Australia

After Collapse of Singapore Campus, Australian Universities Head for the Exits

The Australian newspaper reports that Australian universities are taking leave of offshore teaching operations en masse in the face of debt and fear of reputational damage. Universities in June confirmed the closure of dozens of programs plagued by quality and cost issues across Asia and the Pacific, involving thousands of students and million-dollar losses. Furthermore, the sector has been rocked by damaging revelations of alleged mismanagement and profligacy in international operations at Macquarie University and the collapse of the University of New South Wales’ (UNSW) stand-alone Singapore venture.

Australia’s 40 universities enroll 200,000 foreign students, of whom approximately 60,000 study in 1,500 offshore programs, mostly campus partnerships in Southeast Asia. Offshore operations have been plagued by quality problems, often blamed by Australian universities on the difficulty of controlling their overseas partners’ standards. Universities typically shut down programs in advance of audits by the Australian Universities Quality Agency (AUQA), industry participants interviewed by The Australian said. This trend is expected to quicken as AUQA prepares for its next audit round, which will specifically target international operations.

The course terminations in recent years appear to have been greatest in China, Singapore and Hong Kong.

As declining public funding forces them into greater financial discipline, and private moneymaking operations grow in importance, Australian universities are belatedly realizing that programs which bring in revenue are not necessarily profitable. It takes up to five years to withdraw as the universities fulfill teaching commitments to existing students. In some cases, students have been asked to complete their studies online.

UNSW has cut its offshore operations from a peak of 20 in the late 1990s to just two, a design master’s in Singapore and an engineering undergraduate degree in Vietnam. A withdrawal from teaching programs in Hong Kong and Malaysia will reduce the University of Technology, Sydney’s number of offshore students from 2,500 to about 1,000. Flinders University, now with 13 offshore programs, has withdrawn from crowded markets in Hong Kong and Singapore. Central Queensland University is “teaching out” terminated programs in Fiji, Singapore and Shanghai involving several hundred students. Curtin University of Technology, with one of the Australian sector’s biggest international operations, including nearly 9,000 students overseas, is about to withdraw from three (unidentified) programs. The University of Southern Queensland has cut from 37 programs to 26 and further rationalization is expected. Programs in China, Singapore, Fiji, Sri Lanka and Dubai have all been cut for varying reasons. The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University, with 12,000 students offshore, is withdrawing from two small operations including one in Singapore.

– The Australian
June 27, 2007

Quality Assurance Agency Urges Vigilance on Virtual Universities

Nine years ago the Australian higher education sector took a reputational body blow when loopholes in the nation’s education law allowed online institutions of highly dubious standing to operate from external territories, such as Norfolk Island, and now regulators are urging the Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST) to increase its vigilance to prevent virtual operators from re-establishing themselves in Australia’s outlying regions.

An audit of DEST’s higher education approval functions by the Australian Universities Quality Agency says that while new laws have reduced the likelihood of operators setting up in Australia’s external territories, there is still a chance they could slip through the net. The states and territories are responsible for approving and accrediting new providers on the mainland, but for external territories such as Norfolk Island, the commonwealth has control.

Until 2002, when the federal Government extended its national protocols to the external territories, an institution could call itself an Australian university and offer degrees from Norfolk Island, Christmas Island or any of Australia’s seven external territories. In 1998, the legislative loophole was exposed when an online operator calling itself Greenwich University was established on Norfolk Island under Norfolk legislation.

Although the university was later shut down, the federal Government has failed several times – most recently in March – to have the Norfolk administration repeal its Greenwich University Act. There have been no applications since 1998 from higher education providers wanting to establish in the external territories, but the latest AUQA report suggests it is still possible.

– The Australian
July 4, 2007

China

11 Percent of Chinese Students Studying at Private Universities

More than 2.8 million tertiary students are studying at privately run universities in China, according to figures recently released by the Ministry of Education (MOE). Of that number, 1.34 million are studying at 278 privately run, independent universities, which normally provide junior college diplomas, and 1.47 million are studying for undergraduate degrees in 318 private colleges affiliated with public universities. Private college students account for approximately 11 percent of the country’s 25 million university students.

After the adoption of the Private Education Promotion Law, which granted private universities equal legal status to public universities in 2003, private universities have developed rapidly with the support of local governments. In the last 20 years, the Chinese government has encouraged privately run colleges to help accommodate students who failed the public university entrance exams. Many private colleges charge fees two or three times higher than those of state universities as they receive no financial support from the government.

