By Kel Fidler. All the recent hype about online higher education and 'Moocs' misses the point, says Kel Fidler – universities have been doing it for years. Read any article about online higher education and I guarantee you will come across the much-touted ‘MOOCs’ – massive open online courses – as well as references to, perhaps, gamification, crowd-sourcing and even avatars. While such developments are undoubtedly fascinating, they present online learning as something futuristic – a new development and consequently, a new threat to many UK universities. But this is just not the case. Online learning is nothing new for UK higher education. Forward-thinking institutions and their partners have been doing it for years, as a natural extension of their existing provision. Read more...

By Graeme Paton. Compulsory work experience will be reintroduced in schools under a Labour plan to get teenagers ready for the jobs market, the Daily Telegraph has learnt. The party is planning to reverse a Government decision to make two-week work placements an optional requirement before the end of school, it emerged. Shadow ministers admitted that too many placements in the past involved “making tea and doing the photocopying” but insisted that high-quality work experience was vital. It was also revealed that Labour is proposing to scrap the Coalition’s English Baccalaureate – a school league table measure that rewards pupils for gaining good GCSEs in a range of academic subjects – amid claims it “distorts” children's’ options and stops them studying the arts and engineering. Read more...