Cribsheet

Out of Dragons' Den, into the tycoon academy

Peter Jones is still sounding as excited as - well, as a contestant who has just coaxed serious cash out of him or one of his fellow judges on Dragons' Den.

The Learning and Skills Council has just officially approved his proposal for the first national enterprise academy.

Passing on the secrets of his success had become almost an obsession for a number of years before the government began talking about skills academies.

"It was when I started writing a book four years ago about my own goals and aspirations that I realised I wanted to open a 'tycoon academy'," he says.

There are plans to open two enterprise academies next September; one in Buckinghamshire, one in Manchester.

But Jones doesn't want to wait a year. Next month he is launching a "pilot" academy for 35 16- to 19-year-olds at Amersham College, which will open in January and run for six months. Applications for the pilot academy can be made now via www.peterjones.tv.

For the past four months, Jones has been relentlessly writing a curriculum for the academies, which he says is nearly ready. He is determined that it will be taught by real entrepreneurs.

Upwards of 200 students will be signed up for the 12-month courses at the two premises next September.

They will come out with a qualification of enterprise, which he hopes will be a valuable currency. They will also get the chance of industry experience.

"And those who manage to get distinctions are likely to get funding to start their own business."

There will be no tuition fees to pay, as more than £35m has been raised for the venture. Jones accepts that for youngsters far from Buckinghamshire or Manchester, attending either is quite an undertaking. That is partly the reason for rolling out the course for other institutions to teach across the country.

"Over the next three to five years, we will have reached some 13,000 young people."

Harry Potter and the revival of Latin

Has someone cast a spell that can bring dead languages back to life? The number of schools offering Latin as an option has more than doubled in Britain in the past three years. And now Latin is making a surprise resurgence in American schools too.

Over the past 10 years the number of students taking America's national Latin exam has increased by a third, while the number taking the advanced placement test (at sixth form level) in the subject has nearly doubled. The growth has happened in remote parts of the US such as Vermont, Alaska and New Mexico, as well as across New York city, where Latin is now taught in more than 30 schools. The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages predicts it may overtake German as the third most popular language after Spanish and French. So why are so many opting to learn a language that won't help you order paella or croissants?

"There are a few reasons," says Mark McWilliams, who teaches Latin at Isaac E Young middle school in New Rochelle, New York. "Some academically advanced students want a challenge, to take the most difficult classes; some like learning the culture, mythology and religion, which are a part of the curriculum; some students don't do so well with the spoken part of modern languages, so with Latin they can learn a language without having to do that. Others just think it's different, and why not?"

One school of thought suggests that the rise of Latin in popular culture - Harry Potter's spells, films like Troy and Gladiator - prompts students to take it up. McWilliams agrees that this "gives a brief uptick in interest". But he thinks this "only plays a minor part". Megan Thomas, a 13-year-old Harry Potter fan who's had after-school Latin classes for a year, disagrees. "It's kinda nice to understand the spells - she puts jokes in them," she says of JK Rowling's incantations.

McWilliams sees other reasons for starting Latin. "It's a solid foundation for most languages, and it gives you a rigorous grasp of grammar now English is not taught as formally as it used to be. And if any Latin students want to study something else later, they'll begin with a solid foundation in how a language works."Ravi Somaiya

What we have learned this week

Confidence in British universities wobbled slightly last week as shares and markets crashed around us, although they still look a good investment - but will taxpayers keep investing in them? The Times Higher/QS global league showed that 22 of the 29 British universities in the top 200 in the world have moved down the table in the past year, but that still leaves 17 UK institutions in the top 100. Compare that with Germany's three or France's two (though Switzerland, with three, and the Netherlands, with four, do better in a table the compilers admit is biased towards academic publication in English).

Both the Russell Group of big research-led institutions and the University and College Union used the results to remind the government about the need to match growing overseas competition when it comes to funding higher education. The fact that Hong Kong has three universities in the top 50 and Singapore two is a portent of things to come.

There was to be no second chance for the Rev Tim Hastie-Smith, the public-school head who gave a second chance to a teacher by employing him even though it was known that he had secretly filmed a pupil having sex. First came the announcement from Kettering academy, the state school Hastie-Smith was about to take charge of amid considerable fanfare, that the offer was withdrawn. Then came the news that he had resigned as chair of the Headmasters and Headmistresses Conference (HMC) - the club of leading independent schools - and then quit early as master of Dean Close school, Cheltenham. It was a spectacular fall from grace.

Meanwhile, Oxford and Cambridge took their rivalry into iTunesU, the academic section of the online music store. By Friday, Oxford's release of Joseph Stiglitz's topical and catchy explanation of the credit crunch was up there in the top 20. Cambridge is hitting back with a weekly radio show from Chris Smith and the Naked Scientists.Donald MacLeod