Regional
An Asian Erasmus
The Japanese government released plans in July to establish a network of academic exchange programs throughout Asia. Based on the European ERASMUS program [1], which helps students transfer and accumulate credits between European universities, the proposal has the potential to greatly expand educational opportunities and mobility throughout Asia.
Europe’s ERASMUS program was adopted in 1987 and has proven very popular with European students eager to spend time studying and living in a foreign country. The European program has grown significantly since its inception, and five years ago developed into an even broader network called ERASMUS Mundus [2] that facilitates exchanges with Asian, African and other countries. ERASMUS currently accommodates 150,000 students and 20,000 lecturers per year, with nearly 1.5 million grants given out in the 20 years since the program’s inception.
In Asia, there is currently no recognized currency for students wishing to transfer credit across borders, unless specific bilateral agreements have been made. There are, however, many issues beyond credit transfer. University systems in Asia not only have different academic calendars, but entirely different methodologies and curriculum requirements.
The government hopes to involve up to 5,000 students and lecturers from universities in Japan, China, South Korea and member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) within five years from 2009. Initial proposals suggest the program would start with five or six countries, with Japan, China and South Korea acting as core members, and gradually increasing participation of ASEAN members. Several dozen universities are believed to have already committed to the program, according to the Daily Yomiuri, citing unnamed sources.
– Daily Yomiuri [3]
July 21, 2008
Regional Quality Assurance Network to be Established
Quality assurance agencies in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have adopted the Kuala Lumpur Declaration, which aims to establish an ASEAN Quality Assurance Network (AQAN). Malaysian Qualifications Agency [4] chief executive officer Datuk Dr Syed Ahmad Hussein told the Star that this was decided at the ASEAN quality assurance agencies’ round-table meeting in July. The objectives of AQAN are to share best practices of quality assurance, develop an ASEAN quality assurance framework, collaborate on capacity building, and facilitate the recognition of qualifications and cross-border mobility.
– The Star [5]
July 27, 2008
Australia
US Campus “Slower than Expected” Admissions Start
The new Australian campus [6] of Carnegie Mellon University [7] (CMU) has had a “slower than expected” start forcing it to close its much-vaunted Entertainment Technology Center. The Adelaide campus of the tier-one US institution, which opened as Australia’s first foreign-owned university in 2006, received funding from the Government of South Australia to the tune of US$21 million, a move that was widely criticized by observers who argued that South Australia already had more than enough state-supported universities to meet student demand.
Enrollments in CMU business programs have reportedly been modest. Heinz-Australia has now completed three intakes, totaling 105 students, about half of them full-time, drawn from 19 countries, including Australia, with enrollments for the current year up by a third on 2007. The school says it is on track to meet its own target of enrolling 200 students within the next two or three years. The campus offers graduate-level programs in information technology, public policy and entertainment technology.
Public investment in the branch campus of the US university is about 16 times higher per student than that received by any of the other three universities in Adelaide. Alexander Downer, who as Foreign Minister was influential in bringing Carnegie Mellon to Australia, told The Australian newspaper that the venture had “got off to a slower start than I would have hoped for, but its an okay start.”
– The Australian [8]
June 25, 2008
China
Government to Increase Number of Foreign Student Scholarships
China plans to increase the number of scholarships it offers to foreign students, according to an official with the China Scholarship Council [9], quoted by the China Daily. The government will offer 20,000 overseas students scholarships in 2010, doubling that of 2007, Liu Jinghui, CSC secretary-general, said at the China-ASEAN education exchange week in Guiyang, Guizhou province.
Overseas students who are awarded scholarships will be given subsidies covering living and tuition expenses, Liu said. He added that these students will help Chinese universities become more international. The country hopes to attract 500,000 overseas students by 2020. The living subsidy for overseas students was increased by almost 50 percent this year from that of last year.Among all subjects offered to international students, Chinese language, medicine and management are the most popular.
China received more than 190,000 overseas students last year, almost five times that of 1997. They came from 188 countries and regions, and 5.2 percent of them were offered Chinese government scholarships. South Korea, Japan, the United States, Vietnam and Thailand were the top five sending countries.
– China Daily [10]
July 29, 2008
Study: China has Most University Graduates in the World
China has the most tertiary graduates of any nation in the world, according to recently released data, which looks at educational progress in 19 middle-income and developing countries.
The World Education Indicators (WEI) program has been developed by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) as a means of developing policy-relevant education indicators measuring the state of education in an internationally comparable and timely manner. For comparative purposes, the report also includes benchmarks for Member States of the OECD and an additional 12 countries.
