UNITED KINGDOM: Universities fear for future after admissions chaos

Guardian16 September 2012 Issue No:239

 

University leaders are blaming ministers for chaos in this year's clearing, with 30,000 fewer applicants. Universities have been forced to lower their offer grades in the frantic rush to fill places, and many vice-chancellors say this was the most "chaotic" and "uncertain" admissions round they have ever experienced, writes Anna Fazackerley for the Guardian.

Elite institutions are slamming the government for failing to predict what looks like a dramatic fall in the numbers of top students in the system. Many universities have struggled to meet their recruitment targets, and experts warn that some less popular subjects could face the axe.

This year, two key policies came on stream at the same time: fees of up to £9,000 (US$14,600), and a free market for the very best students, with universities able to recruit as many applicants with grades of AAB upwards as they could attract. Institutions were vying to win more of these students in order to make up for government cuts to their numbers, but early signs are that only a tiny handful of elite institutions have managed to expand.

Full report on the Guardian site 

Chinese Students Eager to Enroll Elsewhere, Just Not in Taiwan

With a shared language and cultural roots, many educators in Taiwan assumed the island would be an appealing destination for the masses of mainland Chinese students eager to pursue higher education in the developed world.

But after opening the doors of its universities to mainland students for the first time last year, Taiwan is still struggling to spur interest.

Reuters

Mainland Chinese students: Not interested in Taiwan.

For the second year in a row, the island has filled less than half of the 2,000 university spots reserved for degree-seeking mainland students, according to numbers provided to The Wall Street Journal by Taiwan’s Ministry of Education. The ministry says 987 mainland students enrolled this fall, a slight bump up from 928 last year.

Taiwan has been eager to attract mainland students to make up for sagging university enrollments resulting from an overabundance of colleges – a problem set to be compounded in the future by a perilously low birth rate. The education ministry has said that a large number of the island’s 165 universities face mergers or closure.

But strict regulations set by the Taiwanese government have been a barrier.
Because the Taiwan government requires mainland students to meet a high academic bar, those who qualify to come here generally have plenty of other educational options. And while universities in places like Hong Kong and the U.S. offers scholarships to sweeten the deal, Taiwan doesn’t. Last year, 4,582 mainland students enrolled in degree-granting programs at Hong Kong universities, five times the number coming to Taiwan, despite Taiwan boasting many more universities.
“Taiwan’s top schools are competing with everyone else to recruit talent from overseas,” said Li Gong-Chin, secretary-general of the Association of Private Universities and Colleges of Taiwan. “These restrictions make it more difficult.”

Mr. Li added that a wariness of the island’s famously rowdy politics also made some mainland students reluctant to study in Taiwan.

The ministry told The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday that it is considering easing regulations to attract more students. “The direction for loosening the regulations includes possibly increasing the number of mainland higher education institutions that are recognized, permitting universities to award scholarships to mainland students, and for those students to be able to work part-time,” a ministry spokeswoman said in an emailed response to queries.

Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou has voiced support for relaxing the rules, which currently prohibit mainland students from working in Taiwan, taking exams for professional certifications or staying after graduation to find a job.

Taiwan’s legislature is also considering providing mainland students with national health care coverage.

Mainland student Su-King Liu, who arrived in Taipei this month to begin a bachelor’s degree, said some of her friends ruled out studying in Taiwan due to the restrictions.

“As for me, I’ve always wanted to study here,” said Ms. Liu, who will be majoring in media studies at Shih Hsin University. “With the freer media environment, I think it is the right place for me.”
Mr. Li, who also teaches cross-Strait history at Shih Hsin University, says he sees his mainland students gain a more nuanced perspective of Taiwan during their time on the island. As for their Taiwanese classmates, he says they gain from the exchange, too.

“Because of their rigorous testing system, the mainland students tend to be very diligent,” he said. “They serve as a good example in class.”
– Eva Dou. Follow her on Twitter @evadou

JAPAN: Robot to take top-ranked university exam

AFP16 September 2012 Issue No:239

 

Japanese researchers are working on a robot they hope will be smart enough to ace entrance exams at the nation's top university, which test everything from maths to foreign languages.

The robot's artificial brain would analyse a mash of words, numbers, and equations before spitting out the -- hopefully -- correct answer to questions on Tokyo University's notoriously tough exam.
"It has to analyse the exam questions and convert formulations and equations to a form that it can process before solving it through computer algebra," said Hidenao Iwane from Fujitsu Laboratories, the Japanese IT giant's research unit.

Fujitsu and Japan's National Institute of Informatics said the target is to have their robot score high marks on the exam for Tokyo University, one of the world's top-ranked schools, by 2021.
Before then, they're hoping the robot can sail through national entrance exams which all university-bound students must take in Japan.

The ultimate goal is to develop technology that would "enable anyone to easily use sophisticated mathematical analysis tools", Fujitsu said.
"(But) getting a computer to understand text that was intended for humans is not an easy task," it added.

 

Fraud in higher education is big business

Inside Higher Ed16 September 2012 Issue No:239

 

Fraud in international higher education is a US$1.5 billion to US$2.5 billion business, an expert said on Thursday at the European Association for International Education annual conference in Dublin, writes Elizabeth Redden for Inside Higher Ed.

Daniel J Guhr, managing director for Illuminate Consulting Group, which advises governments, universities and foundations on higher education strategy, stressed that the estimate is necessarily imprecise: “Really good fraud is not visible.” But he said that the consulting group’s research does show that fraud is a pervasive problem. “It’s everywhere,” Guhr said, “and it hits all aspects of international education, from admissions to immigration rules violations." 

