Formation Continue du Supérieur

E-TRAIN Dissemination Conference - On 14 and 15 June 2012 ECA and ANECA organised the conference “Designing a European QA Expert: Prêt-à-porter vs Haute couture” in Madrid, Spain.
The conference main aim was to disseminate the results of the ECA project European Training of QA Experts (E-TRAIN). The training programmes for European QA experts and QA staff members were presented. The perspectives and project experiences of the trainers, trained experts and staff members were  shared with the audience as well. Also the main stakeholders’ organisations: ENQA, EUA, EURASHE and ESU were invited to present their perspectives on the experts training issues.
The discussion focused on the possible continuation of the E-TRAIN project. The participants agreed that training European QA experts is a natural consequence of the European Higher Education Area. It was also agreed that the training programme needs to be further developed in order to fit the purposes of various types of assessments.
During the conference other project results presented too. One of these results, the ECApedia, which brings together the knowledge for carrying out reviews, can be found here.
Another project outcome is the European Experts Exchange Database, which aims to share European experts among participating agencies so that they can participate in procedures in multiple countries. The experts database was discussed and enthusiastically welcomed by the participants.
The conference programme, presentations and photos can be found here.
For more information on the E-TRAIN project please visit the project page.

ECA project selected by EU: Certificate for the Quality of Internationalisation. The executive agency of the European Commission has selected the project Certificate for the Quality of Internationalisation (CeQuInt) for co-funding.
The project is implemented by a consortium of 14 partners from 11 countries, consisting of quality assurance agencies from Austria, Belgium (Flanders), Croatia, Germany (2), Finland, France (2), the Netherlands, Poland, Slovenia and Spain (2), the Academic Cooperation Association (ACA ) and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). NVAO is the coordinating agency.
The overall aim of the project is to assess, reward and enhance internationalisation.
CeQuInt will provide programmes and institutions insight into their level and quality of internationalisation and provide them, where necessary, with recommendations for improvements. The project is based on a framework agreed by the consortium, focuses on improvement and excellence, and builds on NVAO's experience with the assessment of internationalisation.
The project will develop an assessment framework (i.e. methodology) that can be used to assess the internationalisation of a programme or an institution. The framework and methodology are then tested in a series of twelve pilot procedures. Panels of experts will thereby test and evaluate the developed assessment framework.
European Internationalisation Certificate
A positive assessment by an expert panel will lead to the award of the European Certificate for Internationalisation. This certificate confirms that a programme or institution has successfully included an international and/or intercultural dimension in the purpose, function and delivery of its education.
The consortium hopes that the European Certificate for Internationalization will lead to a significant improvement in the transparency of internationalisation. Higher education institutions will be kept informed about the progress of the project through workshops, conferences and publications. Additionally, a European platform will be developed to share good practices in the field of internationalisation.

By Vassiliki Papatsiba. The last seminar of the Centre for Higher Education Research and Information (CHERI)
On June 21st, around 30 present and former CHERI staff, associates, visiting professors, collaborators and friends gathered for a final seminar at Kings Place in Central London. The seminar theme was ‘Who needs higher education research, and why?’. Notes on some of the seven presentations can be accessed here. The seminar also received a message from Professor Craig Calhoun, President of the US Social Science Research Council in New York. Read Professor Calhoun’s message.
‘Who needs higher education research, and why?’ by Dr Vassiliki Papatsiba
Thanks very much for your invitation to share with all of you here today a few thoughts, my emotion, and finally a great deal of hope about CHERI’s lasting contribution to higher education research, nationally and internationally. For this special event, you asked us to reflect on an interesting question about ‘who needs higher education research, and why’. Although I was initially tempted to jump in with both feet, I progressively came to realise that I had three problems with the question, but please let me explain.
My first problem was with the pronoun ‘who’. I wondered: would this assume that we can identify and name distinctive constituencies, users, customers, stakeholders, and so on, such as government officials, chief executives of funding agencies, senior managers at HEIs, other researchers, interest groups, various categories of citizens, and so on?
