ZIMBABWE: Economic crisis devastates universities
Clemence Manyukwe
Zimbabwe's economic crisis has taken its toll on state universities that have also been devastated by a mass exodus of academics, resulting in plummeting standards. The flight of lecturers had hit crisis levels, said Professor John Makumbe, a political science lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe, the country's oldest institution. Major push factors were low pay for academics in a collapsing economy with 165,000% inflation - the world's highest - poor working conditions, lack of transport and computers, and problems finding accommodation.
Full report on the University World News site
AUSTRALIA: Foreign graduates fail job search
Geoff Maslen
Overseas students whose first language is not English are graduating from Australian universities unable to find work in the fields for which they are qualified. As is happening elsewhere, the universities have been accused of allowing students to graduate without the communication skills needed in the workplace.
Full report on the University World News site
EU: Figel says students key to quality
Students are to be taken more seriously in higher education. It may sound like a superfluous comment but the EU's Tempus conference on quality in higher education in Cairo earlier this month showed that student involvement in higher education is still too weak to guarantee true outcome-oriented and student-centred learning. Commissioner Jan Figel reiterated a call for greater involvement of students in the quality enhancement process.
Full report on the University World News site
UK: Call for scholarship re-think
Diane Spencer
British vice-chancellors have called on the UK government to reverse a decision to cut funding for two major scholarship programmes which attracted students from Canada and Australia. During a debate in the House of Lords, Diana Warwick, Chief Executive of the vice-chancellors' organisation Universities UK, said the cuts would affect Britain's ability to attract highly talented students and the competitiveness of British universities in the global education market.
Full report on the University World News site
EGYPT: Private universities hit by revenue tax
Ashraf Khaled
Egypt's private higher education institutions, which have sprung up in recent years, are considering raising tuition fees following a decision by the government to levy a 20% tax on their annual revenues. The tax move came as a surprise to institutions and will have negative impacts on universities and parents, said Khaled el-Tokhi, chairman of the board of trustees at the privately owned Misr University for Sciences and Technology near Cairo.
Full report on the University World News site
NIGERIA: Academic union threatens indefinite strike
Tunde Fatunde
Nigeria's Academic Staff Union of Universities has already held two one-week 'warning strikes' to press a range of demands, including an improved salary scheme and reinstatement of 49 lecturers who were dismissed many years ago. But the demands have been ignored so now the union has threatened nationwide indefinite action - and in response the government, concerned that another strike could jeopardise fragile peace on campuses, has warned that lecturers who participate will not be paid.
Full report on the University World News site
SOUTH AFRICA: Researcher rating system should stay
Karen MacGregor
A review of South Africa's long-established researcher rating system has found that it is credible and should be retained. But the review has called for ratings to be re-linked directly to funding for self-initiated research by academics, for aspects of the ratings categories and processes to be changed, and for new tools to be developed to assess teams, innovation, multi-disciplinary work and management capacity. The board of the National Research Foundation, which operates the rating system, will decide on the system's future next month.
Full report on the University World News site
INDIA: Universities defy state on educational fund
Suchitra Behal
Many universities in India are unhappy with the creation of a central fund to aid less well-endowed institutions. Maharashtra's wealthy institutions have refused to support a development corpus to help their poorer counterparts in the state. Pune University is one of the wealthier institutions to have told the state government it is not willing to part with even a penny from its coffers to help less well-off universities.
Full report on the University World News site
ZIMBABWE: US university may strip Mugabe of degree
Clemence Manyukwe
Trustees of the University of Massachusetts will rule next month on whether to strip Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe of an honorary degree awarded him two decades ago. Last year the University of Edinburgh revoked a degree given to the increasingly despotic leader, and revocation petitions have also been lodged at Michigan State University.
Full report on the University World News site
NEWSBRIEFS:
GERMANY: Asia and Bologna
Germany has hosted the first get-together of Asian and European education ministers in the framework of the Asia-Europe Meeting network. The meeting focused on closer links between education and the labour market to promote employment and co-operation in higher education among the partner countries.
Full report on the University World News site
AUSTRALIA: A first for Flinders
Britain's Higher Education Academy has awarded two of its senior fellowships to overseas recipients for the first time - and both have gone to academics at Flinders University in Adelaide, South Australia.
Full report on the University World News site
CAMEROON: 'Bologna' introduced - but little understood
In common with other universities in Cameroon and French-speaking African countries, the University of Yaoundé is introducing Bologna process reforms. But a report in Le Quotidien Mutations reveals that not all students understand the point of the new European degree system known as BMD. Modelled on three, five and eight years of higher education, the system leads to bachelors, masters and doctoral degrees, with credits transferable between different institutions.
