Classifying higher education institutions in the MENA region
By John O’Leary, executive member of the QS Global Academic Advisory Board
Universities in seven Arab countries have been classified as part of an international project that is intended to lead to a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of higher education across the Middle East and North Africa.
The Institute of International Education (IIE) and the Lebanese Association for Educational Studies launched their findings at last month’s World Innovation Summit on Education, in Qatar.
Research for the classification was carried out at the height of the Arab Spring, which restricted its scope. Egypt would have been the largest higher education system to be surveyed, but the researchers eventually settled for a classification of universities in Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates.
The draft report stressed the rapid development of higher education in the seven countries, where the number of students grew from 2.9 million in 1998-9 to 7.6 million in 2007-8. The number of universities had grown from 174 to 467 in a decade, supplemented by countless other higher education institutions, many of them privately owned. Dr Rajika Bhandari, deputy vice president of research and evaluation at the IIE, outlined some of the challenges. “It was difficult to get education ministries to cooperate, even before recent political events in the region,” she said. “There needs to be more complete data before we can say this is reliable and valid.” However, the research underlines the diversity of higher education provision in the region.
Universities are classified according to 11 different dimensions, from the student and faculty profiles to their cultural and religious orientation, and regional and international engagement. The report suggests growing use of English throughout the Middle East and North Africa. In the countries surveyed, 23 per cent of universities were using the language for administration, 36 per cent to teach the humanities and nearly 47 per cent to teach the sciences.
This trend reflects an increasingly international outlook. Some 35 per cent of universities had international offices, although 42 per cent were considered to have no or only a low level of international engagement.
The authors do not claim that their research is yet representative of the region as a whole. In particular, they found it difficult to extract complete data from private institutions, many of which were relatively new. Classifying Higher Educations in the Middle East and North Africa: a Pilot Study is available on the IIE website. A full report is also available.
Number crunching
We have had a number of requests recently, enquiring how we get from A to B. THese fall into 2 categories:
1.SUBJECT AGGREGATION
University A only ranks 270 in the 2011/2012 university rankings and the faculty rankings rank her 48 in Social Sciences, 51 in Arts & Humanities, 59 in Life Sciences, 89 in Natural Sciences, 115 in Engineering & IT. Shouldn’t be better rank in the global 2011/2012 university rankings? Because we also can observe that some universities such as University B ranks 96 in the 2011/2012 university rankings and their faculty areas only rank 123 in Social Sciences, 66 in Arts & Humanities, 150 in Life Sciences, 210 in Natural Sciences, 244 in Engineering & IT. So, i can suppose the University A should be better ranked.
This case is simple. The faculty area rankings we produce are based on academic reputation only. When aggregated they contribute only 40% of the overall score with another five indicators making up the difference. In the above case University A will undoubtedly rank better for Academic Reputation but will be let down by aspects such as Faculty Student, Employer Reputation and Citations per Faculty which are only considered at an overall level
2. AGGREGATION BY INDICATOR RANK
Some institutions have questioned why their overall rank does not necessarily fall intuitively amongst the range of ranks for the indicators. This again, is relatively simple, the indicator ranks are not perfectly correlated, leading to the situation where institutions that are comparatively consistent across the board are likely to do better than institutions that might be dynamite in some areas and weak in others. Consider the following example:
Institution A is ranked 250th in all indicators and scores an overall rank of 225.
Institution B is rankined 230th in all indicators, except faculty student ratio where it ranks 610th, it has an overall rank of 270th.
This is a hypothetical simplified example to demonstrate the point. The individual indicator ranks for Institution A have been displaced by Institution B in all indicators but one and as a result of combining this with additional comparable examples that affect all indicators evenly (in this model) the rank of Institution A seems higher than intuition might expect.
Ultimately overall ranks are based on aggregated scores and the differeng characteristics of the indicators can easily produce circumstances where the overall rank may appear to not be an accurate aggregation of the separate indicator ranks.
International student enrolment at US universities goes up by nearly 5%
The US has always been popular with overseas students, perpetually leading international student population tables. The world sat up and paid attention, therefore, when it was revealed that, though total enrolment went up by 3%, new international student numbers increased by only a worrying 1% in 2009-10. This year’s Open Doors report, from the International Institute of Education (IIE), however, indicates that the system is well on the way to recovery, with new international student numbers increasing by 6% and total enrolment by 4.7% in 2010-11. “Students and families from all over the world continue to choose the US over other countries because of the high quality of education, which stresses interdisciplinary approaches, student participation and critical thinking,” says Allan E. Goodman, President and CEO of the IIE.
The 2011 report, released on November 14th, shows that 723,277 overseas students were studying in the US in 2010-2011 – an increase of 32,354 over the 2009-2010 figure. This increase in numbers is largely courtesy of China, which sent 157,558 students to the US, 23.3% (or 29,736 students) more than the preceding year. India is in second place, sending just over 100,000 students – a figure which is, however, down 1% as compared to the previous year – and South Korea is third, with its 75,000 students representing an increase of 1.7%.
