Cambodia, Nepal Can Learn From Their Shared Experiences

By The Cambodia Daily - October 5, 2012


By Surya Subedi

First of all, I have a great deal of respect for the prime minister of Cambodia both as a person and as the leader of the country and the government. I recognize that he has achieved a great deal for Cambodia. But there is room for improvement in the governance of Cambodia and my job is to identify the shortcomings that exist in the system and offer my recommendations to address them.
I do not wish to descend into the personal level and do not wish to have a dialogue with him or anybody in the government through the media. I have had a good level of cooperation from the government of Cambodia and my dialogue with the prime minister has been productive in the past. I look forward to working with him. Our approach may differ on some issues, but they can be addressed in a mutually respectful manner and through dialogue.

I am working in my professional capacity in Cambodia and I expect others to do the same. I am not representing Nepal in Cambodia. I am a professor of international law, a barrister in England and a human rights advocate. I am an independent expert working on behalf of the U.N. with a view to helping the people of Cambodia.

I also have been advising in my personal capacity the government of Nepal on legal and constitutional matters. Nepal has a liberal democracy where the judiciary is independent and people do not go to jail for criticizing the government. The civil society is vibrant and the government in Nepal respects and listens to the representatives of civil society. It has a democratic interim constitution at the moment and people have been trying to write a new constitution with a view to strengthening democracy, human rights and rule of law.

Both Cambodia and Nepal have gone through similar experiences in the past and have a great deal to learn from each other. I have and would welcome if the prime minister of Cambodia has any advice for the people and government of Nepal. Both of these ancient Asian nations have a rich cultural heritage and the people of Nepal respect the people of Cambodia for what they are and what they have been able to achieve.

Surya Subedi is the United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Cambodia and professor of International Law at the University of Leeds, England.

UNITED STATES: Public research universities in peril – Report

Associated Press30 September 2012 Issue No:241

 

They're the pride and backbone of American higher education, doing essential research and educating en masse the next generations of scientists and engineers. But a new report argues that the mission of the country's 101 major public research universities is imperilled by budget cuts amounting to a fifth of their state funding over the past decade, writes Justin Pope for Associated Press.

State support for public research universities fell 20% between 2002 and 2010, after accounting for inflation and increased enrolment of about 320,000 students nationally, according to the report published last week by the National Science Board. The organisation provides independent advice to the federal government and oversees the National Science Foundation. Ten states saw support fall 30% or more and in two – Colorado and Rhode Island – the drop was nearly 50%. Only seven states increased support.  

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They're the pride and backbone of American higher education, doing essential research and educating en masse the next generations of scientists and engineers. But a new report argues the mission of the country's 101 major public research universities is imperiled by budget cuts amounting to one-fifth of their state funding over the past decade.

State support for public research universities fell 20 percent between 2002 and 2010, after accounting for inflation and increased enrollment of about 320,000 students nationally, according to the report published Tuesday by the National Science Board. The organization provides independent advice to the federal government and oversees the National Science Foundation.
Ten states saw support fall 30 percent or more and in two - Colorado and Rhode Island - the drop was nearly 50 percent. Only seven states increased support.

The study is the latest in a series of alarm bells warning that public research universities - which perform the majority of academic science and engineering research funded by the federal government, and educate a disproportionate share of scientists in training - have been weakened by years of eroding state support. Many are losing their best faculty to private institutions, and tuition increases in response to the budget cuts threaten the historically affordable access students have enjoyed.

Among the report's findings: While public research universities still managed to increase instructional spending 10 percent between 1999 and 2009, to about $10,000 per student, private universities increased such spending 25 percent over the that period, and now spend more than twice as much per student on teaching as their public counterparts.

Meanwhile, the salary gap between public and private research universities is also widening, raising the specter of a two-tier system in which most of the very best faculty migrate to private institutions and work with a comparatively small number of students.

Public research universities - particularly top-tier flagship institutions like the universities of Michigan, Virginia, Texas and California - are in some ways stuck between worlds. They compete for students and faculty and conduct research on a national and even global scale. But they remain under substantial political control of the states, and dependent on them for funding.
That funding has fallen precipitously, from 38 percent of their budgets two decades ago to about 23 percent now, with the number now below 10 percent at several top institutions. As those percentages fall further, some experts believe public institutions could begin essentially privatizing themselves, giving up what little state funding remains - and the public obligations it carries - in exchange for autonomy.

