Afghanistan

US$500 Million Higher Education Plan

Afghanistan has launched a five-year national higher education plan to restructure university teaching so that programs are better geared towards producing graduates with skills relevant to the needs of the labor market, as well as providing scientific solutions for key economic and social problems. Funding has been set at US$560 million.

The plan was announced in early December and focuses on building a high-quality, internationally recognized and well-managed public and private system responsive to Afghanistan’s growth and development needs. One of the first steps will be to build a US$25 million agricultural university in the next two years with aid from India. The university will produce graduates who, it is hoped, will provide solutions to agricultural challenges, promote agricultural technology transfer and carry out scientific research needed for development as well as improving the practices of agricultural methods.

Last year, 50,000 students were enrolled in higher education in Afghanistan and it is estimated there will be 100,000 high school leavers in 2010 and 1 million by 2014.

– University World News
December 13, 2009

Australia

Murders of Indians Add to Woes of Education Export Sector

The recent deaths of two Indian men in Australia have reignited a simmering diplomatic row over the treatment of Indian students in the country.

News of the death of Ranjodh Singh, 25, whose partially burnt body was found southwest of Sydney, followed the murder of Nitin Garg, 21, a Central Queensland University graduate who was stabbed in Melbourne in early January. A spate of attacks last year in Melbourne and Sydney led to riots in India, street protests by hundreds of students in Sydney and Melbourne, and fears that Australian universities would lose vital income from Indian students.

Indian students make up one in five of all international students in Australia, or 117,000 places in universities and vocational education colleges in the 12 months to October 2009.

The Indian government has recently issued a travel warning advising its students to take precautions while living in Australia, and especially in Melbourne where many of the attacks over the past two years have occurred.

– Sydney Morning Herald
January 8, 2010

Indian Student-Visa Rejections Up Dramatically, Enrollments Plummet

The Australian authorities refused to grant visas to one-third of the Indian students who applied to its universities from July to October 2009 because they submitted fake documents, The Economic Times reported.

The proportion is a substantial increase from the 6.5 percent of such rejections in the corresponding months of 2008, the newspaper said. “A forensic analysis of applications found extremely high rates of fraud within the documentation being provided in support of student-visa applications in India,” said a letter to the chief executive officer of Universities Australia by the immigration department.

Not surprisingly, the number of Indian students studying in Australia is forecast to decline sharply. The Australian Tourism Forecasting Committee said a 21 percent drop in the number of students traveling from India was likely, leading to a loss of A$78 million (US$73 million) in revenue. The decline is attributed both to the visa rejections and to a spate of attacks on Indian students in mid-2009. Up to 4,000 fewer Indian students will travel to Australia this year, the committee estimates, after growth of 35 percent in 2009.

– Economic Times
January 3, 2010

And the Hits Keep on Coming: English-language College Group Collapses

Australia’s international education industry took another body blow February 1 with the collapse of eight English language colleges, leaving 2,300 foreign students uncertain as to their academic future. An estimated 530 students in Melbourne alone will be unable to complete their programs as a result of the closure of colleges owned by GEOS, a Japanese company that operates a global chain of English-language schools.

The GEOS closures follow the collapse of Chinese-owned vocational college group Meridian in November last year, which left more than 3,000 students in Melbourne and Sydney stranded after investors lost confidence. Industry insiders said the global financial crisis had hit GEOS hard and its Japanese operations were also in trouble.

The colleges were members of industry group English Australia, which means English Australia now takes responsibility for finding places in other colleges for the GEOS students.

– ABC News
February 2, 2010

China

MBA Tuition Fees in Beijing Surge in Lockstep with Demand

Beijing’s best business schools have raised their tuition fees by as much as 30 percent in recent years as demand for MBA places at the capital’s universities has increased rapidly. China’s two-year MBA programs, in particular, have gained in popularity as unemployment rates have worsened.

Tsinghua University will raise its MBA tuition fees to 128,000 yuan (US$18,750) next year from 98,000 yuan ($14,350). Peking University has hiked fees to 108,000 yuan ($15,800) from 98,000 yuan ($14,350).

