Regional

Trade in Services Talks Collapse, Education Remains in Limbo

Under the provisions of the General Agreement of Trade in Services (GATS) and the broader Doha Development Round of World Trade Organization (WTO) talks, restrictions on preventing universities and higher-education service providers from teaching, researching and examining in foreign countries would be removed.

However, the latest round of talks collapsed at the July ministerial meeting of the WTO in Geneva, which had lasted 10 days, leaving the liberalization of the trade in education services on ice. Talks on liberalizing the trade in all goods and services for the WTO’s 152 members stalled over the protection of developing country food producers.

The Doha Round has not been abandoned, however, and talks will resume – probably at a technical level in the fall. This is important, because ahead of the argument that ended the talks, WTO Director General Pascal Lamy staged a ‘signaling conference’ of some key member countries where they made informal commitments to liberalize their services under a revised WTO General Agreement on the Trade in Services. Participants included the US, the EU, Brazil, Canada, Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Switzerland and 20 other members. According to a report on the meeting drafted by Lamy, “a few participants indicated readiness to undertake new commitments in private education services and to remove a number of existing limitations, which discriminate against foreign education providers”.

Formal decisions on liberalizing services will only come after a basic formal deal is achieved at the round on agricultural and industrial goods.

– University World News
August 10, 2008

Texas Company Joins Other U.S. For-Profits in Latin America Expansion

Whitney International University System is planning an expansion of its low-cost online learning programs in Latin America. The Bermuda-based company with management offices in Dallas already owns institutions in Colombia and Brazil. With its virtual campus, Whitney International is planning an aggressive push to provide “mass access to the highest quality, most affordable postsecondary education in the world.”

Whitney is among a number of for-profit companies that have and are expanding into the Latin American market and other parts of the developing world. Latin America is seen as particularly appealing because of huge unmet demand and agreeable regulations. Since the 1990s, the number of private colleges in Latin America has skyrocketed as the status of public institutions has often been diminished due to poor financing.

Whitney was established just three years ago, and began offering distance-learning courses this year. With its push into Latin America, the company will be following what is becoming a relatively well-worn path. Baltimore-based Laureate Education has expanded aggressively into Latin America in recent years, reportedly enjoying a great deal of success. In July, the company announced its latest acquisitions: the Technological University of Mexico, a major private university with several campuses around the country, and the Latin University of Costa Rica, that country’s largest private institution. Laureate enrolls more than 400,000 students worldwide, and its current global portfolio of campuses can be viewed here.

Whitney also seeks to enter Asian markets, including the largely untapped Indian market. First, however, it will focus on Latin America, with initial controlling-stake acquisitions in Brazil (University Center Jorge Amado), Panama (Isthmus University), and two community colleges in Colombia. The company also has alliances with several other institutions, including Argentina’s 21st Century Managerial University and Colombia’s Grancolombiano Polytechnic, which oversees the classes in Anapoima along with those at four other distance-learning sites in Colombia; 32 sites are planned by the end of this year. By the end of this year, the company expects to enroll at least 40,000 students in distance-learning classes in Latin America. It hopes to double that number by the end of 2009.

There are concerns with the pace of growth in Latin America, chief among which are related to quality and regulation. For-profit institutions and online-learning programs in developing countries typically face little regulation, which will inevitably mean quality suffers among less scrupulous providers. Officials at Whitney, Grancolombiano Polytechnic, and other Latin American partners of the company say they plan to have their distance-learning programs accredited by either national or international agencies.

– The Chronicle of Higher Education
September 12, 2008

Bahamas

Dominica-Based Ross University Opens New Campus in Bahamas

Ross University, a division of for-profit education company DeVry Inc., announced this summer that it plans to open a branch campus in Freeport, Grand Bahama, in January 2009. Ross currently operates a medical school in Dominica and a veterinary school in St. Kitts, with administrative offices in New Jersey.

While DeVry University, also a division of DeVry Inc., is regionally accredited by the North Central Association in the United States, this is not the case for Ross University, which is accredited by the Dominica Medical Board.

The island of St. Kitts has a troubled history with diploma mills, a fact that has cast a degree of suspicion on the academic standards of the Ross veterinary program. According to the Ross website, the veterinary program is currently undergoing the accreditation process from the American Veterinary Medical Association, the accrediting body for the 28 schools of veterinary medicine in the United States.

Students from the United States studying at Ross campuses can do so with financial aid from the US Department of Education, which states that foreign schools do not need the equivalent of U.S. regional accreditation to be eligible for U.S. financial aid money. They just need relevant recognition from the local regulator, which Ross has at both its current campus locations in the Caribbean. The problem for students wishing to transfer to U.S. degree programs is that very few institutions in the United States will accept Ross transfer credits. Ross graduates are, however, eligible to take professional licensing examinations in the United States, and practice there if successful.

The Ross University Freeport campus will initially accommodate students in the university’s growing medical school. The students will be housed and taught in temporary space in Grand Bahama with Ross’ brand new 60,000-80,000 square foot campus scheduled to open in 2010.

– Ross News Release
July 28, 2008

Canada

A National Strategy to Attract Foreign Students

Canadian stakeholders in international education have long complained that the higher education export industry suffers from a lack of a unified marketing strategy for its institutions of higher education; something that has benefitted competitor nations such as Australia and the United Kingdom handsomely.

