University World News Africa Edition

FINLAND: Technology students say they work too hard

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 07:56:04 +0200

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 wo...

RUSSIA: Freak weather spurs climate research

Sun, 15 Aug 2010 09:43:02 +0200

Russia's extreme summer weather is prompting the country's top scientists to take climate change more seriously. A record-breaking heat wave, hundreds of forest and peat bog fires, and smoke-induce...

EUROPE: Three-legged dogs needed for robot research

Sun, 15 Aug 2010 08:17:39 +0200

European scientists are looking for three-legged dogs to support a E...

CANADA: Universities receive health research funding

Sun, 15 Aug 2010 08:24:42 +0200

The Canadian government has announced a major $13 million (US$12.5 million) investment in healthcare-related studies in 12 universities across the country. One example is funding of $1.7 million fr...

EUROPE: Outer Space research seeks US partners

Sun, 15 Aug 2010 08:27:39 +0200

The European Union has called on American universities, research lab...

GREECE: Glory of the Greek language

Sun, 15 Aug 2010 08:32:07 +0200

Greece is not currently popular in European financial circles. But t...

INDIA: Higher education opportunities lure back talent

Sun, 15 Aug 2010 08:33:41 +0200

More young Indians are giving up fat pay packets in companies abroad...

RUSSIA: Government seeks academic staff skills boost

Sun, 15 Aug 2010 08:41:05 +0200

The Russian government, unhappy with the current skill levels of university professors and teachers, is planning to improve the proficiency of academics by encouraging their more active engagement ...

IRELAND: Big investment boost for research

Sun, 15 Aug 2010 08:42:18 +0200

The largest research investment plan in the history of the Republic ...

CANADA: Government axes more data collection

Sun, 15 Aug 2010 08:43:33 +0200

The Canadian government is again under fire, as it appears to be furt...

TAIWAN: Top students head for China

Sun, 15 Aug 2010 08:44:48 +0200

A group of top Taiwanese students will head for leading universities in China this September, even though a bill to recognise their China-accredited degrees when they return home is stalled in the ...

GLOBAL: Work begins on OECD student assessment

Sun, 15 Aug 2010 08:48:30 +0200

The Australian Council for Educational Research has been assessing h...

GLOBAL: US lead slips in world's top 100 universities

Sun, 15 Aug 2010 08:49:58 +0200

American universities continued to lead the latest Academic Ranking of World Universities, but US dominance of the global top 100 list compiled by China's Shanghai Jiao Tong University slipped this...

CHINA: State aid for students up 18% last year

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 07:31:05 +0200

China spent 34.72 billion yuan (US$5.1 billion) on financial aid for college students last year, up 18.21% from the previous year, a Ministry of Education official has revealed, reports the officia...

FINLAND: Technology students say they work too hard

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 07:56:04 +0200

US-POLAND: Original mother lived 200,000 years ago

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 07:57:35 +0200

After considering the results of 10 different genetic models, Polish and US researchers say the maternal ancestor of all living humans lived 200,000 years ago. The models used by scientists at Rice...

NORWAY: Drinking wine can be good for the brain

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 07:58:52 +0200

At last, the news tipplers around the world have been waiting for - ...

AUSTRALIA: Fossil find pushes back biological clock

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 08:00:13 +0200

US scientists working in Australia may have found the oldest fossils ...

GLOBAL: Higher education in a world changed utterly

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 08:01:24 +0200

Universities are at the sharp end of the global financial crisis, of...

RWANDA: Building research capacity from within

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 09:05:16 +0200

The Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa, CARTA, aims to foster multidisciplinary research capacity in population and public health by teaming African universities, African research ...

SOUTH AFRICA: Decline in PhD numbers a major problem

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 09:25:36 +0200

South Africa's inability to produce enough doctoral graduates to bui...

ETHIOPIA: Expanding and improving higher education

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 09:09:03 +0200

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 t...

GLOBAL: University rankings - It's about jobs, stupid!

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 08:15:00 +0200

International study has been one of the global phenomena of the curr...

AUSTRALIA: The perils of commercialism

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 08:23:00 +0200

More than two decades ago, the Australian government decided that in...

CAMEROON: Fraudulent diplomas exposed

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 09:00:26 +0200

The commission in Cameroon responsible for assessing higher education qualifications issued abroad has exposed more than 300 cases of fraudulent diplomas, reported ...

SWEDEN: Lund reviews foreign student admissions

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 08:30:00 +0200

Lund University has unilaterally decided to change its admission proc...

