Sunday 28 September 2008

University World News 0046 - 29nd September 2008

NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report

SPECIAL SERIES: How universities help fight crime
Keith Nuthall
It’s the mother of clichés: crime pays. But, happily for many of the world’s top universities, this is sometimes true. With commercial and financial crime becoming ever more complex, academics are responding to demand and becoming experts on a subject that the private and public sectors want to understand. In the first of an occasional series of articles, University World News this week takes a look at some of the better-known North American academics in a cutting edge and developing field.
Full report on the University World News site

US: Experts tackle commercial criminals
Monica Dobie
Companies fighting commercial crime are always on the lookout for new resources and tools to deal with the problem. Where better to look than the world’s best universities in America?
Full report on the University World News site

NIGERIA: Panic grips students in illegal universities

Tunde Fatunde
The National Universities Commission of N igeria recently published a list of 31 ‘illegal’ universities – including offshore campuses of foreign universities – that it has not approved, prompting panic in the affected institutions. Students face a bleak future if their qualifications are not recognised, teachers are no longer sure of their jobs while governing councils fear being prosecuted and have been lobbying key people in the legislative and executive arms of N igeria’s 36 states to have their universities recognised and accredited.
Full report on the University World News site

ZIMBABWE: Academics and students doubt power deal
Clemence Manyukwe
Academics and students in Zimbabwe have greeted a political power-sharing deal struck earlier this month with caution. Students see little chance of the settlement between long-ruling Zanu-PF party and the rival Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) succeeding, mainly owing to mistrust of autocratic President Robert Mugabe. But lecturers hope it will deliver academic freedom and a return of donors who cut support as oppression deepened.
Full report on the University World News site

AFRICA: Unesco conference discusses quality assurance
Jane Marshall
How to achieve the Millennium Development Goals through higher education and how to improve the quality of higher education in Africa came under discussion in Dakar this month. Delegates gathered in the Senegalese capital for the Third International Conference on Quality Assurance in Higher Education in Africa, organised by the Unesco Bamako Cluster Office and Unesco’s regional bureau for education Africa (Breda).
Full report on the University World News site

EUROPE: EIT starts work with first board meeting
Keith Nuthall
The often controversial European Institute of Innovation and Technology has begun operations, with its newly appointed governing board having its first meeting and the European Commission claiming it will help close Europe’s research spending gap compared with the United States.
Full report on the University World News site


INDIA: Big grant for biomedical research
Subbiah Arunachalam
Biomedical research in India is in for good times. The UK-based Wellcome Trust, the world’s largest private sector funding agency for biomedical research, has joined with India’s Department of Biotechnology to create a new biomedical research career programme. The £80 million (US$148.3 million), five-year partnership will not only boost cutting-edge biomedical research but also complement the recent Wellcome Trust investment to support public health research in the country.
Full report on the University World News site

RUSSIA: Study into training for oil and gas industry
Nick Holdsworth
Russia’s ability to produce spec ialist graduates for the oil and gas industries will be put under the spotlight in a new European Union-funded comparative study. The six-month investigation, Building Capability in Russian Educational Institutions, is being put out to tender and is expected to be ready to start next year.
Full report on the University World News site

US: Investigating collaboration in graduate education
The American Council of Graduate Schools is to investigate international collaborations in graduate education, following the award of a $200,000 grant from the National Science Foundation. The study will include joint and dual degrees, and student and faculty exchange programmes.
Full report on the University World News site

NEWSBRIEF


SENEGAL: Anti-brain drain computing grid installed
Cheikh Anta Diop University (UCAD) in Dakar is the first university in sub-Saharan Africa to benefit from installation of a computing grid under the Reversing Brain Drain into Brain Gain for Africa project jointly run by Unesco, Hewlett-Packard and the CNRS, France's national scientific research centre. The new infrastructure will make it easier for researchers at the university to collaborate with colleagues abroad, and give them access to considerable information technology resources (see University World News, 22 June 2008).
Full report on the University World News site

SCIENCE SCENE

NEW ZEALAND: Researchers probe past with pooh
John Gerritsen
Scientists have won funding to study the fossilised stools of birds including the extinct moa, in a bid to find out what impact the giant bird and its avian peers had on New Zealand’s forests.
Full report on the University World News site

AUSTRALIA: Caffeine helps athletes recover faster
Geoff Maslen
Athletes competing at the Olympic Games and in the Tour de France were taking performance enhancing substances. But swallowing sports drinks and Coca Cola or coffee is not against the rules because sugary liquids and caffeine are not on the banned list, say RMIT University researchers.
Full report on the University World News site

HE RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY

US: Too many rungs on the ladder?
An aging professoriate, a swelling corps of part-time and non-tenure-line academics, and students qualifying and entering academia later in life are believed to be fuelling a dearth of young permanent faculty who have the time and opportunity to rise into higher education leadership positions, according to a new Issue Brief by the American College of Education’s Center for Policy Analysis, Too Many Rungs on the Ladder? Faculty demographics and the future leadership of higher education. Among other things the study finds that only 3% of academics at four-year institutions aged 34 years or younger are working in tenure-track positions and the proportion only rises to 15% among faculty aged 35 to 44 years – and the figures for women and people of colour are even worse.
More on the University World News site

U-SAY
From: Michael J McFadden
I refer to your article on research into the effects of smoking (see www.universityworldnews.com). John Banzhaf, a lawyer who has arguably made millions from promoting smoking bans and suing tobacco companies, said: "I don't think any reputable organisation today will accept tobacco industry money."


