NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report
UK: Deep cuts loom for higher education
Diane Spencer
Academics are up in arms over last Tuesday's emergency budget announced by George Osborne, the coalition government's Chancellor of the Exchequer. Public sector cuts averaging 25% will hit all departmental budgets including universities and while the devil will be in the detail, to be revealed in the comprehensive spending review on 20 October, academics are in for a nervous summer speculating where the axe will fall.
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KYRGYZSTAN: Exams go ahead at damaged universities
Yojana Sharma
Several badly damaged universities in Southern Kyrgyzstan re-opened this week for the first time since unrest erupted in mid-June, to allow students to take their final examinations. But the future of the universities destroyed in recent violence is still unclear, it emerged from a meeting between the Kyrgyz Education Ministry and western donors that took place on Thursday.
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EUROPE: Rankings of little or no value
Alan Osborn
The ranking of universities in order of 'excellence' has become a popular and well-established feature of higher education and is clearly set to continue. But the League of European Research Universities, whose members comprise 22 leading universities in Europe, questions whether rankings have any real value.
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EUROPE: University league tables needed
Jan Petter Myklebust
Europe needs a university league table to encourage competition and boost standards across the continent's higher education sector, an expert committee of the European Parliament has recommended. See also this week's Features section for a report on rankings and research.
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INDIA: Maoist sympathisers targeted
Alya Mishra
Sunil Mandiwal, an assistant professor of Hindi at Delhi's Dayal Singh College, was arrested by the police for questioning and asked if he was a Maoist sympathiser. Mandiwal was released after an interrogation lasting more than three hours but his arrest has shaken the Indian academic community.
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GLOBAL: World students call for free, accessible HE
Unions representing 150 million students worldwide last week called on leaders meeting at the G8 and G20 summits in Canada to forge plans to meet the UN principle of equal access to free higher education, to support education as a public good, and to chart courses towards a more equitable global economy and against poverty and global warming.
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US: Credit hour under attack
John Richard Schrock*
Despite eight months of intense lobbying by for-profit colleges, the US Department of Education has proposed rules for student aid that try to curtail funding going to questionable courses and programmes.
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GERMANY: Scepticism over new student finance deal
Michael Gardner
The German parliament has approved an increase in financial support for students as well as a new grants system for the specially gifted. The new measure has yet to gain the backing of the Upper House, representing the state governments. Their approval is highly uncertain.
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POLAND: Focus on technical education
Jaroslaw Adamowski
The Polish government wants to boost the number of graduates from technical faculties. Late last month, the Ministry of Science and Higher Education allocated 210 million zloty (US$60 million) to create special scholarships for students at the nation's polytechnics and universities.
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FINLAND: Change the only constant in higher education
Ian R Dobson*
Finland's Universities Act of 2009 produced major changes in governance and funding from the start of 2010. This seems to have whetted the government's appetite for reform and by 2020 there will be fewer universities and polytechnics, changes will be made in the disciplinary mix and student intakes will be reduced.
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AUSTRALIA: Left-field research rewarded
Geoff Maslen
Australia's major research funding body, the National Health and Medical Research Council, has announced it will support unusual or 'transformative' research ideas. In an announcement on its website the council says a common criticism of government funding agencies around the world is that their peer reviewers are conservative, "tending to support the next logical step in a research programme and sometimes miss new ideas and approaches that are potentially transformative or go against current thinking in the field".
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NEWSBRIEFS
EU: Europeans want research boost
Europeans are more interested in science than sport and want EU research boosted, a new survey has found. A 'Eurobarometer' report published last week notes that nearly 80% of Europeans say they are interested in scientific discoveries and technological developments, compared with 65% interested in sport.
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THE NETHERLANDS: Foreign researchers stay
Jan Petter Myklebust
The Netherlands is the third most attractive destination after the US and Switzerland to foreign researchers, according to a survey of 11 Western countries.
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BUSINESS
CANADA: University and city forge green alliance
Cayley Dobie
Canada's University of British Columbia is working with the city of Vancouver to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and encourage more sustainable community living across this coastal city - with potential to set an example for partnerships between other universities and cities around the world.
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GLOBAL: Optimism grows for future MBA graduates
Cayley Dobie
The Graduate Management Admission Council, the non-profit graduate business school organisation based in Virginia, US, has released a survey finding that although job markets for new business school graduates remain tough there are signs employers have become more willing to hire, as their confidence in economic recovery grows.
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GLOBAL: Plan for your own international career
Cayley Dobie
Individuals looking for global experience must venture out on their own career path to satisfy personal international goals as organisations are less inclined to structure a career path for employees in today's uncertain climate, according to research by Belgian Professor Maddy Janssens.
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THE UNIVERSITY WORLD NEWS INTERVIEW
NAMIBIA: Training for the future: Hangula's approach
Professor Lazarus Hangula, Vice-chancellor of the University of Namibia, has been described as an innovative administrator. Calm on the surface, he paddles energetically below. Moses Magadza interviewed Hangula for University World News, to try to find out what drives the man at the controls of Namibia's academic blast furnace.
Full report on the University World News site:
FEATURES
RANKINGS: A boost for EU research profile?
Martin Ince*
Think of the European Union and you may think of a body that hands massive subsidies to unprofitable farmers. But even at its inception in 1957 research was one of the European Community's first objectives. Now it has grown into a central concern for the EU.
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GLOBAL: Save money switching to OpenSim
Jie Hu*
Educators in post-secondary institutions, colleges and schools looking for lower costs, better controls and no age restrictions might consider switching from Second Life to its open source alternative, the OpenSim virtual world server platform.
Full report on the University World News site:
HE Research and Commentary
AUSTRALIA: How goes the higher education revolution?
Vin Massaro
The Oxford English Dictionary defines a revolution as a dramatic and wide-ranging change in the way something works. It is still not clear how Australia's higher education landscape might be changed fundamentally by the conservative blueprint designed by the 2008 Bradley report, but I suspect it will not approach the revolutionary effects of the Dawkins reforms begun in 1987 by then Labor Education Minister John Dawkins.
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GLOBAL: Financing higher education worldwide
A new book from Johns Hopkins University Press Financing Higher Education Worldwide: Who pays? Who should pay? by D Bruce Johnstone and Pamela N Marcucci, concludes that while cost-sharing in higher education is still politically and ideologically debated, it is essential for the financial health of colleges and universities and achieves improved efficiency, equity and responsiveness.
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UNI-LATERAL: Off-beat university stories
AUSTRALIA: Turning containers into community centres
Students from the Melbourne School of Design at the University of Melbourne are converting old shipping containers into new community centres for the Aboriginal Gudorrka Community and Knuckey's Lagoon Community in the Northern Territory.
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GLOBAL: Hymns help relieve pain of early suffering
He was the Bernie Taupin of his time, the lyricist for popular hymns such as Hark the Herald Angels Sing and Oh for a Thousand Tongues. Yet a significant part of Charles Wesley's back catalogue dealt with pain and suffering and after years of popular appeal, dropped out of favour in the 19th century. Australian historian Dr Joanna Cruickshank tracked the reasons and how they helped early men and women make sense of the physical, emotional and spiritual pains they experienced.
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BANGLADESH: University closes after World Cup riots
One of Bangladesh's leading universities closed indefinitely last Sunday after five people were injured in riots by students demanding time off to watch the football World Cup, police said, reports Cat Barton for AFP.
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FACEBOOK
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WORLD ROUND-UP
IRAN: University at the heart of a power struggle
A dispute in Iran over control of a vast network of semi-private universities is starting to resemble a bitter custody battle, pitting President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad against one of his political rivals, Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, for control of the schools and the 1.5 million faculty members and students, write Ramin Mostaghim and Meris Lutz for the Los Angeles Times blog Babylon & Beyond.
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US: Hundreds of Iraqi students arrive soon
Iraqi and American educators are collaborating to send hundreds of Iraqi students to the US, where they will study at American universities and then return home to help rebuild Iraq's higher-education infrastructure, writes Didi Tang for USA Today.
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US: NYU Abu Dhabi scours globe for top students
Laith Aqel, co-valedictorian of his high school graduating class in Wayne, New Jersey, and juggler of too many activities to list, says he always envisioned himself on a classic New England campus with "Gothic architecture and big grass lawns", writes Lisa W Foderaro for The New York Times. He weighed offers from Tufts University, Boston College's honours programme and New York University. But when he leaves for college later this year, he will travel 11,100 kilometres to Abu Dhabi in the Persian Gulf.
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AUSTRALIA: Universities urge state to kill visa bill
Umut Ozguc is the kind of foreign research talent Australia needs in order to fend off the skills shortage, but she is worried she may have to pack and leave the country in 28 days under proposed visa changes, writes Guy Healy for The Australian. Universities Australia has called for natural justice for overseas students caught up in the government's crackdown on dodgy colleges.
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US: Harvard case deepens immigration debate
The memory is a blurry snapshot in his mind, writes Maria Sacchetti for The Boston Globe. Eric Balderas was four years old, curled up under covers on a raft. He could see the sun poking through the sky, hear whispers above him, and feel the swell of the Rio Grande below. It was the day his family crossed the border illegally from Mexico into the US - a day that shadowed him all his life and until recently threatened to derail his extraordinary rise from the son of a factory worker, to school valedictorian in Texas, to Harvard.
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AFRICA: Nine problems that hinder partnerships
African higher education faces a crisis. The quality of university teaching and research has declined drastically as institutions across the continent contend with budget cuts, growing enrollments, repeated strikes, a crumbling infrastructure and a migration of the most talented professors to developed countries, comment John D Holm and Leapetsewe Malete in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
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US: For-profit higher education scrutiny at Capitol Hill
Earlier this month, the hub of the US federal government's scrutiny of for-profit higher education was the Department of Education, where a team of staffers were putting the finishing touches to a set of proposed regulations aimed at reining in abuses of the federal financial aid programme, writes Jennifer Epstein for Inside Higher Ed. Abruptly, though, since the draft rules were released on 15 June, the activity has moved to Capitol Hill - a change in location that has been accompanied by an equally sudden and stark shift in the focus and tone of the debate about for-profit colleges and universities.
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MALAYSIA: New plan seeks to enhance skills
Malaysia's government is showing it means business by proposing comprehensive changes to higher education under the 10th Malaysia Plan, or 10MP, write Karen Chapman, Tan Shiow Chin and Richard Lim for The Star. Changes include holding vice-chancellors accountable for their institution's performance and putting more emphasis on technical and vocational training.
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SOUTH KOREA: Wage freeze for low-performing academics
Professors at state-funded universities in South Korea will be subject to a strict performance evaluation from 2015, with the bottom 10% facing a wage freeze, reports Lee Hyo-sik for The Korea Times. But the top 20% of academics will receive up to two times the average performance-based salary as a bonus, with those who produce groundbreaking research results receiving as much as four times the average performance pay.
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SOUTH KOREA: Seven in 10 foreign students are Chinese
Seven out of every 10 foreign students in South Korea are Chinese nationals and more foreigners are visiting Korea for academic purposes, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology said last Sunday, writes Bae Ji-sook for The Korea Times.
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UK: Half of university students willing to cheat
Half of Britain's university students are prepared to cheat in their exams by handing in essays bought off the internet, new research reveals, writes Julie Henry for The Telegraph. The study suggests rampant plagiarism at universities, with thousands of cases going unreported because if essays are bespoke and written to undergraduates' specifications, they are unlikely to be detected by anti-plagiarism software.
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UK: Student fees hike 'may cut applications by half'
A big rise in tuition fees would lead to a dramatic reduction in the number of UK teenagers aspiring to go to university, with those from poorer backgrounds the most likely to give up hope of getting a degree, research revealed last week, writes Rachel Williams for The Guardian.
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INDIA: New body to promote basic research planned
India's government is planning to establish a separate agency to coordinate with research organisations, provide funds and advise a proposed overarching higher education body on promotion of basic research, reports ZeeNews.
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US: Judge rejects creationists' effort to offer masters
A US federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit by a creationism think tank and graduate school that attempted to force the state of Texas to allow it to offer masters degrees in science education, writes Melissa Ludwig for San Antonio Express-News.
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Sunday 27 June 2010
Sunday 20 June 2010
University World News 0129 - 21st June 2010
NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report
RANKINGS 1: Thousands respond to THE survey
David Jobbins
The opinions of more than 13,000 academics will be used to build a picture of the standard of teaching and research in the world's universities for the 2010 Times Higher Education World University Ranking. Despite an increased sample size, the findings will account for 20% of final scores, compared with 40% under the methodology used from 2004 to 2009. Meanwhile its main rival, QS, is introducing a rating system to better reflect the diversity of institutions by measuring their broader missions.
