THE University of East London (UEL) has ordered an investigation into its international activities after the closure of its Cyprus campus that recruited just 17 students in its first six months. 
According to the Times’ Higher Education supplement, UEL has asked Sir David Melville, former vice-chancellor of Middlesex and Kent universities and current chairman of Pearson Education, to carry out the investigation. 
News that the UEL was closing its Cyprus campus emerged in April but Cyprus Mail sources said that operations would not cease until March of next year. Read more...

The primary aim of CVET in Greece is the development and improvement of the qualifications and skills of unemployed and working people and the creation of new jobs. The definition of CVET and adult education and their forms and functions are provided mainly by recent laws that have introduced important policy developments.
The most important aim of lifelong education is to constitute a dynamic policy factor for social integration. Accordingly, a series of programmes focusing on socially vulnerable and disadvantaged groups are being implemented and promoted.
Despite the policy statements and the actions that have been taken, Greece, along is among the European Union member countries that rank lowest in the field of citizen participation in Lifelong Learning training and education programs at the age group of 24-64. Greece’s participation percentage is only 3.6%, when at the same time the average European participation is 10.8%.
OAED is the major body responsible for implementing continuing vocational training programmes in order to cover the needs of the unemployed who require specialisation in order to find work. The main focus of OAED is to develop and/or expand upon existing continuing vocational training courses with a view to making a more effective intervention in the labour market and covering the needs of the largest possible number of interested persons in training services.
The Account for Employment and Vocational Training (Logariasmos gia tin Apascholisi kai Epangelmatiki Katartisi, LAEK) is a major mechanism of CVET at the initiative of enterprises in Greece. This account has decisively contributed to the reinforcement of vocational training and employment policies. The financial resources of LAEK come from the joint contributions of both employers and employees, which amount to 0.45% of the total salary of each employee and are collected by the Social Security Institute (Idryma Koinonikon Asfaliseon, IKA).
Ο Λογαριασμός για την Απασχόληση και την Επαγγελματική Κατάρτιση (Logariasmos GIA κασσίτερος Apascholisi kai Epangelmatikis Κατάρτισης, ΛΑΕΚ) είναι ένα σημαντικό μηχανισμό Cveta με πρωτοβουλία των επιχειρήσεων στην Ελλάδα. Ο λογαριασμός αυτός έχει συμβάλει αποφασιστικά στην ενίσχυση της επαγγελματικής κατάρτισης και των πολιτικών απασχόλησης. Οι χρηματοδοτικοί πόροι του ΛΑΕΚ προέρχονται από την κοινή συνεισφορά των εργοδοτών και των εργαζομένων, οι οποίες ανέρχονται σε 0,45% του συνολικού μισθού κάθε εργαζόμενου και συλλέγονται από το Ινστιτούτο Κοινωνικής Ασφάλισης (Idryma Koinonikon Asfaliseon, ΙΚΑ).

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia - The Pan African University has received a major boost with a grant support of US$45 million from the African Development Bank (AfDB), according to a statement from the African Union received by PANA on Thursday.
The agreement was signed in Tunis on Tuesday by the AU Commissioner for Human Resources, Science and Technology, Mr Martial de Paul Ikounga, and the Vice President for Agriculture, Human Development and Governance of AfDB, Mr Aly Abou-Sabaa.
The Pan African University is a flagship programme of the African Union, which aims at ensuring that the African University is re-established at the core of Africa’s development, as a veritable instrument for achieving the AU vision of prosperity, peace and integration.
The statement said PAU’s mission was to exemplify excellence and nurture quality in African Higher Education and Research. Read more...

Some international students' visas trapped in strike action by foreign service officers.
Universities in Nova Scotia say they are scrambling to deal with a possible shortfall of international students because a strike by foreign service officers is delaying some visa applications.
The federal government and the union representing diplomats and immigration officers abroad — the Professional Association of Foreign Service Officers — have been locked in a contract negotiation battle for months. As part of escalating job action measures, diplomats at key visa application centres abroad have scaled back some of their services, including processing visas required for international students studying at Canadian universities and colleges.
Citizenship and Immigration Canada officials said processing times are within a two-month standard, but university administrators say some students have already decided to go elsewhere. More...

As more than 13,000 students who qualified for a university place in Hong Kong this summer are denied a spot due to space shortages, Samuel Lai explores our city’s higher education crisis. 
University places should be available to all those who qualified for them because of their ability and attainment,” declared Lord Robbins in the 1960s, the then head of the economics department at the London School of Economics. A bit more than half a century later, however, that ideal is far from the reality in Hong Kong. Over the years, the city has seen an increasing number of students excelling at school, attaining the minimum required scores to attend university. But at the same time, the available publicly funded university places have been frozen, leading to a discrepancy between the number of students reaching the requisite standard and the number actually getting a place at a local university. This summer saw this gap rise to its greatest ever level. More...

By Riva Gold. U.S. universities are relying on faculty and students to help strengthen data security following a spike in cyberattacks over the last few years. While institutions continue to monitor their networks and engage in joint efforts with law enforcement, educating the university community plays a vital role in protecting their systems. At Stanford University, students were recently asked to remain vigilant across all devices after a July attack on the school’s information systems infrastructure.  The attack appeared to have been launched from overseas. While the purpose of the hacking wasn’t clear, experts suggest that intellectual property of commercial value is a common target in such attacks, Randy Livingston, Stanford’s vice president for business affairs, wrote in a letter to students. Mr. Livingston has sent out an email to all students asking them to use complex passwords and change them regularly, and soon the university will require a two-step authentication system for access to certain applications. More...