US TRAVEL BAN

Rahul Choudaha

The ban on entry into the United States by citizens from seven predominantly Muslim countries, signed by US President Donald Trump, is likely to have a much wider impact on recruitment of international students. Other moves thought to be in the pipeline could dramatically reduce international student numbers.

Brendan O’Malley

Higher education leaders and academics across the United States have denounced President Donald Trump’s travel ban as divisive, detrimental and “un-American”. The Scholars at Risk Network told University World News that for scholars facing death threats or imprisonment back home the executive order was like a torpedo hitting a lifeboat.

Brendan O’Malley and Jan Petter Myklebust

University associations and leaders worldwide have condemned President Donald Trump’s travel ban for posing a threat to international collaboration in higher education and the free flow of ideas. Meanwhile, thousands of academics across the world are calling for a boycott of international conferences in the United States in protest.

Gerard Postiglione

Increasing conflict between the United States and China could be to Chinese universities’ advantage if China continues to invest heavily in teaching and research, cedes more autonomy to universities and deepens internationalisation. It is also an opportunity for institutions in both countries to temper political tensions with rational communication.

Matthew Hartley

President Donald Trump's travel ban could see students opting not to study in the United States, and US students choosing to study abroad. The winners will be research universities in China, Europe, Canada, Japan, Australia, Singapore and Mexico and a shift in power and influence will be inevitable.

Ian Wilhelm, The Chronicle of Higher Education

As reports of the impact of the Trump administration’s travel restrictions emerge, one population in higher education seems disproportionately affected – Iranian academics and students.

Wagdy Sawahel

United States President Donald Trump’s travel ban on seven Muslim-majority countries, including the three African nations of Libya, Somalia and Sudan, is a blow not only for African students and academics, but for the US itself, according to North African and Middle East academics.

NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report

Ranjit Devraj

The Indian government will put more money into quality higher education – especially its prestigious medical, technological and management institutes, in a bid to propel them towards ‘world-class’ status – according to budget plans announced by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley last week.

Dinesh De Alwis

The Sri Lankan government has received the green light to allow private universities after a landmark court judgment last week ruled that the South Asian Institute of Technology and Medicine – the country’s first private medical university – can legally issue medical degrees. The case has long sparked protest action by public university students and doctors – and 21 students were arrested during another march on Thursday.

Geoff Maslen

Export earnings from selling Australian higher education to foreign students reached a record high of nearly A$22 billion (US$16.8 billion) in 2016 – an astonishing 17% increase on the total for the previous year and the biggest annual growth rate since 2010.

Jan Petter Myklebust

A White Paper produced by Norway's government, aimed at boosting quality in higher education, provides universities with a "toolbox and framework" to raise standards. There is stress on improving teaching, and on introducing practical training and compulsory international collaboration in all study programmes.

Kudzai Mashininga

Zimbabwe’s universities are reeling under crippling cuts to funding which have seen the salaries of lecturers cut by half as the country’s economic situation continues to worsen.

Yojana Sharma

University of Hong Kong Vice-chancellor Peter Mathieson, who defended the rights of students to protest in favour of Hong Kong’s democratic values, unexpectedly resigned for a new post in the United Kingdom before his tenure at one of Asia’s top universities was due to expire. This follows almost two years of controversies over student activism and academic freedom.

Yojana Sharma

Officials from at least one university in Iran tried to eliminate traces of ongoing religious discrimination, as at least 15 students belonging to the Baha’i religious minority were expelled from universities during December 2016 and January 2017, the United States-based International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran reported.

Ashraf Khaled

Several Egyptian universities have changed their examination systems in an attempt to curb mass cheating, a shift that has triggered mixed reactions.

Sungula Nkabinde

A civil society movement to collectively address a ‘systemic’ crisis in South Africa's education system was launched last week. The National Education Crisis Forum comes in the wake of student protests that last year plunged the country’s universities into a state of paralysis.

CHEA 2017 ANNUAL CONFERENCE

America’s Council for Higher Education Accreditation, or CHEA, held its 2017 annual conference in Washington DC last week, on the theme “Quality Assurance and Accreditation: Moving into the future”, followed by a meeting of CHEA's International Quality Group. University World News was there.

Mary Beth Marklein

The shifting terrain of higher education worldwide is challenging quality assurance and accreditation professionals to examine how they can adjust or transform traditional practices and policies while also preserving core academic values.

