9 July 2020  Issue No: 277

By excluding international students from provisions that allow local students in health sciences and other critical groups to return to class, South Africa is opening itself up to accusations of inequality – and to reputational damage as a preferred destination for international students.

Universities and other tertiary education institutions in North East Nigeria are working to recover from severe disruptions to operations and academic life – in some cases, lengthy closures and falls in enrolments – caused by attacks from insurgent group Boko Haram.

The myth of COVID-19 being “some great equaliser” should be debunked, as the pandemic will likely increase the education gap, speakers told Going Global 2020’s final session – which also looked at the impact of the Black Lives Matter movement on the “Eurocentric curriculum”.

Kenya is to implement a phased reopening of universities from September under strict guidelines, ending a four-month closure occasioned by the coronavirus pandemic.

If we value international academic cooperation as a global public good, we must consider how it is increasingly under threat from neo-nationalist policies, how the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated these effects and what our response must be as an international academic community.

Scrapping the SAT and ACT will not in itself negate the influence of family affluence and level the educational playing field. There is a place for standardised testing to address inequalities in school funding, but it needs to measure potential rather than merely achievement.

The United Kingdom government has unveiled a Research and Development Roadmap to “attract global talent, cut unnecessary bureaucracy and cement the UK as a world-leading science superpower” – and has announced that PhD students can stay on in the UK for three years to live and work.