NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report
MALAYSIA: Terror-accused students remain in detention
Tunde Fatunde
The Geneva-based World Organisation Against Torture OMCT has protested to the Malaysian government over the arrest in January of 50 people at the International Islamic University near the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur. They are believed to include at least two students from N igeria and others from Ghana, Kenya, Syria and the Sudan. Although 38 of those arrested were later released, 12 remain in custody and were accused of having links with Al-Qaeda. Two of the Nigerian students are likely to be deported - another incident involving students and religious extremism that is causing the N igerian authorities concern.
Full report on the University World News site:
CHINA: Lax rules aid academic misconduct
The perception of academic autonomy and freedom in China has been distorted with many cases of misconduct reported, writes Xinglong Cao in our Features section this week. Cao is an assistant associate professor in the school of law at the City College of Zhejiang University in Hangzhou. He says misuses of academic powers for illegitimate benefits such as money, honour and even sex have occurred yet only a small fraction has ever been officially verified or action taken.
Full report in Features on the University World News site:
GLOBAL: First shots fired in ranking war
David Jobbins
The parting of the ways between Times Higher Education and QS, its international league table number-cruncher for the past seven years, was bound to cause ripples when it was announced late last year. The two former partners are now vying with each other to capture hearts and minds for their diverging methodologies as they gear up for the 2010 rankings cycle.
Full report on the University World News site:
RANKINGS 2: North America leaves Europe and Asia behind
Rebecca Warden
North American academics are far more willing to share information and publish it online than their European equivalents. This is one of the factors contributing to the continuing dominance of North American universities in the latest edition of the Web Ranking of World Universities published by the Spanish National Research Council's Cybermetrics Lab.
Full report on the University World News site:
US: Increase access and affordability: task force
American Vice President Joe Biden released the annual report of the White House Task Force on the Middle Class last month. The report said that among the most effective means of helping American families secure economic stability was increasing access and affordability to higher education.
Full report on the University World News site:
CHINA-US: PhD students stay on
Sarah King Head
More than nine in every 10 students from China who gained a doctorate in the United States in 2002 were still in the country in 2007, the highest percentage from any foreign nation. This compares with 62% of all foreign-born PhD recipients for that year, says a new report.
Full report on the University World News site:
EUROPE: Student protests at Bologna's 10th year
Students in countries across Europe are continuing their protests against implementation of the Bologna process as the programme reaches its 10th anniversary. But students and student representatives across the continent claim they are also trying to make the process work by providing their views on how education can better meet students' needs. A special report on Bologna by our Greece correspondent Makki Marseilles is also published this week in the Features section.
Full report on the University World News site:
AUSTRALIA: Universities told to reveal all
Geoff Maslen
Universities across Australia will be required to reveal more details than ever before about the way they operate. For the first time, information about each institution, its courses, student to staff ratios, graduate outcomes, fee levels and quality of teaching will be available on a government 'My University' website. The website will be operational by 2012 when the government will also remove limits on the number of government-funded places universities can offer - a move expected to create a highly competitive market for top students.
Full report on the University World News site: See also AUSTRALIA: Demystifying the university by Professor Marcia Devlin in the Features section:
EUROPE: Give doctorates a wider role
Alan Osborn
It is time doctorates were seen as a qualification for all kinds of jobs in the modern world and not just as a ticket for an academic career, says the League of European Research Universities. A new league paper says the doctorate has evolved into a qualification for people who are "highly creative, critical, autonomous, intellectual risk-takers who push the boundaries of knowledge and innovation whatever their employment destination may be".
Full report on the University World News site:
RUSSIA: Student enrolments plummet
Eugene Vorotnikov*
Russian higher education is experiencing a demographic crisis that could see the number of students fall from the current 7.5 million to four million over the next few years. A report released by Minister of Education Andrei Fursenko says the problem is not only in the quantity but also in the quality of students.
Full report on the University World News site:
FINLAND: Strike one and you're out
Ian R Dobson*
Less than three months after Finland's new Universities Act came into force, impasses between universities and unions are heading towards strike action. Three unions represent all levels of university staff. If it goes ahead, the strike will be the first in the sector since 1986, at which time about half of support staff withdrew their labour.
Full report on the University World News site:
NEWSBRIEFS
EUROPE: Call to back e-library
Keith Nuthall
Member states of the European Union have been attacked by their parliamentary representatives for lukewarm support of the 'Europeana' online library, museum
Full report on the University World News site:
GULF STATES-EU: Bi-regional partnerships network
Wagdy Sawahel
The six-member Gulf Cooperation Council, with Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and the 22 member states of the European Union will establish a science and technology international cooperation network to promote bi-regional partnerships.
Full report on the University World News site:
NORWAY: Basic physics evaluated
Jan Petter Myklebust
An international panel of distinguished physicists has examined 48 research groups involved with basic physics at Norwegian universities and research institutions. Five have been graded as excellent and some are world-leading. The panel believes Norway is now in a financial position to contribute more actively to the global long-term strategic development of basic physics with up to 160 new physicist positions created at a cost of NOK120 million (US$20.3 million).
Full report on the University World News site:
DENMARK: Long-time universities' minister loses job
In a major reshuffle of government ministerial posts last week, former Science Minister Helge Sander lost his job which included responsibility for the country's universities. The University of Copenhagen's University Post reported that Sander had been replaced by Charlotte Sahl-Madsen, a Conservative Party member who chairs the board of a corporate-sponsored innovation fund within industrial company Danfoss.
Full report on the University World News site:
SWEDEN: Lund to employ up to 400 new researchers
Jan Petter Myklebust
Lund University in the south of Sweden will use a huge accumulated surplus to employ up to 400 new researchers and teachers this year. The surplus amounted to SEK451 million (US$63 million) at the end of 2009 and it will be spent on expanding staff, recruiting 1,000 additional students, renovating buildings and investing in research infrastructure.
Full report on the University World News site:
BUSINESS
Australia: Keeping your cool pays off
Leah Germain
New research by the Melbourne Business School will provide members of the global business community with the resources they need to move up the corporate ladder and acquire positions of leadership. Researchers have coined the phrase Psychological Flexibility or PF to describe the ability to "divorce yourself from your emotions" as a key business tactic.
Full report on the University World News site:
US: Innovative website helps with study abroad
Leah Germain
An internet-based service informing students how best to live and study abroad has released a '10 Step Guide' of advice, which universities could offer their foreign scholars. The founders of Boston-based Abroad101.com were inspired by the study abroad experience of childhood friends who realised the benefits of travelling and learning abroad while completing their university degree.
Full report on the University World News site:
AUSTRALIA: Higher education service goes global
Leah Germain
An Australian service helping students prepare for joining higher education is expanding worldwide. Western Australia-based Navitas says launches in the US this year are the shape of things to come.
Full report on the University World News site:
FEATURES
CHINA: Lax rules aid academic misconduct
Xinglong Cao*
In the 12 months to June last year, allegations of scientific misconduct by a research group at Zhejiang University and led by an "academician" of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, triggered broad discussion in China, a discussion that can still be traced on the internet today, more than a year later.
Full report on the University World News site:
AUSTRALIA: De-mystifying the university
Marcia Devlin*
Following on from the positive response of the Australian public to the federal government's My School web site, the My University web site was inevitable. Parents are delighted with the accessibility of the information, the simplicity of the data and the ease with which comparisons can be made through the My School site. A My University site will likewise help de-mystify university for those with little familiarity with the sector and this could contribute to encouraging those who might be put off by 'the unknown' to re-look at university as an option.
Full report on the University World News site:
GREECE: Bologna under attack
Makki Marseilles
Education Ministers from 46 countries in Europe will meet in Vienna this week to mark the 10th anniversary of the Bologna Agreement, which proposed a European Higher Education Area where students and graduates could move freely between countries using prior qualifications in one country as acceptable entry requirements for further study in another.
Full report on the University World News site:
HE RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
AUSTRALIA: Academics and the media
Graeme Orr*
Surprisingly little has been written about academia's relationship with the media in Australia. The exception has been recent interest in defining and naming 'public intellectuals' - people who can move easily between topics, drawing on a variety of philosophical positions or contextual understandings. Public intellectuals are exalted, but rare, birds. But they are just the tip of the iceberg. Academics can move between three models of media engagement.
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Paper in the journal Australian Universities' Review :
GLOBAL: Higher education budgets and the recession
John Aubrey Douglass
In the midst of the global recession, how have national governments around the world viewed the role of higher education in their evolving strategies for economic recovery? Demand for higher education generally goes up during economic downturns. Which nations have proactively protected funding for universities and colleges to help maintain access, to help retrain workers and to mitigate unemployment rates? And which nations have simply made large funding cuts for higher education in light of the severe downturn in tax revenues?
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Paper from the Center for Studies in Higher Education, Berkeley:
UNI-LATERAL: Off-beat university stories
CANADA: Invasion of the campus bunnies
Cayley Dobie
The problems being caused by Thumper and his friends at the University of Victoria in British Columbia may soon abate if administrators can just cut through some red tape. In trying to deal with up to 1,500 rabbits on campus, they recently suffered a setback in attempts to lower the population. The problem has spawned a plethora of forms related to the ethical treatment of animals.
Full report on the University World News site:
FACEBOOK
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WORLD ROUND-UP
CHILE: Six university officials killed in quake crash
Six Chilean university administrators on a disaster surveillance mission were killed last Monday after their twin-engine aircraft crashed in a wooded area north of Concepción, the city near the epicentre of the devastating 27 February earthquake, according to university and news reports, writes Marion Lloyd for The Chronicle of Higher Education.
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GLOBAL: North America's postgraduate appeal wanes
Europe is winning the battle to be the most popular region for postgraduate study, writes Michael Prest for The Independent. According to preliminary 2009 statistics compiled by QS, the private provider of higher education information services, North America has continued to slide in the esteem of prospective postgraduates. There has also been a noticeable increase in proportions studying international relations, communications and law, mainly at the expense of finance, accounting, management and economics subjects.
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GLOBAL: Scientists take steps to defend climate work
For months, climate scientists have taken a vicious beating in the media and on the internet, accused of hiding data, covering up errors and suppressing alternate views, writes John M Broder for The New York Times. Their response until now has been largely to assert the legitimacy of the vast body of climate science and to mock their critics as cranks and know-nothings. But the volume of criticism and the depth of doubt have only grown, and many scientists now realise they are facing a crisis of public confidence and have to fight back.
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PALESTINE: Syndicate announces class suspension
The Syndicate of Palestinian Universities Union announced the suspension of classes in West Bank institutions last Monday, because of what it called a lack of response to employees' demands by the Palestinian Council for Higher Education, reports Ma'an news agency. The strike was the third in a week, following two student-led strikes over a Palestinian Authority Ministry of Education decision to convert most of its tuition grants into loans.
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US: Students march against funding cuts and fee hikes
In an unprecedented day of national protest across all sectors of education, the epicentre proved to be Berkeley - where the seeds of student activism were sown more than 40 years ago, writes Jack Stripling for Inside Higher Ed. With the smell of burning sage and the occasional hint of weed in the air, an impassioned throng of students from the University of California's Berkeley campus marched to protest budget cuts and tuition hikes they say are crippling one of the nation's premier public institutions.
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US: Taxes support for-profit firms acquiring colleges
America's ITT Educational Services Inc paid US$20.8 million for debt-ridden Daniel Webster College last June, writes Daniel Golden for Bloomberg. In return, the company obtained an academic credential that may generate a taxpayer-funded bonanza worth as much as $1 billion.
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US: Layoffs without 'financial exigency'
One of the ultimate protections of being a tenured faculty member in the US has been being immune from layoff in all but the most extraordinary circumstances, writes Scott Jaschik for Inside Higher Ed. Under policies issued by the American Association of University Professors and largely accepted by higher education leaders, only institutions that declare 'financial exigency' - a state so dire that it "threatens the survival of the institution as a whole" - can eliminate the jobs of tenured academics.
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US: Business the top college major for women
Business is the number one college major for women and men in America, according to a recent analysis by the AAUW (formerly the American Association of University Women) of the Department of Education's Condition of Education 2009 report, writes Ruchika Tulshyan for Forbes. Business degrees now comprise 18% of all degrees awarded to women, nearly twice as high as the second most popular major, health professions and clinical sciences.
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CHINA: Anger over college entrance bonus point abuses
An ongoing public survey has shown that almost 80% of Chinese want the abolition of a bonus points policy for some candidates taking the annual National College Entrance Examination, or NCEE, the official Xinhua news agency reports. The controversial policy allows candidates to receive additional points if they are from an ethnic minority or are outstanding students academically or athletically.
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KENYA: Thousands to miss places in universities
About 60,000 candidates who have qualified for public universities in Kenya will fail to gain admission, reports The Nation. This is despite the fact that the Joint Admissions Board, or JAB, has increased the number of students joining the universities by nearly half.
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WALES: Minister launches review of universities
Education Minister Leighton Andrews last week announced plans to review how Welsh universities are run, writes Gareth Evans for the Western Mail. At a higher education conference in Cardiff, Andrews said governing bodies had a responsibility to deliver value when spending £400 million (US$603 million) a year of public money.
