Breaking News
AUSTRALIA
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Shadi Khan Saif
In response to the rapid growth of international student numbers post-COVID, Australia’s Labor government has proposed a legislative package that will introduce caps on the number of international students seeking to pursue a tertiary education in the country’s higher education sector.
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PAKISTAN
Ameen Amjad Khan
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JAPAN-CHINA
Suvendrini Kakuchi
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SOUTH AFRICA
Desmond Thompson
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UNITED STATES
Nathan M Greenfield
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UNITED KINGDOM
Nic Mitchell
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CHINA-GLOBAL
Yojana Sharma
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AUSTRALIA
Maria O’Sullivan
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MIDDLE EAST
Wagdy Sawahel
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CHINA-AUSTRALIA
Jasvir Kaur Nachatar Singh, Sean Arisian and Geraldine Kennett
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Top Stories
SPAIN
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To keep ties, universities must show ‘commitment to peace’
Paul Rigg
Spanish university leaders have agreed to review ties with Israeli universities and research centres and suspend collaboration agreements with any that “have not expressed a firm commitment to peace and compliance with international humanitarian law”, the Conference of Rectors of Spanish Universities said.
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UNITED STATES
F King Alexander
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UNITED KINGDOM
Louise Nicol
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GLOBAL-AFRICA
Douglas Parry
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Student Gaza Protests
ASIA
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Shuriah Niazi, Ameen Amjad Khan and Mohiuddin Alamgir
Galvanised by university protests in the United States, pro-Palestine protests have emerged on campuses in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and other Asian countries – with protesters calling for an end to the war in Gaza, implementation of anti-Israel boycotts and, in some cases, no collaboration with Israeli universities.
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UNITED STATES
Nathan M Greenfield
The new Antisemitism Awareness Act, approved by a strong majority in the United States House of Representatives, is intended to codify a definition of antisemitism and help the education department enforce federal anti-discrimination laws on university campuses. But the bill has a range of diverse critics.
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IRELAND
John Walshe
Protesting students at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland’s top university, are claiming victory after the university agreed to divest from Israeli companies listed by the United Nations for their links to settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories and review involvement with Israeli companies, universities and student exchanges.
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News
INDONESIA-GERMANY
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Kafil Yamin
Some 41 universities in Indonesia are currently being investigated by the country’s education, culture, research and technology ministry – and by the police – for alleged people trafficking under the guise of placing students in overseas apprenticeships as part of a compulsory final-year academic assignment.
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NIGERIA
Olabisi Deji-Folutile
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NORWAY
Jan Petter Myklebust
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INDIA
Shuriah Niazi
Over 180 academics in India, including current and former vice-chancellors of leading universities, have accused an opposition leader of misinformation and deriving political mileage during the ongoing national elections over his claims that vice-chancellors are appointed on the basis of ideological affiliation rather than merit.
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CHINA
Amber Wang
A new batch of university majors announced recently by China’s Ministry of Education sheds new light on how China’s higher education sector is accelerating efforts to cultivate a highly educated workforce that is more in line with the country’s strategic goal of becoming a high-innovation economy by 2030.
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UNITED KINGDOM
Brendan O’Malley
A new study claims to show, for the first time, exactly how much financial support students need to enjoy a minimum acceptable standard of living – and highlights the stark gap between that minimum and the maximum government maintenance support for students’ living costs.
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Special Report: AI and Research
GLOBAL
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Research that uses generative AI is expanding rapidly across fields, and is said to be accelerating and transforming scientific knowledge. University World News is publishing a weekly series of articles on AI and Research exploring the multiplying ways in which AI is involved in higher education research. The series will culminate in a special briefing in June.
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GLOBAL
Jean-Paul Van Belle
AI researchers are spoiled for choice in large language models or LLMs – something that was almost inconceivable a year ago. There is both space and an urgent need for researchers from a broad variety of backgrounds to engage with and help shape the future of AI and our society.
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UNITED KINGDOM
Juan Manuel Parrilla
Generative AI enables individual researchers to write grant proposals at a similar speed to big teams who employ research associates or ghost writers. Funding agencies require researchers to state when they use AI to help write a proposal – why have they never had a problem with others writing grants for principal investigators?
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SDGs
AFRICA
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Francis Kokutse
African academics have been urged to conduct research about the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, the African Union’s Agenda 2063 and national plans, which could help the continent achieve the goals that have been set by these initiatives.
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KENYA-AUSTRALIA
Maina Waruru
A new Kenya-Australia hub launched at one of Kenya’s oldest private universities will engage in research and training in green hydrogen energy in what could be one of the few collaborations of its kind between an African and an Australian institution.
