Also: Soros puts $1bn behind global university network to counter drift towards authoritarianism
26 January 2020  Issue No: 582
Top Stories
GLOBAL
PHOTOAs Australia burns and the global climate emergency proceeds, now is the time for universities to become leaders for global action against climate change by pledging to teach students to prepare humanity to mitigate the effects of the wave of extinction events to come.
GLOBAL
Disability-inclusive higher education will be essential for universities to contribute to addressing societal inequalities and global challenges. Despite calls for inclusion, the implementation of disability-inclusive higher education has remained limited. So what are the barriers and what would overcoming them mean?
GLOBAL-SOUTH AFRICA
The formation and diffusion of ideology, particularly as it relates to the development of citizenship and state formation, is still a fundamental function of universities, which we neglect at our peril, particularly at a time marked by the rise of populist and autocratic regimes around the world.
News
GLOBAL
PHOTOGeorge Soros, the global financier and philanthropist, has announced that he is donating US$1 billion to create a new global university network to foster critical thinking and open inquiry and better prepare students for current and future challenges “amid the current resurgence of authoritarianism”.
World Blog
GLOBAL
PHOTOThe needs of contemporary society are changing and so must higher education. It must adapt to the bio-tech revolution, for instance, and find ways to make innovation work for all people, as well as teaching creative thinking, which now is as important as knowledge acquisition.
Commentary
GLOBAL
PHOTOAs exploitation of new media makes it harder to distinguish between truth and lies, and fact and fiction, higher education needs to teach students digital literacy and convey the importance of interrogating the different ways that authority and power hide, get hidden and subvert knowledge creation and truth.
GHANA
CANADA
Features
CANADA
PHOTOCanada’s University of Ottawa is helping to build capacity in African universities through a dozen African partnerships and by founding an innovation network, but it also sees an opportunity to strengthen its bilingual mission in a continent where French-speaking populations are growing fast.
Global Challenges
JAPAN
PHOTONatural disaster-prone Japan, which focuses heavily on earthquake-prediction research, technologies and countermeasures, is allocating new funds for building resilience against climate change-related typhoons and flooding, and will also boost flood and earthquake resistance measures as host to the Olympic Games this year.
World Round-up
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