Regional

European Universities and Latin American Universities to Cooperate Under New Program

A consortium of 24 national and international university associations launched a project to boost regional and cross-continental cooperation in higher education in May. The three-year $3.5 million project, Alfa Puentes, is funded by the consortium and the European Community.

The main aims of the program are threefold: To analyze the current state and needs of Latin American universities and university associations, to improve the capacity of regional university associations to contribute to policy development in dialog with governments, and to engage internationally through cooperation within the region and beyond (Europe in particular).

It will specifically support three sub-regional initiatives (Mercosur, Andean Community, Central America/ Mexico) as building blocks for wider regional convergence. The sub-regional initiatives focus on actions that sub-regional university associations have prioritized, primarily regarding the reform of teaching and learning, quality assurance, and internationalization. European partners will be engaged in the sub-regional and internationalization initiatives.

In line with some of the key features of the European reform process (Bologna), the initiative looks to improve awareness and understanding of the concepts of recognition, quality assurance, qualifications frameworks, and mobility tools. The program also looks to bridge higher education partnerships and exchanges between the Latin American and European regions.

The idea for Alfa Puentes began about a decade ago, when the Latin American Common (LAC) Higher Education Area and the EU-LAC Common Higher Education and Knowledge Area appeared on the European Union’s agenda. This political commitment is based on exchange of knowledge and partnership between higher education institutions in both regions.

– European University Associations
May 2011

Canada

Record Growth in Domestic and International University Enrollments Expected to Continue

International and domestic enrollments at Canada’s institutions of higher education will continue to grow at record pace into the next decade and very likely beyond, according to a report released in May by the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada.

According to the report, the number of international students in Canada has tripled over the past 15 years, with 10 percent of the 1.2 million students on Canadian campuses in 2010 coming from abroad. The report says Canada is seeing a substantial increase in students from India and Saudi Arabia, two countries that had not previously been major student sources for Canadian institutions.

– University Affairs
May 26, 2011

Canadian Universities to Increase Recruitment Efforts in India

2011 is the Year of India in Canada, a fact that is reportedly not lost on Canadian universities, many of which are ramping up recruitment efforts in the South Asian nation, where demand for higher education is skyrocketing.

Canada has lagged behind its Western counterparts in forging educational ties with India. Of 160,000 Indian students studying abroad in 2008, fewer than 4,000 were in Canada. But bolstered by the perceived success of a visit undertaken by 15 university presidents last November, many schools have begun the slow process of deepening ties with the emerging power.

In June in the central city of Hyderabad, York University’s Schulich School of Business signed a formal agreement with Indian developer GMR Group to establish facilities and residences for some 320 students, both Indian and international, to open in the fall of 2013. GMR is spending C$25 million (US$25 million) to build the campus as part of a C$500 million commercial and community development near the city’s airport, but Schulich will operate the school.

Also in June, the University of Regina announced it had signed a memorandum of understanding with India’s Karunya University to offer a joint degree in kinesiology to up to 30 Indian students each year, with two years taught in each country.

“It is a very small beginning for us,” said University of Regina president Vianne Timmons, noting that Saskatchewan has a booming economy but declining domestic enrollment.

Representatives of Simon Fraser University and the University of Winnipeg visited India early this year, and with Carleton University president Roseann O’Reilly Runte recently visiting the subcontinent too, the groundwork was set for a Canada-India Innovation Summit in late June. Held at Carleton University, Canadian university representatives and cabinet members hosted vice-chancellors from Indian universities, business leaders and government representatives to discuss collaborative opportunities in education and innovation.

Carleton signed the two newest of its 15 partnerships with India in February, and will soon open a Canada-India Centre for Excellence in Science, Technology, Trade and Policy. Dr. Runte said Carleton has no plans to follow York in establishing a campus in India, but described her school’s efforts as “just the tip of the iceberg.”

– The Globe and Mail
June 8, 2011

Chile

President Promises to Help Universities and Students

Chile will alter the rules governing university admissions in an effort to make institutions of higher education more accessible for students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. In addition, it will restructure financing mechanisms to help 100,000 students pay off their debts, President Sebastián Piñera said in his state-of-the-union speech in May.

The government will also grant more autonomy and flexibility to universities so they can “improve their management and competitiveness,” he said. Mr. Piñera gave no details on the initiatives but said he would create a new sub-secretary of higher education to help universities, teachers, and students work in closer collaboration with the government. The speech came days after street demonstrations by thousands of students calling for more government support for higher education. The May demonstrations were followed by a 25,000 strong march through the streets of Santiago in early June by student protestors.

– Presidential Speech
May 21, 2011
– Aljazeera
June 2, 2011

Colombia

Higher Education Reform Efforts Underway

While Colombia has the 29th largest economy in the world, its GDP per capita is only 20 percent that of the United States. The general unemployment rate is 12 percent and among those 17-27 years old it reaches 21.7 percent. In a bid to address the unemployment problem, the government is seeking to greatly increase higher-education enrollment rates – from 37 percent of college-age students today to 50 percent in three years – by developing an economy based more on knowledge and less on agriculture and manufacturing.

