Diverse Top 500 shows benefits of sustained investment
by John O’Leary
With more countries than ever represented, this year’s rankings reflect global investment in higher education.
When Cambridge topped the QS World University Rankings® for the first time last year, some commentators thought it a one-off interruption to Harvard’s global supremacy. But Cambridge shows today that its pre-eminence was no fluke by retaining the leadership in the 2011 rankings.
Harvard has closed the gap fractionally on Cambridge, but the decline in staffing levels that cost it top place in 2010 has not been reversed. Although it dominated the series of subject rankings published by QS in recent months, it remains second in the world overall.
Almost 3,000 institutions were included in the research that produced the latest rankings and a record 712 feature in the results. The outcome shows the increasingly competitive nature of global higher education, with 32 countries represented in the top 200, three more than last year.
While the United States remains the superpower of the university world, occupying 13 of the top 20 places and more than 50 of the top 200, the leading universities of Europe and Asia are making up ground. The United Kingdom has cemented its place as the nearest challenger, taking the other seven places in the top 20, including four of the top ten.
The latest rankings demonstrate the link between sustained investment and academic strength. They deliberately to do not measure institutional wealth, but the results show the benefits of sharply increased funding in several countries and the impact of cuts elsewhere. China, for example, which has seen the world’s biggest investment programme in higher education over the past decade, has more universities in the ranking than ever before. Nearly all of them have improved their positions since 2010.
Several of the German universities selected for extra funding under the government’s Excellence Initiative have also risen in the rankings. In the US, however, where budget cuts and falls in endowment have led to staffing reductions in state and private universities, the result has been an overall decline in ranking positions. While most of the top performers have maintained or even improved their placings, some of those outside the top 50 have been overtaken. Read more
UK universities to compete for domestic student places
by Mansoor Iqbal
A long-awaited white paper, detailing the vision of David Willetts, the UK’s minister for Universities and Science, for the future of the country’s universities has been unveiled to the public.
One of its central tenets is the idea of increased competition between universities for student places, an idea which has not escaped the eye of the higher education commentariat. Private providers – which are not subject to caps on numbers – will also be invited to compete for these students.
A university must meet one of two conditions before they are permitted to claim a higher share of students: either by offering average domestic fees of under £7,500 (the amount originally anticipated by the UK’s government when raising the threshold to £9,000) or by taking on students who achieve grades of AAB or higher in their A-Level examinations.
It is estimated that there will be around 65,000 prospective undergraduates in the latter category, and an estimated 20,000 places will be offered to universities who meet the former criterion. This means that the total numbers of students universities must compete for is equivalent to around a quarter of the annual uptake of domestic undergraduates (competition on price will not apply to Scottish universities, which are free for Scottish students).
These 85,000 or so places are not, strictly speaking, extra places, as they will be removed from universities’ individual allocations of students. The total number of undergraduates will stay at much the same level. It has been argued that this number is too small, leading to students struggling to get onto oversubscribed courses.
Experts have predicted that non-elite universities who have chosen to charge the top fees will lose out on numbers as a result of these plans. High achieving students will certainly take advantage of extra places that the more prestigious universities will be able to create, and thus far lower fees have been the preserve of newer, more technical establishments. Universities which expand their numbers will also receive extra funding accordingly. Read more
QS World University Rankings by Subject: a new comparative tool for students
Following the success of the 2010 World University Rankings, viewed by an estimated 50 million people since its release last September, QS Quacquarelli Symonds is launching a new series of rankings in April. The QS World University Rankings® by Subject will provide new insights on the strengths of the world’s leading institutions in specific subject areas.
Students around the world are interested not only in identifying the universities that match their aspirations but also in a comparative tool at disciplinary level.
Ben Sowter, head of research explains “There is a clear demand for ways to compare the effectiveness of higher education institutions in narrower subject disciplines. After all, the majority of prospective international students know first what they want to study before asking themselves where they want to study”.
The first series of the four-part release of the rankings, will be Engineering and IT disciplines, revealing the world’s best universities for computer science, mechanical, chemical, electrical and civil engineering. Rankings by biomedicine and Life Sciences, Natural Sciences, Arts and Humanities and Social Sciences disciplines will be released as separate groups throughout 2011.
In compiling these new rankings, QS is taking into account the view of academics, the opinion of the employers and citations per paper – as a measure of a key aspect of the research activity, using Scopus/Elsevier bibliometric data.
QS World University Rankings® by Subject and details of the methodology, approved by the QS Academic Advisory Board will available on the 2nd of April on www.topuniversities.com.
An insight on the new South Korean university admission policy – will it work?
by Irene Jay-Shin
A new South Korean admissions policy which attempts to give consideration to an applicant’s extracurricular activities does not seem to be compatible with the general temperament of Korean society which may not accept variety and/or differences between individuals. The society sets a series of ‘correct’ answers for the lives of individuals e.g. a ‘proper’ age to get married, an ‘appropriate’ age to study in a university, expected roles for women and men, etc. These sets of answers do not enable the individuals to pursue their own lives; furthermore, they end up following a standard path followed by their seniors, believing that such a way would be right and correct.
