Education Resources

The study of religious belief systems, including Christian theology, Islam, Buddhism

What will I learn?
Rightly or wrongly, religion has played a major role in political and international events over the past few years, so understanding why things are said and done in the name of a higher being is more important now than it has ever been.

Despite claims that God is dead, the vast majority of the world's population profess faith in some form of deity, so religious studies is still a vibrant degree to study.

Depending on the course, you will learn the traditions of the world's major religions - Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism.

You will study their historical, theological, anthropological and sociological implications. You will learn when and why religions have clashed in the past, which may help you understand how they coexist today.

As well as the nuts and bolts of a religion (what people believe and how they express their beliefs), your course should examine how religion impacts on people's lives, how they behave, why they don't eat certain food and abstain from sex, for example.

You will examine sacred religious texts, looking at who wrote them and how they have been interpreted over the years, and the cultural implications of translation.

You may get the chance to explore the weighty issues of women in ministry, homosexuality and the church, theories of creation and religious extremism.

Theology, meanwhile, will focus specifically on Christianity, and while a religious faith is not required to study it, people considering a career in church ministry often take these degrees. In fact, some theology departments are attached to Bible and theology colleges that train church leaders, so courses will often involve some work experience in a local church or Christian organisation.

Some universities offer joint degrees, so you could take religious studies with a relevant subject, such as history or philosophy.

What skills will I get?
You should graduate with an empathy and understanding of the world's different faiths and beliefs, skills of increasing value in today's world.

You should be able to critically debate the hot topics concerned with each religion, and why the belief systems of one religion can be at odds with those of another. Crucially, you should know how to discuss these issues with respect for other people's views.

As with other degrees, you should be able to work independently and in a group. And you will have good written, presentation and research skills.

You should also be able to know the meaning behind the texts you study and understand how translation and time can alter them. Who knows, you may pick up a bit of Aramaic or Hebrew along the way.

Theology students, who will usually give other religions more of a passing glance than detailed study, should graduate with a sound understanding of Christianity - the tenets of the faith, the writings in the Bible, and the structures of the church, for example.

What jobs can I get?
As a religious studies graduate you will have plenty of valuable skills to offer an employer and will be equipped to enter professions such as law, journalism or education, or in more pastoral work, such as counselling, mediation and negotiation or social work. Graduates are also founding in charity work, personnel and accountancy.

After a little more training, theology graduates are found in pulpits of various denominations across the land, or working for a church in other roles, such as community ministers or youth work.

What will look good on the CV?
· Empathy and imaginative insight
· The ability to gather, evaluate and synthesise different types of information
· The ability to attend closely to the meaning of written documents.

For the full range of skills you can develop through a degree in religious studies click here (pdf).

Care of the sick and injured - includes nursing and medical technology

What will I learn?
All nursing courses, both diplomas and degrees, teach a core number of topics in the first year, before allowing students to specialise in one of four areas - adult, learning disabilities, mental health or children's nursing.

Courses will comprise 50% theory and 50% practice in hospitals, and whether you decide to study a three-year diploma or a three or four-year degree in nursing, you will graduate with both an academic and professional qualification allowing you to practice.

Before deciding whether to study a diploma in nursing or a degree consider where you want your career to go in the future. If you want to apply for senior level positions or work in education or management at some point you will need to have completed the degree programme. The Guardian university tables only relate to nursing degrees.

During your studies you will learn what is needed to assist doctors and help patients and families with their healthcare needs.

If after working as a nurse you decide to become a midwife you can take a specialised course that will build on your existing skills. Alternatively, you can study for a diploma or degree in midwifery with no prior nursing qualification.

During your training as a midwife, you will learn how babies develop, how to help deliver babies and how to support women and their families during and after pregnancy.

What skills will I get?
Yes, you will have to empty a few bedpans, but you will probably be the first point of contact with patients so will have the important job of putting them - and their families - at ease. You will have developed diligence and patience and the ability to stay calm in a crisis.

You will have learned how to assist on procedures, look after patients as they undergo treatment, and advise them on managing their health.

You will know the ethical and moral implications of the job, knowing when to make your own decisions and when to call on a superior.

You should have developed good communication skills, particularly if a doctor forgets his or her bedside manners in the rush to see other patients.

You will be able to manage your time, know how to prioritise and be able to work in a team.

As a midwife you will also have learned how to assess the needs of women and to exercise judgment over what is best for the mother and baby.

What job can I get?
Nursing graduates will be qualified to work in hospitals, community health centres, GP practices, or mental health units.

Midwives will also be qualified to work in women's homes, clinics or in other settings within a health or social care team.

What will look good on the CV?
· The ability to apply creative solutions to healthcare situations
· To engage in and disengage from therapeutic relationships
· To anticipate potentially stressful situations.

· For the full range of skills you can develop through a degree in nursing, click here (pdf). For midwifery, click here (pdf) and for health studies click here (pdf).

Future doctors study pre-clinical medicine and clinical medicine to maintain health, diagnose and treat disease

What will I learn?
Medicine is another of those degrees that require five years at university (four if you're on a graduate course) and then a few more doing on the job training, working with patients.

Throughout this time you will study the any facets of the human body, be able to diagnose and treat disease and know what is needed to maintain health.

In general, the first two years will be developing your basic skills and knowledge to get you ready for your hospital experience, which usually begins in earnest in year three. This means you will be studying the function of the human body, system by system, and the psychology and sociology of ill health and illness. You will probably get to spend some time with patients or with GPs.

Year three should focus on general medicine and surgery, while the fourth year will probably cover cardio-renal, oncology, general psychiatry and respiratory medicine. The fifth year will include modules in paediatrics, A&E, general practice and obstetrics and gynaecology.

All of this study will be backed up with hospital placements.

You will learn through lectures, seminars, tutorials, lab work and bedside demonstrations. Over recent years, medical schools have been encouraged to work harder at developing students' bedside manner, so you need to start looking at patients as people rather than another body on which to work.

A number of universities now require students to sit an aptitude test to help them select candidates. These exams are designed to test mental abilities and how students respond to patients, rather than medical knowledge.

What skills will I get?
By the time you graduate you should be fit to begin on-the-job training.

Although you will just be starting out on your career and won't be expected to know it all, you should be able to assess a patient, diagnose any problems and manage treatment.

You will understand how disease affects the patient and be able to advise on healthy living.

You should also have developed a certain level of compassion for your patients. Delivering bad news to a patient or their family will never be easy, but a caring attitude and an interest in the patient's needs is an important part of being a doctor.

You will also have gained an understanding of the legal and ethical issues that come with a career in medicine. You're not in a series of ER, so you can't just give out drugs to patients without going through the proper channels and we wouldn't recommend sticking needles of adrenaline into a patient's heart without consulting a superior.

