Sunday 26 April 2009

University World News 0072 - 20th April 2009

REPORTS FROM THE FRONTIER:
A global view of the key issues confronting higher education

Reports from the Frontier is the first in a planned series of electronic books to be published by University World News. The initial volume comprises eight chapters that range from the impact of the global financial crisis on universities, declining funding, and the Bologna process, to women in higher education, international rankings and e-learning.

The 337-page e-book includes an index listing the chapters and article headings, and is available as a special offer to University World News readers. To see the contents page and to order your copy click here

SPECIAL REPORT: This week’s Special Report looks at how universities are feeling the impact of the global downturn. Some countries see investment in higher education as a tool of economic survival, but others are just waiting...
Read the special report on the University World News site

GLOBAL: Higher education confers huge economic benefits
Geoff Maslen
At a time when nations around the world are confronting the worst global recession in 75 years, news that the return on investment in higher education is massive and can generate an astonishing economic rate of return far in excess of other investments will be welcomed by universities everywhere. Authors of a report prepared by the multinational accounting firm KPMG, and released last week, say that after examining a range of global research on the economic payoff of the education and research functions of universities, they conservatively estimate the real rates of return for university training at 15% or more and 20%-40% for public university research.
Full report on the University World News site

US: Grim times continue for higher education
Leah Germain
Despite the promises made by the new Obama administration, the impact of America’s collapsing economy continues to rattle the nation’s higher education institutions. From the Ivy League universities to little-known colleges, falling revenues and the declining value of endowments have resulted in staff redundancies, cancellations of new building works and even cuts in enrolment numbers. San Jose State University, one of 23 campuses in the California State University system, was forced to deny admission to more than 4,000 qualified applicants this year because of that state's own budget crisis.
Full report on the University World News site

UK: A budget setback for the sector
Diane Spencer
Last week’s budget delivered by Alistair Darling, Chancellor of the Exchequer, was a profound disappointment for British higher education. The Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills faces cuts of £400 million (US$583 million) with no change to plans to restrict student places just when applications have risen by 8.8%. Earlier the government announced cuts of 5,000 in the number of funded student places in England for 2009-10.
Full report on the University World News site

AUSTRALIA: Vice-chancellors buoyed by budget hopes
Geoff Maslen
Australia’s 38 public universities lost an estimated A$800 million (US$568 million) last year as a result of the global financial meltdown. With the nation now officially immersed in a recession and higher education institutions facing the prospect of an even more serious decline in revenues, vice-chancellors are looking to the federal government and next month’s budget for a substantial boost in spending.
Full report on the University World News site

SOUTH AFRICA: Universities steady in global crisis
Karen MacGregor
A big increase in state funding is helping South African higher education to weather the global financial and economic storm. But universities are bracing themselves for knocks later in the year if student debt rises and donor funding drops by an anticipated 20%. “It’s a case of steady as she goes,” says Professor Patrick Fitzgerald, Deputy Vice-chancellor (finance) at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. “But we are on high alert and are worried about how the crisis will affect us.”
Full report on the University World News site

GERMANY: Uncertainty about economic crisis
Michael Gardner
The impact of the economic crisis on Germany has been difficult to assess. The federal government launched two massive programmes to boost business over the last few months with the second also targeting education and infrastructure which could benefit higher education – to a degree. Overall, however, the mood is one of vague apprehension while among students, scepticism is growing that government measures could bypass their immediate needs altogether.
Full report on the University World News site

CANADA: Is the brain gain going down the drain?
Philip Fine
A year and a half ago, Canada was celebrating a reversal of the perpetual brain drain it had felt for decades. Thanks mostly to a few key government investments in the late 1990s, most of the last decade saw hundreds of formerly wayward Canadian academics repatriated, doctoral students staying put and a significant rise in permit applications for US academics planning to work in Canada. Now, with the global economic crisis, there is talk of that brain gain going back down the drain.
Full report on the University World News site

GREECE: Education only way out of the crisis
Makki Marseilles
Greek universities have yet to feel the full effects of the Great Global Recession, with no sign of staff redundancies or closures of schools or departments. But they do stand to benefit considerably from a change of government should George Papandreou take over as President after the general elections, now expected to coincide with the European elections on 7 June. As leader of the official opposition Panhellenic Socialist Party, Papandreou is tipped to win the election and has promised that “investing in education is the only way out of the crisis”.
Full report on the University World News site

RUSSIA: Guaranteed loans help students survive
Nick Holdsworth
Russian university students will be helped to weather the economic downturn through state support for study loans, Education Minister Andrei Fursenko has pledged. Although one state-backed loan scheme ‘Credo’ – heavily used in the past by top Russian universities – had collapsed after the bank through which funds were channeled went bankrupt, students needing financial help to enter higher education should not be left to suffer, Fursenko said.
Full report on the University World News site

BOTSWANA: Meltdown impacts on new universities
A special correspondent
Since the 1970s, Botswana’s economy has rested heavily on diamonds and mining, cattle and tourism. Now the country has been severely affected by the world economic recession and the crunch has resulted in some mines closing and others stockpiling, reduced tourism, threatened exports to the European Union and a decline in government revenue.
Full report on the University World News site

GLOBAL: Downturn brings ethics into focus
Emma Jackson
As the global recession deepens and major accounting scandals are seen as a cause, business and accounting lecturers are looking to instil a sense of ethics in their students. Critics have argued this lack of education led to scandals such as Bernard Madoff’s $65 billion Ponzi scheme in the US and the Satyam Computer Services scandal in India where its CEO admitted to falsifying accounts.
Full report on the University World News site

NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report

AFGHANISTAN: Rebuilding an education-starved country
Wagdy Sawahel
The Afghanistan government and the international community have agreed to expand the nation’s higher education sector to create jobs and meet projected requirements for skills in key sectors, such as mining, construction and engineering as well as agriculture. This was announced at a UN-backed international conference on Afghanistan held in The Hague on 31 March.
Full report on the University World News site

EUROPE: Future of masters programmes
A Bologna master ‘template’ for masters degrees is developing across Europe, albeit in three distinctive forms of course provision: taught masters with a strong professional development application, a research-intensive masters which functions as a pre-doctoral degree, and courses delivered to learners returning to education from the workplace.
Full report on the University World News site

