By Wachira Kigotho. Countries that are members of the Arab Maghreb Union in North Africa have on average made greater strides in expanding tertiary education than their counterparts in Sub-Saharan Africa, according to an African Union regional report on education. Read more...

By Geoff Maslen. More than five months of fighting between the government and rebel forces in South Sudan has further devastated the country's already neglected higher education system.
Two of South Sudan’s five public universities fell in the path of some of the war’s heaviest clashes. Read more...

By Emilia Tan and Yojana Sharma. Singapore has been rising in international university rankings, spurred by strong research and an international outlook. That comes down to a will to attract academics and students from overseas to its shores. Read more...

By Jan Petter Myklebust. As of Monday, Sweden’s new university chancellor will be Professor Harriet Wallberg, Minister for Education Jan Björklund announced at a press conference last week. Her appointment is seen as part of a sectoral shuffle ahead of general elections on 1 August. University Chancellor Wallberg will be in charge of the Swedish Higher Education Authority and its 90 staff members. Read more...

By Wagdy Sawahel. In an effort to deliver world-class education to millions of Arab-speaking students and academic communities around the globe, the first not-for-profit Arab platform for MOOCs – called Edraak – has been launched.
Arabic is one of the top six languages of the United Nations and is the mother tongue to more than 350 million people in 22 Arab countries including eight in Africa, six in the Arabian Gulf and eight in Asia. Arabic is the seventh most used language on the internetafter English, Chinese, Spanish, Japanese, Portuguese and German. Read more...

By Wagdy Sawahel. A three-year higher education Tuning Middle East and North Africa – Tuning MEDA – initiative was launched last month in the fields of law and good governance including human rights, healthcare and nursing, engineering and architecture, and tourism.
The project was unveiled at an event in Jordan from 2-4 May and is outlined on the website of the Association of Arab Universities. Read more...

By David Jobbins. Mio presented a number of existing initiatives that offered pointers to the process, including Principles for Responsible Management Education, the UN Global Compact, the Higher Education Sustainability Initiative, and the only existing international sustainability ranking for universities, the UI GreenMetric World University Ranking. Read more...

By Peta Lee. A Chilean university has good reason to celebrate, after taking the number one spot in the annual QS Latin America university ranking for the first time.
Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, or UC, has overtaken Brazil’s Universidade de São Paulo to top QS University Rankings: Latin America. São Paulo slips to second, having ranked first every year since 2011. UC had previously been second.
Published annually since 2011, the QS University Rankings: Latin America highlights the 300 top universities in the region, based on seven indicators. Read more...

By Alya Mishra. India will strive to increase public spending on education to 6% of gross domestic product from less than 4% currently, new Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani announced during her maiden press conference last week. Irani took charge after the National Democratic Alliance government came to power, sweeping the recent Lok Sabha polls. Read more...

By Geoff Maslen. Budget launches in Australia generally attract praise and condemnation, depending on which side of politics the commentators are from. Only rarely is a budget almost universally condemned by the public – but this has happened with the first budget of Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s right-wing government. Read more...