Regional
Wide Gap Exists Between Perceptions of Quality in Education and the Reality
There is a widespread belief in Latin America that the region has some of the best public universities and scientific research centers in the world, according to a region-wide 2008 Gallup/Inter-American Development Bank poll.
The poll suggests that Latin Americans are much more satisfied with their education systems than people in the United States, Germany or Japan, despite the fact that Latin American countries consistently rank near the bottom in comparative international student test scores. Survey results indicate that while 85 percent of Costa Ricans, 84 percent of Venezuelans, 80 percent of Nicaraguans, and more than 72 percent of Colombians, Bolivians, Uruguayans, Paraguayans, Salvadorans and Hondurans are happy with their countries’ public education systems, the same is only true for 66 percent of the people in Germany, and 67 percent in the United States.
However, despite great progress in literacy rates and school attendance in recent decades, the quality of education in the region is comparatively poor. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s PISA [1] test measuring the proficiency of 15-year-old youths in mathematics, language and sciences, Latin American students get much lower scores than their counterparts in almost all other regions of the world.
In university rankings, the region’s institutions also perform poorly. No Latin American university ranks among the top 100, according to the 2009-2010 Times Higher Education’s World University Rankings [2] or China’s Shanghai Jiao Tong ranking [3]. Both rankings include several universities from Singapore, China, India, South Korea, Malaysia, Israel, and New Zealand among the world’s best, but none for countries like Brazil and Mexico, which are among the world’s 12 largest economies.
– Miami Herald [4]
September 26, 2010
Ranking the Rankers
The IREG Observatory on Academic Ranking and Excellence [5], which was created a few years ago to promote best practices in rating academic institutions, announced at its recent conference that a volunteer trial audit of two or three rankings would soon be undertaken.
The International Ranking Expert Group is perhaps best known for the ‘Berlin Principles [6]’ it established soon after the group came into existence in 2002. The 16 principles are designed to offer guidance in quality and good practice in the ranking of higher-education institutions.
The audit project will be based closely on IREG’s principles, which emphasize clarity and openness in the purposes and goals of rankings, the design and weighting of indicators, the collection and processing of data, and the presentation of results. The audit process could eventually give rise to an IREG quality label, which would amount to an identification of trustworthy rankings, thereby enhancing the credibility of rankings and improving their quality.
Under the proposed methodology and procedure for the audit, the IREG executive committee will nominate audit teams consisting of three to five people. The chair of each team must not have any formal affiliation with a ranking organization, and at least one member of the audit team must be a member of the IREG executive committee. Audits will be based on self-reported data as well as possible on-site visits, and each full audit is expected to take about five months to complete.
– The Chronicle of Higher Education [7]
October 10, 2010
Argentina
Students Protest Quality Standards
Thousands of university and high school students marched to the presidential palace in September to protest quality standards in public education, accusing politicians of neglecting schools and universities that were once considered among the best in Latin America.
High school students occupied approximately 30 public schools in Buenos Aires, with the takeovers later spreading to public universities where students occupied six schools. In late September, teachers joined the walkout, putting 700,000 students out of school. Students and teachers are largely protesting poor and deteriorating physical infrastructures, among other problems brought about by continued cuts to educational budgets in the capital.
Buenos Aires’ Education Ministry says that only 100 of the city’s 1,200 schools have budget problems and that its education budget for 2010 is the highest in the last eight years. The federal government says it spends 6.45 percent of GDP on public education, one of the highest figures in recent decades. In both cases, however, most of the money is spent on teacher salaries and not on infrastructure.
– Reuters [8]
September 17, 2010
Brazil
Too Many Places, Not Enough University Students
Brazilian universities have more places than students to fill them because not enough students are completing high school, reports University World News. According to Maria Helena Guimarães de Castro, former state secretary of education of São Paolo, in an interview with the online news source, Brazil’s “big challenge is how to get students to stay in [high] school,” adding that the government is now “putting an enormous amount of resources into this.”
Over the last 15 years, Brazilian government programs have managed to achieve near 100 percent attendance in basic education from ages seven to 14, but just 35 percent of Brazil’s school students currently end up completing high school. Many leave way before graduation to enter the job market, some in order to help support their families. Official statistics show that just 54 percent of the country’s 15-year-olds are attending secondary schools, although many, Guimarães added, do try to obtain a high school equivalency diploma by sitting certain exams later. Of the students who make it to university, approximately half drop out, often as a result of being poorly prepared for the demands of tertiary education.
With so many students dropping out of the education system, the country’s booming economy is currently suffering from a lack of qualified workers. This is especially true with regards to a shortage of technical workers. Under current government plans, there would be a threefold increase in the number of engineers over the next few years.