FACEBOOK


The Facebook group of University World News is the fastest growing in higher education worldwide. More than 270 readers have joined. Sign up to the University World News Facebook group to meet and communicate directly with academics and researchers informed by the world’s first truly global higher education publication. Click on the link below to visit and join the group.
Visit the University World News group on Facebook

UNI-LATERAL

US: Academic globalisation
Without comment:
Call for papers/abstracts and invited sessions proposals for the second International Symposium on Academic Globalization: AG 2009 (www.2009iiisconferences.org). The symposium will take place in Orlando, Florida, on 10 - 13 July 2009.
More on the University World News site

WORLD ROUND-UP

SCOTLAND: Pay hikes suck universities into £50m crisis
Scotland’s universities are facing a £50m-a-year funding crisis which could force job cuts on staff and lead to major cutbacks in new projects, reports Eddie Barnes in The Scotsman. All 15 universities are set to pay out 5% increases to lecturers, costing an extra £10m a year, after they agreed last year to match inflation in wage packets from this October.
More on the University World News site

IRELAND: Universities want fees paid by student loans
University presidents lobbied for the introduction of an Australian-style student loan system when they met Minister for Education Batt O'Keeffe last week, reports The Irish Times. The seven college heads decided to oppose the return of the old fees regime, abolished in 1995, as problematic and inequitable.
More on the University World News site

US: Dramatic challenge to SAT and ACT
Calling on colleges to “take back the conversation”, a special panel convened by the National Association for College Admission Counseling last week encouraged colleges to consider dropping the SAT or ACT as admissions requirements, reports Scott Jaschik in Inside Higher Ed. A panel report called on all colleges to consider more systematically whether they really need testing to admit their students. If there is not clear evidence of the need for testing, the commission urged colleges to drop the requirement.
More on the University World News site

US: I’ll take my lecture to go, please
It looks like students can be open-minded after all: when provided with the option to view lectures online, rather than just in person, 82% of undergraduates said they would be willing to entertain an alternative to showing up to class and paying attention in real time, writes Andy Guess in Insider Higher Ed. A new study released suggests not only a willingness but a “clear preference” among undergraduates for “lecture capture”, the technology that records, streams and stores what happens in the classroom for concurrent or later viewing.
More on the University World News site

UK: Loughborough named University of the Year
Loughborough University has been named the Sunday Times University of the Year, reports The Times. The university saw off competition from Imperial College London to win the title after being short-listed three times – more than any other university.
More on the University World News site

UK: Elite universities fail the student happiness test
Some of Britain’s most prestigious universities have the unhappiest students, with widespread dissatisfaction over poor teaching and lack of support from staff, according to the new Sunday Times University Guide league table. The Sunday Times reports that Bristol, Edinburgh, Imperial College London, the London School of Economics and Manchester are all among the bottom 25 universities for student satisfaction, despite achieving high overall rankings in the new Sunday Times University Guide league table.
More on the University World News site

UK: Admissions must be more transparent, says Denham
The government will push universities to produce admission procedures that deliver what they say “on the can” as it presses to widen participation in higher education, says Universities Secretary John Denham, reports The Guardian. Denham ruled out telling universities how to run their admission procedures, but insisted that the government had a role to play in encouraging more young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to access elite universities by encouraging more transparent admissions criteria.
More on the University World News site

SOUTH AFRICA: Team to probe Mangosuthu university
South Africa’s Education Minister Naledi Pandor has appointed a crack team to investigate the running of Durban’s Mangosuthu University of Technology after its vice-chancellor, Aaron Ndlovu, was sent on forced leave, comments the Mail & Guardian. Former council chair of the University of KwaZulu-Natal and academic, Vincent Maphai, will serve as an independent assessor after “discrepancies” in Ndlovu’s leadership were uncovered.
More on the University World News site

CANADA: Asian immigrants’ kids most likely to get degrees
Children of Asian immigrant parents have the highest rate of university completion in Canada, more than double the rate of other ethnicities, Canadian-born or otherwise, says a Statistics Canada study. CBC News reports that university completion rates were 65% for youth of immigrant parents from China and India. Among children of Canadian-born parents, the rate was about 28%.
More on the University World News site

CANADA: Ministers launch new foreign student effort
Provincial education ministers are banding together under one national brand in a bid to attract more foreign students to study and possibly stay in Canada, reports Canada Press. The brand – a stylised red maple leaf with a bilingual slogan that says “Imagine education in Canada” – was revealed last week at a meeting of education ministers in Fredericton.
More on the University World News site

SINGAPORE: Plans to attract 150,000 international students
Singapore has chalked out an ambitious plan to attract over 150,000 international students to its universities and educational institutions by 2015, reports The Hindu. There are currently 90,000 foreign students from 120 countries in in Singapore.
More on the University World News site

Sunday 21 September 2008

University World News 0045 - 22nd September 2008

NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report

GLOBAL: OECD calls for greater internationalisation
Karen MacGregor
Governments should position their higher education systems in the global arena, develop a strategy and framework for internationalisation and encourage institutions to be more proactive internationally, says an OECD report published last week. Tertiary Education for the Knowledge Society offers this and other policy advice to countries striving to build tertiary education in ways that stimulate innovation, competitiveness and economic growth.
Full report on the University World News site

GLOBAL: What are universities for?
The enduring elements of the success of universities explain why, in a global economy, they are now regarded as crucial national assets. But a discussion paper released last Thursday says this has also resulted in a certain amount of “loose thinking” about the roles that universities can play in society, while obscuring their most important contributions to it.
Full report on the University World News site

UAE: Poor English limiting university access
Tabitha Morgan
Education deficiencies among university entrants in the United Arab Emirates have prompted the government to institute broad reforms of the school system. Although Arabic is the primary language of instruction in state schools, most university tuition is in English. At present around one-third of university budgets is spent on foundation courses designed mainly to help students improve their English.
Full report on the University World News site