Second problem: I felt puzzled by the expression Higher Education Research and started wondering about its boundaries. How broad and comprehensive should one be when considering the field, especially given the ways in which it has developed, its stage of maturity, and finally its institutional basis? In other words, what ought to be defined as research in or on higher education? Would that mainly be theory-informed (or less frequently theory-based) empirical studies, research primarily seeking to find out ‘what is out there’ and collecting ‘evidence’ (including institutional or in-house research, commissioned work, etc.), or would one include other forms of inquiry and knowledge-seeking endeavours as well, such as scholarship and critical reflection and finally practitioner research?
Finally, my third problem was about the verb ‘need’. It seems to me that there is a connotation here about some kind of lacuna that the use of research findings will satisfy, in a fairly instrumental and linear way: pressing, acute issues will be smoothed or even cured, knowledge gaps will be filled, and finally efficient decisions will be reached. It follows that appropriate action will be taken which ultimately addresses and satisfies that need. Additionally, the verb ‘need’ bears the expectation of a transaction that focuses on user’s satisfaction. I wonder: is there an underlying view that research should address the requirements of customers, and their agendas, goals, aspirations and so on or has it a way to signpost to an outward looking inquiry mindset? Clearly, these are value-laden questions that, in addition, mirror more fundamental ones about who ought to define research agendas, who should participate in defining research problems, and finally, and perhaps more fundamentally, to what extent these should be closely mapped against social and policy issues. As early as in the 1930’s, scholars such as J.D. Bernal and Michael Polanyi inquired into the purpose and utility of science (and social science) and their disagreement is indicative of a difficult, continuing debate, while it exemplifies the polarization that has taken place.
To sum up, in the light of these three problems, one can safely conclude that “Who needs higher education research?” is a good question!
Pursuing my questioning about the meaning of ‘who’, and acknowledging CHERI’s fate, it may be tempting to conclude that not an overwhelming number of identifiable individuals, groups, or organisations would ‘need’ higher education research, at least not exactly right now, nor in a near foreseeable future. Having said that, I will try to present a reflection that might help us to overcome the disenchantment with CHERI’s closure, event which can indicate something of an apparent lack of interest/usefulness of higher education research. Before that, I shall briefly touch upon on the ‘why’ of such an apparent lack of a ‘need’ for higher education research, via a series of further questions. I wondered: is it because priorities have to be set and choices have to be made within a world of finite resources, hence more urgent or bigger needs are to be addressed first? Alternatively or additionally, is it because other fields of research and inquiry are more valued intellectually, socially, economically, and if so, would preferences for disciplines reflect the extent to which social sectors and activities enjoy different degrees of legitimacy? Furthermore, one can question whether higher education research would have yielded outcomes that satisfy the stakeholders’ utility expectations? Finally, one could question the nature/quality of higher education research and the extent to which the field is ripe for ‘exploitation’? Although legitimate, these questions are, as Toulmin (1964) put it, a ‘chalk-and-cheese’ problem, pointing to choices that have to be made and are at heart political ones. All too often, these choices are presented as economic or technical problems, qualification that disguises their political dimension.
Going back to my questioning of the meaning of ‘who’ and trying to address it, I shall err on the optimistic side. I want to argue here that despite the apparent lack of nominated customers or ‘stakeholders’, ‘who need higher education research’, higher education research benefits society because it can infuse into ways of thinking and acting of a society. I will try to develop my argument building on March and Olsen’s (1989) elaboration of the ‘aggregative’ and ‘integrative’ models of social organisation which, in turn, draws on ‘contractual’ and ‘communal’ approaches of political systems. I shall combine this political approach with propositions about the ways in which research can be ‘utilised’, especially in the policy arena, but also more generally in society. Weiss’s (1974) models of research utilisation are relevant to this discussion. I shall focus on two of her models, in particular the Enlightenment Model and the model of Research as Part of the Intellectual Enterprise of the Society.
