By Karen MacGregor. Five universities selected to the Siyaphumelela – 'we succeed' – programme profiled their work at the second annual conference of the initiative, held from 28-30 June in Durban on South Africa’s east coast. They were joined by a range of governmental and institutional groups working with some urgency in the area of evidence-based student support. Read more...

By Nicola Jenvey. Resolving problems around student fees, accommodation, food and career guidance had to take precedence when discussing student success in South African higher education, as ignoring these issues only perpetuates an unequal society, says University of the Witwatersrand Vice-chancellor Professor Adam Habib. Read more...

By Nicola Jenvey. South Africa’s National Student Financial Aid Scheme, or NSFAS, is being substantially overhauled to pave the way for assistance for a broader range of deserving tertiary students while recognising government’s responsibility to eliminate structures that lumber university drop-outs with loan repayments. Read more...

By Nicola Jenvey. Universities are honour-bound to defy conventional approaches to students, otherwise they merely perpetuate inequalities for disadvantaged students that the higher education system has been producing for decades, said Dr Tim Renick, vice-president for enrolment management and student success at Georgia State University in the United States. Read more...

By Aretha Phiri. Celebrated Ghanaian writer and academic Ama Ata Aidoo has no time for “Afropolitans”. This is a notion popularised by the self-described ‘multi-local’ author Taiye Selasi. Afropolitans are a current, cosmopolitan generation of ‘Africans of the world’. Read more...

By Jane Marshall. Nigerian Ambassador to UNESCO Mariam Y Katagum, a member of the governing board of the Commonwealth of Learning, answers questions on the opportunities and challenges facing the provision of MOOCs – massive open online courses – in Africa. Read more...

By Jane Marshall. Massive open online courses, or MOOCs, have been expanding rapidly throughout the world since the ‘Year of the MOOC’ in 2012, offering higher education, often free, to millions of learners – especially in developed countries with wide access to the right technology and resources. Read more...

By Hanneke Teekens. For more than a week the international news has been dominated by the vote in Britain to leave the European Union. It was a close call. Not only was the result unexpected, it has created a deeply divided country. Read more...

By Samantha Bernstein and Adrianna Kezar. The State College of Florida recently scrapped tenure for incoming faculty. New professors at this public university will be hired on the basis of annual contracts that the college can decline to renew at any time. Read more...

By Paul Boyle. Research in the United Kingdom is facing a time of great change, challenge and opportunity. Read more...