To meet these requirements, the government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has instituted an array of programs to encourage universal primary and secondary education, while also promoting university studies, especially in poorer communities. This builds on programs instituted by President Henrique Cardoso in the 1990s to construct thousands of new schools. To keep children in school, the Bolsa Familia (family grant) program is offered as an incentive from the national government. Under the program, poor families receive cash transfers if children stay in school. There are currently 12 million families, or about 40 million people, benefiting from monthly payments ranging from 22 reais ($12) to 200 reais ($116) as long as their children attend classes.
Brazil has about six million students in higher education, and some 600,000 are participating in its ‘pro-uni’ program, through which low-income students receive scholarships for university. The government has also given tax breaks to private institutions, which make up 75 percent of the nation’s institutions of higher education. In addition, the government has established enrollment quotas at some institutions for students from public high schools. The country has thus managed to double the number of ‘Black and Indigenous’ students in higher education, but they still account for only 10 percent of total enrollments, despite constituting 51 percent of the Brazilian population.
And the Brazilian education system continues to be entrenched with inequality and poverty. Due to low educational standards and lack of investment in public schools, 14 percent of Brazilian children attend private schools. However, most private-school leavers then apply for public, free universities – which conversely have prestigious reputations and high levels of investment. This severely limits social mobility.
– University World News [9]
September 18, 2010
– BBC [10]
September 27, 2010
Brazil Dominates Regional Section of Global University Rankings, but Still Ranks Poorly Overall
According to the latest QS ranking [11] of the World’s Best Universities, as published in US News & World Report, three Brazilian schools are among the top 10 Latin American institutions [12], however, none of them feature in the global top 250 [13].
In the regional ranking, Brazil has one more university in the top 10 than Argentina, Chile, and Mexico, each of which have two. Uruguay has one. The top ranked university in the region is Universidade Nacional Autónoma de México [14] (UNAM).
Latin American universities lag their developing world rivals by a large margin. There are no Latin American universities in the top 200, and the other major rankings show similar patterns. In the QS list, the top-rated UNAM comes in 221st overall (down from 190th place last year). The three best Brazilian institutions are Universidade de São Paulo [15] in 254th place, falling from 207th place last year; Universidade Estadual de Campinas [16] in 292nd position, up three places; and the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro [17] in 381st, up two spots from last year.
– Christian Science Monitor [18]
September 24, 2010
Canada
Canadian Business Schools Enjoy Enrollment Gains, While U.S. Numbers Drop Off
Canadian business schools have seen growth in enrollment numbers for foreign students, while schools in other nations have been seeing declines. According to a study [19] conducted by the Graduate Management Admissions Council [20], the association of leading business schools that administers the Graduate Management Admissions Test, more than 60 percent of Canadian business schools received more full-time MBA applications this year than in 2009. In the United States, more than half the business schools that participated in the study reported a drop in MBA applications from abroad.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that one major pull was the Canadian economy, which has stayed relatively strong during the global recession. This combined with the fact that the Canadian government has made it easier for international students to stay and pursue careers in Canada after they graduate has helped Canada differentiate itself from the United States, where unemployment numbers continue to stay stubbornly high and work permits are harder to come by.
By region of origin, 65 percent of foreign MBA students in Canada came from the Asia-Pacific region, with the majority from India; 17 percent are from Africa or the Middle East; 5 percent from Latin America; and 6 percent from Europe.
– CMAC [21]
September 2010
Mexico
Tertiary Enrollment Rate Way Below Regional Average
The rector of the National Autonomous University of Mexico [14], Jose Narro Robles, said recently that the enrollment ratio in Mexico is expected to soon reach 30 percent, but that this is below average for Latin American nations, reports the government news agency Notimex.
If Mexico wants to be part of the knowledge economy, it must guarantee educational access to its population, moving from its current pyramid shape to a more square form, said Narro Robles. With the enrollment ratio at just 30 percent, as many as seven of every 10 youths that aspire to a higher education currently do not have access. Robles said seven in 10 young people in Argentina have access to higher education, while Chile and Venezuela have 52 percent coverage. Mexico City has the largest coverage in the country, reaching 55 percent, which is 20 percentage points above the next state, Nuevo León, and three and a half times the coverage of states that lag the most, such as Chiapas and Quintana Roo.
– Notimex [22]
August 30, 2010
Panama
University Accreditation Program Launched
Panama recently launched a nationwide initiative to evaluate and accredit the nation’s tertiary institutions, the number of which has grown significantly in recent years.
