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By Peter Scott. Fifty years ago this autumn the Robbins report on higher education in the United Kingdom was published. It was, and still is, the greatest report on higher education – by some way.
It stands in a kind of grand Apostolic succession from the 19th century 'blue books', those pioneering enquiries into social conditions undertaken in Victorian Britain which have a just claim to being regarded as the founding texts of empirical social science – and, incidentally, provided much of the raw material out of which Karl Marx fashioned Capital during long hours in the British Museum Reading Room. More...

By Hiep Pham. Despite the need to deal with a rising budget deficit, Vietnam this year decided to raise the amount available for student loans by almost 40%, after funds available from government fell short of demand for loans. The increase represents a considerable effort to maintain support for disadvantaged students.
The loan amount will increase from VND800,000 (US$38) per month per student, as stipulated in a 2007 government regulation, to VND1.1 million (US$52) per month, taking effect in the 2013-2014 academic year.
However, every year government funds for student loans fail to keep up with growing demand for higher education, opening up a debate on more radical measures to deal with loan shortfalls and student finance that would balance the need to widen university access with maintaining quality. More...

By Katherine Forestier. Millions of learners in China and internationally can now access courses offered by China’s leading universities. The country’s top institutions launched their first massive open online courses, or MOOCs, on the US-based edX and Coursera platforms recently.
But as the MOOCs flood gates open, university leaders in China are calling for clearer policies from the government on MOOCs. Online courses are seen as a double-edged sword, with both advantages and disadvantages for higher education, a recent conference in Beijing heard. More...

A higher education grant competition has been launched as a major collaboration between the United States and United Kingdom. The Global Innovation Initiative plans to strengthen higher education research partnerships between the US, UK and selected countries – Brazil, China, India and Indonesia.
The two governments expect the initiative to provide grant opportunities for university consortia on topics of global significance in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) in the following four areas: energy, climate change and the environment; agriculture, food security and water; public health and well-being; and urbanisation.
A press release said grants of up to US$250,000 would fund new research activities, faculty and researcher exchanges, joint publications and symposia, and various other multilateral efforts. More...

By Francis Kokutse. Ghana’s public universities are facing a boom in applications, but do not have sufficient facilities to meet growing demand that has been exacerbated by an influx of students from neighbouring countries and a double cohort leaving school this year.
As a result, admission to universities is no longer based on obtaining the required grades – some qualified candidates have been turned down or made to sit additional selection tests. More...

By Gilbert Nganga. Kenya has formally allowed universities to take over tertiary colleges in a new policy framework. But the upgraded institutions must retain their original courses, programmes and mandates, says the policy announced last Thursday by cabinet.
The policy, aimed among other things at stemming a national decline in the number of technical and vocational diploma and certificate courses, also gives the Ministry of Education extra powers over universities in protecting tertiary institutions that are being upgraded. More...

By Ard Jongsma. For the European Union, cooperation with Brazil is not quite the same as cooperation with developing and transition countries has been in past decades. Brazil is a rapidly developing economy with seven million higher education students, and a partner with a huge bag of earmarked funds. Because of this, it can set the tune to a much greater degree than less developed countries.
An EU-Brazil joint seminar on academic mobility, internationalisation and innovation, held at the education ministry in Brazil on 17-18 October, showed that what the Brazilians want more than anything else now is reciprocity. More...

By Jan Petter Myklebust. Fifty years ago the Robbins Report proposed massive expansion of higher education in the United Kingdom – up to 300% over the next two decades. In a report on Robbins, current Universities Minister David Willetts calculates that with British births on the rise again, university places for new entrants will need to rise by another 25% by 2035.
Looking at the number of would-be higher education students who reapply for university after a first rejection, there was unmet demand today of around 50,000 students, Willetts found. Increasing this figure in line with expected demographic change to 2035 would mean the 368,000 current places for first-year students would need to rise to 460,000 entrants.
Willetts authored a report, titled Robbins Revisited: Bigger and better higher education, published by the Social Market Foundation on the 50th anniversary of the hugely influential report of a committee led by Lord Lionel Robbins in October 1963. More...