You should also have developed a way of coping with working long hours and not getting much sleep.

What job can I get?
After graduation you will begin a two-year training programme in a hospital. In a sense you will never really finish training. Medicine is a constantly evolving area, so you will need to keep up with new advancements.

After these initial two years you will train to specialise in a specific field, perhaps surgery, or in general practice. The length of training will depend upon what you choose.

You can always veer more into the research side of medicine or lecturing.

What will look good on the CV?
· The ability to retrieve, manage and manipulate information
· To present information clearly
· The ability to study topics in depth and demonstrate insight into scientific method.

· For the full range of skills you can develop through a degree in medicine, click here (pdf) here.

Critical study of literature - poetry, novels, plays - and language

What will I learn?
Judging by the reading lists that accompany most English literature courses, you'll acquaint yourself with a large number of authors during your degree.

You will study a broad range of genres, topics and writers, from Shakespeare to Rushdie and quite a few in between.

You'll spend hours reading, discussing and writing about books and writers, but you will also be expected to analyse literature, know the genre and be able to put what you've read into some form of social and historical context.

There should be an opportunity to specialise, so if you have a penchant for women writers from the 19th century, or Irish poetry you could get the chance to study them in greater detail.

Linguistics is another subject usually found in English departments. Linguists are more concerned with the specific aspects of language - such as sound, grammar and meaning - rather than the creative use of it, so you'll be investigation how languages differ, how language relates to thought and how we understand it both in written and spoken form, for example.

English can easily be taken as a joint honours subject, so you could tie it in with linguistics, drama, history, creative writing or media studies.

What skills will I get?
By the time you're through you will have been exposed to a vast array of writers and should be able to respond to and articulate your thoughts and opinions on them. You should also be able to develop an argument, critique texts and have an appreciation of the different styles in which authors wrote, and continue to write.

Having spent the past three years discussing texts and commentary with your classmates and lecturers and writing essays, you'll have good communication skills. If you've been able to study a few modules in creative writing, you will have developed some more practical skills.

You will need to read a lot of books, which can be a solitary affair. But time curled up on the sofa or in the library will have sharpened your time-management skills and your ability to work on your own.

And if you've studied the romantics, just think how many great chat-up lines you'll be able to wow your new work colleagues with.

What job can I get?
Unless you've incorporated some creative writing on to your degree, English isn't a particularly vocational option, which leaves the door wide open on the job front.

Journalism would seem an obvious choice for those with a love of words. It may sound snobbish, but English graduates are still favoured in this area of work above those who leave university with media degrees.

Graduates will also be well placed for a career in publishing, law or marketing - so consider applying for graduate training schemes. With further study you could educate others by becoming a teacher.

What will look good on my CV?
· An ability to communicate effectively
· To exercise independent thought and judgment
· To plan and execute essays, reports and project work.

· For the full range of skills you can develop through a degree in English click here ( pdf) and for linguistics click here (pdf).

Study of artistic performance - includes drama, dance, cinematics and photography

What will I learn?
There are a few misconceptions about studying drama or dance at degree level. The biggest one is that it's a soft option subject.

These subjects are among the most time-consuming and physically intense degrees on offer. Expect to spend long hours in the dance studio or theatre rehearsing and performing, on top of all the theory that will go with any course - such as the history of performance and different styles or performance and movement. These courses require a 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday commitment.

The ratio of practical to theory will depend on where you study. Specific theatre schools, for example, will lean heavily towards the practical, while some university courses will have more of an equal split. Choosing the right course requires a lot of care and attention.

Of course, it's not just about acting and dancing. These subjects encompass set design, directing, stage management and lighting and design. Then, of course, there are related courses in cinematography or photography to consider.

What skills will it give me?
You will certainly know how to express yourself - both on and off stage - which means you should be able to walk confidently into an audition for a stage musical or give a five-minute presentation for a more office-based job with equal aplomb.

Chances are you will have been taught by those who have performed or are still performing, so you should have a good insight into the business.

Even if your course is more theory than practical, you will probably be encouraged to undertake some work experience in the industry or work on your own productions and performance pieces outside of lectures, which is a good way of improving ability and showcasing your talents.

Like other degrees, you will have built up a good knowledge of different traditions and styles and know how and where to research information.

And even if you like performing monologues, you can't study for a dance and drama degree without their being some form of group work, so you'll have those all important teamwork skills to offer potential employers

What job can I get?
If you want to work in such a specialist area it shouldn't come as any great surprise that getting work won't be easy. But then it you wanted an easy ride you wouldn't have spent the previous three years getting sweaty in leggings and learning lines all day. You'll need determination and pluck to get acting or performance work, but it is out there.

Drama school graduates can be found in all manner of stage and television work, while those who took a more behind the scenes degree have got jobs in costume and set design on stage musicals.

Dance graduates can be found in community dance projects or choreography.

Work in this area tends to be erratic, so chances are you'll need to do some odd jobs in order to eat and keep a roof over your head. But the good news is you'll have the right transferable skills to walk into a job in, say, retail, tourism, marketing or perhaps the voluntary sector.

Some graduates take further training to become dance and drama therapists.

What will look good on the CV?
· The ability to apply performance and production skills to communicate to an audience
· To exercise critical and physical skills
· To develop ideas and present them in appropriate ways

· For the full range of skills you can develop through a degree in drama and dance click here (pdf).

Includes French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portugese, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, south Asian, African, Australasian, modern Middle Eastern languages, literature and linguistics

Qu'est-ce que j'apprendrai?
Studying a language is becoming a bit of a dying art, but if you want to fully engage in a new culture or work overseas, it is essential.

Language degrees will do more than teach the grammar and syntax of a language, they will also give students an insight into the country's history, culture, literature and politics, which means you should be able to at least have a shot at debating the issues of the day in another country's mother tongue.

Despite the recent closures of university language departments, there are still plenty of institutions offering courses in the modern classics - French, Spanish, German, Italian - as well as those considered niche a decade a go - Mandarin, Arabic, Japanese, and some of the African languages, such as Swahili. And, of course, there are courses in Welsh and Gaelic.

Courses can be studied as a single honours degree or as a joint subject with, for example, history, politics or even chemistry, if you want to keep your options open. You could also choose to learn two languages, perhaps French and Spanish.

Although having an A-level in a language will undoubtedly help if you go on to take it as a degree, it's not essential.

Of course, to fully immerse yourself in a language you need to head overseas and use it. Many courses will incorporate a year overseas into the schedule, so you should come back well versed.

¿Qué habilidades conseguiré?
It will depend on your degree, but you should graduate with the ability to read, write, listen to and speak in a foreign language.

You'll know how to research and use a range of materials (printed texts and online sites), particularly dictionaries and grammar aids.

