Expulsion for ‘hackers’ who ‘changed their marks’
A school in California, US, has expelled 11 students after they were accused of hacking teachers’ computers and changing their marks. It is believed that “keyloggers” - devices or software that record the keystrokes of people using a computer - were used to help students gain access. Police want to interview a 28-year-old private tutor in connection with the incident. The school, Corona Del Mar High in Newport Beach, said it was investigating the scope of the cheating scandal and is reportedly re-examining 750,000 grades.
Extra funds to increase autonomy in state schools
The Australian government is to spend AUS$70 million (#163;38 million) to help a quarter of the country’s state schools become more independent by 2017. The funds will be used to train school leaders to run their schools with more control over the curriculum, budget and management. Education minister Christopher Pyne said that autonomous schools led to better student outcomes. But the Australian Education Union opposed the move, saying it would not boost student performance and was worse than doing nothing. “Christopher Pyne is actively pulling apart our public education system,” claimed Correna Haythorpe, AEU deputy president.
Student arrested after two dead in school shooting
A teenager has shot dead a teacher and a police officer and held a class of nearly 30 secondary students hostage in Moscow. The 15-year-old, named as Sergei Gordeyev, was persuaded by his father to release the captives and turn himself in. Russian investigators said he was an excellent student who appeared to have had an “emotional breakdown”. Russian president Vladimir Putin, who was in a meeting with theatre workers when asked to comment on the incident, suggested that improved arts education could help to prevent such tragedies.
More cash for primary sport in Olympic legacy drive
Primary schools in England will receive an additional #163;750 million for sport between now and the 2020 Olympics to help secure the legacy of the London 2012 Games, prime minister David Cameron has announced. Mr Cameron said that the #163;150 million-a-year physical education and sport premium for primaries, which was launched last September and is due to run until 2015-16, will be extended for a further five years to 2020. The premium goes direct to school leaders, who decide how best to use it to provide sporting activities for students.
Mandela honours school’s role in fight for freedom
Nelson Mandela has bequeathed money to a school at the centre of the historic Soweto uprising in 1976. The former South African president, who died in December aged 95, left 100,000 rand (#163;5,530) to Orlando West High School in Soweto, in consideration of “the role the students and teachers played in the struggle for the liberation of South Africa”. Mr Mandela left the same amount of money to two schools he attended as a boy and to Qunu Secondary, a school in the village where he grew up but which he did not attend.
