For accurate Greek economics of education
ATHENS (avgi) -- On Friday, prime minister Alexis Tsirpas and education minister Kostas Gavroglou opened the first session of a newly founded committee for the study of the economics of education in Greece. The committee, composed of twenty academic and non-academic members, has support from ¾ of Parliament and is supposed to identify, analyse and quantify the needs of the Greek educational system, said Tsirpas ... read more 17.2.17
Portuguese teachers work in isolation
LISBON (cm) -- “Our studies indicate that Portuguese teachers hardly speak to each other, work very isolated and do not cooperate. This is one of the simple changes to make for Portugal going from Good to Excellent in the results of PISA,” said Andreas Schleicher, Director of Education of the OECD during an intervention in Lisbon ... read more 10.02.2017
Bolognese students protest against turnstiles
BOLOGNA (il post) -- Turnstiles at the entry of a university don’t seem to be a big deal. But for many students of the humanities in Bologna it did. When new entry barriers that require a bagde were installed recently at the gates of the famous historical faculty and library building in Via Zamboni 36, hell broke lose. Protests, occupations, police deployment, arrests and polemics came blow by blow ... read more 13.2.17
German right-wing Professor sues students
BERLIN (wsws) -- Student representatives of the Freie Universität Berlin and the Humboldt University Berlin have issued declarations in support of the General Student Committee (Asta) at the University of Bremen. The Asta is being sued by professor Jörg Baberowski, a leading ideologue of the far right in Germany. Baberowski who advocates a crackdown on refugees and more aggressive military intervention, wants to prevent students from criticising and even quoting his statements ... read more 11.02.2017
New tools for measuring academic performance
WASHINGTON (science) -- In academia, publication lists are still the primary basis for hiring, promotion, and funding decisions. But some administrators and researchers have started adopting new methods for assessing academic achievement ... read more 10.02.2017
Ukraine cancels university licences in occupied areas
KIEV (unian) -- In a move to weaken Russian influence, the Ukrainian education ministry has revoked the licenses of higher education institutions located in occupied territory in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, Crimea and the city of Sevastopol. After 2014, nearly two dozen colleges, universities, institutes and academies moved to Ukrainian-controlled territory ... read more 7.2.17
Higher education’s part in the EU’s growth
BRUSSELS (eu inside) -- Part of the European Commission’s assessment of the EU’s economic growth is higher education: In 2015, the rate of children dropping out of school early has declined in almost all member states, the average being 11 percent. In 17 member states the percentage of people having higher education is above the 40 percent set in the Europe 2020 strategy, but under international standards too many Europeans have a low level of basic and digital skills ... read more 08.02.2017
Erasmus students struggle to make local friends
BRUSSELS (pie news) -- The survey of 12,365 homecoming Erasmus students argues unfulfilled friendships could contribute to lower satisfaction rates among study abroad students. It also reveals that students often find the career and language benefits of studying in another European country don’t match students’ expectations ... read more 08.02.2017
Betsy DeVos narrowly confirmed as Education Secretary
WASHINGTON (newsweek) -- Billionaire and Michigan school choice advocate Betsy DeVos was confirmed on Tuesday as U.S. education secretary only after an extraordinary intervention from Vice President Mike Pence. The vote was by far the most contentious in the cabinet of President Trump thus far ... read more 07.02.2017
Contrversial mergers of pedagogical colleges in Austria
VIENNA (vn) -- Are the public colleges of education in Austria to be merged? The education ministry denies it, but Harald Walser, member of the lower house, has presented internal papers of the ministry containing plans to reduce the number of the training schools for future pedagogues from nine to four. Walser criticises the ministry’s secretiveness, “It woudn’t be reasonable for any region to lose one of their schools, while, on the other hand, there are many advantages if they would act co-ordinated as one with regard to the ministry,” he says ... read more | and here 7.2.17
Turkish purge
ISTANBUL (hurryiet) -- A total of 330 academics have been expelled from universities with a new state of emergency decree. Turkey’s Higher Education Board (YÖK) has said the names of academics who are purged from universities through the decrees are determined by the university administrations themselves. The academics were among 4,464 public workers who were expelled ... read more 09.02.2017
How to make money with talented students
