Regional

Asian R&D Catching up to US and Europe

The United States, Europe and Japan remain the leading global research and development centers, however, they are increasingly being challenged by emerging economies, especially that of China. This is one of the findings of the UNESCO Science Report 2010, launched on World Science Day, November 10.

The report shows that investment in research and development (R&D) is growing globally in absolute terms, but emerging countries are clearly growing the quickest in science and technology. This is especially so in terms of Asia’s share of gross domestic expenditure on research and development (GRED).

Led mainly by China, India and South Korea, Asia’s share increased from 27 percent to 32 percent between 2002 and 2007. Over the same period, the EU, US and Japanese share decreased. In 2002, almost 83 percent of R&D was carried out in developed countries but by 2007 this had dropped to 76 percent.

“The distribution of R&D efforts between north and south has changed with the emergence of new players in the global economy,” UNESCO Director General, Irina Bokova says in a foreword to the report.

“The bipolar world in which science and technology were dominated by the Triad…is gradually giving way to a multi-polar world, with an increasing number of public and private research hubs spreading across north and south.”

The proportion of researchers in developing countries increased from 30 percent in 2002 to 38 percent in 2007. Two-thirds of this increase occurred in China, which, with its 1,423,400 researchers in 2007, was close to overtaking the US and the EU. Previous UNESCO science reports were published in 1993, 1996, 1998 and 2005.

– UNESCO
November 15, 2010

Australia

International Students In Australia Required to Show Far Greater Capacity to Pay than in Other Countries

International students hoping to study in Australia are required to show the capacity to pay for three years of living and tuition costs before receiving a student visa, which is estimated to be three times greater than similar requirements in Britain, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States, reports The Australian newspaper.

The amount comes to approximately US$140,000. Foreign students in the United States have to show the capacity to pay for one year of fees and living costs, which is about US$40,000, while Canada, Britain, and New Zealand require $23,000-$25,000. The figures, which are based on an analysis by the John Curtin Institute of Public Policy, are one of a number of issues that stakeholders say is currently deterring international students from coming to Australia.

– The Australian
November 15, 2010

Foreign Enrollment Numbers Set to Plunge

Australian universities are estimated to earn somewhere between 15 and 20 percent of their revenue from international student fees, with some, such as Central Queensland University (CQU) — which runs campuses solely for international students in Brisbane, the Gold Coast, Melbourne and Sydney – deriving over 44 percent of income from foreign students.

In the third term of this year, CQU saw new international enrollments drop by about 20 percent. However, this has not come as a surprise after significant changes in Australia’s student visa approval process have made it harder for students to get visas, and, perhaps more importantly, to obtain permanent residency after graduation from the vocational education and training sector, where students frequently enrolled in short-term certificate programs in order to qualify for permanent residency. Australia has tightened its criteria for admitting skilled immigrants, among other things raising the requirements for English language skills and previous work experience.

According to the latest figures, for September, new international student enrollments in the higher education sector are still up just slightly, by 2 percent, but new foreign enrollments in the vocational education and training sector are down by 8.7 percent and, most worrisomely for universities, new enrollments in intensive English language courses — seen as the pathway to university study — have decreased by 22.5 percent from this time last year. In addition, student visas awarded for higher education declined by 11.5 percent from 2008-9 to 2009-10, from 133,990 to 118,541. Already in the higher education sector, total enrollments from India — Australia’s second-largest source country — have declined by 19.7 percent, and new enrollments by an eye-popping 47.9 percent.

There are a number of factors, not least the growing strength of the Australian dollar, which is now trading about on par with the U.S. dollar. A series of attacks on Indian students in the last year attracted major media attention and damaged Australia’s reputation. But the main reasons have to do with the government’s move to sever the tight link between education and immigration. This change has its roots in both anti-immigration backlash in Australia and an indisputable need to crack down on the growth of low-quality education in the vocational education and training sector.

– Inside Higher Ed
November 30, 2010

China

Elite Universities Announce Independent Admissions Exam

Seven of China’s top universities announced in November that they would begin using the same independent examination – in addition to the national one – as a means of testing prospective students, beginning in 2011.

The seven universities are Peking, Beihang (Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics), Beijing Normal University, Nankai, Fudan, Xiamen, and Hong Kong University. Students who want to gain entrance to any of the universities will only have to sit one independent exam, rather than for several different universities, according to a joint announcement.

