The TopUniversities.com guide to the latest higher education news from around the world, on 1 November 2012.
Free speech found to be poor at Canadian universities
The 2012 Campus Freedom Index, a study published by the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms, has found that the state of free speech at Canadian universities is ‘abysmal’, reports the National Post. The index grades universities and student unions from A to F; only three achieved the highest grade, with a massive 28 getting an F. Cancelling controversial speakers, barring pro-life groups and forbidding the use of the expression ‘Israeli Apartheid’ were among the criticisms made.
Côte d'Ivoire university closed due to civil war to reopen
The biggest university in Côte d'Ivoire’s most populous city Abidjan is to reopen after 18 months. A civil war between the supporters of the country’s former and current president which has left 3,000 dead was behind last year’s closure. The university, formerly called Cocody, has been renamed Félix Houphouët-Boigny University after the country’s first post-independence president, reports The Guardian.
University of Washington students develop garbage-converting 3D printer
A team of students from the University of Washington have developed a low-cost 3D printer which uses melted plastic waste as a raw material, reports The Seattle Times. The concept was devised by mechanical engineering student Matthew Rogge, who formerly worked for the Peace Corps in Ghana and Panama. The printer, for which the students have won US$100,000 in an international competition, can produce large objects such as chemical toilets.
Proportion of couples where women educated to higher level growing
The Center for Demographic Studies at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona has found that rising numbers of women in higher education has meant that, in many countries, we are seeing an increasing proportion of women marrying ‘downwards’, reversing the status-quo in which the opposite was the case. The research, reportsScience Blog, concludes that society manages to adapt to these demographic changes fairly easily. 56 countries were studied in total, with insufficient data preventing analyses of countries like Japan, China and South Korea, which are considered to be reasonably tradition in terms of relationship structure.
New Indian education minister to continue work of predecessor
Kapil Sibal has been replaced by Pallam Raju as India’s minister for human resources development, a portfolio which includes education, reports University World News. The new minister has announced his intention to continue the work of his predecessor, which included a drive to increase India’s higher education enrollment rate up to 30% by 2020 and a bill to allow foreign universities to set up campuses in India. The latter policy is one of many which have been stuck in parliament for a significant amount of time – one of the main challenges facing Raju will be to attempt to free these bills from this deadlock.