asia. But uncontrolled blood pressure rates rose in East and Southeast Asia and the Pacific region.

The researchers said in a statement that their findings show obesity, high blood pressure and high cholesterol are now global issues and no longer just problems for wealthier nations.

A three-paper report on the study is published in the Lancet this week.

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Kathmandu, Nepal (AHN) – Five Nepali students were recently deported from the United Kingdom for abusing student visas to travel to the UK in order to work, the British Embassy in Kathmandu announced Thursday.

The embassy said in a statement that all five students were returned to Nepal on Monday after being caught working illegally at a car wash in the British town of Bury St. Edmunds by UK Border Agency officers. “Immigration checks revealed that all the men had student visas, four of them were not studying while one was studying but working much more than the permitted hours,” the embassy said.

The statement said that the colleges that had sponsored the students are now being investigated for potential abuse of the immigration system.

Under Tier 4 of the Points Based System, colleges are required to report absenteeism by international students to the UK Border Agency. Against the backdrop of the arrest, UK Immigration Minister Damian Green made a strong statement to clamp down on abuse of student visas in the UK.

“I believe attracting talented students from abroad is vital to the UK, but we must clamp down on abuse and be more selective about who can come here and how long they can stay. Too many students arriving to study at below degree level have been coming here with a view of living and working, rather than studying,” Green said in the embassy statement.

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Coventry, England, United Kingdom (AHN) – Texting has been criticized for contributing to worsening spelling and grammar use among young people. However, a study by Coventry University dispelled that common belief.

The use of the short messaging function on cellphones instead contributes to students’ spelling development, the university’s researchers said.

The basis of that claim is a study on 114 children aged nine and 10 who were recruited from primary schools in the Midlands. The kids, who were not mobile phone users, were divided into two groups.

One group was given mobile phones that the students could use during weekends and school holidays over 10 weeks. The other group had regular access to a cellphone.

Members of both groups were given reading, spelling and phonological awareness exams before and after the study. The students’ reading and spelling were also tracked weekly.

Students from both groups logged higher test results after 10 weeks of mobile phone use. The researchers attributed the difference to texting being highly phonetic in nature and the students’ alphabet awareness being enhanced when they decode the text messages they received.

Prof. Clare Wood, lead researcher, said the study indicated use by youth of mobile phones does not benefit nor harm their literary development, contrary to popular belief.

The study will be published in the February issue of the Journal of Computer Assisted Learning.

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London, United Kingdom (AHN) – UK Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency officials in July will begin asking everyone who applies for a driver’s license if they want to be an organ donor.

With 8,000 people waiting for organs and approximately 1,000 people dying each year while they wait, health officials want to boost the number of organ donors.

Surveys find that about 65 to 90 percent of the population indicate they are in favor of donating their organs, but only about 27 percent of the population are registered organ donors.

Under the old system, people filling out an application for a driver’s license could skip the question. Despite that about 8 million people did sign up.

The new program requires the applicant to register to donate, say they have already signed up or state that they do not wish to answer the question.

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London, England, United Kingdom (AHN) – Around 40 British Muslim schools teach 6- to 15-year-olds brutal Sharia law punishments, including how to hack off a criminal’s hand or foot as well as execution for being gay and that Jews transform into animals, according to reports in British media.

Some 5,000 children that attend the network of 40 Muslim “weekend” schools in Britain are taught the hardline Saudi National Curriculum, run under the umbrella of “Saudi Students Clubs and Schools in the UK and Ireland.”

Students are taught how to chop off a robber’s or thief’s hands, offer the idea that Jews transform into pigs and apes, and execution for those who practice sodomy or homosexuality.

Education Secretary Michael Gove said he would not tolerate anti-Semitism and homophobia in English schools.”

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