Axing of four subjects in 2021 a ‘crisis’ that will disadvantage businesses in the future, says president of Asian Studies Association of Australia
Australian universities are failing students and leaving them unprepared for the future job market by cutting courses in Asian languages, according to teachers and experts.
Four university-level Asian language subjects have been cut in 2021 as universities cope with the ongoing economic impact of the Covid pandemic.
Continue reading...There have been many reports but little action: UK university science departments need to do more to fix their serious diversity problem
The Nobel laureate poet Sir Derek Walcott once said that the English language is nobody’s special property: “It is the property of the imagination.” Much the same could be said for science. It should be said. Except this isn’t quite so. Not yet.
Data on who is doing science has recently been released by the Royal Society, the UK’s premier scientific academy, using figures from the Higher Education Statistics Agency, whose data is by far the most systematic. The numbers show that in 2018-19, 19.2% of science, technology, engineering and maths academic staff aged 34 and under are Asian and 1.8% are black. In physics and chemistry, the proportion of black researchers stands at a sobering zero, rounded down, as these calculations do for ease of presentation, from literally one or two individuals. What’s interesting is that these small figures decrease further as a scientist’s age increases – as they travel through the hallowed halls of academia to become senior scientists. So while the UK has 10,560 science professors who are white, only 960 are Asian, 310 mixed and “other” and 65 black. This says that minorities who enter science are less likely to get promoted. Fewer of them go on to become those experts who evaluate which next-generation scientists should then get the training, the money and the jobs. “Unless this changes,” the Royal Society says, “there will be unbalanced representation of academic staff between ethnic groups working in higher education in comparison to the ethnic breakdown of the general population.”
Continue reading...Exclusive: Document produced by university cited agency as secret funder of research
For an agency devoted to secrecy and surveillance, it is an embarrassing slip-up. An inadvertent disclosure on a university document has revealed that MI5 is partly behind what was meant to be a covert bug and drone research project.
Ostensibly, Imperial College’s research was to create a quadcopter system for charging remote agricultural sensors – but MI5’s participation has emerged because somebody involved stated it was the secret second funder of the programme.
Continue reading...Universities say they have received inadequate guidance on red tape and costs for academic years abroad
Thousands of UK students hoping to spend the year abroad are caught in limbo after facing major disruption to their travel plans due to post-Brexit red tape and costs, in respect of which universities say they received inadequate guidance from the government.
Coordinators of academic years abroad who spoke to the Guardian said there had been limited information from the Foreign Office ahead of Brexit on the onerous requirements that the shift in their status would incur in EU countries.
Continue reading...Between 2014 and 2020, Tel Aviv-based photographer and artist Iris Hassid followed the daily life of four young Palestinian women, citizens of Israel, who are part of a recent surge of young Arab women attending Tel Aviv University
Graves found under demolished student halls are providing valuable insight into life in a post-Roman settlement
An early medieval graveyard unearthed beneath student accommodation at Cambridge University has been described as “one of the most exciting finds of Anglo-Saxon archaeology since the 19th century”.
King’s College discovered the “extensive” cemetery, containing more than 60 graves, after demolishing a group of 1930s buildings which had recently housed graduates and staff in the west of the city, to make way for more modern halls.
Continue reading...The pandemic has exposed the impact of 20 years of turning higher education into a marketplace and students into increasingly dissatisfied customers
In 2018-19 Manchester City FC had revenues of £535.2m. Manchester United had £627m. The University of Manchester made more than £1bn – not far short, in other words, of the combined income of the city’s two global sporting brands. This is in many ways a cause for celebration, a sign of the economic power of higher education, of British success in attracting foreign students and the high fees that they pay, of the contribution that universities can make to the prosperity of their host cities.
But, for a billion-pound business, you might have expected better than their handling of the pandemic. Last summer, as students tried to decide whether to stay at home or go to the campus for the first term of the academic year, they were told they would receive “blended learning”, a combination of online and in-person teaching. They were offered the “hope” as one student says, “that everything would be as normal as possible”. They didn’t need much encouragement, especially all those first-years for whom arrival at university was the pinnacle and goal of their education to date, and they went.
Continue reading...Links to early eugenicists such as Francis Galton a source of ‘deep regret’ to institution
University College London has expressed “deep regret” for its role in the propagation of eugenics, alongside a promise to improve conditions for disabled staff and students and a pledge to give “greater prominence” to teaching the malign legacy of the discredited movement.
The formal apology for legitimising eugenics – the advocacy of selective breeding of the population often to further racist or discriminatory aims – is UCL’s latest effort to address its links to early eugenicists such as Francis Galton, who funded a professorship in eugenics at the university.
Continue reading...World faces huge wildlife losses by 2050 unless what and how food is produced changes
The global food system is on course to drive rapid and widespread ecological damage with almost 90% of land animals likely to lose some of their habitat by 2050, research has found.
A study published in the journal Nature Sustainability shows that unless the food industry is rapidly transformed, changing what people eat and how it is produced, the world faces widespread biodiversity loss in the coming decades.
Continue reading...My friend Elli Glevey, who has died aged 62 of cancer, was a passionate educator and philosopher dedicated to building links between the UK and Africa. Through his work at the Institute of Education, in London, Elli made a real impact in the field in the UK, but he was determined equally to make a contribution in his home country, Ghana.
