World view: the road to heaven or hell
Candidates for tenured professorships in France have 30 gruelling minutes to prove themselves worthy. Yochanan Altman watched the ordeal. The tall spectacled 31-year-old, pale and unshaven, sits...
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World watch
Caracas Academics and students at Venezuela's Central University were hurt as radical students fought with moderates seeking to end a month-long occupation over university reforms. Adis Ababa...
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Eyewitness: Kazakhstan's biological timebomb
Scientists at an agricultural research institute in Kazakhstan say that they have been sidelined by the ministries of agriculture and education since last summer when they revealed an outbreak of...
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Aborigine aid cut deters blacks
Federal government cuts in financial aid for Aboriginal students are believed to be responsible for a decline in the number of blacks enrolling in higher education. Figures released last month showed...
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Canada to opt out of trade area
Canada is insisting its public university system will remain exempt from a free trade area that emerged from last month's Summit of the Americas, despite promoting the services of its own private...
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Israeli reservists win concessions
Israeli students who are also reservists in the defence forces have been granted a number of academic and financial concessions, according to student leaders. A series of meetings between student and...
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'Medieval' minister wants Indian students to be taught vedic astrology
India's education minister plans to introduce vedic astrology, based on ancient Hindu texts, in universities and to impose Sanskrit on science students. Murali Manohar Joshi has been accused of...
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Global access plan mooted
The Association of Commonwealth Universities should act as a bridgehead to link academic institutions in the Commonwealth with European Union universities as well as other networks, its secretary-...
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Hard to get in, harder to find
Barely one in 20 applicants has been accepted for Olin College of Engineering in the autumn, making it one of the most difficult schools in America to enter. This is an impressive performance...
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Credit transfers shake up 'fossilised' French system
France is to drop its "fossilised" university degree system and adopt a more flexible structure composed of modules and credit transfers under plans announced last week by education minister Jack...
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Have you got what it takes to succeed in Europe? Yes, oui, ja?
European managers need to speak fluent English more than ever before, but English alone is not enough. Firms are increasingly demanding that candidates for high-level posts speak at least two, if not...
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Fibre feat is a load of thin air
An optical fibre being developed at the University of Southampton looks set to improve telecommunications networks. The fibre should carry more data than existing optical fibres and could speed the...
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JISC fails to unite e-providers
The Joint Information Systems Committee's bid to procure a united national service providing journal abstracts, full text, indexing services and other electronic content has been abandoned amid...
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Spain short of high-tech dons
Spanish universities are feeling the strain of a shortage of information technology personnel. A lack of IT staff at Madrid's Autonomous University (UAM) has forced it to shelve plans to expand...
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Pact puts an end to library trek
Scotland's pioneering Institute for System Level Integration has joined forces with two of its member universities to give students desktop access to a library of more than 500,000 articles. The ISLI...