US: Education secretary signs deal with China
American Secretary of Education Arne Duncan met with a delegation of senior Chinese education officials in Washington on 16 April to sign a joint statement on exchange and cooperation in higher education. The delegation was led by Madame Liu Yandong, the highest ranking woman in the Chinese government and the only female member of the Politburo and the State Council.
Full report on the University World News site

ACADEMIC FREEDOM


CHINA: Retired professor attacked
Jonathan Travis
On 4 April, a retired professor from Shandong University was brutally beaten by five unidentified men, Human Rights In China has reported. Sun Wenguang, 75, was attacked as he returned from paying respects to the memory of the late Zhao Ziyang, former General Secretary of the Communist Party who visited students on Tiananmen Square during the 1989 democracy movement, and of Zhang Zhixin, a dissident killed during the Cultural Revolution.
More Academic Freedom reports on the University World News site

BUSINESS

EUROPE: Animal testing still needed says science panel
Alan Osborn
An expert scientific committee advising the European Commission has concluded that, based on today’s scientific evidence, the use of non–human primates such as chimpanzees and baboons in basic and applied biomedical research should be continued.
Full report on the University World News site

US: Creating green aviation fuels
Mark Rowe
A coalition of higher education researchers and air industry experts is developing greener aviation fuels, helping reduce CO2 emissions.
Full report on the University World News site

CZECH REPUBLIC: EU must double hi-tech investment
Alan Osborn
The European Union held its first European Future Technologies Conference in Prague last week. But its message belied some frustration: the 27 member countries are not doing enough to promote research, especially in hi-tech areas such as information technology and communications.
Full report on the University World News site

FEATURE

FRANCE: Universities exploding in anger
John C Mullen
For more than 10 weeks now, French universities have been disrupted by strikes, mass meetings, demonstrations and occupations as a daily occurrence in an unheard-of wave of protest by university staff and students against President Nicolas Sarkozy’s neoliberal reforms of higher education. A dozen mass demonstrations with tens of thousands of people have been held, motorway tollbooths have been occupied and university council meetings invaded. Parallel university lectures, in streets, shopping centres or on trams have been used to help popularise the movement that shows no sign of stopping.
Full report on the University World News site

U-SAY

From Jean-Pierre Nioche
Congratulation on your article, FRANCE: Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité - but not yet. I am afraid, though, that the French concepts of "égalité" and "Grandes Ecoles" are not well understood.

HE RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY

US: Higher learning, greater good
In a just-published book, titled Higher Learning, Greater Good: The private and social benefits of higher education, education economist Walter W McMahon describes the significant social and private benefits of tertiary study. While a college education has long been acknowledged as essential for personal success and economic growth, “the measurable value of its non-monetary benefits has until now been poorly understood”, a Johns Hopkins University Press release points out.
More on the University World News site

UNI-LATERAL: Off-beat university stories

US: Mystery donor keeps giving to women-run colleges
The mystery college donor has struck again – this time at Binghamton University in New York, whose financial aid office phone started ringing off the hook as word of an anonymous $6 million contribution spread across campus – writes Justin Pope for The Associated Press. The recipient colleges seem to have almost nothing in common except this: so far, all are led by women.
More on the University World News site

US: Playboy ranks top party schools
Playboy magazine executives say they used a series of mathematical equations to rank America’s top party schools, hoping to take a more scientific approach by looking at statistics such as the number of nursing majors, gallons of beer consumed and the amount of open study rooms available for, well, “late night studying”, writes Kimberly Miller for the Palm Beach Post.
More on the University World News site

A MESSAGE TO READERS

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FACEBOOK


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WORLD ROUND-UP

TURKEY: Academics among scores charged over ‘coup plot’
Leading academics are among eight people recently charged in connection with an alleged plot to topple the Turkish government, reports BBC News. Professor Mehmet Haberal, the rector of Baskent University in Ankara, was among those detained. Some 142 people have already been charged over the ‘Ergenekon’ plot, allegedly meant to stoke unrest and provoke the army into launching a coup.
More on the University World News site

MIDDLE EAST: Boom in higher education in the Gulf
As Israel’s higher education system struggles with endless funding crises and crippling strikes, those of many of her neighbours are racing ahead at lightning speed, comments Alisa Rubin Peled in the Jerusalem Post. For the first time, regional governments are directing their oil and natural gas revenues to building up their higher education sectors quickly by bringing in the best of the American universities, the world's leading brand name.
More on the University World News site

BANGLADESH: Population growth driving up HE demand
To catch up with India’s level of education Bangladesh will need an additional 674 universities and 84,113 professors by 2025, according to Professor Halimur R Khan, writing in the Daily Star. Even just coping with current population expansion will require a massive increase in capacity.
More on the University World News site

INDIA: Free-flowing alcohol behind rise of ragging
The free flow of wine and alcohol and its consumption on campus are behind the rise in incidents of ragging, according to the Supreme Court-appointed RK Raghvan committee, reports indlawnews.com. The committee made the disclosure in a report submitted to the Supreme Court last week.
More on the University World News site

IRELAND: State pays €700,000 to teach Irish overseas
Universities across the globe are being grant-aided by the government to get more people speaking Irish, reports Brian McDonald in the Independent. From Poland to the Czech Republic and across the Atlantic to North America, tertiary institutions are receiving a total of €700,000 this year to promote Irish.
More on the University World News site

UK: Overseas interest in British degrees intensifies
The number of students studying UK degrees delivered overseas has rocketed, writes Hannah Fearn for Times Higher Education. According to data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency, in 2007-08 there were almost 200,000 ‘offshore students’ studying for UK degrees.
More on the University World News site

UK: Rush to apply to new universities
With the recession putting pressure on the jobs market, record numbers are seeking places in institutions in England and Scotland. The Million+ group of new universities is reporting that applications have risen between 6% and 37%, according to BBC News.
More on the University World News site

US: Public universities predict hefty tuition hikes
Budget-strapped public universities are predicting significant tuition increases at a time when private universities are doing everything to maintain or even lower tuition rates during the recession, experts say, writes Jeanette Der Bedrosian in USA Today.
More on the University World News site

