By Nic Mitchell. With just one UK student studying abroad for every 15 international students coming the other way, Britain is launching a bold initiative to tackle the imbalance.By Jan Petter Myklebust. In a memorandum sent to higher education institutions for comment, Sweden’s Ministry of Education has proposed legislation that would grant universities and colleges legal autonomy from the government – by institutions becoming private foundations. Universities have endorsed the need for change, but responses to the legislation have been lukewarm. The legal amendments, outlined in the extensive 136-page memo Høgskolestiftelser, reflect an ideological step towards ‘privatisation’ by conservative Prime Minister John Reinfeldt’s governing alliance. More...By Karen MacGregor. Elite universities, especially in America, are engaging enthusiastically in massive open online courses, or MOOCs. “They see opportunities for brand enhancement, pedagogic experimentation, recruitment and business model innovation,” says a review of MOOCs published by the UK government last week. But there are conflicting strands of opinion that are dividing the higher education community. Read more...
By Karen MacGregor. The development of MOOCs – massive open online courses – outside the ‘Anglo-centric hothouse’ of the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia is “characterised by strong involvement with professional needs, wide experimentation and enthusiastic engagement in all significant geographies”, according to a British government review. By Hiep Pham. A new Vietnamese-language massive open online courses – MOOCs – system was launched last month, offering free online education that juxtaposes short teaching videos with longer courses from international MOOCs giants edX and Coursera. By Peta Lee. In what is seen as a breakthrough for students, Europe’s MOOCs platform iversity is working with two universities in Germany to award academic credit to students who pass an on-campus exam after taking a massive open online course.The Open University’s FutureLearn, the UK’s first partnership platform for MOOCs – massive open online courses – last week began offering access to what it describes as “free, high quality courses” from some of its 20 university partners.By Dinesh De Alwis. Sri Lanka is planning to set up ‘free investment zones’ for education, which will offer land and tax breaks to foreign investors. The aim is to attract international universities and build the country into a higher education hub in Asia.By Michael Gardner. Austria’s federal government is providing extra support for collaborative projects between publicly funded universities, other higher education institutions and industry, with a €63 million (US$85 million) package. Out of 218 project proposals submitted, 61 have now been approved.By David Jobbins. More UK independent school sixth formers are seeking out university courses abroad, according to headteachers of the UK’s leading independent schools./https%3A%2F%2Fprofilepics.canalblog.com%2Fprofilepics%2F1%2F0%2F1076071.jpg)