In trying to identify ‘who’ needs higher education research, my first response is society at large, in a view that does not consider it as an aggregation of identifiable individuals, groups, organizations and so on, but in an integrative view which posits that the whole exceeds its individual constitutive parts. The aggregative and integrative approaches of social organisation rest on two contending world views, as I will go on to explain. To start with the aggregative view, this considers society as an aggregate of self-interested actors who act rationally in order to maximise their resources. Thus, transactions are committed with certain resources (power) and interests. Actors engage in bargaining and exchange in the service of prior preferences and calculated expected utility. Briefly put, the aggregative approach highlights the instrumental premises and purpose of a transaction: there is a need and a goal justifying a certain transaction between actors within a system governed by economic rationality.
However, despite the currency of this approach and its aptness to shed light on several situations, it cannot fully explain social order. If rational exchange, in the service of utility maximisation and self-interest, was the glue of society, then individuals would consistently use force and fraud to achieve their ends. Although this is happening, and social anomie is indeed part of social phenomena, economic theory falls short in fully explaining social order. Society can only exist where there are shared traditions, cultures and institutions. This dimension is emphasised by the integrative approach.
The integrative approach conveys an ideal of collective synergy and externalities, implying that outcomes may benefit not only those who are directly involved in a certain interaction (and not simply transaction), but the wider environment in which the interaction takes place. The integrative approach involves a commitment to something larger than the individual, the creation of shared history and culture, in a configuration characterised by the logic of unity, rather than the logic of exchange. Reasoned deliberation in search of common good, instead of bargaining, is the guiding principle. Although this approach does not deny asymmetries of power, coupled with enduring tension and potential conflicts, it considers them as a basis for engaging in deliberation in order to build a “mutual understanding, a collective will, trust and sympathy. (...). The key integrative processes (...) seek the creation, identification, and implementation of shared preferences.” (March & Olsen 1989, 126). Hence, a socialisation process is at work here, bearing project and aspiration. During this process, moral and competent actors engage in the interpretation of a situation, seeking and creating meaning that exceeds the purely instrumental calculation. This ‘communal’ approach places them in a historical perspective conducive to shared values and norms, joint purpose and trust. This is a continuous, yet not hopeless, challenge.
Bringing these strands of my argument together, I will try to address how these approaches can inform the definition of ‘who’. According to the aggregative model of social organisation, a customer, a policy body for instance, would have a clearly identified need and a goal which can be met by use of research. This need is usually a certain problem and the goal would be a preferred course of remedial action. The way they can go about these, at least in an ideal world, is to either directly commission research, or draw on available research, in order to solve the problem and proceed in decision making and action taking. In the integrative view of society, defining ‘who’ would need higher education research is not as straightforward as
simply nominating distinctive customers and stakeholders and identifying their problem. ‘Utilising’ higher education research would not just be taking a piece of research to fill an information gap. Here research findings are not simply delivered to the interested customer, following a linear transaction between producer and user. The broader issue of research ‘ownership’ and potential benefit is more complex than the aggregative model of exchange would suggest.
In order to show the complexities of the public dimension of knowledge, I shall combine this reading of social organisation with Weiss (1974) models of research utilization. Two models, in particular, would be of interest in this discussion of knowledge trajectories, from an integrative view of society. The first one is the Enlightenment Model. Here, research findings slowly permeate the public sphere, broadly conceived, and gradually shape the way people think about particular issues or problems. Knowledge diffusion, as assumed in this model, rests on a conception of society as democratic organisations. Release of research findings, even unpalatable ones, filters through to the public and increases its wisdom, and its disposition towards action. Research, and knowledge in general, distils into ways of public framing of social issues. In many societies, particularly open, democratic ones, an informed public is a very powerful lobby group, and can influence policy decisions gradually over a period of time. The existence of scholarly journals and informed discussion of policy issues through the mass media are indicators of the Enlightenment Model. Finally, this model does assume transactional linearity between produces and users within a problem-solving context, neither does it consider compatibility between ‘need’ and ‘response’ a necessary condition for a successful use of research.