The average cost of a two-year MBA program now sits at 100,000 yuan ($14,650), in contrast to most academic masters degrees that typically range from 16,000 yuan ($2,350) to 20,000 yuan ($2,900). Nonetheless, applicants continue to be attracted to business programs. Applicant numbers nationwide for the 2010 Beijing MBA admission exam jumped 20 percent in 2009 from 2008 to a total of 15,384 people. This is the largest single group of the 258,654 students that took the Beijing master’s exams on Jan 9 and 10, the Beijing Education Examinations Authority said.

– China Daily
December 14, 2009

China Looks to Develop Liberal Arts Instruction

Chinese universities are looking to transform undergraduate instruction from a professor-led model to a more interactive, interdisciplinary experience, reports The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Highlighting the efforts of United International College – China’s first independent liberal-arts college – The Chronicle states that leaders in Beijing have struck on the need to create more-creative graduates as a means of producing more patents, inventions and Nobel Prizes.

Initially the government tried a top-down approach, according to academics familiar with the reforms, but decided in 2005 that creativity could not be imposed from above and so changed course to let universities develop their own strategies to promote critical thinking. At United International, the political curriculum was scrapped in favor of other subjects outside of student majors, while other universities spend as much as a third of classroom time on outdated dogma such as Deng Xiao Ping Theory or Mao Zedong Thought.

Several elite institutions, including Peking, Zhejiang, and Wuhan Universities, now operate similar programs. At Fudan University, all first-year students live in small residential colleges, in an arrangement consciously modeled after Yale’s undergraduate program.

Whether liberal education can flourish in a system where political indoctrination is considered part of the educational process is a thornier question. Few in China take the required political-study courses seriously. Professors openly acknowledge their lack of relevancy, while students routinely skip them. But they remain untouchable, a sacred cow at universities where Communist Party secretaries still wield considerable power.

– The Chronicle of Higher Education
January 3, 2010

Government Increases R&D Spending to Bring Top Scientists Home

Having watched its most talented students head overseas for decades, with very few returning home, China is increasingly fighting to keep them or lure them home, reports The New York Times.

The newspaper highlights the recent return home of Shi Yigong, a Princeton University biologist who turned down a big grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to become a dean at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

Citing heavy spending, and an increase of R&D spending to 1.5 percent of gross domestic product – far higher than that of most developing nations, yet still shy of the 2.7 devoted to R&D in the United States – the Times article points out that while the quality of research is still not comparable to that produced in the United States, the quantity soon will be.

– The New York Times
January 6, 2010

R&D Spending Pays Dividends for Scientific Research Output

As noted above, Chinese research volume has undergone a seismic sea change over the past three decades, and according to data from Thomas Reuters growth has been strongest in scientific research and shows no sign of slowing.

Jonathan Adams, research evaluation director at Thomson Reuters, in an interview with the Financial Times said China’s “awe-inspiring” growth had put it in second place to the US – and if it continues on its trajectory it will be the largest producer of scientific knowledge by 2020.

Thomson Reuters, which indexes scientific papers from 10,500 journals worldwide, analyzed the performance of four emerging markets countries: Brazil, Russia, India and China, over the past 30 years. China far outperformed every other nation, with a 64-fold increase in peer-reviewed scientific papers since 1981, with particular strength in chemistry and materials science.

Quality remains a concern for Chinese officials, but the research has become more collaborative, with almost 9 percent of papers originating in China having at least one US-based co-author.

Brazil has also been building up a formidable research effort, particularly in agricultural and life sciences. In 1981 its output of scientific papers was one-seventh that of India; by 2008 it had almost caught up with India. At the opposite extreme is Russia, which produced fewer research papers than Brazil or India in 2008. In contrast to China, India and Russia, whose research strengths tend to be in the physical sciences, chemistry and engineering, Brazil stands out in health, life sciences, agriculture and environmental research. It is a world leader in using biofuels in auto and aero engines.

– Financial Times
January 25, 2010

Record Number of Grad School Test-takers as Job Prospects Remain Poor

A record 1.4 million test-takers sat for an entrance exam to graduate programs in January, however, with only 465,000 available seats, just one in three will find a place. The situation will be worse for those seeking places in the most sought-after fields: economics, management, law and computer sciences. The popularity of the three-day examination reflects a sluggish job market amid the global economic downturn, commentators quoted by China Daily said.