You will be adept at working independently, and be able to communicate creatively and clearly.

You should also gain an understanding of a new country. And time spent overseas will enhance your cultural awareness.

Che lavoro posso ottenere?
The breadth of your skills will make you highly desirable among employers, which is why language graduates have the lowest rates of unemployment.

The world is literally your oyster. Obvious career routes are translating, interpreting and teaching roles - you will probably be snapped up if you are fluent in Mandarin or Arabic to meet a growing demand.

But other options include working in the diplomatic service or the civil service, perhaps in the Foreign Office.

Language graduates have got research jobs or development work in the European Union or the United Nations, where knowledge of at least two foreign languages is often required.

Graduates will also be favoured in business and legal institutions.

Was schaut auf dem Lebenslauf gut?
· The ability to read, write, listen and speak in a foreign language
· To reflect and judge critically
· To be self-reliant, adaptable and flexible.

· For the full range of skills you can develop through a degree in languages, click here (pdf).

Covers business studies, management studies, finance, accounting, marketing, human resource management and business and administrative studies

What will I learn?
Degrees in business and management are among the most popular among students. Fortunately universities have sought to match demand with plenty of courses.

These degrees focus on how organisations operate - what they do, their styles of management and their business strategies.

There are, of course, a diverse range of courses, each with a different emphasis or specialism. For example, some courses will lean more towards commerce or retail, while others will focus on tourism or international business.

The common threads of any business degree, however, tend to be looking at finance, marketing and human resource management.

Some business courses will have a more defined vocational element to them, so you'll be working in a team to create a company and market a product before you've finished looking at your reading list. Other courses will make work placements a compulsory part of the degree. Most universities will boast of having good links with business, which means visiting lecturers and the chance to build contacts.

Big business is no longer just about making money and ruthless takeovers, however. Companies are trying to improve their ethical and environmental standing, so expect to see relevant course modules popping up in the prospectus.

What skills will it give me?
As well as an understanding of how things work in business and management, by the time you graduate you should be able to demonstrate an understanding of markets, finance, managing people, operations, information systems, policy and strategy.

You probably won't be afraid of standing up in front of the class to present your ideas or argue your point around the negotiating table.

With group work a key part of many courses, you will have built up your teamwork and leadership skills, and be able to demonstrate your ability to consider all things related to establishing your own business and marketing a product.

You should also have an understanding of the ethical implications of business operations. If your work focuses on retail, you should be able to debate issues surrounding fair trade, for example.

A key part of managing others is the ability to relate to them and understand their needs, all skills you should be developing during your degree.

What job can I get?
A popular subject among students will inevitably mean tougher competition for jobs. And because it's not as specialist a field as architecture or medicine, say, you may find yourself up against graduates with history or economics degrees who decide in their final year that they want a career in business.

That said, the nature of your business courses and the practical experience that you've gained will mean you are well placed to get a job in the City or in one of the top companies that recruit graduates for their annual programmes. These graduate schemes should give you a good general grounding in business and the chance to focus on a particular area, such as human resources, or finance or marketing.

What will look good on the CV?
· Effective at problem solving and decision making
· Self awareness, sensitivity and open to business and management issues
· The ability to address issues at international level

· For the full range of skills you can develop through a degree in business and management, click here (pdf), and here (pdf) for more on accountancy.

Study of the human past from physical remains - including forensic and archaeological science

What will I learn?
Indiana Jones, lost arks and temples of doom made archaeology cool 20 years ago, and interest in the subject has continued ever since. Today, in the UK, a programme like Time Team continues to engage the public with archaeology.

Archaeology is learning about the past through its physical remains, for example, a Roman bath and mosaics or sketches in a mountain cave that depicted daily life 5,000 years ago.

Archaeology courses should give you the practical skills of excavation, but also, just as importantly, teach you to examine what you find and piece it together to get an idea of how we used to live, and where, and how life and the environment has changed.

You'll also learn how to apply what you know of the past to the present, particularly in terms of the politics and economic considerations of heritage tourism.

Most courses will give you the chance to get your hands dirty on field trips and research projects.

For those interested in sunken ships and lost treasures of the deep, some courses offer a taster in underwater archaeology, which could whet the appetite for further postgraduate study.

Some courses focus on the biological side of archaeology, where you could, for example, learn what people ate in the past by examining the food waste left at archaeological sites (not sexy, but important) or study populations through human bones.

What skills will it give me?
With the ever-increasing sophistication of the equipment used on digs and to examine findings, there is a growing overlap between archaeology and science and technology. You should graduate with a broad understanding of history, equipment use and new laboratory analysis techniques.

You should develop an empathy for the past and put your archaeological finds into their historical, cultural and political context. You should also be able to interpret what you find and be able to structure an argument that supports your evidence, both on paper and orally.

That all-important fieldwork will give you the chance to put all the theory into practice, and you'll learn a fair amount about teamwork as well as independent research. You will also develop patience and perseverance - two vital tools of the profession.

What job can I get?
Chances are you'll not find yourself unearthing lost cities in south America within six months of graduation, because this is a tough profession to break into. Jobs in the field can be hard to find, and those that are advertised are often subject to short-term funding, so it's perhaps not the most secure profession. But the patience and persistence that you've spent three years developing should pay off in the end.

Graduates could also use their skills working as guides, curators or conservators in museums or at heritage sites, or in landscape management or consultancy. A good degree could also open the door to further study.

What will look good on the CV?
· The ability to apply scholarly, theoretical and scientific principles to archaeological problems
· the knowledge of how to interpret data
· practise in fieldwork and laboratory techniques

· For the full range of skills you can develop through a degree in archaeology click here (pdf).

Master of the private Magdalen College School in Oxford hits out at deputy prime minister's drive to improve social mobility

Nick Clegg has been accused by a public school head of adopting "old-style communist" tactics in his drive to improve social mobility.

Tim Hands, master of the private Magdalen College School in Oxford and chair elect of the Headmasters and Headmistresses's Conference, which represents elite private schools, accused the deputy prime minister of an "old-style communist creation of a closed market, to try and deal with the problem after the event". Ministers should instead concentrate on improving state education, "rather than capping the achievements" of pupils in independent schools, he said.

Hands was referring to Clegg's suggestion that universities should take students from less privileged backgrounds with lower A Level grades.

Clegg made the comment as part of a wide-ranging speech on social mobility in which he argued that class snobbery is holding Britain back by creating a society divided between those born with a sense of entitlement to succeed and others who are "permanently excluded".

Clegg quoted the historian Frank Harris saying 80 years ago that "snobbery is the religion of England", adding: "I think that statement still has more than a ring of truth today."

He said: "We end up with entitlement at one end and exclusion at the other. A closed society, in which people know their place. We need an open society, in which people choose their place. As a nation we have to shake off the outdated, snobbish attitudes of class that are cramping our society and hobbling our economy."

