Canada
EU & Canada Launch 11 Cooperation Projects
The European Commission and Canadian authorities launched 11 three-year cooperation projects in October under a new eight-year EU-Canada agreement in higher education, vocational training and youth. The programs are designed as a means of developing joint study programs and mobility schemes for 650 European and Canadian students and academic staff members. Both sides have invested the equivalent of US$2 million in the project.
The money will go towards funding collaborative programs between a minimum of two institutions from each side of the Atlantic, which will be underpinned by appropriate arrangements for mutual credit recognition, language and cultural preparation, and the necessary services and facilities.
This year’s project applications were reviewed by independent experts in Europe and Canada according to jointly established guidelines. In total, the 11 selected projects involve 30 European universities/training institutions from 15 EU member states and 31 Canadian universities/training institutions from nine provinces. Member states most represented in these consortia are France (five), the United Kingdom (four), and Germany as well as Ireland (three participating institutions each).
Since the inception of the program in 1995, some 280 European and Canadian institutions have participated in 42 joint projects. More than 3,000 students have so far spent a transatlantic study period in Europe or Canada.
– Europa [1]
October 3, 2007
University Group Urges Federal Government to do more to Help Internationalize the Canadian Campus
Canada has had great success in attracting foreign students to its universities and in encouraging domestic students to study abroad; however, a university group has urged the federal government to do more to help the individual efforts of universities in internationalizing their campuses.
According to 2006 figures from the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada [2] (AUCC), Canadian universities have nearly tripled their international enrollments in the last decade, and have tripled the number of domestic students participating in study abroad programs over the last six years, but the group says the onus of internationalization efforts has been entirely on universities with little if any help from Ottawa. In an update to its 2006 report, the AUCC states that “a lack of financial support for internationalization and a coordinated federal strategy continue to be the main obstacles to success.”
The report, released in September, updates a survey conducted last year of 64 of its 89 members, and finds that association members have increased spending on targeted scholarships for international graduate students and in-kind contributions to international development, and have made internationalization a priority. The AUCC says Canada needs to capitalize on the growing interest and investment on the part of its universities if it is to compete in the international student market. On recruitment, it warns that smaller countries such as New Zealand and the Czech Republic, or a larger emerging country such as South Korea, could soon surpass Canada.
– Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada [3]
September 13, 2007
Latin American Students Shun US in Favor of More Hospitable Australia
Internationally mobile Latin American students are traveling to Australia, rather than the U.S., in growing numbers because of U.S. politics and visa policies, according to a report released in October at an international-education conference in Australia.
Many students from Latin America “don’t want to go to the U.S. because they feel alienated by the [Bush] administration,” one of the report’s authors, Allison Doorbar of JWT Education, told The Australian newspaper.
Approximately 17,600 Latin American students are enrolled at Australian universities, vocational institutes, and English-language schools, up from 6,900 five years ago. Ms. Doorbar said she and a colleague had interviewed more than 100 of the students. Many, she said, asserted that they had avoided studying in the United States because they were afraid their visa applications would be rejected. They also said they perceived the country as racist.
– The Australian [4]
October 10, 2007
University of Phoenix Parent Group Announces International Assault
In the world of for-profit education, the Apollo Group [5] is known best as the parent company of the online higher education superstar, University of Phoenix [6], but not so much for its global ambitions. Other groups, such as Laureate Education [7] and Kaplan Education [8], have been dominating the for-profit internationalization headlines in recent years. All that is about to change, however. In October, Apollo announced that it will be teaming up with one of the country’s biggest private equity firms, the Carlyle Group, in spending $1 billion to expand abroad.
The new joint venture, Apollo Global, will replace the existing Apollo International. Apollo officials were somewhat vague on details at the announcement, but did suggest that Apollo Global would seek to capitalize on Apollo’s existing strengths — most of which are in higher education. The new venture will likely focus its international spending on the “attractive demographics” of Latin American and Asia. The former is where Apollo’s international investments to date have been focused, and Carlyle itself also owns an institution in Mexico, Universidad Latinoamericana [9].
– Apollo news release [10]
October 22, 2007
– Carlyle news release [11]
September 21, 2005
United States
Indian Business Student Enrollments Booming in the US and around the World
The number of Indians applying to U.S. business schools continues to grow; however, American business schools are enrolling a smaller percentage of students worldwide than previously.
The number of Indian students taking the Graduate Management Admissions Test [12] rose from 9,222 in 2005-6 to 13,324 one year later. And quality has stayed fairly consistent, and is even increasing: the mean GMAT scores for Indian citizens from 2000 to 2006 were 556, 557, 556, 560, 560 and 572, respectively (Average scores for U.S. citizens in that time frame ranged from 519 to 525). The total number of applications sent to American business schools has climbed more moderately than the GMAT test-taker numbers, from 52,100 in 2002 to about 53,200 in 2006.
According to the Graduate Management Admission Council’s Asian Geographic Trend Report for Examinees Taking the Graduate Management Admission Test (2002-2006) [13], American business schools have lost market share relative to Indian and European schools. The proportion of GMAT score reports that Indian citizens sent to American business schools decreased by approximately 13 percent, from 84.74 to 71.47 percent in that time, while the percentage of scores sent to European business schools climbed from 6.74 percent in 2002 to 9.42 percent in 2006. Meanwhile, the percentage of Indian citizens sending GMAT scores to Indian schools increased from 2.85 to 8.96 percent.
– InsideHigherEd.com [14]
October 2, 2007
Minnesota Business School to Require International Experience
The University of Minnesota [15]‘s Carlson School of Management [16] announced in September that beginning next fall students enrolling at the school will be required to have an international experience before they can graduate. Students will have several ways to fulfill the requirement. In addition to traditional study-abroad programs, they can choose a short-term program between semesters or take a course that includes a foreign component.
– Associated Press [17]
September 25, 2007
Venezuela
Chavez to Universities: Adopt Government Curriculum or Face Nationalization
Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez threatened to nationalize any institution of education failing to adopt his government’s new curriculum on his weekly television show, “Hello President.” In addition, directors will face jail time for resisting the new curriculum.
The president has said that the nation’s education system should promote socialist, anticapitalist values, and that a new curriculum would replace “colonial, Eurocentric ideological education.” That curriculum was supposed to be instituted in elementary and secondary schools beginning in September, but its details have not yet been released.
– The Chronicle of Higher Education [18]
October 12, 2007