University of Cambridge study finds AI-powered toys can misread emotions and respond inappropriately to children

It was all going well. Charlotte, five, was chatting with an AI soft toy called Gabbo at a London play centre about her family, her drawing of a heart to represent them and what makes her happy. She even offered a couple of kisses to the £80 toy with a face like a computer screen.

It...

A union says schools should practise emergency responses as they do with routine fire drills.

Rudeness, social media posts and AI-generated complaints among issues harming staff wellbeing, union survey finds

Teachers are used to outbreaks of rudeness and defiance from their pupils, but are now saying parents are some of the worst offenders and affecting staff mental health, according to a headteachers’ union.

More than 90% of headteachers and other senior leaders said they had been on...

Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube and Roblox are among the platforms UK regulators say aren’t putting children’s safety at the heart of their products.

A panel found that geography teacher Roger Towersey’s behaviour was “clearly unprofessional”.

The college said checks found more than 20 GCSE English tests had been marked wrong.

Influential Treasury committee chair Meg Hillier says review follows growing concern over graduate debt

UK firms struggling to hire young people amid cost pressures, MPs told

Young adults in the UK face a “perfect storm” of economic challenges, the head of the influential Treasury select committee has warned as it launches an inquiry into student loans.

The cross-party committee’s...

The Treasury Committee will look at whether “the goalposts [have] been moved in a way which is unfair”.

The ex-deputy PM told the BBC he would “take on the chin” any criticism surrounding his involvement

As AI has upended the way students learn, academics worry about the future of the humanities – and society at large

Lea Pao, a professor of literature at Stanford University, has been experimenting with ways to get her students to learn offline. She has them memorize poems, perform at recitation events, look at art in the real world.

It’s an effort to reconnect them to the bodily experience...

Psychologist Leanne ten Brinke has spent decades studying toxic personality traits. What are the red flags to look out for among workmates, politicians and potential partners?

Coming face to face with a probable psychopath was enough to make Dr Leanne ten Brinke rethink her career choices. Early in her 20s, while studying forensic psychology in Halifax, in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia,...

Ministers say “bold reforms” for post-16 students will end snobbery and prepare students for work.

Walter ‘Ted’ Carter Jr says he ‘made a mistake in allowing inappropriate access to Ohio State leadership’

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The president of the Ohio State University has resigned following the disclosure of an “inappropriate relationship” to the college’s board of trustees.

In a statement, Walter “Ted” Carter Jr, who had led the...

Planned changes to the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) system in England were announced last month.

As states scale back requirements for comprehensive sex ed, some parents and faith communities are stepping in to teach what schools won’t

When Wendy Pfrenger’s children started high school in the town of Oxford, Mississippi, she had the choice to enroll them in abstinence-only or abstinence-plus sex ed.

Although the abstinence-plus option would include instruction on contraception, neither...

Documentary First They Came for My College goes inside the fight for academic freedom at Florida’s New College

It took a half century to build New College into a sanctuary of independent thought and less than a year to destroy it. In 2023 the beloved Florida liberal arts school became state governor Ron DeSantis’s latest target in his so-called war on woke. DeSantis decimated the school’s...

Adam Tickell, of University of Birmingham, says money is loaned to people who ‘are not really capable of graduating’

A leading vice-chancellor has questioned whether students without A-levels should be eligible for government-backed student loans, as part of an effort to solve England’s university funding crisis.

Adam Tickell, vice-chancellor of the University of Birmingham, said universities...

As part of his Maha agenda, health secretary wants schools to incorporate 40 hours of instruction

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Health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr unveiled a new effort on Thursday aimed at increasing the amount of nutrition education taught in medical schools.

For months, Kennedy has urged medical schools to expand their nutrition curriculum and warned that...

As children dress up in UK and Ireland on Thursday, not everyone is on the same page over event’s pros and cons

Thursday is World Book Day in the UK and Ireland, with many primary schools encouraging children to take part.

However, schools in England are moving away from dressing up for the event due to concerns that the activity could detract from the promotion of reading for pleasure, experts...

In today’s newsletter: Rising debts, frozen thresholds and spiralling interest have left ​millions of graduates questioning whether England’s student finance system still resembles the deal they were promised

Good morning.

In November, Rachel Reeves tucked a freeze to student loan repayment thresholds into her autumn budget, to little fanfare. The threshold, normally expected to rise each tax...

The plans, due to come into force in September, follow support for Benedict’s Law, a campaign to improve allergy safety in schools.