Four-year degree likely to replace primary diploma
- The Scottish Education Department seems poised to bow to prevailing educational opinion and introduce a four-year primary degree to replace the three-year primary diploma. This would reverse its seven-year-long commitment, largely on grounds of cost, to a three-year degree. An SED spokesman refused to confirm this, but said the Secretary of State remained committed towards all-graduate entry for the teaching profession.
Computer firm agrees to hire programmer
- A step forward in the provision of microcomputers to Scotland’s primaries has been announced by the government’s Scottish Microelectronics Development Programme. Research Machines Ltd will finance the employment of a programmer to handle enquiries from teachers. SMDP hopes this will pressurise the manufacturers of two other micros the government will help supply to primary schools, the Sinclair-Spectrum and BBC Model B.
Teacher cleared of assault
- A woman teacher was found not guilty by Dundee Sheriff Court of assaulting an 11-year-old boy. The teacher, 61, had received a complaint from two pupils that the boy had been bullying. On reprimanding him, the boy appeared defiant, so she smacked him on the shoulder to teach him that he should not bully other boys. Sheriff Christie said the boy had not been injured, and had only got what the complaint against him amounted to.
A language for race harmony
- Promoting multicultural policies does not mean setting up special forms of education, said Mr Peter Newsam, chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, at a seminar in Edinburgh. Racial problems had to be dealt with piecemeal, starting with the most obtrusive - language, for example. “I do not know how to redesign the curriculum,” he said. “I know how to knock out things that are discriminatory.”
Refugees occupy school buildings
- The opening of the school year in southern Lebanon has been delayed once again. Observers believe the main reason is the continued occupation of most schools by homeless Palestinian and Lebanese families, and many school buildings damaged or destroyed during the war last June have not been repaired or rebuilt.