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UK: Fund degrees with business tax - lecturer union
Tuition fees should be abolished in the UK and a new business education tax introduced to fund universities, the University and College Union has urged, reports BBC News. It says corporation tax should be raised to the G7 average - 32.87% - with the extra cash ring-fenced to higher education.
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N IGERIA: UK calls for investment in higher education
N igeria's government has been called on to invest significantly in higher education to cater for an increasing number of applicants who are denied access annually, reports This Day. Country Director of the British Council, David Higgs, said most N igerians attend foreign universities because they cannot secure a place in a local university.
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VIETNAM: Parliament uncovers problems in universities
Numerous problems have been uncovered by a national assembly standing committee during working sessions with 40 universities, reports VietNamNet. The problems were found in procedures to establish schools, open new study branches, decide the number of students to be enrolled and, especially, in network development.
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Sunday, 7 March 2010
Sunday, 28 February 2010
University World News 0113 - 1st March 2010
NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report
N IGERIA: Minister proposes monitoring students abroad
Tunde Fatunde
N igeria's Minister of Youth Development has proposed that the government monitor the religious and social activities of students abroad. The controversial plan is a response to the attempted bombing of an American aircraft by a N igerian student last December and the nation's inclusion on a US list of high security risk countries.
Full report on the University World News site:
INDONESIA: Level university entrance playing field
David Jardine
Confusion over higher education entrance requirements continues across Indonesia.In response, the Ministry of National Education plans to review this year's arrangements for conducting entrance examinations.
Full report on the University World News site:
EUROPE: The Donostia declaration
Jan Petter Myklebust
A meeting of science ministers from across Europe met in San Sebastian in Spain earlier this month and agreed unanimously to release the 'Donostia Declaration'. This was a 300-word statement endorsing the role that science must play in assisting Europe to recover from its worst economic crisis in recent decades.
Full report on the University World News site:
EUROPE: Turning science into commerce
Europe produces more research papers than the US or Japan but needs an influx of venture capital to turn inventions into commercial success, according to Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, EU commissioner for research, innovation and science.
Full report on the University World News site:
US: Importance of research for undergraduates
Sarah King Head
A survey of the University of California's 170,000 students underlines the importance of offering research projects for undergraduates at research universities.
Full report on the University World News site:
AUSTRALIA: High Court rejects university's IP appeal
Geoff Maslen
A decision by the High Court of Australia earlier this month has dispelled assumptions by universities that they, as with private companies, automatically own the intellectual property rights to discoveries or inventions of their staff.
Full report on the University World News site:
SWEDEN: Tuition fees for foreigners - and scholarships
The government has outlined its plans to introduce tuition and application fees for students from non-EU-EEA countries from the 2011-12 academic year. It also announced that the fees would be supplemented by new scholarship schemes, one of which will be available to students from countries where Sweden is already involved with long-term development projects.
Full report on the University World News site:
SWEDEN: New charges present new challenges
Jan Petter Myklebust
The decision to introduce tuition fees for foreign students has met strong objections by Swedish student unions and a massive e-mail response to Local - Sweden's News in English. But for two of the universities enrolling most foreign students, the government's decision means an immediate income loss in the millions.
Full report on the University World News site:
ZIMBABWE: University's funds looted, intakes frozen
The University of Zimbabwe is battling to recover nearly US$5 million in research funds looted from its foreign currency account by the central bank during the country's economic crisis. Meanwhile, the institution has frozen intakes in some departments as the brain drain takes its toll - and the nationwide lecturer strike at public universities continues.
Full report on the University World News site:
SOUTH AFRICA: OpenContent: Sharing teaching and learning
Alison Moodie
The University of Cape Town has launched an OpenContent Directory that allows academics to share teaching and learning materials and makes a body of knowledge accessible to all. It will contribute South African resources to the global Knowledge Commons, Vice-chancellor Dr Max Price said, and is the first step towards Open UCT - a broader initiative that will make a vast range of resources, including research and community work, available online.
Full report on the University World News site:
NEWSBRIEFS
EGYPT: Academy for young scientists
Wagdy Sawahel
Egypt plans to set up an academy of science for young researchers, to support top up-and-coming scientists and encourage them to play a pivotal role in developing future strategies that use science and technology for socio-economic development.
Full report on the University World News site:
DR CONGO: Professors who exposed frauds sacked
Two professors at the University of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo, who alerted the law about embezzlement of funds, are facing the sack on the orders of the Minister of Higher and University Education.
Full report on the University World News site:
NORTH AFRICA: Boost for Maghreb university cooperation
Wagdy Sawahel
The five members of the Arab Maghreb Union - Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Libya and Mauritania - have agreed to create a website for all universities and research centers in the region and to re-activate a union of Maghrebi universities.
Full report on the University World News site:
TUNISIA: President's plans stress economic priorities
Jane Marshall
Tunisian higher education must conform to international standards and adapt to the demands of the labour market and knowledge economy, under the presidential plan 'Together let's meet the challenges' that covers the period 2009-14, reported La Presse of Tunis.
Full report on the University World News site :
FRANCOPHONE AFRICA: Database of diplomas launched
CAMES, the 18-member African and Madagascan Council for Higher Education, has launched a database of recognised qualifications in francophone Africa. With a couple of clicks to locate country and institution, the database gives information about diplomas, their relevant department or faculty, any available options, and how many years higher study they should require.
Full report on the University World News site:
ACADEMIC FREEDOM
SUDAN: Police surround funeral of beaten student
Daniel Sawney and Jonathan Travis*
Reuters reports that the funeral of a Darfuri student who was allegedly beaten to death by Sudanese authorities became the scene of a tense confrontation when armed police surrounded the house where the student's body waited to go to the cemetery.
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SCIENCE SCENE
UK: Recognising faces - it's genetic
New research from University College London indicates that the ability to recognise people's faces is genetically based.
Full report on the University World News site:
US-UK: Flightless mosquitoes control dengue fever
A breed of mosquito in which the females cannot fly has been developed as a means of combating dengue fever - a mosquito-borne disease for which there is no vaccine or treatment.
Full report on the University World News site:
UK: Generating energy from grass'
A five-year research project has discovered a way of generating green energy from a humble everyday grass.
Full report on the University World News site:
AFRICA: Diarrhoea vaccine reduces deaths, study finds
Munyaradzi Makoni
Hopes in Africa of a decline in infant deaths from diarrhoea have been raised by a study that found a 61.2% reduction in deaths among babies given the RotarixTM vaccine. The research results were cited as one of the reasons why the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have committed US$10 billion over the next 10 years to vaccines.
Full report on the University World News site:
FEATURES
GLOBAL: Establishing academic standards
Gavin Moodie*
The privatisation of higher education in many countries has increased the financial incentive for institutions to compromise standards to maintain their viability. It has also led to the increased influence of institutions and their managers over lecturers and their academic decisions which were previously more strongly influenced by disciplinary norms and the expectations of the 'invisible college'.
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SOUTHERN AFRICA: A regional tertiary collaboration model
Sharon Dell
Five years since its establishment the Southern African Regional Universities' Association, Sarua, has made considerable headway in establishing itself as a credible platform for leadership 'conversations' and a model for collaboration in the region's tertiary sector.
Full report on the University World News site:
GERMANY: Training locals to deal with food issues
Stephan Weidt
Researchers at the University of Hohenheim's Food Security Center (FSC) are developing food security strategies. Hohenheim is among five winners of the Exceed - Excellence for Development - competition.
Full report on the University World News site:
HE RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
GLOBAL: Why branch campuses may be unsustainable
Philip G Altbach
Branch campuses are sprouting around the world, like mushrooms after a heavy rain. According to the Observatory on Borderless Higher Education, the number of branch campuses increased by 43% to a total of 162 between 2006 and 2009. Many of the growing mushrooms may only hold a limited lifespan and a few might be poisonous.
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Article from International Higher Education:
GLOBAL: The poor as providers of innovative solutions
Anil K Gupta*
Economically disadvantaged people can trigger frugal, creative and re-combinable innovations that can stimulate the creation of new pedagogies, products and processes. The model I talk about is 'sink' to 'source'. Such people are not 'sink' - passive recipients of our advice, or clients of corporate social responsibility. Given a chance they can be providers of solutions that may need further value-added in some cases. Why is it that the designers of pedagogies and curricula the world over neglect the need for learning from knowledge-rich, economically poor people? Why are there so few papers on innovations by workers in the organised and unorganised sectors compared to managerial innovations?
Full report on the University World News site:
Presented at the Innovation for Development symposium, Wits University
US: The future of the internet IV
The latest in a series of expert studies, US: The future of the internet IV has revealed "fascinating new perspectives on the way the internet is affecting human intelligence and the ways that information is being shared and rendered", according to the Imagining the Internet Center at Elon University and the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project. The web-based survey obtained opinions from nearly 900 internet stakeholders including prominent scientists, business leaders, consultants, writers and technology developers.
Full report on the University World News site:
UNI-LATERAL: Off-beat university stories
US: Cold comfort for Northeastern
The advertisement touting the university's co-op programme was ready to go. It featured a lone king penguin in ice-covered Antarctica - "The only continent where you won't find a Northeastern University student...yet," it proclaimed, writes Tracy Jan for The Boston Globe. But the campaign was killed by its very prescience. Northeastern officials recently learned that a student is heading to the South Pole in April for a six-month research stint, and withdrew the ad.
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WORLD ROUND-UP
INDIA: Committed to overhauling education, says PM
From investing more in primary education to allowing foreign universities to open campuses in India, the central government is working to bring about a paradigm shift in educational infrastructure to further inclusive growth in the country, President Pratibha Patil said on Monday, reports India Edunews. She said change would be based on the "three pillars of expansion, inclusion and excellence."
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ISRAEL: State, universities join forces to fight brain drain
The Israeli state has come up with a plan to diminish the 'brain drain', writes Meirav Arlosoroff for Haartez. It has proposed establishing a new fund to provide the jobs needed to keep the country's best and brightest academics from moving overseas, or to bring them back home. The fund, to be managed by the Council for Higher Education, will invest in centres of research excellence that provide positions for repatriated scientists and engineers.
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LIBERIA: Ex-fighters drop studies as money runs out
Nearly 1,000 former fighters have dropped out of Liberian universities because the cash-strapped government stopped paying their fees as promised, ex-fighters' representatives said, threatening a society trying to recover from a bloody civil war. Jonathan Paye-Layleh writes for the Associated Press that Education minister Joseph Korto said the government cannot pay tuition for some 1,600 ex-combatants because of unspecified "budgetary constraints".
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UK: University managers outpace academics
The number of managers at UK universities has risen more than three times as fast as the number of academics since 2003, according to Financial Times research, reports David Turner. A 33% increase in managers is the most rapid of any job type in Britain's university sector. It compares with a more steady rise of just under 10% in 'academic professionals', according to analysis of data from an official agency.
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UK: Academy cuts threaten future of subject centres
The fruit of decades of effort to improve university teaching is under threat at the very time it is needed most as a result of cuts to the higher education budget, it was claimed this week, writes Rebecca Attwood for Times Higher Education. Funding chiefs confirmed that the £30 million (US$46 million) a year Higher Education Academy, the UK's body for university teaching, is facing a reduction in core funding of about a third over the next two to three years.
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CHINA: Government denies links to Google attacks
China has denied government links to cyber attacks against the search giant Google, saying such accusations were "irresponsible and calculating", China Daily reports. The official Xinhua news agency quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang saying that "China resolutely opposes the groundless accusations from Google" and accusations that two Chinese universities had carried out the cyber attacks did not hold water.
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CHINA: Hacking inquiry puts elite in new light
With its sterling reputation and its scientific bent, Shanghai Jiaotong University has the feel of an Ivy League institution, writes David Barboza for The New York Times. The university has alliances with elite American institutions and it is so rich in science and engineering talent that Microsoft and Intel have moved into a research park directly adjacent to the school. But Jiaotong, whose sprawling campus has more than 33,000 students, is facing an unpleasant question: is it a base for sophisticated computer hackers?
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CHINA: Colleges told to cut ties with Oxfam
China's education ministry has ordered colleges to cut ties with Oxfam and prevent it from recruiting on campuses, accusing its Hong Kong branch of a hidden political agenda, The Guardian reports.
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US: Amy Bishop - a murder suspect's worth to science
Amy Bishop, neuroscientist, inventor, murder suspect, has become bigger than life, a symbol for those who think that genius is close to madness, or that women cannot get ahead in science, or that tenure systems in universities are brutalising - or even that progress against fatal diseases is so important that someone like Bishop should be set free to pursue cures - writes Gina Kolata for The New York Times.
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BANGLADESH: Private university law to ensure standards
Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid said last week that the government had formulated a private university law in a bid to ensure discipline, progress, standards and good management in Bangladesh's private institutions, reports The Daily Star. He said that while some of the country's 53 private universities performed well, many did not succeed.
