HE News Brief 1.9.10
Here are this week’s news stories:
- University rankings hits its zenith in autumn, with different league tables pronouncing their take on a world-class university. The Chronicle of Higher Education has devised a nifty chart to compare Rankings and sheds a bit of light on which indicators are predominantly used, and which ones are ignored.
Full Story: Chronicle of Higher Education
- In a shocking directive, the Ethiopian Ministry of Education decreed that there is to be a ban on distance learning programmes across the country. Stating that distance learning is unnecessary at this point in the country’s higher educational development, the Ministry also said that quality assurance is a major priority. This will have a drastic effect on the estimated 64 private institutions in the country, as well as vocational education. Critics argue that this directive goes too far and does not offer solutions to the current problems facing higher education. Others are worried about the impact on current students – St Mary’s University College for example currently enrolls 75% of its students in distance learning courses.
Full Story: Addis Fortune - A pact between China and India, which is a reciprocal recognition of degrees, is due to be signed soon. An estimated 7,000 Indian students are studying in China. In another announcement, China also announced plans to increase foreign student enrolment to 10% by 2020. In what many perceive to be a move on China’s part to enhance its influence abroad, figures show that 52,000 foreign students studied in China in 2000 and in 2009, this figure jumped to 240,000 foreign students. It was also revealed recently that China has overtaken Japan as the world’s second largest economy.
Full Story: Hindustan Times
More: The Hindu - There has been rumbles recently that Dubai must do more to regulate the estimated 50 foreign universities who operate in free zones, which are exempt from federal control. According to this report, all four free zones are regulated by different authorities which makes local degree recognition a challenge. In addition, in the United Arab Emirates, there is no single regulatory system to assess higher education, rather there is the University Quality Assurance International Board (UQAIB) and the Commission for Academic Accreditation (CAA). Critics say that a single regulatory body is essential to eliminate red tape.
Full Story: The National
- The Kenyan government has announced that 592 technical and vocational education training institutes risk closure if they do not comply with registration requirements in 21 days. Higher Education Minister William Ruto said that “unscrupulous businessmen” are establishing colleges that are suspect and that enforcement is essential to ensure that they are legitimate. Kenya has established ambitious goals for developing a middle-income economy in their Vision 2030 initiative.
Full Story: Capital News
- The Korean Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology has announced that it will name the country’s 50 poor quality universities in order to cap their student loan credit. Measuring employment rate, financial stability, curriculum and number of full-time staff and students, the Ministry hopes to improve the quality of education by rating universities using a simple A,B,C classification system. The amount a university can borrow from the student loan service program is tied directly to how they perform within these classifications.
Full Story: JoongAng Daily
- Mexico’s under-secretary for Higher Education Rodolfo Tuiran revealed to the Chronicle that it is their goal to increase the gross enrollment rate by as much as 36% by 2030. Stating that education is the key to fix society’s ails and to reduce violence, Tuiran says that the rigidity of the current HE system, financial problems, and the lack of a single integrated HE system are the three main problems facing the Mexican HE at the moment.
Full Story: The Chronicle of Higher Education
HE News Brief 24.8.10
Here are this week’s news stories:
- The glare on UK universities continue to mount as it was announced that over 150,000 potential students will not get a place at a university. Last year 130,000 would-be students were also disappointed. It seems as though, although worsening, this trend is not new. An article in the FT espouses the need for universities to be autonomous, as Whitehall still dictates the number of students who can study a specific subject at an institution.
Full Story: FT
More: Guardian
- Asian countries, as oppose to their European and American peers, have well documented problems retaining the talents of young academics who often study abroad and take up residence in their host country. However there is hope that young and bright Indian professors will take a salary cut and return to their motherland. New opportunities in India as well as a chance to contribute to building their country’s higher education institutions, is a lure as western nations’ economic instability is making finding a job abroad a lot less likely. It is estimated that by 2020, 42 million 18-24 year olds will be competing for a place at a university and a 4.2 million lecturers will be needed to supply this demand.
Full Story: University World News
- Measuring student satisfaction has always been difficult but at the Inner Mongolia University of Science and Technology they are administering a student survey in the hope of discovering what students are thinking. In collaboration with Indiana University’s National Survey of Student Engagement and with the backing of Tsinghua University, they are joining 49 institutions this year who will look at results in order to drive up students quality of life and teaching standards.