JORDAN: IFC launches student loans scheme
Rebecca Warden
More than 3,000 Jordanian students could soon benefit from student loans under a new scheme being launched by the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation, Omnix International and the Cairo Amman Bank. The loans will contribute to the cost of tuition at state and private universities and should help students from poorer families to get a university education, as well as boosting the country’s low participation rate.
Full report on the University World News site

US: Foreign students better at completing PhDs
Philip Fine
International students in the US finish their PhDs at a higher rate than domestic students, according to the Council of Graduate Schools which has released results from the largest analysis to date of data on doctoral students.
Full report on the University World News site

GERMANY: New guidelines for teacher training
Michael Gardner
A catalogue of measures has been presented to improve teacher training in Germany by the country’s employers’ association, the Bundesvereinigung der Deutschen Arbeitgeberverbände or BDA, and its Confederation of Industry, the Bundesverband der Deutschen Industrie e.V or BDI. The two organisations complain that reforms have not gone far enough and have had too little impact.
Full report on the University World News site


GREECE: Elections prevent university’s closure
Makki Marseilles
Only hours before expiry of the time required by the Education Act, approved by the Greek parliament earlier this year, the Technological University of Crete managed to elect a rector, thereby preventing a management crisis which might have led to the institution’s closure. It was the fifth successive election – four previous attempts failed when a small group of militant students opposed to the act and committed to rendering it inoperative, violently disrupted the elections forcing the institution to postpone them.
Full report on the University World News site

NEW ZEALAND: New category of university rejected
John Gerritsen
A parliamentary committee has advised against creation of a new category of tertiary institution aimed at bridging the gap between New Zealand’s universities and polytechnics. The Education and Science Select committee delivered its report on a controversial Bill proposing creation of the ‘university of technology’ as a separate category of institution.
Full report on the University World News site

EUROPE: Radical new ICT approach needed
Alan Osborn
The European Commission has launched a major consultation about the development of information and communications technology in the EU following indications that Europe is slipping further behind in the global technology race.
Full report on the University World News site

ACADEMIC FREEDOM

IRAN: SAR and NEAR call for urgent action
Jonathan Travis
Scholars at Risk (SAR) and the Network for Education and Academic Rights (NEAR) have expressed grave concern about the apparent detention of Dr Mehdi Zakerian, an Assistant Professor at Islamic Azad University in Tehran. Zakerian, a scholar of international law and international human rights, has more than 10 years of experience teaching international and Islamic human rights, has more than 50 publications to his name and has recently been appointed Chair of the International Studies Association of Iran.
More academic freedom reports on the University World News site

BUSINESS


EUROPE: Research findings open to all online
Alan Osborn
The European Commission has responded to growing demand in the science community for unfettered access to research by launching a pilot project to make European Union-funded research in seven key subject areas available free of charge on the internet.
Full report on the University World News site

CANADA: Google cash for carbon footprint calculator
Philip Fine
“I’m Feeling Lucky,” the button says on Google’s ubiquitous search engine page. And it’s what five young Canadian engineers in training are probably saying after receiving US$275,000 from Google Inc. for a software application idea that calculates a traveller’s carbon footprint.
Full report on the University World News site

USA: Researchers develop odourless mosquito trap
Monica Dobie
Researchers from the US University of California, Davis, have developed a commercially-valuable mosquito trap that – unlike the scents currently used to lure these insects to their doom – does not repel humans with its odour.
Full report on the University World News site

FEATURES

Global: Fears of widening participation
Diane Spencer
In his keynote address to the OECD’s Institutional Management of Higher Education conference in Paris, Chris Brink, vice-chancellor of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, looked at doubts and fears expressed about widening participation. Drawing on his experiences of working in South Africa, Australia and the UK, Brink said the idea was not mainly about changing numbers but ratios: increasing the participation of certain groups considered to be under-represented in higher education.
Full report on the University World News site

INDONESIA: Higher education and ethnic Chinese
David Jardine
The Chinese form a huge diaspora around the globe with its biggest concentration in Southeast Asia. Sizeable Chinese minorities exist in Indonesia, the largest numerically in the region; Malaysia, where they form the biggest non-Malay cohort; Thailand, where they have generally assimilated and are often difficult to differentiate from the Thais; and the Philippines. Singapore, meanwhile, is a Chinese-majority state.
Full report on the University World News site

HE RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY

US: When criminals control the Ministry of Education
George D Gollin
The connection between education and personal economic advantage drives a global market for higher education. But much of the world cannot create additional university capacity at a rate to match this demand. Diploma mills, businesses that sell bogus degrees to customers in search of easy credentials, comprise the dark response to these market forces. The recent demise of a sophisticated American diploma mill provides some insight into these abominations.
Full report on the University World News site
Article originally published in International Higher Education

US: Degree mills
Degree mills are the theme of the latest edition of International Higher Education, the journal of the Boston College Center for International Higher Education, which also features articles on academic career structures, internationalisation, cross-border higher education, GATS and tertiary education developments in China, India, Malaysia and Afghanistan. Later this year, at the initiative of the Graduate School of Education at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, International Higher Education will be translated and published in Chinese.
More on the University World News site

U-SAY

NIGERIA: Why no worry about rankings failure?
From Adenyi Bello
I refer to your article regarding the Nigerian government’s decision to allow polytechnics and colleges to award degrees (14 September 2008) and to the previous week’s report on Indonesian universities’ poor world ranking. Go through a list of university world ranking and you will not find a Nigerian university in the top 600. Of course, the Nigerian government, unlike its Indonesia counterpart, is unfazed about this as are our university administrators.
Full letter on the University World News site

FACEBOOK

The Facebook group of University World News is the fastest growing in higher education worldwide. Some 260 UWN readers have joined. Sign up to the University World News Facebook group to meet and communicate directly with academics and researchers informed by the world’s first truly global higher education publication. Click on the link below to visit and join the group.
Visit the University World News group on Facebook

