Serbian universities and the labor market
Serbia, the most populous of the states of the former Yugoslavia, became a candidate for EU membership in October 2011 and regards itself as a western-facing democracy.
Like Serbia’s other institutions, its universities are now facing up to the changes that this new status will involve. Serbia’s population of about eight million is served by eight public and eight private universities. Of these only one appears in the QS World University Rankings. This is the flagship institution, the University of Belgrade, founded in 1808. But even Belgrade only appears in our 601+ group, the lowest rung on the Rankings ladder. Speakers at a February conference on Serbian universities and the labour market explained that variable standards are a key issue for Serbian universities.
They called for a national university ranking system to be introduced to shine some light on the quality of both the public and private sector providers. Neighbouring Macedonia has recently announced its first national rankings, coordinated by the Shanghai team that runs the Academic Ranking of World Universities.
Serbian employers seem even less pleased with the graduates they get from their local universities than their competitors in other nations. Not only are they unprepared for work, say recruiters, but they have often graduated in antique topics such as agricultural economics, or ones such as art history that might be better-adapted to more expansive economic times.
Serbia’s private academic sector is ambitious, and its plans make some comparative ranking of universities an increasing priority. At the moment, Serbians can attend public universities for free, but pay fees at the private institutions. However, private university managers point out that the right to free higher education is enshrined in the constitution. There may be a test case in the constitutional court some time soon to find out whether students at private universities are entitled to state funding.
Despite these issues, Serbian graduates have one thing in common with those of other nations. They are more likely to be in work than the rest of the population. About 9 per cent of the workforce has higher education. While unemployment in general runs at 29 per cent of the workforce, only 14 per cent of graduates are unemployed.
These severe economic conditions mean that the population of Serbia has recently been falling by about 100,000 people per year, partly by emigration and partly by low birth rates. Once Serbia does join the EU, the flow of skilled people westward may increase. Like other nations in a similar position, Serbia is seeking all manner of inward investment. There is excitement at the imminent arrival of Fiat, whose new factory will employ thousands, and should encourage vehicle component suppliers to set up nearby. But there is also anxiety at the very low level of entrepreneurship and new business development. Serbian universities, public and private, produce management graduates in abundance. One conference speaker said that there is probably no point bothering to train so many managers for an economy which is in too poor a condition to use them.
● Martin Ince was in Serbia speaking at the Connect to the Market conference organised by fusionatconference.com.
● ARWU Macedonian ranking http://tinyurl.com/7lrt3od
QS Best Student Cities 2012: post-launch effects
The first global ranking of student cities, published last month by QS, caused a stir around the world, reaching more than 500,000 people on Twitter and attracting more than 1 million hits on the topuniversities.com website.
Paris edged out London as the top city, benefiting from a concentration of leading universities with low study costs. Four continental European cities appeared in the top ten, while both Melbourne and Sydney reached the top six for Australia.
QS Best Student Cities Ranking rated the top 50 cities on student mix, quality of living, employer activity and affordability. Public information, published surveys and data gathered in the production of the QS World University Rankings were combined to produce scores.
Cities had to have at least two world-ranked universities to be included. Edouard Husson, Vice-Chancellor of the Universities of Paris, said the city’s triumph in the first QS student cities ranking had been welcomed both by the Mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, and by President Sarkozy. He said the accolade reflected the huge amount of work taking place in French universities and especially in Paris, with its high density of leading institutions.
Nunzio Quacquarelli, the chief executive of QS, said the success of Paris also reflected the affordability of study at French universities. Both domestic and international students could attend leading institutions at low cost. The ranking was welcomed in student cities across the world.
Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, was delighted that second-placed London had been confirmed as one of the best places on earth to study. “We have more bookshops than New York, more museums than Paris (which, by the way, are free) and less rainfall than Rome,” he said. “What’s not to like about London?” Other city leaders were almost as pleased as Mr Johnson.
In Dublin, for example, Andrew Montague, the Lord Mayor, said that the city’s appearance in the top 10 worldwide was “hugely useful” in raising its profile among prospective students. Media organisations in 30 countries reported on the ranking.
Forbes Magazine said the results would be welcomed by those who “enjoy bashing education in America” since Boston was the only US city in the top 10. However, Chicago, San Francisco and New York all joined it in the top 20. Students and alumni competed for bragging rights on social networking sites, where discussion continues on the relative merits of different cities. More than a fortnight after the ranking appeared, Amanda Drolet was still extolling the virtues of Boston on Twitter, while others argued for Berlin, Montreal and Barcelona.
Open Doors event at the University Alliance
Last week, I attended the ‘Open doors’ event organised by University Alliance. The focus of the event was to discuss the Wilson Review. The discussion surrounded the idea of a ‘business and university’ collaboration. The age-old saying can’t be any more true, ‘marriage is a union of two’.
