24 February 2019  Issue No: 540

Marketisation of higher education, embodied by quality mechanisms, rankings, student satisfaction surveys and the like, has resulted in grade inflation and impacted teaching and learning, but there are increasing signs that a shift away from the market model may be on the cards.

Israel’s Council for Higher Education has approved a ILS435 million (US$120 million) multi-year budget for its plan to more than double the number of international students to 24,000 in a bid to improve academic quality and strengthen Israeli universities’ international reputation.

There has been much progress on internationalisation programmes at community colleges over the past 25 years, but there are still major institutional barriers preventing United States community college students from gaining international literacy skills, leaving internationalisation too reliant on the personal interest of staff.

In an era of hyper-competition and market disruption, business schools must make internationalisation core to their business, speakers agreed at an interactive online panel discussion hosted by Studyportals in partnership with University World News and EFMD – the global management development organisation.

The PRESAGE programme at Sciences Po in France aims to transform the way gender inequalities are treated within higher education through embedding a gender perspective across the humanities and social sciences. Instead of gathering researchers in a specific unit, it promotes this approach throughout every graduate school and research centre.

A major announcement this week by Beijing of its plans for a Greater Bay Area of cooperation between Hong Kong, Macau and nine cities in China’s southern Guangdong province will provide impetus for cross-border higher education and research collaboration if differences can be overcome.