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TAIWAN: More graduates seeking masters degrees
A sharply increasing number of graduates from universities and colleges are taking entrance examinations in February or March in order to study at graduate schools for masters degrees, reports The China Post. Analysts said the economic downturn, which has squeezed job opportunities, is a major factor driving the growth in postgraduate applicants.
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UAE: University remedial English to end
Remedial courses taken by most first-year Emirati university students because high schools fail to prepare them for higher education are to end, write Kathryn Lewis and Daniel Bardsley for The National. The bold move is contained in the long-anticipated Ministry of Education Strategy 2010-2020, which was published last week on the website of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice-president of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai.
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GLOBAL: HP opens Singapore research hub
Two years ago, Hewlett-Packard embarked on an ambitious overhaul of its storied research labs, responsible for some of the most momentous computing innovation of the last 40 years, writes Aaron Ricadela for Business Week. Now, HP Labs Director Prith Banerjee is turning his attention to the company's half-dozen international labs, aiming to generate cutting-edge development from scientific outposts in Asia, Europe and the Middle East.
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PAKISTAN: Higher education collaboration with Iran
Iran's Ambassador to Pakistan Mashallah Shakiri on Wednesday called on the chairman of the Higher Education Commission, Dr Javaid R Laghari, to discuss the prospects of cooperation between the two countries in the higher education sector, reports the Associated Press of Pakistan.
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N IGERIA: Minister proposes monitoring students abroad
Tunde Fatunde
N igeria's Minister of Youth Development has proposed that the government monitor the religious and social activities of students abroad. The controversial plan is a response to the attempted bombing of an American aircraft by a N igerian student last December and the nation's inclusion on a US list of high security risk countries.
Full report on the University World News site:
INDONESIA: Level university entrance playing field
David Jardine
Confusion over higher education entrance requirements continues across Indonesia.In response, the Ministry of National Education plans to review this year's arrangements for conducting entrance examinations.
Full report on the University World News site:
EUROPE: The Donostia declaration
Jan Petter Myklebust
A meeting of science ministers from across Europe met in San Sebastian in Spain earlier this month and agreed unanimously to release the 'Donostia Declaration'. This was a 300-word statement endorsing the role that science must play in assisting Europe to recover from its worst economic crisis in recent decades.
Full report on the University World News site:
EUROPE: Turning science into commerce
Europe produces more research papers than the US or Japan but needs an influx of venture capital to turn inventions into commercial success, according to Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, EU commissioner for research, innovation and science.
Full report on the University World News site:
US: Importance of research for undergraduates
Sarah King Head
A survey of the University of California's 170,000 students underlines the importance of offering research projects for undergraduates at research universities.
Full report on the University World News site:
AUSTRALIA: High Court rejects university's IP appeal
Geoff Maslen
A decision by the High Court of Australia earlier this month has dispelled assumptions by universities that they, as with private companies, automatically own the intellectual property rights to discoveries or inventions of their staff.
Full report on the University World News site:
SWEDEN: Tuition fees for foreigners - and scholarships
The government has outlined its plans to introduce tuition and application fees for students from non-EU-EEA countries from the 2011-12 academic year. It also announced that the fees would be supplemented by new scholarship schemes, one of which will be available to students from countries where Sweden is already involved with long-term development projects.
Full report on the University World News site:
SWEDEN: New charges present new challenges
Jan Petter Myklebust
The decision to introduce tuition fees for foreign students has met strong objections by Swedish student unions and a massive e-mail response to Local - Sweden's News in English. But for two of the universities enrolling most foreign students, the government's decision means an immediate income loss in the millions.
Full report on the University World News site:
ZIMBABWE: University's funds looted, intakes frozen
The University of Zimbabwe is battling to recover nearly US$5 million in research funds looted from its foreign currency account by the central bank during the country's economic crisis. Meanwhile, the institution has frozen intakes in some departments as the brain drain takes its toll - and the nationwide lecturer strike at public universities continues.
Full report on the University World News site:
SOUTH AFRICA: OpenContent: Sharing teaching and learning
Alison Moodie
The University of Cape Town has launched an OpenContent Directory that allows academics to share teaching and learning materials and makes a body of knowledge accessible to all. It will contribute South African resources to the global Knowledge Commons, Vice-chancellor Dr Max Price said, and is the first step towards Open UCT - a broader initiative that will make a vast range of resources, including research and community work, available online.
Full report on the University World News site:
NEWSBRIEFS
EGYPT: Academy for young scientists
Wagdy Sawahel
Egypt plans to set up an academy of science for young researchers, to support top up-and-coming scientists and encourage them to play a pivotal role in developing future strategies that use science and technology for socio-economic development.
Full report on the University World News site:
DR CONGO: Professors who exposed frauds sacked
Two professors at the University of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo, who alerted the law about embezzlement of funds, are facing the sack on the orders of the Minister of Higher and University Education.
Full report on the University World News site:
NORTH AFRICA: Boost for Maghreb university cooperation
Wagdy Sawahel
The five members of the Arab Maghreb Union - Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Libya and Mauritania - have agreed to create a website for all universities and research centers in the region and to re-activate a union of Maghrebi universities.
Full report on the University World News site:
TUNISIA: President's plans stress economic priorities
Jane Marshall
Tunisian higher education must conform to international standards and adapt to the demands of the labour market and knowledge economy, under the presidential plan 'Together let's meet the challenges' that covers the period 2009-14, reported La Presse of Tunis.
Full report on the University World News site :
FRANCOPHONE AFRICA: Database of diplomas launched
CAMES, the 18-member African and Madagascan Council for Higher Education, has launched a database of recognised qualifications in francophone Africa. With a couple of clicks to locate country and institution, the database gives information about diplomas, their relevant department or faculty, any available options, and how many years higher study they should require.
Full report on the University World News site:
ACADEMIC FREEDOM
SUDAN: Police surround funeral of beaten student
Daniel Sawney and Jonathan Travis*
Reuters reports that the funeral of a Darfuri student who was allegedly beaten to death by Sudanese authorities became the scene of a tense confrontation when armed police surrounded the house where the student's body waited to go to the cemetery.
More Academic Freedom reports on the University World News site:
SCIENCE SCENE
UK: Recognising faces - it's genetic
New research from University College London indicates that the ability to recognise people's faces is genetically based.
Full report on the University World News site:
US-UK: Flightless mosquitoes control dengue fever
A breed of mosquito in which the females cannot fly has been developed as a means of combating dengue fever - a mosquito-borne disease for which there is no vaccine or treatment.
Full report on the University World News site:
UK: Generating energy from grass'
A five-year research project has discovered a way of generating green energy from a humble everyday grass.
Full report on the University World News site:
AFRICA: Diarrhoea vaccine reduces deaths, study finds
Munyaradzi Makoni
Hopes in Africa of a decline in infant deaths from diarrhoea have been raised by a study that found a 61.2% reduction in deaths among babies given the RotarixTM vaccine. The research results were cited as one of the reasons why the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have committed US$10 billion over the next 10 years to vaccines.
Full report on the University World News site:
FEATURES
GLOBAL: Establishing academic standards
Gavin Moodie*
The privatisation of higher education in many countries has increased the financial incentive for institutions to compromise standards to maintain their viability. It has also led to the increased influence of institutions and their managers over lecturers and their academic decisions which were previously more strongly influenced by disciplinary norms and the expectations of the 'invisible college'.
Full report on the University World News site:
SOUTHERN AFRICA: A regional tertiary collaboration model
Sharon Dell
Five years since its establishment the Southern African Regional Universities' Association, Sarua, has made considerable headway in establishing itself as a credible platform for leadership 'conversations' and a model for collaboration in the region's tertiary sector.
Full report on the University World News site:
GERMANY: Training locals to deal with food issues
Stephan Weidt
Researchers at the University of Hohenheim's Food Security Center (FSC) are developing food security strategies. Hohenheim is among five winners of the Exceed - Excellence for Development - competition.
Full report on the University World News site:
HE RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
GLOBAL: Why branch campuses may be unsustainable
Philip G Altbach
Branch campuses are sprouting around the world, like mushrooms after a heavy rain. According to the Observatory on Borderless Higher Education, the number of branch campuses increased by 43% to a total of 162 between 2006 and 2009. Many of the growing mushrooms may only hold a limited lifespan and a few might be poisonous.
Full report on the University World News site:
Article from International Higher Education:
GLOBAL: The poor as providers of innovative solutions
Anil K Gupta*
Economically disadvantaged people can trigger frugal, creative and re-combinable innovations that can stimulate the creation of new pedagogies, products and processes. The model I talk about is 'sink' to 'source'. Such people are not 'sink' - passive recipients of our advice, or clients of corporate social responsibility. Given a chance they can be providers of solutions that may need further value-added in some cases. Why is it that the designers of pedagogies and curricula the world over neglect the need for learning from knowledge-rich, economically poor people? Why are there so few papers on innovations by workers in the organised and unorganised sectors compared to managerial innovations?
Full report on the University World News site:
Presented at the Innovation for Development symposium, Wits University
US: The future of the internet IV
The latest in a series of expert studies, US: The future of the internet IV has revealed "fascinating new perspectives on the way the internet is affecting human intelligence and the ways that information is being shared and rendered", according to the Imagining the Internet Center at Elon University and the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project. The web-based survey obtained opinions from nearly 900 internet stakeholders including prominent scientists, business leaders, consultants, writers and technology developers.
Full report on the University World News site:
UNI-LATERAL: Off-beat university stories
US: Cold comfort for Northeastern
The advertisement touting the university's co-op programme was ready to go. It featured a lone king penguin in ice-covered Antarctica - "The only continent where you won't find a Northeastern University student...yet," it proclaimed, writes Tracy Jan for The Boston Globe. But the campaign was killed by its very prescience. Northeastern officials recently learned that a student is heading to the South Pole in April for a six-month research stint, and withdrew the ad.
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higher education worldwide. More than 1,900 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
INDIA: Committed to overhauling education, says PM
From investing more in primary education to allowing foreign universities to open campuses in India, the central government is working to bring about a paradigm shift in educational infrastructure to further inclusive growth in the country, President Pratibha Patil said on Monday, reports India Edunews. She said change would be based on the "three pillars of expansion, inclusion and excellence."
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ISRAEL: State, universities join forces to fight brain drain
The Israeli state has come up with a plan to diminish the 'brain drain', writes Meirav Arlosoroff for Haartez. It has proposed establishing a new fund to provide the jobs needed to keep the country's best and brightest academics from moving overseas, or to bring them back home. The fund, to be managed by the Council for Higher Education, will invest in centres of research excellence that provide positions for repatriated scientists and engineers.
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LIBERIA: Ex-fighters drop studies as money runs out
Nearly 1,000 former fighters have dropped out of Liberian universities because the cash-strapped government stopped paying their fees as promised, ex-fighters' representatives said, threatening a society trying to recover from a bloody civil war. Jonathan Paye-Layleh writes for the Associated Press that Education minister Joseph Korto said the government cannot pay tuition for some 1,600 ex-combatants because of unspecified "budgetary constraints".
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UK: University managers outpace academics
The number of managers at UK universities has risen more than three times as fast as the number of academics since 2003, according to Financial Times research, reports David Turner. A 33% increase in managers is the most rapid of any job type in Britain's university sector. It compares with a more steady rise of just under 10% in 'academic professionals', according to analysis of data from an official agency.
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UK: Academy cuts threaten future of subject centres
The fruit of decades of effort to improve university teaching is under threat at the very time it is needed most as a result of cuts to the higher education budget, it was claimed this week, writes Rebecca Attwood for Times Higher Education. Funding chiefs confirmed that the £30 million (US$46 million) a year Higher Education Academy, the UK's body for university teaching, is facing a reduction in core funding of about a third over the next two to three years.
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CHINA: Government denies links to Google attacks
China has denied government links to cyber attacks against the search giant Google, saying such accusations were "irresponsible and calculating", China Daily reports. The official Xinhua news agency quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang saying that "China resolutely opposes the groundless accusations from Google" and accusations that two Chinese universities had carried out the cyber attacks did not hold water.
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CHINA: Hacking inquiry puts elite in new light
With its sterling reputation and its scientific bent, Shanghai Jiaotong University has the feel of an Ivy League institution, writes David Barboza for The New York Times. The university has alliances with elite American institutions and it is so rich in science and engineering talent that Microsoft and Intel have moved into a research park directly adjacent to the school. But Jiaotong, whose sprawling campus has more than 33,000 students, is facing an unpleasant question: is it a base for sophisticated computer hackers?
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CHINA: Colleges told to cut ties with Oxfam
China's education ministry has ordered colleges to cut ties with Oxfam and prevent it from recruiting on campuses, accusing its Hong Kong branch of a hidden political agenda, The Guardian reports.
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US: Amy Bishop - a murder suspect's worth to science
Amy Bishop, neuroscientist, inventor, murder suspect, has become bigger than life, a symbol for those who think that genius is close to madness, or that women cannot get ahead in science, or that tenure systems in universities are brutalising - or even that progress against fatal diseases is so important that someone like Bishop should be set free to pursue cures - writes Gina Kolata for The New York Times.