Full report on the University World News site
BUSINESS
GLOBAL: Massive growth in private tertiary sector
Keith Nuthall
The opportunity for massive growth in the private university sector, especially in the developing world, has been highlighted by a major conference staged in Washington DC by an arm of the World Bank. The International Finance Corporation-organised Investing in the Future: Innovation in Private Education conference heard middle classes were globally the fastest growing segment of the population.
Full report on the University World News site
NEW ZEALAND: Research fund aims for NZ$2 billion
John Gerritsen
New Zealand businesses are expected to contribute NZ$700 million (US$534 million) to an ambitious government project aimed at injecting NZ$2 billion into research and development in the pastoral and food sectors. The government has signalled that universities and research institutes would be key players benefiting from the fund but just how it will work in practice is not yet clear.
Full report on the University World News site
EU: Solar plane developed by European scientists
Monica Dobie
European university scientists are at the heart of a research project in developing a solar powered aircraft that could fly around the world without fuel. This development may have a significantly positive impact on the environment in the long term, as well as a potentially huge overhaul of the airline industry, should the technology become widely adopted.
Full report on the University World News site
FEATURE
GLOBAL: What is a university?
Stephen Schwartz
Universities are big places and it is easy to lose your way. We have taken to placing maps at strategic locations to help people navigate their way around. I recall a California university president describing how one map was the victim of graffiti. Right under the orientation arrow and the words "You are here", someone had written "But, why?" Universities are also wondering why they are here.
Full report on the University World News site
HE RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
US: Professionalise or perish
Diane Spencer
Universities must radically improve the quality of their teaching, otherwise academia will be increasingly controlled by bureaucrats, warns a leading Californian professor. In a paper, No college student left behind? prepared for the Center for Studies in Higher Education, Steven Brint, professor of sociology at the University of California Riverside, argues that institutions are being challenged by the "accountability movement" which grew out of the 2006 Spellings Commission. US Education Secretary Margaret Spellings' report on the future of higher education was highly critical of the performance of America's colleges and universities.
Full report on the University World News site
PAKISTAN: Death of academia
Academia in Pakistan is dead. We may have more colleges and universities today, and still more are in the pipeline, and they may throw out bigger numbers of graduates, but none of this gives us the essence of higher education, or what it means, says Dr Rasul Baksh Rais in the Daily Times.
Full report on the University World News site
WORLD ROUND-UP
NIGERIA: New university for Ondo
The National Universities Commission has given approval for the establishment of a specialised university to be called University of Science and Technology, in Okitipupa, Ondo State. This would bring to 93 the total number of universities in Nigeria and 32 state universities, reports AllAfrica.com. Chief Olusegun Agagu said Nigeria needed good quality graduates with the requisite knowledge to drive the country's economy so his government decided to establish a specialised rather than a regular university.
Full report on the University World News site
KOREA: Special admission for high flyers
Next year, universities will be able to choose applicants through special admission programmes after signing contracts with science high schools and gifted and talented science high schools. The number of the two types of high schools will increase to 30 from 21 by 2012. The number of students will double for gifted and talented education. The Education, Science and Technology Ministry announced the measures last week in the first gifted and talented educational forum organised by the Korea Educational Development Institute in Seoul, reports dongA.com. The ministry will expand these special admission programmes given the excellence of students attending maths and science high schools for the gifted and talented, after they sign contracts with universities.
Full report on the University World News site
TRINIDAD and TOBAGO: Call for creative energy
President of Trinidad and Tobago George Maxwell Richards has called for a change in university syllabuses to provide the intellectual and creative energy needed to enhance the economic performance of developing countries. He said that knowledge had become the critical factor in shaping economic life, reports the Trinidad and Tobago Express.
Full report on the University World News site
SLOVENIA: A new 'Mediterranean' university
A new university centre for Euro-Mediterranean studies will open in the Slovenian tourist town of Piran next month. Students from around the Mediterranean, including Israel, Syria and Morocco, will be able to study there and also take part of their courses in highly-regarded universities in Barcelona, Haifa, Latakia and Bir Zeit, reports the Jerusalem Post.
Full report on the University World News site
INDIA: Government help for student loans
Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh said on Saturday that the government is considering a proposal to provide counter-guarantee for students who apply for bank loans for higher education, reports The Hindu Times and The Times of India. "We are actively considering the proposal," Singh said at an international education fair in New Delhi organised by the Association of Commerce and Industry.
