Festive greetings

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Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all my dear readers.

Should women be allowed to wear the veil in court?

Baroness Hale, deputy president of the UK Supreme Court, has recently highlighted the importance of seeing faces in court, when women are testifying or in case the issue of identity or recognition is at risk.

The urgency to be firm in such regard follows a recent family law case, where Lady Hale had to deal with a woman who was found to be misleading the court when she was asked to remove her niqab.

Britain’s most senior female judge believes it would not have been so obvious the woman was lying, if she had only been able to see her eyes, rather than her facial expressions.

This firm approach is not meant to stop people behaving according to their sincerely held religious reasons, as long as they do not do any harm.

However, as soon as a veil perverts the course of justice while giving evidence in court, tougher measures must be put into place.

In 2013 Prime Minister David Cameron had a say on such a contentious subject, declaring he would have considered introducing specific guidelines to judges on when they could ask people to remove their veil in court. 

No actual policy has followed so far, though.

Big changes ahead for GCSE exams

A new era is set to begin for GCSE tests.  

First of all, there will be much tougher English and Maths GCSE exams from 2017 and students are expected to spend three years, instead of the usual two, studying these two crucial subjects.

Changes will also affect both the maximum number of GCSEs pupils will take, reducing from 12 to 8, and the grading system.

In fact, the exam papers will be graded from 1 to 9, with 9 as the top mark, in place of the traditional A* to G grades. According to exams regulator Ofqual, the move will allow greater differentiation at the top end.

At the same time, dozens of subjects including human biology, performing arts and environmental science are expected to disappear from the curriculum by 2017, because too similar to their mainstream equivalents.

With such a revolutionary change on the way, the new Education Secretary Nicky Morgan has warned young people that choosing to study science would keep their options open, while art subjects could hold them back for the rest of their lives.

Meanwhile, Ofqual has confirmed it is making changes to GCSEs and that schools will begin teaching according to the new system in September 2015.

Empty council homes to be sold and brought back to life

New measures have been put in place to fight the housing shortage in London.

The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Eric Pickles, has urged town halls across the capital to list their property stocks by April 2015, in order to sell all those empty homes worth more than £1million.

The move would allow the councils to sell the expensive vacant buildings and therefore reinvest the money into new homes for hundreds of families who are currently on the waiting list for the social housing.

Details of the high-priced properties are expected to be published by postcode, in order to keep track of the value of the buildings in different parts of the city.

Mr Pickles has taken the chance to emphasize Southwark council’s empty homes initiative. Last October, in fact, the borough has sold one four-story building for £3million, in order to fund the construction of twenty new homes.

Good news come from the property experts, who have announced most of the inhabited social housing in the capital are worth over £1million and on top of that, hundreds of them are available.

While the Government is willing to seriously invest in social projects, independent charity Empty Homes has been working hard since 1992, to bring empty homes back into use.

Their 2013 report clearly shows the results of consistent campaigning activities during the previous year, when they obtained pledges to get 182 empty homes into use all over the UK.

UK needs more apprenticeships

Sir Michael Wilshaw, head of Ofsted and chief inspector of schools in England, has declared that UK employers should do more for young British people.

During the CBI Conference held yesterday in Cambridge, Sir Michael stressed that companies have the ‘moral imperative’ to train young nationals instead of employing skilled people from abroad.

There are currently 146,000 job vacancies in the UK which cannot be filled by British unemployed citizens, due to lack of skilled candidates.

This is why businesses should set up apprenticeships and engage with schools and colleges all over the UK, to tell students about vacancies.

The 2011 Census data recently released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), show that 63 per cent of the 6 million foreign-born population aged 16 to 64 were in employment, only a slightly lower level than the UK-born population, 69 per cent.

Also, those arrived between 2007 and 2011 were more highly qualified than immigrants who had been in the UK for longer and therefore, were more likely to work in highly skilled posts.

The main problem, however, stays within the vocational education system which, according to the head of Ofsted, is nationally perceived as a second choice and does not hold the same esteem as a university qualification.

Apprenticeships, instead, should be seen as an alternative to A-levels and be promoted accordingly.

From this perspective, many job vacancies would be easily turned into apprenticeships, now that the economy is finally improving.

Schools, on the other side, are supposed to prioritise spending on their career service and bound to local businesses. At present, only one out of five British schools are offering career advisors, according to a recent Ofsted report.

“We are streets behind other European countries in our provision of vocational education.  Norway, Germany and Switzerland do it excellently. The curriculum of their vocational education courses are formulated by businesses and intake levels are dictated by market demand”, Sir Michael declared.