MISSISSAUGA, Ontario — The troubles began over sermons. For nearly two decades, Muslim students in the Peel School District, outside Toronto, had been allowed to pray independently on Fridays, part of a policy in many Canadian provinces to accommodate religious beliefs in public schools. Last fall, the school board decided to standardize the prayer sessions and offer six pre-approved sermons that the children could recite, rather than let them use their own. Muslim students protested, saying the move violated their right to free speech, and the board reversed itself, allowing the children to write their own sermons. But the dispute unleashed a storm of protest that continued through this spring.

Students around Europe are uncertain of the impact Brexit will have on their education but remain concerned about funding, campus diversity, career options and being welcomed in the UK, according to a QS survey of 1,000 students in 10 European countries. On average, 42% of EU students (not including students from the UK) said Brexit would have “no impact” on their education. Meanwhile, more than 70% of students from Belgium, Germany, France, Romania and Norway said Brexit would have “no impact” on their education or they “don’t know” if it will. The UK, Denmark, Spain, Italy and Greece are where perceptions are markedly more negative. Forty-six percent of students in the UK and 45% of students in Denmark said it would have a negative impact on their education while just over 30% of students in Spain, Greece and Italy said the same.

The number of students from mainland China who will be allowed to study in Taiwan this year has been slashed, with implications particularly for Taiwan’s private universities which offer the majority of places available to students from mainland China. Taiwan’s University Entrance Committee for Mainland Chinese Students said last Monday that mainland educational authorities had approved 1,000 mainland students to study for full-time undergraduate degree courses in Taiwan this year, down from 2,136 last year. During the past academic year Taiwan had already seen a decline of university students from China coming for non-degree programmes of less than a year. After rising steadily in recent years, the numbers on short programmes fell from 34,114 in the 2015-16 academic year to 32,648 in the current year, according to Taiwan’s Ministry of Education. The Taiwan committee said one of the Chinese government's considerations in cutting numbers could be that in recent years China's higher education sector has suffered from a decline in student numbers due to the low birth rate.

68 percent of the 37,000 Nigerians who tried to cross over to Europe on the Mediterranean Sea in 2016 were university graduates, according to UN statistics. The migrants were mostly young adults seeking to better their economic prospects in light of missing employment opportunities in Nigeria. Some 9,000 migrants reportedly died in the desert or on the sea passage en route to Europe.

Private providers in the Australian tertiary system have been under fire in recent times following the Federal Government’s decision to scrap the scandal-plagued VET-FEE-HELP student loan scheme. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has pursued six educational providers since late 2015, and there are more on the horizon. Careers Australia was officially closed in May following a ruling that the company had breached Australian Consumer Law and “engaged in questionable conduct”, resulting in the reversal of $44 million worth of student debt. In total, the ACCC is seeking $460 million from Careers Australia and fellow providers Unique, AIPE, Empower, Phoenix Institute and Acquire Learning. In many cases, students were promised free iPads and the prospect of student debts that would never need to be repaid. In reality, they were being served up sub-par education at inadequate facilities, with ‘qualifications’ that couldn’t be transferred to other institutions.

The American University in Dubai (AUD) and the Mohamed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Knowledge Foundation (MBRF) have announced scholarship opportunities for UAE nationals desiring to study journalism under the Mohamed Bin Rashid School for Communication. High school students can qualify for the scholarships upon graduation should they have a grade average of 85 or higher. Jamal Bin Huwaireb, managing director of MBRF said: “We are proud of our strategic partnership with the American University in Dubai, as today we offer scholarships for UAE nationals to study at the Mohammad Bin Rashid School for Communication.