NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report
GLOBAL: Climate change: the challenge of our times
Mandy Garner
Climate change is one of the biggest challenges of our times but it is one that is steeped in controversy. The recent 'Climategate' affair, in which emails from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit were leaked and used to allege scientific misconduct, has shown just how politically contentious the issue is. A special report on this crucial topic, with accounts from around the world on how universities are engaged with the issue, will be published in our next edition on 30 May.
Full story on the University World News site:
THAILAND: Students flee after military crackdown
Yojana Sharma
Several Thai student leaders who had come out on the side of Red Shirt anti-government protesters in recent weeks are believed to have fled Bangkok after receiving threats from Yellow Shirt pro-government groups. Despite the three-day curfew imposed on Bangkok and other provinces in the wake of Wednesday's government crackdown, unconfirmed reports said an unknown number of students had gone underground, dispersing to areas outside the capital. According to the Financial Times on Friday, more than 80 people had been killed during the bloody demonstrations over the past 10 days.
Full report on the University World News site:
INDIA: New agency uncouples funding and regulation
Alya Mishra
As part of its ongoing drive to overhaul the higher education sector and increase the quality of its universities, India's education ministry under Human Resources Minister Kapil Sibal is planning to create a new inter-university funding agency. But the agency has been stripped of any regulatory powers.
Full report on the University World News site:
UK: Undergraduates should pay more
Diane Spencer
Student fees will have to rise if Britain is to keep its world-class reputation in higher education, the Russell Group of 20 elite universities has warned. In its sumbission to Lord Browne's review of higher education funding, the group predicts its members could be faced with an overall deficit of more than £1.1 billion (US$1.6 billion) by 2012-13. But it does not recommend a big increase in overseas student fees.
Full report on the University World News site:
US: California's online pilot project: brave new world?
Sarah King Head
Embracing the future at the University of California will undoubtedly bring new challenges when it evaluates the results of a recent decision to develop expanded online undergraduate and distance learning course offerings.
Full report on the University World News site:
NEW ZEALAND: Universities disappointed by budget
John Gerritsen
The New Zealand government delivered its annual budget on Thursday but the country's universities received slim pickings.
Full report on the University World News site:
US: Beyond the ivory tower: effecting change
Sarah King Head
What happens when internationally recognised academics join forces to solve problems of global significance? Real world and sustainable results, the things Professors Beyond Borders intends to achieve.
Full report on the University World News site:
KENYA: Universities must clear huge admissions backlog
Gilbert Nganga
Kenya's public universities, long plagued by an admissions crisis, are in for a shock as they move to enrol tens of thousands of extra students to clear a backlog that has for decades forced students to wait for two years after high school to enter public higher education.
Full report on the University World News site:
KENYA: Student unrest, claims of political meddling
Gilbert Nganga
Kenya's premier institution of higher education, the University of Nairobi, was last week shut indefinitely following unrest over disputed student elections. Educationists pointed fingers at the country's politicians for meddling in student affairs.
Full report on the University World News site:
AFRICA: Research concentrated in three countries
Wagdy Sawahel
Africa has extremely uneven distribution of research and innovative capacity, according to a recent report. Research is concentrated in Egypt in the north, N igeria in the middle and South Africa in the south. Africa produces only some 27,000 papers a year - about the same volume of published output as The Netherlands - but the continent has relatively high representation, as a share of world publications, in fields related to natural resources.
Full report on the University World News site:
ZIMBABWE: Brain drain graduates must repay state aid
A Special Correspondent
Zimbabwean university students who receive state assistance are now required to surrender a third of their salaries if they choose to work in foreign countries on completing their studies. The cash-strapped government has set up a special cadet scheme whose stringent conditions it hopes will stem a crippling brain drain that has hit most of the country's economic sectors.
Full report on the University World News site:
N IGERIA: New peace institute to help resolve conflicts
Tunde Fatunde
N igerian officials and diplomats have become increasingly concerned that very few people involved in conflict resolution are trained to either prevent or settle disputes. The University of Ibadan recently signed a memorandum of understanding with two government agencies to establish an Institute of Peace that will train people in this crucial field.
Full report on the University World News site:
SENEGAL: From 'brick' to 'click' universities
Jane Marshall
Officials from the World Bank were in Dakar this month to set out their vision for Senegal's higher education sector and to prepare for the launch of a new development strategy. Meanwhile, current problems in the country's education system were aired during their visit, said press reports.
Full report on the University World News site:
SOUTH AFRICA: Higher education summit revisited
Last month the South African government convened a Stakeholder Summit on
Higher Education, to debate the transformation of universities two decades after political reform began and to chart an agenda for the future. University World News produced a Special Report on the summit. Here we report on some of the key issues that emerged from the historic event - the lack of an academic perspective, the differentiation debate, and the investigation into four-year bachelor degrees aimed at tackling high student drop-out rates.
SOUTH AFRICA: Academic perspective lacking
John Higgins* South Africa's recent Stakeholder Summit on Higher Education rightly argued the need for a national conversation on the future development of higher education. With the primary and secondary education sectors largely in disarray, and little prospect of correcting that in the foreseeable future, Minister of Higher Education and Training Blade Nzimande called for universities to think afresh.
Full report on the University World News site:
SOUTH AFRICA: New university clusters emerge
Karen MacGregor
New clusters of universities have emerged in South Africa in the past decade, with fewer truly research-focused institutions following mergers, according to a study by the Centre for Higher Education Transformation, CHET. Three clusters revealed by an analysis of universities using nine input and output variables look very different to the formal categories used to differentiate the tertiary sector - with potentially major implications for policy.
Full report on the University World News site:
SOUTH AFRICA: Universities ponder four-year degrees
Sharon Dell
The government-led drive to open the doors of South African universities to poor students not only places strain on the national budget, it is also set to put greater pressure on academics and institutions to embrace changing curricula and improve their knowledge about education and alternative approaches to teaching and learning.
Full report on the University World News site:
NEWSBRIEFS
GLOBAL: New international university network
Seven research-intensive universities based in seven countries have joined to form a new international network. The group has called itself the Matariki Network of Universities, which it describes as "a select group recognised for their international practice in teaching and learning".
Full report on the University World News site:
JAPAN-NORTH AFRICA: Boost for university cooperation
Wagdy Sawahel
Japan and six North African states - Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia - are to boost cooperation between universities. This was agreed at a summit held on 14 May in Tunis and attended by leaders and representatives from several Japanese and African universities.
Full report on the University World News site:
SENEGAL: Minister's visit ends student strike
Students at Senegal's University of Thiès have resumed their studies after a month-long strike, following a visit from Amadou Tidiane Bâ, Minister for Higher Education, Universities and Regional University Centres. Bâ said he was taking "effective measures" to meet the students' demands, according to press reports.
Full report on the University World News site:
AFRICA: India to finance e-network
India is financing a US$50 million project to establish a pan-African online 'e-network' linking the 53 countries of the African Union, reported Le Potentiel of Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, where the programme was launched this month.
Full report on the University World News site:
GLOBAL: Internationalising Europe
From the UK International Unit*
European Union involvement in higher education has come a long way since the first Socrates Erasmus student exchanges in 1989. These first attempts to introduce a 'European dimension' to higher education were intensified with the onset of the intergovernmental Bologna Process in 1999. Earlier this month, higher education ministers from 27 EU member states debated internationalisation of higher education and its importance for Europe's universities.
Full report on the University World News site:
ISRAEL: Nanotech institute launched
Wagdy Sawahel
Israel has launched a US$150 million Institute for Nanotechnology to promote the development of a knowledge-based economy. Located at Bar-Ilan University, the Bar Ilan Institute of Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials or BINA will have 39 laboratories and 340 researchers, technicians and graduate and doctoral students taking part in 38 multidisciplinary working groups in various fields in the sciences, including physics, chemistry and life sciences.
Full report on the University World News site:
INDIA: Narrowing the education deficit
From the UK International Unit*
Teach For India, a fellowship programme inspired by Teach For America in the US and the UK's Teach First, was launched in 2008. It recruits and trains outstanding university and college graduates and young professionals to teach full time in low-income schools in India for two years.
Full report on the University World News site:
ACADEMIC FREEDOM
ISRAEL: Academic denied entry to West Bank
Jonathan Travis*
Israeli immigration officials prevented US scholar Noam Chomsky from entering the West Bank last week. Professor Chomsky, renowned for his work on linguistics and philosophy, was planning to deliver a lecture at Birzeit University, BBC News reports. Chomsky said he was denied entry because the Israeli government has long objected to his controversial writings and speeches.
More Academic Freedom reports on the University World News site:
SCIENCE SCENE
UK: Fell atio by fruit bats prolongs co pulation
Oral s ex is widely used in human foreplay but rarely documented in other animals. Fell atio has been recorded in bonobos Pan paniscus but even then functions largely as play behaviour among juvenile males, according to research conducted by biologists from the University of Bristol and three Chinese higher education institutions. See our Uni-Lateral story on how an Irish academic was accused of s exual harassment after showing a journal article of this study to a female colleague.
Full report on the University World News site:
US: Ice melts, Greenland rises
Greenland is covered by ice up to two kilometres thick - but now it is melting and as a result the land is rising. What's more, scientists at the University of Miami say the rate of uplift is accelerating.
Full report on the University World News site:
GLOBAL: TIA and MIT join diseases patent pool
Munyaradzi Makoni
South Africa's Technology Innovation Agency (TIA) this month became the first government body worldwide to join the Open Innovation Patent Pool on Neglected Tropical Diseases. It followed the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in signing up to the initiative that promises to stimulate local innovations in the fight against diseases.
Full report on the University World News site:
US: Figuring out the oceans' vital statistics
Scientists in the US are updating estimates of the size and volume of the world's oceans. The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are working on the numbers.
Full report on the University World News site:
FEATURES
THAILAND: Student movement emerges from the shadows
Yojana Sharma
Thailand's student movement appeared to be dormant in recent years but has now emerged as a force supporting the anti-government Red Shirts, with the Thai authorities keeping a close watch on student groups.
Full report on the University World News site:
GLOBAL: From brain drain to brain growth
Diane Spencer
The former education editor of US News &World Report has researched how international competition for the brightest minds is transforming the world of higher education. In his new book, The Great Brain Race: How global universities are reshaping the world, Ben Wildavsky concludes that the revolution should be welcomed, not feared.
Full report on the University World News site:
HE RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
US: Class Warriors
William Ayers
Professor William Ayers, distinguished professor of education and senior university scholar at the University of Illinois in Chicago, was banned last year from speaking at the University of Nebraska. Here he argues in the Canadian journal Academic Matters that the current trend towards 'academic capitalism' gives faculty the moment to speak up - and act up.
Full article on the University World News site:
UNI-LATERAL: Off-beat university stories
IRELAND: Bat behaviour leads to s ex charge
John Walshe
Dr Dylan Evans is now a household name in Ireland and on the blogosphere for showing a female colleague an article about how fruit bats prolong co pulation through fell atio. When the woman lodged a complaint of s exual harassment, the university imposed a two-year period of intensive monitoring and counselling on him.
Full report on the University World News site:
CHINA: Tests on stray cats? We did not!
Huang Yuli, China Daily
Peking University went into damage control mode earlier this month when its health science centre denied allegations that students had conducted experiments on stray cats in laboratory classes.
Full report on the University World News site:
FACEBOOK
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higher education worldwide. More than 2,160 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
KYRGYZSTAN: Fatal ethnic fighting erupts at university
A deadly ethnic riot broke out on Wednesday at a university in a major southern city in Kyrgyzstan, where the country's interim government has only tenuous control and where the police have largely stopped working rather than take sides in a political conflict, writes Andrew E Kramer for The New York Times.
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BALOCHISTAN: Universities close down after clashes
Academic activities were suspended in four public sector universities and two colleges in Balochistan on Tuesday, reports the Express Tribune. This came after 46 students were injured in clashes between Baloch and Pakhtun student organisations in different universities of Balochistan on Monday.
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PUERTO RICO: Massive support for university strike
Striking University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras campus students received their strongest show of support yet when some 8,000 people gathered on Tuesday in front of the institution's main gates in solidarity with their plight, reports the Daily Sun in this and the subsequent stories with links to earlier editions that follow. The students have been protesting against budget cuts and university policies.
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IRAN: Student activists receive heavy prison terms
Two detained student activists, Bahareh Hedayat and Milad Asadi, were handed heavy imprisonment terms by the Iranian judiciary last week, reports Radio Zamaneh.
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CHINA: Students wounded in university knife rampage
At least five men rampaged across a college campus in China wounding 13 students, including one whose hand they chopped off, writes Jonathan Landreth for The Times. The attack in Haikou, capital of the southern island province of Hainan, came after a recent rash of knife violence at Chinese elementary schools.
