Breaking News
THAILAND
Kalinga Seneviratne
Thailand, which is not typically thought of as a ‘polar’ country, is seeing a boom in polar science. According to Thai specialists, researching the polar regions has significant ramifications for tropical coastal and environmental resilience as well as the effects of climate change.
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Top Stories
UNITED STATES
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US federal role in funding universities is drastically cut
Nathan M Greenfield
Donald Trump’s budget reconciliation law dramatically downsizes the US federal government’s role in financing colleges and universities, and includes financial aid criteria changes, drastic reductions in access to federal student loans and healthcare programmes, and significant increases in the endowment tax for wealthier HE institutions.
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GLOBAL
Philip G Altbach and Hans de Wit
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JAPAN
Suvendrini Kakuchi
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ASIA
Yojana Sharma
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News
UNITED STATES
Nathan M Greenfield
The United States government recently turned the screw two more times against Harvard University by announcing it was subpoenaing the university’s international student disciplinary records and by asking the New England Commission of Higher Education to decertify the university founded in 1636.
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UNITED KINGDOM
Nic Mitchell
The lack of engineering graduates coming out of UK universities reflects a failure of the demand-led student choice system of higher education to produce the skilled workforce essential to driving economic renewal, which is the Labour government’s top priority, claims an industry leader.
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NIGERIA
Hussain Wahab
Nigeria’s higher education sector has been undergoing a significant shift as the number of private universities continues to grow rapidly in response to rising demand. Higher education experts have been weighing up the advantages of the expansion against concerns over quality and funding.
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UAE
Wagdy Sawahel
Three more international universities are set to open campuses in Dubai during the upcoming academic year. However, their economic impact on research and innovation, the core drivers of the knowledge-based economy, remains to be seen. This necessitates a shift toward enhancing investment in research capacity.
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SOUTH AFRICA
Alicia James
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Featured HE Jobs
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
Academic Affairs Division
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UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
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UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
Academic Affairs Division
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Edtech, AI and Higher Education
GLOBAL
James Yoonil Auh
MOOCs are marketed as tools of educational access. But instead of functioning as global learning commons, their platforms operate as proprietary systems, governed by platform capitalism and soft power agendas. Global case studies illuminate what true openness might look like in digital education.
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World Blog
GLOBAL
Nita Temmerman
Are on-campus lectures genuinely an effective teaching and learning methodology? In the post-pandemic higher education world amid hybrid approaches to teaching and learning, it is important that the focus is on quality education and meaningful interaction with students, backed by institutional support.
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Special Report: Education for Sustainable Development X – Access and Success
GLOBAL
Education for Sustainable Development is a growing global movement in higher education, and improving student access and success is a major imperative. The two are intertwined, with the connections explored in this 10th in a series of special reports by University World News in support of the global effort to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
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GLOBAL
Patrick Blessinger
To raise a generation of critical thinkers who act sustainably, higher education must look beyond prestige and profit to a more profound commitment to student access and success. Through opening access, we unleash potential. Through building capacity for success, we gain the agency to achieve our goals.
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NEW ZEALAND
Nathan M Greenfield
New Zealand’s Te Wananga o Aotearoa – one of the nation’s Maori tertiary education institutions – illustrates how culture can help improve education among an indigenous population alongside a Western education system, improving educational access and success and delivering high-level qualifications relevant to today’s world.
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UNITED STATES
Karen MacGregor
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MEXICO
Andreia Nogueira
Through an ambitious agenda, the respected Tecnológico de Monterrey in Mexico is integrating Education for Sustainable Development across curricula while expanding student access through scholarships and inclusive practices, encouraging a more diverse student body to drive social change and tackle real-world sustainability challenges.
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IRELAND
Dorothy Lepkowska
Sustainability-focussed projects can easily be introduced in any discipline. Students at TU Dublin in Ireland are made aware of sustainability issues and solutions and they work in teams on real-world problems, which gives them a sense of belonging. This increases the chances of student success, says the university’s Dr Brian Gormley.
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SDGs
GLOBAL
Patrick Blessinger
As 2030 draws near, universities will increasingly morph into hyper-networked centres of scholarship. The university of 2030 must present a vision for growth driven by people, social responsibility, and creative renewal with a strong sense of ethics and humanity at its heart.
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Top Stories from Last Week
GLOBAL
Nic Mitchell
Stronger quality assurance systems and more effective cooperation on recognition conventions are needed to cope with the fast-changing flows of international students worldwide, according to Stig Arne Skjerven, the re-elected chair of UNESCO’s Global Convention on the Recognition of Qualifications concerning Higher Education.
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GLOBAL
Kim Eggleton and Daniel Keirs
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GLOBAL
Wagdy Sawahel
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ASIA-GLOBAL
Yojana Sharma
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GLOBAL
Wolfram Berger and Ulrich Hommel
Many universities are struggling financially. Budget deficits are spiralling, triggering staff redundancy programmes, department shutdowns and the mothballing of degree programmes. Instead of resorting to traditional crisis management practices, universities should adopt a more flexible approach and embrace a trial-and-error mindset.
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IRAN-AFGHANISTAN
Manija Mirzaie
Refugees from all walks of life are being expelled from Iran. Among these are teachers, academics and students from Afghanistan, with an evident surge of tens of thousands of refugees fleeing Iran for Afghanistan in June after Israeli airstrikes hit Iranian military targets.
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GLOBAL
Karen MacGregor
“The greatest potential of the Sustainable Development Goals framework is to help us reimagine what the university does. The big risk is the SDGs’ superficial adoption by higher education,” Harvard University education professor Fernando Reimers told last week’s University World News-ABET webinar.
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UNITED STATES
Nathan M Greenfield
The Trump administration significantly escalated its battle with Harvard University over how it addressed antisemitism on Monday, formally accusing the university of violating federal civil rights law and threatening immediate withdrawal of funding. But Harvard immediately pushed back via a revised filing to the Federal Court.
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