By Rachel Brown. Amid the flurry of press coverage surrounding President Xi Jinping’s visit to the United States in September, his gift of a dawn redwood tree to be planted on the campus of the Global Innovation Exchange, or GIX, programme in Seattle received little attention. Read more...

By Roger Chao Jr. Since the opening up of its economy and its democratisation process, Myanmar’s government has understood the importance of education, including higher education, in supporting the country’s national development plans especially in sustaining economic development. Read more...

By Jeremy Rappleye and Edward Vickers. Japan needs more gurobaru jinzai (global talent)! Or so we are constantly told these days. Politicians portray global talent as individuals whose knowledge of foreign cultures and languages will connect Japan with the outside world, restoring the country’s competitiveness and strengthening its international relationships. Read more...

By Claire Shaw. University graduates who move overseas for more than six months will now have to pay back their student loans. Read more...

By Nicola Jenvey. Only 8% of United States higher education institutions have guidelines specifying international work or experience as a consideration for faculty promotion and tenure decisions, according to a study by the American Council on Education, or ACE. Read more...

By Brendan O'Malley. The member universities of the German Rectors’ Conference, or HRK, have launched a national initiative to oppose xenophobia in Germany, against a backdrop of the refugee crisis and a steeply rising number of incidents of verbal and physical racial attacks in recent months. Read more...

By Sharon Dell. The famously imprecise line between institutional autonomy and public accountability is under the spotlight in South Africa as Higher Education and Training Minister Dr Blade Nzimande prepares to amend the Higher Education Act in a process that will become public in the new year. Read more...

By Maina Waruru. Last August the engineers board published a list of 25 accredited courses in five universities, effectively disapproving 47 other courses offered in eight universities. In rejecting the courses the board cited, among other reasons, lack of qualified lecturers, a “weak curriculum”, course segmentation and duplication, and lack of “professional focus”. Read more...

By Jan Petter Myklebust. The proportion of university budgets comprising basic funding should be increased and collegial influence on decision-making and recruitment should be reduced, to give university leaders greater freedom to prioritise spending and hire staff to meet strategic needs, a commission on higher education leadership has recommended. Read more...