University World News 0152 - 19th December 2010

This week's highlights

In a Special Report for this year's final edition, edited by PHILIP FINE, we look back at higher education in 2010, including how the sector was covered in the pages of University World News. In Features LILY PHILLIPOSE reports on a new myth-busting study of private universities in Germany, and MIKE IVES writes that China's ethnic minorities education policy is not working optimally, prompting some to call for a reassessment. In Commentary MARTIN INCE, chair of the academic advisory board of the QS World University Rankings, argues that while rankings are useful to students, academics, institutions and governments, none of them can tell you all you need to know about a complex body like a university. And NALAKA GUNAWARDENE writes that ideologically-driven bickering between higher education stakeholders in Sri Lanka is holding up much-needed reform.

NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report

GLOBAL: Australia and South Africa pay top salaries
Geoff Maslen
It might come as a surprise to academics in South Africa but the purchasing power of their salaries, on average, is now higher than that of their counterparts in Canada, the UK and New Zealand, according to a survey of 46 Commonwealth universities. However South African academics earn 6% less than those in Australia - the top-ranked country when cost of living is taken into account.
Full report on the University World News site:

GLOBAL: Intellectual capital 'ranking' of 40 countries
Yojana Sharma
Innovation and knowledge are fast becoming new measures of international economic growth competitiveness with universities at the core. But measuring 'knowledge capital' or the more intangible intellectual capital as a contributor to national prosperity is still a new field. In a new book a Swedish academic has ranked nations in terms of intellectual capital, and Finland, Sweden and Switzerland came out on top.
Full report on the University World News site:

AUSTRALIA: Review of foreign student decline
Geoff Maslen
The federal government has been forced to respond to growing alarm among universities and colleges at the collapsing number of applications from foreign students by setting up a review to investigate ways of countering the ongoing decline.
Full report on the University World News site:

HONG KONG: Joint research funding with China urged
Linda Yeung
An official review of higher education in Hong Kong has recommended that permission be granted for cross-border use of research funds between the city and mainland China, which could see a ban on such use lifted for the first time in decades.
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UK: Scots to make England's 'fees refugees' pay more
Brendan O'Malley
Scottish universities will charge more for tuition fees to students from the rest of the UK, in order to top up funds for universities, Michael Russell, the Education Secretary, announced on Friday. But students from Scotland will continue to enjoy free tuition.
Full report on the University World News site:

MALAYSIA: Universities must help find talent overseas
Honey Singh Virdee and Yojana Sharma
Universities and professors will join the ministry of education to support Malaysia's much-vaunted 'Talent Corporation', officially launched this month by Prime Minister Najib Razak to woo skilled workers to the country, particularly in the science and research sectors.
Full report on the University World News site:

UKRAINE: Universities 'face new Iron Curtain'
Jan Petter Myklebust
The president of one of Eastern Europe's oldest universities has written an open letter to the president of Ukraine to warn that draft legislation on higher education will reintroduce "authoritarian and centralised governmental control of higher education", degrade science and learning and erect a new 'Iron Curtain' between Ukrainian and European institutions.
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US: Town and gown working together
Sarah King Head
The university's history of being an ivory tower removed from the hurly-burly of the city has certainly changed over the years, as many universities play increasingly important roles in the economic recovery of post-industrial cities. Last week, the symbiotic relationship hoped for by universities and their urban communities was the topic of discussion at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences' 1,964th meeting in New York City.
Full report on the University World News site:

US-ISLAMIC STATES: Global Initiative through S&T
Wagdy Sawahel
The US and 57 Islamic states across the Middle East, North Africa and Asia have launched the Global Initiative through Science and Technology, GIST, to advance scientific, academic and technological collaboration between America and the Muslim world.
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ARAB STATES: New e-infrastructure to bolster science
Wagdy Sawahel
A pan-Arab network dedicated to extending and strengthening e-infrastructures for research and education and boosting scientific research cooperation was launched last week.
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SPECIAL REPORT: Higher education in 2010

GLOBAL: 2010 - A year of shortages and partnerships
The UK's tripling of a tuition fee cap made a significant impact globally in 2010, especially in light of the world now having to deal with the bill for all those stimulus injections by so many governments. Where there are funding shortfall stories, there can usually be found stories on how some countries try to make up for the lack of funds. Foreign enrolment is the go-to category for that. This year saw, in particular, a significant continued rise by Chinese students flocking to the US and other Western countries, but it also saw the West forging numerous partnerships with Chinese, Indian and African countries, as well as the rise of Asia as a university ranking powerhouse. Many vice-chancellors also racked up some regional air miles, with key partnerships being cemented among geographical groupings of countries.

With cash-strapped governments trying to decide where they'll put their funding, there are some victims: disciplines that fall under the social sciences are seeing less support; some key professions, such as nuclear engineering, are not seeing adequate numbers and even some important survey data are making a country like Canada fumble for answers in a year where shortages seemed to be an overriding theme. For this year's final edition of University World News, PHILIP FINE gathered articles from our correspondents that point to some significant trends in the world of universities.
Full report on the University World News site:

GLOBAL: Higher education and the financial crisis
Geoff Maslen
Higher education in many countries around the world has not suffered significantly as a result of the global financial crisis, says a Unesco report. But while universities may have escaped, the report also warns that a 1% decline in economic growth rates of developing countries will push an additional 20 million people into poverty and that up to two million more children will die over the next five years who would not have perished had the crisis not occurred.
Full report on the University World News site:

ASIA: Academics look East as region seeks talent
Yojana Sharma
With the growth rate in higher education enrolments among the highest in the world, expanding universities in the Asia-Pacific region have been stepping up their search for academic talent. This year a number of Asian countries launched or scaled up their overseas talent hunts, made easier by education cutbacks in the West.
Full report on the University World News site:

AUSTRALIA: Worrying end to a troubling year
Geoff Maslen
It has not been the best of years for Australia's universities. Not exactly annus horribilis but pretty close, especially as 2010 nears its end and especially for the nation's biggest university, Monash.
Full report on the University World News site:

AFRICA: 2010 - A year for international initiatives
Karen MacGregor
For higher education in Africa, 2010 was notable for a flurry of international initiatives, within the continent and between it and other world regions. The year began, though, with the unfortunate ending of the Partnership for Higher Education in Africa, an innovative decade-long funding collaboration involving major US foundations.
Full report on the University World News site:

NEWSBRIEFS

GERMANY-EGYPT: Joint urban management programme
Michael Gardner
Germany and Egypt have launched a joint masters course in ecological urban management and energy-efficient construction. The course, sponsored by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), is aimed at students from Germany as well as countries of the Middle East and North Africa.
Full report on University World News web site:

AFRICA: Green revolution needs tertiary education
Munyaradzi Makoni
Driving a sustainable green revolution in Africa will need high-level human capital, drawn from its own scientists. But the production of scientists urgently requires functional, relevant and consistent tertiary education institutions, says a recent policy briefing by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, AGRA.
Full report on the University World News site:

GHANA: Sharp divisions in student leadership
Francis Kokutse
Sharp divisions have emerged within the ranks of the National Union of Ghana Students, NUGS. One faction claimed it had passed a vote of no confidence in the President, Anthony Abotsi-Afriyie, who is contesting the decision. Earlier, two senior officers were dismissed.
Full report on the University World News site:

FEATURES

GERMANY: Private universities - not-so Ivy League
Lily Philipose*
"We may be swimming against the current," says Stephan Jansen, President of Zeppelin University, one of Germany's top private schools. "But we are comfortable in our lane." Zeppelin University programmes bridge the disciplines of business, politics and culture. Regardless of their area of spec ialisation, its students - 753 this academic year - study all three fields, learning how they interconnect. Zeppelin is one of a rare breed, says a new study on Germany's private universities.
Full report on the University World News site:

CHINA: Time to reassess minority education policy?
Mike Ives
China offers remedial courses and admissions perks for ethnic minority students but there have been few improvements in the lot of minorities and some are calling for a reassessment of the minorities education policy.
Full report on the University World News site:

COMMENTARY

GLOBAL: No rankings provide all the answers
Martin Ince*
According to the OECD, there are 150 million university students in the world, and 3.3 million of them are studying outside their home country. This means there is growing demand for information about universities on a global scale. One approach to this challenge is university ranking.
Full report on the University World News site:

SRI LANKA: Squabbling while higher education burns
Nalaka Gunawardene*
Sri Lanka's university system is overburdened, outdated and badly in need of reform. But politicians, academics and students just can't agree on how to do it. The recent wave of student protests has focused on one element of a wider package of proposed reforms: inviting private universities into a country where publicly-funded universities currently dominate.
Full report on the University World News site:

ACADEMIC FREEDOM

BAHRAIN: Lawyers walk-out over torture of activists
Roisin Joyce and Noemi Bouet*
Defense lawyers of 25 detained opposition and human rights activists, including the professor and blogger Dr Abeljalil Al-Singace, staged a walk-out of their clients' trial in Bahrain following the court's repeated refusal to allow an investigation into the alleged torture of the detainees, Reporters Without Borders revealed on 9 December.
Full report on the University World News site:

SCIENCE SCENE

UK: Rainforest collapse prompted reptile evolution
Global warming devastated tropical rainforests 300 million years ago and triggered an evolutionary burst amongst reptiles that led to the rise of dinosaurs, 100 million years later, according to scientists at Royal Holloway, University of London and the University of Bristol.
Full report on the University World News site:

AUSTRALIA: Humans caused megafauna extinction
The arrival of humans was probably decisive in the extinction of the megafauna living in Western Australia 40,000 years ago but climate change and fire may have been contributing factors.
Full report on the University World News site:

UK: Exploring the social butterfly effect
How often humans form friendships with those similar to themselves in some way is known as the 'social butterfly effect'. A team of scientists from Royal Holloway, University of London, the University of Southampton and the Institute of Zoology at the Zoological Society of London describe the effect as the way people change their friends throughout their lives.
Full report on the University World News site:

FACEBOOK

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WORLD ROUND-UP

CHINA: Army of graduates struggles for jobs
In 1998 when Jiang Zemin, then president of China, announced plans to bolster higher education, universities and colleges produced 830,000 graduates a year. Last May, that number was more than six million and rising, writes Andrew Jacobs for the New York Times.
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SOUTH KOREA: Slew of foreign universities to open
A slew of universities based in Europe and the United States are set to open their South Korean campuses at the Incheon Free Economic Zone (FEZ), 40 kilometres west of Seoul, starting next year, reports the Korea Herald.
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CHINA: UK visa rules may force Chinese student exodus
Tens of thousands of Chinese students in the United Kingdom could be forced out of the country if a basket of strict visa policies takes effect next year, write Chen Jia and Aid Yang for China Daily.
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IRELAND: Academy relieved at 'modest' cuts
Universities have expressed relief following the relatively modest cuts to higher education funding announced in the Republic of Ireland's emergency budget last week, writes Hannah Fearn for Times Higher Education.
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UAE: Universities face 2011 spending freeze
The federal government will run a Dh3 billion (US$800 million) budget deficit next year and will freeze spending by state universities, writes Kareem Shaheen for The National.
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UK: Tuition fee hike open to human rights challenge
Lawyers say allowing universities to raise fees to £9,000 (US$14,071) could be open to legal challenge, as it will discriminate against students from poorer backgrounds, writes Jeevan Vasagar for The Guardian.
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UK: 'Dearth of blacks at Oxford and Cambridge'
David Lammy, a former higher education minister and Labour Member of Parliament, has used figures obtained under Britain's Freedom of Information Law to reveal a dearth of black and other minority students at either of the country's two oldest universities, reports DD Guttenplan for The New York Times.
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UK: Disquiet over motives behind pension overhaul
Controversial plans to cut benefits in higher education's £30 billion (US$46.9 billion) pension fund have prompted staff rebellions at a growing number of universities, as evidence has emerged that employers want to slash their contributions to the scheme, writes John Morgan for Times Higher Education.
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MALAYSIA: Five-year moratorium on medical courses
The Malaysian government will impose a five-year moratorium on medical programmes as an immediate measure to prevent the glut in housemen from becoming worse, write Richard Lim and Loh Foon Fong for The Star.
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MALAYSIA: Council formed to boost R&D
A National Science and Research Council (NSRC) will be set up in Malaysia to prepare for the creation of a national research system based on science and technology in a more conducive environment, reports the official agency Bernama.
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SRI LANKA: Government to attract foreign students
Along with the major overhaul in Sri Lanka's higher education sector, with the entry of private universities by April next year, government plans to attract about 10,000 foreign students into local universities, and another 50,000 into Sri Lanka in the longer term through the proposed private universities, writes Chandani Kirinde for The Sunday Times.
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GHANA: Polytechnic lecturers move to universities
The Polytechnic Teachers Association of Ghana, Potag, says its members have begun moving to universities to teach due to difficulties in negotiating for better conditions of service. It has called on the government to soften its stance regarding negotiating with polytechnic teachers, reports Peace FM.
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UGANDA: Museveni pledges support for scientists
Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni last week pledged continued support to scientists to boost their efforts towards developing the country, writes Patience Ahimbisibwe for The Daily Monitor.
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NIGERIA: 'Universities must breed credible leaders'
The Speaker of N igeria's House of Representatives, Dimeji Bankole, has passed on the responsibility of curtailing public office holders from misappropriating funds to universities, which he said must reclaim their roles as the breeders of credible leaders, writes Onche Odeh for The Daily Independent.
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US: For-profits rake in millions from GI Bill
For-profit universities collected about US$640 million from the Post-9/11 GI Bill in its first year, according to a new US Senate committee document, reports TPM LiveWire. The boost to for-profits came at a time when the sector was subject to criticism for poor results and for leaving many students with unmanageable debts.
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UK: Publishing giant Pearson poised to offer degrees
One of the world's largest publishers, Pearson, looks set to be given degree-awarding powers, as the government seeks to open up the university sector to more private providers, reports the BBC.
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VIET NAM: Universities play role in green thinking
Universities have actively contributed to the way people think about climate change, helping to promote green technologies and environmentally friendly lifestyles, reports Viet Nam News.
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University World News 0151 - 12th December 2010

