Monday 27 October 2008

University World News 0050 - 27th October 2008


NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report


GLOBAL: Tide turning for STEM subjects
Diane Spencer
Countries around the world are trying to prevent a continuing decline in interest among students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics or STEM – the so-called key vulnerable subjects. Professor John Holman, director of STEM subjects at the UK National Science Learning Centre, said Britain was not alone among advanced economies that had experienced shortages of graduates in these areas. While other EU countries, Japan, the US and Scandinavia were also suffering, the picture was different in developing nations.
Full report on the University World News site

AFRICA: Tertiary education key to growth: World Bank
Karen MacGregor
Tertiary enrolments in Sub-Saharan Africa more than tripled between 1991 and 2005, expanding at an annual rate of 8.7% – one of the highest regional growth rates in the world – says a new report by the World Bank. But public funding did not keep up and spending per student plummeted over 25 years from an average of US$6,800 a year to just US$981 in 2005 for 33 countries. “Educational quality and relevance both suffered as a result,” according to Accelerating Catch-up – Tertiary education for growth in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Full report on the University World News site

GERMANY: Education summit a disappointment
Michael Gardner
Seemingly undaunted by the international financial crisis which has also rocked some German banks, the Federal Government went ahead with its Education Summit last Wednesday. But the meeting ended in a row over the 16 state governments’ insistence on getting a greater share of VAT revenue for investment in education.
Full report on the University World News site

RUSSIA: Super league of ‘federal’ universities
Nick Holdsworth
A shake-up of Russia’s university system will see the establishment of a network of new, high-status ‘federal’ institutions under Education Ministry plans being considered by lawmakers. The scheme – part of a wide-ranging set of proposals under a Kremlin plan to improve Russia's socio-economic infrastructure – has passed its first reading and will target resources on specialised research universities and encourage wider lifelong vocational learning.
Full report on the University World News site

BANGLADESH: Responding to global challenges
Mahdin Mahboob
The Asia Regional Higher Education Summit was held in Dhaka earlier this month with a view to expanding innovative approaches to teaching, research, technology transfer and business development in higher education. Attended by senior educationists from across the world, the four-day summit proposed a range of ideas for the development of key sectors and how higher education could play a role in it.
Full report on the University World News site

AUSTRALIA: Boost for university infrastructure
Geoff Maslen
The nation’s universities have welcomed a decision by the federal government to allocate almost A$700 million (US$469 million) for spending on infrastructure and research facilities. The money has been fast-tracked to next year’s funding round and will be drawn from the $1 billion Higher Education Endowment Fund.
Full report on the University World News site

HUNGARY: Boost R&D to improve economy
Hungary should invest more in research and development to make its economy more competitive and boost growth, according to a new OECD report. The report, Hungary – OECD Review of Innovation Policy, considers the strengths and weaknesses of Hungary's innovation system and recommends steps the government could take to increase the impact of innovation on the country's future prosperity.
Full report on the University World News site

ZAMBIA: Brain drain stemming plan in tatters
Clemence Manyukwe
A plan tabled in Zambia’s parliament in 2007, aimed at curbing the brain drain among science lecturers and researchers, lies in ruins amid ongoing academic disgruntlement. The plan included adjusting salaries regularly, introducing a home-ownership scheme, retention allowances and increased research grants for state institutions. But strikes have dominated Zambia’s academic year and they have included science lecturers.
Full report on the University World News site

ZIMBABWE: Universities still closed as students arrested
Clemence Manyukwe
Four student leaders were arrested last week for leading a protest of nearly 500 students against the collapse of higher education in Zimbabwe. No state universities are operating in the new academic year because of serious problems including a lecturer strike, lack of finance and unavailability of learning materials.
Full report on the University World News site

EGYPT: Anger at revamping of Muslim seminary
Khaled Fouad
Academics at Al Azhar University, the Muslim world’s oldest seat of higher learning, have reacted with anger to a decision by the Egyptian government to recategorise the institution’s colleges. Earlier this month, Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif, who doubles as Minister of Al Azhar Affairs, ordered separation of the university’s religious colleges from ones teaching non-religious subjects to create two institutions.
Full report on the University World News site

NIGERIA: Students protest against exorbitant exam fees
Tunde Fatunde
Candidates seeking admission into the current 2008-09 academic session in N igeria are unhappy with high entrance examination fees charged separately by universities and the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board, or JAMB. One newspaper analysis calculated that the amount spent by students sitting both sets of examinations was a whopping US$119 million.
Full report on the University World New site

NEWSBRIEFS

EU: New site to attract foreign students
The European Commission has launched a new web portal called Study in Europe to promote universities across the EU to students from other parts of the world. The portal, at www.study-in-europe.org, is part of a campaign to boost the number of students from outside Europe who study in the EU.
Full report on the University World New site

US-INDIA: Collaboration in agricultural education
Subbiah Arunachalam
The US Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service (CSREES) has awarded four grants totalling about $400,000 to US universities for advancing the US-India Agricultural Knowledge Initiative.
Full report on the University World New site

EU: More funding for Erasmus
The European Parliament last week gave the green light to a second funding round for the EU's Erasmus Mundus Programme which aims to promote Europe as a centre of academic excellence. In backing the estimated budget of €950 million (US$1,227 million) for the 2009-2013 period, the parliament adopted changes to some of the criteria to simplify visa applications for participants from non-EU countries and to ensure a balance in terms of students’ gender and country of origin.
Full report on the University World New site

EUROPE: EUA autumn conference
Hundreds of university leaders, together with politicians and business leaders, attended the European University Association autumn conference over the past three days at Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands.
Full report on the University World New site

EU: Call for editorial board applications
The European Training Foundation plans to establish a new international board for the next three years and has called for applications from appropriately qualified people. The ETF is a specialised agency of the European Union based in Turin, Italy, and works with transition and developing countries to apply human capital development strategies to socio-economic development.
Full report on the University World New site

SCIENCE SCENE

CANADA: Oldest rocks in the world
Remnants of the Earth's early crust have been found in a belt of ancient bedrock in northern Quebec, along the eastern shore of Hudson Bay. They have been around since roughly 300 million years after the planet was formed 4.6 billion years ago, says Jonathan O'Neil, a doctoral candidate at McGill University and the lead author of a paper published in the journal Science.
Full report on the University World New site