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ISRAEL: Chomsky barred from West Bank
A fierce debate broke out in Israel last week amid finger pointing and hand wringing over the country's refusal last weekend to permit the linguist Noam Chomsky, an icon of the American left, to enter the occupied West Bank from Jordan, writes Ethan Bronner for The New York Times.
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US: Flare-up over 'illegal' immigrant students
A minor traffic violation by Jessica Colotl, a senior at Georgia's Kennesaw State University, is turning out to be anything but a minor incident, writes Scott Jaschik for Inside Higher Ed. Colotl is from Mexico and doesn't have the legal authorisation to live permanently in the United States. While Colotl is, by all reports, an excellent student, her situation (uncovered because of her traffic violation) has set off demands that the state do more to block the enrolment of students who are in the country illegally.
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US: College bound, DNA swab in hand
Instead of the usual required summer-reading book, this year's incoming freshmen at the University of California, Berkeley, will get something quite different: a cotton swab on which they can, if they choose, send in a DNA sample, writes Tamar Lewin for The New York Times. The university said it would analyse the samples, from inside students' cheeks, for three genes that help regulate the ability to metabolise alcohol, lactose and folates.
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CHINA: Universities use cash to grab top pupils
With the college entrance examination still a month away, some universities have already begun to fight for the best high school graduates by offering generous scholarships, writes Wang Wei for China Daily.
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CHINA: Foreign tour for 100 university officials
About 100 university officials will be sent overseas on a 24-day training course to help them build first-class universities in China, writes Wang Xiang for the Shanghai Daily. The Ministry of Education said officials selected from across the country would visit Japan, Britain, Australia and the US to "learn advanced management skills" that could help build "a batch of first-class universities by 2020," Beijing News reported last week.
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MALAYSIA: Eight institutions get self-accreditation status
Self-accreditation status has been given to eight higher education institutions for the first time in Malaysia, writes Karen Chapman for The Star. Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin said the institutions could now accredit their own programmes without going through the Malaysian Qualifications Agency.
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INDIA: Higher education enrolment could reach 15%
The increased focus on higher education in India is yielding dividends. The 11th Plan's ambitious aim to increase enrolment in higher education to 15% could be achievable. At the end of 10th Plan in 2006 it was 10.12%, reports The Times of India.
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TAIWAN: PhDs more than double, but few job opportunities
Taiwan has an increasing number of doctorate degree holders, yet it's getting harder for them to find full-time professor jobs, local media reported yesterday, reports The China Post-Asia News. Citing data from the Ministry of Education, the reports said PhD holders increased 2.5 times, from 13,000 to 33,000, between 1999 and 2009. However, job openings at colleges and universities did not catch up with the rise.
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UK: New institutions challenge the old guard
The position of the UK's 'old' universities is continuing to be threatened by younger upstarts in the table compiled by The Complete University Guide in association with The Independent, writes Lucy Hodges for The Independent. Although Oxford remains at the top of the university pecking order for the third year running, with Cambridge and Imperial College London again in second and third place respectively, there has been movement in the middle ranks.
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UK: Skills shortage is getting worse, bosses warn
Employers fear they will be unable recruit students with the skills they need as the economic recovery kicks in, a new survey reveals, writes Anna Bawden for The Guardian. Nearly half of organisations told researchers they were already struggling to find staff with skills in science, technology, engineering and maths (Stem), while even more companies expect to experience shortages of employees with Stem skills in the next three years.
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UK: Rich students widen 'gulf' in access to top universities
Bright children from the poorest homes are seven times less likely to go to top universities than their wealthier peers, partly because their schools do not offer the 'right' subjects, according to a government-commissioned review published last week, writes Jessica Shepherd for The Guardian.
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US: University of California seeks to save $500 million
The University of California plans to reduce its administrative, purchasing and energy costs by about US$500 million a year by 2015 in an attempt to shield its teaching and research missions from further cuts in state funding, officials said on Wednesday, writes Larry Gordon for the Los Angeles Times.
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US: Stanford prepares for bookless libraries
One chapter is closing - and another is opening - as Stanford University moves toward the creation of its first 'bookless library', writes Lisa M Krieger for the Mercury News.
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Sunday, 23 May 2010
Monday, 17 May 2010
University World News 0124- 17th May 2010
SPECIAL REPORT: 2010 Asian University Rankings
The 2010 QS Asian university rankings were published on Thursday. This is the second time the British company has produced its listing of top universities across Asia and the latest list has several surprises. In the following stories, Yojana Sharma describes which universities have made it to the top and why.She also has an exclusive interview with QS Managing Director Nunzio Quacquarelli who tells her that governments should ignore such rankings which are really aimed at students and their parents.
Two critics of university rankings also give their views. Malaysian academic Professor Morshidi Sirat, of the National Higher Education Research Institute at the Universiti Sains Malaysia, fears that for smaller universities in the developing world to blindly pursue global or regional Asia rankings could lead to a misdirection of resources that would be to the detriment of their own communities. His comments are backed by Richard Holmes, a lecturer at the Universiti Teknologi MARA, Shah Alam, Malaysia, who writes a blog on university rankings. Holmes says the latest QS rankings will almost certainly produce heated discussion throughout Asia.
ASIA: Hong Kong and Japan top rankings
Yojana Sharma Universities in Hong Kong and Japan dominate the upper echelons of the QS Asian university rankings released last Thursday, with universities in Singapore and South Korea also making a strong showing in the top 20. But mainland China's universities have not performed as well as expected in the regional comparison.
Full report on the University World News site:
ASIA: Development ratings vs status rankings
Yojana Sharma
Securing a high position in international university rankings may be a dream for many universities in Asia but rankings that compare smaller regional universities in Asia with Harvard or Oxford are not particularly helpful or relevant, according to Malaysian academic Professor Morshidi Sirat, of the National Higher Education Research Institute at the Universiti Sains Malaysia.
Full report on the University World News site:
ASIA: Governments should ignore rankings: Quacquarelli
Yojana Sharma
Relaxed in his offices, Nunzio Quacquarelli seems younger than his 46 years. Yet he heads a firm with global reach and more than 100 employees, many of them tucked away unobtrusively in a modern mews building in London's Hampstead, famous for its literati. Quacquarelli is the founding partner and now Managing Director of Quacquarelli Symonds or QS which launched the annual World University Rankings in 2004 with the then Times Higher Education Supplement, at the time a Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper.
Full report on the University World News site:
ASIA: The new university rankings
Richard Holmes
The new Asian University Rankings, produced by QS Quacquarelli Symonds, will provoke heated discussion throughout Asia. There are several surprises: not only are there changes from last year's Asian rankings but they are in some ways quite different from the World University Rankings even though there is an overlap of data.
Full report on the University World News site:
SPECIAL REPORT: Reinventing higher education
Driving snow rather than volcanic ash greeted participants as they arrived
at Segovia in Spain for a Reinventing Higher Education conference organised by the city's IE University. The debate was considerably hotter inside IE's magnificently converted 13th century convent however, where 50 deans, rectors and academics from universities including Zhejiang, Leeds, Stanford and Monterrey met with innovating companies such as Google to try to define the future of higher education. University World News correspondent Paul Rigg was present and filed these reports.
GLOBAL: A shared vision of the future?
Paul Rigg
"I cannot think of any other international forum which draws together leaders in education to discuss these kinds of issues," said Dr David Mills, of Oxford University's department of education. "Perhaps it may lead to a shared vision of the future."
Full report on the University World News site:
GLOBAL: The virtues of just listening
It might be expected that any dean of a university with an audience of international academics and press would take the opportunity to bang their own drum. But in his keynote speech at the Reinventing Higher Education conference at IE University, Segovia, Professor Michael Arthur, Vice-chancellor of the University of Leeds and Chairman of the Russell Group of UK Universities, immediately impressed his audience by explaining the importance of listening.
Full report on the University World News site:
GLOBAL: Higher education's changing needs
If a symbol of the rapidity of change in higher education was needed, few could beat the sight of Luca Paderni of Google sitting on the same panel as the heads of the universities of Frankfurt, Guido Carli and Monterrey in Mexico at the conference Reinventing Higher Education held in Segovia, Spain.
Full report on the University World News site:
GLOBAL: Diversity of models in higher education
Professor Eero Kasanen, Rector of the Helsinki School of Economics, kicked off the afternoon session of the Reinventing Higher Education conference at IE University in Segovia by asking: "Why are there not more mergers of universities?"
Full report on the University World News site:
NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report
UK: The new coalition world
Diane Spencer
The first British coalition government for more than half a century has resulted in a Conservative minister for universities, science and skills working under a Liberal Democrat Secretary of State. David Willetts, the former shadow education secretary, will now be responsible for higher education. Lib-Dem Vince Cable has taken over the role of Labour's Peter Mandelson as Secretary of State for the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills although he will not be in charge of universities.
Full report on the University World News site:
GLOBAL: Scientists to review UN climate panel
Karen MacGregor
A 12-member panel of top scientists from around the world began reviewing the work of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, last week. The key task of the team selected by the InterAcademy Council, an Amsterdam-based association of national science academies, is to review processes that led to the findings of the UN climate panel. Mistakes in IPCC reports have undermined public confidence in science and created confusion over climate change.
Full report on the University World News site:
INDIA: Private-public fund for higher education
Alya Mishra
India is looking to raise money from the markets through a special education finance corporation to fund a much-needed expansion of higher education. In a radical move, the Education Ministry is finalising plans to issue government bonds through a proposed National Education Finance Corporation that will lend to higher education institutions.
Full report on the University World News site:
RUSSIA: Rising corruption threatens universities
Eugene Vorotnikov
The level of corruption in Russian universities is steadily growing despite the efforts of local authorities to eradicate it. According to necessarily rough estimates, bribes paid for admission to Russian universities in 2009 totalled US$1 billion. This is 40% more than in 2007, with the average bribe rocketing five times higher in just the last two years.
Full report on the University World News site:
BELARUS: The odd-one-out in Europe
Eugene Vorotnikov
The Belarusian higher education system is undergoing a steep decline and reduced educational quality, according to experts. They say that although most Belarusian university graduates have a high level of knowledge, they are unable to predict, analyse and work in non-standard conditions as their European counterparts can.
Full report on the University World News site:
GERMANY: New student support measures announced
Michael Gardner
The German government intends to boost financial support for students. New measures will include regulations on existing schemes as well as the introduction of a national grants system. The plans have already been sharply criticised by the Teachers and Scientists Union, the GEW.
Full report on the University World News site:
LIBYA-UK: A bold new development
Diane Spencer
The Libyan government wants to establish a 'multiversity' as part of the country's plan to become an educational hub for its own students and for those from other parts of Africa. The Libyan National Economic Development Board will host a two-day seminar in Tripoli in late June with the UK's International Unit where academics can develop the concept and discuss roles and responsibilities, finances and partnership agreements.
Full report on the University World News site:
NEWSBRIEF
FINLAND: Students protest against fees introduction
Ian R Dobson*
A new Universities Act that came into force at the start of 2010 paved the way for discussions about university fees. Although the Finnish constitution continues to support universities free of tuition fees for domestic students and others under limited conditions, the new Act permits universities to impose fees for students outside the European Union and European Economic Area. Students are opposed to fees and made their views known in a recent protest march and demonstration.
Full report on the University World News site:
BUSINESS
EUROPE: Neo-liberals push university privatisation
Joe Walters
The third European University Business Forum took place in Brussels earlier this month with the aim of furthering transnational discussion on the commercialisation of higher education.
Full report on the University World News site:
GLOBAL: Business school involvement in innovation
Cayley Dobie
Business and management schools worldwide should be playing a larger role when it comes to innovation according to Business Schools on an Innovation Mission, a report by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, or AACSB.
Full report on the University World News site:
QATAR: Recording lectures for students
Cayley Dobie
Students and faculty at Qatar University can now access their courses and seminars outside of traditional classrooms with the aid of recorded lectures provided by US-based company Echo360.
Full report on the University World News site:
HE Research and Commentary
US: Leadership, diversity and succession planning
University administration is the focus of Leadership, Diversity and Succession Planning in Academia, a new paper by Cristina González, a professor of education and Spanish at the University of California, Berkeley, and an affiliated faculty member of the University of California, Berkley.
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US: The California 'master plan' for higher education
"In 1960 California developed a Master Plan for its already famed public higher education system. It was and continues to be arguably the single most influential effort to plan the future of a system of higher education in the annals of American higher education," writes John Aubrey Douglass, a senior research fellow and deputy director of the Center for Studies in Higher Education at the University of California, Berkeley, in a just-published paper. "Despite popular belief, however, the California Master Plan for Higher Education is more important for what it preserved than what it created."
