By Michael Gardner. University heads have warned that a continuous underfunding of universities and their clinics could seriously harm performance in the healthcare sector. They also call for better academic career prospects for young medical graduates. Read more...

By Bruce Macfarlane. What do graduates owe to society, if anything, in the context of the marketisation of higher education? I believe that the only logical response to this question is that they owe society very little. Read more...

By Wachira Kigotho. A total of 59 African-born scholars based in the United States and Canada have been selected to join universities in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda to work on academic projects with their peers as part of the Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Program or CADFP. Read more...

By Paul Rigg. Sindy Patricia Ramos Pocón, 23, knows what it means to be poor and go without food. Read more...

By Katrina Koppel. Internationalisation of education has been a goal for student movements for decades. Over the past few years, the number of international students in Europe has increased by about a third, according to Eurostat. This number, big as it is, does not include all international migrations of lecturers, researchers and some of the Erasmus network internationalisation. Read more...

By Thierry M Luescher, Manja Klemenčič and James Otieno Jowi. The new book Student Politics in Africa: Representation and activism highlights trends including a penetration by national politics into student representation and the co-option of student leaders through ‘incentives’. Also, marketisation has led to a dearth of ideology in student politics and new dynamics in institutional governance. Read more...

By Karen MacGregor. The “incredible human costs” of student protests in South Africa in the past two years has been missed amid the turmoil, for students and staff and especially for university leaders, says Professor Jonathan Jansen, whose resignation as vice-chancellor of the University of the Free State was announced last week – and as campuses countrywide continued burning. Read more...

By Brendan O’Malley. The government's plans to increase competition, widen access to university and improve student choice are one of the centrepieces of the government’s programme announced in the Queen’s Speech last week. Read more...

By Brendan O’Malley – Managing Editor. In our World Blog this week, Hans de Wit warns of the consequences of internationalisation indicators in global rankings, which influence the way universities and governments internationalise and the way internationalisation is measured.
In our series on ‘Transformative Leadership’, published in partnership with The MasterCard Foundation, University World News looks at the barriers to social equity and social justice and ways to overcome them through education.
On that theme Suellen Shay suggests South African higher education leaders look beyond widening access to a vision of equity that is about re-landscaping the terrain to ensure a more appropriate higher education for all. Rebecca Farnum looks at the growing movement of scholactivists, scholars who are keen to ensure their work has social impact.
Brendan O'Malley writes about Geeta Dharmarajan, an inspiring leader in education who has dedicated her life to challenging poverty in the slums of Delhi in India. And Bin Wu and W John Morgan suggest that higher education reform in China needs to be broader than the redistribution of higher education resources by social group, and should embrace the role of universities in transformative social change.
In a Special Report on the NAFSA: Association of International Educators conference held in the US last week, Mary Beth Marklein reports on poll results released at the conference showing a US presidential election victory by Donald Trump could reverse the record-breaking gains in international student enrolment at US universities over the past 10 years.
In Commentary, Pratik Gandhi sets out the benefits to India of attracting more international students, and suggests how this can be done.
Lastly, in Features, Sharon Dell reports on the centenary celebrations of the University of Fort Hare in South Africa – the alma mater of a formidable list of influential African leaders and intellectuals including Nelson Mandela – which were marred by violent student protests. Read more...

By Brendan O’Malley – Managing Editor. In a Special Report on the World Humanitarian Summit, which is being held this coming week in Turkey, the former president of Portugal Jorge Sampaio calls for the summit to recognise the need to prioritise higher education responses in ongoing crises of population displacement caused by conflict.
In the second week of our global series of Special Reports on student movements and related issues, aimed at deepening understanding and debate on what is transpiring across the student world, there are articles on student activism in Hong Kong, Turkey, Myanmar, South Africa and Zimbabwe. Liz Jackson considers how the Hong Kong student movement has left an indelible mark on society, and Sithu Aung Myint looks into the future plans of students in Myanmar who have recently been freed from prison after the instatement of a new democratic government. On the theme of student rights, Bruce Macfarlane asks why student rights as learners are being undermined in contemporary higher education where students are now being treated as customers.
In our series on Transformative Leadership in which University World News is partnering with The MasterCard Foundation, Paul Rigg writes about Sindy Patricia Ramos Pocón, a scholar from a poor Guatemalan family who is studying on a scholarship at a university in Costa Rica and is leading a project to help poor families change their lives.
In Commentary, Farzan Al-Khalil thanks international organisations for their support for Syrian academics and appeals to them to help the academics in exile in countries neighbouring Syria. And Richard Holmes says British universities should not take fright after their apparent slide down the Times Higher Education world reputation rankings as changes in ranking methodology are the most likely cause.
In our World Blog this week, Tom P Abeles says universities will soon have to confront the need for change as the evolution of the Internet and artificial intelligence impacts on them, bringing changes in functions at all levels. Read more...