Turkish Daily News: New YÖK head gives green light for headscarf in universities
The new higher education chief hits the ground running, explaining his vision as the elimination of all bans in universities and universities placing more importance on their sublime duty, science, on his first day at the post seen as asecularist stronghold
Comments Off on Turkey: New YÖK head gives green light for headscarf in universities
Posted in International
Inside Higher Ed: Settlement in Singapore Over Failed University
Australia’s University of New South Wales has agreed to repay 32 million Singapore dollars, or $22 million, in loans and grants made to it by various agencies of the Singaporean government to help establish what was to become a doomed campus venture on the island nation.
Comments Off on Settlement in Singapore Over Failed University
Posted in International
eironline: Teachers’ union threatens strike action over pre-retirement eligibility
The Polish Teachers’ Union announced in May 2007 that it would hold a warning strike if teachers did not receive guarantees of special pre-retirement benefits, known as bridge benefits. The union also demanded pay increases and greater public spending on education at local level, in addition to calling for a new minister for education.
Comments Off on Poland: Teachers’ union threatens strike action over pre-retirement eligibility
Posted in International, Strikes & Labor Disputes
BBC: Strike fever spreading in France
As happens from time to time in France, militancy is in the air again.
Passengers crowd the platform at the Gare de L’Est Metro station in Paris
Only one Metro line was running in the French capital
The resolve of the railway workers – on strike for almost a week now – seems to have encouraged others to stick up for their rights too.
Lessons at a lycee in Lille were suspended after students blocked access to the secondary school in protest at university reforms.
Comments Off on Strike fever spreading in France
Posted in International, Strikes & Labor Disputes
B92: Teachers go on strike
BELGRADE — Three teachers’ unions have organized a strike, after talks with the Serbian government regarding pay increases fell through.
Classes for the three representative teachers’ unions, who are demanding an increase in wages, will last only 30 minutes today.
The strike is being organized by the Education Union of Serbia, the Independent City Union and an association of Serbian teachers, after failing to reach an agreement on wages with the government.
Comments Off on Serbia: Teachers go on strike
Posted in International, Strikes & Labor Disputes
The Chronicle: Mapping Out the Interrogation of Ghazi Falah
One of the few scholars who has experienced firsthand the interviewing techniques used by a modern, sophisticated intelligence agency describes how detainees’ reason is clouded and their wills are broken.:
In the annals of interrogation, one primary source serves again and again to describe the experience of forced sleep deprivation.
“In the head of the interrogated prisoner, a haze begins to form. His spirit is wearied to death, his legs are unsteady, and he has one sole desire: to sleep,” the account says. “Anyone who has experienced this desire knows that not even hunger and thirst are comparable with it.”
Comments Off on Mapping Out the Interrogation of Ghazi Falah
Posted in Government, International
The Chronicle: An Arrest on the Border
The geographer Ghazi Falah was caught between Israel and the Arab world
Ghazi-Walid Falah was not worried when Israeli security agents stopped his car on a narrow mountain road near the Lebanese border, just before sundown on July 8, 2006.
When they discover who I am, he assured himself, they will…
Comments Off on An Arrest on the Border
Posted in Government, International
Haaretz: Faculty strike enters fourth week amid mutual recriminations
Scientific researchers at universities have been bitter for years over the decline in the quality of infrastructure in their field. Last Thursday, they set aside their petri dishes, left their lab mice unaccompanied and set off to protest. They are demanding increased public funding for science, and protesting “the government’s contempt for Israeli research.”
Comments Off on Israel: Faculty strike enters fourth week amid mutual recriminations
Posted in International, Strikes
International Middle East Media Center: Palestinian teachers hold strike
Palestinian public school teachers on Monday held a one-day strike, warning that a further strike would follow in two weeks if the government failed to meet their demands.
The teachers are demanding that owed expenses be released, that salaries be matched with an increase in the cost of living in the Palestinian territories, and that the government explains why it revoked a previous decision by the unity government to grant teachers in the Jerusalem area a 1000 NIS per. month pay-rise, replacing it with a 500 NIS increase.
Comments Off on Palestinian teachers hold strike
Posted in International, Strikes
Gulf Daily News: Teachers threaten hunger strike
THOUSANDS of teachers, who went on a demonstration yesterday for the third time in six months over a 30 per cent pay rise, are pledging to go on a hunger strike soon.
The demonstration, held in front of Al Fateh Mosque, followed two earlier protests in September and June.
Comments Off on Baharain: Teachers threaten hunger strike
Posted in International, Protests, Strikes
Jerusalem Post: School strike drags on despite progress
The secondary school teachers’ strike will continue Sunday after the Secondary School Teachers Union’s administration decided the previous night not to temporarily suspend the shutdown, despite what Treasury officials said were significant concessions they made on Friday.
Comments Off on Israel: School strike drags on despite progress
Posted in International, Strikes
Jerusalem Post: Treasury lambasts teachers’ union
As the school strike ended its 32nd day Sunday, the Finance Ministry harshly criticized the Secondary School Teachers Organization and its head, Ran Erez.
