In some parts of Asia, masked but cautious students and faculty are beginning to fill up classrooms, laboratories and dormitories once more. If the spread of Covid-19 continues to be contained, most universities in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macao and Singapore expect to be open for at least some in-person teaching in the 2020- 21 […]
While publicly dangling possibilities and preparations for campus reopenings, US colleges must keep a serious internal focus on strengthening their remote learning options, advises their chief quality assurance advocate. US colleges seem to be making good progress towards online proficiency, says Judith Eaton, president of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation. “This is an opportunity […]
First-year students are set to be a priority across Europe when campuses tentatively reopen in autumn (September), to avoid an increase in dropout rates — but low reliance on tuition fees means there is less pressure to restart in-person teaching for some continental institutions.
There is a patchwork of different approaches across the continent. German universities […]
Of all the regions covered by the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, Asia has arguably advanced the most in terms of higher education in recent years. Three Asian universities now feature among the Top 25 of the global league table — remarkable progress given that four years ago, in 2016, there […]
A survey has revealed that the French public has lost confidence in scientists during the coronavirus pandemic, largely because of a policy U-turn over face masks and the antics of a “populist” microbiologist who has vocally championed hydroxychloroquine, the treatment touted by US President Donald Trump. Since the crisis began, trust in […]
“Graduation equals unemployment has long been a common saying in China (the nouns share a character). It is often used in jest by university students as final exams loom. But for the 9 million or so who graduated in May — a record high — the words convey a dark reality. As China limps back […]
Hong Kong’s two medical schools, which have been important critical voices in global public health policy, have received significant government support for 26 studies related to Covid-19. The Health and Medical Research Fund-approved HK$111 million (Rs.108 crore) for the University of Hong Kong Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine (HKU Med) and the Chinese University […]
A wide variation in different countries’ success in tackling Covid-19 could lead to major winners and losers in the coming battle to recruit international students, it has been predicted. Perceptions that some nations have struggled to contain the outbreak could be the difference between university sectors losing millions or billions of dollars, according to calculations […]
Job security is emerging as the key battleground as Australian universities strive to offset the billions of dollars the Covid-19 crisis is costing them. Universities are scrapping construction and refurbishment plans, and deferring discretionary spending. Institutions are also courting banks, those with contingency funds are raiding them and every institution is eyeing its cash reserves.
Lucian Stiopu watches his son cycle round Central Park in Peterborough. Before the government imposed a lockdown, he says, the boy would spend about nine hours a day at primary school, allowing him to go to work in a prison. And now? Stiopu’s son reports that his teachers are setting a bit of work online. […]
The voices of epidemiologists and public health experts have inevitably dominated initial responses to the coronavirus crisis. This has meant that other disciplines have been sidelined and risk being shut out altogether from the thinking processes informing decisions about how to move forward.
So what can those in the social sciences bring to the table, both […]
US college students are stepping up demands for partial tuition refunds for the spring semester, with a growing number pursuing legal action against institutions they accuse of overstating virus-related financial losses. The students have filed lawsuits against more than a dozen universities, in some cases citing the institutions’ own data showing they had been charging […]
The death of Anucha Thasako was supposed to change everything. After several sharp blows to the head during a Thai boxing bout in 2018, the scrawny 13-year-old fell to the floor, unconscious. The referee rushed to his side, to no avail. There was no doctor in attendance. Anucha died soon afterwards from brain haemorrhage. He […]
One of Russia’s leading universities has banned its academics and students from identifying their institutional position when making public political statements. This ban is being interpreted as a further erosion of academic freedom in the country.
Critics claim that Moscow’s Higher School of Economics (HSE), known for its relatively liberal leanings, has clamped down on dissent […]
A leading German university has been plunged into scandal after it emerged that it had signed a contract binding it to abide by Chinese law while accepting hundreds of thousands of euros from China to set up a professorship to establish a Chinese teacher training programme.
German lawmakers have criticised the Free University of Berlin (FU) […]
Like any hotbed of scholarly activity, the University of California (UC) is no stranger to rows. Recently a debate over the use of SATS and ACTS, tests used in college admissions, has spilled out from campus into the courtroom. In December, a lawsuit denouncing UC’s use of the tests was filed in the Alameda County […]
It is a scary time to be ill in Wuhan. The city has one-third of all confirmed infections by the coronavirus and three-quarters of the deaths caused by it. People there are barred from travelling elsewhere (similar rules apply across Hubei, a Syria-sized province of which Wuhan is the capital). Since late January, military medics […]
Boris Johnson’s proposal to reintroduce post-study work visas in the UK could have the unintended consequence of forcing Australian universities to shorten their Masters degree programmes. A key selling point of UK universities is the opportunity to complete a Masters degree in a year, rather than two years, as is standard in most other parts […]
US universities’ ties with Middle Eastern countries are coming under increasing scrutiny, threatening to accelerate the decline of such links and leaving campuses facing a mounting administrative burden. From the US government end, the renewed focus is a side effect of the White House’s strategy for blocking China from accessing cutting-edge US research, which has […]
Hong Kong universities have been urged to assert their status as bastions of academic freedom in the wake of violent police crackdowns on campus protests. The “most immediate test” would be how higher education institutions respond to the potential prosecution of some of the more than 1,000 students who have been arrested during recent demonstrations, […]
When Estonia gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, it took the chance to reshape the country’s school education system. Mailis Reps, the incumbent education minister, recalls the concluding argument in any debate often ran: “Let’s try something that works in Sweden or Finland.”