This week's highlights

In a Special Report edited by YOJANA SHARMA, correspondents report on e-books and their uptake in higher education. JOSEPH TRYBLE argues that India and China could come to dominate the global education e-book market. Other articles look at e-book developments in university presses and in India, America, the UK, Africa, Scandanavia and Arab states. In a second Special Report, JANE MARSHALL reports on a policy forum on open educational resources hosted by Unesco and the Commonwealth of Learning. In Features, KATE ASHCROFT probes issues around the massification of higher education in Ethiopia, and ALISON MOODIE reports on a new funding project to boost PhD numbers in South Africa. In Student View, PUYAN MAHMOUDIAN describes how student activism and criticism of the Iranian government resulted in him being 'starred', and barred from further study.

NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report

UK: Coalition survives tuition fees rebellion
Brendan O'Malley
Coalition proposals to allow tuition fees for universities in England to rise to a maximum of £9,000 (US$14,185), triple the existing level, to compensate for an 80% cut in the teaching budget were passed after a stormy House of Commons debate on Thursday night. But the government majority was slashed to 21 as a reported majority of the 57 MPs in the junior coalition party, the Liberal Democrats, abstained or voted against the measure.
Full report on the University World News site:

UK: Curbs on student visas and jobs unveiled
Brendan O'Malley
Britain's coalition government has unveiled its proposals for clamping down on student visas and employment rights and is putting them out for consultation until the end of January. The measures include raising the English language competency requirement, stricter limits on international students' and their dependants' entitlement to work during the period of study, restrictions on graduates staying on to work, and tighter visa application procedures for extending periods of study.
Full story on University World News site:

AUSTRALIA: Majority of academics are casual
Geoff Maslen
Casualisation of the Australian academic workforce has long been of concern to education unions but no-one knew the full extent. So revelations that casual academics now far outnumber those with permanent or ongoing employment have shocked the entire community.
Full report on the University World News site:

IRAN: Student stars that punish, not reward
Yojana Sharma
A just-published report from the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran lists 217 students with sinister 'stars' against their names, who have been barred from higher education for political activism or religious belief despite performing well in entrance examinations. The Campaign believes there could be more than 1,000 'starred' students - and that there has been a "huge jump" in student exclusions in the past two years. * 'Starred' student Puyan Mahmoudian writes about his exclusion in Student View
Full report on the University World News site:

US: Hackers hit universities' database 'jackpots'
Sarah King Head
Since 2008, 158 data breaches have compromised more than 2.3 million records at American higher education institutions, according to a recent report by Application Security Inc, a US database safety company. Identity theft has become the US' largest consumer complaint, according to the Federal Trade Commission.
Full report on the University World News site:

PAKISTAN: Violent clashes over college 'privatisation'
Ameen Amjad Khan
College students and teachers, enraged by a decision they say amounts to the privatisation of colleges in the country's most populous province Punjab, staged major protests that erupted into violence in several cities last week.
Full report on the University World News site:

NEPAL: Exams disrupted for Maoist convention
Anil Giri
Nepal's oldest university was forced to call off its bachelor-level examinations this month under pressure from radical student groups affiliated with Maoist organisations which are holding their national convention at the university during the exam period. And last week, seven students were arrested during protests against petroleum price hikes.
Full report on the University World News site:

KENYA: Hundreds of unaccredited colleges to be closed
Gilbert Nganga
Kenya has published a list of all accredited colleges operating in the country, exposing hundreds of bogus tertiary institutions that will be closed down in the second week of January. While the move signals government's intention to clean up the higher education sector, it has caused uncertainty and panic among students in colleges denied accreditation.
Full report on the University World News site:

ZIMBABWE: Government restores student grants
Kudzai Mashininga
The government has restored higher education grants after they were scrapped about a decade ago due to Zimbabwe's political and economic crisis. The restoration of grants came after Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai pleaded with students to stop a planned class boycott against deteriorating standards and promised the government would address their concerns.
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SPECIAL REPORT: e-Books in higher education

Although e-book readership is still tiny compared to paper books, it is
growing. University libraries and academic publishers can no longer ignore the potential of digital books and have to cater for new ways to access content. University World News takes a look at e-books and their game-changing effect in higher education.

In a comprehensive overview of the sector JOSEPH TRYBLE believes India and China could come to dominate the global education e-book market. But e-book readership depends on widely available, cheap reading devices: ALYA MISHRA gets behind the hype on a government-led project in India. It is also clear that students will drive e-book acceptance but as ELYSHA KRUPP reports, even in the US uptake is low. Perhaps more innovative ways to get e-books to students is required: YOJANA SHARMA uncovers one way devised by a British company. In a separate article she finds small university presses being forced into major changes.

In a look at regional trends, KAREN MACGREGOR reports on an initiative that started in Africa to deliver low cost e-books to universities in 27 developing countries. Correspondents in Scandinavia and the Arab world find there is still a way to go for e-books to gain ground.

GLOBAL: China and India to dominate education e-books

With many different and high-priced digital reading devices coming on the market in the West, and a need to gear digital content more closely to students' needs, India and China could be front-runners in providing cheap readers and academic content to the rest of the world, industry expert JOSEPH TRYBLE believes.
Full report on the University World News site:

INDIA: $35 laptop a revolution in university learning?
Alya Mishra
Cheap reading devices or laptops are a major issue in the spread of e-books and other digital educational content in higher education. India unveiled a prototype of a low-cost laptop in July initially for university students. As more details emerge, sceptics wonder if the mass-produced cheap laptop can live up to the education ministry's ambitions both in terms of price, and in providing wider learning opportunities.
Full report on the University World News site:

US: Despite the hype, e-textbook sales remain low
Elysha Krupp
From the amount of attention the iPad, Kindle and other e-readers are getting, it would seem that the majority of higher education students have exchanged the printed word for its digital equivalent. But a recent study by OnCampus Research, a division of the National Association of College Stores, NACS, shows this is not the case. Some believe it is just a matter of time before the true 'digital natives', now in high school, demand e-books over print.
Full report on the University World News site:

UK: What students really want - chapters, not books
Yojana Sharma
Students not only spend a great deal of time online, they no longer have the attention span to read entire textbooks, let alone e-books. But one innovative British company thinks it has found the solution: provide reading material in smaller chunks.
Full report on the University World News site:

GLOBAL: University presses join to face e-book future
Yojana Sharma
It was once said that the purpose of the university press was to publish as many worthy scholarly books as possible without going broke. But university presses, many of them non-profit and kept afloat by their universities, are becoming concerned about e-books - if they cannot keep up with the changing digital landscape, many could well go broke.
Full report on the University World News site:

AFRICA: Low-cost academic e-books project to scale up
Karen MacGregor
An initiative to deliver low-cost, high-quality digital publications to universities in the developing world will scale up to serve 27 countries worldwide, starting in Sub-Saharan Africa. Deals involving major discounts have been reached with academic publishers, and pilot projects have run in three countries. But it is not as simple as making resources available, says Angus Scrimgeour of the International Association for Digital Publications, IADP.
Full report on the University World News site:

SCANDINAVIA: e-Book market uncertainty
Jan Petter Myklebust
In Norway, Sweden and Denmark, e-books are causing friction between publishers, libraries and bookstores. Publishers are in a dilemma about pricing and copyright protection. But libraries, students and academics want access to more e-books. If Scandinavian publishers do not deliver in time, customers will increasingly source their e-books abroad.
Full report on University World News web site:

ARAB STATES: e-Books still at an early stage
Wagdy Sawahel
Arab states still have some way to go before e-books can catch on. But with improvements in digital readiness in the region it is the production of e-books and the expansion of e-book lending, particularly in online and distance learning environments, which will determine the pace of e-book adoption in higher education.
Full report on the University World News site:

SPECIAL REPORT: Open Education Resources forum

Delegates from more than 60 member countries of Unesco attended a forum on
"Taking Open Educational Resources Beyond the OER community", organised jointly by Unesco and the Commonwealth of Learning and held in Paris this month. They debated issues ranging from the current state of OER and the need for greater awareness of their potential, to the development and dissemination of quality resources and what the future holds. JANE MARSHALL was there for University World News.

GLOBAL: Open resources - dichotomy and paradox

There was a 'dichotomy' challenging governments and a 'paradox' confusing higher education, with the growth of open and distance learning and the use of open educational resources, Sir John Daniel told a policy forum on 'Taking Open Educational Resources Beyond the OER Community', held by Unesco and the Commonwealth of Learning in Paris this month.
Full report on the University World News site:

AFRICA: Open resources - what works on the continent
Jane Marshall
It is important for African higher education institutions to be part of the Open Educational Resources movement as creators of knowledge, not just users of materials that originate elsewhere and are often irrelevant to their needs, says Catherine Ngugi, project director of OER Africa.
Full report on the University World News site:

GLOBAL: Planning for open educational resources
Jane Marshall
Unesco and the Commonwealth of Learning should play a leading role in informing governments and education practitioners of the benefits of open educational resources (OER), and in promoting policies to maximise their use in both developing and developed countries, participants agreed at an OER policy forum held in Paris this month.
Full report on the University World News site:

FEATURES

ETHIOPIA: University expansion must be sustainable
Kate Ashcroft
Higher education in Ethiopia is 'massifying' rapidly. Student numbers quadrupled in the decade to 2007-08 and the plan is for the sector to more than double in size in the next five years, to 467,000 students. Urgent decisions need to be made on financial sustainability, or "all of a sudden, you are in big trouble," Jamil Salmi, Tertiary Education Coordinator for the World Bank, told a conference in Addis Ababa last month.
Full report on the University World News site:

SOUTH AFRICA: New funds to boost PhD production
Alison Moodie
South Africa's production of PhD graduates is worryingly low, and has even shown a slight decline despite various initiatives to increase doctorate numbers. But the National Research Foundation has launched a sweeping new funding project to tackle the problem.
Full report on the University World News site:

STUDENT VIEW

IRAN: Barred for my activism, with no legal recourse
PUYAN MAHMOUDIAN writes that participation in student associations and involvement in a student publication critical of the government and university policies meant he became a 'starred' student, marked out for discrimination. It led to being barred from continuing his education. He then found that there was no legal recourse in Iran against the ban.
Full report on the University World News site:

UNI-LATERAL

BANGLADESH: Rat in curry prompts cull at university
University officials in Bangladesh ordered a major rat extermination drive after rodent meat found its way into chicken curry served to students, writes Ethirajan Anbarasan for BBC News. The incident happened at Rajshahi University in western Bangladesh.
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US: Sign language fourth most studied
American Sign Language is close to surpassing German as the third-most-studied foreign language at America's colleges and universities, writes Elizabeth Weise for USA Today. Only 4,500 more students study German than study ASL, and enrollment in classes for the gesture-based language used by the deaf increased 16% since the last survey three years ago.
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FACEBOOK