The second model, also compatible with the integrative view of society and political systems, sees research as Part of the Intellectual Enterprise of the Society. One might call it an embedded model, according to which research is not an insular activity that takes place within bounded ‘holly’ spaces but is indeed an interconnected part within the intellectual enterprise of society. Thus, it is embedded in its ways of thinking and acting and can influence public policy, alongside other activities and considerations, be they political, social and economic. Weiss considers this conception of research (and social science research) as susceptible to influences from wider social paradigms. As she puts it ‘like policy, social science research responds to the currents of thought, the fads and fancies, of the period. Social science and policy interact, influencing each other and being influenced by the larger fashions of social thought.’ (ibid, p. 430).
In the scholarship of Higher Education Research, this approach can be qualified as an ‘externalist’ approach to higher education, science and knowledge generation as it encompasses arguments about the embedded nature of scientific knowledge within wider social relations. It also conveys a critical view on the University establishment, with the legitimacy it affords to scientific status and academic autonomy in defining research agendas. Nowotny and colleagues (2001) have portrayed this view of society as a Mode 2 society in which ‘the categorisations of modernity into discrete domains’ such as state, society, market, culture and science itself are dissolving, and institutional boundaries are getting increasingly porous. They call for knowledge to be integrated in the ‘new public space’ - the so-called agora, where science and society, the market and politics co-mingle (p. 203) allowing for socially distributed expertise to emerge. This knowledge integration becomes a structural feature of knowledge societies, according to Knorr Cetina (2007). The epistemic cultures, as she puts it, have permeated society to the extent that “a knowledge society is not simply a society of more knowledge and technology and of the economic and social consequences of these factors. It is also a society permeated with knowledge settings, the whole sets of arrangements, processes and principles that serve knowledge and unfold with its articulation.” (p. 362).
I will here try to bring my reflection to a close while I remain conscious of the shortcomings in my proposal. Above all, sadly, it cannot satisfy an identified need, that is, it cannot efficiently address the acute problems that CHERI has been faced with. However it is an optimistic approach of the research endeavour which takes a historical view and the socialization process into account. It can be a long-term ally and stay with us, while it will continue to remind us that CHERI has made a contribution in this field of higher education research. No one has the ability to foresee and accurately predict the ways in which the work undertaken by CHERI will continue to address the needs of various communities, be they policy, scholarly
or civic one. However it can offer plenty of hope that CHERI’s research will infuse, resurface, shape and frame the ways in which people think of higher education nationally and internationally. As CHERI is slowly entering the realm of legacy, one can only consider this to be the privilege of those who have had a distinguished contribution, and have influenced the ways in which people, in an increasingly interconnected world, think of social and public issues.
References
Knorr Cetina, K. (2007). Culture in global knowledge societies: Knowledge cultures and epistemic cultures. Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 32(4), 361-375.
March , J., and Olsen, J. (1989). Rediscovering Institutions: The Organizational Basis of Politics. New York: Free Press.
Nowotny, H., Scott, P. and Gibbons, M. (2001). Re-thinking science: Knowledge and the Public in an Age of Uncertainty. Cambridge: Polity press.
Toulmin, S. (1964). The Complexity of Scientific Choice: A Stocktaking. Minerva 2(3), 343–359.
Weiss, C. (1979). The Many Meanings of Research Utilization. Public Administration Review 39(5), 426-431.

By Terri Kim. The last seminar of the Centre for Higher Education Research and Information (CHERI)
On June 21st, around 30 present and former CHERI staff, associates, visiting professors, collaborators and friends gathered for a final seminar at Kings Place in Central London. The seminar theme was ‘Who needs higher education research, and why?’. Notes on some of the seven presentations can be accessed here. The seminar also received a message from Professor Craig Calhoun, President of the US Social Science Research Council in New York. Read Professor Calhoun’s message.
‘Who needs higher education research, and why?’ by Terri Kim
First of all, I would like to thank you, John, for giving me this honour to speak in this special CHERI event.
I was first introduced to the CHERI by Maurice and Mary soon after I joined Brunel as a research lecturer in 2003. I still remember clearly when John invited me to become a CHERI Associate. It was in 2006. I was then based in Paris as a visiting scholar at the Collège de France. I was so thrilled and grateful to have the invitation and subsequently receive an official letter signed by the VC Brenda Gourley which was to confer the appointment.
