NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report
US: Obama and higher education: promises and problems
Arlene Cherwin
With a "Yes we can" attitude and a five point platform for higher education, President-elect Obama represents a changing face for higher education and Americans are hopeful. Obama's platform targets loan programmes, access to higher education, community colleges, science and technology, and affirmative action.
Full report on the University World News site
CANADA: Benefiting from Bologna
Philip Fine
The Bologna process, the initiative that tries to smooth the jagged edges off Europe’s differing degree and credit structures, has caught the world’s attention in a big way. From the Caribbean to Canada and from China to Australia, the plan designed to solve a European problem and that then brought in bordering countries, now has nations far beyond those borders looking at some academic retooling.
Full report on the University World News site
IRAQ: Killing academics is a war crime
Brendan O’Malley
The international community should directly recognise crimes against educators as crimes against humanity or war crimes, a conference of 150 Iraqi ministers, MPs, university presidents and international experts was told last week. Hosted in Paris by Unesco, in collaboration with the Qatari Foundation, the conference heard that more than 250 academics had been killed in a “campaign of terror” since the fall of Saddam Hussein, in targeted attacks.
Full report on the University World News site
GLOBAL: Saudi Arabia pays academics best, China worst
Karen MacGregor
Academics in Saudi Arabia are the best paid on earth while scholars in China are the worst off, according to a just-published global study of salaries conducted by the Boston College Center for International Higher Education in the US. The average academic salary across 15 countries surveyed is US$4,050 a month in purchasing power parity dollars – and lecturers can expect to earn triple their country’s per capita estimate – reports International Comparison of Academic Salaries: An exploratory study.
Full report on the University World News site
NEW ZEALAND: Final Maori tertiary institution claim settled
John Gerritsen
The New Zealand government has settled the last of the claims made against it by Maori tertiary institutions for capital funding that will put them on an equal footing with other public tertiary institutions. At $50.6 million (US$29.8 million), the figure agreed with Te Wananga o Raukawa last month adds to nearly $10 million already paid to the institution and brings the total value of settlements for the three public wananga to $169 million.
Full report on the University World News site
GLOBAL: IFC opens private education forum
The International Finance Corporation has established an online discussion on what it calls “the evolving regulatory context for private education in emerging economies”. Dr Svava Bjarnason, a senior education spec ialist with the IFC, says the purpose of the online discussion is to provide a forum for stakeholders to discuss key questions relating to the evolving nature of regulation of private education.
Full report on the University World News site
ZIMBABWE: Student ‘bonding’ to stem brain drain
Clemence Manyukwe
Zimbabwe’s government has introduced a student ‘bonding’ system in a desperate attempt to stem the brain drain as people flee the ruinous policies of President Robert Mugabe. Under the cadetship scheme, students will not receive a qualification on graduating but only after working for the state for a stipulated period.
Full report on the University World News site
EGYPT: Disqualifications, apathy mar student elections
Ashraf Khaled
Hassan Abbas, an arts student at Cairo University, did not know there were student union elections until he saw Islamist students staging a protest against their disqualification from candidate lists. In recent weeks the country’s 18 public universities have held student polls marked by widespread apathy as well as fiery protests by ineligible students, particularly from the Muslim Brotherhood – said to be the largest opposition group on Egypt’s campuses. Political or religious student groups have been banned from student leadership.
Full report on the University World News site
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NEWSBRIEFS
GLOBAL: Citizenship prize for student leaders
The MacJannet Foundation, in partnership with the Talloires Network, last Thursday announced the first MacJannet Prize for Global Citizenship. The prize will recognise university-based programmes around the world that demonstrate active citizenship and student leadership at the local level on an issue of global importance.
Full report on the University World News site
DAKAR: Multi-discipline doctoral reform
The University Cheikh Anta Diop of Dakar has created seven doctoral schools, with a multi-discipline emphasis, under reforms introducing the Bologna Process which the university started planning in 2003, reported Le Soleil of Dakar.
Full report on the University World News site
WEST AFRICA: Universities agree on regional strategy
The University of Bamako, Ouagadougou University and University Cheikh Anta Diop of Dakar, together with the French Conference of University Presidents, have agreed on a coordinated strategy for higher education and research, to promote a regional partnership between African and French universities and contribute to development of West African scientific communities.
Full report on the University World News site
CAMEROON: Crowded start for new year
Jane Marshall
The academic year has started with record numbers of new students in Cameroon but several universities have experienced problems including overcrowding, lack of teachers and even cancellation of a new faculty of medicine just before it was due to open. Newspapers reported that some universities were coping better than others.
Full report on the University World News site
SCIENCE SCENE
US: Science important in US relations with world
John Gerritsen
Science and technology should have a key role in the next US administration's attempts to rehabilitate the reputation of America around the world, says the director of the online Science Development Network, David Dickson.
Full report on the University World News site
AUSTRALIA: First hydrogen racing car unveiled
Researchers at RMIT University in Melbourne last week unveiled Australia’s first hydrogen-powered racing car. The pioneering project demonstrates the incredible possibilities of hydrogen as the clean, renewable fuel of the future. The car will be aiming for the title of world’s fastest hydrogen-powered racer when it attempts to break the Guinness World Record's mark for speed by a vehicle of its class early next year.
Full report on the University World News site
US: Wearable kidneys invented by LA scientists
Monica Dobie
Californian researchers are planning to help nurses in renal wards do something they have rarely done in their careers as nurses – work less hard. No, this is not a joke despite recent reports suggesting the number of renal patients needing traditional dialysis will double by 2018. Sure, more people will need dialysis because of our bulging and aging population but, thanks to a new invention, patients may in future have access to portable dialysis by ‘wearing’ artificial kidneys.
Full report on the University World News site
UK: Scientists identify brain's “hate circuit”
John Gerritsen
Show an individual a picture of someone they hate and it will stimulate parts of their brain associated with aggressive behaviour, planning physical action and predicting other people’s actions, research by University College London academics shows.
Full report on the University World News site
FEATURES
GLOBAL: Education under attack
Brendan O’Malley
A noticeable rise in targeted attacks on education staff, students and institutions in a number of countries constitutes a highly damaging assault on the provision of and access to education in the places worst affected. The dramatic increase in deliberate attacks in recent years and the subsequent loss of life are the result of an abhorrent tactic of sacrificing the lives of innocent young people and those trying to help them develop their potential for the sake of political or ideological aims.
Full report on the University World News site
GREECE: Far-reaching European Court ruling
Makki Marseilles
A controversial decision by the European Court of Justice is likely to have far-reaching effects on higher education in Greece. The court’s decision, based on the 89/48 EC directive, held that the Greek rules on recognition of diplomas are contrary to community legislation. Moreover, the court ruled that only member states where a diploma was awarded may verify its basis, thereby denying any form of control, academic or administrative, to the host member states.
Full report on the University World News site
HE RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
GLOBAL: Is internationalisation on the right track?
“As we progress into the 21st century, the international dimension of higher education is becoming increasingly important and at the same time, more and more complex. There are new actors, new rationales, new programmes, new regulations, and the new context of globalisation,” writes respected internationalisation scholar Professor Jane Knight in the latest edition of the Canadian journal Academic Matters, titled The Global University.
More on the University World News site
GLOBAL: International graduate student challenges
Globalisation has embraced the university, as it has other sectors. Many academics appreciate the benefits that cross-cultural exchange allows as the ivory tower turns global. Knowledge now belongs to a worldwide arena in which we are all connected, writes Dr Fengying Xu in the latest edition of the Canadian journal Academic Matters. But “there are enormous challenges for teaching, studying and research inside this globally-interdependent context”.
More on the University World News site
U-SAY
I refer to your article, Universities embrace lifelong learning of 2 November 2008, in which your correspondent states that while an estimated 4% to 5% of over-30s in the US are involved in lifelong learning of some kind, the European figure is less than 2%. Statistics for lifelong learning are often partial and the territory is contestable and contested but we question this figure.
Alastair Thomson
Senior Policy Officer
National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (England and Wales)
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WORLD ROUND-UP
US: America gets a Professor in Chief
The 2008 presidential election has broken so many political barriers that historians may overlook one unusual fact: When Barack Obama takes the oath of office next January alongside his running mate, Joe Biden, it will be the first time in history that the President, Vice President, and both of their spouses have worked in higher education, writes Richard Monastersky in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
More on the University World News site
UK: Obama win could hit foreign student recruitment
Barack Obama's historic election could hit the ability of British universities to recruit lucrative overseas students, reports The Guardian. Universities in the UK have benefited from the negative perception of America around the world since the 11 September terrorist attacks and the tightening of visa requirements that followed. But it is thought ‘4/11’ could be just as significant as ‘9/11’ in terms of its impact on international student recruitment, with many now choosing to attend American universities.
More on the University World News site
PAKISTAN: Tough rules for foreign students in the UK
Pakistani students who want to study in the UK will have to be ‘sponsored’ by colleges and universities that have acquired a licence from the UK Border Agency, reports the Daily Times. New rules were announced by the Home Office on 30 October as part of an Australian-style student tier of the points system that will clamp down on bogus students and enable Britain to select students more carefully.
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IRAN: MPs sack Minister over fake Oxford degree
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian President, suffered a serious blow last week when parliament sacked his Interior Minister for faking a law degree from Oxford University, writes Ian Black of The Guardian, from Tehran. Ali Kordan, a powerful figure on Iran’s complex political scene, was told by the Majlis that he must face impeachment after he also admitted trying to bribe MPs not to proceed against him.
More on the University World News site
AUSTRALIA: Agency to protect international standing
A new national accreditation agency should be considered to help private providers expand their territories and protect the reputation of Australian education overseas, a joint committee on higher education has said, reports The Australian. A national agency to regulate the burgeoning private higher education industry is the strongest of four options presented to the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs.
More on the University World News site
SOUTH AFRICA: Crackdown on exorbitant v-c salaries
South Africa’s Education Minister, Naledi Pandor, is to crack down on exorbitant salaries earned by vice-chancellors after they failed to regulate themselves. Pandor announced this to the Mail & Guardian after her department released a shocking breakdown of salaries earned by vice-chancellors at the country’s 23 public universities, which totalled more than R40-million (US$4.1 million) last year.
More on the University World News site
ALGERIA: Lecturers take bribes and harass students
Algeria’s Minister of Higher Education is to meet with all of the sector’s trade unions in an extraordinary meeting to discuss issues including a worsening security situation on university campuses nationwide, reports El Khabar. Student unions have accused lecturers of soliciting bribes from students, and s exually harassing female students, in exchange for better marks.
More on the University World News site
US: Sarah Lawrence College most expensive in the land
In the hyper-competitive world of higher education, a top ranking in national surveys is zealously sought, writes Marc Santora in the International Herald Tribune. But during this moment of deep economic anxiety, Sarah Lawrence College finds itself No 1 in an inopportune category: the most expensive school in the United States.
