Regional
Demographics of Prospective Indian and Chinese Management Students Diverge Significantly
Chinese and Indian test takers accounted for 77 percent of all Graduate Management Admissions Tests (GMAT) taken by Asian citizens and 84 percent of all GMAT scores sent to schools in Asia during the testing year ending June 30, 2011. Growth from these two countries has fuelled the 47 percent growth in test taking among all Asian citizens in the past five years. However, the demographics of test takers are very different in both countries, as detailed in GMAC’s new Asian Geographic Trend Report [1].
GMAT volume among Chinese citizens is rising dramatically — up more than 200 percent in the past five years to 40,069 exams taken in testing year 2011. Much of the growth has come among younger women intending to pursue specialized degrees in accounting or finance. Fully 64 percent of GMAT exams in China were sat by women, and 77 percent of exams were taken by test takers younger than 25. The vast majority of scores sent by Chinese citizens, about 80 percent, are sent to the United States. China is also the only large country, and one of the few countries in the world, in which women score as well as the men on the exam, as the average score for both was 592 in 2011.
In India, meanwhile, 2011 testing volume was 25,394, down from a 2009 peak of 30,633 but showing signs of growth in late 2011 and early 2012. Three-quarters of the tests were taken by men (versus one-third in China), and 73 percent sent their score reports to MBA programs. In the past five years, the percentage of scores Indian citizens sent to U.S. programs dropped from 67 percent to 55 percent as more scores were sent to domestic programs as well as regional programs in Singapore and Hong Kong. India is currently the region’s leading destination for GMAT scores, followed by Singapore and then Hong Kong.
Chinese and Indian applicants are much less likely to be accepted to U.S. institutions than their domestic peers. Reports have indicated applicants from both countries are four times more likely to be rejected than U.S. applicants or applicants from Europe, Latin America, Africa, or the Middle East.
– Asian Geographic Trend Report [1]
April 2012
Afghanistan
Afghan Scholarship Students to Study in India and Iran
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has proposed doubling the number of Afghan students in Indian and Turkish universities as part of an effort to boost educational standards in the war-torn country.
According to the plan, the numbers of Afghan students to be sent to Indian and Turkish universities would be raised from 500 to 1,000 this year and for this the government would increase funding for overseas study to US$10 million from the present US$5 million.
– Press Trust of India [2]
March 24, 2012
Afghan Students Fail University Entrance Exam in Record Numbers
A record number of students failed the national university entry exams in April, and they are not happy. Afghan students accuse the Higher Education Ministry [3], which is responsible for placing students, of fraud and discrimination, insisting that as many as 60,000 of them failed purely on the basis of their ethnicity and mother language. Other students claim that their test scores were higher than some students in urban areas who were granted university places — leading to allegations of special treatment and corruption.
Figures released by the Higher Education Ministry reveal that of the 150,000 students who participated in university entrance exams only 40,000 were made offers from universities or colleges, with 90,000 passing the exams. Shortfalls in secondary education, especially in rural areas, have been compounded by the lack of higher-education institutions, which have been unable to accommodate the growing number of university applicants. Even where there are places at Afghanistan’s 20 state-run and private universities, most lack qualified lecturers, modern curricula, books, networked computers, seminar rooms and dormitories. Nearly all students in Afghanistan who wish to study beyond a Bachelor’s degree need to go abroad because there are no suitable programs available at home – and that means going to Pakistan, India or Iran.
To tackle the shortage of university places, Afghan Education Minister Farooq Wardak announced in April that his ministry would raise capacity in order to absorb over 70,000 students in its 163 technical and teaching institutes. It is hoped that the institutions can address the country’s chronic unemployment, raise the number of skilled Afghan workers, and provide job opportunities for the hundreds of thousands of students who have completed school but have been unable to advance to higher education.
