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.

At the QS World University Rankings^®, we are always keen to see how other people go about looking at universities. This month has been notable for the appearance of the Leiden ranking, which offers a highly specific view of academic excellence as expressed through citations.

Paul Wouters, director of CWTS at Leiden and director of the Leiden ranking, says that it uses a methodology which allows research at institutions of radically different size and subject mix to be compared fairly. It is also intended to compensate for the different characteristics of English and non-English publishing, and for the potential distorting effects of a few much-cited outlier papers. We asked Paul how the Leiden Ranking fits into the world ecology of university rankings, especially the HEEACT and Shanghai rankings, which are also designed to look at high-level research performance.

He said: “There are a number of fundamental differences. Most rankings combine performance on very different dimensions in a single number, in particular educational performance and scientific performance. HEEACT is similar to our ranking in that it focuses on scientific performance. Another issue is that Shanghai and HEEACT are strongly size-dependent. Larger universities will almost always outperform smaller ones in these rankings.” The Leiden Ranking focuses on the average performance of a university for each of the publications it produces. This means that the large differences in citation behaviour between scientific fields are corrected for.

Next, we asked, how does the system cope with the different publishing cultures of different subjects? Paul replied: “We apply a correction for the differences between citation behaviour in different scientific fields. In addition, our ranking uses fractional counting indicators. Publications co-authored by multiple universities are assigned fractionally to each of the universities involved. In the full counting approach used by most rankings, co-authored publications are fully assigned to each university involved, causing double counting of these publications.

The use of fractional counting is another way of making fields with different publication and citation cultures more comparable.” Paul says that when the results came in, his team’s biggest surprise was the difference which the fractional counting approach makes. Universities with a strong medical orientation tend to fall in a ranking where fractional counting is used, while universities with a technical focus do better. In the Netherlands, for instance, differences between universities that are apparent using the full counting approach disappear almost completely with fractional counting.

The Leiden methodology agrees with its competitors about the excellence of the top US universities. It has 42 of them in its top 50, led by MIT, Princeton and Harvard. Only two non-US universities make it into the top 20: EPFL and ETH, the Francophone and German-speaking federal institutions of Switzerland, at 12 and 18 respectively.

Cambridge, top in the QS ranking, appears here in 31st place. It is one of four UK institutions in the top 50 along with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (33), Oxford (36), and Durham (42). The only other non-US institutions in the top 50 are the Weizmann Institute (Israel) at 25 and the Technical University of Denmark at 45. The ranking shows the top 500 universities, with Moscow and St Petersburg in the last two places.

The table also shows the volume of publications for each institution found in the Web of Science database and used for the ranking. The total among the top 50 ranges from 33511 for Harvard to 1652 for the LSHTM. The ranking is at www.leidenranking.com, and CWTS is at www.cwts.nl.

University vice-chancellors and presidents have put forward all sorts of measures that would improve their institution’s standing in rankings – from academic prizes to community projects and student exchanges. But the rector of the University of Santo Tomas (UST), in Manila, came up with a truly unique proposal at the QS-APPLE conference, which his institution hosted.

Perhaps only half jokingly, he suggested that the number of saints produced by a university should be adopted as a measure in the QS World University Rankings^®. Not surprisingly, UST, the largest single-campus Catholic university in the world and the oldest university in Asia, would do extremely well in the canonisation table.

Father Rolando De la Rosa said the university had 30 saints to its name, as well as several presidents and prime ministers of the Philippines – “the better ones,” according to Fr De la Rosa. Further research suggests that most universities are shamefully ignorant of their tally of saints, if indeed they have any, possibly because they had not expected them to become an indicator in rankings. No doubt, tenuous links to long-forgotten saints will soon be discovered at universities all around the world if Fr De la Rosa’s idea catches on.

Oxford should do well, laying claim to at least a dozen saints and martyrs, including Thomas of Hereford, who was Chancellor of the university in the 13th century, when he was said to have “applied firm discipline and confiscated weapons”, as well as being generous to poor students. But can any university rival UST?

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.

Broadly speaking, higher education systems range from those relaying almost entirely on public funding to those mainly supported by private sources. Of course, there are a variety of options between those extreme points and most countries try mixed schemes.

Which system provides the better outcomes in terms of university teaching and research quality?