Full report on the University World News site
UK: Student satisfaction survey manipulated
Tougher guidelines are to be issued to warn universities against manipulating the results of a league table of student satisfaction. The Higher Education Funding Council says it will issue these for the next National Student Survey. Last week lecturers at Kingston University were revealed to have told students only to put positive comments in this official national survey, reports BBC News.
Full report on the University World News site
Monday 26 May 2008
Thursday 22 May 2008
University World News 0028 - 18 May 2008
CHINA: Sichuan universities hit by quake
Michael Delaney
In the aftermath of the Sichuan earthquake, with casualties in the tens of thousands and rising, some local universities have mobilised to assist recovery efforts, while others require aid themselves. University activities in the disaster area remain suspended, and the number of teachers and students from the province's universities injured or killed has yet to be determined.
Full report on the University World News site
BURMA: Exhibition to help refugees
In Melbourne, a student at RMIT University is helping raise funds for Burmese refugees through an exhibition of haunting photographs taken during his travels to refugee camps along the Thai-Burma border.
Full report on the University World News site
SPECIAL REPORT: Changing student tastes
Fashion, fads and the harsh world of work are among the many factors that influence students to choose a particular course at university. As our special report shows, in Ireland and Australia students have been turning away from IT although jobs are now plentiful. Then there is a surprising regeneration of interest in the arts and creative courses in New Zealand. By contrast, in the UK young people are finding vocational courses more attractive as they want well paid jobs to pay for ever-mounting debts caused by rising fees.
Students are also looking for more than just good teaching, or a reputation as a cool place to study. They want added value for their money: a chance to gain employability skills by volunteering or gaining placements in commerce and industry, for example. In Israel, meantime, government cuts are forcing universities to abolish courses while Russia is facing a demographic time-bomb leaving its institutions with too few students. All of which will keep universities around the world on their competitive toes.
UK: A route to a job
Diane Spencer
British students are turning to the sciences, engineering and vocational courses at the expense of humanities and social sciences. This trend is in line with the Labour Government's drive to see universities treating employability as a "core part of their mission".
Full report on the University World News site
AUSTRALIA: Work looms large for undergraduates
Geoff Maslen
Manifold factors affect the choices students make when they enrol in a university and are not just dependent on the students themselves. Academic interest in a particular course and idealism may play a role but family attitudes, peer group pressure and even popular culture – such as the growing interest in forensic science – are also important. Clearly, however, the desire for a well paid position in business or industry looms large in the minds of many students.
Full report on the University World News site
Ireland: Students shun key subjects
John Walshe
Irish government agencies are concerned about the decline in applications for computing and engineering courses in recent years. Awareness campaigns have done little to reverse the trend although enrolment in science programmes is just about holding its own. The trend is worrying because of the importance of graduates from these disciplines in one of the world's most open economies, which has attracted much foreign direct investment into the computing and pharmaceutical industries.
Full report on the University World News site
NEW ZEALAND: Art rises while education falls
John Gerritsen*
The number of New Zealanders studying bachelor degrees rose by 5% between 1999 and 2006, with the creative arts and health the main beneficiaries of that growth. Ministry of Education figures show that more than 96,000 full-time equivalent students were studying at undergraduate level in 2006, 4,600 more than in 1999. In between, undergraduate student numbers rose to a peak of 98,000 full-time equivalents before falling back slightly.
Full report on the University World News site
ISRAEL: Students face course closures
Helena Flusfeder
The number of professors at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has been slashed by 200 over the last 10 years and administrative staff by 400 from a total of 1,600 in the last five years. Cuts in the higher education budget of NIS1.2 billion (US$300 million) over the last seven years have left students at Israeli universities facing a closure of departments and even schools.
Full report on the University World News site
RUSSIA: Demographic time bomb empties colleges
Helen Womack
Russian universities and colleges are expecting a 30% slump in applications for next year and in some regions students may be accepted virtually without entrance examinations. A decline in the birth rate in the difficult decade of the 1990s, when the late President Boris Yeltsin introduced economic shock therapy, is starting to be felt now – with fewer young people.
Full report on the University World News site
NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report
US: Foreign students face higher visa costs
Arlene Cherwin
A plan by the American Department of Homeland Security to double visa fees for foreign students seeking to study in the US has raised concern among colleges that the increased cost may cause a decline in enrolments.
Full report on the University World News site
CHINA: Beijing cancels anthropology congress
Michael Delaney
An international anthropology conference to be held in Beijing has been suddenly cancelled at the behest of Chinese authorities. The first academic meeting to be so affected, the world congress of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, is one of a number of events, seen as potentially disruptive, to be blocked in the run-up to the 2008 Olympic Games. The Olympics are the focus of great national pride and any major slip-ups could damage the government's authority.
