Afghan authorities announced on Tuesday that more than 130,000 students, a third of them female, had passed exams to enter university in the upcoming academic year, bringing into focus Afghanistan's challenge to rebuild its education system.
The once heavily centralized public education system is now witnessing a new development; that of private colleges and universities with various specializations that have sprung up in major urban centers, including the capital Kabul, Jalalabad, Mazar-i-Sharif and Kandahar. More...

It follows a report by the University and College Union (UCU), which found that all but one of Wales’ eight vice-chancellors was last year paid more than £200,000.
Figures showed that Cardiff University’s Professor Colin Riordan was the best-paid university leader in Wales in 2013-14, picking up a total of £271,000 for presiding over the nation’s top-ranked institution. More...

By Steve Nerlich. A robust picture of student mobility is emerging from a national survey first undertaken in 2005, when more than 7,000 students from Australian universities were identified as studying abroad, rising to over 24,000 students in 2012. More...

By Jane Aiston. The under-representation of women in senior and leadership positions is a global phenomenon – Hong Kong is certainly no exception. More...

By Kurt Deketelaere. The countdown for the approval of the draft regulation on the European Fund for Strategic Investments, or EFSI, will start after the Easter holiday period. More...

By Rahul Choudaha. The traditional outward mobility of Asian students to Western destinations has received lot of attention. In contrast, the inward mobility of international students to Asia has remained on the sidelines.
Most of the students in Asian institutions of higher education are regionally mobile “glocal” students. More...

A team of international researchers has shed new light on the origins of some of the most widely spoken languages in the world. The results raise questions about existing views of their relationships.
Three billion people today speak a language that is part of the Indo-European family of languages, spanning Europe as well as central, western and south Asia. But the reason why these languages – such as English, Spanish, Russian and Hindi – are related has been a source of some argument for more than 200 years.
New research published in Nature and led by researchers at the Harvard Medical School and a University of Adelaide ancient-DNA team of experts, shows that at least some of the Indo-European languages spoken in Europe were likely the result of a massive migration from eastern Russia.
“This new study is the biggest of its kind so far and has helped to improve our understanding of the linguistic impact of Stone Age migration," says co-author Dr Wolfgang Haak, from Adelaide's Australian Centre for Ancient DNA. More...

By Munyaradzi Makoni. The statue of Cecil John Rhodes has a commanding presence. Sitting at the focal point of the University of Cape Town campus, Rhodes – heroic 19th century politician and businessman, or cold-blooded capitalist imperialist, depending on your point of view – gazes out over the rugby fields, eyes set on the African interior. The statue has torched a storm of controversy in recent weeks, with students insisting that it must go. More...

By Nicola Jenvey. South Africa has the lowest level of entrepreneurship education in Africa, driven by the conviction that entrepreneurship was not a ‘decent profession’ and that only 40% of South Africans believed building a business was a desirable goal. More...