Funding for public research universities varies widely among states, from a low of $3,482 in Vermont in 2010 to $16,986 in Wyoming, which had the second-largest increase over the decade, behind only New York. Roughly a dozen states increased funding in absolute terms but in about half those states, including Arkansas, Connecticut and Missouri, enrollment growth meant there was still less money per student.

The public should understand what could be lost if public research universities wither away, said NSB member Ray Bowen, president emeritus of Texas A&M University: not only the prospect of future discoveries in medicine and technology, but key drivers of economic development. The report found the institutions produced 436 new start-ups in 2010 alone.

"You go to Austin, Texas (home of the University of Texas), that city is a vibrant economic environment because of that university, because of the bright people it produces and the faculty research that takes place," Bowen said. "Same with Texas A&M."

No state has seen more contentious battles over the place of public research universities than Texas, where a board of regents appointed by Gov. Rick Perry has pushed for a focus on teaching, accountability and lower costs and expressed skepticism over the full value to taxpayers of the kind of research UT does. The university and its alumni have fought back, insisting there's a place for an elite research university in a state system.

Public universities have acknowledged their obligations to improve efficiency, while emphasizing basic research may not always pay off immediately or in strict economic terms. A recent similar report by the National Research Council said revitalizing public research universities requires action from a range of players - more funding from Washington, more autonomy from states if they won't maintain funding levels, and more productivity from universities themselves.

"Universities have to adjust," Bowen said. "Those that have not already started have perhaps made a mistake. There's no question they have to become more efficient."

Coursera to offer courses in Chinese

China Daily30 September 2012 Issue No:241

 

Chinese students head overseas in huge numbers, but some may no longer feel the need to leave home for education. Coursera, the online education platform that offers free courses from universities worldwide, is aiming to net some of the biggest consumers of overseas higher learning – Chinese – write Su Zhou and Lin Jing for China Daily.

The company, founded by Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng, computer science teachers at Stanford University in California, announced recently that 17 US and international universities will begin offering free online courses. They say that as the Coursera site develops, more courses will be introduced in different languages, including Chinese. The founders are also seeking to team up with Chinese universities to achieve that goal.

There is little doubt that such courses have a huge potential market among Chinese, 158,000 of whom were studying in US colleges last year, accounting for more than a fifth of the overseas-student population there. Worldwide, about 340,000 Chinese were studying in overseas colleges as of May last year, accounting for 14% of the overseas student population, according to a report by the Social Sciences Academic Press in Beijing.

Full report on the China Daily site
 

UNITED STATES: Postdocs – A voice for the voiceless

30 September 2012 Issue No:241

In universities around the world, postdoctoral students are the unsung heavy lifters.

Not only do they take on much of the academic load in running tutorials for undergraduates but they are also crucial in many science and engineering research programmes, carrying out the most technically demanding tasks and helping write up papers but not always acknowledged by the professors who benefit from their work.

In a report in the journal Nature, Karen Kaplan says that in its first 10 years, the US National Postdoctoral Association, or NPA, helped to raise the profile of postdocs but that “championing their cause still presents challenges”.

“Before Alyson Reed became head of the association, she had only the vaguest ideas about what a postdoctoral researcher does,” Kaplan says. “Reed was hardly alone. After she took the job as the NPA's inaugural executive director in 2003, she learned that few outside science and academia knew what postdocs are or do.”

As is the case in the US, on university campuses in Britain, Europe and Australia, Kaplan says many postdocs feel invisible and anonymous, crucial to research but suspended in limbo with no means of networking, creating a community or being heard.

“We are ghosts,” as one declared.

But Kaplan notes that almost a decade of efforts by the NPA have helped generate change. Based in Washington DC, the non-profit organisation has worked hard on behalf of its 2,700 members and the nation's more than 60,000 postdocs.

“It has helped stakeholders – including federal agencies, members of Congress and policy-makers – become eminently familiar with what postdocs are, what they do and the conditions they face. It has raised the issue of shoddy compensation and highlighted the difficulties of career development,” Kaplan says.