Although this top three remains unchanged, some interesting patterns have also emerged, among them as the increase of traffic from countries experiencing political unrest. Also noteworthy was the 22,704 students from Saudi Arabia studying in the US – an increase of 46.3%, which no other country can match. Though it only accounts for 0.8% of the total, Iran sent a significantly higher number of students too (18.9%).
Traffic from Japan, on the other hand, dropped off significantly. In 2009-2010, there were 24,842 Japanese students studying in the US, but a year later the figure was 21,290. This decline of 14.3%, was the sharpest recorded by any country this year. Kenya followed Japan with its student numbers declining by 13.3%.
Business and management (21.5%), engineering (18.7%) and life sciences (8.8%) lead the pack when it comes to the most popular subject areas. Other in-demand areas of study were maths and computer science (8.9% between them), social sciences (8.8%) and fine and applied arts (5.1%). Although only accounting for a relatively small number of students (4.5%), demand for intensive English language courses went up by massive 24%, with Saudi Arabia (29.1%), Japan (10.8%) and Venezuela (11.9%) sending the greatest numbers of students for these courses.
As has consistently been the case, graduate programs were more in demand than bachelor’s degrees. 219,853 overseas students, constituting 34%, of the total, were enrolled on Bachelors programs in 2010-2011, an increase of 6.8% over the previous year. Enrolment on graduate programs—including master’s, doctoral and professional degrees—nearly touched 300,000 and accounted for 45.8% of the total international student enrolments.
The University of Southern California (8,615), University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign (7,991) and New York University (7,988) hosted the most doctoral students. For Masters programs, the University of Bridgeport (2,582), California State University-Northridge (2,579) and San Jose University (2,566) lead the way, and Brigham Young University-Hawaii Campus (1,000), Mount Holyoke College (595) and Utah Valley State College’s (466) professional graduate courses attracted the highest numbers. Read more
UK university admission system may undergo major overhaul
For more than 50 years, applicants to UK universities have followed the same procedure. However, this may all change soon, as the University and College Admissions Service (UCAS) has proposed a revamp of the undergraduate admission process, which will see students applying to university after they receive their exam results, rather than before as at present. This change may come into effect as soon as 2016.
The key findings of a UCAS review into the admissions procedure were published in a report titled Admissions Process Review Consultation. The report found the current system of applying to universities to be ‘complex and difficult to navigate’ and not easily understood by applicants. The current system has been put under pressure by the huge surge in the number of applicants in the last five decades. There were only 80,003 applications in 1963 compared to almost 700,000 in 2010.
The proposed post-results system of application is considered by UCAS to be potentially more user-friendly because it will be based on actual rather than predicted grades. Evidence suggests that there may be confusion among some applicants about how the current system works. UCAS states that in some courses almost 50% of applicants submitted predicted grades which failed to meet the minimum entry requirements. More than 30% of applicants provided incomplete information, and this percentage was higher among international students, who found it hard to understand the system. Read more
The European plan
By Martin Ince, convener of the QS Academic Advisory Board
Anyone working in a European university may think they have enough to do already, but the European Commission does not agree. In a September policy document, it has put them front and centre in the hunt for economic growth.
The Commission’s major economic document, the Europe 2020 Strategy, already emphasises higher education and research as the route to higher skills and higher levels of innovation.
Despite many years of urging from Brussels, only about six per cent of the European workforce are researchers, lagging Japan at 11 and nine for the US. In addition, European targets for research and development spending have almost all been missed, and with the exception of the UK, European universities’ performance in world rankings is best described as modest.
In EU customary style, this Commission document regards further European integration as an important part of the solution. It has persuaded education ministers of member states to aim for 20 per cent of students to do at least some overseas study or training by 2020, twice the current figure. It also wants the European Quality Assurance Register to get involved in academic quality assurance in the hope that common standards will encourage mobility and make qualifications from other European nations more acceptable.
The problem with these initiatives is that education, at school and university level, is one of the roles which national governments, and in some cases devolved administrations, guard most enthusiastically. However, the existence of the Framework Programme for research, the European Research Council, and a range of initiatives on student mobility and qualifications recognition, does give the Commission some influence over higher education priorities.
It is now setting up a “high-level group” to produce new proposals for the modernisation of higher education. This group’s members will be announced in 2012. They are intended to produce their first report, on excellence in teaching, in 2013.
The document also opens up the possibility of new streams of cash for member state universities. The Commission may support universities to develop internationalisation strategies reaching beyond the EU, in the search to make Europe a prime destination for top talent. Officials have acknowledged that while the US has long been a magnet for bright academics, Asian nations are now aiming to attract them too.
The Commission is especially keen on anything that gets academic research into industrial use. It is already running some pilot projects called Knowledge Alliances which are intended to do this. Next could be European Industrial Doctorates and special Doctoral Schools with an innovation mission. There are also plans to build up traineeships and other forms of graduate training.
These plans have much in common with Talent 2030, a UK-level campaign launched in October by the Council for Industry and Higher Education, a joint business/academic forum. Its main call is for a campaign to get more women into manufacturing and engineering. To do this it suggests much stronger connections between companies and universities, and the establishment of a new elite manufacturing college for UK talent.
