By Aimee Chung. A five-month student protest over plans for a for-profit branch campus at South Korea’s most prestigious university came to an end after the university administration turned a water hose on the students the day after the country’s president Park Geun-Hye was ousted from office. More...

By Nic Mitchell. Universities in the United States and United Kingdom need to call upon their “marvellous capacities for having their own foreign policies” in the light of Donald Trump being elected US president and Britain’s vote to leave the European Union. More...

By Yojana Sharma. British universities’ partnerships in China need to ratchet up from academic research collaborations ending in published papers to a broader and more strategic approach to match China’s own national ambitions, an international higher education forum organised by Universities UK heard this week. More...

By Yojana Sharma. China has stepped up its drive to lure overseas talent in its bid to become an innovation economy, less dependent on trade in manufactured goods. New measures include allowing foreign students to stay on in China after their degrees to take up jobs or internships and reducing red tape around residence permits. More...

By Brendan O’Malley – Managing Editor. In our World Blog, Philip G Altbach warns that technology, greed, corruption, hyper-competitiveness and a lack of clear rules and norms have resulted in anarchy in the world of scientific communication.
   Academic Freedom comes under the spotlight this week. From Egypt, Ashraf Khaled says a new report concludes that state authorities have crushed a burgeoning democratic movement at universities by committing more than 2,300 human rights violations against students. In the United Arab Emirates, a prominent economist and academic, Nasser Bin Ghaith, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for tweeting criticism of the human rights record of the UAE and Egypt, despite a coalition of human rights organisations calling for his release. Also, Georgiana Mihut and Daniela Craciun contend that the targeting of the Central European University by the Hungarian government is an alarming action against academic freedom, and is part of an emerging trend of seeing universities as a threat. And Marit Egner describes how Scholars At Risk and other programmes have shown her that academic freedom should not be taken for granted.
   In Commentary, Ranjit Goswami says universities have an uphill task dealing with the post-truth era in an information-overloaded world under pressure to provide quality higher education for all, but deal with it they must. Eric Fredua-Kwarteng defends the Nigerian government’s plan to teach science and mathematics in indigenous languages at primary schools and cautions the academics who are opposed to the plan. Wesley Teter asks if the value of national qualifications frameworks has been overrated and what can be done about this given the importance of strengthening the evidence base for quality assurance mechanisms.
   In Features, Jan Petter Myklebust reports on the Norwegian government’s white paper which calls for a strengthened role for the humanities.
   The 2017 Worldviews Lecture on Media and Higher Education entitled “Populism and the Academy: On the ‘wrong side’ of history” will be presented this Wednesday 5 April by Peter Scott.
   And you are invited to register for the free webinar on the following Wednesday, 12 April, on “International Student Mobility Trends: Shifting recruitment priorities and strategies”, which is being hosted by University World News in partnership with DrEducation and StudyPortals. More...

By Brendan O’Malley – Managing Editor. In World Blog, Philip G Altbach and Hans de Wit maintain that a revolution is taking place in international student and faculty mobility as a result of political changes in the favoured destination countries.
In Commentary, Ross Anthony similarly points to a likely bifurcation in global educational mobility as the Euro-American security state deters foreign students and China’s sustained growth offers former colonial preserves like Africa new centres of cosmopolitan learning. Ararat Osipian calls for a response from the global academic community to the harassment of two international universities by their respective ‘autocratic’ ruling political regimes – Russia’s European University at St Petersburg and Hungary’s Central European University. Emmanuelle Perez Tisserant and Philippe Dagneaux explain why they are supporting the Marche pour les Sciences en France on 22 April where French scientists will mobilise alongside others around the world to stand up for the values of critical thinking and analysis.
In Features, Yojana Sharma reports on increased collaborations in film studies between Chinese and Western institutions as China sets its sights on creating a ‘Hollywood of the East’, while Ranjit Devraj outlines the Indian government’s plans to digitise academic records to tackle the growing problem of fake qualifications.
Covering the 2017 WorldViews Lecture on Media and Higher Education, Daniel Sekulich reports on Sir Peter Scott’s view that the rise of populism has created a wake-up call for academics that they should speak up more loudly for open societies and recover a sense of social purpose.
You are invited to register for the upcoming topical free webinar on “International Student Mobility Trends: Shifting recruitment priorities and strategies”, to be held this Wednesday 12 April, hosted by University World News in partnership with DrEducation and StudyPortals. More...