“Yet most US academic postdocs still work long hours for trifling pay and have no clear route into a permanent position. Observers say that the NPA has made progress, but should do more. The association would like to boost outreach and advocacy and offer more services but a meagre budget, a small staff and funding challenges present significant obstacles.”

Reed told Kaplan that before her association could advocate for postdocs – not to mention collect data about their roles at research institutions – it had to define what a postdoctoral researcher was. The association helped the US National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation to adopt a formal definition in 2007.

That definition states, in part, that postdocs are “engaged in a temporary and defined period of mentored advanced training to enhance the professional skills and research independence”.

This helps institutions and principal investigators to see postdocs as trainees and protégés seeking to advance their careers, rather than as just a pair of hands at the bench, as is still the case in many universities around the world, Reed told Kaplan.

Kaplan says that perhaps the NPA's biggest accomplishment was encouraging US universities to set up their own on-campus postdoctoral offices and associations.

The national association now has about 130 member offices on US university and other research campuses, and has inspired the creation of postdoc organisations in other countries, with several fledgling groups asking for advice, including those in Australia, Canada, China, France, Ireland, Japan and Qatar. 

CAMBODIA: Concern over higher education quality as ASEAN community looms

Kounila Keo30 September 2012 Issue No:241

 

Veterinary student Kong Sokhom (20) from the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh still has two years to go until he graduates from Preak Leap National School of Agriculture. But he is filled with uncertainty about his future.

Sokhom opted for veterinary science hoping to acquire high-level skills to help develop his country, one of the poorest nations in South East Asia.

But he regards his education as almost worthless. The classes are packed with students who do not want to work hard, he said, and he regards his teachers as “under-qualified”.

“When I graduate, I don’t really know what I can do with the degree that I’ll get from this university, as I know the education quality is quite low,” said Sokhom grimly.

Every year Cambodia produces hundreds of thousands of graduates like Sokhom who are unfit for the job they have trained for, experts say. There is a big gap between subjects studied at university and workforce skills needed.

According to Chea Vannath, a sociologist and independent researcher, Cambodian graduates also find it hard to land jobs within their field of study.

Only one in 10 graduates finds work, according to figures from the Economic Institute of Cambodia. It is a worrying statistic for a country that has struggled to rebuild its economy and image three decades after a civil war that destroyed its financial, educational and justice systems.

“It creates a daunting challenge for Cambodia, which remains poor,” Vannath said.

ASEAN community looms

The problem could become more acute as Cambodia becomes part of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) community by 2015, when workers from ASEAN countries will have full mobility within the region.

The other ASEAN countries are Brunei, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Apart from Laos and Myanmar – the latter is facing similar problems – all are far more developed than Cambodia.

When ASEAN leaders announced the ASEAN Economic Community with free movement of goods, services, investment, and skilled labour, and freer flow of capital, by 2015, many Cambodians expressed concern about competing with highly skilled ASEAN citizens who might come to the country for work.

With poor curricula and facilities for teachers and students alike, local experts worry that Cambodians will not be able to take advantage of ASEAN community opportunities.

According to Sambo Manara, a professor of history and culture at various public and private universities, young Cambodians “are among the least skilled young people in the South East Asian region.

“As part of the ASEAN community, Cambodia will have to open its market to people from other ASEAN countries who have better skills and attract more employers and investors into the country.”

A long way to go

Cambodia has a very long way to go to catch up with its neighbours.

“Despite rises in productivity, the overall output level per worker remains low in comparison with other ASEAN countries. Raising productivity levels within Cambodia is vital if the country is to remain competitive in relation to its ASEAN neighbours,” according to the International Labour Organization.

Ministry of Youth and Sport surveys have found that a staggering 94% of the youth labour force has not completed secondary education – a major obstacle to ensuring gainful and productive work. And as recently as 2000, an estimated 63% of the adult population, 6.5 million people, were functionally illiterate.

Although education funding has improved in recent years, the overwhelming obstacle to increasing education levels is still financial.

“Looking at all the challenges that our education system has faced, I don’t think we’re going anywhere soon if we don’t take action right now,” Dr Van Chanpheng, deputy director general of higher education at the Ministry of Education, told University World News.

