Regional

EQUIS Accredits Three New Schools

In June, the Lancaster Business School (UK), ESSEC Business School (France) and Universidad de Los Andes Facultad de Administracion (Colombia) were awarded the EQUIS label. EQUIS is the quality assurance scheme run by the European Foundation for Management Development. In March, two new schools in the United Kingdom and Asia – Manchester Business School and the Asian Institute of Management (Philippines) – also gained the EQUIS label. There are now 64 EQUIS-accredited schools located in 22 countries. On the same day in March, three schools were re-accredited with the EQUIS quality label: Bocconi University School of Management, SDA Bocconi (Italy); ESADE (Spain); and HEC School of Management (France).

— EQUIS Media Release
June 30, 2003

Austria

Private Medical University Opens

Fall semester 2003 saw the opening of Austria’s first, and Europe’s second, private medical university. The school in Salzburg is offering training that is “rapid, intensive and practical” over five years, a radical departure from those offered by public schools of medicine often criticized for the length of their studies (seven to eight years) and for being overly theoretical.

Classes at Privtaen Madizinischen Universität (PMU) will be restricted to seven students per class. At the end of the first year, students will be required to follow a practical internship with one of the city’s clinics. Tuition is 8,000 euros a year. Much of the student body will come from Germany, with the first year’s intake of 42 students comprising 20 percent Germans.

— Die Süddeutsche Zeitung
May 20, 2003

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Education Integrated

On Sept. 1, pupils and students in Bosnia-Herzegovina began a new school year. In contrast with recent years, their schools will now be part of a single unified system — at least in theory. Education officials of the Croat-Muslim federation, the Republika Srpska, the cantonal governments and the Brcko district government signed an Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)-sponsored agreement in Sarajevo on Aug. 8 to replace the three ethnically based education systems with a unified one.

Until now–in some mixed Muslim and Croat areas, in particular–separate, parallel systems existed in one and the same school building. Under the reform, 52 mixed Croat and Muslim schools will now operate from the same budget and presumably share administrations and facilities. The necessary reform legislation is supposed to be passed within six months by the parliament of the Republika Srpska and by the legislatures of each canton in the Muslim-Croat federation, but it is clear that there will be numerous attempts at foot-dragging on that front, too.

The reforms, moreover, also envision an eventual transition from three distinct curricula and sets of schoolbooks to a single one. As it stands, three different systems are in use, with the Croatian and Serbian ones taken essentially from the education ministries of Croatia and Serbia, respectively. In literature, history and the social sciences, nationalist views are predominant in all three sets of textbooks. Children in the Republika Srpska learn that “our country is Serbia,” for example, and each system presents its own interpretation of recent history that is in stark contrast with that of the other two.

— RFE/RL
Aug. 29, 2003

France

Debate Sought in Higher Education Overhaul

France’s university presidents want a public debate on the future of higher education while they await the first major shakeup of the system in nearly 20 years. Reforms introduced by Education Minister Luc Ferry, which are backed by the Conference of University Professors (CPU), give universities more autonomy and establish a degree structure based on the two-tier principles of the European Higher Education Area.

The reform package should have gone to Parliament earlier this year, but it was postponed because of public-sector strikes. Mr. Ferry hopes to present the legislation in June. CPU members expect the reforms will “evolve to give them the means to deal with the new socioeconomic situation and the challenges of opening to Europe.”

— The Times Higher Education Supplement
Sept. 26, 2003

Italy

Europe’s Largest University Embroiled in ‘Degrees for Cash’ Scandal

A series of dawn raids in July resulted in the house arrest of 18 people – including students, faculty and administrators – in and around Rome as police continued an investigation into what they say is a huge degree-trading racket at Rome’s La Sapienza University, Europe’s largest with 144,000 undergraduate students.

According to police officers, students paid bribes of up to US$3,400 to receive oral-exam questions in advance from the faculty member who would test them. There is also evidence of straightforward forgery, as the raids uncovered, among other things, a rubber stamp that appeared to have been used to falsify certificates. There is abundant evidence to suggest that higher education in Italy is riddled with corruption. In the past 15 years, there have been exam-rigging scandals in the universities of Venice, Naples, Pescara and Messina.

— The Guardian
July 19, 2003

Study: Italian Graduates Flocking Overseas

The emigration of Italian college graduates to foreign countries is reaching alarming levels and could have “dire consequences” for the country’s economy, according to a recent study.

