New research shows that two-thirds of matriculants with bachelor passes go to university, and that university access of qualifying students is not biased against black or poor students. For every 100 students who start school in South Africa, only 12 go to university, and only four of them get a degree within six years, reports MyBroadband. More...

The national government has ordered a special investigation into financial mismanagement at several public universities, writes Ouma Wanzala for the Daily Nation. More...

By Njabulo S Ndebele. “They are burning memory!” This is what I said to myself in my unmediated first reaction to the television coverage of the burning of pictures and portraits of some historical figures and other commemorative objects by protesting students at the University of Cape Town earlier this year. More...

By Gilbert Nganga. Kenya has been left smarting from a reputation nightmare after ethnicity reared its ugly head in one of the top universities, as educationists warn of a growing rot across institutions. More...

By Ochieng’ O Benny. The African Union Commission and the European Union have launched a new joint initiative to promote the improvement and harmonisation of African higher education quality assurance and accreditation. More...

By Ashraf Khaled. A call by a member of the Egyptian parliament to subject female university applicants to virginity tests has outraged academics and women’s advocates in this conservative Middle East country. More...

By Munyaradzi Makoni. A multi-stakeholder forum at which the piloting of a fee-free funding model for students from poor and working-class families was announced has failed to bring an end to ongoing student unrest across the country’s campuses. More...

By Sharon Dell – Acting Africa Editor. In Africa Analysis, literary author and former University of Cape Town vice-chancellor Njabulo S Ndebele ponders the significance of fire as a weapon in South African student protest, but also as “a companion to invention”. “When will the fires be tamed, and what will it take to tame them, so that new art work can be forged; to create new industries and forge inventions to meet the needs of a people in intimate dialogue with their new world?” he asks in a typically poignant piece.
In Africa Features, Gilbert Nganga describes the fallout from the allegedly ethnic-based rejection of a recent university appointment – observers say the trend to base appointments on ethnicity is increasingly widespread and is extending to all levels of university appointments.
Our special report on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, or SOTL, covers the recent 10th Annual Teaching and Learning Conference in Higher Education held at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. SOTL is a growing movement in academia which focuses on scholarly inquiry into student learning with an emphasis on public sharing of findings. Among a range of stories from the conference, Nicola Jenvey reports on a presentation by Emeritus Professor Lee Shulman in which he highlighted the present and future possibilities beyond journal publications for the sharing of scholarship.
In Commentary, Steve Fuller discusses the role of contemporary universities in society in light of the popular call to ignore experts made by leading ‘Leave’ campaigners during the UK’s Brexit campaign; Jeannie Rea bemoans the deteriorating experience of international students in Australia, whom she alleges are increasingly being treated as a source of export income; and Ranjit Goswami says more universities should adopt an outward-looking focus like the top universities, setting up international exchanges and internships to benefit a wider number of students around the world. More...