On the face of it, the plan by South Korea’s president Yoon Suk-yeol to increase the number of doctors being trained at the country’s medical schools sounded like a winning way to get the public onside ahead of a parliamentary election.
In reality, by joining the long line of politicians […]
Legislation enabling private universities to operate in Greece will deliver “significantly positive results” and limit the flow of Greek students to overseas institutions, says the country’s education minister.
Kyriakos Pierrakakis told Times Higher Education that the education law, which was passed in March amid mass student protests, would facilitate the “opening up of the Greek university […]
The unemployment rate for youth aged 16-24 in cities reached a record high of 21.3 percent last June (2023). That was perhaps too embarrassing for the government, so it stopped publishing the data series while it rejigged its calculation to exclude young people seeking jobs while studying. The new numbers […]
Students in elite institutions are highly privileged. Why do they not spend this precious time, while they are young and full of energy, learning about the world instead of fomenting riots to change it?
Many of the most prestigious American universities have become dysfunctional during the past month. They have […]
Ahead of the start of the academic year in February, South African higher education is mired in crisis, amid claims of corruption and questions over the ability of the country’s student funding scheme to manage payments. Higher education minister Blade Nzimande has been on the ropes for weeks following publication […]
China’s move to take more direct control of university governance is likely to presage a further crackdown on academic freedom, experts warn. University presidents have long complained of a lack of autonomy stemming from the influence of government-appointed party secretaries on campuses, but these parallel governance structures are now being merged in institutions across the […]
Israel has been accused of deliberately targeting universities and academics in Gaza as part of a strategy branded “educide”. Following the controlled demolition of Al-Israa University, Israeli army footage of which was widely shared on social media, every single higher education institution in Gaza is believed to […]
High-profile “exiled” academics have returned to Brazil after a “change in atmosphere” in the year since Jair Bolsonaro lost the presidency. But the polarised country could now face strikes as higher education continues to suffer from years of underfunding.
Hampered by a hostile legislature and spending restrictions, Luiz Inacio […]
Coronavirus has taken the sheen from Australian universities’ golden goose, with discounting, offshoring and other factors slashing the per-student value of international education at many institutions.
A Times Higher Education analysis shows that while overseas enrolments took a battering from Covid-19, so did, tuition fees. Compared with 2019, per-student earnings for almost half the sector are […]
A year ago, New York’s governor, Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, proposed to adjust a state cap on charter schools, publicly funded but privately run schools that have become a locus of innovation and controversy in American education. Ms Hochul’s plan was not ambitious, but it would have allowed dozens of new charter […]
Hillsdale College, where I am employed, sponsors over 100 schools across the United States. These are ‘classical’ schools — they look back to a ‘classic’ age for direction and inspiration.
One feature of classical schools is they aim to build ‘character’. It is a big word. It emanates from an […]
As I wrote in my last despatch, at Hillsdale College, we are working to become involved with education in India. We are excited by this prospect because we love to teach, because India is important, and because there are profound commonalities between our countries.
Quebec premier François Legault: language chauvinism revival
McGill University, one of Canada’s top-ranked higher education institutions, is warning that a provincial policy to discourage English-language instruction through sharp tuition fee hikes is threatening its existence.
The move by Quebec premier François Legault “puts the university’s very future in question”, McGill said in issuing an estimate […]
Foreigners are among the more than 4,000 who make up Yonsei University’s 39,000-strong student body, their presence attesting to the fact that Yonsei’s name, hallowed in Korea, carries weight far outside the country, too. Known as one of the troika of the nation’s top “SKY universities” (alongside […]
Rapid expansion of postgraduate enrolment is forcing Chinese universities to abandon their “boarding school” model of providing on-campus accommodation for all students.
Institutions have long provided subsidised dormitories, which cost significantly less than private off-campus options. At Fudan University, for example, on-campus accommodation costs Master’s students between 800 yuan (Rs.9,600) and 1,600 yuan annually, while a […]
President Macron (right) & PM Borne: second thoughts
France’s newly passed hard-line immigration law will repel international students and stifle French research, warn education leaders. The controversial new legislation approved by the French parliament in December, divided President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist Renaissance party, while the far-right, anti-immigration politician Marine Le Pen, leader of National […]
By surrendering to a political mob despite the apparent protection of the world’s most powerful university, Claudine Gay has set a precedent that has left academics wondering who can possibly survive the rising ideological crusades of America.
On January 2, Prof. Gay stepped down as president of Harvard University after six months of stifling pressure from […]
Insufficient German language skills are the primary hurdle for international academics targeting long-term careers in Germany, a new study has found. The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) interviewed international postdocs, new professors and members of university management for the study, concluding that while research funding opportunities and early career promotions attract academics to Germany, international […]
Facing their toughest-ever nationwide tests of academic freedom, some US institutions are slowly trying to move past questions of intrusive donors and violent protests by teaching more directly about tolerance.