More on the University World News site
CANADA: Universities eye cuts in wake of crisis
Canadian universities could be forced to cut student aid, scholarships and funding for various programmes as early as next spring because of multimillion-dollar losses in their investment holdings, reports the Globe and Mail. The recent freefall of financial markets, coupled with a wait-and-see attitude of donors, has campus leaders across the country preparing for the worst and hoping for a quick recovery.
More on the University World News site
UK: Universities struggle to afford pay rises
The news that inflation reached 5% in September could not have come at a worse time for universities already licking their wounds after investing more than £77 million (US$123 million) in collapsed Icelandic banks, reports The Guardian. As the final instalment of a three-year pay deal, universities had committed to increase pay from October by the same amount as the retail price index for September 2008 or 2.5%, whichever was greater. With RPI at 5%, this means institutions are facing much higher than expected wage bills. The latest rise means pay will have increased by 15% since 2006.
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UK: MPs to hold universities inquiry
MPs are to investigate some of the most controversial issues surrounding students and universities in the UK, reports BBC News. The Commons’ innovation, universities and skills committee will look at issues ranging from student support to university admissions. It will also examine the balance between teaching and research, degree classifications, the extent to which plagiarism is an issue, and government participation targets and their relevance.
More on the University World News site
UK: Northern Ireland universities’ bullying shame
Northern Ireland’s two universities have been listed among the worst in a survey on bullying of university staff across the UK, reports the Belfast Telegraph. The University of Ulster and Queen’s University feature in the ‘worst’ category for staff being ‘always’ or ‘often’ bullied.
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THE PHILIPPINES: Tertiary education reforms by 2009-10
Wide-ranging reforms could be introduced in the Philippines ’s tertiary education system during the 2009-10 academic year, according to the Commission on Higher Education (CHEd), reports Business World Online. Commission chairman Emmanuel Y Angeles told a press conference last week that a strategic plan will be submitted to the president next month aimed at upgrading tertiary education so that it is on par with neighbouring countries.
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Copyright University World News 2007-2008
Tuesday, 11 November 2008
Monday, 3 November 2008
University World News 0051 - 3rd November 2008
world’s top 1,000 business schools:
See our exclusive supplement this Wednesday for a report on the top business schools around the globe. Go to our home page and click on the link provided.
SPECIAL REPORT: The global crisis and universities
The effect of the world financial upheaval on higher education institutions around the globe varies markedly from one nation to another, depending on the extent that their banks and currencies have been affected by what is taking place in America and Europe.
Universities in countries experiencing an economic downturn, with consumer confidence shattered and unemployment on the rise, are already curtailing their spending and some have begun putting off staff. Even if they face no immediate threat, many institutions that rely for a significant part of their income on student fees – and foreign fees in particular – will be gravely concerned by the problems confronting local students in taking out loans, and the rapid slowing of economies in countries whose students go abroad to study.
For universities that have come to rely on the money paid by Chinese students enrolled offshore, the thought of large numbers staying home is alarming. Our correspondents report:
US: Waiting for the worst
Geoff Maslen
Reports from the US suggest that American universities have yet to feel the full impact of the monetary cyclone that has shattered the financial sector and left the world’s most powerful nation facing a full-scale depression. The air of confidence being displayed on many US campuses, however, may be masking fears that no one person and no institution will be spared.
Full report on the University World News site
CHINA: Fall in student numbers expected
From our own correspondents
Far fewer students from China will go abroad to study next year as a result of the global crisis which is already having an impact on Chinese industries – especially those relying on the export market. UWN China correspondent Michael Delaney reports that the Chinese economy is slowing and companies across the nation have begun laying off workers with the result that many families do not have the money even for living expenses, much less foreign study. Universities heavily reliant on the fees from these students will be in serious trouble.
Full report on the University World News site
UK: Crisis, what crisis?
Diane Spencer
So far, British universities are taking a sanguine approach to the financial crisis. John Denham, the Higher Education Secretary, claimed that no institution was in jeopardy despite 12 English universities having £77 million at stake through the failure of Icelandic banks. Oxford has £30 million, 5% of its overall cash deposits, invested in three of Iceland’s troubled banks and subsidiaries while Cambridge faces losses of £11 million, 3% of its deposits.
Full report on the University World News site
SPAIN: Universities hit by sweeping cuts
Rebecca Warden
Even before the global financial crisis struck, Spain was confronting an economic recession. It was the effects of that downturn that has led to universities in Madrid facing the threat of major cuts that could leave them unable to pay staff wages. Their main funder, the regional government of Madrid, cut its block grant for fixed running costs by 30% late in September without prior notice. Now universities in Valencia are also threatened by similar action.
Full report on the University World News site
AUSTRALIA: Crisis has already arrived
Geoff Maslen
Universities Down Under had begun reducing their outlays, and their staffing numbers, even before the full effect of the financial turmoil on the global stock markets had been felt. Falling investments, shrinking government grants and growing concern about the overseas student market are increasing pressure on institutions to slash their costs and, in the past month, more than 500 academics and general staff have been laid off or are facing redundancy.
Full report on the University World News site
SOUTH AFRICA: Universities taking financial knocks
Karen MacGregor
The international financial crisis is impacting on universities in South Africa in various ways, including lower returns on investments and a weakened currency making imports more expensive. The crisis is exacerbating pre-existing strains on finances while the prospect of cuts to public spending on universities as a result of an economic downturn is of great concern, says the vice-chancellors’ body Higher Education South Africa.
Full report on the University World News site
GREECE: Truth of the myths and the myths of the truth
Makki Marseilles
If there is something positive from the financial meltdown it is the complete and total collapse of several myths: that there is no money for education (or health, the environment, or pensions), and that the neo-liberal market can be self-regulating for the benefit of the consumer – to mention just two.
Full report on the University World News site
FRANCE: No plans to reduce university spending
Jane Marshall
France has no intention at present of cutting its planned funding for higher education and research as a result of the global financial crisis, the Education Ministry says. The sector is the government’s highest priority, and ambitious and costly reforms include renovation and updating of campuses and introducing university autonomy.
Full report on the University World News site
GLOBAL: How other countries are faring
The global financial meltdown has not yet hit some countries as much as it has the US where the crisis began. Those nations still faring reasonably well include Russia, Germany, the UK, France, New Zealand, some Asian and African nations, and even America’s next-door neighbour, Canada.
Full report on the University World News site
NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report
The autumn conference of the European Universities Association at Erasmus University in Rotterdam last week elected a new president, adopted a policy on lifelong learning and discussed a range of other topics. Our European correspondent, Alan Osborn, reports.
EUROPE: Universities embrace lifelong learning
Lifelong learning has never been Europe’s strong suit. Americans have long recognised that learning should not stop with the end of formal academic education but ought to form a significant element of adult life. An estimated 4-5% of over-30s in the US are involved in lifelong learning of some kind whereas the European figure is less than 2%. Is this about to change?
Full report on the University World News site
EUROPE: Widening the reach of universities
Few people are more internationally-minded than the Dutch and few universities outside the major leagues are more global than the Erasmus University of Rotterdam which has 2,400 international students out of 24,000 from more than 100 countries. The university was the host for the EUA autumn conference last week where the chair of its executive board, Jan Willem Oosterwijk, spoke about the challenges of widening higher education, both internationally and across social divisions. There was a strong need for precise focus, he said.
Full report on the University World News site
EUA CHOOSES NEW HEAD
Professor Jean-Marc Rapp, former president of the University of Lausanne and the Swiss Rectors Conference and currently a vice-president of the European Universities Association, is to be the new president of the EUA, delegates decided at their autumn conference.
Full report on the University World News site
US: Training for scholarly integrity
Stuart Heiser
At the first global meeting on graduate education to focus on research ethics, higher education leaders agreed to a set of statements and action items on integrating training in scholarly integrity into graduate education. Representatives from the US, Canada, Europe, Australia, China, Hong Kong and Botswana met in Florence in September to initiate discussion on the need to strengthen scholarly integrity because of the growing globalisation of graduate education and research
Full report on the University World News site
GERMANY: Tuition fees deter students
Michael Gardner
An unpublished survey commissioned by Germany’s Education Ministry has further fuelled the debate on tuition fees. According to the new study, which was leaked to a news agency ahead of an unsuccessful Education Summit last week, far more young people are put off from studying by tuition fees than previously assumed. The Stifterverband, Germany’s donors’ association for science and the humanities, also claims that poor study conditions are acting as a deterrent.
Full report on the University World News site
NEWSBRIEFS
GREECE: Four-university postgraduate programme
Makki Marseilles
A new postgraduate course on European civilisation has been established by four of the oldest and more traditional universities across Europe. The aim is to give students the opportunity to approach the subject from a multicultural standpoint within an overall international cooperation programme.
More on the University World News site
CANADA: New portal to promote education
Canada’s newest web portal offers access to an array of information on study in Canada for international students. It is also the first use of the country’s IMAGINE brand, developed over the past year with a view to positioning Canada as an attractive and “become what you want to be” destination.
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BUSINESS
LUXEMBOURG: Publishers stopped from copying
Keith Nuthall
A German professor has won a precedent-setting case to prevent European Union publishers from using university-collated compendiums of out-of-copyright materials to produce their own commercial collections of works. A ruling from the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg said publishers could be blocked from selling these books, if they “transfer a substantial part” of the original source to their own publications.
Full report on the University World News site
EUROPE: Business investment healthier but problems remain
Alan Osborn
The European Commission is crowing over the fact that business investment in research and development by companies in the European Union is now rising at a faster rate than in the US, raising hopes that Europe might at last climb up the global technology table. The figures, contained in the EU’s 2008 Industrial R&D Investment Scorecard, are significantly better than those of last year when US spending rose by almost twice as much as that in the EU.
Full report on the University World News site
GLOBAL: Convention for top business schools
Jane Marshall
Business school heads, managers and students from more than 55 countries gather this week at the Sorbonne in Paris to debate the internationalisation of higher education at the first Eduniversal World Convention. Under examination will be such matters as student mobility, schools’ innovative actions, partnerships and exchanges – and rankings.
Full report on the University World News site
US: Researchers discover bionic nose secrets
Monica Dobie
Engineers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), in the US, have found a way to mass produce smell receptors that may lead the way to the creation of artificial bionic noses that can detect disease.
Full report on the University World News site
FEATURE
US: Universities and the American election
Romulo Pinheiro
Americans will elect a new President this week. For many observers outside North America, it is astonishing to see the prominent role US universities play in the contest for the White House: this year’s four presidential debates, organised by the Commission on Presidential Debates – a non-profit organisation – were all held at local universities.
