Australia

Sydney to Accept China’s College-Entrance Exam for Admissions

According to a report in the China Daily, the University of Sydney will admit Chinese students based on their scores in the gaokao, China’s college entrance exam. It is also dropping the requirement that students from China take preparatory courses that last up to a year, although they must have a minimum score of 6.5 on the IELTS English-proficiency test.

“This new arrangement will see even more of China’s top students opt to study here and will further increase our high-level engagement in years to come,” the university’s vice chancellor, Michael Spence, said in a statement. The University of Sydney is setting entry scores at the same level as those of China’s Tier One universities, but lower than the very best Chinese schools such as Beijing and Tsinghua.

– China Daily
February 20, 2012

Student Visa Changes Boon for Beleaguered Vocational Sector

The Australian government is introducing changes to student visa requirements for a number of visa subclasses in response to the immigration department’s 2011 review of student visa assessment level settings.

The changes, welcomed by the higher education sector, mean the number of assessment levels across a range of student visa subclasses will be reduced, making the visa application process easier for students from 29 countries. The changes, which took effect from March 24, will help around 10,500 prospective students, according to immigration officials.

The changes are expected to benefit the graduate research sector, English Language Intensive Courses for Overseas Students and vocational education and training providers. For example, South Koreans studying VET and ELICOS programs and graduate research students from China, India and Indonesia will now find it easier to apply for visas.

– Daily Telegraph
February 15, 2012

Australia Running Huge Student Trade Surplus

Australia has the largest net flow of students among countries with significant education-export industries. Dr Daniel Edwards, a senior research fellow at the Australian Council for Educational Research, measured the ratio of international students hosted by 109 countries to their nationals going overseas to study and found that only Macao had a higher net flow. Australia led the seven nations hosting 100,000 or more students.

In 2009, Australian higher education providers enrolled approximately 260,000 international students for a net flow ratio of 20 percent, well ahead of other major providers notably the UK (15 percent). While the US hosted by far the largest number of international students, around 650,000 in 2009, the sheer size of its system reduced the net flow ratio to just 2 percent.

Nations running a net flow deficit include two of Australia’s major customers, China and Malaysia, as well as two troubled European economies, Greece and Ireland. According to Edwards, the positive spin on the net inflow is Australians are so convinced of the quality of their own universities they do not aspire to an alternative. Unless, he adds, “staying at home is our default position.”

– The Australian
February 17, 2012

Economy Takes a Multi-Billion Dollar Hit from Drop in International Enrollments

The value of international students to the Australia education sector has collapsed by 20 percent as the high value of the Australian dollar continues to hurt an industry already reeling from immigration reform, a prohibitive visa regime and violence against foreign students.

Education exports dropped to A$13.9 billion last year from $17.2 billion in 2010 and a 2009 peak of $17.7 billion, in the worst year since 2007. This is according to recent figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

– The Australian
March 7, 2012

Strong Dollar Keeps International Tuition Fees Flat

Australian universities have been forced to keep any fee increases for international students to a minimum this year, with the strong Australian dollar putting pressure on enrollments. Unlike domestic students whose program fees are delayed until after graduation through the higher education loan program, international students pay tens of thousands of dollars in upfront tuition fees.

– The Financial Review Education Supplement
February 27, 2012

China

Cost Projections for Duke’s Shanghai Campus as Much as $49 Million

Duke University’s new campus in Shanghai is likely to cost the university between $32 million and $49 million over the next seven years, according to statistical analyses undertaken by school finance and administration officials. The sum would be equivalent to what professional schools on the Durham campus cost the university.

Duke’s share of the operating costs — which the university will be splitting equally with the city of Kunshan, outside Shanghai — are in addition to the initial cost of getting the campus up and running. While the actual cost of building the campus is being borne by the city of Kunshan, Duke is also spending approximately $8 million for master planning, design, construction oversight and specialty consulting.

So far, university officials have only approved one program for the new campus, a one-year Master of Management Studies program that would be split between China and the United States.

– The Herald-Sun
February 24, 2012

China Welcomes a Record Number of International Students in 2011

The number of international students in China rose by over 10 percent in 2011, according to figures released by the Ministry of Education in February.

The figures are based on the calendar year and in 2011 there were 27,521 more foreign students in China than in 2010. The total number of foreigners on a student visa in China in 2011 was 292,611. These students came from a total of 194 countries, studying at 660 institutions across the country.

The ministry has set a target of enrolling 500,000 foreign students in 2020, to make it the go-to country in Asia.