Young Cambodians ‘deserve more’

“Increased skill acquisition will help increase productivity that allows for higher wages and purchasing power. It will help young Cambodians, who deserve more,” Van added.

While the country has 20 public universities and nearly 30 private ones, the ministry has said that only around 150,000 students are currently enrolled in higher education, or some 10% of the age cohort.

Sambo Manara argues that higher education in Cambodia has improved over the past five years, with a few new, private universities providing a more appropriate curriculum for students. However, he said, there are still many universities interested only in profit, not quality.

At the education ministry, Van admitted that the education system needs improvement. “More university teachers need to be trained,” he said. The latest figure from the ministry's higher education section shows there are only 2,000 PhD holders in Phnom Penh.

“What can be done in the short term is to create more vocational training for more Cambodian adults. But it is easier said than done – we have seen people unwilling to learn more as they have to keep working.”

Quality is a concern

Five years ago there was an attempt by the World Bank to improve the quality of Cambodia's higher education institutions, with the formation of a national university accreditation committee.

The committee was created to force institutions to adhere to strict education requirements and quality. But the World Bank pulled funding for the scheme when it emerged that the new body would not be independent of government control.

Sambo told University World News that many Cambodian universities needed to improve significantly – lectures are inadequate, and the education system in rural Cambodia has been totally neglected.

Rural education is a daunting challenge. Many people drop out of school as facilities are poor and often far from home. Teachers are not well trained and, compared to other professions, are low paid, causing them to moonlight and pay too little attention to teaching.

“Cambodia is still developing its own education system and cooperating with other countries to develop better educational standards,” said Sambo.

Van added: “Before we develop anything else, don’t forget [we need] to provide the best education possible to young Cambodians, as this is the only way to raise Cambodia out of poverty.”

Related Links
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GLOBAL: United Nations launches Education First initiative

Geoff Maslen28 September 2012 Issue No:241

 

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday launched a new education initiative called Education First, at a high-level event at the UN headquarters in New York.

In terms of the plan, the various UN agencies and programmes will “unite” with governments, business leaders and civil society in a push to put education at the top of the global agenda ahead of the 2015 Millennium Development Goals deadline.

Among the challenges to be tackled by the initiative is the global need for two million more teachers, which will require major upscaling of teacher training by universities and colleges in numerous countries.

In its PovertyMatters blog on Thursday, the UK’s Guardian newspaper said Ban’s initiative was “refreshing for its recognition of the role of teachers – drawing attention to the need to create two million new teaching positions, reprioritise training and professional development, and redignify the profession”.

During the event, Ban appointed 10 Education First champions of the UN’s global education initiative: the heads of state from Australia, Bangladesh, Croatia, Denmark, Guyana, Liberia, Russia, South Africa, Timor Leste and Tunisia.

He said that in 2000, 189 of the world’s nations had pledged to achieve universal primary education by 2015. It was the second of eight Millennium Development Goals aimed at freeing people from poverty and multiple deprivations.

“Although significant progress has been made, the latest data show a clear slow-down. Without a major effort, there is a real danger that more children will be out-of-school in 2015 than today,” he said.

Along with the Education First champions, Ban was joined at the launch by various business and civil society leaders and UN officials.

They included Sheikha Moza bint Nasser of Qatar, former UK prime minister Gordon Brown who is special envoy of the secretary general for global education, Irina Bokova, director general of UNESCO and executive secretary of the Education First steering committee, Anthony Lake, executive director of UNICEF, Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank, Aliko Dangote, president of the Nigerian Dangote Group and Chernor Bah, a youth leader from Sierra Leone.

Following the launch there was a panel discussion, at which the speakers were UNICEF Eminent Advocate for Children Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan; Aung San Suu Kyi, the new Burmese MP and Nobel peace prize laureate; Teopista Birungi Mayanja, a teacher representative from Uganda; and Charles Young, a student representative from Jamaica.

How the citizens of the 10 countries felt about the honour being bestowed on their leaders as ‘champions of education’ is unknown.

But in South Africa there were rumblings about the position going to the head of a government that has failed to improve a shockingly poor school system, although it has upped access.

