
Floods in Pakistan drown out a fake degrees scandal. See the News section. |

A 400 page, 10 chapter publication from Unesco describes the social sciences and the role which they play in society. See our Special Report. |

The Second Life avatar of the University of Western Australia's School of Physics manager Jay Jay Jegathesan, with avatar quadrapop Lane, at the university's campus in Second Life. See the Business section. |
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University World News is a media partner to the OECD's
Institutional Management in Higher Education conference in Paris in September
2010. The newspaper was also media partner to the Unesco World Conference on
Higher Education in July 2009.
This week's highlights
The state of the social sciences around the world comes under the spotlight
this week in a series of articles on the World Social Sciences Report
2010 by GEOFF MASLEN, who also ponders the implications for
universities of the Australian election. In the Commentary section,
JOHN HIGGINS reports on an academic freedom lecture by Oxford
historian Professor Robin Briggs and MICHINARI HAMAGUCHI,
President of Nagoya University, describes Japan’s plans to attract foreign
students and internationalise 13 top universities.
BREAKING NEWS
| SINGAPORE: New Universities Trust to ensure funding |
| Yojana Sharma |
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Singapore will set up a national endowment fund known as the Singapore Universities Trust to support higher education institutions through economic downturns, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced during his annual National Day Rally speech this week.
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| AUSTRALIA: Plunging visa numbers threaten universities |
| Geoff Maslen |
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Visa applications from foreign students to study in Australian universities have dropped by 15,500, almost 12%, over the past 12 months, according to figures just released by the Department of Immigration.
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NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report
| TAIWAN: Way clear for Chinese students next year |
| Yojana Sharma |
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Students from Mainland China will not arrive at Taiwanese universities before 2011 even though hotly disputed legislation allowing the admission of mainland Chinese finally cleared Taiwan's parliament, the Legislative Yuan, on 19 August.
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| PAKISTAN: Flood drowns out fake degrees scandal |
| Zofeen T Ebrahim |
 As Pakistan's Election Commission began its first hearings into parliamentarians' fake degrees last week some feared the scandal had been pushed out of the limelight by the devastating floods. Nonetheless, the degree debacle is straining the credibility of the country's higher education and election systems.
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| FRANCE: Students face sharp cost increases |
| Jane Marshall |
 French President Nicolas Sarkozy has cancelled an austerity measure that would have penalised parents who subsidise their student children's accommodation. He made the announcement after warnings from two leading organisations representing students' interests that students were facing sharp increases in costs both as they enrolled for the 2010-11 academic year and during the course of their studies.
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| SOUTH AFICA: Minister backs media-gagging proposals |
| Alison Moodie |
 Two proposed media laws aimed at gagging South Africa's press have drawn both support and ire from the country's higher education leaders. Minister of Higher Education and Training Dr Blade Nzimande has backed a planned media tribunal, while a vice-chancellor has slammed the proposed legislation as trampling on academic freedom.
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| INDIA: UK attracts more Indian students than the US |
| Alya Mishra |
 Despite visa restrictions the United Kingdom remains the top foreign destination for Indian students. According to data available for 2010, almost twice the number of Indian students who applied to study higher education abroad chose colleges in the UK over the United States.
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| IRELAND: Hackers overload central applications site |
| John Walshe |
 An investigation is getting underway into a series of malicious attacks on the Central Applications Office website. The CAO processes applications and offers of places for all universities, institutes of technology, colleges of education and other third level institutions in Ireland.
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| DENMARK: Students plan autumn 'austerity' protests |
| Jan Petter Myklebust |
 Danish universities are likely to be hit hard by austerity measures for 2011-13 announced by the government and opposition parties - and students are preparing for more protests in the autumn. Internationalisation and proposals for creation of a world-class university are just politicians' hot air, Copenhagen University Rector Ralf Hemmingsen said.
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| KENYA: Universities to admit extra students |
| Gilbert Nganga |
 Kenya's public universities, long plagued by an admissions crisis, will this year admit 4,000 extra students to clear a backlog that has for decades forced students to wait for up to two years after high school to enter public higher education.
