NATURE Special: The future of PhD

Scientists attaining a PhD gain entry to an academic elite — but it's not as elite as it once was. More people are graduating with PhDs than ever before, and the growth shows no sign of slowing. Nature explores this and other issues surrounding the science PhD today and asks whether it needs reinvention.

http://www.nature.com/news/specials/phdfuture/index.html?WT.ec_id=NEWS-20110426

The Life and Death of Academic Freedom

Book Review: The Lost Soul of Higher Education: Corporatization, the Assault on Academic Freedom, and the End of the American University. Ellen Schrecker. New York: New Press, 2010.

http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/academe/2010/ND/br/br1.htm

Education International Worlds of Education magazine

Articles featured in this issue range from early childhood to higher education and explore the attack on education union rights in the USA; the mobilisation of EI affiliates around the world to defend quality public education; a review of the EI-OECD Summit on the Teaching Profession; members’ activities to celebrate the 100th International Women’s Day, and an in-depth report on the shortage of teachers in India, as well as the wave of democratic and teachers' union uprisings in North Africa and Arab countries.The magazine also previews EI initiatives to protect migrant teachers’ rights, to promote health and safety in schools, as well as providing affiliates with information on how to participate in Global Action Week (May 2011) and EI’s World Congress in Cape Town (July 2011). http://download.ei-ie.org/Docs/WebDepot/Worlds%20of%20Education%2037-English.pdf

Nature: Notes on a scandal

2 different reactions to academic misconduct in 2 different countries. What would be the reaction in Malaysia?

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v471/n7337/full/471135b.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20110310

Nature, 471, 135–136 (10 March 2011)

Nature: The Arab Awakening

Nature: Special: The Arab Awakening

http://www.nature.com/news/specials/arabawakening/index.html?WT.ec_id=NEWS-20110301

Nature: Egypt's youth 'key to revival'

Country's future depends on democracy, education and research reform, say scientists. Political patronage and nepotism are rife in senior university appointments. The suppression of human rights, and the poor conditions for science, have also led to a brain drain to the West, and more recently to Gulf states.

http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110208/full/470147a.html?WT.ec_id=NEWS-20110215

NEAR Newsletter

Network for Education and Academic Rights (NEAR) Newsletter, Jan 2011

http://www.nearinternational.org/newsletter-detail.asp?startdate=2011-1-1&enddate=2011-1-31