This week's highlights
In Features, HAROON MIRANI reports that academic freedom infringements in Kashmir remain rife but the political climate may be changing, and PIYUSHI KOTECHA writes that after three decades of attrition and neglect, higher education in Southern Africa is on the move. In Commentary, ANDREW ROSS investigates labour exploitation and free speech pitfalls in creating branch campuses in countries with authoritarian governments, BRENDAN CANTWELL argues that growth in international postdoctorates could be changing the shape of research labour, and ATHAR OSAMA suggests that the Islamic world could benefit from partnerships that team up high quality universities in wealthy Gulf states with talent in more populist nations.
NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report
SLOVENIA: Minister resigns a year into reforms
Ziva Rokavec
Slovenia's Minister of Higher Education, Science and Technology, Gregor Golobi, has announced his resignation only a year after the adoption of his higher education reforms and a new law on financing education. It is the second blow in a month to the government's higher education plans, following a defeat in a referendum on a proposed bill to speed up employment of graduates and limit exploitation of the student workforce.
Full report on the University World News site:
SWEDEN: Offers to foreign students in drastic fall
Jan Petter Myklebust and Brendan O'Malley
Swedish Universities have made 60% fewer offers to international applicants than last year, following the introduction of tuition fees for foreign students.
Full report on the University World News site:
THAILAND: Academics unnerved over lèse majesté threat
Yojana Sharma
Thailand's academic community has been unnerved by the threat of lèse majesté charges against Thammasat University history professor Somsak Jeamteerasakul, with some fearing it heralds a new government crackdown against academics who speak out.
Full report on the University World News site:
CHINA: Ex-premier criticises higher education reform
Linda Yeung
Critical remarks about China's university system and ambitious plans for higher education reform, made by a former Chinese premier, have raised questions about the current leadership's policy of pursuing world-class status for universities and ignited calls for academic freedom and institutional autonomy.
Full report on the University World News site:
BURKINA FASO: Unrest closes campuses indefinitely
Tunde Fatunde
Universities in Burkina Faso have ground to a halt following more than two months of unrest, which was sparked by the death of a school pupil and snowballed into campus and civilian protests - during which six students are reported to have died - and an army mutiny. All campuses have been closed.
Full report on the University World News site:
HONDURAS: Students square up to the military
Pacifica Goddard
University students in Honduras are gearing up for potential direct confrontation with government security forces as they prepare for a major May Day demonstration against education liberalisation plans tabled by President Porfirio Lobo. The students are promising to resist further military incursions into a campus.
Full report on the University World News site:
MAURITANIA: University closed amid ethnic conflict
Wagdy Sawahel
The University of Nouakchott in Mauritania has been experiencing violent ethnic clashes between student unions that have led to its temporary closure. And on Monday, the 25 February Youth Movement demonstrated in the Mauritanian capital in what has been called a 'day of rage', demanding sweeping reforms and in some cases removal of the government.
Full report on the University World News site:
ARAB STATES: Call to match graduates to jobs
Wagdy Sawahel
The Islamic Development Bank and the International Finance Corporation have launched a US$2 billion five-year roadmap and action plan to tackle challenges posed by unemployment among young Arabs through investment in education for employment (e4e) programmes, with a strong emphasis on private sector involvement in university education.
Full report on the University World News site:
TIBET: Law scholar elected prime minister in exile
Yojana Sharma
Lobsang Sangay, a Harvard University law academic, has been elected Tibetan prime minister in exile it was announced officially on Wednesday in Dharamsala, India, seat of the Tibetan exile parliament. According to his former professors at Harvard, Sangay's doctoral thesis on exile politics provides some clues to his political awakening,
Full report on the University World News:
JAPAN: Plans to reverse post-disaster student exodus
Suvendrini Kakuchi
Japan's recovery plans following the powerful earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident on 11 March include luring back thousands of foreign students who play a significant role in bolstering higher education in the country.
Full report on the University World News site:
LIBYA: Nuclear research 'not up to scratch'
Yojana Sharma
Fears that Libyan nuclear scientists and researchers could 'defect' to countries with possible nuclear aspirations such as Syria are said to be unfounded as Libya's nuclear research capability was never up to scratch, nuclear experts have said.
Full report on the University World News site:
NEWSBRIEFS
EAST AFRICA: Partnership improves maths teaching
After nearly a decade, a partnership between universities in East Africa has greatly improved the teaching of mathematics and increased the number of mathematicians in five participating countries.
Full report on the University World News site:
SINGAPORE: Course to develop creative writing talent
Intent on strengthening the creative arts and humanities, Singapore is to provide S$1.5 (US$1.2 million) to establish a new writer-in-residence programme at Nanyang Technological University, where local and international literary names will write and teach.
Full report on the University World News site:
FEATURES
INDIA: Academic dissent stifled in Kashmir
Haroon Mirani
Kashmir University, one of the largest universities in Indian-administered Kashmir, is also one of the most watched universities in India to ensure not a whimper of academic dissent emerges. But there are signs that the political climate may be changing. Some Kashmiri academics say now is the time to speak out because the Indian government does not want to be embarrassed internationally as it emerges as a potential superpower.
Full report on the University World News site:
SOUTHERN AFRICA: A new higher education focus
Piyushi Kotecha*
After three decades of attrition and neglect, higher education in Southern Africa, and in the Sub-Saharan region, is on the move. The last few years have seen encouraging stirrings of new life, along with a growing awareness of the importance of effective higher education in the fortunes of developing nations and regions.
Full report on the University World News site:
HERANA - Universities and development in Africa
AFRICA: Universities are training active citizens
The university and student life in Africa "present unmatched opportunities for exercising political activity and organisational leadership at a young age", new research into higher education and democracy in Kenya, South Africa and Tanzania has found. Universities are 'training grounds' for active citizenship, which is critical to sustaining democratic processes.
Full report on the University World News site:
COMMENTARY
MIDDLE EAST: Rights, freedom and offshore academics
The rush to create universities abroad, especially in countries with authoritarian governments, can come at a high cost. Problems encountered may range from exploitation of migrant labour to uncertain protection of free speech and basic rights, says ANDREW ROSS.
Full report on the University World News site:
GLOBAL: International postdocs changing universities
Is the growth in international postdoctorates changing the shape of research labour? BRENDAN CANTWELL argues that there has been relatively little attention given to postdoctoral and other contingent researchers, and that they appear to be part of a trend towards academic 'piece work' which is changing the nature of how universities function.
Full report on the University World News site:
ISLAMIC WORLD: Connecting capital and talent
Partnerships that team up high-quality universities in Gulf states with talent in more populous Islamic nations could benefit everyone, writes ATHAR OSAMA for SciDev.net. They could allow talent-rich countries to re-energise their research while enabling scientists from capital-rich countries to receive training and the benefits of camaraderie.
Full report on the University World News site:
ACADEMIC FREEDOM
GLOBAL: Academic freedom reports worldwide
Noemi Bouet*
Iraqi academics have again been the target of violent attacks by insurgents, in a new wave of assassinations. According to the Brussels Tribunal on Iraq, at least 453 academics have been killed since 2003. In Iran, students have protested against a growing security force presence at Tehran University, and at Bahria University in Pakistan students have marched against the sacking of a lecturer who criticised university policies. A student has been jailed for three months in Sudan for participating in anti-government demonstrations, and in the US g ay and l esbian students at Christian universities have been agitating for official acceptance.
Full report on the University World News site:
FACEBOOK
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higher education worldwide. More than 2,600 readers have joined. Sign up to the University World News Facebook group to meet and communicate directly with academics and researchers informed by the world's first truly global higher education publication. Click on the link below to visit and join the group.
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WORLD ROUND-UP
GERMANY: Plagiarism scandal hits elite
Weeks after Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, Germany's former defense minister, was forced to resign in a plagiarism scandal, three German universities say they are investigating similar complaints about the academic work of three figures from the country's political sphere, writes Christopher F Schuetze for The New York Times.
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UK: Campus extremism 'a serious problem'
There are "grave concerns" that students are being radicalised in British universities, according to a report by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Homeland Security, writes Angela Harrison for the BBC. While the group says the problem should be tackled "with utmost urgency", universities say there is no evidence to support the claims.
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UK: Universities to escape challenge over high fees
Not a single university will have its fees renegotiated by the government body charged with approving them, it emerged last week. The Office for Fair Access (Offa) does not plan to stop any universities charging the fees they have applied for, leaving the government with a £1 billion (US$1.6 billion) deficit, write Joe Dyke and Oliver Wright for The Independent.
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SCOTLAND: Universities issue warning on funding gap
Scotland's universities are "punching above their weight" in funding, compared with the rest of the UK, according to new figures. However, university leaders said about half their income was from private and international sources and warned that if the expected funding gap was not filled next year, overall funding would slip, writes Fiona MacLeod for The Scotsman.
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THAILAND: Teaching certificate sales may be rife
Up to 80 state and private universities may be involved in selling teacher certificates or offering courses without accreditation, reports the Bangkok Post. The Office of the Higher Education Commission, or Ohec, which is investigating a university in Khon Kaen province found to have sold professional teacher certificates to graduates, said it would widen its probe to 77 other providers which had produced an unusually high number of teaching graduates.
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MALAYSIA: Government moots PhD for all lecturers
Malaysia's Higher Education Ministry last Thursday suggested that a doctorate be made the basic requirement for lecturer posts at all public higher education institutions, reports the official news agency Bernama.
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ARGENTINA: State university enrolment up by 13%
Enrolment in Argentina's five recently-created universities in the greater Buenos Aires area has increased by 13%, whereas enrolment in traditional universities only increased by 2%, reports the Buenos Aires Herald.
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TANZANIA: Research budget to be tripled
Tanzania is planning to triple funds for research in next year's budget, Minister for Education and Vocational Training, Dr Shukuru Kawambwa, has said. Speaking to journalists in Dar es Salaam, he said that due to the importance of research to development, the government intended to set aside Sh100 billion (US$66.4 million) for research, writes Bernard Lugongo for The Citizen.
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AFRICA: All-Africa astronomical body launched
The first astronomical society encompassing all of Africa has been formally launched at a meeting of the International Astronomical Union in Cape Town, South Africa, reports Physics World. The African Astronomical Society, or AfAS, debuted at the Second Middle East-Africa Regional IAU Meeting on 14 April - just three years after the society was first proposed.
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SRI LANKA: Students concerned about military training
University student unions have voiced concerns over the government's move to introduce a compulsory 'leadership training programme' under the military for all new entrants from this year, writes Mandana Ismail Abeywickrema for the The Sunday Leader.
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INDIA: Student beheads girlfriend on campus
It was a college romance with a horrific ending. Last Wednesday, a student of St Xavier's College in Ranchi, India, was beheaded by her boyfriend inside the campus in the heart of the city, writes Vijay Murty for the Hindustan Times.
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UK: St Andrews to review Syrian-funded centre
The University of St Andrews is to review the work of one of its research centres because its funding was arranged by the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad, write Peter Beaumont and Jeevan Vasagar for the Guardian. The prestigious university received more than £100,000 (US$166,610) for its centre for Syrian studies with the assistance of Syria's ambassador to the UK, Sami Khiyami.