Attending the CHERI Higher Education Study Group seminars was a really important part of my academic identity whilst working in the Brunel Education Department, where I was the only one engaged in higher education research. Looking back, I can see how I have matured over the years to become an academic fully committed to higher education studies and that identity is my intellectual gyroscope and will not change wherever I go.
I find the CHERI seminar question today “who needs higher education research and why? very important and thought-provoking. It was necessary for me to mull it over.
My immediate answer to the question is that we all need higher education research as much as universities serve the needs of individuals, society, economy, politics and culture. However, I would like to emphasise the importance of ‘critical higher education research’ and that is above all and first of all for the university academics.
Higher education that is taking place inside universities is more than professional training, and thus university academics need to be critically aware of the normative assumptions about professional accountability of the politics of our time. Who has provided this definition? Also it seems possible to ask, ‘accountability for whom’? – and in whose interests, and for what purposes?
After all, higher Education research cannot be detached from a particular political and societal context, nor can be unrelated to the interpretations of being and time, invoking Heidegger’s Sein und Zeit (1927). Higher education research should raise and answer to some fundamental questions such as:
• What are universities for?
• To whom should they be useful and accountable?
• Who says so and why?
Contemporaneously university academics in the UK and many other countries across the globe, where the new public management has been carried out, are living with surveillance, accountability and managerialism.
The bureaucracy of surveillance grows; surveillance becomes institutionalised within the university; and the surveillance becomes internalised. The neoliberal discourse of corporatist management as ‘governmentality’ (following Foucault) has managed to take hold of, and is entrenched in, the university academic psyche as subjectification (Foucault, 1978). This phenomenon is now - in my judgement - widespread.
Meanwhile, there is a fracturing of the class within the university academic profession, reconstructed as both “managers” and “clerks” – as invoked by Professor Robert Cowen, my former doctoral supervisor at the Institute of Education.
These phenomena have become transnational. We have seen the emergence of a transnational mobile academic elite as well as a mobile academic under-class, (which is a part of my ongoing research funded by SRHE). The process of making universities into managed organisations as subordinate to the values and role of the corporate has required a conversion from academic leadership which used to be primus inter pares to managerial skills & competencies (in line management).
Brigitte Bönisch-Brednich, a Professor of Anthropology in Victoria, New Zealand, who is originally from Germany, offers a powerful analysis of her position as an academic migrant in the neoliberal market-framed university. She says the corporatist performativity regime often creates another layer of culture shock to her as a German academic migrant. I quote - “it is experienced as a deep intrusion into my academic identity. It is an imposition of another learning process in the entrepreneurial system of producing and selling knowledge. Resisting this often means a slow or sudden professional death” (Bönisch-Brednich, 2010).
We, as university academics, need to be critically aware that the University has become a site of ‘managed’ knowledge production, and we should be able to see who defines what counts as ‘product’; and who benefits from the new patterns of ‘a university career’.
As more and more academics are categorised as academic experts, many of them increasingly define their roles as ‘researchers’ with transferable methodological research “skills”.
University academics need critical higher education research to remain alert and see also if T&L has become an ideology, in which knowledge contents are increasingly defined by skills, including “soft skills” which are now seen as key to employability and considered more important than subject knowledge per se.
Similarly, it seems that the majority of university academics no longer need to profess.
In the advancement of online course development, university lecturers are told that they do not need to give lectures anymore. At Brunel University, for instance, the staff development workshops on teaching and learning are increasingly focusing on technology-driven online learning. The workshop instructor invited from Oxford Brooks University as a specialist in online course development said to us that we do not need to create academic contents, as these are already available online.
Nowadays star professors’ lectures are recorded and disseminated online and the role of ordinary academics is to facilitate students’ ‘learning’, coordinating discussion based on online lectures.
All of these, I suggest, confirm the further division of academic labour, commodification of academic knowledge, and academics’ alienation from knowledge capital.