GERMANY: Programme to boost international doctorates

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 08:33:40 +0200

Germany has started a new programme to attract more excellent postgr...

INDIA-UK: New student visa requirements restrictive

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 08:35:13 +0200

Although Britain this month ended a six-month suspension of issuing student visas in India, Nepal and Bangladesh, it has tightened student visa rules to include new language requirements. Many over...

UK: Record scramble for university places

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 08:37:48 +0200

As A-level exam results were announced last Thursday, it was predicted that some 200,000 young people might fail to get into a UK university out of the record number of 660,000 who applied this yea...

PERU-BOLIVIA: Indigenous universities gain foothold

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 08:40:06 +0200

The first higher education institution for Peru's indigenous population, the Aymara, will soon become a reality. In May the Peruvian national congress' Education Commission approved a proposal to c...

INDIA: Loan subsidy scheme fails students

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 08:43:20 +0200

India's much-touted education loan guarantee scheme seems to have fa...

THAILAND: Close watch on students' 'political' plays

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 08:45:00 +0200

After censoring the news media and internet in the wake of the May c...

EGYPT: Universities to scrap textbooks and go digital

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 09:27:50 +0200

To many academics and students in Egypt, Minister of Higher Educatio...

SAUDI ARABIA: Rapid growth for universities

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 08:49:02 +0200

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 ...

GLOBAL: University spending key to recovery - OECD

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 08:53:00 +0200

Public spending on universities should be maintained where possible ...

ALGERIA: Students determined to study in Algiers

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 09:03:53 +0200

New students from areas of Algeria's interior have been enrolling for German and other subjects they have never learnt at school because they want to attend university in Algiers, according to ...

UK-AFRICA: New guide to higher education partnerships

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 09:07:23 +0200

North-South partnerships between educational institutions are viewed as an important way in which the human and institutional capacity of African universities can be improved. But building and main...

NAMIBIA: Team to research drug-resistant malaria

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 09:11:00 +0200

The University of Namibia has pulled together a multi-disciplinary t...

ZAMBIA: Spotlight on education and health research

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 09:13:31 +0200

In recent updates to parliament, lawmakers heard of plans to strengt...

NIGERIA: Oversea seminars for legislators slammed

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 09:15:05 +0200

Academics at Nigerian universities have once again condemned the use...

KENYA: Call for 'tribal' vice-chancellors to be moved

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 09:20:34 +0200

A body formed to help curb ethnicity and boost cohesion in Kenya in ...

INDIA: Expert panel to prove university autonomy

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 09:30:51 +0200

India's Human Resource Development Ministry has set up a high-powered committee, under legal expert NR Madhava Menon to come with a comprehensive policy on the issue of autonomy for higher educatio...

US: Ups and downs in foreign graduate admissions

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 09:33:33 +0200

Admissions offers by American graduate schools to international applicants increased by 3% from 2009 to 2010, reversing a 1% decline the previous year, according to a report released last week by t...

US: Abandoning an digital publishing experiment

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 09:36:58 +0200

Rice University Press is being shut down next month, ending an experiment in an all-digital model of scholarly publishing, writes Scott Jaschik for Inside Higher Ed. Whi...

POLAND: Empty university degrees

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 09:40:14 +0200

There is a revolution brewing in Polish higher education as universities grapple with wrenching demographic changes as well as trying to figure out how to train students for advanced degrees while ...

ISRAEL: Plan to raise state funding for higher education

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 09:45:18 +0200

The Council for Higher Education last week presented a plan designed to reform Israeli higher education, write Lior Dattel and Moti Bassok for Haaretz. It calls for an a...

INDIA-AFRICA: Phase-II of e-network project launched

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 09:50:47 +0200

India has launched the second phase of the pan-Africa e-network, adding 12 more countries to the New Delhi-aided long distance education and tele-medicine programme, reports In...

CHINA: Paper check system created to prevent plagiarism

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 09:52:45 +0200

A university term paper checking system has been developed in China by its second largest computer producer, TsinghuaTongfang, to prevent plagiarism among college students, the Beijing-based ...

CANADA: New ways used to help students find roommates

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 09:55:43 +0200

Connie Wang had two stipulations as she interviewed potential roommates ahead of the school year - they must understand that she is loud, and they must also love "Glee", the hit musical television ...

ISRAEL: University defies right-wing boycott threat

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 10:00:30 +0200

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 a...

GLOBAL: Shanghai rankings: Shifting research landscape

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 10:06:17 +0200

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 ...

AFRICA: Continent-wide space agency being considered

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 10:47:00 +0200

Africa is a step closer to setting up its own space agency, with the ...