Full report on the University World News site
GREECE: Anger over short sharp shock remarks
Makki Marseilles
A series of provocative remarks by Greek Education Secretary Evripidis Stylianidis, indicative of his intentions to proceed with unpopular reforms at a particularly sensitive time, have ended the relatively mild climate currently prevailing in higher education and caused a sharp reaction among the academic community.
Full report on the University World News site
NEWSBRIEFS
AUSTRALIA: Budget disappoints academics and students
In its annual budget handed down last Tuesday, the federal government failed to meet the expectations of academics and students. The government, however, has abolished a unique $6 billion (US$5.64 billion) investment fund set up last year by the former conservative government and then replaced it with its own $11 billion ‘education endowment fund’.
Full report on the University World News site
US: Public health ‘whistleblowers’ recognised
A leading microbiologist at the University of California at Berkeley and a campaigning journalist are among a group of public health 'whistleblowers' who were to be recognised in Washington DC last week for their work in exposing fraud in AIDS research.
Full report on the University World News site
ACADEMIC FREEDOM
UK: Academics accused of reviving Israel boycott
Jonathan Travis
Academics from the Universities and College Union have been accused of attempting to revive the intensely controversial academic boycott of Israel by calling for lecturers to consider their links with Israeli institutions and lobby contacts over the Israeli occupation.
Full report on the University World News site
U-SAY
From Giles Pickford
Canberra
University World News is a unique service to the university community because it is the only medium which brings us global news about our vocation. I value this service. I cannot find fault with the editorial part of the enterprise, but here are some ideas from an old public relations hack about improving the web site.
Full letter on the University World News site
BUSINESS
TURKEY: University earns 52% of revenue from research
Brendan O'Malley
A Turkish state university has found a way to avoid struggling with funding problems by earning 52% of its revenue from research projects. The Turkish Daily News reports that Anadolu University, based in the central Anatolian province of Eskisehir, has 5,000 employees and out-performs most businesses in the region: its annual income of Turkish Lira 200 million (US$176 million) is beaten by only one company in the province.
Full report on the University World News site
EU: €4 million for nanotechnology
Alan Osborn
An international organisation dedicated to promoting the widespread commercial and industrial potential of nanotechnology is to be established with the help of the European Commission. The commission is providing €4 million funding from its wealthy Seventh Framework Programme research budget to set up and run a European Observatory on Nanotechnologies.
Full report on the University World News site
UK: Boost for OU from global charity
Diane Spencer
Britain's distance learning pioneer, the Open University, has been awarded £600,000 (US$1.16 million) by a global charity – the Lloyd's Register Educational Trust – to fund a new chair in materials engineering and fabrication.
Full report on the University World News site
FEATURE
US: World's youngest professor
Geoff Maslen
Alia Sabur is the world's youngest professor. Indeed, New York-born Sabur was three days short of her 19th birthday in February when she was offered a professorship in the department of advanced technology fusion at Konkuk University in Seoul, South Korea, as part of a likely research liaison with Stony Brook University in New York.
Full report on the University World News site
HE RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
AUSTRALIA: Internationalising the curriculum
Curriculum internationalisation is a strategy adopted by many universities as they prepare their graduates for employment in the global economy, write Glenda Crosling, Ron Edwards and Bill Schroder in the Journal of higher education policy and management. In a case study of organisational change involved in attempts by Monash University to implement curriculum internationalisation in six disciplines in the Faculty of Business and Economics – which encompasses five Australian and two offshore campuses and three families of degrees – they found that while the multi-campus structure presents an opportunity, a challenge is the number and geographic dispersion of lecturers along with differing academic cultures. “We identify significant staff and faculty issues requiring consideration in the change that accompanies curriculum development, such as the powerful effect of the traditional notion of academic autonomy, and the need for continued resources to support the changes”.
More on the University World News site
PEOPLE
RUSSIA: War, revolution – and an academic search
Nick Holdsworth
It is an epic adventure of high seas piracy, empire building, political intrigue, Russian royalty, war and revolution, exile, Hollywood fame... and academic endeavour. Now, 80 years after his father fled Bolshevik terror, Hollywood legend Yul Brynner's son Rock – a history and politics professor at Connecticut State University – is a regular visitor to the Russian city of Vladivostok, birthplace of his actor father famed the world over for his title role in The King and I.