The National Council for the Evaluation and Accreditation of University Education (CONEAUPA) launched an evaluation and standards model in September, beginning the process of evaluating 37 ministry-recognized private and public post-secondary institutions. Of these, 32 are private schools that opened after the U.S. invasion in 1989, under laws to promote education. Another 60 or more institutions operate without ministry recognition. Enrollments have grown from 53,072 in 1990 to 133,369 in 2007. In a country of three million people, with a literacy rate of 91 percent, three-quarters of all students attend public universities. However, enrollment in the private sector has been growing quickly.
Accreditation will be granted to institutions that meet ministry-set standards, with the process weeding out those that do not. Universities and the government will share the costs of evaluations. Panama’s national budget now funds the council’s work, with annual grants of approximately US$125,000.
Until now, scattershot quality assurance efforts have produced pockets of excellence, among them the engineering program at the public Universidad Technológica de Panamá [23]. The private Florida State University [24] (FSU), whose Panama City campus maintains US standards, has steadily grown its student body, with 1,220 students enrolled for the 2010-11 year, up 10 percent from last year. However, the lack of a standardized national quality assurance process has impacted the value of many local degrees, according to experts, who point to a 2009 study showing that 80 percent of middle and upper management employees studied at institutions outside Panama.
– University World News [25]
September 19, 2010
United States
Standards Tightened for Recognition of Accreditors
The de-facto accreditor of the agencies that accredit institutions of higher education in the United States has raised its requirements for recognizing the bodies it monitors, just as the Education Department [26] has required those accrediting agencies to stiffen their standards in monitoring colleges and universities.
The nongovernmental Council for Higher Education Accreditation [27] represents approximately 3,000 postsecondary institutions and sets standards for 60 accrediting organizations that seek to be recognized by the council. These include the six regional and seven national agencies that monitor institutional quality and serve as gatekeepers to federal financial aid for colleges. While recognition by the council is not required for any of the accreditors, it amounts to a sort of seal of approval from the member institutions.
In September, the council released revisions to its policy [28] for recognizing accrediting groups, including requiring accreditors to disclose the specific reasons for denying or withdrawing their approval of a college. The council also will now require accrediting bodies not only to have adequate staff members and resources to monitor their member institutions but also to have financial independence from any larger organizations of which the accreditor is a part. The council is also asking accreditors to apply the same standards to international programs and institutions that it applies to campuses in the United States.
– The Chronicle of Higher Education [29]
September 28, 2010
President of Top State University Has Choice Words for Private Sector
At an address to a conference on Building a World-Class University, University of Chicago [30] President Robert Zimmer said that while some for-profit colleges are “quite capable,” others are failing students, reported Times Higher Education.
“Unfortunately it is a bit of a Wild West,” he said. “The ones doing a good job get tarred with (the same brush as) the hucksters just trying to make a fast buck.”
For-profit institutions in the United States are currently under intense scrutiny, with recent Congressional hearings following a government investigation into alleged misleading and fraudulent recruitment activities. Critics argue that the for-profits have sought to maximize their income from students with federal loans, while failing to minimize dropout rates.
Professor Zimmer argued that it is far harder for individuals to put a value on the “long-term investment” of a university education than it is on an orthodox market transaction. “In the for-profit business, I think the capacity to not serve people well is high.”
But Professor Zimmer argued that competition between not-for-profit private colleges and state institutions had served the US university sector well, adding that a centrally run national higher education system reduced the ability for university leaders to contribute their own ideas.
– Times Higher Education [31]
October 7, 2010
Doctoral Ranking Released After Years of Delays
In September, the National Research Council [32] released its ratings of U.S. doctoral programs [33]. However, because of the delay between data collection and the 2010 release of the ratings, no one on the research committee responsible for the results endorsed the actual rankings, and members reportedly went out of their way to say that there are probably better ways to compare programs.
The approach used is “a little bit unsatisfactory, but at least it’s honest”, said Jeremiah P Ostriker, chair of the NRC committee and a professor of astronomy and former provost at Princeton University [34]. Nonetheless, the report has a total of a quarter million data points on doctoral education in the United States, which will probably be the most useful information available to those using the report.
The actual ranking system offers ranges that a program falls into rather than a precise ordinal position. Cornell University’s philosophy program, for example, has an “R-ranking” between 2 and 19 and an “S-ranking” between 16 and 34. (The first is derived indirectly from programs’ reputations, and the second is derived more directly from programs’ characteristics.)
The report offers measures on criteria such as doctoral-student completion rates, time-to-degree, faculty diversity, and student-support activities. The bad news is that many of those data points have probably gone stale, because the NRC conducted its surveys back in 2006-7. Therefore, all of the figures should be approached with some caution.
– The Chronicle of Higher Education [35]
September 28, 2010