UK: Archaeologists delve into ice age
Remarkable prehistoric paintings hidden away in the caves of northern Spain could be dated accurately for the first time by experts from the University of Bristol. A team from the department of archaeology and anthropology has just returned from an expedition to the Cantabria and Asturias regions of Spain where they removed samples from more than 20 prehistoric painted caves.
Full report on the University World New site

AUSTRALIA: A pill to eliminate obesity – and diabetes
Geoff Maslen
From gelignite to superglue, polyethylene to Teflon coatings, Scotchguard to Silly Putty, the long history of science is littered with chance discoveries that fall under the title of ‘serendipity’. And serendipitous is how Dr Michael Mathai describes his finding that a common blood pressure drug also might also cause weight loss and possibly reduce the chances of many overweight people around the world becoming diabetics.
Full report on the University World New site

HE RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY

CANADA: Momentum report on state of R&D
The Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada has published a new report on the state of research and development in the country. The report, Momentum: The 2008 report on university research and knowledge mobilization, shows that universities performed more than a third of Canada’s research and contributed at least $60 billion to the economy in 2007.
More on the University World News site

US: New book on US-China educational exchange
The first issue in a new series of Global Education Research Reports has been published by the Institute of International Education (IIE). US-China Educational Exchange: Perspectives on a growing partnership’s release coincides with the 30th anniversary of the US-China ‘Understanding on the Exchange of Students and Scholars’.
More on the University World News site

UNI-LATERAL: Off-beat university stories

FRANCE: French do well in French world rankings
Jane Marshall
It should have been an occasion to cheer up the French university community following France’s poor showing in the Shanghai Jiao Tong and Times Higher Education-QS international rankings: the second Professional Ranking of World Universities survey by the grande école Mines Paris Tech placed five French institutions in its top 20, including two in the first 10. But commentators have criticised the findings which are based on just one criterion.
Full report on the University World New site

UK: All in ermine and pink
Diane Spencer
University chancellors are a diverse lot and their role is ill-defined. They range across captains of industry, broadcasters, authors, actors and peers of the realm. Universities UK, the voice of the British higher education sector, asked some of them for their tips on how to fulfil their duties. In the resulting booklet, Beyond ceremony, Professor Rick Trainor, president of UUK, calls chancellors the unsung heroes.
Full report on the University World New site

BANGLADESH: Watch for cheating universities
In a move that has its echoes in many other parts of the world, the Bangladesh government was last week planning to issue a public warning to students seeking to enrol in higher education not to take admission tests provided by “dubious branches” of some private universities.
Full report on the University World New site

US: Harvard project to reveal DNA of 10 scientists
A number of top scientists have volunteered to have their DNA made public in order to kick-start a Harvard University project that hopes to eventually have more than 100,000 genetic profiles on the internet, writes Richard Alleyne in The Telegraph. The scientists include Steven Pinker, the prominent Harvard University psychologist and author, Esther Dyson, a trainee astronaut, and Misha Angrist, an assistant professor at Duke University.
More on the University World News site

US: Ex-Mormon calendar-maker has diploma denied
Salt Lake City’s Brigham Young University has denied the diploma of a man who created a calendar featuring shirtless Mormon missionaries and was later excommunicated from the church, reports Associated Press. Chad Hardy, 31, said he would fight the institution’s decision “tooth-and-nail”.
More on the University World News site

FACEBOOK


The Facebook group of University World News is the fastest growing in higher education worldwide. Over 340 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

WORLD ROUND-UP

NIGERIA: Four million applicants denied admission
More than four million qualified candidates have failed to secure admission to N igeria’s universities in the last five years, Sunday Punch investigations have revealed. The figure represents 88% of the total number of candidates who sought admission within the period.
More on the University World News site

US: 3,000 professors sign support for Ayers
More than 3,000 educators nationwide have signed a statement supporting William Ayers, the former radical activist and current distinguished professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago who Republican presidential nominee Senator John McCain called a “washed-up terrorist” at the third presidential debate, reports CNN.
More on the University World News site

US: Security threat or political threat?
Back in March, when a faculty panel at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln selected William Ayers to be the keynote speaker at a November conference at the College of Education, nobody really noticed, writes Scott Jaschik in Inside Higher Ed. On 17 October the university called off the Ayers appearance, citing security concerns. But the timing of the announcement – shortly after Nebraska’s governor and other politicians and donors demanded that Ayers be kept away – left many dubious. Some faculty leaders say that the incident represents a serious violation of the principles of academic freedom.
More on the University World News site

UK: Reform to degrees
Eighteen universities have agreed to pilot a new Hear (Higher Education Achievement Record) transcript – a ‘report card’ for students – in an attempt to ensure the degree classification system meets modern needs, reports The Independent. This could mean an end to the 200-year-old classification system of firsts, 2:1, third, pass and fail.
More on the University World News site

UK: Is the credit crunch good news for universities?
With a dozen UK universities standing to lose £77 million (US$125 million) in collapsed Icelandic banks, the higher education sector appears, along with everyone else, to be facing an uncertain future, writes Anthea Lipsett in The Guardian. But could the global financial downturn in fact spell good fortune for UK universities?
More on the University World News site

IRAN: Government supporting global Islamic studies
Iran is supporting world academic centres in establishing departments of Islamic studies, the Tehran Times reported. Iran’s Ministry of Science, Research and Technology wants Islamic studies strengthened, an official said, and was looking at proposals including several from universities in Britain, America and Germany.
More on the University World News site


PAKISTAN: Crackdown on postgraduate plagiarism
Pakistan’s Higher Education Commission has asked all universities to provide it with an electronic copy of all theses submitted by postgraduate students, sources in the commission told The Nation. The sources also said the commission had directed universities to warn postgraduate students that plagiarism would result in their degrees being cancelled.
More on the University World News site

Ghana: 50 universities needed to cope with demand
The president of Ghana’s Central University College, Professor Victor Patrick Gadzekpo, has estimated that the country needs a minimum of 50 universities – each with an average of 20,000 students – to cope with soaring demand from a growing number of school leavers, reports Public Agenda. Ghana, which has a population of 24.2 million people, currently has six public and 30 private universities.
More on the University World News site

NAMIBIA: German universities must return skulls
Namibia has called on Germany to return dozens of skulls stored in universities since the colonial era, reports Deutsche Welle. In a statement last week, Namibia’s government said it wanted Germany “to pay for the repatriation of the remains and all related costs”. The skulls are those of indigenous Ovaherero, also known as Herero, and Nama victims of the uprising of the tribes against German colonial rule between 1904 and 1908.
More on the University World News site

SAUDI ARABIA: Supercomputer lures researchers
A new science and technology university in Saudi Arabia will house the world’s sixth largest supercomputer and it is helping lure top researchers to the conservative desert state, reports Reuters. The King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) is due to open next year on the Red Sea coast near Jeddah.
More on the University World News site

Sunday 19 October 2008

University World News 0049 - 20th October 2008

UWN: Something to celebrate!
Diane Spencer

University World News now has almost 13,000 registered readers with 120,000 visitors viewing the site's home pages during the last year. About 40,000 website visitors view more than 450,000 web pages on average each month. More than 3,000 academics receive the African editions in countries across the continent.

