My selection of the most interesting news on the internets:

• Australia’s international education sector under review (audio) – A review of Australia's international education sector has called for tougher national accreditation and improved protection for foreign students. The Australian Government commissioned the review into the multi-billion dollar industry in the wake of attacks against international students and claims that some schools were taking advantage of foreigners.
• China must boost its global science impact, study finds – China's international science influence is still weak, even though its investment in science has rapidly increased in recent years, a report has found.
• Emerging education hubs: the case of Singapore – In anticipation of a globalising post-Fordist political economy, countries and universities are increasingly pursuing strategic transnational education and research alliances. This article analyses the Global Schoolhouse, a key education policy platform that aims to transform Singapore into a knowledge and innovation hub by establishing networks and collaborations with foreign universities. Two Global Schoolhouse initiatives are examined—the alliance between Singapore and MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), and the institutional restructuring aimed at re-modelling the National University of Singapore into a ‘leading global university centred in Asia’.
• Mapping diversity efforts as inquiry – In this essay, we discuss the importance for a higher education institution to participate in self-inquiry, or a reflexive practice of identifying where a university is with regard to establishing an embedded campus structure grounded in diversity in terms of values, principles, objectives and goals, outcomes and resource allocations. This process involves taking stock of and mapping current diversity efforts and then analysing such mappings to identify the current status of inclusive excellence at that institution.

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Today and tomorrow, the anniversary of the Bologna Process is celebrated. Actually…it is celebrated by most and protested against by some. A consortium of CHEPS, INCHER and ECOTEC was given the task to prepare an independent assessment of the Bologna process. The study was conducted together with experts from the University of Bath, the Bayerisches Staatsinstitut für Hochschulforschung and NUFFIC (i.c. myself). Below is Don Westerheijden (CHEPS) presenting the part of the assessment I’ve been working on: recognition and mobility.

The report is published by the European Commission and can be found here (pdf). Today’s programme was in Budapest; tomorrow, the rest of the programme is brought to you from Vienna. Watch the live stream here.

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My daily selection of the most interesting news on the internets:

• Why French are skipping the Sorbonne for Britain – French students are deserting the Sorbonne because of the once élite university's reputation for militancy, strikes and abandoned lectures. They are also increasingly snubbing the country's prestigious Grandes Ecoles system for a new educational El Dorado – Britain.
• Evaluating Research in Context – ERiC's mission is to measure the social impact of research. ERiC informs, advises and supports. ERiC publishes, organises meetings and carries out pilot studies. With these initiatives ERiC leads the field within the Netherlands and Europe.
• Guess who’s coming to Canada – Thousands of Saudi students are choosing Canadian universities as part of a mass scholarship program. And the benefits are not just economic, but cultural as well

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My daily selection of the most interesting news on the internets:

• College Degrees Without Going to Class – Online courses have been around for nearly two decades, but enrollment has soared in recent years as more universities increase their offerings. More than 4.6 million college students (about one in four) were taking at least one online course in 2008, a 17 percent increase over 2007.
• U.S. Students Studying Abroad – CIES 2010 presentation of David Comp: The United States Government is acutely aware of the impact that international students have on the United States while studying here and is optimistic that these students will apply democratic principles and systems upon return to their home countries. Additionally, the United States government has been very supportive of sending a growing number of United States students to study abroad each year.
• Is Higher Education Evolving? – In 1859, Charles Darwin proposed in The Origin of Species that living organisms adapt and evolve through natural selection (survival of the fittest). In the same vein, Charles Fine claimed that when industries face new challenges or environmental pressure, they must evolve or adapt in order to avoid extinction. Although some in higher education might consider such ideas nonsensical when applied to colleges and universities, we can adapt some of these views in trying to make sense of today’s higher education ecosystem.

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My daily selection of the most interesting news on the internets:

• Indonesia’s Potential – The recently released Open Doors report showed that only 7,509 Indonesian students are studying on American campuses. A decade or so ago, some 13,000 Indonesians were studying in the U.S. The number of Americans studying in Indonesia is an abysmal 120 or so.
• Establishing academic standards – This article considers three measures currently being used or developed to establish similar academic standards in higher education: aptitude tests, the European community's tuning process and the OECD's feasibility study for the internal assessment of higher education learning outcomes.
• Southern Africa: a regional tertiary collaboration model – Five years since its establishment the Southern African Regional Universities' Association, Sarua, has made considerable headway in establishing itself as a credible platform for leadership 'conversations' and a model for collaboration in the region's tertiary sector.
• Higher Education Policy – Trade in Higher Education Services in Malaysia: Key Policy Challenges – In recent years, Malaysia has emerged as an unexpected contender in the world market for international students in higher education. Recognizing this sector as a potential new source of growth and export revenue, Malaysia aims to become a regional hub for higher education. In view of this, the objectives of this paper are to profile the pattern of trade in higher education services in Malaysia and to analyze the main factors that have contributed toward the trade performance of this sector.

