New Columbia institute to advance NYC tech industry

Bloomberg05 August 2012 Issue No:233

 

Columbia University will start an Institute for Data Sciences and Engineering in New York City. The institute, which will be housed at Columbia’s existing campuses in Morningside Heights and Washington Heights, is expected to employ 75 new faculty members over the next 15 years, writes Henry Goldman for Bloomberg.

This is according to a news release from the city announcing the plan. The agreement includes the creation of 4,000 square metres of applied science and engineering space by 2016. New York City will provide $15 million in financial assistance, including discounted-energy transmission costs and partial debt forgiveness, according to the release.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has made developing the city’s technology industry a major initiative. Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and its partner Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, last year won a city contest to build an engineering campus with a grant of land on Roosevelt Island and $100 million for infrastructure improvements. Columbia’s plan is another advance, the mayor said. 

Full report on the Bloomberg site

BBC05 August 2012 Issue No:233

 

Oxford University students will no longer have to wear gender-specific academic clothing, after concerns that it was unfair to the transgender community. It will mean men can attend formal occasions in skirts and stockings and women in suits and bow ties, reports the BBC.

The new rules come after a motion by the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Queer society (LGBTQ Soc) was passed by the student union earlier this year. The changes, to start from 4 August, have now been agreed by the university.

Jess Pumphrey, LGBTQ officer, said the change would make a number of students’ exam experiences significantly less stressful. Under the old laws on academic clothing – known as subfusc – male students were required to wear a dark suit and socks, black shoes, a white bow tie and a plain white shirt and collar under their black gowns. Female students had to wear a dark skirt or trousers, a white blouse, black stockings and shoes and a black ribbon tied in a bow at the neck. If a transgender student wanted to wear subfusc of the opposite sex they had to seek special dispensation from university proctors.

Full report on BBC site

 

Oxford University rewrites gender dress code

 

The new rules on academic clothing will come into force next week

 

Oxford University students will no longer have to wear gender-specific academic clothing after concerns it was unfair to the transgender community.

It will mean men can attend formal occasions in skirts and stockings and women in suits and bow ties.

The new rules come after a motion by the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Queer society (LGBTQ Soc) was passed by the students' union earlier this year.
The changes, to start from 4 August, have now been agreed by the university.
Jess Pumphrey, LGBTQ officer, said the change would make a number of students' exam experience significantly less stressful.

Under the old laws on academic clothing - known as subfusc - male students were required to wear a dark suit and socks, black shoes, a white bow tie and a plain white shirt and collar under their black gowns.

Female students had to wear a dark skirt or trousers, a white blouse, black stockings and shoes and a black ribbon tied in a bow at the neck.

If a transgender student wanted to wear subfusc of the opposite sex they had to seek special dispensation from university proctors, who had the power to punish those who breached the rules.
An Oxford University spokesman said: "The regulations have been amended to remove any reference to gender, in response to concerns raised by Oxford University Student Union that the existing regulations did not serve the interests of transgender students."
 

 
 

University sacks fake professor in China

A professor has been fired by his university and disqualified from China's Recruitment Programme of Global Experts for copying his resumé and academic articles from three other academics with the same name, writes Xu Chi for Shanghai Daily.

Lu Jun (39), who was a professor with Beijing University of Chemical Technology, has admitted falsifying his educational background, work experience and published articles by copying the details from overseas professors, the Beijing Times reported.

Lu had been teaching at the university since last November. Previously, he claimed to have been working in the United States. In April, Lu was admitted to the 1,000 Young Experts programme, which was launched in 2008 to attract overseas talent to help boost the country's scientific and technical innovation.

Full report on the People’s Daily Online site

 A PROFESSOR has been fired by his university and disqualified from China's Recruitment Program of Global Experts for copying his resume and academic articles from three other academics with the same name.

Lu Jun, 39, who was a professor with Beijing University of Chemical Technology, has admitted falsifying his educational background, work experience and published articles by copying the details from overseas professors, the Beijing Times reported.

Lu had been teaching at the university since last November. Previously, he claimed to have been working in the United States.

In April, Lu was admitted to the "1,000 Young Experts" program as part of the nation's global experts program, which was launched in 2008 to attract overseas talent to help boost the country's scientific and technical innovation.

According to the university's website, Lu was "the first professor at the school to receive such an honor." As a member of the program, Lu would receive a 500,000 yuan (about US$78,125) subsidy from the central government and also yearly research grants.

Last Friday, China's Overseas Senior Experts Recruitment Office announced that it had disqualified Lu as a member of the program.

The next day, the university said Lu had been fired.

The newspaper said Lu had been exposed by Fang Zhouzi, a fighter against pseudoscience and academic fraud, when Lu published his resume and seven academic articles in an online ad to hire assistants.

Fang said the seven articles listed were all the work of a professor at Yale University who was also named Lu Jun.

Lu's educational background and experience was also found to be a copy of other academics called Lu Jun, a common Chinese name.

"Apparently Lu had copied working experiences and academic articles from three Dr Lu Juns to form his own. That's very creative," Fang said.

"I called the office of the expert program and the officials said they were totally shocked. They acted very fast as they published the announcement (to disqualify Lu) in the evening," Fang told the newspaper.

Fang said that the judges of the program may not have been thorough enough when checking applications.

So far, the university and program officials haven't commented further.

California university CEO indicted for visa fraud

San Jose Mercury News05 August 2012 Issue No:233

Foreigners with student visas, US federal agents last week raided Herguan University and charged its CEO with visa fraud, write Lisa M Krieger and Molly Vorwerck for San Jose Mercury News.

The indictment marks the second time federal officials have ensnared a Bay Area university in a growing effort to catch up with institutions that allegedly rake in millions of dollars as so-called visa mills. Herguan University leader Jerry Wang (32) was arrested last Thursday at his home in Santa Clara and charged in a 15-count indictment that could send him to prison for up to 23 years and amount to more than $1 million in fines.

