NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report

Yojana Sharma

After years of concentrating research funding on science and technology, Singapore last week announced a major rise in funding for social science and humanities research worth SG$350 million (US$252 million) over the next five years – an increase of 45% compared to the Ministry of Education spending on research in these areas over the previous five years.

Yojana Sharma

As China last week passed a law banning some private for-profit schools that cater to middle-school children, there is some concern that this could affect the quality and preparedness of Chinese students applying to universities in Western countries, including the United Kingdom, United States, Canada and Australia.

Michael Gardner

Tuition fees are to be reintroduced for international students in Germany’s south-western state of Baden-Württemberg. The state government says that it needs the money to cover costs.

Brendan O'Malley

The number of international branch campuses worldwide reached 249 by the end of 2015, a 26% increase since 2010; and China has overtaken the United Arab Emirates as the country hosting the highest number, according to a new report.

Wagdy Sawahel

When analysed by qualification, university graduates make up the largest proportion of local Tunisian terrorists, as ongoing youth unemployment makes them an easy target for extremist groups in the country.

María Elena Hurtado

Twenty-nine Chilean universities offering free tuition for poor students for the first time this year have received US$46 million less in government payments for taking part in the scheme than they would have if they had charged their own tuition fees, according to a new report.

Ranjit Devraj and Yojana Sharma

The thorny issue of Indian student visas to study at universities in Britain overshadowed talks at a meeting between Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May and her Indian counterpart Narendra Modi – an indication of how international student flows can have an impact on wider relations.

Jan Petter Myklebust

Forty-two per cent of foreign students from the European Union or European Economic Area who receive Danish student financing leave Denmark within the first two years after graduation. Minister of Higher Education and Science Ulla Tørnæs said not enough EU citizens who receive Danish student financing and a free education are staying on to work in Denmark and action is required.

Kafil Yamin

The Indonesian government has set up a team to reform the system for electing university rectors for the country’s public universities after claims surfaced at a number of universities in recent weeks of attempts to use bribery to alter the outcome of the often highly politicised campaigns.

Gilbert Nakweya

The frequent closure of university campuses owing to student unrest over a range of issues is disrupting the learning process, discouraging the enrolment of future students and harming the reputation of students. Mechanisms for conflict resolution, tolerance and respect for student views are needed to achieve a long-term solution, say experts.

Brendan O'Malley

The European University Association or EUA has called on the European Commission to ensure that the next European Union Framework Programme, FP9, provides long-term policies and funding instruments for research that "support both basic and applied research, promote collaboration among different European regions and stimulate interdisciplinary research".

Francis Kokutse

A Tertiary Education Research Fund Bill has been prepared to provide for more sustainable funding of research to drive national growth and development.

US ELECTION

Philip G Altbach and Hans de Wit

The United States election result will undoubtedly have a significant impact on internationalisation of higher education, from building bureaucratic walls and cutting spending on international programmes to spreading a message that the US does not welcome foreign students.

Mary Beth Marklein

Our United States correspondent, attending a symposium of the International Network of Education Institutes, which opened the morning after Donald Trump won the presidency, reflects with participants on the implications for international higher education of the victor’s message that the US is self-sufficient and ‘We do not need the wider world’.

Nick DeSantis, Eric Kelderman, Andy Thomason and Fernanda Zamudio-Suaréz, The Chronicle of Higher Education

Donald J Trump’s upset victory in the presidential race early Wednesday morning, after an acrimonious campaign that cast a harsh light on deep racial divisions across the United States, stunned higher education leaders and left many questioning what his administration would mean for universities.

COMMENTARY

Anand Kulkarni

United Kingdom Prime Minister Theresa May’s stance on visas does not bode well for future trade deals with India and is indicative of a wider crisis affecting global higher education and globalisation.

Lucia Brajkovic

Universities in the Western Balkans face a plethora of challenges, from bureaucracy and corruption to a growing private sector involvement and difficulties in accessing European Union funding.

Taha Bawa

Social life is an important part of the university experience, but too often international students are left to their own devices. To integrate them better, preparation needs to start early.