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WORLD ROUND-UP

GLOBAL: WikiLeaks: campuses ideological battlegrounds
Diplomatic cables recently made public by the WikiLeaks website show how the United States and other nations have focused on colleges and universities as key battlegrounds in their efforts to win over hearts and minds, writes Peter Schmidt for The Chronicle of Higher Education.
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US: Columbia reverses anti-WikiLeaks guidance
Days after Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, SIPA, caused an uproar by warning its students against linking to WikiLeaks or discussing the secret-spilling website's latest cache of diplomatic cables online, the prestigious training ground for future diplomats has changed tack and embraced free speech, writes Sam Gustin for Wired.
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CHINA: Top test scores from Shanghai stun educators
With China's debut in international standardised testing, students in Shanghai have surprised experts by outscoring their counterparts in dozens of other countries, in reading as well as in maths and science, according to the results of a respected exam, writes Sam Dillon for The New York Times.
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UK: Third of universities in England could close
More than a third of England's universities may be forced to close or merge as a result of swingeing public cuts to higher education, an analysis by the lecturers' trade union has found, writes Jessica Shepherd for the Guardian.
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SUDAN: Ministry repatriates colleges from north
Sudan's Ministry for Higher Education, Research, Science and Technology finally launched last Monday the relocation of Southern Sudan University colleges operating in the north in a repatriation scheme that ends in five days, writes Mabior Philip for Borglobe.
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QATAR: Educators from across world talk about change
Over 1,200 people who work in education across the world arrived last week in the small, oil-wealthy Persian Gulf emirate of Qatar, writes Ursula Lindsey for The Chronicle of Higher Education. The visitors, scattered across Doha's five-star hotels and attended to by squadrons of PR people, were there for the second World Innovation Summit for Education, more commonly known as WISE, which bills itself as "building the future of education".
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CANADA: Canadian outlawed from top US stem cell post
In the global endeavour that science has become, where research knows no borders, it is a strange story, writes Carolyn Abraham for the Globe and Mail. An internationally respected Canadian scientist who was the leading candidate to become the head of California's high-profile stem cell research institute was, at the last minute, banned from consideration because he is not an American.
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TAIWAN: Asia's first US-accredited university
Taiwan's Ming Chuan University, MCU, has received accreditation from the Middle States Commission on Higher Education to become the first university in Asia to be accredited in the US education system, the university's President Lee Chuan said at a press conference in Taipei, reports The China Post.
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INDIA-FRANCE: Two higher education agreements signed
India and France on Monday signed two memorandums of understanding on higher education, and also decided to take forward a 2009 Plan of Action for the Indian Institute of Technology-Rajasthan by setting up a French consortium that will help the institute gain expertise in areas like health technology, solar energy, aerospace, quantum computing and several other fields, reports The Times of India.
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SOUTH KOREA: Top university given world-class boost
Seoul National University has been given a weighty opportunity to boost its competitiveness in the world as a result of the passage on Wednesday in the national assembly of a bill on the establishment and management of the prestigious institution, comments the Korea Joongang Daily. The bill's passage was welcome after irksome meandering on the issue for more than two decades.
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JAPAN: Firms turning to foreign students
University students are having a hard time finding jobs amid the economic downturn, with those who have secured employment starting after their scheduled graduation next spring hitting a record low of 57.6% in October, reports Kyodo News. But a new trend among firms to seek more aggressive and proactive employees may be creating more chances for foreign students seeking work experience in Japan, even in the increasingly competitive job market.
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INDONESIA: Graduates struggle to find jobs
University and diploma graduates in Indonesia find it harder to secure a job than high school graduates, the latest Central Statistics Agency report reveals, reports The Jakarta Post.
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US: Report on commercial colleges revised
After reviewing 80 hours of videotapes by its undercover investigators, to remove personally identifiable information, the US Government Accountability Office has revised its hard-hitting report on recruiting practices in for-profit higher education - softening some of the findings but without changing its conclusion that the colleges visited had engaged in deception or fraud - writes Tamar Lewin for The New York Times.
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US: Sabbaticals under fire at Minnesota universities
Of the 3,340 full-time and 760 part-time faculty members in the University of Minnesota system, 104 went on sabbatical and 83 went on semester leave from 2009-10, writes Adam Daniels for The Minnesota Daily. But with looming budget problems crippling public universities across the country, lawmakers are looking at cutting sabbaticals as a way to balance the books.
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US: Public blames graduation rates on students
The public pins most of the blame for poor college graduation rates on students and their parents and gives a pass to colleges, government officials and others, a new Associated Press-Stanford University poll shows, reports Associated Press.
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University World News 0149 - 5th December 2010

This week's highlights

In the Features section, ALYA MISHRA writes that incidents of corruption, misconduct, staff revolts and political appointments have raised questions about the quality of higher education leaders in India. YOJANA SHARMA investigates problems experienced and progress made in establishing the Pan-African University, and EILEEN TRAVERS looks at a leading university in Mexico's plans to internationalise its curriculum and partner with institutions in developing countries. In Commentary, ANNE CAMPBELL describes a study she undertook into whether universities in Australia develop the generic skills and attributes in international students that their policies promise.

NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report

ITALY: University reform bill passes amid protests
Lee Adendorff
A controversial university reform bill was passed in the Italian parliament on Tuesday despite high profile protests around the country. Tens of thousands of students occupied train stations, airports, highways and even monuments such as the leaning tower of Pisa and the Coliseum, paralysing city and inter-city traffic and at times clashing with police.
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ASIA: ASEAN countries to set up 'research clusters'
Yojana Sharma
The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations will collaborate on research by setting up thematic 'research clusters' to tackle problems of the region, the first conference on Pioneering ASEAN Higher Education Research Clusters agreed in Bangkok.
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ASIA: ASEAN may create research citation index
Yojana Sharma
Countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have suggested setting up regional research journals, and have agreed in principle to explore an ASEAN citation index to increase the international visibility of research carried out by the region's universities.
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AUSTRALIA: Academic shortfall threatens universities
Geoff Maslen
In the next five years, Australian universities will have to replace almost half of their academics, says a report released last week. The report notes that fewer academics are now available to do the growing amount of work yet the capacity of the academic workforce is shrinking relative to the almost linear growth in the size of the system.
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AUSTRALIA: Disillusionment in academe
Geoff Maslen
For many Australian academics there is a sense of a world lost, a conference of the Association of Commonwealth Universities in Melbourne was told last week. Professor Richard James said mid-career academics were under significant pressure, concerned about the sheer volume of their work, concerned about being spread too thinly, and worried about the effects of these pressures on the standards of teaching and research.
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RUSSIA: Major new investment in higher education
Eugene Vorotnikov
The Russian government is to allocate up to 137 billion rubles (US$4.1 billion) to the development of education from 2011-15 under a new federal target programme. Most of the money is expected to be invested in higher education through introducing new technologies, improving the quality of teaching staff, and upgrading the material and technical infrastructure of the country's largest federal universities.
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EUROPE: ERC shelves leadership appointment
Jan Petter Myklebust
The European Research Council has shelved the appointment of a distinguished scientist to lead the organisation, 10 months after the position was announced. Instead the Director General of Research Robert-Jan Smiths, who took office at the beginning of July, will lead a task force to explore options for future leadership.
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FINLAND: Private donations window extended
Ian R Dobson
A government scheme to support attempts to secure private donations to Finland's universities has been extended by six months. Under the scheme, originally due to run until the end of this year, the government pays universities 250% of what they receive from private donations.
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MIDDLE EAST: States forge ahead on renewable energy
Wagdy Sawahel
Jordan last month opened a world-class nuclear research centre to develop scientific skills and a nuclear programme for peaceful purposes, while the United Arab Emirates inaugurated the Middle East's first graduate institute for research into clean environmental technologies.
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PAKISTAN: University closed after bomb threat
Ameen Amjad Khan
Pakistan's National University of Modern Languages, situated in the heart of the federal capital Islamabad, was closed last week after terrorists threatened to carry out multiple bomb attacks on the institution and reduce it to rubble.
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AFRICA: Science, agriculture to be boosted - ministers
African ministers have recommended reforms of higher education across the continent including the creation of more conducive environments for female students and partnerships between governments and universities to provide policy support and build capacity in the areas of agriculture and science, which should be better resourced.
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GREECE: Disgraced former Rector dies
Makki Marseilles
Emilios Metaxopoulos, former rector of Athens Pandio University, died on 20 November aged 55, just before he was due to travel to Germany to undergo liver transplant surgery. Metaxopoulos faced 25 years in jail for mismanagement of university funds.
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GERMANY: Online Educa explores new media world
Michael Gardner
Last week some 2,200 participants from 108 countries attended Online Educa Berlin, an annual event covering information and communication technologies in education. The focus was on inclusive education, to coincide with the European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion, and among other things uses of new media in higher education were explored.
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FEATURES

