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5 November 2017 Issue 481 Register to receive our free e-newspaper by email each week Advanced Search

NEWSLETTER


Repositioning of the private higher education sector warrants greater scrutiny


   In Commentary, Goolam Mohamedbhai says the repositioning and growth of private higher education and the blurring of the boundaries between the public and private higher education sectors mean that more attention needs to be paid to understanding the private sector. Mark Paterson discusses a new book which suggests that African governments need to nurture their local academic communities if they want to resist the imposition of policy prescriptions by foreign powers.

   Also in Commentary, Jonathan Benney suggests a way forward for Australian universities in dealing with the conflicts arising from China’s rising influence on their campuses, while Ingrid Hall writes that China is also on a mission Westward, using international education as a form of soft power to grow its global influence, with Central and Eastern Europe now in its sights. And Axel Didriksson Takayanagui explains why the regional context in Latin America and the Caribbean – including high levels of inequality – presents complex challenges for those in higher education seeking to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

   In World Blog, Patrick Blessinger and Enakshi Sengupta say learning how to think and live as global citizens who are able to create a more globally sustainable, fair and just world is a top education priority confronting the world.

   In Features this week, Aimee Chung reports on the squeeze on graduate employment in South Korea, with many graduates having to resort to menial jobs.

   Reporting on a webinar hosted by StudyPortals last week, with University World News as the media partner, Mary Beth Marklein says the speakers concluded that universities need to find innovative ways to democratise mobility, engage staff and leverage technology to achieve a globally engaged campus in today’s testing times.

   Universities and higher education organisations wishing to raise their profile internationally and connect with a key audience of university leaders, academics, administrators and policy-makers are invited to join the partnership programme recently introduced by University World News.

Brendan O’Malley – Managing Editor

NEWS – Our correspondents worldwide report


INDIA

Row over list shaming academics for sexual harassment

Shuriah Niazi

Raya Sarkar, a United States-based Indian lawyer, has accused 60 academics from top institutions all over India of sexually harassing students, naming and shaming them in her controversial Facebook post. But some feminists say the naming is unfair and due process should be followed.

FRANCE

Government launches plan to prevent student failure

Jane Marshall

The government has launched its Students Plan, with funding of nearly €1 billion (US$1.2 billion), to cut the high first-year failure rate, reform controversial university admission processes and increase the number of places for heavily oversubscribed courses. Critics say it will effectively introduce selection.

UNITED STATES

Universities strongly oppose Republican tax proposals

Brendan O’Malley

Higher education leaders have reacted strongly against Republican tax proposals unveiled in the House of Representatives on Thursday, warning that the plan to tax endowments of private institutions and scrap a deduction for student-loan interest would harm institutions and students.

MALAYSIA

Universities’ crippling cuts are partially reversed

Anil Netto

The operating budgets for Malaysia’s 20 public universities are being increased by 9.8% for the coming year – with much bigger rises of 20% to 37% for the five main research universities – partially reversing the suffocating cuts of the past two years.

SRI LANKA

Government abolishes first private medical campus

Dinesh De Alwis

The Sri Lankan government has decided to support a recommendation to abolish the country’s first private medical university, which is at the centre of a long-running dispute, despite a court ruling that it is eligible to issue medical degrees.

SOUTH AFRICA

Tension builds as HE sector awaits government’s fee plan

Sharon Dell

Tension is mounting as the higher education sector continues to await the official release of the Heher Commission report on the feasibility of fee-free higher education – mere weeks before the end of the 2017 academic year and following last weekend’s leak of the report by national newspaper City Press.

ZIMBABWE

Mugabe announces lifting of academic appointment freeze

Kudzai Mashininga

President Robert Mugabe last week announced the lifting of a six-year freeze on recruitments at universities during a graduation ceremony of Lupane State University in Zimbabwe’s Matabeleland North Province at which an honorary doctorate in agricultural sciences was conferred on him.

UNITED KINGDOM

National drive to double study abroad numbers launched

Brendan O’Malley

With the United Kingdom lagging significantly behind comparable countries on study abroad numbers, Universities UK International has launched a campaign to double the number of UK students studying, working and volunteering abroad for two or more weeks as part of their studies by 2020.