Full report on the University World News site:
RANKINGS 2: Research-oriented will be favoured
Ross Williams*
The Times Higher Education magazine is to be commended for the transparent manner in which it is going about developing its new world ranking of universities in conjunction with Thomson Reuters.But, compared with the previous THE-QS rankings, the new THE methodology is likely to favour selective research-oriented institutions such as Caltech at the expense of comprehensive universities with large numbers of undergraduates.
Full report on the University World News site:
INDIA: Back to the classroom for institution heads
Alya Mishra
In an ambitious attempt to improve the quality of Indian universities, and bring them up to world-class standards, the men and women heading India's newest higher education institutions will be returning to the classroom - to take lessons in leadership. See our Features section for the rise of the cram school in India.
Full reports on the University World News site:
GREECE: Bleak prospects for universities
Makki Marseilles
Universities and academic staff at all levels have been hard hit following the Greek government's unprecedented (for peace-time) severe austerity measures demanded by the IMF, the Central European Bank and the European Commission in an effort to establish fiscal discipline in the country.
Full report on the University World News site:
UNESCO: Controversial prize decision deferred
Jane Marshall
The Unesco executive board has postponed a decision on whether to award or abandon a controversial science prize named after and funded by the dictatorial President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea.
Full report on the University World News site:
EUROPE: New higher education directorate
Alan Osborn
Is the European Commission going to give higher education a much higher profile? The creation of a new Brussels directorate devoted entirely to higher education has been welcomed by universities in the European Union - but they could be reading too much into the move.
Full report on the University World News site:
UK: Special plea for humanities
Diane Spencer
Drastic funding cuts to university and research budgets will imperil the massive contribution to the UK's economic, social and cultural life made by the humanities and social sciences, the President of the British Academy, Professor Sir Adam Roberts, warned last week. Roberts was launching a new booklet Past, Present and Future in the House of Commons, as part of Universities Week. The academy is the country's national institution for the humanities and social sciences.
Full report on the University World News site:
UK: Impact of new government funding
Vincent King*
The level of public sector borrowing and the need for funding cuts were key election issues and have rarely been out of the press over the last couple of years. With the formation of the coalition government, what does the future hold for higher education funding? There is some degree of uncertainty but what do we know?
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US: Private college students loaded with debt
Private colleges across America have been accused of using high-pressure sales tactics to recruit vulnerable students that leave them heavily in debt and unlikely to find well-paying jobs. The online University of Phoenix's parent company recently paid US$80 million to settle charges that it violated a federal ban to reimburse recruiters based on the number of students they recruited.
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EUROPE: Empowering universities
Jan Petter Myklebust
With publication of A Chance for European universities by Jo Ritzen, former Dutch Education Minister and President of Maastricht University, a high-level conference in Brussels has worked out a manifesto based on the new book.
Full report on the University World News site:
GERMANY: Education summit a 'black day'
Michael Gardner
Germany's Education and Science Union has called an education summit in Berlin a "black day for education". The meeting between the heads of state governments and the federal government, led by Christian Democrat Chancellor Angela Merkel, failed to reach an agreement on funding additional investment in education and research.
Full report on the University World News site:
KENYA: Funding boost for public universities
Gilbert Nganga
Kenya will spend an extra US$293 million on its seven public universities during the next financial year beginning in July, potentially easing a biting admission crisis plaguing the institutions and improving a dwindling quality of learning. Subsidies to universities will nearly double, from $360 million to $640 million.
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N IGERIA: Power tussle over entrance examinations
Tunde Fatunde
N igeria's Committee of Vice-chancellors and the Joint Matriculation Examination Board - an entrance examination board for all tertiary institutions - are at each other's throats again over the holding of separate university entrance exams. The national assembly wants one of the two entrance exam systems cancelled and neither group wants it to be theirs.
Full report on the University World News site:
NAMIBIA: First schools for vets and pharmacists
Moses Magadza
The University of Namibia recently launched the country's first schools of engineering and medicine and is planning two more firsts: schools of veterinary science and pharmacy are to open next year. The country suffers serious shortages of professionals in both fields.
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NEWSBRIEFS
ZAMBIA: Japanese technology links universities
Talent Ng'andwe
Zambia's two major public universities will soon have access to more research and learning materials, via a link between them using Japan's XVD video conference technology. The e-learning programme, launched in the capital Lusaka, is the first step in a government initiative that aims to provide higher quality, more affordable education to all citizens.
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ZAMBIA: Private development for top university
Talent Ng'andwe
Creaking under strains of limited state funding, dilapidated infrastructure and insufficient personnel, the University of Zambia has handed over land for private development by a consortium called Graduare Property Development Limited. Under a public-private partnership the company will invest US$150 million in constructing a business park, a three-star hotel, staff housing, a sports stadium and student hostels.
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FRANCOPHONE AFRICA: E-training for primary teachers
The first evaluation of an experimental distance training project for primary school French teachers in three African countries and Haiti has taken place. Ifadem, the francophone initiative for distance training of teachers, is a joint collaboration between the French-speaking University Agency, AUF, and the International Organisation for the French Speaking World.
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TOGO: Protesting students reject Bologna
Police intervened this month at the University of Lomé's faculty of arts and economic sciences where students were demonstrating against the new higher education system based on Europe's Bologna process.
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WEST AFRICA: Bank to fund higher education
The African Development Bank is joining forces with the countries of the West African Economic and Monetary Union to invest in higher education for the first time. Mohamed H'Midouche, the bank's regional representative, told a meeting in Dakar that the bank's funding would total FCFA30 billion (US$55.8 million).
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SWAZILAND: Science and technology park planned
Munyaradzi Makoni
Plans to set up a science and technology park are taking shape in Swaziland in a drive to increase the country's scientific competitiveness and create links between researchers and industry. The park, to be built outside the main industrial centre Manzini, will have research and development facilities for biotechnology and information and communication technologies.
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AFRICA- SENEGAL: Virtual University successes
Set up to bridge the digital North-South divide, the African Virtual University has also proved a success in the education of women and of students living in areas of conflict, said Dr Bakary Diallo, the university's rector.
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SCIENCE SCENE
UK: Time to rethink science and development
A British research group is urging the world's most powerful nations to link their science policies more closely to development objectives. The STEPS Centre*, a research group at the University of Sussex, has launched Innovation, Sustainability, Development: A New Manifesto, for the G8 meeting scheduled for later this month in Canada.
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US: Malaria increases when rain forest cut
Researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison have presented new evidence linking the incidence of malaria with the felling of tropical rainforest. The study compared malaria cases in 54 Brazilian health districts with the extent of logging in the Amazon forest. It showed that clearing tropical forest boosted the incidence of malaria by nearly 50%.
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UK: Mongooses pass on traditions
Researchers have proved that mongooses can pass on traditions, a finding they say provides insight into how complex human culture could have evolved.
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FEATURES
INDIA: Students crowd the cram schools
Alya Mishra
With increasing competition for limited higher education places, cram schools have mushroomed across India. Most have prospered by promising to give students an extra edge - training them with the sole aim of cracking the university entrance test.
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EUROPE: Diversity prevails despite extensive reforms
Jan Petter Myklebust
Extensive university reforms have taken place in Europe over the past decade and more. But while system performance improved significantly, diversity remained one of the most striking features of European higher education, according to a comprehensive report, Progress in Higher Education Reforms across Europe.
Full report on the University World News site:
GREECE: File to factory architecture
Makki Marseilles
The construction industry has always aimed for closer cooperation - between architects and builders, academics and practitioners, theory and practice, design and materials, teaching methods and practical application. But reality usually fails to match ambition. Now an exhibition based on students' research attempts to provide the missing links.
Full report on the University World News site:
THE UNIVERSITY WORLD NEWS INTERVIEW
DENMARK: Beware multi-disciplinarity: ex-lecturer
Jan Petter Myklebust
Søren Nors Nielsen is the only lecturer sacked from Copenhagen University prepared to be interviewed by the Danish researchers' union Forskerforum. Nielsen, a former faculty of pharmaceutical sciences lecturer, also agreed to speak to University World News for this report.
Full report on the University World News site:
HE RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
CAMBODIA: Key role for universities in healing society
Vicheth Sen*
Universities need to move beyond their traditional roles of teaching, learning and research towards another core function - linking campuses to communities. They can play a key role in organising programmes in which students have the opportunity to be engaged in civic activities. This is particularly important in countries like Cambodia, which have been damaged by severe societal breakdowns in the past.
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US: After the oil spill
Disturbing trends from the March 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska are being repeated in the Gulf of Mexico disaster, comments Charles Wohlforth in the Los Angeles Times. After spending around half a billion dollars, scientists paid by the government to study the Exxon Valdez oil spill over the last two decades still cannot answer some of the most important questions about the damage it caused or about whether Prince William Sound will fully recover.
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UNI-LATERAL: Off-beat university stories
FINLAND: Sport for all
Ian R Dobson*
Most of the world's attention has been focused on the FIFA World Cup soccer tournament and, although their team is not among those competing, Finns have been involved in intellectual participation in sport by hosting last week's 13th World Sport for All Congress.
Full report on the University World News site :
DENMARK: Taking exams at the Comics Convention
Christoffer Zieler*
Why give students grades in a boring classroom when you can haul your arts class to a comics convention and turn the whole thing into a public spectacle? If you combine the sweet and the sinister you will probably end up creating something disturbing.
Full report on the University World News site:
ITALY: University for slow food gastronomes
Students from around the world are flocking to a one-of-a-kind university devoted to the slow food movement, founded nearly a quarter century ago to promote "good, clean and fair" food, writes Mathieu Gorse for AFP. Nestled in the heart of the Langhe wine-producing region, near the white truffle 'capital' Alba, the University of Gastronomic Sciences, or UNISG, has a student body of more than 300.
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FACEBOOK
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WORLD ROUND-UP
PAKISTAN: Degrees of 228 lawmakers to be verified
Pakistan's Election Commission has sent the degrees of 228 lawmakers to the national assembly's standing committee on education, for their onward transmission to the Higher Education Commission for verification, Dawn learned last Monday, reports Iftikhar A Khan.
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IRAN: Student activism endures a year after crackdown
A handful of protests, including reportedly violent clashes at two of Tehran's leading universities, marked the anniversary last weekend of the disputed presidential election in Iran that ignited a wave of unrest last year, convulsing the country for weeks with widespread anti-government demonstrations, writes Aisha Labi for The Chronicle of Higher Education.
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MALAYSIA: University drive against terrorism
Malaysia's government will enlist the help of universities to stop Islamic militants using campuses as recruitment centres for their violent struggle, according to the deputy premier, reports AFP. Muhyiddin Yassin said police would hold a special briefing for university administrators following the recent deportation of 10 foreigners for trying to recruit Malaysian students to wage holy war overseas.
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MALAYSIA: Cuts to undergraduate foreign scholarships
Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak has confirmed that undergraduate scholarships for critical courses overseas will be phased out gradually, write Minderjeet Kaur, Masami Mustaza and Roy See Wei Zhi for the New Straits Times. The government will focus on enhancing the ranking of higher learning institutions and universities, and plans to increase scholarships for postgraduate study abroad.
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MALAYSIA: Full autonomy for top universities by 2015
Malaysia's five research universities are expected to obtain full autonomy by 2015, Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin said on Tuesday, reports the official news agency Bernama.
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UK: Universities' outside work pulls in £3 billion
While the rest of the economy was withering in the teeth of the recession, British universities increased their outside revenues from business partners and selling services to the public sector to a record £3 billion (US$4.4 billion), writes Robert Lea for The Sunday Times.
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US: Jump in college enrolment highest in 40 years
America's colleges are attracting record numbers of new students as more Hispanics finish high school and young adults opt to pursue a higher education rather than languish in a weak job market, writes Hope Yen for the Associated Press.
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US: Money finally flows for spill research
Scientists say that one of the most critical needs in responding to the oil spill is a far more vigorous research effort in the Gulf of Mexico to track the impact that the oil is having, write Justin Gillis and Yeganeh June Torbati in The New York Times Green blog. But money for that purpose has been slow to arrive.
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ABU DHABI: Expensive overhaul of higher education
Abu Dhabi plans to spend about 4.9 billion UAE dirhams (US$1.3 billion) a year from 2018, mostly on research and development, in an overhaul of higher education that will fill a key gap in its economic development plan, officials said late last week, reports the business information company Zawya.
