By Stephen Parker. To expect a single index to capture a person’s achievement to date and their potential for a particular course of study is simplistic and reductionist.
The ATAR is a gift to the media, enabling it to portray nuanced admission methods as hypocritical discounting, and persistently confusing a rank with a mark. More...

By Stephen Parker. In the last 50 years higher education has expanded, but so has social inequality. There is a causal connection, one which can be reduced or dismantled to some extent.
The Gini coefficient is a useful starting point to measure inequality. If all the income of a group were shared equally, there would be perfect equality and the coefficient would be 0. If it were all owned by one person, the coefficient would be 1. More...

By Robyn Keast and Michael Charles. The federal government announced last year that it wants to see more collaboration between academia and industry. The government believes this will help “find solutions to real world problems and create jobs and growth”. More...

By Tefera Tadesse. Quality assurance has emerged as one of universities' most significant management tools in this quest. It has become a feature of every continent’s higher education system. Its major drive is to ensure that universities provide quality higher education based on a minimum set of criteria and standards. At the same time, it is expected to improve quality within an institution. More...

By Natasha Joseph and Ian Rael Scott. University funding was, as always, among the items covered during the speech - but this year South Africans were probably listening more closely than usual. Funding and fee allocations have become a major national talking point since the #FeesMustFall movement emerged towards the end of 2015. More...

By Heather Nel. There has been an academic revolution in higher education over the past 50 years. It’s been marked by disruptive innovation – think of how rapid technological advances have widened access, such as through Massive Open Online Courses. More...

By Ishmael Munene. If you walk down a busy street in one of Kenya’s larger cities, you’ll pass pubs, restaurants, supermarkets, brothels – and universities' branch campuses. More...

By Georina Westraadt. There were three keynote addresses at an education conference I attended recently. Each speaker dealt in some way or another with assessment, presenting statistics that highlighted South African pupils' poor performance - most particularly in maths and science. More...

By Brendan Cantwell. The University of California at Berkeley recently announced a financial restructuring due to mounting structural deficits, including a US$150 million shortfall in the current budget year. All areas of university’s operations – academic, administrative and athletic – will likely face spending cuts. More...

By Sarah Waldeck. Congress is rattling its saber at colleges and universities with endowments worth U$1 billion or more. Committees from the House and Senate have sent a joint letter to 56 private colleges and universities, asking for comprehensive information about endowment spending and management policies. More...