Search Page

South Korea’s prestigious Ewha Womans University in Seoul – under the spotlight of investigations into a corruption scandal that led to the impeachment of the country’s former president faces renewed scrutiny. State prosecutors are seeking a seven-year jail term for the former president’s close friend for facilitating her daughter’s admission to the university and for having her high school academic grades altered. The daughter was last week extradited from Denmark to South Korea to face questioning related to her preferential admission as well as bribery allegations involving technology giant Samsung.

Universities in the United States should close down their Confucius Institutes – teaching and research centres funded directly by the Chinese government – says a report by the National Association of Scholars or NAS. The wide-ranging report includes additional insights on the institutes’ often-secretive operations gleaned from the contracts signed with a dozen US universities, obtained through freedom of information law requests. The report, Outsourced to China: Confucius Institutes and soft power in American higher education, says unless contracts between US universities and the Hanban can be renegotiated to include more transparency, financial and hiring autonomy for US host universities, academic freedom guarantees and other safeguards, the institutes should be shut down.

A scandal over former high-level government officials being given jobs at universities after lobbying on their behalf by the education ministry has cause a public furore in Japan over recent weeks. The administrative vice-minister of education has already been forced to resign and seven other officials from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology face disciplinary action. A government investigation has been launched to investigate dozens of officials in the ministry, which is expected to report back at the end of this month.

A news report states that in a rush to meet educational requirements for elections, several politicians in Kenya opted for dubious degrees and could be among those losing their certificates in an audit ordered by the Education Cabinet Secretary. The guilty institutions could also lose their charters.

South Korea’s National Assembly last week focused on the role of the prestigious Ewha Womans University as part of its fourth round of hearings into an influence peddling scandal surrounding embattled South Korean President. Since early December the assembly has held four rounds of hearings, to gather evidence on whether the presidents close confidante used her friendship to influence policy and wrongly secure millions of dollars in funding for her foundations from South Korean conglomerates.

Australian universities have been hyperactive in tying up collaborations and research cooperation deals with universities and other organisations in China, including Chinese state-backed companies. But in the wake of a major political scandal in Australia involving Chinese donors who have also funded local institutions, universities have been advised to be alert about undue influence by donor organisations on research, including pressure to produce research for Chinese propaganda purposes.

Ethiopia’s government has blocked access to social networks throughout the country, an unprecedented measure it has justified by the need to prevent fraud during the period of university exams. But internet users have suggested the government is experimenting with new software filters to cut off political protesters. From 9 to 13 July it was impossible to log on to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram in Ethiopia, to prevent leaks of subjects that had forced cancellation of exams in June.

In the season of examination results and college admissions, we are again reminded of the dismal condition of the Indian education system. The Punjab School Education Board has, in an act of benevolence, granted 30 grace marks to Class 12 students. This helped lift the state’s pass percentage from 54% to 76%. In Gujarat, the pass percentage in Class 10 dropped from 73% in 2014-15 to 63% this year — which the state education minister attributes to the installation of CCTV cameras in examination centres that have checked cheating. Many Class 10 students in Gujarat could not answer elementary questions in a retest, despite securing over 80% in the objective section of the mathematics paper.

Fascinated by easy money, the members of the family who have ruled over Syria since 1970 also love collecting university qualifications obtained through dishonest and violent means. The various degrees held by the members of the family, including in medicine, law, engineering and pharmaceuticals, were not won thanks to their hard work, but rather thanks to money and the abuse of power.