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My daily selection of the most interesting news on the internets:

• Higher Education Budgets and the Global Recession: Tracking Varied National Responses and Their Consequences – In the midst of the global recession, how have national governments viewed the role of higher education in their evolving strategies for economic recovery? Demand for higher education generally goes up during economic downturns. Which nations have proactively protected funding for their universities and colleges to help maintain access, to help retrain workers, and to mitigate unemployment rates? And which nations have simply made large funding cuts for higher education in light of the severe downturn in tax revenues?
• 21st Century Challenges: how global crises provide the opportunity to transform the world – The world now confronts crises unique in their global character. Distinguished LSE experts argue these crises provide an opportunity to transform the world and to build capacity for responding to extreme global challenges.
• How will the next government maintain our leading edge? – Teaching and research in UK universities are among the best in the world. How will the next government maintain our leading edge? David Lammy MP, David Willetts MP and Stephen Williams MP in an open discussion in advance of the general election on the future of UK universities.

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My daily selection of the most interesting news on the internets:

• ‘The Challenge of Bologna’ – The "Bologna Process," under which European nations have agreed on common higher education standards — with the goal of making degrees and students recognized and respected across borders — continues to attract increased attention in the United States. In his new book, Paul L. Gaston, Trustees Professor at Kent State University, considers the evolution of Europe's plans and their impact on American higher education. His book is The Challenge of Bologna: What United States Higher Education Has to Learn From Europe, and Why It Matters That We Learn It.
• Rich students ’should pay international-level fees to guarantee university place’ – Prof Ruth Farwell said by paying their way, wealthy students could help plug the multi-million pound funding gap in the higher education budget. There is no cap on the number of foreign students being admitted to British universities, but there are strict rules about the number of domestic and EU students allowed to take up places.
• Sweden Will Start Charging Tuition to Foreign Students Next Year – The Swedish government announced on Friday that, beginning in the fall of 2011, foreign students from outside the European Union, the European Economic Area, and Switzerland will be charged tuition at Swedish universities.
• Working with European academics – Google grew out of an academic experiment and we continue to value a strong dialogue with universities around the globe. While we do significant in-house research and engineering, we also maintain strong relations with leading academic institutions world-wide pursuing research in areas of common interest.

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My daily selection of the most interesting news on the internets:

• Dutch higher education closes deal with Google – The Dutch organisation responsible for the IT infrastructure in education and for promoting the use of ICT in higher education, has closed a deal with Google to promote the use of Google apps. This will enable students to work ‘in the cloud’ on their existing university accounts.
• Seoul National University’s new international campus to become education hub – “Establishment of the Siheung (City) international campus (of the university) will help my university grow into a globalized university,” said the president of Seoul National University in an interview. “The new campus has already drawn huge attention both at home and abroad particularly due to its geographical proximity to China, which is a huge education market.”
• New issue of International Higher eduation focuses on branch campuses – Philip G. Altbach explains why branch campuses may be unsustainable; Rosa Becker identifies the new trends and directions in international branch campuses and Spencer Witte zooms in on the branch campus phenomenon in the Gulf states.

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My daily selection of the most interesting news on the internets:

• Challenges in Overseas Student Recruitment – It may be mid-way through the current academic year for many universities across the globe, but in the boom-and-bust world of international student recruitment, everyday brings new and unpredictable challenges. For international student recruiters, the quest is to find a rich vein of students from across the world, which will not only enhance campus diversity but also bring in much-needed tuition revenue and also burnish a university's reputation abroad.
• Science must be part of the solution – EU ministers, meeting at an informal council in the Spanish town of San Sebastián, this week unanimously approved the so-called Donostia Declaration, a document defining the role that European science has to play in economic recovery and stating that “science must be part of the solution.”
• Good secondary-schooling key to ongoing educational, job success. – Canada’s top-performing high school students are 20 times more likely to access a university education than those at the bottom, and they are also more likely to choose pure science topics, according to a new OECD publication, Pathways to Success.

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My daily selection of the most interesting news on the internets:

• Universities recruit students with inadequate English – A BBC investigation has found evidence that suggests some universities under financial pressure accept overseas students who lack adequate English.
• We have failed the university challenge – It's a harsh but valuable lesson that a tertiary education, if it is to be worth anything, is a prize and a privilege that must be earned by those who apply for it. It is not a right, as so many applicants seem to think.
• International Education Industry Is Broken – The Australian Government's changes to the skilled migration program will affect thousands of international students. For the industry, the greatest pain will be felt by private colleges. They have boomed because of the present policies and will decline. While universities may have overloaded on international students in programs such as masters of professional accounting, for example, they do not play in the cookery, hairdressing or mechanics space so will feel only a mild initial impact.
• Foreign Ph.D. Recipients in Science Stay in U.S. at Near-Record Levels – Despite the alarms being raised about brain drain, the percentage of foreign students who receive doctorates in science and engineering in the United States and who choose to stay in the country after graduation has climbed in recent years, according to a study by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education and the National Science Foundation. Using tax records, the study found 67 percent of foreign students who earned their Ph.D. in 2005 were still in the country in 2007. The rate had dipped for 2003 graduates, a pattern than the study's author attributes to a poor economy and security concerns following the September 11 terror attacks.