In 2003, Peking University and another 21 universities were allowed to pilot the reform by using their own criteria to independently select 5 percent of their students. Now nearly 80 universities across the country have the right to select talented students based on their own exams.

A separate alliance of universities, which commenced earlier this year, has also been established between Tsinghua University, University of Science and Technology of China, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Xi’an Jiaotong University and Nanjing University, with Renmin University and Zhejiang University to be added next year.

– Xinhua
November 22, 2010

Online Service to Help Chinese Academics Find International Collaborators

A new online service called Anianet seeks to help Chinese academics connect with international scholars outside their country’s borders. The service currently has approximately 6,000 registered users. The website allows researchers to post a résumé or CV, as well as to upload research documents, photographs, and video clips. However, most Chinese researchers on the site have so far chosen to provide minimal details, with many posting only a photo and research field. That would be little help to someone trying to evaluate the researcher’s work. Developers of the service say they are working to increase input from Chinese researchers.

– The Chronicle of Higher Education
December 1, 2010

India

Higher Education Spending to Rise 13% Per Annum Over Next Decade

Indian household spending on higher education will grow nearly 13 percent annually over the next 10 years, said a report released by Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal in November.

“Higher education spends in India are currently estimated at Rs46,200 crore (US$10.3 billion) and are projected to grow over Rs.150,000 crore in the next 10 years, reflecting an average growth rate of 12.8 percent,” said the joint report by audit and consulting firm Ernst and Young and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

Changing macroeconomic trends are creating new categories of students. They are also increasing the willingness to pay for academic quality, employability-linked education as well as foreign education, said the report. “The shift towards a services economy is creating a large demand for skilled workforce, which in turn will drive enrolment in higher education.”

– Live Mint
November 12, 2010

US-Based Carnegie Mellon Announces Engineering Partnership

Carnegie Mellon University has announced a new joint program to train undergraduate engineering students in India through a partnership with the Shiv Nadar Foundation, which runs one of India’s top engineering schools.

Students will study both in India and on the university’s Pittsburgh campus, following a Carnegie Mellon-designed curriculum in mechanical engineering and electrical and computer engineering. The first students will be admitted to the program, which expands on a current graduate-level collaboration, in the fall of 2011 and they will earn Carnegie Mellon degrees.

– CMU News Release
November 11, 2010

UK University to Offer Degrees In Collaboration with U. Madras

As Indian lawmakers consider a legislative bill that would open the country’s doors to foreign universities, one British university has already established a foothold in the country through a joint venture with the University of Madras and several other Indian institutions, reports The Hindu.

Northampton University is to launch a masters degree in environmental technology at Madras University in February next year under a joint UK-India program aimed at promoting research links between the two countries. Although the program will be delivered by teachers from both universities, the final degree will be awarded by the University of Northampton.

The British university already has offices in India and recruits some 250 students every year. It also has links with the Central Leather Research Institute (CLRI) — a part of Anna University in Chennai — and the University of Mumbai. The university hopes to develop these ties over the longer term.

– The Hindu
November 14, 2010

44 Million University Students by 2020

According to government targets, Indian institutions of higher education will be enrolling 30 million more students in 10 years than they do now. The Indian system of higher education currently enrolls 14 million students, so the target is ambitious to say the least.

To meet its goals, the government plans to encourage private participation, distance education and foreign education providers. Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal said at the Hindustan Times’ Leadership Summit that the central government is looking to add 30 million more students to higher education by 2020.

“Industry does not create (human) wealth, it translates ideas into wealth. Higher education will create this human wealth, ” the minister said. He added that to meet its targets the country would have to add 1,000 more universities to the current stock.

– LiveMint
November 20, 2010

Student Mobility to be Tracked by Unique I.D. Numbers

The Ministry of Human Resource Development and the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to create an electronic registry of all students to help to track their mobility from primary/elementary through secondary and higher education and between institutions. In order to reduce degree fraud, there is also a plan to issue all students with unique identification numbers that will be printed on all performance records (marksheets, merit certificates, migration certificates).

– Government news release
October 27, 2010

Federal Universities to Organize Joint Admission Test

India’s 22 federal universities have announced plans to start a standardized admissions test similar to the SAT in the United States. Currently Indian universities admit students based on their final exams in high school, a system that is cause for notoriously high levels of stress among final year students and their parents. A common, national-level aptitude test is considered as one way to alleviate that burden, said leaders of India’s universities at a recent conference, reported on by the Press Information Bureau.

