1. What role for aid in countries with and without a development bargain? is the title of this ODI (Overseas Development Institute, I think, but it doesn’t use its full name anymore!) event with Stefan Dercon at 18:00 UK time this Thursday, 8^th June. More info and registration here https://odi.org/en/events/what-role-for-aid-in-countries-with-and-without-a-development-bargain/

The event blurb asks: “How much does aid really matter to poorer countries’ development? Much less than donor countries would like to think, argues Stefan Dercon in his important and well-received 2022 book Gambling on Development – although its impact is not nothing, either. In the book, Stefan compares country experiences, arguing that countries develop strongly when their leaders and elites reach a shared vision for their country’s development, and bet on its success—though the outcome cannot be guaranteed. This vision and its implementation he dubs a ‘development bargain’. What matters for development is national leadership, politics, and policies. But if domestic matters are crucial, what is the role of outsiders?”

2. A piece from The Guardian on the banning of Amanda Gorman’s poem, ‘The Hill We Climb’ in Florida, Amanda Gorman ‘gutted’ after Florida school bans Biden inauguration poem https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/24/amanda-gorman-poem-ban-florida-school

A piece from Lit Hub on the banning of books more generally in the USA, The History (and Present) of Banning Books in America https://lithub.com/the-history-and-present-of-banning-books-in-america/

And here’s that Gorman poem again, with a video of her reading it, ‘The Hill We Climb’: the Amanda Gorman poem that stole the inauguration show https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/20/amanda-gorman-poem-biden-inauguration-transcript

3. Two items from the latest TeachingEnglish newsletter:

a) Motivating our learners – a ‘mini-event’ with three talks led by: Huma Hasna Riaz Ahmed from the UAE, Should homework be humdrum? Jessica Cheman & Sam Zurbrugg from Vietnam, Motivating learners: the ideal L2-self and secondary learners and Katy Kelly from Spain, Maximising teacher language at 10:00, 11:15 and 12:30 on Thursday, June 8^th. More info and registration here https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/news-and-events/webinars/webinars-teachers/motivating-our-learners-mini-event Not sure what to make of that last one, ‘Maximising teacher language’!

b) Here’s Episode 7 of Series 2 of the TeachingEnglish podcast from We’am Hamdan & Chris Sowton, ‘How can peer-led training and mentoring support teachers’ development?’ Transcript, show notes, activity booklets and (quite small) audio file all here https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/professional-development/podcast/teaching-english/teaching-english-podcast-how-can-peer-led

All the episodes of the podcast here https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/professional-development/podcast/teaching-english and you can sign up for the TeachingEnglish newsletter here https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/subscribe-our-newsletter

4. The times they are a-changin’ in the world of British higher education. Here’s two recent pieces from The Guardian:

British universities can no longer financially depend on foreign students. They must reform to survive by Simon Jenkins; https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jun/02/british-universities-foreign-students-deficits-government-higher-education

Plus the view of a number of university vice-chancellors, Funding model for UK higher education is ‘broken’, say university VCs https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/may/31/funding-model-for-uk-higher-education-is-broken-say-university-vcs

5. And, finally and tunefully and less seriously, if you don’t know your robin from your blackbird song-wise, try this https://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/ It’s a delight!