International Students in China: Funding
Funding	2011	Change on 2010
Self Funding Students	266,924	+22,224 (9.98%)
Chinese Govt Scholarship	25,687	+3,297 (14.73%)

 

International Students in China: Region of Origin
Region	2011	% of Total
Asia	187,871	64.21%
Europe	47,271	16.15%
The Americas	32,333	11.05%
Africa	20,744	7.09%
Australasia	4,932	1.50%

 

International Students in China: Country of Origin
Country	2011
South Korea	62,442
USA	23,292
Japan	17,961
Thailand	14,145
Vietnam	13,549
Russia	13,340
Indonesia	10,597
India	9,370
Pakistan	8,516
Kazakhstan	8,287
France	7,592
Mongolia	7,112
Germany	5,451

*By-Country figures only given for countries sending in excess of 5,000 students per year

International Students in China: Program
Program	2011	% of Total
Non-Degree Seeking Students	173,774	59.39%
Degree-Seeking Students	118,837	40.61%

 

International Students in China: Degree Level
Degree Level	2001	% of Total
Undergraduate	88,461	74.44%
Graduate	23,453	19.74%
Doctoral	6,923	5.83%

– Ministry of Education
February 28, 2012

Rapid Growth of Private Colleges

China has seen strong growth in the number of private colleges across the country in recent years, with hundreds of new universities created in the last 15 years. Many of the institutions are seen as second choices for those who can’t win a place at a public university, and they charge double the tuition of public institutions, but so many students want a higher education that these institutions continue to attract enrollments.

The new schools are especially prevalent in China’s big cities, congregating in places such as Oriental University City, a complex in Hebei province, an hour south of Beijing, which has 14 private universities, one shared library and a handful of fast-food restaurants to feed tens of thousands of students.

The number of private universities in China has grown to more than 630, up from 20 in 1997, according to a 2010 analysis from the Center for International Higher Education at Boston College. In 2008, private institutions enrolled about 20 percent of Chinese college students. Private university administrators and critics of the schools have warned that as China’s population growth slows, the boom in private universities may subside and only the best ones will survive. This scenario is currently playing out in Japan.

Official statistics are not available, but private colleges claim employment rates for their graduates that are higher than those of their public counterparts. While public schools have to work with the curriculum set by the government, private universities can create or change majors on a regular basis, in response to the job market.

– Washington Post
February 13, 2012

World Bank Calls for More Foreign Campuses in China

A recent World Bank report on China has called for greater university autonomy, more branch campuses, and a greater focus on research to facilitate the country’s economic development. These changes would help universities make substantial contributions to the innovations necessary to drive economic growth in China and bring it into being as a high-income country by 2030. So says China 2030: Building a modern, harmonious and creative high-income society, published in February.

Allowing in more international branch campuses in collaboration with domestic universities would help domestic universities develop international standards of management, according to the report, which was published by the World Bank in collaboration with the Development Research Centre. The centre is a quasi-autonomous China-based think-tank that reports to China’s State Council.

The report predicts that the number of college graduates could grow by 200 million over the next two decades, more than the entire labor force of the United States at around 155 million. However, “the quality of tertiary education is a matter of concern, and employers are experiencing a serious shortage of skills,” it said. “To address this shortfall, China needs to further accelerate governance reform in universities, giving them greater autonomy while, at the same time, tightening ethical standards in research.”

– University World News
March 2, 2012

Chinese Universities Increase Recruitment of International Academics

The New York Times reports that top Chinese universities are enjoying success in recruiting Western academics with the help of government-funded recruitment packages and cuts to public funding in the West. At Peking University’s School of Transnational Law, founded in 2007 by Jeffrey S. Lehman, a former dean of the University of Michigan Law School, seven of the nine permanent faculty are foreigners. They come from America, Germany, Britain and South Korea.

The rise in foreign academics at the law school reflects a broader trend. As institutions in Western countries continue to suffer from budget cuts, academics looking for opportunities farther afield are finding that China has become very welcoming of foreign professors.

Individual Chinese universities are increasingly recruiting Western academics, while the Chinese government is also enticing foreigners with a new program that offers a range of incentives. Late last year, the Chinese government started the Thousand Foreign Experts program, which is designed to attract up to 1,000 foreign academics and entrepreneurs over the next 10 years to help improve research and innovation. It has already attracted more than 200 applicants from countries like the United States, Japan and Germany, according to a report in February by Xinhua, China’s official news agency.

Under the new program, successful candidates receive a subsidy of up to one million renminbi, or nearly $160,000, and scientific researchers can receive a research allowance worth three million to five million renminbi. With funding harder to come by in many Western countries, China’s impressive investment in research and development is proving a draw for many Western researchers. And with China itself becoming a rapidly growing field of research for scholars, academics are also moving there to further their research.

