The University of Essex has appointed a senior manager at Durham University as its new vice-chancellor.

Distance learning has come far since the days of late-night TV lectures. We speak to students who have turned their lives around from the comfort of their homes

Win your Future: Study for free at the Open University

Andrea Goldshaw gets up at 5am, studies for three hours and then goes to work. She is in the second year of a law conversion course with Nottingham Trent University studying under its distance learning programme, an option that allows her to get to grips with the subject in her own time at home. It's hard work combining study, paid work and motherhood, but Goldshaw* has a very personal reason for wanting to change career.

Until a few years ago she was a teaching assistant, living with her husband and children in Wales. "I was a victim of domestic violence, fled my home with my children and ended up in a refuge," she says. "I didn't qualify for legal aid so I self-litigated in the case against my husband but was given some crucial pro bono legal advice. Now I want to become a lawyer specialising in domestic violence and child contact – but my real desire is to give pro bono advice so that I can give back what was given to me."

Goldshaw completed her early childhood studies degree while in the refuge and then got a place on the Nottingham course. She now earns an income as a part-time Freedom Programme facilitator, working with women experiencing domestic violence as well as working as a debt counsellor. "Distance learning has been really hard in many ways, but because I'm passionate about what I want to do, that has kept me going," she says.

Goldshaw's circumstances might be an unusual motivation to study, but her drive and commitment to change her life are common among those heading back to university or college in their 30s, 40s, 50s and even older. The vast majority of those studying through distance learning have financial and personal commitments and cannot afford to give up paid work to study on campus.

The Open University is probably the best known name in distance learning, with 256,000 students worldwide, but it is not the only institution to offer degrees that can be completed at home. Most campus universities now offer at least some element of distance learning on a selection of courses, while others, such as the University of Liverpool, have developed postgraduate courses that involve no face-to-face interaction at all.

"We are at the stage now where we are a serious player in total online learning," says Alan Southern, director of e-learning at the University of Liverpool. "On some courses we have introduced some face-to-face contact, but our courses are predominantly built on the premise they are 100% online."

Further education opportunities are also available via distance learning, most notably from e-learning organisation Learn Direct but also from organisations such as Montessori, which has recently launched a distance learning website for those wanting to train to be a teacher.

"We wanted to make our teacher training accessible for more people," says Montessori's Amanda Gilchrist. "We get a lot of mums who discover Montessori through their own children but we also get quite a lot of people who want to change career from things such as the law or banking, because they want to give something back."

The idea of "giving something back" is a typical motivation for those returning to education. After the near collapse of the UK banking system and the subsequent economic downturn, newspapers and websites were rife with stories of redundant or soon-to-be-redundant bankers turning to teaching and other caring professions.

Christina Lloyd, director of teaching and learner support at the Open University, says that over the years there has been a noticeable trend towards people using the university's courses for a change in career or career progression, rather than studying for personal development or interest.

"The average age of Open University students has dropped," she says. "It used to be mid-40s to 50. Now students are typically in their mid-30s – which makes sense when you think that career change is a strong motivating factor for taking a course."

Michelle Virtue and Vincent Fernandez have very different stories to tell, but both were driven by a desire to move into more people-focused careers. Virtue, 42, had worked in banking for 16 years when she took redundancy and turned to the Open University to study health and social care. "I am more of a people person and decided that my place was helping people to make the most of their life," she says.

She is a single mother, but with the help and support of her mum, managed to juggle running a home and looking after her daughter, with sticking to a strict routine to complete her assignments. Now she manages a sheltered scheme for her local authority.

Fernandez went straight from school into his father's profession of mining, but had to leave after 28 years because of a spinal injury. "I had been involved in training people on site and I got a buzz from imparting information and seeing that used – and I knew I wanted to continue that somehow."

He saw an advert for Learn Direct, and went to one of its centres. "I was trembling like a kid when I went in, but they stuck with me and I did four certificates in maths and English." He is now a teaching assistant at his local school, working primarily with children with emotional and behavioural difficulties and is considering studying psychology online in his spare time.

