'Should I stay or should I go now?'

Emilia Wilton-Godberfforde is facing a big decision - will she continue working as an academic in UK universities after Brexit?

She is British but her husband is French and they are worried about the uncertainty of their future status and what she calls rising "xenophobia".

They also fear a loss of EU research funding will threaten university jobs.

The universities minister says UK access to EU research budgets will "remain unchanged" until at least 2020.

There are about 36,000 academics from European Union countries working in UK universities - and there are others such as Ms Wilton-Godberfforde who have family links to European researchers and academics.

'Wait and see'

EU nationals are about 17% of the UK's academics - and since the referendum there have been brain drain warnings from universities.

Margaret Gardner, vice-chancellor of Monash University, in Australia, recently said Australian universities were already poaching academics from the UK.

But so far the evidence doesn't show an academic stampede. Instead, it suggests a picture of "wait and see".

"We're nervous. Nothing is made clear about our status. It's promises and half-promises," says Ms Wilton-Godberfforde, who has been a research fellow at the University of Cambridge and is teaching French language and literature for the Open University.

Her husband is a French, Cambridge-educated scientist and they have a young child - and the family is struggling with a sense that Brexit has made them feel "unwelcome".

"It doesn't feel like home," she says.

It's a conversation she says is running through universities - with European staff choosing whether to put down roots or to move away.

Research promise

If Ms Wilton-Godberfforde and her husband choose to stay in the UK, she doesn't know what type of bureaucracy and uncertainty will surround their new status.

And she is "massively upset" at the sense that things are going backwards for her generation - and that barriers are being put up to her mobility.

"It feels like everything is shrinking, we're penalised for looking outwards," she says.

By contrast, Cambridge professor Robert Tombs is pro-Brexit and rejects the link between leaving the EU and xenophobia.

"Britain is not a xenophobic country," he says in a podcast for a group putting the views of pro-Brexit academics.

"Race relations are much better than in most European countries which are solidly in support of the EU.

"There's no simple co-relation between disliking foreigners and not liking the EU."

There are, however, also job worries over Brexit and EU research funding.

And Dr Wilton-Godberfforde says she worries about academics "grappling for grants that no longer exist".

The Universities Minister, Sam Gyimah this week gave assurances that UK universities would have the full benefits of the current research round, even though it stretches beyond the UK's departure date from the EU.

Even if there was no deal, the UK government had promised to underwrite any commitments, he said, answering an MP's question.

"This guarantees funding for UK participants in projects ongoing at the point of exit," said Mr Gyimah.

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The 100bn euro question

But there is even more EU research money at stake from 2021 - about 100bn euros in the next round - and so far not much clarity about the UK's access to this.

The UK's universities, highly rated by international standards, have been among the biggest winners of EU funding, net beneficiaries by about 3.4bn euros in the most recent round.

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.

Children exposed to horror film ads on YouTube

Children were left distressed after seeing ads for a horror film on YouTube, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has revealed.

Three parents contacted the ASA after their children saw ads for Insidious: The Last Key - rated 15 in the UK.

One ad for the film was shown before videos of songs from Frozen, instructions for building a Lego fire station and a clip from the cartoon PJ Masks.

The ASA has upheld the complaints.

In a second ad, the ASA said a young woman was seen "lying on a floor immobile, bloodied and distressed while a humanoid creature crept towards her and then probed at her with claw-like fingers and pierced her skin".

Screaming women

Further horror-themed imagery followed, including a sequence of women screaming.

This ad played before two videos of Minecraft, a game popular with children.

Sony Pictures and Sony-owned Columbia Pictures, which promoted the film, told the ASA they had excluded unknown audiences and children from their targeting.

The BBC understands that a follow-up probe by Sony indicated that YouTube's content categorising algorithms were at fault.

The Google-owned streaming service, however, said that advertisers were responsible for own their campaigns.

The video site added the ads had not appeared on YouTube Kids, an app aimed specifically at children that offers a filtered selection of YouTube content.

"We considered the ads were unsuitable for children because they were excessively frightening and shocking, and were likely to cause fear and distress," the ASA said in its ruling.