“The SSTO’s decision to continue striking and push off the negotiating meeting set for this morning is a slap in the face and like spitting in the face of the National Labor Court,” the Finance Ministry said in a statement after a scheduled 10 a.m. meeting was pushed off until the afternoon. “The SSTO would have acted more properly if it had accepted the court’s suggestion and suspended the strike, which hurts students and teachers, for two weeks and negotiated seriously on the basis of the draft agreement the court proposed.”
Comments Off on Israel: Treasury lambasts teachers’ union
Posted in International, Unions
The Chronicle: ‘Terrorist Activities’ Cited in Denial of U.S. Visa for South African Scholar
A prominent South African scholar who was refused entry into the United States last year has received a letter from the U.S. government saying his visa was revoked because of his involvement in unspecified “terrorist activities.” The scholar, Adam Habib, a deputy vice chancellor of the University of Johannesburg, has strongly denied the charge.
In the letter to Mr. Habib, which was dated October 26 and provided to The Chronicle by the American Civil Liberties Union, the State Department cited a section of the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act that allows the exclusion of “any alien who has engaged in a terrorist activity,” who is likely to engage in such activities, or who belongs to a group that has endorsed such activities.
Comments Off on ‘Terrorist Activities’ Cited in Denial of U.S. Visa for South African Scholar
Posted in Faculty, Government, International
The Chronicle News Blog: British Prime Minister Says ‘Extremism’ on Campuses Remains a Top Concern
In a statement before Britain’s House of Commons today, Prime Minister Gordon Brown outlined measures designed, he said, “both to root out terrorism and to strengthen the resilience of communities to resist extreme influence.”
Concern has grown in Britain over the extent to which universities might be breeding grounds for extremist activity and recruiting. The prime minister’s speech cited the role of universities several times. The coming Counter Terrorism Bill will include “updated advice for universities on how to deal with extremism on the campus,” Mr. Brown said, adding that “the secretary for skills and the higher-education minister will invite universities to lead a debate on how we maintain academic freedom whilst ensuring that extremists can never stifle debate or impose their views.”
Comments Off on British Prime Minister Says ‘Extremism’ on Campuses Remains a Top Concern
Posted in International
AFP: Doors of learning reopen at Baghdad University
BAGHDAD, (AFP) — One month into the new academic year and education at the sprawling University of Baghdad is as near to normal as it has been for years — the grisly killings of two professors and two students aside.
Comments Off on Doors of learning reopen at Baghdad University
Posted in International
The Chronicle: Few Women Reach the Top in Japan’s Universities
At 68 and after a lifetime of academic work, Mitiko Go is at the top of her profession: president of Tokyo’s Ochanomizu University. That might not seem like that unusual an accomplishment, but she is the only female president among Japan’s 87 national universities.
“Obviously this is not good enough,” she laments. “We have to do better.”
Japan’s higher-education system is the second largest in the world, after the United States, but it fares much worse than the United States when it comes to gender equity. Just 7 percent of Japan’s 750-odd colleges and universities are run by women, compared with 23 percent of those in the United States. And while four out of the eight members of the Ivy League now boast female presidents, none of Japan’s top academic institutions has ever allowed a woman to rise to the top.
Comments Off on Few Women Reach the Top in Japan’s Universities
Posted in International
Daily Mail: Oxbridge closing on Harvard as world’s top university
Oxford and Cambridge tie for second place in global university rankings published today.
America’s Harvard remains the top-ranked institution, though its lead was slashed.
Britain now has four universities in the Top Ten and 32 in the top 200 – our best showing since the tables began four years ago.
BBC: UK universities rise up rankings
Britain’s performance in a league table of the world’s top universities has improved, but the US still dominates.
Four of the top 10 are British and the rest American. Harvard is top and Yale, Oxford and Cambridge joint second.
University College London breaks into the top 10 for the first time and Imperial College London rises to fifth.
Comments Off on UK universities rise up rankings
Posted in International
examiner.com: Gunfire Erupts at Venezuela University
Masked gunmen opened fire on students returning from a march in which tens of thousands of Venezuelans denounced President Hugo Chavez’s attempts to expand his power through constitutional changes.
Officials said at least eight people were injured Wednesday, including one by gunfire, at the Central University of Venezuela, or UCV – the country’s largest university.
Comments Off on Gunfire Erupts at Venezuela University
Posted in International
The Boston Globe: French students protest reforms
PARIS –French university students angry over a law making their schools more market-friendly have shut down classes at several campuses across France and are mobilizing to join nationwide protests later this month over President Nicolas Sarkozy’s reforms.
Comments Off on French students protest reforms
Posted in International, Protests
The Chronicle News Blog: Peking U. Draws Fire for Demolishing ‘Democracy Wall’
Beijing — Past and present students at Peking University joined together over the weekend to denounce the institution’s decision to demolish the well-known Democracy Wall, a symbolic center of protest on the campus that dates back decades.
Comments Off on Peking U. Draws Fire for Demolishing ‘Democracy Wall’
Posted in International
Follow