US: More meaningful accreditation
Sylvia Manning has heard all the complaints about accreditation before – heck, she thought a lot of them herself during her nearly 40 years as a college administrator – writes Doug Lederman for Inside Higher Ed. Colleges find the process to be a mere obligation because it focuses on minimum standards and too often produces little of value to help the institutions improve. Critics who want more higher education accountability question whether accreditation is rigorous and transparent enough. Potential educational innovators say the process is inflexible and discourages creative approaches.
More on the University World News site

US: Scientists, supporters rally for animal research
Led by a professor whose car was set on fire last month in an anonymous attack, more than 400 University of California, Los Angeles, scientists and their supporters rallied on campus last Wednesday to defend research using animals and to protest the violent tactics of some opponents, write Larry Gordon and Raja Abdulrahim for the Los Angeles Times. At almost the same time, about 40 critics of animal research demonstrated just across the boulevard, and the two groups briefly traded slogans before marching to different UCLA plazas. Police reported no violence and no arrests.
More on the University World News site

PHILIPPINES: National science complex a strategic investment
The appropriation of necessary funds to complete the infrastructure requirements of the National Science Complex and to operate and maintain it properly will be viewed as one of the key strategic investments made by the Philippine government and the Arroyo administration for higher education in the first decade of the 21st century, writes Caesar Saloma in the Philippine Star.
More on the University World News site

Sunday 19 April 2009

University World News 0071 - 1320th April 2009

REPORTS FROM THE FRONTIER:
A global view of the key issues confronting higher education

Reports from the Frontier is the first in a planned series of electronic books to be published by University World News. The initial volume comprises eight chapters that range from the impact of the global financial crisis on universities, declining funding, and the Bologna process, to women in higher education, international rankings and e-learning.

The 337-page e-book includes an index listing the chapters and article headings, and is available as a special offer to University World News readers. To see the contents page and to order your copy click here


NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report

GLOBAL: Scholar persecution widespread, says study
Brendan O’Malley
Scholars are being harassed, attacked, jailed and even targeted for assassination in a wide range of countries across the world, according to a new study published by the Institute of International Education. The persecution occurs at all levels of scholarship, in many different fields, and among men and women although women are targeted most.
Full report on the University World News site

GLOBAL: End of the education gold rush?
Geoff Maslen
Up until the onset of the world financial crisis, selling higher education to foreign students had become the new global gold rush for universities across the developed countries. Whereas 600,000 students went abroad to study for their degrees in 1975, by 2000 the number had hit 1.8 million, five years later it reached 2.7 million. This year, the number may even pass the three million mark – a 66% rise in less than a decade – unless, that is, the gold rush is about to end.
Full report on the University World News site

ARAB STATES-SOUTH AMERICA: Technology university plan
Wagdy Sawahel
The 12 South American and 22 Arab countries have pledged to increase cooperation in higher education and science and technology by creating an Arab-South American technology university. Joint research and education programmes will also be established between the two regions’ leading universities and research institutions.
Full report on the University World News site

CHILE: Call for more funding, more reform
John Gerritsen
Chile should double its public spending on tertiary education and research, a review of the country’s tertiary education system has concluded. But the nation should also reform its universities to admit a greater range of students to study degrees that are more applicable and take less time.
Full report on the University World News site

COMMONWEALTH: States should contribute to scholarships
Karen MacGregor
Commonwealth governments should contribute to the Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship Plan, South African Minister of Education Naledi Pandor told a conference of the multilateral body at Oxford University recently. A permanent central fund to support the scholarships in developing countries on a shared-cost basis should also be seriously considered, Pandor said.
Full report on the University World News site

NIGERIA: Radio stations for tertiary institutions
Tunde Fatunde
The Nigerian government has awarded licences to 27 tertiary institutions to operate community radio on their campuses. Institutions with licences use the radio stations for teaching, research and entertainment. Radio remains the best medium of mass communication in Africa because of the continent’s long-standing oral tradition.
Full report on the University World News site

ZIMBABWE: Proposed higher education act condemned
Clemence Manyukwe
Zimbabwe is drafting a new higher education Act aimed at enhancing the quality of education and training after years of neglect. But the proposed legislation has been condemned by student representatives, who say its provisions show that the country’s new inclusive government is not serious about tertiary reform.
Full report on the University World News site

ZAMBIA: Plans for new qualifications authority
Clemence Manyukwe
Plans to introduce a new higher education qualifications authority in Zambia have reached an advanced stage and the government is working on opening three new university colleges next month. Education Minister Professor Geoffrey Lungwangwa told parliament that large construction projects were also underway at universities in an effort to improve the learning environment for students and staff.
Full report on the University World News site

NEWSBRIEFS

FRANCE: Claims that Chinese given false degrees
The University du Sud Toulon-Var has defended its integrity following allegations of trafficking of false degrees supposedly awarded to hundreds of Chinese students at its Institut d’administration des enterprises, or IAE.
Full report on the University World News site

CAMEROON: Grants to benefit university research
Finance Minister Essimi Menye has signed an order for the first Fcfa1 billion (US$2 million) for a new appropriation account for university research. The decision should mean more finance for the sector and easier access to the funds, says the Cameroon Tribune of Yaoundé.
Full report on the University World News site

ALGERIA: Industry must join in research effort
With 40,000 researchers working abroad, and research representing only 1% of GDP, academics say Algeria should involve private and public industries in research funding, according to Amirouche Yazid in La Tribune of Algiers, commenting on the sector’s research crisis.
Full report on the University World News site

SCIENCE SCENE

UK: Robot scientist makes discovery
Scientists could have been forgiven for starting last week’s Easter break with concerns about job security – just before the holiday started, Aberystwyth University in Wales announced that a robot had for the first time independently discovered scientific information.
Full report on the University World News site

GLOBAL: Climate change to fan wild-fires
The advance of climate change will bring not only higher temperatures, but also rapid changes in the distribution of wild fires, new research from the University of California, Berkeley, in collaboration with scientists at Texas Tech University, shows.
Full report on the University World News site

INDIA: Mangroves save lives in super storms
Mangrove forests shelter villages from the worst impact of storms, and the more mangroves the better the protection, a study of storm-related deaths in coastal India has found.
Full report on the University World News site

FEATURES

GLOBAL: A deadly silencing of scholars
Brendan O’Malley
When Felix Kaputu returned to his home country, the Democratic Republic of Congo, after lecturing in Japan’s Nanzan University as a visiting professor, the Director of Provincial Security asked to meet him. It was not long before Kaputu was in jail and held incommunicado.
Full report on the University World News site