An interesting exercise that may provide a general answer to this question is to compare the relative performance of institutions operating in different funding environments. In order to conduct this analysis we used the higher education finance indicators provided by UNESCO (available here) , establishing four range groups (or quartiles) of public spending on tertiary education as a proportion of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the countries . Then the top 400 QS World University Rankings (QSWUR) institutions – available on topuniversities.com- were distributed among each spending level quartile and the average scores for every group were calculated.

Excluded countries: data not available for Saudi Arabia, Taiwan and China.
Sources: UNESCO Institute for Statistics (2000-2010)

Although this analysis is obviously limited -and arguably more complex research is required in order to arrive to conclusive remarks- the exercise provides interesting results.

The first finding is that university quality is not necessarily correlated with the proportion of public funding sources . Actually, overall QSWUR average scores are similar for universities coming from different higher education finance models. For instance, institutions from countries with the lowest GDP proportion of public spending on higher education (quartile 1) have an average score of 51.6, while those from the highest level of expenditure (quartile 4) obtain 51.5 points. Nevertheless, among the group of countries that have an intermediate level of public funding as percentage of GDP, average university scores are clearly better for those showing a higher government involvement (quartile 3).

In terms of Academic Reputation, the first and the third quartile are the best performers, scoring 56.3 and 57.3, respectively. However, at the same time the first quartile gets the weakest score in citations per faculty. This indicates that although institutions from countries with low public spending on tertiary education may have good quality research outputs, they struggle to expand and/or circulate their activities due to financial restrictions.

With regard to Employer Reputation, the results clearly benefit institutions from countries with relative lower public spending on higher education, suggesting that those universities seem to be more aware of the market’s needs in terms of human resources skills and abilities.

The faculty/student ratio is another indicator where universities from countries with relatively low public spending on tertiary education perform better-off. In this case, institutions within the first quartile averaged a score of 58, ahead from universities in the third (53.7), fourth (54.5) and second quartiles (42.7).

Finally, the international indicators offer mixed results. Universities from countries with the highest rate of public spending on tertiary education are the best performers in International Faculty Ratio and International Students Ratio, reaching average scores of 58.6 and 57.8. These results are not surprising, given that most of these universities are based in highly developed countries (particularly from Northern Europe) that provide affordable or free higher education schemes.

In contrast, institutions in the third quartile get the lowest scores regarding international indicators (40.3 and 46.5), while those in the first and second quartile show a better performance.

On balance, it seems that overall university performance does not correlate to the share of government funding on tertiary education. However, the findings suggest that less public focused systems tend to be better in terms of provision of skills for the professional and working life. On the other hand, schemes that rely more on government funding offer a better environment for research production. Also, these latter systems seem to be more prone to attract international students and faculty staff.

As indicated before, this analysis is very limited and the findings are only a starting point to a broader discussion about how different funding schemes may affect the quality of university systems.

What do you think? Which higher education funding mix is better?

• SOUTH KOREA: Recognition of foreign diplomas paves the way for Asia-Pacific higher ed collaboration
• UK: Initial figures show that applications for 2012 sees a 15% shortfall
• CANADA: Positioning itself as a popular destination for international students
• RUSSIA: Recognition of foreign degrees in 2012

