By FÁBIO Takahashi - Universities News. One of the new federal universities in the country, UFABC (SP), waited for eight months to hire an engineering professor to teach aerodynamics.
Earlier this month, a candidate applied for the job, which provides stability, a research laboratory and a starting salary of over US$ 3,500. More...

By Melanie Swan - Universities News. Education authorities are seeking international law schools to come to Dubai and offer professional development and further education in English to the country’s lawyers.
Employers are crying out for more law graduates, and if more universities offered such courses it would also help UAE lawyers to further their careers, providing another incentive for students to enter the profession.
An annual report compiled by the Knowledge and Human Development Authority showed 9 per cent of graduates in Dubai last year studied law. More...

By univ7280. Former CEO Euan Sutherland’s parting shot across the bows of The Co-operative Group (The Group) following his resignation was that it was ‘ungovernable’. Lord Myners’ resignation, following resistance to his reform plans, further substantiates this claim. Both have left a business struggling to cope with mountainous debts and fundamental challenges to its business model. Many have since offered views on how these challenges might be addressed, including the most recent Myners Review (commissioned by The Group), and a host of journalists. What has been lacking to date, however, is these issues placed in proper context. More...

By Universities News. Study of rankings looks at why institutions in NZ and Australia are being overtaken. Hundreds of millions of dollars being pumped into Asian universities are one reason Australasian institutions have dropped in international rankings, a new analysis says. A number of different international university rankings are published annually, with reaction focused on how New Zealand institutions have fared compared with the previous year. More...

By Fred Hilmer - Universities News. The recent Facebook post by Education Minister Christopher Pyne querying whether Australia’s higher education system could include US-style colleges was interesting to say the least. Obviously a comment on social media doesn’t constitute a formal policy announcement.  But hopefully it signals that the federal government is open to a serious shake-up of higher education in this country. More...

By Universities News. Sri Lanka is opening up its public university system attracting significant investment with plans to allow 10 private universities to operate locally by 2020, an official said.
Sunil Jayantha Navaratne, secretary in the country’s higher education ministry, outlined ambitious plans to reporters that aim to attract 50,000 foreign students to study at these private universities in addition to local youth, Xinhua reported. More...

Union urges more financial support for students at university instead of fee waivers, which only apply when they start work.
Rising living costs and a lack of financial support are preventing disadvantaged students from succeeding at university, according to a report by the National Union of Students. It found that poorer students who cannot rely on parental assistance to help them through their studies must work 33 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, in order to cope with a cash shortfall of £8,566 (£8,122 for students in London – full-time students living away from home in London are entitled to up to £2,175 more in maintenance loans than those outside the capital). More...

Recent education headlines express the dilemma currently facing UK higher education. The Council for the Defence of British Universities launched last week promoting a vision of education for education’s sake, with universities as centres of learning in danger of being shackled by short-term performance measures and funding models. On the same day, the Engineers Employers’ Federation (EEF) called for a closer alignment of the education and training system – including higher education – with the needs of the labour market and employers. More...

Business people slammed Europe’s education and training systems for being inapt to prepare jobseekers to fill vacancies and called for school system reforms, including establishing dual learning schemes, which European Commission President José Manuel Barroso said will be highlighted in the upcoming EU proposal on skills.
“Europe must educate for employment,” said Jürgen Thumann, President of BusinessEurope, speaking at the yearly European Business Summit yesterday (27 April), lamenting that over four million EU jobs are vacant because jobseekers don’t have the right skills to fill them. More...