A survey by an employment advisory agency under the MOE showed the employment rate of private college graduates is higher than that of state university graduates, but they make less money, with an average monthly income of about 1,550 yuan (194 U.S. dollars).

– Guangdong News
March 29, 2007

India

Prime Minister Labels Majority of Nation’s Universities as “Below Average”

India’s prime minister, Manmohan Singh, stated in June that almost two-thirds of his nation’s universities and 90 percent of the degree-granting colleges in India are rated as below average and that curriculums are not meeting the needs of employers or job seekers. At the 150th-anniversary celebration of the University of Mumbai the prime minister also criticized “abysmally” low enrollment levels in almost half the districts in the country.

Earlier in the month, a confidential report on Indian higher education by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council was leaked to a local newspaper. The report said that the council had assessed 123 universities and 2,956 colleges across India and found that 90 percent of colleges and 68 percent of universities were of middling to poor quality — statistics that Mr. Singh confirmed in his speech. The newspaper also said the council had found that 25 percent of faculty positions at universities remain vacant, 57 percent of teachers in colleges lack a doctoral level degree, and there is only one computer for every 229 students, on average, in colleges. In India, colleges are mostly affiliated with universities and usually offer undergraduate education only.

Mr. Singh stated that curricula need to be synchronized with the job market and universities need to find ways to hire and retain highly qualified faculty members. Among the options discussed by Mr. Singh were to look at alternative ways of improving the remuneration of professors, of tapping into the large pool of professors of Indian origin around the world, and of linking Indian institutions with the best universities worldwide.

– The Chronicle of Higher Education
June 29, 2007

OECD Report: Indian Immigrants Most Qualified

Among immigrant populations in developed countries, Indians arrive with the best qualifications according to a recent report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Indians are also the second-biggest source after China for foreign students coming to these nations, said OECD’s annual migration outlook 2007.

According to the OECD database on the foreign-born and expatriates, more than half of Indian immigrants possess a postsecondary education, and in the United Kingdom in 2005, Indians accounted for 40 percent of all approvals under the Highly Skilled Migrant Program.

– OECD
June 2007

Sanskrit Enjoying a Renaissance

Today spoken Sanskrit, a classical language that is the Indian equivalent of ancient Greek or Latin, is enjoying a revival – both in India and among Indian expatriates in the United States. A decade-long economic boom has brought Indians some measure of prosperity, and with it a sense of pride in the nation’s past. In large part, however, the revival is the result of the efforts of a private group, Samskrita Bharati, headquartered in New Delhi. The volunteer-based group’s mission is to bring the pan-Indian language back to the mainstream and lay the groundwork for a cultural renaissance.

In India today, Sanskrit is mostly known as the written language of religion and metaphysics. Hindus – who make up 80 percent of the population in India – typically know some Sanskrit prayers by heart. In 25 years, an estimated 7 million people have attended spoken Sanskrit classes offered by Samskrita Bharati in India and abroad. There are 250 full-time volunteers and 5,000 part-time teachers in the United States and India, and their numbers are growing.

Belonging to the ancient Indo-European linguistic family, hundreds of pure Sanskrit words have become permanent fixtures in English through cultural interactions between East and West since the Middle Ages. Some of the pure Sanskrit words familiar to English speakers include: avatar, karma, guru, juggernaut, pundit, mantra, and nirvana.

– The Christian Science Monitor
July 05, 2007

Billionaire Plans Mega-University

Anil Agarwal, a metals-and-mining mogul, has plans to build a $3.5 billion university in the state of Orissa that would accommodate 100,000 students on over 7,500 acres of land, reports the Chronicle of Higher Education. Mr. Agarwal plans to buy a majority of the land and lease the rest from the government in order to complete his project by 2023.

Under the first phase of the project, 3,000 students are scheduled to begin studies in the fall of 2009. By 2023, Vedanta University would be home to undergraduate, graduate and doctoral programs in an array of disciplines, and it would offer a broad-based U.S.-style curriculum. The area would also house a resort, a golf course, an airport, and townships that would be home to the army of workers and faculty needed to operate the venture. In the process, farmers from 17 villages would be required to leave under India’s laws of eminent domain.

One of Mr. Agarwal’s ambitions is to hire the best academics from around the world, who among them would teach more than 95 disciplines, according to Vedanta’s website. India’s universities already face acute staff shortages, so this may be the biggest challenge of all, if indeed the project even gets off the ground.

