Education

Monty Don says he often felt like ‘summer had arrived without me’ when spending time at boarding school as a child, a feeling he experiences now when filming a hit BBC show

Monty Don finds himself “restraining tears” as he opened up about a moment that makes him “resent” a BBC show. Monty, 70, says he has long realised that “home is the epicentre” of his world.

It came after he was sent to boarding school as a youngster and found himself feeling as though “summer had arrived without me”. Monty says that while the seasons shifted at school, home is where they “truly existed”.

He admits that his world now “spins” around his Longmeadow home, which he purchased in 1991. The property consisted of an abandoned field with a single tree in it when Monty bought it.

It now boasts a series of lovingly crafted gardens. It is at Longmeadow that Monty often finds himself feeling like he did when he was a small child, bursting into tears as he realised the seasons had come and gone.

Writing in the Gardeners’ World magazine, he said: “I still have a moment or two like that every year in the garden, although now, 67 years later, I do my best to restrain the tears.”

Monty says a garden often has a “watershed moment” where it seems as though one season becomes the next. The star believes it can often happen with “seemingly no transition” between the two.

On the whole though, Monty explains that in gardening, things “change constantly” through “slow mergings”. He says one moment he often notices the change at Longmeadow is when he goes to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.

Monty presents the coverage alongside the likes of Rachel de Thame, Angellica Bell and Nikki Chapman. Monty says he leaves Herefordshire on the Sunday and returns a week later.

In that time, he jokes that his garden has “completely rearranged itself”. “Spring has toppled into summer and I was not there to see it,” he explains.

It brings a “complicated mess of emotions” for Monty, a hark back to his days as a boy at boarding school. He says he feels a sense of “betrayal” from his garden, as well as the delight at welcoming in the new season.

And in part, Monty says he blames the Chelsea Flower Show for taking him away from Longmeadow. He continued: “I do not want to miss out on the greatest garden extravaganza of the year and am delighted to and privileged to present the programme from there, and yet part of me resents being taken away from the garden at this critical moment.”

Monty will return to screens this evening from 8pm (May 15) on BBC Two with Gardeners’ World. He will be making a start on some of his amazing summer planters, including working on his leeks and making fertiliser.

Elsewhere, Frances Tophill will be in Berkshire learning about biodynamic gardening and the benefits it can bring. Adam Frost will be showing viewers around his new garden as it begins to take shape.

Large crowds marched across Argentina’s major cities to demand that President Javier Milei comply with a university funding law, and reverse sweeping budget cuts to the country’s tuition-free public university system.

Preah Vihear/Siem Reap provinces – When asked how she spends her day, 11-year-old Sokna rattled off a list of chores.

She first fetches water, then washes dishes and sweeps the leaves and dust from around the blue tarpaulin tent her family now calls home, in the grounds of a Buddhist pagoda in northwestern Cambodia.

Sokna and her sister have stopped attending school, their mother Puth Reen said, since moving to this camp for people displaced by the recent rounds of fighting between Thailand and Cambodia.

The two sisters are among more than 34,440 people who remain in displacement camps in Cambodia – 11,355 of whom are children – as of this month, according to the country’s Ministry of Interior.

“I tried to tell them to go to school, but they don’t go,” Puth Reen told Al Jazeera, explaining how precarious life had become since returning to live in Cambodia after fleeing neighbouring Thailand, where she had worked for many years, as the fighting started.

Like Puth Reen and her family, the future looks murky for the tens of thousands of Cambodians – including many schoolchildren – who are still in displacement camps, and their lives remain disrupted months after the last outbreak of fighting between Thailand and Cambodia.

Forced to flee their homes in areas where local troops are now stationed and on high alert, or in areas occupied by opposing Thai forces, Cambodia’s internally displaced say they are surviving off aid donations, while those more fortunate are transitioning from emergency tents into wooden stilted houses provided by the Cambodian government.

But with tension still evident between the leadership in Bangkok and Phnom Penh, the tenuous ceasefire along the Thai-Cambodia border means life cannot yet return to normality.

