=== Higher Education ===
Contributors: catchthemes
Tags: one-column, two-columns, left-sidebar, right-sidebar, grid-layout, custom-background, custom-colors, custom-header, custom-menu, editor-style, featured-image-header, featured-images, flexible-header, front-page-post-form, post-formats, sticky-post, theme-options, threaded-comments, translation-ready, footer-widgets, blog, education, news
Requires at least: 5.9
Tested up to: 7.0
Requires PHP: 5.6
License: GNU General Public License v3 or later
License URI: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html

Higher Education is a simple, clean and user-friendly education WordPress theme especially designed for schools and academic institutions.

== Description ==

Higher Education is a simple, clean and user-friendly education WordPress theme especially designed for schools and academic institutions. The responsive layout and beautiful design make your website look welcoming. The theme provides your visitors an easy access to any area they like. The Higher Education WordPress theme has powerful theme customization options as well. It has a large roster of versatile features such as custom header media, logo, custom menu, social icons, featured slider, hero content, featured slider, promotion headline, portfolio, logo slider, courses, professors, testimonials, events, news, and more. With an array of crucial features filled in it, Higher Education is perfect for schools, universities, language classes, professional courses, and all the academic institutions. Make your website more engaging and informative with Higher Education. The theme gives the perfect niche that is dynamic, multifunctional and upfront. This theme is translation ready. For more details, check out Theme Instructions at https://catchthemes.com/theme-instructions/higher-education/, Support at https://catchthemes.com/support/ and Demo at https://catchthemes.com/demo/higher-education/

For more information about Higher Education  please go to https://catchthemes.com/themes/higher-education/

== Installation ==

1. In your admin panel, go to Appearance -> Themes and click the 'Add New' button.
2. Type in Higher Education in the search form and press the 'Enter' key on your keyboard.
3. Click on the 'Activate' button to use your new theme right away.
4. Go to https://catchthemes.com/theme-instructions/higher-education/ for a guide on how to customize this theme.
5. Navigate to Appearance -> Customize in your admin panel and customize to taste.

== Translation ==

Higher Education theme is translation ready.

== Getting Started ==

= Custom Menus =

Higher Education theme supports two custom menus that is primary and footer.
To create a custom menu, go to Appearance -> Menus in your dashboard.
For more about custom menu, check out https://catchthemes.com/blog/custom-menus-wordpress-themes/

= Featured Image =

This theme relies heavily on Featured Images. If your post/page is missing a Featured Image, the post image will not show up on homepage, on archived pages and on Featured Page Slider. For more about featured image, check out https://catchthemes.com/blog/videos-blog/video-series-adding-featured-image-wordpress-postpage/

If you are migrating your old site to this new them then you need to regenerate thumbnails. You can do that easily with this plugin: https://wordpress.org/plugins/regenerate-thumbnails/. This plugin allows you to regenerate your thumbnails after changing the thumbnail sizes, which occurs by switching from one theme to another.

= Featured Slider =

In Higher Education Free theme, there is only option to use Featured Page Slider, which is created to highlight your Page in the slider. But pro version has additional option to Featured Post Slider, Featured Category Slider and Featured Image Slider.

To add featured page slider,
1. Create a Page and then add Featured Image to the Page.
2. Go to "Appearance -> Customize -> Featured Slider Options" from your WordPress Dashboard
3. Under Featured Slider Type, you need to select "Featured Page Slider"
4. Then you can change the number of slides and select your pages in "Featured Page #"
4. Finally, click on "Save & Publish"

Note: You can also change Enable Slider, slider effects, delay and length under Featured Slider Settings.

= Logo Slider =

For best effect, make sure all the images are of same size on logo slider.

= Social Icons =

Higher Education has social icons for various social networking sites.
1. Go to "Appearance -> Customize -> Social Links" form your WordPress Dashboard
2. Add in your social profile links and click on "Save & Publish"

Note: By default social links will be added in Header Right Section. You can also add that in your sidebar from "Appearance -> Widgets"

Available icons:
* Bluesky
* Codepen
* Digg
* Dribbble
* Dropbox
* Facebook
* Flickr
* Foursquare
* GitHub
* Google+
* Instagram
* LinkedIn
* Email
* Pinterest
* Pocket
* PollDaddy
* Reddit
* RSS Feed
* Spotify
* StumbleUpon
* Threads
* Tiktok
* Tumblr
* Twitch
* Twitter
* Vimeo
* WordPress
* X-Twitter
* YouTube

Skype Link:
Skype link can have several formats which are documented below:
Username:
    skype:profile_name?action

    Examples of such actions are
    * call        to call
    * chat        to chat
    * voicemail   to leave a voice mail
    * sendfile    to send a file
    * add         to add to contacts
    * userinfo    to view profile

    E.g: skype:echo123?call
    This will initiate test call use skype usenarme echo123

Number:
    callto://+***********

    E.g: callto://+14044627491
    This will initiate Skype to call phone number 14044627491

== Changelog ==

= 2.4.2 (Released: June 11, 2026) =
* Updated: WordPress 7.0 ready

= 2.4.1 (Released: December 17, 2025) =
* Bug Fixed: Deprecated Function WP_Dependencies-add_data() warning after WordPress update 6.9
* Updated: WordPress 6.9 ready