Full report on the University World News site
UNI-LATERAL: Off-beat university stories
CANADA: Pets inspire abused women to fight on
Monica Dobie
A Canadian academic has shown how women trapped in abusive relationships often find the will to keep living because of the need to care for their dogs. Dr Amy Fitzgerald, assistant professor of sociology and anthropology at the University of Windsor in Ontario, Canada, said field research has shown the need to care for their animals actually helped prevent women from committing suicide.
Full report on the University World News site
WORLD ROUND-UP
CANADA: Disclosing critical health information
Personal health information can be disclosed in emergency situations, say two of Canada’s privacy commissioners, MacLeans reports. The issue recently arose when the family of 18-year-old Carleton University student Nadia Kajouji blamed the Ottawa university for failing to do enough to inform them of her depression or prevent her suicide.
More on the University World News site
US: Compromise over higher education act
A small group of US senators and representatives and their staffs are working at breakneck speed with the hope that Congress can wrap up its work by Memorial Day on compromise legislation to renew the Higher Education Act, reports Inside Higher Ed. But if a draft of the bill that is being circulated this week is any indication, numerous major issues remain unresolved and the measure, as currently written, could be a nightmare for colleges and the Education Department to carry out.
More on the University World News site
US: Students fail – professor loses job
Who is to blame when students fail? If many students fail – a majority even – does that demonstrate faculty incompetence, or could it point to a problem with standards? asks Scott Jaschik in Insider Higher Ed. These are the questions at the centre of a dispute that cost Steven D Aird his job teaching biology at Norfolk State University. On his way out, he has started to tell his story – one that he suggests points to large educational problems at the university and in society.
More on the University World News site
CZECH: Minister reveals plans to overhaul universities
Czech universities can expect big changes, reports Radio Prague. Last week Education Minister Ondřej Liška presented a ‘white paper’ proposing sweeping reforms of the country’s higher education system, including a complete restructuring of the way Czech universities are funded – which could eventually lead to tuition fees – and calls for universities to cooperate more with the private sector. The plans are now up for public discussion until autumn, when new laws will be drafted.
More on the University World News site
UK: Teach online to compete, universities told
Universities should make their course materials freely available online, according to a paper for the latest edition of ppr, the publication of influential think tank the Institute for Public Policy Research. The researcher and activist Leo Pollak argues that UK universities lag behind in providing course materials online but could innovate more than their US competitors, reports the Education Guardian.
More on the University World News site
UK: Students ‘told to lie’ to boost rankings
Two senior lecturers have been caught telling students to lie in order to boost their college’s ranking in crucial government-backed league tables, reports The Telegraph. Fiona Barlow-Brown and Fred Vallee-Tourangeau, psychology lecturers at Kingston University, were recorded urging undergraduates to give Kingston a glowing report in the National Student Survey, which measures how satisfied students are with their courses.
More on the University World News site
N IGERIA: More than a million to sit university entrance exam
More than a million candidates were due to sit the Universities Matriculation Examination on 17 May at 1,979 centres across N igeria and in five foreign countries – a whopping 15% increase over last year as demand for higher education escalates – reports Leadership. The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board announced stringent security plans to keep the examination fraud-free.
More on the University World News site
SOUTH AFRICA: Institute paves way for Africa's Einstein
The next Einstein is in the pre-primary class of a township school about 100 kilometres from Cape Town and will need the help of the Muizenberg-based Aims (African Institute of Mathematical Sciences) if she is to achieve her full potential. Physics Nobel laureate for 2004 David Gross made this hypothetical prediction last weekend in support of Aims's Einstein Initiative, which seeks to recruit and nurture the brightest maths and science graduates on the African continent, reports the Cape Times.
More on the University World News site
SOUTH AFRICA: University hotel to meet tourism need
The University of Johannesburg plans to build a teaching and training hotel to tackle the growing need for tourism and hospitality managers, reports the Mail & Guardian. An 2007 audit of skills revealed that 8,000 tourism and hospitality managers will be needed in the next three years. The hotel will help students to integrate the theory and practice of conferencing, food and beverage services and accommodation management – and grow the university’s capacity to host lecturers and students from around the world.
More on the University World News site
TURKEY: New entrance testing for would-be students
The president of the Higher Education Board has announced plans to introduce a new testing system for students seeking to pursue higher education in Turkey, reports Today’s Zaman. Speaking to the Anatolia news agency, Professor Yusuf Ziya Özcan said the plan includes a test that would be offered several times each year, instead of the current system of holding an annual Student Selection Examination.
More on the University World News site
BANGLADESH: University research in a sorry state
Lack of funding and well qualified teachers is undermining research in Bangladesh, reports the Daily Star. The University Grants Commission, or UGC, is supposed to award 12 scholars a year for outstanding research. But as little quality research is being conducted at public or private universities, only 20 lecturers have been honoured in the four years since 2002, according to a UGC publication.
