27 October 2022  Issue No: 380

South Africa has the highest number of universities in Africa that are featured in the first QS World University Rankings: Sustainability 2023, a new ranking classification that provides a framework on how universities are doing in accelerating environmental and social change globally.

Education services from across the world have joined forces to establish a Global Academic Integrity Network to stamp out the multi-billion-dollar contract cheating industry, which has flourished in higher education in recent years as online learning and assessment have become more prevalent.

The capacity-building aspect of climate change should be addressed when climate science activists, researchers and politicians gather for the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP27, in Egypt from 6-18 November. However, it is important to establish what resources and skills are being transferred, says Dr Nomhle Ngwenya, a climate risk analyst and researcher at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa.

Lifelong-lifewide learning for all is a cornerstone of the 2030 Agenda, as embodied in Sustainable Development Goal 4, but students must be producers of knowledge as well as consumers, able to think in rigorous and innovative ways to solve the most intractable problems.

A study that set out to investigate the impact of the quantity and quality of academic research output on economic growth in 15 Middle East and North African (MENA) countries has found in almost all areas of research that quantity without an increase in quality research has a negative impact on economic growth.

African higher education planners have been urged to go back to the drawing board and design systems that would transform universities and polytechnics into attractive institutions that would educate the youth to become part of Africa’s industrial value chains and not for elitist non-existent jobs.

Letwin Pondo, a fourth-year undergraduate student in the department of surveying and geomatics at Zimbabwe’s Midlands State University, runs #SheSpeaksSpatial, an initiative that encourages women to participate in the geospatial sector. Her attendance at international conferences, where she was the youngest participant, empowered her to start some of the initiatives she is involved in.

Higher education institutions in Africa are joining the open-science movement, but they face challenges as they develop Africa-oriented practices, according to a new study. It highlighted the importance of open-research policies and problematic issues regarding power and ethics, along with open-science frameworks that could assist policy-makers.

The Nobel Prizes, while certainly elite, highlight the importance of fundamental research, creativity and the role of universities in creating and sustaining effective academic cultures for enabling researchers to pursue knowledge for the sake of knowledge and shaping our view of the world.

Developing the capacity for reflection is one of the ways in which higher education prepares learners for life and work in the 21st century by fostering creativity. As much a virtue as a skill, reflection can also challenge teachers to re-evaluate academic practices.

Overall student enrolment continues to decline in the United States in the aftermath of the COVID pandemic, including among international students. But there are exceptions, as historically black colleges and universities saw an increase this year of 2.5%, and highly selective institutions saw enrolment rise by 0.5%.