Business Secretary Vince Cable says in a key speech that his mother's mind was saved by adult education.

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PITTSBURGH, - Carnegie Mellon University President Jared L. Cohon supports U.S. President Barack Obama's call today for investment in education and innovation to build a new and stronger foundation for the nation's economy - one that will allow America to maintain a strategic edge globally.

University Lauds President's Call for Investment in Innovation, Education

"This administration clearly understands the importance of investing in education, research and innovation and what that investment provides to the country in terms of economic growth," Cohon said. "President Obama understands perfectly that it's the key to growth and he understands government must play a key role in making those investments."

Cohon made his remarks after Obama delivered a speech to more than 300 people at Carnegie Mellon's Pittsburgh campus. It was the second time that Obama has visited Carnegie Mellon. He made a campaign stop on June 26, 2008, when he hosted a forum of industry leaders as part of a summit on ensuring America's competitiveness in the global economy.

"We are very honored that President Obama chose Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon as the venue for his speech today," Cohon said. "As the president said, Pittsburgh is a leading example of an industrial city that has transformed itself economically, and I think the administration recognizes that Carnegie Mellon is a major actor in that ongoing transformation."

In his speech, Obama mentioned the potential to create new businesses in fields such as education technology and advanced medical devices. Cohon noted that both Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh have worked together to generate new companies in these very fields.

"Pittsburgh affirms the president's vision that to invest in the future of research is to make a down payment on job creation," Cohon said.

More than 1,000 schools in England have contacted the government to express interest in becoming an academy, says the education secretary.

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Pretoria – The Gauteng Department of Education is determined to ensure that pupils in the province are at the top of their class, setting aside more than R17-billion to improve their performance.

Tabling the department’s budget at the Gauteng Legislature on Tuesday, Education MEC Barbara Creecy said the largest slice of the R22.48 billion budget would go to public primary and secondary schools.

The R17.1-billion will be spent mainly on infrastructure and interventions to improve pupil’s performances but will also go towards the salaries of new teachers.

The money will also be used to provide and maintain decent school buildings, support the no-fee policy, and provide nutrition.

Further Education Training (FET) Colleges were also prioritised in the budget.

The MEC said that R919-million would be allocated to FETs in order to address the skills shortage and to improve young adults’ access to the working world.

On the other end of the scale, Early Childhood Development programmes will receive a cash injection of R 557-million.

“This is consistent with the need to expand early childhood and Grade R learning opportunities for young children across the province,” Creecy added.

One of the immediate priorities of the department was to better the Grade 12 results.

“We have set ourselves a target: 80 percent Grade 12 pass rate by 2014,” the MEC said.

She added that the department had identified a number of challenges that needed to be tackled in order to improve the pass rate and new interventions would be applied across the entire system.

“With greater and more focused attention given to the foundation and primary stages of education, the system will produce more learners who are better prepared for Grade 12,” Creecy said.

The department also outlined its mathematics, science and technology (MST) strategy, in which it had invested more than R100-million.


Creecy said the strategy was implemented to grow the pool of graduates in these fields.

“Over the medium term, the MST Strategy will provide significant post-school stream of new entrants into the economy, directly and via higher education and training. It will also ensure that the province has a pool of highly competent and highly motivated mathematics, science and technology teachers,” she added.

A similar strategy would be implemented to improve literacy results at the cost of R155 million.

In the 2011 academic year the department is expected to open 11 new schools.

Construction on another 17 schools is also expected to start this year. - BuaNews

The head of the university lecturers' union warns members could opt for a national strike over redundancies

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University staff reject any move to introduce two-year degrees, warning that they would lead to "academic sweatshops".

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A charity says more lecturers and college staff are seeking support for work-related issues.

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Outstanding schools in England will no longer face routine Ofsted inspections, the new education secretary says.

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One Laptop per Child, a global organization whose mission is to help provide every child in the world access to a modern education, and Marvell, a worldwide leader in integrated silicon solutions

For Full Story on Teach-the-Brain.org News click link...

Reason to panic, daytime drama fans? Disney ABC/Television Group announced today that it will pop the bubble on SOAPnet in January 2012 to make way for Disney Junior, a new 24-hour cable/satellite channel devoted to preschool children. In making the announcement, Disney Media Networks Co-Chair Anne Sweeney said the decision to shutter the cable channel was "not arrived at lightly," but that new viewing patterns have all but deemed the network obsolete.</img> </img> </img> </img> </img>


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