Trends in student mobility
by Ina Chiriliuc
There has been a significant shift in the preference for study destinations. Students planning to pursue their courses abroad have started to consider new locations and this is only natural since the rather popular study destinations are very competitive, expensive and for many, a great distance away from home. The once obvious foreign destinations such as: United Kingdom, Germany and France have been losing inbound students in the last period, according to data in the “Education at a glance” 2010 Report, published by the Organisation for Economic and Co-Operation Development (OECD).
Considering that globally the number of foreign students has in the mean time increased, it is only obvious that there appeared a whole new range of booming destinations for studies. In a comparison of OECD’s “Education at a glance” reports for 2009 and 2010, there has been a remarkable growth in the number of inbound students to New Zealand, Czech Republic, Netherlands, Slovak Republic and the Russian Federation.
2010 QS World University Rankings® Video – Continental Europe focussed
Nunzio Quacquarelli, Managing Director of QS Quacquarelli Symonds, gives a brief description of the QS World University Rankings®.
Ben Sowter, Head of the QS Intelligence Unit, gives an overview of the performances of German, Spanish, Italian and French institutions.
The French universities revolution is en route
by Stephanie Braudeau
Making French universities more attractive?
Last December, French President, Nicolas Sarkozy announced that a €35 billion national loan will prioritise higher education and training. At the press conference he expressed the desire to produce the best universities in the world. In order to achieve his objective, he decided to inject €7.7 billion for a project of creating between 5 and 10 initiatives d’excellence, elite campuses in order to compete with the best world universities. These campuses will be linked with their economic environment, allowing a better cooperation between Grandes Ecoles and universities as well as research institutions to contribute to the economic integration of their surroundings. They will also be targeting stellar professors, researchers and students.
For a decade, the higher education environment has been changing in France. In order to be more competitive in the international market, more and more schools are merging such as between the two Grandes Ecoles ESC Lille and Ceram Business School into SKEMA Business School in 2009 or ESCP Europe born from the École Supérieure de Commerce de Paris and the EAP (Ecole Européenne des Affaires) merger in 2000. Networks or alliances are also flourishing, such as the creation of Paristech in 2007, a centre of excellence gathering 12 prestigious Parisian Grandes Ecoles.
In 2007, the government implemented the project of giving more autonomy to public universities. The goal is that by 2012, all French universities will be autonomous in terms of human resources and budget management.
Public universities have been granted a yearly budget of €1 billion whilst other European countries are cutting education budgets. Continue Reading
HE News Brief 27.07.10
by Abby Chau
From President Sarkozy’s higher education revolution to the second for-profit university in the UK in the last 30 years – here are this week’s news stories:
- As governments around the world are cutting funding for higher education, French President Nicolas Sarkozy is bucking the trend and investing 1 billion euros into the sector. Under the new scheme, Sarkozy wants to revolutionalise the fledgling university system and make the les grandes ecoles, or elite schools, more accessible to poorer students. In addition, Business schools have started to merge, instigating criticism about how these schools and universities will be managed and made competitive.
Full Story: FT
- Pearson, which owns the Financial Times and Penguin books, is dipping their hands in the Brazilian higher education market. Having acquired Sistema Educacional Brasileiro learning systems business for 326 million pounds, Pearson is looking to cash in on the reported 2 billion valued educational materials market. With a romping 25% of Brazil’s 192 million people under the age of 14, Pearson expects to recover the invested capital by 2012.
Full Story: Wall Street Journal
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HE News Brief 8.6.10
by Abby Chau
From a French higher education revolution to a growing American uneasiness about their ranking, here are this week’s news stories:
- The second Euro-Mediterranean Ministerial Conference on Higher Education was supposed to take place in April but due to the Icelandic ash cloud, it was postponed. Stakeholders of this conference, from Southern Mediterranean and Middle Eastern States, seek to establish dialogues and agreements based on the 2007 Cairo Declaration which, akin to the Bologna Process, aims to harmonise higher education and promote knowledge sharing within member states. This editorial argues against the wholesale acceptance of Bologna and cautions against the so-called neoliberalism of internationalisation and privatisation.
Full Story: Times of Malta
- According to the Chronicle, France is allowing its 83 universities to become autonomous, cutting off traditional ties to the government. In a major overhaul, Sarkozy also plans on investing billions of euros into creating 10 regional “supercampuses” with the view to compete with American Ivy Leagues. The Chronicle posits that the poor performance of French universities in international league tables has had a hand in ushering in this new system.
Full Story: The Chronicle of Higher Education
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Politics and higher education – a volatile mix?
by Ben Sowter
I can’t help but have a little admiration for Nicolas Sarkozy. Regardless of whether or not you agree with his positions – he at least seems prepared to actually do something. Not without a little resistance, however. There have been plenty of protests at all levels in response to his education reforms but the latest loosely represents a mutiny by the Grandes Ecoles as reported last month in The Telegraph – http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/6941075/Nicolas-Sarkozy-faces-revolt-from-elite-French-colleges.html.
In a nutshell, the Grandes Ecoles are resisting an attempt to force them to take 30 percent to their intake from under-privileged backgrounds. On the one hand, the populist view is that such students are disadvantaged when faced with the extremely challenging entrance exams, on the other that standards will drop if entry requirements are relaxed.
Both views seem valid, but the key battleground may not be at university admissions age but earlier – with a view to driving standards, and aspirations, amongst more diverse students sooner. Or alternatively to focus on diverse entrants to the often expensive preparatory classes rather than the Ecoles themselves which appeared to be Sarkozy’s view just 14 months ago: http://www.javno.com/en-world/sarkozy-tackles-discrimination-in-french-education_215815
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