20 November 2022  Issue No: 717

China’s Confucius Institutes have come under close scrutiny, with prominent politicians calling for all institutes at British universities to be closed, but uncertainty created by frequent changes in the UK’s prime minister means the exact nature of their fate is not yet sealed.

Despite three days of strike action being announced by academic union leaders and national employer representatives saying a 3% increase is being imposed on staff, some United Kingdom universities are making one-off ‘cost-of-living crisis’ payments of up to £1,000 (US$1,200) in the run-up to Christmas.

A new university ranking that foregrounds values, ethics and sustainability as central principles of higher education institutions has been launched to fill a gap left by traditional rankings that are skewed towards the West, biased towards research outputs, and exclude 95% of institutions.

An estimated million African university students are set to benefit from a digital education programme on climate change and the Sustainable Development Goals. African scholars in conservation and environmental fields would lead the course development in order to bring an African perspective on climate change and the SDGs.

The metaverse is here to stay and we cannot let learners disappear in it. By making social and emotional learning central in the metaverse, there is an opportunity to bridge the virtuality-reality divide and foster a sense of community to drive real change.

Beyond recruitment drives, equity, diversity and inclusion initiatives should enrich learners and learning, monitor quality education design, indigenise curricula, inspire leadership, assess academic impact and foster glocal community development – and there are examples from across the world to illustrate their multiple applications.

Universities in Thailand and the United Kingdom are working together in a major consortium of 21 institutions to facilitate research on global challenges, including the Sustainable Development Goals, expand existing expertise of Thai universities in community development and help institutions to become more globally competitive.

Commitments to tackling inequalities in higher education participation and success across the world are tiny compared to the importance placed on practically all other aspects of the global higher education agenda, yet failure to address such inequity will inevitably foster resentment regarding higher education itself.