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CZECH: University budget cut to lower student numbers
The Czech Education Ministry will cut university budgets from the next academic year by 5% for bachelor and 10% for masters programmes to regulate the excessive number of students, Deputy Minister Vlastimil Ruzicka told journalists last on Wednesday, reports the Prague Daily Monitor.
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SINGAPORE: Another shot in the arm for research
Two more research centres will be established in Singapore, focusing on areas such as electric vehicles and biomedical science, writes Lester Kok for AsiaOne. They are the two newest additions to the National Research Foundation's Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise (Create) programme, bringing the total number of centres to five.
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SAUDI ARABIA: Business schools eye desert kingdom
International business schools eager for new markets are looking to Saudi Arabia, where a still-strong economy and a big government push to boost management skills have created a pool of potential MBAs, writes Beth Gardiner for The Wall Street Journal.
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SRI LANKA: Plan to monitor higher education
Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapaksa has backed a plan to liberalise university education and set up a mechanism to monitor and evaluate the quality of foreign and local higher education, an official said, reports Lanka Business Online.
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CANADA: Dope offences suspend university's football
The University of Waterloo suspended its football programme for one season last week after the revelation that nine members of the team committed doping offences, while officials overseeing university sports in Canada admit a lack of resources means they are at a loss to know the full scope of performance-enhancing drug use, writes Mark Masters for The National Post.
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PAKISTAN: Struggle to raise university language skills
A project launched in 2004 to halt declining English language skills among students at Pakistan's public universities has entered a second three-year phase amid concern that low language proficiency continues to hamper higher-education reforms and is putting the latest international research out of reach for academics, writes Max de Lotbinière for The Guardian.
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UGANDA: Extra points fails to end science gender gap
The introduction in Uganda of 1.5 extra points for female applicants wanting to enrol in public universities 20 years ago has failed to bridge the gender gap in science disciplines, writes Patience Ahimbisibwe for the Daily Monitor.
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US: Professor charged in brother's 1986 shooting death
It was "obviously" a homicide case, a former prosecutor says, but authorities didn't have the evidence to present it to a grand jury at the time, writes Bob Salsberg for the Associated Press. Amy Bishop, the biology professor charged with killing three of her colleagues at an Alabama university, has been indicted on a first-degree murder charge in the 1986 shooting death of her brother in Massachusetts, prosecutors announced on Wednesday.
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RANKINGS 1: Thousands respond to THE survey
David Jobbins
The opinions of more than 13,000 academics will be used to build a picture of the standard of teaching and research in the world's universities for the 2010 Times Higher Education World University Ranking. Despite an increased sample size, the findings will account for 20% of final scores, compared with 40% under the methodology used from 2004 to 2009. Meanwhile its main rival, QS, is introducing a rating system to better reflect the diversity of institutions by measuring their broader missions.
Full report on the University World News site:
RANKINGS 2: Research-oriented will be favoured
Ross Williams*
The Times Higher Education magazine is to be commended for the transparent manner in which it is going about developing its new world ranking of universities in conjunction with Thomson Reuters.But, compared with the previous THE-QS rankings, the new THE methodology is likely to favour selective research-oriented institutions such as Caltech at the expense of comprehensive universities with large numbers of undergraduates.
Full report on the University World News site:
INDIA: Back to the classroom for institution heads
Alya Mishra
In an ambitious attempt to improve the quality of Indian universities, and bring them up to world-class standards, the men and women heading India's newest higher education institutions will be returning to the classroom - to take lessons in leadership. See our Features section for the rise of the cram school in India.
Full reports on the University World News site:
GREECE: Bleak prospects for universities
Makki Marseilles
Universities and academic staff at all levels have been hard hit following the Greek government's unprecedented (for peace-time) severe austerity measures demanded by the IMF, the Central European Bank and the European Commission in an effort to establish fiscal discipline in the country.
Full report on the University World News site:
UNESCO: Controversial prize decision deferred
Jane Marshall
The Unesco executive board has postponed a decision on whether to award or abandon a controversial science prize named after and funded by the dictatorial President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea.
Full report on the University World News site:
EUROPE: New higher education directorate
Alan Osborn
Is the European Commission going to give higher education a much higher profile? The creation of a new Brussels directorate devoted entirely to higher education has been welcomed by universities in the European Union - but they could be reading too much into the move.
Full report on the University World News site:
UK: Special plea for humanities
Diane Spencer
Drastic funding cuts to university and research budgets will imperil the massive contribution to the UK's economic, social and cultural life made by the humanities and social sciences, the President of the British Academy, Professor Sir Adam Roberts, warned last week. Roberts was launching a new booklet Past, Present and Future in the House of Commons, as part of Universities Week. The academy is the country's national institution for the humanities and social sciences.
Full report on the University World News site:
UK: Impact of new government funding
Vincent King*
The level of public sector borrowing and the need for funding cuts were key election issues and have rarely been out of the press over the last couple of years. With the formation of the coalition government, what does the future hold for higher education funding? There is some degree of uncertainty but what do we know?
Full report on the University World News site:
US: Private college students loaded with debt
Private colleges across America have been accused of using high-pressure sales tactics to recruit vulnerable students that leave them heavily in debt and unlikely to find well-paying jobs. The online University of Phoenix's parent company recently paid US$80 million to settle charges that it violated a federal ban to reimburse recruiters based on the number of students they recruited.
Full report on the University World News site:
EUROPE: Empowering universities
Jan Petter Myklebust
With publication of A Chance for European universities by Jo Ritzen, former Dutch Education Minister and President of Maastricht University, a high-level conference in Brussels has worked out a manifesto based on the new book.
Full report on the University World News site:
GERMANY: Education summit a 'black day'
Michael Gardner
Germany's Education and Science Union has called an education summit in Berlin a "black day for education". The meeting between the heads of state governments and the federal government, led by Christian Democrat Chancellor Angela Merkel, failed to reach an agreement on funding additional investment in education and research.
Full report on the University World News site:
KENYA: Funding boost for public universities
Gilbert Nganga
Kenya will spend an extra US$293 million on its seven public universities during the next financial year beginning in July, potentially easing a biting admission crisis plaguing the institutions and improving a dwindling quality of learning. Subsidies to universities will nearly double, from $360 million to $640 million.
Full report on the University World News site:
N IGERIA: Power tussle over entrance examinations
Tunde Fatunde
N igeria's Committee of Vice-chancellors and the Joint Matriculation Examination Board - an entrance examination board for all tertiary institutions - are at each other's throats again over the holding of separate university entrance exams. The national assembly wants one of the two entrance exam systems cancelled and neither group wants it to be theirs.
Full report on the University World News site:
NAMIBIA: First schools for vets and pharmacists
Moses Magadza
The University of Namibia recently launched the country's first schools of engineering and medicine and is planning two more firsts: schools of veterinary science and pharmacy are to open next year. The country suffers serious shortages of professionals in both fields.
Full report on the University World News site:
NEWSBRIEFS
ZAMBIA: Japanese technology links universities
Talent Ng'andwe
Zambia's two major public universities will soon have access to more research and learning materials, via a link between them using Japan's XVD video conference technology. The e-learning programme, launched in the capital Lusaka, is the first step in a government initiative that aims to provide higher quality, more affordable education to all citizens.
Full report on the University World News site:
ZAMBIA: Private development for top university
Talent Ng'andwe
Creaking under strains of limited state funding, dilapidated infrastructure and insufficient personnel, the University of Zambia has handed over land for private development by a consortium called Graduare Property Development Limited. Under a public-private partnership the company will invest US$150 million in constructing a business park, a three-star hotel, staff housing, a sports stadium and student hostels.
Full report on the University World News site:
FRANCOPHONE AFRICA: E-training for primary teachers
The first evaluation of an experimental distance training project for primary school French teachers in three African countries and Haiti has taken place. Ifadem, the francophone initiative for distance training of teachers, is a joint collaboration between the French-speaking University Agency, AUF, and the International Organisation for the French Speaking World.
Full report on the University World News site:
TOGO: Protesting students reject Bologna
Police intervened this month at the University of Lomé's faculty of arts and economic sciences where students were demonstrating against the new higher education system based on Europe's Bologna process.
Full report on the University World News site:
WEST AFRICA: Bank to fund higher education
The African Development Bank is joining forces with the countries of the West African Economic and Monetary Union to invest in higher education for the first time. Mohamed H'Midouche, the bank's regional representative, told a meeting in Dakar that the bank's funding would total FCFA30 billion (US$55.8 million).
Full report on the University World News site:
SWAZILAND: Science and technology park planned
Munyaradzi Makoni
Plans to set up a science and technology park are taking shape in Swaziland in a drive to increase the country's scientific competitiveness and create links between researchers and industry. The park, to be built outside the main industrial centre Manzini, will have research and development facilities for biotechnology and information and communication technologies.
Full report on the University World News site:
AFRICA- SENEGAL: Virtual University successes
Set up to bridge the digital North-South divide, the African Virtual University has also proved a success in the education of women and of students living in areas of conflict, said Dr Bakary Diallo, the university's rector.
Full report on the University World News site:
SCIENCE SCENE
UK: Time to rethink science and development
A British research group is urging the world's most powerful nations to link their science policies more closely to development objectives. The STEPS Centre*, a research group at the University of Sussex, has launched Innovation, Sustainability, Development: A New Manifesto, for the G8 meeting scheduled for later this month in Canada.
Full report on the University World News site:
US: Malaria increases when rain forest cut
Researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison have presented new evidence linking the incidence of malaria with the felling of tropical rainforest. The study compared malaria cases in 54 Brazilian health districts with the extent of logging in the Amazon forest. It showed that clearing tropical forest boosted the incidence of malaria by nearly 50%.
Full report on the University World News site:
UK: Mongooses pass on traditions
Researchers have proved that mongooses can pass on traditions, a finding they say provides insight into how complex human culture could have evolved.
Full report on the University World News site:
FEATURES
INDIA: Students crowd the cram schools
Alya Mishra
With increasing competition for limited higher education places, cram schools have mushroomed across India. Most have prospered by promising to give students an extra edge - training them with the sole aim of cracking the university entrance test.
Full report on the University World News site:
EUROPE: Diversity prevails despite extensive reforms
Jan Petter Myklebust
Extensive university reforms have taken place in Europe over the past decade and more. But while system performance improved significantly, diversity remained one of the most striking features of European higher education, according to a comprehensive report, Progress in Higher Education Reforms across Europe.
Full report on the University World News site:
GREECE: File to factory architecture
Makki Marseilles
The construction industry has always aimed for closer cooperation - between architects and builders, academics and practitioners, theory and practice, design and materials, teaching methods and practical application. But reality usually fails to match ambition. Now an exhibition based on students' research attempts to provide the missing links.
Full report on the University World News site:
THE UNIVERSITY WORLD NEWS INTERVIEW
DENMARK: Beware multi-disciplinarity: ex-lecturer
Jan Petter Myklebust
Søren Nors Nielsen is the only lecturer sacked from Copenhagen University prepared to be interviewed by the Danish researchers' union Forskerforum. Nielsen, a former faculty of pharmaceutical sciences lecturer, also agreed to speak to University World News for this report.
Full report on the University World News site:
HE RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
CAMBODIA: Key role for universities in healing society
Vicheth Sen*
Universities need to move beyond their traditional roles of teaching, learning and research towards another core function - linking campuses to communities. They can play a key role in organising programmes in which students have the opportunity to be engaged in civic activities. This is particularly important in countries like Cambodia, which have been damaged by severe societal breakdowns in the past.
Full report on the University World News site:
US: After the oil spill
Disturbing trends from the March 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska are being repeated in the Gulf of Mexico disaster, comments Charles Wohlforth in the Los Angeles Times. After spending around half a billion dollars, scientists paid by the government to study the Exxon Valdez oil spill over the last two decades still cannot answer some of the most important questions about the damage it caused or about whether Prince William Sound will fully recover.
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UNI-LATERAL: Off-beat university stories
FINLAND: Sport for all
Ian R Dobson*
Most of the world's attention has been focused on the FIFA World Cup soccer tournament and, although their team is not among those competing, Finns have been involved in intellectual participation in sport by hosting last week's 13th World Sport for All Congress.
Full report on the University World News site :
DENMARK: Taking exams at the Comics Convention
Christoffer Zieler*
Why give students grades in a boring classroom when you can haul your arts class to a comics convention and turn the whole thing into a public spectacle? If you combine the sweet and the sinister you will probably end up creating something disturbing.
Full report on the University World News site:
ITALY: University for slow food gastronomes
Students from around the world are flocking to a one-of-a-kind university devoted to the slow food movement, founded nearly a quarter century ago to promote "good, clean and fair" food, writes Mathieu Gorse for AFP. Nestled in the heart of the Langhe wine-producing region, near the white truffle 'capital' Alba, the University of Gastronomic Sciences, or UNISG, has a student body of more than 300.
