The Merging of the PCFC and the UFC: Probable,Desirable or Inevitable?

Post-war growth of higher education has attracted the interest of national governments. They are properly concerned with higher education's contribution to economic success and equity, and the efficient and effective use of public funds. They can intervene by means of legislation (which is unwieldy), exhortation (which is ineffective), or funding incentives. Funding councils must operate within a social and political context which determines the balance between planning and the market, central and local direction, public and private funding. They have only four strategies to choose from: deficiency-, formula-, contract-, and core-funding. The first was nearly fatal; the last is the preferred option for the future.
There are two issues: the merging of the two funding councils (PCFC and UFC), and the ending of the binary system. The first could produce a welcome single guiding intelligence for UK higher education, and economies of scale. The second raises the question of the funding of fundamental research. The merging of PCFC and UFC and the reorganisation of research-funding is a two-headed nettle. It must be grasped soon.     

TASK ANALYSIS: BULIDING MODELS OF CHANGE PROCESSES IN GIFTED EDUCATION

Researchers in the field of gifted education are becoming increasingly aware that a variety of research approaches can make contributions to research on giftedness. This paper describes task analysis, a research methodology derived from counseling process research. Task analysis appears to be a useful research approach for building theoretical models of how therapeutic and educational interventions can facilitate positive changes in gifted children. The paper traces the historical development of task analysis methodology, describes the steps involved in conducting a rational‐empirical task analysis of change processes, and provides an example of how task analysis methodology might be applied to investigations of change processes in the field of gifted education.     

Holographic perspective

Although the principle of holography was conceived as long ago as 1947, interest was limited until the advent of the laser in 1960 made possible the off-axis holography widely used today. Since then holography has found many applications and become so well known outside the laboratory as to be a recognized art form. Within the last few years considerable progress has also been made in acoustic holography.