17 septembre 2018

By Paul Rigg. The controversy surrounding the university qualifications of politicians in Spain, which claimed the scalp of the head of Madrid’s regional government, Cristina Cifuentes, in April, has ended a second political career, with the resignation of Minister of Health Carmen Montón last Tuesday. More...

By Yojana Sharma. China has renewed pressure on Hong Kong’s universities, making it clear that universities and education officials have not come down strongly enough at the start of the academic year against campus speeches that refer to Hong Kong independence from China. More...

By Yojana Sharma. United States universities should collaborate to counter growing Chinese government influence on US campuses which undermines academic freedom and promotes Beijing’s political views overseas, including on geopolitics, according to a wide-ranging report on China’s political influence on American higher education. More...

By Brendan O’Malley. The European Parliament has voted to invoke Article 7 of the European Union treaty, triggering a procedure to determine if Viktor Orbán’s government in Hungary has systematically breached the EU’s core values, including academic freedom, freedom of expression and assembly and the right to and freedom of education. More...

By Brendan O’Malley – Managing Editor. In Commentary, Jenny J Lee and Alma Maldonado-Maldonado disagree with Philip Altbach and Hans de Wit that too much academic research is being published, saying that reducing research publications overall would reinforce issues of dominance of the global knowledge production system by the Global North. Ellen Hazelkorn, Hamish Coates and Alexander C McCormick ask whether the prevailing approaches to higher education quality assurance are still ‘fit for purpose’ and how we can better measure important outcomes and compare them across countries. Linda J Børresen and Stig Arne Skjerven say while fake university degrees will continue to pose a threat to higher education in the years to come, recent initiatives involving digital diplomas in secure databases hold promise for combating false qualifications in the future. Anatol Itten writes that many universities make the mistake of applying the same methods to resolve conflicts over values as conflicts over facts – they should rather step back and use mediators who may be able to find some overarching common ground. And Joanne Pyke and Kate White contend that implementing gender targets and quotas in the recruitment of academics in Australian universities will speed up progress in achieving gender equity.
   In our World Blog, Nita Temmerman says universities in developing countries should not overlook the expertise within their own institution that can support the development of a quality curriculum and ensure successful external programme accreditation.
   In Features, Maina Waruru reports that African scholars were cautioned against falling prey to predatory journals by Professor Jennifer Thomson, president of the Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World, at a research grants conference in Tanzania. And Geoff Maslen reports that Australian students, unlike their counterparts in other countries, are reluctant to study outside their own nation, preferring Sydney or Melbourne to anywhere else in the world. More...