How the Scholar Rescue Fund Works
Academics, scholars and intellectuals from any country and any discipline may apply for a fellowship to support temporary relocation to institutions in any safe country, in any part of the world. Applications are accepted at any time.
Full report on the University World News site

AFRICA: Academics offer peace building ideas
Philip Fine
At the end of 2005, the United Nations created an important meeting place for the growing number of activist academics working to help states involved in strife make a smooth transition to civil societies. The UN Peacebuilding Commission, an advisory body of 31 governments, currently focuses on four African countries and is giving experts who know what it takes to rebuild conflict zones a means of delivering their ideas to policy-makers. Now, if only those member countries can stop squabbling, the thinkers can get their work taken seriously.
Full report on the University World News site

HE RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY

US: Tackling higher education’s leadership scarcity
David Mead-Fox
Higher education leadership search committees are faced with an uncomfortable reality: it is increasingly difficult to find superior candidates. In addition, once a position is filled, another pain point often emerges – the average number of years that a leader stays in a particular position continues to decline. What was once considered questionable or marginal tenure in a role is becoming increasingly common and accepted. It is no less concerning, however – three years, for example, remains a very short time to demonstrate substantive leadership impact.
More on the University World News site

EUROPE-US: Governance and performance of universities
A new report by the National Bureau of Economic Research, titled The Governance and Performance of Research Universities: Evidence from Europe and the US, investigates how university governance affects research output, measured by patenting and international university research rankings.
More on the University World News site

UNI-LATERAL: Off-beat university stories

US-CHINA: Cornell returning prized mushrooms
Shu Chun Teng travelled halfway around the world on a scholarship to study mycology at Cornell University in 1923, writes Ben Dobbin for Associated Press. He left five years later with a knowledge of fungi unequalled in China, then spent the next decade travelling on horseback gathering up moulds, lichens, yeasts, rusts and morels in the forests, fields and marshes of his homeland.
More on the University World News site

FACEBOOK

The Facebook group of University World News is the fastest growing in higher education worldwide. Almost 780 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

UK: Possible fraud unit to thwart bogus applications
Universities are considering establishing an anti-fraud unit to identify falsified applications from overseas students, amid concerns that most of those arrested in the north-west of England earlier this month over an alleged terror plot were Pakistanis in the UK on student visas, writes Polly Curtis in The Guardian.
More on the University World News site

IRELAND: Students denied expertise of star researchers
Students in Irish universities are being denied the expertise of talented staff because they have been recruited on non-teaching contracts, the Higher Education Authority has claimed, writes Stephen O’Brien in The Times. The policy body has advised universities to remove clauses from contracts which keep ‘stellar’ researchers in the laboratory and out of the classroom.
More on the University World News site

AFRICA: Will the humanities survive?
In the heart of the University of Ghana’s Legon campus, in a gully alongside a road, sits a one-story building, three basketball courts long. More recently constructed than the surrounding structures this building, divided into three equal spaces, houses lecture halls built to accommodate an explosion in the student population. On any given weekday, up to 1,000 students crowd into each room – sometimes spilling out onto the grassy knoll outside, where they have to strain to hear the lectures, writes Kenneth Walker in The Carnegie Reporter.
More on the University World News site

SOUTH AFRICA: Youth leader threatens Cape Town management
When president-in-waiting Jacob Zuma comes to power following this week’s general elections, lecturers and managers will be replaced at the University of Cape Town – the country’s top research university – because it remains a hotbed of counter-revolutionaries. So says Julius Malema, president of the ruling African National Congress’s Youth League, writes Quinton Mtyala in the Cape Times.
More on the University World News site

US: Matches and mismatches in producing PhDs
In theory, these days, everyone agrees that attrition in PhD programmes is a real problem, writes Scott Jaschik for Inside Higher Ed. Graduate students don’t want to spend years in programmes from which they will never graduate, and universities don’t want to support those who won’t complete their programmes. Also in theory these days, most academics agree that it’s crucial to expand the diversity of the PhD pipeline so that the candidates for faculty positions represent a broader demographic than the current professoriate. Research presented last week at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association challenged higher education a bit on both of these supposed consensuses.
More on the University World News site

US: Plan to change student lending sparks fight
The private student lending industry and its allies in Congress are manoeuvring to thwart a plan by President Barack Obama to end a subsidised loan programme and redirect billions of dollars in bank profits to scholarships for needy students, writes David M Herszenhorn in The New York Times. The plan is the main money-saving component of Obama’s education agenda, which includes a sweeping overhaul of financial aid programmes.
More on the University World News site

US: Professor stands up to animal rights activists
As soon as he heard his car alarm blare and saw the orange glow through his bedroom window, University of California, Los Angeles, neuroscientist J David Jentsch knew that his fears had come true – he had become the latest victim in a series of violent incidents targeting scientists who use animals in biomedical research. But unlike most scientists, Jentsch decided to push back, writes Larry Gordon in the LA Times.
More on the University World News site

US: Facebook students underachieve in exams
An American study has found that students who spend their time adding friends, chatting and ‘poking’ others on the website may devote as little as one hour a week to their academic work, writes Urmee Khan in The Telegraph. The study by Ohio State University showed that students who used Facebook had a “significantly” lower grade point average than those who did not.
More on the University World News site

INDIA: Graduates look to study abroad during downturn
The economic downturn is making it difficult for colleges to place their students, but they are ready with a damage-control plan, writes Sameer Kumar Sharma for Express India. Colleges are inviting foreign universities and colleges to hold education fairs, facilitating and encouraging students to opt for higher studies.
More on the University World News site

GLOBAL: IBM, universities push for ‘smarter planet’
IBM announced last week that it is collaborating with 250-plus universities in 50 countries to promote the Service Science Management and Engineering curriculum, with the ultimate goal of creating solutions for a ‘smarter planet’, writes Mary Grush in Campus Technology.
More on the University World News site

Sunday 12 April 2009

University World News 0071 - 13th April 2009

SPECIAL REPORT: Uncertain times for graduates

Graduate joblessness is deepening the world over. The global economic crisis has prompted the slashing of jobs and freezes on hiring and, in most countries, new graduates are finding it increasingly difficult to land employment.

