Thirteen academics who were sacked for going on strike three years ago are battling to be reinstated and have lodged a US$46 million claim for unfair dismissal against their former employer, Zimbabwe's Solusi University.SOUTH AFRICA
South Africa's Department of Science and Technology has awarded five universities chairs in astronomy to bolster the country's bid to host the world's most powerful telescope - the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) - and to boost research and science and engineering skills. The universities of Cape Town, Stellenbosch, Rhodes, Witwatersrand and the Western Cape are searching for internationally recognised researchers to take up the positions.
NIGERIA
Banks in Nigeria, hit hard by the recession, have been rationalising staff and telling graduates to accept a pay cut or be replaced. They have begun recruiting non-university graduates, especially holders of polytechnic diplomas, but trade unions have threatened industrial action if graduate salaries are reduced.
AUSTRALIA
Although Professor Ed Byrne only took up the post as Monash University's eighth vice-chancellor in July, he has twice visited its South African offshoot in Johannesburg and is convinced it will come to be seen as "the jewel in the Monash crown".AUSTRALIA
In a first for Australia, trainee teachers at Monash University completed a teaching round in schools in South Africa. A few minutes drive from Monash University's campus in Johannesburg is a shanty town with 60,000 impoverished people whose children attend a local primary school that uses shipping containers as classrooms.CONGO
Democratic Republic of Congo Higher Education Minister Léonard Mashako Mamba met student representatives in Kinshasa to talk about the country's higher education and his vision of how it should be, and to advise them to stick up for their rights during negotiations with university managements.
AFRICA
Horizons Francophones, an experimental programme of the Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie or AUF, aims to build the professorial corps of West and Central Africa's universities, and help to increase their numbers of PhDs.
AFRICA
African higher education must move towards "supranational management" to prepare for a United States of Africa, said Professor Lansana Konaté during a debate at the University Cheikh Anta Diop of Dakar in Senegal. Participants expressed negative views concerning recent reforms on the continent, such as introduction of qualifications from abroad and exclusion of women.
Five out of 10 shortlisted universities - two from each of the five United Nations regions - were named winners this month of the first World Human Rights Moot Court held at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. The winning universities were from Brazil, Egypt, India, Switzerland and Ukraine.
SOUTH AFRICA
State funding for universities in South Africa is expected to rise over three years from R15.3 billion in the 2008-09 financial year to R21.3 billion (US$2.9 billion) in 2011-12, Higher Education and Training Minister Dr Blade Nzimande said last week. He outlined a cluster of impending changes, including reviews of the funding framework and of student housing.
UNITED KINGDOM
Is belief in global-warming science another example of the 'madness of crowds'? asks Martin Cohen, editor of The Philosopher and an environmental activist, in Times Higher Education. That strange but powerful social phenomenon, first described by Charles Mackay in 1841, turns a widely shared prejudice into an irresistible 'authority'. Could it indeed represent the final triumph of irrationality?
SOMALIA
A bomb attack has killed 23 people, including students, graduates and three cabinet ministers -- among them Minister for Higher Education Ibrahim Hassan Adow -- at a graduation ceremony in the capital Mogadishu.
A top politician has been arrested after criticising Malawian President Bingu wa Mutharika for allegedly promoting tribalism by championing a controversial university quota system.
NIGERIA
After months of negotiations, the Nigerian government has agreed to allow British universities to establish campuses within selected local higher education institutions. The aim is to enable students to obtain British degrees without leaving the country and to open higher education opportunities for young people who qualify for university but are unable to access the limited places in Nigeria's 93 public and private universities.SOUTH AFRICA
South Africa's goal of raising its research and development expenditure to 1% of gross domestic product by next year might not be achieved. Figures released last week showed that while R&D spending grew in volume by nearly 13% in 2007-08, it dropped from 0.95% to 0.93% of GDP - the first decline since 2002.AFRICA
The ability of African universities to undertake in-depth research is often hampered by lack of appropriate technology. Now institutions are benefiting from Seeding Labs, a non-profit US-based organisation that works with universities and companies to provide second-hand laboratory equipment in good condition for the developing world.
EGYPT
A decision by Ain Shams University in Cairo, Egypt's second biggest public higher education institution, to abolish the faculty of specific education has angered its academics who are fighting the move in court, and raised fears among lecturers at other government-run universities.
MOROCCO
Morocco has launched a four-year US$1.7 billion emergency plan to overhaul its education system. This includes reforming universities in an effort to boost the country's science and technology workforce and promote knowledge-based sustainable development.
More than ever before, intellectuals are more likely to be found outside rather than inside the South African university. The transition from legal apartheid to a young constitutional democracy created major dilemmas for the anti-apartheid intellectual.This is a chapter from Poverty of Ideas: South African Democracy and the Retreat of Intellectuals.
SOUTH AFRICA
Last month, archivists and academics joined forces to ensure South Africa's archives receive the attention they deserve. Funding and political will are vital are needed.AFRICA
An African Observatory on Science, Technology and Innovation is to be established. For the first time Africa will have a facility to monitor scientific and technological development that will be the continent's central repository for S&T statistics and the main source of policy advice for bodies such as the African Ministerial Council for Science and Technology.
CHINA
China and 49 African countries have agreed on a three-year action plan for establishing strategic partnerships in science and technology as well as higher education to promote knowledge-based sustainable development. The plan was announced earlier this month at the Fourth Ministerial Conference of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt.
ZIMBABWE
Zimbabwean students have resorted to bartering to pay fees because of critical foreign currency shortages, according to a report by the country's Comptroller and Auditor General Mildred Chiri. Some students have settled payments using groceries, livestock and other valuables instead of cash.
BENIN
After four years steady growth in the private tertiary education sector, Benin now has 15 private institutions. Many are affiliated to universities in France, Belgium and Canada, and there are plans to set up satellite campuses of European universities in the West African nation.
NAMIBIA
The first Vice-chancellors and Rectors Forum for Namibia has been established. Chair of the forum and Vice-chancellor of the University of Namibia, Professor Lazarus Hangula, said it created a framework for tertiary education in Namibia to consult, collaborate and share resources.