• At a UNESCO ministerial meeting recently, the Korean Education Ministry has agreed to comply with a degree recognition agreement with some Asia-Pacific countries. Under the agreement, Korea, where students typically take four years to complete a degree, will start accepting foreign degrees from China and Australia, where students typically take three years to matriculate. Participants of the meeting including Australia, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Philippines, and Thailand also discussed a way of modelling mutual recognition initiatives similar to those of the Bologna Process. The Korean government has also agreed to crack down on universities failing to operate by quality assurance standards which are awarding degrees to foreign students.
  Full Story:  Korea Herald
• Recent figures released by the Universities and College Admission Service suggest that UK-born applications for a place in 2012 has fallen by 15%, compared to last year’s figures.  2012 marks the first year which will see tuition fees rise to a maximum of £9,000. According to Russell Group director general, Wendy Piatt, the trend is too early to call. The figures for 2012, says Piatt, is very similar to the number at the same time last year. However many are concerned by what they see as fees as a deterrent for those wanting to pursue a degree. According to the figures, a drop in applications from mature students is certainly a reality. Applications from between 25 and 39 year olds has fallen by more than 20%; and 25% for 40 and over. In addition, demographic influences also play a role: by 2020, the number of 18 year olds will be shrinking.
  Full Story:  Guardian
• Canada is poised to step out of Australia’s shadow as a popular destination for international students, according Pamela Barrett, North American director of client services for International Graduate Insight Group. During an annual conference for International Education, some say Canada is looking poised to be a contender if it continues to build resources for international students and tackles the problem of student-visa fraud.  Amit Chakma, president of the University of Western Ontario says that universities must seize this opportunity to improve their services so the momentum, which shows that growth in international student numbers are in the double-digits, continues to build.
  Full Story:  The Chronicle of Higher Education
• The Russian Education Ministry has announced that starting in 2012, it will be easing its recognition of diplomas from foreign countries, allowing more international students who wish to pursue postgraduate study in to the country. At the moment, students who wish to study in the country must wait at least six months for their foreign degrees to be recognised. The ministry will be drawing up a list of foreign institutions that include G8 countries with universities in the top 300 rankings in the QS World University Rankings or the Academic Ranking of World Universities. The new procedures are also aimed at expediting the process for foreign researchers and lecturers who want to work in the country.
  Full Story:  RT

• AUSTRALIA: Internalisation activities are entering a third stage
• MIDDLE EAST: Foreign branches in Qatar and Dubai are faring well
• INTERNATIONAL: A new Autonomy Scorecard produced by the EUA
• CHILE: Students are going to the table after six-months of protests

• According to a recent assessment, Australia is entering a healthy stage of internationalisation activity because more funds gained from international students are going back to scholarships and stipends for foreign students rather than agent fees.  In 2008, $94 million dollars were spent on scholarships and stipends for international students; in 2009, $106 million was spent; and this past year this has jumped to $187 million. Researcher Alan Olsen says that universities now spend 50 percent more on scholarships than they do on agents’ commission. Swinburne International director Melissa Banks adds that more international students studying in different fields are also represented, a sign that the country’s international activities is moving in the right direction.
  Full Story:  Australian
• Foreign branches, which have had some setbacks, are gaining some positive attention recently. Education City, a hub for foreign institutions to set up shop in Qatar, appears to be flourishing. University College London has recently established a branch there to offer students art and design courses. By 2015, UCL plans on establishing a master’s in museum studies programme and enrolling 150 postgraduates, which falls in line with the Qatar Foundation’s goal of making Doha the hub of Islamic culture. For those who would like to study Business, HEC Paris set up base this year and has successfully recruited 32 MBA students. In nearby Doha, where foreign branches are typically larger and required to be accredited, foreign branches have seen some success. London Business School, Manchester Business School, Middlesex University, and University of Wollongong all have foreign branches in Dubai.
  Full Story:  The Independent
• The European University Association has recently released its findings on high education autonomy. The Autonomy Scorecard rates 26 countries on its independence to make decisions on organisation, finances, staffing, and academics. The United Kingdom scores top points for organisational independence, followed by Denmark, and Finland. In terms of financial autonomy, Luxembourg, which was ranked in the bottom for organisational independence, is ranked 1^st, followed by Estonia and the UK. For the full results click here.
  Full Story:  The Chronicle of Higher Education
  More: New York Times
• The protests in Chile over higher education, which lasted six months, has culminated in a dialogue with politicians over the 2012 education budget. Since May, students have organised 40 protests, causing enormous financial losses for public universities because students who are participating in the protests have refused to pay their fees, and some have opted to continue their studies at private institutions.  Part of their demands include increasing the budget for education by 1 billion dollars and providing 30% more grants to students.
  Full Story:  University World News

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.

Personal and family funds continue to be the method most students use to fund their studies, with more than 63% of international students employing this method of finance. Financial support from a US education institution (22.9%) was the second most common option followed by a current job (5.2%). “Undergraduate students, from China in particular, are coming to the US in greater numbers with support from personal and family funds. Some governments are also investing in international education as a top policy priority. This includes providing funding for programs and scholarships for their students to study abroad so that they can build ties with other countries and bring new knowledge and skills back,” Goodman observes.

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