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UK: Cambridge maintains intake profile
Cambridge University will fail to take in more students from state schools after a sharp rise in tuition fees, the university has admitted. Documents submitted to the government's Office for Fair Access confirm that the university merely hopes to maintain existing numbers of deprived undergraduates from 2012, writes Graeme Paton for The Telegraph.
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US: Gaming profitable for tribal higher education
Pointing to a new administrative and classroom facility on the Okmulgee, Oklahoma, campus of the College of the Muscogee Nation, Robert Bible is candid: "We wouldn't have this building if it weren't for gaming revenue." The structure, unveiled late last year, cost approximately $7.5 million to complete, writes Garry Boulard for Diverse.
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US: Expert sounds for-profit warning
The growth of private higher education has had a devastating impact on the US academy and poses a major threat to the UK, a university admissions expert has warned, writes Hanna Fearn for Times Higher Education.
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Monday, 2 May 2011
Tuesday, 26 April 2011
University World News 0168 - 24th April 2011
This week's highlights
In a special report, University World News investigates issues and trends in the global talent trade, where there are growing signs that the world's vibrant economies are starting to attract back domestic graduates who have studied in the West. In People, GEOFF MASLEN interviews 71-year-old Australian Dr Doris LeRoy, who was awarded a PhD recently despite setbacks including cancer, hip replacements and the death of her husband. In Commentary, KN PANIKKAR argues that revisions are needed to India's foreign educational institutions bill, or it could undermine education that promotes nation-building and national identity. In the UK, GIDEON CALDER reports on swelling academic opposition to a research council's plan to direct research towards the government's 'big society' ideology, and ANNE COBETT writes that the Libyan funding debacle at the London School of Economics should force a rethink on the purpose of an international university.
THE TALENT TRADE
There has been a lot of talk about the 'brain drain' phenomenon in higher
education, whereby the brightest students and academics are attracted from East to West and from South to North. But as competition for students and academics has grown in countries such as India and China, there have been reports that this process may be going into reverse. For example a just-published report by the leading business consultancy firm Frost & Sullivan predicts that there will be a steady flow of returning migrants to countries like India to fill vacancies for senior positions - and that they will be joined by Americans and Europeans seeking better prospects.
Universities are already beginning to see this reverse movement and analysts like Peggy Blumenthal and Rajika Bhandari of the Institute for International Education argue that there will be increasing mobility in higher education with 'brain drain' being replaced by 'brain circulation', 'brain exchange' or the 'brain train'. In this special report, University World News investigates this phenomenon and asks whether economic insecurity and rising tuition fees in the West could be factors influencing the talent trade. We also look at migration of the highly educated from Africa and efforts to counter the 'brain drain'.
UK: Fees and unemployment make mobility attractive
Rising tuition fees and youth unemployment plus a competitive market in international higher education are making many UK and other European students look further afield for undergraduate degrees. This could affect the pipeline of future academics, reports HARRIET SWAIN.
Full report on the University World News site:
ASIA: 'Brain reclaim' as talent returns from West
Asian universities are rising and this coincides with a downturn in Western economies. The combination could promote greater internationalisation in higher education, but some fear that it could lead to long-term problems for Western universities which may have to do more to tackle what is being dubbed 'brain reclaim', reports YOJANA SHARMA.
Full report on the University World News site:
US: Reverse brain drain takes off
The brain drain of international students to the US is slowly reversing as more international students opt to return to their home countries and some US students of immigrant parents choose to study abroad. The US may need to adapt its visa policies to compete, but countries in the developing world will also have to ensure they have enough to offer to keep returning students there, reports ALISON MOODIE.
Full report on the University World News site:
ASIA: Getting graduates to come home is not easy
There has been a lot of talk about 'brain exchange' rather than 'brain drain', but brain drain still continues. Countries like China and India have tried a range of programmes to get students to return, but the brightest are still the least likely to return, argue PHILIP G ALTBACH and WANHUA MA in the latest edition of International Higher Education.
Full report on the University World News site:
AFRICA: Limit costs, raise benefits of skills flight
Some 30 million Africans live outside their home countries, and more than a million highly qualified Africans - one in eight - live in an OECD country, a new study by the African Development Bank and the World Bank reveals, reports KAREN MACGREGOR. While migration is a "vital lifeline" for the continent, and is a symptom rather than the root of development problems, governments must act cleverly to limit the costs and maximise the benefits of tertiary-educated migration.
Full report on the University World News site:
AFRICA: Research network project promotes brain gain
UNESCO and Hewlett Packard's Brain Gain Initiative, based on grid computing and academic networks, is fostering research collaboration between universities in the South as well as between African academics in the South and North, write MARC BELLON and LILIANA SIMIONESCU.
Full report on the University World News site:
AFRICA: Harnessing bright minds in the diaspora
The Harambe Entrepreneur Alliance was set up in 2007 and aims to engage African scholars from the diaspora in development initiatives. Set up by students in the US, it is gaining international recognition for its work, say Harambe members CORINA SHIKA KWAMI and ISABELLA AKINSEYE.
Full report on the University World News site:
NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report
UK: Fears over private sector gain from loans hike
Brendan O'Malley
The government has announced plans to extend support and loans to students attending private sector institutions in England, to the same level as for state sector students. But the announcement has stoked fears that private institutions will be able to cherry-pick lucrative courses.
Full report on University World News site:
AUSTRALIA: Likely research cuts trigger alarm
Geoff Maslen
Rarely have Australia's academic and research communities responded so rapidly and vigorously to rumoured threats of a US$400 million cut over the next three years to the major medical funding council. University leaders, education and health unions, medical bodies and science organisations warned of a mass exodus of top scientists if the possible savaging of the National Health and Medical Research Council's budget went ahead.
Full report on the University World News site:
FRANCE: Graduates fare best in recession, says study
Jane Marshall
Three years after completing their higher education in 2007 graduates in France were faring better in the economic crisis than less eduated peers, according to a newly released survey.
Full report on the University World News site:
GERMANY: Plagiarism claims mount for ex-minister
Michael Gardner
With an intensive investigation almost concluded, Bavaria's University of Bayreuth now claims that ex-minister of defence Karl Theodor zu Guttenberg must have copied parts of his doctoral thesis. But zu Guttenberg continues to deny wilful deceit.
Full report on University World News site:
EUROPE: Nazaré elected as next EUA President
Members of the European University Association have elected Professor Maria Helena Nazaré from Portugal as the new president of the organisation that represents more than 800 universities and 34 national rectors' conferences across Europe.
Full report on the University World News site:
CANADA: Tool to predict international student trends
Sarah King Head
Predicting more accurately where international students will go to pursue higher education has been taken one step forward with the release last week of the Global International Student Flow Forecasting Model pilot project. The British Columbia Council for International Education released the model for use by the Canadian province where international education is a leading export.
Full report on the University World News site:
GLOBAL: Non-stop learning conference
A non-stop 48-hour online conference spanning the globe began at the University of Leicester in the UK on Wednesday, with the focus on innovation in teaching and learning in higher education. The conference, "Learning Futures Festival Online 2011, Follow the sun", covered three countries and three time zones.
Full report on the University World News site:
NEWSBRIEFS
SAUDI ARABIA-UK: New centre to tackle global disease
Wagdy Sawahel
Saudi Arabia is to establish an international training and research centre in Jizan to advance global efforts to control infectious diseases, with the cooperation of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and the Innovative Vector Control Consortium.
Full report on the University World News site:
SWAZILAND: Calm returns to university
Munyaradzi Makoni
The University of Swaziland, forced to close last Tuesday when pro-democratic protests rocked the tiny landlocked Southern African kingdom, has now reopened. Some students reported being coerced by others to participate in the demonstrations.
Full report on the University World News site:
PEOPLE
AUSTRALIA: Six decades to earn a PhD
Geoff Maslen
Melbourne-born Doris LeRoy dropped out of school when she was 14. Now, almost 60 years later, she has been awarded a doctorate - despite battling cancer, enduring hip replacements and suffering the death of her husband.
Full report on the University World News site:
COMMENTARY
INDIA: Foreign universities bill needs to be revised
India is considering a Bill which proposes to regulate the operation of foreign educational institutions. This is all very well, argues KN PANIKKAR, but it also promotes a more globalised form of higher education when education should be dictated by issues around nation building and national identity.
Full report on the University World News site:
UK: Research council slated for bowing to ideology
The UK Arts and Humanities Research Council's latest delivery plan appears to promote government policy and could endanger academic independence, argues GIDEON CALDER. Academics are mobilising to resist any threat to their freedom.
Full report on the University World News site:
UK: The LSE debacle and the role of a university
The furore surrounding the resignation of the head of the London School of Economics should force a rethink about the purpose of an international university, argues ANNE CORBETT. There is a need to return to the basics of what a university is about and guard against becoming what the late Professor Fred Halliday called 'shopping malls of the mind'.
Full report on the University World News site:
ACADEMIC FREEDOM
GLOBAL: Academic freedom reports worldwide
Noemi Bouet*
The Chinese authorities have arrested three Tibetan monks, including a student, in Beijing following a self-immolation protest against Chinese rule in Tibet, and have banned an inter-college debate on the 1911 revolution. In Iran, a human rights lawyer and law professor at Allameh Tabatabaee University in Tehran has been dismissed, and two student activists have been expelled from Baku State University in Azerbaijan. Student anti-government protests have been held in Damascus and at Aleppo University in Syria.
Full report on the University World News site:
FACEBOOK
The Facebook group of University World News is the fastest growing in
higher education worldwide. More than 2,600 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
UK: Universities 'recruiting more foreign students'
Universities are planning a huge increase in foreign students to boost their income following swingeing government funding cuts, it emerged last week, writes Graeme Paton for The Telegraph. Some top institutions want to almost double the number of undergraduates recruited from outside Europe.
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US: Foreign graduate student numbers continue to rise
Foreign-student applications to American graduate schools are up 9% over last year, with much of the increase fueled by a double-digit expansion in applications from prospective Chinese students, according to a report released last week, writes Karin Fischer for The Chronicle of Higher Education.
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US: Big cuts to international programmes
When a chart of all cuts in the 2011 budget passed by the US congress on Thursday was made public earlier last week, international education advocates received an unpleasant surprise: funding for foreign language and area studies programmes within the Education Department could be cut by as much as $50 million, rolled back to levels last seen before 9/11, writes Libby A Nelson for Inside Higher Ed.
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RUSSIA: Foreigners get right to teach in universities
A new law passed on Wednesday allows the employment of foreign experts as teachers at Russian colleges and universities, reports Ria Novosti.
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MALAYSIA: Universities must expand internationally
Universities should extend their wings beyond Malaysia's national boundaries by promoting and contributing to regional and international development, said the Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin.
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ISRAEL: Colleges approved for state research funding
An unprecedented agreement signed between Israel's finance ministry and representatives from local colleges will, for the first time, allow college staff to receive government funding for research, writes Tomer Velmer for YNetNews. Until now, this has been reserved for universities alone.
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PAKISTAN: Petition filed against plan to dissolve HEC
A petition has been filed in the supreme court against the government's plan to dissolve the Higher Education Commission, or HEC, which is widely credited with playing a key role in promoting higher learning in Pakistan, writes Mohsin Ali for Gulf News.