More on the University World News site
JOB HIGHLIGHTS
CANADA: Dean, Faculty of International Education
Malaspina University-College, British Columbia
Full specifications on the University World News site
Michael Delaney
In the aftermath of the Sichuan earthquake, with casualties in the tens of thousands and rising, some local universities have mobilised to assist recovery efforts, while others require aid themselves. University activities in the disaster area remain suspended, and the number of teachers and students from the province's universities injured or killed has yet to be determined.
Full report on the University World News site
BURMA: Exhibition to help refugees
In Melbourne, a student at RMIT University is helping raise funds for Burmese refugees through an exhibition of haunting photographs taken during his travels to refugee camps along the Thai-Burma border.
Full report on the University World News site
SPECIAL REPORT: Changing student tastes
Fashion, fads and the harsh world of work are among the many factors that influence students to choose a particular course at university. As our special report shows, in Ireland and Australia students have been turning away from IT although jobs are now plentiful. Then there is a surprising regeneration of interest in the arts and creative courses in New Zealand. By contrast, in the UK young people are finding vocational courses more attractive as they want well paid jobs to pay for ever-mounting debts caused by rising fees.
Students are also looking for more than just good teaching, or a reputation as a cool place to study. They want added value for their money: a chance to gain employability skills by volunteering or gaining placements in commerce and industry, for example. In Israel, meantime, government cuts are forcing universities to abolish courses while Russia is facing a demographic time-bomb leaving its institutions with too few students. All of which will keep universities around the world on their competitive toes.
UK: A route to a job
Diane Spencer
British students are turning to the sciences, engineering and vocational courses at the expense of humanities and social sciences. This trend is in line with the Labour Government's drive to see universities treating employability as a "core part of their mission".
Full report on the University World News site
AUSTRALIA: Work looms large for undergraduates
Geoff Maslen
Manifold factors affect the choices students make when they enrol in a university and are not just dependent on the students themselves. Academic interest in a particular course and idealism may play a role but family attitudes, peer group pressure and even popular culture – such as the growing interest in forensic science – are also important. Clearly, however, the desire for a well paid position in business or industry looms large in the minds of many students.
Full report on the University World News site
Ireland: Students shun key subjects
John Walshe
Irish government agencies are concerned about the decline in applications for computing and engineering courses in recent years. Awareness campaigns have done little to reverse the trend although enrolment in science programmes is just about holding its own. The trend is worrying because of the importance of graduates from these disciplines in one of the world's most open economies, which has attracted much foreign direct investment into the computing and pharmaceutical industries.
Full report on the University World News site
NEW ZEALAND: Art rises while education falls
John Gerritsen*
The number of New Zealanders studying bachelor degrees rose by 5% between 1999 and 2006, with the creative arts and health the main beneficiaries of that growth. Ministry of Education figures show that more than 96,000 full-time equivalent students were studying at undergraduate level in 2006, 4,600 more than in 1999. In between, undergraduate student numbers rose to a peak of 98,000 full-time equivalents before falling back slightly.
Full report on the University World News site
ISRAEL: Students face course closures
Helena Flusfeder
The number of professors at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has been slashed by 200 over the last 10 years and administrative staff by 400 from a total of 1,600 in the last five years. Cuts in the higher education budget of NIS1.2 billion (US$300 million) over the last seven years have left students at Israeli universities facing a closure of departments and even schools.
Full report on the University World News site
RUSSIA: Demographic time bomb empties colleges
Helen Womack
Russian universities and colleges are expecting a 30% slump in applications for next year and in some regions students may be accepted virtually without entrance examinations. A decline in the birth rate in the difficult decade of the 1990s, when the late President Boris Yeltsin introduced economic shock therapy, is starting to be felt now – with fewer young people.
Full report on the University World News site
NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report
US: Foreign students face higher visa costs
Arlene Cherwin
A plan by the American Department of Homeland Security to double visa fees for foreign students seeking to study in the US has raised concern among colleges that the increased cost may cause a decline in enrolments.
Full report on the University World News site
CHINA: Beijing cancels anthropology congress
Michael Delaney
An international anthropology conference to be held in Beijing has been suddenly cancelled at the behest of Chinese authorities. The first academic meeting to be so affected, the world congress of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, is one of a number of events, seen as potentially disruptive, to be blocked in the run-up to the 2008 Olympic Games. The Olympics are the focus of great national pride and any major slip-ups could damage the government's authority.
