Cross Campus: October in Review

Per Capita reports on last month’s most important stories in UK schools and universities.

Campuses across the UK has been swept in protest and sprayed in orange paint this month. Since the start of the Israel-Hamas conflict, university campuses have been a centre for student protest. Pro-Palestine protests have taken place for nearly a month across several campuses. This month, climate campaigners, Just Stop Oil, have also sprayed Universities across England with orange paint this month in protest against UK government plans to “license new oil and gas projects”.

On Thursday (02/11), students projected pro-Palestine images onto King’s College to mark the 106th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, a public statement issued by the British Government in 1917 during WW1 that announced support for the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine. Students chose to project messages which stated “Not in Our names! Cambridge University Staff and Students Demand Ceasefire in Gaza”. The Union for Jewish Students has written to UK student unions and university vice-chancellors to call for greater protection and support for Jewish students with reports of rising threats and abuse since the conflict began.

King’s College has been an epicentre for student protest this month, with protestor Chiara Sarti, a Computer Science PhD student at Cambridge, using a fire extinguisher to “paint the neo-Gothic King’s College orange”– an act unwelcome, even in the build up to Halloween, resulting in the student’s arrest after declaring “new oil and gas is a death sentence”. A spokesperson from King’s College said “the college is concerned about climate change and respects the right to freedom of speech and non-violent protest, but draws the line at criminal damage”.

Provocative climate protest has occurred across UK campuses, with protestors Daniel Knorr and Noah Crane similarly defacing the Radcliffe Camera in Oxford University. Climate protests also led to the arrest of Jason Scott-Warren, Director of Studies in English at Gonville & Caius College this week.

Botched Admissions Assessments for Maths and English Literature at Oxford

The Admissions cycle in Oxford University has been disrupted by botched admissions tests this year, due to technical errors that arose when the University entrusted Tata Consulting Services (TCS iON). Students and teachers heavily protested the mismanagement of the English Literature Admissions Test. David Taylor, Director of Undergraduate Admissions for the Faculty of English in Oxford, wrote in an email to candidates that “the clear errors in the test’s rubric (which gave last year’s theme of ‘sleep’ rather than this year’s theme of ‘the moon’) are unacceptable. They caused stress and confusion for talented young people for which we are truly sorry.”

While Oxford announced on the 20th of October that “this year, ELAT scores will not be used in any formal shortlisting calculation. No candidate will be deselected (i.e. not shortlisted) on the basis of their ELAT score”, this is not a blanket policy across the University. The Mathematical Admissions Test (MAT) was riddled with accessibility issues in the new online format introduced this year. The Mathematics Department apologised for  “widespread distress and difficulties” experienced by prospective maths students who took the MAT.” Instead, applicants will be offered an optional supplementary MAT administered by Oxford University on 14th November at 9am.

Representatives from Oxford University told Cherwell that “we will be having further talks with the provider to understand better why these problems occurred with their systems and obtain assurances that there will be no repeat.”

Russell Group

Cardiff University bans students from wearing Chinos.

Students wearing blue shirts and chinos– the unofficial uniform of male students involved with sports clubs– have been banned from Cardiff SU on Wednesday nights due to “dangerous behaviour portrayed by a group of individuals …, a decision has been made to temporarily prevent similar attire to be worn to future events”.

Proposed Oxford College Name Change after Vietnamese Bikini Airline Tycoon Collapses

The proposed name change of an Oxford College to Thao College has been dropped after a promised £155 million donation from the owner of VietJet, the budget airline popularly known as Bikini Airlines due to promotional stunts involving models in two-piece swimsuits, collapsed. According to The Telegraph, alumni were told that the college no longer expects to receive the funds due to restrictions on outward donations imposed by the Vietnamese government. This week, The Telegraph has since revealed reports that Linacre College were ‘warned about Vietnamese tycoon’s business dealings’.

Schools and Colleges

A Digital Headmaster?

 The Cottesmore School in West Sussex, a £32000 private school, has introduced an AI chatbot as its new ‘headteacher’. The addition of the robot, called Abigail Bailey, to the teaching roster comes months after the school also advertised for a head of AI – which it also awarded to a chatbot. The move follows a series of unconventional educational steps taken by private schools. The £24,000-a-year Latymer Upper School in Hammersmith announced, last month, that it would drop all GCSEs except from English and Mathematics and the private Bedales school in East Hampshire also announced plans to move pupils onto its own ‘Bedales Assessed Courses’ in most subjects.

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