Full Story: The Chronicle of Higher Education
- A diplomatic spat between Saudi Arabia and Australia erupted when a letter was leaked that Saudi Cultural attaché Ali Mohammed Al-Bishri said that scholarships for students should be limited only to those who went to the Group of Eight of Australian universities which are deemed top notched. In addition, the letter also said that “his highness states that he is worried about the low-level of these universities.” In further developments, the Saudi Ministry of Higher Education announced that they will limit the amount of scholarships to study abroad students to numerous countries including the United States, Britain, Egypt, Australia, and Canada.
Full Story: The Australian
More: Arab News
- Further reaction to the recent publication of the Academic Ranking of World University where only three African universities made the top 500 and the Webometrics ranking has reached Kenya. Lamenting the poor performance of Kenyan universities, institutions are urged to be more competitive on the global stage. Higher education enrollment is increasing in Kenya with the number of government-sponsored students attending public universities up by 4000 to 24,300 this year.
Full Story: Business Daily Africa
HE News Brief 17.08.10
Here are this week’s news stories:
- Shanghai Jiaotong just published its 2010 Academic Ranking of World Universities and it is causing a bit of a splash. Using the number of professors and alumni who have Nobel prizes and Fields medals as indicators as well as other criteria, the ARWU, according to this report, has Education Ministers from Europe visiting China in the hopes of discussing the rankings. The results has Harvard topping the league table with Stanford following on their heels.
Full Story: AFP
- Russian higher education institutions are lamenting the fact that they are severely lagging behind their North American and European counterparts in terms of research and the number of international students. Government officials say that they need to double the amount of educational spending to 24 million dollars in order to compete on the world stage. According to UNESCO, only 3% of the world’s international students study in Russia whereas 20% (in 2007) studied in the US. Officials also say that language barriers also accounts for the lack of Russian-produced research papers one can find in Scopus.
Full Story: University World News
- Higher education debt in the UK, according to a new report, is reaching £25,000 with an average yearly debt raising 5.4% to £5,600. In Scotland, costs are sufficiently lower, topping £10,000 in total. In response to this report, Higher Education Minister David Willetts reiterated that the government believes in social mobility and that there is indeed a need for people who benefited from a university degree, to contribute fairly to pay for their education.
Full Story: eGov
- Part of their plan to focus on building reputable higher educational institutions, the Higher Education Council in Saudi Arabia has made several recommendations that will be taken up by the government. A number of distance learning educational courses will be evaluated in universities such as King Abdulaziz University, and a new research and consultancy centre will be established at Taif University.
Full Story: Arab News
- Maastricht University in the Netherlands is hoping to attract some of the reported 170,000 UK students who will not be accepted to a university this year. By offering courses like European studies, law, life sciences, economics, and public health in English, Maastricht is hoping to lure students. They also say that tuition costs will be half the price of a degree in the UK and the Dutch university is only three hours away by train.
Full Story: Times Higher Education
The French universities revolution is en route
Making French universities more attractive?
Last December, French President, Nicolas Sarkozy announced that a €35 billion national loan will prioritise higher education and training. At the press conference he expressed the desire to produce the best universities in the world. In order to achieve his objective, he decided to inject €7.7 billion for a project of creating between 5 and 10 initiatives d’excellence, elite campuses in order to compete with the best world universities. These campuses will be linked with their economic environment, allowing a better cooperation between Grandes Ecoles and universities as well as research institutions to contribute to the economic integration of their surroundings. They will also be targeting stellar professors, researchers and students.
For a decade, the higher education environment has been changing in France. In order to be more competitive in the international market, more and more schools are merging such as between the two Grandes Ecoles ESC Lille and Ceram Business School into SKEMA Business School in 2009 or ESCP Europe born from the École Supérieure de Commerce de Paris and the EAP (Ecole Européenne des Affaires) merger in 2000. Networks or alliances are also flourishing, such as the creation of Paristech in 2007, a centre of excellence gathering 12 prestigious Parisian Grandes Ecoles.
In 2007, the government implemented the project of giving more autonomy to public universities. The goal is that by 2012, all French universities will be autonomous in terms of human resources and budget management.
Public universities have been granted a yearly budget of €1 billion whilst other European countries are cutting education budgets.
Can maintaining the prestige and high cost of selective Grandes Ecoles be compatible with the goal of allowing 30% students from poorer backgrounds to register?
On the one hand, Sarkozy would like to offer as much as 30% of Grandes Ecoles places to students from poorer backgrounds. These expensive elite schools have a better reputation among employers than public universities as their examination entrance comes after 2 years of selective and intense studies – classes prépa (preparatory classes). Public French universities are nearly free and access is entitled to any French student that passed the baccalaureate.
On the other hand, a major concern raised among the Conférence des Grandes Ecoles CGE (a gathering of 220 Grandes Ecoles) that imposing a 30% admission quota for poorer students will diminish the entrance levels and therefore decrease the selectivity and reputation of the diploma they deliver.