The charges come a year after an investigation by this newspaper found Herguan was among a group of Bay Area institutions – including the now-shuttered Tri-Valley University – that misrepresented information on federal applications, which allowed them to sponsor overseas students for coveted visas.

Full report on the Mercury News site 

The role of Chinese parents in decisions about overseas study

Peter Bodycott and Ada Lai05 August 2012 Issue No:233

 

With the People’s Republic of China’s growth in economic prosperity and political influence, the number of students from China choosing to study overseas continues to increase. Of the 3.3 million internationally mobile students, China is the largest source country.

In the 2009-10 academic year, there were more than 127,628 students from China studying in the United States alone. The motivations for Chinese students seeking education abroad include a belief that it will open opportunities for increased wealth and migration.

Hong Kong, with its geographical proximity, high quality of competitively priced education, and shared Confucian cultural heritage, is an attractive option for students from mainland China.

Like other Asian governments, Hong Kong is proactively pursuing international and Chinese students through a range of policy and educational initiatives.

In 2009-10 there were 9,320 non-local students pursuing full-time higher education degrees in Hong Kong, an increase of 200% from 2003-04; and of these, most were students from China. Both the Hong Kong and the Chinese government see these students as a means of brain gain and future socio-political and economic stability and survival.

Need to understand parent and student decisions

To understand the international and cross-border movement of students from China, researchers, marketers and recruiters have focused on the perspectives of these students.

However, in traditional Confucian societies such as China, major decisions related to education and future employment are very much a family, if not a solely parental, affair. Yet we know little about how contemporary families in China make such decisions.

We studied Chinese higher education student perspectives at the level of personal and parent involvement in the decision to study across the border in Hong Kong.

Our findings identified two main types of students: those who initiated the idea of studying in Hong Kong, and those whose parents initiated the idea. In the process of initiation and making decisions, Confucian cultural roles of child and parent were largely followed.

The findings also suggest that although the factors that motivate students and parents to pursue trans-local or cross-border study may be different, all pay homage to Confucian ideals and in so doing ensure greater security for the family and family members.

The students were motivated by the employment and study opportunities offered by cross-border education, the personal experience of visiting the country, the influence of family and friends, and stories by peers who had returned to give school talks.

The influencing factors that ‘pushed’ them to seek cross-border study are consistent with previous studies.

The students viewed mainland Chinese higher education as limited educationally and felt that a degree from Hong Kong or from overseas generally would lead to enhanced language proficiency and the development of networks that would help secure higher paid employment in either China or Hong Kong.

The exclusive nature of cross-border education increases the student’s perceived educative and social status over students who elect to study for a local degree in mainland China. Added to this are perceptions that a local (Chinese) degree may not be as well recognised internationally as a degree obtained from a non-local institution.

Parents, on the other hand, considered the competition for university places, future employment prospects, and the longer-term prospects of immigration as the main motivating factors. The desire for the child to emigrate is consistent with Chinese parent decision-making when it comes to the choice of cross-border study.

Students have a say, but parents decide

No matter who initiated the discussion about cross-border or trans-local study, there was evidence that students did feel they had a say in the decision-making process. This finding is consistent with another study that found that mainland Chinese parents listened more and involved their adolescent children more in family decisions.

However, for the majority of students in this study (65%), the eventual decision on choice of country, programme and-or university was made by the parents.

What the research does not provide is information about the actual family communication processes that occurred during such discussions; that is, the roles played and resources used by individual family members.

Such information is important to an understanding of the influence of culture and cultural change in Chinese family processes brought on by political and social change and increased economic prosperity.

What the study demonstrates is the crucial role parents play in the decision to undertake cross-border higher education study. This role is shaped in part by their financial status, their personal education and their Confucian culture.

Those parents who were more supportive or open to their child’s choices more often came from the wealthier city provinces and-or had personal experience of international study themselves.

Although some parents initiated or took subtle control of the decision-making process, others overtly shaped and manipulated the aspirations of their child according to gender stereotypes and the longer-term needs and values of the family. Such practices are consistent with Confucian traditions and the values associated with filial piety.

Ninety-eight percent of students expressed dissatisfaction with aspects of the decision-making process and-or with the outcome. However, all either obligingly or somewhat reluctantly accepted the decision.

For a small number of participants (15%), the parents were perceived by their child to totally ignore their preferences. This behaviour is consistent with Confucian roles and expectations of the child – respect for family authority and unquestioning obedience to parents.

From a Western perspective, many of the tactics used are consistent with an authoritarian approach to parenting in which parents make decisions and tell their children what to do.

However, discussions with students revealed that they believed their parents were acting in their (adolescent child’s) interests and their behaviour was consistent with being supportive and responsive to their needs.

This is consistent with the tradition of authoritative parenting – parenting that provides rules and guidance with concern for the child but without being overbearing.

Our findings indicate that despite exerting considerable psychological and literal control over aspects of trans-local study decision-making, there was evidence that the cultural traditions were softening, with adolescent children having somewhat greater involvement in the decision-making process though not controlling much of it.

Choosing Hong Kong

The choice of Hong Kong as a trans-local study destination was like all decisions to undertake cross-border study; that is, a literal investment in the family’s survival and future.

In many ways it provided a safe alternative. Its shared Confucian Chinese heritage was seen as an advantage as were the British colonialists’ influences on government infrastructure, including higher education.

It provided a metaphoric bridge to the wider, more prosperous Western world and an escape from the rigidity and closed competitive exam-driven education system in China.

The more open financial, education and immigration systems combined with cost-effective, high-quality higher education and related opportunity were viewed as advantages over study in more distant study locales.

Changes in Hong Kong government immigration legislation are consistent with the factors that influence parent decision-making.

The period of full-time study counts as time accrued toward achieving the seven-year mandatory period to achieve permanent residency. In addition, mainland Chinese students are permitted to remain in Hong Kong following graduation, to seek employment.