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INDIA: Reprieve for 44 deemed universities
India's supreme court on Monday gave a reprieve to the 44 'deemed universities' facing de-recognition on the basis of deficiencies pointed out by the Tandon Committee, writes J Venkatesan for The Hindu. The court extended the status quo order: in other words, it restrained the government from taking further action on the basis of the report.
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INDIA-US: Obama-Singh initiative to fly soon
India and the US will take steps to increase collaboration in higher education in the next few months under an initiative announced during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to the US in November 2009, writes Prashant K Nanda for LiveMint.com.
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US: California students protest against university cuts
Decrying what they called an assault on higher education, thousands of academics and students at California State University campuses across the state rallied, marched and held teach-ins on Wednesday to protest against steep funding cuts and rising tuition, write Carla Rivera and Larry Gordon for the Los Angeles Times.
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US: College loans weigh heavier on graduates
Student loan debt outpaced credit card debt for the first time last year and is likely to top a trillion dollars this year as more students go to college and a growing share borrow money to do so, writes Tamar Lewin for The New York Times.
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SOUTH KOREA: KAIST criticised after student suicides
The president of South Korea's top science university is fighting to save his job after a string of student suicides sparked fierce criticism of his controversial reforms and a government audit accused him and other officials at the institution of financial and administrative violations, writes David McNeill for The Chronicle of Higher Education.
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SOUTH AFRICA: Student funding chief sacked
The CEO of South Africa's National Student Financial Aid Scheme, suspended after the scheme was given an audit report with a disclaimer, has been fired, writes Caiphus Kgosana for The Sunday Times.
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AUSTRALIA: Steps to grow indigenous representation
Indigenous Australians have long been under-represented in their country's universities, but now some institutions are creating leadership posts to help increase the number of indigenous students and academics, writes Liz Gooch for The New York Times.
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KOSOVO: Higher education challenges
Kosovo has the lowest higher education attendance in the European Union, writes Muhamet Brajshori for the Southeast European Times. While there are 50 students per 1,000 inhabitants in the EU, Kosovo falls short with just 30 students per 1,000 inhabitants, according to the education ministry.
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MOZAMBIQUE: Budget cuts threaten university quality
Mozambique's Education Minister Zeferino Martins has warned that cuts to the budgets of the country's two public universities, Eduardo Mondlane University and the Pedagogical University, will compromise the quality of education in both institutions, reports AllAfrica.com.
More on the University World News site:
In a special report, University World News investigates issues and trends in the global talent trade, where there are growing signs that the world's vibrant economies are starting to attract back domestic graduates who have studied in the West. In People, GEOFF MASLEN interviews 71-year-old Australian Dr Doris LeRoy, who was awarded a PhD recently despite setbacks including cancer, hip replacements and the death of her husband. In Commentary, KN PANIKKAR argues that revisions are needed to India's foreign educational institutions bill, or it could undermine education that promotes nation-building and national identity. In the UK, GIDEON CALDER reports on swelling academic opposition to a research council's plan to direct research towards the government's 'big society' ideology, and ANNE COBETT writes that the Libyan funding debacle at the London School of Economics should force a rethink on the purpose of an international university.
THE TALENT TRADE
There has been a lot of talk about the 'brain drain' phenomenon in higher
education, whereby the brightest students and academics are attracted from East to West and from South to North. But as competition for students and academics has grown in countries such as India and China, there have been reports that this process may be going into reverse. For example a just-published report by the leading business consultancy firm Frost & Sullivan predicts that there will be a steady flow of returning migrants to countries like India to fill vacancies for senior positions - and that they will be joined by Americans and Europeans seeking better prospects.
Universities are already beginning to see this reverse movement and analysts like Peggy Blumenthal and Rajika Bhandari of the Institute for International Education argue that there will be increasing mobility in higher education with 'brain drain' being replaced by 'brain circulation', 'brain exchange' or the 'brain train'. In this special report, University World News investigates this phenomenon and asks whether economic insecurity and rising tuition fees in the West could be factors influencing the talent trade. We also look at migration of the highly educated from Africa and efforts to counter the 'brain drain'.
UK: Fees and unemployment make mobility attractive
Rising tuition fees and youth unemployment plus a competitive market in international higher education are making many UK and other European students look further afield for undergraduate degrees. This could affect the pipeline of future academics, reports HARRIET SWAIN.
Full report on the University World News site:
ASIA: 'Brain reclaim' as talent returns from West
Asian universities are rising and this coincides with a downturn in Western economies. The combination could promote greater internationalisation in higher education, but some fear that it could lead to long-term problems for Western universities which may have to do more to tackle what is being dubbed 'brain reclaim', reports YOJANA SHARMA.
Full report on the University World News site:
US: Reverse brain drain takes off
The brain drain of international students to the US is slowly reversing as more international students opt to return to their home countries and some US students of immigrant parents choose to study abroad. The US may need to adapt its visa policies to compete, but countries in the developing world will also have to ensure they have enough to offer to keep returning students there, reports ALISON MOODIE.
Full report on the University World News site:
ASIA: Getting graduates to come home is not easy
There has been a lot of talk about 'brain exchange' rather than 'brain drain', but brain drain still continues. Countries like China and India have tried a range of programmes to get students to return, but the brightest are still the least likely to return, argue PHILIP G ALTBACH and WANHUA MA in the latest edition of International Higher Education.
Full report on the University World News site:
AFRICA: Limit costs, raise benefits of skills flight
Some 30 million Africans live outside their home countries, and more than a million highly qualified Africans - one in eight - live in an OECD country, a new study by the African Development Bank and the World Bank reveals, reports KAREN MACGREGOR. While migration is a "vital lifeline" for the continent, and is a symptom rather than the root of development problems, governments must act cleverly to limit the costs and maximise the benefits of tertiary-educated migration.
Full report on the University World News site:
AFRICA: Research network project promotes brain gain
UNESCO and Hewlett Packard's Brain Gain Initiative, based on grid computing and academic networks, is fostering research collaboration between universities in the South as well as between African academics in the South and North, write MARC BELLON and LILIANA SIMIONESCU.
Full report on the University World News site:
AFRICA: Harnessing bright minds in the diaspora
The Harambe Entrepreneur Alliance was set up in 2007 and aims to engage African scholars from the diaspora in development initiatives. Set up by students in the US, it is gaining international recognition for its work, say Harambe members CORINA SHIKA KWAMI and ISABELLA AKINSEYE.
Full report on the University World News site:
NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report
UK: Fears over private sector gain from loans hike
Brendan O'Malley
The government has announced plans to extend support and loans to students attending private sector institutions in England, to the same level as for state sector students. But the announcement has stoked fears that private institutions will be able to cherry-pick lucrative courses.
Full report on University World News site:
AUSTRALIA: Likely research cuts trigger alarm
Geoff Maslen
Rarely have Australia's academic and research communities responded so rapidly and vigorously to rumoured threats of a US$400 million cut over the next three years to the major medical funding council. University leaders, education and health unions, medical bodies and science organisations warned of a mass exodus of top scientists if the possible savaging of the National Health and Medical Research Council's budget went ahead.
Full report on the University World News site:
FRANCE: Graduates fare best in recession, says study
Jane Marshall
Three years after completing their higher education in 2007 graduates in France were faring better in the economic crisis than less eduated peers, according to a newly released survey.
Full report on the University World News site:
GERMANY: Plagiarism claims mount for ex-minister
Michael Gardner
With an intensive investigation almost concluded, Bavaria's University of Bayreuth now claims that ex-minister of defence Karl Theodor zu Guttenberg must have copied parts of his doctoral thesis. But zu Guttenberg continues to deny wilful deceit.
Full report on University World News site:
EUROPE: Nazaré elected as next EUA President
Members of the European University Association have elected Professor Maria Helena Nazaré from Portugal as the new president of the organisation that represents more than 800 universities and 34 national rectors' conferences across Europe.
Full report on the University World News site:
CANADA: Tool to predict international student trends
Sarah King Head
Predicting more accurately where international students will go to pursue higher education has been taken one step forward with the release last week of the Global International Student Flow Forecasting Model pilot project. The British Columbia Council for International Education released the model for use by the Canadian province where international education is a leading export.
Full report on the University World News site:
GLOBAL: Non-stop learning conference
A non-stop 48-hour online conference spanning the globe began at the University of Leicester in the UK on Wednesday, with the focus on innovation in teaching and learning in higher education. The conference, "Learning Futures Festival Online 2011, Follow the sun", covered three countries and three time zones.
Full report on the University World News site:
NEWSBRIEFS
SAUDI ARABIA-UK: New centre to tackle global disease
Wagdy Sawahel
Saudi Arabia is to establish an international training and research centre in Jizan to advance global efforts to control infectious diseases, with the cooperation of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and the Innovative Vector Control Consortium.
Full report on the University World News site:
SWAZILAND: Calm returns to university
Munyaradzi Makoni
The University of Swaziland, forced to close last Tuesday when pro-democratic protests rocked the tiny landlocked Southern African kingdom, has now reopened. Some students reported being coerced by others to participate in the demonstrations.
Full report on the University World News site:
PEOPLE
AUSTRALIA: Six decades to earn a PhD
Geoff Maslen
Melbourne-born Doris LeRoy dropped out of school when she was 14. Now, almost 60 years later, she has been awarded a doctorate - despite battling cancer, enduring hip replacements and suffering the death of her husband.
Full report on the University World News site:
COMMENTARY
INDIA: Foreign universities bill needs to be revised
India is considering a Bill which proposes to regulate the operation of foreign educational institutions. This is all very well, argues KN PANIKKAR, but it also promotes a more globalised form of higher education when education should be dictated by issues around nation building and national identity.
Full report on the University World News site:
UK: Research council slated for bowing to ideology
The UK Arts and Humanities Research Council's latest delivery plan appears to promote government policy and could endanger academic independence, argues GIDEON CALDER. Academics are mobilising to resist any threat to their freedom.
Full report on the University World News site:
UK: The LSE debacle and the role of a university
The furore surrounding the resignation of the head of the London School of Economics should force a rethink about the purpose of an international university, argues ANNE CORBETT. There is a need to return to the basics of what a university is about and guard against becoming what the late Professor Fred Halliday called 'shopping malls of the mind'.
Full report on the University World News site:
ACADEMIC FREEDOM
GLOBAL: Academic freedom reports worldwide
Noemi Bouet*
The Chinese authorities have arrested three Tibetan monks, including a student, in Beijing following a self-immolation protest against Chinese rule in Tibet, and have banned an inter-college debate on the 1911 revolution. In Iran, a human rights lawyer and law professor at Allameh Tabatabaee University in Tehran has been dismissed, and two student activists have been expelled from Baku State University in Azerbaijan. Student anti-government protests have been held in Damascus and at Aleppo University in Syria.
Full report on the University World News site:
The Facebook group of University World News is the fastest growing in
higher education worldwide. More than 2,600 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
UK: Universities 'recruiting more foreign students'
Universities are planning a huge increase in foreign students to boost their income following swingeing government funding cuts, it emerged last week, writes Graeme Paton for The Telegraph. Some top institutions want to almost double the number of undergraduates recruited from outside Europe.