“When the economy is down, people hide in schools and wait till the world is warmer,” said Ge Xiaoling, professor of mechanics at East China University of Science and Technology in Shanghai.

Businesses in China cut jobs by eight percent through the downturn, and unemployment currently sits at a six-year high in cities, according to the Society of China Analysis and Forecast 2010 published last month by Social Sciences Academic Press. The crisis has been compounded with more than 6.3 million students graduating from universities nationwide this year.

– China Daily
January 11, 2010

Students Fake Citizenship to Secure University Places

Students born, raised and educated in China are using fake foreign passports to get into top universities, which have higher entrance standards for domestic candidates, according to state media reports in January.

Fake foreign passports can reportedly be bought in eastern China for approximately 200,000 yuan (US$29,300), the Global Times said of the bogus enrollment scam.

Admissions to top universities in China for domestic students is intense, but for foreign students admission standards are much lower as many universities are interested in increasing the number of foreigners they enroll to foster an international environment on campuses and to boost their positions in global rankings of universities.

Most of the bogus students reportedly carry fake passports from African, South American or Southeast Asian nations. The scam has prompted a crackdown by the education ministry, which is now demanding proof from foreign students that they have lived in their purported countries of origin for at least four years.

– Agence France-Presse
January 13, 2010

Ghost Writing Worth $100 Million

Those writing academic papers for others in China made a combined total of approximately US$100 million, according to a recent study. Researchers at Wuhan University found that the trade in academic papers has increased more than fivefold since 2007.

The study says Chinese academics and students often buy and sell scientific papers to swell publication lists. Many of the supposed authors do not write the papers they sign, the report says.

– BBC News
January 5, 2010

India

Accreditation to Become Mandatory

India’s ministry in charge of higher education announced in December that accreditation is to be made mandatory for all institutes of higher education regardless of whether they get government grants.

“The law has been drafted and we are engaged in inter-ministerial discussions. We will soon bring it before the cabinet and hope to introduce it in the budget session of parliament (beginning February 2010),” Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal told parliament.

Once the law comes into effect, all institutions of higher learning, regardless of whether they award degrees, diplomas or other certificates, and regardless of whether they receive aid from the University Grants Commission (UGC), will have to register with the National Accreditation and Assessment Council (NAAC), the minister said.

Ultimately, reforms by the Human Resources Development Ministry would look to end the monopoly of government-run accreditation agencies. Under the proposed law, accreditation would be opened to multiple accreditation agencies, mostly private, with their operations being monitored by a regulator. The regulator — National Authority for Regulation in Accreditation of Higher Educational Institutions — will be a five-member body that registers accreditation agencies.

Accreditation agencies will accredit institutions on a host of outcomes like teaching, learning and research, human resource and research infrastructure, placement, governance structures and course curricula. Accreditation will be mandatory and accreditation outcomes and ratings will be made public.

– Indo Asian News Service
December 11, 2009

44 Universities Under Threat of Losing Autonomy

The ministry in charge of higher education announced in January that it would ‘de-recognized’ as many as 44 ‘deemed universities,’ spelling uncertainty for nearly 200,000 students enrolled at those institutions. A week later the Supreme Court stepped in, directing the government to maintain the status quo on the 44 institutions in question, while also issuing notices to all 44 deemed universities to respond to the government’s decision to de-recognize them.

The original decision by the Ministry of Human Resources (HRD) amounted to an acknowledgement of irregularities in conferring the “deemed” status to these institutions under the previous administration’s HRD ministry, headed by Arjun Singh. The move sparked protests among students, despite government assurances that it would take steps to ensure the decision would not jeopardize the future of students currently studying at the universities.

The 44 deemed universities are spread across the country and were found deficient on a range of issues – ranging from a lack of infrastructure to a lack of qualified faculty members.

Deemed status offers institutions autonomy over curricular and administrative matters, the ability to award degrees under its own name, and the requirement that research be an integral part of its activities.

The ministry’s task force that looked into the matter has recommended that institutions not found fit for deemed university status “revert to status quo ante as an affiliated college of the state university of jurisdiction so that students would be able to complete their ongoing courses and obtain degree from the affiliating university.”