Many others have done similarly. Every three years, the OECD (Organisation […]
Almost a third of international students in the US have faced discrimination because of their nationality with Chinese students being particularly affected, according to a study. A survey of 1,921 overseas students and recent graduates reported that 38 percent found living away from home and family more challenging than they had expected, and 41 percent […]
French universities have been accused of being bloated at the top, with one institution boasting no fewer than 26 vice presidents. Some university managements have swelled to include vice presidents for simplification, “success,” “heritage” and, even, “the sea”. The findings follow up on a book published recently by a prominent French sociologist of universities, which […]
The drill-sergeant barking orders is a former commando who lost bits of two fingers while deployed in South Sudan. His 100-odd young charges are dressed in camouflage uniforms and army boots. After a bit of marching in time they are shown how to abseil out of a besieged building.
The group under instruction are not conscripts, […]
At first glance, Germany might seem an unlikely place for a boom in private, fee-charging universities. Famously, the nation’s public universities are almost free to attend, even for foreign students, and are regarded as consistently decent in quality.
But despite this, an ever greater number of students, German and foreign, are choosing to pay to go […]
To the disappointment of Molly, a 19-year-old at the University of Portsmouth, the Waterhole Bar is no more. “I enjoyed pre-ing in there with friends,” she sighs. “We’d get together, have a few snakebites, get hyped.” Access was restricted to students, meaning it felt safe. Karaoke Fridays were fun. But students were recently told the […]
Bringing large numbers of older graduates back into classrooms under a radical lifelong learning programme will test the teaching abilities of staff, a university president has admitted.
All undergraduates and postgraduates of the National University of Singapore remain enrolled for 20 years from the point of admission, making all current and future students automatically eligible for […]
Denmark’s new Social Democrat government has ended a five-year budget squeeze on universities, but academics fear that proposed cuts to humanities and social science funding could lead to course closures. The new government, which set out its budget on October 2, will scrap annual 2 percent cuts to university allocations.
Hong Kong’s status as an academic hub could be undermined by the protests that have gripped the territory, fear scholars. Cancellations of a conference and several student exchange programmes have been seen as early signs of the potential impact of the demonstrations and the increasingly authoritarian response of the Hong Kong government.
Seek “harmony but not sameness”, advised the Chinese philosopher Confucius 2,500 years ago. Neither quality was on display when Chinese nationalists violently disrupted a rally in support of anti-government demonstrators in Hong Kong at the University of Queensland in July.
Since then Drew Pavlou, one of the organisers of the sympathy rally, says he has received […]
The world’s most prestigious universities are primarily in two countries: America and Britain. Strangely, though, the more aristocratic, less meritocratic system of admissions is found not in the country with a House of Lords and a hereditary monarchy, but in the land of rugged individualism. Unsurprisingly, the American system is under attack.
In a closely […]
Moves by the Pakistan government to cut higher education funding by 19 percent could prove “disastrous” for universities and harm teaching, research and the well-being of scholars, warn academics. In June, the government presented its first budget since Imran Khan, chairman of the centrist Pakistan Tahreek-i-Insaf Party, came to power last August.
Mbar lifts up his trousers and points at the marks where the chains wore his skin away. He was 11 when his father sent him from his village to a religious school on the outskirts of Senegal’s holy city of Touba. His teacher made him recite passages from the Koran in the morning. Then Mbar […]
Many universities highlight the close interaction between students and faculty as a key element of their student experience. But the Copenhagen Business School (CBS) takes this approach to a whole new level. Each of the institution’s degree programmes has its own ‘study board’ made up of students and academics who collectively make decisions about curriculum […]
India seems set to overtake China as Australia’s top education market in a change of guard with potentially major ramifications for university finances. Growth in the number of Indian students in Australia was five times as fast as expansion of Chinese student numbers in 2018, and Australia hosted just 5,000 more Chinese than Indian students […]
When the Chinese government first sent students to America in the late 19th century, it could not decide whether their goal should be to acquire specific technical knowledge or to absorb new ways of thinking. More than a century later, over 300,000 Chinese students are enrolled in American schools and universities. Yet folks back home […]
The path of British universities opening branch campuses in Asia is a well-trodden one, littered with some successes and a few failures. There is far less travel in the opposite direction — but the dean of a Chinese business school with a UK outpost hopes this move will encourage other mainland institutions to follow in […]
I am sorry to inform my readers that a serious illness prevented me from writing my Letter from London last month, and even more disappointed that this will be my last one ever. Writing this monthly letter has been the greatest joy and honour of my past two years.
A student rebel, Emmanuel Macron has turned into a presidential revolutionary. On April 25, in response to the gilets jaunes (yellow jackets) protesters and their rage against an out-of-touch elite, Macron announced dissolution of France’s famous Ecole National d’Administration (ENA).
“Makeshift repairs”, the president declared, won’t do: “If you keep the same structures, habits are just […]
Universities should change their approach to disseminating research and operate more like think tanks if they want to get into the minds of government leaders and influence policy, according to a former UK senior civil servant.
Addressing academic leaders at an event organised by the Higher Education Policy Institute, a panel of experts called on educators […]
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