More on the University World News site:
US: Foreign graduate student numbers continue to rise
Foreign-student applications to American graduate schools are up 9% over last year, with much of the increase fueled by a double-digit expansion in applications from prospective Chinese students, according to a report released last week, writes Karin Fischer for The Chronicle of Higher Education.
More on the University World News site:
US: Big cuts to international programmes
When a chart of all cuts in the 2011 budget passed by the US congress on Thursday was made public earlier last week, international education advocates received an unpleasant surprise: funding for foreign language and area studies programmes within the Education Department could be cut by as much as $50 million, rolled back to levels last seen before 9/11, writes Libby A Nelson for Inside Higher Ed.
More on the University World News site:
RUSSIA: Foreigners get right to teach in universities
A new law passed on Wednesday allows the employment of foreign experts as teachers at Russian colleges and universities, reports Ria Novosti.
More on the University World News site:
MALAYSIA: Universities must expand internationally
Universities should extend their wings beyond Malaysia's national boundaries by promoting and contributing to regional and international development, said the Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin.
More on the University World News site:
ISRAEL: Colleges approved for state research funding
An unprecedented agreement signed between Israel's finance ministry and representatives from local colleges will, for the first time, allow college staff to receive government funding for research, writes Tomer Velmer for YNetNews. Until now, this has been reserved for universities alone.
More on the University World News site:
PAKISTAN: Petition filed against plan to dissolve HEC
A petition has been filed in the supreme court against the government's plan to dissolve the Higher Education Commission, or HEC, which is widely credited with playing a key role in promoting higher learning in Pakistan, writes Mohsin Ali for Gulf News.
More on the University World News site:
INDIA: Reprieve for 44 deemed universities
India's supreme court on Monday gave a reprieve to the 44 'deemed universities' facing de-recognition on the basis of deficiencies pointed out by the Tandon Committee, writes J Venkatesan for The Hindu. The court extended the status quo order: in other words, it restrained the government from taking further action on the basis of the report.
More on the University World News site:
INDIA-US: Obama-Singh initiative to fly soon
India and the US will take steps to increase collaboration in higher education in the next few months under an initiative announced during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to the US in November 2009, writes Prashant K Nanda for LiveMint.com.
More on the University World News site:
US: California students protest against university cuts
Decrying what they called an assault on higher education, thousands of academics and students at California State University campuses across the state rallied, marched and held teach-ins on Wednesday to protest against steep funding cuts and rising tuition, write Carla Rivera and Larry Gordon for the Los Angeles Times.
More on the University World News site:
US: College loans weigh heavier on graduates
Student loan debt outpaced credit card debt for the first time last year and is likely to top a trillion dollars this year as more students go to college and a growing share borrow money to do so, writes Tamar Lewin for The New York Times.
More on the University World News site:
SOUTH KOREA: KAIST criticised after student suicides
The president of South Korea's top science university is fighting to save his job after a string of student suicides sparked fierce criticism of his controversial reforms and a government audit accused him and other officials at the institution of financial and administrative violations, writes David McNeill for The Chronicle of Higher Education.
More on the University World News site:
SOUTH AFRICA: Student funding chief sacked
The CEO of South Africa's National Student Financial Aid Scheme, suspended after the scheme was given an audit report with a disclaimer, has been fired, writes Caiphus Kgosana for The Sunday Times.
More on the University World News site:
AUSTRALIA: Steps to grow indigenous representation
Indigenous Australians have long been under-represented in their country's universities, but now some institutions are creating leadership posts to help increase the number of indigenous students and academics, writes Liz Gooch for The New York Times.
More on the University World News site:
KOSOVO: Higher education challenges
Kosovo has the lowest higher education attendance in the European Union, writes Muhamet Brajshori for the Southeast European Times. While there are 50 students per 1,000 inhabitants in the EU, Kosovo falls short with just 30 students per 1,000 inhabitants, according to the education ministry.
More on the University World News site:
MOZAMBIQUE: Budget cuts threaten university quality
Mozambique's Education Minister Zeferino Martins has warned that cuts to the budgets of the country's two public universities, Eduardo Mondlane University and the Pedagogical University, will compromise the quality of education in both institutions, reports AllAfrica.com.
More on the University World News site:
University World News 0167 - 17th April 2011
This week's highlights
In a special report, University World News investigates issues and trends in the global talent trade, where there are growing signs that the world's vibrant economies are starting to attract back domestic graduates who have studied in the West. In People, GEOFF MASLEN interviews 71-year-old Australian Dr Doris LeRoy, who was awarded a PhD recently despite setbacks including cancer, hip replacements and the death of her husband. In Commentary, KN PANIKKAR argues that revisions are needed to India's foreign educational institutions bill, or it could undermine education that promotes nation-building and national identity. In the UK, GIDEON CALDER reports on swelling academic opposition to a research council's plan to direct research towards the government's 'big society' ideology, and ANNE COBETT writes that the Libyan funding debacle at the London School of Economics should force a rethink on the purpose of an international university.
THE TALENT TRADE
There has been a lot of talk about the 'brain drain' phenomenon in higher
education, whereby the brightest students and academics are attracted from East to West and from South to North. But as competition for students and academics has grown in countries such as India and China, there have been reports that this process may be going into reverse. For example a just-published report by the leading business consultancy firm Frost & Sullivan predicts that there will be a steady flow of returning migrants to countries like India to fill vacancies for senior positions - and that they will be joined by Americans and Europeans seeking better prospects.
Universities are already beginning to see this reverse movement and analysts like Peggy Blumenthal and Rajika Bhandari of the Institute for International Education argue that there will be increasing mobility in higher education with 'brain drain' being replaced by 'brain circulation', 'brain exchange' or the 'brain train'. In this special report, University World News investigates this phenomenon and asks whether economic insecurity and rising tuition fees in the West could be factors influencing the talent trade. We also look at migration of the highly educated from Africa and efforts to counter the 'brain drain'.
UK: Fees and unemployment make mobility attractive
Rising tuition fees and youth unemployment plus a competitive market in international higher education are making many UK and other European students look further afield for undergraduate degrees. This could affect the pipeline of future academics, reports HARRIET SWAIN.
Full report on the University World News site:
ASIA: 'Brain reclaim' as talent returns from West
Asian universities are rising and this coincides with a downturn in Western economies. The combination could promote greater internationalisation in higher education, but some fear that it could lead to long-term problems for Western universities which may have to do more to tackle what is being dubbed 'brain reclaim', reports YOJANA SHARMA.
Full report on the University World News site:
US: Reverse brain drain takes off
The brain drain of international students to the US is slowly reversing as more international students opt to return to their home countries and some US students of immigrant parents choose to study abroad. The US may need to adapt its visa policies to compete, but countries in the developing world will also have to ensure they have enough to offer to keep returning students there, reports ALISON MOODIE.
Full report on the University World News site:
ASIA: Getting graduates to come home is not easy
There has been a lot of talk about 'brain exchange' rather than 'brain drain', but brain drain still continues. Countries like China and India have tried a range of programmes to get students to return, but the brightest are still the least likely to return, argue PHILIP G ALTBACH and WANHUA MA in the latest edition of International Higher Education.
Full report on the University World News site:
AFRICA: Limit costs, raise benefits of skills flight
Some 30 million Africans live outside their home countries, and more than a million highly qualified Africans - one in eight - live in an OECD country, a new study by the African Development Bank and the World Bank reveals, reports KAREN MACGREGOR. While migration is a "vital lifeline" for the continent, and is a symptom rather than the root of development problems, governments must act cleverly to limit the costs and maximise the benefits of tertiary-educated migration.
Full report on the University World News site:
AFRICA: Research network project promotes brain gain
UNESCO and Hewlett Packard's Brain Gain Initiative, based on grid computing and academic networks, is fostering research collaboration between universities in the South as well as between African academics in the South and North, write MARC BELLON and LILIANA SIMIONESCU.
Full report on the University World News site:
AFRICA: Harnessing bright minds in the diaspora
The Harambe Entrepreneur Alliance was set up in 2007 and aims to engage African scholars from the diaspora in development initiatives. Set up by students in the US, it is gaining international recognition for its work, say Harambe members CORINA SHIKA KWAMI and ISABELLA AKINSEYE.
Full report on the University World News site:
NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report
UK: Fears over private sector gain from loans hike
Brendan O'Malley
The government has announced plans to extend support and loans to students attending private sector institutions in England, to the same level as for state sector students. But the announcement has stoked fears that private institutions will be able to cherry-pick lucrative courses.
Full report on University World News site:
AUSTRALIA: Likely research cuts trigger alarm
Geoff Maslen
Rarely have Australia's academic and research communities responded so rapidly and vigorously to rumoured threats of a US$400 million cut over the next three years to the major medical funding council. University leaders, education and health unions, medical bodies and science organisations warned of a mass exodus of top scientists if the possible savaging of the National Health and Medical Research Council's budget went ahead.
Full report on the University World News site:
FRANCE: Graduates fare best in recession, says study
Jane Marshall
Three years after completing their higher education in 2007 graduates in France were faring better in the economic crisis than less eduated peers, according to a newly released survey.
Full report on the University World News site:
GERMANY: Plagiarism claims mount for ex-minister
Michael Gardner
With an intensive investigation almost concluded, Bavaria's University of Bayreuth now claims that ex-minister of defence Karl Theodor zu Guttenberg must have copied parts of his doctoral thesis. But zu Guttenberg continues to deny wilful deceit.
Full report on University World News site:
EUROPE: Nazaré elected as next EUA President
Members of the European University Association have elected Professor Maria Helena Nazaré from Portugal as the new president of the organisation that represents more than 800 universities and 34 national rectors' conferences across Europe.
Full report on the University World News site:
CANADA: Tool to predict international student trends
Sarah King Head
Predicting more accurately where international students will go to pursue higher education has been taken one step forward with the release last week of the Global International Student Flow Forecasting Model pilot project. The British Columbia Council for International Education released the model for use by the Canadian province where international education is a leading export.
Full report on the University World News site:
GLOBAL: Non-stop learning conference
A non-stop 48-hour online conference spanning the globe began at the University of Leicester in the UK on Wednesday, with the focus on innovation in teaching and learning in higher education. The conference, "Learning Futures Festival Online 2011, Follow the sun", covered three countries and three time zones.
Full report on the University World News site:
NEWSBRIEFS
SAUDI ARABIA-UK: New centre to tackle global disease
Wagdy Sawahel
Saudi Arabia is to establish an international training and research centre in Jizan to advance global efforts to control infectious diseases, with the cooperation of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and the Innovative Vector Control Consortium.
Full report on the University World News site:
SWAZILAND: Calm returns to university
Munyaradzi Makoni
The University of Swaziland, forced to close last Tuesday when pro-democratic protests rocked the tiny landlocked Southern African kingdom, has now reopened. Some students reported being coerced by others to participate in the demonstrations.
Full report on the University World News site:
PEOPLE
AUSTRALIA: Six decades to earn a PhD
Geoff Maslen
Melbourne-born Doris LeRoy dropped out of school when she was 14. Now, almost 60 years later, she has been awarded a doctorate - despite battling cancer, enduring hip replacements and suffering the death of her husband.
Full report on the University World News site:
COMMENTARY
INDIA: Foreign universities bill needs to be revised
India is considering a Bill which proposes to regulate the operation of foreign educational institutions. This is all very well, argues KN PANIKKAR, but it also promotes a more globalised form of higher education when education should be dictated by issues around nation building and national identity.
