A report sent to the United Nations warns that greater precarity of academic employment poses a threat to academic freedom in India, with scholars on insecure contracts potentially less willing to rock the boat with critical commentary.
Dr. Nandini Sundar, professor of sociology at the University of Delhi in Academic Freedom in India: A Status Report […]
Chinese universities must better integrate overseas students on their campuses and give them the freedom to develop a sense of responsibility if the country is to realise its goal of becoming the largest provider of international education this half-century, says a new study
The paper, which is based on insights from Chinese university staff after they […]
The University of Hamburg has decided to cut ties with its Confucius Institute (more than 500 institutes have been established by communist China around the world to teach Chinese language and culture) over fears that Beijing could use it as “propaganda instrument”, in the latest sign of a more wary stance in Germany towards […]
Universities in the UK have warned that they might not be able to find a place for every eligible student this autumn despite the lifting of caps on numbers to accommodate a major U-turn on A-level grading. Institutions were already facing major uncertainty about their student numbers after last-minute changes to the handling of school […]
The share of US postgraduate students suffering depression has more than doubled during the coronavirus pandemic, according to a major survey of students at nine public research universities. A survey of 30,725 undergraduates and 15,346 postgraduates by the Student Experience in the Research University (SERU) Consortium, based at the University of California, Berkeley, found […]
One of the world’s most influential voices on higher education policy says tuition fees should be cut after coronavirus lockdowns removed the key reason students attend university — to meet top academics, mingle with interesting fellow students and to have a “great experience”.
Andreas Schleicher, director for education and skills at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation […]
Of the 1.5 billion children forced out of school by lockdowns around the globe, 700 million are in developing countries. Like pupils in rich countries, their education is suffering. But the consequences in poor places will be far worse. Before the pandemic, more children were in school than ever before, according to Robert Jenkins, head […]
In his four years as UK’s education secretary, Michael Gove has learned that no subject on the curriculum is as contentious as history. As he acknowledged in a speech in 2013, it can be an “ideological battleground” for “contending armies”. In the past few months, UK’s history wars have spilled onto the streets. Revisionism has […]
China has taken a much more assertive — some would say aggressive — global position in recent months as it defends itself against criticism on a host of issues, from the handling of the initial coronavirus outbreak to scrutiny of its technology companies and research ties. Stuck in the middle are its students, who may […]
Last year Kiana Jones took a summer job at a trampoline park, supervising birthday parties and keeping an eye out for overzealous bouncers. This season Ms Jones, an undergraduate in Tennessee, is spending seven weeks in a community centre drilling children in reading and maths. She is one of around 600 locals swiftly assembled by […]
US university leaders have been accused of “suffering from magical thinking” about their hopes of reopening campuses this autumn, as coronavirus cases surge across the country. Institutions have been forced to dial back plans to resume in-person teaching and to cut tuition fees as the US hits new records of over 50,000 infections per day, […]
The abrupt halt to international travel is more painful for Australian universities than their counterparts in other English-speaking countries, because they lean more heavily on revenue from foreign students. More than 440,000 such students enrolled in Australian institutes of higher education in 2019. At the last count, they took up roughly 30 percent of capacity. […]
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.
Scindia Kanya Vidyalaya (SKV) has been honoured with the prestigious Madhya Pradesh Annual Environmental Award 2025. The award was conferred by chief minister Dr. Mohan .....Read More
At least 19 people have been killed and more than 100 injured after a Bangladesh Air Force F-7 BGI training aircraft crashed into Milestone College .....Read More