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BANGLADESH: Private university law to ensure standards
Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid said last week that the government had formulated a private university law in a bid to ensure discipline, progress, standards and good management in Bangladesh's private institutions, reports The Daily Star. He said that while some of the country's 53 private universities performed well, many did not succeed.
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TAIWAN: More graduates seeking masters degrees
A sharply increasing number of graduates from universities and colleges are taking entrance examinations in February or March in order to study at graduate schools for masters degrees, reports The China Post. Analysts said the economic downturn, which has squeezed job opportunities, is a major factor driving the growth in postgraduate applicants.
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UAE: University remedial English to end
Remedial courses taken by most first-year Emirati university students because high schools fail to prepare them for higher education are to end, write Kathryn Lewis and Daniel Bardsley for The National. The bold move is contained in the long-anticipated Ministry of Education Strategy 2010-2020, which was published last week on the website of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice-president of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai.
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GLOBAL: HP opens Singapore research hub
Two years ago, Hewlett-Packard embarked on an ambitious overhaul of its storied research labs, responsible for some of the most momentous computing innovation of the last 40 years, writes Aaron Ricadela for Business Week. Now, HP Labs Director Prith Banerjee is turning his attention to the company's half-dozen international labs, aiming to generate cutting-edge development from scientific outposts in Asia, Europe and the Middle East.
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PAKISTAN: Higher education collaboration with Iran
Iran's Ambassador to Pakistan Mashallah Shakiri on Wednesday called on the chairman of the Higher Education Commission, Dr Javaid R Laghari, to discuss the prospects of cooperation between the two countries in the higher education sector, reports the Associated Press of Pakistan.
More on the University World News site:
Sunday, 21 February 2010
University World News 0112 - 21st February 2010
SPECIAL REPORT: Rise of the foreign doctoral student
International students now comprise a significant and growing proportion of
the postgraduate population in universities around the globe. This is especially so in certain fields such as the physical sciences and engineering, and where students are undertaking masters and PhDs by research.
Many postgraduate courses, and even entire faculties, would have collapsed for want of local students had not the flood of foreigners arrived to bolster numbers and inflate university revenues. While deans and heads of department, as well as governments, generally welcome the highly able foreign graduates who often stay on as researchers, many staff are concerned by the reliance on other countries to provide them with students because their own see no future in obtaining a research degree.
To accompany these special reports, we also publish essays in our Research and Commentary and Feature sections, one by Ben Wildavsky, author of the soon-to-be published The Great Brain Race: How universities are reshaping the world, and the second by four senior US academics on the challenges of educating postgraduates.
UK: Rapid increase in overseas postgraduates
Diane Spencer British universities have seen a rapid increase in numbers of international postgraduate students, according to a study commissioned by the Higher Education Policy Institute and the British Library. In 2007-08, half of masters students and 44% of doctoral students were from overseas, the majority from India and China. The UK has almost 12% market share of all international postgraduate students, second only to the US.
Full report on the University World News site:
US: Maintaining foreign postgraduate enrolments
Sarah King Head
That foreign students tend to complete research masters and doctoral degrees at American universities more often and faster than their domestic counterparts has been well documented. But it is the plateauing of their enrolments at US universities and research institutions that has provoked greater comment in recent years.
Full report on the University World News site:
AUSTRALIA: Many foreigners but few PhDs
Geoff Maslen
So difficult has life become for Australian PhD and masters by research students that the numbers starting the degrees are falling and completion rates are among the lowest in the developed world. At the same time, foreign student commencements in PhD degree courses have rocketed by 125% over the past six years.
Full report on the University World News site:
NZ: Fee policy attracts foreign PhD students
John Gerritsen
International enrolments in doctoral programmes have grown six-fold at New Zealand universities this decade, but domestic students still account for the majority of PhD candidates.
Full report on the University World News site:
SOUTH AFRICA: Universities open to foreigners
Karen MacGregor
A quarter of all doctoral graduates in South Africa are not from this country, according to the Council on Higher Education, and around one in 10 postgraduate students are foreign. Attracting students from other Southern African countries, especially postgraduates, is an ex plicit policy aimed at developing research in the region. But efforts to grow the number of research postgraduates are being thwarted by lack of supervision capacity.
Full report on the University World News site:
EUROPE: Increasing numbers swell PhD ranks
The following four reports on the Nordic countries and Switzerland were prepared by University World News correspondent JAN PETTER MYKLEBUST.
NORWAY: Foreign postgraduates a must
Norway is heavily dependent on foreign students to recruit sufficient numbers for doctoral training, especially in mathematics, the natural sciences and technological studies, according to a government White Paper presented to parliament last year.
Full report on the University World News site:
SWEDEN: Aiming for 5,000 foreign doctorates
One in four doctorate candidates in Sweden are foreign citizens. There were 4,179 of them in 2008 in a PhD student population of 16,900 - an increase since 1999 of 62%. Of newly-recruited doctoral students in 2008, 32% or 1,040 people were foreigners, up from 19% in 1999. The annual increase was 19% between 2007 and 2008 alone, indicating a significant change in the recruitment pattern.
Full report on the University World News site:
DENMARK: Huge PhD expansion continues
In 2007, 432 new international students were recruited to undertake a PhD in Denmark's universities - a 75% rise in eight years. As a part of the government's globalisation strategy of allocating 0.5% of GNP or 39 billion DKK (US$7.1 billion) between 2006 and 2012, the number of new PhD students is expected to reach 2,400 this year, double the number in 2003. At the same time, total foreign enrolments are expected to rise so that foreign students will represent 25% of new enrolments.
Full report on the University World News site:
SWITZERLAND: Second top with PhDs
A higher proportion of Swiss people hold PhDs than any other European country except Portugal: 2.5% of the population in the age cohort that can obtain a doctorate has the degree compared with an EU average of 1%. Today, close to 50% of doctoral students are foreign-born and Switzerland recruits more foreign citizens with a PhD to scientific positions than any other European country.
Full report on the University World News site:
SWITZERLAND: Foreigners a necessity
Jacques Giovanola*
Switzerland has traditionally been a country of strong immigration. Many leading Swiss industries were founded by foreigners and immigrants. Despite the fact it is not part of the EU, Switzerland and its economic, cultural and scientific life are inextricably linked with Europe.
Full report on the University World News site:
GLOBAL: More researchers in developing countries
Michael Gardner
A new study by the Montreal-based Unesco Institute for Statistics has identified a startling 56% increase in the number of researchers in developing countries between 2002 and 2007. In the same period, numbers in developed countries grew by less than 9 % although women are still under-represented in research in both, the study shows.
Full report on the University World News site:
NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report
US: Crafting a compromise: the Obama budget
Sarah King Head
In the context of a net freeze on 'discretionary' spending, higher education pundits in the US are applauding the Obama administration's proposed 6% or $2.1 billion increase in higher education spending as part of its proposed $3.8 trillion 2011 budget. But reservations have been voiced about the sectors and programmes that have not been given a priority.
Full report on the University World News site:
GLOBAL: Obstacles to social mobility
It is easier to climb the social ladder and earn more than one's parents in the Nordic countries, Australia and Canada than in France, Italy, Britain and the United States, according to a new OECD study. But weak social mobility can signal a lack of equal opportunities, constrain productivity and curb economic growth, says a report on the study.
Full report on the University World News site:
US: Bishop published little in past decade
Sarah King Head
Whether the chair of biology at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, Professor Gopi K Podila, had or had not supported Amy Bishop's tenure bid, her actual chances of earning the coveted academic status were probably marginal - at best. Whether or not she knew that fact, it did not stop her allegedly murdering three of her colleagues.
Full report on the University World News site:
HAITI: Francophone agency plans reconstruction
Jane Marshall
As French President Nicolas Sarkozy was visiting Haiti last Wednesday, five weeks after the devastating earthquake, the international Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie and Haiti's University of Quisqueya held an inaugural educational video-conference relayed from Paris. The 'distance lecture' was a first step in an AUF plan to reconstruct the Caribbean state's university system.
Full report on the University World News site:
ISRAEL Academics oppose upgrading Ariel
Helena Flusfeder
Two hundred and fifty academics representing universities and colleges in Israel have signed a letter sent to the Council for Higher Education urging it not to recognise the college in the West Bank town of Ariel as either a university centre or a university.
Full report on the University World News site:
NEWSBRIEFS
SPAIN: Financial crisis hits universities
Spain's economic crisis is beginning to bite, hitting top Spanish universities - including the Universidad Complutense which joined The Europaeum in 2003. The government's austerity measures kicked in from January and, although education was to be protected, public universities are feeling the pressure as regional authorities propose substantial cuts that will hit higher education.
Full report on the University World News site:
SAUDI ARABIA: New student loan scheme
The International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank Group, signed an agreement last week with Saudi Arabia's Riyad Bank to introduce a new student loan scheme that will finance the education of male and female university students across the country.
Full report on the University World News site:
BUSINESS
GLOBAL: First MBA survey following recession
Leah Germain
A new survey released by career and education experts QS shines a revealing light on the impact of the recession on international MBA graduates. A key finding from the QS TopMBA.com applicant survey suggests graduates are increasingly choosing self-employment and entrepreneurship over finance, law and government for a career.
Full report on the University World News site:
US: Twitter for scientists launched online
Keith Nuthall
A scientific version of popular social-networking site Twitter has been launched. Called Sciencefeed, its owners describe it as a "real time micro-blogging tool designed for scientists".
Full report on the University World News site:
GLOBAL: International business school group expands
Keith Nuthall
A prestigious international accrediting body for business schools has appointed a new chairman, as it continues to grow worldwide. Economist Andrew J Policano, dean of the Paul Merage School of Business at the University of California, Irvine, will lead AACSB International - the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business.
Full report on the University World News site:
FEATURE
US: Educating scholars: Implications for graduate deans*
Ronald G Ehrenberg, Harriet Zuckerman, Jeffrey A Groen and Sharon M Brucker For decades, graduate deans have been troubled by low completion rates and long times-to-degree in PhD programmes in the humanities. Now federal and state officials are talking about the need to improve completion rates in undergraduate programmes.
Full report on the University World News site:
HE RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
US: Welcoming academic globalisation
Ben Wildavsky*
For several years now - and not for the first time in our nation's history - CEOs, politicians and education leaders have regularly decried the shortcomings of STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education in America's elementary and secondary schools. And they have vigorously promoted a reform agenda aimed at tackling those problems. But what about our colleges and universities?
Full report on the University World News site:
From The New York Academy of Sciences Magazine:
US: Exploring the experiences of Latina/o students
The latest, special issue of the Harvard Educational Review highlights the needs and interests of Latina/o students enrolled in American colleges and the ever-increasing population of future Latina/o undergraduates. It draw on the tradition of consejos - words of wisdom coming from those with experience - honouring both the insights of its contributors and the interpersonal advice that was critical to the persistence of many of the Latina/o students whose stories are presented in the journal.
More on the University World News site:
UNI-LATERAL: Off-beat university stories
NORWAY: Sacked professor back in the news
Jan Petter Myklebust
The sacked professor of medieval history at University of Oslo, Arnved Nedkvitne, is contributing to the largest media coverage for the university for a long time. Nedkvitne lost his court case against the university after demanding his professorship back and financial compensation. Now a variety of issues related to the case has hit Oslo's newspaper headlines.
Full report on the University World News site:
FACEBOOK
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higher education worldwide. Almost 1,900 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
US: Amy Bishop: why no red flags were waved
Neurobiologist Amy Bishop, charged with killing three faculty colleagues at the University of Alabama-Huntsville, had a squeaky-clean public record despite several brushes with the law. There's more than one reason her record didn't follow her, writes Patrik Jonsson for the Christian Science Monitor.
More on the University World News site:
US: Chinese institutions tied to online attacks
A series of online attacks on Google and dozens of other American corporations have been traced to computers at two educational institutions in China, including one with close ties to the Chinese military, say people involved in the investigation, write John Markoff and David Barboza for The New York Times.
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BANGLADESH: Clamp-down on deadly campus violence
Campus politics has always been a serious business in Bangladesh, but now the death of five students at universities in less than two weeks has forced the government to step in, writes Kamrul Hasan Khan for AFP. The wave of killings began on 2 February at Dhaka University when a third-year student, Abu Bakar Siddique, died during a campus battle between rival factions of the the Chhatra League - the student wing of the ruling Awami League.
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HAITI: Higher education levelled in quake
Christina Julme was scribbling notes in the back of a linguistics class at the State University of Haiti when, in an instant, everything went black, writes Marc Lacey for The New York Times. "You're in class, your professor is talking, you're writing notes and then you're buried alive," said Julme, 23, recounting how her semester came to a halt on the afternoon of 12 January when the earthquake turned her seven-story university into a towering pile of wreckage, with her deep inside.
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EUROPE: Universities face budget cuts
The global economic crisis has led to budget cuts in the education sector in member states across the European Union at a time when the bloc is seeking to boost its economy by, among other things, putting education at the centre of its new economic strategy, writes Helena Spongenberg for Business Week.