While Clegg did not make clear whether he was suggesting a blanket policy of lowering grades for all state school pupils, or simply that university admissions departments should be more sensitive to individual circumstances, Hands, who was educated in a comprehensive school, said that under the coalition government there had been a "drift towards creating division" between private and state schools.

Clegg had earlier defended himself against such criticisms, saying: "That is nonsense. Nonsense, I should add, which is usually peddled by those who benefit from the status quo – and therefore want to keep things the way they are." Clegg was speaking on the second day of a conference in London on social mobility, organised by the Sutton Trust foundation.

It published research on Tuesday showing children from poorer families in Australia and Canada have a much greater chance of doing well at school, getting into university and earning more in later life than their peers in the UK and the US. One important link identified in the UK was between similar education success – or lack of it – from one generation to the next, said the trust.

Clegg also appeared to hammer a decisive nail in the coffin of proposals for "no fault dismissal", which are awaiting the results of a government consultation.

Conservatives have already indicated that Downing Street will not adopt the proposal which would allow employers to fire workers at will. However, some Tories are pushing strongly for the measure, saying it will encourage employers to start hiring.

"I don't support [the proposal] and I never have, for the simple reason I have not seen any evidence that creating industrial-level insecurity for workers is a good way of creating new jobs," said Clegg.

The Lib Dem leader said he would take seriously any evidence that emerged from the consultation, due to end in June, but continued to sound sceptical. "So far there just is no evidence," he added.

The "next steps" document on special needs education, following the Queen's speech, drives a coach and horses through the aspiration to inclusion (Special needs kids deserve better than a rush to reform, 21 May). Parents have the right to choose a mainstream school unless it is "unsuitable to the child's ability or SEN" – that is, they have a right just until some school or local authority tells them they don't. The right to mainstream is also said not to apply where it would be "incompatible" with the education of the other children.

The survival of this nasty and discriminatory proviso utterly contradicts the document's new and welcome aim – mentioned 71 times in as many pages – of tackling the dismal record on employment as disabled children grow up. Children who are "incompatible" with their peers will become adults who are "incompatible" with employment of any kind. The government also finds itself contravening article 24 of the new United Nations charter on the rights of disabled persons.
Richard Rieser and Chris Goodey
London

Prior to becoming secretary general of the Arts Council, Sir Roy Shaw led the Adult Education Department at the University of Keele (Simon Hoggart's week, 19 May). In 1969, Prof Shaw (as he was then) promulgated to a class of student health visitors (of which I was one) lessons from The Uses of Literacy – Richard Hoggart's great exposition of the betrayal of the intentions of the 1870 Education Act, and subsequent devaluation of the intellectual capacity of working-class readers of the popular press.

Shaw's teaching on Hoggart's analysis of the ease with which the media may influence people's attitudes left an indelible impression on someone who had left school after O-levels and simply pursued what was then nurse "training". It was probably this, with other experiences on that remarkable course, that convinced me of the need to educate nurses in higher education settings. I have often wondered during the recent phone-hacking debacle why Hoggart's seminal work has not been revisited.
Jane Robinson
Emeritus professor of nursing, University of Nottingham

• At the Arts Council in the 1970s I worked with both Roy Shaw and Richard Hoggart. Though authoritarian and often prickly, both men articulated and fought for crucially important cultural values in the face of creeping neoliberalism. Hoggart's Pilkington report, published 50 years ago, remains a vital testament to the importance of the public service ethic in broadcasting. From the perspective of 2012, both Hoggart and Shaw can be seen as proverbial moral giants when compared with current ministerial pygmies like J Hunt and E Vaizey.
Robert Hutchison
Winchester, Hampshire

Medical community says sale of former president's blood is unethical, but it joins a long history of such bodily transactions

A vial of what is purported to be blood from late president Ronald Reagan is on sale at an online auction house, sparking outrage from his estate and the medical community.

A seller at PFCAuctions.com – purveyor of "world class art, antiques and collectibles" – listed the vial of "dried blood residue from President Reagan" on Sunday.

By Tuesday afternoon, bidding had reached $12,000.

The vial is alleged to have come from the laboratory where the president's blood was sent for testing after John Hinckley shot Reagan on March 30, 1981.

"My mother worked for Bio Science Laboratories in Columbia, Maryland," the unnamed seller writes.

"Her laboratory was the laboratory contracted by the Walter Reed Army Medical Center as well as the George Washington University Hospital to handle blood testing as well as other types of testing."

The seller added that his mother, who has since passed away, asked if she could take the vial home with her after Reagan had been treated.

Now, 30 years later, the seller was told by the Ronald Reagan presidential library that they would consider taking the specimen as a donation. "I was a real fan of Reaganomics and felt that Pres Reagan himself would rather see me sell it rather than donating it," the seller writes.

"If indeed this story is true, it's a craven act and we will use every legal means to stop its sale or purchase," John Heubusch, executive director of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation, said in a statement.

The medical community was similarly outraged.

"You don't go selling people's specimens or bodily fluids," Dr. Joseph Giordano, who was head of the trauma team that treated the president, told a local television station. "You have no permission to do that. It's unethical."

Reached by phone Tuesday afternoon, a spokesperson at PFCAuctions declined to comment on any of the ethical questions that have been raised.

"The Ronald Reagan library had said they would take it as a donation, so this person decided to auction it with us instead. Aside from that there is not much to comment on," he said.

A long history of selling human remains

Unethical or not, the selling or displaying of celebrity remains is perhaps as old as the notion of celebrity itself.

Galileo's finger was removed when the corpse was exhumed and now sits on display at the Museum of the History of Science in Florence, perched inside a glass chalice.

Most famously, and perhaps apocryphally, a tissue specimen that may have been Napolean Bonaparte's penis was sold as part of the "Vignali collection" of Napoleonic relics for $800 in 1924. In 1977 it was acquired by an American urologist, John Kingsley Lattimer, for the equivalent of $10,000 today.

Lattimer died in 2007, and his estate, which is still in possession of the emperor's member, is considering selling it.

Pop singer Michael Jackson was reported to have expressed interest in purchasing some or all of the remains of John Merrick, better known as the Elephant Man, who famously suffered from a congenital disease which created abnormal and excessive bone growth on his skull.

Jackson's offers, which were confirmed by London hospital's chief administrator David Edwards in 1987, were rebuffed.

Dorothy Jarlett worked as another singer's housekeeper for many years in the 1960s. She and John Lennon allegedly became close enough for Lennon to give her a tooth he had removed by his dentist, as one does.

Although the tooth is too fragile to conduct DNA tests on it to confirm original ownership, last year Michael Zuk, a dentist in Alberta, spent more than $31,000 to buy the incisor at an auction. He said his plan was to have it mounted in his office.