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SPECIAL REPORT
“Never before have there been so many social scientists in the world – many
more than the 200,000 population of Margaret Mead’s famous Samoa. Never
before have the social sciences been so influential,” writes Gudmund Hernes,
President of the International Social Science Council, in the preface to the
World Social Science Report 2010: Knowledge divides. Published by
Unesco, the 400-page report has 10 chapters covering a wide range of issues
confronting the social sciences and their role in countries across all
continents.
In a foreword Irina Bokova, Unesco Director-General, says the report is the
first “thorough overview of this important field in more than a decade” and
is the result of the work of hundreds of professional social scientists.
Bokova says Unesco, “with its emphasis on the management of social
transformation”, is concerned that the social sciences should be put to use
to improve human well-being and to respond to global challenges.
The following articles by GEOFF MASLEN are drawn from various
chapters in the report.
| GLOBAL: Worlds apart but on same map? |
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In spite of the impact social scientists have had around the world, Gudmund Hernes says humans face crises that tax their understanding and their capacity to cope. The President of the International Social Science Council describes the influence of social science as a "mixed blessing" and says social scientists' foresight has been poor at key junctures in recent times.
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| GLOBAL: Social sciences brain drain or gain? |
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Social scientists migrate from the main academic centres to the periphery to teach, export their skills or do research and gather data. In the opposite direction, talented young social scientists tend to leave a peripheral position to go to academic centres to be trained or work with the most eminent scholars, says Laurent Jeanpierre, a professor of political science at the University of Paris-8 Saint-Denis.
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| ARAB REGION: Academic freedom curtailed |
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The social sciences in the Arab region are shaped by severe socio-political, economic and environmental challenges, instability and by diverse and divergent research policies, agendas and funding programmes at the national and regional levels, say Seteney Shami and Moushira Elgeziri.
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| AFRICA: Social science under-resourced but resilient |
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The social sciences in Sub-Saharan Africa are seriously under-resourced but determined, says Johann Mouton, Director of the Centre for Research on Science and Technology and head of the African Doctoral Academy at Stellenbosch University in South Africa.
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| AFRICA: Charting the decline of social sciences |
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The all-round expansion that characterised African higher education in general, and the social sciences in particular, during the 1960s was interrupted at the end of the 1970s as African countries began to slide into a prolonged economic crisis, says Dr Adebayo Olukoshi, Director of the UN African Institute for Economic Development and Planning.
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| NORTH AMERICA: Social research too inward-looking |
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The most distinctive feature of North American social science, besides its size, is the extent of the investment made in time, facilities, training and incentives for research since the Second World War, says Craig Calhoun, President of the US Social Science Research Council and a social sciences professor at New York University.
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| LATIN AMERICA: Rise of the social sciences |
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Universities are crucial actors in the evolution of the social sciences in Latin America, say Hebe Vessuri, head of the Venezuelan Institute of Scientific Research's Center on Science Studies, and Maria Sonsiré López who also works at the centre in Caracas.
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| GLOBAL: Social science and rankings |
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The number of social science publications in international journals is much lower than those for the natural sciences and medicine. So the natural sciences and the medical fields dominate university rankings while the strength of universities' social sciences scarcely contributes to their position, says Anthony FJ van Raan, a professor of science studies and Director of the Centre for Science and Technology Studies at Leiden University.
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COMMENTARY
| UK: Challenging ruling mantras of higher education |
| John Higgins* |
 There is a special kind of British humour that is very good at locating the absurd in everyday life. It draws our attention to much of what we take for granted just by tone of voice or the raising of an eyebrow. Either of these can be enough to effectively place scare quotes around a cliché; or draw our critical attention to something, and make us laugh at the sudden absurdity of what once seemed authoritative.
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| JAPAN: Top universities sharpen international focus |
| Michinari Hamaguchi* |
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Japanese society is undergoing transformative changes amidst a wave of IT growth and globalisation. Even the 'once-in-a-century' recession of two years ago seems merely a ripple in this massive swell. The world is fused together with a unifying economic system and the speed of change has accelerated dramatically.
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FEATURE
ACADEMIC FREEDOM
| IRAN: Detention of student union leaders |
| Roisin Joyce* |
 Two members of the Central Council of Advar-e Tahkim Vahdat, a representative body of Islamic student associations in Iran, have been detained by Iranian security forces, Advar News reported on 22 August.
