23 October 2022  Issue No: 713

Education services from across the world have joined forces to establish a Global Academic Integrity Network to stamp out the multi-billion-dollar contract cheating industry, which has flourished in higher education in recent years as online learning and assessment have become more prevalent.

International students enrolled at international branch campuses are less satisfied with academic and teaching quality, the academic environment and academic engagement than international students enrolled at the home campuses with which the international branch campuses are associated, a study of four United Kingdom and Australian universities and their branch campuses found.

Developing the capacity for reflection is one of the ways in which higher education prepares learners for life and work in the 21st century by fostering creativity. As much a virtue as a skill, reflection can also challenge teachers to re-evaluate academic practices.

The Nobel Prizes, while certainly elite, highlight the importance of fundamental research, creativity and the role of universities in creating and sustaining effective academic cultures for enabling researchers to pursue knowledge for the sake of knowledge and shaping our view of the world.

The urgency to fund universities in Africa to advance science for climate action has been highlighted by experts ahead of the 27th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or COP27, which will be hosted by Egypt in the Red Sea city of Sharm el-Sheikh from 7 to 18 November.

African universities have made dramatic progress in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2023 as, for the first time, 97 universities from 17 countries, up from 71 last year, have been rated to be part of the best universities globally, with 10 of them in the top 500.