And there was some wry cynicism in Australia’s universities and research institutes, where researchers fear the government is about to impose a freeze on new research grants as part of its efforts to slash spending and create a budget surplus.

The current uncertainty is generating increasing anxiety – and anger – among an estimated 1,700 young researchers who could lose their jobs by the end of the year.

Nevertheless, the lobby group Universities Australia congratulated Prime Minister Julia Gillard on her appointment. Chief Executive Belinda Robinson said Gillard's appointment reinforced the importance of education reform as a national priority and of ensuring Australia's education system remained world class.

The position, she said, “underscores the imperative of achieving the participation in education required for lifting national productivity and meeting the demands of the future workforce," although just last week Robinson had declared it would be an "astounding about-face" if the government were to cut or delay research funding.

Still, according to Robinson, here was an opportunity to make the point that investment in education had numerous benefits for society, underpinning productivity growth, innovation and economic prosperity – hoping the prime minister might read what she had said.
 

Universities in Europe and Asia must collaborate, say rectors

Yojana Sharma28 September 2012 Issue No:241

 

Universities in Europe and Asia must collaborate to make their graduates employable in a globalised world, with joint programmes and dual degrees paving the way for greater student mobility, heads of universities in 37 Asian and European countries heard at a major conference in The Netherlands this week.

Although some joint degrees exist between European and Asian universities, Karsten Warnecke, deputy executive director of the Singapore-based Europe Asia Foundation, said there were eight times more Asian students going to Europe than European students going to Asia.

With high graduate unemployment in many southern European countries, “it is not a solution for graduate unemployment in Europe for students to go to Asia [for jobs], but they should go to Asia to increase soft skills and to get a different perspective and experience,” said Warnecke.

However, “not enough European students at the moment see the advantage in going to Asia to study,” said Sibrandes Poppema, president of the University of Groningen, which hosted the third Asia Europe Meeting (ASEM) of university rectors on 25-26 September.

The conference recommendations, including promoting a credit transfer system within ASEM, were agreed to by 100 heads of universities from 27 European Union countries and 10 Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN).

They will feed into a meeting of ASEM education ministers in Kuala Lumpur in 2013.

Interim mobility arrangements

But full credit transfer could take a while to be set up. “We need a transition period on the way to full mobility in which we help students to see the advantages [of overseas study] by organising special programmes,” Poppema told a press conference after the meeting.

Interim arrangements could include shorter non-degree programmes that should be set up jointly between partner universities with greater support for students studying in another culture. “We believe this is an attractive proposal and one of the ways to go forward,” Poppema said.

The need for international exchanges and experience of other cultures was emphasised time and again at the conference as being vital for student employability.

“Any opportunity to have a global perspective and feel part of the global community is fantastic,” said Vicki Baars, vice president of the UK’s National Union of Students. Student groups were invited to participate in the ASEM rectors’ conference for the first time this year.

Halbe Zijlstra, Dutch secretary of state for higher education, said in a keynote speech: “Every country that makes room for internationalisation in its higher education system, sees the quality of its own education improve.

“The countries with outbound students – because these students bring additional knowledge back with them on their return. And the countries with inbound students – because they receive top talent from across the globe. And this has a mutually stimulating effect.”

Imbalance in student flows

The imbalance in student flows between the two continents is a recurrent theme at ASEM higher education conferences.

One reason, identified at previous ASEM meetings, is the perception of European students that universities in Asia are not of comparable quality to those in Europe. Another is the inability to transfer study credits to their home institutions.

But Piniti Ratananukul, deputy secretary general of Thailand’s Higher Education Commission, speaking on behalf of the ASEAN University Network, said it would never be possible to balance flows as Asia had a huge population compared to Europe.

“We are looking at the quality of higher education instead,” he told University World News.

He said it was important that universities were of sufficient quality to meet the demands of the workplace. And quality included the cultural environment and adapting to rapid changes in society.

ASEAN is developing a quality assurance system to increase mobility within the region. “The job market in Asia is expanding and graduates should be able to work anywhere in Asian countries,” Piniti said.

ASEAN credit transfer scheme

A credit transfer scheme within ASEAN is also being developed. Credit transfer will also be extended to ASEAN partners such as Korea, Japan and China.