Since those exchanges a few months ago, Mrs Valerie Pecresse, Minister for Higher Education and Research affirmed that entrance quotas will not be established at Grandes Ecoles. However, it still remains an objective of the government.
To help achieve the aim to allow 30% of students from poorer background to access Grandes Ecoles, Mrs Pecresse announced the opening by 2011 of 100 new preparatory classes – the majority intended to welcome disadvantaged students.
http://www.ambafrance-uk.org/President-Sarkozy-on-national-loan.html
http://chronicle.com/article/Frances-Latest-Revolution/65785/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/14/spending-boost-for-french-universities
http://www.educpros.fr/detail-article/h/5910195f0d/a/30-de-boursiers-dans-les-grandes-ecoles-valerie-pecresse-fixe-la-feuille-de-route.html
HE News Brief 10.08.10
Here are this week’s news stories:
- Scotland is opening satellite campuses in Hong Kong, Dubai, and Bangladesh. As the UK is facing a higher education squeeze, Scottish universities are doing what many of their peers are already doing, diving into the very lucrative international market. However Ruth Moir, Head of International Development, says that this move was not provoked by the recession but rather providing quality higher education is the main goal. As well as establishing a nursing college in India, there are plans to also set up a biofuel research centre in Hong Kong.
Full Story: Guardian
- He is considered a brilliant entrepreneur in some circles. Others just consider his empire the villain in the open source debate. Whether you hate him or love him, you can’t deny that Bill Gates is an influential man with more money than he knows to do with. So, when he proclaims that traditional higher education will be replaced by the web in five years, some will sit up and listen. Speaking at the Techonomy 2010 conference recently, Gates said high tuition costs and the accessibility of the internet will change the higher education landscape. These remarks come as the University of California, Berkeley plans to expand its online arm.
Full Story: Tech Radar UK
- The Mexican government will be offering online degree programs for citizens who live abroad, aiming particularly at the United States, which has recently implemented extremely strict immigration controls, particularly in Arizona. Currently there are more than six million illegal Mexican immigrants in the States. The Education Secretariat, with help of an online program already in place by the Colombia government, will be offering courses in tourism, business administration and environmental technology. However, some critics say that Mexican universities have extremely low records of admissions and that more work needs to be done at home.
Full Story: The Chronicle of Higher Education
- Korean legislation established in 1996, calling for the deregulation of universities which will allow them to set up overseas campuses, is due to come into effect in January. The Ministry of Education is waiting for the National Assembly to pass the law revision which will allow for more autonomy which will help domestic universities set up branches, institutes and academies.
Full Story: Korean Times
- In war-torn Somalia, obtaining a degree is a luxury beyond imagination. But in Kismayo, 27 recent graduates have done the impossible, obtained affordable higher education, receiving degrees in education and business administration. The fees ranged from 15 to 30 dollars per month. For a country toppled by war, where schools have been converted to makeshift homes, this is lauded as a major success, helping to give youths a better option than picking up a gun.
Full Story: AlertNet
HE News Brief 2.08.10
Here are this week’s news stories:
- More than five years after the Labour government made studying languages optional after the age of 14, the new Coalition government is looking to plug the hole in the second language gap by offering undergraduates and postgraduates up to two years studying abroad. Universities Minister David Willetts says that developing cooperation with countries like India, where a reported 40,000 Indian students study in the UK whereas only 500 UK students travel to India for academic studies, would make students more competitive in the diversifying job market.
Full Story: Telegraph
- As Britain has just approved its second private university recently, the U.S is delving deeper into its disillusionment of for-profit universities like the behemoth University of Phoenix which takes an astonishing 1 billion of government money this year in the form of grants. This op-ed argues that for-profits like the American Public University (who will be teaching Wal-Mart employees) and Kaplan University are here to stay as long as the accreditation process and the impotence of legislators continue to dominate the educational landscape. These issues no doubt will come to a head as President Obama is set to launch his highly anticipated “Race to the Top” educational programmes.
Full Story: Chronicle of Higher Education
More: New York Times
- Recently vice chancellors and rectors from 17 African countries spoke at a leadership seminar about the obstacles facing African universities. It was revealed, according to UNESCO, that only 10% of young people in Africa participate in higher education. Many complex issues plague these universities such as lack of infrastructure, inadequate teaching staff, and the fact that governments control institutions to such a degree that it leaves local leadership without the power to harness meaningful change.
