By Brendan O’Malley – Managing Editor. In Features, Yojana Sharma reports on the views of international academic experts that China’s New Silk Road initiative could alter the dynamics of global collaboration in higher education, with China taking possible advantage of a ‘vacuum’ left by the United States, which will have implications for partnerships in Europe and China. And Kalinga Seneviratne reports on the Singapore Education Minister Ong Ye Kung’s contention that the role of higher education is changing and the system of university ranking needs to evolve with the times.
   In Commentary, Ararat Osipian looks at why Russian President Vladimir’s Putin’s ambitious commitment to get at least five Russian universities into the top 100 in world university rankings is doomed to fail. Igor Chirikov and Evgeniia Shmeleva suggest a combination of approaches that Russian universities should adopt to reverse the worrisome trend of increasing dishonesty among students, while the ministry of science and higher education should make addressing this issue a top priority. Eric Fredua-Kwarteng and Samuel Kwaku Ofosu say the National Accreditation Board of Ghana needs massive capacity building to function effectively as a state-sponsored quality assurance agency and perform its vital role in improving higher education. And Kai Yu writes that acquisition activity in private higher education in China has recently reached record highs and the success of these acquisitions is likely to depend on the acquired universities meeting the ever-changing labour market needs.
   In our World Blog this week, Patrick Blessinger, Shai Reshef and Enakshi Sengupta say that paradigm shifts in higher education have meant that more people see affordable lifelong education as a moral imperative and more universities and states are seeking ways to make higher education more affordable, in some cases by making it tuition-fee free.
   In a continuation of our Special Report on the Publishing Crisis, Philip G Altbach and Hans de Wit reiterate the need for differentiation of institutions and in academic publishing, without which the knowledge distribution system will remain dysfunctional and ridden with inefficiencies and corruption.
   In another Special Report, Wachira Kigotho reports from the eLearning Africa conference in Rwanda on calls for African leaders to work towards ‘digital parity’, while Rodrigue Rwirahira writes about calls for African universities to adopt a brain-gain strategy, facilitated by e-learning programmes. More...