Full report on the University World News site
HE RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
UK: How technology will shape learning
Technological innovation, long a hallmark of academic research, may now be changing the very way that universities teach and students learn, argues a white paper by the Economist Intelligence Unit titled The Future of Higher Education: How technology will shape learning. “For academic institutions, charged with equipping graduates to compete in today’s knowledge economy, the possibilities are great. Distance education, sophisticated learning-management systems and the opportunity to collaborate with research partners from around the world are just some of the transformational benefits that universities are embracing,” the report says.
“But significant challenges also loom. For all of its benefits, technology remains a disruptive innovation, and an expensive one. Faculty members used to teaching in one way may be loath to invest the time to learn new methods, and may lack the budget for needed support.”
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UNI-LATERAL: Off-beat university stories
GREECE: Oil strike was university’s fuel tank
Makki Marseilles
Oil speculators were delighted when they discovered that instead of drilling for so-called ‘black gold’ in the North Sea, Alaska, Antarctica or some other God-forsaken place, they could get it a lot easier and cheaper a lot closer at home and more specifically from the reservoirs of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki which was using the oil for heating their sprawling premises.
Full report on the University World News site
UK: It’s official: James Bond is sexy
Diane Spencer
An academic has stated what many women would call the bleedin’ obvious: a Leicester University professor has decreed that Daniel Craig, the latest embodiment of James Bond, is more sexually charged than any previous portrayal of the fictional agent. With impeccable (or opportunistic) timing as Quantum of Solace opened last Friday, the researcher announced that the Bond franchise capitalised on the sex appeal of the spy in a way it had never done before.
Full report on the University World News site
US: Defending the shards of amateurism
When CBS Sports began to use Division I college football players’ names this season in its online fantasy game, the National Collegiate Athletic Association was none too pleased, writes David Moltz in Inside Higher Ed. The association stated that this usage violated its rules and threatened its commitment to amateurism but went no further, admitting that its hands may be tied by a federal court decision that upheld the use of names.
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FACEBOOK
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WORLD ROUND-UP
ISRAEL: University protest takes to streets
A convoy of vehicles carrying students, university presidents and academics made its way to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv last Monday, blocking the highway intermittently and piling traffic onto the already rush hour-plagued road, reports Ynetnews. The protest against the Finance Ministry’s refusal to hand over funds universities have deemed essential to the upcoming academic year, was the first ever to incorporate students and university leaders. Both groups have warned that studies will not begin on time if talks with the ministry remain deadlocked.
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ISRAEL: Disaster if universities strike: Minister
Addressing the expected strike at Israel’s universities, Education Minister Yuli Tamir told a Knesset Finance Committee meeting last week that “it will be a disaster if the academic year does not open on schedule,” reports Ynetnews.
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AUSTRALIA: Universities seek top-up funding
Universities are pressing Canberra to provide ‘top-up’ funding for teaching to see the sector through next year given that any new funding out of the Bradley Review of higher education will not materialise until 2010, reports The Australian Higher Education. Universities are set to be squeezed next year by a 2.1% indexed rise in their government-operating grants, which lags far behind inflation that is now running at around 5%.
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US: T Boone Pickens: ‘Honey, I shrunk the charity’
It was a historic pledge. In 2006, oilman T Boone Pickens donated $165 million to Oklahoma State for its sports programme. It was the largest gift of its kind ever to a US university, reports the Wall Street Journal blog. But it came with a catch: the money had to be invested in Pickens’ hedge fund, BP Capital.
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US: Tuition is up, as is uncertainty
Both tuition and financial aid are up for the current academic year, even as the economic uncertainty leaves many colleges and students with worries about next year’s charges, reports Inside Higher Ed. The average tuition for a private four-year college topped $25,000 for the first time in 2008-9, hitting $25,143, or 5.9% more than last year’s total, according to the latest annual report by the College Board.
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MALAYSIA: More foreign students to ease money crisis
The Higher Education Ministry has laid out plans to face the financial crisis, including attracting more foreign students and increasing graduate employability, reports The Star. “We are intensifying our efforts to attract foreign students to study here, especially from Africa and the Middle East, since this contributes growth to our economy,” said Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin last week.
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TUNISIA: Land of female university students
Young women are becoming the majority in university fields that have long been dominated by men, reports Middle East Online. Official university figures, recently released in Tunisia, show that female pre-eminence has become a fact of life in the overwhelming majority of academic branches, including in sciences, medicine, the arts and humanities.
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UAE: A glimmer of hope amid university gloom
The publication of the THES-QS World University Rankings for 2008 brings unhappy news for aspiring institutions of higher education in many regions, including the Arab world, writes Muhammad Ayish, a professor of communications at the University of Sharjah, in The National. According to the rankings, no Arab university is among the top 400 in the world.
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AFRICA: Higher education summit stresses partnerships
The major role higher education institutions have to play in Africa’s economic growth was stressed by Rwanda’s Minister of Education, Daphrose Gahakwa, when she closed a three-day Africa Regional Higher Education Summit in Kigali, reports The New Times. The gathering, a follow-up to last year’s Global Higher Education Summit held in Washington DC, was organised by USAID.
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GHANA: Universities urged to do self-assessment
The Executive Secretary of the National Accreditation Board, Kwame Dattey, has appealed to tertiary institutions in Ghana to establish internal quality assurance units to assess their performance on a regular basis before his outfit comes in, reports Public Agenda.
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UK: Scientist quits the country in stem cell row
A leading British scientist is leaving the country to work in France after claiming that British science gives too much priority to embryo experiments over “more ethical” alternatives, reports The Sunday Times. Colin McGuckin, professor of regenerative medicine at Newcastle University, believes more funding should be given to work with adult stem cells.
More on the University World News site
See our exclusive supplement this Wednesday for a report on the top business schools around the globe. Go to our home page and click on the link provided.
SPECIAL REPORT: The global crisis and universities
The effect of the world financial upheaval on higher education institutions around the globe varies markedly from one nation to another, depending on the extent that their banks and currencies have been affected by what is taking place in America and Europe.
Universities in countries experiencing an economic downturn, with consumer confidence shattered and unemployment on the rise, are already curtailing their spending and some have begun putting off staff. Even if they face no immediate threat, many institutions that rely for a significant part of their income on student fees – and foreign fees in particular – will be gravely concerned by the problems confronting local students in taking out loans, and the rapid slowing of economies in countries whose students go abroad to study.
For universities that have come to rely on the money paid by Chinese students enrolled offshore, the thought of large numbers staying home is alarming. Our correspondents report:
US: Waiting for the worst
Geoff Maslen
Reports from the US suggest that American universities have yet to feel the full impact of the monetary cyclone that has shattered the financial sector and left the world’s most powerful nation facing a full-scale depression. The air of confidence being displayed on many US campuses, however, may be masking fears that no one person and no institution will be spared.
Full report on the University World News site
CHINA: Fall in student numbers expected
From our own correspondents
Far fewer students from China will go abroad to study next year as a result of the global crisis which is already having an impact on Chinese industries – especially those relying on the export market. UWN China correspondent Michael Delaney reports that the Chinese economy is slowing and companies across the nation have begun laying off workers with the result that many families do not have the money even for living expenses, much less foreign study. Universities heavily reliant on the fees from these students will be in serious trouble.
Full report on the University World News site
UK: Crisis, what crisis?
Diane Spencer
So far, British universities are taking a sanguine approach to the financial crisis. John Denham, the Higher Education Secretary, claimed that no institution was in jeopardy despite 12 English universities having £77 million at stake through the failure of Icelandic banks. Oxford has £30 million, 5% of its overall cash deposits, invested in three of Iceland’s troubled banks and subsidiaries while Cambridge faces losses of £11 million, 3% of its deposits.
Full report on the University World News site
SPAIN: Universities hit by sweeping cuts
Rebecca Warden
Even before the global financial crisis struck, Spain was confronting an economic recession. It was the effects of that downturn that has led to universities in Madrid facing the threat of major cuts that could leave them unable to pay staff wages. Their main funder, the regional government of Madrid, cut its block grant for fixed running costs by 30% late in September without prior notice. Now universities in Valencia are also threatened by similar action.
Full report on the University World News site
AUSTRALIA: Crisis has already arrived
Geoff Maslen
Universities Down Under had begun reducing their outlays, and their staffing numbers, even before the full effect of the financial turmoil on the global stock markets had been felt. Falling investments, shrinking government grants and growing concern about the overseas student market are increasing pressure on institutions to slash their costs and, in the past month, more than 500 academics and general staff have been laid off or are facing redundancy.
Full report on the University World News site
SOUTH AFRICA: Universities taking financial knocks
Karen MacGregor
The international financial crisis is impacting on universities in South Africa in various ways, including lower returns on investments and a weakened currency making imports more expensive. The crisis is exacerbating pre-existing strains on finances while the prospect of cuts to public spending on universities as a result of an economic downturn is of great concern, says the vice-chancellors’ body Higher Education South Africa.
Full report on the University World News site
GREECE: Truth of the myths and the myths of the truth
Makki Marseilles
If there is something positive from the financial meltdown it is the complete and total collapse of several myths: that there is no money for education (or health, the environment, or pensions), and that the neo-liberal market can be self-regulating for the benefit of the consumer – to mention just two.
Full report on the University World News site
FRANCE: No plans to reduce university spending
Jane Marshall
France has no intention at present of cutting its planned funding for higher education and research as a result of the global financial crisis, the Education Ministry says. The sector is the government’s highest priority, and ambitious and costly reforms include renovation and updating of campuses and introducing university autonomy.
Full report on the University World News site
GLOBAL: How other countries are faring
The global financial meltdown has not yet hit some countries as much as it has the US where the crisis began. Those nations still faring reasonably well include Russia, Germany, the UK, France, New Zealand, some Asian and African nations, and even America’s next-door neighbour, Canada.
Full report on the University World News site
NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report
The autumn conference of the European Universities Association at Erasmus University in Rotterdam last week elected a new president, adopted a policy on lifelong learning and discussed a range of other topics. Our European correspondent, Alan Osborn, reports.
EUROPE: Universities embrace lifelong learning
Lifelong learning has never been Europe’s strong suit. Americans have long recognised that learning should not stop with the end of formal academic education but ought to form a significant element of adult life. An estimated 4-5% of over-30s in the US are involved in lifelong learning of some kind whereas the European figure is less than 2%. Is this about to change?
Full report on the University World News site
EUROPE: Widening the reach of universities
Few people are more internationally-minded than the Dutch and few universities outside the major leagues are more global than the Erasmus University of Rotterdam which has 2,400 international students out of 24,000 from more than 100 countries. The university was the host for the EUA autumn conference last week where the chair of its executive board, Jan Willem Oosterwijk, spoke about the challenges of widening higher education, both internationally and across social divisions. There was a strong need for precise focus, he said.