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INDIA: Some foreign students to pay less
In a major step to attract international students from countries in the region, Indian universities are to slash the fees they charge, reports the Deccan Herald. The University Grants Commission took the decision and asked central, state and 'deemed' universities to lower fees for foreign students from seven countries immediately.
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VIETNAM: Foreign invested universities have slow growth
Only three foreign-invested universities have been established in Vietnam over the last 12 years, while growth in domestic universities has been huge, VietNamNet reports.
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US: Slipping (further) off the pedestal
Headlines will blare the results of a new public opinion survey about higher education, which finds that Americans are increasingly convinced that higher education is essential to a successful career and life, but are growing more doubtful that college is affordable and ever more suspicious of colleges' motives, viewing them as "just another business", writes Doug Lederman for Inside Higher Ed.
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US: Dilemma over academic meeting in Uganda
The American Political Science Association is among several disciplinary associations that have found themselves caught in debates over whether to hold meetings in locales that some want to boycott, writes Scott Jaschik for Inside Higher Ed. In 2008, the association rejected calls by some to move the 2012 meeting out of New Orleans because Louisiana has adopted a stringent ban on g ay marriage. Now the association is facing yet more criticism from boycott organisers. It is holding a workshop this summer in Uganda, where the government is supporting some of the most anti-gay legislation in the world, which would carry terms of life imprisonment for gay acts and execution in some cases.
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UK: Universities hit with huge fines for over-enrolling
New figures reveal for the first time the penalties the Government will impose on individual institutions for exceeding caps on the numbers of students they were allowed to recruit, writes Julie Henry for The Telegraph. One university faces a fine of more than £800,000 (US$1.3 million), while others will pay between £100,000 and £300,000 for taking additional students during the places crisis in the summer, when 160,000 candidates were turned away.
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UK: Universities 'should offer courses for over-50s'
Universities must offer suitable courses for people aged 50 and above, a Universities UK report says, writes Katherine Sellgren for BBC News. The study says the ageing population in the UK "offers higher education institutions a serious challenge".
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UGANDA: University to sack drunk, unproductive lecturers
Uganda's Makerere University has established a new policy that provides for the sacking of lecturers over drunkenness, writes Francis Kagolo for The New Vision. The policy, which seeks to boost academic standards, also requires lecturers to teach for a minimum of 10 hours a week and provide evidence that they carry out research.
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RWANDA: Kenyan university to open Kigali campus
One of Kenya's private universities, Mount Kenya University, plans to open a coordination centre in the Rwandan capital Kigali, writes Grace Mugoya for The New Times. The institution currently has a partnership with Rwanda Tourism University College but has decided to open a Kigali branch.
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International students now comprise a significant and growing proportion of
the postgraduate population in universities around the globe. This is especially so in certain fields such as the physical sciences and engineering, and where students are undertaking masters and PhDs by research.
Many postgraduate courses, and even entire faculties, would have collapsed for want of local students had not the flood of foreigners arrived to bolster numbers and inflate university revenues. While deans and heads of department, as well as governments, generally welcome the highly able foreign graduates who often stay on as researchers, many staff are concerned by the reliance on other countries to provide them with students because their own see no future in obtaining a research degree.
To accompany these special reports, we also publish essays in our Research and Commentary and Feature sections, one by Ben Wildavsky, author of the soon-to-be published The Great Brain Race: How universities are reshaping the world, and the second by four senior US academics on the challenges of educating postgraduates.
UK: Rapid increase in overseas postgraduates
Diane Spencer British universities have seen a rapid increase in numbers of international postgraduate students, according to a study commissioned by the Higher Education Policy Institute and the British Library. In 2007-08, half of masters students and 44% of doctoral students were from overseas, the majority from India and China. The UK has almost 12% market share of all international postgraduate students, second only to the US.
Full report on the University World News site:
US: Maintaining foreign postgraduate enrolments
Sarah King Head
That foreign students tend to complete research masters and doctoral degrees at American universities more often and faster than their domestic counterparts has been well documented. But it is the plateauing of their enrolments at US universities and research institutions that has provoked greater comment in recent years.
Full report on the University World News site:
AUSTRALIA: Many foreigners but few PhDs
Geoff Maslen
So difficult has life become for Australian PhD and masters by research students that the numbers starting the degrees are falling and completion rates are among the lowest in the developed world. At the same time, foreign student commencements in PhD degree courses have rocketed by 125% over the past six years.
Full report on the University World News site:
NZ: Fee policy attracts foreign PhD students
John Gerritsen
International enrolments in doctoral programmes have grown six-fold at New Zealand universities this decade, but domestic students still account for the majority of PhD candidates.
Full report on the University World News site:
SOUTH AFRICA: Universities open to foreigners
Karen MacGregor
A quarter of all doctoral graduates in South Africa are not from this country, according to the Council on Higher Education, and around one in 10 postgraduate students are foreign. Attracting students from other Southern African countries, especially postgraduates, is an ex plicit policy aimed at developing research in the region. But efforts to grow the number of research postgraduates are being thwarted by lack of supervision capacity.
Full report on the University World News site:
EUROPE: Increasing numbers swell PhD ranks
The following four reports on the Nordic countries and Switzerland were prepared by University World News correspondent JAN PETTER MYKLEBUST.
NORWAY: Foreign postgraduates a must
Norway is heavily dependent on foreign students to recruit sufficient numbers for doctoral training, especially in mathematics, the natural sciences and technological studies, according to a government White Paper presented to parliament last year.
Full report on the University World News site:
SWEDEN: Aiming for 5,000 foreign doctorates
One in four doctorate candidates in Sweden are foreign citizens. There were 4,179 of them in 2008 in a PhD student population of 16,900 - an increase since 1999 of 62%. Of newly-recruited doctoral students in 2008, 32% or 1,040 people were foreigners, up from 19% in 1999. The annual increase was 19% between 2007 and 2008 alone, indicating a significant change in the recruitment pattern.
Full report on the University World News site:
DENMARK: Huge PhD expansion continues
In 2007, 432 new international students were recruited to undertake a PhD in Denmark's universities - a 75% rise in eight years. As a part of the government's globalisation strategy of allocating 0.5% of GNP or 39 billion DKK (US$7.1 billion) between 2006 and 2012, the number of new PhD students is expected to reach 2,400 this year, double the number in 2003. At the same time, total foreign enrolments are expected to rise so that foreign students will represent 25% of new enrolments.
Full report on the University World News site:
SWITZERLAND: Second top with PhDs
A higher proportion of Swiss people hold PhDs than any other European country except Portugal: 2.5% of the population in the age cohort that can obtain a doctorate has the degree compared with an EU average of 1%. Today, close to 50% of doctoral students are foreign-born and Switzerland recruits more foreign citizens with a PhD to scientific positions than any other European country.
Full report on the University World News site:
SWITZERLAND: Foreigners a necessity
Jacques Giovanola*
Switzerland has traditionally been a country of strong immigration. Many leading Swiss industries were founded by foreigners and immigrants. Despite the fact it is not part of the EU, Switzerland and its economic, cultural and scientific life are inextricably linked with Europe.
Full report on the University World News site:
GLOBAL: More researchers in developing countries
Michael Gardner
A new study by the Montreal-based Unesco Institute for Statistics has identified a startling 56% increase in the number of researchers in developing countries between 2002 and 2007. In the same period, numbers in developed countries grew by less than 9 % although women are still under-represented in research in both, the study shows.
Full report on the University World News site:
NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report
US: Crafting a compromise: the Obama budget
Sarah King Head
In the context of a net freeze on 'discretionary' spending, higher education pundits in the US are applauding the Obama administration's proposed 6% or $2.1 billion increase in higher education spending as part of its proposed $3.8 trillion 2011 budget. But reservations have been voiced about the sectors and programmes that have not been given a priority.
Full report on the University World News site:
GLOBAL: Obstacles to social mobility
It is easier to climb the social ladder and earn more than one's parents in the Nordic countries, Australia and Canada than in France, Italy, Britain and the United States, according to a new OECD study. But weak social mobility can signal a lack of equal opportunities, constrain productivity and curb economic growth, says a report on the study.
Full report on the University World News site:
US: Bishop published little in past decade
Sarah King Head
Whether the chair of biology at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, Professor Gopi K Podila, had or had not supported Amy Bishop's tenure bid, her actual chances of earning the coveted academic status were probably marginal - at best. Whether or not she knew that fact, it did not stop her allegedly murdering three of her colleagues.
Full report on the University World News site:
HAITI: Francophone agency plans reconstruction
Jane Marshall
As French President Nicolas Sarkozy was visiting Haiti last Wednesday, five weeks after the devastating earthquake, the international Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie and Haiti's University of Quisqueya held an inaugural educational video-conference relayed from Paris. The 'distance lecture' was a first step in an AUF plan to reconstruct the Caribbean state's university system.
Full report on the University World News site:
ISRAEL Academics oppose upgrading Ariel
Helena Flusfeder
Two hundred and fifty academics representing universities and colleges in Israel have signed a letter sent to the Council for Higher Education urging it not to recognise the college in the West Bank town of Ariel as either a university centre or a university.
Full report on the University World News site:
NEWSBRIEFS
SPAIN: Financial crisis hits universities
Spain's economic crisis is beginning to bite, hitting top Spanish universities - including the Universidad Complutense which joined The Europaeum in 2003. The government's austerity measures kicked in from January and, although education was to be protected, public universities are feeling the pressure as regional authorities propose substantial cuts that will hit higher education.
Full report on the University World News site:
SAUDI ARABIA: New student loan scheme
The International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank Group, signed an agreement last week with Saudi Arabia's Riyad Bank to introduce a new student loan scheme that will finance the education of male and female university students across the country.
Full report on the University World News site:
BUSINESS
GLOBAL: First MBA survey following recession
Leah Germain
A new survey released by career and education experts QS shines a revealing light on the impact of the recession on international MBA graduates. A key finding from the QS TopMBA.com applicant survey suggests graduates are increasingly choosing self-employment and entrepreneurship over finance, law and government for a career.
Full report on the University World News site:
US: Twitter for scientists launched online
Keith Nuthall
A scientific version of popular social-networking site Twitter has been launched. Called Sciencefeed, its owners describe it as a "real time micro-blogging tool designed for scientists".
Full report on the University World News site:
GLOBAL: International business school group expands
Keith Nuthall
A prestigious international accrediting body for business schools has appointed a new chairman, as it continues to grow worldwide. Economist Andrew J Policano, dean of the Paul Merage School of Business at the University of California, Irvine, will lead AACSB International - the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business.
Full report on the University World News site:
FEATURE
US: Educating scholars: Implications for graduate deans*
Ronald G Ehrenberg, Harriet Zuckerman, Jeffrey A Groen and Sharon M Brucker For decades, graduate deans have been troubled by low completion rates and long times-to-degree in PhD programmes in the humanities. Now federal and state officials are talking about the need to improve completion rates in undergraduate programmes.
Full report on the University World News site:
HE RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
US: Welcoming academic globalisation
Ben Wildavsky*
For several years now - and not for the first time in our nation's history - CEOs, politicians and education leaders have regularly decried the shortcomings of STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education in America's elementary and secondary schools. And they have vigorously promoted a reform agenda aimed at tackling those problems. But what about our colleges and universities?
Full report on the University World News site:
From The New York Academy of Sciences Magazine:
US: Exploring the experiences of Latina/o students
The latest, special issue of the Harvard Educational Review highlights the needs and interests of Latina/o students enrolled in American colleges and the ever-increasing population of future Latina/o undergraduates. It draw on the tradition of consejos - words of wisdom coming from those with experience - honouring both the insights of its contributors and the interpersonal advice that was critical to the persistence of many of the Latina/o students whose stories are presented in the journal.
More on the University World News site:
UNI-LATERAL: Off-beat university stories
NORWAY: Sacked professor back in the news
Jan Petter Myklebust
The sacked professor of medieval history at University of Oslo, Arnved Nedkvitne, is contributing to the largest media coverage for the university for a long time. Nedkvitne lost his court case against the university after demanding his professorship back and financial compensation. Now a variety of issues related to the case has hit Oslo's newspaper headlines.
Full report on the University World News site:
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WORLD ROUND-UP
US: Amy Bishop: why no red flags were waved
Neurobiologist Amy Bishop, charged with killing three faculty colleagues at the University of Alabama-Huntsville, had a squeaky-clean public record despite several brushes with the law. There's more than one reason her record didn't follow her, writes Patrik Jonsson for the Christian Science Monitor.
More on the University World News site:
US: Chinese institutions tied to online attacks
A series of online attacks on Google and dozens of other American corporations have been traced to computers at two educational institutions in China, including one with close ties to the Chinese military, say people involved in the investigation, write John Markoff and David Barboza for The New York Times.