Currently, almost 30 percent of Colombians are under 15 years of age, and the number of high school graduates grew by 50 percent from 2002 to 2010. This figure is expected to grow another 28 percent by 2014, when almost 800,000 young Colombians will graduate from high school. With just 286 institutions of higher education, enrolling 1.6 million students, the system will have to grow significantly if demand is to be met and the 50 percent enrollment goal achieved.

This will be no easy task, especially if quality standards are to be maintained and improved. A national accreditation system was launched 12 years ago, yet only 13 percent of undergraduate programs and 21 higher education institutions are fully accredited. Furthermore, just 13.5 percent of full time educators hold a doctorate.

In response, the new Colombian government has proposed a reform of the higher education law, in place since 1992. The proposed reform seeks to improve the overall quality of the system, to diversify it, and to make it more flexible. A series of measures have been proposed, including the revamping of the accreditation framework, the clarification about the type of institutions and the type of degrees they can offer, a revision of the governance structure for public higher education institutions, an expansion of the current loan system for students, and the adoption of a competency-based curriculum, among other measures.

Central to the debate is the proposed plan to allow the private sector –both national and foreign- to directly invest in higher education and also turn a profit. The rationale used by the government states that new and more funding sources are required in order to expand and improve the higher education system, and that institutions of a corporate nature could serve as an incentive for private sector investors to take part in the higher education sector. By explicitly allowing for-profit providers, the government could better regulate them, it argues. As explained by Javier Botero, Vice Minister of Higher Education, the proposed law creates a new category of institutions of higher education on the basis of the origin of its resources, known as “mixed” institutions.

The reforms are currently under discussion, both among policymakers, and the general public through such mediums as town hall discussions and Internet forums. The proposal to reform higher education will be discussed this summer by the Colombian Congress, and the results should be of interest to other systems around the world facing the issue of rapidly increasing demand and insufficient supply.

– The Chronicle of Higher Education
May 31, 2011,

Trinidad and Tobago

First Round of Institutional Accreditations Completed

As many as 30,000 students or 44 percent of the local tertiary education population in Trinidad and Tobago can now boast of being trained by fully-accredited and internationally-recognized higher education institutions, after a first round of accreditation exercises was completed by the Accreditation Council of Trinidad and Tobago in May.

Three of the nation’s largest tertiary institutions underwent the process, which was initiated by an Act of Parliament in 2004 establishing a structured regulatory framework based on international norms and standards, Minister of Science, Technology and Tertiary Education Fazal Karim said. He also said that while these achievements demonstrated that “we can match the quality expected” of global higher education institutions, accreditation status “will ensure international recognition of our graduates as they seek to further opportunities.”

The three newly accredited institutions are the University of the West Indies, St Augustine Campus, the University of Trinidad & Tobago and the College of Science, Technology and Applied Arts of Trinidad & Tobago.

– The Trinidad Guardian
May 19, 2011

United States

Immigrant Skill Levels in the United States Increase Significantly

According to the findings of a new report from the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institute, the share of working-age immigrants in the United States who have a bachelor’s degree has risen considerably since 1980 and now exceeds the share without a high school diploma.

The report, ‘The Geography of Immigrant Skills: Educational Profiles of Metropolitan Areas,’ found that in the 20 years since 1980, the percentage of immigrants aged 25 to 64 with a bachelor’s degree has risen from 19 percent to 30 percent, while those who have not completed high school has dropped from 40 percent to 28 percent.

Among the report’s many other important findings is the fact that a much higher proportion of high-skilled immigrants are working in jobs for which they are over-credentialed or overqualified. It is currently estimated that 49 percent of high-skilled immigrants (bachelor degree or higher) in the country’s 100 largest metro areas working jobs for which they are overcredentialed. For native-born high-skilled workers, the figure is 36.1 percent. It has been found in other studies that poor English language skills are part of the reason behind the mismatch, but also that poor understanding of foreign credentials among employers is also to blame, bringing into focus the importance of accurate and trusted foreign credential evaluations for skilled migrants in the U.S. job market.

– Brookings Institute
June 9, 2011

Ranking Organization Launches Overseas Recruitment Arm, While Another Player Withdraws

Quacquarelli Symonds Limited, a British higher-education-consulting company known better as QS, has announced that it will be launching a foreign-student-recruiting arm. QS, best known for its prominent global university ranking, plans to offer its new recruiting services to its approximately 1,000 client universities worldwide, including many in the United States, said John Molony, the company’s vice president for strategic planning and marketing at the annual meeting of Nafsa: Association of International Educators in Vancouver.

In the United States, QS joined two other education companies with global reach as potentially major players in the controversial overseas recruitment arena. IDP Education, Australia’s largest and most successful foreign-student-recruitment company, and Hobsons, the education-services company, announced two years ago that they would begin offering recruitment services for U.S. colleges. However, just a week after QS’ announcement, Hobsons said it had decided to close down its recruitment division after failing to recruit a diverse-enough group of colleges to market abroad. The company set an initial goal to sign up 200 colleges within five years, however, it had added just over two-dozen by the time officials decided to stop recruitment services in June. It had placed some 100 students.