The technological revolution has also made distance learning increasingly accessible and the materials more diverse. Gone are the days when most materials were printed and students tuned in to late-night lectures on television. Today, Open University students are still taught through printed materials but these are backed up by audio CDs, video DVDs, and online resources. The university even has its own channel on YouTube and students can download their materials from iTunes and listen to them on their MP3 players. Technology has also changed the nature of contact between students and their lecturers, as well as their peers.

"Students can now have realtime interaction with tutors via live online conferencing," says Lloyd. "It's quite a bit more sophisticated than Skype. Lots of people can log in at once and a tutor can see who wants to ask a question when a marker appears against that student's name."

This sort of technology has meant that courses such as those at Liverpool can dispense with human interaction altogether. However, most courses require, or at least strongly recommend, some sort of face-to-face contact.

"Most students want face-to-face contact and they are often surprised at how much difference a weekend of contact will make," says Shane Russell, programme leader for the graduate diploma in law distance learning course at Nottingham Trent. "Students do miss out on certain things that come with a campus-based degree, but you have to do what is practical and fits in with your circumstances."

In common with other higher education students in the UK, one of the hardest things to manage for those studying via distance learning is the cost, with undergraduate and postgraduate courses typically costing around £15,000. The vast majority of those going down this route are studying part-time and, up until this coming academic year, there have been no loans for fees for part-time students. From August this year, with tuition fees rising, part-time students will have access to loans that they will need to pay back only when they are earning a certain amount.

Many of those taking postgraduate, professionally focused degrees such as those offered online at the University of Liverpool are either working in professions where they are paid well and can afford to fund their study, or are part-funded by their employers. Others, such as Goldshaw, rely on a combination of bank loans and strict budgeting. "You have to be practical with money and very disciplined so that studying is affordable," she says.

It's not just money management that requires discipline for those studying from home. Distance learning requires real discipline in time management and, often, an understanding partner.

Kate Bressner, who studied for a life sciences degree with The Open University, and subsequently switched her career in business management to become a medical science researcher, says discipline was key. "You have to really plan your work. I studied from 8pm until 10pm or 11pm every evening at one point. Luckily my husband had also studied through Open University and so was very understanding and supportive."

While this sort of discipline, not to mention the loss of social life and family time, can be gruelling, The Open University's Lloyd says it really pays off. Employers do notice.

"In the past people were unsure about studying through The Open University because they weren't sure about the university's credibility," she says. "Now we are getting excellent feedback on the calibre of our students and our degrees. Students are particularly praised for possessing great time management and self-motivation. These qualities can really make someone stand out in a competitive employment market."

*Name has been changed

• Work & careers
• Graduate careers
• Open University
• Higher education
• Internet

Lisa Bachelor
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'I worry that you think I feel superior. I don't. I feel embarrassed'

I don't want to make you feel stupid. Really. I just can't help it. However much I try to hold back, I just did have "a good education" and read a lot of books when I was young. So when there is a quiz, I will inevitably know more answers than most people in the room.

Over Christmas, I couldn't help answering all the cracker questions, and began to wish I'd kept quiet. I am aware that quite a few of you feel intimidated, belittled, or both. I worry that you think I feel superior about my general knowledge. Or that I'm judging people when they get the answer wrong. I don't, and I'm not. Actually, I feel embarrassed. What I'm thinking is, please, people, stop putting me up there for my small areas of expertise.

I'd like to think we could judge each other less for our intellectual gifts and ability to pass exams, that we've got beyond these simple and skewed views. In my turn, I am in awe of one person's musical ability, or another's skill at cooking, or their flair for design. All things that I cheerfully admit I am dismal at. I respect that these talents are equal in value to my own gifts.

I'm sorry if my achievements and abilities press your buttons. I really don't want to make anyone feel bad about themselves. I know this won't make you feel any better, but when I know the answer, I don't always say it. And if I am winning at a game, I often deliberately lose. So don't feel intimidated. If only you knew how inferior to you I really feel.

