The take-up of “enabling” science subjects such as mathematics, chemistry and physics has fallen behind the overall increase in science enrolments at universities over the past decade, according to a report…
The numbers are numbing. India is home to 1.2 billion people (a seventh of the world’s population), of which 230 million are school students and 23 million are studying at higher education institutions…
Most forms of publishing across the globe are in a state of flux. But university-based scholarly publishing faces a set of challenges all of its own. How can an industry whose target audience is so highly…
A 4% increase in the latest round of offers at Australian universities will place overstretched teaching staff under more strain and lower the quality of education for ballooning student ranks, the higher…
The word “open” has grown educational wings over the past decade. From the British Open University, which enrolled its first students in 1971, the concept has expanded to mean various ways of relaxing…
Contrary to fears of falling enrolments in the sciences, the proportion of students taking science at Australian universities has been remarkably stable over the past half century: in 1962 16.4 per cent…
RMIT University’s School of Health Sciences has rejected the suggestion that it peddles pseudo-scientific quackery via its courses in complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). Acting head of the school…
A Melbourne University architecture graduate interested in sustainable development and reducing our reliance on fossil fuels has bagged a 2012 Australia at Large Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford. Angie Darby…
The Group of Eight alliance of universities that dominate research funding today appointed as its new chairman, Professor Fred Hilmer, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of New South Wales. Professor…
In 2012 a dozen Australian universities will trial a system of assessing the impact of their research on the world outside academia as a possible means of directing funding. The pilot scheme is being led…
Kim Carr has lost the research portfolio to Chris Evans in today’s cabinet shuffle announced by Prime Minister Julia Gillard. Evans will now be the Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Science and…
The Higher Education Base Funding Review’s blanket dismissal of all possible arguments supporting varying the level of government subsidies across disciplines, as happens now, is the “single weakest aspect…
The world is in a state of transition. The Indian and Chinese economies continue to grow at around 9 and 10 per cent respectively each year, while the North Atlantic economies - the 20th century epicentre…
In recent weeks two commentary strands have intertwined and are extremely important to Australia’s future, and with special resonance for the higher education sector. Beginning with the announcement of…
CHOGM As Julia Gillard chairs the Commonwealth Heads of Government in Perth, she would do well to pay special attention to her Indian colleague at the table, Vice-President Hamid Ansari. Brian Stoddart…
There is common assumption that those of us who undertake applied research with the commercial world must be biased. This month the University of Queensland’s Sustainable Minerals Institute (SMI), which…
AUSTRALIA IN ASIA: In the sixth part of our series, David Lowe of Deakin University examines an education project which brought us closer to our Asian neighbours. The Colombo Plan for aid to South and…
Universities and the National Union of Students have welcomed the passage of a bill giving universities the right to collect fees for campus services but the law prohibits students using the money for…
Director of Centre for Postgraduate Studies, Rhodes University & Visiting Research Professor in Center for International Higher Education, Boston College, Rhodes University