The lack of female leaders at Canadian universities is an urgent problem that needs to be addressed by every institution, says a group of university presidents who are pressing administrators and boards to make changes to how they recruit and promote women, writes Simona Chiose for The Globe and Mail. Read more...

The Federation of University Teachers called for a general strike last week, to which 53 institutions of higher education pledged their support, reports Prensa Latina. Read more...

Higher fees, deregulated prices for popular courses and larger loan repayments are on the cards for university students after federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham released an options paper with last week’s budget outlining his preferred path for higher education reform, writes Tim Dodd for the Financial Review. Read more...

Activists said that tighter regulation and moves towards nationalisation – not tuition hikes – are the answers to falling student numbers pushing many universities towards the fiscal brink, writes Abraham Gerber for the Taipei Times. Read more...

Government’s push to put science and technology at the forefront of the nation’s development is creating a new breed of highly paid scientific academics who are leading the nation’s rise as a global power in scientific research, writes Stephen Chen for South China Morning Post. Read more...

By Donald A Barclay. US institutions of higher education and US local governments are under extraordinary pressure to cut costs and eliminate from institutional or governmental ledgers any expenses whose absence would cause little or no pain. Read more...

Cross-border delivery of higher education is becoming a financial necessity for some institutions and a strategic differentiation for others. Read more...

By Erich Dietrich and Rahul Choudaha. Arun Jaitley, India’s finance minister, announced the creation of a new 'Higher Education Financing Agency', or HEFA, in his budget speech on 29 February. Through this mechanism, he argued, an “enabling regulatory architecture will be provided to 10 public and 10 private institutions to emerge as world-class teaching and research institutions”. Read more...

By Chau Phuc. The Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences, or VASS, was established in 2012, but is based on the Institute of Social Sciences which was originally founded in 1953. It has 37 affiliate institutions including 32 research institutes in social sciences. It has 2,000 research staff, among which there are 700 professors and doctoral or masters degree holders. Read more...

By Tibor Navracsics. The G7 ministers responsible for education will meet in Kurashiki, Japan on 14-15 May to discuss current and future challenges facing our education systems. What can we do collectively with the tools and policies we have, and can we find new ways of working together. Read more...