• Tell us what you're really thinking at mind@guardian.co.uk

Anonymous
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In our pursuit of the luxury trades, many essential but less glamorous jobs have been overlooked or forgotten

Blood tests must be among the easiest procedures in a hospital, so routine that you can just turn up at the blood clinic, take a ticket from the dispenser and wait for your number to flash red on the screen. Absolutely no appointment necessary, and the wait isn't long, even though the crowd fills two or three rows of seats. My consultant's notes refer to the tests simply as "bloods", which sounds nicely cavalier ("Huzzah, sir, pick up your rapier!") compared to phlebotomy, which is this area of medicine's official name. Just out of sight, the phlebotomists are at work behind the curtains with their needles: pricking veins and turning tubes incarnadine. Your turn. "This arm please … just relax … a little scratch now … press with your finger on the cotton wool for a moment." And within a few minutes, you're rolling down your sleeve and saying thanks and goodbye to the person with the needle – grateful, though these details are never spoken, for their skill and their part, however small, in what you hope is the remedial process.

Sometimes you try to make a little human contact. Recently I asked my blood-taker where she was from. India, I guessed, but the answer was Ethiopia. Through the curtain I could hear an elderly lady ask the same thing of another blood-taker. "Are you from Nigeria?" "No, ma'am, Sierra Leone." Perhaps only an older generation asks questions about origin these days – my children's behaviour implies so – because it's come to be considered ignorant and possibly racist; asked mainly of people who aren't white by white people who have yet to adjust to the facts of the nation's demography. But my experience of the phlebotomy department in this London teaching hospital suggests Hackney or Wembley will be less frequent answers than Addis, Dhaka and Manila. Most of the staff here have migrated long distances to work.

What qualities and skills do a good phlebotomist need? From the patient's point of view, the list looks likely to include a clear head and a calm temperament, a working knowledge of antisepsis and the vascular system, a reasonably sympathetic manner and a steady hand. In a hospital, none of these would be unique to phlebotomists – all would be developed together with much more sophisticated knowledge in the long and expensive educations of junior doctors, for example. But do you want a junior doctor to draw your blood or insert a cannula? On balance, probably not. Sometimes junior doctors get sent on this prentice errand to the wards. Sometimes they fail to find a productive vein in either arm and withdraw in apology and confusion. You are better off with someone who draws blood for a living, day in, day out, for whom veins have lost all of their mystery.

The Royal College of Nursing lists blood-drawing as one of the "sample competences" of a healthcare assistant, which in the medical world may be a similar ranking to the vocational qualifications that the government announced this week would lose their equivalence with GCSEs and be omitted from the calculations of school league tables. Of course, blood-drawing is far more responsible work than fish husbandry, horse care and fingernail technology; done carelessly, it can damage, even end, a human life. But like many other skills that depend on touch as well as thought – fingernail technology, possibly – the more you work with the physical material, the better you become. Finding a full vein in living flesh can't be successfully substituted by anatomical studies in the classroom. That shouldn't lessen its value as an occupation, and yet our addiction to the idea that the only worthwhile jobs are those that can be somehow professionalised – with years of fulltime learning and degrees – probably means it does.

Despite cuts in educational budgets, increased student fees and the general implosion of the social fabric, the addiction persists. Every week a local Scottish newspaper is delivered to our house, and the day after my blood test I saw it included a photograph of a young man in an academic cap and gown, holding a scroll in his hand. It is a nice local newspaper tradition that dates from the Victorian age – to honour the youth who has gone up to the city and returned with a degree and a broader future. This particular youth had graduated with a BA (Hons) in sports journalism after a four-year course at the University of the West of Scotland (UWS), whose website promises a programme that will provide students with "the professional abilities and practical skills" for this "exciting and growing field … "

There are degrees in sports journalism in the rest of the UK, too, and hundreds of academic courses in non-specialised journalism, churning out graduates for the shrinking labour market of newspapers and other media. They aren't pointless; apart from any craft they may teach, they can also offer connections and contacts – a "way in" – which is the modern essential of anyone trying to start a career. As UWS points out, all students can expect to meet national sports writers and broadcasters, and to take up work placements in news organisations, where their abilities may be noted and remembered for a later date. But how complicated, unnecessary and expensive it all sounds compared to the old method of being sent to report a minor league football match, reading the dispatches of senior reporters and learning week-by-week how it was done.

