30 August 2020  Issue No: 609

COVID-19 has wreaked havoc on education around the world, and one result could be a slowdown in intellectual achievement. Drawing on the concept used in the health sector to measure years of life lost, it might be possible to develop a ‘Years of Potential Intellectual Life Lost’ general measure of how much the pandemic has slowed intellectual advancement.

Universities across Asia are facing a period of uncertainty and difficulty – but also an opportunity to increase student intake and encourage students to stay and study closer to home. Recognising that current students are their best advocates, they are taking on peer recruitment.

Universities have joined with schools and colleges across the globe in shutting down most activities as the impact of the coronavirus affects almost every aspect of life. An estimated 1.8 billion students have been affected by educational institution lockdowns.

These are difficult times, but University World News’ readership is expanding rapidly due to our extensive coverage of the impact of COVID-19 on higher education globally. If you value what we do, you can help us build our audience further simply by sharing any of our articles on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. Or you can help us secure our future by making a donation – just click on the yellow advertisement below.

The Indian government approved a National Education Policy on 29 July, making way for large-scale transformational reforms including restructuring the higher education system into three categories of degree-awarding institutions, greater institutional autonomy, a new National Research Foundation and renewed commitment to allow foreign universities into India as part of an internationalisation drive.

International students are about much more than just tuition fees. The public needs to understand how crucial international higher education is to Australia’s wider international relations strategy and how Sinophobia might drive extreme patriotism among Chinese students and a stronger ideological push away from their host country.

The third edition of Student Affairs and Services in Higher Education: Global foundations, issues, and best practices is an enormous volume, involving around 250 authors and others from 125 countries. The open access book was recently published by the International Association of Student Affairs and Services with Deutsches Studentenwerk. In this three-part Special Report, authors describe and interpret the landscape of student affairs globally, developments and issues, achievements and challenges.

The cutting-edge IT field of quantum computing is developing across Africa, with South Africa considered the hub, in part through an IBM centre in Johannesburg that enables academics throughout the continent to freely access its quantum computer network, based in the United States, through the cloud.