Regional
An Asian Bologna
Eleven nations in Southeast Asia will attempt to harmonize their education systems within seven years, according to a communiqué from a November meeting of Southeast Asian Ministers of Education. The ambitious plan would see 6,500 higher education institutions find compatibility across vastly different countries in a bid to promote regional academic mobility by ensuring the compatibility of programs and qualifications
The Bangkok meeting was organized by the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization [1] (SEAMEO), which was established in 1965 to promote cooperation in education, science and culture across Southeast Asia. The harmonization of education systems would occur within a broader, and even more ambitious goal, of achieving economic union by 2015.
The plan would involve aligning 11 education systems in mostly developing nations that vary significantly, form countries with 10 years of secondary education to the more common 12, and first degrees that vary in length from three to five years. However, attendees and observers from countries outside the region said it was essential to try.
Prior to the conference, five of the member nations – Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, The Philippines and Vietnam – were tasked with sketching a plan for creating a “higher education common space” in the region and to survey universities for their reactions to the concept of harmonizing their higher education systems. The results of the institutional surveys showed a general consensus that the idea was a good one; however, many officials were unable to verbalize the benefits it might bring.
Plans are currently being circulated and a SEAMO council conference in March will look to endorse concrete initiatives.
– University World News [2]
November 23, 2008
Australia
Australian Universities See Growing Enrollments Among International Research Students
According to new research by Australia Education International [3], international student numbers in Australia have grown most rapidly among research students, suggesting the country is succeeding in attracting top talent from other education-destination countries.
The number of overseas research students in Australia grew 67 percent from 2002 to 2007, while the number of international students in higher education as a whole grew 52 percent through the same period.
International graduate students are of particular importance to national economies and higher education systems, particularly if they have comparatively weak schooling systems, as is the case in the United States, which despite languishing in international comparative tables for high school education is widely considered to have the best higher education system in the world. The continued success of the American higher education system is due, partly, to the flow of international students, researchers and academics.
According to The Australian newspaper, the encouraging numbers are “the result of a systematic effort, especially among Group of Eight [4] universities, to support overseas higher degree research students,” in addition to “other countries, especially those in developing nations, investing in scholarships to build up their universities.”
– The Australian [5]
October 15, 2008
Bangladesh
Law Passed to Allow Foreign Universities
In the face of opposition from the University Grants Commission [6] (UGC), the country’s caretaker government passed a law in November that will allow private individuals and institutions to establish campuses in the name of foreign universities, but only with prior permission from the government.
Last November, the UGC shuttered 56 foreign-university campuses in the capital, Dhaka, and in four other cities, for selling degrees and for not meeting quality standards. In its version of the new law, the university regulator had said no foreign universities should be allowed to set up campuses in Bangladesh at all.
– The Daily Star [7]
November 25, 2008
China
Overseas Chinese Student Numbers Set to Drop
With the Chinese economy skidding, and exports drying up, far fewer students from China are expected to travel abroad to study next year. Universities with a heavy reliance on tuition fees from Chinese students will need to diversify their international student body or face serious financial constraints.
China is by far the largest source market for international students around the world, and many universities have become reliant on the revenue their tuition fees generate.
Chinese authorities estimated earlier this year that the number of first-time enrollments of Chinese students at universities in other countries would hit a record 200,000, compared with 144,500 in 2007. Observers believe that number will drop significantly as the global economy slows. Chinese universities, which cannot meet local demand, are not expected to see a slowdown in enrollments.
– University World News [8]
November 2, 2008
India
Panel Calls for New Regulatory Body
A government-appointed committee has recommended creating a special agency to oversee administrative reforms in professional higher education, including engineering and medicine, and stripping the existing regulatory bodies of those powers.
This is the latest in a series of government-appointed panels to recommend the need for serious reform within the ailing Indian system of higher education. In January, India’s National Knowledge Commission [9] (NKC), another advisory panel, called for an independent regulatory authority while criticizing India’s tangled web of regulators for higher education, often with overlapping mandates, which it said has created an overregulated, under governed system.
The new government committee came out in agreement with the views of the NKC, but instead of a single, national-level regulatory authority, it called for an agency with separate councils on standards and quality for engineering, medicine, management, and other individual professional programs. Most of India’s 16 existing regulatory agencies for higher education are against changes that would take away their powers. Critics say the existing agencies mistake regulation for governance.
– Business Standard [10]
November 5, 2008
Yale to Launch $75 Million India-Focused Endowment
Yale University [11] announced a major new effort — eventually to have a $75 million endowment — to build academic ties with India. The program will look to double or triple the number of India-related faculty positions throughout the university, while also intensifying recruitment efforts for students in India, and building research partnerships. In addition, the university will develop a new curriculum with a focus on India in the arts and sciences and in the university’s professional schools, including its schools of architecture, management, and public health.