The speakers included Professor Sir Tim Wilson, Trudy Norris-Grey, Professor Beer, Libby Hackett, Matt Smith and Andrew Battarbee. Some of the key areas covered by Professor Sir Wilson included the following:
- Student placements
- A year abroad for student experience
- Business referral within universities (universities recommending a peer university that offer placement in areas which they themselves don’t)
- Universities effectively responding to business
- Start-up fairs at universities
If you feel like these are areas of interest at your university, or that you might improve from such partnerships, you can find more details on the University Alliance home page.
HE News Brief 12.3.12
- Australia: Australian universities lose twenty percent of its foreign student numbers
- World: Institutions in the US, Japan, and South Korea top list of WIPO’s patent filers
- UK: Twenty years later and former polytechnics are making strides
- China: Thousand Foreign Experts program seeks to recruit foreign university staff and entrepreneurs
HE News Brief 5.3.12
- Europe: Research ministers call for bigger role for social sciences in Horizon 2020
- India: Massive rise in number of Indian students sitting Graduate Record Examination
- US: Liberal arts education on the rise in Asia
- Asia Pacific: Australia-China higher education forum announced
HE News Brief 27.2.12
- Australia: Australian universities may jeopardise its appeal in the Asian market
- UK: New structures in September causing anxiety
- Asia: Liberal arts education on the rise in Asia
- Rankings: Undergraduate course offerings decreased since 2006
HE News Brief 20.2.12
- India: Distance learning institutions are widening participation
- UK: Universities are fined record amounts for accepting too many students
- UK: British government have implemented stricter rules for student visas
- Rankings: Kenyan government to produce rankings
HE News Brief 6.2.12
- United States: Online education given a boost by ex-tenured professor at Stanford
- Middle East: Increased participation in higher education has not translated to equality for women
- Rankings: Musings on global rankings as they enter their ninth year
- Global: FT releases its Global MBA rankings
Japanese universities move towards new era
By Martin Ince, convener of the QS Academic Advisory Board
Japan is a safe, developed country whose culture has global appeal, an international centre for design and style. Just the place that students might flock to from around the world.
Except that they don’t. As Japan’s university profile shows, Japanese universities do well on four of the six criteria we use to compile the World University Rankings, but fare miserably on the other two, attractiveness to international students and faculty.
There are deep-seated reasons for Japan’s inability to attract foreign academics, and indeed foreign labour in general. But universities are now doing something about their low appeal to overseas students. For while there are many reasons for Japan’s lack of allure foreign students, one of the big ones is within the universities’ own control.
It is simply that they start their academic year in April. That means that foreign students wanting to go to a Japanese university face a gap of almost a year before they can get started. And when they leave, they are again out of sync with other nations. While some Japanese universities already offer a limited autumn intake, moves for more radical change are gaining pace.
Now Tokyo University, 25 in the World University Rankings and standard-bearer for the nation’s higher education sector, has taken charge by proposing a move to autumn admissions. Continue Reading
UK universities challenged to rank in QS top 100
By John O’Leary, QS Academic Advisory Board
Ministers in the UK have become the latest to use QS rankings as a measure of universities’ performance. David Willetts, who is responsible for higher education in England, has challenged the country’s universities to win more places in the top 100 of the QS, Times Higher Education and Shanghai Jiao Tong rankings.
The initiative is intended to boost innovation, another part of the minister’s brief. The UK government is using QS rankings alone to illustrate the excellence of its universities in a poster campaign to promote the country ahead of the London Olympics, quoting the UK’s four representatives in the world’s top ten. Mr Willetts acknowledged in his speech that the three main rankings used different methodologies, but set a target for UK representation in the top 100 to grow.
The minister said all the rating agencies agreed that the UK university system was second only to the United States. He endorsed the view of Professor Eric Thomas, President of Universities UK, that “if the British economy has been a stagecoach stuck in the mud then our universities are one of the horses that can pull it out.”
As part of his innovation drive, Mr Willetts invited leading overseas universities to set up in the UK in partnership with domestic universities to conduct research in science and technology and offer postgraduate courses. The proposal mirrors the establishment in New York of a graduate school focused on science and technology by Cornell University and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, which is based in Haifa. Unlike the New York development, any equivalent in the UK will not receive public funding.
Mr Willetts said private finance would be required, possibly with sponsorship from businesses that were keen to recruit more British graduates, although he hoped local councils might donate land in an effort to attract a graduate school. Mr Willetts has also been trying to mitigate the damage done to international student recruitment by tougher visa regulations introduced by his own government. His department has published new research demonstrating the labour market successes of overseas graduates educated in the UK. A survey conducted by i-graduate 30 months after graduation showed those who had studied in the UK earning substantially more than those who took degrees in their home country.
The report is consistent with the QS Global Employer Survey Report last year, which showed employers in most countries putting a premium on an international student experience.
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