Full report on the University World News site
GREECE: Anger over short sharp shock remarks
Makki Marseilles
A series of provocative remarks by Greek Education Secretary Evripidis Stylianidis, indicative of his intentions to proceed with unpopular reforms at a particularly sensitive time, have ended the relatively mild climate currently prevailing in higher education and caused a sharp reaction among the academic community.
Full report on the University World News site
NEWSBRIEFS
AUSTRALIA: Budget disappoints academics and students
In its annual budget handed down last Tuesday, the federal government failed to meet the expectations of academics and students. The government, however, has abolished a unique $6 billion (US$5.64 billion) investment fund set up last year by the former conservative government and then replaced it with its own $11 billion ‘education endowment fund’.
Full report on the University World News site
US: Public health ‘whistleblowers’ recognised
A leading microbiologist at the University of California at Berkeley and a campaigning journalist are among a group of public health 'whistleblowers' who were to be recognised in Washington DC last week for their work in exposing fraud in AIDS research.
Full report on the University World News site
ACADEMIC FREEDOM
UK: Academics accused of reviving Israel boycott
Jonathan Travis
Academics from the Universities and College Union have been accused of attempting to revive the intensely controversial academic boycott of Israel by calling for lecturers to consider their links with Israeli institutions and lobby contacts over the Israeli occupation.
Full report on the University World News site
U-SAY
From Giles Pickford
Canberra
University World News is a unique service to the university community because it is the only medium which brings us global news about our vocation. I value this service. I cannot find fault with the editorial part of the enterprise, but here are some ideas from an old public relations hack about improving the web site.
Full letter on the University World News site
BUSINESS
TURKEY: University earns 52% of revenue from research
Brendan O'Malley
A Turkish state university has found a way to avoid struggling with funding problems by earning 52% of its revenue from research projects. The Turkish Daily News reports that Anadolu University, based in the central Anatolian province of Eskisehir, has 5,000 employees and out-performs most businesses in the region: its annual income of Turkish Lira 200 million (US$176 million) is beaten by only one company in the province.
Full report on the University World News site
EU: €4 million for nanotechnology
Alan Osborn
An international organisation dedicated to promoting the widespread commercial and industrial potential of nanotechnology is to be established with the help of the European Commission. The commission is providing €4 million funding from its wealthy Seventh Framework Programme research budget to set up and run a European Observatory on Nanotechnologies.
Full report on the University World News site
UK: Boost for OU from global charity
Diane Spencer
Britain's distance learning pioneer, the Open University, has been awarded £600,000 (US$1.16 million) by a global charity – the Lloyd's Register Educational Trust – to fund a new chair in materials engineering and fabrication.
Full report on the University World News site
FEATURE
US: World's youngest professor
Geoff Maslen
Alia Sabur is the world's youngest professor. Indeed, New York-born Sabur was three days short of her 19th birthday in February when she was offered a professorship in the department of advanced technology fusion at Konkuk University in Seoul, South Korea, as part of a likely research liaison with Stony Brook University in New York.
Full report on the University World News site
HE RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
AUSTRALIA: Internationalising the curriculum
Curriculum internationalisation is a strategy adopted by many universities as they prepare their graduates for employment in the global economy, write Glenda Crosling, Ron Edwards and Bill Schroder in the Journal of higher education policy and management. In a case study of organisational change involved in attempts by Monash University to implement curriculum internationalisation in six disciplines in the Faculty of Business and Economics – which encompasses five Australian and two offshore campuses and three families of degrees – they found that while the multi-campus structure presents an opportunity, a challenge is the number and geographic dispersion of lecturers along with differing academic cultures. “We identify significant staff and faculty issues requiring consideration in the change that accompanies curriculum development, such as the powerful effect of the traditional notion of academic autonomy, and the need for continued resources to support the changes”.
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PEOPLE
RUSSIA: War, revolution – and an academic search
Nick Holdsworth
It is an epic adventure of high seas piracy, empire building, political intrigue, Russian royalty, war and revolution, exile, Hollywood fame... and academic endeavour. Now, 80 years after his father fled Bolshevik terror, Hollywood legend Yul Brynner's son Rock – a history and politics professor at Connecticut State University – is a regular visitor to the Russian city of Vladivostok, birthplace of his actor father famed the world over for his title role in The King and I.
Full report on the University World News site
UNI-LATERAL: Off-beat university stories
CANADA: Pets inspire abused women to fight on
Monica Dobie
A Canadian academic has shown how women trapped in abusive relationships often find the will to keep living because of the need to care for their dogs. Dr Amy Fitzgerald, assistant professor of sociology and anthropology at the University of Windsor in Ontario, Canada, said field research has shown the need to care for their animals actually helped prevent women from committing suicide.