ZURICH (f&w) -- Credit Suisse lures investors into funding international talented students. In launched articles the Swiss banking company promotes: “Investing in low-income talent to attend elite universities could provide low-risk returns to investors as well as a resounding social impact thanks to a much needed global widening of social capital” ... read more | and here 07.02.2017
France dethrones Spain as first Erasmus country
PARIS (courrier international) -- The number of French Erasmus students sent abroad to attend university or work placements has become the highest in Europe before Germany and Spain. While Spain still received the biggest number in 2014/2015, outgoing students decreased by 1,400. According to the newspaper La Vanguardia the reasons are a reduction of scholarships due to economical difficulties of the government and tougher language requirements. The total number of Erasmus students is 678,000 ... read more 31.01.2017
University merger in Lisbon investigated
LISBON (observador) -- The merger of the University of Lisbon with the Technical University of Lisbon in 2013 is now being investigated by the Public Prosecutor’s Office. In the months leading up to the merger, two other institutions were in the process of being integrated but then excluded by the education ministry. This may have favoured the American group Laureate Education Inc. who own the private European University ... read more 6.2.17
Latvian rector at risk due to insufficient language skills
RIGA (edruva) -- For 18 years the education ministry has turned a blind eye on Anderss Pālzovs’ weak command of the Latvian language - now, before the renewal of his contract, his post as the rector of the Stockholm School of Economics (SSE) in Riga is at risk. This has caused a heated public debate ... read more 07.02.2017
Greece sticks with public universities
ATHENS (pienews) -- Debate has intensified in Greece over the possibility of giving privately run colleges university status, which is currently prohibited by Article 16 of the constitution. Discussions were ignited when opposition leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis seized the occasion of a parliamentary debate on constitutional reform to demand the abolishment of the barrier to private universities ... read more 03.02.3017
White paper liberalises Norway’s universities further
OSLO (uwn) -- A White Paper produced by Norway’s government with the declared aim of boosting quality in higher education, does nothing else but steering the institutions towards further performance-oriented admission and evaluation measures, industry-friendly curriculum design and HR and better international university ranking positions ... read more 04.02.2017
Ukrainian universities struggle to survive
LUHANSK (the) -- Institutions displaced by war in the country’s east have relocated campuses and adopted distance learning techniques to continue teaching. In total, 16 Ukrainian universities – classical and technical, private and public, general and specialised – have been forced to evacuate because of the war in the east. ... read more 02.02.2017
Danish news
COPENHAGEN (aca) -- Along with a new minister for higher education, Søren Pind, comes a law that prevents Danish students from taking a second degree after finishing their first (as long as they don’t pay fees). The administrative structure also changes. The two existing agencies are being shut down to make space for two new ones: the Agency for Science and Higher Education with the task of advancing research and higher education quality, as well as promoting internationalisation; and the Agency for Institutions and Educational Grants ... read more 31.01.2017
Russian ‘5-100’ programme faces cuts
MOSCOW (uwn) -- Russia’s tight federal budget will result in major cuts to higher education projects this year, the state press service has announced. One such project to be affected is the ‘5-100’ programme, which aims to improve competitiveness and put five domestic universities in the top 100 of the QS World University Rankings … read more 25.01.2017
Macedonian-Turkish diploma deal scrapped
SKOPJE (balkan insight) -- A 1998 bilateral deal on mutual recognition of university diplomas between Macedonia and Turkey has been scrapped by Turkish president, Recep Erdoğan. The decision comes following Macedonia’s failure to close private Turkish schools with links to the Hizmet movement, allegedly behind Turkey’s failed July coup. Turkish students in Macedonia are now left in uncertainty: “We are living in suspense. I seriously fear my diploma will now be worthless in Turkey,” said Mehmet Ali Telkin, a Turkish student in Skopje … read more 24.01.2017
New York to scrap tuition fees for middle class
NEW YORK (bbc) -- New York is planning one of the biggest schemes in the world to abolish tuition fees for students. Governor Andrew Cuomo, announcing the scheme, said he wanted to reduce levels of student debt that were like “starting a race with a anchor tied to your leg” ... read more 10.01.2017
Win the world’s most valuable education prize!