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WORLD ROUND-UP
PAKISTAN: Degrees of 228 lawmakers to be verified
Pakistan's Election Commission has sent the degrees of 228 lawmakers to the national assembly's standing committee on education, for their onward transmission to the Higher Education Commission for verification, Dawn learned last Monday, reports Iftikhar A Khan.
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IRAN: Student activism endures a year after crackdown
A handful of protests, including reportedly violent clashes at two of Tehran's leading universities, marked the anniversary last weekend of the disputed presidential election in Iran that ignited a wave of unrest last year, convulsing the country for weeks with widespread anti-government demonstrations, writes Aisha Labi for The Chronicle of Higher Education.
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MALAYSIA: University drive against terrorism
Malaysia's government will enlist the help of universities to stop Islamic militants using campuses as recruitment centres for their violent struggle, according to the deputy premier, reports AFP. Muhyiddin Yassin said police would hold a special briefing for university administrators following the recent deportation of 10 foreigners for trying to recruit Malaysian students to wage holy war overseas.
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MALAYSIA: Cuts to undergraduate foreign scholarships
Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak has confirmed that undergraduate scholarships for critical courses overseas will be phased out gradually, write Minderjeet Kaur, Masami Mustaza and Roy See Wei Zhi for the New Straits Times. The government will focus on enhancing the ranking of higher learning institutions and universities, and plans to increase scholarships for postgraduate study abroad.
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MALAYSIA: Full autonomy for top universities by 2015
Malaysia's five research universities are expected to obtain full autonomy by 2015, Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin said on Tuesday, reports the official news agency Bernama.
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UK: Universities' outside work pulls in £3 billion
While the rest of the economy was withering in the teeth of the recession, British universities increased their outside revenues from business partners and selling services to the public sector to a record £3 billion (US$4.4 billion), writes Robert Lea for The Sunday Times.
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US: Jump in college enrolment highest in 40 years
America's colleges are attracting record numbers of new students as more Hispanics finish high school and young adults opt to pursue a higher education rather than languish in a weak job market, writes Hope Yen for the Associated Press.
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US: Money finally flows for spill research
Scientists say that one of the most critical needs in responding to the oil spill is a far more vigorous research effort in the Gulf of Mexico to track the impact that the oil is having, write Justin Gillis and Yeganeh June Torbati in The New York Times Green blog. But money for that purpose has been slow to arrive.
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ABU DHABI: Expensive overhaul of higher education
Abu Dhabi plans to spend about 4.9 billion UAE dirhams (US$1.3 billion) a year from 2018, mostly on research and development, in an overhaul of higher education that will fill a key gap in its economic development plan, officials said late last week, reports the business information company Zawya.
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CZECH: University budget cut to lower student numbers
The Czech Education Ministry will cut university budgets from the next academic year by 5% for bachelor and 10% for masters programmes to regulate the excessive number of students, Deputy Minister Vlastimil Ruzicka told journalists last on Wednesday, reports the Prague Daily Monitor.
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SINGAPORE: Another shot in the arm for research
Two more research centres will be established in Singapore, focusing on areas such as electric vehicles and biomedical science, writes Lester Kok for AsiaOne. They are the two newest additions to the National Research Foundation's Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise (Create) programme, bringing the total number of centres to five.
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SAUDI ARABIA: Business schools eye desert kingdom
International business schools eager for new markets are looking to Saudi Arabia, where a still-strong economy and a big government push to boost management skills have created a pool of potential MBAs, writes Beth Gardiner for The Wall Street Journal.
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SRI LANKA: Plan to monitor higher education
Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapaksa has backed a plan to liberalise university education and set up a mechanism to monitor and evaluate the quality of foreign and local higher education, an official said, reports Lanka Business Online.
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CANADA: Dope offences suspend university's football
The University of Waterloo suspended its football programme for one season last week after the revelation that nine members of the team committed doping offences, while officials overseeing university sports in Canada admit a lack of resources means they are at a loss to know the full scope of performance-enhancing drug use, writes Mark Masters for The National Post.
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PAKISTAN: Struggle to raise university language skills
A project launched in 2004 to halt declining English language skills among students at Pakistan's public universities has entered a second three-year phase amid concern that low language proficiency continues to hamper higher-education reforms and is putting the latest international research out of reach for academics, writes Max de Lotbinière for The Guardian.
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UGANDA: Extra points fails to end science gender gap
The introduction in Uganda of 1.5 extra points for female applicants wanting to enrol in public universities 20 years ago has failed to bridge the gender gap in science disciplines, writes Patience Ahimbisibwe for the Daily Monitor.
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US: Professor charged in brother's 1986 shooting death
It was "obviously" a homicide case, a former prosecutor says, but authorities didn't have the evidence to present it to a grand jury at the time, writes Bob Salsberg for the Associated Press. Amy Bishop, the biology professor charged with killing three of her colleagues at an Alabama university, has been indicted on a first-degree murder charge in the 1986 shooting death of her brother in Massachusetts, prosecutors announced on Wednesday.
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Sunday 13 June 2010
University World News 0128 - 14th June 2010
SPECIAL REPORT: Research and the World Cup
Hundreds of thousands of football fans from around the world descended on
South Africa last week to watch the 2010 FIFA World Cup which kicked off on Friday. The mega-event has gripped the imagination of the nation, including its students, academics and universities.
The World Cup has generated reams of research into the event and its multiple impacts. At the Second World Conference on Soccer and Science last week, academics presented studies into the 'beautiful game'. Universities are housing fans and staging events, and students are helping out as volunteers. There have been lectures, including a seven-part Extra Time series on soccer delivered by academics from South Africa and Germany, the 2006 World Cup host.
The following reports provide a snapshot of just some of the ways higher education is engaging with 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa.
South African universities and the 2010 world cup
Alison Moodie Football fever has swept across South Africa. While stadiums play host to jubilant fans and football superstars, through a variety of initiatives universities are bringing their expertise and resources to bear on the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Research projects, accommodation for teams and fans, access to sports facilities, exhibitions and soccer events have brought the monumental contest to campuses.
Full report on the University World News site:
World Cup research explores 'development and dreams'
Karen MacGregor
The 2010 FIFA world cup inspired one of the largest consolidated research exercises in South Africa in years. Culminating in a 2009 book, Development and Dreams, the research found that the economic benefits of the global tournament had been wildly over-stated but its infrastructure and social legacies would be considerable, said co-editor Dr Udesh Pillay.
Full report on the University World News site:
FIFA - Building a transnational football community
Karen MacGregor
World football's governing body FIFA is a powerful international development organisation with more country members than the United Nations and a key 'third party' role in mediating conflict in modern societies through reward-based competition. FIFA's rise was explored by Christiane Eisenberg, a professor of British history at Humboldt University, in a lecture series presented at South African universities by the German Academic Exchange Service, DAAD.
Full report on the University World News site:
University lab is the Cup dope-testing centre
Alison Moodie
Whether it is the Olympics or the Tour de France or the football World Cup, every time a major sporting event takes place a potential doping scandal lurks. The South African Doping Control Laboratory, SADoCoL, in the department of pharmacology at the University of the Free State, is the official dope-testing centre for the 2010 World Cup.
Full report on the University World News site:
The brains behind the 'beautiful game'
Debbie Derry
They dissected, debated and metaphorically dribbled and did exactly what FIFA President Sepp Blatter has warned against - over-analysed the game of football. But they are the brains behind the 'beautiful game', whose goal is to score big with science that will benefit the sport.
Full report on the University World News site:
Demands on players has made sport science critical
Debbie Derry
Extreme demands placed on modern footballers means the role of the sport scientist is more critical than ever - and yet there is an apparent reluctance to implement beneficial research, says one of soccer's leading sport scientists.
Full report on the University World News site:
High performance sport - all in the mind?
Debbie Derry
A leading South African sports scientist has turned the traditional study of exercise physiology on its head - literally. Speaking at the Second World Conference on Soccer and Science held in Port Elizabeth last week, Professor Tim Noakes disputed traditional research methods that failed to include the brain in physiology studies.
Full report on the University World News site:
The lost opportunities of local football
The from-the-couch conclusion of many South African football fans is that their top teams are not effective in converting opportunities into goals. And they are 100% correct, according to research by a masters student at Stellenbosch University.
Full report on the University World News site:
Australian Socceroos meet squatter camp kids
Geoff Maslen
"The smiles could have lit a stadium as Socceroo stars Mark Schwarzer, Brett Emerton and Luke Wilkshire kicked a few balls with kids from the squatter camps on the western outskirts of Johannesburg." The Australian football team was training township kids who benefit from a volunteer programme run by the South African campus of Melbourne's Monash University.
Full report on the University World News site:
SPECIAL FEATURE SECTION
THAILAND: Academic community silenced
As Bangkok's universities reopen after last month's government crackdown, Thai academic Giles Ji Ungpakorn, exiled to Britain in 2009 after being accused of lese-majesty, says the academic community has been forced to keep a low profile.
Full report on the University World News site:
GLOBAL: Seven recipes to become a top researcher
Jüri Allik*
The key to success in any field is a matter of practising a specific task for a total of around 10,000 hours. This rule holds true both for Mozart as well as for Bill Gates. It is easy to see that it therefore requires you to focus on your favourite activity for approximately three hours a day, including all Saturdays and Sundays, for 10 years in a row.
Full report on the University World News site:
US-IRAQ: Keys to a digital revolution
Brendan O'Malley
The Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research has been given control of a US-developed digital library that is helping Iraqi scientists close the knowledge and contribution gap with the international science community.
Full report on the University World News site:
INDIA: Bureaucracy needs reform
India's present system of administration is unsatisfactory and needs reform, according to a survey by researchers Prem Lal Joshi and Rajesh Kumar at the University of Bahrain and the Institute of Management Technology in Dubai. The survey was conducted to ascertain public thinking and gauge opinion on the positive and negative aspects of India's bureaucracy. Among suggested changes were removing civil servants' tenure and recruiting technical experts from outside to improve professionalism.
Full report on the University World News site:
NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report
IBERO-AMERICA: The Guadalajara Declaration
Sarah King Head
More than 1,100 university presidents from 21 Ibero-American countries held a two-day meeting in Mexico on 31 May-1 June. In a declaration released at the end of the meeting, the presidents called for the creation of exchange programmes similar to the European Erasmus scheme as well as for greater student mobility and more convergence and uniformity in their studies.
Full report on the University World News site:
CHINA: Stress of the entrance examination
Sakshi Lee
Silence. That was the first sign of something unusual at the prestigious Shanghai No 54 Middle School last Monday morning. No assembly in the sports field, no Chinese national anthem over the loudspeakers, no usual morning exercises to limber up young bodies and minds. Instead, it was the start of a gruelling three-day college entrance examination.
Full report on the University World News site:
EUROPE: Foundations laid for doctoral education
Development of a European knowledge society is likely to drive demand in all sectors of the workforce for PhD holders with the creative and intellectual skills to work in a wide variety of roles - going well beyond research and development. More than 200 stakeholders meeting at the Freie Universität Berlin for the annual meeting of the EUA Council for Doctoral Education discussed how universities should develop strong, research-based doctoral programmes.
Full report on the University World News site:
EUROPE: French are Erasmus mobility champions
Jane Marshall
The French are the new 'champions' of student mobility under the European Union's flagship Erasmus programme. More than 28,000 students left France with the scheme last year for higher education studies abroad - an increase of 9%. They dislodged the Germans who had formed the biggest Erasmus contingent since 2003-04.
Full report on the University World News site:
GERMANY: Solar-tech for developing countries
Michael Gardner
The German Academic Exchange Service has brought together alumni from developing countries who graduated from German universities for a meeting on 'Renewables'. Included was a visit to the Intersolar Europe solar industry trade fair.
Full report on the University World News site:
NEWS BRIEFS
EUROPE: High-level panel on innovation
Jan Petter Myklebust
European Commissioner for Research and Innovation, Máire Geoghegan Quinn, has appointed a high-level panel of leading business innovators and economists to advise on producing an indicator to measure Europe's progress towards a more innovative economy.
Full report on the University World News site:
FINLAND: World's largest technology prize
Ian Dobson
Professor Michael Grätzel of the Ecole Polytechnique de Lausanne, Switzerland is the 2010 winner of Finland's Millennium Technology Prize. The winner's purse is -800,000, a sum certainly worth having. Grätzel was selected from among the three Laureates for 2010 who were named at a function held in April.
