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council

Lack of sex education is a ‘ticking time bomb’, warn council chiefs

by Rajdeep April 5, 2024

written by Rajdeep

sex and relationships education, sre, sex ed, local government association, lga, sexually transmitted infections, sti, health, school

The subject should be compulsory in all secondaries, says the Local Government Association

A lack of sex and relationships education in some secondary schools is leading to a “ticking sexual-health time bomb,” council chiefs have said.

The subject should be compulsory in all state secondary schools, including academies and free schools, according to the Local Government Association (LGA). The lack of sex education presents a major health-protection issue, the LGA added.

Council-run secondaries have to teach sex and relationships education (SRE), while academies and free schools, which are not under local authority control, do not have to follow the national curriculum and are not obliged to teach the subject.

Parents have the right to withdraw their children from the lessons in all state schools.

‘An essential part of the curriculum’

The LGA, which represents councils in England and Wales, said that age-appropriate SRE should be an essential part of the curriculum for young people. It added, however, that parents should still have the option to take their child out of these lessons.

The LGA said that local authorities budget around £600 million a year for sexual health.

Izzi Seccombe, chairman of the LGA’s community wellbeing board, said: “This is a major health-protection issue.

“The lack of compulsory sex and relationship education in academies and free schools is storing up problems for later on in life, creating a ticking sexual-health time bomb, as we are seeing in those who have recently left school.”

She added that there was a “shockingly high” number of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) diagnosed in teenagers and young people.

Official figures show there were 78,066 new STI diagnoses among 15-19-year-olds in England in 2015, the LGA claimed, and 141,060 among 20-24-year-olds.

‘Give parents an op-out’

“The evidence suggests that, when designed and delivered in the right way, SRE can have a really positive impact on a pupil’s development,” Ms Seccombe said.

“However, we are also conscious that some parents may wish to remove their children from this, which is why we are saying there should also be provision for parents to opt their children out of lessons, if they consider this to be in the best interests of their child.”

A Department for Education spokesman said: “High-quality education on sex and relationships is a vital part of preparing young people for success in adult life.

“It is compulsory in all maintained secondary schools and, as the education secretary said recently, we are looking at options to ensure all children have access to high-quality teaching in these subjects.

“We will update the House during the passage of the Children and Social Work Bill.”

[Source:- tes]

April 5, 2024 0 comment

Education

Apprentice levy ‘will harm small council schools’

by Rajdeep April 5, 2024

written by Rajdeep

Child using abacus

Plans to boost apprenticeship funding in England will hit school budgets, with small council schools unfairly affected, say town hall bosses.

From May, all employers with wage bills over £3m a year must pay 0.5% of that into the new apprenticeship levy.

But council schools below that threshold must still pay as they come under the overall local authority wage bill, while small academies are exempt.

The LGA wants the rules changed to put all schools on an equal footing.

Ministers say local authorities, rather than the schools themselves, will be responsible for paying the levy.

But the LGA says advice agreed with the government is that schools should adjust their spending plans for next year to account for the extra cost of the levy.

‘Discriminatory’

The LGA says the levy will unfairly hit the finances of about 9,000 small community schools, usually primaries, with a total of 2.8 million pupils.

This is because where a school is maintained by the council, its staff are employed by the local authority, and those staff contribute to the overall wage bill of the council rather than being counted separately.

This means that the apprenticeship levy is applied to them, and will need to be accounted for in school budgets from April 2017, according to the LGA.

But free standing academies, where the academy trust is the employer, will be exempt.

The same is true of some faith and foundation schools, where the governing body is the employer.

“It is discriminatory,” said Richard Watts, chairman of the LGA’s Children and Young People Board.

“It is no secret that many schools are struggling with their funding, yet once again, council-maintained schools are being dealt a poor hand compared to academies.”

“Clearly what really matters is making sure that all children get the education they deserve, regardless of school structures, so applying initiatives like the levy equally across all schools is only right.

“The government therefore needs to urgently revise the apprenticeship levy to make sure that all schools are on an equal footing.”

‘Breaking point’

The National Association of Head Teachers warned that while 0.5% might not sound like much, “it comes in the context of school budgets being at breaking point already”.

“It’s another example of government policies hurting schools,” said NAHT Head of Policy Valentine Mulholland.

“We would definitely support the LGA’s call for small local authority schools to be treated in the same way as stand-alone academies.”

Once the levy is paid, employers will be able to access funding for apprenticeships, but Ms Mulholland said smaller schools would struggle to do this.

“There are hardly any apprenticeships that are suitable for schools,” she said.

Ms Mulholland said large secondaries could develop master’s level apprenticeships to help staff teach outside their main subject areas or move into leadership.

But smaller schools, which are often primaries, lacked the flexibility and the resources to be able to do this, she said, so the levy would become “just another tax”.

Apprenticeship and Skills Minister Robert Halfon said: “We expect these schools to have full access to funding for apprenticeship training and will support all employers, including schools and local authorities, in using levy funds to invest in quality apprenticeships,” said Apprenticeship and Skills Minister Robert Halfon.

[Source:- BBC]

April 5, 2024 0 comment

Education

Isle of Wight Council ‘still failing’ in education

by Rajdeep April 4, 2024

written by Rajdeep

Department for Education issues order keeping the council’s children’s services department in the hands of Hampshire County Council director

Isle of Wight Council is still failing to promote high standards in the island’s schools, according to a government order that leaves its children’s services department under the leadership of an outside official.