TRANSFORMATIVE LEADERSHIP

Brendan O'Malley

Arthur Muneza's family fled the fighting in Rwanda when he was five. With an international scholarship, he has been able to turn his experience as a refugee, collaborating with peers from other cultures, to his advantage by working with researchers from the United States and across Africa to save the continent's giraffes from the threat of skin disease.

WORLD BLOG

Datuk Morshidi and Wan Changda

Cuts to Malaysia’s higher education budget could be an opportunity for the government to introduce systemic and structural changes to help public universities transform into more efficient higher education institutions.

FEATURES

Christabel Ligami

The closure of a string of satellite campuses has been announced over the past two weeks as universities move to comply with government directives aimed at halting the falling standards of degree programmes in some public institutions. Among the key institutional failings identified in the review process is the lack of qualified academic staff.

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WORLD ROUND-UP

The Higher Education Ministry will set up a National Doctor of Philosophy Registry to curb the production and usage of fraudulent academic titles by individuals and organisations, writes Fairuz Mohd Shahar for New Straits Times.

Sources say that many top-ranking universities are planning to establish distinguished and chair professorships in a bid to retain experienced and renowned faculty members, write Wu Po-hsuan and Jonathan Chin for the Taipei Times.

Entrepreneur Sir James Dyson is launching his own university to deliver the engineering graduates that British businesses are struggling to find, writes Alan Tovey for The Telegraph.

Jurors have awarded a University of Virginia administrator US$3 million for her portrayal in a now-discredited Rolling Stone magazine article about the university’s handling of a brutal gang rape at a fraternity house, reports Associated Press.

The federal government has revised how it assesses applications for permanent residence from former international students and expects to release the changes later this month, bolstered by recommendations from its panel on economic growth that argued this group is key to Canada’s immigration strategy, writes Simona Chiose for The Globe and Mail.

The Higher Education Students' Loans Board has attributed the delay in the distribution of loans to 4,527 first-year students to failure by the students to submit supportive documents for payment, writes Iddy Mwema for the Daily News.

Plummeting apprenticeship numbers are as much the fault of the uncapped higher education system as tough economic times, says the boss of Australia’s biggest training provider, writes John Ross for The Australian.

The Center for the Development of People, a non-governmental organisation which protects and defends human rights of Malawians, has expressed dismay to learn that two public universities, namely Malawi University of Science and Technology and Mzuzu University, have been closed down indefinitely, writes Chancy Namadzunda for the Nyasa Times.

An investigative report published on 30 October by the financial daily Calcalist in cooperation with the Public Knowledge Workshop reveals that Ariel University, located in the settlement town of Ariel in the Samaria district in the West Bank, is the beneficiary of massive state funding. In fact, it’s the best funded university in Israel, while other academic institutions are crippled by enormous deficits, writes Shlomi Eldar for Al-Monitor.

The higher education sector will need to recruit at least 1,200 new academics per annum to respond to historical backlogs for staff attrition and to accommodate planned growth, reports SA News.

A new ranking of international universities – Three Missions of Universities – was announced on 2 November by Viktor Sadovnichy, chairman of the Russian Union of Rectors and Moscow State University rector, writes Elena Proshina for RBTH.

There are major concerns over the future of up to 10 of the country’s 14 institutes of technology due to financial deficits and dwindling cash reserves, according to a major review of the sector, writes Carl O’Brien for The Irish Times.

The Russell Group of universities in the United Kingdom has signed an agreement with China 9, an association of nine top Chinese universities, to further educational collaboration between the two groups, writes Natalie Marsh for The PIE News.

The acting vice-chancellor, faculty deans and several heads of department at Victoria University have laid down their tools in protest of the failure of the university management to pay their October salaries, writes Ronald Mugabe for New Vision.

The fees commission handed its interim report to President Jacob Zuma on 3 November, writes Jeff Wicks for News24. Zuma would study the report, compiled by the Commission of Inquiry into Higher Education and Training, and give directions on the way forward, the Presidency said in a statement.

Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi made a nostalgic trip earlier this month back to Kyoto University, where she studied briefly in the mid-1980s. Suu Kyi received an honorary doctorate, the first the university has ever conferred upon an individual for commitment to freedom, democracy and human rights, writes Eric Johnston for The Japan Times.

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