Full report on the University World News site:
ARAB WORLD: Network of networks for collaboration
Wagdy Sawahel
Egypt-based Bibliotheca Alexandrina has launched a 'Network of Networks' for science and technology in the 22 Arab states. The network will act as a platform for international and regional scientific collaboration among universities.
Full report on the University World News site:
SWEDEN: University chancellor resigns
Jan Petter Myklebust
Sweden's University Chancellor Anders Flodström has resigned following his disagreement with the government over a new system of evaluating and rewarding Swedish universities based on student performance. The Swedish parliament has now approved the government's proposals.
Full report on the University World News site:
BUSINESS
EUROPE: Collaborating for economic development
Cayley Dobie
Universities and colleges in seven regions across the European Union have joined a new project to discuss how higher education can generate wealth in economically struggling areas, through collaboration with regional and local governments plus industry.
Full report on the University World News site:
CANADA-INDIA: Closer ties to benefit higher education
Alyshah Hasham
Drumming up business abroad is always tough for universities. But with the right groundwork, valuable student recruitment and joint research projects can follow, a conference on boosting higher education links between India and Canada was told.
Full report on the University World News site:
EUROPE: New technology = faster communication
Cayley Dobie
European research institutes have developed a new telecommunication system that will allow for transmitting and receiving of information at a higher speed and more efficient cost.
Full report on the University World News site:
UNI-LATERAL: Off-beat university stories
US: Life on Saturn moon? Maybe
Could Saturn's cold, cloud-covered moon Titan host an exotic form of primitive life based on methane, in sharp contrast to the water-based life of Earth? asks Doug Isbell in the The Tuscan Sentinel. That's one amazing possibility implied by two new related scientific studies based on data from NASA's Saturn-orbiting Cassini spacecraft.
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SWEDEN: Higher education may delay dementia onset
Swedish researchers have discovered that education not only delays the early symptoms of dementia, but can also slow down the development of the disease - a finding that could result in faster diagnosis and treatment, writes Dr John M Grohol for Psych Central.
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ARMENIA: World's oldest leather shoe discovered
Think of it as a kind of prehistoric Prada: archaeologists have discovered what they say is the world's oldest known leather shoe, writes Pam Belluck for The New York Times. Perfectly preserved under layers of sheep dung the shoe, made of cowhide and tanned with oil from a plant or vegetable, is about 5,500 years old, older than Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids, scientists say.
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FACEBOOK
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WORLD ROUND-UP
PUERTO RICO: Student strike paralyses university
A showdown is looming in the student strike that has paralyzed all 11 campuses of the University of Puerto Rico for more than six weeks, writes Juan Gonzalez for the Daily News. On Tuesday, protest leaders rejected a 16h00 deadline from university President José Ramón de la Torre to cease campus occupations and end the strike, which has kept 65,000 students out of classes since 21 April.
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MALAYSIA: Ministry deregisters 45 private colleges
Malaysia's Higher Education Ministry has deregistered 45 private colleges for flouting the Private Higher Education Institution Act last year, said Deputy Minister Dr Hou Kok Chung, reports Tan Shiow Chin for The Star. Another 38 avoided deregistration but other forms of action were taken against them for infringing the Act.
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PAKISTAN: Clash over academic research requirements
A dispute has erupted between the Higher Education Commission and the Federation of All-Pakistan Universities Academic Associations, FAPUSA, over the appointment of professors and associate professors and the research article requirements for these posts, writes Adnan Lodhi for the Daily Times.
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IRELAND: Plan to double PhD graduates slips off track
A government policy drawn up four years ago to double the output of PhD students in Ireland is midway through its term, reports The Post. But now there are questions about whether the plan is on the right track and if it still has the merit it once had.
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IRELAND: Funding crisis to hit new students hard
New students in Ireland face packed lecture halls when they get to university, fewer tutorials, reductions in library facilities and the introduction of waiting lists for counselling services, writes John Walshe for the Irish Independent. A confidential working paper drawn up by the Irish Universities Association warns that specific courses will have to be axed and says the government's national research strategy for the 'Smart Economy' is in danger of collapsing.
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UK: Universities minister hints at higher fees
Britain's universities minister has given his clearest indication yet that students could soon be forced to pay higher tuition fees, writes Jessica Shepherd. Interviewed by The Guardian last week last week, David Willetts warned that the cost of hundreds of thousands of students' degree courses was a "burden on the taxpayer that had to be tackled".
More on the University World News site:
UK: Science advisers allowed to disagree with state
Expert advisers in Britain are being given the right to disagree with the government in a bid to repair relations with scientists, reports the Daily Mail. David Willetts, the Science and Universities Minister, said last week it was of the utmost importance that independent scientific advice is respected by the government.
More on the University World News site:
ECUADOR: President's push to improve higher education
Rafael Correa, Ecuador's self-styled 'soc ialist revolutionary' president, is known for grand gestures, writes Marion Lloyd for The Chronicle of Higher Education. Since taking office in 2007, he has temporarily reneged on his country's foreign debt, threatened to go to war with Colombia and pushed through a new constitution to incorporate the cosmology of Ecuador's indigenous minority. Now he has turned his attention to overhauling the country's troubled higher-education system.
More on the University World News site:
CHINA: Academic corruption undermining universities
Even at China's best universities plagiarism and falsified data are preventing the country from developing advanced science, says a world-renowned mathematics professor, writes Guo Jiaxue for China Daily.
More on the University World News site:
CHINA: More than 100,000 graduates apply to join army
More than 100,000 Chinese college graduates had applied to join the People's Liberation Army as of Friday since this year's military pre-recruitment campaign was launched in mid-April, according to the Ministry of Education, reports the official Xinhau news agency.
More on the University World News site:
US: Job outlook brightens for new graduates - but barely
To get a sense of the job market new college graduates face, consider the latest crop of nurses from Santa Rosa Junior College. Just eight of 55 students are leaving with job offers - and that's considered good news - writes Eric Gorski for Associated Press. Last year no graduates of the community college's associate degree nursing programme had a job in hand.
More on the University World News site:
US: Personalising medical practitioner training
A hundred years after the release of the Flexner Report, which set many of the standards that still guide North American medical education, a report published last week aims to stimulate reforms to reshape medical schools and residency programmes for the next century, writes Jennifer Epstein for Inside Higher Ed.
More on the University World News site:
US: Burning out and fading away
College faculty aren't any more burned out than the rest of the US workforce on average, but the struggles of the untenured on the tenure track are the most pronounced, according to a survey presented at an American Association of University Professors conference in Washington last Wednesday, writes Jack Stripling for Inside Higher Ed.
More on the University World News site:
CANADA: Christian universities fight back
Under attack for allegedly violating academic freedom, Christian universities in Canada are fighting back in a decidedly academic way, writes Carson Jerema for Macleans. They are planning to hold a conference.
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Hundreds of thousands of football fans from around the world descended on
South Africa last week to watch the 2010 FIFA World Cup which kicked off on Friday. The mega-event has gripped the imagination of the nation, including its students, academics and universities.
The World Cup has generated reams of research into the event and its multiple impacts. At the Second World Conference on Soccer and Science last week, academics presented studies into the 'beautiful game'. Universities are housing fans and staging events, and students are helping out as volunteers. There have been lectures, including a seven-part Extra Time series on soccer delivered by academics from South Africa and Germany, the 2006 World Cup host.
The following reports provide a snapshot of just some of the ways higher education is engaging with 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa.
South African universities and the 2010 world cup
Alison Moodie Football fever has swept across South Africa. While stadiums play host to jubilant fans and football superstars, through a variety of initiatives universities are bringing their expertise and resources to bear on the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Research projects, accommodation for teams and fans, access to sports facilities, exhibitions and soccer events have brought the monumental contest to campuses.
Full report on the University World News site:
World Cup research explores 'development and dreams'
Karen MacGregor
The 2010 FIFA world cup inspired one of the largest consolidated research exercises in South Africa in years. Culminating in a 2009 book, Development and Dreams, the research found that the economic benefits of the global tournament had been wildly over-stated but its infrastructure and social legacies would be considerable, said co-editor Dr Udesh Pillay.
Full report on the University World News site:
FIFA - Building a transnational football community
Karen MacGregor
World football's governing body FIFA is a powerful international development organisation with more country members than the United Nations and a key 'third party' role in mediating conflict in modern societies through reward-based competition. FIFA's rise was explored by Christiane Eisenberg, a professor of British history at Humboldt University, in a lecture series presented at South African universities by the German Academic Exchange Service, DAAD.
Full report on the University World News site:
University lab is the Cup dope-testing centre
Alison Moodie
Whether it is the Olympics or the Tour de France or the football World Cup, every time a major sporting event takes place a potential doping scandal lurks. The South African Doping Control Laboratory, SADoCoL, in the department of pharmacology at the University of the Free State, is the official dope-testing centre for the 2010 World Cup.
Full report on the University World News site:
The brains behind the 'beautiful game'
Debbie Derry
They dissected, debated and metaphorically dribbled and did exactly what FIFA President Sepp Blatter has warned against - over-analysed the game of football. But they are the brains behind the 'beautiful game', whose goal is to score big with science that will benefit the sport.
Full report on the University World News site:
Demands on players has made sport science critical
Debbie Derry
Extreme demands placed on modern footballers means the role of the sport scientist is more critical than ever - and yet there is an apparent reluctance to implement beneficial research, says one of soccer's leading sport scientists.
Full report on the University World News site:
High performance sport - all in the mind?
Debbie Derry
A leading South African sports scientist has turned the traditional study of exercise physiology on its head - literally. Speaking at the Second World Conference on Soccer and Science held in Port Elizabeth last week, Professor Tim Noakes disputed traditional research methods that failed to include the brain in physiology studies.
Full report on the University World News site:
The lost opportunities of local football
The from-the-couch conclusion of many South African football fans is that their top teams are not effective in converting opportunities into goals. And they are 100% correct, according to research by a masters student at Stellenbosch University.
Full report on the University World News site:
Australian Socceroos meet squatter camp kids
Geoff Maslen
"The smiles could have lit a stadium as Socceroo stars Mark Schwarzer, Brett Emerton and Luke Wilkshire kicked a few balls with kids from the squatter camps on the western outskirts of Johannesburg." The Australian football team was training township kids who benefit from a volunteer programme run by the South African campus of Melbourne's Monash University.
Full report on the University World News site:
SPECIAL FEATURE SECTION
THAILAND: Academic community silenced
As Bangkok's universities reopen after last month's government crackdown, Thai academic Giles Ji Ungpakorn, exiled to Britain in 2009 after being accused of lese-majesty, says the academic community has been forced to keep a low profile.
Full report on the University World News site:
GLOBAL: Seven recipes to become a top researcher
Jüri Allik*
The key to success in any field is a matter of practising a specific task for a total of around 10,000 hours. This rule holds true both for Mozart as well as for Bill Gates. It is easy to see that it therefore requires you to focus on your favourite activity for approximately three hours a day, including all Saturdays and Sundays, for 10 years in a row.
Full report on the University World News site:
US-IRAQ: Keys to a digital revolution
Brendan O'Malley
The Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research has been given control of a US-developed digital library that is helping Iraqi scientists close the knowledge and contribution gap with the international science community.
Full report on the University World News site:
INDIA: Bureaucracy needs reform
India's present system of administration is unsatisfactory and needs reform, according to a survey by researchers Prem Lal Joshi and Rajesh Kumar at the University of Bahrain and the Institute of Management Technology in Dubai. The survey was conducted to ascertain public thinking and gauge opinion on the positive and negative aspects of India's bureaucracy. Among suggested changes were removing civil servants' tenure and recruiting technical experts from outside to improve professionalism.
Full report on the University World News site:
NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report
IBERO-AMERICA: The Guadalajara Declaration
Sarah King Head
More than 1,100 university presidents from 21 Ibero-American countries held a two-day meeting in Mexico on 31 May-1 June. In a declaration released at the end of the meeting, the presidents called for the creation of exchange programmes similar to the European Erasmus scheme as well as for greater student mobility and more convergence and uniformity in their studies.
Full report on the University World News site:
CHINA: Stress of the entrance examination
Sakshi Lee
Silence. That was the first sign of something unusual at the prestigious Shanghai No 54 Middle School last Monday morning. No assembly in the sports field, no Chinese national anthem over the loudspeakers, no usual morning exercises to limber up young bodies and minds. Instead, it was the start of a gruelling three-day college entrance examination.
