Breaking News
SOUTH KOREA
Yumi Jeung
A burgeoning number of degrees taught in English at universities in South Korea has fuelled strong growth in foreign student numbers in recent years, part of a deliberate government strategy that includes the streamlining of admissions and visa procedures for international students.
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GLOBAL
Carolyn Jackson and Emily Gray
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MIDDLE EAST-NORTH AFRICA
Wagdy Sawahel
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Top Stories
SOUTH AFRICA-UNITED STATES
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Today’s threats to HE ‘require a similar collective response’
Sioux McKenna
The parallels between apartheid-era South Africa and contemporary threats to academic freedom from the Trump administration in the United States are not coincidental. Both represent systematic attempts to subordinate higher education to authoritarian political projects, using financial pressure, ideological control and institutional intimidation.
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CANADA
Nathan M Greenfield
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INDIA
Shuriah Niazi
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MIDDLE EAST-NORTH AFRICA
Wagdy Sawahel
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News
UNITED KINGDOM
Nic Mitchell
Too many young people are going straight from school into full-time undergraduate study because higher education resists the radical changes needed to make it fit for purpose for a sustainable economy, according to former vice-chancellor of the United Kingdom’s Open University Professor Tim Blackman.
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MALAYSIA
Kalinga Seneviratne
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NETHERLANDS
Jan Petter Myklebust
Higher education sector stakeholders, including the Knowledge Coalition, have urged the political winners in the Dutch general election to redress the current austerity measures affecting higher education, research and innovation during the forthcoming negotiations among political parties seeking to form a government.
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FINLAND
Jan Petter Myklebust
Universities and key higher education stakeholders in Finland have jointly drawn up eight new recommendations aimed at strengthening outward student mobility, which is currently 24% lower than inbound mobility, and at making international experiences for students a core element of higher education studies.
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GHANA
Francis Kokutse
People with disabilities who gain admission to tertiary education institutions in Ghana will no longer pay fees under a new initiative that is intended to activate the national conscience and a sense of equity and justice. Ghana’s President John Mahama made the announcement at a recent ceremony.
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Special Report: Widening Access and Success
GLOBAL
The World Access to Higher Education Network is positioning equity as a defining measure of success – calling on governments, universities and partners to act collectively so that access and achievement become a right, not a privilege. University World News reports from its conference and related events.
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GLOBAL
Desmond Thompson
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GLOBAL
Graeme Atherton
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GLOBAL
Nathan M Greenfield
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GLOBAL
Nathan M Greenfield
Central to decolonising the university is moving knowledge production away from only using methodologies that reduce knowledge to measurable units and recognising the validity of other ways of knowing such as ‘dreams and intuition and visioning’, a World Access to Higher Education Day webinar heard.
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SOUTH AFRICA
Desmond Thompson
When it comes to widening participation in higher education, South Africa tells a story of extraordinary progress but persistent inequality. Three decades after democracy, the higher education system, although Africa’s most diversified, is still grappling with who gets in, who stays and who succeeds.
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Micro-credentials
GLOBAL
The provision of micro-credentials around the world has grown phenomenally, spurred on by employer and learner demand, massive online learning platforms and a pandemic that accelerated digital and short course learning. Credit recognition is the new frontier, as universities and countries work to make micro-credentials matter.
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Edtech, AI and Higher Education
GLOBAL
Tianchong Wang and Christopher Deneen
Growing student use of generative AI forces academia to confront limitations in academic integrity, assessment and how policy connects to practice. Universities must shift from piecemeal fixes to holistic approaches where policy, assessment design and AI literacy work together to achieve better outcomes.
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World Blog
GLOBAL
Louise Nicol
Increased international student diversification may reduce risk, but it could make campuses carbon copies of each other. Real diversity lies in embracing difference, in letting universities in the major English-speaking study destinations build on Chinese postgraduate demand, while others cultivate deeper roots in South Asia, Africa or the Middle East.
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SDGs
GLOBAL
Scovian Lillian
Three women researchers have been recognised for combining cutting-edge science with social impact by a female talent programme that was launched to address a persistent blind spot: the under-representation of women in science leadership and the slow adoption of gender-sensitive research approaches.
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AFRICA
Eve Ruwoko
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SOUTH AFRICA-AFRICA
Eve Ruwoko
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AFRICA-EUROPE
Desmond Thompson
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Features
AFRICA
Desmond Thompson
As pressure mounts globally on the humanities, Africa’s leading writers and scholars used this week’s Nobel Symposium in Literature to argue that the arts are still vital to the world’s intellectual and moral life and should be part of the continent’s wider knowledge ecology.
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AFRICA
Fulufhelo Nemavhola
Under a strict definition, Africa has only one Nobel Prize winner in the natural sciences and medicine – Professor Ahmed H Zewail of Egypt. This stark outcome is a reflection of systems, not a shortage of talent. It reflects a policy choice we can reverse.
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AFRICA
Desmond Thompson
Two Nobel laureates in literature – JM Coetzee and Abdulrazak Gurnah – shared a podium at this week’s fifth Nobel in Africa Symposium, converging on a shared insistence: Africa must not only be written about, but must write on its own terms.
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Top Stories from Last Week
GLOBAL
Patrick Blessinger
Around the world, micro-credentials have the potential to keep higher education institutions relevant and attuned to the realities of how learners live. The success of micro-credentials will depend on academic rigour, alignment with degree programmes and wrap-around support.
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ASIA
Kalinga Seneviratne
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GLOBAL
Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni and Malinda S Smith
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GLOBAL
Jean d’Amour Mbonyinshuti
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UNITED STATES
Nathan M Greenfield
Universities have made mistakes, but contrary to political narratives that present them as elitist and detached, they are the most legitimate avenue for social mobility and the most important engine for innovation, prosperity and security, argues UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk in an exclusive interview.
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IRELAND
John Walshe
Ireland is a leader in integrating micro-credentials into higher education. An innovative MicroCreds initiative has helped build flexible learning pathways, and universities, employers and government are engaging to meet skills needs. But sustaining funding is a key challenge as learner demand continues to grow.
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CHINA
Qiang Zha
Previously a way for Chinese universities to align their operations and standards with those of their Western counterparts, which in turn helped advance China’s modernisation process, higher education internationalisation is now being used to safeguard China’s external interests in a multipolar world.
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INDIA-AFRICA
Shuriah Niazi
India is expanding its footprint in Africa’s higher education sector, setting up a highly regarded Indian Institute of Technology, or IIT, campus in Nigeria – the second campus in Africa – as part of efforts to expand the global presence of IITs and promote international collaboration in education.
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