The Fifteen: January 30, 2026
Hi all. The Fifteen is back with the choicest higher education stories from around the world over the past two weeks. That’s all for now: see you back here in two weeks.
January 30, 2026
No Comments
Hi all. The Fifteen is back with the choicest higher education stories from around the world over the past two weeks. That’s all for now: see you back here in two weeks.
Uzbekistan is not a country that intrudes on western consciousness very much. If people think of Uzbekistan at all, they tend to think of it for its past glories. Perhaps they know a little bit about for the Silk Road cities of Tashkent and Bokhara, or the brilliant city of Samarkand, whose Registan and grand Observatory, built by the Scientist-King Ulugh Beg, briefly made the region the world’s centre of astronomy and mathematics in the early fifteenth-century. But since the silk road
The world of transnational education – that is, the provision of education in one country by universities based abroad – is getting very interesting these days. In particular, branch campuses have returned to the centre of the industry’s activities in a way they have not been for well over a decade. Canada’s post-secondary system – which has always been a laggard in this area – risks getting left even further behind, unless institutions up their game substantially in the next
University missions are tricky things to enunciate. From the point of view of many faculty, people who have reached their position by dint of their excellence in a specific field, tend not to view their employer’s main mission as one of providing a platform for their discipline. Understandably, this is not how local publics view things – they tend to look for something more externally-focused. Yet when institutions try to enunciate something beyond disciplines, for many it tends to feel odd or inauthentic.
Hi all. It’s been over a month since the last Fifteen and you might think that the world of higher education would slow down over the holidays, but you’d be wrong. Buckle up, this is a big one. 1. Back in December the government in Bulgaria was forced to resign due to anti-corruption protests that were mainly led by students (although increasingly student protest is being called “Gen Z protests”, which is interesting and I would love to understand why). Iran is also currently undergoing a spasm of
One Thought to Start Your Day is our founder and CEO Alex Usher’s popular daily blog, brimming with up-to-the-minute insights and informed opinions on today’s higher education industry.