By . In a previous post we wrote about the potential of machines to transform and replace jobs. The potential for automation is limited when it comes to social skills, which is why social skills are increasingly rewarded in the labour market. Technological change is shaping the future of work through, in part, a skill-biased effect on employment. More...
Can Japanese universities really become Super Global?
By Jeremy Rappleye and Edward Vickers. This year marks the launch of the most ambitious attempt to change Japanese universities since World War II: the Super Global Universities programme. From this April, 37 of Japan’s leading universities – selected by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, or MEXT, last year – began to try to redefine Japanese higher education for a new global era. Read more...
We must include the public more in scientific debates
By Ellen Hazelkorn. Globalisation produces big societal challenges with impacts flowing between and across boundaries in ways we were previously able to ignore. Read more...
Global policy forum agrees HE actions to support SDGs
By Karen MacGregor. This has been the ‘Year of Education’, with a flurry of global policy statements key to online, open and flexible education, said Gard Titlestad, secretary general of the International Council for Open and Distance Education or ICDE. Read more...
Step change on long-term research is needed to tackle global challenges
By Brendan O’Malley – Managing Editor. In News, Brendan OMalley unpacks the OECDs Science, Technology and Industry Scoreboard report, which warns that cuts in research and development spending are threatening to destabilise science and research systems in many advanced economies. There is also coverage by Sharon Dell of the massive student protests in South Africa over the past week.
In Commentary, Ellen Hazelkorn, chair of the European Union Expert Group on Science Education, says that the groups recent report aims to start a public conversation around the necessity to embed scientific understanding in our societies. Nico Jooste and Savo Heleta argue for a global commons in higher education internationalisation research and debates, thus engaging in an inclusive dialogue where all are represented. Also in Commentary are two opposing points of view on international education policy in Australia: Bob Kinnaird argues that education provision should target only well-funded foreign students so as to avoid the exploitation of these students as temporary workers, and work visas should be restricted to protect Australian job seekers, while Ly Tran and Cate Gribble say that to assume that international students are taking the jobs of locals is narrow and ignores the enormous benefits that international students bring to the country.
Our World Blog focuses on Canada, where Grace Karram Stephenson suggests that universities may be able to learn from the research arrangements of polytechnics, particularly their links with industry.
In Features, Yojana Sharma asks International Association of Universities President Dzulkifli Abdul Razak about his concept of higher education for a single planet. And Wachira Kigotho attends a workshop in Nairobi of CODESRIA Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa where diaspora and African scholars heard that neglect of the humanities and social sciences had dangerously narrowed Sub-Saharan Africas view on development.
A Special Report provides follow-on coverage of the 26th International Council for Open and Distance Education World Conference held in South Africa from 14 to 16 October, and of a high-level policy forum following on from the conference, that Karen MacGregor says identified actions to meet the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Read more...
Going global, staying engaged
By Becky Gilbert. This week on the EAIE blog, we are highlighting the latest EAIE Occasional Paper Staying Global: how alumni relations advances the agenda. Authors of the book have contributed exclusive blog posts that look at some of the different facets of international alumni engagement in preparation for the EAIE Webinar taking place later this month. Today’s blog post addresses how alumni can become a resource for higher education institutions looking to forge corporate partnerships and, ultimately, increase their fundraising efforts. More...
Towards an inclusive global knowledge society
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Towards an inclusive global knowledge society
Patrick Blessinger, University World News, 2015/10/05
I think this assertion is correct: "a chief aim of higher education should be to cultivate higher degrees of personal agency within students. As a result, the demands placed on higher education institutions have become much more complex". More...
Academic freedom in a time of globalisation
By Elizabeth Liu. International higher education plays an unprecedented role in the globalising world. The rapid development of globalisation gives international higher education a valuable mission. Educators have to foster global, multi-cultural citizens who can participate in social issues that require critical thinking. However, a barrier has emerged: breaches of academic freedom. More...
Global HE unites to solve urban challenges
By Natalie Marsh. Universities from around the world have come together this week to highlight the need to work collaboratively to help solve challenges in their urban environments. More...
UVIECON 2015 discussed on global universities and their regional impact
Humans living in the last third of 20th century and the beginning of the 21st are enjoying the privilege of experiencing the definitive globalization of the planet. The university is one of the first global institutions, if not the first, ever since its inception in Asia in the 7th century, the Al Karaouine University in Fez, in AD 859, or Bologna University in AD 1088. See more...