Full report on the University World News site:
UK: Research council slated for bowing to ideology
The UK Arts and Humanities Research Council's latest delivery plan appears to promote government policy and could endanger academic independence, argues GIDEON CALDER. Academics are mobilising to resist any threat to their freedom.
Full report on the University World News site:
UK: The LSE debacle and the role of a university
The furore surrounding the resignation of the head of the London School of Economics should force a rethink about the purpose of an international university, argues ANNE CORBETT. There is a need to return to the basics of what a university is about and guard against becoming what the late Professor Fred Halliday called 'shopping malls of the mind'.
Full report on the University World News site:
ACADEMIC FREEDOM
GLOBAL: Academic freedom reports worldwide
Noemi Bouet*
The Chinese authorities have arrested three Tibetan monks, including a student, in Beijing following a self-immolation protest against Chinese rule in Tibet, and have banned an inter-college debate on the 1911 revolution. In Iran, a human rights lawyer and law professor at Allameh Tabatabaee University in Tehran has been dismissed, and two student activists have been expelled from Baku State University in Azerbaijan. Student anti-government protests have been held in Damascus and at Aleppo University in Syria.
Full report on the University World News site:
FACEBOOK
The Facebook group of University World News is the fastest growing in
higher education worldwide. More than 2,600 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
UK: Universities 'recruiting more foreign students'
Universities are planning a huge increase in foreign students to boost their income following swingeing government funding cuts, it emerged last week, writes Graeme Paton for The Telegraph. Some top institutions want to almost double the number of undergraduates recruited from outside Europe.
More on the University World News site:
US: Foreign graduate student numbers continue to rise
Foreign-student applications to American graduate schools are up 9% over last year, with much of the increase fueled by a double-digit expansion in applications from prospective Chinese students, according to a report released last week, writes Karin Fischer for The Chronicle of Higher Education.
More on the University World News site:
US: Big cuts to international programmes
When a chart of all cuts in the 2011 budget passed by the US congress on Thursday was made public earlier last week, international education advocates received an unpleasant surprise: funding for foreign language and area studies programmes within the Education Department could be cut by as much as $50 million, rolled back to levels last seen before 9/11, writes Libby A Nelson for Inside Higher Ed.
More on the University World News site:
RUSSIA: Foreigners get right to teach in universities
A new law passed on Wednesday allows the employment of foreign experts as teachers at Russian colleges and universities, reports Ria Novosti.
More on the University World News site:
MALAYSIA: Universities must expand internationally
Universities should extend their wings beyond Malaysia's national boundaries by promoting and contributing to regional and international development, said the Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin.
More on the University World News site:
ISRAEL: Colleges approved for state research funding
An unprecedented agreement signed between Israel's finance ministry and representatives from local colleges will, for the first time, allow college staff to receive government funding for research, writes Tomer Velmer for YNetNews. Until now, this has been reserved for universities alone.
More on the University World News site:
PAKISTAN: Petition filed against plan to dissolve HEC
A petition has been filed in the supreme court against the government's plan to dissolve the Higher Education Commission, or HEC, which is widely credited with playing a key role in promoting higher learning in Pakistan, writes Mohsin Ali for Gulf News.
More on the University World News site:
INDIA: Reprieve for 44 deemed universities
India's supreme court on Monday gave a reprieve to the 44 'deemed universities' facing de-recognition on the basis of deficiencies pointed out by the Tandon Committee, writes J Venkatesan for The Hindu. The court extended the status quo order: in other words, it restrained the government from taking further action on the basis of the report.
More on the University World News site:
INDIA-US: Obama-Singh initiative to fly soon
India and the US will take steps to increase collaboration in higher education in the next few months under an initiative announced during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to the US in November 2009, writes Prashant K Nanda for LiveMint.com.
More on the University World News site:
US: California students protest against university cuts
Decrying what they called an assault on higher education, thousands of academics and students at California State University campuses across the state rallied, marched and held teach-ins on Wednesday to protest against steep funding cuts and rising tuition, write Carla Rivera and Larry Gordon for the Los Angeles Times.
More on the University World News site:
US: College loans weigh heavier on graduates
Student loan debt outpaced credit card debt for the first time last year and is likely to top a trillion dollars this year as more students go to college and a growing share borrow money to do so, writes Tamar Lewin for The New York Times.
More on the University World News site:
SOUTH KOREA: KAIST criticised after student suicides
The president of South Korea's top science university is fighting to save his job after a string of student suicides sparked fierce criticism of his controversial reforms and a government audit accused him and other officials at the institution of financial and administrative violations, writes David McNeill for The Chronicle of Higher Education.
More on the University World News site:
SOUTH AFRICA: Student funding chief sacked
The CEO of South Africa's National Student Financial Aid Scheme, suspended after the scheme was given an audit report with a disclaimer, has been fired, writes Caiphus Kgosana for The Sunday Times.
More on the University World News site:
AUSTRALIA: Steps to grow indigenous representation
Indigenous Australians have long been under-represented in their country's universities, but now some institutions are creating leadership posts to help increase the number of indigenous students and academics, writes Liz Gooch for The New York Times.
More on the University World News site:
KOSOVO: Higher education challenges
Kosovo has the lowest higher education attendance in the European Union, writes Muhamet Brajshori for the Southeast European Times. While there are 50 students per 1,000 inhabitants in the EU, Kosovo falls short with just 30 students per 1,000 inhabitants, according to the education ministry.
More on the University World News site:
MOZAMBIQUE: Budget cuts threaten university quality
Mozambique's Education Minister Zeferino Martins has warned that cuts to the budgets of the country's two public universities, Eduardo Mondlane University and the Pedagogical University, will compromise the quality of education in both institutions, reports AllAfrica.com.
More on the University World News site:
In a special report, University World News investigates issues and trends in the global talent trade, where there are growing signs that the world's vibrant economies are starting to attract back domestic graduates who have studied in the West. In People, GEOFF MASLEN interviews 71-year-old Australian Dr Doris LeRoy, who was awarded a PhD recently despite setbacks including cancer, hip replacements and the death of her husband. In Commentary, KN PANIKKAR argues that revisions are needed to India's foreign educational institutions bill, or it could undermine education that promotes nation-building and national identity. In the UK, GIDEON CALDER reports on swelling academic opposition to a research council's plan to direct research towards the government's 'big society' ideology, and ANNE COBETT writes that the Libyan funding debacle at the London School of Economics should force a rethink on the purpose of an international university.
THE TALENT TRADE
There has been a lot of talk about the 'brain drain' phenomenon in higher
education, whereby the brightest students and academics are attracted from East to West and from South to North. But as competition for students and academics has grown in countries such as India and China, there have been reports that this process may be going into reverse. For example a just-published report by the leading business consultancy firm Frost & Sullivan predicts that there will be a steady flow of returning migrants to countries like India to fill vacancies for senior positions - and that they will be joined by Americans and Europeans seeking better prospects.
Universities are already beginning to see this reverse movement and analysts like Peggy Blumenthal and Rajika Bhandari of the Institute for International Education argue that there will be increasing mobility in higher education with 'brain drain' being replaced by 'brain circulation', 'brain exchange' or the 'brain train'. In this special report, University World News investigates this phenomenon and asks whether economic insecurity and rising tuition fees in the West could be factors influencing the talent trade. We also look at migration of the highly educated from Africa and efforts to counter the 'brain drain'.
UK: Fees and unemployment make mobility attractive
Rising tuition fees and youth unemployment plus a competitive market in international higher education are making many UK and other European students look further afield for undergraduate degrees. This could affect the pipeline of future academics, reports HARRIET SWAIN.
Full report on the University World News site:
ASIA: 'Brain reclaim' as talent returns from West
Asian universities are rising and this coincides with a downturn in Western economies. The combination could promote greater internationalisation in higher education, but some fear that it could lead to long-term problems for Western universities which may have to do more to tackle what is being dubbed 'brain reclaim', reports YOJANA SHARMA.
Full report on the University World News site:
US: Reverse brain drain takes off
The brain drain of international students to the US is slowly reversing as more international students opt to return to their home countries and some US students of immigrant parents choose to study abroad. The US may need to adapt its visa policies to compete, but countries in the developing world will also have to ensure they have enough to offer to keep returning students there, reports ALISON MOODIE.
Full report on the University World News site:
ASIA: Getting graduates to come home is not easy
There has been a lot of talk about 'brain exchange' rather than 'brain drain', but brain drain still continues. Countries like China and India have tried a range of programmes to get students to return, but the brightest are still the least likely to return, argue PHILIP G ALTBACH and WANHUA MA in the latest edition of International Higher Education.
Full report on the University World News site:
AFRICA: Limit costs, raise benefits of skills flight
Some 30 million Africans live outside their home countries, and more than a million highly qualified Africans - one in eight - live in an OECD country, a new study by the African Development Bank and the World Bank reveals, reports KAREN MACGREGOR. While migration is a "vital lifeline" for the continent, and is a symptom rather than the root of development problems, governments must act cleverly to limit the costs and maximise the benefits of tertiary-educated migration.
Full report on the University World News site:
AFRICA: Research network project promotes brain gain
UNESCO and Hewlett Packard's Brain Gain Initiative, based on grid computing and academic networks, is fostering research collaboration between universities in the South as well as between African academics in the South and North, write MARC BELLON and LILIANA SIMIONESCU.
Full report on the University World News site:
AFRICA: Harnessing bright minds in the diaspora
The Harambe Entrepreneur Alliance was set up in 2007 and aims to engage African scholars from the diaspora in development initiatives. Set up by students in the US, it is gaining international recognition for its work, say Harambe members CORINA SHIKA KWAMI and ISABELLA AKINSEYE.
Full report on the University World News site:
NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report
UK: Fears over private sector gain from loans hike
Brendan O'Malley
The government has announced plans to extend support and loans to students attending private sector institutions in England, to the same level as for state sector students. But the announcement has stoked fears that private institutions will be able to cherry-pick lucrative courses.
Full report on University World News site:
AUSTRALIA: Likely research cuts trigger alarm
Geoff Maslen
Rarely have Australia's academic and research communities responded so rapidly and vigorously to rumoured threats of a US$400 million cut over the next three years to the major medical funding council. University leaders, education and health unions, medical bodies and science organisations warned of a mass exodus of top scientists if the possible savaging of the National Health and Medical Research Council's budget went ahead.
Full report on the University World News site:
FRANCE: Graduates fare best in recession, says study
Jane Marshall
Three years after completing their higher education in 2007 graduates in France were faring better in the economic crisis than less eduated peers, according to a newly released survey.
Full report on the University World News site:
GERMANY: Plagiarism claims mount for ex-minister
Michael Gardner
With an intensive investigation almost concluded, Bavaria's University of Bayreuth now claims that ex-minister of defence Karl Theodor zu Guttenberg must have copied parts of his doctoral thesis. But zu Guttenberg continues to deny wilful deceit.
Full report on University World News site:
EUROPE: Nazaré elected as next EUA President
Members of the European University Association have elected Professor Maria Helena Nazaré from Portugal as the new president of the organisation that represents more than 800 universities and 34 national rectors' conferences across Europe.
