15 May 2022  Issue No: 692

After years of receiving extra government funding to push selected top universities up international university rankings, three prestigious Chinese universities will no longer participate in overseas rankings. Academics say this could make the rankings landscape less globally representative as Chinese universities pursue their own path.

A joint declaration on international academic cooperation in times of crisis signed by international education agencies from the G7 countries, the Academic Cooperation Association and a number of international agencies highlights the need for more safe havens for threatened students and researchers.

More than 1,500 participants will gather in Barcelona, Spain, from 18-20 May for the third UNESCO World Higher Education Conference, to chart a renewed vision for higher education in the next decade.

As Australia prepares to vote, the two main parties’ approach to higher education has come under the spotlight. Yet what is needed is radical reform and a public conversation on what universities are for, what they do and how they should be governed.

With increasing reports of senior staff leaving universities to take high-profile positions with commercial organisations, it may be time for universities to give real thought to the ways in which they can attract, recruit and retain the brightest and the best talent.

When Sodiq Yusuf was accepted at Osun State University in southwestern Nigeria, he only thought of pursuing a degree in linguistics and communication studies. Subsequently, he became an environmental activist, advocating that students across his homeland replicate what he and his fellow students have been doing: planting and taking care of trees.

As COVID lockdowns take effect in several cities in China, schools offering international curricula are not only contending with disruptions to the school-leaving exams due to take place this month but also face the potential loss of qualified teachers fed up with strict containment measures.