Mary Beth Marklein

United States President Donald Trump, whose first two weeks in office were as unprecedented as his once-unfathomable ascendancy to the nation's highest office, appears eager to maintain a frenetic pace, political analysts told an international gathering of higher education quality assurance and accreditation experts in Washington.

Mary Beth Marklein

A panel presentation on how the global academic community can combat academic corruption in higher education provoked a lively discussion highlighting the widespread and wide-ranging scope of the problem, the diversity of responses and a growing sense that the issue belongs high on the agenda for policy-makers in international education.

Mary Beth Marklein

Noting that higher education lies at the core of many of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals for 2030, the chief of UNESCO's higher education division last week outlined for quality assurance professionals the role they can play in contributing to the success of the initiative.

COMMENTARY

Simon Marginson

Access to higher education was a key influence on the votes for Brexit and Donald Trump. Its increasing stratification reflects growing social inequality, in which the disadvantages of those without degrees are acute. By contrast, the more higher education operates as a common good, the greater its social, economic and democratic contribution can be.

Libby Blanchard

The Trump administration is increasing its war on science and inconvenient truths and seems eager to attack and censor, and to promote ‘alternative facts’ – in other words, to lie. Science needs to fight back by getting its research out to the wider population.

Joel Carpenter

As private universities have grown in Africa, so too have Christian institutions, at brisk pace – and that can lead to some tensions between broad state purposes and religious leanings, as well as between increasing access and recruiting enough instructors.

Rachael Merola

Little research has been done into what makes international branch campuses successful, but a new study looks at everything from location to identity and links with the home campus.

WORLD BLOG

Nita Temmerman

Deans need to realise that their role is like that of a parent – to guide, inspire, encourage, lead, support and set clear directions. Universities just don’t pick the right person a lot of the time.

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?”

FACEBOOK

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WORLD ROUND-UP

The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich or ETH Zurich, and the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne have come out tops in Times Higher Education’s “The World’s Most International Universities 2017” ranking, reports Study International.

President Donald Trump has asked a member of one of America’s most famous evangelical families to lead a task force on higher education, writes Matthew Rozsa for Salon.

The government last week announced setting up an autonomous National Testing Agency for conducting entrance exams to higher education institutions, reports TNN.

As United States and British legislators tighten the screws on travel and visa rules, they might be squeezing out international researchers and students. Canadian universities, meanwhile, are seeing surging interest from both groups, writes Erica Alini for Global News.

The Education Ministry intends to upgrade its Office of the Higher Education Commission into a ministry to lift university standards in line with the 20-year national strategy and Thailand 4.0 vision, writes Dumrongkiat Mala for the Bangkok Post.

Cairo University will establish an institute for Japan studies in February for a broad spectrum of research in both arts and sciences, as well as to serve as a ‘bridge’ to deepen understanding about Japan, reports The Japan Times.

Scottish universities will be left facing a multimillion pound bill if the United Kingdom government presses ahead with plans to charge a levy to organisations hiring European Union workers following Brexit, writes Chris Green for iNews.

A recent report shows that although the country has as many as nine public and 60 private universities, only 730 students are studying for PhDs, as many Ghanaians prefer to go abroad for research and further studies, reports GhanaWeb.

The leaders of the only private university in North Korea asked Texas A&M University, known for its agricultural economics and public health programmes, for help in teaching subjects such as how to grow food in a land of chronic shortages, writes Jon Herskovitz for Reuters.

Leading universities have reported sharp increases in student debt levels ahead of re-opening for the new academic year despite no fee increases last year, writes Roland Mpofu for The Sunday Independent.

Four famous universities of the world are likely to establish their campuses at the Lahore Knowledge Park, writes Rameez Khan for The Express Tribune.

A delegation from the UNESCO headquarters in Paris was in Jamaica recently to provide technical assistance to the Jamaica Tertiary Education Commission in framing a strategic plan for the sector, reports the Jamaica Observer.

University applications have fallen by 5% – with the decline driven by a drop in European Union students and a sharp fall in nursing applications, writes Sean Coughlan for the BBC.

The Independent Institute of Education, South Africa’s largest and most accredited private higher education provider, has strengthened its partnership with the Open University or OU, the largest education institution in the United Kingdom, in a collaboration that is set to change the way students access distance learning education opportunities in South Africa and on the rest of the continent, reports Biznis Africa.

Well-known computer scientist Dr Vijay Bhatkar, who has been appointed as the Chancellor of Nalanda University with effect from 25 January, said he wants to transform it into a liberal university, reports PTI.

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