Preliminary estimates of the damage done by Hurricane Irma to the main campus of the University of the Virgin Islands in St. Thomas puts the total damage at approximately $60 million. Water, power and internet have been restored in the inhabitable campus buildings, and all students are safe, according to a document prepared by President David Hall. Faculty are being “encouraged to immediately assess their readiness to resume classes this semester,” though there has been an acknowledgement that some class curricula may require significant adjustment. Facilities staff are shooting to re-open “within the next two weeks,” the document said. – Autumn A Arnett, Education Dive. Read more

Two corporate giants – Google and Bertelsmann – have launched a large-scale scholarship programme for MOOC studies. The program will fund 75,000 students from the EU, Egypt, Israel, Russia, and Turkey. It builds on a successful 2016 pilot that saw 70,000 students apply for 10,000 funded spaces. Google will support 60,000 scholarships in Web and Android Development, 40,000 of which will be reserved for those with no programming experience at all; alongside 20,000 scholarships for junior developers with one-to-three years of experience. Bertelsmann will fund a further 15,000 places in the field of Data Science. – ICEF Monitor. Read more

The issue of vice-chancellor pay looks set to remain at the top of the UK’s political agenda after analysis revealed that dozens of university leaders have seen their salaries increase by more than a fifth over a five-year period. Of the 114 universities for which there was comparable data, 44 saw the cost of vice-chancellor pay settlements, including wages, pension and benefits, go up by 20% in five years (12% in real terms after being adjusted for inflation). Of the 57 universities that had the same vice-chancellor in place throughout the five-year period, eight saw their pay go up by more than a third in cash terms, while three of those saw overall remuneration rise more than half in cash terms. – Sally Weale, The Guardian. Read more

The Canadian province of Ontario is set to establish its first French language university, the provincial government has announced. The university, which is scheduled to open in Toronto in 2020, will expand the availability of French post-secondary education for both French-speaking Canadians and international students in the province. “Francophone culture and the French language have always been essential to Ontario’s identity and prosperity,” said Marie-France Lalonde, Minister of Francophone Affairs, in a statement. “The creation of a new French-language university, governed by and for Francophones, is a critical milestone for Franco-Ontarians and future generations.” – Natalie Marsh, The Pie News. Read more

The young generation in Germany has an optimistic view of the future and young people are prepared to work hard and are motivated to achieve.  At the same time, they are quite critical of the lack of preparation for the working world. The majority of young people are not happy with education policy and the school curriculum.  They criticise the lack of career orientation and the lack of equal opportunities in education and training. This is the result of the McDonald’s Ausbildungsstudie 2017 (McDonald’s Vocational Training Study), carried out by the Institut für Demoskopie Allensbach. The institute surveyed young people between the ages of 15 and 24. Klaus Hurrelmann, Professor of Public Health and Education at the Hertie School of Governance, an academic advisor on the study, says: “Young people clearly feel overwhelmed. The traditional commitment to a career as a life-long project, which made sense for their parents, is practically impossible for them. Because conditions can change at any time, they try to stay open to a variety of career paths and subject matter.”– Klaus Hurrelmann, Hertie School of Governance. Read more