The news that Michael Gove is proposing an "English baccalaureate" to sit alongside GCSEs (Report, 6 September) is to be welcomed by all those who would

Both of them have earned fistfuls of Nobel prizes, have educated enough statesmen to table a string of international summits, and inspired eminent scientists,

Tory "broken Britain" rhetoric has fuelled middle-class anxieties about state schools, an influential thinktank warns today.

The left-leaning

A generation of "cotton wool" children are growing up without being exposed to risky play, experts have warned, as new research finds that parents are

My palms are sweaty and my mouth is dry, but it's more excitement than nerves, though of course the nerves are there, too. I've got my cells out of

See-through academies

Last week Jeevan Vasagar reported that just 32 schools are converting to academy status this term

In the interests

Although the football season is only a few weeks old, it's easy enough to predict which Premier League clubs will be "there or thereabouts" next May.

It's 10 in the morning in a sunny Gloucestershire field, and four teenagers in pristine wellies are gathered excitedly round as a man in office trousers

When it was announced, a few months ago, that there would be a pay freeze for public sector workers, a somewhat sheepish question ran through common

I hope you enjoyed the summer holiday. Good luck for the new school year ? whether you are a pupil, teacher, parent, governor, academic, civil servant,

Combining world class education opportunities with the unique history, culture and the many public resorts, the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts is the best way to spend a beneficial and amusing summer. 

Authors who write about dark or disturbing subjects invariably draw the question: where does that come from? But no one who knows anything about him

"Gulf between private and state schools set to widen" (News) began: "Privately educated pupils are expected to get three times as many of the new A*

A crowd of about 200 people is staring intently at me, cameras poised. My heart is pounding. Charles Lotter, a great bear of a man, presses the loudhailer

Last week's article regarding the Apple MacBook sparked a fiery debate about affordability and the usual battle between Apple and PCs. This week we

Sajid Hussain: Free schools like ours can give students in socially deprived areas a chance for a great educationParents have one opportunity to educate

In 1960, Harold Macmillan announced the abandonment of Britain\'s colonial aspirations with his famous "wind of change" speech. The empire had become

It was gratifying to read about Elaine Costigan, the Tory councillor who defected to Labour over her party\'s education policies and the shoddy way

Courtesy to Read More

Last Thursday was a great day for conspiracy theorists. The story goes like this: the head of the BBC, Mark Thompson, went into Downing Street to meet

This will not be an easy column to write. I am about to put down 1,200 words in support of a book that starts by attacking me and often returns to this

The solemnisation of matrimony, best loved and known of the Book of Common Prayer's occasional offices, looks backward and forward. The rite recapitulates,

Dear Dr Mander

I am a middle-aged man with a successful political career. But I have an embarrassing predilection. I sometimes wear baseball caps.

Cosmologists are agreed that the universe began with a big bang 13.7 billion years ago. People naturally want to know what caused it. A simple answer

"Dear Sir: Your astonishment's odd; / I am always about in the quad." This was the divine response, as imagined by Ronald Knox, to the inquisitive undergraduate

Rebel shareholders have opened fire on music shops chain HMV over its management of Waterstone's, Britain's largest books retailer. Investors want HMV

Here's a problem for any new school: what to call yourself. Do you opt for an iconic figure from history? Or what about a name which reflects the school's

Bryozoans make unlikely prophets of doom. Nevertheless, scientists believe these tiny marine creatures, which live glued to the side of boulders, rocks

The soaring price of wheat has raised questions about the UK's commitment to biofuels as it attempts to wean itself from its dependence on oil.

A

Courtesy to guardian.co.uk.

The enduring mystery of why men rarely flatter themselves when they take to the dancefloor may finally have been solved.

A team of psychologists

British scientists must improve their links with industry and earn more from the patenting and licensing of their discoveries, business secretary Vince

Recent reports suggested that a German restaurant was looking for diners willing to donate body parts that it said it would turn into gourmet meals

On the Today programme at 0750 this morning the business secretary Vince Cable was asked about suggested spending cuts of 35% to science spending. In

Under the previous government, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) ran a campaign called Science: So What? So Everything (SSW).

While commuting into the lab the other day, I couldn't help overhearing an animated discussion between two men across the train carriage from me. From

I won't make a habit of writing about my meals. But yesterday I had a very nice dinner, most notable to me for the presence of Professor Peter Higgs*.

