New Experimental HomeContainer-housing perhaps seemed an ingenious idea at the time, a good solution for guaranteeing the growing influx of foreign students a temporary home in Delft.
But now students are balking at having to live in what they perceive to be austere, overpriced apartments. What makes these students angry is that they weren’t informed beforehand that they%d have to live in ‘experimental’ houses. To their dismay, the students had to decide whether they would sign a binding, non-breakable contract that obliges them to reside for one year in their new experimental homes. Student council member organisation AAG and student union Vssd support the students. But Jan Benschop, the director of Duwo, the company renting the container-housing to students, denies that the ‘experimental’ apartments are inferior. ,,Students can live for two years in these good apartments, and the price is quite reasonable.” The number of foreign students coming to TU Delft made the temporary solution of space-boxes and container-housing necessary. Benschop argues that the alternative would be that students had to find their own housing, which is difficult in Delft.
On strike
At least 3,200 university lecturers in Kenya’s six public universities went on strike to demand better pay, union officials said. “We%re on strike until the government comes up with a better pay package for the university lecturers,” University Academic Staff Union (UASU) chair John Nderitu said. The lecturers are demanding a 2,000% pay increase on their current salaries of $310 per month for the lowest paid lecturer and $525 for professors. The UASU has proposed a new salary package of $3,500 per month in salaries and allowance for lecturers and $12,986 for professors.
Better red
As of June 2003, about 700,000 Chinese college students had joined the Communist Party of China (CPC), or 8 percent of the total number of university students, according to Chinese college educators. In 1990, only 1.16 percent of college students were CPC members. The dramatic increase in 13 years shows the great importance attached by CPC organizations to recruiting on campus and students’ eagerness to become party members, the Chinese authorities said. Currently 3.95 million college students have applied for CPC membership, accounting for almost half of all non-CPC students. In some universities, over 90 percent of college students are party membership applicants. Official figures showed the number of Communist Party of China (CPC) members nationally had reached 66.941 million by the end of 2002. The total number included 14,882 million below the age of 35, 11,918 million females, and 4,231 million ethnic minorities.
Suspended
The decision by Oxford University to suspend a professor without pay for two months for refusing to teach a former Israeli soldier has created campus tensions . Andrew Wilkie, a pathology expert at prestigious Pembroke College, was suspended and told to undergo equal opportunities training after he told Amit Duvshani, a masters student at Tel Aviv University: ,,No way would I take on someone who has served in the Israeli army.” The debate over boycotting individual Israeli academics and students has long been an acrimonious one. Last February, thousands of Jewish and Muslim students staged protests when Manchester University Students Union debated a motion describing Israel as an ‘apartheid state’. Wilkie argued that his decision was taken on political, not racial or religious grounds. In his letter to Amit Duvshani, the professor wrote: ,,I have a huge problem with the way that the Israelis take the moral high ground from their appalling treatment in the Holocaust, and then inflict gross human rights abuses on the Palestinians because they wish to live in their own country.”
Middle West
More Arab countries, including Gulf states, are embarking on ambitious projects to establish universities that follow Western educational programmes and techniques. Lebanon’s American University of Beirut, once dubbed the Harvard of the Middle East, is no longer the only institution offering a Western curriculum. Today there are American universities in Cairo, Dubai, Kuwait, Qatar and Sharjah, and Dubai has opened a ‘Knowledge Village’. Enrolment at these new universities is increasing as more students decide not to study in the United States. A recent UN report estimated that the number of Arabs attending US universities fell 30% between 1999 and 2002.
New Experimental Home
Container-housing perhaps seemed an ingenious idea at the time, a good solution for guaranteeing the growing influx of foreign students a temporary home in Delft. But now students are balking at having to live in what they perceive to be austere, overpriced apartments. What makes these students angry is that they weren’t informed beforehand that they%d have to live in ‘experimental’ houses. To their dismay, the students had to decide whether they would sign a binding, non-breakable contract that obliges them to reside for one year in their new experimental homes. Student council member organisation AAG and student union Vssd support the students. But Jan Benschop, the director of Duwo, the company renting the container-housing to students, denies that the ‘experimental’ apartments are inferior. ,,Students can live for two years in these good apartments, and the price is quite reasonable.” The number of foreign students coming to TU Delft made the temporary solution of space-boxes and container-housing necessary. Benschop argues that the alternative would be that students had to find their own housing, which is difficult in Delft.
On strike
At least 3,200 university lecturers in Kenya’s six public universities went on strike to demand better pay, union officials said. “We%re on strike until the government comes up with a better pay package for the university lecturers,” University Academic Staff Union (UASU) chair John Nderitu said. The lecturers are demanding a 2,000% pay increase on their current salaries of $310 per month for the lowest paid lecturer and $525 for professors. The UASU has proposed a new salary package of $3,500 per month in salaries and allowance for lecturers and $12,986 for professors.
Better red
As of June 2003, about 700,000 Chinese college students had joined the Communist Party of China (CPC), or 8 percent of the total number of university students, according to Chinese college educators. In 1990, only 1.16 percent of college students were CPC members. The dramatic increase in 13 years shows the great importance attached by CPC organizations to recruiting on campus and students’ eagerness to become party members, the Chinese authorities said. Currently 3.95 million college students have applied for CPC membership, accounting for almost half of all non-CPC students. In some universities, over 90 percent of college students are party membership applicants. Official figures showed the number of Communist Party of China (CPC) members nationally had reached 66.941 million by the end of 2002. The total number included 14,882 million below the age of 35, 11,918 million females, and 4,231 million ethnic minorities.
Suspended
The decision by Oxford University to suspend a professor without pay for two months for refusing to teach a former Israeli soldier has created campus tensions . Andrew Wilkie, a pathology expert at prestigious Pembroke College, was suspended and told to undergo equal opportunities training after he told Amit Duvshani, a masters student at Tel Aviv University: ,,No way would I take on someone who has served in the Israeli army.” The debate over boycotting individual Israeli academics and students has long been an acrimonious one. Last February, thousands of Jewish and Muslim students staged protests when Manchester University Students Union debated a motion describing Israel as an ‘apartheid state’. Wilkie argued that his decision was taken on political, not racial or religious grounds. In his letter to Amit Duvshani, the professor wrote: ,,I have a huge problem with the way that the Israelis take the moral high ground from their appalling treatment in the Holocaust, and then inflict gross human rights abuses on the Palestinians because they wish to live in their own country.”
Middle West
More Arab countries, including Gulf states, are embarking on ambitious projects to establish universities that follow Western educational programmes and techniques. Lebanon’s American University of Beirut, once dubbed the Harvard of the Middle East, is no longer the only institution offering a Western curriculum. Today there are American universities in Cairo, Dubai, Kuwait, Qatar and Sharjah, and Dubai has opened a ‘Knowledge Village’. Enrolment at these new universities is increasing as more students decide not to study in the United States. A recent UN report estimated that the number of Arabs attending US universities fell 30% between 1999 and 2002.
Comments are closed.