What did the internets bring me today? A lot of presidential hopefuls.

• The World & the US elections – Alan S. Blinder analyses whether Americans are ready to stop the world and shut out reality: among Democrats, this may manifest itself in attitudes toward international trade that range from lukewarm support to outright hostility. Among Republicans, it shows up in attitudes toward immigration – and most things foreign – that border on xenophobia.
• Education & the US elections – Barack Obama, the winner of last week’s Democratic caucuses in Iowa was a favorite of academe. He received about one-third of the total donations that college administrators, faculty members, and other educators have made to presidential candidates. From the Chronicle’s election blog.
• Blogs & the US elections – Over at Crooked Timber they are ahead of the rest. Anticipating an Obama victory, John Holbo polls the likeliness of an Obama/Clinton ticket. The commentators clearly have other combinations in mind.

Filed in: Politics, USA, W - E - B Links | Comment »

Is it the great food with the wonderful local wines? Is it the amazing scenery? Is it the people? Why is Portugal, and Lisbon in particular, such a good place to come to an agreement? At least, that’s what you’re bound to conclude if you consider the amount of recent international documents named "The Lisbon …"

Having just spent a week in Portugal (Aveiro) to teach a course on Globalisation and the Knowledge Society for an Erasmus Mundus programme in Higher Education, I conclude it must be a combination of them. The great Portuguese atmosphere has in the past ten years led to a wide range of global and European decisions taken in Lisbon. The only problem with this is that it also leads to a great deal of confusion about all these agreements. So what are The Lisbon Convention, The Lisbon Agenda, The Lisbon Treaty and the Lisbon Declaration all about?

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Filed in: Europe, Politics, Portugal | 2 Comments »

Even though I am currently in Europe – the Netherlands and Portugal to be exact – I have been following the developments Down Under closely. The victory of Kevin Rudd and his Labor Party cannot exactly be called a surprise, with Labor having led the polls ever since Rudd became leader of the opposition. But what is the meaning of this new leadership for Australian higher education? Will Rudd’s election really bring about the ‘Education Revolution’ that he promised?

First of all, I’m happy that there is a change! After more than 11 years of Howard’s policies, it felt like any change was welcome. But what change is Rudd’s education revolution going to bring? Until a week before the election, Labor’s education revolution has remained full of empty rhetoric. It took until the 14th of November to unveil the plans for the revolution, but I had serious doubt whether these plans could be termed a ‘revolution’. No far reaching changes were proposed for the education revolution, at east not for higher education. The ‘revolution’ basically  was limited to some fellowships and an expansion of the scholarship programme.

One other issue in the Labor agenda was the abolishment of full-fee undergraduate places at public universities. Although this might fall nicely in the Labor tradition, it remains to be seen what it’s effects will be. Andrew Norton and others point to a few issues that need to be raised in this respect.  First of all, the compensation universities will get for this will not cover the loss of income. A possible result of this would be that the universities are even more exposed to pressures to recruit international students and become even more dependent on this market. Not something the Australian universities need at this point in time. And in addition it might even lead to further skill shortages if the self funded places are not replaced by government funded places. Or as Norton puts it:

if Labor in power did not swap those full-fee places with funded places, skills shortages could worsen and universities left with spare capacity would try to recruit foreign students. These would be strange outcomes for a Labor policy advanced on equity grounds.

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Filed in: Australia, Higher Education, Politics | Comment »

French President Sarkozy’s plans for reforming the French economy and the French public sector appears to cause some resistance. From opera employees to fishermen, train drivers, civil servants and postmen, there is hardly a sector that does not complain of some ‘right’ being eroded. Transport workers are striking over government plans to do away with special retirement privileges; Civil servants will go on strike over a plan to streamline the bureaucracy; Judges and court clerks plan a protest against reforms to the court system; Air France cabin crew have threatened to resume a strike in time for the Christmas season…

In this setting, it won’t be a surprise that the students are taking it to the streets as well, to protest against the French university reforms and the  new university law. The new law injects 1 billion euros into higher education, grants universities more freedom to choose their own students and opens the way for some private sector financing to boost the funding of universities. The reforms sparked the fear of privatisation and too much involvement of business in academic maters. Juliette Griffond of the French national student union explained why students are afraid of the reforms:

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Filed in: France, Higher Education, Politics | Comment »

Dutch newspaper the ‘Volkskrant’ has published its annual list of the 200 most influential Dutch people. The list portrays the Dutch ‘old boys network’ that rules the Netherlands through its interpersonal networks and interlocking boards and directorates. Clearly, the strength of weak ties at work; but how are these ties connected to the Dutch universities?