As this would be a huge undertaking for the entire university sector in all ASEAN countries, Piniti told University World News: “We are looking at the leading universities in each country at first, then we can expand it to other universities locally.”

European universities also stressed the importance of transferable credit. But even within Europe the number of universities registered for the European Credit Transfer Scheme (ECTS) is still limited, and ASEAN could take some years to put its own credit transfer scheme in place.

Once this has been achieved, “the next step will be marrying the European credit system and the ASEAN credit system", Poppema said.

“This is an excellent time to ensure that the ASEAN scheme is similar to the European one. It would be wise for them to look at the ECTS, not to copy it, but to develop their own one. The next step would be to ensure they are [mutually] transferable,” Poppema told University World News.
 

Quality teaching is key to modernising universities – European Commission

The European Commission has launched a High Level Group on the Modernisation of Higher Education. Androulla Vassiliou, European commissioner for education, culture, multilingualism and youth, and Mary McAleese, former president of Ireland and chair of the group, explain why.

Also in Commentary, Emily R Miller and Richard A Skinner argue that imposing North American models of higher education governance elsewhere would not necessarily work. Goolam Mohamedbhai finds a pilot study for the African Quality Rating Mechanism flawed and says there will be challenges in moving forward, and Lucian J Hudson writes that now is the time for huge progress in widening access to higher education – but opening up access to content is not enough.

In Features, Lee Adendorff reports on the 24th conference, held in Bologna, of the Magna Charta Universitatum – a declaration on fundamental university principles that has now been signed by some 750 universities worldwide – and Chrissie Long investigates why a high number of medical graduates who studied in Cuba have failed licensing exams in Costa Rica.

Andrew Green probes Not In My Country, a website in Uganda dedicated to exposing corruption in higher education and rating academics, and Kounila Keo finds that despite a rapidly growing number of higher education institutions in Cambodia, they are struggling to meet growing demand and quality is a real concern.

Karen MacGregor Global Editor

Can U.S. Universities Stay on Top?

By MICHAEL J. SILVERSTEIN and ABHEEK SINGHI

At the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi—one of the best engineering academies in the country—we met Shriram, a 21-year-old man who ranked 19 out of 485,000 on the school's very demanding entrance exam. We call him Mr. Number 19.
Shriram can tell you the date and time when he found out his test results. The exam—and the preparation for it—dominated his teenage years. He was singled out as a "big talent" at an early age, with an aptitude for mathematics and science. To get ready for the IIT entrance exam, he enrolled at a private coaching institute that prepares students with aggressive drilling in the major testing areas—physics, chemistry and math. Over those two years, Shriram estimates that he studied 90 hours every week.

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When Shriram arrived at the IIT, he found a class filled with academic superstars. The faculty has high expectations. On the first math exam, his freshman class received an average grade of 30%. Shriram did poorly too but soon bounced back, sacrificing sleep so that he could study. "All my life I wanted to be here," he says. "I knew that if I could go to IIT, major in engineering, work and study hard, my life would be perfect. I would marry a beautiful girl, start a company, help my country advance and deliver on my family's hopes and dreams."
Both India and China have intense national testing programs to find the brightest students for their elite universities. The competition, the preparation and the national anxiety about the outcomes make the SAT testing programs in the U.S. seem like the minor leagues. The stakes are higher in China and India. The "chosen ones"—those who rank in the top 1%—get their choice of university, putting them on a path to fast-track careers, higher incomes and all the benefits of an upper-middle-class life.

The system doesn't work so well for the other 99%. There are nearly 40 million university students in China and India. Most attend institutions that churn out students at low cost. Students complain that their education is "factory style" and "uninspired." Employers complain that many graduates need remedial training before they are fully employable.

For now, the U.S. university system is still far ahead. But over the next decade, there will be a global competition to educate the next generation, and China and India have the potential to change the balance of power. With large pools of qualified students coming of age, the two countries have made reforming their universities a top priority.

How far do they have to go? At the Boston Consulting Group, we have developed a new ranking to determine the educational competitiveness of countries: the BCG E4 Index. It is based on four Es: Expenditure (the level of investment in education by government and private households); enrollment (the number of students in the educational system); engineers (the number of qualified engineers entering the workforce), and elite institutions (the number of top global higher-education institutions).