The paper will shortly take on a new look with a redesign of the website by our designer Dane Wilson. This will make navigation clearer and result in a site we hope will be more attractive to readers and advertisers. Please continue to watch this space!
Full report on the University World News site

UWN: One university’s scandal is another’s lesson
Philip Fine
Call it the UWN effect. Just as chaos theorists ask if a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil can set off a tornado in Texas, we wanted to know if a different type of butterfly effect could happen with a publication such as University World News. What effect would a higher education story in one part of the world have on someone in another country’s university system?
Full report on the University World News site

A YEAR IN PICTURES


Picture editor John Gerritsen has selected some of the top photographs published in University World News over the last 12 months. You can see the collection he has compiled here.

OUR READERS COMMENT


From Thomas D Parker
University World News entered the world unheralded a year ago and has quickly established itself as the indispensable source of information about the global higher education community. There are excellent university centres and stand-alone institutes that follow and study international issues in higher education policy, but they do not provide the scope or frequency of reporting UWN offers. On Sunday mornings when it arrives, the newspaper takes precedence in my reading over the Sunday New York Times! May it have many more anniversaries.
Thomas D Parker
Senior Associate and Director
Global Center on Private Financing of Higher Education, Institute for Higher Education Policy, Washington DC.

From Dr Svava Bjarnason
University World News is a unique source of information tracking higher education developments globally. The use of journalists who are local and aware of emerging issues means their coverage is immediate and addressing the issues of the day in countries globally.
Svava Bjarnason
Senior Education Specialist
International Finance Corporation

From Dr Jamil Salmi
The University World News newsletter and website have quickly established themselves as one of the most relevant information sources on international higher education. The balance between news items and in-depth articles is just right. This is an excellent tool for policy-makers, institutional leaders and researchers alike.
Jamil Salmi
Coordinator
World Bank Network of Tertiary Education Professionals

From Professor Brenda Gourley
I really like University World News. It keeps me up to date without taking significant amounts of my time. It's relevant, timely and concise. Just what I want.
Professor Brenda Gourley
Vice-chancellor
Open University

From Simon McGrath
In these days of information overload, University World News quickly established itself as one of the few electronic resources that I always do make time to explore. Both for myself and my research students on international higher education, it is an invaluable resource that is provocative and informative. I have particularly welcomed the strong African focus of UWN's work, which is such a striking contrast to the neglect of African issues in both academia and journalism. With best wishes for your second year
Simon McGrath,
Professor of International Education and Development, and Editor-in-Chief, International Journal of Educational Development, Unesco Centre for Comparative Education Research, University of Nottingham

From Dr Jan Sadlak
There are things in life to which we get used to so fast that we wonder how we could function without them... No, this is not another commercial for a new mobile phone but a note of thanks to those few entrepreneurial individuals who one year ago asked if I was interested to receive University World News – of course a rhetorical question. UWN not only provides information about important developments in higher education but also ably demonstrates that the world of higher education is so diverse, subject to many changes... and just very interesting. Many thanks!
Dr Jan Sadlak
Director
Unesco-European Centre for Higher Education, Bucharest, Romania

From Sir Peter Scott
University World News is the best of its class – timely, reliable and relevant news about developments in higher education worldwide written by leading journalists in the field.
Professor Sir Peter Scott
Vice-chancellor
Kingston University, London

SPECIAL REPORT: Trends in higher education

Enormous changes in higher education in the past decade have raised new issues that require regular research, with the outcomes primarily presented in scholarly journals but also increasingly through less formal means. At the same time, rapid growth in higher education and in scientific knowledge have fuelled demand for speedily disseminated and easily accessible information which is being provided in new and diverse ‘digital’ ways, with profound implications for the production and distribution of higher education research – and for the way universities, academics and students operate.

These and other issues were debated at an international conference titled Enhancement of Knowledge on Higher Education and its Dissemination: Imperative for policy and practice, hosted by the Babeş-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, at the end of last month and supported by Unesco-CEPES and the Council of Europe. The conference also discussed the media’s role in providing information on higher education, with higher education journalists invited to participate. University World News’ co-editor, Karen MacGregor, reports on some of the conference presentations.

UNIVERSITIES: The information revolution
Universities are generally stable institutions but they are buffeted by new developments, such as rankings exercises and the ‘world class university’ concept that have grabbed the attention of academics, politicians and the media. Other new realities are a massive growth in research output and a digital revolution that is changing higher education’s relationship to information and knowledge, says Dr Jan Sadlak, Director of Unesco’s Bucharest-based European Centre for Higher Education.
Full report on the University World News site

PUBLISHING: World’s 200+ higher education journals
A study by Unesco’s European Centre for Higher Education has identified 210 journals on higher education worldwide, though the number fluctuates and could be an under-count. Half of the journals were published in North America while Europe produced 23% and Asia-Pacific 19%, according to Melanie Seto, editor and programme specialist for the Unesco-CEPES. Among them were 17 ‘international’ higher education publications.
Full report on the University World News site

GLOBAL: Trends in higher education studies
The field of higher education studies is growing, driven by the practical needs of a post-school system that is expanding worldwide. Professor Philip Altbach, director of the Center for International Higher Education at Boston College in the US, predicts that the field will spread into more countries, and will increasingly focus on the process of teaching, learning and assessment and on training of university administrators. It will remain interdisciplinary but, unfortunately, large-scale research will be limited by lack of funds.
Full report on the University World News site

INTERNATIONALISATION: A research agenda
The position of higher education and its international dimension in the global arena are more dominant than ever before, says Dr Hans de Wit, editor of Journal of Studies in International Education. In a 2006 International Association of Universities survey, 73% of institutions gave internationalisation high priority, 23% medium priority and only 2% low priority. But despite an increase in studies on internationalisation, research on the topic is struggling to find a disciplinary, conceptual or methodological ‘home’.
Full report on the University World News site