An examination of mainland Chinese decision-making about cross-border or trans-local study in Hong Kong provides a unique insight into the influence of Confucianism and the family.

On the one hand, we see the adolescent child, often in contradiction to his or her own desires, adhering to the cultural values, expectations and choices of his or her parents.

On the other hand, we see how parents use their culturally derived status and power to manipulate decisions in order to achieve what they believe is the very best education for their child and in so doing ensure their own and their family’s longer-term status and security.

Some challenges

We found that in Hong Kong, many students from China banded together in groups with other such students, with many of them sharing similar feelings of frustration with family decision-making and the translocation experience.

The students reported that although these groups, often established by host institutions, acted as support, they also fuelled a level of resentment and an ongoing antagonism toward parents.

The perceived level of participation in family decision-making was found to have ongoing effects on student well-being and their approach and attitude toward their studies.

With the support of mainland Chinese group and society members, a kind of subversive non-communicative planning had begun for future work and study. On the surface, the students continued to live their lives in a practical manner, to complete assignments diligently and to maintain a relatively positive attitude.

However, they admitted to suffering high levels of anxiety brought on by ongoing parental pressure, control over decisions and finances, and the fact that they were studying in a locale, a university or programme not of their choosing.

The organisation and functioning of these ethnic enclaves and support groups that readily appear on university campuses is an area worthy of future study.

For some students in this study, 15% (14), there was the added stress that the future security of their families hinged on their achieving certain specific outcomes and that the cost of funding their cross-border study was an ongoing issue for the family.

The pressure to succeed in the shortest amount of time possible was a major concern for this group. This stress led to frequent bouts of sickness and depression.

Differences in academic systems, while a reason stated for pursing trans-local study in Hong Kong, also resulted in challenges for students from China.

Language barriers were noted as a barrier to social inclusion. Hong Kong’s higher education system is largely conducted in English, and the language of the street is a mix of English and Cantonese dialect as compared to Mandarin on the mainland.

The students also experienced issues related to interacting with professors, levels of cultural difference, discrimination and challenges of personal adjustment.

These findings highlight the need for universities in Hong Kong, as elsewhere, to consider the effects of socio-cultural adjustment and acculturation associated with study across borders.

Although not the focus of our study, a myriad of emotions were reported by students, including feelings of isolation and even hostility to peers and family. These feelings were compounded by related decisions made in the home and were fuelled by involvement in organised groups and societies on campuses.

The expectations of parents, as indicated, are intense and can lead to some students imagining a lack of control of their own destiny, emotional distress and, at times, an inability to cope.

Future studies need to examine the establishment, role and outcomes of organised ethnic societies on university campuses.

In recognition of the cultural and social needs and goals of Chinese and all international students and their acculturation processes, there needs to be a closer study of the policies, strategies and services provided to support their inclusion, involvement and integration.

Failure to do so will lead to ongoing confinement and isolation from the wider university community.

The main finding

The study’s main finding, however, concerns the role of the family in mainland China in decision-making about study outside their home country.

When combined, the family decision-making experience and cultural heritage as reflected in the decision-making process were found to inflict significant social and emotional impacts on students and their coping ability while studying trans-locally in Hong Kong.

Such an impact is viewed as having the potential to affect the ongoing success or otherwise of the student’s acculturation into the host culture. As such, universities that recruit and play host to increasing numbers of Chinese and international culturally diverse students need to develop comprehensive international student strategies.

The findings also indicate that traditional Confucian familial values are being somewhat relaxed, with adolescent children having a greater say in the decisions related to cross-border study.

There is then a need to further understand the level of parental influence, and the levels of student (child) involvement, and to monitor the changing roles and influence of traditional familial values and ongoing influences throughout cross-border studies.

Such culturally derived understandings should inform the development of host institution programme and support mechanisms that are more relevant to the student’s unique experiences and problems, and stimulate campus community engagement in and enhancement of intercultural understanding and respect for the international student’s cultural traditions.

* Dr Peter Bodycott is currently an associate professor in the department of international education and lifelong learning at the Hong Kong Institute of Education. His academic work includes specialisations in English as a second language, intercultural education and the internationalisation of higher education. His research interests include international education policy and practice, the internationalisation of higher education, intercultural education, teacher education, life history, personal constructs and ESL-EFL teaching and learning. Dr Ada Lai is a research fellow at the Centre for Compulsory Education and Lifelong Learning at the University of Melbourne. Her research focuses on student mobility, the development of education hubs in East and South East Asia and post-school transitions to work.

* This is an edited version of the article, “The Influence and Implications of Chinese Culture in the Decision to Undertake Cross-border Higher Education”, which was originally published in The Journal of Studies in International Education in July.

The expansion of the French language lies in Africa

Tunde Fatunde05 August 2012 Issue No:233

 

More than 800 delegates from educational institutions including universities in 150 countries attended the 13th World Congress of the International Federation of French Teachers held in South Africa recently. The major concern was how to protect French from contending languages in a fierce global world – and the future could lie in Africa.

French teachers from universities put forward strategies on how to stem the tide of waning use of the French language and encourage its growth. However, these strategies require funding, and the declining fortunes of the French economy may delay their implementation.

The congress in Durban, on South Africa’s east coast, had the theme “The Teaching of French: Between globalisation and contextualisation”, and was held from 23-27 July.

In her opening address, newly appointed French Minister of Francophony Yamina Benguigui confessed that the future of French language was not bright in a globalised world.

Benguigui, who is in charge of the promotion and defence of French culture and civilisation – called Francophony – presented in detail obstacles on the path to the expansion of French beyond the shores of France.

She highlighted the growing influence of the English, Chinese, Spanish and Arabic languages at the international level. “Even within the European Union, French is not the major language of international conferences and transactions”, she admitted.

Spread of French in Africa

Despite these drawbacks, Benguigui indicated that according to recent research findings, the survival of the French language could lie in Africa. “By 2050, there will be more Africans making use of French as an official language and for inter-personal communication than French citizens in France ”, she affirmed.

