By Sharon Dell – Africa editor. In our lead Africa feature on student engagement, we highlight some of the key features of a recent national survey of first-year students in South Africa coordinated by the Centre for Teaching and Learning at the University of the Free State, which challenges some of the prevailing perceptions around first-year students in the country and points to ways in which universities can use data to support contemporary students more effectively. A new book on student engagement which speaks directly to the survey is also reviewed here.
   In Africa Analysis, Damtew Teferra says the Continental Education Strategy for Africa – unlike the Sustainable Development Goals – places higher education firmly at the centre of the continent’s development, where it belongs, while Wondwosen Tamrat argues in favour of more meaningful student participation in university governance in Ethiopia.
   Also in Africa Features, Christabel Ligami illustrates the plight of students in Kenyan universities whose lives have been put on hold by repeated lecturer strikes, and Wagdy Sawahel reports on some of the discussions at a recent pan-African meeting in Cairo to discuss the African Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in Higher Education.
   In News from around the continent, Ashraf Khaled reports on an inquiry into an Egyptian lecturer accused of defaming two prominent clerics in his book, while Rodrigue Rwirahira reports on the growing demand for Chinese language courses in Rwanda.
   In a Special Report on the recent Going Global 2018 conference in Malaysia, Ahmed Bawa, chief executive officer of Universities South Africa, says there is a need for universities to deliver to both global and local publics to boost the sector’s weakened legitimacy and reshape the relationship between universities and society. More...

By Brendan O’Malley – Managing Editor. In Commentary, Gwilym Croucher says US universities and their advocates are increasingly concerned about the hostility shown by the United States federal administration to science, and will need to step up their efforts to restate their science mission to avert this threat to fundamental research. Patrick Thaddeus Jackson argues that the current focus on teaching facts and skills crowds out the cultivation of judgment, which is what students need to deal with the ‘unknown unknowns’ of the future. And Damtew Teferra says the Continental Education Strategy for Africa – unlike the Sustainable Development Goals – places higher education firmly at the centre of the continent’s development, where it belongs.
   In World Blog this week, Grace Karram Stephenson and Emmanuelle Fick question the extensive power of Canadian research ethics boards as gatekeepers and whether there is a need to harmonise ethics reviews across the country.
   In our section on Academic Freedom, Sofia Karlsson and Denis Aslan draw attention to the fears of the family of Iranian scholar Ahmadreza Djalali, a specialist in disaster medicine who trained and lived in Europe and who, upon returning to Iran to share his knowledge, was imprisoned and sentenced to death.
   In a Special Report on the Going Global 2018 conference held last week in Malaysia, Yojana Sharma unpacks a British Council study released at the conference that looks at the patchy nature of student and academic mobility in the Southeast Asian region, while Glenda Crosling and Angela Lee Siew Hoong explain why Malaysia has set a target in its higher education blueprint for 70% of university programmes to use blended learning by 2025.
   In Features, Ararat L Osipian reports on the struggles Ukraine’s acting minister of health is having with rectors of some medical universities over cases of alleged corruption. More...

By Brendan O’Malley – Managing Editor. In Commentary, Waldemar Siwinski and Richard Holmes say the IREG Observatory on Academic Ranking and Excellence’s efforts to establish what is a real university ranking show the urgent need for solid databases covering the teaching mission of universities. Mark Ashwill highlights new data showing that the enrolment of Vietnamese students in Canada has shot up in the past three years, with Canada benefiting from comparatively low costs and a more progressive, peaceful image than the United States. And Nan Yeld says two new projects in Sub-Saharan Africa are showing how data on higher education could be collected more cheaply and reliably and how staff capacity to use it can be enhanced – to help African universities raise quality.
   In a review, Catherine Gomes writes that the book Transnational Education Crossing ‘Asia’ and ‘the West’ by Phan Le-Ha shows that the relationship between East and West is more interdependent than in the past, but being able to provide a complete English-language learning environment is key.
   In our World Blog this week, Hans de Wit says optimism about internationalisation of higher education is justified, especially regarding the heightened interest in ‘internationalisation at home’ in the developing world, but it would be naïve to ignore the dark clouds hovering above.
   In a Special Report on the Studyportals Academy 2018 on ‘Embracing Change’, Nic Mitchell reports on a warning from Michelangelo Balicco that universities in some European countries are in danger of ‘cannibalising’ their own courses in the rush to introduce programmes taught in English. Mitchell also reports on a panel of study-abroad students agreeing that above all they wanted more responsive and better informed university staff.
   In Features, Wagdy Sawahel reports that draft legislation to regulate the performance of foreign university branch campuses in Egypt was recently approved, amid concerns that the opening of foreign universities will exacerbate inequality. And Emma Sabzalieva reports on the revelation that more than 25 doctoral dissertations from Tajikistan were found to contain significant elements of plagiarism, including that of the first deputy prime minister and a professor who is the minister of education’s son. More...

By Brendan O’Malley – Managing Editor. In Commentary, Michaela Martin unpicks research by the UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning that demonstrates the importance for universities of developing flexible and qualitative internal quality assurance tools in support of quality and employability – but also the need to balance them to avoid excessive specialisation of university graduates. Samuel Ofosu and Eric Fredua-Kwarteng propose that universities in Africa reform their admissions policies for mature students, with more emphasis on relevant work experience and bridging programmes. And Wondwosen Tamrat adds to discussions on changing patterns of international student mobility by looking at internal student mobility patterns on the African continent.
   In our World Blog, Namrata Rao and Anesa Hosein appeal to universities that aim to internationalise their workforce to consider that migrant academics may require support and training in a new and different teaching environment.
   In part two of the Special Report on the 2018 Centre for Global Higher Education conference, Rajani Naidoo questions the major share of national resources that are consumed by universities identified as world-class and their role in perpetuating inequality and explores options to remedy the situation. Karen MacGregor reports on Claire Callender’s presentation on the unintended consequences that higher education policies of successive English governments have had on student choice. And Eileen Kennedy and Diana Laurillard explore how massive open online courses or MOOCs, using a ‘cascade model’ for professional development of teachers, might help us meet the expected doubling of global demand for higher education by 2030.
   In Features, Jan Petter Myklebust reports on the achievement by Sweden’s KTH Royal Institute of Technology of attracting three European Research Council grants in the humanities in three years. More...