1 April 2021  Issue No: 307

There is a fast-growing void and a stark mismatch between people’s current skills and the skills that will be needed for jobs during the Fourth Industrial Revolution or 4IR. Governments, businesses, schools and universities around the world are simply not helping people to acquire the skills they need to succeed in this new environment, but deliberate, strategic and comprehensive career guidance could make a difference.

Equipping students with 21st-century employability skills demanded by employers would require a review of existing curricula, and more investment in existing education policies. To fill the gap between university curricula and industry demands would also require a change in teaching methods and a move away from teaching theory only to also equipping learners with technical and hands-on skills, experts told a webinar on 24 March.

I have deliberately chosen not to use the full n-word in this piece as I would like the detractors of former vice-chancellor and principal of the University of the Witwatersrand, Professor Adam Habib, to contemplate a little more deeply their position and think more about the consequences of their actions. It would be futile for me to exacerbate an already volatile discussion at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London on the use of the full n-word.

Financial aid schemes across the world enable poor students to study. But no one should be fooled into thinking the money makes life easier for the recipients. It opens the door to a university education and the opportunity to graduate but, once you are a student, the struggle for survival continues. This is a reflection on the arduous journey and the ultimate outcome.

In an effort to achieve knowledge-based sustainable development, a UNESCO report titled Mapping Research and Innovation in the Republic of Mozambique urges the Southern African country to expand postgraduate studies and promote high-quality research and innovation. But how should it go about it?

The QS World University Rankings by Subject 2021, released in March, compared 13,883 individual programmes, at 1,440 universities globally, across 51 academic disciplines. Seventeen departments at African universities are among the world’s 100 best places to study their subjects. How does a department or a faculty become a top study destination? University World News asked a few universities to consider some of the important building blocks.

While the fundamental principles of academic freedom and institutional autonomy have not changed in 30 years, their context has, with increasing curbs on them in several European countries in line with pressures on democratic systems and values. Action is required to defend them.

An analysis of how Indian institutions are faring in the QS World University Rankings by Subject shows that they continue to perform solidly in some fields, but there is room to improve in areas such as environmental studies, agriculture, nursing, the arts and education.

Hong Kong’s University Grants Committee, which oversees the city’s publicly funded universities, has indicated that universities’ implementation of compulsory education on the National Security Law could affect stepped-up funding. But lecturers say it is not clear how such a course could be delivered.