The Commission document is available on http://tinyurl.com/42rq2ll
HE News Brief 25.10.11
by Abby Chau
- CHILE: Student protests have erupted in Santiago
- CHINA: Collaboration of 11 institutions to form the Beijing Tech
- INTERNATIONAL: A new report by the World Bank follows 11-leading universities
- UK: A BBC investigation into graduate employability
- NETHERLANDS: Call on cap for foreign student numbers Read more
2011 rankings season draws to a close
By John O’Leary, QS academic Advisory Board
This week sees the end of the international rankings season, with QS publishing the first-ever comparisons of Latin American universities and Times Higher Education (THE) issuing the second edition of its global rankings with Thomson Reuters.
The moment provides an opportunity to take stock of the main rankings before yet more organisations join the field. The European Commission, for example, may soon publish the first results from its U-Multirank project, while the OECD is still piloting its Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes (AHELO) initiative, which tests students in different countries in a range of subjects from economics to engineering. Probably the most significant development of 2011 was the publication by QS of the first rankings by individual subject.
The 26 tables are the initial response to a demand from prospective students for more granular information on the university departments in which they will actually study. There will be considerable interest in the academic community this week in the changes in methodology made by THE. The magazine’s attempt to broaden the focus of international rankings was welcomed by many of its readers, but the flaws in its original methodology underlined the difficulties inherent in such an approach. Read more
Tough Australian student visa requirements to be lifted
The Australian, one of Australia’s leading newspapers, described the review as ‘a jewel’, praising its clarity, its depth, and even the entertaining way in which it is written. But it is not the literary value of Michael Knight’s review of the Australian student visa process that will most please Australia’s 39 universities and those who harbour ambitions of studying in one of them, but the nature of the proposals made within – all 41 of which have been approved by the Australian government.
The publication of the report has been eagerly awaited. It was commissioned in December 2010, a consultation period was run in March, during which various groups could submit their proposals to Knight (around 200 were submitted), and the final document was submitted to the Australian government at the end of June. The report was finally published, along with an announcement of the government’s acceptance of the proposals, on September 22nd.
For those thinking about studying in Australia the news will be welcome. The tough visa process, which has reportedly played a large part in the drop in international student numbers which has occurred in Australia since 2009, has been simplified. The changes will be particularly welcomed by students from Asian nations such as India and China, who, despite contributing the highest number of international students, were subject to some of the most stringent regulations. Read more
OECD: international student number rises to 3.7 million
The OECD – or the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to give it its full name – has this week released its annual report on the state of education across the world, focusing on its 34 member nations. Education at a Glance 2011 contains a massive range of statistics, which show things like to what level adults in a given nation have studied, and how much each one invests in education as a percentage of its GDP.
This year’s report contains figures from 2009, as the data for years beyond that has not yet been gathered.
So, what do we now know? Well, here’s the big one: in 2009, 3.7 million tertiary students were enrolled in an institution outside of their home country. That’s up from 3.4 million in 2008, and an increase of 77% since 2000. The growth of students studying abroad, pertinently, outstripped the overall figures for higher education enrolment (6.4% as compared to 3.3%, in case you were wondering).
The report goes into more detail than it is possible to go into here (if you want to look at it in more detail, click here, ‘Who studies abroad and where’ is section C3), but here are a few of the most significant findings. It’s worth noting that statistics are not necessarily available for every nation in the world.
• The countries which play host to the most international students in absolute terms are the United States (the destination for 18% of international students, though they only account for 3.5% of its total student population) to the United Kingdom (10%), Australia (7%), Germany (7%), and France (7%). Canada (5%), Japan (4%), Russia (4%), and Spain (2%) are also popular destinations.
• Since 2000, the US’s market share has fallen by five percentage points, Germany’s by two and the United Kingdom’s by one. Russia, and Australia and New Zealand both increased their share by two points – however, given what we know about what’s happened since 2009, we can expect Australia’s share to fall in years to come
• The countries where international students account for the highest percentage of the total are Australia (21.5%), the United Kingdom (15.3%), Austria (15.1%), Switzerland (14.9%) and New Zealand (14.6%).
• In absolute terms, China accounts for the largest percentage of students studying abroad (17%), followed by India (6%), Korea (4%), Germany (3%), France, and Russia (both 2%).
• International students account for a sizeable proportion of those enrolled in advanced research programs in Switzerland (47%), the United Kingdom (43%), New Zealand (35%), the United States (28%) and Australia (26%). The equivalent figures for Austria, Belgium, Canada, Iceland and Sweden are all also above 20%.
• The English language seems to be a big factor in attracting students, which has seen many non-Anglophone countries offer courses in the language.
HE News Briefs 14.9.11
- KOREA: After an extensive audit, 43 institutions have lost important funding
- ENGLAND: Institutions are rethinking the amount they want to charge for tuition fees
- INTERNATIONAL: According to a new report, collaborative international degrees are on the rise
- NETHERLANDS: Morning raids at VU Amsterdam and University of Amsterdam
- UGANDA: Institution shutting down due to lack of funds and staff discontent
Read more
