Sunday 20 February 2011

University World News 0159 - 18th February 2011

This week's highlights

Commenting on unfolding events in the Middle East, STEPHEN P HEYNEMAN argues that its is not lack of access to government jobs but to the general economy and to free universities that has caused frustration. In Features, YOJANA SHARMA investigates the sudden withdrawal from Bangladesh and other poor countries of free access to expensive medical literature, SHURIAH NIAZI describes a clash between liberal ideas and religious orthodoxy at South Asia's largest Muslim seminary, and WANG FANGQING reports on Shanghai's efforts to attract branch campuses of Ivy League universities. In Commentary DLAWER ALA'ALEEN, higher education and research minister in the Kurdistan Regional Government, describes why the region needs a higher education revolution, and MIKE COLE and PETER McLAREN argue that Venezuela's reforms are an attempt to radically widen participation and democratise universities.
Commenting on unfolding events in the Middle East, STEPHEN P HEYNEMAN argues that its is not lack of access to government jobs but to the general economy and to free universities that has caused frustration. In Features, YOJANA SHARMA investigates the sudden withdrawal from Bangladesh and other poor countries of free access to expensive medical literature, SHURIAH NIAZI describes a clash between liberal ideas and religious orthodoxy at South Asia's largest Muslim seminary, and WANG FANGQING reports on Shanghai's efforts to attract branch campuses of Ivy League universities. In Commentary DLAWER ALA'ALEEN, higher education and research minister in the Kurdistan Regional Government, describes why the region needs a higher education revolution, and MIKE COLE and PETER McLAREN argue that Venezuela's reforms are an attempt to radically widen participation and democratise universities.

MIDDLE EAST: Higher education in the turmoil

MIDDLE EAST: Are jobless graduates causing protests?
In the Middle East, comments STEPHEN P HEYNEMAN, it is not the lack of access to government jobs that has caused frustration, but lack of access to the general economy plus lack of freedom to attend a free university. Governments have expanded higher education, but have not allowed universities to act as real universities, and the result has been a mentality of backwardness.
Full report on the University World News site:

IRAN: Students killed, arrested in Egypt-style protests
Yojana Sharma
Two students were killed last week in a major eruption of anti-government demonstrations in Iran inspired by events in Egypt and Tunisia. The funeral of one of the students sparked further clashes in Tehran amid reports of unrest in other university towns.
Full report on the University World News site:

EGYPT: Popular calls for sweeping university reforms
Wagdy Sawahel
Following the political tsunami of change that resulted in the 11 February resignation of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak after 30 years in power, academics and researchers are calling for sweeping reforms of higher education policies and work conditions.
Full report on the University World News site:

NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report

GLOBAL: Higher education becomes more costly
Geoff Maslen
University students are having to meet more of the cost of their higher education in countries with existing mass higher education systems and "ageing demographics" - and the trend towards reduced public spending on universities looks set to continue. A new report, released last week, says governments facing budget-balancing exercises, such as Britain and some US states including California, are already imposing cuts.
Full report on the University World News site:

PUERTO RICO: University head quits amid fee protests
Alison Moodie
The president of the University of Puerto Rico has resigned amid the worst student riots in 30 years, calling into doubt the future of the island's largest and most venerable institution.
Full report on the University World News site:

BELARUS: Europeans press for academic freedom
Jan Petter Myklebust
Higher education ministers from eight European countries have written to their counterpart in Minsk demanding academic freedom for students and lecturers. There have been beatings, detentions and expulsions from universities of students and academics in response to protests over the presidential election result of 19 December 2010.
Full article on University World News site:

HUNGARY: Outcry over probe into philosophers
Jan Petter Myklebust
Members of the international academic community have sprung to the defence of several Hungarian philosophers who are under police investigation in Budapest in relation to alleged misuse of research grants. The academics under investigation include Ágnes Heller, regarded as a founder of the Budapest school of philosophy.
Full report on University World News site:

COTE D'IVOIRE: Student militia prop up Gbagbo regime
Tunde Fatunde
A state-sponsored student militia in Cote d'Ivoire has committed a series of human rights abuses recorded by United Nations and rights organisations. Supposedly outgoing president Laurent Gbagbo is accused of using state resources for a decade to transform a student organisation at the University of Abidjan into his own armed militia.
Full report on the University World News site:

SWEDEN: Fall in foreign applications hits courses
Jan Petter Myklebust
A dramatic fall in the number of non-European foreign students paying their application fee could result in course closures at Swedish universities. Only 5,600 of the 20,100 students applying from outside the European Union and European Economic Area paid their fee by this year's deadline. The applications of the remaining 14,500 will not proceed.
Full report on the University World News site:

SRI LANKA: Universities must make graduates employable
Santhush Fernando
Sri Lanka's Ministry of Higher Education has brought in new measures from this year to make public universities responsible for ensuring their graduates can be 'guaranteed' to get jobs anywhere in the world.
Full report on the University World News site:

MALDIVES: First national university inaugurated
Santhush Fernando
The Indian Ocean tourist haven of Maldives on Tuesday opened a new chapter in higher education with the upgrading of the Maldives College of Higher Education to the status of Maldives National University.
Full report on the University World News site:

NAMIBIA: Calls mount for national research commission
Utaara Hoveka
Namibia's Ministry of Education has been urged to speed up the process of establishing a national commission on research, science and technology, and a research fund, as prescribed by the Research, Science and Technology Act of 2004. The country's first academy of sciences is also in the pipeline.
Full report on the University World News site:

FEATURES

GLOBAL: HINARI and the dream of free journal access
Yojana Sharma*
HINARI, the WHO-administered Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative, is a collaboration between the WHO and commercial publishers which grants researchers in poor countries free access to expensive medical literature. But the sudden withdrawal last month of some of its flagship publishers from Bangladesh and several other countries raised questions about to what extent HINARI is a development aid scheme and to what extent a commercial project.
Full report on the University World News site:

INDIA: Liberals vs reformists at top Islamic university
Shuriah Niazi
In a dispute that could have repercussions at other large Islamic universities and seminaries in the Muslim world, a clash between liberal ideas and religious orthodoxy has engulfed India's Darul Uloom Deoband University - South Asia's largest Muslim seminary, which sought to appoint a 'modern' vice-chancellor.
Full report on the University World News site :

CHINA: Shanghai reaches out to America's Ivy League
Wang Fangqing
China's largest city, Shanghai, has been successfully pushing for western universities to establish branches serving Chinese as well as foreign students. These ambitions stretch to America's elite Ivy League.
Full report on the University World News site:

COMMENTARY

KURDISTAN: A higher education revolution that cannot fail
Kurdistan was cut off from the international academic world for decades and has outlined a bold plan to put it on track to compete with the rest of the world. Here professor DLAWER ALA'ALEEN, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research in Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government, describes why the region needs a revolution in its higher education system and how it will be implemented.
Full report on the University World News site:

VENEZUELA: Revolution under attack
Venezuela's education reforms are not undemocratic. They are an attempt to radically widen participation in the higher education system and have already resulted in a dramatic increase in the numbers of Venezuelans attending university, argue MIKE COLE and PETER McLAREN.
Full report on the University World News site:

ACADEMIC FREEDOM

GLOBAL: Academic freedom reports from around the world
Roisin Joyce*
A student leader has been abducted by authorities in the province of Balochistan in south-west Pakistan. In Belarus an associate professor has been fired after attending a mass protest over December's disputed presidential election, and in Turkey a sociologist has been tried and acquitted of charges for which she had already been twice acquitted. In South Africa, the Council on Higher Education has suppressed a university audit following complaints by the vice-chancellor that it was "biased", and in Malawi lecturers went on strike after a colleague was interrogated by a local police chief over an example he gave in a political science class.
Full report on the University World News site:

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WORLD ROUND-UP

US: Libyans students allege government coercion
In an apparent effort to control the public narrative in the wake of rare protests that have spread throughout Libya, the country's government is threatening to withdraw scholarship funding from citizens studying in the United States unless they attend pro-government rallies in Washington this weekend, reports Evan Hill for Al Jazeera.
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MOROCCO: Graduates struggle to find jobs
At the top of a four-storey cafe down a back road in the Moroccan capital, Rabat, Rachid Chaoui keeps the array of zips and buckles on his snug-fitting jacket done up to the neck to ward off the winter cold. He sips mint tea and ignores the football match playing on a large flatscreen television set. He is not happy, writes Giles Tremlett for the Guardian.
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CHINA: Universities chase rankings - study
A recent study shows that moving up in the rankings lists is a general ambition of China's universities, and that rankings affects their strategic planning, reports Pang Qi for Global Times. The study, conducted by Liu Niancai, dean of the Graduate School of Education in Shanghai Jiao Tong University, researched 16 Chinese and international rankings.
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US: Obama budget sustains Pell grants but cuts perks
In a 2012 budget blueprint that administration officials portrayed as austere and Republicans derided as profligate, President Barack Obama kept his promise to privilege spending on education and research - though not without some potential pain for programmes important to colleges and students, writes Doug Lederman for Inside Higher Ed.
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UK: Minister issues warning over fees
Minister of State for Universities and Science, David Willetts, has warned that there will be more cuts to higher education if too many universities opt to charge maximum tuition fees, reports Angela Harrison for the BBC.
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UK: New visa system gives priority to academics
Academics are to be prioritised in the government's shake-up of the visa system. Under Home Office proposals, the points system for Tier 2 (skilled work) visas will be overhauled to prioritise PhD-level occupations with domestic shortages, including research and higher education teaching positions, writes Paul Jump for Times Higher Education.
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WALES: Basic fees to be lower than England
Basic university tuition fees will be £2,000 (US$3,234) lower in Wales than in England, it has been announced. Education Minister Leighton Andrews has opted for a basic fee level of £4,000 in Wales, rather than the £6,000 which will apply over the border, reports the BBC.
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UAE: Sorbonne officially opens in Abu Dhabi
More than a year after classes began, the University of Paris Sorbonne's Abu Dhabi campus on Al Reem Island was opened officially last week, with the help of the French Prime Minister Francois Fillon, who was making his first visit to the region, writes Caline Malek for The National.
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SAUDI ARABIA: Ministry plans online university
The Higher Education Ministry last week announced a plan to establish an electronic university, reports PK Abdul Gafour for Arab News. "We have been trying to establish an electronic university for the last one-and-a-half years to provide bachelor and masters degrees," said Muhammad Al-Ouhali, Deputy Minister for Education Affairs.
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INDIA: US promises to cooperate over sham university
The US has promised to cooperate with India to resolve the issue of Indian students affected by a sham US university. But America said it was hard to say what was possible, pending a full probe, reports the Indo-Asian News Service.
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MAURITIUS: Indian universities aid 'knowledge hub' bid
Private Indian universities setting up campuses in Mauritius are helping the island nation off the African coast to realise its vision of transforming into a knowledge hub, reports Sify.
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INDIA-AFRICA: Higher education ties take shape
India's pledge to help set up a string of higher education and vocational training institutions in Africa, as part of an initiative to bolster the country's role on the continent, is finally taking shape, with the first site expected to open its doors in less than a year, writes Vir Singh for The New York Times.
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CANADA: Doctor's report pulled over plagiarism concern
When a medical ethics report co-authored by a top Canadian doctor was published, it was hailed as "required reading" for all health-care providers and medical students. Now, people can't distance themselves from the report fast enough, writes Margaret Munro for Canada.com.
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ISRAEL: Lecturers press for anti-leftist probe
Faculty members at Bar-Ilan University last week urged the Council for Higher Education to examine claims by two of its lecturers that they were denied promotion because of their leftist political activities and opinions, writes Or Kashti for Haaretz.
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INDIA: Arts education under threat - experts
With very little attention given to arts education in Indian universities, the country's classical art forms could end up as the biggest casualty, reports Sify. Even while India boasts of a magnificent variety of classical dance forms, they are under threat from a Western dance invasion as children take to salsa, hip hop and other dances "that look like mass drill on stage", said one of the participants at the National Conference on Relevance of Fine Art Education in the 21st Century held in Agra.
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Sunday 13 February 2011

University World News 0158 - 12th February 2011

This week's highlights

In Features, JANE MARSHALL interviews Jaana Puukka on the findings of OECD higher education in regional and city development work, which was discussed at a conference in Seville last week. MUNYARADZI MAKONI looks at five centres of excellence in Africa supported by Germany, and ALISON MOODIE reports on efforts by the US-based quarterly International Higher Education publication to extend its global reach through Chinese, Russian and German editions. In Commentary, MITCH LEVENTHAL proposes a system by which income generated by international student fees is ploughed back into promoting greater internationalisation of US campuses, SIMON COOPER and ANNA POLETTI find flaws in the Excellence in Research for Australia initiative, and ALASTAIR DUNNING argues that digital archives need to find news ways of engaging people and demonstrating their value in an era of cutbacks.

NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report

INDIA: Major revamp of medical education sector
Alya Mishra
India's undergraduate medical education, or the MBBS degree, is to be revamped to cater more closely to the health needs of the country, produce more doctors and include clinical training at an earlier stage. With 330 medical colleges and an intake of 35,000 students annually, India's medical education sector is one of the largest in the world.
Full report on the University World News site:

DENMARK: Ministry limits foreign exchange students
Jan Petter Myklebust
The Ministry of Higher Education has instructed higher education institutions that the number of foreign exchange students in Denmark must not exceed the number of Danish students going abroad. Only exchanges through reciprocal agreements between universities will be counted for budgetary awarding.
Full report on the University World News site:

GERMANY: 10,000 gifted students to get monthly top-up
Michael Gardner
The Deutschland-Stipendium (Germany Grant) has been officially launched, supporting up to 10,000 highly gifted students by the end of the year. Simultaneously, however, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research has scrapped a special bonus for students from poorer backgrounds.
Full article on the University World News site:

SRI LANKA: Students to learn soft skills in army camps
Santhush Fernando
Sri Lanka's universities have been embroiled in controversy over a Ministry of Higher Education announcement that some 20,000 students will receive training each year at military bases in order to learn 'soft skills'.
Full report on the University World News site:

PAKISTAN: Higher education devolution undermines HEC
Ameen Amjad Khan
A constitutional amendment to devolve responsibility for Pakistan's higher education to the provinces has worried the academic community and puts in doubt the future of the Higher Education Commission, which handles a large amount of foreign aid intended for higher education and research.
Full report on the University World News site:

US-CANADA: Universities see endowments recover
MJ Deschamps
A report on endowment fund returns shows a sharp increase in income for the 2010 fiscal year compared with 2009 and gives a positive signal that the recession might be easing for American and Canadian higher education institutions.
Full report on the University World News site:

IRELAND: Universities face penalties for pay rises
John Walshe
The two biggest and best known Irish universities - Trinity College Dublin and University College Dublin (UCD) - are embroiled in a furious row over unauthorised payments to some of their staff and have been told publicly that they face penalties through cuts in their core funding from the Exchequer.
Full report on the University World News site:

NEW ZEALAND: Recession hits students in the pocket
John Gerritsen
New research shows New Zealand students have been hit hard by the global economic downturn - they have less part-time work, average incomes are down, and more of them are living at home with their parents.
Full report on the University World News site:

N IGERIA: Campuses reopen after six-month strikes
Tunde Fatunde
Academic activities are set to resume, amid student jubilation, at N igerian universities where staff unions have been striking for the past six months in protest over living and working conditions. The strikes, at some of the country's state universities, had led education regulatory bodies to prohibit them from admitting students for the 2011-12 academic session.
Full report on the University World News site:

MALAWI: New law aims to regulate private universities
Malawi is gearing up to pass higher education legislation that will regulate the accreditation of private universities. This is in an attempt to ensure appropriate standards are maintained at these institutions, and also to make sure that they do not exploit students excluded from public universities due to a government quota system.
Full report on the University World News site:

EGYPT: Higher education in the transition

EGYPT: Alternatives sought after universities close
Yojana Sharma and Honey Singh Virdee
Egypt has informed governments with large numbers of foreign students that at least three major Cairo universities could remain closed for up to a year, leaving students scrambling to find alternatives to complete their education.
Full report on the University World News site:

EGYPT: Top scientists push for change
Ashraf Khaled
Days after the eruption of unprecedented protests against long-serving President Hosni Mubarak in late January, Nobel prize-winning US-based Egyptian scientist Ahmed Zeweil arrived in his troubled homeland to join in a pro-reform campaign. He is one of many intellectuals who joined the chorus of calls for sweeping reform.
Full report on the University World News site:

AFRICA-MIDDLE EAST: The jobless graduate time-bomb
Wagdy Sawahel*
Unfolding events in North Africa and the Middle East have offered an important warning about the dangers of youth and graduate unemployment. First came the Tunisian time-bomb, then Egypt and Yemem. And there have been rumblings in Algeria, Libya and Morocco.
Full report on the University World News site:

NEWSBRIEFS

GLOBAL: New director for developing world academy
Munyaradzi Makoni
TWAS, the academy of sciences for the developing world, has a new executive director. Physicist Romain Murenzi is credited with spearheading science-based programmes and development in Rwanda after years of civil war and genocide in the 1990s.
Full report on the University World News site :

JORDAN: Plans for nanotechnology centre unveiled
Wagdy Sawahel
Jordan's government and IBM Research, the US-based international research organisation, are to establish a centre for nanotechnology research at a Jordanian university.
Full report on the University World News website:

FEATURES

GLOBAL: How universities play a regional role: OECD
Jane Marshall
Many universities need to change their attitudes and the way they operate if they are to play an effective part in helping their cities and regions promote human capital development and become more innovative and globally competitive. In particular they should widen their access to include sections of the population currently under-represented in higher education, and redefine their concept of 'innovation'.
Full report on the University World News site:

AFRICA: Centres of excellence develop future leaders
Munyaradzi Makoni
Five Centres of Excellence in Africa established more than two years ago by the German Academic Exchange Service could be part of the answer to the continent's brain drain. There is demand for higher training by students and the centres feel they are yet to reach their full potential. This was the consensus among African and German cooperation partners at their annual networking meeting, held at the University of the Western Cape in January.
Full report on the University World News site:

GLOBAL: International Higher Education spreads wings
Alison Moodie
In an increasingly globalised world, higher education is no longer the monopoly of Europe and the United States. With countries like Brazil, India and China generating innovative research and producing top academic minds, higher education news and issues have truly taken to the world stage. One American academic publication is also spreading its wings.
Full report on the University World News site:

COMMENTARY

US: New funding models for international education
President Barack Obama has called for more efforts to be made to retain talented foreign graduates in US universities, but has not announced any extra funding. MITCH LEVANTHAL says new sustainable sources of funding for internationalisation are needed and proposes a system by which income generated by international student tuition revenue is ploughed back into promoting greater internationalisation of US campuses.
Full report on the University World News site:

AUSTRALIA: The new ERA of journal ranking
Ranking scholarly journals forms a major feature of the Excellence in Research for Australia initiative. This process is not only a flawed system of measurement, but more significantly erodes the very contexts that produce 'quality' research. In the latest edition of Australian Universities' Review, SIMON COOPER and ANNA POLETTI argue that collegiality, networks of international research, the socio-cultural role of the academic journal as well as the way academics research in the digital era, are either ignored or negatively impacted upon by ranking exercises such as those posed by the ERA.
Full report on the University World News site:

GLOBAL: Digitised archives key to universities' future
Last month the UK's Online Learning Task Force outlined how online learning can make higher education more accessible. ALASTAIR DUNNING argues that those responsible for digitising university archives and special collections need to find new ways of engaging people and better demonstrating their value in an era of cutbacks.
Full report on the University World News site:

SCIENCE SCENE

NETHERLANDS: Visual acuity and colours
The eagle-eyed among us rally to red and the Mr Magoos are wooed by blue, says Professor Diana Derval of Dutch market research firm DervalResearch. Derval says her research shows that visual acuity determines our favourite and least favourite colours: near-sighted people tend to prefer short-wave colours such as blue whereas the far-sighted gravitate to long-wave colours such as red.
Full report on the University World News site:

AUSTRALIA: Larger groups make better decisions
A study led by researchers at the University of Sydney shows for the first time that larger social groups make faster, safer and more accurate decisions.
Full report on the University World News site:

GLOBAL: Organic fossil record
Contrary to conventional belief, remains of chitin-protein complex - structural materials containing protein and polysaccharide - are present in abundance in fossils of arthropods from the palaeozoic era. The findings could have major implications for scientists' understanding of the organic fossil record.
Full report on the University World News site:

UNI-LATERAL

INDIA: Elite institute closed by elephant
The elite Indian Institute of Technology at Kharagpur suffered a blackout and lockdown for more than three hours last weekend after a wild elephant entered the campus and caused panic among the students, faculty and staff, officials said, reports IANS.
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WORLD ROUND-UP

