Author: Gemma Ware. Interviewed: Colin Riordan and Jo Beall. A growing number of UK students are considering going abroad to study with a majority of them motivated in some part by the rise in university fees at home, according to new research on student mobility. At the same time, there has been a decline in the number of US students wanting to travel for their education. The US remains the top destination for British students, while the UK is the first choice for US students. The most popular subjects for students from the UK to study abroad were business and administrative studies, while for US students it was medicine and dentistry. The research, carried out by the British Council, found that 37% of the 2,630 18-24 year-olds UK students surveyed were considering studying overseas, an increase of 17% from a similar study in 2013. More...

By Claire Crawford and Rowena Crawford. The raising of the cap on tuition fees charged by universities in England to £9,000 per year in 2012 does not currently look like it will save the government much money – but it has led to a substantial increase in the funds universities receive to teach undergraduates. That is the finding of new research published by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, funded by Universities UK. More...

By Kenneth King. While China’s dramatic economic and trade impact on Africa has caught global attention, there has little focus on its role in education.
But there are important questions raised by China’s education push into Africa. Why does China run one of the world’s largest short-term training programmes, with plans to take 30,000 Africans to China between 2013 and 2015? Why does it give generous support to 38 Confucius Institutes teaching Mandarin and Chinese culture at many of Africa’s top universities from the Cape to Cairo? More...

The National Universities Commission (NUC) is collaborating with the United Kingdom Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education to further standardise the nation’s tertiary institutions in line with emerging trends.
The Chairman of NUC Board, Dr. Ahmadu Ali, disclosed this yesterday in London in interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) following a presentation by Eagle Scientific, a UK based education equipment company.
Ali, who alongside other NUC officials visited some UK higher education agencies including the Association of Commonwealth Universities, said  the move was to seek for synergy especially in quality assurance. More...

Korean colleges are hiring more professors on nonguaranteed contracts, as government-led college restructuring has been straining budgets, recent data has shown.
According to a survey last week by local media, at least 38.8 percent of newly hired professors this year had nonguaranteed contracts. Considering that few colleges reveal information about their new faculty members’ contracts, the actual number is likely to be much higher.
None of the 32 new professors at Sangmyung University Cheonan Campus, and only one new faculty member of Pai Chai University were on tenure track. More...

The education and science minister has fired the rector of the Russian State Social University after she was alleged to have heavily plagiarized her doctoral thesis, a news report said.
The dissertation of Lidia Fedyakina, who was appointed rector in 2012, contained "serious flaws" and a number of "incorrect borrowings," Izvestia reported Tuesday, citing a report by the Higher Attestation Committee, which reviewed the thesis at a meeting on Sunday. More...