Born in Accra, shortly after Ghanaian independence, Elli was the son of Gabriel Gleveh, an official in Kwame Nkrumah’s government, and Gladys (nee Atta Nee Boleh), who ran an import business. Elli’s first passion was music, starting with highlife and moving on to jazz. He came to London in 1977 and, along with various odd jobs, played saxophone as a session musician. As well as music, he wrote poetry and sketched throughout his life.
Continue reading...Exclusive: 28 institutions issued fines, with Nottingham University students alone hit for £58,865
Universities fined students more than £170,000 for breaching coronavirus safety rules in the first weeks of the new academic year, a Guardian analysis has found, as students told of struggling to make friends without flouting restrictions.
Twenty-eight institutions fined students for breaking university, local and national Covid rules, including on household mixing, mandatory face coverings and social distancing, according to responses from 105 universities to freedom of information (FoI) requests.
Continue reading...Oxford/AstraZeneca planning new trial of lower-dose jab to see how well it works in older people
Concerns around the efficacy of the Oxford University/AstraZeneca coronavirus jab in older people could lead to different age groups being given different vaccines, experts have said.
The partners announced last week that the vaccine had a 70% efficacy overall. For most trial participants – given two full doses, spaced a month apart – the efficacy was 62%, but for 3,000 participants mistakenly given half a dose for their first jab, the efficacy was 90%. No participants, regardless of dosing, developed severe Covid or were hospitalised with the disease.
Continue reading...Survey of 600 people finds some parents regret having offspring for same reason
People worried about the climate crisis are deciding not to have children because of fears that their offspring would have to struggle through a climate apocalypse, according to the first academic study of the issue.
The researchers surveyed 600 people aged 27 to 45 who were already factoring climate concerns into their reproductive choices and found 96% were very or extremely concerned about the wellbeing of their potential future children in a climate-changed world. One 27-year-old woman said: “I feel like I can’t in good conscience bring a child into this world and force them to try and survive what may be apocalyptic conditions.”
Continue reading...Researchers plan library of scents from plague repellents to early tobacco
From the pungent scent of a cigar to the gentle fragrance of roses, smells can transport us to days gone by. Now researchers are hoping to harness the pongs of the past to do just that.
Scientists, historians and experts in artificial intelligence across the UK and Europe have announced they are teaming up for a €2.8m project labelled “Odeuropa” to identify and even recreate the aromas that would have assailed noses between the 16th and early 20th centuries.
Continue reading...Research based on playing time data showed gamers reported greater wellbeing
Playing video games can be good for your mental health, a study from Oxford University has suggested, following a breakthrough collaboration in which academics at the university worked with actual gameplay data for the first time.
The study, which focused on players of Nintendo’s springtime craze Animal Crossing, as well as EA’s shooter Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville, found that people who played more games tended to report greater “wellbeing”, casting further doubt on reports that video gaming can harm mental health.
Continue reading...Exclusive: students would be told to remain on campus and all teaching done online
Ministers want to place universities in England into lockdown for two weeks before Christmas, with students told to remain on campus and all teaching carried out online, the Guardian has learned.
Under the government’s plan, which is in its early stages, universities would go into lockdown from 8 December until 22 December, when all students would be allowed to return to their home towns.
Continue reading...Commentators have used study as evidence government was too quick to impose full lockdown but conclusions not so clear
While it has been widely accepted that the closure of UK schools in March was bad for the life chances of its children, a research paper from the University of Edinburgh has gone as far as to say that the move could have contributed to a higher Covid-19 death toll.
The study, published in the British Medical Journal, suggested lockdown restrictions were the most effective way of reducing peak demand for intensive care unit beds, but argued they were also likely to prolong the epidemic because, once lifted, they left a large population susceptible to the virus.
Continue reading...Oliver Dowden says everyone must follow rules after Labour urges promise on ‘unfair’ restrictions
University students should be able to return home to their families at Christmas if the country “pulls together” and observes the new coronavirus rules, a cabinet minister has said.
The government is under pressure to guarantee young people are not confined to their halls of residence over the festive period because of Covid-19 outbreaks on campuses.
Continue reading...From asking students to report illicit gatherings to expanded online teaching, educational institutions continue to adapt
From overcrowded lecture halls in France to a ban on sleepovers in Ireland, special coronavirus apps in the UK, snitching on dorm parties in the US and shuttered campus gates in India, students face a range of experiences when – or if – universities reopen.
Authorities around the world have introduced different measures to try to balance the needs of third-level education with those of public health amid an autumnal surge in Covid-19 infections. Students will encounter new rules, tensions and scrutiny in response to fears that universities and colleges will open the pandemic’s floodgates.
Continue reading...New infections in UK growing by 4% to 8% every day; measures to come into force in three areas in Wales this weekend; London placed on watchlist
A further 33 people who tested positive for coronavirus have died in hospital in England, bringing the total number of confirmed deaths reported in hospitals to 29,871, NHS England said on Friday.
The patients were aged between 56 and 93 and all except two, aged 84 and 88, had known underlying health conditions.
The mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, has called for financial support from the government for areas under extra restrictions.
At his weekly press conference, he told reporters:
These restrictions in our case have been in place for a number of weeks, getting on for seven to eight now, and they are having an impact on people’s lives but also on people’s jobs and people’s businesses.
There was not any compensatory support for many of those people announced yesterday and I think this is an unacceptable situation.