Displaying items by tag: Gavin Williamson

Universities are urged to provide face-to-face teaching when students return this term. Ex-education secretary Gavin Williamson said students should expect to be taught ‘in-person and alongside other students’, although it would be right to stay online when there's a ‘genuine benefit to using technology’. But he warned university leaders, ‘I do not expect to see online learning used as a cost-cutting measure.’ He said that parents would find it odd if students could go to other social activities but were not allowed back into lecture halls. Record numbers of 18-year-olds will be starting university this autumn, and Mr Williamson, speaking via a video link, said students were craving a ‘return to normality’. Teaching students in-person allows them to benefit from the ‘conversations you have around the margins’, and from the support of other students.

Education secretary Gavin Williamson has urged British university vice-chancellors to adopt the international definition of anti-Semitism. He warned them that he would act if ‘the overwhelming majority’ of universities had not adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism by the end of the year; they could even have ‘funding streams’ suspended. He said it was disturbing that a recent survey by the Union of Jewish Students showed only 29 out of 133 universities had adopted the IHRA definition, and 80 said they had no current plans to do so. Mr Williamson said, ‘The repugnant belief that anti-Semitism is somehow a less serious, or more acceptable, form of racism has taken insidious hold in some parts of British society. I am quite clear that universities must play their part in rooting out this attitude and demonstrating that anti-Semitism is abhorrent.’

The National Security Council discuss intelligence coordination and defence strategies. But information from one meeting was published in the Daily Telegraph. Defence secretary Gavin Williamson was suspected of, and sacked for, allegedly leaking discussions around giving Chinese telecoms firm Huawei contracts to build UK infrastructure to support future networks. These networks would allow people to control their home (lights, washing machines, etc), allow driverless cars to operate, control infrastructure, water and air-quality monitoring systems, traffic lights, and display live departures at bus stops and train stations. Other governments around the world, concerned over security, have blocked Huawei technology from their next-generation networks. British telecom giants BT and EE are removing equipment made by Huawei from core parts of their 3G and 4G operations, and plan to exclude it from bidding on future 5G contracts. Huawei said it would never hand information to the Chinese government, but there is scepticism over whether it would have a choice. Meanwhile Mr Williamson, one of the few ministers with good relations with the DUP, has been sacked despite his strong denial of any involvement in the leak. See