The success of the academic route has yet to be discovered, but it will be lucky to produce writers as good as the Guardian's Richard Williams, who joined the Nottingham Evening Post aged 18, or Hugh McIlvanney, often acknowledged as the finest sportswriter of his generation, who left Kilmarnock Academy for the Kilmarnock Standard when he was even younger. Perhaps nobody can do that now – leave school for a job on the local paper; intervention by a university is thought necessary to the meanest of trades. But it would be hard to detect any improvements in local newspapers that could be attributed to the massive expansion of tertiary education.

In a broader and far more serious way, something dysfunctional seems to have happened. Unemployment in the UK now stands at 2.69 million, with more than a million people aged between 16 and 24 looking for work – a rate of 22.3%, and a new record. But several British institutions continue to favour foreign workforces, or be favoured by them. At the sandwich chain Pret A Manger, only 19% of the staff are British, while, according to the Daily Mail, a third of the people who sell the Big Issue, the paper founded to help the homeless, are Romanian. I have no figures for foreign-born phlebotomists, but in London I would guess a majority. Good for them, and me too. But in our pursuit of the luxury trades – graduates in sports journalism, for example – many essential but less glamorous jobs were overlooked or forgotten. To paraphrase the railway apology for disruptions by snow, has Britain created the wrong sort of unemployed?

• Vocational education
• Higher education
• Unemployment
• Apprenticeships
• Further education
• Immigration and asylum

Ian Jack
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Two-shift day and use of empty Woolworths stores among ideas to cope with surge in primary age pupils

A council in east London is drawing up plans to convert an empty Woolworths store into a classroom and teach children in two shifts, in emergency measures across Britain to cope with a dramatic increase in primary school age children.

More than 450,000 places in schools in England are needed by 2015, government figures show – partly the result of a baby boom in the past decade.

Schools have begun using every available space, including converting a caretaker's hut into a classroom and a broom cupboard into an office, and moving into council-owned office space.

The problem is most acute in London. In Barking, the number of primary age children is predicted to rise from 19,000 to more than 27,000 by 2015. In addition to the empty Woolworths, the council is looking into leasing a vacant MFI building.

It is also looking at "split shift sessions", where schools would take one group of pupils from 8am until 2pm and then a second from 2pm until 7pm. The shifts would double capacity although the council concedes parents would have great difficulty accomodating the shift patterns.

Rocky Gill, Barking and Dagenham council's cabinet member for finance and education, said "detailed plans" for shifts were being drawn up. "In two years' time we will have expanded all our primary schools. So we're going to have no choice but to move into split shift education at both primary and secondary level."

Gill feared the impact on families with children in different shifts could be "disastrous".

The demographic pressure is particularly acute in London, due to inward migration and increasing numbers of people no longer leaving the capital when they have children.

Ripple primary school in Barkinghad 4.5 applications per place last year, and is growing from three forms to five in each year after expanding into a nearby council-owned office site. By 2015 it expects to have 1,200 pupils, making it one of the biggest primaries in the country.

Initially, the school shared the new space with office workers. The headteacher, Roger Mitchell, said: "It was interesting sharing the building – we were working in the very best way we possibly could.

"It didn't really become my school until the end of February, beginning of March last year, when those people finally moved out to new accommodation. It's nice just to have my school now."

The school's expansion originally has a budget of £4.4m, but this was halved when the coalition came to power. Mitchell is also seeking an extra £3.2m to fund a permanent solution for the original school site, so 120 reception-aged children will not have to be taught in outdoor huts.

"It's not nice to have some of your youngest children taught in outside classrooms, they need a proper learning environment – one that's not too cold in the winter and too hot in the summer," he said.

While the council's strategy has been to expand school building where possible, the authority has also been exploring the possibility of commercial space.

"We've got an empty MFI building and an empty Woolworths; we're looking at speaking to those freeholders and purchasing that space or leasing it," Gill said.

