Hotter years 'mean lower exam results'

n years with hotter weather pupils are likely to perform less well in exams, says a major study from researchers at Harvard and other US universities.

There is a "significant" link between higher temperatures and lower school achievement, say economic researchers.

An analysis of test scores of 10 million US secondary school students over 13 years shows hot weather has a negative impact on results.

The study says a practical response could be to use more air conditioning.

Heat wave

Students taking exams in a summer heat wave might have always complained that they were hampered by the sweltering weather.

But this study, from academics at Harvard, the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and Georgia State University, claims to have produced the first clear evidence showing that when temperatures go up, school performance goes down.

Researchers have tracked how secondary school students performed in tests in different years, between 2001 and 2014, across the different climates and weather patterns within the US.

The study, published by the US National Bureau of Economic Research, found that students were more likely to have lower scores in years with higher temperatures and better results in cooler years.

This applied across the many different types of climate - whether in cooler northern US states or in the southern states where temperatures are typically much higher.

The study, Heat and Learning, suggested that hotter weather made it harder to study in lessons in school and to concentrate on homework out of school.

Researchers calculated that for every 0.55C increase in average temperature over the year, there was a 1% fall in learning.

Colder days did not seem to damage achievement - but the negative impact began to be measurable as temperatures rose above 21C.

The reduction in learning accelerated once temperatures rose above 32C and even more so above 38C.

Turning up the air conditioning

The study also found the impact of the heat was much greater on low income families and students from ethnic minorities.

There were suggestions that wealthier families and schools in disadvantaged areas were more likely to intervene if pupils were slipping behind and to find ways to compensate, such as extra tuition.

But it says a "simpler explanation" might be greater access to air conditioning in more affluent families and the schools their children attend.

Joshua Goodman, associate professor at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and his co-authors provide evidence that the "heat's disruption of instruction or homework time is responsible for the observed drop in test scores".

He says students were incrementally more likely to be "distracted, agitated and find it harder to focus".

But Mr Goodman says it would have been harder to carry out similar studies in the education systems in the UK, because the differences in weather conditions would have been much narrower.

The wide range of weather conditions in the US allows comparisons within the same year group as well as with test performances in previous years.

Mr Goodman says the findings also raise bigger questions about whether climate change and global warming will have implications for school achievement.

'In school, but learning nothing'

Six out of 10 children and teenagers in the world are failing to reach basic levels of proficiency in learning, warns a hard-hitting report from the United Nations.

The UN describes the findings as "staggering" and representing a "learning crisis".

Much of the focus of international aid in education has been on the lack of access to schools, particularly in poorer countries in sub-Saharan Africa or in conflict zones.

But this new research from the Unesco Institute for Statistics warns of the lack of quality within schools - saying more than 600 million school-age children do not have basic skills in maths and reading.

Huge divide

In sub-Saharan Africa, the research suggests 88% of children and adolescents will enter adulthood without a basic proficiency in reading.

And in central and southern Asia, 81% are not reaching an adequate level in literacy.

The report warns any ambitions for social and economic progress will be stifled without a literate and numerate population.

In North America and Europe, only 14% of young people leave education at such a low

level. But, the UN research suggests, only 10% of the world's school-age children live in these more affluent, developed regions.

"Many of these children are not hidden or isolated from their governments and communities - they are sitting in classrooms," said Silvia Montoya, director of the Unesco Institute for Statistics.

She said the report was a "wake-up call for far greater investment in the quality of education".

This problem of "schooling without learning" was also highlighted by the World Bank in a report this week.

It warned that millions of young people in low- and middle-income countries were receiving an inadequate education that would leave them trapped in low-paid and insecure jobs.

The president of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, introducing the report, said the failures in education for so many represented "a moral and economic crisis".

Researchers warned of pupils in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Nicaragua who after years in school were unable to do simple sums or read simple sentences.

A basic level of proficiency in primary school was reached by 99% of pupils in Japan, but by only 7% of pupils in Mali, they said.

There were also wide gulfs within countries. At the end of primary school in Cameroon, only 5% of girls from the poorest families were at a level to continue with their education, compared with 76% of girls from wealthy families, the report said.

'Sharp rise' in student mental illness tests universities

Almost five times as many students as 10 years ago have disclosed a mental health condition to their university, say researchers.

In 2015-16, more than 15,000 UK-based first-year students disclosed mental health issues, Institute of Public Policy Research analysis suggests.

The 2006 figure was about 3,000 and the rise risks overwhelming university services, the IPPR says.

Universities UK said student mental health was "a strategic priority".

UUK says a new framework, published on Monday, will boost the mental health and wellbeing of students and staff and help embed good mental health across all university activities.

The IPPR study analyses figures from the Higher Education Statistics Agency, which show a larger rise in disclosure of mental health conditions among female students.

Until 2009-10, the rate of male and female students reporting mental health issues was about the same, at about 0.5%.

By 2015, however, it had risen to 2.5% of female students and 1.4% of male students.

