Finland
Helsinki Slashes University Staff
The board of the University of Helsinki, the oldest and largest university in the country, is to cut 1,200 out of 8,200 staff posts, a measure of how Finnish universities are being hit by the effects of the government’s austerity program. The University has been told it faces a cut in government funding of €106 million (US$118 million) by 2019-20. Rector Jukka Kola said that the University of Helsinki will seek new sources international funding, and that the university would be prepared to accept tuition fees from students coming from outside Europe.
Law students at the University of Helsinki took matters into their own hands recently, occupying a central university building, establishing twitter and Facebook pages called ‘Angry students’ (modelled after the commercially successful Finnish computer game ‘Angry birds’), and publishing a statement of their protest. The students accused the management at the University of Helsinki of making an “uncritical public response” to education cuts.
On 18 September the largest general strike for several decades was staged, and on the following day 30,000 people took to the streets to protest against the government’s austerity plans. Unions representing 2.2 million people – in a country of 5.5 million – went on strike, protesting over the government’s proposal to cut welfare rights. This was the largest such demonstration in the Finnish capital since 1917, when Finland gained its independence from Russia.
– University World News [1]
September 25, 2015
Germany
Refugees and students face housing shortage
Germany’s Student Welfare Service, or DSW, has warned that the refugee crisis could worsen prospects for students on the housing market. With enrollment numbers set to peak once again, the DSW insists that the government provide funding for additional student accommodation. Student numbers in Germany reached a record 2.7 million last winter semester, and universities are reckoning with even more enrollments this year.
The DSW has criticized the fact that, while first-year student numbers have grown by 50%, or 760,000, since 2008, the number of public-funded student flats has risen by a mere 5% in the same period. Fifty-five per cent of school-leavers currently qualify for higher education, and first-year enrollment levels are forecast to remain at a high level at least until 2025. The DSW has called on the government to fund an additional 25,000 flats for students.
DSW spokesman Georg Schlanzke believes that asylum-seekers could compete with members of other low-income groups looking for accommodation, among them students from abroad and those with a low-income family background. Germany has taken in 800,000 refugees this year, and a similar number is expected for next year. In Cologne around 80,000 students are currently seeking accommodation. Only 5,000 hostel flats are available, and rent levels on the private housing market are high. Emergency dormitories have been set up in university buildings.
Meanwhile, in an emergency ‘refugee summit’, the federal government has pledged to provide €670 (US$746) a month for each refugee. A further €350 million will be available for unaccompanied minors. And a housing program is to be subsidized with €350 million. The moves have been welcomed by the state governments.
– University World News [2]
September 24, 2015
Ireland
Ireland Hosts Most Satisfied International Students in Europe
Ireland has been named the country with the most satisfied international students in Europe in the 2015 StudyPortals [3] International Student Satisfaction Awards, surpassing the Nordic countries for the first time.
Students on StudyPortals’s review website STeXX.eu [4] praised the community atmosphere, innovative programs and support structures at Irish universities, along with their varied multicultural mix. Ireland received an overall student satisfaction rating of 9.04 out of 10, based on 17,018 reviews submitted in 2014-15.
Five of Ireland’s universities won awards, including Maynooth University [5], which received a certificate of Outstanding International Student Satisfaction. Along with Maynooth, the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, Poznan University of Economics in Poland, Wageningen University in the Netherlands and the University of Heidelberg in Germany all received ‘outstanding’ awards.
Despite being knocked from their top spots, Nordic countries once again scored highly, with Finland ranked second, praised for its strong student services and vibrant social life, followed by Sweden and Denmark.
– The PIE News [6]
September 23, 2015
Russia
Commercialization and Russian Universities
The top problem facing Russian higher education is commercialization in the form of growing paid-for educational services that are filling the gap where public funding fails to meet increasing demand for education, according to new research among education experts. The research is based on data from the survey carried out by RANEPA’s Expert Analysis Centre among 277 experts, including top representatives of business, research institutions, human resources departments and public authorities.
Nikolay Kalmykov, director of the Expert Analysis Centre at RANEPA told University World News that the trend towards commercialization is being driven by a combination of limited government funding and growing demand for education. Kalmykov said the examples of corrupt practices faced include the use of fictitious university accreditation, falsification of examination results, plagiarism, the buying of research papers and bribery, making fighting corruption a “priority area”.
A third part of the research focused on levels of trust in international education rankings, which in Russia are becoming an increasingly popular source of information on the basic characteristics of competitiveness of universities and educational programs. The majority of the experts rated international rankings in the sphere of higher education as ‘rather objective’ (43%); but nearly as many, some 40% of the respondents, said rankings were ‘not objective’, with the remainder finding the question difficult to answer.
– University World News [7]
September 25, 2015
United Kingdom
Best UK Universities
Oxford and Cambridge have maintained their lead as the UK’s two best universities, according to the Sunday Times’ Higher Education guide [8]. The two institutions both came infirst in the annual list compiled by the newspaper.
The University of Surrey was named as the Sunday Times University of the Year because it “listens to students and targets investment”, seeing it shoot up from 11th in the league table to 8th. The university’s vice-chancellor, Professor Sir Christopher Snowden, puts its success down to its focus on student satisfaction.
He told the Sunday Times: “You can be research-led but you should have a clear balance between teaching and research. And you have to teach as seriously as anything else you do.”
– The Independent [9]
September 21, 2015
UK University Admissions Reach a Record High
Enrollments at UK universities have climbed to a record high, Ucas figures show, with students holding vocational qualifications driving a significant portion of that growth.
The admissions service’s interim analysis [10] of the 2015-16 application cycle shows that 511,730 students had been accepted into UK higher education four weeks after A-level results day. This has already surpassed last year’s total intake of 507,680 and, seeing that acceptances at this stage of the process usually represent about 98 per cent of the ultimate enrollment, this year’s final figure is likely to surpass 520,000.
England, where student number controls were lifted this year, is responsible for almost all of the growth. So far, 435,270 students have been accepted to English higher education providers, up 13,250 (3.1 percent). This is a higher figure than the increase in UK-wide acceptances because enrollment at Northern Ireland’s universities has slumped by 1,150 (10.4 per cent) year-on-year. The total number of European Union undergraduates who have been accepted by UK universities through Ucas has increased [11] by 2,800 (14 percent).
– Times Higher Education [12]
September 24, 2015
University Access Variables in Wales
A study conducted by Cardiff University [13] found that pupils attending schools with strong records of higher education participation were nearly three times as likely to get a place at university compared with children at schools with average levels of participation, regardless of exam results, socioeconomic background or ethnicity. Pupils from schools with the lowest records of higher education participation were 42 per cent less likely to go to university than their peers at average schools.
Surprisingly, some of the areas where pupils had the best chance of getting into university were, according to the researchers’ model, among the poorest in Wales. For example, in Merthyr Tydfil, young men are almost three times as likely to participate in higher education as those in the average council area, and young women are more than twice as likely to do so.
The researchers found that patterns of inequality were broadly similar to those in England, despite differences in policy approaches – although much of the study is based on data that predate the introduction of £9,000 tuition fees in English universities. Students who are eligible for free school meals are much less likely to go to university, while black and ethnic minority pupils were found to be much more likely to enroll in higher education than their white counterparts. The researchers recommend that the Welsh government introduce a national strategic framework for widening access to higher education.
– Times Higher Education [14]
September 25, 2015