Her assertion on the role of Francophone countries in Africa is correct.

With the exception of Quebec in the northern hemisphere, where French is battling to survive the growing influence of North American English, Francophone countries in West and Central Africa remain the only region where French has been reinforced and entrenched – more than all other parts of the world where French colonisation reigned supreme.

The other exception, though less significantly so, is the Francophone islands of the West Indies, where again American English is diminishing the importance of French.

In North Africa, the Middle East and South East Asia, former colonies of France replaced the French language immediately after colonisation, with strong national languages.

These are the 21st century global and historical realities in which the French language finds itself.

Ways forward

Yamina Benguigui called on participants at the Durban congress to develop strategies aimed at ensuring the expansion of French around the world.

It was Mwatha Musanji Ngalasso, a renowned professor of sociolinguistics at the University of Bordeaux in France, who in his paper “Teaching of French in Today’s World: Between globalisation and contextualisation”, suggested the way forward.

Having analysed the growth of the language since the French Revolution in 1789, he noted that for the language to survive there was an imperative to adopt new methods in its teaching.

“We must accept that the world is changing, and the teaching of French must adapt to the changing world”, he declared.

Ngalasso put forward some ideas. He suggested, for example, the teaching of French through the local languages of nation states. The classic method, whereby French is taught directly without taking into consideration the importance of local languages, should be discarded.

“The French language has been, rightly, appropriated by cultures beyond the shores of France. This language is no longer the excusive property of France and French people. Its survival can only be guaranteed by teaching it, outside France, as a language co-existing with other languages”, he emphasised.

Dantas-Longhi Maria, a participant from São Paulo, agreed: “ In many schools and universities in Brazil we teach French through the use of local expressions and idioms in the Portuguese language.

“This is the way we can attract the attention of pupils and students interested in the study of French. This language is alive, but it is competing with English, Portuguese and Spanish in Latin America”, she said.

Professor Mohamed Miled, who teaches French at the University of Carthage in Tunisia, presented a paper titled “A Contextualisation of Teaching of French and its Contact with Existing Languages”, drawing examples from North African and the Middle East.

There, Arabic is the lingua franca and he advised that French textbooks used locally should contain more local illustrations and be translated simultaneously in French and Arabic. “This method will encourage the teaching of French in the Arab world,” he asserted.

French as a path to employment

The teaching of French in universities in India is motivated primarily by economic and financial rconsiderations, Sundaravelu Pannirselvame, a professor of French at Gopal Krishna University in India, told the Durban congress.

In his paper, “Teaching of French in India: Fresh demands”, he demonstrated that students who study French in Indian universities are motivated by the possibility of working as translators, interpreters and bilingual secretaries in French, Canadian, Belgian and Swiss companies operating in India.

“The various international call centres in India require French graduates”, he also pointed out.

Learning French as a path to employment is a common feature in virtually all Anglophone countries in the southern hemisphere, according to Professor Raufu Adebisi of Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, northern Nigeria.

He told the congress that Pannirselvame’s comments about the position of French in India are also applicable to Nigeria as well as to other, Anglophone countries, in Africa, where French is seen in universities as providing much-needed local manpower for French companies.

“This is the attraction of French for our students”, he said.

The decline of French literature

There was also an interesting debate on the obvious decline of the teaching of French and francophone literature the world over.

Marie-Josée Fourtanier, a professor of French at the University of Toulouse in France, and Veronique Tadjo, who teaches French literature at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, observed that French and Francophone literature does not attract students.

They argued that the culture of reading has suffered severe setbacks. But literature, they said, could only grow where a reading culture exists. Any language can only flourish if people read novels, plays and poems in that language.

Suzanne Richard, a French teacher at the University of Sherbrook in Canada, suggested that information and communication technologies could be used to rekindle the interest of students in Francophone and French literature.

Among the recommendations of the Durban congress was the need for organisations in the private and public sectors in France and Francophone countries to fund the teaching and dissemination of French in a multi-polar world.

With the current economic recession confronting most of these countries, however, there is little hope that funds will be available for such projects.

Participants voted to hold the 14th congress of FIPF in 2016 in Liege, Belgium. 

Implications of China and India’s expanding higher education

Geoff Maslen05 August 2012 Issue No:233

 

China and India together represent more than 35% of the global workforce and each country is seeking a transition from a low-skill equilibrium to high-skill ecosystems – although India will continue to co-exist with large numbers of lower-skilled jobs – according to David Finegold.

Speaking at a conference in Adelaide organised by the National Centre for Vocational Education Research late last month, the noted Rutgers University senior vice-president for lifelong learning presented contrasting descriptions of how China and India were tackling the manifold problems facing both Asian nations.

Finegold used this to point to the implications their growth and rapidly expanding higher education systems had for America, Europe and Australia.

Historically, China and India had been in a low-skill equilibrium with a large majority of unskilled workers and few jobs available for graduates, he said. Today, that state had been destabilised by globalisation, and a growing percentage of the population wanted to move along a high-skill path although many were denied access.

“The public education systems in both countries are unable to meet the demand, though that is a much greater problem for India," he said. “Failure to address this problem risks undermining the success India has already achieved.”

The case of China

Finegold said China was now making major investments to shift to an innovation economy, with the aim of becoming a global leader in green and other high-tech industries, through a dramatic expansion of its research universities. Along with a huge growth in scholarly publications, the new innovation strategy had set an ambitious target of two million patents to be created within the next three years.

He said China was now entering the second phase of its higher education development.

In the first phase, the focus was on quantity by rapidly increasing the number of students. But growth was so rapid – from 600,000 to more than seven million graduates a year – that the supply of graduates had outstripped the number of high-skill jobs.

Concerned about the potential for unrest that a large number of unemployed or under-employed graduates could cause, starting around 2007-08 the focus in China had switched to improving quality and to internationalisation, Finegold said.

