9 January 2022  Issue No: 674

The removal of major artworks and memorials on Hong Kong university campuses commemorating the June 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre of pro-democracy student protesters in Beijing is a violation of freedoms and university autonomy and an attempt to censor memories and debate, Hong Kong students say.

United States university internationalisation practices and policies reproduce and reinforce cultural and social racism, and ‘exacerbate the conditions around exclusion, discrimination and inequity they ostensibly seek to redress’, according to a recent study based on the lived experiences of Sub-Saharan African students in the US.

Despite fears about the spread of the use of English and Mandarin in higher education, it is unlikely that either will completely dominate. In many locations, national and local languages will prevail and linguistic innovations may even make the whole debate on language dominance obsolete.

The Elizabeth Holmes fraud case has potentially damaged support for female entrepreneurs, who already suffer from a huge bias against them. Universities should be doing more to educate the next wave of entrepreneurs through providing innovative, experimental and transformative training and creating entrepreneurial ecosystems.

In Kampala slums, very few wear masks, let alone practise social distancing. But a Makerere University students’ initiative, through art, is encouraging the slum dwellers in the East African city to safeguard themselves against the fourth wave of the coronavirus even when they are hungry.

African universities lag far behind when it comes to training professionals for the blossoming African film industry that could create more than 20 million jobs and generate US$20 billion in annual revenue, according to a report from UNESCO that surveyed the film industry in the 54 countries on the continent.