German award for “extraordinary failure”
POTSDAM (pnn) -- German students have been awarded the 4,0 Award for Extraordinary Academic Failure (4 is the worst grade before failing an exam or degree). Sebastian Pape was rewarded for his thesis “Ethical Investment”, which was written the night before the deadline, and consisted of little more than an introduction. While the ceremony was a fun night for the students, it does highlight a problem in many private universities, which allow students to pass despite terrible performance, letting them essentially buy their degree ... read more 10.12.2017
Technological university for Ireland
DUBLIN (trinity news) -- A new framework for the promotion of STEM degrees in Ireland has outlined the creation of technological universities in the coming years. The plan sets out to increase the number of apprenticeships and traineeships available, with the promise that by 2025 all university students will be able to undergo a work placement as part of their course ... read more 16.1.18
Greek universities marred by violence
THESSALONIKI (huffington post) -- Incidents of violence are occurring on an almost daily basis in Greek higher education institutions, disrupting their normal function. Just last month, a group of students attacked a rector in Patras, and the University of Athens was invaded during an event, where students were mugged. The Ministry of Education will now take measures to put a stop to this, and is asking for experts’ suggestions towards a solution ... read more 13.01.2018
Fake diplomas in Romania
ALEXANDRIA (hotnews) -- Nearly 500 people issued diplomas from the universities of Alexandru Ghica and Alexandria Ecorries risk losing them, as a lawsuit is being filed against the institutions. They are accused of issuing 15,000 fake diplomas in the fields of economics, and oil and gas ... read more 16.01.2018
Georgia fights academic corruption
TBILISI (wenr) -- Georgia has made tremendous strides in reducing corruption. In 2004, the country was ranked 136th out of 145 countries included in Transparency International’s (TI) Corruption Perception Index, now its ranking improved to 44 out of 176. Mariam Jashi, chair of the Parliamentary Committee on Education, Science and Culture even believes that improvements in higher education are such that Georgia can be made more attractive for international students and could become a hub for international education in the region ... read more
Science to take central role in Estonian economy
TALLINN (baltic course) -- According to the country’s prime minister, Jüri Ratas, science is to play a greater role in Estonia’s economy. Ratas has promoted the inclusion of researchers in the creation and development of new products “by raising the incomes of researchers and improving working conditions” ... read more 11.01.2018
Lithuanian university merger
KAUNAS (lietuvosdiena) -- Two struggling universities in the Lithuanian city of Kaunas, the Lithuanian Educational Unversity and the Aleksandras Stulginskis University, are to be become part of the Vytautus Magnus University, in the hope that their situation will improve. There are concerns though, that the VMU will suffer from its new partners, which have been described as “two sick universities – one with the flu, the other with cancer” ... read more 12.01.2018
Crimean universities see exodus into Ukraine
SIMFEROPOL (krymr) -- Crimean students looking to broaden their horizons are leaving the peninsula en-masse, to the Ukrainian mainland. “In Crimea, all the exchange programs are closed, you cannot go anywhere. In mainland Ukraine you get the opportunity to be a citizen of the world” says Vernadsky Vladimir Kazarin, rector of the Tavrida National University, which relocated from annexed Crimea when the Russian government closed it down in 2015 ... read more 08.01.2018
Christmas break longer than expected in Ukraine
KIEV (day kyiv) -- Students at some universities in Ukraine had a longer winter break than usual, in some places two months, and still ongoing. The high price of gas forced institutions to make the choice between continuing work, and forking out for huge energy bills ... read more 19.12.2017
Sweden’s Lund University – unsustainable
LUND (lundagard) -- Despite being the highest ranked in Sweden, Lund University has been officially flagged as a cause for concern in regard to environmental sustainability. University director, Susanne Kristensson puts the development down to air-travel, procurement and supply chains, “we have many employees flying between Gothenburg and Stockholm to attend various meetings or seminars. That’s a big problem” ... read more 21.12.2017
Turkey jails students
PARIS (turkey purge) -- While many European governments are cozying up with president Erdoğan’s government, Turkey’s prize-winning author Aslı Erdoğan said during a live TV interview in France that people in Turkey “are afraid of breathing, let along tweeting,” as thousands of university students in Turkey have been jailed over tweets across the country ... read more
Limited foreign influence in Russian universities
MOSCOW (uwn) -- The upper house of the Russian national parliament is drawing up a package of measures to restrict external pressure and foreign influence on Russian students and universities ... read more 13.01.2018
Swiss student exchanges go beyond the EU
BERN (swi) -- Switzerland’s Federal Council has agreed to fund a 2.4 million Swiss francs (€2 million) pilot project to facilitate exchange programmes with students from outside Europe, notably the United States, Canada and China ... read more 10.01.2018
A graduate tax instead of tuition fees in Italy?
ROME (repubblica) -- Pietro Grasso, former anti-Mafia prosecutor and leader of the new social democratic party MDP, has proposed to abolish tuition fees in Italy. The party’s movement “Liberi e uguali” (free and equal) is inspired by Jeremy Corbyn’s slogan “For the many, not the few”. The proposal has sparked a debate early in the campaign for the general election in March 2018 as to whether a free university education for all is really feasible and desirable ... read more | and here 07.01.2018
First French Anti-Trump climate change grants
PARIS (heraldnet) -- More than 5,000 people from about 100 countries expressed interest in the “Make Our Planet Great Again” grants — a nod to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan as part of Macron’s efforts to counter Trump on the climate change front. Macron announced the contest for the projects in June, hours after Trump declared he would withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate accord. A majority of the applicants — and 13 of the 18 winners — were U.S.-based researchers ... read more 11.12.2017
APB est mort, vive Parcoursup!
PARIS (lejdd) -- The new admissions system “Parcoursup” was introduced today in France. It remains to be seen if this will be enough to dispel any doubts about selection. The main difference to the system’s predecessor “APB” is that universities will now get access to students’ dossiers, a duty formerly left to an algorithm ... read more 14.01.2018