NEWS – Our correspondents worldwide report
AFGHANISTAN
Thousands more university places set aside for women
Shadi Khan Saif
The Afghan government said it will earmark up to 7,000 additional seats for women in public sector universities across the country for the new academic year starting later this month, in a bid to encourage higher participation, the ministry of education announced last week.
AUSTRALIA
Record rise in international student numbers announced
Brendan O’Malley
A record number of international students studied in Australia in 2017, as a result of the largest increase recorded in a single year. However, postgraduate associations warn that international students face workplace exploitation as they try to support themselves.
CHINA
Luring back talent is top priority to fuel innovation
Yojana Sharma
Attracting Chinese students back from abroad has become policy at the highest level of the government in a bid for world-class talent to fuel an innovation boom and move China away from reliance on manufacturing as its main engine of economic growth.
AUSTRALIA
Warning over rising university enrolments from China
Geoff Maslen
More than 135,000 students from China are enrolled in Australian universities, nearly 40% of the total number of foreigners on campus here. Now vice-chancellors have been warned of the dangers of an over-reliance on one market.
SOUTH AFRICA
New scheme to boost black academics’ research capacity
Stephen Coan
South Africa’s National Research Foundation and the public benefit organisation FirstRand Foundation have joined forces to create a sabbatical programme aimed at boosting research capacity among black African academics, and academics with disabilities.
AFRICA
University dons dominate new list of AAS fellows
Maina Waruru
Scholars and researchers based in African and foreign universities have dominated the latest list of 32 senior scientists named as 2017 fellows of the African Academy of Sciences (AAS). Out of the list of 32 scientists, 17 of them are university-based scholars, some working in higher learning institutions in North America and Europe.
SOUTH KOREA
First investigation by education Sexual Abuse Task Force
Aimee Chung
The education ministry and Seoul police have begun an investigation into a college following a petition by dozens of students revealing sexual misconduct against female students and violence against male students. It is the first investigation by the education ministry’s Sexual Abuse Task Force.
SWEDEN
Student deportation case triggers more calls for change
Jan Petter Myklebust
United States citizen Miranda Andersson from Atlanta, Georgia, is of Swedish heritage and was starting her last term out of four for her masters degree at Uppsala University this spring term when the Swedish Migration Agency did not renew her application for a residence permit. Her case has triggered more calls for changes to Swedish immigration laws.
UNITED STATES
In a fight against depression, UCLA relies on technology
Bianca Quilantan, The Chronicle of Higher Education
In what amounts to a research moonshot, the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) aims to "cut the burden of depression in half" by 2050 and to eliminate it by the end of the century. But before the university starts treating the world, it’s begun treating its own students.
DENMARK
New measures developed for performance-related funding
Jan Petter Myklebust
Among seven announcements made by the Danish higher education ministry last week was a plan to develop new ways of assessing the quality of higher education in order to facilitate the development of performance-related basic funding of universities.
ALGERIA
Student teachers protest over admission contract changes
Wagdy Sawahel
Students from teacher-training institutes Ecole Normale Supérieure in Algeria are continuing their open strike and cyclical protests which began in November last year over changes to the rules in their admission contracts determining employment and postgraduate studies.
COMMENTARY
CHINA
The closing of China will affect universities worldwide
Philip G Altbach and Hans de Wit
Recent moves towards greater authoritarianism in China and greater interference by China in other countries will damage Chinese universities’ aspirations to world-class standards, will mean fewer Chinese students return home and will make collaboration with Western universities more difficult.
AFRICA
Improving the quality of university education in Africa
Eric Fredua-Kwarteng and Samuel Kwaku Ofosu
Quality university education in Africa should include innovative pedagogies that highlight active learning and increase the prospects of transfer of learning from the university to the larger society. Too often learning does not teach students the skills they need in the outside world.
UNITED KINGDOM
Universities under attack for their corporate culture
Roger Brown
The past few months have seen an unremitting attack on United Kingdom universities. Is this a smokescreen to distract from government higher education policies and Brexit? Or an animosity primed by the adoption, encouraged by government, of corporate methods of governance and management?
INDIA
What do the latest subject rankings mean for India?
Anand Kulkarni
The latest subject rankings from QS highlight some challenges for Indian higher education around the breadth of what they offer and the need to work on areas that are crucial for the country’s future.
WORLD BLOG
GLOBAL
Towards a more equal, inclusive higher education
Patrick Blessinger, Jaimie Hoffman and Mandla Makhanya
Achieving equity and inclusion in education requires a change in mindset and practices that aims to foster inclusion, respect differences and value the contributions of all. Institutions must seek to achieve inclusive excellence – whereby inclusion and excellence are approached as interdependent.
WORLDVIEWS LECTURE
GLOBAL
Campus free speech – Challenges for rights and values
At this year’s fourth annual Worldviews Lecture on Media and Higher Education, Professor Sigal Ben-Porath, author of Free Speech on Campus, will address the increasingly heightened debate around free speech at universities and the challenge to minority rights and democratic values. The lecture is supported by University World News.
FEATURES
AFRICA
The great global rankings debate
Munyaradzi Makoni
The jury is still out on whether African universities should ignore international university rankings or create their own, but senior academics and administrators agree there’s room for improvement, particularly on sensitivity to the relationship between size and density of a university and research output.
AFRICA
Meeting the need for higher education on a massive scale
Munyaradzi Makoni
Professor Love Ekenberg, a computer and systems sciences expert and mathematician at Stockholm University, Sweden, talks to University World News about his new role for the International Council for Open and Distance Education, overseeing the establishment of large-scale PhD programmes across Africa.
REINVENTING HIGHER EDUCATION
The ninth annual international IE University conference on ‘Reinventing Higher Education’ was held on 5-6 March at Madrid-based IE University, which is a private non-profit business owned by the Instituto de Empresa SL in Spain. University World News reports.
AFRICA
‘Pan-African HE centres are the way forward’ – Mbeki
Paul Rigg
This year, the ninth annual international IE University ‘Reinventing Higher Education’ conference kicked off with a conversation between Thabo Mbeki, former president of South Africa and chancellor of the University of South Africa, and Santiago Íñiguez, president at Madrid-based IE University, on African perspectives on the global impact of higher education.
GLOBAL
Can universities adapt to the demand for relearning?
Paul Rigg
The future will belong to those who can ‘unlearn and relearn’. To succeed, people will need to anticipate change and retrain – and universities will have a vital role in adapting to and serving this need, but can they adapt quickly enough? The issue was discussed at the ‘Reinventing Higher Education’ conference in Madrid.
GLOBAL
Why universities should fight anti-globalisation
Paul Rigg
There is a trend within universities of people who want less internationalisation and less cross-collaboration, and this must be challenged, but universities must also fight the broader trend of anti-globalisation, experts argued at a Madrid conference on ‘Reinventing Higher Education’.
PARTNERSHIP PROGRAMME
GLOBAL
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