Focusing on the needs of individual children becomes a sharper challenge as schools get bigger. Thelma McGorrighan, headteacher of Manor infants' school, which in September set up another three entry classes at a different site, Manor Longbridge, said: "You have to make your presence felt. Parents have to see you.

"First thing in the morning and at the end of the day, you're out there with the children – greeting the children, dealing with issues outside, keeping the parents well informed."

Parental campaigns are springing up against the expansion of existing primaries, driven by concern that standards will slip if schools become too big.

In Haringey, proposals to expand two schools, Belmont infants and Belmont junior, face resistance. School governors at the infants' school argue that the plans are "likely to jeopardise a successful school".

Victoria Harwood, a writer whose four-year-old son is a pupil at Belmont infants, said: "It's a grade 1 Ofsted school. It does well because it's so small. It's a small, intimate community school. That would change if it expands. If they try and jam-pack more kids in, I'm convinced that standards would drop."

The shortage of primary school places is a sore point for the government. Last November the education secretary, Michael Gove, confirmed that an extra £500m would be allocated to more than 100 local authorities experiencing "the most severe need", while in the autumn statement the chancellor, George Osborne, announced a further £600m for local authorities with the greatest pressure on school places. He also announced an extra £600m for free schools.

This prompted Labour to accuse Gove of lavishing money on a "pet project" rather than spending the entire £1.2bn easing the pressure on primaries.

While London faces the greatest challenge, schools elsewhere are feeling the strain. In Manchester, which will see a predicted rise from just over 37,000 primary school pupils to more than 46,000 by 2015, a headteacher said her schools were "bursting at the seams".

Lisa Vyas, headteacher of Ladybarn primary school and executive headteacher of Green End primary school, said: "Every single little space is used. We've even had to transform a little storage cupboard into the business manager's office.

"At the moment, because of the knock on effect of the dinners taking longer to serve, I now can't provide every child a gym and dance lesson because there's not enough time in the hall.

"I can't meet the PE curriculum needs because there's not enough hours in the day."

An education department spokesman said: "We're creating thousands more places to deal with the impact of soaring birth rates on primary schools. We're more than doubling targeted investment at areas facing the greatest pressure on numbers , more than £4bn in the next four years."

"We are building free schools, and letting what are the most popular schools expand so they can meet demand from parents. We are intervening to drive up standards in the weakest schools, those with thousands of empty places nationally, so they can become places where parents actually want to send their children."

• Schools
• Population
• Primary schools
• Communities
• Local government

Simon MurphyJeevan Vasagar
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Our pick of the most eye-catching and innovative entries to the 2011 International Science & Engineering Visual Challenge

Pupils expelled from school for dealing drugs, attacking other children and carrying weapons are being allowed back into lessons against teachers' wishes, it emerged today.

Hockney On Paper sale at Christie's to include etchings inspired by Hogarth, 1954 lithograph and work from his time in America

The past few years have seen David Hockney experimenting with iPads and iPhones, but an auction at Christie's in London will focus on work made with the most basic of art materials. Hockney on Paper will see almost 150 works go under the hammer, from the artist's 1954 lithograph of a fish and chip shop owned by friends of his parents in Bradford, to photomontages of the 1980s.

The sale, on 17 February, will feature numerous works from the artist's years in America, including a set of 16 etchings based on Hogarth's The Rake's Progress and others inspired by the young Hockney's experiences in New York. The etchings are expected to sell for between £150,000 and £200,000, with the whole auction estimated at £1m. On Monday Hockney visited the Royal College of Art in London (RCA), where he graduated 50 years ago, as part of its 175th anniversary celebrations. He told the Guardian: "Drawing and painting was the centre of the old college and I don't know whether it is now, but I always think the phrase 'back to the drawing board' tells you something, doesn't it? Drawing – it's still there. Nothing's altered in that way."

The auction will feature the 1962 sketch The Diploma, which Hockney drew in protest when the RCA said it would not let him graduate. He had refused to write the essay required for the final examination, stating that he should be assessed solely on his artworks. Recognising his talent and growing reputation, the RCA changed its regulations and awarded the diploma.