INDIA: Crisis of leadership in higher education
Alya Mishra
Some university vice-chancellors in India are the subject of investigations for corruption or misconduct. Some experience revolts by faculty and staff. Others face allegations that they were appointed because of political connections rather than qualifications for the job. Such incidents have sparked a debate on the quality of those at the helm of higher education.
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AFRICA: What happened to the Pan-African University?
Yojana Sharma
Plans for a university that will stretch across Africa and be a 'flagship institution of higher education' will go ahead, despite political problems with two of its five planned centres, African Union commissioner and steward of the project, Jean-Pierre Ezin, has insisted.
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MEXICO: Key centre launches international drive
Eileen Travers
The Center for Higher and Technical Education in Mexico (CETYS) recently launched a long-term plan to internationalise its curriculum and reach out to institutions in developing countries to forge multilateral approaches to common challenges in higher education. CETYS 2020 aims for the university in Baja to reach global benchmarks for quality, competitiveness, expanding the learning community and sustainability.
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COMMENTARY

AUSTRALIA: What skills for international students?
The mandatory inclusion of generic skills and attributes in policy documents of Australian universities has attracted considerable debate and controversy, writes ANNE CAMPBELL of the University of Canberra in the latest edition of the Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management. One neglected aspect is whether generic skills and attributes defined by Western society are relevant for all students, including international students returning to their home country after graduation, and whether universities develop these skills.
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ACADEMIC FREEDOM

PHILIPPINES: Students protest treatment of academics
Roisin Joyce*
Students from three universities in the Philippines demonstrated on 18 November against a show cause order brought against 37 members of faculty at the University of the Philippines faculty of law, ABS-CBN News reported.
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SCIENCE SCENE

UK-AFRICA: Ancient wind of life and death
The mystery of how an abundance of fossils have been preserved for nearly 500,000 years in a remote region of Africa has been solved by a team of geologists from the University of Leicester in Britain.
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AUSTRALIA: PM's science prizes
Prime Minister Julia Gillard last week announced awards worth almost US$500,000 to Australian scientists. The top award went to Dr John Shine, Director of the Garvan Institute for Medical Research in Sydney, for "GGAGG: The five letters that launched a biotechnology revolution".
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AFRICA: Science to sustain the green revolution
Wagdy Sawahel
Scientists have found that crop diversification using pigeonpea - shrubby legumes grown in tropical regions - mixed with soybean and peanuts could be key to sustaining an agricultural green revolution in Africa.
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FACEBOOK

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WORLD ROUND-UP

NORTH KOREA: University events raising tensions
The Daily NK has confirmed that North Korea's major universities have been hosting 'loyalty resolve gatherings' in which students vow to volunteer for military service as required by Kim Jong Il and Kim Jong Eun, something which does not bode well for future provocations against the South, writes Im Jeong Jin.
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SINGAPORE: New university a technology education lab
Every year automakers roll out 'concept' cars, which incorporate novel design elements that may become standard years from now, writes Jeffrey R Young for The Chronicle of Higher Education. Singapore has taken the rarer step of building a concept university, one meant to road-test the latest in teaching theory and academic features.
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MALAYSIA: 133% increase PhD holders in universities
The number of PhD holders among academic staff in Malaysia's public universities had increased by 133% since 2005, said Higher Education Department Director-general Datuk Dr Radin Umar Radin Sohadi, reports the official agency Bernama. He said now there were 14,000 PhD holders compared to 6,000 in 2005.
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US: PhD pipeline expands slightly
The number of research doctorates awarded by American universities grew slightly in 2009, with virtually all of the increase accounted for by an upturn in PhDs and other degrees granted to women, according to newly reported data from the Survey of Earned Doctorates, writes Doug Lederman for Inside Higher Ed. The study also documents the first drop in five years in the number of doctorates awarded to non-US citizens.
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SWEDEN: Universities prepare for tuition fee fallout
Wandering through the falling snow in front of the renowned law faculty at Lund University, Ukrainian maritime law student Anton Kulchytskyy has nothing but praise for Swedish higher education, writes Adam Mullett for The Local. "Sweden has always been world famous for its free and high quality education," he explains. But starting in the autumn of 2011, international students from outside Europe will face application fees and a hefty tuition bill for the privilege of pursuing a degree in Sweden.
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UK: Higher tuition fees but only if you are English
The English face a university education 'apartheid' after Welsh students were told they would be exempt from a sharp rise in tuition fees, write Graeme Paton and Rosa Prince for The Telegraph. The Welsh Assembly government announced last week that it would heavily subsidise the degree courses of about 90,000 students each year, even if they studied at universities in England, Scotland or Northern Ireland.
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NETHERLANDS: Students protest against funding cuts
Some 1,500 students demonstrated outside the parliamentary buildings in The Hague last Monday to protest against the government's plans to cut student funding, reports DutchNews. Currently students can claim a grant for four years but the government is planning to reduce this to three years.
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INDIA: University staff march for funding hike
Thousands of employees from about 200 universities across the country gathered in Delhi on Wednesday and marched to parliament to press the government for hike in education funds, reports IANS.
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US: Paying by the 'pound' for journals
The library at Albany Molecular Research Inc thought its days of buying its chemistry journals in print were over, writes Steve Kolowich for Inside Higher Ed. Then the publisher of a dozen of them raised the price of digital access to certain journals by as much as 183%. Now the institution is considering switching back to print subscriptions for some of the titles published by the American Chemical Society, and perhaps nixing several of the journals from its library shelves altogether.
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US: Software tries to make studying feel like Facebook
Students live on Facebook. So study tools that act like social networks should be student magnets - and maybe even have an academic benefit - write Marc Parry and Jeffrey R Young for The Chronicle of Higher Education. At least that's the idea behind a new crop of web services sprouting up across higher education.
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US: Professors give Wikipedia a facelift
The legitimacy of Wikipedia, the popular online user-edited encyclopedia, as an academic resource has long been doubted, writes Derek Schlom for The Tufts Daily, the student newspaper of Tufts University. A new pilot project created by the Wikimedia Foundation is attempting to reframe the site's reputation within the context of academia and purge inaccuracies from a portion of the site.
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UK: University leads way with free research
Scotland's University of Glasgow, the alma mater of inventors James Watt and John Logie Baird, is making a bold attempt to get academic research commerc ialised by offering its intellectual property free of charge to British entrepreneurs, writes Jonathan Moules for the Financial Times. The move, a first for a UK university, is aimed at raising the profile of Glasgow's research achievements and helping companies maximise their competitiveness.
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UK: How many entrepreneurs are universities producing?
Entrepreneurship seems to be the British government's favourite word, writes Lucy Tobin for The Guardian. A search of the online parliamentary database reveals 4,400 references to entrepreneurs in debate in the Houses of Lords and Commons and in Committee reports since the election in May. Where better to inspire entrepreneurship than on university campuses?
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VIETNAM: 237 institutions complete self-assessment
According to the Ministry of Education and Training, 237 universities and junior colleges in Vietnam, including 100 universities, have completed self-assessment, reports VietNamNet Bridge. The ministry hopes that by 2015-20, 90% to 95% of schools will have completed the self-assessment process and will transfer to a new period of being assessed and accredited by outside organisations.
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SOUTH AFRICA: New body to coordinate artisan training
South Africa's Higher Education and Training Minister Blade Nzimande last week launched a National Artisan Moderation Body that will coordinate artisan training countrywide for the first time since sectoral education and training authorities were established in 2000, writes Sue Blaine for Business Day. Estimates are that the country needs to produce 20,000 to 25,000 artisans a year but only trains between 8,000 and 10,000.
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BANGLADESH: 32 universities get innovation fund
Thirty-two universities in Bangladesh will get grants from the Academic Innovation Fund provided by the World Bank through the University Grants Commission by next month, Mizan Rahman reports for Gulf Times. Among the universities, 29 are public and three are in the private sector, officials of the Education Ministry said.
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University World News 0148 - 29th November 2010