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My daily selection of the most interesting news on the internets:

• Britain’s forgotten EU students – An increasingly large percentage of students in British universities are actually EU students. The latest figures from 2004 had 69,000, although anecdotally the last six years seem to have witnessed something of an explosion. Why is no one discussing the impact of EU students on university numbers?
• Forecast shows jobs in Europe becoming more skills- and knowledge-intensive – A new forecast on the demand and supply of skills up to 2020 foresees a steady rise in knowledge- and skill-intensive occupations in Europe. The forecast was presented today by Cedefop, the EU's reference centre for vocational education and training, at the European Commission conference 'New Skills for New Jobs: Action Now'.
• University president re-examines tenure – The leader of the country's largest university thinks it's time to re-examine how professors are awarded tenure, a type of job-for-life protection virtually unknown outside academia.

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My daily selection of the most interesting news on the internets:

• Scientific breakthrough: Eating more makes you fat – Eating large food portions can significantly increase our weight even during short periods – researchers at the University of Ulster have discovered in the first ever study of its kind.
• Obstacles to researchers’ mobility in the EU – Although the free mobility of researchers within the EU was one of the priorities of the European Research Area (ERA) at its creation in 2000, many obstacles to mobility remain. Some of them are ingrained in the lack of flexibility national systems show towards foreign workers. In Germany, Italy and Spain, what can only be described as opaque recruitment practices for senior positions are common.
• Dutch wrong to ban Iranian nuclear students – The Netherlands is wrong to refuse Iranian students places on nuclear engineering masters programmes, a Hague court has ruled. The case was brought by a group of Iranian students who had been denied access to Dutch university courses and nuclear power plants.
• Student protesters occupy Dutch universities – Students have occupied lecture halls and university buildings in Amsterdam, Nijmegen, Utrecht and Rotterdam. Dozens of students entered the buildings, blockaded the entrances and hung up banners. They are protesting against Education Minister Ronald Plasterk's plans for cutbacks in higher education. They are particularly opposed to the abolition of the basic grant and are demanding that the universities and their umbrella organisation the VSNU reject the cutbacks.

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My daily selection of the most interesting news on the internets:

• Earnings Gap Between College and High School Grads Small – Most researchers agree that college graduates, even in rough economies, generally fare better than individuals with only high-school diplomas. But just how much better is where the math gets fuzzy.
• China’s top universities will rival Oxbridge, says Yale president – To create world-class capacity in research, resources must not only be abundant, they must also be allocated on the basis of scholarly and scientific merit, rather than on the basis of seniority or political influence. To create world-class capacity in education, China's curriculum must be broadened and pedagogy transformed. But these are problems that could be solved with sufficient leadership and political will.
• Meet the Erasmus elite: bright stars in a global recession? – What do a loud-mouthed English ladette, a svelte Ukrainian vamp, a dashing Polish casanova and a bagpipe-playing Frenchman all have in common?
• Criticism of Global Rankings Prompts Major Changes and New Players – The Europeans' holistic approach reflects the widespread yearning for user-friendly rankings amid their growing acceptance as an integral part of the international higher-education landscape.

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My daily selection of the most interesting news on the internets:

• LERU: Harvesting talent: strengthening research careers in Europe (pdf) – The League of European Research Universities is pleased to invite you to the launch event of LERU’s latest position paper Harvesting talent: strengthening research careers in Europe. The paper sets out the priority issues that need to be addressed to improve the attractiveness and excellence of research careers.
• EUA promotes full costing – Two projects aimed at improving the ability of European universities to meet the challenges posed by the EU's Lisbon Strategy for increasing the union's technical competitiveness are to be launched by the European University Association. The programmes reflect a need for new tools and methodologies if Europe's higher education sector is to play its part in equipping the EU to compete successfully in tomorrow's world.
• Erasmus Mundus gets good marks – The European Commission's Erasmus Mundus programme of 2004-08, designed to promote the EU as a global 'centre of excellence' in learning, has been judged a success though changes in financing may have to be made if it is to continue in its present form.
• Book Review – ‘The Marketplace of Ideas,’ by Louis Menand – In the four rigorously reasonable essays in “The Marketplace of Ideas,” Louis Menand takes up four questions about American higher education: “Why is it so hard to institute a general education curriculum? Why did the humanities disciplines undergo a crisis of legitimation? Why has ‘interdisciplinarity’ become a magic word? And why do professors all tend to have the same politics?”

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My daily selection of the most interesting news on the internets:

• Where now for European innovation strategy? – Plans to unveil an Innovation Act in time for the spring meeting of EU leaders have been stalled while the new European Commission beds down and looks at broadening the scope of the strategy.
• Ranking of universities and higher education institutions for student information purposes? – In this report, we describe the ranking phenomenon in general and, more specifically, a number of existing ranking systems. We also discuss the prerequisites for and the pros and cons of ranking in terms of information for students.
• The way we learn – In the four rigorously reasonable essays in “The Marketplace of Ideas,” Louis Menand takes up four questions about American higher education: “Why is it so hard to institute a general education curriculum? Why did the humanities disciplines undergo a crisis of legitimation? Why has ‘interdisciplinarity’ become a magic word? And why do professors all tend to have the same politics?”

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