More on the University World News site:
BANGLADESH: Clamp-down on deadly campus violence
Campus politics has always been a serious business in Bangladesh, but now the death of five students at universities in less than two weeks has forced the government to step in, writes Kamrul Hasan Khan for AFP. The wave of killings began on 2 February at Dhaka University when a third-year student, Abu Bakar Siddique, died during a campus battle between rival factions of the the Chhatra League - the student wing of the ruling Awami League.
More on the University World News site:
HAITI: Higher education levelled in quake
Christina Julme was scribbling notes in the back of a linguistics class at the State University of Haiti when, in an instant, everything went black, writes Marc Lacey for The New York Times. "You're in class, your professor is talking, you're writing notes and then you're buried alive," said Julme, 23, recounting how her semester came to a halt on the afternoon of 12 January when the earthquake turned her seven-story university into a towering pile of wreckage, with her deep inside.
More on the University World News site:
EUROPE: Universities face budget cuts
The global economic crisis has led to budget cuts in the education sector in member states across the European Union at a time when the bloc is seeking to boost its economy by, among other things, putting education at the centre of its new economic strategy, writes Helena Spongenberg for Business Week.
More on the University World News site:
INDIA: Some foreign students to pay less
In a major step to attract international students from countries in the region, Indian universities are to slash the fees they charge, reports the Deccan Herald. The University Grants Commission took the decision and asked central, state and 'deemed' universities to lower fees for foreign students from seven countries immediately.
More on the University World News site:
VIETNAM: Foreign invested universities have slow growth
Only three foreign-invested universities have been established in Vietnam over the last 12 years, while growth in domestic universities has been huge, VietNamNet reports.
More on the University World News site:
US: Slipping (further) off the pedestal
Headlines will blare the results of a new public opinion survey about higher education, which finds that Americans are increasingly convinced that higher education is essential to a successful career and life, but are growing more doubtful that college is affordable and ever more suspicious of colleges' motives, viewing them as "just another business", writes Doug Lederman for Inside Higher Ed.
More on the University World News site:
US: Dilemma over academic meeting in Uganda
The American Political Science Association is among several disciplinary associations that have found themselves caught in debates over whether to hold meetings in locales that some want to boycott, writes Scott Jaschik for Inside Higher Ed. In 2008, the association rejected calls by some to move the 2012 meeting out of New Orleans because Louisiana has adopted a stringent ban on g ay marriage. Now the association is facing yet more criticism from boycott organisers. It is holding a workshop this summer in Uganda, where the government is supporting some of the most anti-gay legislation in the world, which would carry terms of life imprisonment for gay acts and execution in some cases.
More on the University World News site:
UK: Universities hit with huge fines for over-enrolling
New figures reveal for the first time the penalties the Government will impose on individual institutions for exceeding caps on the numbers of students they were allowed to recruit, writes Julie Henry for The Telegraph. One university faces a fine of more than £800,000 (US$1.3 million), while others will pay between £100,000 and £300,000 for taking additional students during the places crisis in the summer, when 160,000 candidates were turned away.
More on the University World News site:
UK: Universities 'should offer courses for over-50s'
Universities must offer suitable courses for people aged 50 and above, a Universities UK report says, writes Katherine Sellgren for BBC News. The study says the ageing population in the UK "offers higher education institutions a serious challenge".
More on the University World News site:
UGANDA: University to sack drunk, unproductive lecturers
Uganda's Makerere University has established a new policy that provides for the sacking of lecturers over drunkenness, writes Francis Kagolo for The New Vision. The policy, which seeks to boost academic standards, also requires lecturers to teach for a minimum of 10 hours a week and provide evidence that they carry out research.
More on the University World News site:
RWANDA: Kenyan university to open Kigali campus
One of Kenya's private universities, Mount Kenya University, plans to open a coordination centre in the Rwandan capital Kigali, writes Grace Mugoya for The New Times. The institution currently has a partnership with Rwanda Tourism University College but has decided to open a Kigali branch.
More on the University World News site:
Sunday, 14 February 2010
University World News 0111 - 15th February 2010
NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report
GLOBAL: Education under increasing attack
Around the world, schools and universities have faced brutal military and political attacks in an increasing number of countries over the past three years, according to a new report published by Unesco. The report, Education under Attack 2010, was written by University World News correspondent Brendan O'Malley and he says the sheer volume of incidents demonstrates that attacks on education are "by no means limited to supporters of the Taliban fighting in the hills of Afghanistan". Education and those involved have been subject to attacks in at least 31 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe.
Full report on the University World News site:
See O'Malley's commentary in the Features section:
UK: Crackdown on student visas
Diane Spencer
The Home Office has introduced stringent new rules for overseas students seeking to study in the UK. Alan Johnson, Labour's Home Secretary, announced last Sunday that applicants would have to speak passable English and those on short courses would not be allowed to bring in dependants. Those on non-degree courses would be allowed to work 10 hours a week instead of 20. Visas for non-degree courses would be granted to institutions that are on a new register, The Highly Trusted Sponsors List.
Full report on the University World News site:
AUSTRALIA: 20,000 applications cancelled
Geoff Maslen
At least 20,000 applications by foreign students for permanent residence have been cancelled because of their poor English and qualifications considered no longer in demand. In the biggest shake-up of what had become an education-migration industry, Immigration Minister Senator Chris Evans announced an overhaul of Australia's independent skilled migration system to break the link between students studying a trade in short supply and remaining in the country.
Full report on the University World News site:
US: Tighter visa restrictions but students still enrol
Sarah King Head
In spite of tightened security and controls governing the issuing of student visas, no significant change has occurred in the percentage of foreign students enrolled at US colleges and universities since the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. Indeed, the proportion - as a percentage of total US higher education enrolment figures - remained steady at around 3.5% between 2002 and 2009, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
Full report on the University World News site:
DENMARK: Sackings create confusion and anger
Jan Petter Myklebust
More than 80 scientific staff in the departments of geology and biology at Copenhagen University were sacked last month with immediate notice. Altogether 110 staff will lose their jobs and another 30 who accept early retirement will not be replaced.
Full report on the University World News site:
THE NETHERLANDS: Students protest against grant cuts
Jan Petter Myklebust
Education Minister Ronald Plasterk has proposed substituting the monthly student grant of €266 (US$367) with a loan system. More than 1,000 students protested at the move, occupying lecture halls and university buildings in Amsterdam, Nijmegen, Utrecht and Rotterdam.
Full report on the University World News site:
NZ: Government promises education reforms
John Gerritsen
Universities look set to benefit but students could face a tougher financial support regime after the government announced that education would be one of its priorities for reform this year.
Full report on the University World News site:
CANADA: Troubled First Nations' funding halved
Philip Fine
After five years of being mired in financial scandals and dragging its feet on commitments to solve its governance problems, the small but symbolically important First Nations University of Canada has lost the confidence of the federal and provincial governments.
Full report on the University World News site:
FINLAND: When the going gets tough?.
Ian R Dobson*
One rarely hears talk about redundancies in the Finnish university sector but the University of Oulu in the country's north-west is thinking along those lines. It finds itself in a financial bind largely because of cutbacks in government funding to the tune of nearly €9 million a year (about US$12.4 million). The university aims to get its budget back into the black by 2012.
Full report on the University World News site:
SOUTH AFRICA: Cost woes spark student protests
Munyaradzi Makoni
Two things never disappear from the grievance lists of South African students - fees and accommodation. No sooner had the 2010 academic year begun than students at some universities clashed with administrations and the police over fee hikes and lousy residences. Students renewed their call for free higher education while universities reported that student debt now tops R2.8 billion (US$363 million).
Full report on the University World News site:
EGYPT: New schools at oldest private university
Ashraf Khaled
This month has been action-packed for the American University in Cairo, Egypt's oldest independent higher education institution founded 90 years ago. At high profile ceremonies attended by Egyptian and foreign dignitaries, the university launched three new schools - of global affairs and public policy, business, and graduate education.
Full report on the University World News site:
SOUTHERN AFRICA: Regional integration and higher education
Sharon Dell
In a recent report, the Southern African Regional Universities' Association, Sarua, has started on the complex subject of regional integration and what it means for higher education. The Challenges of Regional Integration and its Implications for Higher Education aims to "set the background for engagement" around regional integration rather than provide definitive answers or proposals.
Full report on the University World News site:
SOUTH AFRICA: Universities cash in on soccer World Cup
Cornia Pretorius, Primarashni Gower and Munyaradzi Makoni* Universities are set to cash in on the 2010 Fifa World Cup with some institutions expected to earn up to R20 million (US$2.6 million), primarily from renting accommodation to some of the participating teams, their fans and media contingents following the competition. Universities have ploughed substantial investments into student residences and sporting facilities to take advantage of the huge event, and ultimately students will benefit.
Full report on the University World News site:
ZIMBABWE: Brain drain bites, academics strike
Science departments in Zimbabwe's universities have been hardest hit by a brain drain that has been blamed mostly on poor salaries. Last week low pay prompted lectures at all state-run higher education institutions go on strike as part of wider civil service industrial action.
Full report on the University World News site:
NEWSBRIEFS
EUROPE: ERC supports the EU 2020 strategy
Jan Petter Myklebust
The scientific council of the European Research Council has put a submission to the European Commission's 2020 strategic planning regarding the Framework 8 research programme 2014-2020. The document is well-argued and simply-presented, recommending spec ialisation and concentration of research between the commission and member states.
Full report on the University World News site:
EUROPE: EUA examines university quality culture
The European University Association has launched a new project to examine the internal 'quality culture' within universities across Europe, and how this has developed within the framework of the Bologna process.
Full report on the University World News site:
CAMEROON: Student housing and security problems
Students in Douala are facing increasing housing problems as landlords prefer to rent to more lucrative tenants, as well as burglaries when they do find student accommodation, according to newspapers.
Full report on the University World News site:
ARAB STATES: Grants to encourage women's studies
The Arab Women Organization has announced five research grants for young researchers in women's studies, and a prize for higher academic and scientific research into questions related to women. Candidates must be nationals of one of the organisation's member states.
Full report on the University World News site:
ACADEMIC FREEDOM
VENEZUELA: Police break up anti-Chavez protest
Daniel Sawney and Jonathan Travis*
On Thursday 4 February, police used tear gas, plastic bullets and water cannons to disperse hundreds of university protesters. Students started marching after the government pressured cable and satellite TV providers to drop an opposition channel. Demonstrations have appeared in cities across the country, accusing President Chavez of forcing Radio Caracas Television International off the airwaves to silence his critics.
More Academic Freedom reports on the University World News site:
SCIENCE SCENE
UK-NETHERLANDS: The long and short of ageing
British and Dutch scientists have identified the genetic variation that makes some people age faster than others and could also make them more susceptible to age-related diseases. The variation is related to telomeres - parts of the chromosome that shorten as cells divide and age and are considered a marker of ageing. In some people, the telomeres are shorter and they therefore appear to be older biologically than they are chronologically.
Full report on the University World News site:
US: Little warning for climate tipping points
As scientists around the world monitor the effects of climate change, many are on the look out for early signs of changes that might worsen the problem even further. But new research indicates it will be difficult to spot such ecological tipping points before they happen. In fact, in some cases dramatic changes to natural systems are likely to happen with little to no warning at all.
Full report on the University World News site:
AFRICA: Scientists scoop African Union awards
Munyaradzi Makoni
Professor Diane Hildebrandt was one of two South African winners of the inaugural African Union Scientific Awards for basic science, technology and innovation, announced during an African Union summit in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa recently. Hildebrandt said she represented "scientists and engineers in Africa - men and women - who are doing research in often very difficult conditions and always with too few resources".
Full report on the University World News site:
DENMARK: Ancient human genome rebuilt
Scientists have reconstructed the nuclear genome of a man who died in Greenland 4,000 years ago - the first time an ancient genome has been reconstructed in detail - revealing traits including a tendency to baldness, his eye and skin colour and his blood type.
Full report on the University World News site:
FEATURES
GLOBAL: More academics and students suffer attacks
Brendan O'Malley
Unesco's new global study, Education under Attack 2010, reports that in a hard core of countries, academics and students are suffering serious human rights violations, ranging from assassination to torture and death threats, mainly at the hands of government or government-backed forces. The study was launched in New York last week and presented to US policy makers in Washington. A new alliance of education, human rights and child protection agencies, held in New York at the offices of Human Rights Watch, sought a common agenda of co-operation to prevent attacks on education and ensure that perpetrators are punished.
Full report on the University World News site:
EUROPE: Leading the world in innovation
Mark Dodgson*
European research and innovation policy has always promoted collaboration between and within university and business sectors but recent developments point to improved outcomes. This is indicated by the recent announcement of three Knowledge and Innovation Communities or KICs - in climate change, sustainable energy and the information society - with the espoused objective to become world leaders in their fields.
Full report on the University World News site:
HE RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
US: Higher education's new global order
John Aubrey Douglass
Governments are having an epiphany. They are increasingly recognising that their social and economic futures depend heavily on the educational attainment of their population, and as a corollary, on the size and quality of their higher education institutions and systems. Within this relatively new policy and economic environment, the command economy approaches to creating and regulating mass higher education that once dominated most parts of the world are withering. What is emerging is what I call 'Structured Opportunity Markets' (SOM) in higher education - essentially, a convergence, in some form, in the effort of nation-states to create a more lightly regulated and more flexible network of public higher education institutions, including diversified and mission-differentiated providers, new finance structures, and expanding enrolment and programme capacity.