The universities’ vice-chancellors agreed that a national test and high-school scores should be taken into consideration when admitting a student. High schools in India follow different curricula, making it difficult to compare candidates. The federal universities now plan to start working on how to structure the national test.

– Press Information Bureau
November 19, 2010

India Steps Up Overseas Recruiting of Professors

The Indian government is redoubling its efforts to recruit professors from abroad, especially among expatriate academics. The government has instructed its embassies to set up video-conferencing equipment so that heads of Indian higher-education institutions can connect with Indian faculty abroad and sell “the dream of a classroom called India.” India’s elite engineering schools, the Indian Institutes of Technology, which currently have just 70 to 75 percent of their academic position filled, have designed advertisements and sent them to Indian embassies to promote in Austria, Britain, Canada, Italy, Japan, and the United States.

The weak job markets are helping with these recruiting efforts, say administrators. “There is currently an overflow of applicants wanting to teach in our institutes, as employment opportunities for Ph.D. fellows in the U.S. and Europe are not very bright,” said Surendra Prasad in an interview with The Times if India.

– The Times of India
November 29, 2010

Indian Philanthropist Donates US$2 Billion to Build University and Schools

India’s third-richest man, Azim Premji, has donated the equivalent of US$2 billion for the construction of a university and a network of schools. The money will be given to the Azim Premji Foundation, which currently works mainly with schools in rural India.

Part of the donation will be used to create the Azim Premji University in the state of Karnataka, which will offer graduate courses in education and development, and is expected to open next year with 200 students, scaling up to 2,000 students in four to five years. The university will require up to $66 million a year in support, Dileep Ranjekar, chief executive of the foundation, said in an interview with Mint. The Karnataka government recently approved the formation of the university under a special legislative Act.

“All our efforts, including the university we are setting up, are focused on the underprivileged and disadvantaged sections of our society,” said Mr. Premji, whose net worth is estimated at US$18 billion.

– Mint
December 2, 2010

Education Minister Dissatisfied with Progress on New Engineering Schools

The Indian minister in charge of higher education, Kapil Sibal, expressed his dissatisfaction recently at delays from state governments in setting up permanent campuses for new, federally backed Indian Institutes of Technology, and has told them to immediately sort out the problems.

Five of eight new elite engineering schools set up since 2008 are functioning out of ill-equipped temporary campuses or on the campuses of the older existing schools that are mentoring the new ones.

“Having an Indian Institute of Technology is a matter of prestige for any state. … So it is appalling that the states failed to provide land despite assurances that they would do so,” said the minister.  Academics have criticized the government for hastily setting up the new schools without campuses or faculties, especially while the older elite schools have faculty shortages.

– India Today
December 7, 2010

Indonesia

Private Universities to Face Accreditation Procedures that Could Lead to Many Closures or Mergers

In 1945, about 2,000 students were enrolled in Indonesian institutions of higher education, according to data analysis by the World Bank. Today, there are about four million higher education students, with 68 percent enrolled in one of the more than 3,000 private institutions in the country. There are about 130 public institutions.

While private universities have opened the doors of academia to many Indonesians who may otherwise have missed out, researchers say the quality of education provided by private universities, many of which were established in the 1980s, varies greatly. The World Bank says strengthening public support for private institutions will be vital to upgrading Indonesia’s overall higher education system.

In a bid to strengthen standards, the government has announced that Indonesian universities will be required to obtain accreditation for their undergraduate programs by 2012, and those that fail to measure up will be closed or required to merge with accredited institutions, according to officials at the Board of Higher Education, a national body of representatives from the sector that provides feedback to the government.

– The New York Times
November 22, 2010

Japan

Government Cuts Internationalization Initiative

Facing runaway debt, the Japanese government has been seeking measures to trim the budget, one of which will be the axing of the Global 30 program, a cornerstone of its strategy to internationalize higher education. The government’s Budget Review Committee voted in November to abolish and “restructure” the project.

The program was initiated last year with a budget of approximately US$38 million that would seek to support a “core” group of universities to “dramatically” increase the number of international students in Japan, while also increasing the number of Japanese students studying abroad, according to the Ministry of Education. However, the program got off to a slow start with just 13 elite universities passing through the ministry’s strict selection criteria. And government cuts have already shaved up to 30 percent from the budget allocated to each institution for the program.

– The Chronicle of Higher Education
November 19, 2010

Downward Spiral in International Mobility of Japanese Students Continues

The number of Japanese studying abroad has seen its sharpest fall yet, the government said towards the end of December, blaming the nation’s economic slowdown and young people’s ‘inward-looking perspective’.