In total, it presents data for 63 countries at different stages of development that comprise 71 percent of the world’s population and produce over 90 percent of the global gross domestic product (GDP). In 2005, more students enrolled and graduated from universities in the 19 WEI countries than in the 30 Member States of the OECD combined. About 5.7 million WEI students attained a tertiary degree compared to 5.2 million from OECD countries. This figure does not include data from India, which are currently not available. China now has the most tertiary graduates in the world – 2.4 million in 2006. This is more than the top three OECD countries combined: the United States (1.4 million), Japan (0.6 million) and France (0.3 million).
– UNESCO Institute for Statistics [11]
December 2007
Top French Business School Launches Second China Business Program
From March 2009, HEC Paris will expand its successful Beijing Executive Master’s in Business Administration (EMBA) program with a second China option to be offered in Shanghai. Delivered in collaboration with the training center of the National Development and Reform Commission, the new Shanghai EMBA program is an intensive course of study for select senior managers with a focus on market-oriented themes and general management. The program will be taught by HEC faculty exclusively in English.
– HEC News Release [12]
July 21, 2008
India
Government Keeps Foreign Universities on Hold
Despite the desires of many foreign universities to begin operations in India, the Indian government has yet to allow any foreign institution to individually create a legally recognized degree program in the country. Many policymakers, administrators and commentators are keen to allow foreign universities in, however efforts to do so have been vehemently opposed by the communist political parties and some leading academics, who say the government would do better by increasing investments in domestic provision. With opposing political sides unable to compromise, a draft bill on the matter, which was scheduled for introduction to parliament in March last year, remains on the drafting table.
With just 10 percent of India’s 90 million people of university-age going to college, there is no doubt access has to be increased. The government has been introducing new funding for the creation of more universities in the last few years, but public higher education still cannot nearly keep up with demand.
Many of the foreign universities that have expressed interest in establishing in India are among the top institutions in the world. Among others, Oxford [13], Cambridge [14], the London School of Economics [15], Imperial College London [16], Harvard [17], Stanford [18] and Columbia [19] have all sent delegations to explore the opportunities. India’s main communist party, however, likens those delegations to “traveling salesmen” interested only in turning a healthy profit, by selling education to those who have the means and ignoring the lower classes of Indian society who will still struggle to find university places.
But the access argument is a faulty one, according to Pratap Bhanu Mehta, president of the Centre for Policy Research, an independent think-tank, in an interview with the Independent. Almost 160,000 Indian students go abroad every year to study, he says, depriving the country of US$4 billion annually. “The de facto reality is that students who can afford to go abroad are seceding from the system anyway,” he says.
The language of the (yet-to-be introduced) draft bill has complicated matters. It calls for strict regulatory controls over any foreign-based provider of higher education. The University Grants Commission [20] would have the power to grant – and remove – university status. It could conduct inspections whenever it chose, just as it does with domestic universities. And foreign universities would be required to keep at least US$2.4 million in a reserve account in India. As a result, some supporters of foreign-university involvement oppose the bill. If the only requirement is a healthy bank account and a willingness to subject oneself to endless regulation, they say, India may draw a lot of foreign interest – but not from the sorts of universities the country needs.
Eager to get into India’s lucrative higher-education market, but not permitted to do so independently, at least 130 foreign providers have forged partnerships with local, mostly unaccredited, private institutions. British institutions run 59 collaborations with local, private institutions, second only in number to the US, according to Sudhanshu Bhushan, the author of a government-commissioned study of foreign-education providers in India.
– The Independent [21]
July 17, 2008
IIT Leaders Call for Admissions Reform
The director and the dean of IIT-Madras [22] have called for radical changes to the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE), the highly competitive entrance examination for India’s prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT), saying that JEE coaching institutes were preventing girls and poorer students from passing the test, as the coaching institutes are typically available only to male students from wealthy families.
Prof. M.S. Ananth, Director of IIT Madras told the Times of India that while it may not be possible to do away with the JEE altogether, it might be more productive to allow just those who scored among the top one percent of different state boards and the CBSE to take the test. As it currently stands the JEE is administered to an average of 300,000 test-takers, just 5,000 of whom earn places.
With regards to the low enrollment rates among female students, Prof Idichandy IIT-MDean of Student Affairs, said: “One of the reasons for the poor intake of girls in the flagship BTech program is that parents don’t send daughters for coaching classes. The best way to increase the intake of girls is to have direct admissions.”
– The Times of India [23]
July 31, 2008
‘Deemed Univerity’ Status Becomes Ever More Prevalent
In the last four years, the United Progressive Alliance government has awarded 34 institutions ‘deemed university’ status. Of that number 28 are privately run.
The label is coveted by universities and allows them much greater autonomy from the government and increased funding. Conferred by the University Grants Commission [20] (UGC), the government’s university watchdog, deemed-to-be status was originally awarded to institutions that had been in operation for at least 25 years. That rule was changed in 2001, and now more and more private universities are earning the title, even while a bill that would regulate admissions and fees at private institutions has been stalled in parliament since 2005. The new regulation allows universities to apply for ‘de novo deemed status’ which essentially allows a university five years to meet promised curriculum and research standards, after which they will be reassessed.