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BUSINESS
| EUROPE: Universities heighten virtual reality |
| Cayley Dobie |
 Researchers from nine European universities are developing more interactive virtual reality technology that goes beyond simple sight and sound and takes users into a world where digital movements and surroundings can actually be felt.
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| AUSTRALIA: Strangers help university succeed, virtually |
| Cayley Dobie |
 An Australian university has been inspired to develop its virtual world services, by unknown digital 'avatars' operated by computer users outside its walls. The University of Western Australia calls these helpers 'angels' and they have assisted it to develop a presence on virtual world Second Life.
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FACEBOOK
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WORLD ROUND-UP
| IRAN: New crackdown on universities |
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The Iranian government has said it will restrict the number of students admitted to humanities programmes at universities, Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty's Radio Farda reports. The announcement was made on 25 August by Abolfazl Hassani, director of the government's Office of Development of Higher Education.
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| ISRAEL: Professors protest 'political pressures' |
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Israeli professors representing the faculties of all of Israel's seven research universities have publicly denounced "political pressures brought to bear on universities recently, which are tantamount to blatant interference in academic freedom", writes Matthew Kalman for The Chronicle of Higher Education.
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| CHINA: Phd quantity surpasses quality |
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With a rapid increase in the number of Chinese graduates enrolling in PhD programmes in the past decade, it seems the quality of education doctoral students receive is falling short, writes He Dan for the official agency Xinhua.
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| ASIA: Regional universities agree on network deal |
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Eleven universities in Cambodia, Laos and Viet Nam signed an agreement last week during a University Presidents' Conference in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, to develop a collaborative network in the region, reports Viet Nam News.
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| AUSTRALIA: Latin American students wooed |
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During the past six years, Australia has had rapid success in recruiting students from a relatively new market: Latin America, writes Janaki Kremmer for The Chronicle of Higher Education. Since 2004, enrolment of students from the region has risen from 7,000 to 34,000.
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| UK: Students fuel rise in immigration |
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Official statistics show that a surge in the number of foreign students studying in the UK helped drive up net migration by 20% last year, reports Channel 4 News.
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| UK: Study questions science-economic growth link |
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An academic believes he has found evidence to refute the argument that increased university provision of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (Stem) subjects is needed to aid the economy, writes John Morgan for Inside Higher Ed.
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| NIGERIA: Retirement age for professors rises to 70 |
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Professors will now stay longer in universities after Nigeria's federal government pushed back the national mandatory retirement age from 65 to 70, reports Next. Non-academic staff also received a further five years after the government increased their retirement age to 65.
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| MOZAMBIQUE: New regulations for higher education |
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The Mozambican government has approved new regulations on the licensing and functioning of higher education institutions which collectively deal with more than 70,000 students, reports AllAfrica.com.
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University World News is an online global higher education publication focusing on international higher education news and analysis, developments, events and announcements.
Issues covered by our world class writers include, among many other areas: international university rankings and league tables; globalisation and higher education research and analysis; international students; tertiary education systems, policies and reforms; higher education funding and liberalisation; academic posts and tenure; college accreditation; English language tuition; GATS and the Bologna Process. We are also working to highlight academic job opportunities, new academic posts, conferences and events, research grants, research jobs and further education news.
University World News is read by vice-chancellors and their deputies, professors and university managers, lecturers, higher education researchers and postgraduate students at universities and colleges worldwide, as well as by government policy-makers and officials and people working in higher education funding and advisory bodies, research councils, think tanks, donor agencies, and national and international organisations.
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UNI-LATERAL
| FINLAND: Technology students say they work too hard |
| Ian R Dobson* |
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Some students at a super-university in Finland have claimed they have to work harder to gain the same credits as others. Aalto University is the product of a three-way merger aimed at creating a world-class university. But students from a former technical university feel that social science students have an easier ride.
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Top stories from last week's edition
| GLOBAL: University spending key to recovery - OECD |
| David Jobbins |
 Public spending on universities should be maintained where possible as countries seek a road out of the consequences of the global financial crisis, Richard Yelland, head of the OECD's Education Management and Infrastructure Division, told University World News this week. He said the crisis did not change universities' responsibility to use resources efficiently - but "makes it more urgent".
