NEWS – Our correspondents worldwide report
CHILE
Major higher education reforms secured by senators
María Elena Hurtado
Less than two months before leaving office, Chile’s Socialist President Michelle Bachelet finally achieved her campaign promise to reform Chile’s education from top to bottom with the passing of the higher education reform law guaranteeing free education and a special law for state universities.
IRAN
Parliamentarians call for release of detained students
Shafigeh Shirazi and Yojana Sharma
With Iranian authorities still refusing to confirm the number of people detained during protests in Iranian cities in December and January, Iranian lawmakers and academics have written to President Hassan Rouhani and the head of the judiciary Sadegh Larijani demanding the immediate release of student detainees.
AUSTRALIA-CHINA
Parliament told China is trying to influence campuses
Yojana Sharma
Organisations that promote the Chinese government’s official view, including on foreign affairs, and seek to limit academic freedom are present on almost all Australian university campuses and in many scientific organisations, and are used as an extension of the Communist Party abroad, according to a submission to Australia's parliament.
CHINA-NETHERLANDS
Dutch branch campus shelved over academic freedom fears
Yojana Sharma
The University of Groningen in the Netherlands has shelved plans to establish a branch campus in China, a joint venture with China Agricultural University, Beijing, due to insufficient support among staff and students in the Groningen university council, where concerns were raised over academic freedom.
AFRICA
Ten African scientists among 2018 TWAS fellows
Maina Waruru
Ten African academics are among the 55 new fellows of The World Academy of Sciences or TWAS – the second-best showing by scientists from the continent in nine years.
SOUTH KOREA
Eighty-two cases of offspring named as co-authors
Aimee Chung
Some 82 cases of professors listing their secondary school offspring as co-authors in academic papers have been unearthed by an investigation by South Korea’s ministry of education. The discovery has prompted referrals to ethics committees at 29 universities – including some of the country’s top institutions.
DENMARK
Foreign students blamed for steep rise in student fraud
Jan Petter Myklebust
There has been a tenfold increase in the number of students using a false alternative address while living at home to claim for a higher rate of living costs, according to figures released by the ministry of higher education and science, and more than three-quarters of those caught cheating were international students.
UNITED STATES
Steep rise in white supremacist propaganda on campuses
Brendan O’Malley
New data released on Thursday by the Anti-Defamation League shows an alarming increase in white supremacist propaganda on United States campuses – from community colleges to Ivy League universities – during the 2017 autumn semester.
UNITED KINGDOM
TNE students outnumber foreign students in UK by 60%
Brendan O’Malley
As plans for a new China campus for Xi’an Jiatong-Liverpool University were announced during British Prime Minister Theresa May’s state visit to China, a new report shows there are 1.6 times as many students studying for UK awards overseas via transnational education, or TNE, than international students in the United Kingdom.
SWEDEN
Migration agency eases rule for international students
Jan Petter Myklebust
The Swedish Migration Agency has bowed to pressure to drop a requirement for international students to provide evidence of being able to afford living costs, after deportation cases highlighted the plight of students forced to leave before finishing their course.
NORWAY
Steep rise in visa charge for international students
Jan Petter Myklebust
A sharp rise in the visa application charge for international students, and a significant increase in the minimum amount they must deposit before beginning their studies in Norway, are an attempt to bring in tuition fees ‘by the back door’, say student organisations.
GERMANY
University emissions experiments on humans fuel uproar
Michael Gardner
Reports of emissions experiments on humans at a German university have caused further uproar following recent revelations of car exhaust animal experiments in the United States. The automobile firms backing the tests have since distanced themselves from the animal experiments.
RWANDA
Sweden extends partnership with flagship university
Rodrigue Rwirahira
A successful 16-year partnership between the University of Rwanda and several Swedish tertiary institutions, funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, has been extended for another five years.
COMMENTARY
UNITED KINGDOM-UNITED STATES
Where did business schools and MBAs go wrong?
Robert Quartly-Janeiro
Business schools are being challenged by the crisis of globalisation. Their core subjects are increasingly outdated, they have lost sight of their original purpose and they need to get back to developing business leaders who can best serve society rather than growing rich from it.
EUROPE-ITALY
Italian court pushes back on the race towards English
Rosemary Salomone
A court judgment against the teaching of graduate courses in English means there is now a well-developed framework for questioning the use of English as a vehicle for ‘internationalising’ universities. It could have wider implications for the push-back in other European countries.
RUSSIA
Students under pressure as Putin runs for re-election
Ararat Osipian
Why are so few students involved in political protests in Russia? Crackdowns on dissent at university and schools, pressure both on university leaders to comply with government demands and on students to support Vladimir Putin’s presidential bid, have contributed to a climate of political passivity.
AFRICA
A better model than the Africanised university
Eric Fredua-Kwarteng and Samuel Ofosu
Proponents of the ‘Africanised university’ are over-consumed with the politics of decolonisation – as if that is the only developmental challenge facing the continent when there are many more. It absolves Africans from responsibility for their own actions and inaction.
AMERICAS-GLOBAL
The global education imperative: Building bridges
Allan E Goodman
While the present is dark, we must prepare for a new world and for the challenges of the future. In this world, an international approach should be a part of what it means for everyone to be educated, and guard against dynamics that close our doors and our minds.
CHEA/CIQG CONFERENCE
Last week the United States-based Council for Higher Education Accreditation and the CHEA International Quality Group held their annual conference in Washington DC. University World News is a media partner.
GLOBAL
Rise in intergovernmental involvement in HE
Mary Beth Marklein
There is an increasing influence of not just governments but intergovernmental bodies on higher education regionally and globally as institutions and governments seek to negotiate a higher education landscape that is subject to constant change, the CHEA International Quality Group conference was told last week.
UNITED STATES
Republicans seek more transparency in higher education
Mary Beth Marklein
Republicans are proposing a comprehensive rewrite of the higher education law, aimed at streamlining the student aid process, easing up on burdensome regulations and demanding increased transparency among colleges and universities. But Democrats oppose what they say is a deeply flawed proposal.
UNITED STATES
HE accreditation sector faces pressure to reform
Mary Beth Marklein
The higher education accreditation community, which confers the quality-assurance seal of approval that allows United States colleges and universities access to billions of dollars of federal student aid, must reform to stem waning public confidence in the value of US degrees, a Washington conference of accreditors was told.
GLOBAL
QA bodies note progress in fighting academic corruption
Mary Beth Marklein
Early research findings on academic corruption suggest that accreditation and quality assurance bodies in some countries are having success in addressing the issue, and research on student attitudes towards cheating offers some insights into how an emphasis on integrity might help reverse the problem.
WORLD BLOG
GLOBAL
Towards higher education in service of humanity
Patrick Blessinger and Mandla Makhanya
A differentiated higher education system should serve the needs of its constituents and address a wide range of social and individual needs. This requires universities to continually assess the relevance of their mission and goals and evaluate their effectiveness in achieving them.
FEATURES
NIGERIA
Are academics dying, unable to afford food, medicine?
Tunde Fatunde
Non-payment and irregular payment of public university lecturers’ salaries are crippling the country’s institutions of higher learning, causing personal hardship for staff with fatal consequences in some cases, as they can’t pay for adequate food or proper medical care, one union, several medics and some academics are alleging.
PARTNERSHIP PROGRAMME
GLOBAL
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