A lock of Che Guevara's hair – removed by a CIA operative after the revolutionary was killed in 1967 – was purchased for $100,000 in 2007. Bill Butler, a Texas bookseller, keeps it on display in his store.

Organist, director of music at Chichester Cathedral and professor at the Royal College of Music

John Birch, who has died aged 82 after suffering a stroke, was interested in – but by no means limited to – every aspect of the organ and its world. Among those churches which benefited from his skills as a choir trainer and organist were Chichester Cathedral (1958-80) and the Temple Church in London (1982-97). He was also curator organist at the Royal Albert Hall, London, from 1984 until his death, overseeing the recent restoration of the huge instrument on which he gave many fine performances, notably of Saint-Saëns' Third Symphony with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. He was determined to play more performances of that work than his age and he managed it with ease.

John was born in Leek, Staffordshire, where his father was a businessman, and went to school at Trent college in Long Eaton, Derbyshire, and the Royal College of Music. After national service in the Royal Corps of Signals, he was appointed organist and choirmaster at two central London churches: in 1950, at St Thomas's, Regent Street, then All Saints, Margaret Street, in 1953, before becoming director of music at Chichester.

There, in 1960, he and a similarly enterprising colleague, Dean Walter Hussey, revived the Southern Cathedrals Festival, which in the early part of the century had brought together forces from Chichester, Salisbury and Winchester. In 1965, the festival commissioned Leonard Bernstein's demanding Chichester Psalms: Bernstein conducted it first in New York, and John its British premiere in Chichester, with great success.

Another lively and enduring commission from that year's festival was Bryan Kelly's Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis, using Latin American dance rhythms. William Walton, Lennox Berkeley, Herbert Howells and the American William Albright also wrote works for John's choir. When the curtain first rose at the Chichester Festival theatre in 1962, John was its music adviser.

He loved working and touring with orchestras of all sizes, including the Academy of St Martin in the Fields. It was on a three-week tour of the US with the London Bach Society back in the early 70s that he and I really got to know each other.

His association of nearly 40 years with the Royal College of Music, where he was a professor (1959-97); his time with the Royal College of Organists, where he was a member of council (1964-2003); and the pioneering work he did at the new University of Sussex, where he was university organist (1967-94) and visiting lecturer in music (1971-83), combined to ensure that his skills were passed on to generations of cathedral and church musicians all over the world. He has been remembered in a choral evensong by the cathedral choir in Honolulu, and in Cape Town, which he visited every New Year. In recent years he made several visits to Mexico: he helped install a new electronic organ in the concert hall in Guanajuato, in the centre of the country, and advised the orchestra on choral programmes.

In London, John played in the recital series at the Royal Festival Hall, where in 1972 he gave the first performance of the Partita by Howells, commissioned by the prime minister at the time, Edward Heath. John could often be seen marching down Exhibition Road to South Kensington underground station with heavy bags after a performance at the Royal Albert Hall. Just days before his stroke in March he had played in seven concerts in one weekend in the hall's Classic Spectacular series, including the finale of the Saint-Saëns.

Hussey helped him to acquire a fine collection of modern British art, much of which can now be seen at the Pallant House gallery in Chichester. Friends who were fortunate enough to visit his home were given the "grand tour" and well entertained by this generous and jovial host.

• John Anthony Birch, organist, born 9 July 1929; died 28 April 2012

As word of mouth ambassadors for the university, volunteers are crucial to alumni relations – it is essential they feel valued

Alumni relations would not exist without alumni volunteers. Whether it be graduates from an MBA programme serving their business school by contacting their classmates every five years for a reunion or the international alum in Istanbul offering to host a drinks reception for a visiting faculty member and fellow alumni, they play an incredibly valuable role.

Alumni volunteers that enjoy their experience with their alma mater become the best referral agents to their peers and other alumni for getting involved. They evaluate the 'user experience' and the value of the services alumni relations may offer upon graduation (such as access to the library, fitness facilities, and the careers office). And they more readily speak their mind and share their experience with with alumni relations officers. By nature of their role working closely with staff, they also become familiar with the fundraising goals for their institution and can be strong advocates for support.

But however informal the arrangement, job descriptions for volunteer opportunities that alumni find themselves raising their hands for (or getting pulled into) can benefit them. Job descriptions are especially effective in times of transition for alumni. When they move cities, jobs, or have other personal obligations and must give up their position, having a job description to share with potential successors provides information in a timely way and helps the university to recruit the right alumni to fulfil vacancies.

So, what are the basic components of a volunteer job description and how can it benefit the alumni programme? Since we are working with volunteers nothing is mandatory, including their own commitment. Which is why I think it's wise to manage a volunteer's expectations. A job description provides a clear understanding of roles and responsibilities of those involved in a project. It lets volunteers know exactly what is expected of them and also what they can expect from the institution in return.

A clearly defined role provides clarity about what is expected, provides the volunteer written documentation of what they strive to accomplish, the areas to which they will be accountable.

A good brief also professionalises the entire volunteer process for alumni. Most staff and alumni will be familiar with job descriptions. Longstanding relationships with alumni need ongoing investment and resources. Job descriptions for both alumni leaders and for those one-time volunteers that serve the community on behalf of alma mater should be developed, promoted and regularly revised.

Descriptions that I've drawn up in the past have included the name of the volunteer opportunity, the time commitment, term of service, the programme description and the staff contact and support services.

When universities cannot pay alumni for their time and talent, they can at least provide an easily accessible document that spells out the roles and responsibilities for their involvement. Success and satisfaction by alumni for completing a 'nice little job' leads to greater satisfaction and, hopefully, more peer referrals and invitation for getting involved.

Gretchen Dobson is a global strategist at Gretchen Dobson Go Global and formerly worked as Tufts University's senior associate director for domestic and international programs. Gretchen will also be leading the next Guardian Higher Education Network seminar; Alumni relations - a masterclass in Manchester on 29 June

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Parents join demonstration at Downhills primary in north London to demonstrate at move after school failed inspection

Parents and striking teachers have joined forces outside a school in north London to protest at the government's attempt to force it to become a sponsored academy.

Downhills primary school in Haringey, which was placed in special measures earlier this year after failing an Ofsted inspection, was closed to pupils on Tuesday as all 20 teachers went on strike.

The teachers, all National Union of Teachers (NUT) members, were joined by up to 30 parents for a demonstration against proposals by the Department for Education (DfE) to impose academy status.

Parent Sarah Williams, 40, who has two sons at the school, said: "There is absolutely no evidence that a change in structure improves children's educational outcomes.

"When the process first started I thought it was about improving the school, but as we've got further along I've realised it's all about Michael Gove's ideologies that the only way to improve is to introduce profit.