More in the UWN Interview section below
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| SAUDI ARABIA: Rapid growth for universities |
| Wagdy Sawahel |
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Saudi Arabia has announced plans to continue the rapid expansion of higher education as part of its ninth five-year development plan, for 2010-14. A nearly quarter billion dollar annual investment in science and technology research will help strengthen the country's growing international position in innovation capacity.
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| EGYPT: Universities to scrap textbooks and go digital |
| Ashraf Khaled |
 To many academics and students in Egypt, Minister of Higher Education Hani Hilal is the minister of controversy. Months ago, citing security concerns, he banned female students wearing the niqab (full-face veil) from staying in low-cost dormitories or sitting exams. He triggered another uproar when he decided not to build new law schools, saying that the country already had sufficient. His latest controversial decision is to ban the use of textbooks.
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| ISRAEL: University defies right-wing boycott threat |
| Helena Flusfeder |
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The President of Ben-Gurion University of Negev has pledged to ignore threats by a right-wing political group to incite a boycott by international and other donors if staff and curriculum changes are not made. "We should never surrender to these pressures," said Professor Rivka Carmi.
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| THAILAND: Close watch on students' 'political' plays |
| Yojana Sharma |
 After censoring the news media and internet in the wake of the May crackdown, the Thai government has turned its sights on campus plays for signs of political dissent. Seemingly innocuous and entertaining amateur dramatics by students have come under scrutiny by the nervous authorities, who fear they may contain seditious ideas or affect national security.
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| GLOBAL: University rankings - It's about jobs, stupid! |
| John O’Leary* |
 International study has been one of the global phenomena of the current millennium. The numbers going abroad to university have jumped from fewer than two million in 2000 to more than three million this year. Until now, most of the traffic has been from Asia to Western universities, but there may be a new direction of travel this year, as students squeezed out of British and American universities look overseas in much larger numbers.
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| GLOBAL: Shanghai rankings: Shifting research landscape |
| Richard Holmes* |
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In recent years, something like a small-scale industry has developed with commentators earnestly trying to read long-term trends into the rise and fall of various universities in the former THE-QS rankings. Such efforts have been largely futile.
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| AUSTRALIA: The perils of commercialism |
| Philip G Altbach and Anthony Welch* |
 More than two decades ago, the Australian government decided that international higher education should become an industry; since then it has become a major income producer for the nation. The higher education sector was motivated to make money from international education by government budget cuts, with revenue to be made up largely by entrepreneurial international activity.
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| ETHIOPIA: Expanding and improving higher education |
| Kate Ashcroft* |
Ethiopia is radically expanding its higher education sector: from two federal universities to 22 in just over a decade and another 10 to open soon. Even so, the percentage of the available cohort that attends higher education is still low at about 3%, compared with a Sub-Saharan average in 2007 of 6%, according to Unesco. The huge expansion of student numbers is mainly in new regional universities and a vibrant private system.
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| SOUTH AFRICA: Decline in PhD numbers a major problem |
| Sharon Dell |
 South Africa's inability to produce enough doctoral graduates to build the 'knowledge economy' it aspires to, or simply to replace the existing cohort of academics in the higher education system, is a challenge widely acknowledged by government departments, their agencies and universities. But fixing the problem is a lot harder.
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| GLOBAL: Higher education in a world changed utterly |
| David Jobbins |
 Universities are at the sharp end of the global financial crisis, often facing draconian budget cuts and demands from governments to provide the workforce that will drive the route out of recession. Next month the OECD's programme on Institutional Management in Higher Education holds its general conference in Paris, titled Higher Education in a World Changed Utterly: Doing more with less. Here, the OECD's Richard Yelland discusses the thinking behind the conference and the issues likely to frame the discussions.
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| NORWAY: Drinking wine can be good for the brain |
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 At last, the news tipplers around the world have been waiting for - moderate drinking has been associated with good test scores. But the rider is that moderate drinking is probably an indicator of other good lifestyle habits that help people's brains perform well.
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