Short-term policy-making risks jeopardising efforts to widen participation in English higher education, it has been warned, after yet another change in the national approach to encouraging those from disadvantaged backgrounds to apply to university, writes Chris Havergal for Times Higher Education. Read more...

A slight majority of people agree with the new academic year for universities as it falls in line with the international and ASEAN – Association of Southeast Asian Nations – bi-semester system, according to the result of an opinion poll carried out by the National Institute of Development Administration, reports Bangkok Post. Read more...

The Bangladesh government last week approved in principle the draft of ‘The Accreditation Council Law, 2016’, with a view to ensuring standards of higher education in the country, reports The Daily Star. Read more...

The Higher Education Commission has expressed concerns at universities not following the commission’s plagiarism policy by not taking action on plagiarism complaints against their faculty, reports The Express Tribune. Read more...

The government has embarked upon a scheme to fund ‘pure science’ scholars who have completed their PhDs to enable them to continue their post-doctoral research in India, reports Press Trust of India. Read more...

Research into cosmic evolution, the structure of matter, the origins of life and understanding how the brain works all deserve strengthened support, according to China's latest 5-year development plan, which could triple funding for basic research by 2020, writes Hao Xin for Science. Read more...

A Grattan Institute report released on Tuesday has recommended the income threshold for university debt repayments should be cut by A$12,000 (US$9,200), saving A$500 million every year, reports Australian Associated Press. Read more...

UK university staff have cited the lack of transparency around Chinese transnational education, or TNE, legislation as one of the main barriers halting higher education partnerships between the two countries, writes Ellie Bothwell for Times Higher Education. Read more...

The average student attending a four-year, in-state public college pays about US$19,500 in tuition each year. Is that an investment worth making? Forbes has made answering that question a little easier with its Best Value Colleges 2016 rankings, published online Tuesday, writes Julia Glum for International Business Times. Read more...

Alexandra Elbakyan is a highbrow pirate in hiding. The 27-year-old graduate student from Kazakhstan is operating a searchable online database of nearly 50 million stolen scholarly journal articles, shattering the US$10 billion-per-year paywall of academic publishers, writes Michael Rosenwald for The Washington Post. Read more...