– RFE/RL [4]
April 12, 2012
Australia
Universities Compared on New Government Website
A new government-run website, called ‘MyUniversity [5],’ was launched in April and subsequently met with mixed reactions by industry players. The site is designed to help students in Australia and around the world choose a university in a more informed manner, with details on things like course satisfaction levels, staff numbers, drop-out rates, and graduate employment rates. Education Minister Chris Evans said the site was also designed to help ensure accountability within the sector.
According to data released to the Australian newspaper, the University of Sydney [6] was the most researched university with 5,547 visitors from a total of 73,000 in the two weeks after the April 3 launch of the website. It was followed by the University of New South Wales [7] with 5,121 visitors, Melbourne [8] with 4,241 and Queensland [9] with 3,556.
Macquarie, Monash, Australian National University, Australian Catholic University, University of Technology, Sydney and Charles Sturt made up the rest of the top 10. At the bottom were University of the Sunshine Coast with 664, Ballarat with 741 and Charles Darwin with 758.
Critics of the new website have suggested it provides little more than league tables with data that lacks the context prospective students need.
– The Australian [10]
April 18, 2012
Cambodia
High Speed Data Network to Boost Research Capacity
Cambodia’s leading universities are to be connected to a pan-Asian research and education network via a high-speed link, improving access to regional and international data, helping to boost research quality and facilitating international research collaboration.
Using a new link initially connecting the Institute of Technology of Cambodia [11] in Phnom Penh to VinaREN – neighboring Vietnam’s national research and education network – Cambodia will be hooked into the Trans-Eurasia Information Network [12], or TEIN3.
This was announced in April by DANTE, the non-profit organization that manages TEIN3, which currently links 16 other Asian countries. Vietnam has been connected to TEIN since 2004. David West, project manager for TEIN3 at DANTE, told University World News that the high-speed link was an important step in bridging the digital divide and improving Cambodia’s science and research capacity.
“A lot of research projects are no longer conducted in one laboratory. Institutions now need good internet connections as vast amounts of data need to be exchanged. Until you have the network you can’t participate in regional or international programs, so the first step is to put the network in place and then collaboration and participation can follow.”
Another four of Cambodia’s research universities – the Royal University of Phnom Penh, the Royal University of Law and Economics, the University of Health Sciences and the National Institute of Education – will be linked to TEIN3 via the CamREN network in a second stage of the project. Other public and private universities in Cambodia will be invited to join at a later stage.
– University World News [13]
April 8, 2012
China
Exemplary Sino-Foreign Partnerships to Set Standard for Future Engagement
China has started a program of evaluating foreign university partnerships with the goal of improving standards and establishing examples of good practice, as it seeks to move forward in building the quality of its academic internationalization efforts.
“Not all foreign partnerships are of good quality,” Wang Lisheng, deputy director general of the China Academic Degree and Graduate Education Development Center [14] in the Ministry of Education in Beijing told the British Council’s “Going Global” conference in London in March.
Cooperation agreements are in place with some 158 foreign institutions from 30 countries, the largest number being from the UK, Wang said. Approximately 31 Chinese institutions are running nearly 1,200 joint programs with institutions in Europe, North America and Asia.
In 2010 the ministry began an evaluation of nine institutions operating programs in partnership with foreign universities, based on self-evaluation and peer review. By the end of last year it had audited more than 100 courses and programs. Revealing the results publicly to an international audience for the first time, Wang said all nine institutions passed the evaluation. However, only 51 percent of the programs passed. Another 31 programs passed ‘conditionally’ while three failed. Half a dozen programs did not qualify for the evaluation for various reasons.
The main reasons for failure and conditional failure were inadequate teaching resources from the overseas partner, “particularly not enough teaching staff and quality resources,” Wang said.
He said another 150 programs would be evaluated in the next stage of the process. Based on the results of these two exercises, “we will establish a demo evaluation and roll out an evaluation for the whole country. We believe we will identify excellent joint programs and institutions and that they will set an example,” said Wang.