While many of the nation’s campuses remain convulsed by demonstrations, threats, and arrests relating to the Israel-Hamas conflict, several of them — including Harvard University, […]
The first international student from China, enrolled at the University of Sydney a century ago. Now its sandstone buildings hum with foreign languages: almost half the university’s students are from overseas. “For Asian kids, we value the rankings a lot,” says one of its Chinese students, who asks […]
Cambridge University is facing new legal and internal challenges to its policy of forcing academics to retire at the age of 67. Around 120 current and former professors at the institution have signed a letter to the recently installed vice chancellor, Deborah Prentice, urging her to call a vote on abolishing the Employer Justified Retirement […]
President Javier Milei: education and research slashing targets
In the wake of his shock election victory in December, a video of new Argentinian president Javier Milei tearing the names of government departments off a whiteboard went viral on TikTok.
It shows the right-winger — sporting a distinctive pair of huge sideburns — shouting “afuera” (get […]
Budget woes and internal divisions could prove fatal for a pan-Asian university backed by regional governments, scholars say. Based in New Delhi, the South Asian University (SAU) is supported by an intergovernmental partnership, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), with eight member nations — including India, Pakistan and Nepal — […]
One of the best adventures I have had in many years is my first trip to India. I have long followed the affairs of India and regarded it as important to the world. I saw wonders there. I will describe some of them in my despatches in future.
The escalating diplomatic row between Ottawa and New Delhi has the potential to deter thousands of Indian undergraduates from studying in Canada, academics have warned.
After Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau suggested that India might have been behind the assassination of a Sikh leader and Canadian national in British […]
Universities across China are raising their tuition fees as the academic year begins, in a move that some academics believe could signal a shift to a Western-style market system.
After roughly a decade of stagnant fees, this year dozens of institutions have announced hikes — at some, charges have gone up by more than 50 percent […]
The Biden administration is signalling its willingness to accept degree programmes with fewer than 120 credits, potentially triggering a rush of consolidations that could further weaken struggling campuses.
The idea hit a milestone this summer with one of the six major US accrediting agencies, the Northwest Commission on Colleges and […]
Textbooks often cause controversy. Parents object to what they teach children about sex. History can be ideologically charged. Maps sometimes provoke anger in neighbouring countries. But rarely have textbooks caused such an uproar as in Mexico, when the government issued new books for the start of the school year on […]
For more than 50 years, admissions officers at some of America’s swankiest universities have given a leg up to black, Hispanic and Native American students whose achievements in secondary school might not, on their own, have won them a place. On June 29, the Supreme Court declared this […]
After 13 years of Conservative government, the country’s public services are in less than fine fettle. There is an exception. Under the Conservatives, England’s schools have improved. England is now the best in the West when it comes to reading at primary-school age, according to one ranking. When it comes to maths, English students of […]
Scholars have expressed hope that Nigeria’s introduction of tuition fees and student loans will end the underfunding of its universities. One of the first acts in office of new president Bola Tinubu in June was to sign into law a student loan bill, seven years after it was first introduced to the country’s parliament.
A for-profit billed as Germany’s largest university, majority owned by a private equity firm, has bought a London banking education provider with UK degree-awarding powers as well as a Canadian university, as it expands an online model that features an AI “teaching and learning assistant”.
The sale of the London Institute of Banking and Finance (LIBF) […]
Vietnamese children: “one of the world’s best schooling systems”
Ho Chi Minh, the founding-father of Vietnam, was clear about the route to development. “For the sake of ten years’ benefit, we must plant trees. For the sake of a hundred years’ benefit, we must cultivate the people,” was a statement he liked to repeat. […]
Norwegian universities have a busy summer ahead as politicians argue over the finer details of international student fees, which will be charged to those from outside the European Economic Area (EEA) from this month.
Overall support for the plans from the Norwegian parliament’s education committee on June 6 confirms the late summer deadline, despite warnings from […]
Hong Kong’s government has begun consulting universities about lifting its cap on international students, potentially bringing thousands more to the island in coming years, according to senior university officials. Legislators are looking to relax the official 20 percent limit on “non-local” undergraduate students — roughly half of whom come […]
The looming closure of dozens of insolvent universities in South Korea will change the distribution of students across the country, potentially furthering inequalities between its regions and capital city, say scholars. Korea’s rapid demographic decline has already resulted in university closures countrywide — and it is expected to get […]
The moment when his chemistry master pulled out a pistol, declared it loaded and waved it in the air was “probably”, says Justin Webb, a broadcaster, the worst point of his boarding-school career. Winston Churchill would recall the floggings, done until pupils “bled freely” and screamed loudly. George Orwell […]
In a first, Taiwan’s ministry of education has approved a so-called merger between a public and private institution — a policy initiative that scholars say could be a useful model for other universities also on the brink of closure.
In late May, the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology (NTUST), a public institution, got the […]
Teheran’s past policies of allowing Iran’s higher education sector to “blindly develop” to absorb students facing a tough jobs market have exacerbated current high rates of graduate unemployment. According to figures recently released by the Statistical Center of Iran, roughly one million university graduates in the country are […]
Simulated model of Berkeley’s new data science college
The University of California at Berkeley is starting a new college of computer and data science, in what it expects might become a nationwide model for coping with the field’s surging and often unmet demand. UC Berkeley, like many US campuses, has been overpowered by the […]
Indian Institute of Technology Madras’ (IIT Madras) Centre of Excellence for Road Safety (CoERS) has launched a landmark ‘Data Driven Hyperlocal Intervention’ (DDHI) programme to .....Read More
At least five people, including three children, were killed and several others injured in a suicide attack on a school bus in Pakistan’s restive Balochistan .....Read More
