By Yojana Sharma. Asian economies have surged ahead and demand for higher education from a rapidly growing middle-class has fuelled expansion. But the region’s universities and research need to upgrade to keep up with economic changes that include the global shift of industries, research and development to Asia, a regional symposium of research management experts heard. Read more...

By Yojana Sharma. Reeta Roy is president of the Toronto-based MasterCard Foundation, which has assets of over US$3 billion and more than 35 partnerships with universities and other organisations, funding programmes in areas such as microfinance and youth learning. One is the Youth Economic Participation Initiative – YEPI – with the global Talloires Network of engaged universities, which supports initiatives that help graduates' transition to the workforce. YOJANA SHARMA spoke to her before the Talloires Network Leaders Conference. Read more...

By Karen MacGregor. The Talloires Network Leaders Conference in Cape Town next week will provide a rare opportunity for universities in developing and emerging countries to highlight their experiences and views, said Professor Nieves Tapia, director of the Latin American Centre for Service-learning based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Read more...

By Wagdy Sawahel. African universities must forge partnerships with counterparts in industrialised nations and work to create and sustain entrepreneurship and enterprise development by equipping graduates with the skills needed to identify new business opportunities and to start up companies, or with the qualifications required by employers.
This was the main message from the 3rd annual conference, "Universities, Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development in Africa”, held on 14 November in Rheinbach, Germany. Read more...

By Jan Petter Myklebust. Denmark’s Quality Commission has published its second report on the quality of university education. It calls on students to drop jobs and work full-time on their studies, and says that while Danish research is world-class, teaching at universities is not.
The report, Higher Objectives: Excellent teaching in higher education, which uses surveys extensively, also proposes that lecturers interact more with students in future. Read more...

By Shelagh McLoughlin. Two top British universities will join forces next week in a bid to become even more competitive on a global scale. University College London and the Institute of Education announced that they are merging from 2 December, a move that will create a new institution with more than 35,000 students. Read more...

By Lucy Hodges. Belarus is forming partnerships with countries around the world to offer distance learning courses, and thereby to modernise its economy and higher education system. Read more...

By Gilbert Nganga. Kenya is planning to set up at least 20 new public universities, as it seeks to devolve education to counties that currently have no institution of higher learning. Read more...

By Suvendrini Kakuchi. The move to expand Education for Sustainable Development, or ESD, into higher education under a Global Action Plan starting in 2015 was marked in the Nagoya Declaration on Higher Education for Sustainable Development unveiled on 9 November in Japan. Read more...

By Wachira Kigotho. According to Skills Beyond School: Synthesis report, OECD reviews of vocational education and training from the OECD secretariat in Paris, many countries are still encouraging most students to follow the hard-trodden path from school to the university. Read more...