Full Story: Inside Higher Ed
- Back in June, the second International Meeting of Universia Presidents culminated in the Guadalajara Declaration, which calls for cooperation on several higher education initiatives including promoting student mobility, enacting quality assurance, and ensuring knowledge transfer. The 24 Ibero-American countries which includes Brazil, Mexico, Chile, and Cuba which are seeking to combine efforts in the next ten years is bankrolled by Santander Bank who is investing 600 million euros in the initiative.
Full Story: University World News
- Centenary College in the United States has pulled the plug on a MBA programme in China, claiming rampant plagiarism of 400 students who are currently enrolled. Academic misconduct in China has been widely covered in recent months but it is unusual for a foreign institution, which traditionally rakes in money by offering these satellite programmes, to make such a dramatic move.
Full Story: USA Today
More: The Economist
The Bologna Process: Trends 2010 – A decade of change in European Higher Education
The Bologna Process is pressing on with its agenda of enhanced student mobility, standardisation of degrees and credit transfer, as well as quality assurance in order to promote institutional competition amongst its 46 participating countries. But as new countries contemplate membership, it is important to evaluate what the last ten years have achieved under this ambitious implementation programme.
The European University Association recently published Trends 2010 which examines a decade of higher education in the context of Bologna and outlines their goal for the future. Here are a few highlights, taken directly from the 100 –page report.
Overview
- Overall participation rates in higher education have increased by 25% on average between 1998 and 2006 – or as in Poland where enrolment increased by 90% during this period – albeit with significant differences across countries and across disciplines, with science and technology fields losing their attractiveness. (18)
- A recent study revealed that the number of 10-14 year olds in the EU is expected to fall by 15% between 2000 and 2020, resulting in a drastic reduction of the school-going population (Eurydice 2009), with a potential domino effect on higher education. The professoriate in higher education is greying and the ‘baby boom’ generation is going into retirement. Because these trends are uneven within a country (causing rural brain drain in some) and across Europe, they may lead to an exacerbated ‘brain war’ for students and academic staff, within Europe, at a time when the global competition for talents is heating up and international ranking schemes are proliferating and forcing institutional leaders to rethink their positioning within the global higher education community (19).
- The concept of academic freedom is changing – some say eroding – because academics are pressured to be successful in seeking funding for their research to match the research strategies and priorities of their institutions (22)
Implementation – Degree Structure –implementation of the three-cycle system which commences with the Bachelor’s
- A large majority of institutions have implemented the new Bologna degree structure: from 53% of institutions in 2003 to 95% in 2010. In some cases, however, the change has not led to meaningful curricular renewal, but rather to compressed Bachelor degrees that leave little flexibility for students (7).
- There is also concern in some countries, such as Austria, Germany and Portugal, which have reduced the duration of their Bachelor degrees to three years, that this is making it difficult to include periods of mobility or internships and to achieve student engagement (40).
- Several site visit reports suggest that institutions, academics and students in some countries are far from convinced of the value of the Bologna first cycle and of its acceptance by employers (40).
- Assuming no change on this front, the Bachelor is likely to remain relatively disregarded by the labour market until such time as its place in national qualifications frameworks becomes established (43).
Looking beyond 2010
- Quality Assurance – Identified as the most pressing development that will most affect higher education institutions in 5 years’ time (90)…many quality procedures are in place, often managed at faculty rather than at institutional level. As a result, there is wider ownership of quality processes and the concept of quality culture is reaching down but there is not always a clear feedback loop to the institution’s strategic orientation (87).
- Internationalisation has been identified by HEIs as the third, most important change driver in the past three years and is expected to move to first place within the next five years (8).
- For the past three years, the change agenda has shifted to the more complex, less quantifiable issues of cultural change and embedding the structural changes and individual Bologna tools in institutions. At the same time, given the rapid transformation of higher education in many countries, issues of institutional governance, leadership and strategic development have grown in importance. Thus, when institutions are asked which developments will most affect them in five years’ time, only 15% mention the Bologna Process (90).
HE News Brief 27.07.10
From President Sarkozy’s higher education revolution to the second for-profit university in the UK in the last 30 years – here are this week’s news stories:
- As governments around the world are cutting funding for higher education, French President Nicolas Sarkozy is bucking the trend and investing 1 billion euros into the sector. Under the new scheme, Sarkozy wants to revolutionalise the fledgling university system and make the les grandes ecoles, or elite schools, more accessible to poorer students. In addition, Business schools have started to merge, instigating criticism about how these schools and universities will be managed and made competitive.
Full Story: FT
- Pearson, which owns the Financial Times and Penguin books, is dipping their hands in the Brazilian higher education market. Having acquired Sistema Educacional Brasileiro learning systems business for 326 million pounds, Pearson is looking to cash in on the reported 2 billion valued educational materials market. With a romping 25% of Brazil’s 192 million people under the age of 14, Pearson expects to recover the invested capital by 2012.