UNI-LATERAL: Off-beat university stories

UK: Monty Python and the clergyman
Diane Spencer
Hackles were raised among the elite scientific fraternity last week when the education director of the illustrious Royal Society appeared to call for the teaching of creationism in science lessons. At the annual BA Science Festival, held in the European Capital of Culture in Liverpool, evolutionary biologist Dr Michael Reiss, also an Anglican priest, said there was much to be said for allowing students to raise their doubts about evolution and having a genuine discussion about it. However, two Nobel prize-winners took exception to his views and called for him to be sacked, and within two days Reiss stepped down.
Full report on the University World News site

WORLD ROUND-UP

US: Economy down, aid applications up
Jim Belvin has seen this movie before, writes Jack Stripling in Inside Higher Ed. As a long-time director of financial aid at Duke University, Belvin recalls a number of past economic downturns that caught families off guard, and invariably they’ve turned to his office for help. “I’ve always referred to the financial aid office as the canary in the economic mine,” said Belvin. This year, Duke saw a 6% increase in the number of students who said they intended to apply for need-based aid. While Belvin speculates that only about 1% of the new applicants will ultimately qualify for institutional aid, the increase reflects growing anxiety among students and their families amid a period of economic turmoil.
More on the University World News site

US: Students could hold keys to White House
It is voter registration day on the campus of Kutztown university in Pennsylvania and a small but dogged group of students are trying to persuade classmates to sign up for the November presidential election, writes Ed Pilkington in The Guardian. Ostensibly, the voter drive is non-partisan, but it is clear from flyers on the table this group backs Barack Obama. They are part of the Students4Obama movement that has swept through more than 700 campuses across America in a revival of youth engagement that could be decisive on polling day.
More on the University World News site

UK: Record increase in part-time students
Universities have been recruiting record numbers of part-time students to meet the government’s target of getting 50% of young adults into higher education by 2010, reports Anthea Lipsett in The Guardian. Part-time enrolments at undergraduate level have grown more rapidly than full-time students in the past 10 years and now make up nearly half of the student population, according to the latest trends report from Universities UK.
More on the University World News site

UK: Universities should teach basic skills
Universities should teach students about the world of work because many lack the ability to “get up in the morning”, according to business leaders, reports The Telegraph. Some universities have already launched courses to drill undergraduates in skills needed in the workplace, such as team-building, writing CVs and impressing in interviews.
More on the University World News site

VIETNAM: Universities boom leads to staff shortage
The rapid increase in numbers of institutions of higher learning in Vietnam cities over the last few years has sparked concerns about the quality of education and training, according to local educators, reports Vietnam News. Speaking at a conference in Hanoi for newly-established private universities and colleges, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education and Training Nguyen Thien Nhan said there was a severe shortage in teaching staff at these schools even as new institutes were being established.
More on the University World News site

INDONESIA: Privatised universities may spark classism
A proposed bill to advance the privatisation of top universities in Indonesia may lead to classism and conflict, as higher tuition fees will prevent underprivileged students from undergoing higher education, reports The Jakarta Post.
More on the University World News site

ISRAEL: Universities to set own tuition fee level
The Council for Higher Education announced last week that it will allow universities to determine their own individual tuition fees this coming academic year, until the government passes legislation regulating it, reports Ynetnews. This means that each university will be able to decide whether or not to raise its tuition fee level next year, or leave it unchanged. But students have threatened to launch protests if fees go up.
More on the University World News site

US: Gates accepting proposals for bold research
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has announced that it is now accepting grant proposals for the second round of Grand Challenges Explorations, a five-year US$100 million initiative to encourage “bold and unconventional research” on new global health solutions.
More on the University World News site

US: Pennsylvania snuffs out campus smoking
With virtually no warning, smoking at 14 of Pennsylvania's state-owned universities has been banned anywhere on campus – even outdoors – reports Associated Press. The action has sparked protests around the state by some of the 110,000 students in the higher education system, who received word of the ban by e-mail last Wednesday, a day before a new state law forbidding smoking in most workplaces and public spaces took effect.
More on the University World News site

Monday 15 September 2008

University World News 0044 - 15th September 2008

NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report

EUROPE: Impact of sharp popultion decline
Keith Nuthall
European academics are preparing to gather at a high-level conference to discuss the problems caused to higher education by a sharp decline in the European population. The debates at the European University Association conference come as the latest figures from the European Union statistical agency Eurostat confirm the number of young people in European countries is already shrinking and will get smaller.
Full report on the University World News site

SPAIN: Student numbers holding despite population fall
Rebecca Warden
Spain has seen a big drop in the number of young people over the past 10 years but predictions this would lead to a shrinking student population have proved inaccurate. More people staying on at school and new kinds of degrees at universities have helped to boost the proportion of Spaniards in higher education.
Full report on the University World News site

GLOBAL: Higher education expanding rapidly
Diane Spencer
The higher education sector has expanded rapidly worldwide over the past decade, says the latest annual report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Education at a Glance 2008 shows that 37% of school-leavers went to university in 1995 whereas 57% on average now do in the 30 member countries of the OECD. In Australia, Finland, Iceland, Poland and Sweden, three out of four school-leavers go on to a degree course. The 500-page report also shows that public expenditure on higher education has increased but that private investment has risen even more.
Full report on the University World News site

GERMANY: OECD statistics cause for concern
Michael Gardner
German first-year student numbers appear to be stagnating, according to OECD statistics. The country is also performing poorly in terms of graduation figures, says the organisation’s Education at a Glance 2008 report released last week. President of the Hochschulrektorenkonferenz (HRK – the conference of higher education heads in Germany), Professor Margret Wintermantel, is worried that Germany is increasingly lagging behind other countries and has called for more funding for higher education.
Full report on the University World News site