Full report on the University World News site:
CANADA: Tool to predict international student trends
Sarah King Head
Predicting more accurately where international students will go to pursue higher education has been taken one step forward with the release last week of the Global International Student Flow Forecasting Model pilot project. The British Columbia Council for International Education released the model for use by the Canadian province where international education is a leading export.
Full report on the University World News site:
GLOBAL: Non-stop learning conference
A non-stop 48-hour online conference spanning the globe began at the University of Leicester in the UK on Wednesday, with the focus on innovation in teaching and learning in higher education. The conference, "Learning Futures Festival Online 2011, Follow the sun", covered three countries and three time zones.
Full report on the University World News site:
NEWSBRIEFS
SAUDI ARABIA-UK: New centre to tackle global disease
Wagdy Sawahel
Saudi Arabia is to establish an international training and research centre in Jizan to advance global efforts to control infectious diseases, with the cooperation of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and the Innovative Vector Control Consortium.
Full report on the University World News site:
SWAZILAND: Calm returns to university
Munyaradzi Makoni
The University of Swaziland, forced to close last Tuesday when pro-democratic protests rocked the tiny landlocked Southern African kingdom, has now reopened. Some students reported being coerced by others to participate in the demonstrations.
Full report on the University World News site:
PEOPLE
AUSTRALIA: Six decades to earn a PhD
Geoff Maslen
Melbourne-born Doris LeRoy dropped out of school when she was 14. Now, almost 60 years later, she has been awarded a doctorate - despite battling cancer, enduring hip replacements and suffering the death of her husband.
Full report on the University World News site:
COMMENTARY
INDIA: Foreign universities bill needs to be revised
India is considering a Bill which proposes to regulate the operation of foreign educational institutions. This is all very well, argues KN PANIKKAR, but it also promotes a more globalised form of higher education when education should be dictated by issues around nation building and national identity.
Full report on the University World News site:
UK: Research council slated for bowing to ideology
The UK Arts and Humanities Research Council's latest delivery plan appears to promote government policy and could endanger academic independence, argues GIDEON CALDER. Academics are mobilising to resist any threat to their freedom.
Full report on the University World News site:
UK: The LSE debacle and the role of a university
The furore surrounding the resignation of the head of the London School of Economics should force a rethink about the purpose of an international university, argues ANNE CORBETT. There is a need to return to the basics of what a university is about and guard against becoming what the late Professor Fred Halliday called 'shopping malls of the mind'.
Full report on the University World News site:
ACADEMIC FREEDOM
GLOBAL: Academic freedom reports worldwide
Noemi Bouet*
The Chinese authorities have arrested three Tibetan monks, including a student, in Beijing following a self-immolation protest against Chinese rule in Tibet, and have banned an inter-college debate on the 1911 revolution. In Iran, a human rights lawyer and law professor at Allameh Tabatabaee University in Tehran has been dismissed, and two student activists have been expelled from Baku State University in Azerbaijan. Student anti-government protests have been held in Damascus and at Aleppo University in Syria.
Full report on the University World News site:
The Facebook group of University World News is the fastest growing in
higher education worldwide. More than 2,600 readers have joined. Sign up to the University World News Facebook group to meet and communicate directly with academics and researchers informed by the world's first truly global higher education publication. Click on the link below to visit and join the group.
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WORLD ROUND-UP
UK: Universities 'recruiting more foreign students'
Universities are planning a huge increase in foreign students to boost their income following swingeing government funding cuts, it emerged last week, writes Graeme Paton for The Telegraph. Some top institutions want to almost double the number of undergraduates recruited from outside Europe.
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US: Foreign graduate student numbers continue to rise
Foreign-student applications to American graduate schools are up 9% over last year, with much of the increase fueled by a double-digit expansion in applications from prospective Chinese students, according to a report released last week, writes Karin Fischer for The Chronicle of Higher Education.
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US: Big cuts to international programmes
When a chart of all cuts in the 2011 budget passed by the US congress on Thursday was made public earlier last week, international education advocates received an unpleasant surprise: funding for foreign language and area studies programmes within the Education Department could be cut by as much as $50 million, rolled back to levels last seen before 9/11, writes Libby A Nelson for Inside Higher Ed.
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RUSSIA: Foreigners get right to teach in universities
A new law passed on Wednesday allows the employment of foreign experts as teachers at Russian colleges and universities, reports Ria Novosti.
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MALAYSIA: Universities must expand internationally
Universities should extend their wings beyond Malaysia's national boundaries by promoting and contributing to regional and international development, said the Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin.
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ISRAEL: Colleges approved for state research funding
An unprecedented agreement signed between Israel's finance ministry and representatives from local colleges will, for the first time, allow college staff to receive government funding for research, writes Tomer Velmer for YNetNews. Until now, this has been reserved for universities alone.
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PAKISTAN: Petition filed against plan to dissolve HEC
A petition has been filed in the supreme court against the government's plan to dissolve the Higher Education Commission, or HEC, which is widely credited with playing a key role in promoting higher learning in Pakistan, writes Mohsin Ali for Gulf News.
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INDIA: Reprieve for 44 deemed universities
India's supreme court on Monday gave a reprieve to the 44 'deemed universities' facing de-recognition on the basis of deficiencies pointed out by the Tandon Committee, writes J Venkatesan for The Hindu. The court extended the status quo order: in other words, it restrained the government from taking further action on the basis of the report.
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INDIA-US: Obama-Singh initiative to fly soon
India and the US will take steps to increase collaboration in higher education in the next few months under an initiative announced during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to the US in November 2009, writes Prashant K Nanda for LiveMint.com.
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US: California students protest against university cuts
Decrying what they called an assault on higher education, thousands of academics and students at California State University campuses across the state rallied, marched and held teach-ins on Wednesday to protest against steep funding cuts and rising tuition, write Carla Rivera and Larry Gordon for the Los Angeles Times.
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US: College loans weigh heavier on graduates
Student loan debt outpaced credit card debt for the first time last year and is likely to top a trillion dollars this year as more students go to college and a growing share borrow money to do so, writes Tamar Lewin for The New York Times.
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SOUTH KOREA: KAIST criticised after student suicides
The president of South Korea's top science university is fighting to save his job after a string of student suicides sparked fierce criticism of his controversial reforms and a government audit accused him and other officials at the institution of financial and administrative violations, writes David McNeill for The Chronicle of Higher Education.
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SOUTH AFRICA: Student funding chief sacked
The CEO of South Africa's National Student Financial Aid Scheme, suspended after the scheme was given an audit report with a disclaimer, has been fired, writes Caiphus Kgosana for The Sunday Times.
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AUSTRALIA: Steps to grow indigenous representation
Indigenous Australians have long been under-represented in their country's universities, but now some institutions are creating leadership posts to help increase the number of indigenous students and academics, writes Liz Gooch for The New York Times.
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KOSOVO: Higher education challenges
Kosovo has the lowest higher education attendance in the European Union, writes Muhamet Brajshori for the Southeast European Times. While there are 50 students per 1,000 inhabitants in the EU, Kosovo falls short with just 30 students per 1,000 inhabitants, according to the education ministry.
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MOZAMBIQUE: Budget cuts threaten university quality
Mozambique's Education Minister Zeferino Martins has warned that cuts to the budgets of the country's two public universities, Eduardo Mondlane University and the Pedagogical University, will compromise the quality of education in both institutions, reports AllAfrica.com.
More on the University World News site:
Sunday, 10 April 2011
University World News 166 - 10th April 2011
This week's highlights
In Features, ALISON MOODIE writes that nearly 600 universities have signed up so far for the United Nations Academic Impact, and WAGDY SAWAHEL looks at challenges facing higher education in South Sudan which will become a new state in July. In People, PHILIP FINE remembers Ottilia Chareka, an extraordinary Canadian academic who died last month. In Commentary, HANS DE WIT describes nine misconceptions about internationalisation in higher education, JOHN DOUGLASS, RICHARD EDELSTEIN and CECILE HOARAEU report on the sometimes surprising findings of research into where international students choose to study in California, and JANE HEMSLEY-BROWN argues that freeing up the higher education market in England will increase social divisions.
NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report
BRAZIL: US, Europe pursue higher education ties
Tom Hennigan
Brazil and America are set to revive ties in education and research following a meeting last month between Barack Obama and his Brazilian counterpart Dilma Rousseff. The presidents ordered a ministerial-level review of existing bilateral programmes covering higher education exchanges and called for a plan to deepen cooperation. Last week a European commissioner also paid a high-level visit to Brazil to strengthen policy cooperation in higher education, academic exchange and strategic ties with the South American giant.
Full report on the University World News site:
GLOBAL: English proficiency ranking of 44 countries
Yojana Sharma
With countries such as Britain and Australia tightening up on the level of English language skills for international student visas, students in some countries are having to invest a great deal more than others in improving language proficiency.
Full report on the University World News site:
UK: Curb fee hikes or lose places, Cable warns
Brendan O'Malley
Universities that seek to charge the highest possible fees and can't fill places as a result will risk having those places withdrawn permanently, UK Business Secretary Vince Cable warned on Wednesday. Instead they should find ways to offer good value for money, he told a meeting of vice-chancellors and principles.
Full report on the University World News site:
GLOBAL: MIT tops global engineering ranking
Karen MacGregor
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is the top university in the world in engineering and computer sciences, according to the first QS World University Rankings by Subject, published on Tuesday. The next best-performing universities are Stanford and Cambridge.
Full report on the University World News site:
PAKISTAN: University protests against HEC disbanding
Ameen Amjad Khan
Protests by university students and academics erupted last week against the decision by Pakistan's federal government to devolve responsibilities of the Higher Education Commission to provinces, signalling the death throes of the autonomous regulatory body.
Full report on the University World News site:
MALAWI: Academic freedom protests close campuses
Malawian authorities have indefinitely closed two campuses following protests by students and lecturers aimed at pushing for the restoration of academic freedom. The action has seen three academics fired and 17 students arrested.
Full report on the University World News site:
EGYPT: Uncertain future for first research university
Ashraf Khaled
Since long-standing president Hosni Mubarak was toppled in a popular revolt in February, Egypt has been gripped by waves of protests ranging from demands for better wages to the removal of university administrators deemed loyal to the former regime. Now students and academics at Nile University, Egypt's first research university set up in 2007, have taken to the street - but this time, to protect an institution accused of corruption from closure.
Full report on the University World News site:
CHINA: Muslim students offered jobs to avoid uprising
Yojana Sharma
Muslim students in China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region have been promised jobs and university internships in a bid to prevent 'contagion' from uprisings in the Middle East.
Full report on the University World News site:
GERMANY: Baden-Württemberg set to scrap fees
Michael Gardner
Following a Green-Social Democrat victory in elections to the state parliament of Baden-Württemberg, fees will probably be scrapped as early as the next winter semester, leaving two of Germany's 16 federal states, Bavaria and Lower Saxony, with fees. University leaders are looking to the state government to make up the shortfall.
Full report on the University World News site:
GLOBAL: French-speaking universities collaborate
Munyaradzi Makoni
The French language has become a common driver for technological innovation among French-speaking technology universities. Developed world universities have teamed up with Francophone universities, mostly in Africa, in a network for excellence in engineering sciences that officially starts operating this month.