Hockney's current show at London's Royal Academy has received huge public acclaim, with all advance tickets sold out, though some critics have been less enthusiastic. Hockney said he had watched the reaction unfold on Twitter, although he did not tweet himself.

He said: "The show is actually one enormous piece, and people who don't get that pick out bits and little points – not very smart, really. Especially for a landscape show, if people are queueing for it, it tells you something. We're very, very pleased with the response – and I'm not complaining about the press. Of course not. It doesn't matter what they say either."

• David Hockney
• Painting
• Art
• Photography
• Royal College of Art

Alex Needham
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The BBC's Nicola Smith looks at how literacy levels can be raised

University cites its First Amendment commitment in supporting its climate scientist Michael Mann's right to give lecture

In an uncharacteristically angry post at the New York Times's Dot Earth blog, Andy Revkin has hit out at a "shameful attack on free speech". It relates to a Facebook campaign which is calling on Pennsylvania State University to "disinvite" Professor Michael E. Mann, the director of its Earth System Science Center, from giving a lecture next week entitled: "Confronting the Climate Change Challenge."

The Facebook campaign has been initiated by a seemingly conjoined group called the Common Sense Movement/Secure Energy for America Political Action Committee. Brad Johnson at ThinkProgress has investigated the people behind it and describes it as a "coal-industry astroturf group". Here's a video from the Common Sense Movement's "I Am Coal" campaign, which gives an insight into its worldview...

The group argues on its page:

At a time when Penn State should be doing everything possible to regain its status as a bastion of truth and integrity, the last thing they should be doing is supporting someone of such questionable ethics and motives with our tax dollars.
There is no place for this brand of extreme political activism, disguised as academics, at Penn State now or in the future. University leadership should be ashamed for continuing to provide Mann with such high visibility – at our expense.

Revkin is particularly angry – quite rightly - at the group's templated letter it is asking supporters to send to "daily newspapers near you", which includes the accusation that Mann, one of the world's most high-profile climate scientists whose private emails were among those illegally released online in 2009, is "conspiring with his left-wing cronies to intimidate and silence those who would dare to question his intentions".

Revkin even took to Facebook himself, posting: "Antidemocratic, hateful, and coal-backed smear campaign against a scientist I've sometimes disagreed with but who has every right to state his case at Penn State or anywhere else."

The efforts of those behind the campaign of intimidation against Penn State appear to have come to nothing, though. Common sense (of the real variety) reigns, as a spokesman has just confirmed to me:

Penn State has a deep and profound commitment to the First Amendment and the principles of free speech and expression. Our role as a university is to serve as a marketplace of ideas and by allowing this talk we are protecting the civil liberties of our students, faculty and staff. There are no plans to cancel his speaking engagement.
Michael Mann's research has undergone several rigorous national reviews and investigations and in each case his work has been upheld.
In 2011, the National Science Foundation completed a review and upheld Mann's work. The NSF review was the second major investigation at the national level of his controversial research into climate change. In 2006 the National Academy of Sciences completed an inquiry into Mann's findings at the request of Congress. Again, his research was confirmed.
In 2010, Penn State conducted its own four-month investigation into allegations of research misconduct against Mann and a panel of five University faculty members from various fields determined that the scientist violated no professional standards in the course of his work.

The spokesman added that such a lecture would typically attract 300-400 people. On the question of security, he said: "We evaluate every event on campus from a security perspective and will determine if additional steps are warranted."

He added: "We have received only a handful of comments [about the lecture], and the majority of those are supporting free speech."

• Climate change
• Climate change
• Climate change scepticism
• Hacked climate science emails
• Pennsylvania

Leo Hickman
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The Government's flagship academy schools have been accused of shifting pupils onto inferior courses to dramatically inflate their GCSE results.

Schools should be allowed to delay a new exam system if they are not ready to implement it, Scotland's largest teaching union says.

Children are to get legal rights to maintain relationships with both their parents, as part of a shake-up of the family justice system.

A college plans a new course devoted entirely to taking photographs on the iPhone

The incoming fair access watchdog says universities will be fined for failing to recruit more students from poorer backgrounds.

