| 23/09/04 Research Assessment Exercise SBS today welcomed the House of Commons Science Committee's report on the Research Assessment Exercise and urged the Higher Education Funding Councils to act "without delay," as the report demands, to help universities plan for the future. "Having studied the issue in details, the MPs agree with SBS that it is crazy that universities will not be given any indication in advance how their scores in the RAE game will be turned into financial rewards," said Dr Peter Cotgreave, Director of SBS. The referee is not telling the players the rules of the game until after it's all over. In fact, the referees, in the form of the Funding Councils, say they're not even going to decide what the rules are until the game is over. It's like living in Alice's Wonderland and the Funding Councils have been told by the MPs that it's not good enough. We just hope they listen". 14/09/04 Science in Scottish schools Children in Scotland are missing out on science lessons because of a lack of equipment, according to a major survey published today by Save British Science today. "We found that 73% of Scottish schools do not have enough mone for larger pieces of laboratory equipment, and around half of them are cancelling practical classes because their labs are not kitted out properly," said Rosemary Davies of SBS. "This is a real problem, because the Scottish Executive has a strategy of a rejuvenating the economy by building a Smart Scotland. It won’t succeed if teachers can’t deliver high quality science lessons because they don’t have the equipment they need."
10/09/04 Policy research in Scotland
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