By Sharon Dell – Acting Africa Editor. In Africa Analysis, Goolam Mohamedbhai expresses the hope that African governments will reconsider their policy of upgrading polytechnics to universities or, like Mauritius, create institutions to replace the converted polytechnics.
Countries in the global South are rapidly catching up with top student destination countries like Australia and the United Kingdom, according to the director of the Center for International Higher Education at America’s Boston College Hans de Wit, writes Karen MacGregor in a Special Report on the first international symposium of the Higher Education Forum for Africa, Asia and Latin America. Nicola Jenvey reports, among other issues, on the influence of national governments on university leadership and governance.
In Africa News, Munyaradzi Makoni writes about the launch of an African passport by the African Union Commission and its implications for academic mobility, and Esther Nakkazi covers the suspension of loans to over 2,000 students after a probe revealed thousands of ‘ghost’ students and other irregularities.
In World Blog, John Richard Shrock laments that the SAT college entrance test in the United States is moving in the wrong direction, becoming more like the Chinese gaokao which encourages teachers to teach to the test and students to memorise rather than understand.
In Commentary, John Aubrey Douglass and Patrick Lapid contend that the ‘progressive tuition model’, which charges wealthier students more to reduce the cost and debt for poorer students, appears to be working in some US universities. Rankings expert Angel Calderon explains why this year’s Academic Ranking of World Universities brought some surprises, with some institutions experiencing a marked change in standing. More...