University World News 0084 - 12th July 2009

UNESCO WORLD CONFERENCE: SPECIAL REPORT

UNESCO held its second World Conference on Higher Education in Paris last
week. The biggest event on the global higher education calendar since the first world conference in 1998, the four-day meeting attracted 1,200 delegates from 150 countries. They debated current and future issues in higher education in the areas of social responsibility, access, equity and quality, internationalisation, regionalisation and globalisation, and learning, research and innovation. There was also a special focus on Africa.

As the official media representative at the conference, University World News covered all the key events. The following special report draws together the articles prepared by our team of reporters on the spot.

DG Matsuura warns against crisis cuts
Karen MacGregor Education ministers must push hard for counter-cyclical spending on higher education to avoid damaging funding cuts to operating and research budgets that will put pressure on institutions to raise fees, the http://www.universityworldnews.com/filemgmt/visit.php?lid=46 said at the opening ceremony of the conference.
Full report on the University World News site:

States finally agree on World Conference communiqué
David Jobbins, Yojana Sharma and Karen MacGregor
After long behind-the-scenes political skirmishes, 150 governments attending the UNESCO World Conference unanimously adopted a communiqué acknowledging higher education as a 'public good' and calling on countries not to stop investing in the sector during the global economic crisis, among calls for action on other issues.
Full report on the University World News site:

Conference calls for higher education action
Karen MacGregor
The past decade has provided evidence that higher education and research contribute to the eradication of poverty, to sustainable development and to progress towards reaching global development goals, says the final communiqué of the 2009 UNESCO World Conference on Higher Education. It outlines 15 calls for action by states, ranging from adequate investment and better working conditions for academics to combating the brain drain and degree mills.
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Collaboration key for African university revival
Karen MacGregor
While much progress has been made in African higher education in the past decade, there is an urgent need for comprehensive transformation to enhance its relevance and responsiveness to the realities of countries, the UNESCO World Conference on Higher Education agreed. It called for regional quality assurance, greater collaboration, more differentiated systems and more private funding in stepped-up efforts to develop the continent's universities.
Full report on the University World News site:

An African higher education and research area
Karen MacGregor
An institute to train university leaders from across Africa in governance and management is to be created in West Africa, it was announced at a conference "Round Table Africa". The conference heard about a new vision for the Pan-African University and an array of initiatives needed to revitalise universities.
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Expansion of private higher education
Yojana Sharma
Private universities have been expanding rapidly worldwide but particularly in developing countries, as rising demand for higher education has meant private providers plug a gap that publicly-financed institutions cannot fill fast enough, according to a new study.
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Small states share higher education costs
Yojana Sharma
Some of the smallest countries in the South Pacific and Caribbean have been internationally-oriented for decades and their regional universities are a model closely studied by universities round the world seeking to internationalise and build regional alliances, the Unesco World Conference on Higher Education heard in Paris last week.
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Global student union to be formed
Yojana Sharma
Student groups from around the world met on the margins of the World Conference on Higher Education with the aim of establishing a global student organisation that could become a powerful lobbying force to advance student interests at international education meetings.
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UNESCO warned over university awards scam
David Jobbins
Universities in Central America are being induced to pay for awards without having to submit to any assessment procedures, a university rector warned a session of the conference on Tuesday. Dr Miguel Escala, Rector of the Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, described how universities were receiving invitations to attend an event to receive an award - in exchange for US$5,000.
Full report on the University World News site:

Obstacles on road to world-class universities
Yojana Sharma
World-class status for universities could take years to achieve, cost a large amount of money and still fall short of the social and economic rewards commonly associated with top brand name institutions, according to a report launched at the conference.
Full report on the University World News site:

WORLD CONFERENCE FEATURES

Inequalities made worse by ICTs
Patricia Brett
Information and communication technologies are a high-potential pedagogical tool but they are also exacerbating existing inequalities. The high cost of broadband and lack of funds to maintain systems or for teacher training deprive many higher education institutions in the developing world from fully-benefiting from the ICT revolution, says a Commonwealth of Learning background paper for the 2009 UNESCO World Conference on Higher Education.
Full report on the University World News site :

Brain gain initiative lures back academics - virtually
Patricia Brett
High hopes are pinned on new technologies to staunch the brain drain of academics from developing to industrialised nations. But funding remains a serious drawback to sustainability, the UNESCO World Conference on Higher Education heard last week. While pilot projects do get off the ground, they are not always able to stay in the air.
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NEWSBRIEFS

Aim for 1,000 in African research chairs
David Jobbins
An ambitious plan for the creation of 1,000 university research chairs across Africa to offset and reverse the brain drain was proposed by the International Association of University Presidents. Based on the Canada research chair programme, established in 2000 to create 2,000 chairs to combat the loss of Canadian academics to the United States, the African initiative would cost an estimated US$100 million.
Full report on the University World News site :

Students remain in their regions
David Jobbins
Student mobility patterns have changed dramatically over the past10 years, according to research by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics. Whereas a decade ago a limited number of countries dominated the list of receiving nations, now many students show a reduced tendency to travel to the former hotspots of the US, the UK and Australia.
Full report on the University World News site:

SCIENCE SCENE

EUROPE: Copernican remains verified - probably
One of the fathers of modern science was himself the subject of scientific inquiry recently when Swedish and Polish researchers used DNA analysis to identify the remains of Nicolaus Copernicus.
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SPAIN: New material holds promise of invisibility
Physicists at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona have figured out a way of making objects invisible - but only to very low frequencies of light and so far only in theory.
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AUSTRALIA: Scientists develop salt-tolerant crops
An international team of scientists has developed salt-tolerant plants using a new type of genetic modification that could help make salt-tolerant cereal crops a reality. The research team - based at the University of Adelaide's Waite Campus in South Australia - used a new GM technique to contain salt in parts of the plant where it does less damage.
Full report on the University World News site:

FEATURE

AUSTRALIA: National qualifications frameworks
Gavin Moodie*
Local universities will soon have to comply with the Australian qualifications framework. Until now their privilege of self-accreditation and their practically permanently legislated university status have allowed them to ignore the qualifications framework for all but international education. Paradoxically, the weakness of the framework in schools and higher education may be one of the reasons for its relative if modest success.
Full report on the University World News site :

HE RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY

UK: Costing, pricing and income measurement
Chike F Oduoza*
In these days of radical contraction of funding and expansion in student numbers, universities are under pressure to prioritise their resources, as well as achieve effective costing and pricing to support judgement and decision-making for funding and any external work undertaken. This study reviews costing, pricing and income measurement in higher education institutions in the UK. The resource allocation model - ICE model (income, costing exercise model) - was analysed based on relevant data obtained from institutional documentation, personal interviews and case studies, to understand how it guides resource allocation to academic schools in relation to business plans.
Full report on the University World News site:

U-SAY

From Zainub Qadir
With reference to the article
http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=2009062612263584 Hassanuddeen Abd Aziz, head of the Quality Assurance Unit said that out of 1,700 universities in the Islamic World, only Istanbul University of Turkey was included in the top 500 in the last academic ranking of world universities.
Full report on the University World News site:

UNI-LATERAL: Off-beat university stories

GLOBAL: Free help for developing nation researchers
John Gerritsen*
A group of undergraduates hopes to make a difference in the world by offering a free editing service to help researchers from developing nations get their work published in mainstream English language journals.
Full report on the University World News site:

FACEBOOK

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WORLD ROUND-UP

SOUTH AFRICA: One step closer to free universities
Free education for poor university students moved sharply up the South African government's priorities last week with the announcement of a ministerial committee to advise Minister of Higher Education and Training Blade Nzimande on how to provide it, writes Cornia Pretorius for the Mail & Guardian.
Full report on the University World News site:

INDIA: Student loan scheme announced
India's United Progressive Alliance government has made higher education its thrust area with a view to increasing the gross enrolment ratio to 15% by the end of the 11th plan, reports The Hindu. A key move in this regard was made by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee's last week when he announced loans for economically disadvantaged students.
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CANADA: Facebook fakers prey on students
Prospective university students in Canada are falling prey to a growing Facebook fraud as marketers set up fake academic groups to vacuum up their personal information, reports Paola Loriggio for The Star. After a sweep that shut down a number of fraudulent groups last month, a new batch has sprung up, targeting the classes of 2014 and 2015 - and experts say more are on the way.
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ARCTIC: NASA data shows 'dramatically thinned' ice
Arctic sea ice thinned dramatically between the winters of 2004 and 2008, with thick older ice shrinking by the equivalent of Alaska's land area, a study using data from a NASA satellite showed, reports AFP in the Sydney Morning Herald.
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US: Disconcerting data on student debt
You'd have to have been living under a rock not to know that student loan debt in the United States is a problem, and getting worse. The issue has become a stock part of politicians' speeches (including the new president's), motivated the creation of advocacy groups, and been the thesis of numerous conferences and reports, writes Doug Lederman for Inside Higher Ed.
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UK: Fees could be waived for students who stay home
The UK government is considering dropping tuition fees for students who stay at home to study in exchange for them waiving their right to grants and loans, it has emerged, writes Polly Curtis in The Guardian. Ministers are considering the plan as one possible solution to the mounting conundrum over how to fund the growing university sector in a recession.
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UK: Researchers to receive points for public outreach
Researchers have received confirmation that they will be rewarded for engaging with the public in the forthcoming research excellence framework, raising the prospect of funding being linked to articles for newspapers or television work, reports Zoë Corbyn for Times Higher Education.
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JAPAN: Pigeons can discern 'good' and 'bad' art
A Japanese study indicates pigeons can be trained to tell the difference between 'good' and 'bad' paintings, reports United Press International. Keio University Professor Shigeru Watanabe said his team discovered pigeons use colour, texture and pattern cues to judge a painting's beauty as defined by humans.
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US: Court upholds dismissal of Colorado professor
Three months after a jury ruled that Ward L Churchill, a former University of Colorado professor, was wrongfully terminated for his political views, a judge last week refused to give him his job back, reports Dan Frosch for The New York Times.
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US: Virtual university tours campus life
For high school students who have the time and money to travel, visiting a college campus is the best way to get a sense of the students, the faculty, and the feel of the place where they'll be spending four years (or more), writes Anne Wallace Allen for The Associated Press. But for those who can't visit, or who are just beginning their search, there is now a website called http://www.youniversitytv.com offering virtual tours of about 400 US colleges and universities.
Full report on the University World News site:

FRANCE: UNESCO learns about Angolan higher education
The Angolan head of the State Department for Higher Education, Adão do Nascimento, last week presented a communication "The development of the pubic and private education in Angola" at the UNESCO World Conference on Higher Education, reports the official agency Angola Press.
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UK: World Nuclear University institute at Oxford
The fifth annual Summer Institute of the World Nuclear University (WNU) has begun at the University of Oxford's Christ Church college, reports World Nuclear News. The Summer Institute has travelled from continent to continent, starting in the US then moving to Sweden, Korea and Canada.
Full report on the University World News site :