When I visited the Amariya serious crimes squad headquarters of the Iraqi police in Baghdad yesterday I found
When I visited the Amariya serious crimes squad headquarters of the Iraqi police in Baghdad yesterday, I found five nervous cops standing on duty outside, next to seven black banners commemorating seven police officers who have been killed in just the past six weeks.Another banner, commemorating the murder of a police lieutenant colonel in the organised crime branch, whose vehicle was hit in Baghdad by a rocket-propelled grenade, hung over the main door of the station. The cops on the gate were joking about whether they would go to heaven or hell if they were killed.I sat with them for several minutes. Watching the approach of cars, it seems, concentrates the mind wonderfully. I think he fancies you.” “Fancies Mum?” Con is just beside himself with mirth “Where is he? Let me see.”Discreetly, I follow Con’s gaze My admirer meets my eye with a bold, rolling stare. He is about 70 and almost perfectly spherical, with trousers up to his armpits. The number of acceptances to physics PGCE was 568 in 1993, but that number had dropped to 323 in 2002. When the skilled science teachers stopped coming up through the system, the schools started turning to teachers with a shallower depth of knowledge.All the same, despite having had some highly skilled teachers, Rowlands doesn’t think he will pursue a career in science research after he graduates.
“I can’t really see myself working in a lab all day, to be perfectly honest,” he says. “And I don’t think any of my friends are planning to do a PhD, but you never know. It could capture our imaginations.”Still, he says, jobs in the sciences are financially fruitful enough for him to consider working in the industry: “It gives you numerous options. You can go into the City, and people with science degrees are valued there. But when I arranged my course I didn’t really think about it in terms of career.
It was just something I was interested in.” SH education independent.co.uk. So, Leeds University is recruiting its first marketing director, a development that is being seen as a sign of the times. The new director will be the “guardian of the brand”, reporting directly to the vice-chancellor. This trend and the language in which it is couched may make academics blanch, but it is necessary in a world in which universities are competing ferociously and students pay fees.