EUROPE-UNITED KINGDOM

UK, EU ‘must urgently agree’ deep science partnership

Brendan O’Malley

A new, deep and special partnership in science and innovation between the European Union and the United Kingdom must be agreed upon as a matter of urgency, a policy briefing published by the Centre for Global Higher Education on 1 November has recommended.

NEW ZEALAND

Universities to join push for more Indian students

John Gerritsen

New Zealand’s universities are making a coordinated push to attract more Indian students after watching other tertiary institutions – polytechnics and private institutions – more than double enrolments from the sub-continent in two years.

KENYA

New qualifications framework to curb fake certificates

Christabel Ligami

A higher education qualifications framework aimed, inter alia, at curbing the proliferation of fake certificates will be in place at the start of January 2018. The framework will also provide accurate graduate data to prospective employers.

GERMANY

Politicians discuss federal-state HE ‘cooperation ban’

Michael Gardner

While talks to form a new coalition government in Germany have so far made little progress, the four parties involved could reach agreement on whether to finally lift the ‘ban on cooperation’ between the federal and state authorities in higher education and research and increase funding.

COMMENTARY


GLOBAL

The changing landscape of private higher education

Goolam Mohamedbhai

The line between public and private universities is becoming increasingly blurred – particularly with regard to funding, quality and governance – and more attention needs to be paid to the private sector in higher education as it continues to grow.

AFRICA

Universities – Critical partners in building sovereignty

Mark Paterson

African governments need to nurture the local knowledge base represented by their higher education systems if they are serious about resisting the imposition of policy prescriptions by foreign powers.

AUSTRALIA

Conflicted by China’s influence in our universities

Jonathan Benney

Australian universities welcome the influx of Chinese students, but are struggling to decide how to respond to their continuing disconnection from Australian society and culture and the rising influence of China’s ruling party on Chinese student activists on Australian university campuses.

CHINA-EUROPE

What China's soft power means for European universities

Ingrid Hall

China is on a mission Westward, aiming to claim the hearts of the people rather than territory, using international education as a form of soft power to continue to amass global influence, and it now has Central and Eastern Europe in its sights.

LATIN AMERICA-CARIBBEAN

Future of the Latin American and Caribbean university

Axel Didriksson Takayanagui

Higher education has an important role to play in achieving a broad range of Sustainable Development Goals, but it must address inequalities in its own house, such as falling access for some groups, before it can contribute to wider social transformation.

WORLD BLOG


GLOBAL

Globalisation requires us to foster global citizens

Patrick Blessinger and Enakshi Sengupta

Creating a more globally sustainable world starts with learning to think about fairness and justice in all its forms and live like a global citizen. For universities, that includes taking on social responsibilities such as addressing the need to educate the world’s refugee population.

WEBINAR


GLOBAL

Achieving a globally engaged campus in testing times

Mary Beth Marklein

To provide meaningful interactions across the world in today’s challenging times, universities must find innovative ways to democratise mobility, engage staff and leverage technology, according to speakers in an international webinar hosted by StudyPortals, for which University World News was a media partner.

FEATURES


SOUTH KOREA

Graduates become janitors in fiercely tough job market

Aimee Chung

A record number of South Korean graduates are looking for work, despite high economic growth. Such is the competition that jobseekers are skipping food to pay for cramming for recruitment tests; and graduates are providing fierce competition for non-graduate jobs such as janitors.

PARTNERSHIP PROGRAMME


GLOBAL

Join our new partnership programme for universities

University World News has launched a partnership programme to enable higher education institutions to extend their reach among our high-quality audience of academics, researchers, university leaders, higher education administrators, experts, key stakeholders and policy-makers.

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WORLD ROUND-UP


CHINA

Universities in rush to study Xi Jinping Thought

A day after thousands of Communist Party delegates voted to have President Xi Jinping’s thought included in the official party dogma, one of the country’s elite universities immediately opened a research centre dedicated to his ideology and within the next few days around 40 universities followed suit, writes Simon Denyer for The Washington Post.

BANGLADESH

Public, private universities to fall under one network

The Bangladesh Research and Education Network has been working to bring all the universities and medical colleges across the country under a common network, reports the Dhaka Tribune.

