28 April 2019  Issue No: 549

Hundreds of Chinese professors, researchers and scientists have been denied long-term visas or short-term visas to visit the United States for conferences, research or other visits to collaborating institutions, in the past year. This is far more than the several dozen previously reported.

Two Hong Kong academics – Chan Kin-man, a former professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Benny Tai, a law professor at the University of Hong Kong – have been given jail terms by a Hong Kong court over their role as co-founders of the Umbrella Movement of 2014.

Higher education institutions must not let the ground shift from under them as new EdTech companies offer new learning opportunities. If they link up and form alliances as the airline industry has done, they can offer a lifelong learning pathway to their alumni.

Platitudes and slogans about inclusion in higher education are not enough. Inclusion needs to be operationalised to be successful, which may require a total review and evaluation of the current state of the institution to better understand what changes are needed.

Against the backdrop of a vicious cycle working to reduce the visibility of research from the Global South, Africans need to find ways to take control of their own research output and innovations to find solutions to local problems that have a global impact.

To celebrate 25 years of publication, International Higher Education is inviting contributions from masters and doctoral students and postdocs to an essay contest on “Unprecedented Challenges, Significant Possibilities”, key challenges and opportunities for international higher education in the coming decade and beyond.

South Africa’s most high-profile recipient of a doctorate – Higher Education and Training Minister Naledi Pandor – is not yet comfortable with the idea of being addressed by her newly-earned honorific.