– The New York Times
March 11, 2012

Hong Kong

Applications to UK Universities Surge as Hong Kong Prepares for the Introduction of New Bachelor’s Degrees

The British Council expects a 35 to 50 percent increase in the number of Hong Kong students who will be accepted by British universities this year. More than 3,200 students were accepted in 2011, and as of mid-January there had been a 37 percent spike in applications from 3,641 to 4,998, according to Universities and Colleges Admissions Service data. The increase was the largest from anywhere in the world.

British government authorities have confirmed in recent weeks that universities in Britain will accept students who hold the new Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education, saying that so far 45 universities had recognized the diploma with others expected to follow suit.

The massive surge in demand comes as a double cohort of students vie for tertiary places in Hong Kong this year. One class will enter the old three-year university track, having completed 13 years of schooling, while the other cohort will enter four-year programs after having completed 12 years of schooling under the new Hong Kong secondary curriculum. The new four-year degrees are aimed at offering students a broader base of studies with a general education component added to specialist classes.

An estimated 110,000 school-leavers will be competing for just 30,000 higher education places as the first Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education cohort of 17-year-olds vies for university places with the final A-level cohort of 18-year-olds.

Other host countries have also seen increase in applications from Hong Kong, but the UK appears to be the most attractive, possibly because of shorter three-year degrees for students with three HK A-levels, in addition to existing and historical academic ties. Elsewhere, education officials in Taiwan said in February that they expect a five-fold increase in university acceptances for Hong Kong students this year. Officials said that 600 Hong Kong students were accepted by Taiwan universities in 2010, but more than 3,000 applications had already been received from Hong Kong so far this year.

– The Standard
February 16, 2012

India

Protests Outside British Campus Reveal Opposition to Foreign Providers Bill

Britain’s Leeds Metropolitan University has been operating what is often referred to as India’s first foreign campus on the outskirts of the central city of Bhopal since 2009, and in February protesters outside the campus were calling for Leeds to leave the country.

While the protest was focused on the Leeds campus, at the heart of the unrest was opposition to a series of higher education bills pending in India’s parliament, including the Foreign Universities Bill that would establish the legal framework for foreign branch campuses to operate in the country.

More than 2,000 people took part in the Bhopal protests, with hundreds of students mobilized from colleges and institutes in the city during the first two weeks of February. The size and passion of the local campaign against the ‘marketization’ of higher education serves as a warning to foreign education providers of what could greet them on the ground should they push ahead with establishing campuses on Indian soil, protestors said.

According to protesters, the Leeds campus – which is a joint venture with India’s non-profit Jagran Social Welfare Society – is an illegal university that is not authorized to award degrees by the country’s regulators. The 180 students at the Bhopal campus are mostly from wealthy Indian families able to pay the approximately US$29,000 for a British degree. The university, which offers both undergraduate and graduate programs, claims students can save 70 percent of the cost of studying the same degree at its UK campus.

Protesters said they would scale up the demonstrations and conduct a national campaign against the higher education bills coming before parliament. Parliamentary scrutiny of the bills could begin as soon as this current budget session of parliament, which began March 14.

– University World News
February 26, 2012

U.S. University to Offer Joint Law Degree with Indian Law School

Indiana University (IU) says a new partnership between its Bloomington law school and one in India is the first such tie-up of its kind. The arrangement is between IU’s Maurer School of Law and Jindal Global Law School, and it will allow students to earn law degrees from both schools in about four years.

The partnership was formalized in February with the visit by IU professor Joseph Hoffmann to the Indian school’s New Delhi campus where he also gave a lecture. The schools have worked together since November 2010. Since then, they’ve co-sponsored two international legal conferences and several IU students have done internships at Indian law firms and agencies.

– Associated Press
February 21, 2012

In 2020, India Will Be Top Student-Sending Country to the U.S.

By 2020, there will be more Indian students at U.S. institutions of higher education than Chinese students, according to a new report by the British Council. It (somewhat precisely) estimates that 118,000 Indians will be enrolled at American colleges then, compared with 101,000 Chinese students.

While Chinese students accounted for a third of the growth in students traveling abroad to study from 2002 to 2009, the report predicts that pace will slow considerably. Aside from India, other countries expected to have a growing rate of students going abroad in the next 10 years include Nigeria, Malaysia, and Nepal.

The report, “The Shape of Things to Come: Higher Education Global Trends and Emerging Opportunities to 2020,” is based on analysis of economic, demographic, and educational trends in more than 50 countries. It predicts that the United States will remain the top destination for foreign students, but that Australia will experience the fastest growth in the number of international students followed closely by the United Kingdom. However, those predictions are incumbent on favorable visa and immigration policies.