MEDIA: Higher education in the news
Karen MacGregor
In most countries mass media reporting on higher education is primarily the preserve of newspapers, not of television or radio. Newspapers – print and electronic – report on news and developments in higher education, provide a platform for debate, and reflect current issues concerning the public, students, academics, tertiary organisations and governments – and, through this coverage, themselves influence the higher education agenda.
More on the University World News site
Full essay presented at the Cluj-Napoca conference

NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report

GLOBAL: Revealed: best producers of top universities
John Gerritsen
New Zealand, Finland, Ireland and Australia are the most efficient producers of top universities, according to a University World News analysis of the latest THE-QS ranking of the world’s top 500 universities.
See our Research and Commentary section for a discussion on rankings
Full report on the University World News site

CHINA: Record numbers studying abroad
Jane Marshall
The number of students from China enrolling for the first time at universities in other countries is estimated to reach a record 200,000 this year compared with 144,500 who went abroad in 2007. That latter number represented a 170-fold increase on the 860 students who opted to go offshore 30 years ago. Since then, more than 1.2 million students have left China to study abroad although only 320,000 returned home after completing their studies.
Full report on the University World News site

ZIMBABWE: Nursing education abandoned
Clemence Manyukwe
Zimbabwean nursing colleges have abandoned specialised training for students because of a lack of medical equipment and poor funding. The latest development is likely to have a catastrophic effect on the country’s health delivery system, itself currently in the intensive care unit arising from the ‘brain drain’ and poor salaries for medical practitioners.
Full report on the University World News site

NEWSBRIEFS


US: New clearing house for ranking systems
The Institute for Higher Education Policy in the United States has launched an online global resource centre pulling together information on university rankings systems worldwide. The IHEP Ranking Systems Clearinghouse, it says, “provides a road map of the complex ranking landscape for more than 30 countries”, and includes links to national and international rankings systems and a collection of thousands of rankings-related publications.
Full report on the University World News site

GERMANY: Chinese Minister awarded doctorate
Michael Gardner
China’s Minister of Science and technology, Professor Wan Gang, has been awarded the title of an Honorary Doctor by Berlin’s Technical University. Wan Gang, who was President of Shanghai’s Tongji University from 2004-07, has played a leading role in the development of environmentally friendly cars in China.
Full report on the University World News site

UK: Commonwealth scholarships restored
Commonwealth scholarships will be available to students in all Commonwealth countries to study in Britain next year. This follows a new partnership between British universities and the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills after a cut in funding by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in March meant that students in more developed Commonwealth countries would have been no longer be eligible to apply for the scholarships.
Full report on the University World News site

ACADEMIC FREEDOM


UK: Lecturers fear anti-terror laws
Jonathan Travis
A senior member of Britain’s Higher Education Academy has noted that many academics teaching and researching terrorism-related subjects are including disclaimers in their course materials as a result of anti-terror laws. According to Times Higher Education, a senior coordinator at the Academy’s centre for sociology, anthropology and politics organised a workshop on ‘teaching terrorism’ at the University of Strathclyde last month in response to the new fears.
More academic freedom reports on the University World News site

BUSINESS

EUROPE: Business backs new way to teach science
Alan Osborn
A group of European business leaders is backing a European Commission proposal to get students to take more interest in science and mathematics. The initiative has been spurred by a report from an expert group at the commission which last year urged primary and secondary schools to move away from traditional, mainly deductive, science teaching and bring in inquiry-based science education.
Full report on the University World News site

THE NETHERLANDS: Stopping windscreen noise
Keith Nuthall
Windscreens are not just something to look through, say European university scientists: they also act as loudspeakers, attracting and magnifying noise created by a car or lorry and reflecting the racket back at drivers and passengers alike. This fact has made researchers in the European Union-funded and University of Twente, Netherlands-coordinated InMAR (Intelligent Materials for Active Noise Reduction) project consider how to change the materials making windshields, so they absorb noise rather than amplify it. The project is likely to spur technological developments in the automobile industry.
Full report on the University World News site

GLOBAL: Safety concern over nanoparticles
Mark Rowe
Nanotechnology can imbue textiles and other consumer products with eye-catching properties but university scientists and researchers worldwide are increasingly uncertain about the extent to which safety issues surrounding such developments have been explored.
Full report on the University World News site

FRANCE: Insurer funds innovative risk studies
Keith Nuthall
In a sign the credit crunch is not demolishing all long-term thinking in the financial sector, France’s AXA insurance group has continued providing funding for a five-year €100 million programme into innovative research exploring risk.
Full report on the University World News site

FEATURE

GLOBAL: Science for the developing world
Geoff Maslen
David Dickson’s baby will turn seven in December. For an infant online website conceived to bring informed news and opinion about science and technology to aid the whole of the developing world, SciDev.Net is doing remarkably well. Not only does it attract 80,000 visitors a month – and the number is growing week by week – it is also backed by funding agencies in five countries and includes among its earliest supporters the US Rockefeller Foundation. As might be expected, Dickson, a former news editor for Nature and European correspondent for the US journal Science, is immensely proud of his growing child.
Full report on the University World News site

HE RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY

Methodology, meaning and usefulness of rankings
Ross Williams
Globalisation, assisted by deregulation, has created demand for international rankings. The demand originates from a range of stakeholders: students, employers, supranational institutions, scholars, funding agencies and governments. In addition, there is public interest in rankings for their own sake, whether it be the world’s most liveable city or an international ranking of the quality of financial newspapers. At the same time as this expansion in demand, developments in technology, most noticeably the world wide web, have facilitated the supply of information to meet demand.
Extract from an article in Australian Universities’ Review
More on the University World News site

UNI-LATERAL: Off-beat university stories

CANADA: Student residence going to the dogs
The 2008 version of Animal House is the real deal: less beer, more kibble, writes Caroline Alphonso in the Globe and Mail. Unlike the raunchy and rambunctious human cast of the three-decade-old National Lampoon campus comedy, the raciest antics of the four-legged cast of Mount Allison University’s Animal House include chasing their own tails and nibbling on house plants. In what is believed to be a unique partnership with the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the university has opened a new student residence that provides a foster home for pets awaiting adoption.
More on the University World News site

FACEBOOK

The Facebook group of University World News is the fastest growing in higher education worldwide. Over 320 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