Last year, the government began heavily investing to upgrade its top universities while also inviting foreign universities to establish campuses in China with local academic and financial partners.

One particularly successful model was the 2006 joint project near Shanghai between Xi’an Jiaotong and Liverpool universities. Despite tuition fees of US$9,500 a year (high by Chinese standards), the campus had enrolled 4,000 students, with 750 undertaking their studies in Liverpool. Nearly all of the first graduating class went abroad for postgraduate study.

US universities involved in developing joint campuses in China included New York, Yale, Wisconsin, Berkeley, Kean and Johns Hopkins. These joint venture or branch campus models were enabling Chinese students to receive degrees bearing the foreign university’s name or with some students pursuing double degrees, Finegold said.

Provincial governments and Chinese philanthropists were offering attractive financial terms and providing land, fully equipped campuses and start-up funding to foreign institutions interested in establishing a base in the world’s most populous country.

The Chinese government wanted to study and learn from top models around the globe and was encouraging competition among its provinces and cities. In addition, China was aiming to retain some of the 150,000-plus Chinese students now studying in the US while attracting international students to China.

Then there were the long-term consequences for the country’s one-child generation, which was likely to mean that China would become the world’s first nation “to become old before it became rich”, Finegold said.

The population of Chinese 15- to 24-year-olds was expected to fall from 250 million in 1990 to around 150 million in 2030 – a decline of 100 million, or 40%.

The case of India

India, on the other hand, had a “reverse population pyramid” with a huge and growing number of young people, while it was also the reverse of the Chinese model in terms of a services versus manufacturing-led economy, a large but relatively ineffective versus a strong state, and difficulty mobilising its resources.

The nation now had more than 550 million young people under the age of 25, in marked contrast with Northern Europe and its leading Asian rivals, China, Japan and South Korea.

The expanding young population created huge opportunities for growth in a global service model, Finegold said, but also meant there was an imperative for rapid reform. India could not afford to leave this generation unskilled and nor could it neglect the large majority now in the workforce who were unqualified.

India was producing uneven quality among its new higher education graduates and a growing gap between the educational haves and the have-nots, he added.

The government had responded with an extreme form of affirmative action, reserving nearly 50% of all higher education places for under-represented groups, but not dealing with the underlying source of the problem.

“High quality, low-cost talent has been the key to India’s recent service-driven economic success,” he said. “Yet India’s skill-creation system suffers major issues at all levels with lower levels of educational participation and investment than many developing nations.”

There were signs that the current education system was not working: even the very poor were increasingly opting for private schools instead of free public education; the small vocational education sector catered for 3% of the population yet its capacity was under-utilised; and there had been an explosion in the growth of private higher education institutions that were mostly unregulated and of low quality so that 80% of their graduates were “unemployable”.

Finegold said it was initially thought that India’s primary barrier to providing the skills it needed was insufficient resources and that it could not afford universal primary education. But there was evidence that suggested this was no longer the case.

“I’m now convinced the key issues are system design and politics,” he said. “India needs to create the right incentives and a regulatory framework while mobilising the political will to implement fundamental reforms.”

How well China and India addressed their skill issues would have major implications for the rest of the world, he said.

Restoring Yangon University to its former glory captures public mood

Naw Say Phaw Waa05 August 2012 Issue No:233

 

The campus of Yangon University, formerly Rangoon University, in the centre of the city, is semi-abandoned. Tall grass surrounds the old convocation hall still used by a number of universities for delivering degrees. But other structures, particularly the old student buildings, are in a dilapidated state.

Some classes are still held for postgraduate and doctoral students but the main university, along with other Yangon universities, was relocated to the outskirts of town in the 1990s. With its history of student activism and dissent since British Colonial times, the military government relocated the university in part to quell student activism and prevent student demonstrations gaining support within the city.

Ma Ei studied for a masters degree in international relations at the old campus in 2008. “It was very dirty, with old buildings and a lot of [overgrown] bushes. The environment was very poor,” she told University World News.

In addition, the once-leafy campus lost many of its trees during Cyclone Nargis in 2008. “Many of the big trees were destroyed, almost all of the old trees are gone.”

But now, as the Myanmar government looks to invest in four of its major universities as centres of excellence – part of its efforts to rebuild higher education – Yangon residents have been engaged in excited discussions over the future of the campus.

This follows a suggestion by a senior presidential advisor that Yangon University be restored to its former glory as one of South East Asia’s top universities.

Widespread support for restoration

There has been widespread public support for renovating the city-centre campus since U Myint, the president’s business advisor – himself a student at Yangon University in the 1960s – called in the weekly Yangon Times in May for restoration of the buildings and, more controversially, rebuilding of the student union building demolished by the regime.

“Like other students at that time, I spent a lot of time in the student union building. I recall the facilities there consisted of a small reading room and a library, a restaurant, a barber shop, meeting rooms, and a recreation room with a ping-pong table,” reminisced U Myint.

“More than anything else, the new student union building will be a landmark in the national reconciliation process and it will fill a void that has been in our hearts for some time.

“As in the past, it will provide a place where our young people can gather, engage in free debate and discussion, and in keeping with our tradition, they will be encouraged to play an effective role in the nation-building task that lies ahead.”

His comments sparked a furore, as he was referring to the key role played by the university’s student union in past uprisings.

In 1988, a country-wide uprising led to the closing of all universities until 1990, as the government took control of universities.

Government officials later said U Myint, who is also chief of the Centre for Economic and Social Development at the Myanmar Development Resource Institute and a former economics lecturer, had been speaking in a personal capacity.

But he captured the public mood.

Yangon residents say they want the university to come alive as in the past, providing quality higher education to students. Many can remember when Yangon University was once the most popular university, attracting students from all over the country.

Far from town

By contrast, the new Yangon University buildings are far from the centre of town, surrounded by farmland and with poor transportation links. It is particularly hard on professors.

