10 February 2019  Issue No: 538

A new study charts a “massive recent surge” in artificial intelligence-based inventions, with Chinese universities making a strong contribution to a field dominated by United States and Japanese companies. But universities in the Middle East and Africa are in danger of being left behind.

The arrest of Indian students who had enrolled in a fake Michigan university has prompted a strong reaction in India after it emerged that it had been set up and run by undercover agents for the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

Automatic recognition of qualifications, a key ambition of the European Education Area, offers the promise of fast and fair decisions on equivalent qualifications, drastically benefiting student mobility by 2025, but it is more complex than it might first appear.

Business schools are entering an era of hyper-competition to attract international talent, earn reputation and grow resources at a time of tightening visa rules and post-work opportunities and increasing activity from alternative providers. How can they survive and thrive in this context?

Studying information systems combined with leadership classes and project experience with students from multiple disciplines have enabled one young Kenyan to develop an award-winning app that could save small tea farmers billions of shillings in wasted crop.

The Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) and the CHEA International Quality Group (CIQG) held their annual conferences last week. On the agenda were how to build trust in universities in a hostile environment, how to address corruption in higher education and how to adapt higher education to a world of changing demand and innovative modes of provision. University World News was the media partner.

As the Nigerian government announces its intention to crack down on illegal universities, questions are being raised by academics about how they were able to proliferate in the first place, the impact of their closure on thousands of desperate students, and what the government should be doing to improve quality across the entire sector.