– University World News [15]
March 15, 2012
NYU-China to Commence Admissions in 2013
New York University Shanghai [16], the first fully-fledged Sino-US joint institution of higher education, will begin admitting undergraduate students next year in seven fields of study, including finance, natural science, and information and communication technology. Construction of the campus in Pudong’s Lujiazui district will not be completed until June 2014, education authorities said in March, so the first 300 undergraduates will study at East China Normal University [17], the Chinese partner of the joint institute, until then.
The Shanghai Education Commission also plans to improve its service to foreign students and boost education exchanges by 2015 to make the city’s education sector more attractive globally. “We want to make Shanghai a global education hub,” said Yin Jie, deputy director of the education commission.
In related news, NYU announced in April that Jeffrey S. Lehman, chancellor and founding dean of the Peking University School of Transnational Law [18], has been chosen to lead the Shanghai campus. The law school Lehman has led in China is the first in that country to teach an American style J.D. curriculum. Formerly, Lehman was president of Cornell University and dean of the law school at the University of Michigan.
– Shanghai Daily [19]
March 29, 2012
U.S. Students Look to China for Internships
BusinessWeek reports that a new wave of U.S. undergraduate students, many of them business majors, are heading to Shanghai, Beijing, and other Chinese cities to get international work experience in the world’s second-biggest economy, padding their résumés in the face of stiff competition and a still-tough job market for college graduates.
In the 2009-10 academic year, 20,000 students received academic credit at U.S. colleges and universities for internships or work abroad, according to the Institute of International Education. Many of these students have interned in such countries as Israel, the U.K., and Germany; lately, an increasing number seek positions in China, say several internship providers.
Intrax Internships Abroad [20], a division of Intrax Cultural Exchange, which matches students with internships in Europe, South America, and Asia, reports that applications to its internship program in China increased 600 percent from 2010 to 2011. CRCC Asia, one of the largest organizers of Asian internships, says it received nearly 6,000 applications from students last year, nearly double the number in 2010.
– BusinesWeek [21]
March 23, 2012
China’s Wealthiest Look to Send Children Overseas to Study
An overwhelming majority of China’s wealthiest families want to send their children to foreign universities, and the United States is their first choice. According to independent research by China’s Industrial Bank Co. and the Hurun Report, 90 percent of the country’s richest people have plans to send their children overseas to study.
Their Chinese Luxury Consumer White Paper 2012 [22] reports that 9 of every 10 Chinese with assets of more than 100 million yuan ($16 million) plan to send their children abroad, while 85 percent of those with a net worth of at least $1 million said they plan to do the same. The average spent on education among high-net-worth families is 170,000 yuan (about $27,000) per child. This was the third-highest area of spending, after travel and luxury goods.
The report notes that wealthy Chinese parents value “all-around development” and “quality-oriented education” for their children.
– China Daily USA [23]
March 28, 2012
Largest Number of Chinese TOEFL Test Takers in History
In February, Educational Testing Services [24] announced a 19 percent increase in the number of Chinese TOEFL iBT [25] test takers for 2011. This represents the largest number of Chinese TOEFL test takers in history.
Part of the increase in test takers is attributable to the Australian Department of Immigration and Citizenship’s (DIAC) acceptance of the TOEFL test in 2011 for Australian student visas, breaking the monopoly that the IELTS English test used to enjoy. Chinese students now have a choice of English-language assessments for study in Australia. The decision by DIAC, as well as the United Kingdom Border Agency’s (UKBA) acceptance of the TOEFL test for visa purposes, will likely further increase the number of Chinese students taking the TOEFL test in 2012.
– ETS News Release [26]
February 14, 2012
Indian Universities Way Behind Chinese Universities in Research Output
Chinese institutions of higher education are producing more and better research than their Indian counterparts, a new comparative study has shown.
The analysis by India’s National Institute of Science Communication and Information Resources [27] found that India’s top 20 research institutes are awarding three times fewer doctoral degrees than China’s top 20. On the basis of three quality parameters and the quantity of research output, it was found that Peking University [28], which tops the list from the Chinese side, is almost three times ahead of India’s best performing institute – the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore [29].
