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10 février 2013

Our higher education has hit a low: PM Manmohan Singh

With Indian universities repeatedly failing to figure among the top 200 educational institutions of the world, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, in a surprisingly candid speech on Tuesday, acknowledged that the quality of higher education in India has left much to be desired.
Calling for an "over-riding emphasis on quality" at the conference of vicechancellors of central universities organised by President Pranab Mukherjee at Rashtrapati Bhavan, Singh admitted that the unprecedented growth in higher education could be happening without any commensurate improvement in quality.
"We must recognise that too many of our higher educational institutions are simply not up to the mark. Too many of them have simply not kept abreast with the rapid changes that have taken place in the world around us in recent years, still producing graduates in subjects that the job market no longer requires," he said. Read more...

10 février 2013

Govt to scrap university enrollment fees this year

LogoThe government says it has increased assistance funds for higher educational institutions so that state universities can eliminate initial student enrollment fees starting this year.
“This year’s fees will certainly cost less when compared to previous years,” secretary of Education and Culture Ministry’s higher education council Nizam said on Thursday.
The move was made possible by an increase in State University Operational Assistance Funds (BOPTN) to Rp 2.7 (US$278 million) trillion for 2013, up from Rp 1.5 trillion last year. Enrollment fees would be eliminated for students selected by the national entrance test for state universities (SNMPTN) and by those who have independently enrolled and pay a greater portion of their tuition, Nizam said. “The main point of getting rid of the enrollment fees is affordability.”
He said that the ministry would not stop there. “We aim to gradually decrease the cost of study by increasing assistance funds. We will adjust the standardization of state university tuition fees following the removal of the enrollment fees.” Read more...
10 février 2013

Tertiary education: PM launches SPP1M loan

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak today launched the Skim Prihatin Pendidikan 1Malaysia (SPP1M) to assist students at the tertiary level obtain additional study loans. He said the government had allocated a huge sum for study loans and scholarships in view of the rising cost of higher education which puts pressure on parents, especially those paying for their children’s studies.
“Realising the need, the government introduces the SPP1M as additional funding with the loans limited to RM150,000 for a medical specialist course and RM100,000 for the critical courses chosen,” Najib told reporters at the launch ceremony here, today. The SPP1M loan acts as a top-up to the existing National Higher Education Corporation Fund loan for students pursuing their bachelor’s degree or master’s in certain fields. Read more...
10 février 2013

Rich find spirit of generous giving

By He Dan. China's rich showed increasing enthusiasm about making big donations to the nonprofit sector and most of their donations, including pledges, went to universities in 2012, according to a new report. Last year saw charitable gifts of 4.9 billion yuan ($787 million) and pledges of 60 billion yuan from the country's top 100 individual donors, according to the China Philanthropy Research Institute of Beijing Normal University.
The total value was five times that of the previous year, it said. Huang Nubo, chairman of Beijing Zhongkun Investment Group, a private company, topped the list as the most generous donor with a pledged gift of 50 billion yuan to Peking University over 10 years.
Huang, alumnus of Peking University, donated 900 million yuan to the university and another 20 million yuan to another two higher education institutions in 2011. Yang Xiu, a real estate developer in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, ranked third on the list with a generous donation of 400 million yuan to Nanjing University. Read more...

10 février 2013

The World Bank Brings Nazarbayev University to Kazakhstan

logoBy Allen Ruff and Steve Horn. On December 16, 2011, Kazakhstan state security forces opened fire on striking oil workers in the Caspian Sea company town of Zhanaozen. According to the official count, 15 died and upwards of 70 were wounded (unofficial casualty counts ran much higher). Jailings and repression of critics and political opponents of the regime have continued since. The “Zhanaozen Massacre” seemingly went unnoticed by the Western faculty members and administrators working at the recently opened Nazarbayev University, located in the country’s ostentatious new capital, Astana. Opened in 2010, the mutli-billion dollar showcase university came about through a joint venture involving the country’s authoritarian regime under “Leader of the Nation,” Nursultan Nazarbayev, the World Bank, and a number of major—primarily U.S.—“partnering” universities.
As a result of deals shaped and brokered by the World Bank in 2009 and 2010, scores of academics flocked to the resource-rich, strategically located Central Asian country. They remain there despite the fact that every major international human rights monitor has cited the regime for its continuing abuse of civil liberties and basic freedoms. In the process, Kazakhstan has become a proving ground for the World Bank’s “education reform” efforts and a revealing case study of the deep-seated “soft power” workings of the U.S. imperial order. Read more...
10 février 2013