Topping the list this year was Alexander Rinnooy Kan, Chairman of the Social and Economic Council of the Netherlands (SER). His current profile lists chairmanships/memberships of a wide variety of boards and councils, ranging from multinationals to business schools and from museums to hospitals.

The list is assembled according to a network analysis by the Erasmus University in Rotterdam and uses a database of over 8,000 persons. The ranking is based on more than 5000 positions in 1098 bodies in 518 organisations in various sectors. The Queen, Dutch Ministers and Members of Parliament are excluded from the list. For a further explanation of the methodology, have a look here (in Dutch).

I decided to have a closer look at the top 100 and their connections to the Dutch higher education landscape. If we first have a look at the Alma Maters of these powerful individuals, the graph below shows that Leiden University (the oldest university in the Netherlands) has awarded the most degrees to the list. 19 out of 100 attended Leiden University. Interesting detail is that 15 of them studied Law in Leiden (making this club the low countries’ equivalent of the Skull & Bones??).

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Filed in: Higher Education, Netherlands, Politics, Ranking | 1 Comment »

While the rest of the world is concerned with petty issues like the quality of education, access to education, excellence in education, etc, some enlightened patriots with a judaeo-christian heritage xenophobic Dutch Members of Parliament see to it that their Ministry of Education deals with the questions that really matter. Here’s a translation of the formal letter to the deputy minister of education [pdf]:

Questions of Members Wilders and Bosma for the Deputy Minister of Education, Culture and Sciences, Mrs. Bijsterveldt-Vliegenthart about Halal-meals during a school outing of an ROC (ROC stands for Regional Vociational Schools):

1. Are you aware that students of the ROC Amsterdam were only served halal meat during their school outing and that this is confirmed by the ROC?
2. Do you share the opinion that halal meat should not be a main component of a meal at a school outing of a Dutch school?
3. Do you share the opinion that the muslims at our schools should adapt to the Dutch norms and values and not the other way around? If not, why not?
4. Who will be responsible for the additional costs of the (more expensive) halal meat?
5. What do you plan to do in order to prevent students from being forced into a halal barbecue?
6. How will you deal with the ROC Amsterdam?

For people who think this is a joke: unfortunately IT’S NOT! This is apparently what really matters in Dutch education, according to Geert Wilders and his disciples.

Let’s raise the dikes, close the gates, shut down the kebab joints, pizzerias and noodlehouses and enjoy the brussels sprouts and meatbals!

Filed in: Culture, Netherlands, Politics | Comment »

Not many blog posts these days…and that won’t change too much in the next few weeks. I’m working hard to finish two papers for two conferences next month in Austria and Ireland. Before the conferences, I’ll be in the Netherlands for a few weeks.

And talking about the Netherlands… During my frequent short term writer’s blocks I stumbled upon this video called “Sex, Drugs and Democracy”, a documentary about the liberal nature of Dutch society. At least…. the way it was in 1994. It starts with the usual stuff. By now, everyone probably heard about the sex and the drug policies in the Netherlands, so skip that.

A small part – related to society and politics – is actually quite interesting. When I watched the part I thought I was watching a video from the 1980s. And that was not only because of the hairdo (I did know our hair in the eighties was rather ridiculous, but apparently the same goes for the nineties). This part of the documentary illustrates how a society can change in just over 10 years. I’m sure that the movie is rather one-sided even for that time. But still, it’s been a long time since I have seen Dutch people being so proud about:

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Filed in: Culture, Netherlands, Politics | Comment »

Another book to add to my ‘to-read-list’: Asian Godfathers: Money and Power in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia. Newsweek has an article by the author of the book, Joe Studwell. Studwell had expected that the Asian crisis ten years ago would trigger the transition from crony capitalism to a market free of manipulation by bureaucrats and politicians. After the research for his book, he concludes that he was wrong:

The architecture of the Southeast Asian economy remains what it was 10 and 50 and 100 years ago. The domestic economies of Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines are all still dominated by reclusive, enigmatic billionaires and their families.