ZIMBABWE: Economic crisis keeps universities closed
Clemence Manyukwe
Zimbabwe’s public universities have failed to re-open due to an escalating economic crisis, student unions have confirmed. Most universities were supposed to open last month or early this month, but lecturers have either gone on strike or there are no funds for operations.
Full report on the University World News site

N IGERIA: Polytechnics and colleges to award degrees
Tunde Fatunde
Selected polytechnics and colleges of education will soon be upgraded to award university degrees, N igerian Minister of State for Education Hajiya Aishatu Dukku has announced. Dukku said adequate funds would be made available to employ university-level teachers and upgrade infrastructure at the institutions. One of the main objectives of the reform is to create additional avenues for would-be students in a country where hundreds of thousands of qualified school-leavers are unable to clinch university places each year.
Full report on the University World News site

SOUTH AFRICA: Race debacle vc resigns
Karen MacGregor
Six months after a racist video showing white Afrikaner students abusing cleaners at the University of the Free State hit the headlines and prompted international outrage, the vice-chancellor has resigned. Professor Frederick Fourie said stress caused by political divisions and tensions in the university council and community had been “extremely draining” and he was stepping down “in the interest of transformation” and development at the university.
Full report on the University World News site

KOREA: KAIST conference attracts leading researchers
Douglas Rogers
The big-budget conference circuit with high-profile international speakers hits Korea in October. This year, the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), in Daejon, has got in early with a series of activities straddling the weekend, reflectingthe dynamic leadership of the President, Dr Suh Nam-Pyo.
Full report on the University World News site

UK: Film boosts language learning
Nick Holdsworth
A consortium of British universities is forging a cinematic path to encourage the take-up of foreign language study. Routes into Languages is a three-year project jointly funded by Britain’s Department for Children, Schools and Families and the Higher Education Funding Council for England. It works with regional groups of universities committed to boosting the number of young people studying foreign languages.
Full report on the University World News site

NEWSBRIEFS

ZIMBABWE: Three students targeted for sanctions
Clemence Manyukwe
Canada has slapped targeted sanctions on three Zimbabwean university students whose parents are accused of propping up the regime of dictatorial President Robert Mugabe. They are the first students to appear on a Canada list that now features some 180 politicians, entities and officials, spouses and children targeted for travel restrictions and an assets freeze.
Full report on the University World News site

MALAYSIA: Teaching maths and science in English
Teachers in Malaysia are learning the nuances of teaching mathematics and science in English under a multi-million dollar project run by the Malaysian government and Melbourne’s Deakin University. The four-year initiative, now into its third year, follows a decision by the government that all science and maths teaching will be in English.
Full report on the University World News site

AUSTRALIA: Strong postgraduate earnings
Some new Australian postgraduates in their first full-time employment are starting work on salaries exceeding $60,000 (US$45,000) according to a report released by Graduate Careers Australia.
Full report on the University World News site

GLOBAL: Network of Concerned Historians
The Annual Report 2008 of the Network of Concerned Historians is now available at www.concernedhistorians.org. This is the 14th annual report of the NCH and it contains 84 pages of news about where history and human rights intersect. It reports on the censorship of history, the persecution of historians around the globe, and related topics. It is sent to 880 historians and others interested, in more than 80 countries.
Full report on the University World News site

SCIENCE SCENE


AUSTRALIA: Computer estimates a person’s age
Geoff Maslen
As Professor Kate Smith-Miles walked into the room, her five-year-old daughter turned from the computer and asked what the password was to log on to the online dating agency she had called up on the screen. The little girl had gone to Google, typed in “I want a friend” and the computer responded with a 10,000 or so list of adult sites.
Full report on the University World News site

CHINA-INDIA: Scientists forge closer ties
Indian and Chinese scientists are increasingly working together but it might take a few years before it becomes significant or sets the pace for South-South scientific collaboration. Until 2003, only a small percentage – around three-fourths of one per cent – of Indian papers were written in collaboration with Chinese authors, according to a report of a study published by Chennai-based Subbiah Arunachalam and IIT-Madras' R Viswanathan.
Full report on the University World News site

EU: Drug side effects could provide new medicines
Alan Osborn
A study by European researchers has suggested that new uses might be found for marketed drugs based on unwanted side effects. A striking example is the drug V iagra which was initially developed to treat angina but where its side effects of prolonged penile e rection led to the development of a new blockbuster drug.
Full report on the University World News site

FEATURES

GLOBAL: Should researchers take tobacco money?
Alan Osborn
Are universities ever right to accept money from the tobacco industry for research or is it always tainted somehow? The issue has been around for decades but a recent spat in America has given it a new airing.
Full report on the University World News site

SOUTH AFRICA: Report warns of freedom inroads
Karen MacGregor
An exhaustive probe into institutional autonomy and academic freedom by a task team of South Africa’s advisory Council on Higher Education has found that government’s steering of universities has “grown more directive, less consultative, and occasionally prone to hierarchical decree”. It proposes a range of actions including greater commitment on the part of the government to negotiating with universities on planning and funding.
Full report on the University World News site

HE RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY

AUSTRALIA: Plagiarism among foreign students
Plagiarism is an issue facing many universities. It is of particular concern in Australia, given the large number of overseas students studying in the country or offshore on Australian programmes such as in China and India, writes Helen Song-Turner of the School of Business, University of Ballarat, in the latest issue of Australian Universities Review. Students from various countries were interviewed to identify their views on plagiarism in a study that unearthed several reasons why students tend to plagiarise, including challenges of language, skill and respect for ‘the foreign expert’. What emerges, Song-Turner reveals, “is a complex and at times confusing web of perceptions and attitudes towards plagiarism. These pose a significant set of challenges for foreign universities developing and delivering programmes in a range of markets, particularly in locations such as Australia, where the importance and value of attracting, supporting – and, indeed, understanding – foreign students, has tended to underpin many university marketing efforts”. Hers and other articles, including a critique on university rankings, are available on the Australian Universities Review site.
More on the University World New site

