21 March 2021  Issue No: 635

Myanmar’s military regime has invaded and seized control of many universities and public hospitals across the country and arrested hundreds of students and teachers in a violent crackdown that has led to over 200 deaths. Student leaders have been beaten and tortured.

A digital education implementation policy, which forms part of the African Union Commission’s Digital Transformation Strategy, is aimed at overhauling the face of education on the continent with the help of digital technology, said Sarah Anyang Agbor, the commissioner for human resources, science and technology.

Universities UK fears universities face an effective £1 billion (US$1.4 billion) cut in research funding because the Treasury has failed to clarify whether it will allow funding of the United Kingdom’s association to Horizon Europe, the European Union’s US$114 billion science and innovation programme, to go ahead.

We are committed to enabling all of our readers to access our articles for free, but the widespread cancellation of international higher education events and sharp fall in advertising due to the COVID-19 pandemic is seriously undermining our ability to cover our costs. Please help support our high-quality journalism.

Increasingly, countries set research and development intensity goals as an essential element of science, technology and innovation plans. But policy-makers should review the goals-based approach to research and development-based innovation and growth, because unrealistic goals based on political considerations are undermining its credibility.

The link between resource allocation and position in Chinese universities has been little studied, but it is clear that publication rates rise significantly after an academic becomes a dean at a lower ranking university. This power effect is constrained, however, at top universities.

A new book examines the psychological struggle under-represented, racially minoritised students suffer in United States science, technology, engineering and mathematics or STEM programmes and provides searing analysis of the failure of what is often touted by liberals as the gold standard of interacting with these groups of students, the claim to being ‘colour blind’.

Readers respond to Philip Altbach and Jamil Salmi’s article on “Why Latin America needs world-class universities” with some suggestions of their own as to why previous attempts to set up world-class universities have failed and a proposal to establish an international Latin American university.