One of the criticisms I often get from homeopathy supporters is that I don't really understand it. I'm not an expert in the mystical art, so how on

Courtesy to guardian.co.uk<

When new governments begin to rationalise the structures of their forebears, quangos are always top of the list. This usually precedes a point where

A former boarding school headmaster who sexually and physically abused boys during the late 1970s and early 1980s was today jailed for 21 years.

Derek

One international student in five remains in the UK after their initial visa has expired, according to Home Office research published today.

The

Jefferson Thomas, who as a teenager was among nine black students to integrate a Little Rock high school in America's first major battle over school

Harvard today forfeits first place to the University of Cambridge in a league table of the world\'s top institutions, the first time in the list\'s

Alexander Chancellor offers the excited revelation (G2, 3 September) that online shopping is cheaper than shopping "in any other way". They\'re called

It happens like this: when you come to the end of the first page of Damon Galgut\'s superlative novel, In a Strange Room, you read its final sentence

Courtesy to gu

As well as making becoming a household name for his work as a writer and actor in comedy shows such as The Fast Show, Charlie Higson has had a parallel

Lionel Shriver's absolutely right, of course (I write a nasty book. And they want a girly cover on it, 3 September). There's no rational reason why

Superficially, Brooklyn is a book in which very little happens. Don't, as I almost did, let that put you off.

It tells simply of the move a young

Zombies, centaurs and Robert Mugabe all feature on the shortlist of a prize for teenage reading that ranges far and wide, in terms of both geography

No Mitchell? The Books desk's sharp intake of breath was surely echoed throughout the bookerverse when today's Man Booker shortlist was announced. David

Fourteen years after I finished school, there's still something about September which feels like the start of the year, and I'm nostalgic this morning

Viewed from one angle Ralph Miliband was a theorist of revolution who failed to notice the radical transformations going on around him. A lifelong Marxist,

Tim Waterstone is explaining to me why he has a problem with the word entrepreneur, a distaste that I\'ve seen ascribed to him on several occasions

The experience of reading books on an iPad is disconcertingly beautiful. It has rapidly become the favourite use of this dazzling gadget in our house.

Title of experiment: Examination of Plays about Science.

Purpose: To determine why so few good plays about maths and science are written, when

Up and down the beach, young western men are unzipping their shorts and peeing into the Gulf of Thailand. Behind them, under the light of the full moon,

I started writing poetry because I was mad with boredom. I was in hospital [with thyroid problems] and they wouldn't let me have my phone or papers.

The following correction was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and clarifications column, Wednesday 8 September 2010

The feature below chronicling

When I look in the mirror, I see a 10cm scar across my brow. It's new and I'm still getting used to it. Very conveniently, it runs the length of my

Today the Council for Industry and Higher Education\'s taskforce for the creative, digital and information technology industries releases its report,

Bang Goes the Theory7.30pm, BBC1What\'s that WSSSSSHH sound? It\'s the collective sound of popular science fans drawing breath at the return of BGTT.

Brian May lives in – shout it! – Surrey, not too far from the golf course at Wentworth, which I suppose is wholly predictable (where else would

Courtesy to guardian.co.uk.

Tony Blair yesterday took a last-minute decision to cancel his key book signing in central London because of security fears, after unrest at

Tony Blair is considering cancelling a book signing in London after eggs and shoes were thrown at him at a similar event in Dublin.

Blair said

The education secretary, Michael Gove, today announced plans to combat the decline in exam standards by proposing an English baccalaureate qualification

One of the joys of language is that sometimes it is the little things that trigger the most intense debate. Such as one little word: "no". Or, more

The basicsEveryone's favourite psychologically scarred, battle-hardened punk hacker, Lisbeth Salander, returns to exact further vengeance on any misogynistic

The typical footballer's understanding of the three Rs might normally extend no further than studying the flicks and tricks of Rooney, Ronaldo and Ronaldinho.

One of the most entertaining recent books on bridge is Moments of Truth at the Bridge Table by the Indian writer R Jayaram. Bridge is very popular in

The movement in favour of systematic training for girls in domestic arts is extending all along the line. In the elementary schools cookery and kindred

The outbreak of plague in Glasgow and Govan is one of the most remarkable events of recent years. The prevailing feeling of the average Englishman has

Singapore's long-serving administration has won some time to ponder how it will deal with yet another self-inflicted blow to its global branding.

The

Courtesy to guardian.co.uk.

Today, we've launched a new front page for Societyguardian.co.uk.

This follows recent changes to our Educationguardian.co.uk, business, world,

Moab is my Washpot, Stephen Fry's autobiography of his early years, was was a huge bestseller when it was published 13 years ago. Since then, Fry