In October, Cornell University [12] announced a $50 million gift from Indian industrialist Ratan Tata, half of which will be used to promote research in agriculture and nutrition that would help India. The other half will be used for scholarships for Indian students to attend Cornell.
– Yale news release [13]
November 17, 2008
Regulator Hints at Foreign University Rules
The University Grants Commission [14] (UGC) stated in November that profit making for Indian and foreign institutions would not be allowed under guidelines for international academic collaborations, according to a report in The Hindu [15] newspaper. Sukhdeo Thorat, chairman of the UGC, also said he planned to develop specific rules for joint degree programs between Indian and foreign universities.
Eager to get into India’s lucrative higher-education market, but not permitted to do so independently, at least 130 foreign universities have forged collaborations with local private institutions, which are mostly unaccredited (see November issue [16]). The UGC’s announcement backs an earlier one made by Arjun Singh, the minister of higher education, in which he said that India did not want “third-grade” Western universities or other foreign institutions that were not prepared to play by India’s regulatory rules.
– The Hindu [15]
November 18, 2008
Malaysia
British Universities Eyeing Malaysian Market
More British universities are expected to join the University of Nottingham [17] in establishing campuses in Malaysia, British High Commissioner to Malaysia Boyd McCleary said in October. Speaking to reporters at the BES Asia 2008 Conference and Exhibition, McClaery said that the University of Notthingham was already running a successful campus [18] in Semenyih, Selangor while Newcastle University [19] would follow suit by setting up a medical school in Johor. He added that several other British universities and schools had expressed interest in developing branch campuses in Malaysia.
Newcastle University, in November, started building its Malaysia campus where degrees, it is estimated, will cost two-thirds their UK price. It will start by offering degrees in medicine, but hopes to extend to biotechnology, and to include masters and research programs.
The campus is slated to open in three to four years, and its medical students are likely to pay an estimated £70,000 for their five-year Newcastle University degree. The campus will join other international campuses at EduCity [20], an education hub in the Iskandar region in Johor province that will house up to 100,000 students. Other British universities looking at opportunities at the multi-university campus include Hull University [21], which is looking into the possibility of offering programs in logistics, engineering, computing and health technologies. Marlborough College [22] in Wiltshire and Oundle School [23] in Peterborough are considering the possibility of operating satellite secondary schools there.
– Bernama [24]
October 15, 2008
– The Guardian [25]
November 20, 2008
Nepal
Rebels to Get Degrees for Taking Part in Revolution
Nepal’s finance minister, who is also a high-ranking member of the ruling Maoists, said in November that his new government planned to give academic degrees to people who could not pursue education because they were involved in the Maoists’ armed conflict, reported Kantipur Online.
“Our friends abandoned study and got involved in the revolution,” said the finance minister, Baburam Bhattarai, at a meeting organized by the Maoist-affiliated All Nepal National Independent Students’ Union-Revolutionary. People “who could not receive formal education due to financial problems and other reasons but possess sufficient skill and knowledge” must also be provided with degrees, he said. The degrees would be granted through open universities.
Mr. Bhattarai also said that private educational institutions of the country needed to look for “alternative means for [making] investments” because education is the state’s responsibility, reported Nepalnews. The minister said that the failed education policies of past governments had encouraged private investment in the education sector, but that this was no longer needed.
– Kantipur Online [26]
November 6, 2008
– Nepal News [27]
November 6, 2008
Pakistan
Government Failing to Pay Overseas Scholarship Tuition
Students studying abroad under Pakistan’s foreign-scholarship scheme have found themselves in a spot of bother with the nation’s cash-strapped Higher Education Commission [28] not paying fees for the latest academic session at the foreign universities they are enrolled in, according to a report in The Nation.
According to the Pakistani daily, the commission is on the verge of financial collapse. A senior official at the commission told the newspaper that more than 2,500 students were enrolled in foreign universities in the United States, Britain, Germany, France, Australia, Austria, and Romania, among others.
Unnamed students quoted by the newspaper said that their universities had notified them of the problem but that commission officials had assured them that their fees would be paid shortly and that they should continue to attend classes.
– The Nation [29]
November 15, 2008
Philippines
University Regulator to Present Reform Plans
The university regulator in the Philippines is getting ready to present a plan to the government that would introduce wide-ranging reforms to the Philippine education system during the 2009-10 academic year. Commission on Higher Education [30] (CHEd) chairman Emmanuel Y Angeles told a press conference in November that a strategic plan would be submitted to the president in December. The reforms would be aimed at upgrading tertiary education to a standard comparable with neighboring countries.