WORLD ROUND-UP

US: Peers, not profs, influence student views
On issues such as abortion, gay marriage and religion, college students shift noticeably to the left from the time they arrive on campus through their junior year, new research shows, reports Justin Pope for Associated Press. The reason, according to the University of California in Los Angeles’ Higher Education Research Institute, isn’t indoctrination by left-leaning faculty but rather the more powerful influence of fellow students. And at most colleges, left-leaning peer groups are more common than conservative ones.
More on the University World News site

US: In defence of Ayers
William Ayers has been trashed by conservative pundits and labeled “an unrepentant domestic terrorist” by Sarah Palin, the Republican vice presidential nominee, writes Jack Stripling in Inside Higher Ed. But the University of Illinois at Chicago professor has garnered the support of a growing number of peers who admire his scholarship and see the attacks on him as an affront to academic freedom.
More on the University World News site

AUSTRALIA: Overseas postgraduate student numbers rise
International postgraduate research student numbers in Australia have increased more rapidly than those in other programmes, suggesting the country is finding traction in the global talent wars, new research has shown. The Australian reports that the number of overseas research students in the country has grown by 67% from 2002 to 2007, while the number of international students in higher education has increased 52%.
More on the University World News site

IRELAND: Universities still have lot to learn, says study
A report just published by an expert group of the Higher Education Authority, or HEA, has cast a cloud over celebrations which greeted news that Trinity College Dublin had for the first time broken into the top 50 of the world’s best universities, writes John O’Keeffe in the Independent. The report is damning in its indictment of universities in the Irish Republic, which it said had some leaders who had failed to engage with the Irish Universities Quality Board.
More on the University World News site

UK: Boost funds for elite universities
So what conclusions can we draw from this latest university league table? Should we celebrate the fact that four of the top 10 universities in the world are British? Or should we focus on the disappointing statistic that most UK institutions have slid down the world rankings? asks Chris Woodhead, a professor of education at the University of Buckingham, in The Sunday Times.
More on the University World News site

UK: Three steps to help improve university access
It was good to see widening participation in higher education as a theme of the political conference season this year, comments Keven Whitston, of the Higher Education Funding Council for England, in The Guardian. The issue still generates controversy, but few dispute the need to widen participation, and most believe that this must start early, be sustained, and integrated with learners' experience in schools and colleges.
More on the University World News site

VIETNAM: Universities slate financial autonomy scheme
Universities that have been implementing a financial self-control scheme on a trial basis for the last four years complain that they do not have real autonomy, reports VietNamNet Bridge. Universities said that while they were told they would be able to earn income by raising tuition fees, state officials were slapping limits on what could be charged.
More on the University World News site

EAST AFRICA: Project to harmonise universities
University education in East Africa will soon be harmonised, reports The Standard. Commission for Higher Education Secretary Everett Standa said the move would allow students to transfer credits between private and public universities in the region. A draft curriculum for selected programmes in agriculture, engineering, medicine and basic sciences is complete.
More on the University World News site

SOUTH AFRICA: Cape Town up in THE-QS rankings
The University of Cape Town has been ranked 179th in the world in the Times Higher Education-QS rankings, improving its position from 200th place last year. In 2007 the university became the first in Africa to achieve a spot in the top 200, reports Independent Online.
More on the University World News site

SAUDI ARABIA: Women win most postgraduate scholarships
The Ministry of Higher Education has selected all of the students who applied for and fulfilled stipulated conditions for the King Abdullah Foreign Scholarship Program, reports Arab News. A distinctive feature of this year’s selection is that women dominated the scholarships for master’s and research programmes.
More on the University World News site

Monday 13 October 2008

University World News 0048 - 13th October 2008

NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report

GLOBAL: Vast rise in student mobility
Geoff Maslen and Jane Marshall
More than 2.5 million university students are now estimated to be studying outside their own countries – a 70% increase in the past decade and the number looks set to continue rising. A new report confirms that students from China dominate those studying abroad, far exceeding young people from India, South Korea, Germany and Japan – the top five nations with the most students in other countries.
Full report on the University World News site


UK: US universities top the charts – again
Geoff Maslen
Daily newspapers in cities around the world were celebrating, or deploring, the status of their universities on Friday with publication of the latest rankings by the Times Higher Education and British publisher QS World Rankings. Reactions from vice-chancellors outside the US, whose universities again dominated the charts, were much the same: how can we compete against America’s hugely wealthy Ivy League institutions when our universities are under-funded?
Full report on the University World News site


SOUTH AFRICA: OECD urges university funding changes
Karen MacGregor
A just-published review by the OECD of South African education has praised “impressive forward thinking” and reform post-apartheid, but has also called for improved management of change in higher education and a reappraisal of university funding. It suggests studies into factors affecting student performance in the face of high drop-out rates, a proactive approach to preparing and integrating new students, and pedagogical training for junior academics.
Full report on the University World News site

INDONESIA: Deregulation of higher education
David Jardine
Renewed debate has begun in Indonesia over a proposed bill to further deregulate the nation’s universities. Privatisation of leading universities is controversial and seen by critics as a form of ‘classism’ that effectively excludes the children of less well-off families. Currently under consideration is a bill that Minister of National Education Bambang Sudibyo says will “change all state and private universities into corporate-like institutions”.
Full report on the University World News site

ZIMBABWE: Desperate universities launch income projects
Clemence Manyukwe
The Zimbabwean government last week cancelled the academic year as universities and schools found it impossible to continue operating with the collapse of the country’s economy. At the University of Zimbabwe, the country leading tertiary institution, a notice on a faculty building told students lectures would begin “on a date to be advised”. But university vice-chancellor Levy Nyagura was quoted as saying the university had no water, no electricity and no funds.
Full report on the University World News site

US-AFRICA: Donors re-commit to African higher education
Karen MacGregor
The seven big United States donors that comprise the Partnership for Higher Education in Africa have announced that they will continue support for universities across the continent beyond their original 10-year commitment – but the form of their collaboration after 2010 has still to be firmed up. By then the Partnership will have made grants worth $350 million to universities, institutions and programmes in nine African countries.
Full report on the University World News site

EUROPE: A better life for EU researchers?
Alan Osborn
The 27 European Union governments have moved to improve the working conditions and career prospects of their researchers by approving measures designed to provide them with “real social recognition and a satisfactory standard of living”.
Full report on the University World News site

