The apparent assassination attempt on one of South Africa’s top university leaders, in which his bodyguard was killed, has highlighted the threat of corruption that appears to have firmed its grip on the country’s tertiary education sector. A new report provides fresh details of the plight of hundreds of students in Iran who have been arrested and are facing extreme sentences, including the death penalty, and highlights the widespread suspension and expulsion from universities of academics deemed sympathetic to student protesters. Dutch universities are pushing back against an urgent request from Culture and Science Minister Robbert Dijkgraaf that universities and universities of applied sciences stop actively recruiting international students in international education fairs until further notice. Lebanon has launched a five-year higher education plan for 2023 to 2027 that aims to strengthen universities’ social responsibility and competitiveness as well as producing industry and market-ready graduates, along with establishing a knowledge-based economy and achieving sustainable development.
He demanded that the government divert subsidies from the rich to working people who deserve some relief and protection from the economic crunch and skyrocketing inflation. Party’s General Secretary Bakhshal Thalho feared that the current political instability and incompetence and corruption by the ruling elite could create a chaotic situation which pushes millions below the poverty line and completely erodes the purchasing power of the working class. tcblackcar The inflation has skyrocketed to 27.3pc, breaking the 50-year-old record for the fastest increase in the prices of consumer goods and services since April 1975, and is likely to increase further. Last March, Peshawar was the target of another bombing, which killed dozens in a Shia Muslim mosque in the majority Sunni Muslim country. Hours after the blast, BBC News witnessed a facility full of the injured, many still wearing their police uniforms.
The Pakistan Taliban - a group separate to Afghanistan's Taliban government - ended a ceasefire in November, and violence has been on the rise in the country since. Pakistan's PM and other leaders have condemned the attack - one of the worst in the country in recent years. A spate of lawsuits against Japanese universities and research laboratories from researchers and academics who risk losing their jobs because they qualify for permanent employment has highlighted the precarious situation facing those pursuing or thinking of pursuing an academic career, say experts. Higher education experts in the United Kingdom and globally are concerned about the future of quality assurance and assessment of English universities following the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education or QAA’s decision to quit this function for the Office for Students in England from 1 April 2023. It was becoming almost impossible for non-South Africans to join academia amid an ongoing “ring-fencing of the academic space”.
Two days ahead of the beginning of the month Jan 30, the railways employees expressed concerns over the delay in disbursement of their salaries, urging the federal government to take responsibility and pay them on time. One would have hoped that reliance on indirect taxes was reduced in the mini-budget, regressive as their incidence on the poor is higher than on the wealthy, and direct taxes, levied on the ability to pay principle, increased. One would also have hoped that the flawed previous policy of legitimizing the non-filers solutionblades by levying a withholding tax on their banking transactions had been replaced by widening the tax net instead of succumbing yet again to political instead of economic considerations. The proposals under consideration do not reflect any out of the box thinking and envisage either upping existing taxes, as on cigarettes, or widening the ambit of existing taxes. The foreign minister said that Pakistan and Russia had good cooperation on Afghanistan, and wanted to achieve common goals of peace and stability in the war-torn country.
The teaching community urged the government during visits of foreign dignitaries that if the need arose, only schools and colleges that were located along the route of dignitary’s entourage should be closed. An official of the Directorate of Municipal Administration told Dawn that around 4,000 steamers, 100 hoarding, bridge decorations, and 10 huge size billboards, mainly from Noor Khan Airport to Islamabad’s Red Zone, were displayed. The mini-budget already proposes raising the federal excise duty on sugary drinks to generate 60 billion rupees; and increasing federal duty on Tier-I and Tier-II cigarettes by at least 2 rupees per stick projected to raise 120 billion verywellsecurity rupees. FBR has already proposed raising the excise duty to generate 25 to 30 billion rupees or, in other words, there is further room for revenue under this head. This measure will remain pending as the government has yet to max the legally allowed petroleum levy of 50 rupees per litre on High Speed Diesel, Kerosene and LDO which, as per the Federal Board of Revenue , could generate an additional 76 billion rupees for the remaining five months of the fiscal year. He said the elimination of terrorism from the region was directly linked with Afghanistan, and they had agreed to use the capacities of SCO, particularly its Contact Group on Afghanistan, for the purpose.
Regarding the future planning of Jamia Ghazali after Pakistan's famous Jamia Al-Rashid located in Gulshane Maymar area of Karachi, the experts of Jamia Ghazali have said that in the coming days this educational institution will play an important role in the leadership, economy and all fields. Initially, healthcareversity the university will be authorised to teach and issue degrees of BBA, MBA, B.Ed, M.Ed. And LLB under the Faculty of Islamic Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Faculty of Education and Faculty of Law. While in the future medical and engineering departments will also be established in the university.
To tackle xenophobic practices in universities, strong institutional leadership was needed, it emerged at a round table on academic xenophobia. Most universities across the Arab region have improved their overall score in the performance indicators for the latest Arab University Rankings, but there are concerns about the weakness of research and managementers the dependence of Arab Gulf universities on collaboration with foreign researchers. After a delay of over four years, the Islamabad High Court on 16 November resumed the hearing of an appeal by Shoaib Ahmed Shaikh, CEO of Axact, against a 2018 conviction for selling fake degrees of non-existent universities to thousands of people worldwide.
A significant policy shift towards integrating further and higher education into a unified tertiary education and research system in Ireland has been described as a ‘game-changer’ by Simon Harris, minister for further and higher education, research, innovation and science. Nigeria has 37 fully accredited medical schools – not enough to accommodate healthnord the number of hopeful prospective students. If you are a white natural science graduate in South Africa, the chances are that you will find a job faster than your black and coloured counterparts. And if you graduate from certain universities, you are likely to have easier access to internships and, ultimately, employment, a study has found.