In the developing world – including China, Arab countries and Africa – the economic downturn has exacerbated already high graduate unemployment resulting from the rapid expansion of higher education and a mismatch between the skills universities produce and the needs of markets, among other factors. The Chinese government is hoping investment in the economy will create jobs for graduates, and it is also encouraging postgraduate study and diverting graduates to rural areas in need of high-level skills – but these are not long-term solutions.

In the wealthy world, new graduates who once juggled offers are finding it more and more difficult to find work. Graduate employment is falling in the United States, although patchily as some states have been hit by the financial crisis harder than others and many postgraduates hoping to become academics are struggling to find posts. In France the government has devised a rash of plans to relieve rising joblessness among young people including graduates, while in Canada the economic crisis is forcing MBA graduates to lower their income expectations.

In this special report, University World News journalists look at the growing problem of graduate unemployment across the globe.

US: Job prospects plummet John Richard Schrock
After five years of annual increases in employment, hiring of college graduates is expected to fall by 22% in 2009 compared with 2008, according to a survey of businesses by the National Association of Colleges and Employers. More than 20% of employers surveyed have stopped hiring this spring while the number of firms expecting to hire fewer new graduates doubled and the number who were uncertain of future hiring plans jumped from one in four to nearly half.
Full report on the University World News site

FRANCE: Government tries to head off jobless unrest
Jane Marshall
Youth unemployment is soaring in France and new graduates are not spared – although predictably they are being hit less hard than young people with fewer or no qualifications. Aware of rising youth unrest, President Nicolas Sarkozy has promised training programmes and plans to subsidise employers who hire young people. He has also set up a commission to recommend policies to support youth, including on job creation, which is due to report this month.
Full report on the University World News site

ARAB STATES: Unemployment figures frightening
Wagdy Sawahel
Unemployment in the Arab world has reached 14% and the number of jobless is estimated to be 17 million, many of them university graduates, according to Arab Labour Organisation figures for 2008. Arab governments have warned that belts will have to be tightened during the global economic crises to cope with an influx of job-seekers and the return of some Arab expatriates.
Full report on the University World News site

CHINA: Unemployment on the rise
Mucun Zhou and Jing Lin
Ministry of Education statistics indicate more than 6 million students will graduate in China this year, whereas in 2002 the total number comprised only 1.45 million. But the employment rate for graduates last year was less than 70% and the rising number seeking jobs is challenging the government at a time when the current economic crisis will surely exacerbate the problem. It is likely close to 2 million graduates will not find work – many of whom are postgraduates, even doctoral graduates.
Full report on the University World News site

AUSTRALIA: Jobs go as recession deepens
Geoff Maslen
Although Australia has been protected more than many other nations from the global financial maelstrom, figures released last Thursday revealed that joblessness was on the rise and graduates seeking work or in employment would not be immune. Even before the impact of the world recession began to be really felt, almost three in five Australian graduate employers said what was happening to the financial markets was affecting their hiring decisions.
Full report on the University World News site

CANADA: Pay expectations of MBA graduates plunge
Philip Fine
On her site where she matches up MBA graduates and employers, Maggie Austring has job-seeking candidates fill out a field on their on-line applications to identify what annual gross salary they expect. When she launched the site last May, she put in a $30,000 (US$24,000) category, never actually thinking anyone would fill in that low a number on the salary field. Austring has not only seen people checking off $30,000, she has now seen a rise in that category and wonders aloud what would have happened had she put in a $20,000 option. The downturn in the economy has tempered the salary expectations of MBA holders who are seeking jobs.
Full report on the University World News site

US: Call to hire more foreign graduates
The Association of International Educators, or NAFSA, has called on the American Congress to change existing laws and increase opportunities for foreign graduates to obtain permanent residency. The association said the changes should include removal or adjustment of unrealistic caps on temporary and permanent employment-based visa categories, including green cards.
Full report on the University World News site


NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report


EUROPE: EUA releases Prague declaration
The European University Association released a declaration last week proposing ways Europe’s governments could tackle the rising economic and financial crisis. The declaration arises from an EUA meeting in Prague last month and sets out a long-term agenda for European universities over the next decade.
Full report on the University World News site

CHINA: Graduates on the move
Geoff Maslen
Graduates from China are enrolling in American universities in greater numbers than ever before with a 16% increase on 2008 figures. Likewise, applications to US graduate institutions from Middle East students have rocketed upwards by 20% in the past year. But it is not clear if these rises are a result of the global financial downturn and graduates are looking to America as a source of employment because applications from India and South Korea have fallen after small gains in 2008.
Full report on the University World News site

RUSSIA – ‘No plans to take over as rector’ – Fursenko
Nick Holdsworth
Education Minister Andrei Fursenko has dismissed rumours that he plans to step down and take over as rector of Moscow State University. In a wide ranging interview with respected daily broadsheet Kommersant, Fursenko says the job should go to a better qualified – and younger – candidate. The current incumbent, Viktor Sadovnichy, is technically obliged to step down when he reaches 75 later this year
Full report on the University World News site

GERMANY: Calls for higher education reforms
Michael Gardner
One of Germany’s leading universities has been merged with a former nuclear research institute. Baden-Württemberg’s Council of Ministers adopted a law last Tuesday creating the foundations for the new Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), combining the University of Karlsruhe with the Research Centre Karlsruhe.
Full report on the University World News site

ACADEMIC FREEDOM

UNESCO: World conference on higher education
John Akker
The Network for Education and Academic Rights (NEAR) has been working with its partner organisation, Scholars at Risk, to produce a platform for the Unesco World Conference on Higher Education in Paris from 5-8 July. We call for your help in urging the organisers and participants to offer their support for academic freedom and higher education values.
Full report on this and other Academic Freedom stories on the University World News site

BUSINESS

EUROPE: Nanotechnology policy clash looms
Keith Nuthall
Policy differences over the development of nanotechnology in Europe are becoming crystal clear, with a European Union-funded study confirming the gulf in opinion between industry and its researchers, environmentalists with their allied scientists and governments over this hottest scientific topic.
Full report on the University World News site

ASIA-MIDDLE EAST: Boost for Asian nanotechnology
Wagdy Sawahel
The 10 Middle Eastern and central Asian member states of the Iran-based Economic Cooperation Organisation have approved the establishment of an ECO Nanotechnology Network in Iran.
Full report on the University World News site

