23 April 2023  Issue No: 736

The internationalisation and development of higher education in Latin America and the Caribbean – where only 0.8% of students study abroad against 2.6% globally – have been boosted by the first meeting of UNESCO’s new regional convention on the recognition of studies and degrees, adopted by 23 countries.

One of Hong Kong’s top universities – the Chinese University of Hong Kong – will reduce student and academic representation on its governing council if a taskforce report on the university’s governance is fully implemented, giving external members, including political appointees, more say on key university matters.

A call from academic and student union representatives for academic freedom to be enshrined in the country’s constitution has fuelled further debate in Sweden about improving protection of academic freedom and university autonomy. A weakening of the governance structures of public higher institutions is causing concern.

This is part of a weekly University World News special report series on ‘AI and higher education’. The focus is on how universities are engaging with ChatGPT and other generative artificial intelligence tools. The articles from academics and our journalists around the world are exploring developments and university work in AI that have implications for higher education institutions and systems, students and staff, and teaching, learning and research.

If universities enact the five ‘I’s of internationalisation – intent, inclusivity, innovation, interactivity and impact – they can place internationalisation at the core of what they do. This has become critical in an interdependent world driven by common challenges and in need of common solutions.

Pressure on university instructors to ‘dumb down’ what they do in order to ensure a certain percentage of students complete their degrees instead of producing creative graduates who can think for themselves and solve problems comes with high costs for all stakeholders.

The new cutting-edge Biomedical Research Institute unveiled by Stellenbosch University near Cape Town, South Africa, shows that the African continent is perfectly willing and able to help, not just itself, but the rest of humanity as well, says the institution's vice dean of the faculty of medicine and health sciences.

As humanity becomes more interconnected, lifelong and lifewide learning will become more ubiquitous as people need to develop more human skills such as higher-order thinking skills, creative thinking skills and strategic metacognitive skills. Education, knowledge and learning must be treated as global common goods.