Power among the world’s leading universities has shifted further eastwards, with mainland Europe suffering the worst losses, show the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2013-14.
In general, this year’s tables are marked by their stability: the California Institute of Technology holds on to top spot for the third year in a row; the same institutions make up […]
It sounds as uncontroversial as apple pie. Teach for America (TFA), a not-for-profit organisation founded in 1990, places young ‘corps members’ at schools in poor areas to teach for two years. Recruits work in 35 states, most are fresh out of college, and they learn mainly on the job. Fair enough; but TFA has many […]
Russell group member the University of Exeter (UoE) is to cut the intake of foreign students into its business school following concerns over their academic quality — a move that may be followed by other UK institutions. Fifty-four percent of students in UoE’s business school are from outside the European Union — above the figure […]
As recent headline-grabbing resignations by two federal government ministers attest, the issue of academic plagiarism is a higher-profile matter in Germany, and with bigger political stakes, than almost anywhere else. Both defence minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, who quit his post in 2011, and Annette Schavan, the minister for education and research who departed from chancellor […]
Purges may be what political junkies are talking about, but for Chinese families the big issue is homework. As children across the country returned to their classrooms in September, the education ministry has put forward plans to decrease the amount of pupils’ homework.
The ministry’s proposed guidelines, issued on August 22, ban written homework for every […]
A new report has highlighted the major challenges facing Iraq’s universities as they struggle to forge international partnerships and adopt robust systems of assessment, evaluation and quality assurance. It draws on the results of a three-day conference organised by the New York-based Institute of International Education in collaboration with its Scholar Rescue Fund.
More than ever before, universities are being measured against not only national competitors but also rivals from around the world. There are already a number of well-established global university league tables, which are generally based on research power.
Then there is the Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes project, a scheme run by the Organisation for […]
Youths in northern Nigeria’s Borno state, where many members of the radical Islamist group Boko Haram (BH) have been arrested in recent weeks, are increasingly joining vigilante gangs to pass on the identity of BH members to the military-police Joint Task Force (JTF) following a string of deadly attacks on schools, according to vigilante groups […]
Five pioneering international students who risked life and limb to reach England before going on to become the architects of modern Japan, are being celebrated by a University College London (UCL) event.
The story of the so-called ‘Choshu Five’, a group of Japanese noblemen who studied at UCL 150 years ago, is testimony to the transformative power […]
Both relief and tears greeted the results of France’s school-leaving baccalaureat exam on July 5. With breathtaking efficiency, the entire country’s exam papers were corrected and marked within just two weeks. Founded in 1808 by Napoleon, the bac is an entry ticket to university as well as a yearly national ritual, which opens with a gruelling compulsory four-hour philosophy […]
Jiao Yizhou, a 17-year-old student at Jiangsu College for International Education in Nanjing, hopes to study environmental engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology in the US. Like many applicants to university, however, he is anxious about the entrance tests and essays involved. He says he knows that some Chinese students cheat on their applications, […]
Western universities based in Qatar are not expecting any major shake-ups under the country’s new emir, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, despite what is said to be his preference for Arabic — rather than English-language — instruction at university level.
Tamim was handed power over the gas-rich Gulf state on June 25 by his 61-year-old father, Hamad […]
For the second consecutive year, South Korea’s Pohang University of Science and Technology heads a list of the world’s top 100 universities under 50 years vintage. The UK’s “plate-glass” universities have lost ground.
Founded in 1986, Pohang — better known as Postech — retains its top spot in Times Higher Education’s second annual 100 Under 50 Rankings, comfortably […]
In parliament, the press and the academy, France is bitterly divided over whether its universities should be allowed to teach courses in English. However, recent findings show that the use of English is widespread in French higher education, suggesting that the intense debate has been overtaken by events.
On May 28, the French National Assembly passed […]
The first massive open online courses (moocs) on the UK-based Futurelearn platform will go live in autumn and are being developed for use on mobile devices, the company’s chief executive has revealed.
Simon Nelson says he believes his company, which has 21 UK university partners signed up to offer free online courses, will gain an advantage […]
Located in the heart of high-tech silicon valley, San José State University is a combination of early 19th century red-tiled Spanish Revival-style architecture and modern, shiny research, teaching and library buildings. It is also at the centre of one of the biggest debates in US higher education, thanks to an experiment that is combining conventional […]
In 2006, Michael Shattock, visiting professor at the Institute of Education, University of London, travelled to Ghana to advise what was probably the country’s most prestigious institution.
What he discovered at the University of Ghana, he says, was “absolute chaos”: it had 151 separate bank accounts, up to 10 students sharing a bedroom and not even […]
“Fly-in, fly-out” academics are a source of frustration for Chinese students taking UK degrees in their own country, a new report says. Around 38,000 students in China were studying for qualifications taught by a total of 70 British higher education institutions last year, either through a branch campus, partnerships with Chinese universities or via distance […]
When a fresh face enters a vice chancellor’s office, a revised strategic plan invariably emerges from under the door a few months later. But the University of South Australia’s new vice chancellor David Lloyd has decided to break with this closed-door tradition and instead host a giant 48-hour online brainstorming conversation about university strategy with […]
So gruesome was the injury to Kevin Ware’s leg that most media outlets declined to show it. Not often does a young man’s tibia break clean through his skin in the course of a college basketball game. Yet Ware urged his University of Louisville team-mates to carry on without him, which they did, winning the college […]
When Stephen Schwarzman, the chairman of Blackstone Group, a private-equity firm, announced in Beijing on April 21 the establishment of a $300 million (Rs.1,650 crore) scholarship programme in his name for study in China, it was further testament to the nation’s place as a new centre of gravity in the world. China’s pull on corporate […]
Cricket, boarding-house names reminiscent of Harry Potter’s Hogwarts and ancient and peculiar customs are among the hallmarks of Britain’s leading private schools. Now they can be found in Singapore and Kazakhstan. As the domestic market softens, some of the most famous names in British education are building far-flung outposts.