"So while male students are three times more likely to disclose a mental health condition than they were 10 years ago, female students are five times more likely," says the report.

The researchers also suggest that "due to an imperfection in the way data is collected, the actual number of mental health disclosures is likely to be higher than described in this report".

The report notes that official statistics show student suicides rose sharply between 2007 and 2015 - from 75 to 134.

And separate figures show a record 1,180 students with mental health problems dropped out of university in 2015, a rise of 210% on five years earlier.

University services

"The extent of support is currently too varied, and many university services are overwhelmed by the level of demand," said IPPR senior research fellow Craig Thorley.

An IPPR survey of UK higher education providers received 58 responses:

• 94% experienced a rise in demand for counselling services in the past five years
• 61% reported a rise in demand of more than 25%
• 29% had an explicit strategy on student mental health and wellbeing

At some universities one in four students is using or waiting to use counselling services, and some report dramatic increases:

• at Leeds University, the report says, there has been a 50% increase in demand during the past five years, with an 18% rise in the past 12 months alone

• the University of Birmingham estimated a 5-6% annual increase in demand throughout the past 10 years

• and the University of Dundee reported an increase in demand of about 70% over eight years
• The authors suggest the current generation of undergraduates could be under greater pressure than previous generations because of increased study costs and an increasingly competitive jobs market, with more students determined to gain top degrees.
  They also suggest that with a greater proportion of 18-year-olds going to university than in the past, students more closely reflect the population of young adults as a whole in terms of mental health - and there has been a steady growth in mental illness in young adults during the past 25 years.
  The report's recommendations include:
  • universities should spend more money on student mental health services
  • better national data on which interventions most improve student mental health
  • better access for students to local NHS services
  Prof Steve West, vice-chancellor of the University of the West of England, who chairs UUK's working group on mental health in higher education, said its new framework was "a step change" in university support for students' mental wellbeing.

Fake news harms children's self-esteem and trust, say MPs

A few weeks ago, Chloe, 13, shared a hoax story about the alleged death of a favourite actor, Sylvester Stallone.

"I thought it was real and shared it with family members. A lot of people were quite upset," she says.

When the truth emerged that Sylvester Stallone was alive and well, Chloe says she felt stupid.

"I should have looked into it a bit more before posting," she adds.

Chloe is not alone, according to a report from a group of MPs which says that falling for fake news can harm children's "wellbeing, trust in journalism and democracy itself".

The all-party parliamentary group on literacy heard evidence that fake news could make children more anxious, damage their self-esteem and skew their world view

Drugs 'used by two in five students'

About two in five students are drug users, says a study from the National Union of Students.

But the students' union argues that students should not be disciplined for "drug-related behaviour that does not constitute a criminal offence".

The most widely used drugs, in a survey of 2,800 students, were cannabis, ecstasy, nitrous oxide and cocaine.

A formal warning was the most common disciplinary action taken by universities over drug use.

The NUS report found drug use to be "a common, although infrequent, behaviour" - with 39% of students using drugs, and cannabis by far the most widely used.

A further 17% had used drugs before, meaning 56% in total had at some time tried them.

Formal warnings escalated

As well as recreational use, there was also a small number of users of "study drugs", intended to keep people concentrating during the exam season.

The report, produced in collaboration with Release, a charity with expertise on drugs and drugs law, argues against a "punitive" approach from university authorities.

nstead of calling the police or imposing punishments for drug-related incidents, the report says students should be given advice and health education.

"Policy responses that focus solely on disciplining students fail to recognise the complex reasons that lead people to use drugs," says the NUS report.

It says there were more than 2,000 incidents last year of "student misconduct for possession of drugs", recorded by universities.

The disciplinary measures were most commonly a formal warning, which could be escalated to a temporary or permanent exclusion.

About a quarter of incidents were reported to police.

'Profoundly damaging'

There have been rising concerns about mental health problems and student well-being - and this report describes students as often seeing drug use in the context of stress and mental health.

About a third of drug users claimed that they were using drugs to reduce stress - while another third claimed that their mental health was worsened by using drugs.

The report says that for some university authorities, drug use is seen "wholly as a problem to be eradicated through suspensions, evictions and surveillance".

"We believe that these punitive measures rarely help," says the report.

"Instead, they make our educational institutions complicit in practices that prevent marginalised and potentially vulnerable students from seeking help and support."

Sir Anthony Seldon, vice-chancellor of the University of Buckingham, said universities needed to take much greater responsibility for making students aware of the risks of drug use.

"It needs to be made far less socially acceptable. They are profoundly damaging on the minds of the young, especially those with a propensity for mental health problems," he said.

'Target pushers'

"Drugs wreck people's minds."

He called for tougher action against "pushers who are making money out of the misery of others".

And he called for more education over drugs, in the manner of health campaigns against tobacco, so that students could "make up their own minds".

Professor Steve West, chairman of Universities UK's mental health working group, said: "Universities cannot address drug misuse alone and, working with the NUS, we need to establish closer working partnerships with schools, employers, the NHS and other statutory services to co-ordinate care for students."