This week's highlights

YOJANA SHARMA reports further on the 6th QS Asia Pacific Professional Leaders in Education (APPLE) conference in Singapore. In Features, DAVID HAWORTH covers a conference on the future of science and technology in Europe, MUNYARADZI MAKONI looks at an expanded scholarship scheme aimed at promoting student mobility in Africa, and SHELDON WEEKS discovers why Botswana's planned second public university is in limbo. In Commentary PHIL BATY, editor of the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, argues that measuring the teaching environment makes the THE exercise the world's most comprehensive, and SIPHO SEEPE reviews the first book on one of South Africa's new millennium university mergers.

NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report

UK: Foreign students face curbs on jobs and visas
Brendan O'Malley
The Home Secretary has signalled that she intends to clamp down on the number of international students entering the UK labour market when they graduate and dramatically cut the number of pre-tertiary students coming to the country to study.
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JAPAN: University internationalisation scaled back
Suvendrini Kakuchi
The future of Japan's Global 30 project, established by the government just last year to internationalise universities, is in doubt as it is running out of money. The Education Ministry reported that the budget for universities wanting to be part of the project from April 2011 would not be forthcoming. If and when funding comes available, it will only support the 13 universities already selected.
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ASIA: Regional University Networks developing
Ameen Amjad Khan
Four new regional higher education networks are to be set up in Central and South Asia, it emerged from a high-level research and education policy dialogue held in Islamabad, Pakistan, last week.
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AFRICA-EU: Universities want role on political agenda
Munyaradzi Makoni and Karen MacGregor
The role of universities in Africa and cooperation between universities in Africa and Europe have been politically sidelined, according to associations representing more than 1,000 universities on the two continents. They have called on leaders at the 3rd Africa-EU Summit, starting in Tripoli tomorrow, to place higher education centrally on the political agenda.
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DENMARK: Linking immigration to university rankings
Jan Petter Myklebust
New immigration rules for reunited families should favour candidates who graduate from the world's top 20 universities, the Danish government has proposed.
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US: International students pay nearly $19 billion
Sarah King Head
A study released last week by NAFSA: Association of International Educators estimated that international students and their families contributed an impressive $18.78 billion to the US economy during the 2008-09 academic year - an increase of $1 billion over the previous year.
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AUSTRALIA: Foreign student rights overlooked
Geoff Maslen
The Australian Human Rights Commission has criticised the federal and state governments over a strategy they released relating to international students, arguing that it failed to tackle significant problems including affordable housing and safety.
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EAST AFRICA: Publications available but not accessed
Alison Moodie
East African universities have more journals and scholarly research available to them than ever before, yet staff and students do not appear to be accessing these resources enough, according to a recent study.
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AFRICA-INDIA: New ties to strengthen higher education
Munyaradzi Makoni
India's plans to support a string of higher education and training institutions in Africa will help to push student mobility, add to graduate numbers and nurture a development-centred approach, say African Union Commission officials.
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INDIA: Higher education survey will inform policy
Alya Misha
India will for the first time undertake a comprehensive survey to map access, equity and quality in higher education in order to better inform higher education policies and debates. The pan-India census will plot the lives and performance of all attached to the higher education sector and will map who is in college and who has been left out and why, which students earned a scholarship, which candidates graduated and from where, and how many students are studying abroad.
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EUROPE: Funding criteria 'hamper innovation'
Ian R Dobson*
Funding regimes that prevent universities from turning knowledge into innovative products and services need correction, the League of European Research Universities (LERU) says in its response to the European Union's call for Europe to become a more innovation-friendly continent.
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NEW ZEALAND: University to merge with polytechnic
John Gerritsen
New Zealand's smallest university is to merge with one of its smallest polytechnics next year. The government has approved the union of Lincoln University and Telford Rural Polytechnic - both spec ialists in the rural sector and both located in the country's South Island.
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N IGERIA: Six new universities to meet student demand
Tunde Fatunde
The N igerian government has announced the creation of six new federal universities, aimed at improving access to higher education for the hundreds of thousands of qualified school-leavers who miss out on opportunities each year because of the limited number of places in existing institutions.
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ALGERIA: Universities expanding but problems remain
Jane Marshall
As the new academic year started, La Tribune of Algiers reported on the state of affairs at universities around the country, finding considerable expansion but also instances of overcrowded or sub-standard student housing, inadequate or corrupt management, unsatisfactory transport - and some disruption in the introduction of the Bologna higher education structure.
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ASIA: The 6th QS APPLE conference

The 6th QS Asia Pacific Professional Leaders in Education (APPLE)
conference was held in Singapore from 17-19 November. APPLE is one of the region's biggest international higher education conferences, and this year it attracted 120 higher education experts and university leaders from over 85 institutions in the Asia Pacific. In a second set of stories this week, University World News reports on the conference.