SPAIN

Spanish state takes control of Catalonian universities

The Spanish government has taken over responsibility for higher education and research in Catalonia, following the region’s unilateral declaration of independence on 27 October. It will retain control of spending on research centres and universities, which the League of European Research Universities says threatens institutional autonomy, writes Cristina Gallardo for Nature.

CANADA

Students think twice about Quebec after Niqab law passes

A new law in Quebec banning face coverings for anyone who receives or provides public services is causing some Muslim students to reconsider the idea of pursuing their education in that province, reports The Canadian Press.

UNITED KINGDOM

Scotland's top universities urged to slash entry grades

In what would amount to an unprecedented overhaul of university enrolment, academics said elite institutions such as Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow and St Andrews should drop entry requirements to five ‘B’ grades at Higher for top courses such as medicine, law, accountancy, science and mathematics, writes Andrew Denholm for The Herald.

CHINA

New law creates investor buzz for universities

A new law which took effect in September and lets universities and high schools establish themselves as for-profits for the first time is generating a wave of investor interest in China’s higher education sector, writes Jiadi Yu for the Financial Times.

TANZANIA

Officials confirm ban on 19 universities still in place

The 19 institutions of higher learning that were banned by the Tanzania Commission for Universities from admitting students for the academic year 2017-18, which started last week, will have to wait until the next admission date to take in new students, writes Deogratius Kamagi for The Citizen.

UNITED KINGDOM

Universities suffer AI brain drain to private sector

British universities are being stripped of artificial intelligence or AI experts in a brain drain to the private sector that is hampering research and disrupting teaching at some of the country’s leading institutions, writes Ian Sample for The Guardian.

SWEDEN

Research body finds surgeon guilty of misconduct

The Swedish organisation in charge of reviewing research has judged that scandal-hit surgeon Paolo Macchiarini was guilty of scientific misconduct for misleadingly describing synthetic trachea operations as successful in a series of research articles, writes Lee Roden for The Local.

KENYA

Staff boycott begins over ongoing salary dispute

Students in public universities are set to stay home even longer after lecturers went on strike to push for a KES5.2 billion (US$50 million) salary agreement. Universities had closed for the 26 October repeat presidential election, and last Wednesday the Universities Academic Staff Union national executive council approved the withdrawal of its 27,798 academic staff, writes Augustine Oduor for the Standard.

UNITED STATES

The high costs of controversial campus speakers

In September, Milo Yiannopoulos strolled onto the University of California's Berkeley campus, surrounded by supporters, hecklers and a lot of police. Wearing an American flag hoodie, the right-wing commentator took selfies, signed autographs and posed with signs, including one that read: "Feminism is Cancer". His 15-minute appearance cost UC Berkeley US$800,000 in what the university's spokesman Dan Mogulof called "the most expensive photo-op in the university's history", writes Madison Park for CNN.

PAKISTAN

State government plans to set up three new universities

In news that will be greeted with joy by thousands of students, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has decided to set up three new universities – in Lakki Marwat, Dera Ismail Khan and Mardan – bringing to 28 the number of public sector universities in the province, writes Asad Zia for the The Express Tribune.

UNITED STATES

Universities told to sort out postdoc salary inequity

A group of scientists is calling for United States institutions to sort out their chaotic postdoc system, which sees workers receive unequal salaries and training opportunities simply because of their job titles. There are 37 different designations for postdoctoral workers in the US – 36 too many, says a team of biomedical researchers, writes Katrina Kramer for Chemistry World.

NIGERIA

Eight universities may deny 143,000 student placements

Worsening infrastructural challenges, regulatory conflicts between the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board and universities, inadequate teaching aids and the unavailability of adequate manpower, among others, may join forces to deny more than 143,000 applicants placement in eight universities in the ongoing 2017-18 academic session, write Iyabo Lawal and Ujunwa Atueyi for The Guardian Nigeria.

UNITED STATES

University of Chicago donor could give more to HE

Hedge fund manager Kenneth Griffin, who is giving US$125 million to the University of Chicago, said he’s committed to donating many times more to higher education to keep the United States competitive in science and economics, write Janet Lorin and Erik Schatzker for Bloomberg.

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