– The Chronicle of Higher Education
July 13, 2007

Indian Engineering Education Receives Boost through Membership of Washington Accord

Engineering schools are one step closer to increased international recognition after the National Board of Accreditation of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) was made a provisional member of the Washington Accord, an association of international engineering accrediting bodies from 12, mainly developed, nations. The AICTE has been lobbying for entry into the Washington Accord since 2000, and the elimination of 23,000 seats at more than 300 engineering colleges last year was part of an effort to improve Indian engineering education after AICTE was denied membership in 2005.

According to the Washington Accord Website, “a provisional member of the accord must demonstrate that the accreditation system for which it has responsibility appears to be conceptually similar to those of the other signatories of the Washington Accord. By conferring provisional status, the signatories have indicated that they consider the provisional signatory to have the potential capability to reach full signatory status; however, the awarding of provisional status does not in any way imply a guarantee of the granting of full signatory status.” Korean and Taiwanese accrediting bodies were accepted as full signatories with the AICTE announcement. Also receiving provisional status were the Institution of Engineers, Sri Lanka (IESL) and the Russian Association for Engineering Education (RAEE).

The signatories of the Washington Accord are the Accreditation Board for Engineering & Technology (USA); Accreditation Board for Engineering Education of Korea (ABEEK); Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board of Engineers Canada (CEAB-EC); Engineering Council of South Africa (ECSA); Engineering Council UK (ECUK); Engineers Australia; Engineers Ireland; Hong Kong Institution of Engineers (HKIE); IEET (Chinese Taipei); Institution of Engineers Singapore (IES); Institution of Professional Engineers New Zealand (IPENZ); and Japan Accreditation Board for Engineering Education (JABEE).

– Washington Accord news release The Chronicle of Higher Education
June 22, 2007

Japan

Falling Birth Rates and University Rationalization

Japan has one of the oldest and most established systems of higher education in Asia, but today its universities are scrambling to find new ways to attract students. Years of falling birthrates have rapidly shrunk the population of young Japanese, which is leaving more and more universities unable to find enough students to fill their classrooms and campuses. Already, in the lower levels of the nation’s education system, hundreds of half-empty elementary and high schools have closed or been merged over the last two decades. And now, the impact of Japan’s aging population is hitting higher education.

Japan’s postwar baby boom started earlier than America’s. As a result, according to census statistics, the number of 18-year-olds in Japan peaked at 2.05 million in 1992, when the baby boomers’ children were entering universities, and has fallen steadily, to 1.3 million this year. Estimates show it dropping to 1.21 million in two years. This year, as a result, nearly a third of the nation’s 707 public and private four-year universities cannot fill all of their openings, according to the Education Ministry and university groups.

Only three universities have gone bankrupt for lack of students. Three years ago, Hiroshima’s Risshikan University became the first Japanese university to fail since World War II, and now university groups and education officials are looking to find ways to let weaker universities close without disrupting the education of their students. Although many fear that universities may lower standards to attract more students, some administrators welcome the competition, saying it will force schools to improve the quality of instruction — or perish.

– The New York Times
June 22, 2007

Universities: a Model of Non-Internationalization

With a faculty that is 30 percent foreign, a dean that is English, and a diverse curriculum taught in English requiring a year abroad to graduate, the School of International Liberal Studies at Waseda University is an outpost of internationalization in a tertiary education system that remains essentially closed to globalizing trends in higher education. According to the Ministry of Education, just 5,652 of the 158,770 professors employed in Japanese higher education are foreigners on full-time contracts, mostly at private universities, and mostly working as low-level English-language teachers on short-term contracts.

And although Japan has finally reached its target, set in 1984, of enrolling 100,000 foreign students every year, the bulk are from China and South Korea. The rest of the world sends fewer than 20,000 students to Japanese campuses each year. In contrast, Japan sends nearly 40,000 students a year to the US alone.

Recognizing the current status quo as an issue to be dealt with, the Education Ministry is increasing references to internationalization in documents on university reform and officially stating that more foreign academic talent is welcome. The reality is somewhat different, however, as foreigners are generally hired on short-term contracts lasting three years or less with little autonomy over what they can teach. Faculty positions in Japan are still rarely advertised outside the country unless universities are looking for foreign-language instructors. In addition, many foreign academics say they have been discriminated against.

Tokyo’s Jesuit-run Sophia University, which has the highest percentage of non-Japanese staff of any university in the country – more than 50 per cent – could serve as a model for reformers. Sophia’s school of liberal arts is one of the few in Japan that offer an entire curriculum in English and enrolls a significant number of non-Asian students.

