ESNA Podcast #9: Anglicising the European student
BERLIN (esna) -- As the spread of English-taught Bachelors’ courses in Europe’s universities seems inexorable, some are concerned that it may inflate stupidity and alienate the general public from science. In our latest podcast, Annette de Groot, professor of psycholinguistics at the University of Amsterdam, talks about the implications of teaching and learning in English for European students ... read more 18.12.17
Denmark now has a language strategy
COPENHAGEN (uwn) -- The proportion of Danish high school students with three foreign languages continues falling, and it is a major quality issue that other disciplines and programmes can only use texts in Danish and English. Not only cultural heritage and general education is threatened, but also Danish companies' competitiveness ... read more 16.12.2017
Apple’s ‘Everyone Can Code’ goes global
(mashable) -- The technology company Apple just announced the global expansion of its Everyone Can Code initiative to more than 20 universities outside of the US in countries including The Netherlands, Great Britain and Denmark. “Our program has been incredibly popular among US schools and colleges, and today marks an important step forward as we expand internationally,” said Tim Cook, the company’s CEO. Also internationally, not only since the Paradise Papers, Apple is known as a grandmaster of tax avoidance ... read more 11.17
Ukrainian anti-anticommunist demystification
KIEV (zn) -- Experts of two Ukrainian universities spoke up against the law of ‘de-communism’ from 2015 — that prohibits national-socialist and communist propaganda and stipulates to take down Soviet monuments, rename streets and the like. The scientists came to the conclusion that the law is fuzzy, too broad in scope and does not provide legal certainty ... read more 23.11.2017
Stop the Serbian brain drain
BELGRADE (pink) -- This week, during the industry-sponsored event ‘Youth Heroes’, Serbian education and science minister, Mladen Šarčević stressed the importance of systemic solutions for youth retention in Serbia and the return of those who have gone abroad. “Serbia’s population will decrease by one third before 2050, if no steps are taken,” he said ... read more 05.12.2017
How Trump’s tax plan affects universities
WASHINGTON (time) -- The tax bills recently passed by Republicans in Washington could put college further out of reach for some Americans. It could turn tuition waivers into taxable income, dramatically increasing what students owe in taxes each year. On the other hand, the wealthiest private college endowments could be taxed ... read more 04.12.2017
Creative accounting in Hungary
BUDAPEST (origo) -- A debate has been sparked over Hungary’s university funding. Critics say it’s not right that EU money is considered part of the national university budget. Especially, as István Fábián, rector of Debrecen University recently said, since public expenditure for higher education in Hungary is still below that of 2008. The government responded that the level of university debt has decreased, and student grants have been raised ... read more | and here
More bureaucracy for Danish universities
COPENHAGEN (information) -- From 2019, universities, professional colleges and vocational academies will receive funding according to quality, study time and graduate unemployment. Educational institutions see the new grant system as less predictable and more bureaucratic ... read more 28.11.2017
Denglish courses spread in Germany
BERLIN (nd) -- What has first been a subject of debate in Holland and Scandinavia is now coming to Germany. English-taught lessons at universities — along with worries about teaching quality and ‘linguistic discrimination’ — are spreading. Of the 19,000 degree courses in Germany, 1,400 are conducted in English ... read more
Do universities take a stand against nationalism?
BERKELEY (uwn) -- Nationalism is rising around the world, in many guises and with different consequences for universities. One key question for universities is whether they are challenging or reinforcing the existing political order, argued John Douglass, senior research fellow at the Center for Studies in Higher Education, University of California, Berkeley, introducing its New Nationalism and Universities conference ... read more 05.12.2017
The 100 billion dollar club
HELSINKI (verkkouutiset) -- The university club LERU in Brussels has published a report on the economic impact of its member universities in Europe. The twenty-three associated universities claim to have produced a total of 99.8 billion euros and 1.3 million jobs across Europe in 2016 ... read more 01.12.2017
Cambridge students protest fossil fuel investments
CAMBRIDGE (tcs) -- Nearly a hundred Cambridge students marched to the central offices of their university, demanding an end to the institution’s involvement in “climate injustice.” The protest comes as a response to the Paradise Papers leak, revealing how British colleges have committed “tens of millions of pounds” to private equity partnerships based offshore. The students manned the barricades not because Oxbridge endowments, which together amount to over 11 billion pounds, were channelled into tax havens, but because they are connected to fossil fuel investments ... read more 14.11.
Danish immigration ministry targets researchers
COPENHAGEN (jv) -- In a climate hostile to immigration, foreign researchers in Denmark are now feeling the heat. At least 14 foreign academics have been accused of violating their work permits and face fines and deportation. One of them is Brooke Harrington, an American researcher at Copenhagen Business School. “It came as a big surprise,” she says, “because part of my job is to share my knowledge with the public. But now the authorities come and say I cannot talk outside the walls of CBS” ... read more 04.12.2017
European University fights for its life
ST PETERSBURG (orf) -- The private European University in St Petersburg is fighting for its survival. In summer, its teaching licence was rescinded, however, many students hope to be able to continue their studies next year. A decision will be made about reissuing the licence at the end of December, and the rector, Nikolai Wachtin, remains confident ... read more 01.12.2017
Austria to get rid of ‘eternal students’
VIENNA (standard) -- Austrian students can retake exams up to four times, and go years without taking a single exam. That this is possible “with no real consequences” upsets Oliver Vitouch, speaker of the Austrian university association uniko. He has discredited students’ lifelong curiosity as “studying in Austrian” and called for legal reform. The student union (ÖH) rebutted these attempts to tighten university law. “Rectors apparently want a university without students,” said ÖH Chair Marita Gasteiger ... read more 20.11.2017
Lisbon students protest for better funding
LISBON (sabado) -- Students from the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities in the NOVA University of Lisbon complain of a lack of space in classrooms and libraries, and “human and material conditions”. Last week they held a protest for better funding for higher education in Portugal. This comes on the same day as the government announcement of a meagre 11 million euro increase for the national university budget in 2018 ... read more 27.11.2017
Oxford issues 100-year bond
OXFORD (ft) -- The University of Oxford has become the latest higher education institution in Britain to raise money for investment through the international capital markets, by issuing a bond raising at least £250m that it plans to pay back in 100 years time. It is to have the longest maturity of any bond from the UK university sector, the proceeds from which will be used on long-term strategic projects ... read more 28.11.2017
A tool for tracking ‘big deal’ cancellations
WASHINGTON (sparc) -- Once value-for-money ‘big deals’ on bundles of academic journals are fast becoming unsustainably expensive for what they offer, forcing institutions to reinvest their limited collection funds elsewhere. SPARC, a global coalition for Open Access in academia, has launched a tool allowing users to monitor the growing trend of the cancellation of such ‘big deals’ ... read more 29.11.2017