CHINA: Plagiarism professor stripped of prize
A 45-year-old former professor who has been embroiled in a plagiarism scandal for the past three years has been stripped of a top national award by China's Ministry of Science and Technology, reports China Daily-Asia News.
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NORWAY: Foreign students flock to free universities
Norwegian colleges and universities are reporting an increased application rate from foreign students, as Norway has become the only country in Europe to continue offering tuition-free higher education to all, regardless of country of origin, reports News in English.
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GLOBAL: Elite universities are tested on diversity
David Lammy is still mad. In December, Lammy, a former British higher education minister, currently serving as a Labour Party Member of Parliament, released figures showing vastly different success rates for white and black applicants to the UK's two oldest universities - Oxford and Cambridge. But have other countries done any better meeting the challenges of diversity? asks DD Guttenplan in The New York Times.
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RUSSIA: US-style college exams take hold
Two years into a controversial Kremlin-backed experiment to bring post-Soviet education in line with Western practices and introduce standardised nationwide college testing, the Russian version of the American SAT has gathered a number of critics and provoked angry reactions from teachers and parents, reports Sophia Kishkovsky for The New York Times.
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IRELAND: Fury over about-turn on tuition fees
Angry Members of Ireland's legislative assembly have again vowed to oppose increased university fees after a revised independent report overturned its initial conclusion that they should stay at current levels, writes Noel McAdam for the Belfast Telegraph.
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TURKEY: Growth in foreign academic numbers
Little more than a decade ago, the number of foreign academics at Turkish universities would scarcely have been enough to hold a good panel discussion. Today, they could staff an entire major institution in the United States, reports the HÃŒrriyet Daily News.
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US: High enrolment strains two-year colleges
Community colleges, long regarded as the most accessible realm of higher education, are becoming more difficult to access thanks to record enrolments combined with belt-tightening by state legislatures, writes Kevin Helliker for The Wall Street Journal.
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US: Charges against Muslims ignite free speech debate
When administrators at the University of California, Irvine, decided to suspend the Muslim Student Union for a quarter over the disruption of a speech last year by the Israeli ambassador to the US, most thought the latest controversy on campus had ended. District Attorney Tony Rackauckas of Orange County, however, disagreed - and filed misdemeanor criminal charges last week against the 11 student protesters, accusing them of disturbing a public meeting and engaging in a conspiracy to do so, reports The New York Times.
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PUERTO RICO: Professors announce strike
The Puerto Rican Association of University Professors has staged a 24-hour strike in support of students who have clashed with police during protests over a new fee, reports Bloomberg Businessweek.
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INDIA: Fears of more fraudulent universities in US
The allegedly tainted Tri-Valley University might not be the only US educational institution to indulge in immigration fraud. Overseas education consultants from Andhra Pradesh who have details of educational institutions in the US note that there are more universities which have been violating immigration rules while admitting students, reports Nikhila Henry for The Times of India.
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INDIA: Higher education regulator winds down
The wait has begun for the quiet burial of the country's apex higher education regulator. In a clear signal of the winding down of the 54-year-old behemoth, the government plans to avoid appointing a full-fledged chairman of the University Grants Commission (UGC) after economist Sukhdeo Thorat, reports Charu Sudan Kasturi for Hindustan Times.
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CANADA: Tories accused of academic witch hunt
Two University of Ottawa professors, vocal critics of the federal Conservative government, say they have become targets of a new political intimidation tactic aimed at using their private, personal information against them, write Susan Delacourt and Bruce Campion-Smith for The Star.
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TAIWAN: Recruitment of Chinese students begins
Universities and colleges in Taiwan are gearing up to attract mainland Chinese students after the ministry of education announced last week the quota allotted to each of them for the 2011 academic year, which will start in September, reports Focus Taiwan.
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BRAZIL: Business moves to support academic research
When the world's second-biggest mining company said last year that it would open three state-of-the-art research centres in Brazil, it marked the most visible development yet in the changing relationship between business and academe there, writes Andrew Downie for The Chronicle of Higher Education.
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WALES: Fees headache as Oxbridge sets mark
Universities in Wales could be forced to charge £9,000 (US$14,400) in tuition fees after two of the UK's leading institutions appeared to set the trend for higher education, writes Gareth Evans for Western Mail. A report by Cambridge University's working group argues that it would be "fiscally irresponsible" for the elite institution to charge less than the maximum. The announcement came as a number of Oxford University academics suggested their institution will also need to raise fees to at least £8,000.
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US: Public sector research produces valuable drugs
New research finds that a surprising number of valuable new drugs and vaccines approved in the United States have arisen wholly from research funded by the public sector, writes Amanda Gardner for Bloomberg Businessweek.
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Sunday 6 February 2011

University World News 0157 - 6th February 2011

This week's highlights

In Features, ALYA MISHRA wonders why Indian philanthropists are giving to American universities rather than those back home, BRENDAN O'MALLEY reports on a study predicting a steep decline in access to higher education in Britain and JAN PETTER MYKLEBUST looks at the Danish government's efforts to make universities more responsive to business and tackle the 'thesis swamp'. In Commentary, ANNE CORBETT argues that restive British students could learn lessons from a decade of European student engagement. CRAIG BUTOSI relates how right-wing US polemicist Ann Coulter - with help from her audience - closed down rational-critical debate at the University of Western Ontario, and STEPHEN P HEYNEMAN suggests that acquiring information about corruption and regular surveys of students and faculty could help eradicate this scourge of higher education.

EGYPT: Universities close, students evacuated

EGYPT: Angry students, academics push for a new era
Ashraf Khaled
Having just finished his mid-year examinations at the faculty of commerce of Cairo University, Egypt's largest public university, 21-year-old Hossam Abdel Khaleq was keen to join thousands of his fellow citizens in pushing for drastic reforms in this country of 80 million people. With all universities closed, there was plenty of time to protest.
Full report on the University World News site:

EGYPT: Thousands of Asian students evacuated
Yojana Sharma
Asian countries began to evacuate their students from Egypt even as the escalating anti-government demonstrations raised fears of contagion among their own sizeable Muslim populations.
Full report on the University World News site:

NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report

AUSTRALIA: First research exercise a mixed bag
Geoff Maslen
Depending on who's doing the commenting, the research performance of Australian universities is either world-ranking or pretty damn miserable. The Excellence in Research for Australia report was released last Tuesday to a distinctly mixed reception, even though the assessment was a retrospective exercise and evaluated the performance of universities from 2003 to 2008.
Full report on the University World News site:

NETHERLANDS: University cuts threaten global standing
Jan Petter Myklebust
The Dutch coalition government has announced cuts of up to EUR500 million (US$681 million) a year for higher education, penalties for students and universities if they fail to complete their degree after four years, and the abolition of grants for masters students. University rectors and the mayors of university cities warned that the cuts would "push the Netherlands out of the world's top 10 knowledge economies".
Full report on the University World News web site:

IRAN: Growing separation of genders in universities
Yojana Sharma and Shaya Raeis
Iran has stepped up gender separation in universities, with a number of universities already announcing that men and women will be taught in separate classes, and the government saying further requests by universities would be looked on positively.
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INDIA: Outrage over student treatment in US visa case
Alya Mishra
Indians are outraged over the treatment meted out to Indian students in the US following an immigration visa scam. US authorities confiscated the passports of students enrolled in the California-based Tri-Valley University, accused by the US Attorney's Office of being a fake institution, and radio-tagged some of them to track their movements.
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INDIA: New law on overseas university agents
Alya Mishra
A new law making it mandatory for all education agents to register with the Indian government or face fines or jail terms has been proposed in the wake of reports that some recruitment agents have misled students into joining fake universities abroad, such as the allegedly dubious California-based Tri-Valley University.
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EAST AFRICA: Proposed regional accreditation stalled
Gilbert Nganga
Higher education ministers in the East African Community's five member states have rejected a proposed university accreditation system in the region, dealing a blow to plans to achieve harmonisation and standardisation. The ministers argued that an overall body would interfere with countries' sovereignty and replicate existing regulatory authorities.
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COLOMBIA: First national university rankings unveiled
Philip Fine
The Universidad Nacional de Colombia captured top spot in Colombia's first-ever national ranking of its universities. Seven of the top 10 spots are occupied by public institutions, while the universities that captured the first five positions are all located in the main Colombian cities of Bogotà, Medellín and Cali.
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GERMANY: Employment agency addresses dropout rate
Michael Gardner
A reduced university dropout rate should form an important part of a strategy to tackle the threat of a shortage of skilled labour, by providing up to 600,000 more graduates, according to Germany's federal employment agency.
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NEW ZEALAND: Universities warn of staff shortages
John Gerritsen
Staff turnover at New Zealand's universities could nearly double by the end of the decade as their ageing workforce retires, research for Universities New Zealand shows. The report shows that 59% of the academic workforce is 45 or older compared to 43% among professionals in general.
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AUSTRALIA: Cuts to higher education for flood relief
Geoff Maslen
Plans by the federal government to cut spending on higher education and allocate nearly A$6 billion (US$6 billion) to rebuild vast areas of Queensland and Victoria affected by the recent floods have been condemned by lobby groups.
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CARIBBEAN: Neighbour helps students to rebuild Haiti
Sarah King Head
A year later and with reconstruction of the tertiary educational infrastructure on schedule, two Haitian students will be returning to Port-au-Prince with engineering degrees in hand and enthusiasm about being able to assist in rebuilding their country.
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FEATURES

INDIA: Charity not beginning at home for universities
Alya Mishra
When Indian industrialist Ratan Tata last year announced a gift of US$50 million to Harvard Business School it was acknowledged as "the largest international donation in the Ivy League university's 102 year history". But it also sparked a debate on why US universities benefit from Indian generosity while Indian universities languish in underfunded misery.
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UK: Rising demand 'will raise student costs'
Brendan O'Malley
The proportion of applicants failing to receive higher education in Britain is set to increase substantially over the next 10 years, pushing up the cost to the student as the government seeks to make more places available without drawing on public funds, according to analysis by the Higher Education Policy Institute, released on Thursday.
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DENMARK: Business demands drive degrees shake-up
Jan Petter Myklebust
Danish Higher Education Minister Charlotte Sahl-Madsen is trying to make universities more responsive to the demands of business. She is also tackling the 'thesis swamp' that traps many Danish graduates so that they fail to complete their masters on time, and plans to encourage students to choose courses better suited to a job in the private sector and to limit the numbers taking degrees that are less in demand by employers.
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COMMENTARY