Now, provincial education ministers are coming together under one national brand in a bid to attract more foreign students to study and possibly stay in Canada. The brand — a stylized red maple leaf with a bilingual slogan that says “Imagine Education in Canada” — was revealed in September at a meeting of education ministers in Fredericton.

– Macleans
September 22, 2008

Caribbean

University of West Indies Launches ‘Open Campus’

The University of the West Indies (UWI) launched what it is calling its Open Campus in August through which it will offer online programs available to anyone with a high school certificate in The Bahamas and 11 other Caribbean nations.

Headquartered temporarily in Barbados, the new virtual campus will have the same level of autonomy as other UWI campuses with its own academic board, financial management, registry, administration and student support systems. The Open Campus will offer a wide range of courses and programs to meet the needs of those Caribbean countries that do not have one of the university’s three primary campuses (Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad). Initially, it is offering certificate programs in journalism; e-governance; substance abuse treatment and gender studies; as well as undergraduate programs in education, accounting, economics and management.

– Freeport News
September 11, 2008

Chile

New Education Law to Undo Pinochet-Era Legislation

The dictatorial reign of Augusto Pinochet was ended by a democratically elected government 18 years ago but its education legislation remains in force. A new law is on the way, and it may be more important for what it replaces than for what it contains.

Today, Chile has one of the most dynamic economies in the region, but endemic problems in the education system have been neglected. For the coalition government of President Michelle Bachelet, the new law represents a long overdue attempt to introduce higher standards across the system, while demanding better accountability, including for the subsidies that go to a rapidly increasing number of private schools. The legislation is a compromise between Left and Right, under pressure from the voting public, and has been passed by the lower house.

To boost quality standards at the tertiary level, Chile is paying to send its best students abroad for graduate study. In May, Bachelet unveiled a US$6 billion Bicentennial Fund for Human Capital, much of which will be spent on sending as many as 30,000 students abroad over the next decade. Incentives will be given to those who return to public service, to the academic community, to the regions, and to priority sectors of the knowledge economy, according to Bachelet. A major concern is that scholarships recipients will not return. However, backers of the plan take a long-term view, saying that most will return eventually, and much better prepared after gaining valuable work experience abroad.

– The Australian
August 6, 2008

United States

Online Degrees Gaining Respect, Enrollments

With an increasing number of well-respected bricks and mortar schools offering degrees online, the sector as a whole is enjoying greater respect and, as a result, increased enrollments.

Nearly 3.5 million students were taking online courses in the fall of 2006, the most recent data available, according to an online learning report by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. That was a 9.7 percent increase from the previous year, and double that of the past four years. More than two-thirds of all higher education institutions now have some form of online courses. However, there are still many naysayers out there.

Excelsior College, one of the biggest and most respected institutions with an exclusively online presence, commissioned a Zogby study earlier this year to survey 1,500 CEOs and small business owners about their thoughts on online education. Only 45 percent thought online programs were as credible as traditional college campus courses. But among those familiar with online colleges, 83 percent found the programs just as credible.

Degree mills will always be a thorn in the side of legitimate, accredited online institutions and so will common perceptions about such schools. Probably the most damaging perception is that online courses are easier than those taken at traditional bricks and mortar colleges. Although there is no evidence to suggest this is true, the belief is still out there and it is up to the industry and individual schools to dispel such beliefs.

– MSNBC
September 7, 2008

Council Established to Draw Up Guidelines for Ethical Recruitment of International Students

The American International Recruitment Council was established this summer to develop standards of ethical practices for US higher education institutions recruiting international students through third-party agents, a practice that is common around the world, but often viewed as unethical in the United States. The council wants to develop standards of ethical practices, provide training for agents, and create a certification system that recognizes the best among them.

The founders of the nonprofit group believe that the use of recruiting agents is a key tool for American colleges wishing to maintain their edge in the heated global competition for international students. However, they argue that it is crucial to regulate this increasingly complex field, as other countries, most notably Australia, have successfully done.

– The Chronicle of Higher Education
September 19, 2008

Drop SAT, Admissions Departments Told

A commission of influential university admissions officers has recommended a movement away from using standardized exams in admissions in favor of admissions exams more closely tied to the high school curriculum and achievement. The commission’s report comes amid concerns that standardized college admissions exams sidetrack high school students from school curriculums in favor of cramming for standardized tests through a billion-dollar test-prep industry that essentially teaches students, at great expense, how to succeed on them, rather than develop core knowledge.

A growing number of colleges and universities like Bates College in Maine, Lawrence University in Wisconsin, Wake Forest University in North Carolina and Smith College in Massachusetts, have made the standardized tests, the SAT and ACT, optional. And the report concludes that more institutions could make admissions decisions without requiring the SAT and ACT.

The group that authored the report was convened by the National Association of College Admissions Counseling. Another major concern expressed in the report is “that test scores appear to calcify differences based on class, race/ethnicity and parental educational attainment.” The report calls on admissions officials to be aware of such differences and to ensure that differences not related to a student’s ability to succeed academically be “mitigated in the admission process.”

– NACAC news release
September 23, 2008