Full Story: Wall Street Journal
- According to this article, the Chinese government are hopeful that Chinese scholars who have obtained a degree abroad, will return to the Motherland once they finish their education. 1.62 million Chinese pursued their graduate studies abroad between 1978 to 2009 and only 460,000 have decided to come back to China.
Full Story: AFP
- In accordance with South Africa’s 2001 National Plan for Higher Education, Stellenbosch University is next in line to implement a strategic plan. Vice-Chancellor Russel Botman seeks to target poverty by focusing on science and research in order to help the community.
Full Story: AllAfrica
- Conservative Minister for Higher Education David Willetts announced that the second for-profit university college in 30 years will be opened in the UK. As a reported 82 million pounds will be slashed from university and college funding, it was also announced that tens of thousands of qualified students will not have a place this year.
Full Story: The Economist
HE News Brief 19.7.10
A shake-up of England’s Higher Education system and Australian anxiety over international students – here are this week’s news stories:
- News outlets have been furiously reporting Business Secretary Vince Cable’s announcement of a new vision for higher education. Cable is proposing to Lord Browne, who will be reviewing the state of higher education in the autumn, that a new graduate tax should replace the current system of government loans in order to subsidize higher education. Under this new system, graduates with higher paying jobs will make more graduate contributions. These proposals have been widely panned, some arguing that not only will Conservatives reject such a plan but that such an initiative will further hamper social mobility.
Full Story: BBC News
More: Guardian
- Angolan Minister of Higher Education Maria Cândida Teixeira announced that the country will be going through an aggressive review of their higher education institutions this year. Results of the audit will be published and institutions who perform poorly will be overhauled. Committing to this initiative with resources rather than mere rhetoric, Teixeira hired 42 new officials in order to achieve this target.
Full Story: Angola Press
- Higher Education Commission Officials in Islamabad have their heads spinning over an enormous audit of university-degree holders not only in government but also university faculty and staff members. In an embarrassing turn of events, it was exposed that parliamentarians fudged their credentials as the degree verification process is severely flawed.
Full Story: Daily Times
- In a move to build a knowledge based economy, Saudi Arabian Higher Education Minister Khaled Al-Anqari has established 200 research chairs in approximately 24 government universities. Chairs will focus on information technology, intellectual security, social responsibility, and contagious diseases. Saudi academics and researchers say this initiative will provide a much needed link between universities and social institutions.
Full Story: Arab News
- The Australian reports that our friends down under are anxious about their fledging “cash cows”, or international students, particularly competition from the U.S for Chinese students. The last year has been a difficult time for Australian higher education as new security concerns, stricter immigration policies, and the collapse of the private vocational market has left the country vulnerable. Now as the U.S plans to step up their recruitment of foreign students, many warn that Australia, which takes in 3.8 billion dollars from Chinese students each year, will take a step back from what has been a successful bid to become a top destination for foreign students.
Full Story: The Australian
HE News Brief 13.07.10
A gay-friendly university ratings and Abu Dhabi’s ambitious goals for 2018 – here are this week’s news stories:
- At the Saudi Arabia and Japan: A Dialogue for the Future Seminar held recently in Tokyo, the two nations heralded the need for further educational collaboration. According to the Saudi Ambassador to Japan Abdul Aziz Tukistani, Japan is the second largest trading partner of Saudi. Full Story: Arab News
- As a new fiscal year begins in the states, public colleges are experiencing a tough time as federal stimulus money dries up. Hawaii slashed their educational budget by 26%, and Florida has laid off 21 tenured and 34 tenure-track professors after $82 million was cut from their budget.
Full Story: USA Today
- Executive Director of Strategic Affairs Rafic Makki delivered Abu Dhabi’s Higher Education Strategic Plan recently. Under the Economic Vision 2030, the country plans to move away from oil based revenue and develop a research and knowledge-based workforce. The government plans to invest 1 billion dollars to accomplish this Vision with the goal of having two Abu Dhabi universities ranking on a global Top 100 by 2018.
Full Story: University World News
- Lobby Group Stonewall has published a new universities ratings guide which analyses gay-friendly universities. Measuring 125 institutions using 10 indicators, Stonewall rated marks for LGBT initiatives such as availability of counselling and a strong anti-harassment policy. Birmingham, Cambridge, and King’s College did extremely well, scoring nine out of the ten indicators while Huddersfield and Strathclyde poorly performed, with only two points.
Full Story: Guardian
