NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report

Ameen Amjad Khan

After a United States court charged Umair Hamid, an executive of Axact, a Pakistan-based IT company that allegedly defrauded tens of thousands of people in many countries including the US by selling fake diplomas and degrees, Pakistani authorities decided this month to revisit the case.

Brendan O’Malley

The European University Association sees positive signals on United Kingdom participation in Horizon 2020 and Erasmus+ in Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit strategy. The Scientists for EU group is less optimistic but sees other ways the UK can strengthen its partnership with the European Union – by collaborating to build up Europe’s science infrastructure.

The Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities has called for significant increases in European funding through Horizon 2020 and the next Framework Programme, FP9, and improved success rates for applicants, to ensure continued applications and optimal impact.

Beckie Supiano, The Chronicle of Higher Education

There has been no shortage of predictions about what to expect under the administration of President Donald J Trump. But any forecast of how a man with no experience in elected office, no demonstrated interest in the process of policy-making, and a record of contradictory and dishonest pronouncements will govern should be read with caution.

Yojana Sharma

A new technology park is to be set up on formerly disputed territory along Hong Kong’s border with China to enhance research collaboration between universities on both sides and establish an international higher education and technology hub.

Maina Waruru

A massive drop in the number of secondary school leavers qualifying for entry into universities in 2017 means that Kenyan private universities may have to turn to fee-paying foreign students or offer more diploma courses to keep themselves afloat.

Christabel Ligami and Gilbert Nganga

In what is being billed as one of the most comprehensive institutional reviews in Kenyan higher education history, the Kenyan Commission for University Education is to start the process of auditing all public and private universities on 23 January.

Michael Gardner

Higher education funding in Austria is to be based more strongly on enrolment and performance agreements, according to a new paper submitted by the country’s Chancellor Christian Kern. Entry restrictions would be applied where necessary, although tuition fees are ruled out.

The federal Education and Training Minister has urged students to research where they choose to study if they plan to go to university, as the government released new data on Wednesday showing university student completion rates have dipped and a third of students do not complete their studies within six years.

Esther Nakkazi

Just weeks after Uganda’s flagship Makerere University recommenced operations after a government-ordered shutdown, thousands of its final-year students now face the possibility of failing to graduate as they struggle to meet stringent new fee payment policy requirements.

COMMENTARY

Marguerite Dennis

How do you recruit international students in 2017 when the whole landscape is shifting so fast? International deans planning for future international outreach should look at countries with a rising middle class as well as strong projected growth of gross domestic product. Strategic planners should also take into account the geopolitical and economic changes sweeping across the globe.

Mark Ashwill

The new United States administration is no more nationalist than any other. The US has always been nationalist. Donald Trump's election instead represents a turn to nativism, which will make it harder for universities to build bridges of respect and trust around the world.

Marion Lloyd

Ecuador is implementing ambitious and innovative higher education reforms, including legislation that enables the government to close for-profit universities, requirements for academics to have PhDs and strict rules for biopiracy that protect indigenous knowledge and species – but the changes have stirred controversy.

Anand Kulkarni

TACTICS is the latest in a line of acronyms for emerging nations in higher education, but do these countries really have that much in common – compared to BRICS countries, for instance?

Lisa Anderson

A chasm exists between the international institutions introduced to improve higher education in the Arab world and the societies they were supposed to benefit. Their applicants are from a cosmopolitan elite quite distant from the communities outside their walls.

WORLD BLOG

Grace Karram Stephenson

Don’t leave it to trial and error. Higher education institutions that prepare the ground for their next leader are likely to ensure a smoother transition. That means build strong systems for knowledge transfer between successive generations of board members in advance of the next search.

WEBINAR

As part of its Transformative Leadership series published in partnership with The MasterCard Foundation, University World News is joining DrEducation to host a free international webinar on 8 February entitled “Are universities crucibles of transformative leadership?”

FEATURES

Donald A Barclay

Since the 19th century academic librarians have helped students navigate the complex world of information. In today's unpredictable information environment, how might they rethink their role? A new approach is to teach students to put in the time and effort required to determine the credibility and appropriateness of each information source for the use to which they intend to put it.

Munyaradzi Makoni

There is an urgent need for decolonised intellectual property law curricula in order for African states to build intellectual property expertise that is Afrocentric and development oriented. A South African university is making progress in developing an appropriate model.

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WORLD ROUND-UP

At least four people, including a university professor, were killed and 15 others injured in a suicide bomb attack on a university campus in northeast Nigeria, reports Al Jazeera.

Ain Shams University administrators and others will no longer ask students about their religious affiliations on academic forms, a move that follows last year’s policy change by cross-town rival Cairo University, writes Jacob Wirtschafter for Al-Fanar Media.

In the battle of ideas, Sweden climbed to second place, Finland cracked into the top five, but South Korea dominated the 2017 Bloomberg Innovation Index, which scores economies using factors including research and development spending and the concentration of high-tech public companies, write Michelle Jamrisko and Wei Lu for Bloomberg.

The fraudulent essay industry must be outlawed, leading academics and lords have urged as figures reveal that more than 20,000 students are buying professionally written essays every year, writes Harry Yorke for The Telegraph.

The Ministry of Education and Training has set stricter requirements for doctorates, hoping that changes in the new regulations will shift the quality of PhDs to the regional level, writes Thanh Mai for VietNamNet Bridge.

In an ambitious blueprint, Chinese officials have announced intentions to set up 16 top universities by 2030, spreading across several provincial regions outside Beijing and Shanghai, where a number of famous universities are already situated, reports China.org.cn.

Lawmakers in two states recently introduced legislation that would eliminate tenure for public college and university professors. The bills, along with the recent gutting of tenure in Wisconsin and other events, have some worrying about a trend, writes Colleen Flaherty for Inside Higher Ed.

Leading higher education institutions will adopt villages, carry out field studies and come up with developmental solutions which could be implemented by district authorities under a unique initiative planned by the central government, reports PTI.

Five higher education associations recently issued a joint statement calling on President Tsai Ing-wen to address a perceived “drought” in the nation’s talent pool in the same way she handles matters of national security, saying Taiwan is being “sidelined” by the international community in the field of higher education, writes Sean Lin for Taipei Times.

Iraqi special forces raised the Iraqi flag above the buildings at the Mosul University complex on 13 January as they continued the battle for control of the city against Islamic State militants, reports Fox News.

Academics have welcomed an agreement between the UAE Space Agency and eight universities to develop manpower for the country’s space industry, writes Melanie Swan for The National.

The Ministry of Higher Education has stressed the importance of appointing Afghan teachers in the private sector-run universities and other higher education institutions and asked these institutions to avoid extending visas to foreign teachers, writes Mohammad Halim Karimi for Pajhwok Afghan News.

Birmingham City University is to launch a Centre for Brexit Studies to foster understanding of the national impact of the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the European Union, writes Alexander Ma for the Independent.

The Inter-University Council for East Africa is working to introduce a tool for calculating unit costs to help harmonise higher education fees, as part of its contribution to promoting equal opportunities for all higher education students in the region, writes James Karuhanga for The New Times.

In a first for Germany, a privately funded institute joins forces with a state-owned university. The move promises innovation but also opens fault lines between private and public interests, writes Stefani Hergert for Handelsblatt Global.

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