The Council for Higher Education unanimously approved a set of criteria for improving teaching quality, which all academic institutions in Israel will have to abide by, reports The Jerusalem Post. Read more...

The new national standards for universities have been described as being unattainable for the majority of higher education institutions, writes Kim Chi for VietNamNet Bridge. Read more...

The Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning will establish a special committee to foster university-level software education as part of its drive to produce more software specialists, writes Lee Min-hyung for The Korea Times. Read more...

Students acquiring degrees from foreign universities in a duration shorter than the one prescribed for such degrees in India will now find it easier to secure equivalence to and recognition of their qualification in the country, writes Vishwas Kothari for TNN. Read more...

The Department of Education unveiled a slate of executive actions it's taking to beef up accountability in the higher education accreditation system, which Education Secretary Arne Duncan said is filled with "watchdogs that don't bite", writes Lauren Camera for US News and World Report. Read more...

Dutch universities are getting around changes in the rules on temporary contracts by offering lecturers a fixed contract for one lecture a week plus a short-term contract for the rest of their work, reports Dutch News. Read more...

The European Commission’s new Scientific Advice Mechanism, or SAM, was officially launched last week, with the announcement of the seven leading scientists who will form the first High Level Group of scientific advisors. Read more...

By Jan Petter Myklebust. After seven years, the European Research Council, or ERC, grant scheme has become a ‘gold standard’ for science in Europe, and the ‘jewel in the crown’ for 4,556 recipients in the Seventh Framework Programme, or FP7 (2007-13). Read more...

By Hans de Wit. On 18 September 2015 Philip Altbach and I wrote a University World News commentary about the slow reaction by higher education to the refugee crisis in Europe. Since then both the crisis itself and the response by universities and higher education organisations in Europe and beyond have escalated rapidly, the latter a positive sign of the commitment and engagement of the higher education community. Read more...

By Andrés Castro Samayoa, Marybeth Gasman and Paola 'Lola' Esmieu. Higher education leaders and policy-makers strive to adapt college models to the global interconnectedness of the 21st century. Take, for example, the Civic and Global Learning component of the National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment, or NILOA, Degree Qualifications Profile which calls for students’ abilities to “face a social, economic and information world that knows no borders, that is buffeted by environmental changes, and that requires both the knowledge and the experiences that will enable them to become genuinely interactive and productive”. Read more...