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...

By Richard Watson. The Home Office has suspended English language tests run by a major firm after BBC Panorama uncovered systematic fraud in the student visa system.
Secret filming of government-approved exams needed for a visa shows candidates having tests faked for them.
ETS, which sets the exams but does not appoint the invigilators, told Panorama it "does everything it can to detect and prevent" cheating.
Home Secretary Theresa May said the BBC's evidence was "very shocking".
Panorama saw candidates for tests set by ETS, one of the largest language testing firms in the world, being replaced by "fake sitters" and having answers read out to them. More...

Belarusian universities are getting ready to joint the Bologna Process, First Prorector of the Belarusian State University (BSU) Mikhail Zhuravkov told reporters before the opening of the international seminar Erasmus Mundus as a catalyst for internationalisation: sharing best practices and exploring future perspectives. The seminar is taking place in the BSU on 10-12 February, BelTA has learnt.
“I am convinced that Belarus will join the Bologna Process in 2015. The country has been getting ready for it for a long time already. No doubt, all our students are looking forward to it. In order to join the Bologna Process, our universities have to comply with certain requirements, like teaching disciplines in English, new courses for foreign students, etc. Now we have plans to introduce new inter-discipline courses in English,” Mikhail Zhuravkov said. 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 rise of online instruction will upend the economics of higher education.
UNIVERSITIES have not changed much since students first gathered in Oxford and Bologna in the 11th century. Teaching has been constrained by technology. More...