– Deccan Herald [30]
March 24, 2012
India
Private Indian University Leads Sub-Continent’s Internationalization Efforts
Manipal University [31] has opened a fully-fledged, state-of-the-art campus in Dubai’s International Academic City [32] at which it plans to offer quality research programs in addition to the traditional undergraduate fare of other international branch campuses located there.
The Indian university operates medical schools and comprehensive university campuses in India where it is among the largest private providers in the country. In addition, it has medical colleges in Nepal, Malaysia and Antigua, with a new multi-faculty university under construction outside Kuala Lumpur, similar to the multi-faculty campus in Dubai.
The number of Indian branch campuses overseas is growing fast, according to the Observatory on Borderless Higher Education [33], with at least 17 campuses abroad, 10 of them in the United Arab Emirates, four in Mauritius and others in Malaysia, Singapore and countries in the West.
“The reason we stepped out of India was because we could not grow in India,” Anand Sudarshan, CEO of Manipal Global, told the International Finance Corporation’s conference on private education in Dubai on March 8. He was referring to Indian government restrictions on the number of students from abroad at medical schools in the country.
Manipal Global now earns roughly two-thirds of its revenue from international branch campuses, Sudarshan said, with some 10,000 students, compared to 35,000 students at its universities and medical colleges in Manipal, Bangalore, Mangalore in southern India and Sikkim in the north-east, with a new comprehensive university also being built in Jaipur in Rajasthan.
In Dubai, the student body is composed largely of local or expatriate Indian students; however, at the American University of Antigua [34] medical college in the Caribbean, 90 percent of the students are American or Canadian and medical education is geared towards the North American system. The company is looking for opportunities elsewhere as well, including in Sri Lanka where the university has an invite from the government, pending legislative changes. Other regions of interest include East Africa, South Africa and Egypt, as well as many of the Southeast Asian countries including Vietnam and Indonesia, according to Sudarshan, who describes medical education as “worldwide.”
– University World News [35]
March 18, 2012
Government Looks for Regulatory Loopholes to Allow in Foreign Universities
India’s education ministry has asked the University Grants Commission [36], regulator of the country’s universities, to find a way to arrange collaboration with institutions from abroad given that the proposed legislation that would govern the admittance of foreign universities into India remains stalled in parliament.
The All India Council for Technical Education [37] already allows twinning arrangements with foreign institutions for technical education, and the education ministry hopes to figure out a similar arrangement for foreign universities interested in developing an India presence. “This arrangement will effectively at least allow a foothold to foreign educational institutes in India,” an unnamed official told The Indian Express newspaper.
– The Indian Express [38]
March 20, 2012
UGC Wants Indian Universities to Double Intake to Meet Demand
A government report suggests that many Indian universities have enough excess capacity on their campuses to double enrollments in the next five years, and even if just 50 percent of the 317 publicly funded universities increase intake by 30 percent, enrollment will rise by 200,000 students.
“The 43 central universities, except a few like Delhi University, are functioning with disproportionately low student enrollment compared to the campus area,” the report said, adding that “a 100 percent increase in intake is feasible in 30 of these university campuses.”
The report suggests that a new measure of university efficiency be students-per-acre of campus. Deepak Pental, a former vice-chancellor of the University of Delhi, called the proposal “ridiculous,” adding that “authorities should not equate number with quality, though we understand that a service economy needs to get enough human capital to sustain the growth rate.”
The report is issued at a time when the government is facing major challenges in setting up new universities, a policy it had previously adopted. Many of the proposed institutions have failed to take off due to, among other things, faculty shortages; a problem that the current line of thinking will also suffer from.
– Live Mint [39]
April 8, 2012
Japan
Foreign Students Returning to Japanese Universities
A year after the natural disasters that devastated much of Japan’s northeast coast, international students are returning in higher numbers than originally expected, but a drop in the numbers for preparatory and non-degree programs suggests potential future declines.
