Ban on festivities The Modern College of Northwest University in Xi’an, in China’s Shaanxi province, recently made news for banning Christmas celebrations within its campus. Instead of celebrations, the college made its students watch patriotic videos and films for three hours. And following the stampede in Shanghai on New Year’s Eve, which left 36 dead and 40 injured, the college management has said that its ban was “utterly correct,” in an article in the college newspaper. This triggered wide criticism in the country and on social media, following which the article was removed from the college website.
Students to get refund After being accused of employing unqualified instructors to teach its medical assistant courses in two campuses, Kaplan Higher Education has finally agreed to pay about $1.3 million to settle the lawsuit. The organisation, based in San Antonio, U.S., offers a variety of degree and diploma programmes, including a medical assistant diploma programme that looks at training students for the healthcare field. For this, the colleges are supposed to employ instructors and a probe into their credentials led to the accusation. Kaplan, while denying this claim, decided to refund money to students taught by two instructors between 2008 and 2013.
Occupy the bookstore On an average, a student spends up to $1,200 on textbooks every year during college. To beat this cost, entrepreneurs Peter Frank and Ben Halpern recently came up with a Google Chrome plug-in called Occupy the Bookstore, which allows students to compare the prices of books directly on the websites. This means they can see how much a book costs on other sites before having to make a purchase decision. The plug-in even has details of other editions, new or used, which could save money. Their goal is to help bring some transparency to the textbook market and decrease the amount that students have to spend on books.
Compiled by Anusha Parthasarathy
