Many teachers and lecturers will welcome the new and improved version of The Times 100, an excellent and lavishly produced resource. Just as pleasing is the fact that once again it is to be sent free to schools and colleges.

The pack contains an introduction, a teacher’s guide, an indication of the curriculum areas covered by the cases, a section detailing the content in The Times business news and 53 case studies. There is also a CD-Rom that carries additional information on each of the contributor companies.

The cases are attractive, accessible and interesting. They are especially useful for GNVQs, where up-to-date, real-world comparative material can be hard to find. Whether they cover the full ability range across GCSE and A-level is more doubtful and, while the “Curriculum Guide” provides illustrations of where topics can be found, a working knowledge of each case would be required to make full use of them.

It is suggested that further work can be carried out by visiting the Web sites of the com-panies, but no addresses are given. Also, the additional information on the CD-Rom would benefit from a contents page on each organisation to save scrolling through all the data.

The material suffers from the limitations one might expect when companies are given the opportunity for self-promotion. Now that we are all encouraged to consider values in our class-rooms, perhaps the first lesson before using this should be to examine why The Times and the other organisations profiled are making such a generous contribution to education.

* David Lines is a lecturer in business and economics education at the Institute of Education, University of London