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The number of Australians applying for university places for 2007 has increased after a three-year decline since 2003. This increase has occurred despite the knowledge of debts faced by present students on completion of their courses due to higher tuition charges and inadequate financial support.

The future of U21Global is uncertain, an online university launched by Universitas 21 international consortium of 19 research-intensive universities and its American partner Thomson Learning, due to the split and sell-off of Thomson Learning. Although U21Global officials are not concerned about the sale, it is unclear whether the future owner of the higher education division of Thomson Learning would continue to invest in the e-university venture.

University students in Australia have turned to the Internet to plagiarise material for their assignments, with up to 500,000 essays/yr estimated to contain copied material, according to results from a survey of 1,751 essays written by students at six universities in Victoria, Australia, during the first semester of this year. The study, which used web crawlers to assess essays for similarities to material already available on the Internet and to material produced by other students in the class, found that one in 12 essays contained a significant proportion of material which had been copied from the Internet without proper attribution.

The chief science adviser to the Australian government reported last month that the country is falling behind in federal and private support for science, engineering, and technology. Robin Batterham, the [...]

An influx of new universities could be seen in Australia following a decision by federal and state education ministers to change rules which determine whether institutions can use the title 'university'. The new rules will make it simpler for overseas higher education institutions to operate in the country.

Australian universities have seen sharp declines in application numbers from both domestic and international students and critics blame the decision in 2004 to allow universities to raise Higher Education Scheme charges by 25 percent. Rising debt levels are believed by some to be deterring students.

The new Higher Education Legislation Amendment (Workplace Relations Requirements) Bill pushed through by the Australian Government will make the life of university administrators 'hellish', according to academic legal experts. It is argued that the new Bill is so complex that it is challenging even for experts to come to grips with it, and that enhances the power of employers and demonstrably weakens the position of employees.

Brendan Nelson, Federal Education Minister for Australia, has claimed that, on a recent visit to Beijing, Zhou Ji, China's Education Minister, expressed an interest in Australia helping educate one million of China's citizens. This year, 72,000 Chinese students were enrolled on courses in the Australian education market, with about 30,000 Chinese students studying Australian programmes in China.

Universities in Australia are expected to face their first research quality assessment in 2007, a year later than federal Education Minister Brendan Nelson had planned, with leading research universities still raising concerns about the exercise's cost and purpose. The leading Group of Eight research universities in Australia argues that the country's existing funding and assessment process could be adjusted at a minimal cost to provide detailed comparisons of universities, whereas that new system, with all costs taken into account, could cost up to A$50 mil/cycle.

In the light of moves in the US to make university accreditation reports available to the public, an analysis is made of how the regulation of universities and colleges is managed in a number of countries around the world. Countries examined include Australia, France, India, Russia, Kenya, Japan and Colombia.

Fears for the future of 'problem' subjects such as chemistry in UK universities have been reignited following the emergence of news that four top scientists will leave Cambridge University as the result of a campaign to lure leading researchers to Australia. Andrew Holmes, a leading polymer chemist, is one of the four and he has confirmed that he will be leaving Cambridge to join Melbourne University and he will be taking a large part of his research team with him. Holmes was in part lured to Australia by an A$230,000/yr federation fellowship, designed to boost Australia's 'brain gain'.

Academics in Australia have expressed their concern that a free-trade agreement signed with the United States in week commencing 09 February 2004 could lead to US universities setting up operations in Australia and receiving the same level of benefits as local institutions. Peter Costello, Australia's federal government treasurer, noted that as a result of the agreement Australian institutions would get enhanced access to a market of about 300 million people and, while Costello refused to be specific about the exact value of the agreement, the federal government claimed that it could be worth A$4 billion in benefits to the country's economy.

The Australian government has tempered some of its more contentious plans for the reform of higher education with a promise of an extra A$1.5 bil worth of funding for higher education over the next four years, plus over A$660 mil extra/yr from 2007. In tabling the concessions, higher education minister Brendan Nelson has heeded calls from vice-chancellors to provide more funding for regional universities, modify plans for scholarships and to ease restrictions on universities over-enrolling beyond government quotas.