The global expansion of neoliberal market-framed university regimes nowadays has left very little space available for ‘university academics as critical public intellectuals’, who would like to keep the position as a free-floating critical thinker whose creative role is to engage as ‘legislator’ and ‘interpreter’ – invoking Bauman (1989) - contributing to a ‘creative destruction’ and reconstruction of the paradigms of thoughts (Kim, 2010).
All in all, universities are already part of the culture, which, in principle, they should reform. It is in this context that I suggest we/academics need ‘critical higher education research’ more than ever before. Criticality is an essential part of academic identities. However, given the current climate of corporatist academic conformity, being critical is often criticised as if it is the same as being negative and pessimistic.
References
Bönisch-Brednich, B. (2010) 'Strangers on Campus: Academic Migrants and University Policies of Hiring International Excellence', In Mayerhofer, R. & Kriebernegg, U. (eds) Multiculturality and Education. Graz.
Foucault, M. (1978). The Will to Knowledge. The History of Sexuality vol 1. London: Penguin.
Kim, T. (2010) ‘Transnational Academic Mobility, Knowledge and Identity Capital’ In Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education. Special Issue on International Academic Mobility. Edited by Johannah Fahey and Jane Kenway. Vol. 31, No. 5, pp. 577-592 October.

By Lee Chang-sup. In recent years, it has become common for college students in Korea to delay graduation by one or two years. These “professional students” — a colloquial term for college students who decide to stay in school for many years rather than to begin their careers —have become a headache to their parents, the universities, and even to themselves.
Faced with the tough job market, these college students put off graduation for as long as they could. During this period, many students also decide to pursue English language training overseas.
According to the Bank of Korea, one in 10 college students and one in two from prestigious Seoul universities went overseas for language training last year. This brings the total to approximately 125,000 college students; this is the first time the number of such students exceeded the 100,000 mark. The students’ destinations include English-speaking countries such as the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, as well as countries in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and Asia, especially China.
Overseas language training is not limited to college students. For instance, 50,000, 90,000, and 30,000 students at the primary, middle, and high school levels, respectively also went overseas last year for short-term language training, mostly in English-speaking countries.
Most college students pursue language training overseas in order to improve their job-related credentials. However, recruiters may not necessarily equate overseas language-training certificates and high TOEIC, TOEFL, and TEPS scores to higher job-related skills.
Moreover, the effectiveness of overseas language training is still unclear. For instance, while overseas, some students reportedly hire friends to attend classes in their place. Moreover, many Korean students room together at the dorms, and thus end up communicating mostly in Korean than in the foreign language they intended to learn. Without using the foreign language daily, it would be difficult to gain fluency.
Parents must therefore take these considerations in mind when deciding whether to send their children to study language overseas. Even if such overseas training programs are effective, they are an expensive endeavor, with many parents borrowing money to pay for the training.
The Bank of Korea estimated that Korean families spent a total of ₩5 trillion (US$4.5 billion) last year for their children’s overseas studies. It costs about ₩45 million (US$40,000) for a student to undergo one-year language training overseas, which is twice the per-capita income of Koreans.
What many parents and students do not realize is that mastering a foreign language does not have to be expensive; there are many other cheaper but equally effective ways to do.
In this era of mobile technology and hyper-connectivity, the only investments parents and students need are the curiosity and patience to learn another language. For instance, parents with a high English proficiency may teach the language to their children themselves.
Another useful way to master English is to read a local English daily regularly. The Korea Times, for example, uses 10,000 vocabularies that are also found in English proficiency tests such as the TOEIC, TOEFL, and TEPS.
Thus, reading an English daily may be an effective alternative to studying for and taking the above tests. For beginners, a local English daily, rather than foreign dailies such as The New York Times and USA Today, may be a good place to start learning English because it uses the English language to chronicle Korean news, events, and issues that are relevant and familiar to the student.