“The need to hold regular classes at out-of-town facilities and to rush back to the main campus to conduct evening diploma and postgraduate courses has also inflicted considerable physical and mental stress on the teaching staff and taken a heavy toll on them,” U Myint said.

Students agree. “Studying outside Yangon is very difficult for us,” Win Tint Aung, an English literature student at Dagon University situated on the outskirts of Yangon, told University World News.

“It’s time consuming due to bad transportation. Most of the students live very far. Also, the education level is very low and [the university] doesn’t have enough facilities. I would love Yangon University to be restored in the downtown area.”

Some students argue that the distance from town is not the problem, but rather that they become disconnected from others. “They don’t even have students' lives”, said U Kyaw Myint, a law student at Dagon university, who would prefer a city-centre university.

“The students are still called 'students', even though most of them are not at the universities but outside.”

Parents complain that the distance means they do not know whether their children are actually at university or spending their time in cafés or indulging in anti-social behaviour.

‘Land problems’

But when U Thein Nyute, a representative of the National Democratic Force party, suggested building more student accommodation near universities to make it easier for students, Deputy Minister of Education U Aye Kyu said during the March session of parliament that this had not been decided yet because of a rise in the number of students and teachers and lack of funding.

He also claimed that the government had to relocate universities to the outskirts because of “land problems”.

Myanmar had 32 universities and colleges before 1988, and the government is trying to increase the number to provide more opportunities for higher education. There are now 163 universities, U Aye Kyu said, adding: “We shouldn’t put all the universities that we are developing together in the downtown area.”

As the price of land and property has been rising, businessmen have eyed the campus, which is already surrounded by shopping malls and markets. This was aired openly by U Myint.

“The Yangon University estate in its current situation with empty buildings, spacious grounds and open spaces, and attractive recreation areas and sport complexes needing upkeep and renovation – in the wake of sky-rocketing real estate values – has provided massive incentives to big private firms to pursue lucrative business ventures on university property.

“This provides another, urgent reason to get students and faculty back on the campus to prevent further encroachment,” U Myint said.

Centres of Excellence

There have been some new moves by the government this year to invest in improving universities, which has fed into the debate about restoring the old campus.

The government has designated four universities – Yangon University, Yangon Institute of Economics, Yangon Institute of Technology, and Mandalay University in the northern city of Mandalay – as centres of excellence.

“Generally, this is a good plan if the government is trying to promote the qualities of these four universities,” said U Kyaw Myint (65), a retired local government official who graduated from Yangon University in 1968.

“Everybody agrees that Myanmar’s education can’t compare to the rest of the world’s. But compared to other Asian countries, education here started to decline from 1988.”

Although it is not yet clear how the government will fund the upgrading of these universities, and how they will be improved, U Win, the parent of a student at Yangon Institute of Technology (YIT) – formerly Rangoon Institute of Technology – said he understood it was “100% certain to be restored”.

A senior Ministry of Education official told local media in early June that the four institutions have initiated contacts with South Korean and European universities and Johns Hopkins University in the US, for help in upgrading, in the hope of stemming the outflow of students from Myanmar going overseas for a decent education.

Budget problems

However, U Nyi Hla Myine, a professor and YIT advisor, said at the opening of a YIT dissertation presentation on 23 July that to get government funding to solve the financial problems of universities was not as easy as imagined. It often takes a year for funds to be disbursed by government.

“We can’t wait that long. That’s why we have to ask for donations from companies and some of the old students to solve our budgetary problems,” he said, adding that higher education would improve faster if disbursement were speedier and more efficient, as well as having more money allocated to higher education.

U Thein Win, a YIT English professor, said higher education needed to be boosted, with a huge increase in its budget. “Parliament has said they are using 2% of the budget for education and 20% for defence,” he pointed out.

With universities’ pressing financial needs, it is unclear how any restoration of Yangon University could be funded. But as U Myint said, the institution “belongs to all the people of Myanmar. It is our national heritage. It should be preserved and protected for future generations.”

He added: “In conversations with faculty members and students of various institutes of higher learning spread out all over the countryside and in the suburbs of Yangon, the main message I have got from them is: ‘Our biggest and enduring wish is to return to the main university campus in Yangon.’”

Survey probes how ‘whirlwind’ forces will affect higher education

Wagdy Sawahel05 August 2012 Issue No:233

 

Technology experts believe market factors will push universities to expand online courses, create hybrid learning spaces, and move towards lifelong learning models and different credential structures by 2020, according to a new report. “But they disagree about how these whirlwind forces will influence education, for the better or the worse.”

The views of experts were outlined in a 27 July survey titled The Future Impact of the Internet on Higher ducation, authored by Janna Quitney Anderson of Elon University, and Jan Lauren Boyles and Lee Rainie of the Pew Research Center.

The US-based Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project and the Imagining the Internet Center at Elon conducted a non-random, opt-in online sample of 1,021 internet experts, technology researchers, university directors, venture capitalists and Ivy League professors recruited via e-mail invitation, Twitter or Facebook.

The report says a major driver of the debate about the future of the university is its “beleaguered business model”, the ballooning cost of higher education and student debt that is now upwards of US$1 trillion. Some believe the sector is as susceptible to technological disruption as other information-centric industries like the media, music and movies.

Future higher education scenarios

The survey results indicated a 60-40 split on the future of higher education, as described by two scenarios.

About 60% of experts agreed with a scenario of higher education that by 2020 will be “quite different from the way it is today.

“There will be mass adoption of teleconferencing and distance learning to leverage expert resources. Significant numbers of learning activities will move to individualised, just-in-time learning approaches. There will be a transition to ‘hybrid’ classes that combine online learning components with less frequent on-campus, in-person class meetings.

Most universities’ assessment of learning will take into account more individually-oriented outcomes and capacities that are relevant to subject mastery. Requirements for graduation will be significantly shifted to customised outcomes.”

On the other hand, about 39% of experts agreed with a scenario that in 2020 higher education “will not be much different from the way it is today.