Top universities in England were warned yesterday they face having to slash their fees if they fail to recruit more students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Teachers should be refused pay rises if they cannot inspire their pupils and improve their performance,  the chief inspector of schools said yesterday.

National Audit Office says free nursery places have improved development by age five, but results at seven are unchanged

Free nursery places for pre-school children may not have a lasting impact on their education, the government's spending watchdog has suggested.

A report by the National Audit Office (NAO) found it was not clear whether government moves to fund nursery education for three- and four-year-olds was leading to longer-term benefits.

While children's development at five has improved, results at age seven remain unchanged, it says.

Although it acknowledges that there have been changes to free nursery education, and its link to children's results at the age of seven is not "straightforward", the NAO says the Department for Education "did intend that the entitlement would have lasting effects on child development throughout primary school and beyond".

Nationally, 59% of five-year-olds achieved a good level of development in 2010/11, compared with 45% in 2005/06, the report says.

But it adds: "National key stage 1 results, however, have shown almost no improvement since 2007, so it is not yet clear that the entitlement is leading to longer-term educational benefits."

The watchdog also warns that youngsters from poorer areas are still less likely to get access to good quality nursery care than those from wealthier homes.

In total, 95% of three- and four-year-olds are in early education – a rate that has been sustained since 2008, the report says.

But an analysis of Ofsted data, conducted by the NAO, found the percentage of good or outstanding nursery care in March last year ranged from 64% in some local authorities to 97% in others.

"Areas of highest deprivation were less likely to have high-quality provision," it found.

The NAO head, Amyas Morse, said: "The Department for Education needs to do more to put itself in the position to assess whether the forecast long-term benefits of free education for three- and four-year-olds are being achieved. It also needs to understand how the arrangements for funding providers of that early education drive its availability, take-up and quality.

"Both of these are necessary if it is to get the best return for children from the £1.9bn spent each year."

Under the scheme, all three- and four-year-olds are entitled to 15 hours of free education a week for 38 weeks a year. In January 2011, 831,800 youngsters were receiving this entitlement.

Daniela Wachsening, education policy adviser at the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), said: "There is absolutely no doubt that high-quality early years education makes a massive difference to children's development, and is particularly important for children from disadvantaged families.

"But the government is jeopardising the chances of disadvantaged children by cutting the grants to local authorities, which has led to the loss of high-quality early years places and drastic reductions in children's and family services to the detriment of the most vulnerable children."

The children's minister, Sarah Teather, said: "We are pleased that the NAO has recognised the progress made since we introduced free early education for three- and four-year-olds.

"There is lots more to do – and the report also sets out important national and local challenges to be addressed. We are determined to improve the availability of quality places in disadvantaged areas, and offering free early education to around 40% of two-year-olds will help by bringing even more money into the system.

"We also want to examine in more detail how to make sure the significant improvements we are seeing at five feed through into better results at seven."

• Early years education
• Children

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Welsh schools do not appear to be achieving results as good as those in England - on several measures the gap is widening.

Campaigners have saved some libraries from closure, and an inquiry begins next week – but councils are now under greater financial pressure than ever to cut services

In the 12 months since a surge of public protest against proposed library closures was expressed in last February's Save Our Libraries Day, campaigning bibliophiles around the country have enjoyed mixed fortunes.

There was rejoicing in Somerset and Gloucestershire, where library closures were quashed by a legal challenge, but in Brent, north-west London, despite a determined high court action and 24-hour vigils outside Kensal Rise library, the Brent SOS Libraries campaign group failed to prevent six libraries from being boarded up.

Saturday sees another national day of library action, but users of Brent's Preston Park library will be marking National Libraries Day not in their now closed library building, but at a pop-up library in a nearby primary school.

The day will consist of all manner of author visits and read-a-thons to highlight and celebrate the service. All around the country – including Oxfordshire, Doncaster and Surrey, the latest place where a legal challenge is being launched against the council – groups of committed library users are still battling to preserve their library networks from heavy cutbacks.