Full report on the University World News site:
EUROPE: Foundations laid for doctoral education
Development of a European knowledge society is likely to drive demand in all sectors of the workforce for PhD holders with the creative and intellectual skills to work in a wide variety of roles - going well beyond research and development. More than 200 stakeholders meeting at the Freie Universität Berlin for the annual meeting of the EUA Council for Doctoral Education discussed how universities should develop strong, research-based doctoral programmes.
Full report on the University World News site:
EUROPE: French are Erasmus mobility champions
Jane Marshall
The French are the new 'champions' of student mobility under the European Union's flagship Erasmus programme. More than 28,000 students left France with the scheme last year for higher education studies abroad - an increase of 9%. They dislodged the Germans who had formed the biggest Erasmus contingent since 2003-04.
Full report on the University World News site:
GERMANY: Solar-tech for developing countries
Michael Gardner
The German Academic Exchange Service has brought together alumni from developing countries who graduated from German universities for a meeting on 'Renewables'. Included was a visit to the Intersolar Europe solar industry trade fair.
Full report on the University World News site:
NEWS BRIEFS
EUROPE: High-level panel on innovation
Jan Petter Myklebust
European Commissioner for Research and Innovation, Máire Geoghegan Quinn, has appointed a high-level panel of leading business innovators and economists to advise on producing an indicator to measure Europe's progress towards a more innovative economy.
Full report on the University World News site:
FINLAND: World's largest technology prize
Ian Dobson
Professor Michael Grätzel of the Ecole Polytechnique de Lausanne, Switzerland is the 2010 winner of Finland's Millennium Technology Prize. The winner's purse is -800,000, a sum certainly worth having. Grätzel was selected from among the three Laureates for 2010 who were named at a function held in April.
Full report on the University World News site:
ARAB WORLD: Network of networks for collaboration
Wagdy Sawahel
Egypt-based Bibliotheca Alexandrina has launched a 'Network of Networks' for science and technology in the 22 Arab states. The network will act as a platform for international and regional scientific collaboration among universities.
Full report on the University World News site:
SWEDEN: University chancellor resigns
Jan Petter Myklebust
Sweden's University Chancellor Anders Flodström has resigned following his disagreement with the government over a new system of evaluating and rewarding Swedish universities based on student performance. The Swedish parliament has now approved the government's proposals.
Full report on the University World News site:
BUSINESS
EUROPE: Collaborating for economic development
Cayley Dobie
Universities and colleges in seven regions across the European Union have joined a new project to discuss how higher education can generate wealth in economically struggling areas, through collaboration with regional and local governments plus industry.
Full report on the University World News site:
CANADA-INDIA: Closer ties to benefit higher education
Alyshah Hasham
Drumming up business abroad is always tough for universities. But with the right groundwork, valuable student recruitment and joint research projects can follow, a conference on boosting higher education links between India and Canada was told.
Full report on the University World News site:
EUROPE: New technology = faster communication
Cayley Dobie
European research institutes have developed a new telecommunication system that will allow for transmitting and receiving of information at a higher speed and more efficient cost.
Full report on the University World News site:
UNI-LATERAL: Off-beat university stories
US: Life on Saturn moon? Maybe
Could Saturn's cold, cloud-covered moon Titan host an exotic form of primitive life based on methane, in sharp contrast to the water-based life of Earth? asks Doug Isbell in the The Tuscan Sentinel. That's one amazing possibility implied by two new related scientific studies based on data from NASA's Saturn-orbiting Cassini spacecraft.
More on the University World News site:
SWEDEN: Higher education may delay dementia onset
Swedish researchers have discovered that education not only delays the early symptoms of dementia, but can also slow down the development of the disease - a finding that could result in faster diagnosis and treatment, writes Dr John M Grohol for Psych Central.
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ARMENIA: World's oldest leather shoe discovered
Think of it as a kind of prehistoric Prada: archaeologists have discovered what they say is the world's oldest known leather shoe, writes Pam Belluck for The New York Times. Perfectly preserved under layers of sheep dung the shoe, made of cowhide and tanned with oil from a plant or vegetable, is about 5,500 years old, older than Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids, scientists say.
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WORLD ROUND-UP
PUERTO RICO: Student strike paralyses university
A showdown is looming in the student strike that has paralyzed all 11 campuses of the University of Puerto Rico for more than six weeks, writes Juan Gonzalez for the Daily News. On Tuesday, protest leaders rejected a 16h00 deadline from university President José Ramón de la Torre to cease campus occupations and end the strike, which has kept 65,000 students out of classes since 21 April.
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MALAYSIA: Ministry deregisters 45 private colleges
Malaysia's Higher Education Ministry has deregistered 45 private colleges for flouting the Private Higher Education Institution Act last year, said Deputy Minister Dr Hou Kok Chung, reports Tan Shiow Chin for The Star. Another 38 avoided deregistration but other forms of action were taken against them for infringing the Act.
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PAKISTAN: Clash over academic research requirements
A dispute has erupted between the Higher Education Commission and the Federation of All-Pakistan Universities Academic Associations, FAPUSA, over the appointment of professors and associate professors and the research article requirements for these posts, writes Adnan Lodhi for the Daily Times.
More on the University World News site:
IRELAND: Plan to double PhD graduates slips off track
A government policy drawn up four years ago to double the output of PhD students in Ireland is midway through its term, reports The Post. But now there are questions about whether the plan is on the right track and if it still has the merit it once had.
More on the University World News site:
IRELAND: Funding crisis to hit new students hard
New students in Ireland face packed lecture halls when they get to university, fewer tutorials, reductions in library facilities and the introduction of waiting lists for counselling services, writes John Walshe for the Irish Independent. A confidential working paper drawn up by the Irish Universities Association warns that specific courses will have to be axed and says the government's national research strategy for the 'Smart Economy' is in danger of collapsing.
More on the University World News site:
UK: Universities minister hints at higher fees
Britain's universities minister has given his clearest indication yet that students could soon be forced to pay higher tuition fees, writes Jessica Shepherd. Interviewed by The Guardian last week last week, David Willetts warned that the cost of hundreds of thousands of students' degree courses was a "burden on the taxpayer that had to be tackled".
More on the University World News site:
UK: Science advisers allowed to disagree with state
Expert advisers in Britain are being given the right to disagree with the government in a bid to repair relations with scientists, reports the Daily Mail. David Willetts, the Science and Universities Minister, said last week it was of the utmost importance that independent scientific advice is respected by the government.
More on the University World News site:
ECUADOR: President's push to improve higher education
Rafael Correa, Ecuador's self-styled 'soc ialist revolutionary' president, is known for grand gestures, writes Marion Lloyd for The Chronicle of Higher Education. Since taking office in 2007, he has temporarily reneged on his country's foreign debt, threatened to go to war with Colombia and pushed through a new constitution to incorporate the cosmology of Ecuador's indigenous minority. Now he has turned his attention to overhauling the country's troubled higher-education system.
More on the University World News site:
CHINA: Academic corruption undermining universities
Even at China's best universities plagiarism and falsified data are preventing the country from developing advanced science, says a world-renowned mathematics professor, writes Guo Jiaxue for China Daily.
More on the University World News site:
CHINA: More than 100,000 graduates apply to join army
More than 100,000 Chinese college graduates had applied to join the People's Liberation Army as of Friday since this year's military pre-recruitment campaign was launched in mid-April, according to the Ministry of Education, reports the official Xinhau news agency.
More on the University World News site:
US: Job outlook brightens for new graduates - but barely
To get a sense of the job market new college graduates face, consider the latest crop of nurses from Santa Rosa Junior College. Just eight of 55 students are leaving with job offers - and that's considered good news - writes Eric Gorski for Associated Press. Last year no graduates of the community college's associate degree nursing programme had a job in hand.
More on the University World News site:
US: Personalising medical practitioner training
A hundred years after the release of the Flexner Report, which set many of the standards that still guide North American medical education, a report published last week aims to stimulate reforms to reshape medical schools and residency programmes for the next century, writes Jennifer Epstein for Inside Higher Ed.
More on the University World News site:
US: Burning out and fading away
College faculty aren't any more burned out than the rest of the US workforce on average, but the struggles of the untenured on the tenure track are the most pronounced, according to a survey presented at an American Association of University Professors conference in Washington last Wednesday, writes Jack Stripling for Inside Higher Ed.
More on the University World News site:
CANADA: Christian universities fight back
Under attack for allegedly violating academic freedom, Christian universities in Canada are fighting back in a decidedly academic way, writes Carson Jerema for Macleans. They are planning to hold a conference.
More on the University World News site:
Sunday 6 June 2010
University World News 0127 - 7th June 2010
NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report
MALAWI: China to fund new science university
Clemence Manyukwe
The Chinese government will fund the construction of a new science university in Malawi as part of the country's ambitious initiative to open five new institutions of higher learning in the next decade, President Bingu wa Mutharika has said. China is funding major development projects in Africa, in a diplomatic initiative aimed at building good relations on the continent and averting criticism that it is only after Africa's rich natural resources.
Full report on the University World News site:
US: Research universities at risk, warns chancellor
US research universities are under threat from the recession and social changes, Linda Katehi, Chancellor of the University of California, Davis, told scientists at a recent American Association for the Advancement of Science policy forum. Katchi said the two factors were combining to undermine universities.
Full report on the University World News site:
INDIA: Rapid growth but misalignment
Pawan Agarwal*
Higher education enrolments in India reached 15 million this year. This is just four million short of US enrolments, but corresponds to a gross enrolment ratio of only 14% compared with 82% in the US. India now needs a California-style master plan creating distinct sectors of higher education to ensure both access and excellence, and to align higher education growth with people's aspirations and the changing economic structure. Frantic growth with continuing misalignment could result in unwanted consequences.
Full report in the University World News Features section:
INDIA: Reducing student loan burden
Alya Mishra
Education Minister Kapil Sibal has unveiled measures to reduce the burden of education loans on poorer families. They are among policies to increase the proportion of young people in higher education and improve access for lower income families. * See also our Features section this week for commentaries on India's expanding higher education system
Full reports on the University World News site:
GERMANY: More funds pledged at Bologna conference
Michael Gardner
Education Minister Annette Schavan has pledged extra funding of -2 billion (US$2.5 billion) for teaching in higher education. She announced the measure at a Bologna conference attended by professors, students and politicians in Berlin last month. Representatives of industry and trade unions were also present.
Full report on the University World News site:
NEW ZEALAND: Universities raise entry requirements
John Gerritsen
Some of New Zealand's eight universities are raising their entry requirements to try to control student numbers. The institutions have found themselves in a difficult position since the recession struck because it has prompted more people to seek a university education. But the government has made no change to its strict limits on enrolments.
Full report on University World News site:
NORWAY: Need to retain young researchers
Jan Petter Myklebust
Early stage researchers in Norway enjoy the highest starting salaries of all those in 34 countries. But a challenge facing the nation is how to retain researchers from abroad who are trained in Norway, said a special adviser to the Norwegian Research Council, Hans M Borchgrevink.
Full report on the University World News site:
EURO-MED: Plan for higher education and research
Wagdy Sawahel
The 43 member states of the Union for the Mediterranean are planning a 'roadmap' to enhance cooperation in higher education and scientific research, and promote the creation of knowledge-based societies in Euro-Mediterranean countries.
Full report on University World News site:
CANADA-AFRICA: New project links universities to industry
Philip Fine
Canada is partnering its universities with members of the Association of African Universities in a programme that aims to forge links between higher education and the private sector. The Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada has launched an initiative that will create 27 new university-industry partnerships, with Canadian and African researchers conducting projects aimed at integrating the chosen African university into a local or regional industry.
Full report on University World News site:
SOUTH AFRICA: Aid disbursement fails many students
Munyaradzi Makoni
Eligible but financially needy students continue to be excluded from South Africa's higher education institutions. More than 16,000 students failed to access government funds last year alone - a 45% increase over the previous year - according to government figures.
Full report on University World News site:
KENYA: Funding crunch deepens admissions crisis
Gilbert Nganga
The biting admissions crisis in Kenyan universities could soon worsen, should a proposal to barely increase state funding for public universities from July be accepted. The Ministry of Finance said in estimates for the 2010-11 financial year it could only raise university subsidies by 4% yet student enrolment has leapt by 40%.
Full report on University World News site:
ZIMBABWE: New higher education reforms
From a special correspondent
Zimbabwe's Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has drafted a programme to reform higher education and re-engage with the international community in a move likely to benefit universities after a decade of isolation. But rising anger against exorbitant fees saw students last week assault a polytechnic principal.
Full report on University World News site:
NIGERIA: University for the police sparks controversy
Tunde Fatunde
The N igerian government has approved the establishment of a university for police. The aim is to improve the working tools, skills and operation of the police, along the lines of a similar academy that serves the armed forces. The move has generated controversy, although there is consensus on the need to equip the police to deal with the demands of an age in which crimes are committed using modern technologies.
