I thought I would try to capture what I see as the three major developments in higher education during 2025, at least from a North American perspective. I then thought I would ask Chat-GPT the same question, and compare answers. I’ll start with my answer (which I wrote before consulting Chat-GPT).
I was tempted originally to start with the attack by the Trump administration on the autonomy of the higher education institutions in the USA, but really this is part of a wider trend among parts of the general population to distrust science and the ‘elites’ that run science.
It is therefore a wider problem than just the Trump administration, with examples from many populist movements in Europe and Latin America as well as the United States. Although less widespread in Canada, there are examples, such as the convoy in Ottawa protesting the restrictions during Covid-19, and a tendency by the current Alberta government to intervene for political reasons in health administration and the boards of some universities.
However, in Canada these examples are either prior to 2025 or isolated cases, although the widespread hesitation to vaccinate against measles this year is particularly worrying. (I had measles as a child before there was a vaccine, and it nearly killed me, and to this day I am deaf in one ear…
Source: Tony Bates - Online Learning — Read the full article on the original site ↗