Full report on the University World News site:
KENYA: Declining quality drives students overseas
Gilbert Nganga
Perceived poor quality of university education in Kenya could be pushing students out of the country. A recent survey by Synovate, a consumer research firm, revealed that most Kenyans would prefer to study abroad, where they believe universities guarantee quality learning and are prestigious.
Full report on the University World News site:
NEWSBRIEF
ALGERIA: Bologna "source of student unrest"
University students in Algeria continued their unlimited strike as the new term started last week. The secretary general of the left-wing Parti des Travailleurs, claimed the introduction of Bologna process-style reforms was at the root of the crisis.
Full report on the University World News site:
FEATURES
GLOBAL: Universities sign up for UN Academic Impact
Alison Moodie
For the last six years the United Nations has been pursuing a novel idea: gathering academic research globally into a practical framework. Last November, the idea finally came to fruition when Secretary General Ban Ki Moon launched the UN Academic Impact in New York. So far, nearly 600 universities have signed up to participate, making the initiative one of the fastest-growing cooperative measures of its kind.
Full report on the University World News site:
SOUTH SUDAN: Reforming universities in a new state
Wagdy Sawahel
In an effort to build the emerging independent state of South Sudan on a solid foundation, the government has launched a roadmap in which reforming the country's higher education sector features prominently. Due to open for classes in mid-May, universities in what is one of the world's least developed nations face a host of challenges.
Full report on the University World News site:
PEOPLE
OBITUARY: Generous professor counted herself lucky
Philip Fine
Zimbabwean-born Ottilia Chareka was a rising academic star in Canada, a researcher with a passion for political engagement, a mentor who expected a lot from her students and a role model who helped find new teachers among underrepresented populations.
Full report on the University World News site:
HERANA - Universities and development in Africa
AFRICA: Higher education and democratic citizenship
Formal education in Africa has provided 'democratic dividends', enabling people to make greater use of the news media, obtain information and understanding about politics and thus become more cognitively engaged and critical, according to research. But it is high school, and not higher education, that pays the greatest dividend.
Full report on the University World News site:
COMMENTARY
EUROPE: Misconceptions about internationalisation
Internationalisation in higher education has become mainstream, but there is still a lack of clarity about what this involves. HANS DE WIT describes what he sees as the nine misconceptions about internationalisation.
Full report on the University World News site:
US: Where do international students choose to study?
There is growing world demand from international students, particularly for enrolment in a high-profile state like California with an array of prestigious universities and brand name higher education institutions, write JOHN DOUGLASS, RICHARD EDELSTEIN and CECILE HOARAEU. At the same time, there is a thirst by public universities and colleges to draw in additional revenue, particularly in the light of dwindling government support. But research shows some surprising statistics on where international students choose to study.
Full report on the University World News site:
UK: Higher education market - conflicting messages
Freeing up the market in higher education could increase social inequality, argues JANE HEMSLEY-BROWN. Universities know that higher fee charges equate to better quality education and if this is combined with restrictions on international student numbers, and therefore international fees, it will only increase social divisions.
Full report on the University World News site:
SCIENCE SCENE
UNIVERSE: Fifty years since first human in space
"Circling the Earth in my orbital spaceship I marvelled at the beauty of our planet. People of the world, let us safeguard and enhance this beauty - not destroy it!" said Yuri Gagarin. Tuesday is the 50th anniversary of the first man in space: on 12 April 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to leave Earth and float above the planet. It was a day that saw not only the Vostok 1 spacecraft and its cosmonaut go into orbit but also ramped up the space race between the US and USSR.
Full report on the University World News site:
GLOBAL: Fat men less likely to suffer dementia
New results from a decade-long epidemiological study offer some encouraging news for overweight older men: they are less likely to develop dementia. Men with a body mass index in the overweight category and with high measurements of fat deposits around the waist were less prone to develop dementia compared with their normal weighted peers.
Full report on the University World News site:
GLOBAL: Foreign species not so dominant
Many of the world's ecosystems are dominated by introduced plant species that result in loss of biodiversity and ecosystem function. A common but rarely tested assumption is that these plants are more abundant in introduced rather than their native communities because ecological or evolutionary-based shifts in populations underlie invasion success.
Full report on the University World News site:
BRAZIL: Fossil find has South African links
A fossil of a herbivorous 'reptile' found recently in Brazil has close links to a species discovered at Williston in South Africa's Northern Cape province in 1999. The latest find indicates how the South American and African continents were once part of Gondwana, the southernmost of the two supercontinents.
Full report on the University World News site:
GLOBAL: Paper-based water filter for emergencies
Wagdy Sawahel
Cheap, portable paper-based filters, coated with silver nanoparticles, could be used to produce clean drinking water during disasters such as floods, tsunamis and earthquakes, according to Canadian researchers.
Full report on the University World News site :
FACEBOOK
The Facebook group of University World News is the fastest growing in
higher education worldwide. More than 2,600 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
POLAND: University reform law contested
Poland's higher education system will undergo significant changes if a bill signed into law on 5 April by President Bronisław Komorowski remains on the statute books. The bill is due to enter into force in October but its constitutionality has been called into question, writes Katrarzyna Piasecka for the Warsaw Business Journal.
Full report on the University World News site :
US: Universities monitoring radiation from Japan
The amount of radioactive material reaching the West Coast of the US from Japan's crippled nuclear reactors is dropping off sharply but the information does not come from government agencies. The most complete picture of the isotopes wafting across the Pacific is from university scientists, writes Sandi Doughton in the Seattle Times.
Full report on the University World News site :
TURKEY: Investigation into national exam 'scam'
Turkish prosecutors are investigating allegations of possible cheating and favouritism in the annual university entrance exam sat by 1.7 million students on 27 March. Suspicions were raised this week after a lawyer discovered a formula for correct answers for multiple-choice maths questions on one exam, Suzan Fraser reported for the Associated Press.
Full report on the University World News site :
US: Budget cuts hit universities nationwide
Drastic budget cuts to higher education are forcing public university officials to take unprecedented measures. Proposed solutions across the country range from raising tuition fees by 30% in Pennsylvania to eliminating tenure programmes for professors in North Carolina. Colleges will not find out exactly how much they need to cut until the summer, when state legislatures finalise the budget, reports Elizabeth Johnson for the Daily Tar Heel.
Full report on the University World News site :
US: Public university presidents' pay
Presidents of public universities collected a small raise in pay last year amid budget squeezes at most US universities. As many state legislatures debate double-digit percentage cuts in higher-education funding, presidential pay could become a sensitive subject, writes Kevin Helliker in The Wall Street Journal, commenting on the survey of university presidents pay released by The Chronicle of Higher Education last week.
Full report on the University World News site :
INDIA: Plan to increase vocational education
Vocational students should account for 50% of all tertiary enrolment by 2020 compared to less than 5% now, as the neglected vocational education sector will receive a boost in India's next five-year plan starting in April 2012, writes Basant Kumar Mohanty for The Telegraph.
Full report on the University World News site :
CANADA: China accreditation restored after Tibet row
The University of Calgary is back on China's list of accredited universities more than a year after being removed in the wake of the Dalai Lama's September 2009 visit to the university to receive an honorary doctorate, Clara Ho reports in the Calgary Herald.
Full report on the University World News site :
LATIN AMERICA: Alliance pushes increased university access
The Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas (Alba), brainchild of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez and Cuba's former president Fidel Castro, is expanding its alternative vision of higher education across Latin America. It has supported moves for reform in Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Venezuela, provoking violent street demonstrations and fierce opposition from the university sector, writes Meesha Nehru in Times Higher Education.
Full report on the University World News site :
POLAND: Highest private-sector enrolment in Europe
Poland has the highest private sector university enrolment in Europe, with more than a third of students educated outside the state system. However, with a dip in the Polish birthrate shrinking the number of potential students, competition between the private and state sectors is expected to get sharper, writes Jeevan Vasagar for The Guardian.
Full report on the University World News site :
CZECH REPUBLIC: Huge growth in private students
The number of students at private colleges and universities in the Czech Republic has increased almost 30-fold in the past 10 years, the Czech Statistical Office and the Institute of Education Information said in remarks picked up by the Czech news agency CTK.
Full report on the University World News site :
MALAYSIA: Private colleges struck off
Malaysia's higher education ministry cancelled the setting up of 59 private colleges and deregistered 28 others between 2009 and 2010 over quality issues, the official news agency Bernama reported. Deputy Minister Saifuddin Abdullah said the ministry found that the institutions were unable to provide quality programmes, premises, management, teaching staff, or learning and teaching facilities.
Full report on the University World News site :
VIETNAM-INDONESIA: US to enhance education ties
A trade mission led by the US Department of Commerce's Under Secretary for International Trade Francisco Sanchez and comprising representatives from around 60 US universities and colleges began a trip to two of the fastest-growing markets in Asia, Vietnam and Indonesia, from 2-9 April, the official Saigon Giai Phong newspaper reported.
Full report on the University World News site :
US: College consortia to recruit overseas students
Universities and colleges are forming state-by-state consortia to put themselves on the map for foreign students. Nearly half of all US states now have international education associations to promote both public and private colleges in areas not traditional magnets for overseas students, writes Karin Fischer in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Full report on the University World News site :
GULF: Western institutions 'risk failing'
Western universities in Gulf countries are at risk of failing because of a difficulty in recruiting students and a reliance on outside funding. "There are disturbing stories that suggest that many of the less prestigious institutions are under considerable financial stress," said John Willoughby, an economist at the American University in Washington, James Calderwood reports in The National.
Full report on the University World News site :
In Features, ALISON MOODIE writes that nearly 600 universities have signed up so far for the United Nations Academic Impact, and WAGDY SAWAHEL looks at challenges facing higher education in South Sudan which will become a new state in July. In People, PHILIP FINE remembers Ottilia Chareka, an extraordinary Canadian academic who died last month. In Commentary, HANS DE WIT describes nine misconceptions about internationalisation in higher education, JOHN DOUGLASS, RICHARD EDELSTEIN and CECILE HOARAEU report on the sometimes surprising findings of research into where international students choose to study in California, and JANE HEMSLEY-BROWN argues that freeing up the higher education market in England will increase social divisions.
NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report
BRAZIL: US, Europe pursue higher education ties
Tom Hennigan
Brazil and America are set to revive ties in education and research following a meeting last month between Barack Obama and his Brazilian counterpart Dilma Rousseff. The presidents ordered a ministerial-level review of existing bilateral programmes covering higher education exchanges and called for a plan to deepen cooperation. Last week a European commissioner also paid a high-level visit to Brazil to strengthen policy cooperation in higher education, academic exchange and strategic ties with the South American giant.
Full report on the University World News site:
GLOBAL: English proficiency ranking of 44 countries
Yojana Sharma
With countries such as Britain and Australia tightening up on the level of English language skills for international student visas, students in some countries are having to invest a great deal more than others in improving language proficiency.
Full report on the University World News site:
UK: Curb fee hikes or lose places, Cable warns
Brendan O'Malley
Universities that seek to charge the highest possible fees and can't fill places as a result will risk having those places withdrawn permanently, UK Business Secretary Vince Cable warned on Wednesday. Instead they should find ways to offer good value for money, he told a meeting of vice-chancellors and principles.