The ASA also received three complaints from adults who found the ads unduly distressing. And it noted that the ads had appeared before unrelated content, with no warning and could not be skipped until five seconds had elapsed.

The regulator has told Sony Pictures to ensure that future ads are appropriately targeted.

The firm declined to comment.

But the BBC understands that it is now limiting its ads for mature content to a pre-vetted list of safe YouTube channels.

Student suicide increase warning

The suicide rate among UK students is higher than among the general population of their age group, claim researchers.

The study, to be presented next month at the International Suicide Prevention Conference in New Zealand, has analysed figures for student suicides between 2007 and 2016.

But the Office for National Statistics cautions that "year-to-year differences could reflect change in the population of students across time as opposed to change in the risk of suicide".

There has been much concern about mental health worries on university campuses - but it has often been argued that suicide rates for students have been lower than the general population.

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Rise in mental health problems

"Concerns about students' mental health have been increasing since the economic recession, but until now there has been no comprehensive analysis of UK student suicide data," said Edward Pinkney, who has tracked student suicide data and co-authored the analysis.

"This is the first time we can conclusively say that as far as suicide is concerned, there is a real problem in higher education," he said.

There have been warnings about anxiety and mental health worries among university students.

A report published in autumn showed the numbers of students disclosing mental health problems had increased fivefold in a decade.

The analysis - from the Institute of Public Policy Research - showed higher rates of problems among female students.

Sir Anthony Seldon, vice-chancellor of the University of Buckingham and a campaigner on student well-being, said: "Student suicide rates and emotional distress levels could be reduced at university if we acted differently.

"More support in transitions, better tutoring and early warning, more peer to peer support, an enhanced sense of belonging, would all enhance wellbeing and reduce risk.

"We are obsessed by reactive policy once students hit the bottom of the waterfall; we need to be putting preventative policies in place to prevent them ever tipping over the edge," said Sir Anthony

Foreign students: Home Office axes 'unusable' survey

 Home Office advisory committee has ditched research assessing the impact of international students after academics labelled it "unethical".

The survey, set up by the Migration Advisory Committee (Mac), which informs Home Office policy, asked for students' views on international classmates.

But it could be completed by anyone and some said it posed "loaded" questions.

A Mac spokesman stressed the survey was "not designed to be discriminatory", but confirmed it was being withdrawn.

"Following online commentary it has become apparent to us that we will be unable to use the responses to the survey," the spokesman said.

The committee defended the survey, saying it was "simply an attempt to ask students for their experiences" and "had the potential to show a very positive view of international students in the UK".

However, on Thursday, it concluded the survey "cannot now be used to add to our evidence base".

Prof Tanja Bueltmann‏, a professor of migration history at Northumbria University, said the survey was "completely invalid and must never be used as evidence to inform policy".

Is this fake?

She said she had urged the Home Office and the committee to scrap it or disregard it.

"Initially, I thought it must be some sort of fake thing - because of the nature of the questions," she said.

It asked students to assess whether the impact of international students on their course was negative, positive or neutral.

It also asked if students lived with any international students or studied with any on their course.

The survey was being posted by universities, who were encouraging students to fill it in and was due to close at the end of May.

he survey was part of work commissioned by former Home Secretary Amber Rudd, after the government came under pressure to remove international students from net migration targets.

In her commissioning letter of August 2017, she said the committee had never undertaken a full assessment of the impact of international students.

"We would like to have an objective assessment of the impact of international students which includes consideration of both EU and non-EU students at all levels of education," the letter said.

"This assessment should go beyond the direct impact of students in the form of tuition fees and spending, including consideration of their impact on the labour market and the provision and quality of education provided to domestic students.

"This should give the government an improved evidence base for any future decisions whilst the ONS goes through the process of reviewing the contribution it thinks students are making to net migration."

Before the survey was decommissioned, a spokesman for the Mac had said it was part of its ongoing work looking at the impact of international students in the UK

Oxford University involved in Twitter row with David Lammy

 Oxford University has apologised to David Lammy after retweeting a post labelling his criticism "bitter".

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