The growth in the number of deemed universities in India suggest a pro-private sector stance by the UGC. Encouraged by the trend, as many as 177 more institutes have approached the UGC seeking deemed university status, most of them private. Of these, 38 have been operating fewer than five years.
Despite the concerns of some that the government is watering down its guidelines in conferring deemed status, the UGC stands by the growth in the number of such universities in the country, considering the rate of growth “steady.” Since the 2001 rule was changed, the number of deemed universities has doubled from 52 to 104. Some observers think unworthy institutions are gaining the title and devaluing the sector as a whole. The All India Federation of University Teachers’ Organisations [24] told the Wall Street Journal [24] that it objected to the “mushrooming” of deemed universities as a result of “relaxed guidelines.”
The UGC issued a letter to all deemed universities in May asking them to observe guidelines regarding new programs, study centers and offshore campuses. “We have received several complaints about deemed universities launching new courses and affiliating institutions in their name without seeking our permission, particularly in states like Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra. Not only has it confused students, it has also led to several court cases across the country,” a UGC official requesting anonymity said.
The maximum number of applications has also come from the institutes concentrated in the states the official names. Tamil Nadu leads with 30 applications, and Maharashtra and Karnataka with 19 applications each. Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra currently boast the largest concentration of deemed universities.
– Live Mint [25]
July 27, 2008
Industry Seeks Answers to Poor Engineering Education Standards
Tired of employing underprepared engineering graduates, India’s corporate titans have developed innovative initiatives to extract the best from what is widely considered to be a substandard Indian system of engineering education.
Between 1991 and 2005, the number of private engineering colleges in India rose from 222 to 1,116. Many are considered to be of a poor quality and not averse to selling admissions. Many blame the All India Council for Technical Education [26] (AICTE), a government regulatory body, for allowing this huge expansion with little oversight. The regulator’s approval offers respectability, but it does not ensure quality. Some academic observers have suggested that many colleges have been approved as political favors or through bribes, even though they lacked well-qualified faculty members and a decent infrastructure. Currently, India’s National Board of Accreditation [27], under the aegis of the AICTE, accredits programs within colleges, a function that international standards suggest should be carried out by agencies autonomous of the government.
Indian industry has been moving to improve engineering education, independently of the government. Global names like Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys Technologies Limited, Wipro Technologies, and Cognizant, all information-technology and software-services companies, have developed their own systems of accreditation and rankings, for which they send examiners out to review colleges. Tata Consultancy Services, for example, has accredited 472 private and public engineering colleges and last year hired exclusively from 272 of those colleges. Tata and other companies also work with academics in refining curricula to make engineering education more focused on industry needs. Infosys has formed partnerships with more than 300 engineering colleges for a program called Campus Connect. The program helps shape curriculum and teaching to meet industry needs. The company has also committed US$176million to triple the capacity of its Global Education Centre, in Mysore, which it calls a corporate university that provides technical and managerial training to recent engineering-school graduates.
A recent study [28] by Duke University [29] for the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation [30] says that Indian companies have developed a “surrogate education system” by helping to create skilled-labor pools for a variety of industries. The study states that “India’s private sector has overcome its education system’s deficiencies by adapting and perfecting the best practices of Western companies and integrating them through innovative work-force training and development programs,” adding that American corporations could learn from India’s experiences.
– The Chronicle of Higher Education [31]
August 19, 2008
A New Accreditation Body for Business and Engineering Colleges
Institutional quality control in Indian higher education has long been criticized for allowing the same institution to regulate and accredit universities and colleges, an arrangement that is open to widespread corruption and graft. The situation may soon change, according to the higher-education secretary in a speech to an industry-lobbying group in August.
“As far as educational institutions are concerned, we have been saying that accreditation and regulation should be different,” a member of the lobbying group, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, told Mint, an online news outlet owned by the Wall Street Journal. “Accreditation will then be made mandatory to ensure quality.”
Setting up an independent accrediting group will have to be approved by the Indian parliament. Accreditation is now handled by the National Board of Accreditation [32], a branch of the All India Council for Technical Education [26] (AICTE), which is the government’s regulator for technology and a range of other disciplines. From 1991 to 2005, the number of private engineering colleges in India rose by about 900, to 1,116, with all of the new institutions approved by the AICTE. Critics have frequently alleged that the regulator is rotten and accepts bribes in exchange for licenses. The industry group said in a report earlier this year that the existing regulatory framework constrains the supply of good institutions, excessively regulates existing institutions in the wrong places, and is not conducive to innovations or creativity in higher and technical education.