The following is a list of the 44 impacted institutions:

• Academy of Maritime Education and Training (Chennai)
• Bharath Institute of Higher Education and Research (in Chennai)
• BLDE University ( in Bijapur)
• Chettinad Academy of Research and Education (in Kancheepuram)
• Dr. MGR Educational and Research Institute (in Chennai)
• DY Patil Medical College (in Maharashtra)
• Graphic Era University (in Dehradun)
• Gurukul Kangri Vishwavidyalaya (in Haridwar)
• Institute of Advanced Studies in Education of Gandhi Vidya Mandir (in Sardarshahr)
• Jain University (in Bangalore)
• Janardan Rai Nagar (in Rajasthan)
• Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education (in Tamil Nadu)
• Karpagam Academy of Higher Education (in Coimbatore)
• Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences (in Satara)
• Lingaya’s University (in Faridabad)
• Maharishi Markandeshwar University (in Ambala)
• Manav Rachna International University (in Faridabad)
• Meenakshi Academy of Higher Education and Research (in Chennai)
• Mody Institute of Technology and Science (in Rajasthan)
• National Museum Institute of the History of Art, Conservation and Museology (in New Delhi)
• Nava Nalanda Mahavihara (in Bihar)
• Nehru Gram Bharati Vishwavidyalaya (in Allahabad)
• Noorul Islam Centre for Higher Education (in Kanyakumari)
• Periyar Maniammai Institute of Science and Technology (in Thanjavur)
• Ponnaiyah Ramajayam Institute of Science and Technology (in Thanjavur)
• Rajiv Gandhi National Institute of Youth Development (in Tamil Nadu)
• Santosh University (Ghaziabad)
• Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences (in Chennai)
• Shri Devraj Urs Academy of Higher Education and Research (in Kolar)
• Siksha “O” Anusandhan (in Bhubaneswar)
• Shobhit Institute of Information Technology (in Noida)
• Sri Balaji Vidyapeeth (in Puducherry)
• Sri Siddharth Academy of Higher Education (in Karnataka)
• St. Peter’s Institute of Higher Education and Research (in Chennai)
• Sumandeep Vidyapeeth University (in Vadodara)
• Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapeeth (in Pune)
• Vel Tech Rangarajan Dr. Sagunthala R & D Institute of Science and Technology (in Chennai)
• Vel’s Institute of Science, Technology and Advanced Studies (Chennai)
• Vignan’s Foundation for Science, Technology and Research (in Guntur)
• Vinayaka Mission’s Research Foundation (in Tamil Nadu)
• Yenepoya University (in Mangalore)

– The Times of India
January 19, 2010
– The Times of India
January 25, 2010

Education Minister Visits UK Looking for Partners

It is no secret in the world of international education that the Indian higher education sector could be on the verge of a serious opening up to the outside world, especially if the plans of the Indian Minister for Human Resource Development, Kapil Sibal, to open the mainland to campuses of foreign universities passes through parliament this year.

Sibal has already made two trips to the United States, meeting with numerous presidents of prestigious public and private universities in addition to influential policymakers. More recently, the minister was in London in meetings with UK Business Secretary, Lord Mandelson, who was among the British delegation meeting Sibal in January for discussions about the broad range of UK-India cooperation, reports The Gov Monitor.

Promoting stronger education links between the two countries was a key theme of Sibal’s four-day visit to the UK. He delivered a keynote address to an audience including dozens of education ministers from around the world at the Learning and Technology World Forum in London. He also met university vice-chancellors and set out his vision for the expansion of India’s education sector.

At an event in Lancaster House, Mandelson and Sibal witnessed the signing of a memorandum of understanding between British and Indian universities, pledging to foster more successful partnerships in higher education and research.

– The Gov Monitor
January 13, 2010

Indonesia

Undergraduate Programs to Undergo Screening

With at least 50 percent of Indonesia’s 15,000 undergraduate programs being unaccredited, the Education Ministry’s accreditation board has promised to audit the sector this year in a bid to better regulate first degrees in the country.

The National Accreditation Board for Higher Education, the state agency responsible for higher education accreditation, plans to employ a new assessment model that would require universities to provide detailed answers backed by legitimate evidence to 155 questions — instead of the usual 69 — for all undergraduate programs offered, especially core programs such as economics, mathematics, law and the sciences.

