By David Jobbins. Employment prospects for graduates from UK universities are likely to continue to improve, according to the latest survey from the Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services, AGCAS.
It reveals that the vast majority (83%) of the heads of careers and employability services believe the graduate labour market improved further in 2014, with an increase in graduate vacancies. Read more...

By Wachira Kigotho. Greater access to quality tertiary education helps create greater and more decent job opportunities for young men and women in developing countries, according to a study conducted by the International Labour Organization, or ILO, in partnership with the MasterCard Foundation. Read more...

By Geoff Maslen. According to the OECD’s Education at a Glance 2014 report, the economies of OECD countries depend on a sufficient supply of high-skilled workers and the people with high qualifications have the highest employment rates. Read more...

By Gilbert Nganga. Kenya plans to up financing of public universities by 10% in the coming fiscal year, which begins in July – the biggest funding rise in three years, but still far shy of the surging thirst for funds in expanding institutions. Read more...

By Munyaradzi Makoni. Ahead of the new academic year, South Africa’s National Student Financial Aid Scheme – NSFAS – has increased funding for bursaries and loans from R8.3 billion last year to R9.5 billion (US$829 million) in 2015. Higher Education and Training Minister Dr Blade Nzimande said 205,000 students at 26 universities and 200,000 students at 50 colleges would benefit. Read more...

By Michael Gardner. A recent survey, Profildaten zur Internationalität deutscher Hochschulen, on the internationality of German universities states that in mid-2014, around 31,000 collaborative programmes were being run between nearly 300 institutions in Germany with about 5,000 higher education partners in 150 other countries. Read more...

By Brendan O’Malley. Part-time student enrolments in higher education fell by 22% in the two years since university tuition fees were allowed to triple, according to new figures released last Thursday by the Higher Education Statistics Agency, or HESA. Read more...

By Mary Beth Marklein. The Obama administration was set to loosen restrictions on Friday regarding US travel to Cuba. This will open the door for more academic exchanges between the neighbouring countries and raise the possibility for more ambitious projects such as research partnerships and joint- or dual-degree programmes, international education experts say. Read more...

By Brendan O’Malley. The Labour Opposition has called on the government to do much more to allay universities’ concerns about the anti-terror bill currently being rushed through Parliament. The bill would require universities to take action to prevent students and staff from being drawn into terrorist activity. Read more...

By Jan Petter Myklebust. The mobilisation of policy-makers and people at large marches through Paris last week is a significant manifestation of the impact of the Paris terrorist attack. The question now is how these events will affect university life in general and international recruitment at European universities in particular.
In the aftermath of the mass murder of 77 people in Oslo in 2011 by Anders Behring Breivik, universities and research organisations have sought further understanding of the event and undertaken research on the effectiveness of the government’s response and preparedness to deal with political terrorism.
But senior researcher Thomas Hegghammer of the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment has raised the question: “Who is going to fund research into political extremism?” Hegghammer argues there is a strong imbalance in the kind of research that had been financed after the events in Oslo.
“Much funding has been allocated to research,” he says “But the majority of the projects have been on the consequences of and the readiness for terror attacks. Only minor amounts have been allocated to research on the actors doing the terror acts.”
In fact, only two out of 46 projects listed on the web-page of the coordinating group for research on July 22 are devoted to investigating Breivik himself or other right-wing extremists.
Hegghammer notes that in the Norwegian Research Council’s strategic programme for ”social security” the aim is to increase knowledge of the threats, dangers and vulnerability, and how unwarranted events might be prevented and crisis management improved while observing basic human rights. He says the word “readiness” is used 24 times, while “Islamic” is mentioned only once and the prefix “right-” is not to be found at all. Read more...