SOUTH AFRICA: A better way to cut up the pie
Malegapuru Makgoba
South Africa has 23 universities with different histories, different capacities, different resources, and different visions and missions. One would think this rich diversity would be used as a strength to promote excellence and global competitiveness. But the country continues to pretend that its universities are the same and therefore treats them the same, without differentiating, focusing and providing resources each to its comparative and competitive advantages. This failure to differentiate, and the continuation of functioning contrary to and denying factual evidence, characterises much of present-day South Africa and has led to a decline in academic productivity, new knowledge production and innovation relative to the rest of the world.
Full report on the University World News site
Article first published in The Sunday Times, Johannesburg

FACEBOOK


The Facebook group of University World News is the fastest growing in higher education worldwide. Already nearly 240 UWN readers have joined. Sign up to the University World News Facebook group to meet and communicate directly with academics and researchers informed by the world’s first truly global higher education publication. Click on the link below to visit and join the group.
Visit the University World News group on Facebook

UNI-LATERAL: Off-beat university stories

US: Berkeley tree-sitters end two-year protest
Four tree-sitters who had hoped to save a grove of trees at the University of California, Berkeley, ended their long-running protest last week and gave up their perch at the top of a 90-foot redwood after workers erected a scaffold to bring them down, reports the Los Angeles Times. Protesters had occupied trees in the 1.5-acre grove since December 2006 in an effort to block the university’s plans to build on the site.
More on the University World News site

WORLD ROUND-UP

UK: University role is not social justice: Cambridge
Universities should not be expected to promote social justice, the vice-chancellor of Cambridge has said, igniting a debate over the role of universities, reports The Telegraph. Professor Alison Richard said the growing stature of universities in Britain had “encouraged meddling” from the government, which was putting academic standards at risk.
More on the University World News site

US: Bayh-Dole patent act under scrutiny
The law of unintended consequences is perhaps less a ‘law’ than a simple statement of fact: we cannot accurately predict all the results of our actions, writes Anet Rae-Dupree in the New York Times. We may do something with the best of intentions, and sometimes even accomplish the good toward which we aim. Yet, at the same time, we are all too often surprised by results that didn’t occur to us beforehand. The Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 (aka the University Small Business Patent Procedures Act) started out with the best of intentions – but now it is under scrutiny by swelling ranks of critics.
More on the University World News site

US: Kent State faculty get bonuses to meet goals
Kent State University is offering financial bonuses to professors if they help student retention numbers and attract more research dollars, an incentive usually given to school presidents and top administrators, reports Associated Press.
More on the University World News site

US: Diverse medical schools = stronger doctors
Medical students who attend racially and ethnically diverse medical schools say they are better equipped to care for patients in a diverse society, reports a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Led by the University of California, Los Angeles, Higher Education Research Institute, the research is the first to examine the link between medical school diversity and educational benefits, reports Science Daily.
More on the University World News site

VIETNAM: Universities must produce 20,000 PhDs
When Vietnam released its seventh draft outlining national strategies to develop the country’s education from 2008 to 2020 at an August conference in Hanoi, some experts said the plan was simply a wish list, reports Thanh Nien Daily. Among the 11 solution packages to boost the education system in the next decade, two goals aim to make Vietnam’s higher education more internationally competitive – to produce 20,000 doctorates, and to have at least 30% of university academics PhD graduates in 2020.
More on the University World News site

AUSTRALIA: Academics in freedom rally
A national campaign to promote academic freedom was launched last week, with the academics’ union calling on universities and vice-chancellors to stand by their staff and protect the vital role they play in public commentary, reports The Age.
More on the University World News site

N IGERIA: Nearly three dozen universities illegal
The National Universities Commission recently announced the existence of 33 illegal universities in N igeria, reports Punch. In May, the NUC had declared 16 of these institutions illegal and warned people against patronising them. Also declared illegal were unlicensed satellite campuses, outreach campuses and study centres countrywide. The universities’ regulatory body further stated that it had not approved any offshore universities, and that five owners of such institutions had been arrested and were being prosecuted to dissuade others.
More on the University World News site

SOUTH AFRICA: Intellectual property laws being drafted
The Department of Science and Technology is drafting legislation that will encourage the development of local intellectual property by providing public funding, reports ITWeb. The legislation will also ensure the country and innovators will benefit from intellectual property being developed into commercial products.
More on the University World News site

UGANDA: Minister calls for more education funding
Higher Education Minister Gabriel Opio has called for more investment in higher education, saying it plays a vital role in development, reports New Vision. “The way forward is to accept that higher education is critical to our future. Therefore, it should be made a major area of national investment,” he said.
More on the University World News site

WALES: Shame on high-tech university cheats
Around 1,600 students have been caught cheating at Welsh universities in the last three years, a new study has revealed, reports Western Mail. The majority were found guilty of plagiarism while dozens of others were caught cheating in the exam hall.
More on the University World News site

UK: University test fails to help poorer pupils
A US-style intelligence test seen by government advisers as helping disadvantaged youngsters get into university actually favours white boys from grammar schools, research has found, reports The Independent.
More on the University World News site

UK: Further education students less satisfied
Students at further education colleges are less satisfied with their courses than their university counterparts, research has suggested, reports The Press Association. More than half (58%) of students at further education colleges said their courses were well organised and running smoothly, compared with 71% of those at university, the annual National Student survey showed.
More on the University World News site