Dr. Park Myung-seok, a professor emeritus of the English Language Department of Dankook University, is an ardent advocate of this method of learning English. He has advised college deans and presidents on the issue of helping students learn English through reading local English dailies. He lamented that even English-language professors seldom appreciate the usefulness of local English dailies for helping students develop their language proficiency.
This writer agrees with Park that English dailies can be an effective tool for mastering English, and I am not just saying this out of self promotion. I speak based on my own experience; having been an avid reader of local English dailies since college, I consider myself a role model for students struggling to learn English. Other shining examples of people who have taught themselves English by reading local English dailies include the late President Kim Dae-jung, the late fashion designer Andre Kim, and Korea International Cooperation Agency President Park Dae-won.
Another important point that many English learners sometimes forget is that developing one’s fluency in the Korean language is also important in mastering English, as a limited knowledge of the Korean language can also limit one’s potential for learning a foreign language. Just as native English speakers do not automatically mean they speak and write English well, native Korean speakers do not necessarily have a mastery of their native language.
The growing exodus of students pursuing language training overseas is also a wake-up call for colleges, whose curricula focus too much on academic English vocabulary, which is seldom used in daily life.
This is also a call for the Education Ministry to review its policy of excluding current English in official tests.
Seoul, in particular, needs an educational policy to help parents teach their children English rather than sending them to expensive overseas programs. Sending children to such programs is like giving them fish; on the other hand, by helping their children learn English using tools such as local English dailies, parents are teaching them how to catch fish. 
Lee Chang-sup is the executive managing director of The Korea Times. Contact him at editorial@koreatimes.co.kr.

By Luo Wangshu. Gan Xiaoying has only one regret about sending her 15-year-old son to study overseas: She will miss him too much.
"It will be hard, but it's worth it," said the Chongqing mother, whose son will start at a British boarding school in fall.
"I trust the Western education system, and I hope he'll adapt to the environment and culture quickly," she said, adding that she believes the younger a child goes abroad, the better.
Although it's not a sentiment that has universal support in China, data suggest more people are turning away from the traditional belief that overseas study should be reserved for postgraduates.
A poll for the latest China Education Xiaokang Index found that almost 40 percent of Chinese believe that the best time for someone to study abroad is at the undergraduate level, while about 21 percent said it is during high school.
Only 17 percent stick with the traditional idea of students not going overseas until they have bachelor's degrees, and about 4 percent said it should be at the post doctoral level, according to the report compiled by Xiaokang, a State-run magazine.
As the average age of Chinese students going abroad has dropped, so too has the number of youths taking the gaokao, or national college entrance exam.
About 9.15 million high school students nationwide took the make-or-break test in June, 180,000 fewer than in 2011. This is the fourth consecutive year that the number has fallen.
The number of high school students in major cities who opted out of the gaokao for overseas study increased by 20 percent last year compared with 2010, according to a 2011 trends report by the China Education Association for International Exchange.
The popularity of overseas English tests echoes the trend.
Educational Testing Service, a private, nonprofit educational testing and assessment organization in the United States, announced in February a 19 percent increase in the number of Chinese taking the TOEFL exam in 2011 from the prior year, marking the largest number of Chinese TOEFL test takers ever. ETS has also developed a TOEFL Junior test for younger test takers.
China is the greatest student export source for many countries. In the US, 127,628 students from China attended colleges or universities in the 2009-10 school year, marking the largest international student population, according to the Open Doors 2010 Report on college demographics for international students, released by the Institute of International Education, a nonprofit agency that offers policy research and education exchange program in the US.
William Vanbergen, founder of British Education, a Shanghai-based education consulting company, told China Daily that young children find it easier to get accustomed to foreign environments and cultures.
"The younger they go, the easier for children to pick up the way of thinking and language," he said.
The pressure of gaokao is another key reason for parents to send their children abroad earlier.
Rupert Hoogewerf, founder of Hurun Rich List, said students go abroad to study at a younger age because of worries about gaokao.
"There is no guarantee that if a student does well in gaokao, he or she will be a success in life," said the Briton. "To get success, other abilities are needed, such as leadership, innovation ability, communication skills, etc. And these schools are quite good at building these skills."