Officials have implied in interviews with the media that this is a crackdown on substandard universities operating for-profit models with little concern for quality.

The board has 1,000 trained assessors across the nation’s provinces, for every type and level of study program and institution, according to the board’s Web site. Two assessors are usually assigned to each undergraduate study program. Program accreditations are valid for five years. The Education Ministry has previously warned that all undergraduate programs must be accredited by 2012 or universities would be prohibited from issuing degrees for those courses.

– Jakarta Globe
January 4, 2010

Japan

2009 International Enrollment Numbers Released

A record 132,720 international students were studying in the Japanese tertiary sector as of May 2009, up 7.2 percent from the year prior, according to statistics recently released by the Japan Student Services Organization (JASSO). Of that number, 79,082 were from China, 19,605 from Korea, 5,32 from Taiwan, 3,199 from Vietnam, and 2,395 from Malaysia.

– JASSO
December 24, 2009

Malaysia

Polytechnics to be Upgraded to Offer Advanced Degrees

Malaysia’s Ministry of Higher Education has announced plans to implement two initiatives: the upgrade of polytechnics to offer advanced diploma and degree qualifications, and a move to establish sports centers of excellence at a number of public universities.

Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin said the move to upgrade polytechnics was necessary as they were currently regarded as a second chance route for weaker students and this perception had to change. Focusing on human capital development, the change would see polytechnics focusing solely on diploma and higher-level courses in areas relevant to current needs in the labor market. More places and opportunities for further study would also be offered to increase the public’s accessibility to higher education.

– The Daily Star
January 17, 2010

Taiwan

China and Taiwan to Equalize Cross-Strait Academic Mobility Numbers

China and Taiwan are looking to equalize the number of mainland Chinese students in Taiwan and Taiwanese students in China for 2010, according to an announcement from the Taiwanese Ministry of Education in late December. Education authorities from the two states will negotiate a figure in the 2,000 range, according to Taiwanese officials, who added that they will recognize credentials from 41 select Chinese universities.

Meanwhile, students who have received Chinese diplomas demanded that their credentials be recognized. Diplomas of those who went to study on the mainland after Taiwan and the mainland first began exchanges in 1987 should all be recognized, insisted Chen Cheng-teng, vice chairman of the Taiwan Students Union, an organization of Taiwanese students studying in China. He criticized the ministry for denying Chinese medical diploma holders the right to participate in the country’s medical certification examination.

There are currently an average of 900 Taiwanese students pursuing diplomas in China annually.

– Liberty Times
December 24, 2009

Rankings Tiff

The National Taiwan University (NTU) was accused of manipulating the methodology of a Spanish university ranking organization to inflate its position on a global ranking of world universities. The Taiwanese university has protested the allegation by Webometrics Ranking that it resorted to “bad practices” in jumping to 26th place for 2009, up from 55th place in 2008.

Taiwan News reported that Webometrics, which is run by an offshoot of the Spanish National Research Council, accused NTU of “hosting large numbers of academic papers authored by scientists who do not belong” to the institution. NTU said that the allegation was not “clear” enough and had undermined its reputation.

– The China Post
December 26, 2009

Vietnam

Government Seeks to Bring Overseas-educated Vietnamese Home

Facing a severe shortage of skilled manpower, the Vietnamese government is looking to entice students who went overseas to study to return home. Approximately four million Vietnamese now live and work in 101 countries around the world, including many tertiary-level students in America, and the number is growing rapidly.A conference attended by 900 overseas Vietnamese was recently held in Hanoi aimed at persuading them to return home. The conference, the first of its kind, was sponsored by the State Committee for Overseas Vietnamese and focused not only on improving young people’s knowledge of their own country but also on attracting the overseas educated Vietnamese back home.

Although the Hanoi conference was a first, it is not the first time the government has tried to encourage overseas Vietnamese to return or to at least participate in helping build the country indirectly. In 2007, an amended Nationality Law meant that a greater number of overseas Vietnamese were able to hold dual citizenship. Yet, while many young people expressed their desire to return home, this has not occurred to any substantial degree.

– University World News
December 20, 2009