Daily Mail, Friday, August 30, 2019 Page 29
Our course
on Africa was
too white,
say students
A LEADING university has been
accused of making its African
studies master’s course ‘too
white’ by three ex-students.
The women, all of African
descent, sent UCL an open let-
ter saying there were too many
straight white male voices and
not enough black scholars.
They said the course focused
too much on how Europe saw
Africa and did not go far enough
in challenging stereotypes.
It is the latest example of calls
to ‘decolonise’ campuses. Stu-
dents at Oxford and Cambridge
have branded arts and humani-
ties subjects too ‘male, stale
and pale’ – particularly English.
The three UCL graduates,
Jesutofunmi Odugbemi, Orape-‘Treated our
ways as quaint’By Eleanor Harding
Education EditorCrisis as NHS loses almost
600 GPs in just 12 months
THE NHS has lost almost
600 GPs in the past year as
its recruitment crisis con-
tinues, figures show.
Numbers fell by 2 per cent in
the 12 months to June this year- with 440 family doctors leav-
ing the Health Service between
March and June alone.
It comes despite a pledge in 2015
from then health secretary Jeremy
Hunt that the NHS would hire
5,000 more GPs by 2020.
Figures released by NHS Digital
yesterday show there were 28,257
full-time equivalent, fully-qualified
doctors employed in GP practices
in England in June this year – down
576 from 28,833 the previous year.
Overall the provision of GPs is
rising as locum doctors and train-
ees who are not yet fully-qualified
boosted the total number of full-
time GPs to 34,114 – up 0.8 per
cent in a year.
But some of these are not always
in the same surgery, while others
require supervision.
In June 2015, when Mr Hunt
made his post-election pledge,
there were 34,262 GPs.
Although doctor numbers have
actually fallen since then his suc-
cessor, Matt Hancock, said earlier
this year he was still committed to
the target and would set a new
timeline to achieve it.
The detailed NHS Digital figures
also show which practices have
lost or gained the most doctors,with one medical centre in Lon-
don losing 31 in three months.
A total of 1,141 surgeries have
recorded staff losses since March.
The NHS has been in the grip of
a recruitment crisis for years and
is now thought to be short oftaking on more work – often in
excess of their contracted hours,’
said Dr Krishna Kasaraneni of the
BMA’s GP committee.
‘This places a huge amount of
strain on GPs, who are putting
their own health and wellbeing at
risk to ensure their patients get
the best care possible.’
GPs benefited from a lucrative
contract under New Labour that
led to soaring salaries and enabled
them to give up much out-of-
hours work.
But doctor numbers have been
hit by a tax row over pension con-
tributions which has led some to
cut their hours or even retire early,
it has been claimed.
Professor Martin Marshall, of the
Royal College of GPs said: ‘The
number of fully-qualified GPsleaving the profession is concern-
ing and reflects the harsh reality
of what it’s like for family doctors
working in NHS general practice,
facing intense resource and work-
force pressures on a daily basis.
‘We desperately need to see more
funding for the roll out of reten-
tion schemes across the country, if
we have any chance of turning this
situation around.
‘Demand for GP services is esca-
lating both in terms of volume and
complexity.
‘Paired with falling workforce
numbers, it creates a perfect
storm that is leaving GPs stressed,
burnt out, and leaving the profes-
sion earlier than planned – and
our patients waiting much longer
for an appointment than they
should have to.’around 100,000 staff. The
British Medical Association says
the situation is putting doctors
under strain.
‘As patient demand rises and the
workforce gets smaller, GPs arethe Mail, February 28Four out of 10 GPs
plan to quit over
the next five years
By Sam Blanchardleng Rammala and Wangui wa
Kamonji, took the master’s in
London in 2017-18. They wrote:
‘The first class of our core Afri-
can studies module began with
how Europe has seen Africa his-
torically, and only when we got
to the final class of the module
did students finally get a chance
to consider how Africans have
seen and see themselves.’
They said most of the lectur-
ers were white and the curric-
ulum ‘features a disproportion-
ately large number of cis-white
male voices’ – with ‘cis’ usually
meaning non-transgender.
The women said the course
offered no chance to challenge
‘Western hegemonic concepts’
and treated African ‘ways of
being’ as ‘quaint notions’. UCL
said it had listened to their con-
cerns and made some changes.
In 2015, Oxford students
demanded dons tear down a
statue of imperialist Cecil
Rhodes for being ‘offensive’.Paul Hollywood was dressed
as the Tin Man, Sandi Toks-
vig was the Scarecrow and
Noel Fielding wore a Dor-
othy costume – with a
dress and wig.
Praising the skills of the
show’s medic, Miss Leith
said: ‘I leap out on to the
yellow brick road, roaring –
I feel a hammer blow to my
ankle, and end up whimper-
ing like the Cowardly Lion
I’m portraying.
‘I have snapped my Achil-
les tendon.’
She wrote in the Specta-
tor: ‘Danny the medic, who
has had nothing more excit-
ing than bakers’ cut fingers
to deal with for three years,finally gets to use his ambu-
lance, wheelchair and con-
siderable skills.’
Unlike the timid character
from the classic 1939 film,
Miss Leith was undaunted- finishing the scene after
putting her costume back
on and propping herself up
between Hollywood and
Fielding.
She was spotted last week
limping around The Big
Feastival in Oxfordshire on
multi-coloured crutches
with her foot in a protective
medical boot.
Miss Leith took over as
Bake Off head judge from
Mary Berry in 2017 when
the contest – which is now
in its tenth series – moved
from BBC1 to Channel 4.
Cowardly? No, Prue
hobbles on after
snapping tendon
Yellow Bake Road: Hollywood, Leith, Fielding and Toksvig in Wizard of Oz skitFOR someone who’s
injured themselves while
dressed as the Cowardly
Lion, Prue Leith seems
to be putting on a remark-
ably brave face.
The 79-year-old was left
hobbling on crutches after
snapping her Achilles ten-
don while playing the Wiz-
ard of Oz character in a skit
for the opening of the Great
British Bake Off.
Miss Leith told how she
jumped out to scare her co-
presenters on the Yellow
Brick Road. But her leap
was so enthusiastic that
she suffered a ‘hammer
blow’ to her ankle and had
to spend the next hour with
her leg in an ice bucket.By Mike BediganOver the rainbow: Prue Leith’s vivid crutches