Sunday 7 September 2008

University World News 0043 - 08 September 2008

NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report

GLOBAL: North America far ahead in new rankings
Rebecca Warden
North American universities are the clear winners in the latest edition of The Web Ranking of World Universities, published by the Spanish National Research Council or CSIC’s Cybermetrics Lab. The council has US and Canadian universities between them accounting for 123 of the world’s top 200 universities. Europe comes in a very poor second with 61 universities while the Asia-Pacific region manages a total of 14. The league table, produced twice yearly since 2004, ranks institutions according to the size and quality of their presence on the internet and its wider impact.
Full report on the University World News site


INDONESIA: Universities’ poor world ranking probed
David Jardine
Indonesia’s poor showing in university-based scientific research came under the spotlight at a recent national forum. The forum was called in late August by the Institute of Technology (ITB) in the mountain city of Bandung, the West Java provincial capital, to discuss ways of improving the showing of Indonesian universities in the sciences. Hosted by the ITB Alumni Association, it brought together university rectors, researchers and officials from the Ministry of National Education and the State Ministry of Research and Technology.
Full report on the University World News site

CANADA: Tuition-fee patchwork siphons students
Philip Fine
Hundreds of bargain-hunting Canadian students have moved to Newfoundland and Labrador, a province with the lowest tuition fees in the country. The recent student migration is one of the strange things to emerge in a country where individual provincial governments fund university operations, while the federal government is relegated to observing the wild patchwork of varying fees.
Full report on the University World News site

UK: Students underestimate debts
Diane Spencer

As the British university term is about to begin, new students are being warned not to underestimate how much they are likely to be in debt by the end of their courses. A survey from the National Union of Students reveals that prospective university students are underestimating the basic costs of living such as groceries, household bills and travel by nearly £450 (US$822) a year.
Full report on the University World News site

GERMANY: Studying too expensive
Michael Gardner
Yet another damning report has been released on social background and studying in Germany. This time the Deutsches Studentenwerk or DSW, the country’s student welfare organisation, has drawn attention to the fact that more and more school-leavers in Germany are choosing not to study owing to difficult financial hurdles. Even among the group with top marks in the Abitur higher education admission certificate, parents’ income is clearly a decisive factor in career planning.
Full report on the University World News site


AUSTRALIA: Graduates to get qualifications statement
Geoff Maslen
Students graduating from Australian universities are to receive a statement explaining the qualification they receive in simple terms that describe the system in which it was obtained in a consistent way for potential employers and other higher education institutions.
Full report on the University World News site

NEW ZEALAND: Call for change in research funding
John Gerritsen
The system used to direct research funding to New Zealand’s tertiary institutions has received a thumbs-up from an independent review, along with warnings that change and more funding are needed.
Full report on the University World News site

ACADEMIC FREEDOM


IRAN: Kurdish student sentenced to death
Jonathan Travis
Kurdish student Habibollah Latifi has been sentenced to death by an Iranian court, convicted of ‘endangering state security’, the Kurdish Globe has announced. Latifi is the third Iranian Kurd to receive a death sentence in less than a month in what appears to be developing into a blatant campaign against ethnic minorities. In late July, two teachers, Anwar Hossein Panahi and Arsalan Oliaii, were also handed death sentences. According to the Globe, six Iranian Kurds are now on death row, including award-winning journalist Adnan Hassanpour. All have been convicted of endangering state security and ‘relations with illegal political organisations’. Amnesty International recently expressed concern about the increased repression of Kurdish Iranians, particularly human rights defenders.
More Academic Freedom reports on the University World News site

BUSINESS

CHINA: Racing ahead in patenting
Subbiah Arunachalam
China today is the third most prolific patent-filing country in the world after the United States and Japan. The State Intellectual Property Office of China (SIPO) received more than 694,000 patent applications in 2007 including more than 245,000 20-year patent applications and more than 181,000 10-year patent applications, says a report by Evalueserve, an international business research and analytics company. By contrast, the Indian Patent Office received about 35,000 20-year patent applications in the fiscal year 2007-08.
Full report on the University World News site

NEW ZEALAND: University uses nanotechnology for Adidas
John Gerritsen
The University of Canterbury is hoping to find big commercial success in a very little venture – using nanotechnology to imprint words on clothing fibres. The technology received its first public outing recently when it was announced the university had imprinted the names of all 1,073 past and present All Blacks (New Zealand’s national rugby team) onto a single thread stitched into the Silver Fern on the breast of an All Black jersey.
Full report on the University World News site

US: Remove bone marrow to speed bone healing
Monica Dobie
American scientists have shown that recovery from bone breaks can be significantly increased – strangely by taking out the damaged bone’s marrow.
Full report on the University World News site

FEATURES

GLOBAL: University rankings meaningless
David Woodhouse
The central criticism about whole-of-institution rankings relates to the methodology that addresses quality in a superficial way but projects a complex image. Most rankings rely on two types of data: data given by institutions that may not be validated, and data obtained from opinion polls in the name of ‘expert opinion’. With both components on shaky ground, the use of complex formulae with weights and indicators only helps to project a pseudo-scientific image to outcomes that may be statistically irrelevant.
Full report on the University World News site

UK: An unfair funding system
Diane Spencer
The higher education funding system is creaking under the pressure of market forces, says a report just published by the National Union of Students. In Broke and Broken: A critique of the higher education funding system, the NUS presents what it sees as the unfairness and lack of sustainability in the current system, and argues that the scenario can only get worse if the cap on top-up fees were raised or lifted. A wide-ranging debate is needed, it says.
Full report on the University World News site

