By Mai Thanh. Universities complain that the requirement by the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) on having one PhD and three masters for every training major is unfeasible in the Vietnamese conditions. MOET has forced universities to stop 207 training majors because the schools do not satisfy the requirements on teaching staff.
The schools, while admitting the lack of lecturers, have replied that there is no way to obtain enough lecturers as requested. According to Nguyen Dinh Luan, President of the Hanoi University, MOET has told the school to stop training students majoring in Portuguese, Italian languages, accountancy and Vietnamese culture. More...

By Sarah Robson. The Government's decided to go ahead with plans to make university councils smaller and remove the requirement to have staff and student representatives on them. Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce says the changes will modernise councils and allow them to react quickly and more strategically. The current limit of between 12 and 20 members will be reduced to between 12 and eight, and specific representative requirements will be removed, making council membership more flexible. Mr Joyce says it'll be up to universities to decide whether they include student representatives on their councils. Read more...

A commentary by Andrei Lankov. Private education began booming in North Korea some 10 years ago and has led the country’s elite, foreign currency earners, and even jangmadang (local market) merchants to pay to educate their children. Music, computers, and foreign languages such as English have been the most popular courses, but other private courses are offered as well.
Over this period, private tutors have earned good money helping their students earn good grades, but it is unclear whether such private education can continue. The North Korean authorities are reportedly conducting heavy crackdowns against providers and receivers of private education. More...

The 2014 Taiwan Scholarship and the Higher Education Scholarship Program are now open for Malaysian students who wish to pursue their higher education in Taiwan.
The main goal of the Taiwan Scholarship is to attract more talented foreign students to Taiwan for academic degrees, and at the same time to create opportunities for educational and cultural exchanges between Taiwanese students and international students. The deadline for the Taiwan Scholarship application is March 31. More...

OER Asia is an Asian Forum to share information, views and opinion, research studies and knowledge resources in addition to guidelines and toolkits on good practices on and about Open Education Resources in the Asian Region. Based at ICDE member institution, Wawasan Open University, Malaysia, OER Asia is planning its 2nd Regional Symposium on Open Educational Resources.
The Symposium will be held 24-27 June in Penang, Malaysia. First announcement. OER Asia website. More...

By Terri Macdonald. On 22 June 2013, the Attorney-General’s Department asked the Sex Discrimination Commissioner, on behalf of the Australian Human Rights Commission to conduct a national review on the prevalence, nature and consequences of discrimination in relation to pregnancy at work and return to work after parental leave.
The significant number of complaints received by the Australian Human Rights Commission and Fair Work Australia indicate that discrimination against pregnant employees and against men and women returning to work after taking parental leave continues to be a problem in Australian workplaces. More...

More than 300 undergraduate students from 24 universities across Australia will soon set off to study abroad in the Indo-Pacific region under the Australian government’s A$100 million ($90 million) New Colombo Plan.
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, Education Minister Christopher Pyne and parliamentary secretary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs Senator Brett Mason announced Wednesday that 24 universities have been successful in their applications for New Colombo Plan mobility grants to support students commencing study programs in semester 1, 2014. More...