Issues relating to stem cell research and the ways in which a number of countries are dealing with the matter are examined. The approaches of the United States, Spain, East Asia, Hungary, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Israel and Italy are examined in detail.

The Global University Alliance made up of ten universities from the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Britain was formed in 2000. The alliance will provide the first electronic learning courses for use in Asia.

World demand for higher education is expanding more rapidly than supply, and universities from the US, Australia, Canada, Britain, Germany and France are seeking recruits. South East Asia has been affected by economic problems, but there are opportunities in the Middle East, Mexico, Brazil, India and China. Canada and Australia have developed marketing strategies as relatively new entrants, while Germany and France are the most active competitors of non-English speaking areas.

Four British universities are to be founder members of Universitas 21, a international superleague of Western research and teaching establishments. The British universities, Glasgow, Nottingham, Birmingham and Edinburgh, will join others universities including those in New Zealand, Canada, the US and Australia. The initiative was developed by Alan Gilbert, vice chancellor of the University of Melbourne, who aims to introduce international benchmarking throughout all his university's faculties. There is a move towards such groupings, due to the pressures of competing for international research money.

The coalition conservative government in Australia is planning to cut its grants to universities by 5%, breaking the campaign promise of Prime Minister John Howard to maintain higher-education spending levels. The grants could be reduced by $1.45-billion in US dollars over a four-year period, and students would pay higher tuition. The budget cuts could result in job losses amounting to 10% of the full-time university employees, according to higher-education unions. The union representing faculty members plans to organize a strike and other protest actions.

UK scientists will be encouraged to make international links, particularly with Asia. Research in Germany is done through a variety of institutions, some in education and some in industry. South Africa is looking to radically change its policies in line with its social change. Australian universities are told to prioritise research which is economically valid. In the US policy is set by the President who defines area of research. China is concentrating on establishing high technology projects to generate income.

Australian Professor Bob Birrell has reported low standards of English among foreign students. Politicians and bureaucrats have accused him of ruining Australia's pound sterling 4 billion education export market and of lowering the reputation of the nation's universities.

Several Australian universities in 2007 are altering academics with poor research records and are offering high pay to top professors from other institutions. This is done in preparation for the introduction of a new research quality framework.

Australia's government is hoping that its new research quality framework will be a global pioneer in measurement of research impact. The framework will be used to allocate funding using a model which links funding to the past performance of researchers.

The Australian government has faced criticism for asserting that too many school students are being urged to enter higher education. The 'Clearing the Myths Away: Higher Education's Place in Meeting Workforce Demands' report by Bob Birrell and Virginia Rapson, says it is a myth that Australia d oes not need more university-trained people.

The main reason students go overseas is for education excellence and Asian students travelling overseas to study believe universities in the UK and US offer the bext quality education. An international study found that Australia is ranked a close third.

Campbell King and Valjean Boynton, students at RMIT University, have won a business plan competition run by their unversity with their Kegs on Legs home-delivery beverage service. The pair are undertaking a feasibility study into franchising the business nationwide.

Australian universities are concerned that federal Education Department figures show a fall in foreign postgraduat enrolments which could result in the closure of courses, departments and whole institutions. This is the first time there has been a nationwide fall and with overseas students making up over a third of all postgraduate enrolments, any fall could have a major impact on finances.

Australian academics and university librarians have protested over the forced removal of books on terrorism from a restricted section of the library at Melbourne University. The federal Classification and Review Board has banned Join the Caravan and Defence of the Muslim Lands which were written by Sheikh Abdallah Azzam in the 1980s.

New anti-terrorism laws in Australia are seriously affecting research on Islamic fundamentalism. Riaz Hassan, emeritus professor of sociology at Flinders University in Adelaide, has had to abandon plans to interview international terrorist leaders as part of his study into suicide bombers after Australia's Attorney-General intervened.

Online employment and training firm Seek Limited has acquired 50 percent of the shares of IDP Education Australia's commercial arm for ADlr 36 million. As Seek expands British operations the merger will increase competition between Australian universities and those in America and the UK.

The Australian Vice-Chancellor's Committee (AVCC) will be reorganised into a new company with a different name, new governing board and revamped management structure. Reforms were prompted by growing evidence that the AVCC was no longer an effective political force.