HE RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY

US: Affirmative action in law school admissions
The Supreme Court has held repeatedly that race-based preferences in public university admissions are constitutional. But debates over the wisdom of affirmative action continue, write Jesse Rothstein of Princeton University and Albert H Yoon of the University of Toronto, in the abstract of an article titled Affirmative Action in Law School Admissions: What do racial preferences do? published by the National Bureau of Economic Research. “Opponents of these policies argue that preferences are detrimental to minority students – that by placing these students in environments that are too competitive, affirmative action hurts their academic and career outcomes,” they write. The article examines the “mismatch” hypothesis in the context of law school admissions – and finds its flawed.
More on the University World News site

FACEBOOK

The Facebook group of University World News is the fastest growing in higher education worldwide. Just three weeks after its launch, already more than 230 UWN readers have joined. Sign up to the University World News Facebook group to meet and communicate directly with academics and researchers informed by the world’s first truly global higher education publication. Click on the link below to visit and join the group.
Visit the University World News group on Facebook

UNI-LATERAL: Off-beat university stories

CANADA: Film casts a critical eye on universities
The film Les Invasions barbares, Denys Arcand's trenchant take on modern values, zeroed in on the sad state of Quebec’s health system. Now another Québécois movie, Le Banquet, attempts a similar attack on the province’s other great behemoth, the education system – specifically, the universities – writes Henry Aubin in The Gazette.
More on the University World News site

UK: Cambridge wants to star in TV soaps
Britain's soap operas offer a steady diet of sex, scandal – and if Cambridge University has its way, scholarship, reports Associated Press. Trying to shed its elitist image, Cambridge has approached the producers of Britain's three leading TV soaps about including it in their story lines.
More on the University World News site

WORLD ROUND-UP

AUSTRALIA: Tough visa rules for ‘high risk’ students
Indian students enrolling in higher education, postgraduate research and English language courses in Australia will now have to adhere to more stringent visa regulations, reports The Economic Times. India is one of nine countries that have had their immigration risk assessment levels upgraded from three to four on a scale of five beginning this month – the result of visa non-compliance by students. The other countries are Sri Lanka, Colombia, Egypt, Ghana, Jordan, N igeria, Romania and Zimbabwe.
More on the University World News site

US: ‘Wall of shame’ for costly colleges
Colleges beware: One more tuition hike and your name might just end up on a new federal Wall of Shame, writes Noah Grynberg in USA Today. The College Opportunity and Affordability Act, signed by President George W Bush on 14 August, will require the Department of Education to post online the colleges and universities with the highest percentage increases in tuition and fees in a three-year period. It also calls for the department to list the 5% of colleges with the highest overall sticker prices.
More on the University World News site


CHINA: MBAs on the rise
Strong demand for management expertise in China spurred many universities to begin offering MBAs either independently or in joint ventures with overseas institutions, reports China Daily. The first batch of MBA schools was launched in 1991 in nine institutions, and 86 students were enrolled. The burning thirst for advancement among the ranks of young executives in the corporate sector has since fuelled MBA mania.
More on the University World News site

BOLIVIA: Three indigenous universities to be created
While busy preparing for a national referendum vote, as well as negotiating energy accords and dealing with strikes, Bolivian President Evo Morales issued Supreme Decree 29664 last month authorising the creation of three indigenous universities where the courses will be taught in Aymara, Quechua and Guarani – the country's three most widely spoken native languages – reports Indian Country.
More on the University World News site

UK: Ready for the crunch?
As they prepare to open their doors to a new wave of students, college principals will be pondering whether the credit crunch will have the same impact on their business as the previous economic downturn of the early 1990s, writes The Guardian. Then, recession saw a boom in further education, as the unemployed and those concerned about losing their jobs turned to local colleges to up-skill, re-skill or take leisure courses to fill their time.
More on the University World News site

UK: Value of gaining a degree plummets
One-third of graduates are receiving no financial benefit from their degree as young people drawn in by Labour’s mass expansion of universities see the value of studying decline for the first time, writes Jack Grimston in the Sunday Times. A study has identified a widening gulf between the highest-paid graduates, whose degrees have brought them soaring returns over the past decade, and those at the lower end.
More on the University World News site

CANADA-SIERRA LEONE: Researching to re-build
To many in the west, Sierra Leone is a nation that is struggling to recover from 11 years of war and decades of autocratic rule, reports Express News of the University of Alberta. But to Mohamed Sesay, it is something entirely different. Sesay, a graduate student visiting from the University of Sierra Leone, where he is working towards his Master of Philosophy at Fourah Bay College, sees his country as being on the verge of a new beginning.
More on the University World News site

KENYA: Record number of students to enrol
Faced with strained facilities and concerns over falling quality of education, public universities are bracing to absorb 17,000 students later this year, the highest number of candidates ever, writes Mwaura Kimani in Business Daily.
More on the University World News site

SOUTH AFRICA: University rooms for World Cup visitors
South Africa’s universities, colleges and boarding schools will play a key role in providing alternatives to more traditional forms of accommodation such as hotels and guesthouses during the 2010 World Cup, reports The Times. Major universities, including Wits, the University of Cape Town and the University of Johannesburg will provide thousands of beds, with UCT alone likely to provide between 2,000 to 3,000 beds.
More on the University World News site

IRELAND: Students protest against third-level fees
More than 30 student leaders protested last week at the Department of Education in Dublin to highlight their opposition to fees, reports the Irish Times. At the protest in the grounds of the department offices on Marlborough Street, student leaders carried posters stating ‘Public funding not fees”, and chanted “they say cut back, we say fight back”.
More on the University World News site

JORDAN: Student admission numbers up by 10%
The Higher Education Council has announced a 10% increase in the number of students accepted in public universities, reports the Jordan Times. The Unified Admission Committee announced the names of 26,361 students accepted in 10 state universities, which left about 1,800 seats vacant.
More on the University World News site