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UNI-LATERAL: Off-beat university stories
DENMARK: Updating Hans Christian Andersen
Jan Petter Myklebust
That most famous Dane, the storyteller Hans Christian Andersen, is still in the limelight 135 years after his death. In his lifetime he was loved by the masses and celebrated by royalty and nobility. His books have been translated into 150 languages. Now, nearly 9,000 of his papers have been made available on the internet - a fifth of them never before published.
Full report on the University World News site:
VENEZUELA: Chavez Twitters plan to nationalise university
Leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced last Tuesday night on his Twitter account his plans to nationalise a private university, writes Javier Mines for BNO News.
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SWEDEN: Prophet Muhammad cartoonist 'head-butted'
A Swedish artist who created an international furore by depicting the Prophet Muhammad as a dog was assaulted as he delivered a university lecture, reports BBC News. Lars Vilks said he was head-butted by an audience member as he spoke about the limits of artistic freedom.
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FACEBOOK
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higher education worldwide. Nearly 2,150 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
UK: Universities claim millions for dropouts
UK universities have wrongfully claimed tens of millions of pounds from the taxpayer for students who have dropped out of courses, according to documents the government tried to keep secret, write Jack Grimston and Melanie Newman for The Times. In the papers, officials accuse universities of "artfully misconstruing" data in a "coordinated approach" to ensure they could claim as much as possible from the taxpayer. They found half the universities they checked were taking the extra money.
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CHINA-TAIWAN: Strengthening academic ties
After a year of debate that on several occasions descended into fisticuffs, Taiwanese legislators last week opted for pragmatism over nationalism and put the finishing touches to amendments that will allow about 2,000 mainland Chinese students to enter Taiwan's graduate and undergraduate university programmes every year, writes David Cyranoski for Nature News. The change, to be finalised this month, will open the door to a large and much-needed pool of young minds for Taiwan's universities as early as this autumn.
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TAIWAN: Two million Chinese willing to study in Taiwan
Around two million university students in China, accounting for more than 30% of total students there, are willing to seek advanced studies in Taiwan, far exceeding the quota of 2,000 planned by Taiwan's Ministry of Education, according to findings of a survey released yesterday by the Chinese University of Hong Kong, reports The China Post.
More on the University World News site:
MALAYSIA: Ministry targets 120,000 foreign students
In a bid to make Malaysia an education hub for Southeast Asia, the Higher Education Ministry has targeted 120,000 foreign students in local universities by 2015, reports the national news agency Bernama. Deputy Minister Dr Hou Kok Chung said the prospects were good as Malaysia achieved its target of 80,000 international students last year - 58,294 enrolled in private universities and 22,456 in public universities.
More on the University World News site:
AUSTRALIA: Overseas students down 40% last month
Overseas student applications plunged 40% last month following "abrupt and rapid" changes to Australia's visa regime, the country's peak education agent has warned, reports Guy Healy for The Australian. The crackdown on student visas, coupled with uncertainty caused by the continuing delay to the priority skills list, could cost Australia at least AUD600 million (US$540 million) in lost export revenue, IDP chief Tony Pollock told The Australian.
More on the University World News site:
AUSTRALIA: $660 million to build vocational education
Australia's 'education revolution' took on a distinctly blue-collar flavour last week with an AUD660 million (US$593 million) suite of measures aimed at expanding and improving vocational education and training, largely at the expense of extra funding for top-flight research universities, writes Luke Slattery for The Australian.
More on the University World News site:
NEW ZEALAND: Enrolment restrictions to be fast-tracked
Universities are looking to bring forward plans to restrict enrolments in response to tighter government funding and increased demand for tertiary education, reports the New Zealand Herald. Government funding criteria changed in 2008 to cover only an agreed number of students at each tertiary institution, prompting universities to cap student numbers.
More on the University World News site:
CANADA: Giroux, 34, youngest university president
He tweets in both official languages, writes Louise Brown for The Star. He starts his budget blogs with a dash of Ojibwa he's picked up. And the fledgling president of Laurentian University in Canada boasts about using his own Facebook page to recruit students after a mother messaged to ask why her son should choose the Sudbury campus.
More on the University World News site:
US: Colleges as potential tax targets
The US Internal Revenue Service is focusing mostly on issues related to executive compensation and payment (or non-payment) of tax on unrelated business income in more than 30 reviews it is conducting of individual colleges and universities, the agency said as it released the preliminary results of its survey of 400 institutions, writes Doug Lederman for Inside Higher Ed.
More on the University World News site:
INDIA: Cabinet approves National Defence University
The cabinet on Thursday sanctioned Rs295 crore (US$65.5 million) to establish an Indian National Defence University to create synergy between existing institutes of learning in the sector and address strategic security challenges, reports The Economic Times.
More on the University World News site:
INDIA: India gets its own version of TOEFL
India may soon have its own standardised English language test along the lines of TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) and IELTS (International English Language Testing System), as the demand for English language skills rises across the country, reports India EduNews.
More on the University World News site:
ASIA: Korea's universities lag behind Hong Kong's
The University of Hong Kong was named the best university in Asia for the second year in a study by the Chosun Ilbo and Quacquarelli Symonds of 448 universities in 11 Asian countries. Hong Kong University of Science and Technology came second and Chinese University of Hong Kong fourth, comments the Chosun Ilbo.
More on the University World News site:
GHANA: Encourage academic mobility in Africa
Ghana's Minister of Education, Alex Tettey-Enyo, has called on African universities to co-operate and consider ways that would encourage academic mobility on the continent to promote flows of talent and expertise and to attract a qualified labour force, reports the Daily Graphic.
More on the University World News site:
SRI LANKA: Government may invite private universities
Sri Lanka's Minister of Higher Education, SB Dissanayake, said the government was making efforts to provide the facilities needed for students to pursue higher education, reports ColomboPage. Overseas universities should be approached to set up private institutions in the country to dissuade students from studying abroad and curb foreign exchange outflows.
More on the University World News site:
MALAYSIA: Academic integrity framework on the way
An academic integrity framework will be introduced by the Malaysia's Higher Education Ministry to strengthen the integrity of academics, particularly lecturers, reports the national news agency Bernama.
More on the University World News site:
SWITZERLAND: Students call for minimum grants
Student unions in Switzerland are calling for the nationwide introduction of minimum grants for undergraduates at the country's 12 universities and 50 higher education colleges, reports SwissInfo.
More on the University World News site:
US: University scrambled to limit Palin fallout
Newly released documents shed light on a California State University's efforts to limit public scrutiny of its decision to book Sarah Palin for a June speaking engagement but do not disclose how much the former vice presidential candidate was to be paid, reports Robin Hindery for The Associated Press.
More on the University World News site:
The 2010 QS Asian university rankings were published on Thursday. This is the second time the British company has produced its listing of top universities across Asia and the latest list has several surprises. In the following stories, Yojana Sharma describes which universities have made it to the top and why.She also has an exclusive interview with QS Managing Director Nunzio Quacquarelli who tells her that governments should ignore such rankings which are really aimed at students and their parents.
Two critics of university rankings also give their views. Malaysian academic Professor Morshidi Sirat, of the National Higher Education Research Institute at the Universiti Sains Malaysia, fears that for smaller universities in the developing world to blindly pursue global or regional Asia rankings could lead to a misdirection of resources that would be to the detriment of their own communities. His comments are backed by Richard Holmes, a lecturer at the Universiti Teknologi MARA, Shah Alam, Malaysia, who writes a blog on university rankings. Holmes says the latest QS rankings will almost certainly produce heated discussion throughout Asia.
ASIA: Hong Kong and Japan top rankings
Yojana Sharma Universities in Hong Kong and Japan dominate the upper echelons of the QS Asian university rankings released last Thursday, with universities in Singapore and South Korea also making a strong showing in the top 20. But mainland China's universities have not performed as well as expected in the regional comparison.
Full report on the University World News site:
ASIA: Development ratings vs status rankings
Yojana Sharma
Securing a high position in international university rankings may be a dream for many universities in Asia but rankings that compare smaller regional universities in Asia with Harvard or Oxford are not particularly helpful or relevant, according to Malaysian academic Professor Morshidi Sirat, of the National Higher Education Research Institute at the Universiti Sains Malaysia.
Full report on the University World News site:
ASIA: Governments should ignore rankings: Quacquarelli
Yojana Sharma
Relaxed in his offices, Nunzio Quacquarelli seems younger than his 46 years. Yet he heads a firm with global reach and more than 100 employees, many of them tucked away unobtrusively in a modern mews building in London's Hampstead, famous for its literati. Quacquarelli is the founding partner and now Managing Director of Quacquarelli Symonds or QS which launched the annual World University Rankings in 2004 with the then Times Higher Education Supplement, at the time a Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper.
Full report on the University World News site:
ASIA: The new university rankings
Richard Holmes
The new Asian University Rankings, produced by QS Quacquarelli Symonds, will provoke heated discussion throughout Asia. There are several surprises: not only are there changes from last year's Asian rankings but they are in some ways quite different from the World University Rankings even though there is an overlap of data.
Full report on the University World News site:
SPECIAL REPORT: Reinventing higher education
Driving snow rather than volcanic ash greeted participants as they arrived
at Segovia in Spain for a Reinventing Higher Education conference organised by the city's IE University. The debate was considerably hotter inside IE's magnificently converted 13th century convent however, where 50 deans, rectors and academics from universities including Zhejiang, Leeds, Stanford and Monterrey met with innovating companies such as Google to try to define the future of higher education. University World News correspondent Paul Rigg was present and filed these reports.
GLOBAL: A shared vision of the future?
Paul Rigg
"I cannot think of any other international forum which draws together leaders in education to discuss these kinds of issues," said Dr David Mills, of Oxford University's department of education. "Perhaps it may lead to a shared vision of the future."
Full report on the University World News site:
GLOBAL: The virtues of just listening
It might be expected that any dean of a university with an audience of international academics and press would take the opportunity to bang their own drum. But in his keynote speech at the Reinventing Higher Education conference at IE University, Segovia, Professor Michael Arthur, Vice-chancellor of the University of Leeds and Chairman of the Russell Group of UK Universities, immediately impressed his audience by explaining the importance of listening.
Full report on the University World News site:
GLOBAL: Higher education's changing needs
If a symbol of the rapidity of change in higher education was needed, few could beat the sight of Luca Paderni of Google sitting on the same panel as the heads of the universities of Frankfurt, Guido Carli and Monterrey in Mexico at the conference Reinventing Higher Education held in Segovia, Spain.
Full report on the University World News site:
GLOBAL: Diversity of models in higher education
Professor Eero Kasanen, Rector of the Helsinki School of Economics, kicked off the afternoon session of the Reinventing Higher Education conference at IE University in Segovia by asking: "Why are there not more mergers of universities?"
Full report on the University World News site:
NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report
UK: The new coalition world
Diane Spencer
The first British coalition government for more than half a century has resulted in a Conservative minister for universities, science and skills working under a Liberal Democrat Secretary of State. David Willetts, the former shadow education secretary, will now be responsible for higher education. Lib-Dem Vince Cable has taken over the role of Labour's Peter Mandelson as Secretary of State for the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills although he will not be in charge of universities.
Full report on the University World News site:
GLOBAL: Scientists to review UN climate panel
Karen MacGregor
A 12-member panel of top scientists from around the world began reviewing the work of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, last week. The key task of the team selected by the InterAcademy Council, an Amsterdam-based association of national science academies, is to review processes that led to the findings of the UN climate panel. Mistakes in IPCC reports have undermined public confidence in science and created confusion over climate change.
Full report on the University World News site:
INDIA: Private-public fund for higher education
Alya Mishra
India is looking to raise money from the markets through a special education finance corporation to fund a much-needed expansion of higher education. In a radical move, the Education Ministry is finalising plans to issue government bonds through a proposed National Education Finance Corporation that will lend to higher education institutions.
Full report on the University World News site:
RUSSIA: Rising corruption threatens universities
Eugene Vorotnikov
The level of corruption in Russian universities is steadily growing despite the efforts of local authorities to eradicate it. According to necessarily rough estimates, bribes paid for admission to Russian universities in 2009 totalled US$1 billion. This is 40% more than in 2007, with the average bribe rocketing five times higher in just the last two years.
Full report on the University World News site:
BELARUS: The odd-one-out in Europe
Eugene Vorotnikov
The Belarusian higher education system is undergoing a steep decline and reduced educational quality, according to experts. They say that although most Belarusian university graduates have a high level of knowledge, they are unable to predict, analyse and work in non-standard conditions as their European counterparts can.
Full report on the University World News site:
GERMANY: New student support measures announced
Michael Gardner
The German government intends to boost financial support for students. New measures will include regulations on existing schemes as well as the introduction of a national grants system. The plans have already been sharply criticised by the Teachers and Scientists Union, the GEW.
