Crib sheet 23.02.10

Bullying, eh? Childish, that's what it is. We love to watch Malcolm Tucker effing and blinding on the telly – "Don't you ever, ever, call me a bully, I'm so much worse than that" – but we expect real life politicians to know better. And they would if they'd been to Villiers high , a secondary school in Southall, west London, where kids who are anti-social or disruptive come before student juries to hear from their peers how their behaviour is affecting other people's rights to education and free speech. The school reckons it's part of its job is to make sure students understand human rights issues. Now the Guardian, together with Amnesty International, is running a Young Human Rights Reporter competition. So if you know any children aged between seven and 14, why not encourage them to take part. Gently. Report card Girlpower in Ghana Jessica Shepherd visits rural villages to find out how parents are being persuaded that girls need an education too Apathy at home Why are so many students giving the election a wide berth ? Funding cuts One university opens its books and shows us where the axe will fall On the margins Perversions, it seems, change over time. What elicited "ew"s in the past, is greeted with wry smiles by today's scenesters – feet, cars, liver, they've seen it all. But bathrobes? In their quest for ever more peculiar peccadillos, researchers have uncovered the case of "Alan", a man titillated by towelling. You know you want to know more. Quote of the week Universities should think about dope testing their students, declared Barbara Sahakian, a professor of clinical neuropsychology at Cambridge, warning that the use of smart drugs to boost brain function is rising fast. "If a safe and effective drug is developed which enhances cognition, then I think it would be difficult not to allow access to it. If these drugs become, essentially, legal, it will be difficult to say you can't use them for a competitive exam. Students who don't use them feel this is cheating. This is something that universities should at least discuss. Should there be urine testing? These questions have to be looked at." What you said In response to the news that the government was giving faith schools an opt-out on teaching children about sex, Ca1eb wrote: Why is the Guardian always picking on faith schools ? I spent my formative years being taught at schools of various religious denominations and I certainly had a very good education. And when we have children my wife and I will not hesitate in sending our children to a faith school, with or without "sex education" on the curriculum. Something that I certainly never missed when I wasn't taught about it. But obviously before we can have children we need god to put a little lemon drop of love in my wife's tummy so that it can grow into a baby. That's not happened yet so clearly we're not praying hard enough. Stories of the day Sex education Balls denies faith schools have an opt out Lib Dems David Laws says diplomas are a flop, ministers are too meddlesome and Ofsted needs abolishing Tug of war Why are schools and colleges fighting over sixth-formers ?