Regional

UNESCO Launches Interactive Global Mobility Map

The UNESCO Institute of Statistics (UIS) released an interactive map in October that highlights the movement of students across borders with graphics displaying where students are going and where they are coming from when traveling across borders to study.

The Global Flow of Tertiary-level Students shows among other things that Asia and the Pacific is the largest source of international students, representing 28 percent of the world’s 3.6 million mobile students in 2010. However, in relative terms, the world’s most mobile students can be found in Central Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.

As many countries do not keep statistics on how many students are travelling abroad, and where they are going, the tool allows countries to take stock of those trends.

– UNESCO
October 2012

ERASMUS Mobility Funding in Jeopardy, But Students Told to Carry on With Overseas Study Plans

The European Commission has told thousands of European students planning to study abroad in the near future to continue on with their plans, despite a political climate where it is not exactly clear where the money is going to come from, with the budget for the Erasmus student exchange program under threat.

“The situation is rather uncertain. It’s also very unfair on Erasmus students, who have been promised places and grants,” said Dennis Abbott, the commission’s education spokesperson.

“We hope that member states will provide the necessary funding so that we can be sure to honor all our commitments in the 2012-13 academic year.”

At worst – in other words, if there is no agreement on the budget – Erasmus, like other EU programs such as research, rural development and humanitarian aid, will have to go into a kind of standby mode, spending each month no more than a twelfth of the previous year’s budget.

– University World News
November 15, 2012

Russia

586 Colleges and Universities Labeled ‘Ineffective’

Russia’s Ministry of Education and Science announced in November that hundreds of colleges and their branches do not meet the standards of a modern education system, labeling a considerable portion of state-run colleges as ineffective and suggesting that a good number might be shuttered.

In total, 136 of 541 state-run colleges and 450 of 994 branches were placed on the “black list” for failing to meet government standards. Institutions were evaluated according to five parameters: average grade received by enrolled students on the Single State Examination, the number of research papers per faculty member, the percentage of graduates from foreign countries, the college’s income per faculty member, and the quality of its infrastructure.

Many of the blacklisted institutions are generally regarded as successful and prestigious. There are 20 such institutions in Moscow, and 10 in St Petersburg. They include the Russian State University for the Humanities, the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute, the Moscow Architecture Institute, and the Moscow State Academy of Physical Culture.

The quality assessment procedure was undertaken as part of a program to improve higher education in Russia, announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin in the summer of 2012. Putin said the country had too many colleges with poor standards. Minister of Education and Science Dmitry Livanov said that the government plans to cut the number of colleges by 20 percent in the next three years, and the number of branch campuses by 30 percent.

– ITAR TASS
November 6, 2012

Switzerland

University Leaders Ask Foreign Countries to Help Finance Tuition Costs of Citizens in Swiss Institutions

A recent report from Swiss higher education leaders says that foreign governments, most notably Germany, should help cover the cost of their citizens studying at Swiss universities. The Rectors’ Conference of Swiss Universities has recommended the measure as a means of easing the growing financial burden on many institutions. Some 35,000 foreign students studied in Switzerland last year – with approximately 10,000 coming from Germany.

Universities want an international arrangement similar to a current inter-cantonal system that spreads the cost of higher education across the country. A canton that sees residents take up studies in another region will contribute a fee to the canton where the university is based. The lack of such an arrangement for international students is a cause for concern for some cash-strapped Swiss universities, particularly those with a high proportion of foreign students.

– Swiss Info
October 21, 2012

United Kingdom

Elite Universities See A Drop in Enrollment

Approximately one-third of universities in the elite Russell Group have seen their year-on-year undergraduate enrollment numbers drop this year, after government changes to the way institutions recruit students.

Vice-chancellors at the universities fear they may have to cut spending on widening access to poorer students. Wendy Piatt, director general of the Russell Group, which represents 24 of the UK’s top universities, told a BBC Radio 4 documentary that about a third of the group’s English institutions had lost out. She said: “Having far fewer students than planned does create a real financial hit. It’s hard to give a very accurate number, but across the Russell Group it may amount to something like £80 million (US$128 million). It’s a significant amount of money.”

Universities can now recruit an unlimited number of the highest performing students, those who achieve A-level grades of AAB or above, under changes intended to give more students their first choice. However, all English universities are capped on the number of students they can recruit at lower grades. After A-level results were published this summer, there was fierce competition for a small pool of high-performing students.

– The Guardian
October 25, 2012

University of Nottingham Becomes First to Publish Agent Fees

The University of Nottingham has become the first UK university to publish on its website the commission rates it pays to appointed student recruitment representatives and agents. The university has also established a new policy of paying a flat fee for all agents, regardless of a student’s area of study.

The move is motivated by the university’s efforts to be more transparent in the student recruitment process. It already publishes the names of the agencies it works with along with basic quality assurance requirements they must meet. One in five of Nottingham’s international students were recruited by agents last year, a figure down on the previous year despite a growing intake.

– The PIE News
November 5, 2012

Former Minister Decries Tightening of Student Immigration Rules

“Boneheaded” government immigration policy is jeopardizing Britain’s higher education sector by deterring international students from studying there, former foreign secretary David Miliband under the Labour Party has said.

Prime Minister David Cameron has pledged to reduce net migration to under 100,000 by the next general election, and international students are to be included in the overall numbers against which this target is measured.

Mr Miliband said that the government was “pursuing this political slogan of reducing immigration to tens of thousands” at the expense of developing a “sensible” immigration policy.

“What I feel passionately about is the overall policy of restricting visas for students, curtailing the rights of students to work after they complete university, and the economic, social and educational cost to the country,” he told Times Higher Education.

– Times Higher Education
November 15, 2012

First For-Profit Institution Granted University Status

The College of Law has been granted full university status making it the first for-profit institution to be granted the right to award degrees in Britain. The College of Law is the country’s largest provider of legal education and training, and it is the first private university to be established since Buckingham University – officially a charity – was awarded the full title almost 30 years ago.

The announcement was made as part of a controversial government plan to create more diversity in the higher education system. The University of Law will charge £9,000 (US$14,500) annually in tuition fees for undergraduate law degrees. But the programs will be run over just two years instead of the three at most other mainstream institutions, thanks to a mixture of shorter holidays and more intensive teaching.

Five other private institutions – including the IFS School of Finance and BPP University College – have degree-awarding powers without full university status. The University of Law has campuses in London, Birmingham, Bristol, Chester, Guildford, Manchester and York. It trains more than 7,000 students each year on a range of undergraduate and graduate programs. The university is backed by a private equity company and it has created a £200 million endowment fund to boost access to law programs among students from poor backgrounds.

– The Telegraph
November 22, 2012