27 April 2023  Issue No: 403

The higher education community in Sudan, including several universities, their academics and students, has taken a stand as part of a pro-democracy movement to call for an end to the war in the country and for humanitarian support for citizens affected by the military clashes between the national army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.

South Africa’s University of Pretoria has conferred an honorary doctorate on the first person from Africa to head the World Health Organization or WHO as director-general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in recognition of his work as a global health expert and scholar.

In the last in a series of workshops hosted by the Southern African Regional Universities Association about work on the Southern African masters degree in climate change and sustainable development, a comprehensive assessment strategy for the programme, which incorporates Work-integrated Learning modalities to foster integration of theory and practice, was discussed.

To navigate a rapidly evolving landscape, with shifts in population demographics and accelerated digitalisation, universities must look beyond their borders to engage with partners and networks to support universities in accelerating their institutional goals and ensuring the greater good of higher education.

Cardiovascular research output from African researchers over the past 50 years remains low, despite marked progress. The annual number of journal articles increased from four publications in 1971 to 3,867 in 2020, according to a study based on data of publications related to African authorship.

Seasoned don Dr Papias Musafiri Malimba was recently appointed deputy principal for academics and research at the East African Christian College in Kabuga, Kigali. As a former minister of education and a deputy vice-chancellor, Musafiri Malimba brings a wealth of experience in the management of education, especially higher learning education, to the table.

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.

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.

It is beginning to look as though the increasing use of sustainability and equity indicators in global university rankings are, in part, designed to cover up declines in basic research, innovation and advanced instruction in the West and the rise of universities throughout Asia.

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 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.