News in brief

Kuala Lumpur
Malaysian public university courses will be rated by a quality assurance agency to be established "as soon as possible", education minister Musa Mohamad has announced. The quality rating would be based on research, staff-to-student ratios, the ability to obtain funding and curriculum structure.

Santa Clara
A co-founder of the Intel Corporation and his wife have promised donations worth $600 million (£412 million) over ten years to the California Institute of Technology. Gordon and Betty Moore have pledged $300 million over five years to the university, while a nonprofit foundation they established will give $300 million over ten years.

Bujumbura
Hutu students have returned to to the national university in the capital of Burundi after the university authorities gave "concrete assurances" that the safety of their lives and property would be guaranteed. The Hutus fled the campus two months ago fearing reprisals from Tutsis.

Rome
A 54-year-old Italian from Castelli Romani who claims to be the world's most qualified graduate, with nine university degrees and four postgraduate diplomas, intends to read for a tenth degree at Umberto Eco's celebrated faculty of art, cinema, music and theatre at the University of Bologna.

Luciano Baietti, a colonel in the Italian Red Cross, holds degrees in a wide range of subjects including child psychology, letters, sociology, law and political sciences.