The University of Melbourne will break with traditions to become the first in Australia to adopt the model set out in the Bologna Declaration. All undergraduates will now be required to complete a broad three-year qualification before moving on to postgraduate professional training or careers in research.

Australia requires only 12 public comprehensive universities and not the current 37, according to federal Education Minister Julie Bishop. Ms Bishop has called for more diversity and fewer institutions.

A Muslim Community Reference Group was set up by Australia's Prime Minister John Howard in 2005 to advice him on the best way to tackle terrorist threats from local Muslims. Sydney and Melbourne universities are now considering federal Education Department proposals that they train Islamic clerics.

Cranfield University will be the first British institution with a base in Australia. Cranfield, which specialises in defence, will soon complete an agreement with the South Australian Government on creation of a campus in Adelaide.

Australian institutions are downsizing as enrolments decline and hundreds of academics teaching IT have lost their jobs . Faculties and departments of IT have seen a fall of up to 60 percent in student numbers in the last five years as popularity of the subject has plummeted.

Applications by Australians for a university place have fallen by over 3,000 to some 220,000 applications in 2006, according to figures from the Australian Vice-Chancellors Committee. The deterrant could be higher tuition fees and fears of large debts.

Bristol University is considering establishing a base in Adelaide and has held discussions with the South Australian Government. Plans are currently in the early stages, but if proposals go ahead, Bristol will become the second British University to create a presence in Australia.

Vice-chancellors in Australia and the US are better off than their counterparts in Britain in terms of salaries, taxes and quality of life, according to a survey by Lisa Soh, commerce student at the University of Western Australia. Purchasing power in real terms of remuneration was higher for the Australians than for both British and US university heads.

Vice-chancellors in Australia are alarmed by government efforts to tackle terrorism through laws which could harm universities and also restruct academic freedom. V-cs want sedition laws repealed and have denounced government proposals to extend export controls to academic conferences, seminars and research papers.

Indian students choose to go to Australian universities more because of aims to become permanent residents than because of the reputation of the universities, according to research by Michiel Baas, honorary research fellow at Monash University. Of Indian students completing courses in Australia in 2003, three quarters obtained visas allowing them to stay in the country.

Ken Good, Australian academic expelled from Botswana after teaching there for 15 years, has taken his case to the African Commission on Human and People's Rights. Dr Good was professor of political science at the University of Botswana until President Festus Mogae declared him a prohibited immigrant in February 2005 and forced him to leave the country.

Heidi Auman has been studying silver gulls on the shores of Hobart in Tasmania and the remote island in Bass Straits for the last two years, basing research on thje hypothesis that birds eating junk food suffer the same consequences as humans. Ms Auman is completing her PhD at the University of Tasmania and her project is dubbed 'Supersize Me: The Effects of Junk Food on Seagulls'.

Australian universities could lose thousands of fee-paying foreign students to Europe unless they adapt to the Bologna Process, according to Julie Bishop, federal Education Minister. She has warned of the possible impact of Europe's plans to make it simpler for students to gain entry to higher degrees and employment across member states.

The Australian government has delayed the introduction of a research quality assessment scheme despite a report which it commissioned which called for the system to be in place by 2007. An advisory group is being set up to consider the report.

Australian universities have been informed that they must not treat India as another market from which they attract fee-paying students. Glyn Davis, chair of Australia's Group of Eight research-intensive universities, has said that the higher education and business leaders of India wanted universities in Australia to establish campuses in India.

Australia's vice-chancellors will tackle new federal Education Minister Julie Bishop over what they consider to be over-regulation. There has been a decline in federal grants as a proportion of university incomes while government intervention in campus decision making has risen.

The Australian government is attempting to tackle the lack of doctors by providing more monet for university medical faculties and creating more fee-paying places. Funding has been provided to raise the number of medical schools from 12 to 17 and a cap has been lifted on fee-paying places for Australian medical undergraduates.

Indigenous Australian students are falling further behind white Australian students, with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island students comprising under 1 percent of the 950,000 students enrolled at university. The fall is due to cuts in funding which have not taken into account social and economic disadvantage faced by Aborigines.