Mutual recognition of degrees in Europe and Asia would help balance the flow of students between the two regions, a conference of education ministers from 38 European and Asian countries was told. The feasibility of a Europe-Asia Convention on recognition was a key discussion at the event.
NEW ZEALAND
For the second year running, New Zealand’s government has frozen subsidies for public tertiary institutions and found new ways to restrict spending on student loans and allowances. It has also threatened to arrest students seriously in default if they enter or leave the country.
SOUTH AFRICA
Cyril Karabus, an emeritus professor at the University of Cape Town, is happily back home in South Africa after a nine-month ordeal in Abu Dhabi. He has been released from prison, cleared of criminal misconduct, and had his bail money returned and his name deleted from a database of fugitives.
GLOBAL
A scheme that could see cities around the world aspiring to the title of Learning Cities is to be launched by UNESCO in October.
UNITED STATES
American public higher education's million-dollar club just got bigger. Four public college presidents earned more than $1million in 2011-12, up from three presidents a year earlier, a Chronicle analysis has found. The median total compensation for public college leaders rose to $441,392, an increase of 4.7% on 2010-11.
AFRICA
Twelve centres of excellence and a knowledge transfer alliance are among the outcomes of a three-year partnership between higher education institutions in five European and four North Africa countries – Algeria, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia – which is now coming to a close.
INDIA
Delhi University, regarded as India’s top university, is in turmoil amid an increasingly politicised battle over its plans to switch to a four-year undergraduate programme from the next academic session, beginning in July.
GLOBAL
For the second year running, the network of 24 research-intensive universities called Universitas 21 has published a report on global rankings of national higher education systems rather than their universities.
MYANMAR
Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, head of the opposition National League for Democracy in Myanmar, has said that British universities can help reinvigorate her country’s education system, which has been ravaged by years of military rule.
EUROPE
Last Tuesday, ministers from European Union accession countries in the Balkans decided with the European Commission on the topic of the next action of the Western Balkan Platform for Education and Training. The most likely option will be to map the links between the world of learning and the world of work.
NIGERIA
Nigeria’s National Economic Council recently made several far-reaching decisions on the future of tertiary education in the country, including the creation of ‘mega-universities’ in six geo-political zones, each with the capacity to admit up to 150,000 students.
EAST AFRICA
The East African Community has slashed its budget for harmonising education systems and curricula in the five member countries in the coming fiscal year, further slowing a process that has nearly flopped due to financial constraints.
EGYPT
An Egyptian public university has referred a lecturer to a disciplinary board for allegedly making blasphemous remarks – the latest in a series of moves against liberals in the Islamist-ruled country.
GLOBAL
As Britain's universities minister opened the new building that will be the control hub for the largest radio telescope on Earth, the Square Kilometre Array, South Africa revealed its commitments to the preconstruction phase of the huge research project it is co-hosting with Australia.
SOUTH AFRICA
South Africa’s post-school education budget has been increased to R34.3 billion (US$3.8 billion) – growth of 8.6% over last year – Minister of Higher Education and Training Blade Nzimande said last week. A priority is to provide opportunities for 3.5 million youths not absorbed into employment, education or training this year.
TANZANIA
The Tanzania Commission for Universities has finally acted against a branch campus of Uganda’s Kampala International University, ordering the Dar es Salaam-based institution to stop offering masters and doctoral courses.
AUSTRALIA
For the first time an Australian university is using the crowdfunding system to attract money from the public to cover all or some of the costs of research. Eight academics at Deakin University in Melbourne have turned to a crowdfunding site called http://Pozible.com in an attempt to raise funds for their research projects.
EUROPE
Europe’s top research universities are pushing for more structured forms of student mobility, to build on the achievements of the Erasmus exchange programme, which they say is reaching its limits. Newer forms of ‘networked’ and ‘embedded’ student mobility are needed.
AUSTRALIA
As national lobby group Universities Australia was calling on the federal government to rule out any further cuts to universities and students in this month’s federal budget, university staff staged industrial action on May Day in support of a new wage and conditions campaign.
SINGAPORE
Cherian George, an outspoken academic at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University who was denied full professorship earlier this year – sparking an international outcry – has failed in his appeal against the university’s decision to deny him tenure, it has emerged
EGYPT
Recent decrees by Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi to create new colleges of dentistry, pharmacology, physiotherapy and nursing have drawn scathing criticism from professional unions. Meanwhile, last weekend students at 11 public universities staged mass protests in what was dubbed the ‘Day of Student Rage’.
INDIA
An Indian court has thrown out an attempt by a student organisation to allow private campus-based photocopying shops to create bound, near-complete copies of course books, in a case that may have set a national precedent.
SAUDI ARABIA
Saudi Arabia is seeing massive development in higher education. This is in line with a plan to achieve goals outlined by Khaled Al-Anqari, the minister of higher education, at an international higher education conference held in the capital Riyadh last month.
UNITED KINGDOM
Cambridge retained its place at the top of the UK’s 2014 Complete University Guide, published last Monday, with Oxford reclaiming the second place it had lost to the London School of Economics. But the most spectacular performance was by Northampton University, which soared nearly 40 places up the ranking to number 62.
FRANCE
France and China have entered into 11 agreements to strengthen higher education and research partnerships as well as student mobility between the two countries, the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research has announced.
