Category: Saudi Arabia
HE News Brief 26.11.2012
- UK: First for-profit British university
- Saudi Arabia: Research chairs are suffering
- Singapore: Demise of an offshore campus
- UK: No-exam university courses fuel degree inflation
- Taiwan: NTU takes over the HEEACT ranking
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?
HE News Briefs 27.9.11
by Abby Chau
- AUSTRALIA: Visa restrictions have been lifted for international students
- UNITED STATES: Admission officers feel pressure to look at students who can pay their own way
- SAUDI ARABIA: The country has been building partnerships around the world but some warn caution
- SPAIN: Finding it difficult to implement its second year plan for the Bologna Process
- BRITAIN: Tuition fee hikes have made some consider other routes for students Continue Reading
HE News Brief 28.6.11
by Abby Chau
IN THIS EDITION
- KENYA: Government’s plan to substantially increase student intake is criticised
- SOUTH KOREA: The government pledges to cut tuition by 30% after a series of student protests
- UNITED KINGDOM: White paper on higher education is anxiously awaited
- SAUDI ARABIA: A new institution has its sights set for world class university status
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HE News Brief 22.2.11
by Abby Chau
- The UK government’s plan on curbing foreign student numbers is lambasted by a recent study for the Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi). Foreign students contribute approximately £5 billion a year to the economy. With devastating budget cuts planned for the sector, the study points out that the government plans to target visa abuse will only reduce crucial recruitment numbers, particularly if it targets the number of pre-university pathway courses, which is a set of English language courses and academic preparation courses used as a gateway for foreign students to study in the UK. The study also points out that the figures the government used to justify these new visa restrictions are based on unreliable statistics.
Full Story: BBC News
- Last December, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg asked universities from anywhere in the world to submit a proposal to build an applied-science facility in NYC. Now the buzz is that Stanford University is preparing a proposal for the venture. Stanford president John Hennessy says that the institution was the epicentre for the success of Silicon Valley and that the type of progress achieved on the west coast could easily be replicated on the east coast.
Full Story: Wall Street Journal
More: New York Observer
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HE News Brief 12.10.10
by Abby Chau
- Former BP Chief Lord Browne today released his long-awaited report on higher education. It comes as no surprise that he is advising that the tuition fee cap be lifted. If the Coalition government takes on his recommendations, students may pay up to £12,000 a year for their degrees. This is a contentious issue as the Lib Dems are solidly against hiking tuition. In addition Lord Browne is recommending a 10% increase in student intake as well as advising that universities focus more on career advice, supporting part-time students, and empowering students to dictate which university should flourish.
Full Story: Guardian
More: BBC News
- As university league tables grow in influence and prominence, the IREG Observatory on Academic Ranking and Excellence, which first met in Washington in 2004, is serving as a watchdog of university rankings. At a conference last week in Berlin, they announced that an executive team will be conducting audits of producers of league tables to make sure they comply with certain principles such as transparency and accessibility of methodology.
Full Story: Chronicle of Higher Education
HE News Brief 5.10.10
by Abby Chau
- Higher Education institutions in Costa Rica lived in harmony with the government for years, with hardly a dispute regarding budgets, an issue that vex many public sector relationships. But as the demand for higher education has increased as well as escalating costs, the once friendly relationship is beginning to unravel. HE leaders say they need a 8 percent rise in their budgets in order to ensure quality as well as to accommodate the growing demand. Some say that education in general, with only a 73% high school enrolment rate (which falls below El Salvador and Panama), has been deteriorating and needs immediate attention. The argument also extends to private vs. public HE institutions and whether the former can adequately address these crucial problems.
Full Story: Tico Times
- In 1950, according to the Chinese Ministry of Education, there were 20 international students studying in China – and they were all from the Soviet Union. In 2009, this has grown to 240,000 foreign students with representatives from 190 countries. However, the MOE also admits that most of the 240,000 foreign students are from Asia.The MOE has just released a plan to augment this figure to 500,000 by 2020 by administrating more English language courses, increasing the availability of scholarships, and easing visa applications. They hope to spread their reach and with mutual degree recognition agreements with 34 countries, China seems poised to extend their influence.
