3 February 2019  Issue No: 537

An international survey on the benefits of internationalisation suggests institutions are increasingly considering the benefits, not just to students, but to universities and society more broadly, valuing the enhanced international cooperation and capacity building and improvements in teaching and learning that it brings.

Thousands of students could be denied government funding to study abroad in future if the United Kingdom leaves the European Union without a deal, it emerged on Tuesday, just hours before MPs voted simultaneously to oppose a no-deal Brexit and increase the risk of it becoming a reality.

Universities should move beyond their antipathy to business-related terminology, learn from processes that work for other sectors and focus more on trying to see what they do from the student point of view, putting students at the heart of service design.

Higher education in Vietnam is facing significant reforms, including changing from a textbook- and exam-centric model to a more creative approach, with real changes in the methods of teaching and learning. Vietnamese academics who have studied abroad can help to introduce alternative approaches.

African start-ups are often among the most innovative because of the challenges they have to overcome. One start-up aims to succeed where many university computer science courses fail, transforming the labour market by giving Africans the IT skills they need to access the jobs of the future.

After some years of political turmoil at India’s Nalanda University that saw the departure of Nobel laureate Amartya Sen and former Singapore foreign minister George Yeo as successive chancellors, a new vice-chancellor aims to strengthen the revived ancient institution by promoting cooperation within Asia.