“While people will be accessing more resources in classrooms through the use of large screens, teleconferencing and personal wireless smart devices, most universities will mostly require in-person, on-campus attendance of students most of the time at courses featuring a lot of traditional lectures. Most universities’ assessment of learning and their requirements for graduation will be about the same as they are now.”

Impact of future technology-mediated approaches

Some survey participants thought that the future educational structure would tackle economic stress and educational divides. Online learning and institutions are beginning to disrupt the higher education space, hopefully making education more accessible and affordable in the long run.

“Under current and foreseeable economic conditions, traditional classroom instruction will become decreasingly viable financially,” Mike Liebhold, senior researcher and distinguished fellow at the Institute for the Future, wrote in the report.

“As high-speed networks become more widely accessible tele-education and hybrid instruction will become more widely employed.”

Experts also believe out-of-the-classroom learning will inspire innovation that is lacking on campuses now. However, among the majority of experts expecting much more dependence on online learning in higher education in the future, many bemoaned it.

“They are worried over the adoption of technology-mediated approaches that they fear will lack the personal, face-to-face touch they feel is necessary for effective education,” said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Predicted future trends and approaches

The report also pointed out some major themes and arguments that the experts indicated about trends and approaches in higher education in the future. These include the following:

• Higher education will vigorously adopt new teaching approaches, propelled by opportunity and efficiency as well as student and parent demands.
  
• Economic realities will drive technological innovation forward by 2020, creating less uniformity in higher education.
  
• ‘Distance learning’ is a divisive issue. It is viewed with disdain by many who don’t see it as effective, while others anticipate great advances in knowledge-sharing tools by 2020.
  
• ‘Bricks’ replaced by ‘clicks’? Some experts say universities’ influence could be altered as new technology options emerge; others say ‘locatedness’ is still vital for an optimal outcome.
  
• Frustration and doubt mark the prospect of change within the academy.
  
• Change is happening incrementally, but these adjustments will not be universal in most institutions by 2020.
  
• Universities will adopt new pedagogical approaches while retaining the core of traditional methods.
  
• Collaborative education with peer-to-peer learning will become a bigger reality and will challenge the lecture format and focus on ‘learning how to learn’.
  
• Competency credentialing and certification are likely. Yet institutional barriers may prevent widespread degree customisation.
  
• Higher education lags in preparing young people for new kinds of futures in which they will have to learn how to learn.
  
• Some predict significant redefinition within higher education in a future packed with choices for knowledge acquisition
  

Responses to the report

University World News collected the thoughts of experts around the world on the trends and findings identified by the survey.

John Daly, a science and technology consultant and former director of the office of research at USAID, pointed out that the study would naturally have a pro-technology bias.

“The huge global system of higher education has a great deal of inertia and the utilisation of e-learning actually taking place in the next eight years will probably be less than predicted.”

Daly's opinion was echoed by Richard Gold, an expert in innovation, patent law and policy, a law professor at Canada-based McGill University and director of The Innovation Partnership.

“The participants all work on technology and internet issues and therefore are both more aware of the potential of new technologies and believe more strongly in their transformative capability than most professors and university leaders."

A more representative sample from higher education might have produced “quite interesting” results, he said. However, as a means of generating discussion the survey was useful. “As I believe that this was the primary purpose of the authors, they have done us a service.”

Asked for his views on higher education’s future, Daly said “There is a trend towards standardisation that is making it easier to evaluate the meaning of degrees and grades. There is a related trend towards greater mobility of undergraduate and graduate students.”

Institutions “are being challenged to keep costs down, to keep higher education relevant to changes in the job market, to keep faculties up to date, and to adopt new technologies. While the best-managed of these institutions will rise to the challenge, many will not. Students should be wary.”

Also, the situation will be very different in different countries. “Rich countries with established educational systems and declining youth populations will have a different set of challenges to those faced by China and India, and the poorest nations of the world will face still different challenges with fewer resources,” Daly pointed out.

Gold was skeptical that universities would significantly change their approach to teaching in the coming years, as they “are very slow to change and do not respond to economic pressures in the same way or at the same speed as industry.

“Most universities are somewhat or significantly decentralised, with decision-making over course content and teaching made at the departmental or faculty level.” Given this, Gold would expect some departments – such as communications and media studies – “to experiment more with new media while others do not.

“In particular, science, medicine and engineering faculties are unlikely to be great adopters of these technologies – as they currently exist – simply because access to equipment and laboratories is an essential component of their core teaching. Even in the social sciences, interpersonal interaction is a significant part of the educational process and thus I would expect slow change.”

Where change is most likely to occur, Gold said, will be in outreach by universities to the public. Already, universities offer courses online for free, not as a substitute for traditional programmes but as a means of educating the public and allowing people to participate in important social and scientific discussions.

“While there will likely be some private, for-profit programmes generated, my expectation is that online materials will be largely free of charge and will be consumed on the basis of the reputation of the institutions involved.”

Developing countries should be particularly careful before adopting long-distance learning, said Gold, which is not a substitute for on-campus learning. Networks of researchers and trust among them would be key to building a critical mass of researchers.

“This is best accomplished through working together and learning with one another in person. I would thus concentrate resources on building campuses and shared facilities until at least there exists a critical mass of researchers in the region.”

Kenyan scientist Calestous Juma, director of the science, technology and globalisation project at Harvard University, said: “The future of higher education is going to dominated by debates over the balance between private and public sector support.

“Issues such as the privatisation of higher education and increases in tuition [fees] are already being debated across the globe. Students protests have taken place in countries such as the UK, Canada and Chile, some of which have been violent.”

But two important trends are likely to exert an even bigger influence, Juma said.

The first is the pressure on universities to serve social and economic needs more directly. The rise of the idea of the ‘entrepreneurial university’ is an example. The second is uncertainty over impact of ICTs on learning in general and universities in particular.

“The entry of Harvard and MIT into the open learning space is not an episode but most likely an epochal adaptation to changing times.”