"If you look at the figures, this school was already improving, and there's absolutely no reason why the school can't continue to improve if left the way it is."

Williams said parents and teachers were due to attend an event in nearby Downhills park, where entertainment will include a poetry workshops with former children's laureate Michael Rosen.

The NUT London regional secretary, Tim Harrison, said: "The interests of Downhills school are best served by it continuing to be a local community school supported by governors from the area and maintained by the local authority.

"There is very little support for the government's intervention to seek to impose an unwanted sponsor and the school becoming an academy.

"The government would do well to listen to representatives of the community, parents and teachers and encourage the local authority to speak out in support of the school and to provide assistance to enable it to recover from the damage done by this unnecessary intervention and continue to improve as a community school."

A statement on the school's website said it would be closed on Tuesday "due to the strike".

The DfE has maintained that the school, which was also placed in special measures in 2002, has struggled to obtain the required standards for years and that the independent inspection was necessary. Since the latest Ofsted inspection, the headteacher, Leslie Church, has resigned and an interim governing body appointed.

The school claims Gove was illegally attempting to force academy status on Downhills and that attainment records and an interim Ofsted report last September suggested standards were improving. Downhills, which is more than 100 years old, last came out of special measures in 2005 but in January 2010 was told by Ofsted that "significant improvement" was needed.

Academies are semi-independent state schools that receive funding directly, rather than through a local authority, and have more freedom over areas such as pay and conditions and the curriculum. The programme was first introduced under Tony Blair's Labour government, with the aim of boosting standards in disadvantaged areas.

Since coming to power, the coalition has opened up the scheme to allow any existing school to apply for academy freedoms.

A spokeswoman for the DfE said: "Downhills has been underperforming for several years. Most recently Ofsted found that it is failing to give its pupils an acceptable standard of education and that those responsible for leading, managing and governing the school are not demonstrating the capacity to secure the necessary improvement.

"That is why we have appointed an interim executive board to give the school the leadership and expertise it needs to improve."

'We need an open society, in which people choose their place,' says Liberal Democrat deputy prime minister

Class snobbery is holding Britain back by creating a society divided between those born with a sense of entitlement to succeed and others who are "permanently excluded", the deputy prime minister has warned.

Nick Clegg quoted the historian Frank Harris saying 80 years ago that "snobbery is the religion of England", adding: "I think that statement still has more than a ring of truth today."

He said: "We end up with entitlement at one end and exclusion at the other. A closed society, in which people know their place. We need an open society, in which people choose their place. As a nation we have to shake off the outdated, snobbish attitudes of class that are cramping our society and hobbling our economy."

Clegg was speaking on the second day of a conference in London on social mobility, organised by the Sutton Trust foundation, an event which has already heard speeches from Ed Miliband, and the education secretary, Michael Gove.

The Sutton Trust also published international research on Tuesday showing children from poorer families in Australia and Canada have a "much greater" chance of doing well at school, getting into university and earning more in later life than their peers in the UK and the US. This was despite similar income gaps in all four countries, and higher spending on education in the US and UK, said the report. One important link identified in the UK was between similar education success – or lack of it – from one generation to the next, said the trust.

Quoting similar statistics to the report, Clegg said the lack of social mobility was shown by facts such as: one in five pupils were on free school meals but only one in 100 Oxbridge entrants were, and 7% of children attend independent schools, but public schools provide more than half the chief executives of Britain's top companies and 70% of high court judges.

"This is a legacy we cannot afford. Morally, economically, socially, whatever your justification, the price is simply too high to pay," said Clegg. "We must create a more dynamic society. One where what matters most is the person you become, not the person you were born."

He continued: "For liberals, this is core stuff. It gets to the very heart of our politics. We are a party and a creed that is defined by our belief in a fairer, more open society. For me, it's the reason I do this job."

Miliband's speech on Monday addressed what he said was an often overlooked issue: the snobbery attached to university education, and called for changes to the education system and culture to give more respect to vocational qualifications as a route to improvement.

Clegg said class was another issue too often "in the shadows" and "the ghost in the machine", because politicians – especially those from privileged backgrounds, among whom he included himself – were reluctant to discuss it. "I was lucky, but it should not be a question of luck," he said.

He also attacked claims that making allowances for social background, for example when deciding university admissions, was "dumbing down" as one of what he called the "pernicious myths" of the debate.

"At one end of the spectrum, there's almost a sense of entitlement," he said. "Entitlement to the best schools, universities and professions. Advantages are handed down almost automatically, generation to generation. The most fortunate see the horizons of their opportunities stretched far in all directions. And so from day one, they hear a clear, self-confident message. One that says: 'The world is yours. Go for it.'

"I think everyone should hear that message. But too many children from less advantaged homes look at certain qualifications, educational institutions, or jobs and think: 'That's not for people like me.' Because all too often, that's the message they've heard, over and over again."

Clegg also announced the publication of a Cabinet Office strategy for social mobility, updating progress in the last year on 17 different indicators from the birth weight of babies born into poor families to how far low earners progress in the labour market. For many measures it was too soon to publish statistics, but three appeared to show progress.

The report also set out policies aimed at encouraging more equality of opportunity, including free nursery places for 40% of two-year-olds and £1.25bn for the pupil premium fund to help children from poorer families.

In a heartfelt speech Miliband had said: "The foundation for my politics is the equal worth of every citizen. From that flows the idea that everyone should have equal chances to get on and make a better life."

A petition urges President Obama to implement open access for all federally funded research. This is our chance to demonstrate public support and goad the White House into action

The problem of access to research has been well covered in the Guardian - by analysis, by excoriation and by parable. The situation again, in short: governments and charities fund research; academics do the work, write and illustrate the papers, peer-review and edit each others' manuscripts; then they sign copyright over to profiteering corporations who put it behind paywalls and sell research back to the public who funded it and the researchers who created it. In doing so, these corporations make grotesque profits of 32%-42% of revenue - far more than, say, Apple's 24% or Penguin Books' 10%.

So far, so depressing. But what makes this story different from hundreds of other cases of commercial exploitation is that it seems to be headed for a happy ending. That's taken some of us by surprise, because we thought the publishers held all the cards. Academics tend to be conservative, and often favour publishing their work in established paywalled journals rather than newer open access venues.

The missing factor in this equation is the funders. Governments and charitable trusts that pay academics to carry out research naturally want the results to have the greatest possible effect. That means publishing those results openly, free for anyone to use. Suddenly it seems that funding bodies are waking up to the importance of this. In recent weeks, we've seen the Wellcome Trust promising to get tough on grant recipients who don't make their work available; the astonishing pro-open access speech by science minister David Willetts to the Publishers Association AGM; and the European Union's intention to use open access for the results of its €80 billion Horizon 2020 programme.