IDP now has approximately 100 American colleges as clients, but the road has not been easy with many in the field of international education opposing the use of commission-based agents, believing it be unethical. The QS model will reportedly be to sign on one “trusted partner” agency in each source country, working exclusively with a single recruiter to recruit students and help them through the admissions process.

– The Chronicle of Higher Education
May 31, 2011

U.S. Brain Drain

According to a report released in April by Vivek Wadhwa, a visiting scholar at University of California-Berkeley, the United States is experiencing a brain drain.

“For the first time, immigrants have better opportunities outside the U.S.,” Wadhwa says. Indeed, nearly half of 264 immigrants surveyed by Wadhwa said they wanted to start companies back home. Many foreign-born executives, engineers and scientists are leaving because of better opportunities back home, strict immigration laws and the high cost of living in the United States.

There are no hard data available, but authorities agree the number of foreign-born workers returning to India and China annually is in the tens of thousands. The Chinese Ministry of Education estimates the number of Chinese who returned to China last year was a record 134,800, up 25 percent from 108,000 in 2009. In China, where billions have been invested in research and development with limited success, American-educated and trained Chinese are returning home and playing a key role in helping major R&D labs innovate, Wadhwa says.

While talented engineers return home to India, China and elsewhere by choice or by law, U.S. tech companies are scrambling to hire engineering and tech-related talent. The mini-exodus has also fomented a thriving industry of Silicon Valley-based investments in India-based tech start-ups. Vinod Dham, often called the “father of the Pentium chip,” is founder of NEA-Indo US Venture Partners, which has put money into a number of Indian start-ups.

With tech workers in such high demand yet visas in short supply, President Barak Obama is committed to an overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws and wants to push Congress to pass a bill. Often, a lack of work visas blocks foreign talent from staying. In the early 2000s, the national cap on work visas was 195,000. Today, it is approximately 65,000. Obama said he is confident about passage of a federal education law by 2012 to help schools “do a better job of math and science education for women, Hispanics and blacks,” the president said, at a meeting at the Facebook headquarters recently. “We have to lift our game up for the Internet, math and science.”

– USA Today
May 10, 2011

State University of New York Looks to Set Standards on Use of International Recruiting Agents

The State University of New York (SUNY) has announced a new global recruitment initiative that it says will help expand study abroad scholarships and faculty internationalization grants through significantly increased international student tuition revenue. The large university system plans to use recruiting agents as the central channel in its drive to increase international enrollments by 14,000 students over the next five years, a strategy it says will help set standards in the controversial world of international recruiting.

“SUNY’s efforts in international student recruitment are unique nationally, and set the bar very high in terms of professional standards,” said SUNY Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher, “SUNY intends to lead a national effort that will demonstrate how the presence of international student recruitment can qualitatively improve the academic experience for domestic students; improve the research capacities of our campuses; and boost revenue, creating opportunities for domestic students to study abroad and for faculty to better engage globally.”

SUNY currently has approximately 18,000 international students across its 64 campuses. If objectives are met, within five years SUNY will be able to offer more than 3,000 study abroad scholarships per year, 125 faculty internationalization grants, and fund many other campus internationalization activities. Following more than a year of preparation and a months-long selection process, SUNY has started signing contracts with international student recruitment agencies around the world. Twenty agencies were selected in the first round, with five contracts signed in late May. Agencies to have signed on include China Education International, IAE Global, Global Reach, PAC Asia, and World Education Group. These five agencies have recruiting activities in approximately thirty countries. SUNY will be adding more agencies soon, and plans to eventually have a global network of 50 to 75 agencies in as many countries.

– SUNY News Release
June 2, 2011

New Industry-Recognized Community College Qualifications Framework

In a bid to improve the efficiency of workforce training, the government unveiled a plan in June to provide 500,000 community college students with industry-recognized credentials that will help them secure jobs in manufacturing.

Students will earn the credentials through a new Manufacturing Skills Certification System endorsed by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and developed by a NAM affiliate, the Manufacturing Institute. The new advanced credentials are applicable to all sectors in the manufacturing industry and can be applied alongside other training to help students toward an associate degree.

The new credentialing system is expected to alleviate frustration that both employers and students experience, administration officials said. In the past, students often spent time and money on training that had little value to potential employers, while employers had difficulty identifying which credentials were of value in hiring and promotion. The system is currently in 30 states as a for-credit program of study. This will allow students the flexibility to travel across state lines for jobs, increase the range of employers familiar with the credential, and improve workers’ earning power, administration officials said.

– Portfolio.com
June 8, 2011

What Do International Students Think of U.S. Higher Education?

The Institute for International Education (IIE) released a paper in June looking at the perceptions of U.S. higher education among international students from 11 different countries who are considering studying in the United States.

According to the findings of the report, What International Students Think about U.S. Higher Education, based on survey responses between spring 2009 and 2010, the U.S. is seen as:

1. A study destination with a very high quality higher education system with a wide range of schools and programs as compared with other potential study destinations;
2. A more welcoming country for international students than other potential study destinations;
3. Costly, but with many scholarship opportunities;
4. More attractive than non-English destinations that offer English-taught programs.

– Institute for International Education
June 2011