ISC Daily News Summary

Guardian, Times
Dr Anthony Seldon, Master of Wellington College, is interviewed in the Guardian today, arguing that happiness can be taught. Frank Furedi, a Professor of Sociology at the University of Kent, argues that it can't. The Times (section 2) includes a double-page feature on the new science of positive psychology, focusing on Wellington College and the school's wellbeing teacher Ian Morris.
Can we teach people to be happy? (Guardian - education supplement)
Teaching happiness: the classes in wellbeing that are helping our children (Times)

Guardian
Oversubscribed schools are turning to lotteries to decide who gets in. But are they fair? The Guardian investigates. Richard Cairns, headmaster at Brighton College, is quoted.
Lotteries for school admissions (Guardian - education supplement)

Independent, Times, Daily Telegraph, BBC
Further coverage on the proposals to scrap foreign language oral exams, including Comment by Philip Hensher in the Independent: "Abandoning the oral exam can only mean a lowering of the standards required."
How can you learn a language and not speak it? (Independent not online)
The Depardieu approach to French orals (Times not online)
Oral exams are the best way to test language skills (Daily Telegraph not online) 
Shake-up of GCSE language orals (BBC News)

Senior Labour figures have rounded on the Government's testing system, claiming it was robbing children of a creative education and had led to many schools teaching "to the test". Barry Sheerman, chairman of the Commons Select Committee on Children, Schools and Families, told MPs: "It all seems to be in a bit of a mess." He was one of several Labour MPs on the committee who criticised the Government's testing regime in frank exchanges with the Schools minister Jim Knight.
Minister attacked over tests mess (Independent not online)

 

Guardian
Universities are in more debt than at any point in the past decade despite raising billions of pounds through tuition fees, the Guardian has learned. Institutions are borrowing millions to meet ambitious plans to upgrade their campuses, with students demanding better facilities because they pay fees, university finance leaders said. Some universities' spending plans are banking on the government raising the £3,145 cap on tuition fees when it reviews the system in 2009.
Hard times ahead for universities (Guardian - education supplement)
Universities bank on fees hike as debts rise (Guardian)

Guardian
Which fictional school do you like best? The Guardian asks readers where they would like to go to school.
Which fictional school do you like best? (Guardian - education supplement)