More on the University World News site:
Paper from the Center for Studies in Higher Education, Berkeley:
GLOBAL: The Rise of Asia's universities
Richard C Levin*
At the beginning of the 21st century, the East is rising. The rapid economic development of Asia since the Second World War has altered the balance of power in the global economy and hence in geopolitics. The rising nations of the East all recognise the importance of an educated workforce as a means to economic growth and understand the impact of research in driving innovation and competitiveness. In the 1960s, 70s and 80s the higher education agenda in Asia's early developers - Japan, South Korea and Taiwan - was first and foremost to increase the fraction of their populations provided with postsecondary education. Their initial focus was on expanding the number of institutions and their enrolments, and impressive results were achieved. Today, the later and much larger developing nations of Asia - China and India - have an even more ambitious agenda.
More on the University World News site:
Yale President's lecture to The Royal Society, UK :
GLOBAL: Plagiarism dilemmas in university management
Wendy Sutherland-Smith*
The following is an extract from a Paper in the Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management.
Universities face constant scrutiny about their plagiarism management strategies, policies and procedures. A resounding theme, usually media inspired, is that plagiarism is rife, unstoppable and university processes are ineffectual in its wake. This has been referred to as a 'moral panic' approach and suggests plagiarism will thwart all efforts to reclaim academic integrity in higher education. However, revisiting the origins of plagiarism and exploring its legal evolution reveals that legal discourse is the foundation for many plagiarism management policies and processes around the world. Interestingly, criminal justice aims are also reflected in university plagiarism management strategies.
More on the University World News site:
U-SAY
From Michel Rose,
Paris-based journalist
Thanks for your story in the excellent University World News newsletter, which I read every Sunday. I wanted to let you know my utter confusion as to this new '4ICU' ranking which seems even more biased and useless than other rankings. My observations concern the position of French institutions in this ranking system.
Read the full letter on the University World News site:
UNI-LATERAL: Off-beat university stories
AUSTRALIA: Boomerang kids return home
Moving back home with mum and dad is not necessarily a negative step for the 'boomerang generation', a study by Deakin University researchers in Melbourne has found. Rather than being considered a step backwards, the young adults who took part in the study saw such a move as one small, mostly positive, step sideways on life's long journey.
Full report on the University World News site:
US: Barack Obama, Professor in Chief
Barack Obama has been called a lot of things since he hit the national stage: celebrity, elitist and even one who 'pals around with terrorists', writes Jack Stripling for Inside Higher Ed. But as his poll numbers come back down to earth, and an emboldened conservative movement sharpens its attacks, the label that seems to be sticking to Obama as much as any lately is that of 'professor'.
More on the University World News site:
NEW ZEALAND: 600 Otago University students disciplined
More than 600 University of Otago students were disciplined last year for criminal or disorderly behaviour and dishonesty, writes Allison Rudd for the Otago Daily News. Their offending included electronically altering exam results, falsifying documents, plagiarism, stealing other students' work or possessions, setting couches on fire, assault, trespass, wilful damage and offensive behaviour, discipline reports released by the university showed.
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WORLD ROUND-UP
UK: Thousands to lose university jobs as cuts bite
Universities across Britain are preparing to axe thousands of teaching jobs, close campuses and ditch courses to cope with government funding cuts, write Jessica Shepherd and Owen Bowcott for The Guardian. Other plans include using postgraduates rather than professors for teaching and the delay of major building projects. The proposals have already provoked ballots for industrial action at a number of universities in the past week raising fears of strike action that could severely disrupt lectures and examinations.
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IRAN: Professors slam expulsions and threats
A group of professors at Tarbiat Modares University, which spec ialises in training university staff and researchers, wrote an open letter to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warning him that the continuation of fear tactics in universities will have "destructive effects", reports Radio Zamaneh. On Wednesday, Kalameh website published the letter signed by 116 professors expressing grave concern over arrests and expulsion of students and sackings of academics.
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IRAN: Court cuts jail term for US-Iranian scholar
An Iranian appeal court has reduced to five years the jail sentence for an Iranian-American scholar detained after last year's disputed election and accused of espionage, an Iranian news agency reported on Wednesday, according to Reuters. In October, official media said Kian Tajbakhsh was sentenced to more than 12 years in jail.
More on the University World News site:
NETHERLANDS: Court rebukes policy on Iranian scientists
A court in The Hague dealt a blow to the Dutch government's controversial attempts to keep sensitive nuclear technology out of the hands of Iran, writes Martin Enserink for Science Insider. Its policy to ban Iranian-born students and scientists from certain masters degrees and from nuclear research facilities in The Netherlands is overly broad and a violation of an international civil rights treaty, the court ruled earlier this month.
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UK: Iranian tensions shake Durham's ivory towers
It's a long way from Iran to north-east England, but anger about the crushing of opposition protests by the Islamic regime has generated a furious row at Durham University, where one academic has condemned the British government for turning "the slaughter of innocent teenagers in Iraq and Afghanistan into an art form", writes Ian Black for The Guardian.
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UK: University applications reach record levels
More than 200,000 would-be students are likely to be left without a place at a UK university this year as undergraduate applications reach record levels for the fourth year running, write Anna Bawden and Warwick Mansell for The Guardian. Applications are almost a fifth up on last year, according to the latest figures from the university admissions service, Ucas.
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MALAYSIA: New bill to regulate higher education sector
A bill to empower the Higher Education Ministry to govern institutions of higher learning is being promulgated, said Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin, reports the official news agency Bernama. He said although there were provisions under six acts to regulate the management of higher education sector, they were piecemeal in nature and not comprehensive.
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TAIWAN: Exchanges with US universities encouraged
Taiwan will encourage local universities to seek out and expand exchanges with their US counterparts in the hope of giving Taiwan a voice in public policy debates in the United States, Minister of Education Wu Ching-ji said, Lin Szu-yu and Elizabeth Hsu report for the Central News Agency.
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US: Call for better treatment of non-tenured academics
A coalition of academic associations last week issued a joint statement calling on colleges to recognise that they have 'one faculty' and to treat those off the tenure track as professionals, with pay, benefits, professional development and participation in governance, writes Scott Jaschik for Inside Higher Ed.
More on the University World News site:
US: Outspoken hurricane expert sues over dismissal
Last April Ivor van Heerden, an internationally known hurricane expert, was told he was losing his job at Louisiana State University, writes John Schwartz for The New York Times. He and other experts said it was because of his outspoken criticism of the federal government's flood protection of New Orleans; the university would not comment. Now Van Heerden, the former deputy director of the university's Hurricane Center, is suing the university to get his job back.
More on the University World News site:
US: Private colleges looking to rein in financial aid
In the last year, America's private colleges have laid off staff, shelved construction projects, slashed sports teams and turned down thermostats to cut costs. But student financial aid has kept flowing, writes Eric Gorski for Associated Press. Now the weak economy is forcing some institutions to limit their generosity after many of them doubled or even tripled financial aid over the last decade to attract more applicants and reduce student debt.
More on the University World News site:
US: 11 students held for disrupting Israeli's speech
Soon after Israeli ambassador to the US Michael Oren began his speech last Monday night at the University of California, Irvine, the first student rose, writes Raja Abdulrahim for the Los Angeles Times. "Michael Oren, propagating murder is not an expression of free speech," the student in a gray hoodie yelled. The remainder of his words were drowned out by an uproar of cheering and clapping from students before he was led away by university police. It was the first of 10 interruptions throughout the speech, and by the end of the night, 11 students had been arrested and cited for disturbing a public event.
More on the University World News site:
US: University of California's Commission on the Future
With California's public university system shackled to a shrinking budget, a group of chancellors, students and others considers ideas - from banal to radical - to keep quality up and costs down, writes Larry Gordon for the Los Angeles Times.
More on the University World News site:
PAKISTAN: Expand ties with China, says President
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari said last week that he wants to take the Pak-China bilateral trade and commercial ties to new heights, Dawn reports. Talking to a Chinese delegation led by the Vice-Governor of Sichuan Province, Zardari reiterated that strengthening and expanding cooperation with China in all fields was one of the key objectives of Pakistan's foreign policy.
More on the University World News site:
GLOBAL: Education under increasing attack
Around the world, schools and universities have faced brutal military and political attacks in an increasing number of countries over the past three years, according to a new report published by Unesco. The report, Education under Attack 2010, was written by University World News correspondent Brendan O'Malley and he says the sheer volume of incidents demonstrates that attacks on education are "by no means limited to supporters of the Taliban fighting in the hills of Afghanistan". Education and those involved have been subject to attacks in at least 31 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe.
Full report on the University World News site:
See O'Malley's commentary in the Features section:
UK: Crackdown on student visas
Diane Spencer
The Home Office has introduced stringent new rules for overseas students seeking to study in the UK. Alan Johnson, Labour's Home Secretary, announced last Sunday that applicants would have to speak passable English and those on short courses would not be allowed to bring in dependants. Those on non-degree courses would be allowed to work 10 hours a week instead of 20. Visas for non-degree courses would be granted to institutions that are on a new register, The Highly Trusted Sponsors List.
Full report on the University World News site:
AUSTRALIA: 20,000 applications cancelled
Geoff Maslen
At least 20,000 applications by foreign students for permanent residence have been cancelled because of their poor English and qualifications considered no longer in demand. In the biggest shake-up of what had become an education-migration industry, Immigration Minister Senator Chris Evans announced an overhaul of Australia's independent skilled migration system to break the link between students studying a trade in short supply and remaining in the country.
Full report on the University World News site:
US: Tighter visa restrictions but students still enrol
Sarah King Head
In spite of tightened security and controls governing the issuing of student visas, no significant change has occurred in the percentage of foreign students enrolled at US colleges and universities since the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. Indeed, the proportion - as a percentage of total US higher education enrolment figures - remained steady at around 3.5% between 2002 and 2009, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
Full report on the University World News site:
DENMARK: Sackings create confusion and anger
Jan Petter Myklebust
More than 80 scientific staff in the departments of geology and biology at Copenhagen University were sacked last month with immediate notice. Altogether 110 staff will lose their jobs and another 30 who accept early retirement will not be replaced.
Full report on the University World News site:
THE NETHERLANDS: Students protest against grant cuts
Jan Petter Myklebust
Education Minister Ronald Plasterk has proposed substituting the monthly student grant of €266 (US$367) with a loan system. More than 1,000 students protested at the move, occupying lecture halls and university buildings in Amsterdam, Nijmegen, Utrecht and Rotterdam.
Full report on the University World News site:
NZ: Government promises education reforms
John Gerritsen
Universities look set to benefit but students could face a tougher financial support regime after the government announced that education would be one of its priorities for reform this year.
Full report on the University World News site:
CANADA: Troubled First Nations' funding halved
Philip Fine
After five years of being mired in financial scandals and dragging its feet on commitments to solve its governance problems, the small but symbolically important First Nations University of Canada has lost the confidence of the federal and provincial governments.
Full report on the University World News site:
FINLAND: When the going gets tough?.
Ian R Dobson*
One rarely hears talk about redundancies in the Finnish university sector but the University of Oulu in the country's north-west is thinking along those lines. It finds itself in a financial bind largely because of cutbacks in government funding to the tune of nearly €9 million a year (about US$12.4 million). The university aims to get its budget back into the black by 2012.
Full report on the University World News site:
SOUTH AFRICA: Cost woes spark student protests
Munyaradzi Makoni
Two things never disappear from the grievance lists of South African students - fees and accommodation. No sooner had the 2010 academic year begun than students at some universities clashed with administrations and the police over fee hikes and lousy residences. Students renewed their call for free higher education while universities reported that student debt now tops R2.8 billion (US$363 million).
Full report on the University World News site:
EGYPT: New schools at oldest private university
Ashraf Khaled
This month has been action-packed for the American University in Cairo, Egypt's oldest independent higher education institution founded 90 years ago. At high profile ceremonies attended by Egyptian and foreign dignitaries, the university launched three new schools - of global affairs and public policy, business, and graduate education.
Full report on the University World News site:
SOUTHERN AFRICA: Regional integration and higher education
Sharon Dell
In a recent report, the Southern African Regional Universities' Association, Sarua, has started on the complex subject of regional integration and what it means for higher education. The Challenges of Regional Integration and its Implications for Higher Education aims to "set the background for engagement" around regional integration rather than provide definitive answers or proposals.
Full report on the University World News site:
SOUTH AFRICA: Universities cash in on soccer World Cup
Cornia Pretorius, Primarashni Gower and Munyaradzi Makoni* Universities are set to cash in on the 2010 Fifa World Cup with some institutions expected to earn up to R20 million (US$2.6 million), primarily from renting accommodation to some of the participating teams, their fans and media contingents following the competition. Universities have ploughed substantial investments into student residences and sporting facilities to take advantage of the huge event, and ultimately students will benefit.