– British Council
March 15, 2012

Number of Private Universities Increases Fivefold in 6 Years

With the ever-increasing demand for higher education going largely unmet by the public sector in India, the number of private universities has increased from less than 20 in 2005 to 107 last year, says a new report by Parthenon, a management-consulting company.

The report, “Private Universities in India: An Investment in National Development,” was released at a conference in New Delhi in March by union human resources development minister Kapil Sibal. “Private scale universities are capital efficient and self-sustaining enterprises for entrepreneurs and investors,” says the report.

Some Indian academics strongly encourage the growth of private universities, saying they will pay instructors better, which will give them greater motivation to innovate. But others says that private universities are problematic and will not solve the access problem to higher education in India.

– Hindustan Times
March 13, 2012

Japan

Japanese Universities Set Up Recruiting Office in India

Fourteen Japanese universities have upped their recruiting efforts in India by opening an office in Bangalore. The University of Tokyo opened the recruiting office, but 13 other Japanese universities will also use it to promote their campuses in India. Officials there have noted Japan’s success at attracting students from China is not matched in India. The University of Tokyo has 1,000 Chinese students and only 35 Indian students.

– The Times of India
February 28, 2012

Kazakhstan

Kazakh President Says Prestigious Namesake University Could be Privatized

Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev said a state university in Astana bearing his name could be privatized. He made the comment during a meeting with Nazarbaev University students in the Kazakh capital in early March.

Financed by the state and sponsors’ grants, education is currently free at the university, which also provides free dormitories and in some cases free meals to its students. Established in 2010, Nazarbaev University is considered to be one of the most prestigious higher education institutions in Kazakhstan, with a faculty that has largely graduated from foreign universities under a presidential scholarship program. There are also many Western professors among Nazarbaev University lecturers.

– RFE/RL
March 1, 2012

New Zealand

New Zealand is the Least Bland of Education-Exporting Countries in Marketing Itself

Simon Anholt, an expert on national image metrics, argues that effective branding by countries cannot be found anywhere. He says that countries are not a fast-moving consumer good, are not for sale, don‘t have a unique selling proposition, and don‘t have to attract the attention of a busy and distracted consumer – and therefore fall into a different marketing category.

France‘s branding through Campus France for the international education market centers on cultural cache, but does a terrible job promoting high quality education, according to Anholt. The US government, which has no problem with brand recognition, provides the necessary immigration information to consumers, links them to American institutions, but does nothing with regards to marketing. That is clearly left up to the free market and individual institutions. The UK feels it has a strong brand, but lacks the exposure and overcompensates with an abundance of information. The clear winner in terms of government-approved marketing is New Zealand, which provides messages, topics and spokespeople that connect with students, while still satisfying parents‘ needs.

– The Australian
February 29, 2012

Malaysia

U.S. Women’s College to Help Establish Women’s University in Malaysia

Smith College will be the chief academic planning partner with a group creating a women’s university in Malaysia, tentatively called the Asian Women’s Leadership University. The new institution is being founded as a non-profit by three Smith alumnae. Starting in 1916, Smith supported a then young women’s institution in China, Ginling College.

– Smith news release
March 15, 2012

Pakistan

New University Ranking

Pakistan’s Higher Education Commission announced in February that it had created a new university ranking, and found Islamabad’s Quaid-e-Azam University the best among 136 public and private institutions, followed by the Pakistan Institute of Engineering and Applied Sciences, with Karachi’s Agha Khan University in third place.

Academics from the University of Karachi and the University of Peshawar have rejected the ranking, which does not place either institution in the top 10. They have accused the HEC of tampering with the standard formula to favor some institutions. Faculty members of Hyderabad’s Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences have even warned that they will take the matter to the court if the ranking is not revoked. Other universities have also reacted negatively to this year’s HEC announcement, although its rankings last year did not draw any criticism.

The university standings in Pakistan were constructed under the same methodology of the QS World University Rankings. But HEC Chairman Javaid Laghari said the formula had been modified to suit local conditions. There are many flaws in the modification of the QS ranking method, critics have claimed.

– University World News
March 11, 2012

South Korea

State University of New York Opens Korea Campus

The State University of New York opened a campus in Songdo, Incheon in March. The SUNY Korea campus in the Incheon Free Economic Zone offers masters and doctoral programs in the fields of management of technology and computer science.

Two more schools are expected to open in Incheon, including George Mason University from the U.S. and Ghent University from Belgium, as part of the Korean government’s effort to create a special zone for higher education in the area.

– Korea Herald
March 19, 2012