University Education

French President Emmanuel Macron is closing the elite French university École Nationale d'Administration, or Ena for short, as he announced on Thursday. The elite cadre school is to be replaced by the Institute of Public Service (ISP).

The aim of the reform is to make the French civil service "more efficient, more transparent and more benevolent", according to sources close to the president. In addition, more young people from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds are to be recruited for the civil service. The "social lift" works "less well today than it did 50 years ago", Macron had complained at the beginning of this year.

A report released by the Global Public Policy Institute(GPPi) highlights offensives on several fronts against Brazilian professors, researchers and institutions. The academic freedom to research and teaching, in an environment with didactic and scientific autonomy in public universities, is guaranteed by the Brazilian Constitution but is under threat in the country.

According to the document, the corrosion of academic freedom began to accelerate in the last electoral campaign, with the then-candidate Jair Bolsonaro disseminating aggressive rhetoric against universities, which according to the current president would be the focus of "leftist indoctrination".

The report states that "Top-down measures from the Brazilian government, administered through legal, institutional channels and combined with constant discursive attacks, have created an increasingly hostile environment for academics, who constitute a significant opposition group to the federal government."

59 U.S. universities are backing the lawsuit filed by Harvard and MIT against the Trump administration trying to block a directive that would force international students to return to their home countries if all of their classes and coursework were taken remotely.

After Harvard and MIT filed their lawsuit on Wednesday in a federal court in Boston, dozens of other universities, including Duke and Standford and five other Ivy League colleges, submitted a so-call amicus brief.

AnnaRose Rubright has graduated from Rowan University, New Jersey as the first person with down syndrome at the beginning of May after completing a four-year program in radio, television and film. Rubright stated that "most of my family members cried" and that "it was very emotional for me and a bit overwhelming". As the first oldest of six daughters, she felt the importance to show her sisters that she could accomplish her dreams. The director of the academic success center and disability resources at Rowan University, John Woodruff, has stated that the standards for people with disabilities at the university are not lower, but that the university provides accommodations the help.

Many Canadian universities, including the University of British Columbia and McGill University and Montreal, have announced that they will start offering courses online. However, it has also been said that labs and other activities requiring in-person attendance will be held in smaller groups.