US: Yale taps global market for diplomacy students
Emma Jackson
Yale University, the top Ivy League college in Connecticut, has received a US$50 million donation to create a Jackson Institute for Global Affairs. The institute will focus on the lucrative overseas student market and offer to teach valuable graduate skills for diplomatic services and international organisations.
Full report on the University World News site

FEATURE

FRANCE: Spies and the Jardin des Plantes
Jane Marshall
Claude-Marie Vadrot, a part-time lecturer at a Paris university, planned to take his students to the Jardin des Plantes for an outdoor lecture on biodiversity and plant protection. As part of the capital’s Natural History Museum not only was the public garden relevant to his subject, his choice of location was also a gesture of solidarity with striking colleagues. But when he arrived at the gates he was refused entry by security guards – the beginning of an incident that he says has made him “very worried at the revelation of an alarming shift in our society”.
Full report on the University World News site

HE RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY

US: Do we need technology workers?
An interesting set of articles by six US academics was featured last week in the continuing series on immigration being published by The New York Times blog, Room for Debate. Last week the series examined the issue of skilled foreign-born workers, many of whom are in the US on temporary guest-worker visas. For high-tech industries, particularly, foreign-born workers on temporary visas are an important labour pool. Many of these workers arrived in the US as students and stay on through the H-1B programme.
More on the University World News site

UNI-LATERAL: Off-beat university stories

US: Virginia reviews diversity rule
The Board of Visitors at Virginia Tech announced last week that it would review the university’s tenure and diversity policies after claims by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education that academic freedom was under threat.
Full report on the University World News site

US: Bong hits better than tequila shots
College leaders have undertaken countless campaigns to reduce binge drinking on their campuses, but a developing grassroots movement calls for an herbal remedy, writes Jack Stripling for Inside Higher Ed. SAFER, a non-profit organisation that supports the reform of marijuana laws, is calling on college presidents to join its cause, arguing that students would be safer taking bong hits than tequila shots.
More on the University World News site


A MESSAGE TO READERS

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FACEBOOK

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WORLD ROUND-UP

ITALY: Students die, university damaged in quake
At least eight students have died from the collapse of a dormitory at the University of L’Aquila in central Italy, following a powerful earthquake that struck last Monday, reports The Chronicle of Higher Education. The quake caused more than 250 deaths, thousands of injuries and the destruction of much of the city and its university. But the two main science buildings did not collapse, rescue worker Gianluca Ferrini – who is also a geologist at the university – told Chemical & Engineering News.
More on the University World News site

GLOBAL: Top technological universities form alliance
Seven of the world’s top technological universities gathered in Singapore last week to create an alliance to enhance academic exchanges and make better use of technologies to meet global challenges, reports China View.
More on the University World News site

UAE: Arabia and the knowledge gap
Think big. Think global. Spare no expense. That could be the motto for an ambitious effort by the United Arab Emirates to close the knowledge gap with the West and eventually restore Arab learning to its former glory, writes Bernd Debusmann for The Great Debate, a Reuters blog. Headlines from Dubai, the second-largest and most flamboyant of the seven emirates that make up the country, have been dominated by the bursting of a spectacular property bubble and an exodus of foreigners who lost their jobs as the global recession slowed down the economy. One thing that is not slowing – an education drive without parallel in the Arab world.
More on the University World News site

US: Scrutiny and standards for branch campuses
The growing trend of North American colleges creating branches abroad threatens to erode the quality of higher education and to undercut the rights of faculty members, according to a statement issued last week by the American Association of University Professors and the Canadian Association of University Teachers, writes Scott Jaschik in Inside Higher Ed.
More on the University World News site

US: Campus still split after jury sides with professor
A judge has yet to decide whether Ward L Churchill, the controversial former University of Colorado professor, will get his job back. But on the campus in Boulder, Colorado, some have already made up their minds, writes Dan Frosch in The New York Times. A Denver jury recently determined that Churchill had been wrongfully dismissed because of his political views, though he was awarded only $1 in damages.
More on the University World News site

UK: Full universities will turn away thousands
Up to 50,000 sixth-formers will be denied places at university this year because of a surge in applications combined with a freeze in undergraduate places, writes Joanna Sugden in The Times. Vice-chancellors and the head of the admissions service warned last week of a looming crisis, with many popular courses already full. Nearly one in 10 applicants could be left without places at a time of bleak employment prospects for school-leavers.
More on the University World News site

AUSTRALIA: Universities hit by lack of income
Already cash-strapped universities have suffered a calamitous AUD$800 million (US$569) loss in investment, more than twice the previous forecast, Universities Australia has warned, reports Guy Healy in The Australian. The loss imperils renewal of student services, teaching quality and universities’ hopes of aiding national recovery, UA says.
More on the University World News site

UK: Warning over A* for admissions
Top universities risk undermining confidence by using the new A* A-level grade for admissions, a minister has warned, reports BBC News. England’s Higher Education Minister David Lammy said universities might unfairly reject pupils whose schools failed to predict accurately they may get an A*. The A* grade will be awarded for the first time in 2010 for marks over 90%.
More on the University World News site

EGYPT: Cairo university in US ‘spy’ furore
A series of newspaper articles published in the past week by one of Cairo’s most popular daily newspapers has given rise to suspicions that the American University in Cairo, or AUC, one of Egypt’s most prestigious universities, is acting as a proxy for the US Department of Defense, writes Matt Bradley for The National.
More on the University World News site

INDIA: Cancel admissions of diplomats, government says
The Indian government has asked all universities and higher education institutions to cancel the admissions of all foreign diplomats who are pursuing higher education studies, reports the Daily Times. “Any foreign diplomat wishing to pursue higher studies in any university must give up diplomatic visa and instead obtain student visa,” said a notification issued by the University Grants Commission last week.
More on the University World News site

Sunday 5 April 2009

University World News 0070 - 6th April 2009

REPORTS FROM THE FRONTIER:
A global view of the key issues confronting higher education

This week University World News publishes the first in a planned series of electronic books under the title Reports from the Frontier.

The first volume comprises eight chapters with up-to-the-minute incisive accounts of how universities are coping with the challenges that confront them in an increasingly globalised world. The chapters range from the impact of the global financial crisis on institutions, declining university funding and the Bologna process, to women in higher education, international rankings and e-learning.