Publishers' responses to all this have been tiresomely predictable. Commenting on the new draft open-access guidelines proposed by Research Councils UK, Graham Taylor of the Publishers Association said that publishers would not accept that authors could deposit their papers in open-access repositories six months after publication. This is pure bluster. It's none of publishers' business what conditions funders impose on authors. Publishers are only service providers, with no more right to dictate policy than suppliers of laboratory equipment. If funders choose to impose conditions, authors will have to abide by them. If that means depositing papers in open-access repositories, publishers who forbid that will simply be bypassed in favour of those that are not stuck in the 1990s.

So mandates from funders are the way to break through on open access, and it's great to see the UK and European Union leading the way. The surprise at the moment is that the US government - having introduced the important and influential NIH public access policy in 2005 - seems to have fumbled the ball. This is disappointing for the US, but also disturbing for Britain. As Willetts pointed out in his speech: "In future we could be giving our research articles to the world for free via open access. But will we still have to pay for foreign journals and research carried out abroad?" For any country to get the full benefit from its own government's open-access mandates, it needs other countries to do the same.

Happily, an opportunity has arisen in the US to fix this. The White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy has taken a strong interest in open access, sponsoring two requests for public information in as many years. The issue also has the attention of President Obama's science adviser, who has met with both publishers and open access advocates. There is a feeling that the administration fully understands the value of open access, and that a strong demonstration of public concern could be all it takes now to goad it into action before the November election. To that end a Whitehouse.gov petition has been set up urging Obama to "act now to implement open access policies for all federal agencies that fund scientific research". Such policies would bring the US in line with the UK and Europe.

There is always a question of whether petitions really make a difference. But there are good reasons for optimism in this case. The White House has been looking at open access for some time and is known to be sympathetic. This is a chance to demonstrate public support for action, and the executive has the power to direct federal agencies to take that action. Also, there is already bipartisan legislation in both US houses to require public access to federally funded US research. Demonstrating public support will strengthen this legislation's chances. Change in politics comes when the opportunity for decision coincides with a clear statement of the community's view. You need both.

So please sign the White House petition. You do not need to be a US citizen. Anyone aged 13 or older is eligible. Signing requires very minimal registration (email address and password), and clicking a link in a confirmation email. Do it now. You can make a difference.

Academics have charted reviews on social media sites and broadsheet books desks, and ranked their impact on novel sales. The results make for interesting reading

Last week's paper from the Harvard Business School asking "What makes a critic tick?" put me in mind of teachers and bombs. Literary critics can be either, but are they any longer central to the chances of a novelist's success?

The Harvard report compared "professional" reviewers (ie those working for newspapers and magazines) with their new competition: the folk who leave reviews on Amazon. Though they limited themselves to Amazon reviewers, they could have cast their net much wider; these days the ivory towers of book reviewing are under attack by a ragtag, undisciplined army of humanity, dispensing their reviews and their ratings across Amazon, Goodreads, LibraryThing, blogs, Twitter, Facebook and the whole glittering panoply of the social web.

The conclusion of the Harvard academics was broadly this: that professionals are slightly more likely to review and approve of books written by writers who worked for the same titles as they, or books that had won prizes. Amazon reviewers, on the other hand, were rather more eclectic, and in particular seemed to be more supportive of debut authors.

I find the first part of this analysis less surprising than the second part. I think it's almost axiomatic that reviewers for the Guardian will look more favourably on books written by Guardian writers. I don't think that's especially sinister, either. As the paper's authors say, what is actually going on here is a secondhand audience bias: writers who write for the Guardian are more likely to write books that people who read the Guardian will like. Similarly, a book that has won a prize has a badge of assumed quality; someone else has already done the filtering.

But this bias also sparks the immemorial cry of the debut author who doesn't know anyone on the books desk: how on earth am I to get noticed?

My first book, The English Monster, came out in March. I now know that the thing first-time authors crave above all else – above food, water and love – is attention. And you're more likely to get that from Amazon reviewers than from newspaper critics, for the simple reason that more books are published now than at any other time in history, and there's only so much room for them in the pages (actual and virtual) of the press.

Which is not at all to say that a review in a newspaper is worthless. Quite the opposite; it is a particularly rarefied form of attention, and can in itself seed even more coverage on the social web. It is attention – to your book, and to you – that makes the difference. Another recent academic paper, called "Positive Effects of Negative Publicity: When Negative Reviews Increase Sales" (Berger, Sorensen, Rasmussen) looked at reviews in the New York Times and estimated their impact on hardback fiction titles. What they found was that a negative review had a negative impact on the sales of books by established writers, but that a negative review of a debut title actually increased sales.

The reason is pretty obvious: if nobody knows who you are, and the New York Times reviews your book, more people are going to be aware of you, and that's much more important than the content of the review. But if you're Stephen King and the Gray Lady gives you a hiding – well, you can only lose.

Being reviewed is a bizarre experience, wherever the review appears. Positive reviews are blissful but strangely transitory, forgotten within hours. Negative reviews are crunchingly terrible things which can haunt sleepless nights. Worst of all are thoughtless reviews: those that reveal the plot, or take quotes out of context and pillory you for them, or compare you with heartless indifference to a great author against whom you would never choose to be measured. One reviewer said my book recalled the work of Peter Ackroyd, only to follow this up with the kicker "Shepherd is no Ackroyd". Well, of course he isn't, but did you really have to say so?

This kind of thing would be perfectly recognisable to any author from the past 200 years. A review is a review, wherever it appears. What would be completely unrecognisable would be the avalanche of feedback which, within days of publication, starts to come through to you from the web. It used to be said that there were two types of author: those who read their reviews, and liars. Now, there are two types of author: those who have a Google alert set up for the title of their book, and those who don't know how to.

This feedback can send you a bit mad. It can spark agonies and ecstasies, and the fact that most authors work on their own, often at home, doesn't help matters. One's partner can come home from their proper job and find you pulling wallpaper down because someone you've never met in Albuquerque didn't understand the clever Adam Smith joke you made on page 342.

But it brings its own joys too. One Saturday night my search alert on Twitter lit up, and I found a male nurse from Bury raving about my book. I started chatting to him, and he showered me with praise and said he was going tell everyone he knew to read my book. That's the kind of positive review which stays with you.

What shall we call this? Crowd criticism? Community reviewing? Mob feedback? Whatever we call it, it seems unruly and uncontrollable – but also a fair bit more accessible to the author than traditional reviews in the book pages. You won't get much mileage complaining to the books editor about the mugging you received in his pages. But you might be able to have a conversation with someone who wrote that they didn't like your book on their blog.

