QSIU HE Digest – Decline in MBA applicants
- MBA: Decline in MBA applicants
- Kazakhstan: Only 100 universities in 2 years
- EU: Easier Access to Non-EU Students
- Australia: University Experience Survey
QSIU HE Digest – Slashing Student Enrolment for Quality
- Vietnam: Slashing Enrolment for Quality
- Australia: New Australian MOOC
- Canada: $23m for international education strategy
- UK: Competition & UK Universities
QSIU HE Digest – Rate My MOOCs
- MOOC: Rate My MOOCs
- China: International Cooperation Gets Approval
- Brazil: Research Boom in BRICS
- UK: Penalties on Research Misconduct
QSIU HE Digest – India Should Look to MOOCs
- India: India Should Look to MOOCs
- Egypt: 10 Year HE Plan
- Japan: First Overseas Campus
- UK: Cheap Courses Equate Poor Quality
QSIU HE Digest – The Law School Crisis
- US: The Law School Crisis
- China: End to Free PG Tuition
- Kenya: Policy for Specialist Unis
- Norway: Losing International Talent
QSIU HE Digest – International Students Shun UK B-Schools
- UK: International Students Shun B-Schools
- China: State Backed Branch Campus
- US:Regulatory Compliance of Online Ed
- China: 8,000,000 College Grads a Year
QSIU HE Digest – Traditional University Revenue Sources Questioned
- Funding: University Revenue Sources
- India:Study Abroad Trends
- US:Credit for MOOCs in California
- UK:Universities to Go to Schools
QSIU HE Digest – China Targets Academic Fraud
- China: Targetting Academic Fraud
- Brazil:Affirmative action in Higher Education
- UK:Research promotion in Universities
- Somalia:First Foreign Branch Campus
New penalties for academic fraud went into force across China on 1 January. The Ministry of Education has announced its intention to crack down on students,faculty members, and other academics who commit plagiarism, fabricate research results, or engage in the widespread practices of purchasing or dealing in academic papers, dissertations, or other academic writings produced by the country’s thriving composed-to-order trade. Under the new rules, plagiarism on theses can result in denial of degrees at all levels, as well as withdrawal of degrees awarded in the past. Misconduct could also lead to the expulsion of students and banning them from reapplying for a period of years, as well as the dismissal of university faculty and staff members. Chinese experts believe that their country’s “academics need to be trained in ethics and how to properly cite other people’s work,”
In August 2012 the Brazilian President, Dilma Rousseff, signed a bill making it mandatory for all federal universities in Brazil to reserve 50% of the places in each degree program for students coming from public schools according to their family incomes and their ethnic profile (self-declared descendants of blacks and Brazilian natives), and giving them 4 years to implement the programs. Not to be undone, in December of 2012 the governor of the State of São Paulo, Geraldo Alkimin, announced his own affirmative action project for the state universities, calling it a program of “social inclusion with merit”. Differently from the federal government that enacted the legislation without any consideration for how to address the low educational qualifications of most students coming from public schools, the São Paulo project introduced two innovations: first, students entering through the quota system would have to attend two years of a preparatory college, after which they would have access to university degree programs according to their achievements. Second, those students would also get a stipend of
half the Brazilian minimum wage, about 140 US dollars a month
Research is fundamental to a university’s reputation, ranking and future funding, but are UK universities really doing enough to promote and inform the public of the research they do?When scouring through university websites in search of their latest developments and projects for the launch of our new research round-up, Research in brief (RIBS), it became increasingly apparent this information was not always easily accessible – to those outside the realm of academia at least.Where is this research information to be found online? University webpages that do publicise their institution’s latest research are often uninviting orunimaginative in format, listing titles of research papers that have not been updated for months, or even years in some instances. Some universities fail to
provide access to online information about their research at all.
The horn of Africa’s self-declared state of Somaliland may get its first foreign university by mid-2013, if plans by a private university in Kenya to open a branch campus there come to fruition.The rapidly expanding though relatively new Mount Kenya University, headquartered in Thika in central Kenya, is planning to open a campus in the Somaliland capital Hargeisa.Mount Kenya has been on an ambitious regional expansion trajectory barely 10 years after being founded,and has in the past year opened campuses in Kigali, Rwanda, and in Juba, the capital of South Sudan. The university also has a virtual campus in Nairobi.Somaliland – a stable region in turbulent Somalia – is becoming an attractive investment destination, including in the field of higher education.
QSIU HE Digest – International Trends for Branch Campuses
- Trends:5 Trends for Branch Campuses
- N Africa: Maghreb Countries to Launch Joint University
- UK/EU HE will suffer if UK withdraws from EU
- China: Foreign universities find it hard in China
5 trends that can potentially affect international branch campuses in 2013.
- Greater push-back from home campuses
- A shift from expansion to quality
- Global competition to be education hubs
- Focus on economic development
- Increasing diversity of programs
A new pan-Maghreb university and science academy will soon be established, MAP quoted Libyan Education Minister Mohamed al-Faitouri Soualem as saying Wednesday (December 26th) in Rabat.The announcement came after an Arab Maghreb Union (AMU) ministerial committee meeting with Moroccan Prime Minister Abdelilah Benkirane. Education ministers from AMU member states Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia discussed ways to harmonise basic education methods and facilitate student and teacher mobility in the Maghreb.
The British attitude to Europe often seems sad and unnecessarily destructive.The idea of withdrawing from the European Union is profoundly mistaken, promoted by a ragtag of interests and members of the national press who often seem to confuse Europe with immigrants and run stories with two variants: “They’re taking our money” and “it’s just a crazy bureaucracy.” The result is clear enough: Britain has become more and more marginalized within Europe, a stance that can only make it more and more marginal to the world at large.
Britain’s Lancaster University, New York’s Juilliard School, which specialises in music, and Duke University in North Carolina, are just the latest foreign institutions to pile into an already crowded marketplace. Other co-operative and exchange programmes in higher education are being announced almost every month.None of them finds it easy to work with an academic system whose standards and values are so different from those in the West. Not least of the hurdles is maintaining scholarly independence in China’s restrictive political environment. The collapse of a Beijing-based undergraduate programme jointly run by two elite institutions—Yale University in America and Peking University—has highlighted some of the difficulties
Student protest against tuition fees in Hungary
Tuition fee hikes spread to other European countries. Maybe Hungarian tuition fees are not as mediatised as in the United Kingdom but it is worth mentioning them.
According the OECD report, Education at a Glance 2011, during the 2008-2009 academic year, 25% of full-time Hungarian students were paying tuition fees to access higher education, and the vast majority (75%) were state financed with a scholarship. In 2013, it has recently been announced 80% of students will now face paying annual tuition fees of between $446 and $892 (HUF50,000 and HUF100,000)*. Although the number of part-time scholarships in Hungary will increase from 5,000 in 2011 to 46,330 on 2013, full-time scholarships will, nonetheless, dramatically drop from 53,450 in 2011 to 10,480 in 2013. Furthermore, if students want to apply for a loan, it will be done under some conditions such as after graduation they will have to work in Hungary for twice as long as their study duration otherwise, they find a job abroad, they will have to pay back the outstanding amount. Students protested in mid-December 2012 in Budapest against the introduction of tuition fees, concerned poorer students will be those suffering the most.
*Exchange rate of the 4th January 2013.
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