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KENYA
Wilson Odhiambo
Students who are part of the Kenyatta University-United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization Club, which aims to create awareness about the Sustainable Development Goals, have created the ‘Kijani Bin’, a project that has turned plastic waste into a resource.
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Features
UNITED STATES
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Nathan M Greenfield
The Massachusetts state government recently joined other states in America that have scrapped the requirement that its employees possess a degree for middle-skills jobs – part of a skills-based hiring movement that is likely to have implications for universities facing a demographic cliff.
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ZIMBABWE
Clemence Manyukwe
The so-called modular learning system is taking a toll on students in Zimbabwe, who say it is contributing to the churning out of “half-baked graduates” in the country. Students used to learn the comprehensive content of courses and then write exams, but not any more.
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DENMARK-GLOBAL
Jan Petter Myklebust
The death of New York-based novelist Paul Auster, aged 77, on 30 April is a massive loss for his many readers in Europe, and notably at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, where he had close ties with academics and which hosts a Paul Auster Research Library.
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Top Stories from Last Week
EUROPE
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Jo-Anne Dillabough and Andrea Peto
A new wave of well-funded universities is being founded on the virtue platforms of the global ultra-right which seek to capture the space of the university as an institutional form but fill it with ideological warfare, serving as an attack on liberal perspectives.
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SOUTH AFRICA
Karen MacGregor
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AFRICA-EUROPE
Desmond Thompson
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GLOBAL
Alexander Baratta, Paul Vincent Smith and Rui He
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NORTH AMERICA
Nathan M Greenfield
Tension has increased on campuses dotted across the United States and Canada, with riot police called in to break up encampments and end protests, occupations, counter protests and riots, including at the University of California, Los Angeles and Columbia University in New York.
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GLOBAL
Usama Javed Mirza
An understanding of the epistemicide inflicted on pre-colonial Muslim education and knowledge systems is a first step towards achieving the Islamic scientific critical consciousness that is required to navigate the pushes and pulls of the global secular higher education system prevailing today.
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UNITED STATES-GLOBAL
Mira Sucharov
A wave of protests expressing solidarity with Palestinians has spread across campuses in the US and beyond. While the protesters’ demands vary, what unites them is a call for schools to use their financial leverage and other influence to apply pressure on Israel.
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UNITED KINGDOM
Christopher Smith
While funding higher degrees in arts and humanities must continue, we cannot rely on intrinsic value or the public purse to justify the expenditure. We have to show that arts and humanities PhDs can be as valid as those in engineering or life science.
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Sponsored Article
IEEE Computer Society
Artificial intelligence research continues to advance, bringing with it both potential and pitfalls for a wide berth of industries. Read on for how this technology continues to influence the global technology market.
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Sponsored Article
International Science Council staff
With a record number of scientists displaced around the world, how can institutions offer better support during crisis and conflict? The International Science Council’s Centre for Science Futures pointed to Iraq and Ukraine as examples of why science institutions need to rethink support mechanisms for scientists.
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Sponsored Article
UAE University staff
A study by researchers from the United Arab Emirates University embarked on a ground-breaking exploration of machine learning techniques to revolutionise rainfall prediction in hyper-arid environments like the United Arab Emirates.
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Sponsored Article
Jessica Silwick
The fast-changing developments in artificial intelligence, a field that is dominated by men, are threatening to disrupt many economic and professional sectors worldwide. ABET has developed comprehensive guidance which it hopes will boost the role women play in STEM education and professions, including in AI.
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Sponsored Article
University of the Free State staff
The University of the Free State in South Africa has excelled over recent years as a research-led, student-centred and regionally engaged university that contributes to development and social justice through the production of globally competitive graduates and knowledge.
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Sponsored Article
The Education Collaborative staff
The Education Collaborative, an initiative started by Ashesi University in Ghana in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation, is one of Africa’s biggest platforms of higher education stakeholders. Since 2017, the Collaborative has led a new model for collaboration in African higher education that is helping to grow the strength of the ecosystem.
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Retrospective lowering of student loan indexation will be welcome news for the three million Australians with student debt, but the government’s fix for 2023 still leaves students vulnerable to times when the consumer price index and the wage price index are both high.
The publication last December of a National Framework for Artificial Intelligence in Digital Learning confirms Saudi Arabia’s serious commitment to using AI at all levels of education. Universities are expected to play a critical role in supporting the AI strategy – well beyond promoting AI literacy in curricula.