By Nell Gluckman. This September, among the new students attending the University of Maine’s orientation will be two students from China and one each from India, Vietnam and Bangladesh.
That the students are from abroad is not new; the University of Maine had 341 degree-seeking, international students last year. But the way they got here is different. They didn’t come here on their own. They were recruited in their home countries by agents paid on a per-head basis by the public university. The University of Maine System will use the controversial method to bring more foreign students to both Orono and the University of Southern Maine over the next five years. The sensitive nature of the commission-based recruiting is best illustrated by the fact that it can be illegal if done within the U.S. The federal government is currently suing a for-profit education company for fraudulently recruiting students to its colleges. And that company and the company hired by the University of Maine System – called Study Group – are owned by the same parent company. More...

Lithuanian Presidency of the Council of the European Union 2013. International Conference „European Higher Education in the World“ 
Date: 5-6 September, 2013 Venue: Pirkliu klubas, Gedimino pr. 25, Vilnius, Lithuania.
The international dimension of higher education has become a central topic of the European higher education policy agenda. Globalisation and technological development are radically changing the landscape of higher education. International student mobility will grow rapidly to an expected 7 million by 2020 in the context of an exponential growth in the demand for higher education: over the next twenty years, the number of higher education students is expected to increase fourfold, from 99 million to 414 million. The thirst for knowledge and social mobility of the expanding middle classes in emerging economies will put higher education within the reach of hundreds of millions of citizens of the world.
European higher education institutions have a positive record of internationalisation notably via their participation in EU and national academic cooperation programmes. They have a rich and diverse experience in developing international curricula, fostering international education, research and innovation projects and exchanging students, researchers, staff and knowledge. Since 1987, the Erasmus programme has played a key role in stimulating mobility: almost 3 million students have participated in the programme, as well as over 300,000 higher education teachers and other staff. Beyond mobility, Erasmus has transformed the way in which higher education institutions relate to and cooperate with one another. The Programme has proven to be an important catalyst in the reform and internationalisation of higher education systems. It put to the fore the need for the convergence introduced through the Bologna Process and its tools. From 2004, the Erasmus Mundus programme, building on the successes of Erasmus, has contributed to enhance internationalisation by funding the development of excellent joint Masters and doctoral programmes between higher education institutions in Europe and further afield, stimulating the process of accreditation of international joint degrees.
The chief purpose of internationalisation is to improve the quality of higher education, to better prepare learners in Europe to live in a global world and work in a global economy. There is no single approach to internationalisation. It involves all levels of university life and has to be adapted to each institution's specific profile. Higher education institutions are encouraged to develop comprehensive internationalisation strategies encompassing all their competitive and cooperative activities. While mobility is one key component, internationalisation strategies need to reach well beyond mobility and prioritise the need to internationalise curricula and the teaching process, in order to cater for the needs of the vast majority of learners who are not internationally mobile.
The need for more global cooperation and strategic partnerships involving European and non-European higher education institutions is particularly urgent, in order to tackle global challenges. If Europe is to remain a highly attractive destination for internationally mobile students, and a valued partner for international academic cooperation, against the rising backdrop of new regional higher education hubs, it must reinforce its efforts to promote the global awareness of the high quality and the rich cultural and linguistic diversity of its universities as well as its competitive advantages. Those include a strong experience in developing joint and double degrees, participation in international research projects, networks, developing doctoral schools, industrial doctorates or in implementing a common qualification framework and quality assessment tools.
Following the European Commission Communication on the internationalisation of higher education, the conference will bring together over 150 higher education stakeholders from the EU and beyond, and offer them an opportunity for dialogue on the different tools available to further internationalisation processes, and on the future place of Europe in the global higher education landscape.
See the Programme.

By Marielk. HSBC, an international banking organisation has examined study costs in 13 countries in terms of tuition and overall living costs to determine the most expensive countries to study in. Their results indicate that Australia is with a relatively clear margin the most expensive country to study in – topping the list for both highest tuition fees as well as highest living costs. Australia is followed by US and UK in the list of most expensive countries, but the costs for studying in UK are over 20% lower than in Australia – from over 38,5 thousand dollars down to just over 30 thousand annually. More...

Par Benoît Floc'h. Bizarrement, les mots les plus connus des étudiants étrangers qui choisissent la France ne figurent pas dans l'abécédaire que vient de sortir CampusFrance. Le petit guide de l'agence publique chargée de promouvoir l'enseignement supérieur français ne contient, en effet, ni le mot « circulaire » ni le mot « Guéant »...
« Cette circulaire a été abrogée, comme le ministre d'ailleurs... », plaisante-t-on à CampusFrance. Expulsée, donc, la « circulaire Guéant ». Mais l'« Abécédaire de la vie quotidienne et étudiante en France » contient bien d'autres mots. Pour la première fois, en effet, CampusFrance donne aux étudiants étrangers qui s'installent en France la définition - en français et en anglais - de ceux qu'ils entendront le plus souvent pendant leur séjour. Suite...

On 14 December 2010 ECA members launched the Multilateral Agreement on the Mutual Recognition of Accreditation Results regarding Joint Programmes (MULTRA). The purpose of the MULTRA is to simplify the accreditation and recognition of joint programmes and degrees awarded and to provide an efficient way to expand mutual recognition to more countries.
For the first time, MULTRA has been signed by a non-European Agency: Consejo Nacional de Acreditación (CNA), Republic of Colombia. In the same month MULTRA was also signed by a German accreditation agency: Agentur für Qualitätssicherung durch Akkreditierung von Studiengängen e.V. (AQAS). 
We are happy to note that our efforts to simplify the accreditation of joint programmes and to provide an efficient way to implement mutual recognition is confirmed by these new signatories to MULTRA.  ECA is determined to pursue its efforts in this direction in the upcoming years and thus to continue providing truly global solutions to global needs.
The agreement was signed on behalf of CNA by Patricia Martínes Barrios, Deputy Minister of Higher Education of the Republic of Colombia on 21 June 2013 at the occasion of JOQAR Dissemination Conference "Quality Assurance and Recognition of Joint Programmes" hosted by ANECA in Madrid.

