NEWS – Our correspondents worldwide report
INDIA
Technical courses revamp focuses on practical learning
Shuriah Niazi
With more than half of India’s engineering graduates not able to find a job because they don’t have the skills demanded by employers, crucial curriculum changes for engineering and technical courses have been announced to make them less theoretical and more practical.
HONG KONG
Student protesters against compulsory Mandarin punished
Mimi Leung
Two students at Hong Kong Baptist University were suspended last week after campus protests over compulsory Mandarin language being required for students to graduate. The protests took on a political tone as Mandarin is the language of mainland China but not Hong Kong.
HONG KONG
Academic freedom is facing ‘growing threats’ – Report
Yojana Sharma
There has been a “top-down backlash” since the student-led Umbrella Movement protests of 2014-15 in which the authorities have increasingly tried to limit academic freedom and bring academia under their control, according to a new report from rights group Hong Kong Watch, which says universities’ reputations are at risk.
GLOBAL
27 universities out-produce big economies on research
A group of 27 of the world’s top universities together produce more research than all but two of the world’s major industrialised nations, including Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom, according to a new report published in Davos to coincide with the World Economic Forum.
UNITED STATES
University leader resigns in wake of Nassar testimony
Brendan O’Malley
Lou Anna K Simon resigned as Michigan State University president after mounting pressure in the wake of testimony that the university failed to respond adequately to multiple allegations raised with staff about disgraced physician Larry Nassar’s possible abuse of women on campus.
UNITED KINGDOM
Vice-chancellor was guest at scandal-hit dinner
Brendan O’Malley
A university vice-chancellor was one of the guests at the elite men-only club dinner attended by billionaires, celebrities and politicians at the Dorchester Hotel in London that is at the centre of a storm over revelations that many of the 130 women employed as hostesses for the event were subjected to sustained sexual harassment, sexism and lewd remarks.
EGYPT
University fails over 1,200 students after exam walkout
Ashraf Khaled
Egypt’s state-run Mansoura University has announced the mass failure of over a thousand medical students after they staged a walkout from the examination hall in protest against what they said were overly-tough questions contained in a surgery paper.
GERMANY
Grand coalition would offer more support for students
Michael Gardner
Germany’s Social Democrats are discussing a grand coalition with the Christian Democratic Union and the Christian Social Union, having reached agreement in exploratory talks on a number of issues, including higher education and research, where they would increase means-tested support for students.
ZIMBABWE
Furore as government stops popular STEM programme
Tonderayi Mukeredzi
Government has binned the science, technology, engineering and mathematics or STEM advanced-level scholarships geared towards final-year school pupils, saying the money will be channelled towards university students. In addition, it has done away with mathematics as a requirement for higher education students to enrol in study programmes that do not require mathematical calculations.
COMMENTARY
AFRICA-UNITED STATES
Trump’s bigotry – The role of African intellectuals
Damtew Teferra
The role of African academics and intellectuals on the continent and in the diaspora in strategically countering the prejudice and misinformation about Africa on the part of leaders such as United States President Donald Trump cannot be overemphasised.
UNITED STATES
Governing bodies need to understand universities better
Robert A Scott
To ensure universities provide value, there needs to be a greater alignment between the mission, goals and strategies of a university, the criteria for selection to a governing position, the criteria for selecting faculty and the mission for academic study.
AFRICA
Higher education and the public good in Africa
Colleen Howell
A new research project undertaken across four African countries aims to find a different way of evaluating the contribution of higher education to the public and counter Western-dominated rankings that place an emphasis on research and status.
GERMANY
Internationalisation of universities – the German way
Marijke Wahlers
Germany has developed a pro-internationalisation strategy, seeing international students as a benefit for itself and for global development. But can the country continue to buck the global trend of seeing these students as a cash cow?
STUDENT VIEW
PALESTINE
At university I could not escape the shadow of war
Mona Jebril
A student from Gaza who gained a masters at Oxford and a PhD at Cambridge says in this time of growing conflict worldwide, if universities want to be truly international, they need to think more carefully about how they support international students from conflict areas.
WEBINAR
GLOBAL
Global universities unprepared for sea change ahead
Nic Mitchell
An overwhelming majority of the participants responding to a live poll during the webinar on the megatrends shaping the future of global higher education agreed that universities face transformative changes in the next decade – but only 12% believe higher education institutions are prepared for the sea change that lies ahead.
WORLD BLOG
CANADA
An important show of unity on precarious employment
Emmanuelle Fick and Grace Karram Stephenson
The recent Ontario college strike has united part-time and full-time academics in calling attention to the issue of precarious employment in higher education and has made a start on improving the working conditions of short-term contract faculty.
FEATURES
UKRAINE
Unpaid bills force universities to close until spring
Ararat L Osipian
Ukraine’s universities have no money to pay heating bills and have had to close their doors and send students on extended holidays until spring. The heating problem has affected universities throughout the country and has included its flagship higher education institution, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv.
TRANSFORMATIVE LEADERSHIP
GLOBAL
How can higher education bring socially-just change?
Carolyn Muriel Shields
The transformative leadership series published by University World News in partnership with The MasterCard Foundation started a critically important dialogue, which needs developing, about how universities can broaden their focus from trying to be ‘best in the world’ to helping to create ‘the best world’ for everyone.
GLOBAL
A life-changing journey from Uganda to EARTH University
Fatumah Birungi
A sponsored four-year degree at Costa Rica’s EARTH University, with its emphasis on practice, has been a transformative experience – not only for the individual student, but for her community back home in Uganda.
GLOBAL
Improving the pipeline of social justice leadership
Susan V Berresford
The world needs a fresh pipeline of leaders to fight for social justice. The old ways of generating leaders will not meet the world's need to strengthen work on inequality and exclusion. Fellowship programmes for local leaders from marginalised communities may be the answer.
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.
