19 February 2023  Issue No: 727

A project of a Ukrainian media NGO, founded in 2014 by Ukrainian university professors and students, is working to refute Russia’s propaganda and fake news about the ongoing war in Ukraine. Part academic research, part journalistic mission, StopFake’s aim is simple: truth.

South Korea’s Ministry of Education this month unveiled a promised plan to strengthen regional universities that have been badly affected by the country’s demographic decline and a strong student preference to study in the capital Seoul and other major cities.

Next weekend University World News will publish a special report on ‘AI and HE’, with a focus on ChatGPT and how universities around the world are responding. The special report will be followed by a series of articles, published weekly, exploring developments in artificial intelligence that have implications for higher education institutions and systems, students and academics, and teaching, learning and research.

Universities need to resist the urge to recruit hundreds of thousands of students for purely financial gain while host countries deprive the source country of their most capable brains. We need a new system that requires universities to recirculate some of the income to schemes that encourage and reward students for returning home.

A new book, which draws on the writer’s extensive experience of teaching Shakespeare at a small liberal arts college in the United States, exposes the limitations of the measurable student outcomes imposed by education authorities and brings to light the immeasurable value of the humanities for society.

To boost Chinese students’ employability, universities in Australia and Chinese students need to do more to address cultural misunderstanding and encourage the creation of effective social networks. Students could do with support in applying for visas, and should improve their English and career management skills.

China’s universities are stepping up to the climate change challenge with an array of initiatives in research, knowledge sharing, national and global collaboration, and teaching and learning. But there are significant obstacles, and more needs to be done to address the link between theory and practice.

From suggestions to ban ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence chatbot, to adjusting curricula and assessment formats, the academic community in North Africa, as in other parts of the world, disagrees about how the higher education sector should respond to the latest text tool.