GERMANY: New semester plans spark debate
Michael Gardner
Germany’s semester structure in higher education has been under review for some time now, the magic word once again being the Bologna process. A new structure, it is widely felt, could bring the system more into line with other European countries and facilitate student mobility. Critics claim, however, that no uniform international structure of semesters or trimesters exists anyway and they point to difficult obstacles that across-the-board reform would confront.
Full report on the University World News site

EUROPE: Academics: an anti-crime resource
Alan Osborn
Many European academic experts in the study of commercial crime are more than happy to discuss the state of play in the sector in an informal way with outsiders, although others may be more cautious.
Full report on the University World News site

NIGERIA: Top medical college rejects PhD directive
Tunde Fatunde
The governing council of N igeria’s National Postgraduate Medical College has rejected moves by the National Universities Commission to undermine its autonomy on the issue of academics needing doctoral qualifications. Many lecturers at the country’s only postgraduate medical college possess post-degree fellowship qualifications from the institution rather than PhDs.
Full report on the University World News site

NEWSBRIEFS


US: Giving adult learners more information
In an effort to improve student learning and provide stakeholders with greater access to data, the American Public University System has boosted its survey and assessment processes. APUS is an accredited online university system with more than 30,000 adult learners studying in 50 states and more than 100 countries.
Full report on the University World News site

AUSTRALIA: EU grant aids human rights study
Thirty students from the Asia Pacific region will undertake postgraduate study in human rights at the University of Sydney following an A$2.67 million (US$1.83 million) grant from the European Union. The new degree, called Asia Pacific Masters in Human Rights and Democratisation, is the only regional programme of its kind.
Full report on the University World News site

ALGERIA: Start of new academic year
Nearly 1,160,000 students have started the new academic year in Algeria, including 260,000 freshers, according to the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research. But despite the assurances of the Minister, Rachid Haraouabia, La Tribune of Algiers questioned whether universities had the capacity to cater for so many students.
Full report on the University World News site

SCIENCE SCENE

UK: Norse legacy includes humble house mouse
John Gerritsen
When Vikings came to Britain they brought fear, fire and… the house mouse. New research led by the University of York has used DNA to trace the origins of house mice in the British Isles while a companion study has looked at their relatives in New Zealand.
Full report on the University World News site

UK-JAPAN: International nanomaterials research
The Japanese government has located a new research offshoot at The Nanoscience Centre at the University of Cambridge. The British university is one of four institutes located outside Japan to host a satellite of the Japanese International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics, known as MANA.
Full report on the University World News site

AUSTRALIA: Tackling an old-age problem
Geoff Maslen
As people live longer, so the chances increase of them becoming victims of dementia – literally, the loss of one’s mind. The best known and most common form of dementia is alzheimer’s – a progressive, terminal disease believed to affect 25 million people around the world.
Full report on the University World News site

FEATURE

CAMEROON: New university part of tertiary reforms
Emmanuel T Nwaimah
The latest of Cameroon’s public universities opens this month at a temporary site while construction work continues on its main campus. The University of Maroua was created by a presidential decree on 9 August and is located in the city of Maroua in Far North Province. It represents the continuation of a process of decentralising the country’s public university system away from the capital Yaoundé under higher education reforms that began in 1993.
Full report on the University World News site

HE RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY

US: Generational gains stall, says new ACE report
The tradition of young adults in the United States achieving higher levels of education than previous generations “appears to have stalled”, a new report by the American Council on Education concludes. Minorities in Higher Education 2008 Twenty-third Status Report also found that “for far too many people of colour, the percentage of young adults with some type of postsecondary degree compared with older adults has actually fallen”.
More on the University World News site

UNI-LATERAL: Off-beat university stories

UZBEKISTAN: Interns write dissertations – for others
A blogger writes: Each year, 20 Uzbek university students who have been studying for nine semesters over four-and-a-half years, undertake internships at the Uzbekistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It is a dream of thousands of students as the MFA is considered one of the prestigious places where students can gain experience. But not everything is as good as it seems.
Full report on the University World News site

SWEDEN: Glowing pigs help clinch Nobel prize
The discovery of a green glowing protein from jellyfish has netted two Americans and one Japanese scientists the Nobel prize for chemistry, reports The Guardian. Each will take an equal share of the 10 million Swedish kronor ($1.4 million) award. Among the controversial spin-off uses for Green fluorescent protein, or GFP, have been pigs and fish that glow.
More on the University World News site

U-SAY

Romania problems no surprise
From George Tillman
Ottawa, Canada
Regarding your article last week, Romania: Investment boost for higher education, as a consultant who helped design and shake down Romania's competitive grants system, I am encouraged by this report. But that corruption, ‘academic clans’ and lack of self-criticism continue to be problems is unfortunately no surprise.
Full letter on the University World News site

Violence against Africans in Malaysia
From Wilfred Lema
Tanzania
I refer to your article on higher education in Malaysia, Foreign student numbers soar. We value the contribution Malaysia is making to the rest of the world, especially to Africa, in providing a cheap western-equivalent level of education. However, one issue has remained unattended and of late has evolved into a catastrophe.
Full letter on the University World News site

FACEBOOK

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WORLD ROUND-UP

ISRAEL: Universities prepare to strike
The Committee of University Heads in Israel launched a mass email last week to 150,000 students across the country, in which it states that “unfortunately under the current circumstances following negotiations with the Ministry of Finance, we cannot begin the academic year”, reports Yaheli Moran Zelikovitch in Ynetnews.
More on the University World News site

US: The SAT inches its way to oblivion
“Society likes to think that the SAT measures people's ability or merit. But no one in college admissions who visits the range of secondary schools we visit, and goes to the communities we visit – where you see the contrast between opportunities and fancy suburbs and some of the high schools that aren't so fancy – can come away thinking that standardised tests can be a measure of someone's true worth or ability.” When I saw that quote in my morning newspaper the other day, I did a double-take to make sure I wasn't in some odd parallel universe, writes Peter Sacks, author of Tearing Down the Gates: Confronting the class divide in American education, in News Day.
More on the University World News site