= 2.4 (Released: June 04, 2025) =
* Added: Tiktok, Threads & Bluesky Icon
* Updated: Font Awesome 6.7.2
* Updated: WordPress 6.8 ready

= 2.3.3 (Released: October 04, 2023) =
* Bug Fixed: Header Media issue

= 2.3.2 (Released: October 03, 2023) =
* Added: Support for Header Enhancement and Pro plugin

= 2.3.1 (Released: October 03, 2023) =
* Bug Fixed: Header spacing issue in Mobile devices

= 2.3 (Released: October 02, 2023) =
* Bug Fixed: Header video issue without content
* Updated: Font Awesome to version 6.4.2
* Updated: Twitter icon
* Updated: WordPress 6.3 ready

= 2.2.1 (Released: August 17, 2022) =
* Updated: Google Font hosted locally (https://make.wordpress.org/themes/2022/06/18/complying-with-gdpr-when-using-google-fonts/)

= 2.2 (Released: February 15, 2022) =
* Updated: WordPress 5.9 ready

= 2.1.1 (Released: October 12, 2020) =
* Updated: WP 5.5 Compatibility
* Removed: Cycle slider shuffle not compatible with theme check so it has been removed

= 2.1 (Released: May 22, 2020) =
* Bug Fixed: Keyboard navigation accessibility issue
* Updated: Code Optimization
* Updated: readme.txt and style.css as per the new requirement

= 2.0.1 (Released: June 10, 2019) =
* Added: Support for wp_body_open action
* Bug Fixed: Comment reply visibility issue

= 2.0 (Released: January 24, 2019) =
* Added: Theme support for block styles
* Added: Theme support for editor styles
* Added: Theme support for full and wide align images
* Added: Theme support for responsive embeds
* Added: Theme support for custom editor font sizes
* Added: Theme support for custom color scheme
* Bug Fixed: Testimonial Typo corrected
* Updated: CSS Optimized
* Updated: Metabox UI
* Updated: Readme file as per new requirement

=  1.1 (Released: August 27, 2018) =
* Added: Core Privacy Policy link support in footer
* Bug Fixed: Header media pause/play icon
* Updated: Upgrade to pro button css
* Updated Content delivered through the_content filter

=  1.0 (Released: March 24, 2018) =
* Bug Fixed: RTL styling issue
* Bug Fixed: Break word issue
* Updated: Formatting style.css

= 0.5 (Released: March 21, 2018) =
* Bug Fixed: Escaping and translation issues
* Bug Fixed: Header social icons disabled if there are no social icons
* Bug Fixed: Reduced subject tags to three
* Bug Fixed: Function prefixing spelling mistakes
* Bug Fixed: Widget Title filter use
* Bug Fixed: Header Media image made visible even if there is no header text
* Bug Fixed: Design issue with Catch Infinite Scroll plugin
* Updated: Header Media text disabled by default

= 0.4 (Released: Feburary 09, 2018) =
* Bug Fixed: jQuery-ui dependency issue in metabox tabs
* Bug Fixed: Escaped get_template_directory_uri()

= 0.3 (Released: January 25, 2018) =
* Bug Fixed: Search box issue in iOS devices

= 0.2 (Released: November 23, 2017) =
* Bug Fixed: breadcrumb margin
* Bug Fixed: Feature slider button space issue
* Bug Fixed: pagination button hover issue
* Bug Fixed: Pagination type buttons under mobile view
* Bug Fixed: removed round corners from custom social icon
* Bug Fixed: Secondary menu border
* Bug Fixed: Social-icons in footer widget
* Bug Fixed: Infinite scroll button alignment
* Enhancement: Added has-secondary-menu class in body if secondary menu is activated
* Enhancement: Header element styling in mobile device
* Updated: JS compression
* Updated: textdomain and theme directory to higher-education

= 0.1 (Released: November 16, 2017) =
* Initial Release

== Copyright ==

Higher Education WordPress Theme, Copyright 2012-2026 Catchthemes.com
Higher Education is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License v3

== Resources ==

* Images used are released under the CC0 license

--- Header Image and Screenshot Image ---
https://www.pexels.com/photo/portrait-of-young-woman-against-white-background-325924/

All other images are self shot image by (CatchThemes.com)

* Font Awesome
    Font License
        Applies to all desktop and webfont files in the following directory: css/font-awesome/font/.
        License: SIL OFL 1.1
        URL: http://scripts.sil.org/OFL

    Code License
        Applies to all CSS and LESS files in the following directories: css/font-awesome/css/.
        License: MIT License
        URL: http://opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.html

* JS Files
    HTML5-Shiv is Licensed under the MIT and GPL licenses
    https://github.com/afarkas/html5shiv

    jQuery Cycle 2 is Licensed under the MIT and GPL licenses
    http://jquery.malsup.com/cycle2/

    fitvids is Licensed under the  WTFPL license
    http://fitvidsjs.com/

* PHP files
    WPTT_WebFont_Loader
    License https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT
    Source: https://github.com/WPTT/webfont-loader
