By Mark Harvey. The United Kingdom’s higher education institutions have been experiencing some turbulence in student recruitment levels. And as the higher education marketplace becomes increasingly global, this is likely to become ever more unpredictable.
Following the recent introduction of higher tuition fees in the UK and changes to visa regulations, it is becoming more and more difficult for institutions in Britain to forecast what application levels might look like.
After a sharp dip last year, when the higher fees meant that the number of students starting degree courses fell by 12%, this year things seemed to improve. Read more...

By Carlos Olivares. There are three sorts of tertiary education institutions in Chile: universities, professional institutes and technical training centres. Each one grants different qualifications: academic, professional or technical.
Universities can grant all three kinds of qualifications, while the institutes award professional and technical qualifications and technical training centres are only allowed to provide technical programmes.
By law, all universities have non-profit status. Among the universities, of which there are 59 in total, there is a historical division between CRUCH (25) and non-CRUCH institutions (34). CRUCH institutions receive public subsidies for their operations. There are 45 professional institutes and 63 technical training centres. Read more...

By Roger Y Chao Jr. Additional financial resources and capacity have been allocated by the Hong Kong government to support the restructuring of higher education into the 3-3-4 model – three years of junior and senior secondary respectively and four years of bachelor study.
This was done to accommodate the double cohort, where two batches of first-year university students start simultaneously as a result of the shift to the new four-year bachelor programmes, which started this academic year.
However, what will happen after the double cohort ends in school year 2014-15? Will funding continue to flow into the university sector? With the normalisation of the university student cohort in 2015-16, what should the sector do with the capacity built to accommodate the double cohort? Read more...

By William Patrick Leonard. Four years of post-secondary study at a college or university leading to a baccalaureate degree was accepted as the norm in the United States just a few decades ago. An informal metric, it was accepted as a simultaneous proxy of the host institution’s quality and the student’s academic proficiency. Those not graduating within four years were the exception when there was a relatively smaller and more homogeneous student cohort. The vast majority were recent secondary school graduates enrolled in residential institutions. The majority completed the baccalaureate within the four-year norm. Read more...

By Erin Millar. Canadian Dr David Malone, who took office as rector of the United Nations University last month, pledges to “relentlessly” pursue higher quality and more relevant research during his five-year term at the helm of the international research institution.
In an interview with University World News, Malone discussed his intention to push the 150 principal researchers that work for the United Nations University, or UNU, to produce groundbreaking research that will inform policy relevant to UN priorities. Read more...

By Karen MacGregor. A complex picture of the policies and strategies of European countries and universities to attract international students is painted by a new report from the European Commission. It reveals, for instance, “great interest” in growing ties with emerging economies through their students, and that 75% of international courses in The Netherlands are now taught in English. The study on Immigration of International Students to the EU, published by the European Migration Network run by the commission, provides an analytical overview and statistics on the immigration and mobility policies of states. Read more...

By Geoff Maslen. As more and more universities around the world graduate ever-increasing numbers of students with PhDs, governments are beginning to ask if it is time to slow the production line. A new study notes that China is the world leader in producing PhDs, having outnumbered the United States on a per year basis for the first time in 2008. By then, the Asian giant had awarded more than 240,000 doctorates over only the previous 30 years after its PhD programmes were stopped during the Cultural Revolution. These did not restart until 1978 when a mere 18 students were undertaking doctorates – but since then PhD enrolment has expanded by 24% a year. Read more...

Zambia’s Minister of Education John Phiri has tabled a higher education bill that seeks to establish a Higher Education Authority, which will set standards for the sector and ensure continual improvements in the quality of learning and qualifications. The minister said that since the mid-1990s there had been a proliferation of local and foreign higher education institutions. Education provision had become fragmented and uncoordinated in the absence of an integrated national regulatory framework, and the sector had reached a crossroads.
Benefits of the Higher Education Authority, or HEA, would be providers operating according to standards applicable to all public and private institutions, and accreditation processes that would provide incentives for quality improvements and protect students from unregistered providers. Also, there would be a system for establishing equivalences with higher education systems in other African countries and beyond, enabling Zambia’s higher education system to operate in a globalised learning environment. Recognition of qualifications and credits would enable students to transfer to and from other higher education systems internationally. Read more...