Full report on University World News site:
CÔTE D'IVOIRE: Human rights institute to open
Jane Marshall
The Université d'Atlantique in Abidjan is opening an institute of human rights in September and last month held a conference to prepare its operations.
Full report on the University World News site:
NEWSBRIEFS
NORWAY: International Polar Year conference
Jan Petter Myklebust
The largest conference to be held with polar and climate researchers will focus this week on the rapid climate changes in the Arctic and the global effects of these changes. Crown Prince Haakon of Norway will open the International Polar Year Oslo Scientific Conference on Tuesday where more than 2,000 participants from 70 countries will sum up experiences of the fourth International Polar Year 2007-09.
Full report on the University World News site:
EGYPT-JAPAN: Joint science and technology university
Senior Egyptian and Japanese officials attended the inauguration of the Egypt-Japan University of Science and Technology, known as E-JUST, in Cairo last Wednesday. The two groups involved in establishing the university hope it will become a leading teaching and research centre "at the crossroads of Africa and the Middle East".
Full report on the University World News site:
EGYPT: Fish college to cut reliance on red meat
Ashraf Khaled
A recent hike in prices of beef products in Egypt has angered many in this country of 80 million people, 40% of whom are believed to live below the poverty line. Pro-consumer groups are pushing for a boycott of beef, traditionally a key dish on the menu. The creators of a new college, majoring in fish sciences, have promised a drastic change in food patterns.
Full report on the University World News site:
SENEGAL: Academic urges African research upgrade
African countries must upgrade their research activities if they are to succeed in their development efforts, said Professor Libase Diop of the University Cheikh Anta Diop of Dakar recently.
Full report on the University World News site:
DR CONGO: Accord to boost women's higher studies
The United Nations Development Programme last month signed an agreement with Congolese universities to promote the higher education of women, as part of a wider action plan, reported Le Potentiel of Kinshasa.
Full report on the University World News site:
SCIENCE SCENE
BURKINA FASO-FRANCE: Rising urban obesity alert
Jane Marshall
The number of town-dwellers in developing countries is expected to double between 2000 and 2025. With rapid urbanisation comes a change of eating habits - and not for the better, as more meat, fat, salt and sugar enter the diet and snacks replace meals. In many African countries, where paradoxically malnutrition remains a major preoccupation, obesity is taking over in the towns and increasing the risk of chronic disease, according to findings of a joint Burkinabé-French research project.
Full report on the University World News site:
GLOBAL: Low-cost HIV treatment with zinc supplements
Wagdy Sawahel
Researchers have demonstrated that long-term zinc supplementation for HIV patients reduced the likelihood of immunological failure and reduced the rate of diarrhoea. The findings were published online in Clinical Infectious Diseases.
Full report on the University World News site:
UK: Science imitates nature's bright colours
Scientists have found a way to create tiny structures that reflect light in such a way they produce bright colours. They copied structures found on insects, such as butterflies and beetles, and say their discovery could eventually be used by the printing industry.
Full report on the University World News site:
FEATURES
INDIA: Frantic expansion - and its consequences
Pawan Agarwal*
Higher education enrolments in India reached 15 million this year. This is just four million short of US enrolments but corresponds to a gross enrolment ratio of only 14% compared with 82% in the US. Growth in enrolments has accelerated over the past five years and, during the same period, 200 new universities and 8,000 new colleges were set up to total 525 universities and 25,951 colleges. But a worrying trend is the large numbers of private management institutes and even more private engineering colleges that constitute the bulk of the increase.
Full report on the University World News site:
INDIA: Staking home for an education
Alya Mishra
When Abhishek Kundu approached the State Bank of India for an education loan to study for an MBA, the bank flatly refused. He was not alone in having a tough time trying to finance a degree; many families are forced to put up their homes and investments as collateral.
Full report on the University World News site:
NORWAY: Wittgenstein archives available on line
Alois Pichler and Jan Petter Myklebust
The Wittgenstein Archives at the University of Bergen has made 5,000 pages of Wittgenstein's writings available for open access on the website Wittgenstein Source. This is part of a process lasting more than 40 man-years and using new digitalisation technology, making the collected papers of the late philosopher available for a growing audience of researchers worldwide.
Full report on the University World News site:
HE RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
CANADA: Higher education or education for hire?
Teaching critical thinking is the university's democratic mission, and today's universities are failing to deliver, argues the University of Ottawa's Joel Westheimer in an article in the latest edition of the Canadian journal Academic Matters. Universities need to reverse the trend that has them focusing on workforce preparation and the commercialisation of knowledge and resurrect higher education's public purpose.
Full article on the University World News site:
SOUTH AFRICA: Incentive system bad for scholarship
Catriona Macleod*
Research has become, over the last decade or so, a commodity in South Africa. Of course, this has always partially been the case with applied research. Studies have always been commissioned or funded by industries and government departments, with the aim of improving upon the products or services provided, innovating new ways of doing things and increasing efficiency and effectiveness.
Full article on the University World News site:
UNI-LATERAL: Off-beat university stories
UK: Universities force student dating site to close
A student dating website that received four million hits in its first month has been taken down after pressure from universities, reports The Times. The FitFinder, the brainchild of 21-year-old University College London student Rich Martell, combined Twitter and a classified ads column, allowing students to swap messages of admiration in libraries and social spaces.
More on the University World News site:
US: Students losing their sensitive side
Are college students as nice as they used to be? Apparently not, and modern technology may be partly to blame, reports The Washington Post. A new University of Michigan study has found that since 2000, college students in the US have become less empathetic.
More on the University World News site:
FACEBOOK
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higher education worldwide. Almost 2,200 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.
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WORLD ROUND-UP
GLOBAL: The rise of the 'multiversity'
Some scholars date the beginnings of globalisation from the first move of people out of Africa, writes Simon Marginson for The Chronicle of Higher Education. Some date it from the spread of world religions - Buddhism, Christianity, Islam and Judaism. Others date it from the imperial European empires, the Napoleonic wars or the expanded trade and migration in the second half of the Victorian era.
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US: Nations woo American students at NAFSA expo
The Expo Hall at the 62nd annual NAFSA: Association of International Educators conference evokes Disney's Epcot Center, writes Elizabeth Redden for Inside Higher Ed. Foreign countries have staked out territory here in Kansas City, in America's heartland, to promote themselves as destinations for international students. The international student market is booming.
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US: Still the best among world's top universities?
Ross Forman is one of American higher education's best and brightest. He may also be a canary in its coal mine, writes Lee Lawrence for The Christian Science Monitor. Three years ago, he was looking for a lecturing job. He had stellar credentials from Harvard and Stanford, he'd published in academic journals, co-edited an anthology and organised conferences. He sent out applications mainly in the US, but it was two sent farther afield that yielded results: "I got both jobs in Asia: one in Hong Kong and one in Singapore.
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DUBAI: Higher education hits a low mark
When Dubai's economy stumbled in December 2009, it heralded a tough time not only for businesses, but the business of higher education too, reports Arabic Knowledge @ Wharton. The most public example of the difficulties operating in the sector was the experience of George Mason University, a American higher education pioneer in the United Arab Emirates.
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IRELAND: Universities told courses and jobs at risk
University presidents in Ireland are being told to brace themselves for unprecedented cuts which could force them to cut staff and cancel courses, writes Sean Flynn for The Irish Times. In a confidential letter to the seven presidents, the chief executive of the Higher Education Authority, Tom Boland, said he was alerting all colleges to take "whatever action is needed" to prepare for the next academic year.
More on the University World News site:
UK: Lecturers union warns of national strike
UK lecturers have warned they may strike over at least 14,000 job losses at universities across the country, write Rachel Williams and Jessica Shepherd for The Guardian. Sally Hunt, general secretary of the University and College Union, said if discussions about redundancies broke down between academics and their employers, there could be a national strike. She did not predict when this could be.
More on the University World News site:
INDIA: Students and the strangulating state
Indian students waited eagerly last week for the results of entrance exams to the most sought-after engineering schools, among them the famed Indian Institutes of Technology. More than 450,000 students competed for some 9,500 seats in what is perhaps the most competitive exam in the world, writes Barun S Mitra, director of the independent think tank the Liberty Institute, for The Wall Street Journal.
More on the University World News site:
INDIA: New norms for university teacher promotion
The Indian government has approved new regulations for university and college teachers under which promotion of faculty is linked to their research output, reports ZeeNews. The Human Resource Development Ministry has approved the University Grants Commission Regulations for Minimum Qualification for Appointment of Teachers and Academic Staff in Universities and Colleges.
More on the University World News site:
CANADA: Universities pledge to indigenous peoples
With a ceremonial prayer to Mother Earth and a joyous stomp dance for good measure, Canada's aboriginal leaders on Tuesday hailed a new accord on indigenous education, writes Peggy Curran for the Montreal Gazette. The pact, developed by deans of education across the country, was signed by aboriginal leaders during a ceremony at the Congress of Humanities and Social Sciences, held at Montreal's Concordia University.
More on the University World News site:
CANADA: First Nations University thrown a lifeline
The government has thrown the struggling First Nations University of Canada a $4 million (US$3.8 million) financial lifeline that students hope will keep their beloved institution afloat, writes Jennifer Graham for The Canadian Press.
More on the University World News site:
SLOVAKIA: Government sets R&D target
The Slovak government has set itself the goal of investing 1.8% of gross domestic product in research and development by 2015. This target, smaller than the 3% by 2020 target for the EU as a whole, is still to be negotiated, reports EurActiv Slovakia.
More on the University World News site:
US: Three-year degrees? Not so fast
As hot higher education ideas go, the three-year bachelor's degree continues to get a lot of attention and praise, writes Scott Jaschik for Inside Higher Ed. Most recently, an op-ed in The New York Times made the case for three years of undergraduate study.
More on the University World News site:
GHANA: Government wants more private universities
Alex Tettey-Enyo, Ghana's Minister of Education, has said the government will encourage the establishment of more accredited private tertiary institutions to increase student enrolment in the West African country, reports GhanaWeb.
More on the University World News site:
PAKISTAN: Higher Education Commission budget slashed
After a massive budget cut, Pakistan's Higher Education Commission is looking for alternative income sources to run its projects, reports The News.
More on the University World News site:
CHINA: Students lack political education - official
China's propaganda chief has said the teaching of communist ideology at universities is lacking, ahead of the anniversary of the 1989 crushing of the Tiananmen democracy protests, state media said on Monday, reports AFP.
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MALAWI: China to fund new science university
Clemence Manyukwe
The Chinese government will fund the construction of a new science university in Malawi as part of the country's ambitious initiative to open five new institutions of higher learning in the next decade, President Bingu wa Mutharika has said. China is funding major development projects in Africa, in a diplomatic initiative aimed at building good relations on the continent and averting criticism that it is only after Africa's rich natural resources.
Full report on the University World News site:
US: Research universities at risk, warns chancellor
US research universities are under threat from the recession and social changes, Linda Katehi, Chancellor of the University of California, Davis, told scientists at a recent American Association for the Advancement of Science policy forum. Katchi said the two factors were combining to undermine universities.
Full report on the University World News site:
INDIA: Rapid growth but misalignment
Pawan Agarwal*
Higher education enrolments in India reached 15 million this year. This is just four million short of US enrolments, but corresponds to a gross enrolment ratio of only 14% compared with 82% in the US. India now needs a California-style master plan creating distinct sectors of higher education to ensure both access and excellence, and to align higher education growth with people's aspirations and the changing economic structure. Frantic growth with continuing misalignment could result in unwanted consequences.
Full report in the University World News Features section:
INDIA: Reducing student loan burden
Alya Mishra
Education Minister Kapil Sibal has unveiled measures to reduce the burden of education loans on poorer families. They are among policies to increase the proportion of young people in higher education and improve access for lower income families. * See also our Features section this week for commentaries on India's expanding higher education system
Full reports on the University World News site:
GERMANY: More funds pledged at Bologna conference
Michael Gardner
Education Minister Annette Schavan has pledged extra funding of -2 billion (US$2.5 billion) for teaching in higher education. She announced the measure at a Bologna conference attended by professors, students and politicians in Berlin last month. Representatives of industry and trade unions were also present.
Full report on the University World News site:
NEW ZEALAND: Universities raise entry requirements
John Gerritsen
Some of New Zealand's eight universities are raising their entry requirements to try to control student numbers. The institutions have found themselves in a difficult position since the recession struck because it has prompted more people to seek a university education. But the government has made no change to its strict limits on enrolments.
