Von Johann Osel. Die deutschen Hochschulen wollen mit neuen digitalen Strategien auf die immer vielfältigere Studentenschaft eingehen. Dies geht aus einem Thesenpapier hervor, das eine Expertenrunde aus Wissenschaft, Wirtschaft und Politik kürzlich in Berlin vorgestellt hat. Maßgeblich beteiligt war die Hochschulrektorenkonferenz, ein Dachverband mit fast 300 Mitgliedern. Mehr...

By Jonathan Li. France used to have a complicated system of degrees and diplomas, but as part of the Bologna process degrees are being standardised into Licence, Master and Doctorat levels, which correspond to Bachelor’s, Master’s and Doctorate degrees, requiring three, two, and three years respectively to complete.
The large majority of higher education institutions in France are state-funded, meaning there is only a nominal tuition fee of around €200-€400 per year, depending on the level of studies. More...

With the increasing cost of higher education shackling students across the globe, the question of whether postgraduate study is worth it is one that many students have to face. In the case of postgraduate engineering studies, however, the answer appears to be a very definite ‘yes’. More...

Recently, I visited universities in Raipur, Bhopal, Lucknow, Mysore and interacted with students, faculty and administrators in these institutions of higher education. Given the admission season and start of the new term, I found excitement and hope amongst new entrants — youthful students, mostly girls. I also encountered a somewhat cynical faculty and teachers, generally feeling that the days of the past were better, with not much hope for the future. University administrators and vice-chancellors were generally hassled, over-stretched and mostly doing everything other than matters relating to teaching and research in their institutions. More...

We welcome the cabinet's move to withdraw the 7.5 percent VAT that was imposed on the student tuition fees of the private universities. The decision has indeed come not a day too soon. The government had let the problem fester for as many as five days, which had translated into untold sufferings for the commuters in the major cities, especially in the capital. The government had to succumb to the language of pressure and not the language of reason. Even more bewildering is perhaps the Education Ministry's apparent exclusion from the decision making process. More...

By Dennis Murray. Nigerian poet and novelist Ben Okri recently said the history of triumphant nations revealed that the stories they told and their actions were in tandem. Take the case of the clearing of the Paris slums, Okri said. The Parisians “conceived the city how they wanted it, and they built it”.
The stories we tell ourselves help to transform us. More...