Full report on the University World News site:
LIBYA-UK: A bold new development
Diane Spencer
The Libyan government wants to establish a 'multiversity' as part of the country's plan to become an educational hub for its own students and for those from other parts of Africa. The Libyan National Economic Development Board will host a two-day seminar in Tripoli in late June with the UK's International Unit where academics can develop the concept and discuss roles and responsibilities, finances and partnership agreements.
Full report on the University World News site:
NEWSBRIEF
FINLAND: Students protest against fees introduction
Ian R Dobson*
A new Universities Act that came into force at the start of 2010 paved the way for discussions about university fees. Although the Finnish constitution continues to support universities free of tuition fees for domestic students and others under limited conditions, the new Act permits universities to impose fees for students outside the European Union and European Economic Area. Students are opposed to fees and made their views known in a recent protest march and demonstration.
Full report on the University World News site:
BUSINESS
EUROPE: Neo-liberals push university privatisation
Joe Walters
The third European University Business Forum took place in Brussels earlier this month with the aim of furthering transnational discussion on the commercialisation of higher education.
Full report on the University World News site:
GLOBAL: Business school involvement in innovation
Cayley Dobie
Business and management schools worldwide should be playing a larger role when it comes to innovation according to Business Schools on an Innovation Mission, a report by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, or AACSB.
Full report on the University World News site:
QATAR: Recording lectures for students
Cayley Dobie
Students and faculty at Qatar University can now access their courses and seminars outside of traditional classrooms with the aid of recorded lectures provided by US-based company Echo360.
Full report on the University World News site:
HE Research and Commentary
US: Leadership, diversity and succession planning
University administration is the focus of Leadership, Diversity and Succession Planning in Academia, a new paper by Cristina González, a professor of education and Spanish at the University of California, Berkeley, and an affiliated faculty member of the University of California, Berkley.
More on the University World News site:
US: The California 'master plan' for higher education
"In 1960 California developed a Master Plan for its already famed public higher education system. It was and continues to be arguably the single most influential effort to plan the future of a system of higher education in the annals of American higher education," writes John Aubrey Douglass, a senior research fellow and deputy director of the Center for Studies in Higher Education at the University of California, Berkeley, in a just-published paper. "Despite popular belief, however, the California Master Plan for Higher Education is more important for what it preserved than what it created."
More on the University World News site:
UNI-LATERAL: Off-beat university stories
DENMARK: Updating Hans Christian Andersen
Jan Petter Myklebust
That most famous Dane, the storyteller Hans Christian Andersen, is still in the limelight 135 years after his death. In his lifetime he was loved by the masses and celebrated by royalty and nobility. His books have been translated into 150 languages. Now, nearly 9,000 of his papers have been made available on the internet - a fifth of them never before published.
Full report on the University World News site:
VENEZUELA: Chavez Twitters plan to nationalise university
Leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced last Tuesday night on his Twitter account his plans to nationalise a private university, writes Javier Mines for BNO News.
More on the University World News site:
SWEDEN: Prophet Muhammad cartoonist 'head-butted'
A Swedish artist who created an international furore by depicting the Prophet Muhammad as a dog was assaulted as he delivered a university lecture, reports BBC News. Lars Vilks said he was head-butted by an audience member as he spoke about the limits of artistic freedom.
More on the University World News site:
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WORLD ROUND-UP
UK: Universities claim millions for dropouts
UK universities have wrongfully claimed tens of millions of pounds from the taxpayer for students who have dropped out of courses, according to documents the government tried to keep secret, write Jack Grimston and Melanie Newman for The Times. In the papers, officials accuse universities of "artfully misconstruing" data in a "coordinated approach" to ensure they could claim as much as possible from the taxpayer. They found half the universities they checked were taking the extra money.
More on the University World News site:
CHINA-TAIWAN: Strengthening academic ties
After a year of debate that on several occasions descended into fisticuffs, Taiwanese legislators last week opted for pragmatism over nationalism and put the finishing touches to amendments that will allow about 2,000 mainland Chinese students to enter Taiwan's graduate and undergraduate university programmes every year, writes David Cyranoski for Nature News. The change, to be finalised this month, will open the door to a large and much-needed pool of young minds for Taiwan's universities as early as this autumn.
More on the University World News site:
TAIWAN: Two million Chinese willing to study in Taiwan
Around two million university students in China, accounting for more than 30% of total students there, are willing to seek advanced studies in Taiwan, far exceeding the quota of 2,000 planned by Taiwan's Ministry of Education, according to findings of a survey released yesterday by the Chinese University of Hong Kong, reports The China Post.
More on the University World News site:
MALAYSIA: Ministry targets 120,000 foreign students
In a bid to make Malaysia an education hub for Southeast Asia, the Higher Education Ministry has targeted 120,000 foreign students in local universities by 2015, reports the national news agency Bernama. Deputy Minister Dr Hou Kok Chung said the prospects were good as Malaysia achieved its target of 80,000 international students last year - 58,294 enrolled in private universities and 22,456 in public universities.
More on the University World News site:
AUSTRALIA: Overseas students down 40% last month
Overseas student applications plunged 40% last month following "abrupt and rapid" changes to Australia's visa regime, the country's peak education agent has warned, reports Guy Healy for The Australian. The crackdown on student visas, coupled with uncertainty caused by the continuing delay to the priority skills list, could cost Australia at least AUD600 million (US$540 million) in lost export revenue, IDP chief Tony Pollock told The Australian.
More on the University World News site:
AUSTRALIA: $660 million to build vocational education
Australia's 'education revolution' took on a distinctly blue-collar flavour last week with an AUD660 million (US$593 million) suite of measures aimed at expanding and improving vocational education and training, largely at the expense of extra funding for top-flight research universities, writes Luke Slattery for The Australian.
More on the University World News site:
NEW ZEALAND: Enrolment restrictions to be fast-tracked
Universities are looking to bring forward plans to restrict enrolments in response to tighter government funding and increased demand for tertiary education, reports the New Zealand Herald. Government funding criteria changed in 2008 to cover only an agreed number of students at each tertiary institution, prompting universities to cap student numbers.
More on the University World News site:
CANADA: Giroux, 34, youngest university president
He tweets in both official languages, writes Louise Brown for The Star. He starts his budget blogs with a dash of Ojibwa he's picked up. And the fledgling president of Laurentian University in Canada boasts about using his own Facebook page to recruit students after a mother messaged to ask why her son should choose the Sudbury campus.
More on the University World News site:
US: Colleges as potential tax targets
The US Internal Revenue Service is focusing mostly on issues related to executive compensation and payment (or non-payment) of tax on unrelated business income in more than 30 reviews it is conducting of individual colleges and universities, the agency said as it released the preliminary results of its survey of 400 institutions, writes Doug Lederman for Inside Higher Ed.
More on the University World News site:
INDIA: Cabinet approves National Defence University
The cabinet on Thursday sanctioned Rs295 crore (US$65.5 million) to establish an Indian National Defence University to create synergy between existing institutes of learning in the sector and address strategic security challenges, reports The Economic Times.
More on the University World News site:
INDIA: India gets its own version of TOEFL
India may soon have its own standardised English language test along the lines of TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) and IELTS (International English Language Testing System), as the demand for English language skills rises across the country, reports India EduNews.
More on the University World News site:
ASIA: Korea's universities lag behind Hong Kong's
The University of Hong Kong was named the best university in Asia for the second year in a study by the Chosun Ilbo and Quacquarelli Symonds of 448 universities in 11 Asian countries. Hong Kong University of Science and Technology came second and Chinese University of Hong Kong fourth, comments the Chosun Ilbo.
More on the University World News site:
GHANA: Encourage academic mobility in Africa
Ghana's Minister of Education, Alex Tettey-Enyo, has called on African universities to co-operate and consider ways that would encourage academic mobility on the continent to promote flows of talent and expertise and to attract a qualified labour force, reports the Daily Graphic.
More on the University World News site:
SRI LANKA: Government may invite private universities
Sri Lanka's Minister of Higher Education, SB Dissanayake, said the government was making efforts to provide the facilities needed for students to pursue higher education, reports ColomboPage. Overseas universities should be approached to set up private institutions in the country to dissuade students from studying abroad and curb foreign exchange outflows.
More on the University World News site:
MALAYSIA: Academic integrity framework on the way
An academic integrity framework will be introduced by the Malaysia's Higher Education Ministry to strengthen the integrity of academics, particularly lecturers, reports the national news agency Bernama.
More on the University World News site:
SWITZERLAND: Students call for minimum grants
Student unions in Switzerland are calling for the nationwide introduction of minimum grants for undergraduates at the country's 12 universities and 50 higher education colleges, reports SwissInfo.
More on the University World News site:
US: University scrambled to limit Palin fallout
Newly released documents shed light on a California State University's efforts to limit public scrutiny of its decision to book Sarah Palin for a June speaking engagement but do not disclose how much the former vice presidential candidate was to be paid, reports Robin Hindery for The Associated Press.
More on the University World News site:
Sunday, 9 May 2010
University World News 0123- 10th May 2010
NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report
NORTH KOREA: First international university opens
Yojana Sharma
The first intake of hand-picked North Korean students is set to start classes next week at Pyongyang's first foreign-funded university. This follows months of delays because of political tensions internationally and between North and South Korea.
Full report on the University World News site:
See also our Features section this week for background to this development:
CHINA: Beijing to recruit 10,000 more foreign students
Beijing plans to increase the number of overseas university students by 14% and send more students abroad as well, according to a report in the Global Times, an English-language offshoot of the official Communist Party's newspaper the People's Daily.
Full report on the University World News site:
US: Students doing less study
John Gerritsen
New research shows modern students in the United States do less study than their predecessors in the 1960s. The research by professors Philip Babcock and Mindy Marks found students in 1961 spent an average of 40 hours a week on academic work but by 2003 that had fallen to just 27 hours.
Full report on the University World News site:
INDIA: Foreign universities bill tabled
Alya Mishra
A controversial bill to regulate the entry and operation of foreign education institutions was introduced to India's parliament last week amid opposition objections that signal a rocky path ahead for the proposed opening up of the nation's higher education sector. The Foreign Educational Institutes Bill was one of four major acts tabled in the lower house of parliament by Human Resources Minister Kapil Sibal in a bid to reform the university system.
Full report on the University World News site:
EUROPE: Mobile researchers need better conditions
Alan Osborn
In the drive to create a hi-tech Europe, the usefulness of researchers is sharply skewed by national regulations and practices that bar easy movement between European Union countries. If there is ever to be a genuine European research effort rather than a score or so of national ones, ways will have to be found of overcoming these barriers, says the League of European Research Universities.
Full report on the University World News site:
EU: Curriculum reforms a must
Wide-ranging curriculum reforms and more investment in higher education are needed to meet Europe's education and societal demands, according to a report by the European Parliament's culture and education committee.
Full report on the University World News site:
ZIMBABWE: Region commits to rebuilding universities
Karen MacGregor
Universities in Southern Africa have rallied to support the rebuilding of higher education in Zimbabwe, in what could evolve into a model of regional collaboration. Following a meeting of vice-chancellors in Cape Town, convened by the Southern African Regional Universities Association, a special envoy to Zimbabwe will be appointed to identify priority needs and develop an action plan to assist a sector devastated by a decade of political turmoil.
Full report on the University World News site:
AFRICA: Research governance initiative launched
Munyaradzi Makoni
A new project to boost management of research at African universities has been launched. University Research Governance, started by Canada's International Development Research Centre, aims to focus universities on usable research outputs to enhance socio-economic development.
Full report on the University World News site:
See also our Features section for more on the INORMS conference:
AFRICA: Virtual university to help control cancer
Wagdy Sawahel
The International Atomic Energy Agency and the Swiss-based pharmaceutical firm Roche launched an initiative - Education for Cancer in African Regions, or EDUCARE - on 28 April to help tackle acute shortages of skilled cancer professionals in Africa. The project is being piloted in Ghana, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.
Full report on the University World News site:
N IGERIA: Private hostels rip off students
Tunde Fatunde
The increasing number of students in tertiary institutions in several N igerian cities has caused serious accommodation problems and campus hostels can no longer cope with demand. The establishment of private hostels off-campus was initially perceived as a solution but landlords have taken advantage of the high demand by upping rentals and students are reeling under the financial burden. They have turned to the government for help.
Full report on the University World News site:
EGYPT: Falling quality prompts ban on new law schools
Ashraf Khaled
The deterioration of once-elite law schools in Egypt recently prompted Minister of Higher Education Hani Hilal to announce a ban on the creation of new schools for the next 10 years and a drastic reduction in the number of students to be admitted to the country's 15 existing institutions. His decision met with mixed responses.