New data show the percentage of college graduates leaving Italy quadrupled between 1990 and 1999. The number of new college graduates moving abroad rose from less than 1 percent at the beginning of the decade to 4 percent at the end of the 1990s. Italy also has one of the lowest percentages of foreign graduates working in its economy; the United Kingdom (U.K.) has the highest, according to a paper to be published by the European Association of Labour Economists.

The economists argue Italy is out of step with other large European Union countries. Germany, France and the U.K. have more foreign graduates in their countries than national graduates working abroad, while in Spain the balance is roughly equal. However, in Italy, 2.3 percent of all graduates work abroad but only 0.3 percent of the graduate work force is foreign.

— The Guardian
Sept. 26, 2003

Macedonia

Brain Drain and Corruption in Higher Education

Weeks after the government announced in July that the ethnic Albanian University of Tetovo is to be legalized, (see July/August issue WENR) a survey sponsored by the Macedonian Open Society Institute created wide-ranging discussions in the media on two problems facing the Macedonian higher-education system: the brain drain and corruption. Although the emigration of highly educated citizens on the one hand and corruption in the universities on the other are not directly related, both have come into public consciousness as issues that need addressing in any reform of the education system.

According to the study, some 15,000 Macedonian citizens with a higher education have chosen to live abroad rather than stay at home. The most commonly cited reasons are basically the same as in other transition countries – high unemployment and lack of prospects. Of some 13,500 unemployed persons with a higher education, about 43 percent have been without a job for more than four years. Young university graduates also lack career opportunities because the government has imposed a hiring freeze on the universities.

Corruption in the universities occurs during enrollment and at exam time, according to the report. About one-third of the students believe that they can enhance their admissions chances by paying some sort of “extra fee.” However, the study suggests that this varies from institution to institution. Students’ trust in the academic staff of the newly founded South East European University in Tetovo (see May/June issue WENR) is considerably higher than in the state-run universities. In a commentary from the July 12 issue of the Daily Dnevnik, it is argued that the problem of the universities is linked to the nepotism that is deeply rooted in Macedonian society and that it is doubtful that a political or quick solution is possible. Any reform will most likely end up as previous efforts have states the editorial: “A small purge, with a lot of dust raised on the surface–and that was all!”

— RFE/RL
July 18, 2003

Slovakia

Parliament OKs Hungarian University

Slovak lawmakers approved in October a government-backed plan to launch Janos Seley University, a Hungarian university in the southern Slovak town of Komaro (see June/July 2003 issue WENR). The establishment of the university was a demand of the Hungarian Coalition Party, which views its establishment as a step toward narrowing the current divide between educational opportunities for the Slovak majority and the Hungarian minority. The law establishing the university goes into effect Jan. 1; the first 300 students should be able to enroll for the fall 2004 term.

— Slovensko
Oct. 24, 2003

The United Kingdom

China Takes Up Position As Largest Source Market

China has overtaken Ireland as the No. 1 source market for foreign students at British universities and colleges. The number of Chinese students applying to institutions of higher education in Britain soared this year by 36 percent to 7,903 from 5,802 last year, according to statistics from the Universities and Colleges Administrations Services (UCAS).

Behind the Chinese, the Irish are the second-largest group of foreign students at 5,943, followed by Nigeria at 2,912 and Hong Kong at 2,901. Apart from the big rise in Chinese students, there were also a record number of applicants from India, rising 16 percent to 1,967. The total number of foreign students who applied to British institutions is up by 10.9 percent to a total of 59,172.

These figures are good news for universities, who have been working hard to attract overseas students, and for the government, which has invested a lot of money in promoting British education abroad. The National Union of students also welcomed the news, but expressed concern that overseas students will be deterred from applying to U.K. institutions after the Home Office’s introduction of a visa charge for foreign nationals in the United Kingdom. Since Aug. 1, all foreign nationals are being charged for visa renewal and settlement. Postal application costs £155, or £250 for a premium service.

— Universities and Colleges Administrations Services
July 18, 2003

City & Guilds Goes Global in a Big Way

The City & Guilds qualification in 2003 is a far reach from its days qualifying spotty 17-year-olds in white aprons at local further-education colleges around Britain. Today, the City & Guilds organization is more sophisticated and has a reach that spans the globe. City & Guilds is exporting its expertise by operating or supervising learning and training centers in more than 100 countries.