– LiveMint.com [33]
August 23, 2008
Number of Engineering Students Undertaking Graduate Studies Remains Low
The findings of a recent study show that the number of engineering students enrolling in masters and Ph.D. programs remains very low, despite the establishment of many new institutions across India.
Approximately 230,000 students graduated from engineering programs in 2006, of which 20,000 were at the master’s level and just 1,000 were at the doctoral level, according to Engineering Education in India [34]. The number of doctoral graduates represents less than one half of one percent of total engineering graduates. The percentage is much higher for most of the other countries. In the United States, the number is closer to nine percent, while in Britain and Germany it is nine and 10 percent respectively.
At the hallowed Indian Institutes of Technology and Indian Institutes of Science, on average just one percent of technology undergraduates go on to do a masters degree, while two percent of masters graduates chose to undertake doctoral studies, the report found. Currently, 75 percent of engineering students are enrolled at one of 1,100 private engineering colleges, almost none of which conduct research.
The report makes a number of recommendations, including the need to build more partnerships with industry and to strengthen existing Ph.D. programs and research facilities. The report’s most important recommendation addressed the need to significantly increase the number of qualified faculty, of which there is currently a severe shortage even at the most prestigious institutions. The report called for an increase in the number of doctoral graduates to 10,000 annually by 2018.
– India Times [35]
June 2, 2008
Japan
Details of Foreign-Enrollment Plans Released
The Japanese government announced some of the details behind its plan to nearly triple the country’s enrollment of foreign students to 300,000 in 12 years. The plan is designed in part as an answer to shrinking domestic enrollments at Japanese universities. The plan seeks to ease visa restrictions, improve accommodations, increase Japanese-language teaching, and help foreign students find work in the country after graduation.
About 30 of Japan’s top universities will be designated as key centers for the “opening up of higher education to foreign students,” according to a joint announcement by the ministries of education, justice, and foreign affairs, and other bureaucracies. Specific details on each measure were not provided.
Approximately 119,000 foreign students are currently enrolled at Japanese universities, down from a peak of 122,000 in 2005. Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda pledged to raise the figure to 300,000 by 2020 in a January policy speech.
– Asahi Shimbun [36]
July 29, 2008
Malaysia
British University Pulls Out of Malaysia After Accreditation ‘Misunderstanding’
Liverpool John Moores University [37] (LJMU) has said that it was forced to terminate a tie-up with a Malaysian college after learning that it was not officially accredited. The university went into partnership with Kuala Lumpur-based Windfield International College [38] in March 2006 to deliver a diploma in nursing.
In a press release issued in May that year, LJMU said: “The new Diploma in Nursing (International) program is professionally accredited by the Nursing Board of Malaysia … Around 200 nursing students enrolled in the first cohort and this figure is set to rise to between 400 and 500 students per year.”
But the university said it later learned that Windfield did not have formal approval from the Nursing Board of Malaysia, and formally severed ties with the college in December 2007. A spokesman for the Nirwana Academy Group of Colleges, which includes Windfield, said the disagreement was a result of a misunderstanding over LJMU’s proposed role, which he blamed on LJMU’s agent in Malaysia. He told the Times Higher Education Supplement that Windfield wanted LMJU to moderate the college’s existing diploma course and did not realize that LJMU wanted to offer an entirely new course, validated by LJMU.
– The Times Higher Education Supplement [39]
July 31, 2008
South Korea
With International Enrollments Booming, Government Sets Ambitious New Targets
The Korean Ministry of Education [40] announced plans in early August to double the number of foreign students in Korea to 100,000 by 2012. This after a goal of enrolling 50,000 students, originally set in 2004 under the “Study Korea” project, was met three years ahead of time.
Nearly 50,000 foreign students were studying in Korea in April of last year. The government hopes to increase the number to 55,000 in 2008 and to 100,000 over the next four years. The ministry plans to develop and promote study programs specializing in various areas, including information technology, to raise the number of students coming with scholarships from their own governments to 1,200 by 2012, up from 511 last year. The plan is designed to correct an imbalance in education exports, with 220,000 Korean students studying abroad each year— about 30 percent of them to the United States — while accepting very few in return. Foreign students make up less than 1 percent of total enrollment at South Korean universities, the lowest proportion among members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
The Korean government also said it will greatly expand the number of scholarships it offers. The number of countries benefiting from the Korean government’s scholarship programs will be tripled to 130. The ministry plans to strengthen the system for student exchanges with other governments and ease regulations to encourage the operation of joint curriculum among Korean and foreign universities.
As of last April, Chinese students accounted for 68 percent of the total foreign student population in Korea. Students from Asian countries made up 93 percent. North America and Europe took up 3 percent each and Africa accounted for only 1 percent.
– Government News Release [41]
August 5, 2008