Full report on the University World News site:
GLOBAL: MIT tops global engineering ranking
Karen MacGregor
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is the top university in the world in engineering and computer sciences, according to the first QS World University Rankings by Subject, published on Tuesday. The next best-performing universities are Stanford and Cambridge.
Full report on the University World News site:
PAKISTAN: University protests against HEC disbanding
Ameen Amjad Khan
Protests by university students and academics erupted last week against the decision by Pakistan's federal government to devolve responsibilities of the Higher Education Commission to provinces, signalling the death throes of the autonomous regulatory body.
Full report on the University World News site:
MALAWI: Academic freedom protests close campuses
Malawian authorities have indefinitely closed two campuses following protests by students and lecturers aimed at pushing for the restoration of academic freedom. The action has seen three academics fired and 17 students arrested.
Full report on the University World News site:
EGYPT: Uncertain future for first research university
Ashraf Khaled
Since long-standing president Hosni Mubarak was toppled in a popular revolt in February, Egypt has been gripped by waves of protests ranging from demands for better wages to the removal of university administrators deemed loyal to the former regime. Now students and academics at Nile University, Egypt's first research university set up in 2007, have taken to the street - but this time, to protect an institution accused of corruption from closure.
Full report on the University World News site:
CHINA: Muslim students offered jobs to avoid uprising
Yojana Sharma
Muslim students in China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region have been promised jobs and university internships in a bid to prevent 'contagion' from uprisings in the Middle East.
Full report on the University World News site:
GERMANY: Baden-Württemberg set to scrap fees
Michael Gardner
Following a Green-Social Democrat victory in elections to the state parliament of Baden-Württemberg, fees will probably be scrapped as early as the next winter semester, leaving two of Germany's 16 federal states, Bavaria and Lower Saxony, with fees. University leaders are looking to the state government to make up the shortfall.
Full report on the University World News site:
GLOBAL: French-speaking universities collaborate
Munyaradzi Makoni
The French language has become a common driver for technological innovation among French-speaking technology universities. Developed world universities have teamed up with Francophone universities, mostly in Africa, in a network for excellence in engineering sciences that officially starts operating this month.
Full report on the University World News site:
KENYA: Declining quality drives students overseas
Gilbert Nganga
Perceived poor quality of university education in Kenya could be pushing students out of the country. A recent survey by Synovate, a consumer research firm, revealed that most Kenyans would prefer to study abroad, where they believe universities guarantee quality learning and are prestigious.
Full report on the University World News site:
NEWSBRIEF
ALGERIA: Bologna "source of student unrest"
University students in Algeria continued their unlimited strike as the new term started last week. The secretary general of the left-wing Parti des Travailleurs, claimed the introduction of Bologna process-style reforms was at the root of the crisis.
Full report on the University World News site:
FEATURES
GLOBAL: Universities sign up for UN Academic Impact
Alison Moodie
For the last six years the United Nations has been pursuing a novel idea: gathering academic research globally into a practical framework. Last November, the idea finally came to fruition when Secretary General Ban Ki Moon launched the UN Academic Impact in New York. So far, nearly 600 universities have signed up to participate, making the initiative one of the fastest-growing cooperative measures of its kind.
Full report on the University World News site:
SOUTH SUDAN: Reforming universities in a new state
Wagdy Sawahel
In an effort to build the emerging independent state of South Sudan on a solid foundation, the government has launched a roadmap in which reforming the country's higher education sector features prominently. Due to open for classes in mid-May, universities in what is one of the world's least developed nations face a host of challenges.
Full report on the University World News site:
PEOPLE
OBITUARY: Generous professor counted herself lucky
Philip Fine
Zimbabwean-born Ottilia Chareka was a rising academic star in Canada, a researcher with a passion for political engagement, a mentor who expected a lot from her students and a role model who helped find new teachers among underrepresented populations.
Full report on the University World News site:
HERANA - Universities and development in Africa
AFRICA: Higher education and democratic citizenship
Formal education in Africa has provided 'democratic dividends', enabling people to make greater use of the news media, obtain information and understanding about politics and thus become more cognitively engaged and critical, according to research. But it is high school, and not higher education, that pays the greatest dividend.
Full report on the University World News site:
COMMENTARY
EUROPE: Misconceptions about internationalisation
Internationalisation in higher education has become mainstream, but there is still a lack of clarity about what this involves. HANS DE WIT describes what he sees as the nine misconceptions about internationalisation.
Full report on the University World News site:
US: Where do international students choose to study?
There is growing world demand from international students, particularly for enrolment in a high-profile state like California with an array of prestigious universities and brand name higher education institutions, write JOHN DOUGLASS, RICHARD EDELSTEIN and CECILE HOARAEU. At the same time, there is a thirst by public universities and colleges to draw in additional revenue, particularly in the light of dwindling government support. But research shows some surprising statistics on where international students choose to study.
Full report on the University World News site:
UK: Higher education market - conflicting messages
Freeing up the market in higher education could increase social inequality, argues JANE HEMSLEY-BROWN. Universities know that higher fee charges equate to better quality education and if this is combined with restrictions on international student numbers, and therefore international fees, it will only increase social divisions.
Full report on the University World News site:
SCIENCE SCENE
UNIVERSE: Fifty years since first human in space
"Circling the Earth in my orbital spaceship I marvelled at the beauty of our planet. People of the world, let us safeguard and enhance this beauty - not destroy it!" said Yuri Gagarin. Tuesday is the 50th anniversary of the first man in space: on 12 April 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to leave Earth and float above the planet. It was a day that saw not only the Vostok 1 spacecraft and its cosmonaut go into orbit but also ramped up the space race between the US and USSR.
Full report on the University World News site:
GLOBAL: Fat men less likely to suffer dementia
New results from a decade-long epidemiological study offer some encouraging news for overweight older men: they are less likely to develop dementia. Men with a body mass index in the overweight category and with high measurements of fat deposits around the waist were less prone to develop dementia compared with their normal weighted peers.
Full report on the University World News site:
GLOBAL: Foreign species not so dominant
Many of the world's ecosystems are dominated by introduced plant species that result in loss of biodiversity and ecosystem function. A common but rarely tested assumption is that these plants are more abundant in introduced rather than their native communities because ecological or evolutionary-based shifts in populations underlie invasion success.
Full report on the University World News site:
BRAZIL: Fossil find has South African links
A fossil of a herbivorous 'reptile' found recently in Brazil has close links to a species discovered at Williston in South Africa's Northern Cape province in 1999. The latest find indicates how the South American and African continents were once part of Gondwana, the southernmost of the two supercontinents.
Full report on the University World News site:
GLOBAL: Paper-based water filter for emergencies
Wagdy Sawahel
Cheap, portable paper-based filters, coated with silver nanoparticles, could be used to produce clean drinking water during disasters such as floods, tsunamis and earthquakes, according to Canadian researchers.
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WORLD ROUND-UP
POLAND: University reform law contested
Poland's higher education system will undergo significant changes if a bill signed into law on 5 April by President Bronisław Komorowski remains on the statute books. The bill is due to enter into force in October but its constitutionality has been called into question, writes Katrarzyna Piasecka for the Warsaw Business Journal.
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US: Universities monitoring radiation from Japan
The amount of radioactive material reaching the West Coast of the US from Japan's crippled nuclear reactors is dropping off sharply but the information does not come from government agencies. The most complete picture of the isotopes wafting across the Pacific is from university scientists, writes Sandi Doughton in the Seattle Times.
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TURKEY: Investigation into national exam 'scam'
Turkish prosecutors are investigating allegations of possible cheating and favouritism in the annual university entrance exam sat by 1.7 million students on 27 March. Suspicions were raised this week after a lawyer discovered a formula for correct answers for multiple-choice maths questions on one exam, Suzan Fraser reported for the Associated Press.
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US: Budget cuts hit universities nationwide
Drastic budget cuts to higher education are forcing public university officials to take unprecedented measures. Proposed solutions across the country range from raising tuition fees by 30% in Pennsylvania to eliminating tenure programmes for professors in North Carolina. Colleges will not find out exactly how much they need to cut until the summer, when state legislatures finalise the budget, reports Elizabeth Johnson for the Daily Tar Heel.
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US: Public university presidents' pay
Presidents of public universities collected a small raise in pay last year amid budget squeezes at most US universities. As many state legislatures debate double-digit percentage cuts in higher-education funding, presidential pay could become a sensitive subject, writes Kevin Helliker in The Wall Street Journal, commenting on the survey of university presidents pay released by The Chronicle of Higher Education last week.
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INDIA: Plan to increase vocational education
Vocational students should account for 50% of all tertiary enrolment by 2020 compared to less than 5% now, as the neglected vocational education sector will receive a boost in India's next five-year plan starting in April 2012, writes Basant Kumar Mohanty for The Telegraph.
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CANADA: China accreditation restored after Tibet row
The University of Calgary is back on China's list of accredited universities more than a year after being removed in the wake of the Dalai Lama's September 2009 visit to the university to receive an honorary doctorate, Clara Ho reports in the Calgary Herald.
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LATIN AMERICA: Alliance pushes increased university access
The Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas (Alba), brainchild of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez and Cuba's former president Fidel Castro, is expanding its alternative vision of higher education across Latin America. It has supported moves for reform in Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Venezuela, provoking violent street demonstrations and fierce opposition from the university sector, writes Meesha Nehru in Times Higher Education.
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POLAND: Highest private-sector enrolment in Europe
Poland has the highest private sector university enrolment in Europe, with more than a third of students educated outside the state system. However, with a dip in the Polish birthrate shrinking the number of potential students, competition between the private and state sectors is expected to get sharper, writes Jeevan Vasagar for The Guardian.
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CZECH REPUBLIC: Huge growth in private students
The number of students at private colleges and universities in the Czech Republic has increased almost 30-fold in the past 10 years, the Czech Statistical Office and the Institute of Education Information said in remarks picked up by the Czech news agency CTK.
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MALAYSIA: Private colleges struck off
Malaysia's higher education ministry cancelled the setting up of 59 private colleges and deregistered 28 others between 2009 and 2010 over quality issues, the official news agency Bernama reported. Deputy Minister Saifuddin Abdullah said the ministry found that the institutions were unable to provide quality programmes, premises, management, teaching staff, or learning and teaching facilities.
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VIETNAM-INDONESIA: US to enhance education ties
A trade mission led by the US Department of Commerce's Under Secretary for International Trade Francisco Sanchez and comprising representatives from around 60 US universities and colleges began a trip to two of the fastest-growing markets in Asia, Vietnam and Indonesia, from 2-9 April, the official Saigon Giai Phong newspaper reported.
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US: College consortia to recruit overseas students
Universities and colleges are forming state-by-state consortia to put themselves on the map for foreign students. Nearly half of all US states now have international education associations to promote both public and private colleges in areas not traditional magnets for overseas students, writes Karin Fischer in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
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GULF: Western institutions 'risk failing'
Western universities in Gulf countries are at risk of failing because of a difficulty in recruiting students and a reliance on outside funding. "There are disturbing stories that suggest that many of the less prestigious institutions are under considerable financial stress," said John Willoughby, an economist at the American University in Washington, James Calderwood reports in The National.
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