News in brief

Equality and diversity award
Encouraging more black and minority ethnic (BME) students to enter the teaching profession - as a way of combating racism and providing children with role models - is the focus of an award-winning project based in Leeds’ School of Education. In England, only 2.4% of teachers are from BME backgrounds.

The ‘Teachers for the 21st century’ project, led by recruitment adviser Sudha Raghavan and support officer Andrew Powell, has won an equality and diversity champions award from the Yorkshire and Humberside Network for Equality and Diversity and the Learning Skills Council.

Leeds: lowest cost of living in Britain
Leeds has come top of the Royal Bank of Scotland’s Student Living Index 2007, based on the average cost of living for undergraduate students in 27 university towns and cities.

The league table found that students at Leeds enjoy the third highest wages in the country for part-time work, along with cheaper living costs than many other university towns, including London, Belfast and Nottingham.

The average Leeds student spends £186 a week on living and housing costs, and s/he earns £128 a week from part-time work. So choosing Leeds over Nottingham, for example, could theoretically leave them £75 a week better off - that’s £2,238 over an entire academic year.