Full report on the University World News site
EUA CHOOSES NEW HEAD
Professor Jean-Marc Rapp, former president of the University of Lausanne and the Swiss Rectors Conference and currently a vice-president of the European Universities Association, is to be the new president of the EUA, delegates decided at their autumn conference.
Full report on the University World News site
US: Training for scholarly integrity
Stuart Heiser
At the first global meeting on graduate education to focus on research ethics, higher education leaders agreed to a set of statements and action items on integrating training in scholarly integrity into graduate education. Representatives from the US, Canada, Europe, Australia, China, Hong Kong and Botswana met in Florence in September to initiate discussion on the need to strengthen scholarly integrity because of the growing globalisation of graduate education and research
Full report on the University World News site
GERMANY: Tuition fees deter students
Michael Gardner
An unpublished survey commissioned by Germany’s Education Ministry has further fuelled the debate on tuition fees. According to the new study, which was leaked to a news agency ahead of an unsuccessful Education Summit last week, far more young people are put off from studying by tuition fees than previously assumed. The Stifterverband, Germany’s donors’ association for science and the humanities, also claims that poor study conditions are acting as a deterrent.
Full report on the University World News site
NEWSBRIEFS
GREECE: Four-university postgraduate programme
Makki Marseilles
A new postgraduate course on European civilisation has been established by four of the oldest and more traditional universities across Europe. The aim is to give students the opportunity to approach the subject from a multicultural standpoint within an overall international cooperation programme.
More on the University World News site
CANADA: New portal to promote education
Canada’s newest web portal offers access to an array of information on study in Canada for international students. It is also the first use of the country’s IMAGINE brand, developed over the past year with a view to positioning Canada as an attractive and “become what you want to be” destination.
More on the University World News site
BUSINESS
LUXEMBOURG: Publishers stopped from copying
Keith Nuthall
A German professor has won a precedent-setting case to prevent European Union publishers from using university-collated compendiums of out-of-copyright materials to produce their own commercial collections of works. A ruling from the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg said publishers could be blocked from selling these books, if they “transfer a substantial part” of the original source to their own publications.
Full report on the University World News site
EUROPE: Business investment healthier but problems remain
Alan Osborn
The European Commission is crowing over the fact that business investment in research and development by companies in the European Union is now rising at a faster rate than in the US, raising hopes that Europe might at last climb up the global technology table. The figures, contained in the EU’s 2008 Industrial R&D Investment Scorecard, are significantly better than those of last year when US spending rose by almost twice as much as that in the EU.
Full report on the University World News site
GLOBAL: Convention for top business schools
Jane Marshall
Business school heads, managers and students from more than 55 countries gather this week at the Sorbonne in Paris to debate the internationalisation of higher education at the first Eduniversal World Convention. Under examination will be such matters as student mobility, schools’ innovative actions, partnerships and exchanges – and rankings.
Full report on the University World News site
US: Researchers discover bionic nose secrets
Monica Dobie
Engineers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), in the US, have found a way to mass produce smell receptors that may lead the way to the creation of artificial bionic noses that can detect disease.
Full report on the University World News site
FEATURE
US: Universities and the American election
Romulo Pinheiro
Americans will elect a new President this week. For many observers outside North America, it is astonishing to see the prominent role US universities play in the contest for the White House: this year’s four presidential debates, organised by the Commission on Presidential Debates – a non-profit organisation – were all held at local universities.
Full report on the University World News site
HE RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
UK: How technology will shape learning
Technological innovation, long a hallmark of academic research, may now be changing the very way that universities teach and students learn, argues a white paper by the Economist Intelligence Unit titled The Future of Higher Education: How technology will shape learning. “For academic institutions, charged with equipping graduates to compete in today’s knowledge economy, the possibilities are great. Distance education, sophisticated learning-management systems and the opportunity to collaborate with research partners from around the world are just some of the transformational benefits that universities are embracing,” the report says.
“But significant challenges also loom. For all of its benefits, technology remains a disruptive innovation, and an expensive one. Faculty members used to teaching in one way may be loath to invest the time to learn new methods, and may lack the budget for needed support.”
More on the University World News site
UNI-LATERAL: Off-beat university stories
GREECE: Oil strike was university’s fuel tank
Makki Marseilles
Oil speculators were delighted when they discovered that instead of drilling for so-called ‘black gold’ in the North Sea, Alaska, Antarctica or some other God-forsaken place, they could get it a lot easier and cheaper a lot closer at home and more specifically from the reservoirs of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki which was using the oil for heating their sprawling premises.
Full report on the University World News site
UK: It’s official: James Bond is sexy
Diane Spencer
An academic has stated what many women would call the bleedin’ obvious: a Leicester University professor has decreed that Daniel Craig, the latest embodiment of James Bond, is more sexually charged than any previous portrayal of the fictional agent. With impeccable (or opportunistic) timing as Quantum of Solace opened last Friday, the researcher announced that the Bond franchise capitalised on the sex appeal of the spy in a way it had never done before.
Full report on the University World News site
US: Defending the shards of amateurism
When CBS Sports began to use Division I college football players’ names this season in its online fantasy game, the National Collegiate Athletic Association was none too pleased, writes David Moltz in Inside Higher Ed. The association stated that this usage violated its rules and threatened its commitment to amateurism but went no further, admitting that its hands may be tied by a federal court decision that upheld the use of names.
More on the University World News site
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WORLD ROUND-UP
ISRAEL: University protest takes to streets
A convoy of vehicles carrying students, university presidents and academics made its way to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv last Monday, blocking the highway intermittently and piling traffic onto the already rush hour-plagued road, reports Ynetnews. The protest against the Finance Ministry’s refusal to hand over funds universities have deemed essential to the upcoming academic year, was the first ever to incorporate students and university leaders. Both groups have warned that studies will not begin on time if talks with the ministry remain deadlocked.
More on the University World News site
ISRAEL: Disaster if universities strike: Minister
Addressing the expected strike at Israel’s universities, Education Minister Yuli Tamir told a Knesset Finance Committee meeting last week that “it will be a disaster if the academic year does not open on schedule,” reports Ynetnews.
More on the University World News site
AUSTRALIA: Universities seek top-up funding
Universities are pressing Canberra to provide ‘top-up’ funding for teaching to see the sector through next year given that any new funding out of the Bradley Review of higher education will not materialise until 2010, reports The Australian Higher Education. Universities are set to be squeezed next year by a 2.1% indexed rise in their government-operating grants, which lags far behind inflation that is now running at around 5%.
More on the University World News site
US: T Boone Pickens: ‘Honey, I shrunk the charity’
It was a historic pledge. In 2006, oilman T Boone Pickens donated $165 million to Oklahoma State for its sports programme. It was the largest gift of its kind ever to a US university, reports the Wall Street Journal blog. But it came with a catch: the money had to be invested in Pickens’ hedge fund, BP Capital.
More on the University World News site
US: Tuition is up, as is uncertainty
Both tuition and financial aid are up for the current academic year, even as the economic uncertainty leaves many colleges and students with worries about next year’s charges, reports Inside Higher Ed. The average tuition for a private four-year college topped $25,000 for the first time in 2008-9, hitting $25,143, or 5.9% more than last year’s total, according to the latest annual report by the College Board.
More on the University World News site
MALAYSIA: More foreign students to ease money crisis
The Higher Education Ministry has laid out plans to face the financial crisis, including attracting more foreign students and increasing graduate employability, reports The Star. “We are intensifying our efforts to attract foreign students to study here, especially from Africa and the Middle East, since this contributes growth to our economy,” said Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin last week.
More on the University World News site
TUNISIA: Land of female university students
Young women are becoming the majority in university fields that have long been dominated by men, reports Middle East Online. Official university figures, recently released in Tunisia, show that female pre-eminence has become a fact of life in the overwhelming majority of academic branches, including in sciences, medicine, the arts and humanities.
More on the University World News site
UAE: A glimmer of hope amid university gloom
The publication of the THES-QS World University Rankings for 2008 brings unhappy news for aspiring institutions of higher education in many regions, including the Arab world, writes Muhammad Ayish, a professor of communications at the University of Sharjah, in The National. According to the rankings, no Arab university is among the top 400 in the world.
More on the University World News site
AFRICA: Higher education summit stresses partnerships
The major role higher education institutions have to play in Africa’s economic growth was stressed by Rwanda’s Minister of Education, Daphrose Gahakwa, when she closed a three-day Africa Regional Higher Education Summit in Kigali, reports The New Times. The gathering, a follow-up to last year’s Global Higher Education Summit held in Washington DC, was organised by USAID.
More on the University World News site
GHANA: Universities urged to do self-assessment
The Executive Secretary of the National Accreditation Board, Kwame Dattey, has appealed to tertiary institutions in Ghana to establish internal quality assurance units to assess their performance on a regular basis before his outfit comes in, reports Public Agenda.
More on the University World News site
UK: Scientist quits the country in stem cell row
A leading British scientist is leaving the country to work in France after claiming that British science gives too much priority to embryo experiments over “more ethical” alternatives, reports The Sunday Times. Colin McGuckin, professor of regenerative medicine at Newcastle University, believes more funding should be given to work with adult stem cells.
More on the University World News site
Monday, 27 October 2008
University World News 0050 - 27th October 2008
NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report
GLOBAL: Tide turning for STEM subjects
Diane Spencer
Countries around the world are trying to prevent a continuing decline in interest among students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics or STEM – the so-called key vulnerable subjects. Professor John Holman, director of STEM subjects at the UK National Science Learning Centre, said Britain was not alone among advanced economies that had experienced shortages of graduates in these areas. While other EU countries, Japan, the US and Scandinavia were also suffering, the picture was different in developing nations.
Full report on the University World News site
AFRICA: Tertiary education key to growth: World Bank
Karen MacGregor
Tertiary enrolments in Sub-Saharan Africa more than tripled between 1991 and 2005, expanding at an annual rate of 8.7% – one of the highest regional growth rates in the world – says a new report by the World Bank. But public funding did not keep up and spending per student plummeted over 25 years from an average of US$6,800 a year to just US$981 in 2005 for 33 countries. “Educational quality and relevance both suffered as a result,” according to Accelerating Catch-up – Tertiary education for growth in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Full report on the University World News site
GERMANY: Education summit a disappointment
Michael Gardner
Seemingly undaunted by the international financial crisis which has also rocked some German banks, the Federal Government went ahead with its Education Summit last Wednesday. But the meeting ended in a row over the 16 state governments’ insistence on getting a greater share of VAT revenue for investment in education.