Why Higher Education Must Be Part of Immigration Reform

http://s0.2mdn.net/viewad/1447902/3-97x70_cm_hdr_subscribe.pngBy . Last week, President Obama and a bipartisan group of senators outlined a plan for comprehensive immigration reform. Like the DREAM Act that has stalled for years in Congress, the proposal’s outline hints at an expedited pathway to citizenship for young people who came to the U.S. as children if they attend college or serve in the military. As the details are worked out in the coming weeks, it is critical that legislation include provisions that make it easier for undocumented high schoolers to go to college. Education is the gateway to the American Dream. But today our immigration laws make higher education — a virtual requirement for financial security — out of reach for more than one million undocumented students. Read more...
10 février 2013

University 2060: the brave new world of higher education

The ConversationBy Philip Riley. Higher education, 2060: academics are out of a job. All the brand name universities have made all their courses free online, easily doing away with one side of the teaching and learning equation. Pretty soon all the universities realised how much money they could save.
Tutorials have been replaced by Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) with the wisdom of the crowd sourcing all answers from the students themselves. Algorithms update the online course content in response to the question’s popularity – after all, “the customer is always right”.
Eventually no new information is taught, as it is too difficult to produce. There can be no FAQs for new material. So university courses have become useless. People need to find other ways to learn. Universities took up the idea of the customer is always right earlier than 2012. Students became clients. So it became obvious that student evaluation of teaching results determined careers and promotion of lecturers. Read more...
10 février 2013

University 2060: the brave new world of higher education

The ConversationBy Philip Riley. Higher education, 2060: academics are out of a job. All the brand name universities have made all their courses free online, easily doing away with one side of the teaching and learning equation. Pretty soon all the universities realised how much money they could save.
Tutorials have been replaced by Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) with the wisdom of the crowd sourcing all answers from the students themselves. Algorithms update the online course content in response to the question’s popularity – after all, “the customer is always right”.
Eventually no new information is taught, as it is too difficult to produce. There can be no FAQs for new material. So university courses have become useless. People need to find other ways to learn. Universities took up the idea of the customer is always right earlier than 2012. Students became clients. So it became obvious that student evaluation of teaching results determined careers and promotion of lecturers. Read more...
10 février 2013

End to free postgraduate tuition

http://enews.ksu.edu.sa/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/UWN.jpgBy XinhuaChina’s State Council announced last Wednesday that the country would begin charging tuition fees to all postgraduate students while offering more flexible choices of student financial aid, reports the official agency Xinhua. Starting in the Autumn semester of 2014, all new postgraduates will be charged tuition fees, the cabinet said in a statement. Previously, students on government-funded postgraduate programmes enjoyed tuition waivers. The country will improve its financial aid system, introducing more kinds of scholarships as well as loans to help students cover their fees, the statement said. The central government also vowed gradually to increase funds earmarked for improving the quality of postgraduate education. Under the new policy, yearly tuition fees for masters degrees and doctorates in academic disciplines are capped at 8,000 yuan (US$1,272) and 10,000 yuan respectively.
Full report on the http://China.org site. Read more...
10 février 2013

MOOCs – Mistaking brand for quality?

http://enews.ksu.edu.sa/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/UWN.jpgBy Stamenka Uvalic-TrumbicIn 2012 MOOCs were the sensation of the year in US higher education, and they continue to fascinate the media and bloggers. The recent annual conference of CHEA, the US Council for Higher Education, in Washington, DC, held a session on MOOCs that brought together the enthusiasm of Coursera – a for-profit start-up that helps some 30 universities to offer MOOCs – the views of university President Paul Leblanc, and the perspective of US regional accrediting body NEASC (New England Association of Schools and Colleges).
Where are MOOCs going?
Educational technology has a history of fads. However, the volume of MOOCs activity, even though largely US-based, means that MOOCs will evolve rather than disappear. The UK is now joining the fray as Futurelearn, a new company owned by the Open University and which includes 10 top UK universities, the BBC and the British Council – launches its global MOOCs initiative. Read more...
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