The U.S. and the U.K. are ranked first and second, driven by raw spending, their dominance in globally ranked universities and engineering graduation rates. China ranks third and India fifth, largely on enrollment (Germany is fourth). The reasons for U.S. supremacy are clear: For one, it spends the most money on education, disbursing $980 billion annually, or twice as much as China and five times as much as India. It is also the most engineer-intensive country, with 981 engineering degrees per million citizens, compared with 553 for China and 197 for India.

American universities currently do a better job overall at preparing students for the workforce. The World Economic Forum estimates that 81% of U.S. engineering graduates are immediately "employable," while only 25% of Indian graduates and 10% of Chinese graduates are equally well prepared. "Chinese students can swarm a problem," a dean at a major Chinese university told us. "But when it comes to original thought and invention, we stumble. We are trying hard to make that up. We are trying to make technical education the grounding from which we solve problems."
In China, Peking University, founded in 1898, is generally ranked as the country's top school. One student there told us in a very serious tone: "Good luck finding a place in the library. You can't find a seat even at three in the morning."

Peking University is now part of an effort launched in 2009 to create a Chinese counterpart to the Ivies—called the C9 League. The objective is to attract the best graduates and faculty with an array of super-funded institutions. The schools recently received $270 million each in government funding, and they are also drawing back "sea turtles"—Chinese Ph.D.s from abroad—to lead the renaissance, with relocation bonuses as high as $150,000.

Though the C9 schools have the greatest potential to break into the global elite, Chinese officials also identified 100 key universities at the next level, where they have invested a total of $2.8 billion.
The difference in student quality between these tiers is often insignificant. The Gaokao is China's national educational test, given to 10 million secondary students to determine their rank and placement at university. The top scorers become national celebrities. But critics say that the test's emphasis on memorization, fact recall and processing speed can determine college admissions too arbitrarily. "I did not feel well the day of the test," one recent graduate told us. "As a result I placed in the top 10%, not good enough to get into the C9. I felt like my life was over."

Compared with China, India has farther to go. A senior dean at IIT Delhi said that he deals daily with shortages of equipment, poor pay for teachers and quotas that sometimes put students who can't read or speak English in the classroom. (The quotas are meant as a remedy for the caste system.) "We are underfunded, we have too few Ph.D.s on faculty, and we have a fifth of our enrollment taken by quota with no remedial programs," he lamented in his hot, open office.

One of the reasons for the underfunding is the relative weakness of India's central government, which accounts for only 15% of total expenditure on education. The 28 states that account for the balance vary greatly by wealth and infrastructure. But unlike China, India has significant private education, with nearly 200,000 private schools and 17,000 private colleges. The World Bank and private investors are pouring billions of dollars into education there, and the government plans to expand its best-known universities, as well as community colleges. The current five-year plan proposes higher-education investments of more than $18 billion.

Even with the current push, the combined higher-education resources of India and China will just begin to match the $32 billion endowment of Harvard alone. But success in these countries is based as much on attitude as on funds. The IIT's Mr. Number 19 represents a generation of driven, talented students who are intent on improving their lives. In one student's room at Peking University, the commitment to advancement is summed up with a phrase on a poster board: "If you work hard enough, you can grind an iron rod into a needle."

—Mr. Silverstein is a senior partner at the Boston Consulting Group. Mr. Singhi is a partner and director of its India consumer practice. Adapted from "The $10 Trillion Prize: Captivating the Newly Affluent in China and India," co-written with Carol Liao and David Michael, to be published on Oct. 2 by Harvard Business Review Press.

Education Strength

Which countries have the most competitive educational systems world-wide? The Boston Consulting Group's new E4 index assigns points in four categories, each equally weighted in the final score. Of the 20 countries ranked, here are the top 10.

Country	Total points	Enrollment points	Expenditure points	Engineering grads points	Elite university points
U.S.	237	25	73	48	91
U.K.	125	4	26	46	48
China	115	86	17	4	8
Germany	104	5	25	37	38
India	104	90	4	3	6
France	87	4	24	41	18
Canada	85	2	25	39	18
Japan	72	7	31	19	16
Brazil	38	17	16	2	3
Russia	32	9	10	10	3

 
Source: Boston Consulting Group analysis

A version of this article appeared September 29, 2012, on page C3 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Can U.S. Universities Stay on Top?.