Full report on the University World News site:
NAMIBIA: Teacher colleges merge with university
Moses Magadza
Four of Namibia's long-standing teacher training colleges merged with the University of Namibia last month, pushing the institution's enrolment to more than 14,000 students. It is hoped that incorporation of the colleges will lead to an improvement in educational standards.
Full report on the University World News site:
MADAGASCAR-SENEGAL: Protests over unpaid grants
Jane Marshall
Unpaid student grants and benefits have led to violent demonstrations in Antsiranana, Madagascar - in which one student was killed in a confrontation with security forces - and in Dakar, Senegal.
Full report on the University World News site:
ZIMBABWE: Students in court for fake receipts
A Special Correspondent
Twelve University of Zimbabwe students have appeared in court after attempting to write examinations using fake receipts. Many students have been ejected from universities for failing to raise fees in United States dollars.
Full report on the University World News site:
NEWSBRIEFS
EC: Commission to boost research and innovation
The European Commission has unveiled
A plan to simplify procedures for taking part in EU-funded research projects with the aim of making participation transparent and attractive to the best researchers and innovative companies in Europe and beyond.
Full report on the University World News site:
DENMARK: A university centre in China
Denmark has signed an agreement with China to establish a Danish-Chinese University Centre. In Beijing last month, Danish Science Minister Charlotte Sahl-Madsen signed the agreement with the President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dr Bai Chunli.
Full report on the University World News site:
TUNISIA: Tackling graduate unemployment
Wagdy Sewahel
Tunisia has unveiled a new savings-and-loan programme to lower the unemployment rate of nearly 15% for new university graduates. The scheme will offer graduates a chance to generate enough capital to launch their own businesses.
Full report on the University World News site:
ACADEMIC FREEDOM
RUSSIA: Court rejects appeal by imprisoned scientist
Jonathan Travis*
A court in the Russian city of Arkhangelsk has rejected an appeal for the release of academic Igor Sutyagin, who is serving a 15-year sentence for espionage. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reports that Sutyagin, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Canada Institute, was sentenced in 2004 for allegedly passing classified information about Russia's nuclear weapons to a London-based firm.
More Academic Freedom reports on the University World News site:
SCIENCE SCENE
GLOBAL: World fails to meet biodiversity target
The world's leaders have failed to deliver on a pledge to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010, scientists say.
Full report on the University World News site:
US: Pressure-cooker to extract bio-oil
Wagdy Sawahel
Heating and squishing microalgae in a pressure-cooker could be the fastest way to turn the algae into a crude bio-oil.
Full report on the University World News site:
CANADA: New tunnel to model extreme weather
A Canadian university is to build a hexagonal wind tunnel that will for the first time allow simulation of tornadoes and other high-intensity wind systems.
Full report on the University World News site:
SENEGAL: Collaboration to fight parasite diseases
The University of Gaston Berger of Saint-Louis and the Senegalese non-governmental organisation Espoir pour la Santé have signed a higher education and research agreement for collaboration in the health sciences, with priority given to fighting malaria and schistosomia.
Full report on the University World News site:
BURKINA FASO: Scientific agreement with French
Social and health sciences are among priority areas in an agreement of cooperation between Burkina Faso's National Centre of Scientific Research and Technology and the French Institute of Research for Development.
Full report on the University World News site:
FEATURES
NORTH KOREA: University opens students to the world
Yojana Sharma
James Kim is still trying to understand what led to the unusual invitation from the North Korean government to establish the country's first foreign-funded university. Referring to now-departed Soviet-era staff, Kim said that since the Eastern bloc collapsed 20 years ago, North Korea did not have many 'brothers' any more to send their students.
Full report on the University World News:
GREECE: Almost magical qualities of number 10
Makki Marseilles
The problems of Greek education in general and higher education in particular are legion. But while the authorities appear lost in personal arguments and jockeying for position, the magical properties of the number 10, the minimum grade for entering university, are provoking the wrath of academics and angry reactions from all sections of the community. Teachers are threatening prolonged industrial action even during the examination period.
Full report on the University World News site:
AFRICA: Lateral thinking for research funding
Linda Nordling
Last month African exporters learned that it is bad business to put all your eggs in one basket. As the Icelandic volcanic ash cloud grounded flights to Europe, pineapples in Ghana and roses in Kenya rotted in warehouses and workers were told to stay at home. The lesson also applies to Africa's academics.
Full report on the University World News site:
HE RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
AUSTRALIA: The disjointed growth of university staffing
Ian R Dobson
The Australian university sector has increased rapidly over the past two decades but the acceleration in student numbers has far exceeded staff growth, according to an article in the journal People and Place. The academic staff component for teaching has grown at a much lower rate than for academic research and there has been high growth in numbers of staff who support academic activities. The major 'villain' in this disjointed growth is federal governments that have divided funding into smaller and smaller portions, and demanded more and more time and resources to apply for such funding and be accountable for it.
Full article on the University World News site:
UNI-LATERAL: Off-beat university stories
US: Limits to First Amendment guarantees
Sarah King Head
The US judiciary has reversed a trend by upholding a ban on alcohol advertisements in media associated with post-secondary educational institutions. A legal battle between the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Board and two campus newspapers led to the overturning of a cornerstone of the American Constitution: the First Amendment right to freedom of commercial speech.
Full report on the University World News site:
GHANA: Ninety-nine-year-old graduates
Kajsa Hallberg Adu
In February 99-year-old World War II veteran and former teacher, Akasease Kofi Boakye Yiadom, graduated from the Presbyterian University College Business School in Abetifi, Ghana. The elderly graduate was featured on CNN's Inside Africa programme, and he took the opportunity to call on fellow graduates to be loyal and not join the brain drain.
Full report on the University World News site:
US: Graduation gowns now recycle or biodegrade
College seniors across the US are getting ready to toss their caps in the air and their gowns into recycling bins, writes Holly Ramer for Associated Press. For years, eco-conscious campuses have been trying to reduce the environmental impact of graduation ceremonies by using less electricity or printing programmes on recycled paper. Now, academic apparel manufacturers are jumping in with 'green' options ranging from disposable gowns that decompose quickly in soil to gowns made of recycled plastic bottles that can be reused or recycled.
More on the University World News site:
US: Academic band turns literature into rock and roll
There are plenty in higher education who devote themselves to interpreting rock and roll as literature. Fewer devote themselves to the interpreting literature as rock and roll, writes Steve Kolowich for Inside Higher Ed. But that is what four California academics - three at Stanford University and another at the University of California, Los Angeles - set out to do with their band, Glass Wave.
More on the University World News site:
AUSTRALIA: Higher education does not make you happy
Put the book down and step away from the library. While you're at it, forget about the exams and essays. In fact, just forget everything you've ever highlighted in a textbook or heard in a lecture hall, reports Judith Ireland for ABC. Researchers in Australia have found that higher education does not make you happy.
More on the University World News site:
FACEBOOK
The Facebook group of University World News is the fastest growing in
higher education worldwide. More than 2,120 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.
Visit the University World News group on Facebook:
WORLD ROUND-UP
FRANCE: Super-university aims to be in global top 10
In farm fields south of Paris, billions of euros are being ploughed into a new modern university campus designed to rival Harvard, MIT and Cambridge as one of the world's best, reports AFP. The Paris-Saclay super-campus is France's answer to years of decline in higher education, with the result that the nation's best university only ranks 40th in the world.
More on the University World News site:
INDIA: Top universities have 34% teaching vacancies
There is a stark difference between the hype around higher education and the real picture, reports The Times of India. The top universities in India have 34% vacancies in teaching jobs. Twenty-two central universities with 11,085 sanctioned posts have 3,777 vacant posts, parliament was told on Wednesday.
More on the University World News site:
INDIA: Sibal inaugurates nationwide e-library project
The National Library and Information Services Infrastructure for Scholarly Content - N-LIST - was formally launched by Kapil Sibal, India's Minister for Human Resource Development, in New Delhi last week, reports India Edunews.
More on the University World News site:
CANADA: Average tenured professor earns more than $100,000
The average salary for full-time tenured professors at many leading Canadian universities is well above $100,000, according to new figures from Statistics Canada, reports Bradley Bouzane for Canwest News Service.
More on the University World News site:
US: Shots still reverberate for survivors of Kent State
Out in the world, when people talk about the shootings at Kent State University on 4 May 1970, they call it 'Kent State', reports Noah Adams for National Public Radio. But in the small town of Kent, 35 miles south of Cleveland, and on the university campus, they call it 'May 4th'. It was 40 years ago last Tuesday that the shootings - which killed four people and wounded nine others - stunned America.
More on the University World News site:
US: Professors and social media
Professors, particularly those in the senior ranks, might have a reputation for being leery of social media. But they are no Luddites when it comes to Web 2.0 tools such as Facebook and YouTube, according to a new survey released last week, writes Steve Kolowich for Inside Higher Ed.
More on the University World News site:
TAIWAN: Universities to open doors to students from China
Taiwan's universities are set to begin accepting Chinese students this autumn after the (opposition) Democratic Progressive Party unexpectedly indicated it would no longer attempt to halt amendments to bills that would allow Chinese students to study in Taiwan, Vincent Y Chao and Flora Wang report for The Taipei Times.
More on the University World News site:
AUSTRALIA: Research not bad, but not stellar
Australia conducts influential, world-class research across 19 of 22 fields but is still a middle-ranking research power among countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, according to the country's first "state of the innovation nation" report, writes Guy Healy for The Australian.
More on the University World News site:
KENYA: Enrolment chaos undermines degree quality
Kenyan universities are admitting students for courses they have not registered with the Commission for Higher Education, deepening a simmering higher education quality crisis and exposing graduates to the risk of rejection in the labour market, writes Mwaura Kimani for Business Daily.
More on the University World News site:
SCOTLAND: Axe set to fall on universities
At least half of Scotland's universities are cutting their student numbers - at a time when applications to higher education institutions are at an all-time high - writes Andrew Denholm for The Herald.
More on the University World News site:
UAE: Clarification needed on accreditation
The time is ripe for the government to recognise institutions that are not accredited by the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, said academics from Free Zone universities in Dubai, reports Amelia Naidoo for Gulf News.
More on the University World News site:
INDIA: University to waive fees of s ex workers
Indira Gandhi National Open University, one of the world's largest universities, has decided to waive the fees of s ex workers and street children enrolling for its courses to help them become educated and empowered, reports India Edunews.
More on the University World News site:
NORTH KOREA: First international university opens
Yojana Sharma
The first intake of hand-picked North Korean students is set to start classes next week at Pyongyang's first foreign-funded university. This follows months of delays because of political tensions internationally and between North and South Korea.
Full report on the University World News site:
See also our Features section this week for background to this development:
CHINA: Beijing to recruit 10,000 more foreign students
Beijing plans to increase the number of overseas university students by 14% and send more students abroad as well, according to a report in the Global Times, an English-language offshoot of the official Communist Party's newspaper the People's Daily.
Full report on the University World News site:
US: Students doing less study
John Gerritsen
New research shows modern students in the United States do less study than their predecessors in the 1960s. The research by professors Philip Babcock and Mindy Marks found students in 1961 spent an average of 40 hours a week on academic work but by 2003 that had fallen to just 27 hours.
Full report on the University World News site:
INDIA: Foreign universities bill tabled
Alya Mishra
A controversial bill to regulate the entry and operation of foreign education institutions was introduced to India's parliament last week amid opposition objections that signal a rocky path ahead for the proposed opening up of the nation's higher education sector. The Foreign Educational Institutes Bill was one of four major acts tabled in the lower house of parliament by Human Resources Minister Kapil Sibal in a bid to reform the university system.
Full report on the University World News site:
EUROPE: Mobile researchers need better conditions
Alan Osborn
In the drive to create a hi-tech Europe, the usefulness of researchers is sharply skewed by national regulations and practices that bar easy movement between European Union countries. If there is ever to be a genuine European research effort rather than a score or so of national ones, ways will have to be found of overcoming these barriers, says the League of European Research Universities.
Full report on the University World News site:
EU: Curriculum reforms a must
Wide-ranging curriculum reforms and more investment in higher education are needed to meet Europe's education and societal demands, according to a report by the European Parliament's culture and education committee.
Full report on the University World News site:
ZIMBABWE: Region commits to rebuilding universities
Karen MacGregor
Universities in Southern Africa have rallied to support the rebuilding of higher education in Zimbabwe, in what could evolve into a model of regional collaboration. Following a meeting of vice-chancellors in Cape Town, convened by the Southern African Regional Universities Association, a special envoy to Zimbabwe will be appointed to identify priority needs and develop an action plan to assist a sector devastated by a decade of political turmoil.
Full report on the University World News site:
AFRICA: Research governance initiative launched
Munyaradzi Makoni
A new project to boost management of research at African universities has been launched. University Research Governance, started by Canada's International Development Research Centre, aims to focus universities on usable research outputs to enhance socio-economic development.