Full report on the University World News site
RUSSIA: Super league of ‘federal’ universities
Nick Holdsworth
A shake-up of Russia’s university system will see the establishment of a network of new, high-status ‘federal’ institutions under Education Ministry plans being considered by lawmakers. The scheme – part of a wide-ranging set of proposals under a Kremlin plan to improve Russia's socio-economic infrastructure – has passed its first reading and will target resources on specialised research universities and encourage wider lifelong vocational learning.
Full report on the University World News site
BANGLADESH: Responding to global challenges
Mahdin Mahboob
The Asia Regional Higher Education Summit was held in Dhaka earlier this month with a view to expanding innovative approaches to teaching, research, technology transfer and business development in higher education. Attended by senior educationists from across the world, the four-day summit proposed a range of ideas for the development of key sectors and how higher education could play a role in it.
Full report on the University World News site
AUSTRALIA: Boost for university infrastructure
Geoff Maslen
The nation’s universities have welcomed a decision by the federal government to allocate almost A$700 million (US$469 million) for spending on infrastructure and research facilities. The money has been fast-tracked to next year’s funding round and will be drawn from the $1 billion Higher Education Endowment Fund.
Full report on the University World News site
HUNGARY: Boost R&D to improve economy
Hungary should invest more in research and development to make its economy more competitive and boost growth, according to a new OECD report. The report, Hungary – OECD Review of Innovation Policy, considers the strengths and weaknesses of Hungary's innovation system and recommends steps the government could take to increase the impact of innovation on the country's future prosperity.
Full report on the University World News site
ZAMBIA: Brain drain stemming plan in tatters
Clemence Manyukwe
A plan tabled in Zambia’s parliament in 2007, aimed at curbing the brain drain among science lecturers and researchers, lies in ruins amid ongoing academic disgruntlement. The plan included adjusting salaries regularly, introducing a home-ownership scheme, retention allowances and increased research grants for state institutions. But strikes have dominated Zambia’s academic year and they have included science lecturers.
Full report on the University World News site
ZIMBABWE: Universities still closed as students arrested
Clemence Manyukwe
Four student leaders were arrested last week for leading a protest of nearly 500 students against the collapse of higher education in Zimbabwe. No state universities are operating in the new academic year because of serious problems including a lecturer strike, lack of finance and unavailability of learning materials.
Full report on the University World News site
EGYPT: Anger at revamping of Muslim seminary
Khaled Fouad
Academics at Al Azhar University, the Muslim world’s oldest seat of higher learning, have reacted with anger to a decision by the Egyptian government to recategorise the institution’s colleges. Earlier this month, Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif, who doubles as Minister of Al Azhar Affairs, ordered separation of the university’s religious colleges from ones teaching non-religious subjects to create two institutions.
Full report on the University World News site
NIGERIA: Students protest against exorbitant exam fees
Tunde Fatunde
Candidates seeking admission into the current 2008-09 academic session in N igeria are unhappy with high entrance examination fees charged separately by universities and the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board, or JAMB. One newspaper analysis calculated that the amount spent by students sitting both sets of examinations was a whopping US$119 million.
Full report on the University World New site
NEWSBRIEFS
EU: New site to attract foreign students
The European Commission has launched a new web portal called Study in Europe to promote universities across the EU to students from other parts of the world. The portal, at www.study-in-europe.org, is part of a campaign to boost the number of students from outside Europe who study in the EU.
Full report on the University World New site
US-INDIA: Collaboration in agricultural education
Subbiah Arunachalam
The US Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service (CSREES) has awarded four grants totalling about $400,000 to US universities for advancing the US-India Agricultural Knowledge Initiative.
Full report on the University World New site
EU: More funding for Erasmus
The European Parliament last week gave the green light to a second funding round for the EU's Erasmus Mundus Programme which aims to promote Europe as a centre of academic excellence. In backing the estimated budget of €950 million (US$1,227 million) for the 2009-2013 period, the parliament adopted changes to some of the criteria to simplify visa applications for participants from non-EU countries and to ensure a balance in terms of students’ gender and country of origin.
Full report on the University World New site
EUROPE: EUA autumn conference
Hundreds of university leaders, together with politicians and business leaders, attended the European University Association autumn conference over the past three days at Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands.
Full report on the University World New site
EU: Call for editorial board applications
The European Training Foundation plans to establish a new international board for the next three years and has called for applications from appropriately qualified people. The ETF is a specialised agency of the European Union based in Turin, Italy, and works with transition and developing countries to apply human capital development strategies to socio-economic development.
Full report on the University World New site
SCIENCE SCENE
CANADA: Oldest rocks in the world
Remnants of the Earth's early crust have been found in a belt of ancient bedrock in northern Quebec, along the eastern shore of Hudson Bay. They have been around since roughly 300 million years after the planet was formed 4.6 billion years ago, says Jonathan O'Neil, a doctoral candidate at McGill University and the lead author of a paper published in the journal Science.
Full report on the University World New site
UK: Archaeologists delve into ice age
Remarkable prehistoric paintings hidden away in the caves of northern Spain could be dated accurately for the first time by experts from the University of Bristol. A team from the department of archaeology and anthropology has just returned from an expedition to the Cantabria and Asturias regions of Spain where they removed samples from more than 20 prehistoric painted caves.
Full report on the University World New site
AUSTRALIA: A pill to eliminate obesity – and diabetes
Geoff Maslen
From gelignite to superglue, polyethylene to Teflon coatings, Scotchguard to Silly Putty, the long history of science is littered with chance discoveries that fall under the title of ‘serendipity’. And serendipitous is how Dr Michael Mathai describes his finding that a common blood pressure drug also might also cause weight loss and possibly reduce the chances of many overweight people around the world becoming diabetics.
Full report on the University World New site
HE RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
CANADA: Momentum report on state of R&D
The Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada has published a new report on the state of research and development in the country. The report, Momentum: The 2008 report on university research and knowledge mobilization, shows that universities performed more than a third of Canada’s research and contributed at least $60 billion to the economy in 2007.
More on the University World News site
US: New book on US-China educational exchange
The first issue in a new series of Global Education Research Reports has been published by the Institute of International Education (IIE). US-China Educational Exchange: Perspectives on a growing partnership’s release coincides with the 30th anniversary of the US-China ‘Understanding on the Exchange of Students and Scholars’.
More on the University World News site
UNI-LATERAL: Off-beat university stories
FRANCE: French do well in French world rankings
Jane Marshall
It should have been an occasion to cheer up the French university community following France’s poor showing in the Shanghai Jiao Tong and Times Higher Education-QS international rankings: the second Professional Ranking of World Universities survey by the grande école Mines Paris Tech placed five French institutions in its top 20, including two in the first 10. But commentators have criticised the findings which are based on just one criterion.
Full report on the University World New site
UK: All in ermine and pink
Diane Spencer
University chancellors are a diverse lot and their role is ill-defined. They range across captains of industry, broadcasters, authors, actors and peers of the realm. Universities UK, the voice of the British higher education sector, asked some of them for their tips on how to fulfil their duties. In the resulting booklet, Beyond ceremony, Professor Rick Trainor, president of UUK, calls chancellors the unsung heroes.
Full report on the University World New site
BANGLADESH: Watch for cheating universities
In a move that has its echoes in many other parts of the world, the Bangladesh government was last week planning to issue a public warning to students seeking to enrol in higher education not to take admission tests provided by “dubious branches” of some private universities.
Full report on the University World New site
US: Harvard project to reveal DNA of 10 scientists
A number of top scientists have volunteered to have their DNA made public in order to kick-start a Harvard University project that hopes to eventually have more than 100,000 genetic profiles on the internet, writes Richard Alleyne in The Telegraph. The scientists include Steven Pinker, the prominent Harvard University psychologist and author, Esther Dyson, a trainee astronaut, and Misha Angrist, an assistant professor at Duke University.
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US: Ex-Mormon calendar-maker has diploma denied
Salt Lake City’s Brigham Young University has denied the diploma of a man who created a calendar featuring shirtless Mormon missionaries and was later excommunicated from the church, reports Associated Press. Chad Hardy, 31, said he would fight the institution’s decision “tooth-and-nail”.
More on the University World News site
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WORLD ROUND-UP
NIGERIA: Four million applicants denied admission
More than four million qualified candidates have failed to secure admission to N igeria’s universities in the last five years, Sunday Punch investigations have revealed. The figure represents 88% of the total number of candidates who sought admission within the period.
More on the University World News site
US: 3,000 professors sign support for Ayers
More than 3,000 educators nationwide have signed a statement supporting William Ayers, the former radical activist and current distinguished professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago who Republican presidential nominee Senator John McCain called a “washed-up terrorist” at the third presidential debate, reports CNN.
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US: Security threat or political threat?
Back in March, when a faculty panel at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln selected William Ayers to be the keynote speaker at a November conference at the College of Education, nobody really noticed, writes Scott Jaschik in Inside Higher Ed. On 17 October the university called off the Ayers appearance, citing security concerns. But the timing of the announcement – shortly after Nebraska’s governor and other politicians and donors demanded that Ayers be kept away – left many dubious. Some faculty leaders say that the incident represents a serious violation of the principles of academic freedom.
More on the University World News site
UK: Reform to degrees
Eighteen universities have agreed to pilot a new Hear (Higher Education Achievement Record) transcript – a ‘report card’ for students – in an attempt to ensure the degree classification system meets modern needs, reports The Independent. This could mean an end to the 200-year-old classification system of firsts, 2:1, third, pass and fail.
More on the University World News site
UK: Is the credit crunch good news for universities?
With a dozen UK universities standing to lose £77 million (US$125 million) in collapsed Icelandic banks, the higher education sector appears, along with everyone else, to be facing an uncertain future, writes Anthea Lipsett in The Guardian. But could the global financial downturn in fact spell good fortune for UK universities?
More on the University World News site
IRAN: Government supporting global Islamic studies
Iran is supporting world academic centres in establishing departments of Islamic studies, the Tehran Times reported. Iran’s Ministry of Science, Research and Technology wants Islamic studies strengthened, an official said, and was looking at proposals including several from universities in Britain, America and Germany.
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PAKISTAN: Crackdown on postgraduate plagiarism
Pakistan’s Higher Education Commission has asked all universities to provide it with an electronic copy of all theses submitted by postgraduate students, sources in the commission told The Nation. The sources also said the commission had directed universities to warn postgraduate students that plagiarism would result in their degrees being cancelled.
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Ghana: 50 universities needed to cope with demand
The president of Ghana’s Central University College, Professor Victor Patrick Gadzekpo, has estimated that the country needs a minimum of 50 universities – each with an average of 20,000 students – to cope with soaring demand from a growing number of school leavers, reports Public Agenda. Ghana, which has a population of 24.2 million people, currently has six public and 30 private universities.