The number of Japanese at schools, colleges and universities overseas came to 66,833 in 2008, down by a record 11 percent from the previous year, said a survey by the education ministry. Their most popular destination was the United States, where 29,264 Japanese studied, down 14 percent, according to the survey based on Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and other figures.

China was the second-most popular destination with 16,733 Japanese students, down 10 percent, followed by Britain with 4,465, down 22 percent, the survey showed. The number of Japanese students abroad hit a peak of 82,945 in 2004 but has since declined. Meanwhile, the number of foreign students in Japan reached a record 141,774 as of May 1, up 7 percent from a year earlier, the fourth consecutive annual gain, Jiji Press reported, quoting another survey.

– Agence France Presse
December 23, 2010

Malaysia

Indian University Prepares to Open Malaysia Campus

Malaysia’s Ministry of Higher Education issued a charter to Manipal Education, an Indian private education provider, to establish Manipal International University (MIU) in the majority-Muslim nation.

The new campus will join Melaka Manipal Medical College (MMMC), which began offering classes in Malaysia 14 years ago and has since seen over 3,000 students enroll. MMMC was recently awarded a five-year accreditation, which is reportedly a first for an international medical school in Malaysia.

The setting up of MIU is in line with Malaysia’s vision outlined in Vision 2020 and the 10th Malaysia Plan, which seeks to align higher education in Malaysia with its National Key Economic Areas to develop high quality human resources. It also seeks to establish Malaysia as a favored destination for higher education among international students from the region.

Manipal International University is planned as a multi-disciplinary university of ‘global standards,’ with specializations in engineering and management at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Over time, Manipal officials believe that MIU will enroll up to 50 percent of its projected student population of more than 15,000 students from outside Malaysia. A first intake is planned for 2011 at an interim campus, with a permanent multi-million dollar purpose-built campus to be established at an as-yet undecided site in or near the capital Kuala Lumpur.

– Manipal news release
November 2, 2010

New Zealand

University and Polytechnic to Merge

New Zealand’s smallest university will merge with one of its smallest polytechnics next year. The government has approved the union of Lincoln University and Telford Rural Polytechnic – both specialists in the rural sector and both located in the country’s South Island.

Lincoln has about 2,700 full-time students, including some 700 international students, while Telford has nearly 1,000 domestic students. The merger means Telford will become a division of Lincoln and both its name and its campus in Balclutha will be retained. The merger takes effect on January 1, 2011. There has been one other merger of a polytechnic and university in New Zealand – when Wellington Polytechnic became part of Massey University in 1999.

– University World News
November 28, 2010

Singapore

Nation’s Newest University to Take Teaching Concepts to the Next Level in Partnership with MIT

The Singapore University of Technology and Design, now under construction, is being developed in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as an institution that will test the latest in teaching theory and academic features. It seeks to train the next generation of innovators in architecture, engineering, and information systems for the high-tech city-state that considers a globally competitive work force its key to national survival. Or at least that is the US$700 million gamble.

One selling point of the institution, which is to start classes on a temporary campus in 2012, is that it is associated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. However, The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that it will be anything but a carbon copy. MIT researchers are treating Singapore’s new university as an education laboratory where they can try out new teaching methods and curriculum, some of which may then be taken back to Cambridge.

MIT already has operations in Singapore and for years the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology has supported joint research, and MIT helps run the thriving Singapore-MIT Gambit Game Lab to explore video-game design. Singapore leaders are not counting only on MIT, though. The new university has also built a relationship with a top Chinese research institution, Zhejiang University, which will design some courses, provide internship opportunities, and conduct joint research.

Traditional disciplinary boundaries will be played down. For the first three semesters, all students will go through the same battery of courses, whether they want to end up as architects, technology-systems managers, or mechanical engineers. That’s one semester longer for the core curriculum than at MIT.

In their junior and senior years, students will choose one of four “pillars”: architecture, engineering product development, engineering systems, or information systems. Those will be the closest things to majors at the new university, which won’t have traditional academic departments.

The university has already selected its first class of students (82 said yes out of 119 who were admitted), mostly from Singapore, some of whom delayed starting college to wait for these doors to open. Eventually, an enrollment of 4,000 undergraduates and 2,000 graduate students is expected; the university says it will meet a government requirement of admitting 20 to 30 percent of its students from abroad.

