HE News Brief 30.1.12
by Abby Chau
- SOUTH KOREA: A third of universities have announced the intention of dropping tuition fees by at least 5%
- SAUDI ARABIA: The government has announced that it hopes to have 50,000 graduates from the world’s top 500 universities by 2020
- UK: Application rates projected to fall by 10% for the autumn 2012 term amidst tuition fee hikes and budget cuts
- GERMANY: A different take on foreign students?
Too many graduates, or too few?
by Mansoor Iqbal, Education Writer
Competition for jobs may be intense, but the vital role played by graduates in economic growth and recovery means that some voices believe the world needs more, not fewer.
It has recently been reported that no less than 83 applicants apply for every graduate level role in the UK. The total number of graduate jobs is expected to rise by 2.6% in 2011, and it should be remembered that graduates can often be pretty indiscriminate when applying for a first job, but the figure is still pretty daunting. It is no wonder, then, that one proposal in the recent white paper presented to the government by the UK’s Minister for Universities, David Willetts, was that universities publish data on how many of their graduates are able to find work – this is one of the primary concerns of students in the 21st century (as reflected in the methodology of the QS World University Rankings®, which takes into account the prestige afforded to universities by graduate employers).
Graduate unemployment figures inevitably add to these concerns. While the UK is used as an example here, the problems are certainly not limited to that particular nation – graduates in countries as prosperous as the US and China are also facing stiff competition for jobs (though it should be noted that graduates are generally less likely to be unemployed that non-graduates). The almost inevitable consequence of this is voices calling for the number of students in higher education to be greatly reduced, particularly while we are still living in the shadow of the financial crisis that occurred at the end of the last decade. Continue Reading
HE News Brief 5.7.11
- UNITED STATES: U.S News & World Report recently announced that it will produce a ranking of online colleges
- GERMANY: Hamburg is set to eradicate tuition fees in 2012, leaving just two states planning to continue charging out of seven
- UNITED KINGDOM: White paper on higher education causing a furore
- ABU DHABI: Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research reiterates the country’s 2019 goal for higher education
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HE News Brief 17.5.11
by Abby Chau
IN THIS EDITION
- ENGLAND: Universities Minister David Willetts continues to draw fire for his HE proposals
- UK: The Guardian has just released its list of top UK universities, with Cambridge topping the league table
- GERMANY: Universities are overcrowded and many are calling for the reforms
- FRENCH: New internationalisation strategy to target mobile students
- AUSTRALIA: Losing its grip on mobile students
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HE News Brief 15.2.11
by Abby Chau
- A 346-page report on business school trends has just been released by the Association to Advance Collegiate schools of Business following an intensive three year study by deans and scholars from top b-schools. The finding show that business schools have an uphill battle in terms of successfully implementing internationalisation strategies. Many courses, particularly in the states, focus more on study abroad programmes than internationalisation strategies and concentrate on North American rather than global markets.
Full Story: Chronicle of Higher Education
- It looks like the Lib Dems will finally have some talking points about the tuition fee hikes – Universities Minister David Willetts announced that institutions who want to charge more than £6,000 must comply with requirements to admit more poorer students. As a strategy to counteract the tuition fee hikes due to commence in 2012, the coalition government has decided that universities charging higher fees must work with the Office for Fair Access (Offa) to establish targets for accessibility. Willetts also announced that institutions charging more fees will also have to participate in the National Scholarship Programme, which will eventually help 48,000 disadvantaged students. There are of course critics of the announcement who are saying such an initiative will not do very much to offset the damage the fees will in incur in terms of social mobility.
Full Story: BBC News
More: Guardian
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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.
HE News Brief 28.9.10
by Abby Chau
Here are this week’s news stories:
- In 2005, the German government allowed universities to compete for extra funding by proving that they are top-notch in research, strategy, and quality of teaching. The universities that performed the best were designated with the title of “elite university.” Aachen’s RWTH university for instance, did extremely well and have now seen their stock raised – as a response to this new standing they are offering companies the opportunity to set up research clusters on campus. The move is aimed to foster more collaboration between businesses and higher education. An estimated 10,000 people will be employed because of this initiative.
Full Story: FT
- The build-it-and-they-will-come philosophy hasn’t seemed to work when it comes to postgraduates studies in Japan. The number of professional graduate schools have soared since 2003 but students don’t seem to be interested in getting a postgraduate degree. The problem, says Kenichi Yoshida, a consultant at the Japan Research Institute, is that institutions don’t do their market research before initiating postgraduate programmes. In addition, there does not seem to be a system in the workplace which financially awards people like teachers for instance, who have postgraduate degrees. Some say there is also another factor which is the Japanese culture, and its supposed reluctance to single out individuals.
Full Story: New York Times
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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.
HE News Brief 25.5.10
by Abby Chau
From Bahrain’s educational overhaul to UK institutions going private, here are this week’s news stories:
- With the help of the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA), Bahrain is planning an overhaul of its education system, with plans to finalise the project by the end of 2011. This project will focus on infrastructure, quality of education, adult education, raising standards, internationalisation and forming a unified award system.
Full Story: Gulf Daily News
- For-profit higher education companies saw their shares rise when news broke that Deputy Undersecretary at the U.S. Department of Education Robert Shireman plans to step down in July. It is reported that Shireman is a major critic of for-profit higher education companies (see our 4.5.2010 news brief for more on this).
Full Story: Reuters
More: Wall Street Journal
- In line with the Bologna Process, Germany plans on investing two billion euros over the next ten years to improve university teaching quality. The money will go toward employing more staff and professors, as well as mentor and tutor programmes. In addition, a new academy has been set up to oversee the Quality Pact for Teaching, which was created to make sure that Bologna is successfully implemented.
Full Story: eGov monitor
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