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NAMIBIA: German universities must return skulls
Namibia has called on Germany to return dozens of skulls stored in universities since the colonial era, reports Deutsche Welle. In a statement last week, Namibia’s government said it wanted Germany “to pay for the repatriation of the remains and all related costs”. The skulls are those of indigenous Ovaherero, also known as Herero, and Nama victims of the uprising of the tribes against German colonial rule between 1904 and 1908.
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SAUDI ARABIA: Supercomputer lures researchers
A new science and technology university in Saudi Arabia will house the world’s sixth largest supercomputer and it is helping lure top researchers to the conservative desert state, reports Reuters. The King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) is due to open next year on the Red Sea coast near Jeddah.
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Sunday, 19 October 2008
University World News 0049 - 20th October 2008
UWN: Something to celebrate!
Diane Spencer
University World News now has almost 13,000 registered readers with 120,000 visitors viewing the site's home pages during the last year. About 40,000 website visitors view more than 450,000 web pages on average each month. More than 3,000 academics receive the African editions in countries across the continent.
The paper will shortly take on a new look with a redesign of the website by our designer Dane Wilson. This will make navigation clearer and result in a site we hope will be more attractive to readers and advertisers. Please continue to watch this space!
Full report on the University World News site
UWN: One university’s scandal is another’s lesson
Philip Fine
Call it the UWN effect. Just as chaos theorists ask if a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil can set off a tornado in Texas, we wanted to know if a different type of butterfly effect could happen with a publication such as University World News. What effect would a higher education story in one part of the world have on someone in another country’s university system?
Full report on the University World News site
A YEAR IN PICTURES
Picture editor John Gerritsen has selected some of the top photographs published in University World News over the last 12 months. You can see the collection he has compiled here.
OUR READERS COMMENT
From Thomas D Parker
University World News entered the world unheralded a year ago and has quickly established itself as the indispensable source of information about the global higher education community. There are excellent university centres and stand-alone institutes that follow and study international issues in higher education policy, but they do not provide the scope or frequency of reporting UWN offers. On Sunday mornings when it arrives, the newspaper takes precedence in my reading over the Sunday New York Times! May it have many more anniversaries.
Thomas D Parker
Senior Associate and Director
Global Center on Private Financing of Higher Education, Institute for Higher Education Policy, Washington DC.
From Dr Svava Bjarnason
University World News is a unique source of information tracking higher education developments globally. The use of journalists who are local and aware of emerging issues means their coverage is immediate and addressing the issues of the day in countries globally.
Svava Bjarnason
Senior Education Specialist
International Finance Corporation
From Dr Jamil Salmi
The University World News newsletter and website have quickly established themselves as one of the most relevant information sources on international higher education. The balance between news items and in-depth articles is just right. This is an excellent tool for policy-makers, institutional leaders and researchers alike.
Jamil Salmi
Coordinator
World Bank Network of Tertiary Education Professionals
From Professor Brenda Gourley
I really like University World News. It keeps me up to date without taking significant amounts of my time. It's relevant, timely and concise. Just what I want.
Professor Brenda Gourley
Vice-chancellor
Open University
From Simon McGrath
In these days of information overload, University World News quickly established itself as one of the few electronic resources that I always do make time to explore. Both for myself and my research students on international higher education, it is an invaluable resource that is provocative and informative. I have particularly welcomed the strong African focus of UWN's work, which is such a striking contrast to the neglect of African issues in both academia and journalism. With best wishes for your second year
Simon McGrath,
Professor of International Education and Development, and Editor-in-Chief, International Journal of Educational Development, Unesco Centre for Comparative Education Research, University of Nottingham
From Dr Jan Sadlak
There are things in life to which we get used to so fast that we wonder how we could function without them... No, this is not another commercial for a new mobile phone but a note of thanks to those few entrepreneurial individuals who one year ago asked if I was interested to receive University World News – of course a rhetorical question. UWN not only provides information about important developments in higher education but also ably demonstrates that the world of higher education is so diverse, subject to many changes... and just very interesting. Many thanks!
Dr Jan Sadlak
Director
Unesco-European Centre for Higher Education, Bucharest, Romania
From Sir Peter Scott
University World News is the best of its class – timely, reliable and relevant news about developments in higher education worldwide written by leading journalists in the field.
Professor Sir Peter Scott
Vice-chancellor
Kingston University, London
SPECIAL REPORT: Trends in higher education
Enormous changes in higher education in the past decade have raised new issues that require regular research, with the outcomes primarily presented in scholarly journals but also increasingly through less formal means. At the same time, rapid growth in higher education and in scientific knowledge have fuelled demand for speedily disseminated and easily accessible information which is being provided in new and diverse ‘digital’ ways, with profound implications for the production and distribution of higher education research – and for the way universities, academics and students operate.
These and other issues were debated at an international conference titled Enhancement of Knowledge on Higher Education and its Dissemination: Imperative for policy and practice, hosted by the Babeş-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, at the end of last month and supported by Unesco-CEPES and the Council of Europe. The conference also discussed the media’s role in providing information on higher education, with higher education journalists invited to participate. University World News’ co-editor, Karen MacGregor, reports on some of the conference presentations.
UNIVERSITIES: The information revolution
Universities are generally stable institutions but they are buffeted by new developments, such as rankings exercises and the ‘world class university’ concept that have grabbed the attention of academics, politicians and the media. Other new realities are a massive growth in research output and a digital revolution that is changing higher education’s relationship to information and knowledge, says Dr Jan Sadlak, Director of Unesco’s Bucharest-based European Centre for Higher Education.
Full report on the University World News site
PUBLISHING: World’s 200+ higher education journals
A study by Unesco’s European Centre for Higher Education has identified 210 journals on higher education worldwide, though the number fluctuates and could be an under-count. Half of the journals were published in North America while Europe produced 23% and Asia-Pacific 19%, according to Melanie Seto, editor and programme specialist for the Unesco-CEPES. Among them were 17 ‘international’ higher education publications.
Full report on the University World News site
GLOBAL: Trends in higher education studies
The field of higher education studies is growing, driven by the practical needs of a post-school system that is expanding worldwide. Professor Philip Altbach, director of the Center for International Higher Education at Boston College in the US, predicts that the field will spread into more countries, and will increasingly focus on the process of teaching, learning and assessment and on training of university administrators. It will remain interdisciplinary but, unfortunately, large-scale research will be limited by lack of funds.
Full report on the University World News site
INTERNATIONALISATION: A research agenda
The position of higher education and its international dimension in the global arena are more dominant than ever before, says Dr Hans de Wit, editor of Journal of Studies in International Education. In a 2006 International Association of Universities survey, 73% of institutions gave internationalisation high priority, 23% medium priority and only 2% low priority. But despite an increase in studies on internationalisation, research on the topic is struggling to find a disciplinary, conceptual or methodological ‘home’.
Full report on the University World News site
MEDIA: Higher education in the news
Karen MacGregor
In most countries mass media reporting on higher education is primarily the preserve of newspapers, not of television or radio. Newspapers – print and electronic – report on news and developments in higher education, provide a platform for debate, and reflect current issues concerning the public, students, academics, tertiary organisations and governments – and, through this coverage, themselves influence the higher education agenda.
More on the University World News site
Full essay presented at the Cluj-Napoca conference
NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report
GLOBAL: Revealed: best producers of top universities
John Gerritsen
New Zealand, Finland, Ireland and Australia are the most efficient producers of top universities, according to a University World News analysis of the latest THE-QS ranking of the world’s top 500 universities.
See our Research and Commentary section for a discussion on rankings
Full report on the University World News site
CHINA: Record numbers studying abroad
Jane Marshall
The number of students from China enrolling for the first time at universities in other countries is estimated to reach a record 200,000 this year compared with 144,500 who went abroad in 2007. That latter number represented a 170-fold increase on the 860 students who opted to go offshore 30 years ago. Since then, more than 1.2 million students have left China to study abroad although only 320,000 returned home after completing their studies.
Full report on the University World News site
ZIMBABWE: Nursing education abandoned
Clemence Manyukwe
Zimbabwean nursing colleges have abandoned specialised training for students because of a lack of medical equipment and poor funding. The latest development is likely to have a catastrophic effect on the country’s health delivery system, itself currently in the intensive care unit arising from the ‘brain drain’ and poor salaries for medical practitioners.
Full report on the University World News site
NEWSBRIEFS
US: New clearing house for ranking systems
The Institute for Higher Education Policy in the United States has launched an online global resource centre pulling together information on university rankings systems worldwide. The IHEP Ranking Systems Clearinghouse, it says, “provides a road map of the complex ranking landscape for more than 30 countries”, and includes links to national and international rankings systems and a collection of thousands of rankings-related publications.
Full report on the University World News site
GERMANY: Chinese Minister awarded doctorate
Michael Gardner
China’s Minister of Science and technology, Professor Wan Gang, has been awarded the title of an Honorary Doctor by Berlin’s Technical University. Wan Gang, who was President of Shanghai’s Tongji University from 2004-07, has played a leading role in the development of environmentally friendly cars in China.
Full report on the University World News site
UK: Commonwealth scholarships restored
Commonwealth scholarships will be available to students in all Commonwealth countries to study in Britain next year. This follows a new partnership between British universities and the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills after a cut in funding by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in March meant that students in more developed Commonwealth countries would have been no longer be eligible to apply for the scholarships.
Full report on the University World News site
ACADEMIC FREEDOM
UK: Lecturers fear anti-terror laws
Jonathan Travis
A senior member of Britain’s Higher Education Academy has noted that many academics teaching and researching terrorism-related subjects are including disclaimers in their course materials as a result of anti-terror laws. According to Times Higher Education, a senior coordinator at the Academy’s centre for sociology, anthropology and politics organised a workshop on ‘teaching terrorism’ at the University of Strathclyde last month in response to the new fears.
More academic freedom reports on the University World News site
BUSINESS
EUROPE: Business backs new way to teach science
Alan Osborn
A group of European business leaders is backing a European Commission proposal to get students to take more interest in science and mathematics. The initiative has been spurred by a report from an expert group at the commission which last year urged primary and secondary schools to move away from traditional, mainly deductive, science teaching and bring in inquiry-based science education.
Full report on the University World News site
THE NETHERLANDS: Stopping windscreen noise
Keith Nuthall
Windscreens are not just something to look through, say European university scientists: they also act as loudspeakers, attracting and magnifying noise created by a car or lorry and reflecting the racket back at drivers and passengers alike. This fact has made researchers in the European Union-funded and University of Twente, Netherlands-coordinated InMAR (Intelligent Materials for Active Noise Reduction) project consider how to change the materials making windshields, so they absorb noise rather than amplify it. The project is likely to spur technological developments in the automobile industry.
