20 March 2022  Issue No: 684

All universities and colleges in Shanghai – which has around 30 universities and a similar number of colleges – are in lockdown amid the COVID-19 resurgence in Eastern China, China’s state broadcaster has reported, as multiple Chinese cities face the worst COVID outbreaks since early 2020.

Egyptian students who fled from Ukraine will be able to resume their studies in their homeland. In addition, several eastern European countries, including Romania, Hungary and Serbia, will allow students who were previously studying at Ukrainian universities to complete their studies at their universities and higher education institutions.

A new report by Higher Education Strategy Associates based on comprehensive global research of higher education worldwide reveals fascinating data about the Global North, unpacking the extent, patterns and drivers of declining student numbers and other key trends currently confronting the sector.

While 84% of international students would recommend that their friends and peers in their home countries go to the United States for university, less than half think that the cost of higher education was justified from a career perspective, says a new study.

The United Kingdom needs to end the outdated division between businesspeople and students when it comes to its visa system. International students bring multiple benefits to the country, including to the UK’s levelling up agenda and its ambitions for the education export sector.

The pandemic has been heralded as giving digital education a new lease of life, but what we have instead is ‘emergency education’ that has bypassed pedagogical innovation to give on-campus education a renewed form of distinction, possibly sidelining digital education even further.

Women have been playing an instrumental role in addressing the human and sociological dimensions of climate change, from social justice and equity to adaptation, mitigation and vulnerability. More organisations are stepping forward to support emerging women researchers who focus on climate change and gender studies.

Policy-makers and university vice-chancellors in the developing world must stop trying to duplicate the dominant model for higher education, which is rigged in favour of institutions in the Global North – and, instead, forge home-grown approaches which meet the needs of their local contexts, says Dzulkifli Abdul Razak, rector of the International Islamic University Malaysia.

The Russian Union of Rectors has hardened its line, issuing a statement supporting the army and President Vladimir Putin’s decision to launch a ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine to ‘achieve demilitarisation and denazification’ and underlining universities’ commitment to ‘instil patriotism in young people’.