Initiative launched to tackle poor social mobility of young people in the South West A University of Exeter professor of Social Mobility is leading a research group in suggesting solutions for the South West’s GCSE and primary school attainment gaps. Statistics show that the South West performs worse than any other region on social mobility measures. “The South West is the most rural, most coastal, geographically largest and least populous of all English regions” Says Dr. Lee Elliot Major. Th

Online Features Editor Rebecca Wells speaks to Professor Louise Lawrence about the department’s, and her own, efforts to comprehend what “decolonisation” means within Theology and Religion. Until last year, Professor Louise Lawrence at the University of Exeter served as Director of Education for Theology and Religion and Liberal Arts, she is now co-Head of Department of Theology and Religion. Her work centers around New Testament Interpretation, and speaking with her, I realised that the approa

As the first instalment in a new mini- series on “decolonising” the curriculum, Online Features Editor speaks to Professor Nandini Chatterjee of the History department to find out what they have been doing to change the curriculum. Last week I had the pleasure of speaking to Professor Nandini Chatterjee of the University of Exeter’s history department, director of the Exeter Centre for South Asia and Chair of the Decolonising the Curriculum working group for History. My intention was to go thro

Protests under the banner of the Black Lives Matter movement erupted across Brazil after the death of Joao Alberto Silveira Freitas. Online Features Editor Becca Wells reports on the incident and the political reaction. Black Lives Matter protests in Brazil have sparked across the country following harrowing footage in which a Black man, Joao Alberto Silveira Freitas, was beaten to death by a security guard outside a Carrefour supermarket in Porto Alegre. Circulation of camera phone footage on

Online Features Editor Becca Wells discusses the situation in Nigeria and the #endSARS movement. Nigeria’s Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) has come under severe pressure for abolishment following years of national protests and international recognition on social media. SARS was established in 1992 as a strategy to fight violent crimes including robbery and kidnapping, however the methodology of fighting violence with violence has led to an expected outbreak of civil rights protestors fightin

Denmark has been added back onto the UK’s quarantine list following an outbreak of a mutated Coronavirus strand in the north of Jutland. The mutated virus spread through Mink Farms. They have now developed a resistance to the vaccine, and this is able to be contracted by humans. As a result, workers and residents have been told not to leave the area, to not risk the potential spreading of a vaccine-resistant Coronavirus strand. So far, twelve people have been confirmed to have contracted th

Online Features Editor Rebecca Wells re-examines the Grenfell Fire and the on-going campaign for justice. Last week, an unnamed suspect was arrested in Sussex in connection with the Grenfell Fire disaster, and released on the same day. A fire which took the lives of 72 inhabitants began on the 14th of June 2017, yet Scotland Yard have suggested that investigations may not find closure until 2021. A report by the BBC noted that fire tests had been in progress since 2014, and Grenfell’s cladding

Exeter City Council are calling for residents to celebrate Black History Month by raising awareness of Exeter’s black history within the local community. Black History Month is celebrated annually each October, and this year it has additional resonance within the city following the Black Lives Matter movement. Councillor Amal Ghusain has advocated for the necessity to amplify those voices closest to home, as a part of a large-scale scheme across the UK, Europe and the US to celebrate bla

Online Features Editor Rebecca Wells discusses possible causes and ramifications of recent statistics surrounding mental health in Britain. Recent data from the Office for National Statistics suggests that twice as many adults in Britain are reporting symptoms of depression now compared with this time last year, and it has been the subject for not just a handful of news stories in the media over the last weeks. There is never a single set of universal causes of depression and other mental i