SCIENCE & EDUCATION

The Chinese economic hub of Shanghai began construction of the New York University Shanghai (NYU Shanghai) on Monday, the first university jointly operated by China and the United States.NYU Shanghai is an independent entity authorized to grant degrees. New York University and the Shanghai-based East China Normal University (ECNU) will operate the institution.The two universities will strive to develop the joint venture into one of the world's finest comprehensive universities, said NYU President John Sexton during an interview before he attended the ground-breaking ceremony Monday afternoon.

An online journal for school students has been launched by the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.Knowledge@Wharton High School (KWHS), offers free articles, videos, podcasts, a business-related game and a glossary of more than 200 business terms. Features include stories about companies run by teenagers, business trends, profiles on successful entrepreneurs and technology reviews. There are also interviews with high school students.Up until now, Wharton has focused on providing business knowledge for older students, through the award-winning Knowledge@Wharton online network, that reaches 1.7m subscribers worldwide. Now, it is keen to broaden this service to younger generations around the world, helping them to discover business today.

Australians will have direct access to the thoughts of some of the country's brightest minds through a new independent news and information website, The Conversation. The not-for-profit service is backed by CSIRO and Australia's leading universities, providing information, analysis, commentary and research news from their researchers and academics.Launched today, The Conversation's journalists work with the institutions' academics to put their views straight to the website in areas including business, the environment, science and politics.

The number of lecturers choosing to combine part-time teaching with a second job in a related field is on the up, writes Debbie Andalo for The Guardian.Whether they are doctors, city economists or musicians in their non-academic life, part-time lecturers say teaching forces them to keep their practice, and their knowledge, up to date. But they also believe they bring a different perspective to the workplace compared to colleagues who are full-time academics.

KATHMANDU: With its new office — Open University Nepal Initiative — on the premises of the Ministry of Education, the government is gearing up to establish the much-awaited open university. However, the House must approve the Higher Education Bill, registered in the Parliamentary Secretariat, to establish the university. A 22-member steering committee, led by MoE secretary Shankar Prasad Pandey, has been formed to carry out the ground work. The ministry is working in coordination with Non-Resident Nepalis’ Association, Canada Foundation of Nepal and Athabasca Open University in Canada, to set up the open university.

Energy management, one of the most fashionable topics on the business school curriculum, is to be the subject of an executive masters programme to be taught in London and Madrid by ESCP Europe. The programme has previously been taught on ESCP’s Paris campus and in Norway.The programme, which will focus on the corporate management of energy issues, is designed for those who need an overview of the energy management business.

New York University’s Stern school is to drop the requirement for students on its Executive MBA programme to sit the GMAT or GRE tests in order to gain admission to the programme. The school already operates a waiver policy for many of its EMBA applicants.Stern is following in the footsteps of many schools offering EMBAs - MBA programmes for senior working managers. The main reason is that EMBA participants are usually in their 30s or 40s, and are usually accepted or rejected on the basis of their previous academic achievements and, more particularly, the relevance of their work experience.

A strong academic base, English-language instruction and superb career prospects have made Stockholm University School of Business one of the most popular destinations for overseas master's students in Sweden.Many students see postgraduate degrees in management or business as a way to make themselves attractive to the best employers and boost their earning potential. Stockholm University School of Business is attracting students from around the world with its English-language master's courses.

Students at Abu Dhabi University will soon be able to register for courses, check their grades, take quizzes and contribute to classroom discussions on their mobile phones as the university launched its pilot of an application called Blackboard Mobile last week. As many as 75 students will participate in the trial before it is rolled out to other regional universities in September, writes Erin Conroy for The National.

Bangor and Aberystwyth universities are planning a "strategic alliance" as institutions around Wales look to work more closely, reports the BBC. A decision to form a "super university" in Wales was also recently announced. Education Minister Leighton Andrews has challenged universities to "adapt or die".

China awarded more than 21 million academic degrees, including 335,000 doctorates, since 1981 when a landmark regulation provided a legal frame for the country's higher education.The academic degrees also included 2.73 million masters' degrees and 18.3 million bachelors' degrees, according to statistics revealed on Saturday at a meeting to mark the 30th anniversary of the implementation of the country's Regulations on Academic Degrees.