US: Do-it-yourself transcripts
An admissions change announced at Rutgers University last week is being called the “honour system” for college admissions (even if it’s got too much verification to be a true honour system), writes Scott Jaschik in Inside Higher Ed. Starting with those applying this fall for admission to all three Rutgers campuses, high schools will no longer be asked to submit applicants’ transcripts. Instead, applicants will themselves enter all of their grades and high school courses in an online application form. An official transcript will eventually be reviewed for every applicant who is admitted and indicates a plan to enrol.
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ASIA: HE summit calls for public-private partnerships
An Asia regional higher education summit has called for stronger partnerships among public and private institutions across the globe to face emerging challenges, reports China View. The three-day summit, the first of its kind in Asia, began in Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka last Monday with participation by around 150 university presidents and vice chancellors, senior business executives, foundations and government officials.
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WALES: Student fees shake-up is proposed
A report has recommended scrapping the assembly government’s support for all Welsh students to pay lower fees than in England, reports BBC News. Welsh students studying in Wales pay £1,200 (US$2,077) in fees – rather than £3,000 (US$5,193) for students from other parts of the UK – at a total cost of £61 million (US$105 million) per year.
More on the University World News site

UGANDA: Two illegal universities closed
Uganda’s National Council for Higher Education has ordered the closure of Luweero University and Central Buganda University, reports New Vision. Both universities have more than 2,000 students studying business administration, social work, social administration and computer science. The council also said two other institutions, Namasagali and Fairland Universities, have until December to improve their facilities or face closure.
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NIGERIA: Conduct of examinations probed
The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) has begun a review of the conduct of examinations in N igeria’s universities, reports This Day. It is hoped that the review will help to fashion a new examinations agenda able to improve quality and reduce exams malpractice.
More on the University World News site

TURKEY: Board seeking foreign students
The Higher Education Board, or YÖK, has been developing measures to make the Turkish system of higher education more appealing to students from abroad, reports Today’s Zaman. One of the measures has been encouraging private universities to lower tuition costs for foreign students, and another has been asking state universities to boost admissions of foreign students.
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INDIA: Process started for 12 central universities
The Indian government has initiated the process of establishing 12 new central universities by starting to select their sites, reports The Hindu. Several government committees have started visiting sites offered by state governments to assess their “suitability”. States are supposed to provide about 500 acres of land free for the setting up of a central university.
More on the University World News site

Sunday 5 October 2008

University World News 0047 - 6th October 2008

NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report

US: Poor students miss out in some universities
A new study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, has found that selective institutions in America differ markedly in the number of low-income students they admit. John Douglass and Gregg Thomson investigated the divide between poor and rich students, comparing a group of selective institutions and their number and percentage of Pell Grant recipients.
Full report on the University World New site

UK: Widening participation debate heats up
Diane Spencer
The debate on widening participation in Britain’s universities heated up last week with the publication of a report on special schemes to encourage pupils from poorer backgrounds to enter higher education, and inflammatory remarks by the Chancellor of Oxford University. Lord (Chris) Patten told a conference of independent school heads that his university should not be treated “like a social security office” to help disadvantaged pupils from state schools.
Full report on the University World New site
More on Lord Patten’s remarks in the World Round-up section

ROMANIA: Investment boost for higher education
Karen MacGregor
Higher education in Romania has undergone huge changes in the past two decades, from a small and stifled sector during the communist era to a competitive system with seven times more students, more than 100 institutions and burgeoning research. There are challenges, including raising quality, but investment in higher education has increased 30-fold in the past seven years, says Professor Paul Serban Agachi, president of the academic council of Babes-Bolyai University and a member of a team that crafted reforms.
Full report on the University World New site

JAPAN: University crime experts on call
Gavin Blair
The second article in a special series on how universities are helping fight crime.
Though the number of academic spec ialists in commercial crime in the Asia-Pacific region may be fewer than in the US or Europe, many of the leading figures are willing to work with corporate clients and have a great deal of experience outside the ivory towers.
Full report on the University World New site

GERMANY: Bologna – still making slow progress
Michael Gardner
German students are still complaining about having their performance in courses abroad recognised at home. Credit transfer is a key aspect of the Bologna process, aimed at making European higher education systems more compatible. Nevertheless, reports of seemingly arbitrary recognition of credits from abroad appear to be discouraging many students from enrolling in foreign courses.
Full report on the University World New site

FRANCE: Higher education and research are budget priorities
Jane Marshall
Higher education and research are the government’s chief priority in the 2009 budget. Next year’s allocation will rise by €1.8 billion (US$2.57 billion) to a total of €24.16 billion, up 6.5% compared with 2008. But the sector has not escaped 900 job cuts although these are proportionally less severe than those imposed on other ministries.
Full report on the University World New site

UK: Teacher gender gap widens
Diane Spencer
Despite government efforts to attract men into teaching, the latest figures show the gender gap is widening. The Higher Education Statistics Agency found that males made up less than a quarter of all teaching qualifications obtained from higher education institutions in 2006-07, the lowest number for five years.
Full report on the University World New site

EUROPE: Young scientists promise a bright future
Alan Osborn
Three young researchers, from Poland, Slovakia and Britain, were awarded the top prizes in the EU Contest for Young Scientists in Copenhagen on 25 September, against competition from national scientific prize-winners from 39 European countries plus Brazil, Canada, China, Mexico, New Zealand and the US.
Full report on the University World New site


NEWSBRIEFS



UK: £400 million for universities
The Higher Education Funding Council for England last week announced distribution of nearly £400 million (US$222.3 million) from the Higher Education Innovation Fund round four to universities following approval of their plans.
Full report on the University World New site

GLOBAL: Networking with recruitment agents
With exceptional growth rates, the ICEF Higher Education Workshop, which took place in Antwerp, Belgium last month showed there was a need for a spec ialised networking event where representatives of higher education institutions could meet student recruitment agents focused on sending students to universities.
Full report on the University World New site

ACADEMIC FREEDOM

ISRAEL-PALESTINE: Bomb attack on Israeli academic
Jonathan Travis
A well-known Israeli critic of Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank has been slightly wounded in a bomb attack, BBC News reports. Professor Zeev Sternhell is a former professor of political science at Hebrew University who now writes commentary in the Haaretz newspaper. Sternhell, who was awarded the prestigious Israel Prize for Political Science earlier this year, has continuously opposed the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip. The authorities believe ultra-nationalist Israelis were behind the attack.
More academic freedom reports on the University World News site

BUSINESS

CHINA: Innovation needed to preserve economic gains
Alan Osborn
China has worked small wonders to lever itself into position as the world’s fourth largest economy, but its recent growth rates may not be sustainable. The key word now is “innovation”. The Chinese government recognises this and has launched a national strategy to build an innovation-driven economy and society by 2020.
Full report on the University World New site