A recent development illustrating the trend is the signing of an agreement that will lead City & Guilds to help the Sri Lankan government strengthen its vocational and technical education framework. Students in Sri Lanka will be able to study for the City & Guilds international vocational qualifications at colleges and training centers across the country. The investment will be paid back in the coming years when the 60,000 students in Sri Lanka in vocational courses pay the fees to take the theoretical and practical exams and receive the qualifications. These fees range from approximately £80 for the certificate to £160 for the advanced diploma.

The recent opening of a new City & Guilds branch office in Shanghai highlights the determination to establish a base in the biggest as yet-untapped market in the world. The British awarding body is the only foreign organization accredited by the Chinese government. Other footholds in the overseas market for the vocational qualification are represented by branch offices in Delhi, Johannesburg, Nairobi, Budapest, Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong. This year, City & Guilds awarded 1.2 million qualifications in more than 500 subjects across the industrial landscape. City & Guilds has also embraced the e-learning culture with its online studying option, “e-quals,” which enables students anywhere to learn and be assessed from home. E-quals is currently confined to qualifications in computer-related disciplines.

— Campus Review
July 9-15, 2003

Institutional Mergers, Department Closures, New Names

The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) is launching a joint venture with the U.S. business school Fuqua at Duke University to develop corporate management education programs. The move means LSE now has a portfolio of degree and non-degree management courses, in effect making it a business school via the back door.

Durham University is closing two departments – East Asian studies, linguistics and European studies – to create more places in other subjects in what is seen as the start of a nationwide process that will undermine choice and diversity to attract more government money. The department of Middle Eastern and Islamic studies will lose its undergraduate teaching and become a postgraduate institute. Many leading universities are planning to bolster their strongest departments after being urged by the government to concentrate on becoming world-class research institutions.

Three Scottish universities and six French universities have signed an agreement to set up joint Ph.D. programs. Edinburgh, Glasgow and St. Andrews Universities will develop joint research doctorates with universities in Paris, Grenoble, Tours and Provence.

A name has been chosen for the new “mega-university” that will result from the merger of the University of Manchester and the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (see March/April issue WENR). After much head scratching and deliberation, the new institution will open in September 2004 under the name… “University of Manchester.”

A-Level Alternatives Gaining Popularity

Some of the most prestigious schools in the country are turning to the International Baccalaureate (IB), complaining that A-level examinations no longer differentiate an outstanding candidate from a good one and that it bogs down students with unnecessary exams. On top of the IB trend, thousands of A-level students will next year be asked to take a version of the U.S. Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) in a major trial following complaints from university admissions officers that, again, the A-level no longer distinguishes the brightest candidates for them.

The publication of A-level results in August saw a fresh round of complaints that the exam has become too “easy.” Top universities have long complained that the exam no longer discriminates between top-performing students. Forty-nine mainly private secondary schools now offer the IB qualification, which involves a range of compulsory subjects, according to the International Baccalaureate Organization, the Geneva-based body that runs the exam. Thousands of students now achieve three or four A grades at A-Level. In the baccalaureate, by contrast, only two percent achieve the top mark. Supporters of the SAT system argue that the test is a better indicator of academic ability than A-level results, which often reflect the quality of the teaching at schools attended.

— The Independent
Aug. 17, 2003

Course Cuts a Sign of the Times?

The University of Kent at Canterbury (UKC) has dropped the teaching of medieval history and is closing an associated academic center to cut costs, prompting a wave of national protests from appalled historians.

Several leading universities are planning to channel their resources into fewer departments. Durham University was among the first to do so with the closure of its East Asian studies department, and the trend continues at UKC.

The universities say the government is urging them to concentrate on the things they do best, and they are being rewarded for doing so by the way research funding is awarded. This year, government research funding was cut for departments with a rating of 3 or 4 and increased for those rated 5*, the top of the scale.

Lecturers and students opposed to the closures say choice and diversity are being undermined because highly qualified students aiming for the leading universities will increasingly be limited to mainstream subjects as a result. Meanwhile, Canterbury loses the Center for Medieval and Tudor Studies and, with it, research and interest in a subject central to a city that boasts the oldest cathedral in England. That cathedral inspired Geoffrey Chaucer to write “The Canterbury Tales,” long credited as the first novel written in modern English.

— The Guardian
Sept. 26, 2003