Top stories

• Privatisation threatens UK's reputation for education excellence, warns union The fastest growing privatisation in Europe is threatening the UK's proud international reputation for educational excellence, warns the world's largest post-16 education union today.

• People's lawyer and 24/7 tutor big winners in Life Changers awards A political refugee from Strathclyde who established law clinics to provide legal advice for people with nowhere else to turn and a tutor from Stoke on Trent who works all hours to meet the needs of her students were the big winners at the UCU's Life Changers awards last night.

• Government must tackle the failure of a third of employers to provide any training UCU commented today on the prime minister's legislative programme, including a new Education and Skills Bill

• Private company pulls the plug on prison education in face of financial loss A private company that took charge of education and training in eight Kent prisons has terminated its contract a year early in the face of a hefty financial loss.

• Flawed finances used to justify redundancies, say Northampton University lecturers Lecturers at Northampton University today warned that they would fight any job cuts in the history department and called the financial reasoning behind the proposed redundancies 'flawed'.

• Unions reject FE pay offer The six further education unions representing 250,000 members have today rejected the employers (Association of Colleges) pay offer of 2.5%.