SHENZHEN (bbc) -- The Yidan Prize, offering eight million dollars every year to two research projects that can ‘transform’ global education, is the world’s most valuable award of its kind. The prize’s founder, tech billionaire Charles Chen Yidan, used a recent tour of Europe to promote the award, expressing a desire for universities and governments to focus on future trends in global education. This year’s nominations deadline is March 31 … read more 18.01.2017
Big money is pushing global university privatisation
LONDON (pienews) -- There is now a crowded marketplace of investors keen to invest in all segments of the education industry, and a significant proportion is in international. With the possibility to generate a 14.6-fold return on investment, equity firms are salivating in view of aspirant middle classes in emerging economies looking to invest in their children’s future. International schools are set to nearly double in the next decade to 16,000, generating an annual €82bn, according to market analyst ISC ... read more 29.12.16
Sweden’s good-bye from educational equity
STOCKHOLM (uwn) -- The introduction of tuition fees for non-EU students in Sweden has been a game-changer. In 2015, five years after the policy was introduced, international students had paid 500 million krona (53 million euros) in tuition fees to Swedish universities. At the same time, the workload for international offices has increased as courses are increasingly adapted towards international students, despite a decrease in their numbers, particularly at PhD level. Caroline Sundberg, chair of the national student union SFS, argues that “the tuition fees be abolished immediately. For us, a strong welfare system rests on the back of the principle of free education. Education made available for all. The student should not be the one that has to fund the future” … read more 27.01.2017
German medical students choose Hungary
BERLIN (spiegel) -- In 2014 more Germans studied abroad than ever before. For medical students, failing the numerus clausus is a motivation to look east: two thirds of all German students in Hungary are medics. But Austria remains the most popular destination, with the Netherlands, UK and Switzerland following … read more 27.01.2017
Raise funding for Erasmus+, says EUA
BRUSSELS (kpi) -- A survey conducted by the European Universities Association (EUA) of more than 200 member organisations found overwhelmingly that the administrative burden of the Erasmus+ programme is too heavy and costs too high … read more 16.01.2017
KU Leuven rector proposes EU-UK ‘associations’
LEUVEN (the) -- In order to remain open after Brexit, Rik Torfs, rector of KU Leuven, has suggested that British universities form ‘associations’ with their continental counterparts. He said that these partnerships could be “a centre for discussing research, participating in all kinds of programmes and searching for funding” … read more 05.01.17
France sets sights on anglophone Africa
PARIS (pienews) -- Students from countries such as Ghana, Nigeria and Ethiopia traditionally choose the UK or US as a destination for study. But thanks to young populations and an increasing number of courses taught in English at French universities, France is becoming more and more attractive for anglophone Africans … read more 26.01.2017
Swiss students step up for refugees
ZURICH (the local) -- The Swiss Students’ Union (VSS) is calling for authorities to change rules on language ability and maintenance grants for refugees wishing to study in the country. “The right to education is a human right,” says Gabriela Lüthi, a director of VSS. “That’s why study should be available to everyone who has the interest and the capabilities” … read more 24.01.2017
Stuttgart art school protests fees for non-EU students
Ghostwriting in Wales
SWANSEA (sw-ep) -- The controversial practice of ‘contract cheating’, or ghostwriting for a fee, has become prevalent over the past ten years in Wales. Now academics at the British university of Swansea are calling for a legal crackdown on firms offering custom-written essays and assignments to students … read more 25.01.2017
Bosnian uni slips down rankings
SARAJEVO (balkan insight) -- Free movement of labour and open scientific exchange are key for universities in the pursuit of ranking positions. The University of Sarajevo has failed to keep up. Due to “a fall in its relative research impact, and in the relative extent to which it is internationalised,” according to QS World University Rankings, the university has slipped down … read more 14.06.2017