With healthcare reform on the agenda in the US and the UK, business school students are showing much more interest in an industry that until a few years ago attracted only small numbers of MBAs.The increased interest comes at a time when the job market remains shaky and sectors such as finance are still recovering from the credit crisis and the recession. Healthcare, say career counsellors, is a growth industry that offers business graduates opportunities to solve complex challenges, work toward the public good and draw a substantial salary.Policymakers in countries around the world are dealing with the problems of rising healthcare costs as well as an increasingly older population. President Barack Obama’s healthcare overhaul aims to expand health insurance to cover millions of uninsured Americans while curbing costs. And in the UK, David Cameron, the prime minister, has pledged to make fundamental changes to the National Health Service, the state-run healthcare system.

The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry likely will ease procedures to be completed by foreign doctors in entering this country to engage in medical training, ministry sources said.The move is part of the government's new growth strategy adopted in June, which includes an initiative to transform Japan into a center for foreign tourists seeking medical treatment.By relaxing such formalities, the ministry hopes to increase the number of foreign doctors coming to Japan under a government program designed to give them local medical training and improve their knowledge and skills.

Ashridge Business School in the UK has given iPads to all participants enrolling on its full-time MBA programme in 2011, in a move to reduce the environmental impact of paper-based text books and case studies. Previously, participants would have started their programme by being given an introductory manual and course presentation notes, and they would have used their own laptops or one of Ashridge’s desktop PCs. As well as helping to promote sustainability at the school, the iPad initiative is designed to make learning easier, according to MBA director Ilze Zandvoort.

More than a year after classes began, the University of Paris Sorbonne's Abu Dhabi campus on Al Reem Island was opened officially last week, with the help of the French Prime Minister Francois Fillon, who was making his first visit to the region, writes Caline Malek for The National.Sheikh Hamed bin Zayed, President of the Crown Prince Court, opened the ceremony by saying the establishment of prestigious universities was a significant step towards turning Abu Dhabi into a cultural and scientific hub.

Three business schools on three continents are to combine their talents to teach a one-year pre-experienced masters degree, the 3Continent Master of Global Management. The three business schools, Antwerp Management School, in Belgium, Fordham University, in New York, and the Xavier Institute of Management, in Bhubaneswar in India, will launch the programme in September 2011.“We need to have young people who have a global outlook on the world,” says Philippe Naert, dean of Antwerp Management School.

More companies are recruiting staff directly from school amid fears bright teenagers are turning their backs on university, according to research.A report published today found that growing numbers of top employers are targeting school leavers instead of limiting vacancies to applicants with a degree. The disclosure, in a study by the Association of Graduate Recruiters, follows claims that thousands of talented teenagers are shunning higher education because of rising student debt and mounting competition for university places. According to figures, more than a quarter of leading businesses now employ staff directly from schools and colleges and a fifth of remaining firms are considering opening up recruitment schemes to this age group.

Universities in Hong Kong are counting down towards one of the most significant transformations ever attempted in the territory's higher education sector, and the logistics are daunting: thousands of extra students, hundreds of new lecturers, realms of new curricula to write and hours of additional courses to fill, writes Liz Gooch for The New York Times.At a time when universities in many Western countries are pinching budgets, Hong Kong's are gearing up for a massive expansion of the undergraduate population: starting in the 2012 academic year, all Hong Kong undergraduate degrees will be extended from three years to four.

UK government plans to restrict the number of students entering the UK, and restricting employment visas for graduates, could be damaging to the growing popularity of UK graduate business degrees, according to GMAC, the the US-based Graduate Management Admissions Council, which administers the GMAT test.Though the past five years has seen business schools in Europe become an increasingly popular destination for international students choosing to study an MBA, this growth could be curtailed if potential UK students cannot get visas, says Julia Tyler, executive vice-president of GMAC.

Universities warn that Scotland will have one of the most restrictive visa regimes in the world for overseas students under UK government plans to crack down on immigration, writes Andrew Denholm for Herald Scotland. Universities Scotland, which represents university principals, argues the proposals will make visa conditions here tougher than those of countries such as America, Canada, Australia and Germany, which are in direct competition for students. The organisation has written to all MPs calling for support for a separate immigration policy for Scotland.