EUROPE: Finding inspiration in student unrest
A wave of student protest animated Britain's political scene in late 2010 and highlighted wider concerns about the future of universities. There is already a decade of European experience of student engagement around similar issues where the movement can find allies and exert influence in 2011, says ANNE CORBETT.
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CANADA: Engaging with Coulter and the radical right
Ann Coulter, the right-wing polemicist, has been visiting Canadian universities to promote her book attacking liberal America. CRAIG BUTOSI saw her at the University of Western Ontario and left disappointed. In an article for the Canadian journal Academic Matters, he asks whether universities should facilitate conditions that allow people to speak freely, even if they also allow for the potential censoring of certain voices and giving preferential treatment to certain discourses over others?
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GLOBAL: The corruption of ethics in higher education
Corruption in higher education is as endemic as in other institutions. One way to cut down on it, argues STEPHEN P HEYNEMAN in the latest edition of International Higher Education, is to survey students and faculty regularly.
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UNI-LATERAL

AUSTRALIA: Art and science join with a Big Bang
Swinburne University in Melbourne called it "the Big Bang, galaxy formation" when Australian icon singer Kamahl and a Bollywood orchestra starred in an unlikely soap opera on Sunday - one that drew its inspiration from the night sky. Void Love is an online soap opera about space, the result of an artistic partnership with Swinburne's centre for astrophysics and supercomputing.
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WORLD ROUND-UP

CHINA: Hong Kong gears up for four-year degree
Universities in Hong Kong are counting down towards one of the most significant transformations ever attempted in the territory's higher education sector, and the logistics are daunting: thousands of extra students, hundreds of new lecturers, realms of new curricula to write and hours of additional courses to fill, writes Liz Gooch for The New York Times.
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US: Evacuated students did not want to leave Egypt
Study abroad staff evacuating students from Egypt last week all noticed a trend: many students did not want to leave, writes Sam Petulla for Inside Higher Ed. Were it up to them, they would still be watching the events from dorm rooftops, talking to local activists about chasing down police and scrambling to collect souvenirs.
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US: Academic defies threats after taunts by anchorman
Seventy eight-year-old leftwing academic Frances Fox Piven is the latest hate figure for Fox News host Glenn Beck and his legion of fans, writes Paul Harris for The Observer. While she has decided to shrug off the inevitable death threats that have followed, she is well aware of the problem. "I don't know if I am scared, but I am worried," she said as she sat in a bar on Manhattan's Upper West Side.
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US: Slight rise in college donations in 2010
America's colleges and universities received charitable contributions of $28 billion in 2010, an increase of 0.5% from the previous year, according to the annual survey by the Council for Aid to Education, writes Tamar Lewin for The New York Times.
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SCOTLAND: University suspends vice-chancellor
A Scottish university has taken the unusual step of suspending its highly regarded principal following a dispute over his role and the future direction of the institution, writes Andrew Denholm for The Herald Scotland.
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SRI LANKA: Private sector invited to fund research
The government will give income tax concessions to private sector companies that invest in research at local state universities in Sri Lanka, reports Kelum Bandara for the Daily Mirror.
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KENYA: Noose tightens on bogus colleges operators
People who operate bogus colleges risk three years in jail or a fine of Sh1 million (US$12,323) as the government initiates measures to weed out institutions offering fake or substandard certificates, writes Benjamin Muindi for The Nation.
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KENYA: Job data to determine university grading
Universities will soon be evaluated on how their graduates are employed or create employment opportunities, writes Benjamin Muindi for The Nation.
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UK: University cuts 'send wrong message on economy'
Paul Marshall, head of the 1994 Group of research universities, which includes Durham, York and St Andrews, said slashing £940 million (US$1.5 billion) from higher education funding by July 2012 will send out "exactly the wrong message" on the economy, writes Nick Collins for The Telegraph.
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UK: Top universities announce partnership
Two leading universities have announced their intention to work more closely together to meet the challenges of the future, writes Hannah Richardson for BBC News. Both are insisting it is not a merger.
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ZIMBABWE: Scramble for university places
Students who passed the 2010 Advanced Level public examinations face a daunting task in securing enrolment at the country's universities this year, reports Fortious Nhambura for The Herald. About 27,000 students sat for A-Levels last year and only about a fifth of them can be accommodated at state universities.
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THAILAND: Universities face admissions uncertainty
Many universities are facing crises in their direct admission systems, as many students who passed have not reported for enrolment, writes Wannapa Khaopa for The Nation. To cope with the worsening problem, the Council of University Presidents of Thailand will hold a meeting next weekend to find out the proper proportions of direct and central university admissions.
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TANZANIA: Colleges unite to offer doctorates
Three colleges have teamed up to award doctoral degrees to ease the problem of lack of such training in Tanzania's higher education institutions, writes Mkinga Mkinga for The Citizen.
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