 

An international hub for higher education?

By Professor Dr Francois Therin. Posted on August 28, 2012, Tuesday

RECENTLY, foreign universities such as the United Kingdom’s Heriot-Watt University and the University of Reading announced opening branch campuses in Malaysia. Several other universities also intend to expand their operations here, including Manipal University of India which plans to open a campus for up to 20,000 students. The news is hardly surprising as the Ministry of Higher Education has indicated that up to 25 foreign universities have applied to open branch campuses in the country.

Inevitably, it has triggered a strong reaction from the existing players, with some trying to convince the ministry that by allowing an overly large number of foreign branch campuses to operate, the competitive landscape would be adversely affected.

Such a reaction would be deemed quite normal in any industry, but it would be interesting to ponder whether it is reasonable or not. Firstly, let us look at some figures related to higher education in Malaysia. Currently, there are approximately 1.1 million tertiary students in Malaysia, including 500,000 pursuing bachelor’s degrees and 400,000 pursuing diplomas. Among the 1.1 million students, some 80,000 are international students with the majority representing five countries — China, Iran, Indonesia, Nigeria and Yemen.

Yearly, the higher education sector sees an enrolment of 400,000 new students while 250,000 graduate from different universities throughout the country.

These students are served by 21 public and 23 private universities, including five foreign branch campuses. They also come from 21 private higher education institutions with university college status. In fact, more than 20 other foreign universities are already actively operating in Malaysia through twinning programmes with the university colleges. So is it likely 25 new players would negatively affect the competitive landscape?

Clearly, Malaysia aims to become a higher education hub. Despite marketing higher education internationally much later than Singapore, it already has more international students, the number having doubled since 2006. The objective now is to reach 200,000 by 2020. Of course, many of the universities exist to diversify the sources as the current major ones could be subject to internal political changes, which could consequently affect the number of students sent to Malaysia. For example, Oman recently announced that it would send up to 4,000 students a year compared to only 400 in 2010.

Meanwhile, student intakes from India and Egypt, as well as neighbouring countries such as Thailand or Vietnam, are very low and have not met the forecasted numbers. For instance, there are only 1,400 students from India.

In Malaysia, a bachelor’s degree has become the minimum requirement for one to land a first-time skilled job. Malaysia’s economy is doing very well and employers’ increased need for qualified staff has created a demand for more graduates, particularly from critical fields such as engineering, business and medicine.

There is a natural growth in the local student population. We can expect the population to continue to grow, and subsequently, a greater demand for universities to offer higher degrees. There are currently only 63,000 students pursuing studies at the master’s level and 21,000 at PhD level.

Malaysia is making a clear stand on quality, though at the start of the internationalisation process, and as many other countries did, more importance was placed on quantity rather than quality. Take the recent issues in Vietnam, for example. Malaysia is now very carefully monitoring the quality of the existing institutions, both public and private, and is becoming more and more exacting when considering the applications of new players. The implementation of a very detailed and stringent rating system for the country’s universities, the Setara Rating System for Institutions of Higher Learning, is helping raise standards.

In the field of business, for example, public institutions have been asked to go for international accreditations such as Equis (European Quality Improvement System) and AACSB (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business). Not compromising on quality will certainly convince local students to study within Malaysia rather than go overseas.

Currently, around 80,000 Malaysians are studying abroad — 30,000 of them under scholarships and 50,000 self-sponsored.

This indirectly raises the attractiveness factor for international students to pursue their tertiary education in Malaysia, particularly those from countries where the number of higher education institutions is still too low to meet internal demand and/or where the move towards quality has not been effectively implemented.

Therefore, I do not share the concerns of some of my colleagues on the competitive risk. On the contrary, I believe that more competition can help to strengthen the path towards better quality. It will also offer a wider choice for local and international students in Malaysia, and subsequently, reinforce the country’s vision of becoming an international education hub.

Professor Dr Francois Therin is the dean of the School of Business at Curtin Sarawak.