Bolivia
Three Indigenous-Language Universities to Open
Next year, Bolivia plans to open three indigenous universities that will teach in Aymara, Quechua, and Guarani, which are co-official languages in the South American country, along with Spanish. The universities will focus on fields in high demand and important to the local economy and culture such as tropical agronomy, animal husbandry and forestry.
– El Pais [1]
August 15, 2008
Canada
In Fight for Top Academic Talent, Canada Offers Permanent Residency to Foreign Students
Canada has introduced a new immigration category that fast-tracks permanent-residency status for foreign students and graduates with Canadian work experience, according to an announcement [2] in August by the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration.
Previously, students and graduates had to leave Canada to apply for residency, which leads to citizenship in a few years. The new category, the Canadian Experience Class [3], will apply to those who have completed two years of study in Canada, and who have worked for two years in professional, skilled, or managerial jobs. Gaining the relevant work experience was made easier earlier this year after the government changed the rules of the Post-Graduation Work Permit Program [4] by allowing graduates to stay and work for three years, as opposed to the previously mandated one year. Under the revised rules, graduates can also seek work outside their field of study, and do not need to have a job offer in hand at the time of application.
The initial quota for applicants is from 12,000 to 18,000 per year. It will be increased to 25,000 applicants per year in the future.
– Citizenship and Immigration Canada [2]
August 12, 2008
Chile
California and Chile to Collaborate in Niche Agreement
The state of California and the nation of Chile signed agreements in June that are designed to strengthen viticulture research and teaching collaborations. The agreements cover the areas of grape growing and winemaking, and crop genetics and breeding.
New collaborative educational opportunities and a partnership focused on ecosystem conservation and water management are the goals of one agreement. Also signed was a partnership agreement between the California State University [5] system and the Technical University of Chile involving curriculum development, college preparation and remediation strategies.
The agreements build on two important Chile-California exchange programs enacted from 1963 to 1970. The first was launched in 1963 by President John F. Kennedy to associate states with developing countries. The second was launched in 1965 between the University of California system and the University of Chile [6], which paved the way for thousands of Chilean students to study at University of California [7]. The university exchange program is credited in Chile as having helped revolutionize the country’s agricultural practices.
– Central Valley Business Times [8]
June 12, 2008
Australia and Chile Sign Free Trade Agreement on Services, Including Education
Australia and Chile signed a free trade agreement (FTA) at the end of July, which covers goods, services and investment to the benefit of businesses in both countries, including education service providers. The agreement is the most comprehensive FTA signed by Australia, and it eliminates 97 percent of tariffs on existing merchandise trade immediately and all tariffs on such trade by 2015.
The agreement also provides for holiday and working visas, and Chilean government funds of US$215 million a year for up to 1,000 students annually to study in Australia over the next 10 years. The priority disciplines for masters and PhD study reflect similarities between the economies of the two nations in fields such as mining, agribusiness, clean energy and water. The deal also reflects Chile’s wish to partner with Australia in Asia-Pacific engagement.
In 2005, just 172 Chilean students went abroad on state scholarships; next year 2,500 will travel to countries including Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
– The Australian [9]
July 31, 2008
United States
Alabama Takes on Diploma Mills
Alabama has long had a reputation as being one of a small number of states with weak regulations allowing diploma mills to set up shop and churn out worthless degrees to suspecting and unsuspecting clients alike. Now, the southern state’s two-year college chancellor is adopting new requirements for private, for-profit schools that he hopes will drive out diploma mills and make sure students are getting their money’s worth.
“To the taxpayers of the state of Alabama, what we were doing before was indefensible. We were not carrying out our function,” said Byrne, who has been chancellor for 14 months. The new requirements include: starting annual licensing rather than licensing every two years; instituting higher licensing fees to allow the department to hire more staff to check on the schools and their courses; requiring schools to provide audited financial statements rather than unaudited statements; requiring all owners and directors to have good reputations, including no convictions involving moral turpitude and no successful suits for fraud or deceptive trade practices in the last 10 years; and providing means to close schools that offer poor-quality courses.
Byrne’s department also plans to start publishing an annual report that contains information about public colleges and private, for-profit schools, including their costs and whether they are accredited. Most of the 258 private, for-profit schools licensed by the Department of Postsecondary Education [10] are not accredited, Byrne said. They range in size from small truck-driving schools to colleges with hundreds of students in many disciplines.
– Associated Press [11]
July 15, 2008
Olin to Collaborate with Top Indian Business School
The Olin Business School [12] and the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta [13] (IIMC) have signed a cooperation agreement designed to advance research, teaching and cultural understanding. Under the agreement, the schools plan to organize joint programs in business and industry management training, in addition to faculty and student exchange programs, and the creation of joint publications, conferences and research projects.
The institutions already are planning for an international immersion program — a capstone experience for IIMC’s Postgraduate Program in Management for Executives.
The Indian students will come to St. Louis for four weeks to attend classes at Olin and undertake consulting projects or internships with area firms.
– Washington University Record [14]
July 17, 2008
Chinese Universities Top Feeders for U.S. Doctoral Programs
According to research undertaken by the journal Science, two Chinese universities – Tsinghua University [15] and Peking University [16] – have topped the list of undergraduate schools whose graduates go on to earn a doctorate from an American university.
University of California at Berkeley [17] provided the third most future Ph.Ds followed by the University of Seoul [18] (South Korea), Cornell University [19], and the University of Michigan [20]. Non-U.S. citizens accounted for 37 percent of all doctoral degrees awarded last year, a statistic that has been growing for years.
