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This article discusses the development of education policy under the Labour Party in Great Britain. A white paper released by Ed Balls, the secretary of state for children, schools, and families, on June 30, 2009 describes education reforms designed to increase the scope of student evaluation, provide students with remedial and advanced classes, and create a teaching license renewal system. The Labour Party plan for school reform is criticised for micromanaging teacher performance.

The article reports that October's education white paper set out a vision of "independent state schools" managing their own admissions and finances, competing to attract parents and free to expand to meet demand. Private schools, including religious ones, will find it easier to move into the state sector, and failing schools will have to improve within a year or risk being closed or taken over. These proposals are facing strong opposition from many Labour MPs.

The article discusses why top universities in Britain are getting interested in journalism. Oxford University is planning to set up a journalism institute. The scheme is not an attempt to cash in on the popularity of "media studies", but a high-minded plan to use the university's clout to improve standards in British journalism. The idea has some heavyweights behind it--Timothy Garton Ash, an Oxford professor and journalist, Tim Gardam, a former director of programmes at Channel Four and now principal of St Anne's college, the Reuters Foundation, an educational charity linked to the news agency, Alan Rusbridger, editor of the "Guardian," and John Lloyd, a senior journalist at the "Financial Times." All believe that there is a problem with the quality of British journalism. One issue is its silliness--the obsession with celebrity gossip and manufactured scandal that has spread from the popular papers to the qualities. Another issue is intrusion. Oxford is not the only institution interested in this issue. The London School of Economics is the best-known of several universities that are improving their media-studies programmes.

Focuses on efforts of Prime Minister Tony Blair to reform public services in Great Britain. View that Blair has spent little on education reform and secondary schools; Discussion of the paper 'Achieving Success'; Hopes of the government that a number of secondary schools will specialize in subjects such as math and science.