Full report on the University World News site
GLOBAL: Safety concern over nanoparticles
Mark Rowe
Nanotechnology can imbue textiles and other consumer products with eye-catching properties but university scientists and researchers worldwide are increasingly uncertain about the extent to which safety issues surrounding such developments have been explored.
Full report on the University World News site
FRANCE: Insurer funds innovative risk studies
Keith Nuthall
In a sign the credit crunch is not demolishing all long-term thinking in the financial sector, France’s AXA insurance group has continued providing funding for a five-year €100 million programme into innovative research exploring risk.
Full report on the University World News site
FEATURE
GLOBAL: Science for the developing world
Geoff Maslen
David Dickson’s baby will turn seven in December. For an infant online website conceived to bring informed news and opinion about science and technology to aid the whole of the developing world, SciDev.Net is doing remarkably well. Not only does it attract 80,000 visitors a month – and the number is growing week by week – it is also backed by funding agencies in five countries and includes among its earliest supporters the US Rockefeller Foundation. As might be expected, Dickson, a former news editor for Nature and European correspondent for the US journal Science, is immensely proud of his growing child.
Full report on the University World News site
HE RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Methodology, meaning and usefulness of rankings
Ross Williams
Globalisation, assisted by deregulation, has created demand for international rankings. The demand originates from a range of stakeholders: students, employers, supranational institutions, scholars, funding agencies and governments. In addition, there is public interest in rankings for their own sake, whether it be the world’s most liveable city or an international ranking of the quality of financial newspapers. At the same time as this expansion in demand, developments in technology, most noticeably the world wide web, have facilitated the supply of information to meet demand.
Extract from an article in Australian Universities’ Review
More on the University World News site
UNI-LATERAL: Off-beat university stories
CANADA: Student residence going to the dogs
The 2008 version of Animal House is the real deal: less beer, more kibble, writes Caroline Alphonso in the Globe and Mail. Unlike the raunchy and rambunctious human cast of the three-decade-old National Lampoon campus comedy, the raciest antics of the four-legged cast of Mount Allison University’s Animal House include chasing their own tails and nibbling on house plants. In what is believed to be a unique partnership with the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the university has opened a new student residence that provides a foster home for pets awaiting adoption.
More on the University World News site
FACEBOOK
The Facebook group of University World News is the fastest growing in higher education worldwide. Over 320 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
US: Peers, not profs, influence student views
On issues such as abortion, gay marriage and religion, college students shift noticeably to the left from the time they arrive on campus through their junior year, new research shows, reports Justin Pope for Associated Press. The reason, according to the University of California in Los Angeles’ Higher Education Research Institute, isn’t indoctrination by left-leaning faculty but rather the more powerful influence of fellow students. And at most colleges, left-leaning peer groups are more common than conservative ones.
More on the University World News site
US: In defence of Ayers
William Ayers has been trashed by conservative pundits and labeled “an unrepentant domestic terrorist” by Sarah Palin, the Republican vice presidential nominee, writes Jack Stripling in Inside Higher Ed. But the University of Illinois at Chicago professor has garnered the support of a growing number of peers who admire his scholarship and see the attacks on him as an affront to academic freedom.
More on the University World News site
AUSTRALIA: Overseas postgraduate student numbers rise
International postgraduate research student numbers in Australia have increased more rapidly than those in other programmes, suggesting the country is finding traction in the global talent wars, new research has shown. The Australian reports that the number of overseas research students in the country has grown by 67% from 2002 to 2007, while the number of international students in higher education has increased 52%.
More on the University World News site
IRELAND: Universities still have lot to learn, says study
A report just published by an expert group of the Higher Education Authority, or HEA, has cast a cloud over celebrations which greeted news that Trinity College Dublin had for the first time broken into the top 50 of the world’s best universities, writes John O’Keeffe in the Independent. The report is damning in its indictment of universities in the Irish Republic, which it said had some leaders who had failed to engage with the Irish Universities Quality Board.
More on the University World News site
UK: Boost funds for elite universities
So what conclusions can we draw from this latest university league table? Should we celebrate the fact that four of the top 10 universities in the world are British? Or should we focus on the disappointing statistic that most UK institutions have slid down the world rankings? asks Chris Woodhead, a professor of education at the University of Buckingham, in The Sunday Times.
More on the University World News site
UK: Three steps to help improve university access
It was good to see widening participation in higher education as a theme of the political conference season this year, comments Keven Whitston, of the Higher Education Funding Council for England, in The Guardian. The issue still generates controversy, but few dispute the need to widen participation, and most believe that this must start early, be sustained, and integrated with learners' experience in schools and colleges.
More on the University World News site
VIETNAM: Universities slate financial autonomy scheme
Universities that have been implementing a financial self-control scheme on a trial basis for the last four years complain that they do not have real autonomy, reports VietNamNet Bridge. Universities said that while they were told they would be able to earn income by raising tuition fees, state officials were slapping limits on what could be charged.
More on the University World News site
EAST AFRICA: Project to harmonise universities
University education in East Africa will soon be harmonised, reports The Standard. Commission for Higher Education Secretary Everett Standa said the move would allow students to transfer credits between private and public universities in the region. A draft curriculum for selected programmes in agriculture, engineering, medicine and basic sciences is complete.
More on the University World News site
SOUTH AFRICA: Cape Town up in THE-QS rankings
The University of Cape Town has been ranked 179th in the world in the Times Higher Education-QS rankings, improving its position from 200th place last year. In 2007 the university became the first in Africa to achieve a spot in the top 200, reports Independent Online.
More on the University World News site
SAUDI ARABIA: Women win most postgraduate scholarships
The Ministry of Higher Education has selected all of the students who applied for and fulfilled stipulated conditions for the King Abdullah Foreign Scholarship Program, reports Arab News. A distinctive feature of this year’s selection is that women dominated the scholarships for master’s and research programmes.
More on the University World News site
Diane Spencer
University World News now has almost 13,000 registered readers with 120,000 visitors viewing the site's home pages during the last year. About 40,000 website visitors view more than 450,000 web pages on average each month. More than 3,000 academics receive the African editions in countries across the continent.
The paper will shortly take on a new look with a redesign of the website by our designer Dane Wilson. This will make navigation clearer and result in a site we hope will be more attractive to readers and advertisers. Please continue to watch this space!
Full report on the University World News site
UWN: One university’s scandal is another’s lesson
Philip Fine
Call it the UWN effect. Just as chaos theorists ask if a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil can set off a tornado in Texas, we wanted to know if a different type of butterfly effect could happen with a publication such as University World News. What effect would a higher education story in one part of the world have on someone in another country’s university system?
Full report on the University World News site
A YEAR IN PICTURES
Picture editor John Gerritsen has selected some of the top photographs published in University World News over the last 12 months. You can see the collection he has compiled here.
OUR READERS COMMENT
From Thomas D Parker
University World News entered the world unheralded a year ago and has quickly established itself as the indispensable source of information about the global higher education community. There are excellent university centres and stand-alone institutes that follow and study international issues in higher education policy, but they do not provide the scope or frequency of reporting UWN offers. On Sunday mornings when it arrives, the newspaper takes precedence in my reading over the Sunday New York Times! May it have many more anniversaries.
Thomas D Parker
Senior Associate and Director
Global Center on Private Financing of Higher Education, Institute for Higher Education Policy, Washington DC.
From Dr Svava Bjarnason
University World News is a unique source of information tracking higher education developments globally. The use of journalists who are local and aware of emerging issues means their coverage is immediate and addressing the issues of the day in countries globally.
Svava Bjarnason
Senior Education Specialist
International Finance Corporation
From Dr Jamil Salmi
The University World News newsletter and website have quickly established themselves as one of the most relevant information sources on international higher education. The balance between news items and in-depth articles is just right. This is an excellent tool for policy-makers, institutional leaders and researchers alike.
Jamil Salmi
Coordinator
World Bank Network of Tertiary Education Professionals
From Professor Brenda Gourley
I really like University World News. It keeps me up to date without taking significant amounts of my time. It's relevant, timely and concise. Just what I want.
Professor Brenda Gourley
Vice-chancellor
Open University
From Simon McGrath
In these days of information overload, University World News quickly established itself as one of the few electronic resources that I always do make time to explore. Both for myself and my research students on international higher education, it is an invaluable resource that is provocative and informative. I have particularly welcomed the strong African focus of UWN's work, which is such a striking contrast to the neglect of African issues in both academia and journalism. With best wishes for your second year
Simon McGrath,
Professor of International Education and Development, and Editor-in-Chief, International Journal of Educational Development, Unesco Centre for Comparative Education Research, University of Nottingham
From Dr Jan Sadlak
There are things in life to which we get used to so fast that we wonder how we could function without them... No, this is not another commercial for a new mobile phone but a note of thanks to those few entrepreneurial individuals who one year ago asked if I was interested to receive University World News – of course a rhetorical question. UWN not only provides information about important developments in higher education but also ably demonstrates that the world of higher education is so diverse, subject to many changes... and just very interesting. Many thanks!
Dr Jan Sadlak
Director
Unesco-European Centre for Higher Education, Bucharest, Romania
From Sir Peter Scott
University World News is the best of its class – timely, reliable and relevant news about developments in higher education worldwide written by leading journalists in the field.
Professor Sir Peter Scott
Vice-chancellor
Kingston University, London
SPECIAL REPORT: Trends in higher education
Enormous changes in higher education in the past decade have raised new issues that require regular research, with the outcomes primarily presented in scholarly journals but also increasingly through less formal means. At the same time, rapid growth in higher education and in scientific knowledge have fuelled demand for speedily disseminated and easily accessible information which is being provided in new and diverse ‘digital’ ways, with profound implications for the production and distribution of higher education research – and for the way universities, academics and students operate.
These and other issues were debated at an international conference titled Enhancement of Knowledge on Higher Education and its Dissemination: Imperative for policy and practice, hosted by the Babeş-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, at the end of last month and supported by Unesco-CEPES and the Council of Europe. The conference also discussed the media’s role in providing information on higher education, with higher education journalists invited to participate. University World News’ co-editor, Karen MacGregor, reports on some of the conference presentations.
UNIVERSITIES: The information revolution
Universities are generally stable institutions but they are buffeted by new developments, such as rankings exercises and the ‘world class university’ concept that have grabbed the attention of academics, politicians and the media. Other new realities are a massive growth in research output and a digital revolution that is changing higher education’s relationship to information and knowledge, says Dr Jan Sadlak, Director of Unesco’s Bucharest-based European Centre for Higher Education.
Full report on the University World News site
PUBLISHING: World’s 200+ higher education journals
A study by Unesco’s European Centre for Higher Education has identified 210 journals on higher education worldwide, though the number fluctuates and could be an under-count. Half of the journals were published in North America while Europe produced 23% and Asia-Pacific 19%, according to Melanie Seto, editor and programme specialist for the Unesco-CEPES. Among them were 17 ‘international’ higher education publications.
