NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report

Jan Petter Myklebust and Brendan O'Malley

Minister of Higher Education and Research Helene Hellmark Knutsson has fired the country’s University Chancellor and head of the Swedish Higher Education Authority, Harriet Wallberg, and four members of the board of the Karolinska Institute, or KI, in the wake of the Macchiarini scandal, and a new inquiry has damned the institute’s "poor leadership".

Brendan O'Malley

United States universities pulled away in the latest QS World University Rankings, and Asian universities continued to rise, while Western European institutions suffered a downturn in performance.

Yojana Sharma

The 2014-15 student-led pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong known as Occupy Central or the Umbrella Movement has led to a dramatic change in the Hong Kong political landscape with a number of the movement’s activists gaining seats in Legislative Council elections.

Brendan O'Malley

United Kingdom universities could face a sharp fall in European Union student numbers next year unless the government provides reassurance that they will be able to receive loans and grants, the head of Universities UK said. She also demanded changes to the visa regime to help attract international students and staff.

María Elena Hurtado

A rector and his staff were locked up and intimidated by students defending peers who protested for changes to proposed higher education reforms, amid widespread criticism of the plans. Fearing rejection of the bill, the government is considering changes.

Esther Nakkazi

Following the suspension of student loans and the imposition of a week-long ultimatum, 15 universities in Tanzania have responded to a ministerial directive to pay back loans issued to them for thousands of so-called ‘ghost’ students.

Michael Gardner

As support for German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s immigration policy plummets, the state government of North Rhine-Westphalia, or NRW, has announced extra funding for the integration of refugees in higher education.

Gilbert Nganga

Kenyan universities are facing a fresh financial crisis following revelations contained in a recent national audit that they are operating at a deficit of over US$100 million, with serious consequences for education quality.

Christabel Ligami

A crisis is looming in Kenyan universities over the shortage of professors, low numbers of qualified lecturers and low numbers of PhD students in both public and private universities, according to a recent report.

Jan Petter Myklebust

The Lars Løkke Rasmussen government is moving to cut funding for universities and the student financing system and increase political control over higher education institutions. The measures include a switch from grants for masters students to loans.

Munyaradzi Makoni

Academic activities at all five campuses of the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa have been suspended after two weeks of violent protest which saw the torching of one of the country’s finest law libraries on the Howard College campus in Durban.

TRANSFORMATIVE LEADERSHIP

Dennis Tourish

Investing ultimate power in strong leaders leads to ethical failures. True transformation will only happen when there is a more equal exchange, where leaders are subject to criticism and where everyone has an input into making decisions that affect them.

WEBINAR

University World News in partnership with DrEducation will be hosting a second international webinar, 'Embracing Technology for Global Engagement: A leadership challenge and opportunity' on 4 October. Participation is free if you register.

COMMENTARY

John Richard Schrock

There are two major problems with open access that threaten the core of the science enterprise: the dismantling of professional societies and the loss of a permanent science record.

Angel Calderon

Traditional research universities are under threat from newer institutions in areas such as technology, according to the QS rankings, and developing countries are biting at the heels of the developed.

Fiona Hunter and Hans de Wit

Brexit and how British universities articulate the case for European collaboration and internationalisation is not just an issue for the United Kingdom. The loss of the UK from the European Higher Education Area will affect everyone.

Jennifer Olson

Creating a more inclusive approach to internationalisation enables institutions to act more nimbly and creatively to the ‘new mobility’ caused by the refugee crisis and is needed more broadly to balance exclusionary practices.

Ararat Osipian

The latest corruption case at a Ukrainian university is just part of a pattern that starts at the very top. If there were a ranking that rated world higher education institutions based on how corrupt they are, some of Ukraine's universities would be among the top spots.

WORLD BLOG

Nita Temmerman

University-industry collaborations rely on trust and that needs to extend to curriculum design, ensuring that it helps turn out students with the skills necessary for the real world of work.

FEATURES

Tunde Fatunde

A consultative meeting at the recent Association of Commonwealth Universities conference in Ghana gave university representatives from across the Commonwealth an opportunity to air their views on the present operation and visibility of the Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship Plan, and offer ideas for its future development.

Brennan Weiss

About a decade ago, Clifford Tagoe was just weeks into his new position as vice-chancellor of the University of Ghana when he made a radical proposal. The university’s academic programming had deteriorated. Its governance was in disarray and there was institution-wide examination malpractice. Ghana’s oldest and most prestigious university was in a shambles.

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WORLD ROUND-UP

Faced with a flood of refugees, Norway has tested a new fast-track procedure to evaluate the qualifications of those who arrive in the country without proper documentation of their academic degrees or professional certificates, writes Burton Bollag for Al-Fanar Media.

Leading British universities are considering opening campuses in Europe in order to keep crucial research funding and partnerships, amid uncertainty over the consequences of the United Kingdom leaving the European Union. The idea comes as universities wrestle with how to reassure students and academics across the world that they will not close their doors to Europe, writes Anna Fazackerley for the Guardian.

Academics staying in their university positions beyond retirement are good for mentoring younger scholars, but are hogging positions newly qualified researchers need to break into the higher education teaching and research space, writes Noloyiso Mtembu for the Sunday Independent.

Cries of penury from universities facing a 20% funding cut are ringing hollow in light of new analysis that reveals the sector is 50% better off in real terms than it was a decade ago, writes Julie Hare for The Australian.

The Higher Education Commission of Pakistan will send 10,000 scholars to the United States for PhD studies from next year in critical areas of agriculture and food security, medical and allied health sciences, energy, water, climate change, and advanced digital technology, among others, reports Dunya News.

An analytical publication on international relations, Russia Direct, issued a report on the modernisation of higher education in Russia. Its main conclusion: In order to stimulate start-ups it is imperative for universities to rethink the relationship between teaching and research, writes Victoria Zavyalova for Russia Beyond The Headlines.

The government of the Philippines is planning to introduce mandatory drug tests for all new college students, an official for the Commission on Higher Education said. The measure is the latest step in President Rodrigo Duterte's effort to battle illegal drugs in the country, reports Aljazeera.

The Association of University Heads in Israel asked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to re-examine his position that equates Torah education with academic degrees, in a letter sent by the group recently, reports The Jerusalem Post.

The Netherlands’ universities of technology have warned they may have to restrict new admissions to their current level unless the government increases its funding, reports Dutch News.

Should higher education be a profitable commodity or a public good? That’s the central question in the documentary “Starving the Beast”. Filmmaker Steve Mims turns his camera on the complicated battle over public universities and comes up with a movie that might be dry, but also feels necessary, writes Stephanie Merry for The Washington Post.

The central government has been pushing Sanskrit as a study medium, but there seem to be no takers for the Vedic language. One-third of nearly 150 departments of higher education in Sanskrit had to shut down in the last three years due to low enrolment in Sanskrit courses, writes Richa Sharma for The New Indian Express.

All Scottish universities have agreed to accept poorer students with lower exam grades in a bid to boost the number of working-class undergraduates, writes Andrew Denholm for the Herald Scotland.

A public relations spat has broken out between the African National Congress Youth League and its youth alliance partner in the South African Communist Party against the backdrop of rising tension at universities over the prospect of fee increases, writes Bekezela Phakathi for BDLive.

When he was two, Jeremy Shuler was reading books in English and Korean. At six, he was studying calculus. Now, at an age when most kids are attending middle school, the exuberant 12-year-old is a freshman at Cornell University, the youngest the Ivy League university has on record, writes Mary Esch for Associated Press.

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