– The Chronicle of Higher Education
Feb. 16, 2007

South Korea

Admissions Criteria to be Shaken Up

There is an ongoing dispute in South Korea over university admissions, and exactly how much high school performance should figure into the admissions process. The government mandated recently that high school records be weighted at 50 percent, but university groups came out strongly against the government dictate and it appears that a compromise will be found at 30 percent, according to a July announcement by Education Minister Kim Shin-il. Kim also called for a gradual increase to 50 percent by 2011.

Under the current agreement, schools would be able to decide how to weight the remaining 70 percent. Universities have until August to submit their plans for the 2008 college admissions season. A number of high-profile universities, such as Korea and Sogang, have said that they will apportion a maximum of just 20 percent to high school records, stating that the process should be left up to universities to decide.

The government has promised greater autonomy for universities as long as universities act responsibly, according to a statement jointly released in July by the ministry and executives of the Korean Council for University Education.

– Korean Herald
July 11, 2007

Vietnam

Australian University Develops Institute with University of Danang

The University of Danang – University of Queensland English Language Institute (UD-UQ ELI) in Vietnam was opened June 16.

– Australia Education International
June 2007

Vietnamese Leaders on U.S. Visit Discuss Ambitious Plans to Overhaul Higher Education

At a forum held at the New School in New York this June, Vietnam’s president and minister of education outlined an ambitious plan to overhaul their country’s education system, while a panel of American academics and scientists highlighted the importance of higher education to Vietnam’s rapidly growing economy and suggested potential models for reform. Both Vietnamese government figures said that improving higher education was key to Vietnam’s economic-development effort.

Twenty years after opening its economy to market forces, Vietnam is today one of the fastest-growing economies in the world; however, continued growth is far from certain as the country’s tertiary education system currently suffers from overcrowding and a severe lack of professors. Only 10 percent of Vietnam’s college-age population attends university, and its tiny academic body, most of whose members were trained in Russia or other countries in the former Eastern Bloc, is aging. In addition, only one-third of Vietnam’s 160 universities offer doctoral programs, meaning the number of professors is likely to dwindle further.

The country produces 500 new Ph.D.s a year, Mr. Nhan, the education minister, said at the forum. He said that by 2020, he hoped to bring the country’s number of Ph.D.’s to 20,000, half of whom would be trained outside Vietnam. The minister said he anticipated that 2,500 of those new Ph.D.’s would be educated in the United States and would form a core group of faculty members who would lead the country’s efforts to create a tiered system of national higher education. At its pinnacle would be a new science-and-technology research university in Hanoi that Mr. Nhan said he hoped would open in 2008. He also indicated that there were plans to develop Vietnam National Universities, in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, into research institutions with Ph.D. programs and to establish a new binational university that would be jointly financed by Vietnam and the German state of Hessen. Mr. Nhan also expressed hope that with the aid of international technology companies like Intel, Vietnam might persuade American universities to open technology-focused campuses in his country that would help it strengthen its science-and-technology curriculum.

– The Chronicle of Higher Education
June 21, 2007

Japan Offers Grants to Attract Vietnamese Researchers

Japan has pledged to grant 35 scholarships worth a total of US$3.9 million for Vietnamese academics to pursue research at Japanese higher education institutions. The scholarships are part of the Japanese Grant Aid for Human Resources Development Scholarship (JDS) program initiated in Vietnam in 2000. The program targets young government officials, researchers and others who have the potential to play leadership roles in their specialties after returning to Vietnam and contribute to the country’s socio-economic development. Under the program, as many as 208 Vietnamese academics have thus far received further training in Japan.

– Voice of Vietnam
July 3, 3007

RMIT’s Vietnam Campus Paying Dividends Academically and Economically

The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) has announced plans to expand its Vietnam campus in a bid to boost numbers to 15,000 in the next decade. The campus has overcome heavy debts in the past couple of years and will be injecting approximately US$800,000 into a new international teaching program, including funds allowing for new academic recruits in Melbourne to spend time at its two fee-paying campuses in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi. The first cohort of 22 teachers will travel out to the Southeast Asian nation later this year. RMIT administrators hope that the Vietnam experience will help its new teaching recruits internationalize their curriculums and lectures.

RMIT moved into Vietnam in 2001, developing from a few city offices with 30 students, before US billionaire Chuck Feeney donated US$15 million toward a purpose-built, 30 acre campus in Ho Chi Minh City, which opened in 2005. Although the mix of business- and commerce-related degrees on offer caters primarily to Vietnamese students, there are 120 international enrollments from across 20 countries, including the US and Europe. The nationalities of academics also vary greatly across the university. The student body is currently 3,000 strong.

– The Australian
July 04, 2007