The direction from the Department for Education, dated November 28 and published today, comes only months after the chairman of Ofsted resigned after branding the island a poor white “ghetto”that suffers from “inbreeding”.

David Hoare quit in August, following an uproar over the comments he used when linking educational under-performance to the social problems he claimed the island suffered from.

It is the second time since 2013 that the DfE has issued a direction to the local authority because of concerns about standards of education, as well as children’s social care.

The latest direction says the council is “failing to perform some or all of its education functions”.

“Whilst there have been improvements, including an ‘effective’ judgement by Ofsted of the school improvement function (June 2014), key stage 2 and key stage 4 attainment in the council’s maintained schools remains below national averages,” it adds.

According to the latest Ofsted data, 33 per cent of the island’s schools are rated “requires improvement” or “inadequate”, compared with 11 per cent across England.

And following this summer’s GCSE exams, the provisional Progress 8 score for the area was “below average”, while 48 per cent of children at the end of primary school reached the expected standard, compared with a national average of 52 per cent.

External control

The direction orders the council to continue an arrangement dating from June 2013, which sees Hampshire County Council’s director of children’s services perform the same role at Isle of Wight Council, with responsibility for appointing all senior staff in children’s services and education services.

The order, which will remain in force until June 2018, also tells the council to regularly assess how it is performing its education functions, take “appropriate action” to make necessary improvements and cooperate with schools seeking to become academies, or being encouraged to convert by the government.

These actions will be monitored at regular termly meetings between the council and DfE officials.

Jonathan Bacon, Isle of Wight Council’s leader and executive member for children’s services, said: “The directive from government regarding children’s services on the Isle of Wight has always been for a period of five years, to 2018, in order to improve the service to ‘good’ in Ofsted terms.

“We have seen strong improvement through our partnership with Hampshire County Council, much faster than in comparable authorities. The next window of opportunity for a published inspection to show that we are ‘good’ is not until 2018; we expect this to be the findings.

“However, the Isle of Wight Council has been working hard with its community and partners, including Ofsted, to raise standards and attainment across all of the Island’s schools; education on the Isle of Wight is improving. There is now only one primary school on the island that is in a category [rated ‘inadequate’ by Ofsted] and no secondary schools; reducing the percentage of schools judged to be ‘inadequate’ in 2013 from 25 per cent down to just 2 per cent. Results and outcomes are getting better.”

[Source:- tes]

April 4, 2024 0 comment

Internet

UN council says blocking Internet access violates human rights

by Rajdeep April 4, 2024

written by Rajdeep

SWITZERLAND UN HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL

The United Nations Human Rights Council is taking aim at countries that block access to the Internet as a means to supress free expression.

The resolution passed by the 47-member council last week “condemns unequivocally measures to intentionally prevent or disrupt access to or dissemination of information online in violation of international human rights law and calls on all states to refrain from and cease such measures.”

Russia, China, and Saudi Arabia were among a handful of authoritarian regimes that asked the UN to strike that passage from the digital rights decree. South Africa and India also called for its removal.

The non-binding resolution also asks nations to harness the power of the Internet to empower women and persons with disabilities, as well as promote literacy and achieve sustainability goals.

Internet blackouts are well-documented across China and the Middle East. The Turkish government recently clamped down on news outlets, as well as Facebook and Twitter, after last month’s suicide attack on Istanbul’s Atatürk Airport that left 36 dead and another 147 wounded. The government-backed action by Turkish Internet service providers was caught by watchdog group Turkey Blocks.

Digital rights group Access Now counted 15 Internet shutdowns in 2015 and says there have been at least 20 so far in 2016.

“Shutdowns harm everyone and allow human rights crackdowns to happen in the dark, with impunity. Citizens can’t participate fully in democratic discourse during elections. The Human Rights Council’s principled stance is a crucial step in telling the world that shutdowns need to stop,” said Access Now Senior Global Advocacy Manager Deji Olukotun in a statement.

The U.S.-based non-governmental organization Freedom House says governments are upping the pressure on Internet service providers and social media sites to block, filter, and remove content.

For example, transparency reports published by Twitter show requests from courts and government agencies have skyrocketed from six per year to over 1,000 in the three years since the micro-blogging site started releasing data.

Freedom House estimates that 34 per cent of the global population lives in countries that heavily restrict Internet access or content, and another 23 percent live in countries with partially restricted access.

The UN resolution, which is not legally enforceable, builds on its previous statements on digital rights and reaffirms its stance that the “same rights people have offline must also be protected online.” This is the organization’s third online rights resolution since 2012, but the first that specifically targets nations that deny access to citizens.

A number of countries, including Canada, have signalled a need to combat the efforts of political regimes bent on controlling free expression online. Ottawa pledged $9 million last year for a project aimed at helping citizens circumvent government imposed restrictions in repressive environments.

U.S President Barack Obama has said that access to high speed broadband Internet is “not a luxury, it’s a necessity.”

Edward Snowden, the former CIA employee who copied and leaked classified information from the U.S. National Security Agency to several media organizations, called the UN’s dedication to the issue “good news” on Twitter Friday.

While the resolution lacks the legal authority to impose changes within countries that choose to censor what is a said and seen online, the move is being heralded as a critical first step in shifting the conversation about such actions into the mainstream.

“This resolution marks a major milestone in the fight against internet shutdowns. The international community has listened to the voices of civil society — many of whom have suffered under shutdowns themselves — and laudably pushed back on this pernicious practice,” said Olukotun.

April 4, 2024 0 comment