However, Xia Xueluan, a retired professor of sociology at Peking University, sounded a note of caution, warning that sending kids overseas when they are too young could cause problems.
"It is better for children to go when they can manage themselves well," Xia said, adding his opinion that the best age to go study abroad is graduate level.
He said many misunderstandings of Chinese education currently exist. "Chinese foundational education is firm," he said.
Contact the writer at luowangshu@chinadaily.com.cn

By Mustika Hapsoro. The plethora of scholarships offering programs to study overseas have opened the opportunity for all Indonesians from all walks of life to expand their educational plans. Possibilities that were once hindered by financial setbacks and distance have now been made attainable. However, as those opportunities have increased there are still essential issues that one must think about before deciding to study abroad.
A lot of things go through the mind of prospective university students; like how to prepare for the university entrance exams, what the admission process would be like, adapting to a new environment, acceptance of peers, and so forth. If that’s stressful enough, think about the students who plan to travel thousands of miles away from home to study and live there for quite a length of time. Even after passing the first steps of getting to study abroad, you might still think about the obstacles that lay ahead, like adapting to a completely different society, coping with home sickness, culture shock, all while trying to excel academically.
This Sunday at @America, Pacific Place mall, the Indonesian Club at Stanford in collaboration with Indonesia Mengglobal will hold a presentation sharing the experiences of both graduates and current Indonesian students in the United States answering questions and doubts of prospective students who share the same field of interest.
The event's speakers hail from Stanford University, University of California Berkeley, Wesleyan University, Vanderbilt University, University of Pennsylvania and Harvard Law School.
“The presentation is aimed to provide important information particularly to those who are thinking of going to the US for college or pursuing graduate degrees in law, business, or engineering,” says Marsha Sugana, finance and public policy major at the Vanderbilt University. “Attendees should get a better idea of the requirements of the admissions process and also what it is like to study in the United States.”
Most countries with a big population like Indonesia have an Indonesian students association known as either Perhimpunan Pelajar Indonesia in almost every country. Each campus in those countries with a large group of Indonesian students forms a sub-group of Indonesian students like the Indonesian Club at Stanford. These organizations not only function as a networking between the students but also direct them to not neglect their responsibilities as students as well as representatives of Indonesia.
Unlike the rest of the Indonesian student societies, Indonesia Mengglobal is a group of students and alumni from renowned universities in the US who attempt to connect themselves to Indonesian students curious about global education. Their website indonesiamengglobal.com is a source for information regarding college applications in the US.
“As current students and alumni, we truly appreciate the good quality of education and the breadth of experience that we've been lucky to have in the US,” says Angelina Veni Johanna co-editor of Indonesia Mengglobal and President of the Indonesian club at Stanford. “Applying to US schools can be both tricky and scary for most people — we have been in their shoes. Through this event, we want to encourage prospective applicants to apply and address any questions or doubts they might have.”
In the event, speakers will go in depth about what propelled them to study abroad, the different systems of educations in the US, and how it has benefitted them.
“One of the most important skills that I developed is the agility to adapt to a new environment,” shares Stevia Angesty, who has recently earned her Masters in Material Science and Engineering from Stanford University.
“Education in the US not only provides me with the most advanced technical skills but it also exposes me to people with different backgrounds. Working and spending time with such a diverse group of people alone opened my mind and polished my interpersonal skills a lot,” says Stevia.
The presentation will be divided into two main sessions. The first session opens at 1:00 p.m to 2:30 p.m dedicated to those looking to enroll for the undergraduate program followed by the next session at 3:30-5:00 p.m for graduate students.
Each session is divided into 4 topics. The topics of the first session will start with “Why Studying in the US?,” followed by discussing about community college, freshman application and undergraduate scholarships. The graduate application session is also divided in four sessions that will discuss about science and engineering school, business school, law school and graduate scholarships.
“I believe the speakers at this event, all of whom have attended highly ranked schools, can give helpful advice for those who are thinking about applying to schools in the US. Plus, it's free and you get to meet new friends,” concludes Marsha.