Full Story: The Independent
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HE News Brief 24.8.10
by Abby Chau
Here are this week’s news stories:
- The glare on UK universities continue to mount as it was announced that over 150,000 potential students will not get a place at a university. Last year 130,000 would-be students were also disappointed. It seems as though, although worsening, this trend is not new. An article in the FT espouses the need for universities to be autonomous, as Whitehall still dictates the number of students who can study a specific subject at an institution.
Full Story: FT
More: Guardian - Asian countries, as oppose to their European and American peers, have well documented problems retaining the talents of young academics who often study abroad and take up residence in their host country. However there is hope that young and bright Indian professors will take a salary cut and return to their motherland. New opportunities in India as well as a chance to contribute to building their country’s higher education institutions, is a lure as western nations’ economic instability is making finding a job abroad a lot less likely. It is estimated that by 2020, 42 million 18-24 year olds will be competing for a place at a university and a 4.2 million lecturers will be needed to supply this demand.
Full Story: University World News
- Measuring student satisfaction has always been difficult but at the Inner Mongolia University of Science and Technology they are administering a student survey in the hope of discovering what students are thinking. In collaboration with Indiana University’s National Survey of Student Engagement and with the backing of Tsinghua University, they are joining 49 institutions this year who will look at results in order to drive up students quality of life and teaching standards.
Full Story: The Chronicle of Higher Education
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HE News Brief 17.08.10
by Abby Chau
Here are this week’s news stories:
- Shanghai Jiaotong just published its 2010 Academic Ranking of World Universities and it is causing a bit of a splash. Using the number of professors and alumni who have Nobel prizes and Fields medals as indicators as well as other criteria, the ARWU, according to this report, has Education Ministers from Europe visiting China in the hopes of discussing the rankings. The results has Harvard topping the league table with Stanford following on their heels.
Full Story: AFP
- Russian higher education institutions are lamenting the fact that they are severely lagging behind their North American and European counterparts in terms of research and the number of international students. Government officials say that they need to double the amount of educational spending to 24 million dollars in order to compete on the world stage. According to UNESCO, only 3% of the world’s international students study in Russia whereas 20% (in 2007) studied in the US. Officials also say that language barriers also accounts for the lack of Russian-produced research papers one can find in Scopus.
Full Story: University World News
- Higher education debt in the UK, according to a new report, is reaching £25,000 with an average yearly debt raising 5.4% to £5,600. In Scotland, costs are sufficiently lower, topping £10,000 in total. In response to this report, Higher Education Minister David Willetts reiterated that the government believes in social mobility and that there is indeed a need for people who benefited from a university degree, to contribute fairly to pay for their education.
Full Story: eGov
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HE News Brief 19.7.10
by Abby Chau
A shake-up of England’s Higher Education system and Australian anxiety over international students – here are this week’s news stories:
- News outlets have been furiously reporting Business Secretary Vince Cable’s announcement of a new vision for higher education. Cable is proposing to Lord Browne, who will be reviewing the state of higher education in the autumn, that a new graduate tax should replace the current system of government loans in order to subsidize higher education. Under this new system, graduates with higher paying jobs will make more graduate contributions. These proposals have been widely panned, some arguing that not only will Conservatives reject such a plan but that such an initiative will further hamper social mobility.
Full Story: BBC News
More: Guardian
- Angolan Minister of Higher Education Maria Cândida Teixeira announced that the country will be going through an aggressive review of their higher education institutions this year. Results of the audit will be published and institutions who perform poorly will be overhauled. Committing to this initiative with resources rather than mere rhetoric, Teixeira hired 42 new officials in order to achieve this target.
Full Story: Angola Press
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