The Universidad San Ignacio de Loyola (USIL), a leading private university in Peru, will receive a $23.5 million loan from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to double its capacity and expand access to affordable education programs for low-income students.
IDB financing will allow USIL to double its capacity from approximately 12,000 to 25,000 students over the next ten years.
Moreover, the loan will help USIL establish a new student guarantee fund, support a new technical training institute, and increase its participation in Beca 18, a Peruvian government flagship scholarship program targeting economically disadvantaged youth.
It will also help expand and upgrade USIL’s infrastructure using green technology that permits the reduction of water and energy consumption.
The project, which is also being financed by Banco de Crédito del Peru and the Canadian Climate Change Fund, comes as years of sustained economic growth in Peru has fueled growth of an emerging middle class eager to improve its living standards through high-quality college education. Currently only three out of ten Peruvian high school students have access to higher education. Read more...

Our globalised world has one overriding rule of communication: speak in English. In the cosmopolitan society of the UAE, English is often used in many aspects of daily life, and particularly in education and business. That could give young people who are educated in this county a competitive edge, fluent in the language of globalisation. The cost, however, must be considered. Arabic – and indeed the Emirati dialect – are integral to the culture and tradition of the country. Many students are more comfortable speaking and writing English than Arabic. The loss of the mother tongue threatens an irreparable rupture with the national character and history. Read more...

By Muaz Shabandri. Universities in the UAE will soon be ranked as part of a new system being developed by the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research.
Speaking to Khaleej Times, Shaikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, said: “There will be a (university) ranking system. We are committed to maintaining a high quality of education and we have plans to build a good accreditation system and licensing policies.
His remarks came on the sidelines of the first day of the British Council’s Going Global Conference in Dubai.
“Our focus is always on students. We are fully engaged in global discussions that can help nations strengthen our knowledge economy and compete at a global level,” said Shaikh Nahyan in his opening address to the delegates. Read more...

By Will Coldwell. Only one in five students feel they have been given enough advice about studying overseas. A lack of information is stopping students from studying abroad, even though they believe the experience would boost their job prospects, according to research by the British Council.
The study, which surveyed 2,239 UK students, found that just 20% consider overseas study, with concerns about cost and language ability among the perceived barriers.
Despite this, three quarters feel their degree alone is not enough to secure the job they want. Almost all students considering overseas study believe the experience will give them the edge in the jobs market and of the students who are not, 60% feel it would improve their employability. Read more...

The shape of things to come 2: The evolution of transnational education

By Louise Tickle. For women to achieve parity in universities, policy measures are needed, but so are practical and imaginative ideas that can be applied globally – Louise Tickle talks to some pioneers.
Around one in five UK university professors are female. That's better than 3%, which was the figure in 1989. But it's nowhere near parity – and in many parts of the world, the number of women working at the top level of academia or in senior university management positions is far worse. The failure of higher education institutions to fully accept women into their most senior structures has led female academics to demand a radical solution. At the British Council's Going Global conference in Dubai, an international grouping of senior women called for equality to be made a key performance indicator in quality audits of higher education institutions. The fewer women at the top table, the idea goes, the lower down the league tables a university would slide.
It's the first demand of six in what is being called a Manifesto for Change for Women in Academic Leadership and Research. Female academics, the manifesto says, must also start getting a lot more of the big money for research projects, with "gender implications and impact" being included by grant making bodies as criteria against which funding applications are assessed. Read more...

By Anne Eisenberg. MILLIONS of students worldwide have signed up in the last year for MOOCs, short for massive open online courses — those free, Web-based classes available to one and all and taught by professors at Harvard, Duke, M.I.T. and other universities.
But when those students take the final exam in calculus or genetics, how will their professors know that the test-takers on their distant laptops are doing their own work, and not asking Mr. Google for help?
The issue of online cheating concerns many educators, particularly as more students take MOOCs for college credit, and not just for personal enrichment. Already, five classes from Coursera, a major MOOC provider, offer the possibility of credit, and many more are expected. Read more...

Un observatoire du handicap et de l'inaptitude dans les collectivités territoriales vient d’être créé par le l'ANDCDG, le FIPHFP et le FNCDG. Son objectif est de collecter les données statistiques relatives aux travailleurs handicapés et plus largement aux bénéficiaires de l’obligation d’emploi des travailleurs handicapés (Boeth) présents dans toutes les collectivités territoriales.
Une enquête annuelle menée auprès des collectivités via le site web dédié, www.handitorial.fr, apportera des informations anonymes sur les caractéristiques statutaires et individuelles des agents en situation de handicap ou d’inaptitude. L’enquête en ligne visera également la collecte de données qualitatives qui permettront de mieux connaître la situation de l’ensemble de ces agents, sous la forme d’un état des lieux ponctuel ou de comparaisons dans le temps : ancienneté, catégorie hiérarchique, filière, grade, niveau de diplôme, métier, etc...