7 September 2023  Issue No: 419

Niger students admitted to French universities for the upcoming academic year have been unable to secure visas to travel owing to the recent coup d’état which saw the French consulate and embassy in the capital city of Niamey closed until further notice.

Egypt has launched an educational tourism initiative that will provide scholarships and residency rights along with cultural support benefits to attract Arab, African and foreign students to study at its universities and higher education institutions for economic and educational gain.

Cameroon has opened its doors for higher education training in renewable energy with the creation of departments in that field at all 11 state universities, a move aimed at creating jobs and accelerating the Sustainable Development Goals in the fight against climate change.

In a groundbreaking study that challenges traditional norms of teacher induction, a team of researchers from two South African universities has proposed a visionary approach that leverages the involvement of students in the induction of new university teachers, opening the door to educational transformation.

An exorbitant increase in tuition fees at public universities in Nigeria, which comes in the wake of the eight-month long strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities that ended early this year, has left many students facing the possibility of having to abandon their studies.

A total of 104 government and private higher education institutions in Sudan, as well as research centres and the National Fund for Student Welfare have been damaged and vandalised since April when the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces became embroiled in a war.

We live in a world of information overload, but too much choice may lead us to spurn different and new perspectives and opt for the safety of familiar voices. How does the propensity to live in our own echo chambers affect higher education research?

Students and academics in China who use artificial intelligence tools to ‘ghostwrite’ essays or dissertations risk having their degrees revoked, according to a new draft Degree Law which is intended to strengthen existing laws aimed at curbing plagiarism, falsification, lying about credentials and other misconduct.

The 60-year history of the UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning can be traced through several key research programmes that have helped shape higher education, from its burgeoning importance in the post-independence era to today’s calls for greater flexibility and student choice.

In keeping with their longstanding ban on education for women and girls, Taliban authorities in Afghanistan stopped a group of aspirational female students from boarding a plane to Dubai where they were to take up university scholarships funded by an Emirati philanthropist and businessman.