Francois Hollande’s embattled administration faces a major test this summer as it attempts to push sweeping changes to higher education through the French parliament. With the Socialist government rocked by financial scandal and its leader’s approval ratings at a record low of 29 percent, opposition from university leaders to key parts of the draft bill […]
Universities, colleges and schools in the UK may take a leaf out of Australia’s book and lobby the government as one body over international education issues. That’s the view of Colin Riordan, chair of the UK Higher Education International Unit, who made the remarks during a debate on whether British institutions which educate international students […]
An Asian country has for the first time broken into the top 10 of national higher education systems, according to the second annual Universitas 21 rankings. Singapore jumped two places to ninth in the overall table, which ranks 50 countries on measures including investment, gender balance, international connectivity and research output. The UK remains in […]
Some history professors in Florida are paying more attention these days to the future than to the past. The historians have organised themselves to promote the value of their discipline against a growing sentiment that history is “non-strategic” in an economy that needs more engineers, scientists, entrepreneurs and workers in the health professions.
Growing up in the southern mexican town of putla Villa de Guerrero, Lili Gracida Jiménez watched with dismay as teachers lined up students by order of intelligence, calling the underperformers names.
“My teachers were cruel,” recalls Gracida Jiménez, who went on to graduate from Benito Juárez Autonomous University of Oaxaca and now teaches Spanish at a […]
The centre for higher education development (che) is responsible for what is arguably Germany’s best-known universities ranking system. Results are presented by means of a simple traffic-light method of classification: top-rated universities get green buttons, average ones yellow and low scorers blue. But the ratings paintbox has recently seen the addition of a new colour: […]
Barack Obama likes to call education “the currency for the information age”. His presidency has brought a big shift in America’s priorities, devoting more effort and resources — and an extra $2 billion (Rs.10,800 crore) — to children who have not yet started formal schooling.
That is part of an international trend. South Korea plans to […]
Here is a test. suppose you had $100 in a savings account that paid an interest rate of 2 percent a year. If you leave the money in the account, how much would you have accumulated after five years: more than $102, exactly $102, or less than $102? And would an investor who received 1 percent […]
Entering the European University Institute (EUI) has echoes of stepping back in time to one of the early monastic seats of higher education. Its hub, housed in a Medici-era church and monastery, sits high in the hills above Florence in San Domenico di Fiesole. Today the ancient cloisters are paced by serious-minded young scholars deep […]
Plans by Conservative Party ministers to limit international students’ use of the National Health Service (NHS) could further deter overseas applicants. The move coincides with an analysis published in early March, which concludes that overseas students are less of a drain on health and other public resources than the average citizen.
Following the Conservative party’s third-place […]
A conference in Tunisia has explored new opportunities and threats for universities in countries transformed by the recent Arab Spring. The event was organised by the Scholars at Risk Network and the Center for Dialogues, both based in New York University, and convened on February 21-22 at the University of Manouba’s faculty of letters, arts […]
When the Australian government declined in January to implement recommended increases in teaching funding, or permit the franchising of university degrees, some observers perceived a growing nervousness about the cost of the country’s uncapped higher education system.
Some academics believe the cost of the loans system could prompt a future government — particularly one from the […]
The suicide of a radical advocate of open access to academic research has elevated the topic to the forefront of conversation in the US, and could ultimately widen the availability of documents and prompt copyright reform.
The number of academic papers open to all without charge has increased rapidly in recent years, even before Aaron Swartz […]
A row has erupted in French higher education over a privately funded university that is facing legal action from the government. Université Fernando Pessoa (UFP), an institution based in the town of Toulon, has only several dozen students, but it is causing a stir within the education establishment.
The university, backed by French and Portuguese investors, […]
What is the most popular thing in the world? Music, guessed Donald Trump. No, replied his interviewer, Ali G; it is ice cream. The problem, however, is that ice cream drips. The solution, said the British comedian, is to sell “ice cream gloves” to stop people’s hands getting sticky. The Donald somehow kept a straight […]
Last December men armed with assault rifles burst into the canteen of Ban Ba Ngo school in the southern Thai province of Pattani and shot two teachers dead. The next day the teachers’ unions shut down all 1,300 state-run schools in the three provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat, and in four districts of neighbouring […]
Parents pore over them. teachers protest about them. Politicians preen when they are positive — and blame their predecessors if they are not. International league tables have acquired a central role in debates about education policy.
Data duels are a recent phenomenon. The OECD (a Paris-based developed-country think-tank) has published its PISA (Programme for International Student […]
The Chinese new year, which was celebrated on February 10, is a time of family reunions. But Xiao Chaohua spent his sixth new year without his son, who was abducted in 2007 by suspected child traffickers. China’s one-child policy has fuelled demand for children like his, thousands of whom are snatched and sold every year […]
IIT Delhi organised its 11th Alumni Day on Sunday under the theme ‘Engage, Enrich, Empower: Celebration of an Emotion’ that brought together alumni, students, and .....Read More
Prayoga Institute of Education Research, an established DSIR institution in Bengaluru, and The Sports School, India's pioneering integrated sports institution that integrates academics with professional .....Read More