Some areas on the Cambodian border, such as the villages of Chouk Chey and Prey Chan in Banteay Meanchey province, have become rallying points for nationalists who post on social media about the Thai occupation of Cambodian territory. Their anger is directed at the large shipping containers and barbed wire that Thai forces have used to block access to villages once inhabited by Cambodians and occupied during fighting.

The Thai military-installed containers now form a sort of new frontier between the two countries.

The Cambodian military has also prevented people, such as local farmer Sun Reth, 67, from returning to their homes in front-line areas, which are still highly militarised zones, with troops ready at any moment for a new round of fighting.

“Now the Cambodian military base is just next to [my house],” Sun Reth said, adding that she was not allowed by authorities to sleep in her modest home or pick cashew nuts from her farm to sell for a little income.

Cambodian children more focused on ‘rumours’ of war

The long-held border dispute between Thailand and Cambodia erupted into two rounds of conflict last year, over five days in July and almost three weeks in December.

Dozens were reported killed on both sides, and hundreds of thousands of civilians fled their homes as both countries’ armed forces fired artillery, rockets, and, in the case of Thailand, conducted air strikes deep into Cambodian territory. Thailand has a modern air force, a military capability not possessed by its smaller neighbour.

Cambodian and Thai officials reached a ceasefire on December 27, but the situation remains tense five months on.

For families who fled the fighting, school continues for most children in the displacement camps, but parents say education is fragmented while their lives are still so unsettled.

Mothers at the Wat Bak Kam camp for the displaced in Preah Vihear province told Al Jazeera that primary school students can join classes at a local school, but high school students need to travel daily to the provincial capital, about 15km (9 miles) away.

Now the rising cost of petrol, due to the US-Israel war on Iran, has made it even harder for teenaged students, who have access to motorcycles, to make the journey to school.

Kinmai Phum, technical lead for WorldVision’s education programme, which is providing support to the camps, said school dropout rates and children skipping classes have increased substantially among students from the displaced border regions.

Kinmai Phum said the situation is a perfect storm of problems: Displaced families have been forced to move around for shelters, schools and temporary learning spaces lack facilities, and some students have psychological trauma due to the conflict.

“Local authorities [are] concerned that many children may not return to school at all if displacement and economic hardship persist,” Kinmai Phum said.

Yuon Phally, a mother of two, said she had noticed the impact of the war on her daughter and son, who are in their first and third years in primary school.

When they return from school, Yuon Phally said, they tell her about rumours they had heard about Cambodia and Thailand resuming fighting.

“Their feeling is not fully focused on school; they focus more on these rumours,” she said.

Her children’s world was more impacted by the conflict because their father is a soldier stationed in the Mom Bei area of the border.

During the fighting in December, Yuon Phally said she could not convince her children to go to school because they all waited to see if their father would call on a mobile phone from the front line.

“I couldn’t hold back my tears, and that added more pressure onto my kids,” she said.

“They would ask about their dad and how he is doing now. Then they told me to eat rice. They understood my feelings.”

She said her children’s focus on their studies only improved after their father returned from fighting to the camp where they are staying, to rest and recover from sickness and injuries sustained in battle.

‘Who doesn’t want to have peace?’

Soeum Sokhem, a deputy village chief, told Al Jazeera how his home is located in the militarised “danger zone” along the border, but he feels compelled to return every few days to check on his house, tend crops, sleep an occasional night, and check in with other neighbours doing the same.

“I can’t just stay here”, he said of camp life.

“I have to go back.”

When asked how he felt about the border war, Soeum Sokhem said he had experienced so much war in Cambodia that he did not know how to describe his “inner feeling like I really want to”.

He then listed off all the conflicts he had lived through in Cambodia since the 1960s: The spill over into Cambodia from the US war in neighbouring Vietnam; the US bombing campaign in Cambodia; the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime, and the civil war that followed after Vietnam’s intervention to topple the regime’s leader Pol Pot in 1979, and which lasted until the mid-1990s.