ASIA: Going for world-class research universities
Yojana Sharma
Asian countries with growing economies and high tertiary enrolment rates now want to push on to build world-class research universities. But developing a 'research culture' will take time, a conference of Asia Pacific Professional Leaders in Education (APPLE) heard in Singapore this month.
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ASIA: A plea for university ratings, not rankings
Yojana Sharma
World university rankings criteria are not reliable enough and universities are too diverse to make accurate comparisons, a conference of Asia Pacific Professional Leaders in Education (APPLE) heard in Singapore this month.
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NEWSBRIEFS

DR CONGO: Nearly 100 'non-viable' universities shut
A total of 98 higher education instituions have been closed in five provinces following an audit and an inquiry into their 'viability', reported Infos Plus of Libreville, Gabon.
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CÃ"TE D'IVOIRE: Violence in run-up to election
Just days before this weekend's second round of the presidential election, students in Cocody were attacked by young activists from the RHDP political grouping because they did not support the right candidate, according to press reports. Meanwhile, the US Ambassador warned there would be no future scholarships under its Hubert H Humphrey programme "without a democratic election".
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STUDENT VIEWS

UK: Overseas students question university cuts
Alya Mishra
International students already at universities in the United Kingdom have looked on in astonishment as the government proposed a three-fold increase in domestic tuition fees and swingeing cuts to university funding in England which will hit the social sciences and humanities especially hard.
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FEATURES

EUROPE: Basic and applied science crucial to success
David Haworth
Too few universities teach about turning science into specific products that can be sold on the markets, and too many lack entrepreneurship departments to instruct on how ideas can be turned into money, Dr Bernd Huber, President of Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich, told some 300 researchers at a conference in Brussels on the future of Europe's science and technology.
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AFRICA: Continental student mobility scheme expanded
Munyaradzi Makoni
The major expansion of a pan-African student mobility scheme was announced in Cape Town last week. The European Union has committed EUR35 million (US$46.5 million) to the Mwalimu Nyerere African Scholarship Scheme, which is aimed at promoting student exchange and stemming the African brain drain. It will provide scholarships for 250 postgraduate students to study in another African country.
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BOTSWANA: New science university languishes in limbo
Sheldon Weeks
The new Botswana International University of Science and Technology, BIUST, at Palapye 260 kilometres nort-heast of the capital Gaborone, faces further delays and a reduction in its vision to be a world-class university. New decisions by the government could alter its scope and direction, and it looks very unlikely that BIUST will be able to open before August 2011.
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COMMENTARY

GLOBAL: Crucial to measure teaching in rankings
Since being published in September, the Times Higher Education World University Rankings have come in for criticism from some quarters, and praise from others. Rankings editor, PHIL BATY, says lessons have been learned but argues that the new ranking responds to a major global survey and extensive consultation, examines performance across all core university missions and - crucially - is the only ranking to measure the teaching environment.
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SOUTH AFRICA: Reflections on a major merger
At the start of the new millennium South Africa began a radical restructuring of the higher education sector. The number of universities was cut from 36 to 23 through incorporations and mergers - some creating huge universities - aimed at breaking down apartheid's racial divides and transforming the sector. SIPHO SEEPE reviews the first book published on one of the major mergers, the creation of the 40,000-student University of KwaZulu-Natal.
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UNI-LATERAL

US: New York professor embeds 3rd eye in head
This is a teacher who really keeps an eye on things - three eyes, actually - reports The Independent. Wafaa Bilal, an assistant arts professor at New York University, said on Tuesday that a small camera had been put into the back of his head.
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FACEBOOK

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WORLD ROUND-UP

RUSSIA: Scientists protest luring foreign researchers
Russian scientists and university researchers are protesting a Kremlin effort to attract scientists from overseas to work in Russia, saying the government should raise the wages it pays to Russians instead, writes Anna Nemtsova for The Chronicle of Higher Education.
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PHILIPPINES: Protests erupt over university funding cuts
Students, academics and officials of state universities in the Philippines on Thursday protested against a billion-peso (US$25 million) cut to the budgets of state universities and colleges, reports ABS-CBN.
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INDONESIA: Mixed reviews for private universities
Motorbikes deliver students - some with helmets over their head-scarves, others with laptops slung across their shoulders - down the wide, tree-lined boulevard, past the mosque's gold dome, around a fenced-off excavation site where a ninth-century Hindu temple was uncovered this year, and onto the campus of the Islamic University of Indonesia, writes Liz Gooch for The New York Times.
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INDIA: Top universities improve research index scores
At a time when scientific and research agencies are worried about fewer academics taking up research, it comes as a surprise that most of the top 50 Indian universities have remarkably improved their H-index scores in the latest rankings by the National Institute of Science, Technology and Development Studies in New Delhi, writes D Suresh Kumar for The Times of India.
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INDIA: 44 million higher education students in 10 years
India's higher education enrolment will increase to 44 million from the current 14 million in a decade, the central government said recently. Private players, distance education and foreign education providers will play key roles in ensuring this growth, reports LiveMint.
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US: Low graduation rates at for-profit colleges
A new report on graduation rates at for-profit colleges by a non-profit research and advocacy group charges that such colleges deliver "little more than crippling debt", citing federal data that suggests only 9% of the first-time, full-time bachelor degree students at the University of Phoenix, the nation's largest for-profit college, graduate within six years, writes Tamar Lewin for The New York Times.
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US: AIDS-tainted razors sent to animal researcher
The FBI and University of California at Los Angeles police are investigating a new round of threats from anti-animal research activists who claimed to have sent AIDS-tainted razor blades and a threatening message to a research professor, a university spokesman said on Tuesday, writes Michael Martinez for CNN.
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US: Yale set to return 4,000 Inca treasures to Peru
As Peru counts down to the 100th anniversary of the discovery of Machu Picchu by the American explorer Hiram Bingham, thousands of artefacts taken from the breathtaking lost city of the Incas could soon be returned to the country, writes Stephen Foley for The Independent.
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SOUTH AFRICA: University divided on affirmative action
The University of Cape Town was once a citadel of white privilege on the majestic slopes of Devil's Peak. At the height of apartheid, it admitted few black or mixed-race students, and they were barred from campus dormitories, even forbidden to attend medical school postmortems on white corpses, writes Celia W Dugger for The New York Times.
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UK: Aimhigher brought down by coalition axe
A national programme that aims to widen participation in higher education in the UK is to be scrapped, writes Rebecca Attwood for Times Higher Education. Speaking at a Universities UK conference in London last week, David Willetts, the universities and science minister, said funding for the Aimhigher programme would cease next year.
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IRELAND: Country looks to academe to re-ignite economy
In an audio-research lab strewn with guitars, Dan Barry and his colleagues at the Dublin Institute of Technology fiddle with a computerised tool that can comb the Irish Traditional Music Archive and locate a jig by its tempo or other traits. An Irish company has already licensed the technology, and the researchers are hoping other companies will follow suit, writes Goldie Blumenstyk for The Chronicle of Higher Education.
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CHINA: Top universities to use common entrance exam
Seven prestigious universities in China announced last Sunday that they would begin using the same independent examination - besides the national one - to test students hoping to gain entrance to them in 2011, reports the official Xinhua agency.
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CHINA: Seven universities to assist Tibet University
Seven of China's inland universities, including Peking University, signed 'pairing' assistance agreements in Beijing with Tibet University on 21 November, reports the Chinese government newspaper People's Daily.
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SWEDEN: Universities suffer enrolment drop
The number of first-time students in Sweden's universities declined in the autumn session overall, but the number of new students from other countries increased ahead of the introduction of tuition fees for non-EU students next year, reports The Local.
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