Full report on the University World News site:
See also our Features section for more on the INORMS conference:
AFRICA: Virtual university to help control cancer
Wagdy Sawahel
The International Atomic Energy Agency and the Swiss-based pharmaceutical firm Roche launched an initiative - Education for Cancer in African Regions, or EDUCARE - on 28 April to help tackle acute shortages of skilled cancer professionals in Africa. The project is being piloted in Ghana, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.
Full report on the University World News site:
N IGERIA: Private hostels rip off students
Tunde Fatunde
The increasing number of students in tertiary institutions in several N igerian cities has caused serious accommodation problems and campus hostels can no longer cope with demand. The establishment of private hostels off-campus was initially perceived as a solution but landlords have taken advantage of the high demand by upping rentals and students are reeling under the financial burden. They have turned to the government for help.
Full report on the University World News site:
EGYPT: Falling quality prompts ban on new law schools
Ashraf Khaled
The deterioration of once-elite law schools in Egypt recently prompted Minister of Higher Education Hani Hilal to announce a ban on the creation of new schools for the next 10 years and a drastic reduction in the number of students to be admitted to the country's 15 existing institutions. His decision met with mixed responses.
Full report on the University World News site:
NAMIBIA: Teacher colleges merge with university
Moses Magadza
Four of Namibia's long-standing teacher training colleges merged with the University of Namibia last month, pushing the institution's enrolment to more than 14,000 students. It is hoped that incorporation of the colleges will lead to an improvement in educational standards.
Full report on the University World News site:
MADAGASCAR-SENEGAL: Protests over unpaid grants
Jane Marshall
Unpaid student grants and benefits have led to violent demonstrations in Antsiranana, Madagascar - in which one student was killed in a confrontation with security forces - and in Dakar, Senegal.
Full report on the University World News site:
ZIMBABWE: Students in court for fake receipts
A Special Correspondent
Twelve University of Zimbabwe students have appeared in court after attempting to write examinations using fake receipts. Many students have been ejected from universities for failing to raise fees in United States dollars.
Full report on the University World News site:
NEWSBRIEFS
EC: Commission to boost research and innovation
The European Commission has unveiled
A plan to simplify procedures for taking part in EU-funded research projects with the aim of making participation transparent and attractive to the best researchers and innovative companies in Europe and beyond.
Full report on the University World News site:
DENMARK: A university centre in China
Denmark has signed an agreement with China to establish a Danish-Chinese University Centre. In Beijing last month, Danish Science Minister Charlotte Sahl-Madsen signed the agreement with the President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dr Bai Chunli.
Full report on the University World News site:
TUNISIA: Tackling graduate unemployment
Wagdy Sewahel
Tunisia has unveiled a new savings-and-loan programme to lower the unemployment rate of nearly 15% for new university graduates. The scheme will offer graduates a chance to generate enough capital to launch their own businesses.
Full report on the University World News site:
ACADEMIC FREEDOM
RUSSIA: Court rejects appeal by imprisoned scientist
Jonathan Travis*
A court in the Russian city of Arkhangelsk has rejected an appeal for the release of academic Igor Sutyagin, who is serving a 15-year sentence for espionage. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reports that Sutyagin, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Canada Institute, was sentenced in 2004 for allegedly passing classified information about Russia's nuclear weapons to a London-based firm.
More Academic Freedom reports on the University World News site:
SCIENCE SCENE
GLOBAL: World fails to meet biodiversity target
The world's leaders have failed to deliver on a pledge to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010, scientists say.
Full report on the University World News site:
US: Pressure-cooker to extract bio-oil
Wagdy Sawahel
Heating and squishing microalgae in a pressure-cooker could be the fastest way to turn the algae into a crude bio-oil.
Full report on the University World News site:
CANADA: New tunnel to model extreme weather
A Canadian university is to build a hexagonal wind tunnel that will for the first time allow simulation of tornadoes and other high-intensity wind systems.
Full report on the University World News site:
SENEGAL: Collaboration to fight parasite diseases
The University of Gaston Berger of Saint-Louis and the Senegalese non-governmental organisation Espoir pour la Santé have signed a higher education and research agreement for collaboration in the health sciences, with priority given to fighting malaria and schistosomia.
Full report on the University World News site:
BURKINA FASO: Scientific agreement with French
Social and health sciences are among priority areas in an agreement of cooperation between Burkina Faso's National Centre of Scientific Research and Technology and the French Institute of Research for Development.
Full report on the University World News site:
FEATURES
NORTH KOREA: University opens students to the world
Yojana Sharma
James Kim is still trying to understand what led to the unusual invitation from the North Korean government to establish the country's first foreign-funded university. Referring to now-departed Soviet-era staff, Kim said that since the Eastern bloc collapsed 20 years ago, North Korea did not have many 'brothers' any more to send their students.
Full report on the University World News:
GREECE: Almost magical qualities of number 10
Makki Marseilles
The problems of Greek education in general and higher education in particular are legion. But while the authorities appear lost in personal arguments and jockeying for position, the magical properties of the number 10, the minimum grade for entering university, are provoking the wrath of academics and angry reactions from all sections of the community. Teachers are threatening prolonged industrial action even during the examination period.
Full report on the University World News site:
AFRICA: Lateral thinking for research funding
Linda Nordling
Last month African exporters learned that it is bad business to put all your eggs in one basket. As the Icelandic volcanic ash cloud grounded flights to Europe, pineapples in Ghana and roses in Kenya rotted in warehouses and workers were told to stay at home. The lesson also applies to Africa's academics.
Full report on the University World News site:
HE RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
AUSTRALIA: The disjointed growth of university staffing
Ian R Dobson
The Australian university sector has increased rapidly over the past two decades but the acceleration in student numbers has far exceeded staff growth, according to an article in the journal People and Place. The academic staff component for teaching has grown at a much lower rate than for academic research and there has been high growth in numbers of staff who support academic activities. The major 'villain' in this disjointed growth is federal governments that have divided funding into smaller and smaller portions, and demanded more and more time and resources to apply for such funding and be accountable for it.
Full article on the University World News site:
UNI-LATERAL: Off-beat university stories
US: Limits to First Amendment guarantees
Sarah King Head
The US judiciary has reversed a trend by upholding a ban on alcohol advertisements in media associated with post-secondary educational institutions. A legal battle between the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Board and two campus newspapers led to the overturning of a cornerstone of the American Constitution: the First Amendment right to freedom of commercial speech.
Full report on the University World News site:
GHANA: Ninety-nine-year-old graduates
Kajsa Hallberg Adu
In February 99-year-old World War II veteran and former teacher, Akasease Kofi Boakye Yiadom, graduated from the Presbyterian University College Business School in Abetifi, Ghana. The elderly graduate was featured on CNN's Inside Africa programme, and he took the opportunity to call on fellow graduates to be loyal and not join the brain drain.
Full report on the University World News site:
US: Graduation gowns now recycle or biodegrade
College seniors across the US are getting ready to toss their caps in the air and their gowns into recycling bins, writes Holly Ramer for Associated Press. For years, eco-conscious campuses have been trying to reduce the environmental impact of graduation ceremonies by using less electricity or printing programmes on recycled paper. Now, academic apparel manufacturers are jumping in with 'green' options ranging from disposable gowns that decompose quickly in soil to gowns made of recycled plastic bottles that can be reused or recycled.
More on the University World News site:
US: Academic band turns literature into rock and roll
There are plenty in higher education who devote themselves to interpreting rock and roll as literature. Fewer devote themselves to the interpreting literature as rock and roll, writes Steve Kolowich for Inside Higher Ed. But that is what four California academics - three at Stanford University and another at the University of California, Los Angeles - set out to do with their band, Glass Wave.
More on the University World News site:
AUSTRALIA: Higher education does not make you happy
Put the book down and step away from the library. While you're at it, forget about the exams and essays. In fact, just forget everything you've ever highlighted in a textbook or heard in a lecture hall, reports Judith Ireland for ABC. Researchers in Australia have found that higher education does not make you happy.
More on the University World News site:
The Facebook group of University World News is the fastest growing in
higher education worldwide. More than 2,120 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.
Visit the University World News group on Facebook:
WORLD ROUND-UP
FRANCE: Super-university aims to be in global top 10
In farm fields south of Paris, billions of euros are being ploughed into a new modern university campus designed to rival Harvard, MIT and Cambridge as one of the world's best, reports AFP. The Paris-Saclay super-campus is France's answer to years of decline in higher education, with the result that the nation's best university only ranks 40th in the world.
More on the University World News site:
INDIA: Top universities have 34% teaching vacancies
There is a stark difference between the hype around higher education and the real picture, reports The Times of India. The top universities in India have 34% vacancies in teaching jobs. Twenty-two central universities with 11,085 sanctioned posts have 3,777 vacant posts, parliament was told on Wednesday.
More on the University World News site:
INDIA: Sibal inaugurates nationwide e-library project
The National Library and Information Services Infrastructure for Scholarly Content - N-LIST - was formally launched by Kapil Sibal, India's Minister for Human Resource Development, in New Delhi last week, reports India Edunews.
More on the University World News site:
CANADA: Average tenured professor earns more than $100,000
The average salary for full-time tenured professors at many leading Canadian universities is well above $100,000, according to new figures from Statistics Canada, reports Bradley Bouzane for Canwest News Service.
More on the University World News site:
US: Shots still reverberate for survivors of Kent State
Out in the world, when people talk about the shootings at Kent State University on 4 May 1970, they call it 'Kent State', reports Noah Adams for National Public Radio. But in the small town of Kent, 35 miles south of Cleveland, and on the university campus, they call it 'May 4th'. It was 40 years ago last Tuesday that the shootings - which killed four people and wounded nine others - stunned America.
More on the University World News site:
US: Professors and social media
Professors, particularly those in the senior ranks, might have a reputation for being leery of social media. But they are no Luddites when it comes to Web 2.0 tools such as Facebook and YouTube, according to a new survey released last week, writes Steve Kolowich for Inside Higher Ed.
More on the University World News site:
TAIWAN: Universities to open doors to students from China
Taiwan's universities are set to begin accepting Chinese students this autumn after the (opposition) Democratic Progressive Party unexpectedly indicated it would no longer attempt to halt amendments to bills that would allow Chinese students to study in Taiwan, Vincent Y Chao and Flora Wang report for The Taipei Times.
More on the University World News site:
AUSTRALIA: Research not bad, but not stellar
Australia conducts influential, world-class research across 19 of 22 fields but is still a middle-ranking research power among countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, according to the country's first "state of the innovation nation" report, writes Guy Healy for The Australian.
More on the University World News site:
KENYA: Enrolment chaos undermines degree quality
Kenyan universities are admitting students for courses they have not registered with the Commission for Higher Education, deepening a simmering higher education quality crisis and exposing graduates to the risk of rejection in the labour market, writes Mwaura Kimani for Business Daily.
More on the University World News site:
SCOTLAND: Axe set to fall on universities
At least half of Scotland's universities are cutting their student numbers - at a time when applications to higher education institutions are at an all-time high - writes Andrew Denholm for The Herald.
More on the University World News site:
UAE: Clarification needed on accreditation
The time is ripe for the government to recognise institutions that are not accredited by the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, said academics from Free Zone universities in Dubai, reports Amelia Naidoo for Gulf News.
More on the University World News site:
INDIA: University to waive fees of s ex workers
Indira Gandhi National Open University, one of the world's largest universities, has decided to waive the fees of s ex workers and street children enrolling for its courses to help them become educated and empowered, reports India Edunews.
More on the University World News site:
Monday, 3 May 2010
University World News 0122- 3rd May 2010
SPECIAL REPORT: The Millennium Development Goals
Leaders of more than 120 universities from 35 countries, including 88 vice-chancellors, met in Cape Town last week for an Association of Commonwealth Universities' conference of executive heads.
Titled Universities and the Millennium Development Goals, the conference discussion centred on the progress made in reaching the goals, along with ways universities could contribute to achieving them. Vice-chancellors were urged to forge strategies and encourage activities that support the Millennium Development Goals and to give institutional backing to individuals who want to undertake work that helped achieve them, or to assist universities in post-conflict countries.
GLOBAL: Universities must drive development goals
Future national and global development goals should recognise the role of higher education, and universities in both developed and developing countries should draft clear strategies and share expertise more effectively to support the Millennium Development Goals, vice-chancellors from across the Commonwealth declared in Cape Town last Tuesday.
Full report on the University World News site:
GLOBAL: Universities must be citadels not silos
Karen MacGregor and Munyaradzi Makoni
Universities must be "citadels not silos", defending communities around them rather than being inward-looking, if they are to actively advance global development goals, the Association of Commonwealth Universities conference heard in Cape Town last week.
