It’s getting harder to predict the future of HE
So 2020 is over and all of us were full of hope that 2021 would be better. And although there are positive signs, such as COVID-19 vaccinations starting worldwide, it remains clear that the pandemic is still far from being beaten. The number of blogs, articles and book proposals as well as webinars on the impact of COVID-19 on the future of higher education and its internationalisation is growing by the day, but one wonders about their value and predictability.
A year ago, there was still optimism that the virus would be temporary and, as a result, the impact on higher education and student and staff mobility would only be temporary. Philip Altbach and I predicted that higher education leaders would likely try to return to business as usual, which back then was unlikely (and is even more unlikely now at the start of 2021). We also stated that COVID-19 was “the internationalisation revolution that isn’t”.
Three crises threaten human survival, Chomsky warns
The world is facing a confluence of three major crises that threaten the survival of humanity, and internationalism, solidarity and education are the only way to solve them, according to the linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky.
He was talking to the STAR (Society of Transnational Academic Researchers) Scholars Network conference, “Shaping a Humane World: Higher education perspectives”, held online on 8 December, at which he presented the inaugural A Noam Chomsky Global Connections Awards, which recognise individuals with a “deep impact on advancing global, social mobility” via transnational research and human connections.
“We cannot overlook the fact that we are in a unique moment of human history. Humans have been on earth for a few hundred thousand years. They are an astonishing miracle, the results of many pure accidents… for the first time in four billion years on earth, creatures who can ponder the types of q