“We are planning to consult with our stakeholders and get their reactions about our concerns and proposals, which are all geared towards promoting quality education. We are starting the national consultation this month, and hopefully by December we could already submit the final reports and recommendations to the President for approval,” Angeles told reporters in Quezon City.
He said there were four major concerns: faculty development, facilities development, scholarship for poor and deserving students, and strengthening the research capability of higher educational institutions.
– Business World [31]
November 5, 2008
Singapore
When an Overseas Partner Looses Accreditation
The University of Northern Virginia [32] (UNVA) lost accreditation from its U.S. accreditor, the Accrediting Council of Independent Colleges and Schools [33], in August of this year, and a month later its private partner in Singapore, Shines College [34], was informed by the Singapore Ministry of Education [35] that it would revoke approval for the program, leaving some 270 business students stranded.
The private school has told its students that they can continue and finish up the program until 2011 and graduate with a UNVA degree. For those not interested in graduating with an unaccredited degree, Shines College says that students will be allowed to transfer to another business program or school. But among their transfer options is yet another unaccredited business program run by Shines – from the Swiss-based European University [36].
However, the ministry has not revoked its approval for European University programs, according to a September Straits Times article. Research by the English-language daily found that Swissnex [37], which operates from the Swiss Embassy and offers advice on Swiss education, considered European University to be ‘certified’ by two cantons that do not require checks on academic quality.
Dr Suzanne Hraba-Renevey, executive director of Swissnex, told Straits Times: ‘This certification is based on the cantonal law regarding private institutions, which stipulates that the institution has to follow elementary rules of public order, ethics and hygiene, not academic quality.’ She added that recognized Swiss institutions are accredited by the Centre of Accreditation and Quality Assurance of the Swiss Universities [38].
Students not interested in pursuing the two dubious partner options can draw solace from the fact that Shines College comes under the CaseTrust for Education scheme, which means their fees are protected, but students are concerned as to whether or not they will be able to transfer credits to another program. The moral? Buyer beware.
– The Straits Times [39]
September 23, 2008
South Korea
Government Hires 81 Foreign Academics, 9 of whom are Nobel Laureates
A total of 81 foreign researchers have been selected to take up positions at Korean universities under a government-backed plan to improve academic standards. Among the 81 academics heading to 30 Korean universities next year will be nine Nobel laureates. All positions are temporary.
The 81 were chosen from about 1,000 applicants to the World Class Universities program, a five-year, $800-million bid to drive Korean institutions up the international rankings. The country had just two universities among the world’s top 200 last year, according to a ranking conducted by the TimesHigher Education Supplement.
– Korea Times [40]
November 11, 2008
KAIST Tops Rankings
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology [41] returned to the top of JoongAng Ilbo’s university rankings in 2008, displacing Postech [42]. The newspaper ranked Seoul National [43], Yonsei [44] and Korea [45] universities third, fourth and fifth respectively.
The evaluation is based on four categories: educational conditions and financial resources; globalization; research and faculty; and reputation and alumni representation in society.
– JoongAngDaily [46]
September 29, 2008
Taiwan
Universities Opened to Chinese Nationals
Taiwanese authorities said in November they were planning to allow students from mainland China to attend local universities. Frosty ties between the bitter rivals have begun to improve in recent months after the election of Beijing-friendly President Ma Ying-Jeou earlier this year on a platform of boosting economic ties with China.
The proposal came after top-ranking officials from Taipei and Beijing held historic talks in November in Taiwan, during which they came to agreement on deals to build closer economic ties and agreed to promote educational exchanges. According to Taiwan’s education ministry [47], Chinese students would be allowed to apply for places at local universities on condition they return to China once they have completed their studies.
The ministry also planned to recognize diplomas issued by ‘reputable’ Chinese universities and graduate schools, but not those in medical studies.
An estimated 7,000 Taiwanese students are currently enrolled at Chinese institutions of higher education in China, according to officials.
– Straits Times [48]
November 12, 2008
Vietnam
Regulator to Publish Nation’s First University Ranking
A ranking of Vietnam’s universities will be published for the first time next year. An education watchdog under the Vietnam National University-Hanoi [49] will be responsible for producing the ranking, a representative told a conference in Hanoi, reports Thanh Nien.
The Center for Education Quality Assurance and Research Development [50] (CEQARD) in cooperation with the Ministry of Education and Training [51] (MoET) are currently collecting data for the ranking. Universities will be categorized into three groups: those offering doctoral degrees, those offering master’s degrees, and those offering bachelor’s degrees. The schools will then be ranked within their categories according to their quality of education.
The MoET is also in the process of assessing the quality of local universities and expects to announce its results next year.
– Thank Nien [52]
November 17, 2008