The 332-page e-book is available as a special offer to University World News readers. Academics and administrators anxious to know what is happening to higher education in other countries will find this book invaluable. So will those in charge of a department, a library, a faculty or a university – and anyone else interested in academe who wants an accurate record of university and government responses in a time of great change.

To see the contents page and to order your copy click here.

NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report

GLOBAL: Demand for right to teach and study in safety
Brendan O’Malley
A global federation representing 30 million university academics and school teachers has urged those involved in armed conflicts to respect schools, colleges and universities as safe sanctuaries and zones of peace. In a declaration, Education International urged the international community, governments and leaders of armed groups to reaffirm their commitment to the principle of right to education in safety.
Full report on the University World News site

OECD: Research head attacks university 'conservatism'
Traditional university faculties are too conservative and are standing in the way of progress as Europe’s education system struggles to become more innovative, the head of the OECD’s Centre for Educational Research and Innovation, Professor Dirk Van Damme, told a European Policy Centre debate last Tuesday.
Full report on the University World News site

SOUTH AFRICA: Election turns ugly for universities
Karen MacGregor
Universities and students have become embroiled in controversies and chaos ahead of South Africa’s fourth democratic elections on 22 April. Last week, nine University of Zululand students were hospitalised after political tensions boiled over into violence while protests in Durban led to calls for the vice-chancellor of the University of South Africa to quit because of his perceived support for an opposition party.
Full report on the University World News site

SAHARA: An oasis of learning in the desert
Paul Rigg
Under the burning desert sun of the Sahara, academics from 10 Spanish universities recently joined with colleagues from Cuba, Algeria and the UK to pledge their support for the development of the “Saharawi University of Tifariti”, the first of its type in the world.
Full report on the University World News site

LIBYA: New era of higher education reform
Wagdy Sawahel
In a bid to promote human and sustainable development, Libya – the second largest oil producer in Africa – is working to reform its higher education and scientific research systems through a US$9 billion five-year national strategic plan and international cooperation – especially since its positive re-engagement with the international community following renunciation of weapons of mass destruction.
Full report on the University World News site

SINGAPORE: Recession adds to stress on campus
Colin A Sharp
Singapore’s academic community has become increasingly concerned about a succession of deaths on the Nanyang Technology University campus, with at least two apparent student suicides in one week, one of them linked to the murder of an academic, as well as a fatal car accident – all in the space of three weeks and all from the same faculty.
Full report on the University World News site

FRANCE: Modernisation for elite civil service school
Jane Marshall
The Ecole Nationale d’Administration, or Ena, France’s elite school for training high-ranking civil servants, senior diplomats and industrial leaders, is to be brought up to date with reforms to make it more egalitarian and its programmes more practical.
Full report on the University World News site

EGYPT: Hard times ahead for private universities
Ashraf Khaled
Months after the government scrapped tax exemptions for them, Egypt’s private universities see even tougher times ahead. A decision by education authorities to reintroduce the sixth grade in Egyptian schools five years ago has produced a gap year. As a result, the estimated number of new students to attend public and private universities in 2011 will not exceed 5,000 – against around 200,000 usually admitted annually.
Full report on the University World News site

GERMANY-AFRICA: Partnership boosts African universities
Michael Gardner
The German Academic Exchange Service, DAAD, is running a major partnership programme that supports the training of academics at top-level African universities. Graduates are to assume executive roles in areas key to development. One of five spec ialist centres, the Tanzanian-German Centre for Law, opened last year, another in the Congo has just been launched and three others are being set up in Ghana, Namibia and South Africa.
Full report on the University World News site

ZIMBABWE: New government disappoints students
Clemence Manyukwe
Zimbabwe’s inclusive government will be two months old this month but students are failing to find comfort in the fact. They protest that students continue to be expelled, brutalised and arrested – and complain their plight is being ignored by the new prime minister.
Full report on the University World News site

NIGERIA: University councils established
Tunde Fatunde
After nearly two years of delays, the Nigerian government has established governing councils in the country’s 27 federally owned universities. The move was greeted with enthusiasm by trade unions operating in tertiary institutions. The reconstituted councils will face a large backlog of issues to deal with as university operations have suffered from the long leadership vacuum.
Full report on the University World News site

NEWSBRIEFS

KENYA: Violent protests close Kenyatta indefinitely
Dave Buchere
Kenyatta University in Kenya was closed indefinitely last Monday after students went on the rampage, destroying property worth millions of shillings hardly three days after its re-opening. One student died and several were injured after riot police were called in.
Full report on the University World News site

TUNISIA-ALGERIA: Closer university and research cooperation
Tunisian and Algerian universities have signed 19 agreements for closer scientific cooperation, exchanges of expertise, and joint education programmes and research projects with the aim of bringing the higher education systems of the two countries closer, reported La Presse of Tunisia.
Full report on the University World News site

MAURITIUS: Country aims to become ‘knowledge hub’
The University of Mauritius is set to double its student capacity with the building of a second campus, reports L’Express from Port Louis. Planned for completion in five years, it will be able to cater for up to 10,000 additional students. The expansion is part of a development plan for Mauritius to become a ‘knowledge hub’ in the region.
Full report on the University World News site

SCIENCE SCENE

PORTUGAL: Olive oil – research reveals the good bits
A study of the major antioxidants in olive oil has pinpointed the one that has the most health benefits.
Full report on the University World News site

AUSTRALIA: Astronomers discover galactic ‘freak’
The biggest dwarf for miles around has been discovered in the night sky. The so-called ‘dwarf galaxy’ is only the size of a star cluster, but may contain 10 times as many stars as a cluster, making it particularly bright.
Full report on the University World News site

UK: Vinegar cleans toxic waste
Monica Dobie
British scientists have found there’s a lot more to vinegar than splashing it on your chips: it could help cleanse polluted groundwater and prevent disease.
Full report on the University World News site

FEATURES

UNITED NATIONS: Stopping attacks on education
Last month, University World News correspondent Brendan O’Malley gave an address in New York to the UN General Assembly thematic debate on education in emergencies. In his speech, O’Malley called for action by the UN to prevent political and military attacks against students, teachers, education officials and education trade unionists.
The address can be read on the University World News site