For the first time since the founding of Bologna University, higher education institutions are being forced by external factors to become fast learners. They will not thrive simply by migrating their offspring to new regions; they will need new mutations that recombine DNA from other institutional species such corporations and civic organisations.

“The good news is that universities are repositories of the social genes needed for their own speculation. Many will innovate while others will stagnate or founder. Others may go extinct as corporations start to father their own universities.

“We will see a new age of the rebirth of the university with more direct social and economic missions,” Juma concluded.
 

The rise of the multinational university

Geoff Maslen05 August 2012 Issue No:233

 

More than 200 degree-granting international branch campuses of universities are now located in foreign countries. But a new report says some universities are considering transforming the branch campus model into fully fledged multinational universities “by slicing up the global value chain in ways akin to multinational corporations”.

Prepared by Sean Gallagher and Geoffrey Garrett from the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney Business School, the draft report says many of these universities are focusing on China because of its scale and rapid development, and on Singapore because of its aggressive government policy and high level of development.

By 2020, the report says, the world’s four largest countries in terms of population – China, India, Indonesia and the US – will account for more than half the global population of university-aged young people.

It says that with foreign students typically having to meet at least three times more of the cost of their tuition than domestic students, “the revenue implications of the export model are profound”.

In Australia, student fees from international students come close to matching the money universities receive from the federal government to teach Australian students – despite the fact that there are four times as many domestic as foreign students enrolled.

The report says the goal of multinational universities in slicing up the value chain around the world through complex systems of supply, production and distribution of higher education and research, may mean using a developing country to do research because it is cheaper to build better infrastructure and hire researchers of similar quality to those at home.

Or it may mean designing degrees in-country that are tailored precisely to what the market demands – in contrast to the largely one-size-fits-all of the branch campus system.

Branch campuses

“China is attractive for several reasons: its world-leading ability to quickly roll out first-class infrastructure; central, provincial and local governments willing to make large financial commitments; Chinese research talent is high quality and relatively cheap; and Chinese demand for quality higher education will continue to mushroom as China transforms its economy form a low quality producer into by far the world’s biggest middle-class consumer.”

Although Australia has led the world in the “pure export model” of international higher education and also in terms of its branch campuses, the report says US universities have set up the greatest number of offshore campuses with 78 now operating, each enrolling an average of 371 students.

Although Australia has only 12 such offshore campuses, it educates more students on them than any other country – almost 28,000 – nearly as many as the UK (about 18,000) and the US (slightly more than 13,000) combined.

But the report notes that in Australia, over the past five years, the growth in international student numbers and in branch campus expansion has slowed and even begun to decline since the global financial collapse.

It says this “stagnation” could be a function of market saturation, with demand in Asia having peaked; or because the Australian export and branch campus model has become outmoded – the latter because of the many new higher quality entrants from elsewhere, including exporters from Europe and North America that are now targeting Asian students with offers with which Australian universities cannot easily compete.

Australia on the decline, US on the up

But three factors have affected Australia uniquely and negatively, the report says: a doubling in the value of the Australian dollar over the past decade; tougher visa and post-study work restrictions; and bad media coverage – particularly in India on Australian treatment of its foreign students.

“At the same time as Australian international higher education has been hit by these shocks, the market for international students has become increasingly competitive because more, and higher quality, universities from around the world have begun aggressively to enter the game – led by some of the biggest and best American public universities.”

The report says the global financial crisis has proved such a radical shock to American public higher education – with dramatic cuts to all state and therefore public university budgets – that US public universities are quickly becoming very “Australian”.

State public universities from New York to Illinois, from Washington to California, are pursuing the Australia-style export model.

“By enrolling international undergraduate students in their thousands, budget holes are being plugged and research programmes cross-subsidised like never before,” the report says.

“In the last few years, the attraction of the United States as a destination for international students has increased markedly among Asian countries [with] the number of international students in American colleges and universities increasing by 5% in total and 6% at the undergraduate level. Most notably there has been a staggering 43% increase in Chinese undergraduates while the total number of international students in the US was 732,277.”

Asian students are attracted by what the major US colleges offer. Despite tough academic entry hurdles, the report says the rewards are high:

“From outstanding education to safe residential communities to first-class facilities to an extraordinary network of influential alumni, and to holding a degree from a university with a global brand, the total package is probably perceived as of higher quality than the value proposition offered by Australian universities.

“And Asian students are influenced in their education choices by the US-dominated world university league tables.”

Problem with the export model

There is a fundamental problem with the “higher education as export” business model, the report argues. If the increase in the supply of higher education continues from US and Asian providers, as well as from online education, the global market price will fall and so will the average quality of students willing to pay for it.

It says the big winners from supply outstripping demand would be the consumers of higher education in developing countries. But this situation would pose a major financial and reputational threat to campus-based universities in developed countries that are shackled with high fixed costs for staff and infrastructure.

Australia’s top universities – and presumably those in other Western countries facing the same threat – should now be planning long-term strategies of “hardwiring” themselves into China and reducing their reliance on the export model, Garrett and Gallagher write. They say there are four reasons to do this:

• By 2020, China aims to double the number of foreign students enrolled in its universities to more than 500,000 – in direct competition with Australia, Britain, Canada and the US.
  
• Between 2007 and 2039, McKinsey projects that 30% of the world’s global growth will occur in 242 Chinese cities, compared with only 3% in India’s cities.
  
• China could have a deficit of up to 23 million tertiary educated workers by 2020 because of the slow growth in the supply of secondary students – a result of the nation’s one-child policy.
  
• Within 15 years, China’s population will begin to fall – its labour force has already peaked and, to avoid the ‘middle-income trap’, China will need an ever more highly educated workforce to drive productivity.
  

The report says Australian universities could pursue proactive multinational university-like initiatives as stepping stones towards their entry into China and at a pace that manages risk levels.

It suggests targeting mid-tier Chinese cities with growth momentum and established universities “to seed education and research initiatives that would benefit China”.