The new South Korean admission policy will first affect the top universities. Eventually, the new policy might contribute to stereotyping once again a ‘right’ way to be successful in the Korean society, which is inflexible in accepting changes as described above. For example, people can be socially successful by becoming the graduates of top universities in Korea as alumni form strong social networks and may tend to recruit graduates from their own universities.
The future of branch campuses
by Susan Gatuguta Gitau
A recent article featured in University World News highlighted Qatar’s aspiration towards developing a hub of academic excellence in the Arab world through the proliferation of foreign universities in the country. The growth of satellite universities in developing countries attracts arguments, for and against them. Of particular interest is the impact of foreign universities on the nations’ brain drain dilemma.
Brain drain refers to the emigration of well-educated, skilled professionals from their home countries. This problem is most prevalent in developing countries. By setting up satellite universities in these countries, it’s believed that local talent will be persuaded to stay and more local students would enrol. In Qatar’s case, it is argued that brain drain has been stemmed by adopting these institutions. In addition, the nation is now attracting international students. These institutions equally provide an opportunity of brain gain as promising academics are attracted back home. Read more
HE News Brief 4.01.11
by Abby Chau
Happy new year to you all! The QSIU team will be delivering you the latest HE news, as well as intelligence on rankings, HE trends, and other beasts this upcoming year. Stay tuned.
- India has announced that they will be performing their first major survey of higher education, which has suffered from inadequate statistical information for years. This initiative is seen to be the first step in a decade long effort to double the countries’ higher education institutions.
Full Story: New York Times
- Now that English students are set to pay up to £9000 in tuition fees starting in 2012, Michael Russell, Scotland’s Education announced that Scottish students will still enjoy free tuition. In order to fund this, students from the rest of the UK will pay premium fees. This announcement is seen to curve “fee refugees” from other parts of the UK from fleeing to Scotland in order to pay less for higher education.
Full Story: University World News
Read more
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.
The French universities revolution is en route
by Stephanie Braudeau
Making French universities more attractive?
Last December, French President, Nicolas Sarkozy announced that a €35 billion national loan will prioritise higher education and training. At the press conference he expressed the desire to produce the best universities in the world. In order to achieve his objective, he decided to inject €7.7 billion for a project of creating between 5 and 10 initiatives d’excellence, elite campuses in order to compete with the best world universities. These campuses will be linked with their economic environment, allowing a better cooperation between Grandes Ecoles and universities as well as research institutions to contribute to the economic integration of their surroundings. They will also be targeting stellar professors, researchers and students.
For a decade, the higher education environment has been changing in France. In order to be more competitive in the international market, more and more schools are merging such as between the two Grandes Ecoles ESC Lille and Ceram Business School into SKEMA Business School in 2009 or ESCP Europe born from the École Supérieure de Commerce de Paris and the EAP (Ecole Européenne des Affaires) merger in 2000. Networks or alliances are also flourishing, such as the creation of Paristech in 2007, a centre of excellence gathering 12 prestigious Parisian Grandes Ecoles.
In 2007, the government implemented the project of giving more autonomy to public universities. The goal is that by 2012, all French universities will be autonomous in terms of human resources and budget management.
Public universities have been granted a yearly budget of €1 billion whilst other European countries are cutting education budgets. Read more
The Bologna Process: Trends 2010 – A decade of change in European Higher Education
by Abby Chau
The Bologna Process is pressing on with its agenda of enhanced student mobility, standardisation of degrees and credit transfer, as well as quality assurance in order to promote institutional competition amongst its 46 participating countries. But as new countries contemplate membership, it is important to evaluate what the last ten years have achieved under this ambitious implementation programme.
The European University Association recently published Trends 2010 which examines a decade of higher education in the context of Bologna and outlines their goal for the future. Here are a few highlights, taken directly from the 100 –page report.
Overview
- Overall participation rates in higher education have increased by 25% on average between 1998 and 2006 – or as in Poland where enrolment increased by 90% during this period – albeit with significant differences across countries and across disciplines, with science and technology fields losing their attractiveness. (18)
- A recent study revealed that the number of 10-14 year olds in the EU is expected to fall by 15% between 2000 and 2020, resulting in a drastic reduction of the school-going population (Eurydice 2009), with a potential domino effect on higher education. The professoriate in higher education is greying and the ‘baby boom’ generation is going into retirement. Because these trends are uneven within a country (causing rural brain drain in some) and across Europe, they may lead to an exacerbated ‘brain war’ for students and academic staff, within Europe, at a time when the global competition for talents is heating up and international ranking schemes are proliferating and forcing institutional leaders to rethink their positioning within the global higher education community (19).
- The concept of academic freedom is changing – some say eroding – because academics are pressured to be successful in seeking funding for their research to match the research strategies and priorities of their institutions (22) Read more
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
Read more