It's a strange world we find ourselves in. I recently heard about an author who self-publishes her books on Kindle. She had someone write some code for her which correlated her sales with her reviews. She found that a negative review led to an immediate drop in sales of up to 70%. So now, as soon as her software alerts her to a drop in sales, she contacts a friend and asks them to write a positive review. As soon as this goes live on Amazon, her sales pick up.

Such gaming is inevitable. In a world where so many of us like to broadcast what book we're reading, what film we've just seen, what music we're loving – indeed, when the social media we use tells everyone what we're listening to, reading or watching without us ever asking it to – authors will try every trick to get attention for what they do. As one writer who fully understood the value of attention and celebrity once said: there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.

• Lloyd Shepherd's novel The English Monster is published by Simon and Schuster.

The Guardian University guide and ranking for 2013 is out today. See what the data says and how its changed since last year
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The latest Guardian University Guide tables show that Cambridge University has retained it's position at the top spot, beating its rival Oxford as the UK's leading institution for the second year in a row.

Oxford and the London School of Economics have been placed second and third respectively, while St. Andrews has dipped to fourth place. Warwick, University College London, Durham, Lancaster, Bath and Exeter make up the top 10 rankings. See how the rankings have changed over the years in the graphic above.

Loughborough and Imperial College have been knocked off the top ten, with Imperial making a marked descent from the 2009 rankings that placed it in sixth place. Individual rankings by subject are also covered in the university guide. Jeevan Vasagar writes:

Cambridge dominates across the board, coming top in 16 out of 47 subjects including medicine, veterinary science, biosciences, chemical engineering, maths and computer science. Oxford came top in seven subjects including economics, business studies and law. Oxford also comes top in chemistry and physics.

The tables are based on data for full-time undergraduates at UK universities. The full methodology is explained here.

Of the top climbers, Brunel has reached 44th position from 82nd last year, whilst Chester has climbed from 80th to 52nd. There have been some drops in rankings too. The lowest ranked in the overall list are Bolton, the University of Abertay, Dundee and London Met. Bolton plans to charge a range of fees up to a maximum of £8,400.

The tables were compiled by independent consultancy firm Intelligent Metrix. It's based originally on information collected by Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) and the National Student Survey, published by Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce).

Here are some of the key numbers:

• The universities in the top 20 are bigger than those in the bottom 20 - with an average of 10,152 undergraduates, compared to 8,522
• The majority of universities in the top 20 belong to the Russell group (if you include the four new members in August). There are 12 in the top 20
• 16 English universities appear in the top 20: Cambridge, Oxford, LSE, Warwick, UCL, Durham, Lancaster, Bath, Exeter, Loughborough, Surrey, Imperial College, Buckingham, York, Bristol and Leicester

Four new members - Durham, Exeter, Queen Mary and York - will join the Russell Group in August, so for the 2013 rankings we have updated the groups to reflect this.

We've also added in some data of our own, including the drop-out rates, university group and number of full-time undergraduate students. We've put in hesa codes to make it easier to match data too.

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How you can help your students with the transition from school to university
• Guardian Students launches

As you arrange your "final" last minute revision session for your A2 students, and look forward to breathing space when they finally leave, do you spare a thought for what will happen to them next? Is your job over when the exam is over, or do you have a responsibility for their success (or otherwise) in the next phase of their lives, be it higher education or employment? Could you have prepared them better for what is to come?

For many, A levels are a hoop to jump through; a passport to the next phase. According to the recent Ofqual report A levels are still largely regarded as the "gold standard" by parents, teachers, students and employers. But do they prepare students for the major transition they are about to undertake, rather than simply accredit them, verifying that they have learned to pass the test?

Maybe there has always been a conflict between the need to get students the highest grade possible, to improve their life chances, and the ideal of learning for its own sake. But this dilemma has increased as the pressures on schools have increased. League tables have increased the stakes of A levels; they are the "golden ticket" that decides not just a student's future but a school's reputation.

Perhaps it was ever thus and there never was a golden age, when students didn't ask "do I need this for the exam?; If not, why are we doing it?" But will students paying up to £9,000 in tuition fees become more discriminating consumers? The previous trebling of tuition fees led to no increase in teaching time or quality according to a report last week. Has the pressure cooker world of A levels prepared the current generation of students for courses, some of which apparently amount to no more than part-time study? Or is the glory of a university education free time to think?

Many students will not be going into higher education because they truly love the subject they will be studying for the next three or four year. Rather they may see a degree as just another qualification required for a "good" job; the "good" job they need in order to pay off the debts they have accumulated in the process of becoming so qualified.

Have teachers prepared young people for the independence they will need, either in higher education or in employment?

Will the ones who start jobs think it is okay to hand that report in late, because they have been cut so much slack in school? If teachers do not accept late coursework, then grades will suffer, departments will be judged, and schools will fall down the league tables. But will an employer see it the same way?

You have helped your students to draft and redraft coursework, within the limits of tolerance allowed by the exam board. But do they understand the value of original thought? Or the need for self-reliance? Many A level students are inculcated with the "resit" culture. It will be a shock to find that things are different in higher education.

I have no answers to these dilemmas about the preparation of A level students for transition. But I do believe that they need to be grappled with both by individual teachers and at the highest level. Our young people are more than units of production and we owe it to them to educate and prepare them for independence.

Of course, once your A2 students have gone, AS students come back and you have to think about preparing them for application to higher education. But that's another story…

• Barbara Hibbert taught history and politics for over 30 years, 20 of them as head of department. She has taught A level and International Baccalaureate and was involved in the development of the history examination for the Cambridge pre-U. She is now a freelance author, trainer and education consultant.

Guardian Students for your pupils

Students (including sixth form students) have now got their own space on the Guardian website for the very first time with the launch of Guardian Students. Please do tell your pupils about it. The site is full of views and advice and a chance to interact with the student community. Your pupils will find:

• Live chat with experts to help students choose a course and nail a place on it.

• Guardian journalists keeping students informed of all the latest student news.

• Blogging Students, our record-breaking new discussion forum.

• Student cooking, budgeting, housing, transport, travel, nightlife and jobs.

• A steady flow of special in-depth packages: including Applying to university, The green league of universities, Studying law, and Being an international student.

• Competitions with seriously useful prizes - including the chance of an internship with Guardian Students.

• The all-new Guardian University Guide for 2013, the indispensable font of advice for everyone hoping to start uni next year.

Signing up to be a member of Guardian Students entitles you to weekly emails bursting with exclusive tip-offs, student news highlights, and regular discount offers, gig tickets and prizes.

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Do you have something you want to share with colleagues – a resource of your own and why it works well with your students, or perhaps a brilliant piece of good practice in teaching or whole school activity that you know about it? If so please get in touch. If you would like to blog on the Guardian Teacher Network please email emma.drury@guardian.co.uk and please don't be shy about commenting on blogs on this page.