By Nico Cloete, Charles Sheppard, Tracy Bailey and Karen MacGregor. Internationally, the importance of the doctorate has grown. Heightened attention has not been predominantly concerned with the traditional role of the PhD – providing a future supply of academics – but has focused on the increasingly important role higher education is perceived to play in the knowledge economy, specifically with regard to high-level skills. Read more...

By Robert Tijssen. Following global trends, internationalisation in Africa’s higher education landscape is driven by a range of interconnecting new developments – an increase in the number of students and institutions, more mobility of students and staff across national boundaries, the growing role of English in teaching and research, improved internet connectivity and a host of policy initiatives such as centres of excellence, quality assurance frameworks and programmes to enhance institutional collaboration. Read more...

By Florence Nakayiwa. The position of Africa within the higher education arena can be discerned through the performance of predominant traditional universities. Through their mission and vision statements these universities have characterised themselves as centres of academic excellence that are expected to be selective yet comprehensive, have high research profiles and contribute to knowledge production. Read more...

By Ryan Anderson, The Chronicle of Higher Education. The phone rings. I answer. Credit-card collector – again. A pleasant voice on the other end of the line: “Can you please verify the last four digits of your Social Security number?” I verify. Read more...

By Nico Cloete. During the late 1990s and early 2000s, influential voices started calling for the ‘revitalisation’ of the African university and for linking higher education to development. This resulted in a series of ‘revitalisation’ initiatives in the years that followed and the term persists to this day, as evidenced in the title of the upcoming African Higher Education Summit – “Revitalising Higher Education for Africa’s Future”. Read more...

By Jan Petter Myklebust. As previously reported in University World News, the Netherlands government last year introduced a bill that would convert student grants into loans from 1 January 2015, freeing up €1 billion (US$1.1 billion) from the state higher education budget. Read more...

Un nouvel ouvrage, Knowledge Production and Contradictory Functions in African Higher Education, sera présenté au public à l’occasion du Sommet sur l’enseignement supérieur en Afrique, qui se tiendra du 10 au 12 mars à Dakar, capitale du Sénégal. Ce livre est la toute dernière publication du projet HERANA (Higher Education Research and Advocacy Network in Africa, réseau de recherche et de promotion de l’enseignement supérieur en Afrique), qui depuis sept ans mène des recherches sur l’enseignement supérieur dans huit pays africains. Ce rapport spécial met en lumière les principaux points observés lors des travaux de recherche menés par le centre pour la transformation de l’enseignement supérieur (CHET), avec le soutien financier de la fondation Carnegie Corporation of New York. University World News est un partenaire médias du projet HERANA et du sommet de Dakar. Les articles qui suivent ont été préparés pour notre lectorat francophone. Read more...

A new book, Knowledge Production and Contradictory Functions in African Higher Education, will be launched at the African Higher Education Summit being held in Senegal's capital Dakar next week. It is the latest publication of HERANA – the Higher Education Research and Advocacy Network in Africa – which for the past seven years has been investigating higher education in eight African countries. This special report highlights key findings arising from the research, which is led by the Centre for Higher Education Transformation and funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. University World News is a media partner to both HERANA and the Dakar summit. Read more...

By Geoff Maslen. A little more than 25 years ago, an Australian economist called Bruce Chapman devised a brilliant scheme that allowed the federal government to impose tuition fees on the nation’s university students without them having to pay a cent upfront. Read more...

By Geoff Maslen – Acting Global Editor. A new report has urged the French government to charge foreign students from outside the EU full tuition fees. As our France correspondent Jane Marshall reports in our Features section this week, the report says that the money likely to be raised – nearly US$1 billion – should be invested to ensure France adapts to the new challenges of internationalising higher education while offering a fair, high-quality, attractive system.
In a second Feature, Professor Bruce Chapman, the Australian academic who gave the world the income contingent student loan scheme, points out that at least eight countries have now adopted the system, or intend to. Chapman says that such a scheme could be adapted to finance many other government projects – ranging from financing paid parental leave to recompensing poor countries for losing their skilled workers through migration to richer nations. Meanwhile, Jan Petter Myklebust reports how plans by the Dutch government to convert student grants into loans have generated protests across the nation.
Also in this edition is a series of reports relating to the African Higher Education Summit, to be held in Senegal over three days from next Tuesday. The reports, based on a book to be launched at the summit, are drawn from the HERANA project, the longest running and biggest research effort conducted into African higher education. Read more...