16 February 2020  Issue No: 585

Universities have a critical role and responsibility to educate and care during epidemics, seeking to calm fear and anxiety, standing with their students to fight prejudice and bias and creating intellectual and educational spaces that are inclusive and humane.

A survey that provides the first snapshot of the possible impact of the coronavirus outbreak on the international education sector found that two-thirds of agencies in China that recruit for universities internationally expect a decline in Chinese students going abroad this year.

The Trump administration has warned the European Commission that it could turn its back on participation in Horizon Europe, the European Union’s next research framework programme, unless the terms of the exchange are more reciprocal. It wants more say over how its money is spent.

Debts accrued as a result of student loans and difficulties finding graduate-level jobs in Ghana create a disincentive to go to university, especially for students who genuinely need loans. The system needs reforming so that loans encourage students into programmes which lead to graduate-level jobs.

Academic freedom and institutional autonomy as well as academic and institutional responsibility are necessary if universities are to realise universal values such as democracy and open inquiry and to contribute to developing and sustaining fair, decent and just democratic societies for all.

Kenya’s second president, Daniel Toroitich arap Moi (1924-2020), who died on 4 February in Nairobi, oversaw a kleptocracy that looted the economy for 24 years and persecuted a generation of dissenting academics and students. But he also introduced free primary education, built many secondary schools for girls and presided over an increase in the number of fully-fledged public universities in Kenya from one to six.