By Yojana Sharma. Four African universities are to receive US$86.6 million over the next eight to 10 years from the MasterCard Foundation in scholarship funds and other support for economically disadvantaged young people, MasterCard Foundation CEO Reeta Roy announced in Cape Town on 3 December. Read more...

By Munyaradzi Makoni and Karen MacGregor. Basavanagouda Patil is a final year student at the National Law School of India University. Much of his time is spent volunteering at the Legal Services Clinic, whose committee he leads, and which among other things provides legal services for the poor and public interest litigation. The clinic was one of three student projects to win a 2014 MacJannet Prize for Global Citizenship. Read more...

By Karen MacGregor. “Most young people today don’t have the patience, the instinctual deference to authority, or the parochialism of past generations. They want to make an impact, they want to do it now, and they know there is much that needs to be done,” says Professor Lisa Anderson, president of the American University in Cairo. Read more...

By Thierry Luescher-Mamashela. Student engagement is known to correlate well with retention and success but its impact on developing citizenship competences is hardly studied. Read more...

By Ard Jongsma. Students are often tagged onto international conferences to add legitimacy without giving them real influence. Not so at this month’s Talloires Network conference outside Cape Town, to which 40 student delegates from all over the world were invited on equal terms and where they were given a perfect environment to network with each other and prepare collective input. Read more...

By Munyaradzi Makoni. Since traditional teaching methods are no longer sufficient to educate students to meet the expectations of employers or the rigorous demands of an entrepreneurial career, preparing students for full participation in the economy is a daunting task across the world. Read more...

By Yojana Sharma. Reeta Roy is president of the Toronto-based MasterCard Foundation, which has assets of over US$9 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. Read more...

By Rebecca Warden. Engaged universities – those that see engaging with the wider community as part and parcel of their mission – can use these activities to contribute to economic development too. Around the globe, universities are doing this in various ways, some in ways you might expect, others in ways that might surprise you. Read more...

By Yojana Sharma. Around the world the number of graduates is growing, yet the ‘skills mismatch’ is also rising. A degree is no longer a guarantee of a good job, and fingers are being pointed at universities for failing to better prepare students for the real world and the expectations of employers. Read more...

By Karen MacGregor. Why is it that while universities talk increasingly about civic engagement, the world is heading in exactly the opposite direction? asked Professor Adam Habib, vice-chancellor of the University of the Witwatersrand, in the opening keynote at the Talloires Network conference. Read more...