By Julia Laplane, OECD. Education is a cornerstone of a functioning society. As Benjamin Franklin put it: “An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.” But as education becomes longer and increasingly expensive, are we teaching our young people the right skills for the current market? With an outstanding student debt reaching $1 trillion last year in the US alone, and millions of graduates unable to find jobs in OECD countries, the question of return on investment has become a real economic priority.
In our technology-driven economies, knowledge is, more than ever, power. The OECD Skills Strategy is built around the notion that “Skills have become the global currency of 21^st century economies”. A recent article in the OECD Observer on the impact of knowledge on economic growth pointed out that iPod production in 2006 accounted for 14 000 jobs inside the United States and 27 000 jobs outside. Today, Information and communication technology (ICT)-intensive occupations represent more than 20% of all jobs in the OECD. In such a fast-changing economic landscape, the issue of skills shortages has become a global concern. According to a recent international survey of more than 2,700 employers by consulting firm McKinsey, some 40% of employers reported that they face difficulties when recruiting entry-level staff because the candidates have inadequate skills for the jobs available. Furthermore, almost 45% of young people said that their current jobs were not related to their studies. So we need to ask how much of our investment in education should deliver greater productivity and income for workers. Read more...

Interview with David Hoey, Chief Executive Officer of WorldSkills International by Cassandra Davis and Julie Harris, Editors, Educationtoday. “A high-performing athlete is the result of his or her training,” he explained during a break at the OECD Forum in Paris in May, focusing in on the question of how one benchmarks skills development and acquisition. “A well-trained athlete will perform well. But how do you measure ‘well’? Competitions draw out real excellence. By creating international skills competitions, deep learning can be demonstrated and witnessed. But more than that, competitions introduce fun into the process with games, introduces a healthy competitive spirit, and raises both levels and training. At WorldSkills, we’ve instituted a ranking and a scoring system, at the individual, sector and country levels.”
If we didn’t know better, we’d returned to the first Olympic games.
David Hoey, Chief Executive Officer of WorldSkills International spoke to us of the international skills extravaganza (WorldSkills Leipzig 2013) going on now, between 2-7 July. Over 200,000 people and representatives from upwards of 50 countries will be walking through the doors in Leipzig, attending the main and side events, witnessing some of the stellar skills and talents of the world’s top carpenters, graphic designers, technologists, robotic engineers, hairdressers, plumbers and more (46 skills in all). Read more...

The long-awaited ACA 20th Anniversary Conference was held in The Hague on 09-11 June. As usual one step ahead of current developments in international education, ACA invited the most outstanding pundits and practitioners of international mobility and internationalisation in Europe to deliberate on the future of student mobility, policies and higher education.
The secret of ACA’s continuing success in shaping higher education policy debates in Europe lies in its ability to ask the right questions and in staying loyal to its constructive esprit critique. Will our graduates become the next intellectuals? Is there any internationalisation without values? What are the drivers of mobility? Who benefits from transnational education and how can we make intercultural education work? How stratified is the world of partnerships and networks?  How should academic cooperation be approached in times of crisis in Europe?
These questions and many more dominate the discussions not only in Europe, but around the world. Over 200 people of countries as diverse as Japan and South Africa, New Zealand and Russia, the USA and Kazakhstan, China and Saudi Arabia, attended ACA’s conference and seemed to be equally preoccupied with these issues.
The 20th anniversary conference was certainly a joyful cause for celebration for ACA, its member organisations and friends. It was also a lot of hard work, especially with the new analytical frameworks being set for mobility windows and the new technology-driven educational trends being grasped.  Analyses of these topical issues will be continued in the coming months at ACA’s popular European Policy Seminars. Stay tuned.

The latest edition of Higher Education Policy (HEP) is a multi-themed edition containing the following articles:
Regulating Cross-border Higher Education: A Case Study of the United States - Jason E Lane, Kevin Kinser and Daniel Knox;
Academic Drift in Dutch Non-University Higher Education Evaluated: A Staff Perspective – Didi M E Griffioen and Uulkje de Jong;
Higher Education Policy Reform in Ethiopia: The Representation of the Problem of Gender Inequality - Tebeje Molla;
Seeding Change through International University Partnerships: The MIT-Portugal Program as a Driver of Internationalization, Networking, and Innovation - Sebastian M Pfotenhauer, Joshua S Jacobs, Julio A Pertuze, Dava J Newman and Daniel T Roos;
Governance and Institutional Autonomy: Governing and Governance in Portuguese Higher Education – António Magalhães, Amélia Veiga, Filipa Ribeiro and Alberto Amaral;
Scope and Determinants of the ‘Third Role’ of Higher Education Institutions in Germany - Henning Kroll, Esther Schricke and Thomas Stahlecker.
This issue also presents two book reviews on Student Mobilities, Migration and the Internationalization of Higher Education, written by Rachel Brooks and Johanna Waters, and The Evaluative State, Institutional Autonomy and Re-Engineering Higher Education in Europe: The Prince and His Pleasure, written by Guy Neave.
For more information, abstracts and ordering, please visit the Journal’s homepage on Palgrave Macmillan's website.