– Science [21]
July 11, 2008
New Publication Offers Advice to Universities on Building International Partnerships
A new report from the American Council on Education [22] offers a guide for universities looking to build international partnerships, one of the steps necessary for America to rebuild positive relationships with several major regions of the world, according to the report [23].
“International Partnerships: Guidelines for Colleges and Universities” outlines considerations that institutions should take into account in building partnerships in that climate and provides sample agreements covering many types of partnerships. It is the second working paper in the council’s series on higher education in a global context.
– American Council on Education [24]
July 29, 2008
1+2+1 = Increased Chinese Enrollments
The formula in the heading is becoming an increasingly popular means of attracting Chinese undergraduate students to U.S. campuses. The dual degree model, involving Chinese and American universities, begins with one year in China followed by two at a U.S. campus and completed with a final year back in China. The structure is intended to prevent U.S. visa denials — by conditioning degree completion upon a student’s return to China — and to lower the cost of obtaining an American undergraduate degree.
The approach was originally developed by Alabama’s Troy University [25], which pioneered a “prototype” of the model and has graduated 157 1+2+1 students since the program’s start in 2001. Graduates receive two degrees, one from Troy and the other from their Chinese university. Ever since Troy pioneered the program, the American Association of State Colleges and Universities [26] (AASCU) has provided an umbrella structure for 1+2+1 programs for its members in cooperation with the Beijing-based China Center for International Educational Exchange [27].
This June, five AASCU universities and 16 Chinese partner institutions awarded 75 dual degrees at a ceremony at Yunnan University [28], and 279 new 1+2+1 students are expected to arrive on AASCU campuses this fall — a 90 percent increase over 2007. According to the association, 16 AASCU institutions are now involved, and 42 Chinese universities have participated since 2001. George Mason [29], which graduated its first 1+2+1 class in June, maintains 12 Chinese university partners and offers 12 degree options that the participating students can choose from.
Several university officials interviewed by InsideHigherEd stressed that they see the 1+2+1 programs as gateways to more extensive partnerships with Chinese universities.
“We do not believe that a relationship with Chinese universities based on Chinese undergraduates coming to NAU is a sustainable relationship over the long haul,” said Harvey Charles, Northern Arizona University [30]’s vice provost for international education and director of the Center for International Education. “We believe that it’s important to expand and extend these relationships to involve faculty, faculty exchange, for example, because we believe that through faculty engagement, relationships can become much more sustainable.”
– InsideHigherEd [31]
August 12, 2008
Universities Outsourcing Foreign Student Recruitment to the Private Sector
Northeastern University [32] formed a partnership last fall with Kaplan Inc. [33], a for-profit education company, to recruit students for — and help run — a one-year academic program for international students to improve their English before starting one of Northeastern’s degree programs. Northeastern was the first American university to announce such a partnership; however, the model appears to be gaining traction in the U.S. with the recent announcement by Oregon State University [34] that it has entered into a similar agreement with a private British company, which is said to be in negotiations with two other U.S. universities.
The president of Northeastern, Joseph E. Auon, has committed to making the university an international institution. University officials told the New York Times that their program with Kaplan, known as Global Pathways [35], lets them make sure international students are adequately prepared before they start degree programs, which can be difficult to ascertain from a foreign transcript. The university handles teaching, curriculum and admissions, while Kaplan markets the program overseas and recruits the students, guided by explicit admissions criteria, Northeastern officials said, based on the education system in the home countries. Students who successfully complete the program are guaranteed admission to Northeastern degree programs. Kaplan has a similar arrangement with the University of Sheffield [36] in England.
In July, Oregon State University announced a joint venture with INTO University Partnerships [37] for a program to start in fall 2009. The university hopes that INTO will help them recruit 150 to 175 new international students during the first year of the partnership. Within three years, that number is expected to rise to 500 new students per year.
INTO was founded just three years ago and is already working with five British universities. Under its agreements, INTO has built centers where international students who may not have qualified for direct admission because of language and other academic deficits live, study, become acculturated, and ideally join degree programs at their host institutions. The company has 40 staff members in 15 countries managing 400 recruiting agents. It increased the number of students at the University of East Anglia [38] from 40 to about 600 students since it entered a partnership with the university three years ago. Collectively, the company will recruit more than 2,000 international students for its five partners this year, according to company officials. At Oregon State, INTO and the university will split the tuition from the program.
– The New York Times [39]
August 8, 2008
International Graduate Student Numbers Continue to Rise, But Slowly
Graduate departments in the United States made more offers to international students, who also applied in greater numbers than they did last year, but not by much, according to the latest report [40] from the Council of Graduate Schools [41].
The number of offers of admission to international students increased by 4 percent from 2007 to 2008, compared to gains of 8 and 12 percent, respectively, in the preceding two years. As for applications, they rose by 6 percent in 2008, compared to 9 percent in 2007. Among the 49 graduate schools that responded to the survey in both 2004 (the baseline year) and 2008, 60 percent report fewer international applicants now than then.
There is concern among U.S. education officials that the growth being witnessed among foreign applicants to the US is nothing like the overall growth in the number of internationally mobile students across the globe. This fact may mean that other education-exporting countries around the world are picking up the slack, while US enrollments may not be of the same caliber as has traditionally been the case.
In 2007, admissions offers to Indian students grew 17 percent, compared to 2 percent growth in 2008. Admissions from South Korea decreased 3 percent in 2008, following a 2 percent decline the previous year. Admissions offers for Middle Eastern students did, however, grow more this year than last: up 17 percent in 2008, after a 12 percent climb in 2007.
– Council of Graduate Schools [40]
August 21, 2008