He observes that inequality has persisted in Southeast Asia and Hong Kong and attributes this to the Asian Godfathers. These Asian billionaires can avoid the pressures for global competitiveness by prospering from concessions, monopolies and cartels. Southeast Asian crony capitalism might have followed quite different historical pats (more…)

Filed in: Asia, Economics, Indonesia, Malaysia, Politics | Comment »

What did the internets bring me today? A lot of truths and lies:

• World news today – healthcare in the US and who is telling the truth? Michael Moore on CNN, demanding an apology.
• Education & Science news today – Dr. Carmona and the administration who had instructed him to put political considerations over scientific ones: truth vs. lies, a.k.a. science versus politics.
• Blog post today: science versus politics was the theme of yesterday’s ‘great global warming swindle’ event. John Quiggin blogs on this hilarious evening and shows how the delusionists were demolished. And Auxedit shows why it was hilarious.

Filed in: Politics, Science, W - E - B Links | Comment »

Nicolas Sarkozy has made higher education reform one of the main issues in his early presidency. In general, the French universities are underfunded and inefficient. Higher education is free (apart from a small registration fee) and funded almost totally by taxpayers money. Universities are state agencies, staff are civil servants and institutional autonomy is lacking. Unsurprisingly, autonomy is the key word of the reforms announced by Sarkozy and Valérie Pécresse, the higher-education minister.

She clarified here autonomy plans in the Economist: (more…)

Filed in: France, Higher Education, Politics | 2 Comments »

Meanwhile in Malaysia, ‘soft authoritarianism‘ seems to get tougher. Elections are coming up and since the Malaysian people are not yet ready for open dialogue, voices have to be silenced. So what do you do? First you silence the blogs that cause ‘disharmony’. That should be enough since – as Marina Mahathir (yes, the outspoken daughter of…) shows – the government has nothing to fear from the regular Malaysian media.

But it was not enough. This news by rising politician Tony Pua should really worry Malaysians. Apparently, instructions were given by some government commission to the various TV stations in Malaysia to ban all footage of opposition leaders. Although this was denied by some TV stations, Malaysiakini published the proof, black on white.

Now…who isn’t ready for an open dialogue?

Filed in: Malaysia, Politics | Comment »

The Jakarta Post reported that the Indonesian Director General for Higher Education, Satryo Soemantri Brodjonegoro would increase the subsidies for universities. The government would disburse a Rp 13.5 trillion (US$1.5 billion) fund next year to subsidize costs at state-run and private universities. Good news for Indonesian higher education? Of course, every extra dollar or rupiah is welcome. But…

Filed in: Asia, Higher Education, Indonesia, Malaysia, Politics | Comment »

Can a country be too democratic? Vice President of Indonesia, Jusuf Kalla, thinks it can be. The Jakarta Post reports on his visit to China, and it seems like Kalla is quite impressed by what is going on in China. If only Indonesia was a bit less democratic they would be able to make the same progress as China is making.

“China’s strength is that it can plan and implement. Our system, which is too democratic with too much individual freedom that often disregards the rights of others, has made it difficult for us to build infrastructure”

“As long as individual right is above public responsibility, we will not progress… That’s the only problem we have now.”

A strong government role can help economic development, as is shown by Indonesia’s neighbors Singapore and Malaysia. But going the same way as China is simply not an option for Indonesia anymore, after almost 10 years of democracy. And despite all the troubles in its short history of democracy, the country is showing progress. Progress not just in terms of economic development but also in terms of intellectual and artistic freedom. Sure…Indonesians might hit the streets a few times too many, but I guess that’s a healthy sign, even though it might not always correspond with the governments plans.

An interesting example is the TV show Newsdotcom, better known as ‘Republik Mimpi‘ or the Republic of Dreams (below is an item on the show by Australian current affairs programme Dateline). (more…)

Filed in: Asia, Humor, Indonesia, Politics | 2 Comments »

The Group of 8, the group of Australia’s leading universities (or self proclaimed Ivy League) has today shared its vision on the future of Australian higher education, or better, what needs to be done to keep it dynamic and competitive. According to the Go8, the current system was designed for a past era and does no longer provide the right framework for universities to perform in a global knowledge economy (something that National University of Singapore president Shih Choon Fong seems to agree with).

The current Australian higher education and research system is under-resourced and over-regulated (hear hear!). But it is also under-planned and insufficiently diversified for the needs of contemporary Australia. The Go8 provides eight proposals that should increase the flexibility that the universities need to remain competitive and that will serve the Australian community: (more…)

Filed in: Australia, Higher Education, Politics | Comment »