Rejection is a word and an experience I’ve become well acquainted with since starting my PhD. Around every corner is another rejection; it’s just a fact of academic life. A career in academia means dedicating time to publishing your research in academic journals. When I started my course, I was told that I needed to […] … learn more→

Higher education has been forced to reckon with two compounding crises this year: the Covid-19 pandemic and racism in America. Both have caused tremendous pain, trauma and loss for many within the higher education community and beyond, and obliged us to confront the systemic inequities that have plagued our most highly regarded educational institutions since […] … learn more→

MOOCs and other online courses have appeared for almost 15 years as almost “miraculous” technical responses to the proliferation of education in Africa, the number of registrants no longer being a limiting factor when it suffices to ‘a good connection for training. University infrastructures, such as the student / teacher ratio, can thus be – at least partially – decoupled from the dynamics […] … learn more→

May 2020 was the driest on record in England and the second driest in Wales. Rainfall was about 17% of the average for May, and it was also the sunniest calendar month on record, with 266 hours of sunshine, surpassing the previous record of 265 hours in June 1957. This dry spell followed one of […] … learn more→

Since coronavirus forced the switch to remote learning, I have seen many universities share infographics and statistics about their online teaching. These self-congratulatory messages highlight how vast numbers of courses, video lectures and online sessions have been delivered by a large number of faculty and attended by a much larger number of students. However, I […] … learn more→

33% of 15 year olds have already smoked cigarettes. If the consumption levels of French adolescents have been falling in recent years, they remain above the average of other European countries. This trend is part of a context marked by a high consumption of adults which, even if it has also been decreasing since 2016, remains particularly significant in France: 30% […] … learn more→

The Australian government’s higher education funding changes aim to ensure graduates are “job-ready”. Students will be charged more for courses the government deems have poorer employment outcomes, to incentivise them into cheaper courses with supposedly better job prospects. But these changes seem ignorant of the research surrounding future jobs, and the unpredictable nature of the […] … learn more→

At the end of April, several prominent scholars began boycotting universities that were failing to support contingent faculty during the coronavirus pandemic. Early signatories of Covid-19: A Statement of Academic Solidarity included Judith Butler, Donna Haraway, Naomi Klein and Chandra Talpade Mohanty. Within days, thousands of additional staff members of all ranks joined the cause. A few […] … learn more→

Sexual violence is frequent in the university environment and affects around 30% of the student population. The victims of these sexual assaults, rapes or harassments are mainly women and the perpetrators of men. In 9 out of 10 cases, the victims know their attacker who may be the boyfriend, a romantic partner or another student. Most often, it is a matter […] … learn more→

In recent years, as we have previously written, we are witnessing the emergence of platforms for the sale of academic works “Made in Spain”. Most of these websites, which in an aseptic and politically correct tone can be classified as “academic services” and with another more daring but adjusted to the reality of “facilitators of academic fraud”, are […] … learn more→