ALBANIA: Student movies at risk, says rector
Nick Holdsworth
The row over ownership of Albania’s only film school, the Marubi academy in Tirana, has entered its fifth week with renewed attempts to cut off access to its premises by staff and students. The academy – set up five years ago as a public institution in part of a 59,000 square metre spread of former state film studios – is embroiled in a row over rights to the studios and classrooms used by its staff, 25 international visiting professors and 30 students.
Full report on the University World News site

GREECE: Under attack from within
Makki Marseilles
For more than two weeks the administration headquarters of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, the largest in the country, has been occupied by youths, members of non-parliamentary leftwing organisations and sundry other anarchist groups. They have prevented staff from carrying out their duties and are causing serious disruption in the management of the institution.
Full report on the University World News site

HE RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY

CANADA: Reflections on university press publishing
Bill Harnum
Developments over the last few decades have changed some of the primary concerns of scholarly book publishers within university presses. The enterprise of publishing remains a vital part of the ecology of the academy, but the future direction of book publishing is unclear. The future is less apocalyptic than some may believe, but there is no question that there are challenges that need to be addressed by the publishing community.
Full article on the University World News site
First published by the journal Academic Matters

UNI-LATERAL: Off-beat university stories

US: Threat to academic freedom
When a US university decided to require its tenure and promotions committees to pay special attention to an applicant’s “involvement in diversity initiatives”, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education took strong exception and fired off a missive to the president.
Full report on the University World News site

US: California admissions gaffe dashes students’ hopes
Cole Bettles had been rejected by a raft of universities when he received an e-mail from the University of California, San Diego, last week congratulating him on his admission and inviting him to tour the campus. His mother booked a hotel in San Diego, and the 18-year-old high school senior arranged for his grandfather, uncle and other family members to meet them at the campus for lunch during the Saturday orientation, reports the Los Angeles Times.
More on the University World News site

UK: New masters in social networking
Britain’s Birmingham City University is to offer a masters degree teaching students about social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Bebo, reports The Telegraph. The one-year masters in social media will also explain how to set up blogs and publish podcasts.
More on the University World News site

FACEBOOK

The Facebook group of University World News is the fastest growing in higher education worldwide. Some 760 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

PAKISTAN: Concern over 73% cut in universities’ budget
Federation of All Pakistan Universities Academic Staff Associations General Secretary, Professor Badar Soomro, has expressed shock and dismay over a more than 73% cut in the budget of universities by the Higher Education Commission, reports The News. He said the government was cutting university budgets on the one hand, while on the other it was paying hefty amounts to Tenure Track System faculty.
More on the University World News site

INDIA: Panel proposes more autonomy for universities
In an effort to do away with government’s interference in higher education institutions, a high-level committee has suggested that universities should be made self-regulatory bodies and recommended a new governing structure to help them preserve their autonomy, reports the Economic Times.
More on the University World News site

US: Libraries must turn crisis into opportunity
Librarians and their institutions must use current disruptions, economic and technological, as an opportunity to radically reinvent themselves, says an Association of College and Research Libraries report, Strategic Thinking for Academic Librarians in the New Economy, released during the organisation’s national conference last month, reports the Library Journal.
More on the University World News site

US: Paying in full as the ticket into colleges
Facing fallen endowments and needier students, many colleges are looking more favourably on wealthier applicants as they make their admissions decisions this year, writes Kate Zernike in The New York Times. Institutions that have pledged to admit students regardless of need are finding ways to increase the number of those who pay the full cost in ways that allow colleges to maintain the claim of being need-blind – taking more students from the transfer or waiting lists, for instance, or admitting more foreign students who pay full tuition.
More on the University World News site

PHILIPPINES: Flexible tuition fee scheme ordered
Philippines President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has ordered education authorities to craft a “flexible socially-sensitive” tuition fee payment plan in state universities and colleges to allow more students to enrol and graduate, reports the Manila Bulletin. She has also directed expansion of the Students Assistance Fund for Education, or SAFE, that includes transport subsidies, book allowances, and other benefits for poor students.
More on the University World News site

JAMAICA: Student aid to focus on key development areas
Jamaica’s government is to steer the Students’ Loan Bureau, or SLB, in a direction where it would be inclined to support areas of study deemed critical to national development, reports The Gleaner.
More on the University World News site

POLAND: Higher education boom
The number of students in higher education in Poland has grown from 394,000 in the 199-91 academic year to almost two million today, reports PolishMarket.com. The participation rate among 19 to 24-year-olds has reached 48% – one of the highest in Europe – according to the latest Central Statistical Office report, Students in Higher Schools of Education in Poland in the 2007-2008 Academic Year.
More on the University World News site

UK: Take quality concerns seriously, universities told
Universities must take public concern over degree standards seriously if they want to make the case for more investment by the taxpayer, the new head of the higher education funding body warned last week, writes Donald MacLeod in The Guardian.
More on the University World News site

UK: Rise in university gender pay gap
The number of women lecturers and researchers at British universities rose more slowly last year and the pay gap with men widened slightly, according to figures published last week by the Higher Education Statistics Agency, writes Anthea Lipsett in The Guardian.
More on the University World News site

KENYA: Bill governing universities to be implemented
Public universities in Kenya will be subjected to inspections by the government’s quality assurance body, writes Sam Otieno in The Standard. Among other recommendations in a Bill being formulated by the Ministry of Higher Education is the introduction of a University Act to govern all existing and emerging universities.
More on the University World News site

SOUTH AFRICA: Law degrees to be cross-examined
University law deans have approached the Council on Higher Education to probe the relevance and adequacy of the LLB degree, writes Monako Dibetle in the Mail & Guardian. The investigation into the qualification is in response to ongoing concerns among top legal minds about the declining quality of law graduates. Experts have proposed reintroducing a five-year LLB degree at all law faculties. Some institutions offer a four-year qualification.
More on the University World News site

US: Middle Easterners unhappy being ‘white’ or ‘other’
Nicole Salame, 19, was filling out an application to the University of California in Los Angeles last year when she got to the question about race and ethnicity. She thought a mistake had been made, writes Raja Abdulrahim in the Los Angeles Times. “I read it five times and was like, where is Middle Eastern?” the freshman recently recalled. “Is it on the other page, did it get cut off? I thought they forgot.”
More on the University World News site