Full report on University World News site:
NORWAY: Need to retain young researchers
Jan Petter Myklebust
Early stage researchers in Norway enjoy the highest starting salaries of all those in 34 countries. But a challenge facing the nation is how to retain researchers from abroad who are trained in Norway, said a special adviser to the Norwegian Research Council, Hans M Borchgrevink.
Full report on the University World News site:
EURO-MED: Plan for higher education and research
Wagdy Sawahel
The 43 member states of the Union for the Mediterranean are planning a 'roadmap' to enhance cooperation in higher education and scientific research, and promote the creation of knowledge-based societies in Euro-Mediterranean countries.
Full report on University World News site:
CANADA-AFRICA: New project links universities to industry
Philip Fine
Canada is partnering its universities with members of the Association of African Universities in a programme that aims to forge links between higher education and the private sector. The Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada has launched an initiative that will create 27 new university-industry partnerships, with Canadian and African researchers conducting projects aimed at integrating the chosen African university into a local or regional industry.
Full report on University World News site:
SOUTH AFRICA: Aid disbursement fails many students
Munyaradzi Makoni
Eligible but financially needy students continue to be excluded from South Africa's higher education institutions. More than 16,000 students failed to access government funds last year alone - a 45% increase over the previous year - according to government figures.
Full report on University World News site:
KENYA: Funding crunch deepens admissions crisis
Gilbert Nganga
The biting admissions crisis in Kenyan universities could soon worsen, should a proposal to barely increase state funding for public universities from July be accepted. The Ministry of Finance said in estimates for the 2010-11 financial year it could only raise university subsidies by 4% yet student enrolment has leapt by 40%.
Full report on University World News site:
ZIMBABWE: New higher education reforms
From a special correspondent
Zimbabwe's Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has drafted a programme to reform higher education and re-engage with the international community in a move likely to benefit universities after a decade of isolation. But rising anger against exorbitant fees saw students last week assault a polytechnic principal.
Full report on University World News site:
NIGERIA: University for the police sparks controversy
Tunde Fatunde
The N igerian government has approved the establishment of a university for police. The aim is to improve the working tools, skills and operation of the police, along the lines of a similar academy that serves the armed forces. The move has generated controversy, although there is consensus on the need to equip the police to deal with the demands of an age in which crimes are committed using modern technologies.
Full report on University World News site:
CÔTE D'IVOIRE: Human rights institute to open
Jane Marshall
The Université d'Atlantique in Abidjan is opening an institute of human rights in September and last month held a conference to prepare its operations.
Full report on the University World News site:
NEWSBRIEFS
NORWAY: International Polar Year conference
Jan Petter Myklebust
The largest conference to be held with polar and climate researchers will focus this week on the rapid climate changes in the Arctic and the global effects of these changes. Crown Prince Haakon of Norway will open the International Polar Year Oslo Scientific Conference on Tuesday where more than 2,000 participants from 70 countries will sum up experiences of the fourth International Polar Year 2007-09.
Full report on the University World News site:
EGYPT-JAPAN: Joint science and technology university
Senior Egyptian and Japanese officials attended the inauguration of the Egypt-Japan University of Science and Technology, known as E-JUST, in Cairo last Wednesday. The two groups involved in establishing the university hope it will become a leading teaching and research centre "at the crossroads of Africa and the Middle East".
Full report on the University World News site:
EGYPT: Fish college to cut reliance on red meat
Ashraf Khaled
A recent hike in prices of beef products in Egypt has angered many in this country of 80 million people, 40% of whom are believed to live below the poverty line. Pro-consumer groups are pushing for a boycott of beef, traditionally a key dish on the menu. The creators of a new college, majoring in fish sciences, have promised a drastic change in food patterns.
Full report on the University World News site:
SENEGAL: Academic urges African research upgrade
African countries must upgrade their research activities if they are to succeed in their development efforts, said Professor Libase Diop of the University Cheikh Anta Diop of Dakar recently.
Full report on the University World News site:
DR CONGO: Accord to boost women's higher studies
The United Nations Development Programme last month signed an agreement with Congolese universities to promote the higher education of women, as part of a wider action plan, reported Le Potentiel of Kinshasa.
Full report on the University World News site:
SCIENCE SCENE
BURKINA FASO-FRANCE: Rising urban obesity alert
Jane Marshall
The number of town-dwellers in developing countries is expected to double between 2000 and 2025. With rapid urbanisation comes a change of eating habits - and not for the better, as more meat, fat, salt and sugar enter the diet and snacks replace meals. In many African countries, where paradoxically malnutrition remains a major preoccupation, obesity is taking over in the towns and increasing the risk of chronic disease, according to findings of a joint Burkinabé-French research project.
Full report on the University World News site:
GLOBAL: Low-cost HIV treatment with zinc supplements
Wagdy Sawahel
Researchers have demonstrated that long-term zinc supplementation for HIV patients reduced the likelihood of immunological failure and reduced the rate of diarrhoea. The findings were published online in Clinical Infectious Diseases.
Full report on the University World News site:
UK: Science imitates nature's bright colours
Scientists have found a way to create tiny structures that reflect light in such a way they produce bright colours. They copied structures found on insects, such as butterflies and beetles, and say their discovery could eventually be used by the printing industry.
Full report on the University World News site:
FEATURES
INDIA: Frantic expansion - and its consequences
Pawan Agarwal*
Higher education enrolments in India reached 15 million this year. This is just four million short of US enrolments but corresponds to a gross enrolment ratio of only 14% compared with 82% in the US. Growth in enrolments has accelerated over the past five years and, during the same period, 200 new universities and 8,000 new colleges were set up to total 525 universities and 25,951 colleges. But a worrying trend is the large numbers of private management institutes and even more private engineering colleges that constitute the bulk of the increase.
Full report on the University World News site:
INDIA: Staking home for an education
Alya Mishra
When Abhishek Kundu approached the State Bank of India for an education loan to study for an MBA, the bank flatly refused. He was not alone in having a tough time trying to finance a degree; many families are forced to put up their homes and investments as collateral.
Full report on the University World News site:
NORWAY: Wittgenstein archives available on line
Alois Pichler and Jan Petter Myklebust
The Wittgenstein Archives at the University of Bergen has made 5,000 pages of Wittgenstein's writings available for open access on the website Wittgenstein Source. This is part of a process lasting more than 40 man-years and using new digitalisation technology, making the collected papers of the late philosopher available for a growing audience of researchers worldwide.
Full report on the University World News site:
HE RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
CANADA: Higher education or education for hire?
Teaching critical thinking is the university's democratic mission, and today's universities are failing to deliver, argues the University of Ottawa's Joel Westheimer in an article in the latest edition of the Canadian journal Academic Matters. Universities need to reverse the trend that has them focusing on workforce preparation and the commercialisation of knowledge and resurrect higher education's public purpose.
Full article on the University World News site:
SOUTH AFRICA: Incentive system bad for scholarship
Catriona Macleod*
Research has become, over the last decade or so, a commodity in South Africa. Of course, this has always partially been the case with applied research. Studies have always been commissioned or funded by industries and government departments, with the aim of improving upon the products or services provided, innovating new ways of doing things and increasing efficiency and effectiveness.
Full article on the University World News site:
UNI-LATERAL: Off-beat university stories
UK: Universities force student dating site to close
A student dating website that received four million hits in its first month has been taken down after pressure from universities, reports The Times. The FitFinder, the brainchild of 21-year-old University College London student Rich Martell, combined Twitter and a classified ads column, allowing students to swap messages of admiration in libraries and social spaces.
More on the University World News site:
US: Students losing their sensitive side
Are college students as nice as they used to be? Apparently not, and modern technology may be partly to blame, reports The Washington Post. A new University of Michigan study has found that since 2000, college students in the US have become less empathetic.
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WORLD ROUND-UP
GLOBAL: The rise of the 'multiversity'
Some scholars date the beginnings of globalisation from the first move of people out of Africa, writes Simon Marginson for The Chronicle of Higher Education. Some date it from the spread of world religions - Buddhism, Christianity, Islam and Judaism. Others date it from the imperial European empires, the Napoleonic wars or the expanded trade and migration in the second half of the Victorian era.
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US: Nations woo American students at NAFSA expo
The Expo Hall at the 62nd annual NAFSA: Association of International Educators conference evokes Disney's Epcot Center, writes Elizabeth Redden for Inside Higher Ed. Foreign countries have staked out territory here in Kansas City, in America's heartland, to promote themselves as destinations for international students. The international student market is booming.
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US: Still the best among world's top universities?
Ross Forman is one of American higher education's best and brightest. He may also be a canary in its coal mine, writes Lee Lawrence for The Christian Science Monitor. Three years ago, he was looking for a lecturing job. He had stellar credentials from Harvard and Stanford, he'd published in academic journals, co-edited an anthology and organised conferences. He sent out applications mainly in the US, but it was two sent farther afield that yielded results: "I got both jobs in Asia: one in Hong Kong and one in Singapore.
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DUBAI: Higher education hits a low mark
When Dubai's economy stumbled in December 2009, it heralded a tough time not only for businesses, but the business of higher education too, reports Arabic Knowledge @ Wharton. The most public example of the difficulties operating in the sector was the experience of George Mason University, a American higher education pioneer in the United Arab Emirates.
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IRELAND: Universities told courses and jobs at risk
University presidents in Ireland are being told to brace themselves for unprecedented cuts which could force them to cut staff and cancel courses, writes Sean Flynn for The Irish Times. In a confidential letter to the seven presidents, the chief executive of the Higher Education Authority, Tom Boland, said he was alerting all colleges to take "whatever action is needed" to prepare for the next academic year.
More on the University World News site:
UK: Lecturers union warns of national strike
UK lecturers have warned they may strike over at least 14,000 job losses at universities across the country, write Rachel Williams and Jessica Shepherd for The Guardian. Sally Hunt, general secretary of the University and College Union, said if discussions about redundancies broke down between academics and their employers, there could be a national strike. She did not predict when this could be.
More on the University World News site:
INDIA: Students and the strangulating state
Indian students waited eagerly last week for the results of entrance exams to the most sought-after engineering schools, among them the famed Indian Institutes of Technology. More than 450,000 students competed for some 9,500 seats in what is perhaps the most competitive exam in the world, writes Barun S Mitra, director of the independent think tank the Liberty Institute, for The Wall Street Journal.
More on the University World News site:
INDIA: New norms for university teacher promotion
The Indian government has approved new regulations for university and college teachers under which promotion of faculty is linked to their research output, reports ZeeNews. The Human Resource Development Ministry has approved the University Grants Commission Regulations for Minimum Qualification for Appointment of Teachers and Academic Staff in Universities and Colleges.
More on the University World News site:
CANADA: Universities pledge to indigenous peoples
With a ceremonial prayer to Mother Earth and a joyous stomp dance for good measure, Canada's aboriginal leaders on Tuesday hailed a new accord on indigenous education, writes Peggy Curran for the Montreal Gazette. The pact, developed by deans of education across the country, was signed by aboriginal leaders during a ceremony at the Congress of Humanities and Social Sciences, held at Montreal's Concordia University.
More on the University World News site:
CANADA: First Nations University thrown a lifeline
The government has thrown the struggling First Nations University of Canada a $4 million (US$3.8 million) financial lifeline that students hope will keep their beloved institution afloat, writes Jennifer Graham for The Canadian Press.
More on the University World News site:
SLOVAKIA: Government sets R&D target
The Slovak government has set itself the goal of investing 1.8% of gross domestic product in research and development by 2015. This target, smaller than the 3% by 2020 target for the EU as a whole, is still to be negotiated, reports EurActiv Slovakia.
More on the University World News site:
US: Three-year degrees? Not so fast
As hot higher education ideas go, the three-year bachelor's degree continues to get a lot of attention and praise, writes Scott Jaschik for Inside Higher Ed. Most recently, an op-ed in The New York Times made the case for three years of undergraduate study.
More on the University World News site:
GHANA: Government wants more private universities
Alex Tettey-Enyo, Ghana's Minister of Education, has said the government will encourage the establishment of more accredited private tertiary institutions to increase student enrolment in the West African country, reports GhanaWeb.
More on the University World News site:
PAKISTAN: Higher Education Commission budget slashed
After a massive budget cut, Pakistan's Higher Education Commission is looking for alternative income sources to run its projects, reports The News.
More on the University World News site:
CHINA: Students lack political education - official
China's propaganda chief has said the teaching of communist ideology at universities is lacking, ahead of the anniversary of the 1989 crushing of the Tiananmen democracy protests, state media said on Monday, reports AFP.
More on the University World News site:
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