Japan’s academic year started in April, and most of the nation’s big universities reported less of a drop in foreign students than expected, despite concerns that many would stay away because of radiation fears. The recovery has been led by the University of Tokyo [40], which has seen just a 1 percent drop in foreign enrollment. The private Sophia University [41] puts its recovery rate for foreign full-time students at “almost 100 percent” but adds that its intake of study abroad students for spring is down 12 percent. Japan’s top private university, Waseda [42], however, noted a 25 percent drop in foreign applicants for degree programs at its School of International Liberal Studies.
According to the Japan Student Services Organization [43] (JSSO), the disaster halted several years of growth in foreign study in Japan, with overall numbers of foreign students down by 2.6 percent last year. The number of non-degree foreign students cratered by nearly a quarter in 2011, with the United States, South Korea, and some European countries sending about half as many students to Japan as in 2010.
According to the JSSO’s International students in Japan 2011 [44] survey, there were 163,697 international students in Japan in May 2011, including 104,887 students from China. China has been the top source country of international students in Japan for many years.
– The Chronicle of Higher Education [45]
April 3, 2012
Malaysia
Malaysia to Recognize Degrees from 146 Chinese Universities
Malaysia will recognize degrees from 146 universities in China, the latest move by the government to woo the support of local Chinese ahead of the next general election, reports the Straits Times. The March announcement came after the two countries inked an agreement to facilitate the mutual recognition in higher education qualifications in April of last year.
Malaysia’s Chinese community has been pushing for the move for years. About 2,500 Malaysians study at Chinese universities and this would allow them to apply for government jobs in the country when they graduate. More crucially, however, official recognition is seen as a small nod of approval from the government towards the Chinese education system, which the Chinese value highly but is sometimes blamed by nationalists for hindering efforts to foster national unity.
More than 60,000 students attend Chinese-system schools in Malaysia each year. But the community is still pushing for the government to recognize degrees from Taiwan, as well as the Unified Examination Certificate (UEC) issued by Chinese-medium secondary schools. The UEC can be used for entry into Chinese universities, but not into Malaysia’s public universities. Last year, China’s well-regarded Xiamen University [46] announced plans to open its first overseas campus in Malaysia, making it one of the first Chinese universities to start a campus abroad.
– Straits Times [47]
March 17, 2012
New Zealand
Government Re-launches Country as Study Destination
New Zealand, with a population of just 4.4 million is increasingly seeking to present itself as an affordable, high-quality alternative to traditional education destinations such as the United States, Britain and Australia.
With international education now New Zealand’s fifth biggest export industry, annually worth NZ$2.5 billion (US$2 billion), the government wants to double the sector’s economic value in the next 15 years. To help New Zealand’s universities compete, the government has launched a series of initiatives in recent years, from reducing fees for international Ph.D. students to opening more visa offices in Asia.
Nearly 100,000 international students were enrolled in New Zealand universities, private colleges and schools in 2010, the last year for which government figures are available. This total included 19,678 international students in universities, a figure the government has projected could rise to 50,000 by 2025.
Last year, the government established the Education New Zealand [48]agency and allocated an additional 10 million dollars to its international education promotions budget. In a paper released last September, the government outlined goals to be achieved by 2025, including doubling the number of international graduate students to 20,000; increasing the transition rate from study to residence for international graduates; and increasing the number of offshore international students from 3,000 to 10,000.
The government entices students to stay on after they graduate by offering a one-year graduate job search visa. If the student finds a job relevant to their qualification, they are then eligible to apply for a graduate work experience visa for up to three years. New Zealand has charged doctorate students the same fees as their domestic counterparts since 2005, a policy that has resulted in the number of international Ph.D. students growing by more than 300 percent from 2005 to almost 2,800 students in 2010, according to a report by Universities New Zealand [49].
With Australia, a titan in the international education market and a direct competitor to New Zealand, suffering a recent drop in international student numbers because of factors like a stronger currency and a number of violent attacks on Indian students in 2009, it could be an opportune time for New Zealand to recruit.
– The New York Times [50]
April 2, 2012