Singapore officials say they are comfortable bringing in a Western university to help get their new institution started. It has worked for them before. About 10 years ago, the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School helped design Singapore Management University, which is now well established. Similar collaborations are under way. Yale University is working with the National University of Singapore to build a liberal arts college, and Imperial College London is working with Nanyang Technological University to design its new medical school.

– The Chronicle of Higher Education
November 28, 2010

Yale Partnership with NUS to Go Ahead

As might be expected, Yale’s planned tie-up with Singapore has been cause for some concern among academics on New Haven, given that the city-state is considered by many to have a repressive government. However, the tie-up between Yale University and the National University of Singapore for a liberal arts college in Singapore looks set to go ahead.

NUS Vice-president Lily Kong said the steering committee for the project was in final stages of talks with Yale, with details likely to be unveiled in early 2011. She said the Ministry of Education’s high-level International Academic Advisory Panel, which advises Singapore universities and includes former Cambridge Vice-chancellor Alison Richards and Boston University President Robert Brown, had thrown its support behind the collaboration.

Kong added that the two universities had reached a “good understanding” and could work through “issues that arise”. While some individuals have taken issue with the feasibility – and irony – of a Yale-branded liberal arts education in Singapore because of the nation’s infamously strict laws, especially with regard to freedoms of speech and assembly, Singaporeans say the criticisms are ill founded.

– University World News
December 1, 2010

South Korea

Too Much Education?

South Korea is a country thirsty for education. It sits atop many indicators of national competitiveness as relates to educational standards, and at 53 percent, South Korea has the highest proportion of graduates among 25- to 34-year-olds of any nation in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, according to 2008 figures. Vast sums, both public and private, are invested in the Korean higher education system, yet its universities have traditionally fared poorly in international rankings of universities.

Education in Korea is full of contrasts. For a country that places such great stock in education, it is somewhat ironic that declining birth rates are attributed in part to the fact that many parents resist having a second child as the educational investment costs are just too high in this immensely competitive and somewhat insular society.

In a fascinating and far-too-lengthy-to-summarize piece in Times Higher Education, John Morgan takes an in-depth look at the internationalization of Korean higher education, examining mobility trends among academics and students, incentives for foreign academics to come to Korea, university to university collaboration projects, foreign branch campuses, initiatives designed to better institutional rankings, efforts to inspire greater analytical skills and intellectual independence, and the thought that maybe Koreans are investing too much money and effort in education.

– Times Higher Education
December 9, 2010

Taiwan

University in Taiwan Gains U.S. Accreditation

Taiwan’s Ming Chuan University has become the first East Asian university to receive accreditation from the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. The university’s president Lee Chuan said that from start to finish, the process had taken five years, adding that the move would help Taiwanese graduates to apply for graduate school in the United States and allow American students to apply for U.S. federal student aid to attend Ming Chuan.

“The accreditation serves as a signal that the quality of Taiwan’s higher education is now getting positive attention on the international stage,” Lee said at a news conference in Taipei. Middle States has accredited several institutions outside the United States, including universities in Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East, according to its website.

– Taiwan Today
December 3, 2010

Sri Lanka

Institutional Accreditation Guidelines Issued

The University Grants Commission has released the Guidelines for the Recognition of Degrees Awarded by Higher Educational Institutes, a document that describes the elements to be examined when evaluating an institution prior to its being granted degree-awarding status. These include: Governance and management; academic programs, standards and quality assurance; academic and research competencies of staff; educational environment.

– University Grants Commission
October 2010

Vietnam

100 Universities Complete Self-assessment Exercise

According to the Ministry of Education and Training, 237 universities and junior colleges in Vietnam, including 100 universities, have completed self-assessment exercises under the ministry’s push to introduce quality assurance measures in the tertiary sector.

The ministry hopes between 2015-20, 90 to 95 percent of schools will have completed the self-assessment process and will transfer to a new period of being assessed and accredited by outside organizations.

The ministry’s decision that universities and colleges must be assessed and accredited is part of a program to build a ‘quality culture’ in higher education. Considering the high number of institutions that have finished the self-assessment process, there seems reason for optimism. However, some are worried about the quality of the self-assessment because it has been done so rapidly.

According to Professor Nguyen Mau Banh, a member of the council for quality assessment, it takes foreign universities at least 18 months to assess themselves and fix problems before they register to have their training service verified and accredited. It took universities in Vietnam only six months to do that.

– Vietnam.net Bridge
November 30, 2010