- A creepy clown whose eerie appearances have spooked a town has been unmasked as a University of Northampton student, the Sunday People revealed on 13October. Dressed as the homicidal clown Pennywise from the film adaptation of Stephen Kings novel It, 22-year-old Alex Powell would stand motionless clutching balloons in Northampton town centre, unnerving many passers-by. More than 180,000 people have liked pictures of him on Facebook, but others suffering coulrophobia the abnormal fear of clowns begged the film-maker to stop, the paper says. However, it seems that MrPowell has no intention of ending his mysterious appearances despite aspot of bother from locals. It was just abit of fun at first and alot of people seem to enjoy it, but it gets abit hard sometimes with the death threats, he said.
- Growing numbers of students are popping cognitive enhancing drugs to boost their grades and job prospects, the Daily Mail reported on 10 October. The use of prescription-only pills such as Modafinil is sweeping campuses, with many students addicted to [the] brain Viagra that allows them to study for 12hours without looking up from their books, the paper said. One in four students at the University of Oxford had taken smart pills, while one in 10 at the University of Cambridge had experimented, according to some surveys, the Mail said. Although the drugs can have known side-effects, Barbara Sahakian, a professor of clinical neuropsychology at Cambridge, was concerned that little was known about their long-term effects. Not enough research has been done to see what effects these have on fit and healthy people, she told the paper.
- The UKs student finance set-up is a fragile system that isgoing to break because most graduates will struggle to repay their loans, the Observers Will Hutton argued on 13October. Mr Hutton, principal of Hertford College, Oxford, and chair of the Independent Commission on Fees, said those emerging from Englands universities would be more debt-laden than US graduates because of a unique double whammy of high interest rates and sky-high debt added to low starting salaries. Instead of loading the entire burden for university financing on to the shoulders of the innocent young an act of arrant selfishness by older generations there should be amixed economy of student finance, with moderate fees contributing to funds received from general taxation, he argued.
- Future students petrified by the thought of even higher tuition fees in England can rest easy deputy prime minister Nick Clegg has promised not to raise them to 瞿16,000, the Huffington Post website reported on 14October. The Liberal Democrat leaders pledge followed a speech by Andrew Hamilton, vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford, that called for fees, currently limited to 瞿9,000 a year, to better reflect the full annual cost 瞿16,000 of educating his undergraduates. Dont worry, were not going toraise tuition fees to 瞿16,000, insisted Mr Clegg, in a line that would be more appropriate for the Alanis Morissette song Ironic than rain on your wedding day. So how can Mr Clegg convince students that his latest vow on fees is more credible than his last? Acast-iron written pledge signed by him and all his MPs should do the trick.
- Plans by three unions to call a national strike over this years 1per cent pay offer from universities were being finalised at the time 51勛圖 went to press, with a date of 31October looking most likely for action. It comes after separate ballots by the University and College Union, Unite and Unison returned a majority in favour of astrike. It is thought that a national walkout would represent the first time the three unions have taken such joint action over pay. Union leaders are demanding a better offer from universities, claiming that four years of below-inflation pay rises have reduced salaries by 13per cent in real terms. The Universities and Colleges Employers Association said last week that its 1per cent offer including joint work on the gender pay gap, casual contracts and flexible working arrangements remains on the table.
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