Full report on the University World News site:
GLOBAL: Higher education a driver of the MDGs
Karen MacGregor
Universities should use existing resources and capacities - however abundant or meagre - to orientate their activities more directly towards supporting UN Millennium Development Goals, the Association of Commonwealth Universities conference in Cape Town heard last week. Strategies should be more directly linked to government targets and international higher education MDG collaboration should be forged at the national and regional levels.
Full report on the University World News site:
CARIBBEAN: Active role for universities in development
Alison Moodie
Universities are playing an active role in helping to achieve Millennium Development Goals in the Caribbean, where targets have been raised to make the goals more regionally relevant. Rural campuses, advocacy for gender equality, HIV-Aids research and environmental sustainability programmes are just some of the ways in which universities are contributing.
Full report on the University World News site:
GLOBAL: Universities and sustainability
Alison Moodie
Universities are making sustainability a priority in their curricula. Food security, rapid urbanisation and climate change are just some of the complex issues that have hit societies across the world, making it imperative for universities to tackle these problems.
Full report on the University World News site:
SOUTH AFRICA: Universities and gender and the MDGs
Karen MacGregor
Equity and redress policies and constitutional provisions distinctive to South Africa have driven rapid changes in the gender profile of higher education, Professor Cheryl de la Rey, Vice-chancellor of the University of Pretoria, told the Commonwealth Association of Universities conference in Cape Town last week. But deep patterns of bias continued and policies needed to be sharpened.
Full report on the University World News site:
NORTHERN IRELAND: Coping with a post-conflict society
Alison Moodie
Northern Ireland is a country grappling with the challenges befitting a post-conflict society. After more than 10 years of relative peace since the signing of the Belfast 'Good Friday' Agreement in 1998, issues of identity, reconciliation and residual ethnic divides are rife. But the country's two leading universities - Queen's University Belfast and the University of Ulster - have taken an active role in the rehabilitation of the community at a policy as well as at a grassroots level.
Full report on the University World News site:
SOUTH AFRICA: Stellenbosch and the development goals
Alison Moodie
In 2000 the University of Stellenbosch, near Cape Town, drafted a strategy centred on five themes drawn from the Millennium Development Goals. It was based on Brazilian educator Paulo Freire's argument that "the needs of the wretched should take priority, which would ultimately benefit everyone, not just the poor," Vice-chancellor Russel Botman told the Association of Commonwealth Universities conference last week.
Full report on the University World News site:
AFRICA: Improved agriculture, better food security
Munyaradzi Makoni
Lack of funding and staff freezes, low academic pay and large classes, inappropriate courses and lack of collaboration have undermined agriculture faculties in African universities. As a result they have been unable to contribute sufficiently to the Millennium Development Goals, according to Dr Guy Poulter, director of the Natural Resources Institute at the University of Greenwich in London.
Full report on the University World News site:
NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report
INDIA: Severe academic shortage hits elite institutes
Alya Mishra
India's élite institutes of technology and institutes of management, which train some of the country's top engineers and managers, are battling a severe faculty shortage that threatens the quality of education at these sought-after institutions.
Full report on the University World News site:
INDIA: G ay professor murdered at top university
Suchitra Behal
One of India's oldest universities is facing allegations of institutional homophobia following the mysterious death of a senior g ay professor in February. The incident comes amid reports of widespread homophobia on Indian campuses and although the courts have upheld g ay rights, homos exuality is frowned on.
Full report on the University World News site:
AUSTRALIA: Uncoupling education from migration
Geoff Maslen
The federal Labor government has largely decoupled education from migration selection and in the process removed a powerful incentive for foreign students to come to Australia. A new report says that for vocational education students who enrolled after 8 February, "the carrot of permanent residency" will largely be removed. For new university students, the permanent residency pathway will be far more difficult than it has been.
Full report on the University World News site:
SWEDEN: Protests against government reward system
Jan Petter Myklebust
Plans for a new system of evaluating quality which would allocate extra funding to universities according to their students' performance has generated an outcry from the University Chancellor of Sweden, rectors and student unions. But Higher Education Minister Tobias Krantz is standing firm and wants parliament's approval of his proposals before the summer.
Full report on the University World News site:
EU: Research Council slams bureaucracy
The work of the European Research Council, the body charged with boosting science in Europe, has been hampered by too much bureaucracy, its new president told a European Parliament Committee last month. Helga Nowotny wants the fledgling body to be an autonomous and permanent fixture in the EU's complex scientific landscape. She told the European Parliament's committee on industry and research that its original structure was deeply flawed.
Full report on the University World News site:
SCANDINAVIA: Nordic countries plan cooperative future
Jan Petter Myklebust
Nordic countries would be in a strong position if they presented a common profile in the European field of higher education and research based on their high quality and extensive monitoring, delegates were told at a conference in Denmark last month. But a Danish member of parliament criticised the ambitions of the European Union's 2020 plan for higher education and research as "hopelessly low".
Full report on the University World News site:
CZECH REPUBLIC: Higher education awaits reforms
Eugene Vorotnikov
Czech Minister of Education Miroslava Kopicová is planning higher education reforms, including introducing controversial secondary school leaving examinations, despite opposition from teachers and students. Kopicová said higher education quality was steadily declining and the government wanted radical changes.
Full report on the University World News site:
BUSINESS
GLOBAL: New biotechnology partnership
Leah Germain
The United Nations International Development Organisation has launched a partnership to jump-start the creation of new biotechnologies. The International Industrial Biotechnology Network will aid research institutes, industry and regulatory bodies to develop new innovations that can boost future sustainable industries.
Full report on the University World News site:
GLOBAL: Genetic research to improve meat quality
Cayley Dobie
Scientists at the University of West of England in the UK are working with eight other higher education institutions from seven countries to study the role genetics play in meat quality so improvements can be made to livestock breeding and products sourced from animals.
Full report on the University World News site:
UK: Funding to diversify global e-library
Leah Germain
Nature Education, an educational division of the London-based Nature Publishing Group, has recently received funding from global partners to develop its free online science library, Scitable. The support comes from the Switzerland-based Roche Applied Science, India's Tata Consultancy Services and the US-based Alnylam Pharmaceuticals and New England Biolabs.
Full report on the University World News site:
FEATURES
INDIA: Caste quotas fail the very poorest
Alya Mishra
Sitting in his spacious, colonial-era bungalow, recently white-washed and sparkling in the scorching sun, Ratan Lal, an assistant professor of history at Hindu College, seems a typical professor of the prestigious college of the University of Delhi. But it was not always so. When Lal came to Delhi in 1991, he says he was just "another village idiot".
Full report on the University World News site:
US: Imagining a world without lecturers
Bob Samuels*
For the past nine months, an ad hoc task force has been meeting to rethink the structure of the humanities division at the University of California, Los Angeles. All people interested in the future of higher education should be concerned with this report that makes several questionable recommendations. While the authors claim their main emphasis is not to slash the budgets of these programmes, it is clear their central focus is to reduce labour costs.
Full report on the University World News site:
UNI-LATERAL: Off-beat university stories
UK: Historian admits to savage reviews of rivals' work
UK historian Orlando Figes admitted recently that he was behind anonymous reviews savaging rival scholars' books which were posted on Amazon's website, writes Vicky Shaw for the Press Association. The finger of suspicion had been pointed in the direction of the Russian scholar's wife, law expert Stephanie Palmer, in a case that has drawn wide intrigue.
More on the University World News site:
US: Students addicted to the internet, says study
American college students are hooked on cell phones, social media and the internet and are showing symptoms similar to drug and alcohol addictions, according to a new study, reports Reuters.
More on the University World News site:
FACEBOOK
The Facebook group of University World News is the fastest growing in
higher education worldwide. More than 2,100 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.
Visit the University World News group on Facebook:
WORLD ROUND-UP
RUSSIA: Huge boost to university science
Despite increased funding in recent years, Russian science has not yet recovered from a near collapse in the 1990s and the consequent exodus of thousands of researchers to the West, writes Quirin Schiermeier for Nature News. In an attempt to counter the decline and to foster science-driven innovation, the government is betting on its universities, promising to invest an extra 90 billion roubles (US$3 billion) into higher education and market-oriented university research over the next decade, on top of an annual university research budget of about 20 billion roubles.
More on the University World News site:
US: Tribe wins DNA case against researchers
The cultural gap between the impoverished Havasupai Indians who view their blood as sacred and the Arizona State University researchers who helicoptered in to their Grand Canyon home to collect it was at the heart of a lawsuit over the scope of a genetic study that ended last week with a settlement for the tribe, writes Amy Harmon for The New York Times.
More on the University World News site:
US: Academic 'pork barrel' tops $2 billion
The continuing debate over whether to end the practice of congressional earmarking is anything but academic for higher education. Colleges, universities and other academic organisations received just shy of US$2 billion in grants directed to them by individual members of congress in the 2010 fiscal year, an Inside Higher Ed analysis shows, writes Doug Lederman.
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INDIA: University apologises for radioactive leak
Delhi University Vice-Chancellor Deepak Pental on Thursday accepted "moral responsibility" for a radioactive accident that killed one man and injured seven in a scrap market in the capital, reports India Edunews. The radioactive source was traced to the university's chemistry department laboratory.
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IRAN: Mousavi axed from Open University board
Iran's leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has removed Mir Hosein Mousavi from board of founders of the Open University and issued new statutes for the university, reports Radio Zamaneh. New regulations for the 400,000-student institution limit the responsibilities of the board of founders, board of trustees and the university president.
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IRAN: No probe into university attack
Jamshid Ansari, member of the minority faction of Iran's parliament, has announced that despite previous claims, parliament has not initiated a probe into the attack last June on a university dorm of Tehran University, reports Radio Zamaneh.
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THAILAND: University applications drop 20%
The number of students applying to sit this year's central university admissions exam has dropped by 20%, Sirikul Bunnag reports for The Bangkok Post. A university rector said this was possibly because of the economic crisis that may have led to job losses among parents, affecting their children's decisions over whether to further their studies.
More on the University World News site:
MALAYSIA: Universities must calculate worth of R&D
Public institutions of higher learning that have been recognised as research universities should come up with a mechanism to evaluate the true worth of the commerc ialisation of their research and development to Malaysia's economy, said Deputy Higher Education Minister Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah, reports the Bernama news agency.
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INDIA: Common entrance test for central universities
In a significant step, seven newly-created central universities have come together to hold a combined entrance examination from this year for admission of students into about 25 courses being offered by them, reports the Press Trust of India.
More on the University World News site:
KENYA: Poor HIV-Aids education for students
The majority of university students in Kenya are s exually active but less than half of them use c ondoms for protection against HIV-Aids infection, a new study has reported, writes Alex Ndirangu for The East African. The study found that 70% of students were s exually active and only 45% of that group used c ondoms.
More on the University World News site:
JAPAN: Top university to crack down on plagiarism
The University of Tokyo will overhaul its thesis examination process and throw the book at anyone found to have plagiarised other people's work, according to the university president, reports The Yomiuri Shimbun-Asia News Network.
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SOUTH AFRICA: Ring of steel for Cape Town students
An ambitious safety plan, which includes moving a police station, has been launched to protect University of Cape Town students, staff and neighbouring areas from violent crime, reports Murray Williams for Independent Online. The plan followed a series of murders of students and academics in recent years.
More on the University World News site:
UK: One-day strikes to hit four universities
Simultaneous one-day strikes are planned at four UK higher education institutions, as the University and College Union seeks to coordinate its response to a wave of redundancies in the sector, writes John Morgan for Times Higher Education.
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IRELAND: Universities financially unviable, say presidents
Student fees are back on the agenda, it seems, and this time they might just be back with a vengeance, writes Daniel OCarroll for the independent Cork Student News. Presidents of various Irish universities joined last weekend to criticise the Greens' move last year to block a re-introduction of higher education fees and warned the public that the quality of education on offer at universities is seriously suffering as a result.
More on the University World News site:
US: University must let Ayers speak - judge
Former Weather Underground militant Bill Ayers lectured at the University of Wyoming last week after a federal judge ruled he could not be barred from speaking on campus, reports CNN. US District Judge William Downes ordered on Tuesday that the university must take "all prudent steps" to guarantee Ayers' security at his lecture.
More on the University World News site:
Leaders of more than 120 universities from 35 countries, including 88 vice-chancellors, met in Cape Town last week for an Association of Commonwealth Universities' conference of executive heads.
Titled Universities and the Millennium Development Goals, the conference discussion centred on the progress made in reaching the goals, along with ways universities could contribute to achieving them. Vice-chancellors were urged to forge strategies and encourage activities that support the Millennium Development Goals and to give institutional backing to individuals who want to undertake work that helped achieve them, or to assist universities in post-conflict countries.