Many credit the vigour of the campaigning for the fact that the tally of library buildings to have closed their doors is much lower than had been suggested. A year ago, the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals predicted that 600 libraries could go – yet so far, according to the website Public Libraries News, only 32 in the UK have closed. Forty-three mobile libraries have also shut down; eight libraries have been handed over to local communities to run; four more, in Lewisham, have been transferred out to a social enterprise company.

Alan Gibbons, who runs the influential pro-library blog Campaign for the Book, has no doubt that local protesters are responsible for the lesser number of closures. "I think the public library service would have incurred phenomenal damage had not Brent, Somerset and Gloucestershire campaigners created a knowledge in councillors that there would be resistance," he said.

But with financial pressures on councils now greater than ever, there are fears that the next year could look very different. Public Libraries News lists 407 libraries as being at risk of closure, with many more expected come the new budget year in April. Kent, where the library authority has chosen not to host any special events for National Libraries Day, is working on a major shakeup of its service, including trialling the use of a US debt collection company, Unique Management, to recover its unpaid library fines.

In addition, the move towards community-run library schemes in place of outright closures has its critics.

Desmond Clarke, a former director of the publishing house Faber & Faber, and a longtime campaigner for libraries, says the prediction of 600 lost libraries still holds good, but that 550 of those 600 may not be closed so much as moved into "community provision".

According to Clarke, this could mean closure by default, because volunteer workforces are by nature unstable, and will face a burden of constant fundraising for running costs. "There is no blueprint to know whether community-run libraries are viable and sustainable," he said. "It is all being done on a wing and a prayer – sink or swim."

Another theme of the past year has been the "hollowing out" of library services, as authorities desperate to meet squeezed budgets leave library buildings intact but cut back on staff, opening hours and book funds.

Durham county council has announced that 250 staff – the equivalent of 134 full-time posts – may go. In Wirral, 50 library staff are leaving. In Birmingham, 27 of 182 FTE (full-time equivalent) posts are to go.

Clarke estimates that over the two years to April 2013, one quarter of the 23,700 paid library staff who were working in March 2011 (according to the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy) will have lost their jobs.

Annie Mauger, chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, said that for councils, there's a choice between "bricks or brains" – and that they are in danger of replacing a library service with a mere "book-lending" service.

"A quality service needs planning and delivery and is professional because it needs to be," Mauger said, pointing out that librarians offer advice and support for families and parents, ensure no bias in the library's collection, and offer access to information and the internet.

Under the 1964 Public Libraries & Museums Act, which underpins the service, the culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has a legal duty to superintend public libraries and make sure local authorities are providing a "comprehensive and efficient" library service to all residents. Hunt's unwillingness to intervene over closures has infuriated the campaigners, who have bombarded him and the culture minister, Ed Vaizey, with pleas for action.

The children's laureate, Julia Donaldson, a staunch library champion, said that Hunt and Vaizey have been "singularly unresponsive … The frustrated campaigners are wondering what irresponsible actions local authorities have to take in cutting public libraries before [Hunt's] department decides to undertake an official inquiry."

Next week may see a significant development on this front, with the culture, media and sport select committee, responsible for scrutinising the work of the department, due to start taking oral evidence in an inquiry into library closures.

High-profile authors are likely to be among those offering their views, with the inquiry likely to look at whether the closures are compatible with the 1964 act, and the effectiveness of the secretary of state's powers of intervention. Hunt and Vaizey may also be asked to give evidence.

The campaigning must continue, Donaldson believes. On 13 March, authors, librarians and campaigners will join in a rally and a lobby of parliament to tell MPs their views directly.

"We all just have to keep banging away and hoping for the best," said Donaldson. "I do feel that, thanks to all the campaigning, there is now more public awareness about the plight of libraries and that more people are up in arms. On the other hand, there is always the danger of fatigue: if local authorities continue to make cuts, some people are going to be wondering: 'Can we go through this all over again?' It's certainly not a short-term problem."

Benedicte Page is news editor of The Bookseller

• Libraries
• Public sector cuts
• Public services policy
• Local government

Benedicte Page
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