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The 10 best language products

Wed, 09 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

1. DK Speak French in Just 15 Minutes a Day

Can you master a language in a weekend?

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 00:00:01 GMT

Someone undertaking a PhD in memory studies once told me there is a reason I have trouble remembering simple things such as phone numbers, birthdays and that eternal enigma: where I put my keys. Aptly, I've forgotten the reason and who told me too.

'I'm in Birmingham but my students are global'

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 00:00:01 GMT

Managing a lesson online for hundreds of apprentices in nine different countries including Russia and China is enough to challenge the best of teachers. But this sort of activity is becoming increasingly commonplace at Birmingham Metropolitan College as it reaches ever wider to meet the demands of a globalised training world.

Elocution lessons: Who wants to speak the Queen's English?

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 00:00:01 GMT

As the commercial director of one of the country's largest book-wholesaling companies, Annette Burgess makes an unlikely Eliza Doolittle. At the age of 44, she is responsible for a sales team that supplies books to the National Trust, Hamleys and hundreds of garden centres. Yet this successful bookseller shares one thing in common with the cockney flower-selling heroine of Pygmalion and My Fair Lady: she has taken up elocution lessons.

Education: The age of uncertainty

Wed, 15 Jun 2011 23:00:01 GMT

The mass closure of public libraries is hitting older people and retired people who want to learn and keep their minds active. The sort of learning that goes on in the University of the Third Age (U3A) – the learning that retired people do because they want to do it, not because they need it for their careers – will be worst hit.

Proposed new immigration laws could deprive colleges of overseas students they depend on

Thu, 20 Jan 2011 00:00:01 GMT

Government proposals to radically alter the student visa regime have left colleges facing the possibility of having to cut recruitment of foreign students and move much of their international work overseas.

A-level results: Subject by subject

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 23:00:19 GMT

A-level results: Sixth form colleges

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 23:00:05 GMT

A-level results: Comprehensive school results

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 16:21:48 GMT

A-level results: Grammar school results

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 16:14:38 GMT

How college lecturers are keeping up by training one another at work

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 23:00:01 GMT

It's not every day that a former student stops you in the street and recites a poem about plant hormones which they learnt 15 years ago. But when your name is Richard Spencer and you have a following in Australia, the USA and Europe, it is perhaps hardly surprising.

Online degrees: A model worth emulating or a plan that risks creating a two-tier system?

Wed, 23 Jun 2010 23:00:01 GMT

For the past 150 years, the University of London has given students the chance to study for an external degree. Nelson Mandela took an external law degree while imprisoned on Robben Island; the Nobel prize-winner Charles Kao signed up for a course as a young refugee from Shanghai, and the Labour MP Gisela Stuart is another alumnus. The University of London has approaching 50,000 students studying by distance and flexible learning in more than 180 countries.

Short business courses - It's amazing how much can happen in three days

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 23:00:20 GMT

A gold-plated MBA from a leading business school is a welcome addition to any CV, but, in these austere times, some people are increasingly reluctant to commit the time and money to take a year or more out of the workplace. Individuals and employers want a rapid, cost-effective skills uplift that can be put to work within days, not months. This could either arise from a bespoke course, created to meet the needs of a single company, or a more generic programme that brings together people from many different organisations.

Learn to take control of your career

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 23:00:18 GMT

Earlier this month, 46 would-be Alan Sugars attended an intensive, four-day course on entrepreneurship hosted by Cass Business School. Despite the £2,000 fee – with generous scholarships given to those Cass considered to have a "killer idea" – course leader Professor Julie Logan says that demand for places was so great that the event is likely to be repeated in December.

From lace-making to mushroom-foraging, Arca has the course for you

Wed, 02 Jun 2010 23:00:01 GMT

Have you always wanted to spin your own wool or carve yourself a country-style stool, immerse yourself in Chopin's works, or master that digital camera you got for Christmas? If so, then there may well be somewhere nearby offering a course that fits the bill.

Creative courses: Programmes that are music to your ears

Wed, 26 May 2010 23:00:01 GMT

It's early evening, and Liverpool student Alex Le Roux is in a car with a couple of friends on the way to Manchester's clubland. These students are not looking for a night of relaxation to take their minds off their studies, but are heading for an activity directly linked to their degree programmes, as they are all music students at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (Lipa).

Professionalisation will create a win-win scenario

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 23:00:01 GMT

If you go to school, you can be sure your teacher has a formal teaching qualification. Go to college, on the other hand, and you don't have that reassurance. But things are set to change, with all further education teaching staff now expected to gain a qualification within five years of joining.

What's the best way to ensure young people are taught in safety?

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 23:00:01 GMT

Safeguarding students has become the single biggest issue for today's colleges. Not because students are at particular risk of harm in the further education sector, but because colleges have been expected to pay closer attention to the topic than ever before. But while the tighter structures being put in place might look like good news for all, they are fraught with difficulties.

On the Murder Trail: How staff are finding original ways to improve themselves and enhance the way students learn

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 23:00:01 GMT

When students at North Warwickshire and Hinckley College recently turned up for class, they got more than they bargained for – the sight of a severed head (happily, not a real one) in the bushes. As if that wasn't enough drama for one day, they watched in amazement as tutors ran around panicking that the crime-scene investigation team wasn't available. There was only one solution, they said: the students would have to do the investigation themselves. "It wasn't like the recent case of a pretend shooting in a school, where students thought it was real," assures lecturer Paul Barlow. "We set the scene as being fictional from the outset, with things such as film-style music in the background."

Alison Wolf: Ministers should stop treating adults as stupid children

Wed, 31 Mar 2010 23:00:01 GMT

British governments are convinced, in the face of overwhelming contradictory evidence, that they can predict the future. You might think they would be disabused by the financial crash, our limping economy, and the yawning gulf between the Treasury's expectations and its confident predictions in times of plenty.

The elite squad: If you like marketing and Manchester, this Masters degree is perfect for you

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 00:00:01 GMT

They live in swish city-centre apartments, have money in their pockets and work for go-ahead companies. They might not sound like postgraduate students but then theirs is no ordinary degree.

How training can help you develop the skills for survival

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:00:01 GMT

Investing in staff training might not be top of the agenda for businesses struggling to survive the recession, but perhaps it should be. Research shows that firms which cut out training are two and a half times more likely to fail than those that don't. After all, it's competent, committed staff who enable companies to secure a competitive edge.

John Bingham: 'Governors are having more impact and reporting greater job satisfaction than before'

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:00:01 GMT

Often, people who are thinking about becoming a college governor spend little time considering how the institutions work and are directed before they decide to join a board. Most become governors because they want to put something back in to their community. They possess knowledge or skills that will benefit staff and the students they serve, and quite understandably they don't focus their thoughts too much on the intricacies of further education and the instruments and articles of governance.

Recipe for a great career: How college gave one man the ingredients to succeed in the restaurant business

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:00:01 GMT

Restaurateur James Thomson didn't like school. Much of his time was spent looking out of the windows at the old buildings of Edinburgh, fantasising about their history and the people who had lived there. What Thomson did like was working. Aged 12, he became a dishwasher at Crawford's tearooms on North Bridge. "My grandmother had a cashier job there, and they were always short of dishwashers, so I was called in. I loved the theatre of the place – they served morning coffee, lunches and high tea, and had old-fashioned cake stands and waitresses who all mothered me and gave me strawberry tarts to eat. I also helped the chef. I loved things like the smell of the coffee and cheeses, and the whole ambience of the place."

A-Z of Courses: Glass-blowing

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:00:01 GMT