GLOBAL: Universities must drive development goals
Future national and global development goals should recognise the role of higher education, and universities in both developed and developing countries should draft clear strategies and share expertise more effectively to support the Millennium Development Goals, vice-chancellors from across the Commonwealth declared in Cape Town last Tuesday.
Full report on the University World News site:
GLOBAL: Universities must be citadels not silos
Karen MacGregor and Munyaradzi Makoni
Universities must be "citadels not silos", defending communities around them rather than being inward-looking, if they are to actively advance global development goals, the Association of Commonwealth Universities conference heard in Cape Town last week.
Full report on the University World News site:
GLOBAL: Higher education a driver of the MDGs
Karen MacGregor
Universities should use existing resources and capacities - however abundant or meagre - to orientate their activities more directly towards supporting UN Millennium Development Goals, the Association of Commonwealth Universities conference in Cape Town heard last week. Strategies should be more directly linked to government targets and international higher education MDG collaboration should be forged at the national and regional levels.
Full report on the University World News site:
CARIBBEAN: Active role for universities in development
Alison Moodie
Universities are playing an active role in helping to achieve Millennium Development Goals in the Caribbean, where targets have been raised to make the goals more regionally relevant. Rural campuses, advocacy for gender equality, HIV-Aids research and environmental sustainability programmes are just some of the ways in which universities are contributing.
Full report on the University World News site:
GLOBAL: Universities and sustainability
Alison Moodie
Universities are making sustainability a priority in their curricula. Food security, rapid urbanisation and climate change are just some of the complex issues that have hit societies across the world, making it imperative for universities to tackle these problems.
Full report on the University World News site:
SOUTH AFRICA: Universities and gender and the MDGs
Karen MacGregor
Equity and redress policies and constitutional provisions distinctive to South Africa have driven rapid changes in the gender profile of higher education, Professor Cheryl de la Rey, Vice-chancellor of the University of Pretoria, told the Commonwealth Association of Universities conference in Cape Town last week. But deep patterns of bias continued and policies needed to be sharpened.
Full report on the University World News site:
NORTHERN IRELAND: Coping with a post-conflict society
Alison Moodie
Northern Ireland is a country grappling with the challenges befitting a post-conflict society. After more than 10 years of relative peace since the signing of the Belfast 'Good Friday' Agreement in 1998, issues of identity, reconciliation and residual ethnic divides are rife. But the country's two leading universities - Queen's University Belfast and the University of Ulster - have taken an active role in the rehabilitation of the community at a policy as well as at a grassroots level.
Full report on the University World News site:
SOUTH AFRICA: Stellenbosch and the development goals
Alison Moodie
In 2000 the University of Stellenbosch, near Cape Town, drafted a strategy centred on five themes drawn from the Millennium Development Goals. It was based on Brazilian educator Paulo Freire's argument that "the needs of the wretched should take priority, which would ultimately benefit everyone, not just the poor," Vice-chancellor Russel Botman told the Association of Commonwealth Universities conference last week.
Full report on the University World News site:
AFRICA: Improved agriculture, better food security
Munyaradzi Makoni
Lack of funding and staff freezes, low academic pay and large classes, inappropriate courses and lack of collaboration have undermined agriculture faculties in African universities. As a result they have been unable to contribute sufficiently to the Millennium Development Goals, according to Dr Guy Poulter, director of the Natural Resources Institute at the University of Greenwich in London.
Full report on the University World News site:
NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report
INDIA: Severe academic shortage hits elite institutes
Alya Mishra
India's élite institutes of technology and institutes of management, which train some of the country's top engineers and managers, are battling a severe faculty shortage that threatens the quality of education at these sought-after institutions.
Full report on the University World News site:
INDIA: G ay professor murdered at top university
Suchitra Behal
One of India's oldest universities is facing allegations of institutional homophobia following the mysterious death of a senior g ay professor in February. The incident comes amid reports of widespread homophobia on Indian campuses and although the courts have upheld g ay rights, homos exuality is frowned on.
Full report on the University World News site:
AUSTRALIA: Uncoupling education from migration
Geoff Maslen
The federal Labor government has largely decoupled education from migration selection and in the process removed a powerful incentive for foreign students to come to Australia. A new report says that for vocational education students who enrolled after 8 February, "the carrot of permanent residency" will largely be removed. For new university students, the permanent residency pathway will be far more difficult than it has been.
Full report on the University World News site:
SWEDEN: Protests against government reward system
Jan Petter Myklebust
Plans for a new system of evaluating quality which would allocate extra funding to universities according to their students' performance has generated an outcry from the University Chancellor of Sweden, rectors and student unions. But Higher Education Minister Tobias Krantz is standing firm and wants parliament's approval of his proposals before the summer.
Full report on the University World News site:
EU: Research Council slams bureaucracy
The work of the European Research Council, the body charged with boosting science in Europe, has been hampered by too much bureaucracy, its new president told a European Parliament Committee last month. Helga Nowotny wants the fledgling body to be an autonomous and permanent fixture in the EU's complex scientific landscape. She told the European Parliament's committee on industry and research that its original structure was deeply flawed.
Full report on the University World News site:
SCANDINAVIA: Nordic countries plan cooperative future
Jan Petter Myklebust
Nordic countries would be in a strong position if they presented a common profile in the European field of higher education and research based on their high quality and extensive monitoring, delegates were told at a conference in Denmark last month. But a Danish member of parliament criticised the ambitions of the European Union's 2020 plan for higher education and research as "hopelessly low".
Full report on the University World News site:
CZECH REPUBLIC: Higher education awaits reforms
Eugene Vorotnikov
Czech Minister of Education Miroslava Kopicová is planning higher education reforms, including introducing controversial secondary school leaving examinations, despite opposition from teachers and students. Kopicová said higher education quality was steadily declining and the government wanted radical changes.
Full report on the University World News site:
BUSINESS
GLOBAL: New biotechnology partnership
Leah Germain
The United Nations International Development Organisation has launched a partnership to jump-start the creation of new biotechnologies. The International Industrial Biotechnology Network will aid research institutes, industry and regulatory bodies to develop new innovations that can boost future sustainable industries.
Full report on the University World News site:
GLOBAL: Genetic research to improve meat quality
Cayley Dobie
Scientists at the University of West of England in the UK are working with eight other higher education institutions from seven countries to study the role genetics play in meat quality so improvements can be made to livestock breeding and products sourced from animals.
Full report on the University World News site:
UK: Funding to diversify global e-library
Leah Germain
Nature Education, an educational division of the London-based Nature Publishing Group, has recently received funding from global partners to develop its free online science library, Scitable. The support comes from the Switzerland-based Roche Applied Science, India's Tata Consultancy Services and the US-based Alnylam Pharmaceuticals and New England Biolabs.
Full report on the University World News site:
FEATURES
INDIA: Caste quotas fail the very poorest
Alya Mishra
Sitting in his spacious, colonial-era bungalow, recently white-washed and sparkling in the scorching sun, Ratan Lal, an assistant professor of history at Hindu College, seems a typical professor of the prestigious college of the University of Delhi. But it was not always so. When Lal came to Delhi in 1991, he says he was just "another village idiot".
Full report on the University World News site:
US: Imagining a world without lecturers
Bob Samuels*
For the past nine months, an ad hoc task force has been meeting to rethink the structure of the humanities division at the University of California, Los Angeles. All people interested in the future of higher education should be concerned with this report that makes several questionable recommendations. While the authors claim their main emphasis is not to slash the budgets of these programmes, it is clear their central focus is to reduce labour costs.
Full report on the University World News site:
UNI-LATERAL: Off-beat university stories
UK: Historian admits to savage reviews of rivals' work
UK historian Orlando Figes admitted recently that he was behind anonymous reviews savaging rival scholars' books which were posted on Amazon's website, writes Vicky Shaw for the Press Association. The finger of suspicion had been pointed in the direction of the Russian scholar's wife, law expert Stephanie Palmer, in a case that has drawn wide intrigue.
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US: Students addicted to the internet, says study
American college students are hooked on cell phones, social media and the internet and are showing symptoms similar to drug and alcohol addictions, according to a new study, reports Reuters.
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WORLD ROUND-UP
RUSSIA: Huge boost to university science
Despite increased funding in recent years, Russian science has not yet recovered from a near collapse in the 1990s and the consequent exodus of thousands of researchers to the West, writes Quirin Schiermeier for Nature News. In an attempt to counter the decline and to foster science-driven innovation, the government is betting on its universities, promising to invest an extra 90 billion roubles (US$3 billion) into higher education and market-oriented university research over the next decade, on top of an annual university research budget of about 20 billion roubles.
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US: Tribe wins DNA case against researchers
The cultural gap between the impoverished Havasupai Indians who view their blood as sacred and the Arizona State University researchers who helicoptered in to their Grand Canyon home to collect it was at the heart of a lawsuit over the scope of a genetic study that ended last week with a settlement for the tribe, writes Amy Harmon for The New York Times.
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US: Academic 'pork barrel' tops $2 billion
The continuing debate over whether to end the practice of congressional earmarking is anything but academic for higher education. Colleges, universities and other academic organisations received just shy of US$2 billion in grants directed to them by individual members of congress in the 2010 fiscal year, an Inside Higher Ed analysis shows, writes Doug Lederman.
More on the University World News site:
INDIA: University apologises for radioactive leak
Delhi University Vice-Chancellor Deepak Pental on Thursday accepted "moral responsibility" for a radioactive accident that killed one man and injured seven in a scrap market in the capital, reports India Edunews. The radioactive source was traced to the university's chemistry department laboratory.
More on the University World News site:
IRAN: Mousavi axed from Open University board
Iran's leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has removed Mir Hosein Mousavi from board of founders of the Open University and issued new statutes for the university, reports Radio Zamaneh. New regulations for the 400,000-student institution limit the responsibilities of the board of founders, board of trustees and the university president.
More on the University World News site:
IRAN: No probe into university attack
Jamshid Ansari, member of the minority faction of Iran's parliament, has announced that despite previous claims, parliament has not initiated a probe into the attack last June on a university dorm of Tehran University, reports Radio Zamaneh.
More on the University World News site:
THAILAND: University applications drop 20%
The number of students applying to sit this year's central university admissions exam has dropped by 20%, Sirikul Bunnag reports for The Bangkok Post. A university rector said this was possibly because of the economic crisis that may have led to job losses among parents, affecting their children's decisions over whether to further their studies.
More on the University World News site:
MALAYSIA: Universities must calculate worth of R&D
Public institutions of higher learning that have been recognised as research universities should come up with a mechanism to evaluate the true worth of the commerc ialisation of their research and development to Malaysia's economy, said Deputy Higher Education Minister Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah, reports the Bernama news agency.
More on the University World News site:
INDIA: Common entrance test for central universities
In a significant step, seven newly-created central universities have come together to hold a combined entrance examination from this year for admission of students into about 25 courses being offered by them, reports the Press Trust of India.
More on the University World News site:
KENYA: Poor HIV-Aids education for students
The majority of university students in Kenya are s exually active but less than half of them use c ondoms for protection against HIV-Aids infection, a new study has reported, writes Alex Ndirangu for The East African. The study found that 70% of students were s exually active and only 45% of that group used c ondoms.
More on the University World News site:
JAPAN: Top university to crack down on plagiarism
The University of Tokyo will overhaul its thesis examination process and throw the book at anyone found to have plagiarised other people's work, according to the university president, reports The Yomiuri Shimbun-Asia News Network.
More on the University World News site:
SOUTH AFRICA: Ring of steel for Cape Town students
An ambitious safety plan, which includes moving a police station, has been launched to protect University of Cape Town students, staff and neighbouring areas from violent crime, reports Murray Williams for Independent Online. The plan followed a series of murders of students and academics in recent years.
More on the University World News site:
UK: One-day strikes to hit four universities
Simultaneous one-day strikes are planned at four UK higher education institutions, as the University and College Union seeks to coordinate its response to a wave of redundancies in the sector, writes John Morgan for Times Higher Education.
More on the University World News site:
IRELAND: Universities financially unviable, say presidents
Student fees are back on the agenda, it seems, and this time they might just be back with a vengeance, writes Daniel OCarroll for the independent Cork Student News. Presidents of various Irish universities joined last weekend to criticise the Greens' move last year to block a re-introduction of higher education fees and warned the public that the quality of education on offer at universities is seriously suffering as a result.
More on the University World News site:
US: University must let Ayers speak - judge
Former Weather Underground militant Bill Ayers lectured at the University of Wyoming last week after a federal judge ruled he could not be barred from speaking on campus, reports CNN. US District Judge William Downes ordered on Tuesday that the university must take "all prudent steps" to guarantee Ayers' security at his lecture.
More on the University World News site:
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