Then in the 2000s, sporadic border fights with Thailand began, he said.

Cambodia’s contemporary history has been anything but peaceful, a fact which might explain why the current Cambodian government so often speaks of peace. Government buildings and billboards proclaim the government’s unofficial motto: “Thanks for peace.”

“But who doesn’t want to have peace?” Soeum Sokhem said, after charting his life and the many conflicts he had lived through.

Now the 67-year-old said he once again hears gunfire occasionally when he returns to check on his home on the front line.

“Before, when I walked there, it was normal,” he said.

“But nowadays, I walk with fear when going back there.”

The U.S. Department of Education opened an investigation Monday into Smith College, an all-women’s institution in Massachusetts, for admitting transgender women.

The probe by the department’s Office of Civil Rights will look at whether the college violated Title IX, a 1972 law forbidding discrimination based on sex in education.

The move is the latest by the Trump administration — whose rhetoric has frequently included attacks on trans people — to limit transgender rights in the U.S. The administration has said that Title IX prevents trans women from participating in women’s sports, suing several states and launching investigations into schools for not complying.

Smith College, a private liberal arts school founded in 1871, has admitted trans women since 2015, along with many other elite women’s colleges.

The school’s admission policies drew attention and sparked on-campus activism in 2013, when a trans high school senior was denied acceptance because her gender identity did not match the one on her financial aid forms.

Its website now says that “any applicants who self-identify as women; cis, trans, and nonbinary women” are eligible to apply to the school. Advocates have supported the shift over the years, saying that women’s colleges were founded to educate those marginalized because of their gender.

The number of women’s colleges in the U.S. has declined from more than 200 to just 30 as of fall of 2023, according to the Women’s College Coalition.

A college spokesperson did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

According to the Department of Education in a news release, Title IX contains an exception that allows colleges to be all-male or all-female, but it only applies “on the basis of biological sex difference, not subjective gender identity.”

The investigation into Smith College stems from a complaint filed with the Office of Civil Rights in June 2025 by the conservative legal group Defending Education.

“DE and its members oppose, among other things, discrimination on the basis of sex in America’s K-12 schools and institutions of higher education,” the organization said in a news release.

During the Biden administration, new Title IX regulations were issued to prevent discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. However, those were struck down by a federal judge in January 2025 who decided the rules had legal shortcomings.

Ding writes for the Associated Press.

Chile’s military police force has cracked down on student protesters after hundreds demonstrated against the government’s proposals to limit access to free higher education. The proposal includes cutting a government scholarship programme and increasing student loans, as part of wider austerity measures.

Homework can feel stressful when several subjects need attention at the same time. Students may have math problems, science tasks, writing assignments, and reading work all in one evening. Many learners need faster explanations, better organization, or extra practice after class ends. AI homework tools can help by saving time, explaining hard topics, and keeping tasks in order.

Still, the best results come when students use them with care instead of copying answers. A smart tool should support learning, not replace effort. If you are looking for the best AI homework helper, this guide can help.

The table below compares seven popular options by price, device support, and key strengths.

Every tool solves a different student problem. Next, we review the best AI for homework in detail.

Edubrain

Edubrain is the strongest all around homework option for students who want one place for many school tasks. It works as a free homework helper with support for math, science, writing, and more. Users can get step by step solutions, answer corrections, formula display, and help through image or PDF uploads. It also includes the Edubrain chemistry AI tool for science tasks that need formulas or reactions. A student can use it in one evening for algebra homework, then switch to a written assignment without changing apps.

The free plan covers core tools, while AI Plus adds more features and deeper support. This makes it a smart choice for busy students who want one dashboard for daily study. Many users may also see it as a top homework helper because it covers several needs in one place.

Pros

• Many useful features
• Free access available
• Supports image and PDF uploads
• Broad help across subjects
• Good for busy schedules

Cons

• Many options may feel crowded at first
• Weekly pricing may not suit everyone
• Full tools may require upgrade

Photomath

Socratic by Google

ChatGPT

Brainly

Quizlet

Chegg Study

Conclusion