Trump's pick for education stirs fears of deepening inequality of access to HE

By Brendan O’Malley – Managing Editor. In Commentary, Aya Waller-Bey says that it is now more important than ever to address the separate and unequal school classrooms in the US – with double segregation based on racial identity and socio-economic status – that limit educational attainment, restrict social capital and narrow access to higher education. Dennis Murray encourages having faith in university leaders to continue deepening international engagement and to find ways through the troubles associated with the re-emergence of nationalist politics, manifested by the vote for Brexit in the UK and the rise of Donald Trump in the US. Ole Petter Ottersen says universities have to be trust-building as well as truth-seeking in an era characterised as “post-truth”, recently selected by Oxford Dictionaries as the international word of the year.
In World Blog, Margaret Andrews says that higher education appears to be next in line for a great unbundling revolution due to advances in technology, such as that experienced in the music and news markets.
In our series on Transformative Leadership in which University World News is partnering with The MasterCard Foundation, Thierry Zomahoun and Barry Green envisage African countries building a pipeline of innovation and boosting development by ensuring universities are provided with the necessary faculty and investment.
In a Special Report on the recent Times Higher Education BRICS and Emerging Economies Universities Summit held in South Africa, Stephen Coan reports that universities were warned to think about local regard and their reason for being, instead of achieving a high position in global rankings. He also reports on Nigerian Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka’s declaration in a keynote speech that the time had come for “desperate strategies” to battle “revelatory knowledge” on university campuses.
Lastly, in Features, Yojana Sharma reports on a flurry of collaborations this year between institutions, particularly business schools, in China and France, while Wagdy Sawahel writes that North African universities are working on a number of initiatives and approaches to improve graduate employability. Read more...