By David Matthews for Times Higher Education. Almost one in eight students at part of a British branch campus in Dubai have been found guilty of cheating, it has emerged, with low entry standards being blamed for the figures. One hundred and twenty-five students out of 1,045 in total were found guilty of academic misconduct at Heriot-Watt University Dubai Campus’ School of Management and Languages in 2011-12. Read more...
By Valerie Strauss. Earlier this year China began a major education reform initiative designed to increase student engagement and end student boredom and anxiety. Curbing standardized testing was one aim. Scholar Yong Zhao wrote about it first in this post, and, now, below, gives us the latest developments. Yong Zhao is the presidential chair and director of the Institute for Global and Online Education in the College of Education, University of Oregon, where he is also a professor in the Department of Educational Measurement, Policy, and Leadership. This is an updated version of a piece that appeared on his blog. Read more...
By Hannah Smith. Growing up between countries makes it hard to define home, says a student at an international school in Beijing. By Graeme Atherton. Is university access really wider in London? Graeme Atherton says it's time to rethink the way we measure widening access. London is the driving force of higher education participation in England, and widening participation in particular – at least that's what the latest Hefce report would have us believe. Participation in higher education has increased by more than 13% in London since 1998-99. And in the city's low participation neighbourhoods, participation rates have almost doubled. More...By Abby Young-Powell and Libby Page. Homeless students, poppy-trashing and the poshness of Oxbridge names: in our new blog we discuss this week's student news. By Claire Shaw. From flexible learning to employer involvement, experts from our recent live chat offer their advice on how we can move forward. By Harriet Swain. The case of an 81-year-old Algerian historian highlights how overseas academics are being denied short-term entry to the UK – much to the disgust of British conference organisers. When organisers of a workshop held earlier this month at All Souls College, Oxford, invited an eminent Algerian academic to be a keynote speaker, they assumed his visa would be a mere formality. Sid-Ahmed Kerzabi has had a long and distinguished career as a historian, film-maker and specialist in cultural heritage, and is a former director of both the Tassili National Park, a world heritage site in the Sahara, and of the Bardo Museum in Algiers. He is also connected to the Algerian ministry of culture.
Turkish universities should not hesitate to open their doors to more foreign scholars and students, President Abdullah Gül said during a speech at his eponymous university urging for the encouragement of increasing contact with other academic cultures.
“I will tell the Higher Education Board [YÖK] when I meet them. Don’t hesitate to bring more foreign students and scholars [to Turkey]. Quite on the contrary, let’s encourage it,” Gül said in his address during the start of the academic year at Abdullah Gül University in his hometown of Kayseri on Oct. 25. More...
By S.C. AS THIS week’s special report on the Koreas points out, South Korea’s education system is both inspiring and intimidating. The country’s 15-year-olds ranked fourth in science (excluding Shanghai and Hong Kong), second in maths and first in reading in the 2009 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Its youngsters (aged between 16 and 24) did equally well in the OECD’s international survey of adult skills, released this month.
But South Korea’s enthusiasm for education has also been likened to a “fever”. Students spend long hours in hagwon, private cram schools, trying to outdo their peers in crucial exams and tests that have lasting consequences for their subsequent careers. In principle these tests are simply a measuring device, allowing universities and employers to rank students according to their underlying abilities. More...
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