Full report on the University World News site
GLOBAL: Trends in higher education studies
The field of higher education studies is growing, driven by the practical needs of a post-school system that is expanding worldwide. Professor Philip Altbach, director of the Center for International Higher Education at Boston College in the US, predicts that the field will spread into more countries, and will increasingly focus on the process of teaching, learning and assessment and on training of university administrators. It will remain interdisciplinary but, unfortunately, large-scale research will be limited by lack of funds.
Full report on the University World News site
INTERNATIONALISATION: A research agenda
The position of higher education and its international dimension in the global arena are more dominant than ever before, says Dr Hans de Wit, editor of Journal of Studies in International Education. In a 2006 International Association of Universities survey, 73% of institutions gave internationalisation high priority, 23% medium priority and only 2% low priority. But despite an increase in studies on internationalisation, research on the topic is struggling to find a disciplinary, conceptual or methodological ‘home’.
Full report on the University World News site
MEDIA: Higher education in the news
Karen MacGregor
In most countries mass media reporting on higher education is primarily the preserve of newspapers, not of television or radio. Newspapers – print and electronic – report on news and developments in higher education, provide a platform for debate, and reflect current issues concerning the public, students, academics, tertiary organisations and governments – and, through this coverage, themselves influence the higher education agenda.
More on the University World News site
Full essay presented at the Cluj-Napoca conference
NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report
GLOBAL: Revealed: best producers of top universities
John Gerritsen
New Zealand, Finland, Ireland and Australia are the most efficient producers of top universities, according to a University World News analysis of the latest THE-QS ranking of the world’s top 500 universities.
See our Research and Commentary section for a discussion on rankings
Full report on the University World News site
CHINA: Record numbers studying abroad
Jane Marshall
The number of students from China enrolling for the first time at universities in other countries is estimated to reach a record 200,000 this year compared with 144,500 who went abroad in 2007. That latter number represented a 170-fold increase on the 860 students who opted to go offshore 30 years ago. Since then, more than 1.2 million students have left China to study abroad although only 320,000 returned home after completing their studies.
Full report on the University World News site
ZIMBABWE: Nursing education abandoned
Clemence Manyukwe
Zimbabwean nursing colleges have abandoned specialised training for students because of a lack of medical equipment and poor funding. The latest development is likely to have a catastrophic effect on the country’s health delivery system, itself currently in the intensive care unit arising from the ‘brain drain’ and poor salaries for medical practitioners.
Full report on the University World News site
NEWSBRIEFS
US: New clearing house for ranking systems
The Institute for Higher Education Policy in the United States has launched an online global resource centre pulling together information on university rankings systems worldwide. The IHEP Ranking Systems Clearinghouse, it says, “provides a road map of the complex ranking landscape for more than 30 countries”, and includes links to national and international rankings systems and a collection of thousands of rankings-related publications.
Full report on the University World News site
GERMANY: Chinese Minister awarded doctorate
Michael Gardner
China’s Minister of Science and technology, Professor Wan Gang, has been awarded the title of an Honorary Doctor by Berlin’s Technical University. Wan Gang, who was President of Shanghai’s Tongji University from 2004-07, has played a leading role in the development of environmentally friendly cars in China.
Full report on the University World News site
UK: Commonwealth scholarships restored
Commonwealth scholarships will be available to students in all Commonwealth countries to study in Britain next year. This follows a new partnership between British universities and the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills after a cut in funding by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in March meant that students in more developed Commonwealth countries would have been no longer be eligible to apply for the scholarships.
Full report on the University World News site
ACADEMIC FREEDOM
UK: Lecturers fear anti-terror laws
Jonathan Travis
A senior member of Britain’s Higher Education Academy has noted that many academics teaching and researching terrorism-related subjects are including disclaimers in their course materials as a result of anti-terror laws. According to Times Higher Education, a senior coordinator at the Academy’s centre for sociology, anthropology and politics organised a workshop on ‘teaching terrorism’ at the University of Strathclyde last month in response to the new fears.
More academic freedom reports on the University World News site
BUSINESS
EUROPE: Business backs new way to teach science
Alan Osborn
A group of European business leaders is backing a European Commission proposal to get students to take more interest in science and mathematics. The initiative has been spurred by a report from an expert group at the commission which last year urged primary and secondary schools to move away from traditional, mainly deductive, science teaching and bring in inquiry-based science education.
Full report on the University World News site
THE NETHERLANDS: Stopping windscreen noise
Keith Nuthall
Windscreens are not just something to look through, say European university scientists: they also act as loudspeakers, attracting and magnifying noise created by a car or lorry and reflecting the racket back at drivers and passengers alike. This fact has made researchers in the European Union-funded and University of Twente, Netherlands-coordinated InMAR (Intelligent Materials for Active Noise Reduction) project consider how to change the materials making windshields, so they absorb noise rather than amplify it. The project is likely to spur technological developments in the automobile industry.
Full report on the University World News site
GLOBAL: Safety concern over nanoparticles
Mark Rowe
Nanotechnology can imbue textiles and other consumer products with eye-catching properties but university scientists and researchers worldwide are increasingly uncertain about the extent to which safety issues surrounding such developments have been explored.
Full report on the University World News site
FRANCE: Insurer funds innovative risk studies
Keith Nuthall
In a sign the credit crunch is not demolishing all long-term thinking in the financial sector, France’s AXA insurance group has continued providing funding for a five-year €100 million programme into innovative research exploring risk.
Full report on the University World News site
FEATURE
GLOBAL: Science for the developing world
Geoff Maslen
David Dickson’s baby will turn seven in December. For an infant online website conceived to bring informed news and opinion about science and technology to aid the whole of the developing world, SciDev.Net is doing remarkably well. Not only does it attract 80,000 visitors a month – and the number is growing week by week – it is also backed by funding agencies in five countries and includes among its earliest supporters the US Rockefeller Foundation. As might be expected, Dickson, a former news editor for Nature and European correspondent for the US journal Science, is immensely proud of his growing child.
Full report on the University World News site
HE RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Methodology, meaning and usefulness of rankings
Ross Williams
Globalisation, assisted by deregulation, has created demand for international rankings. The demand originates from a range of stakeholders: students, employers, supranational institutions, scholars, funding agencies and governments. In addition, there is public interest in rankings for their own sake, whether it be the world’s most liveable city or an international ranking of the quality of financial newspapers. At the same time as this expansion in demand, developments in technology, most noticeably the world wide web, have facilitated the supply of information to meet demand.
Extract from an article in Australian Universities’ Review
More on the University World News site
UNI-LATERAL: Off-beat university stories
CANADA: Student residence going to the dogs
The 2008 version of Animal House is the real deal: less beer, more kibble, writes Caroline Alphonso in the Globe and Mail. Unlike the raunchy and rambunctious human cast of the three-decade-old National Lampoon campus comedy, the raciest antics of the four-legged cast of Mount Allison University’s Animal House include chasing their own tails and nibbling on house plants. In what is believed to be a unique partnership with the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the university has opened a new student residence that provides a foster home for pets awaiting adoption.
More on the University World News site
The Facebook group of University World News is the fastest growing in higher education worldwide. Over 320 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
US: Peers, not profs, influence student views
On issues such as abortion, gay marriage and religion, college students shift noticeably to the left from the time they arrive on campus through their junior year, new research shows, reports Justin Pope for Associated Press. The reason, according to the University of California in Los Angeles’ Higher Education Research Institute, isn’t indoctrination by left-leaning faculty but rather the more powerful influence of fellow students. And at most colleges, left-leaning peer groups are more common than conservative ones.
More on the University World News site
US: In defence of Ayers
William Ayers has been trashed by conservative pundits and labeled “an unrepentant domestic terrorist” by Sarah Palin, the Republican vice presidential nominee, writes Jack Stripling in Inside Higher Ed. But the University of Illinois at Chicago professor has garnered the support of a growing number of peers who admire his scholarship and see the attacks on him as an affront to academic freedom.
More on the University World News site
AUSTRALIA: Overseas postgraduate student numbers rise
International postgraduate research student numbers in Australia have increased more rapidly than those in other programmes, suggesting the country is finding traction in the global talent wars, new research has shown. The Australian reports that the number of overseas research students in the country has grown by 67% from 2002 to 2007, while the number of international students in higher education has increased 52%.
More on the University World News site
IRELAND: Universities still have lot to learn, says study
A report just published by an expert group of the Higher Education Authority, or HEA, has cast a cloud over celebrations which greeted news that Trinity College Dublin had for the first time broken into the top 50 of the world’s best universities, writes John O’Keeffe in the Independent. The report is damning in its indictment of universities in the Irish Republic, which it said had some leaders who had failed to engage with the Irish Universities Quality Board.
More on the University World News site
UK: Boost funds for elite universities
So what conclusions can we draw from this latest university league table? Should we celebrate the fact that four of the top 10 universities in the world are British? Or should we focus on the disappointing statistic that most UK institutions have slid down the world rankings? asks Chris Woodhead, a professor of education at the University of Buckingham, in The Sunday Times.
More on the University World News site
UK: Three steps to help improve university access
It was good to see widening participation in higher education as a theme of the political conference season this year, comments Keven Whitston, of the Higher Education Funding Council for England, in The Guardian. The issue still generates controversy, but few dispute the need to widen participation, and most believe that this must start early, be sustained, and integrated with learners' experience in schools and colleges.
More on the University World News site
VIETNAM: Universities slate financial autonomy scheme
Universities that have been implementing a financial self-control scheme on a trial basis for the last four years complain that they do not have real autonomy, reports VietNamNet Bridge. Universities said that while they were told they would be able to earn income by raising tuition fees, state officials were slapping limits on what could be charged.
More on the University World News site
EAST AFRICA: Project to harmonise universities
University education in East Africa will soon be harmonised, reports The Standard. Commission for Higher Education Secretary Everett Standa said the move would allow students to transfer credits between private and public universities in the region. A draft curriculum for selected programmes in agriculture, engineering, medicine and basic sciences is complete.
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SOUTH AFRICA: Cape Town up in THE-QS rankings
The University of Cape Town has been ranked 179th in the world in the Times Higher Education-QS rankings, improving its position from 200th place last year. In 2007 the university became the first in Africa to achieve a spot in the top 200, reports Independent Online.
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SAUDI ARABIA: Women win most postgraduate scholarships
The Ministry of Higher Education has selected all of the students who applied for and fulfilled stipulated conditions for the King Abdullah Foreign Scholarship Program, reports Arab News. A distinctive feature of this year’s selection is that women dominated the scholarships for master’s and research programmes.
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