EUROPE: Universities must address information security
Paul Cochrane
Information technology security training at European universities was an aspect of the university curriculum that institutions needed to address, participants were told at a conference organised by the European Network and Information Security Agency, Enisa, last month in Crete.
Full report on the University World New site

CZECH REPUBLIC: New scanner wins EU research award
Monica Dobie
A new explosives scanner, quick to use and able to probe tiny cracks, has won a European research award. The technology has been developed in a €760,000 (US$1.9 million) project by the Czech Republic Academy of Sciences, the Slovak Technical University, Bratislava, Czech high-tech company RS Dynamics with Spanish engineering company
SENER Ingenieria y Sistemas.
Full report on the University World New site

FEATURE

GREECE: University’s research policy pays off
Makki Marseilles
Emphasis on research at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki is beginning to pay rich dividends. It encourages staff, students and academics to develop research and development projects, and leads to successful collaborations with international research teams and institutions. It also attracts financial support from Greek and foreign organisations and industries as well as forging a strong link between the university and the society at large.
Full report on the University World New site

HE RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY

US: States must harness research of all institutions
Applied research and development activities at regional colleges and universities bolster their primary educational mission as well as contributing to local and state-wide economic growth, writes Daniel Hurley, director of state relations and policy analysis for the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. In a Higher Education Policy Brief, Tapping State College Research and Development Capacity in Support of State Economic Development, he advocates that the research and innovation capacity of all public colleges and universities be harnessed as states boost efforts to fund and stimulate research as part of an integrated economic development strategy.
Full report on the University World New site

UNI-LATERAL: Off-beat university stories

ITALY: Beautiful art eases pain
Monica Dobie
Pain is all in the mind. That’s what a hard taskmaster on a sports field might say. Of course it is true – pain is in the mind – as it is our brain that tells us something hurts. Recent Italian research claims to prove that patients looking at beautiful works of art really suffer less pain than those looking at a bare wall or water jug. Maybe they are on to something.
Full report on the University World New site

US: Strippers, armadillos inspire Ig Nobel winners
Deborah Anderson had heard the urban legends about the contraceptive effectiveness of Coca-Cola products for years, reports Associated Press. So she and her colleagues decided to put the soft drink to the test. In the lab, that is. For discovering that, yes indeed, Coke was a spermicide, Anderson and her team are among this year's winners of the Ig Nobel prize, the annual award given by the Annals of Improbable Research magazine to oddball but often surprisingly practical scientific achievements.
More on the University World News site

US: Giant tooth in wreck of paleontologist's home
A giant tooth was found by two paleontologists in the wreckage of a Texan home destroyed by Hurricane Ike, reports The Guardian. It is thought that the tooth probably belonged to a Columbian mammoth, which was common in North America around 10,000 years ago.
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U-SAY

From Dr Andrew Ssemwanga
Regarding your recent article Study into training for the oil and gas industry www.universityworldnews.com, we at Cavendish University Uganda – a new university – are interested in starting courses in oil and gas exploration and management to take advantage of oil discovery in Uganda.


FACEBOOK


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WORLD ROUND-UP

US: Declining quality at Florida universities
A state-wide organisation that studies Florida’s higher education system issued a sombre report last week calling for reform in universities it says are too big, have crowded classrooms, are academically below schools nationwide, and are losing top researchers as budget cuts continue to threaten programmes, reports the Palm Beach Post. The report from Enlace Florida is its second this year critical of the state’s 11 public universities.
More on the University World News site

US: Higher education groups write to McCain, Obama
Six United States higher education organisations wrote a letter late last month to presidential candidates, Senators John McCain and Barack Obama, suggesting ways of strengthening the college and university system and outlining issues and opportunities it faces – including the importance of promoting international education.
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US: Financial chaos threatens universities
Amid a deepening financial crisis that has sapped college endowments, college and university officials are grappling with the growing fear that the Wall Street turmoil could cast a shadow over nearly all their operations, writes Peter Schworm in the Boston Globe. Administrators at small colleges and large universities across the state huddled in tense meetings last week to discuss worst-case contingency plans and appraise their financial status after the market meltdown.
More on the University World News site

IRELAND: Universities angry over cuts
University presidents have reacted angrily to cuts in a €97 million access and innovation programme demanded last week by the Department of Education, reports the Irish Times. The department has ordered a spending “pause” in the Strategic Innovation Fund, or SIF. Colleges have been ordered not to enter into new SIF contracts.
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UK: The long and the short of it
Britain’s one-year masters is proving a sticking point in the Bologna Process, but the equivalence issue is raising difficult questions about length of study for other degrees, too, writes Hannah Fearn in Times Higher Education.
More on the University World News site

UK: London universities merge
Two London universities are set to merge to create a new higher education and health research centre in south and west London, it was announced last week, reports The Guardian. St George’s and Royal Holloway will join forces to form a single education and research institution within the University of London.
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IRAN: Minister’s Oxford degree a fake
An embarrassed Iranian minister has admitted a degree he said he received from Oxford University was a fake, reports BBC News. Interior Minister Ali Kordan said he believed he was granted an honorary degree by a representative of the university in Tehran in 2000.
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UK: Middle-classes should pay more: Oxford’s Patten
Middle-class students should be prepared to pay higher university tuition fees, according to the chancellor of Oxford, writes Graeme Paton of The Telegraph. Lord Patten said they could have no objection to paying more than the £3,000-a-year currently levied by most universities and that it was a “mad world” in which affluent parents were prepared to pay thousands to send children to private school but not get them through higher education.
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SOUTH AFRICA: Unrest at North West University (again)
North West University managers have challenged South African Education Minister Naledi Pandor's intervention at the unrest-torn institution, saying they were not consulted about the “drastic step” of a commission of inquiry, reports the Mail & Guardian. The university’s Mafikeng campus has been rocked by student unrest in the past month.
More on the University World News site

SOUTH AFRICA: Catch-up diploma for teachers studied
The national Department of Education’s widely criticised catch-up diploma programme for teachers will undergo a formal audit-type process by the South African Council for Educators next year, Sace CEO Rej Brijrai said last week. The programme is aimed at thousands of teachers whose qualifications fail to meet the department’s standards, writes Sue Blaine in Business Day.
More on the University World News site

SOUTH KOREA: Universities struggle to fill places
Universities are struggling to attract freshmen due to the declining number of young people, with new student enrolment at 20 universities falling, reports the Dong-A Ilbo. A total of 367,955 freshmen enrolled at universities nationwide, leaving 22,430 spots (5.7%) unfilled.
More on the University World News site