Full report on the University World News site:
ZIMBABWE: Brain drain bites, academics strike
Science departments in Zimbabwe's universities have been hardest hit by a brain drain that has been blamed mostly on poor salaries. Last week low pay prompted lectures at all state-run higher education institutions go on strike as part of wider civil service industrial action.
Full report on the University World News site:
NEWSBRIEFS
EUROPE: ERC supports the EU 2020 strategy
Jan Petter Myklebust
The scientific council of the European Research Council has put a submission to the European Commission's 2020 strategic planning regarding the Framework 8 research programme 2014-2020. The document is well-argued and simply-presented, recommending spec ialisation and concentration of research between the commission and member states.
Full report on the University World News site:
EUROPE: EUA examines university quality culture
The European University Association has launched a new project to examine the internal 'quality culture' within universities across Europe, and how this has developed within the framework of the Bologna process.
Full report on the University World News site:
CAMEROON: Student housing and security problems
Students in Douala are facing increasing housing problems as landlords prefer to rent to more lucrative tenants, as well as burglaries when they do find student accommodation, according to newspapers.
Full report on the University World News site:
ARAB STATES: Grants to encourage women's studies
The Arab Women Organization has announced five research grants for young researchers in women's studies, and a prize for higher academic and scientific research into questions related to women. Candidates must be nationals of one of the organisation's member states.
Full report on the University World News site:
ACADEMIC FREEDOM
VENEZUELA: Police break up anti-Chavez protest
Daniel Sawney and Jonathan Travis*
On Thursday 4 February, police used tear gas, plastic bullets and water cannons to disperse hundreds of university protesters. Students started marching after the government pressured cable and satellite TV providers to drop an opposition channel. Demonstrations have appeared in cities across the country, accusing President Chavez of forcing Radio Caracas Television International off the airwaves to silence his critics.
More Academic Freedom reports on the University World News site:
SCIENCE SCENE
UK-NETHERLANDS: The long and short of ageing
British and Dutch scientists have identified the genetic variation that makes some people age faster than others and could also make them more susceptible to age-related diseases. The variation is related to telomeres - parts of the chromosome that shorten as cells divide and age and are considered a marker of ageing. In some people, the telomeres are shorter and they therefore appear to be older biologically than they are chronologically.
Full report on the University World News site:
US: Little warning for climate tipping points
As scientists around the world monitor the effects of climate change, many are on the look out for early signs of changes that might worsen the problem even further. But new research indicates it will be difficult to spot such ecological tipping points before they happen. In fact, in some cases dramatic changes to natural systems are likely to happen with little to no warning at all.
Full report on the University World News site:
AFRICA: Scientists scoop African Union awards
Munyaradzi Makoni
Professor Diane Hildebrandt was one of two South African winners of the inaugural African Union Scientific Awards for basic science, technology and innovation, announced during an African Union summit in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa recently. Hildebrandt said she represented "scientists and engineers in Africa - men and women - who are doing research in often very difficult conditions and always with too few resources".
Full report on the University World News site:
DENMARK: Ancient human genome rebuilt
Scientists have reconstructed the nuclear genome of a man who died in Greenland 4,000 years ago - the first time an ancient genome has been reconstructed in detail - revealing traits including a tendency to baldness, his eye and skin colour and his blood type.
Full report on the University World News site:
FEATURES
GLOBAL: More academics and students suffer attacks
Brendan O'Malley
Unesco's new global study, Education under Attack 2010, reports that in a hard core of countries, academics and students are suffering serious human rights violations, ranging from assassination to torture and death threats, mainly at the hands of government or government-backed forces. The study was launched in New York last week and presented to US policy makers in Washington. A new alliance of education, human rights and child protection agencies, held in New York at the offices of Human Rights Watch, sought a common agenda of co-operation to prevent attacks on education and ensure that perpetrators are punished.
Full report on the University World News site:
EUROPE: Leading the world in innovation
Mark Dodgson*
European research and innovation policy has always promoted collaboration between and within university and business sectors but recent developments point to improved outcomes. This is indicated by the recent announcement of three Knowledge and Innovation Communities or KICs - in climate change, sustainable energy and the information society - with the espoused objective to become world leaders in their fields.
Full report on the University World News site:
HE RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
US: Higher education's new global order
John Aubrey Douglass
Governments are having an epiphany. They are increasingly recognising that their social and economic futures depend heavily on the educational attainment of their population, and as a corollary, on the size and quality of their higher education institutions and systems. Within this relatively new policy and economic environment, the command economy approaches to creating and regulating mass higher education that once dominated most parts of the world are withering. What is emerging is what I call 'Structured Opportunity Markets' (SOM) in higher education - essentially, a convergence, in some form, in the effort of nation-states to create a more lightly regulated and more flexible network of public higher education institutions, including diversified and mission-differentiated providers, new finance structures, and expanding enrolment and programme capacity.
More on the University World News site:
Paper from the Center for Studies in Higher Education, Berkeley:
GLOBAL: The Rise of Asia's universities
Richard C Levin*
At the beginning of the 21st century, the East is rising. The rapid economic development of Asia since the Second World War has altered the balance of power in the global economy and hence in geopolitics. The rising nations of the East all recognise the importance of an educated workforce as a means to economic growth and understand the impact of research in driving innovation and competitiveness. In the 1960s, 70s and 80s the higher education agenda in Asia's early developers - Japan, South Korea and Taiwan - was first and foremost to increase the fraction of their populations provided with postsecondary education. Their initial focus was on expanding the number of institutions and their enrolments, and impressive results were achieved. Today, the later and much larger developing nations of Asia - China and India - have an even more ambitious agenda.
More on the University World News site:
Yale President's lecture to The Royal Society, UK :
GLOBAL: Plagiarism dilemmas in university management
Wendy Sutherland-Smith*
The following is an extract from a Paper in the Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management.
Universities face constant scrutiny about their plagiarism management strategies, policies and procedures. A resounding theme, usually media inspired, is that plagiarism is rife, unstoppable and university processes are ineffectual in its wake. This has been referred to as a 'moral panic' approach and suggests plagiarism will thwart all efforts to reclaim academic integrity in higher education. However, revisiting the origins of plagiarism and exploring its legal evolution reveals that legal discourse is the foundation for many plagiarism management policies and processes around the world. Interestingly, criminal justice aims are also reflected in university plagiarism management strategies.
More on the University World News site:
U-SAY
From Michel Rose,
Paris-based journalist
Thanks for your story in the excellent University World News newsletter, which I read every Sunday. I wanted to let you know my utter confusion as to this new '4ICU' ranking which seems even more biased and useless than other rankings. My observations concern the position of French institutions in this ranking system.
Read the full letter on the University World News site:
UNI-LATERAL: Off-beat university stories
AUSTRALIA: Boomerang kids return home
Moving back home with mum and dad is not necessarily a negative step for the 'boomerang generation', a study by Deakin University researchers in Melbourne has found. Rather than being considered a step backwards, the young adults who took part in the study saw such a move as one small, mostly positive, step sideways on life's long journey.
Full report on the University World News site:
US: Barack Obama, Professor in Chief
Barack Obama has been called a lot of things since he hit the national stage: celebrity, elitist and even one who 'pals around with terrorists', writes Jack Stripling for Inside Higher Ed. But as his poll numbers come back down to earth, and an emboldened conservative movement sharpens its attacks, the label that seems to be sticking to Obama as much as any lately is that of 'professor'.
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NEW ZEALAND: 600 Otago University students disciplined
More than 600 University of Otago students were disciplined last year for criminal or disorderly behaviour and dishonesty, writes Allison Rudd for the Otago Daily News. Their offending included electronically altering exam results, falsifying documents, plagiarism, stealing other students' work or possessions, setting couches on fire, assault, trespass, wilful damage and offensive behaviour, discipline reports released by the university showed.
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WORLD ROUND-UP
UK: Thousands to lose university jobs as cuts bite
Universities across Britain are preparing to axe thousands of teaching jobs, close campuses and ditch courses to cope with government funding cuts, write Jessica Shepherd and Owen Bowcott for The Guardian. Other plans include using postgraduates rather than professors for teaching and the delay of major building projects. The proposals have already provoked ballots for industrial action at a number of universities in the past week raising fears of strike action that could severely disrupt lectures and examinations.
More on the University World News site:
IRAN: Professors slam expulsions and threats
A group of professors at Tarbiat Modares University, which spec ialises in training university staff and researchers, wrote an open letter to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warning him that the continuation of fear tactics in universities will have "destructive effects", reports Radio Zamaneh. On Wednesday, Kalameh website published the letter signed by 116 professors expressing grave concern over arrests and expulsion of students and sackings of academics.
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IRAN: Court cuts jail term for US-Iranian scholar
An Iranian appeal court has reduced to five years the jail sentence for an Iranian-American scholar detained after last year's disputed election and accused of espionage, an Iranian news agency reported on Wednesday, according to Reuters. In October, official media said Kian Tajbakhsh was sentenced to more than 12 years in jail.
More on the University World News site:
NETHERLANDS: Court rebukes policy on Iranian scientists
A court in The Hague dealt a blow to the Dutch government's controversial attempts to keep sensitive nuclear technology out of the hands of Iran, writes Martin Enserink for Science Insider. Its policy to ban Iranian-born students and scientists from certain masters degrees and from nuclear research facilities in The Netherlands is overly broad and a violation of an international civil rights treaty, the court ruled earlier this month.
More on the University World News site:
UK: Iranian tensions shake Durham's ivory towers
It's a long way from Iran to north-east England, but anger about the crushing of opposition protests by the Islamic regime has generated a furious row at Durham University, where one academic has condemned the British government for turning "the slaughter of innocent teenagers in Iraq and Afghanistan into an art form", writes Ian Black for The Guardian.
More on the University World News site:
UK: University applications reach record levels
More than 200,000 would-be students are likely to be left without a place at a UK university this year as undergraduate applications reach record levels for the fourth year running, write Anna Bawden and Warwick Mansell for The Guardian. Applications are almost a fifth up on last year, according to the latest figures from the university admissions service, Ucas.
More on the University World News site:
MALAYSIA: New bill to regulate higher education sector
A bill to empower the Higher Education Ministry to govern institutions of higher learning is being promulgated, said Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin, reports the official news agency Bernama. He said although there were provisions under six acts to regulate the management of higher education sector, they were piecemeal in nature and not comprehensive.
More on the University World News site:
TAIWAN: Exchanges with US universities encouraged
Taiwan will encourage local universities to seek out and expand exchanges with their US counterparts in the hope of giving Taiwan a voice in public policy debates in the United States, Minister of Education Wu Ching-ji said, Lin Szu-yu and Elizabeth Hsu report for the Central News Agency.
More on the University World News site:
US: Call for better treatment of non-tenured academics
A coalition of academic associations last week issued a joint statement calling on colleges to recognise that they have 'one faculty' and to treat those off the tenure track as professionals, with pay, benefits, professional development and participation in governance, writes Scott Jaschik for Inside Higher Ed.
More on the University World News site:
US: Outspoken hurricane expert sues over dismissal
Last April Ivor van Heerden, an internationally known hurricane expert, was told he was losing his job at Louisiana State University, writes John Schwartz for The New York Times. He and other experts said it was because of his outspoken criticism of the federal government's flood protection of New Orleans; the university would not comment. Now Van Heerden, the former deputy director of the university's Hurricane Center, is suing the university to get his job back.
More on the University World News site:
US: Private colleges looking to rein in financial aid
In the last year, America's private colleges have laid off staff, shelved construction projects, slashed sports teams and turned down thermostats to cut costs. But student financial aid has kept flowing, writes Eric Gorski for Associated Press. Now the weak economy is forcing some institutions to limit their generosity after many of them doubled or even tripled financial aid over the last decade to attract more applicants and reduce student debt.
More on the University World News site:
US: 11 students held for disrupting Israeli's speech
Soon after Israeli ambassador to the US Michael Oren began his speech last Monday night at the University of California, Irvine, the first student rose, writes Raja Abdulrahim for the Los Angeles Times. "Michael Oren, propagating murder is not an expression of free speech," the student in a gray hoodie yelled. The remainder of his words were drowned out by an uproar of cheering and clapping from students before he was led away by university police. It was the first of 10 interruptions throughout the speech, and by the end of the night, 11 students had been arrested and cited for disturbing a public event.
More on the University World News site:
US: University of California's Commission on the Future
With California's public university system shackled to a shrinking budget, a group of chancellors, students and others considers ideas - from banal to radical - to keep quality up and costs down, writes Larry Gordon for the Los Angeles Times.
More on the University World News site:
PAKISTAN: Expand ties with China, says President
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari said last week that he wants to take the Pak-China bilateral trade and commercial ties to new heights, Dawn reports. Talking to a Chinese delegation led by the Vice-Governor of Sichuan Province, Zardari reiterated that strengthening and expanding cooperation with China in all fields was one of the key objectives of Pakistan's foreign policy.
More on the University World News site:
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