Full report on the University World News site
WORLD ROUND-UP
CANADA: Disclosing critical health information
Personal health information can be disclosed in emergency situations, say two of Canada’s privacy commissioners, MacLeans reports. The issue recently arose when the family of 18-year-old Carleton University student Nadia Kajouji blamed the Ottawa university for failing to do enough to inform them of her depression or prevent her suicide.
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US: Compromise over higher education act
A small group of US senators and representatives and their staffs are working at breakneck speed with the hope that Congress can wrap up its work by Memorial Day on compromise legislation to renew the Higher Education Act, reports Inside Higher Ed. But if a draft of the bill that is being circulated this week is any indication, numerous major issues remain unresolved and the measure, as currently written, could be a nightmare for colleges and the Education Department to carry out.
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US: Students fail – professor loses job
Who is to blame when students fail? If many students fail – a majority even – does that demonstrate faculty incompetence, or could it point to a problem with standards? asks Scott Jaschik in Insider Higher Ed. These are the questions at the centre of a dispute that cost Steven D Aird his job teaching biology at Norfolk State University. On his way out, he has started to tell his story – one that he suggests points to large educational problems at the university and in society.
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CZECH: Minister reveals plans to overhaul universities
Czech universities can expect big changes, reports Radio Prague. Last week Education Minister Ondřej Liška presented a ‘white paper’ proposing sweeping reforms of the country’s higher education system, including a complete restructuring of the way Czech universities are funded – which could eventually lead to tuition fees – and calls for universities to cooperate more with the private sector. The plans are now up for public discussion until autumn, when new laws will be drafted.
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UK: Teach online to compete, universities told
Universities should make their course materials freely available online, according to a paper for the latest edition of ppr, the publication of influential think tank the Institute for Public Policy Research. The researcher and activist Leo Pollak argues that UK universities lag behind in providing course materials online but could innovate more than their US competitors, reports the Education Guardian.
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UK: Students ‘told to lie’ to boost rankings
Two senior lecturers have been caught telling students to lie in order to boost their college’s ranking in crucial government-backed league tables, reports The Telegraph. Fiona Barlow-Brown and Fred Vallee-Tourangeau, psychology lecturers at Kingston University, were recorded urging undergraduates to give Kingston a glowing report in the National Student Survey, which measures how satisfied students are with their courses.
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N IGERIA: More than a million to sit university entrance exam
More than a million candidates were due to sit the Universities Matriculation Examination on 17 May at 1,979 centres across N igeria and in five foreign countries – a whopping 15% increase over last year as demand for higher education escalates – reports Leadership. The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board announced stringent security plans to keep the examination fraud-free.
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SOUTH AFRICA: Institute paves way for Africa's Einstein
The next Einstein is in the pre-primary class of a township school about 100 kilometres from Cape Town and will need the help of the Muizenberg-based Aims (African Institute of Mathematical Sciences) if she is to achieve her full potential. Physics Nobel laureate for 2004 David Gross made this hypothetical prediction last weekend in support of Aims's Einstein Initiative, which seeks to recruit and nurture the brightest maths and science graduates on the African continent, reports the Cape Times.
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SOUTH AFRICA: University hotel to meet tourism need
The University of Johannesburg plans to build a teaching and training hotel to tackle the growing need for tourism and hospitality managers, reports the Mail & Guardian. An 2007 audit of skills revealed that 8,000 tourism and hospitality managers will be needed in the next three years. The hotel will help students to integrate the theory and practice of conferencing, food and beverage services and accommodation management – and grow the university’s capacity to host lecturers and students from around the world.
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TURKEY: New entrance testing for would-be students
The president of the Higher Education Board has announced plans to introduce a new testing system for students seeking to pursue higher education in Turkey, reports Today’s Zaman. Speaking to the Anatolia news agency, Professor Yusuf Ziya Özcan said the plan includes a test that would be offered several times each year, instead of the current system of holding an annual Student Selection Examination.
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BANGLADESH: University research in a sorry state
Lack of funding and well qualified teachers is undermining research in Bangladesh, reports the Daily Star. The University Grants Commission, or UGC, is supposed to award 12 scholars a year for outstanding research. But as little quality research is being conducted at public or private universities, only 20 lecturers have been honoured in the four years since 2002, according to a UGC publication.
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JOB HIGHLIGHTS
CANADA: Dean, Faculty of International Education
Malaspina University-College, British Columbia
Full specifications on the University World News site
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