By Wachira Kigotho. While most African governments are upbeat about e-learning opportunities, they often ignore the fact that information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure is expensive and out of reach of many schools and even universities, former World Bank managing director Dr Mamphela Ramphele told the eLearning Africa conference in Rwanda last week. More...

By Sarah Brown, The Chronicle of Higher Education. The extraordinary United States Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday involving Christine Blasey Ford and Brett M Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, was an all-day airing of distant memories, teenage parties, trauma, and the long-term effects of sexual assault. More...

By Mimi Leung. Hong Kong’s universities are nervously looking at student reaction in the wake of the shock banning of the Hong Kong National Party (HKNP) – which espouses Hong Kong’s independence from China – last week, following a new warning from the city’s education authorities. More...

By Shuriah Niazi. Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) will pool their resources to hire professors from abroad – in a drive to bridge a severe shortage of faculty at the country’s top institutions. More...

By Jan Petter Myklebust. A Swedish professor who raised concern that a growing culture of ‘political correctness’ imposed by universities is stifling open debate and academic freedom, particularly about free speech and gender studies, has caused a heated debate on social media. More...

By Brendan O’Malley. United States universities continue to dominate the Times Higher Education or THE World University Rankings this year but are mostly static or in decline; while Japan overtakes the United Kingdom as the second most-represented nation and China continues to march up the rankings. More...

By Brendan O’Malley – Managing Editor. In a Special Report on the academic publishing crisis, Steve Fuller outlines how imperfections and gaming in the academic citation market raise important questions over its use in choosing which researchers to push up the career ladder. Jenny J Lee and Alma Maldonado-Maldonado outline the dangers of differentiating research universities from teaching universities, with the most concerning being the effect on social and economic inequality, while Pushkar calls on the Indian government to make research and publishing optional rather than compulsory for teachers across India’s higher education sector except for those at research institutions.
   In Commentary, Roger Y Chao Jr and Stig Arne Skjerven anticipate re-energised efforts in the Asia-Pacific region to enhance higher education access, quality and mobility with the Tokyo Recognition Convention coming into force next year. Hazri Jamil, Wan Chang Da and Ooi Poh Ling say Malaysia’s transformation from a sending country into a destination country for international students needs an additional focus on internationalisation-at-home policies to widen the benefits to all students. And Claudia Frittelli says findings show that African academic diaspora linkage programmes leverage additional funds and expertise, and African governments should recognise the benefits of both.
   In Features, Yojana Sharma reports on evidence emerging that academics in Xinjiang have disappeared after major purges of the region’s universities in Beijing’s crackdown on the Uighur Muslim population. Wagdy Sawahel reports that Iranian universities are rapidly expanding their branches in Sub-Saharan Africa, which higher education experts see either as enhancing academia or an attempt to expand Iran’s soft power and influence. And Sharon Dell reports on Professor Adekeye Adebajo’s contention that transformation of South African universities will have to be fought for in what is likely to be a “long and tortuous battle”. More...