Full report on the Inside Higher Ed site

PhD students should be managers, not technicians

Michael J Mulvany, Zdravko Lackovic and Roland Jonsson16 September 2012 Issue No:239

 

Over the past year there has been considerable criticism in leading journals about the future of the PhD, with the underlying message that there is an overproduction of PhD graduates and that standards are falling.

The Humboldt concept of PhD education – research training under supervision – goes back over 200 years. Now, the PhD is perhaps the most internationally recognised academic degree, a PhD graduate being perceived as a trained researcher.

Until comparatively recently, PhD training was the route to an academic research position. Some professors would sometimes have a PhD student work with them, and successful students would likely end up permanently in academia. Given the growth in universities, this apprenticeship model was balanced.

In the past decades, however, the position has changed. Now most professors have, and are expected to have, several PhD students. And university growth is modest, if not negative. The large majority of PhD graduates will use their talents outside of academia.

Clearly, the model has become unsustainable.

Two approaches

There are in principle two approaches to solving the problem.

First, that the number of PhD students be drastically reduced. This, however, overlooks the far-reaching consequences for research output, since a large proportion of university research is now performed by PhD students.

The alternative is to ensure that PhD graduates who do not end up in academia are well qualified for the non-academic job market.

PhD graduates are among the brightest of our citizens and their PhD programmes should be an opportunity to develop their powers to solve problems. Such experience should give them the background to make major contributions to society and thus the competing economies of the future.

However, the recent criticism indicates that this is not always the case. Why is this? In our view it is due to the failure in some institutions and countries to recognise that the PhD training itself has to change to accommodate the new reality.

As long as PhD training was just a preparation for academic research, the traditional approach of performing experiments in a laboratory for a number of years and writing these up in detail in a monograph was a good basis for a future academic career.

That, however, is now not the case. If PhD graduates are to be attractive to the non-academic job market then they need to have so-called transferable skills: how to make presentations orally and written to national and international audiences, scientific and lay; how to teach; networking; grant writing; patenting; project management.

These are all aspects that are important for academics, but also of value elsewhere. Indeed being able to set up a three-year project, perform it and present it, is itself a transferable skill. The skills learned would be valuable in any job where creative synthesis, initiative and resourcefulness are needed.

Thus PhD education should be seen as a valuable contribution to the knowledge societies that will form the competing economies of the future.

A new approach is needed

Such an increase in the demands on the PhD student cannot be accommodated by the traditional apprenticeship model, if the quality of the research is to be maintained.

Excellence in research is the sine qua non of a PhD programme, but a new attitude to the PhD is needed, away from the idea that it consists only of learning scientific method and laboratory techniques towards having responsibility for a project.

In future the student will not necessarily do all the work himself or herself – whereas previously such an idea was anathema – but will rather learn to manage the job.

This is the approach favoured in Europe, and that recommended by the European Commission and the European Universities Association’s Council for Doctoral Research (EUA-CDE), where quality is ensured by embedding PhD programmes in a structured organisation within the administration of the institutions granting the PhD degree.

With this approach it is possible for PhD programmes to be completed within three to four years, to have research outputs at least at previous levels, and for the PhD student to develop the transferable skills that the PhD graduate will need to be competitive in the job market.

Over the past seven years, the approach recommended by the European Commission and the EUA-CDE has been expanded in the biomedical and medical fields by the organisation ORPHEUS – Organisation for PhD Education in Biomedicine and Health Sciences in the European System – which represents more than 100 European faculties and institutions.

ORPHEUS has produced a set of standards. The standards combine specificity with the flexibility needed to accommodate quality PhD programmes in different countries. The major points can be summarised in the following ‘seven pillars':

• PhD programmes require a strong research environment.
  
• Admission to a PhD programme requires a level corresponding to a bachelor and two-year masters, and based on research potential rather than past experience.
  
• PhD programmes are structured and based primarily on a three- to four-year hands-on, original research project.
  
• PhD programmes should include project-related course work covering at most about six months, including courses on ethics and transferable skills.
  
• PhD students should have qualified and regular supervision.
  
• A PhD thesis should demonstrate an intellectual ability to be expected from completion of a three- to four-year research project at international level (for example, the equivalent of three papers-manuscripts).
  
• The PhD thesis should be evaluated by an assessment committee consisting of active scientists, who should be independent of the student’s milieu and preferably international.
  

These standards are not intended as a straitjacket, but as a way of ensuring the value of the PhD, both to the institution in terms of research output and in terms of strengthening career opportunities for PhD graduates inside or outside of academia.

PhD students should be managers, not technicians.

* Professor Michael J Mulvany is based at the department of biomedicine at Aarhus University in Denmark and is vice-president of ORPHEUS. Zdravko Lackovic is a professor in the department of pharmacology, University of Zagreb School of Medicine in Croatia, and president of ORPHEUS. Professor Roland Jonsson is deputy head of the Gade Institute at the University of Bergen in Norway, and a member of the ORPHEUS executive committee.
 

OECD – Who studies abroad and where?

16 September 2012 Issue No:239

In 2010, more than 4.1 million tertiary students were enrolled outside their country of citizenship. Luxembourg, Australia, the United Kingdom, Austria, Switzerland and New Zealand have, in descending order, the highest percentages of international students among their tertiary enrolments.

In Luxembourg, high mobility is due to strong integration with neighbouring countries, according to the OECD’s 2012 Education at a Glance report published last week. This is an extract from the report.

In absolute terms, the largest numbers of foreign students are from China, India and Korea. Asian students represent 52% of foreign students enrolled worldwide.

The number of foreign students enrolled in OECD countries was almost three times the number of citizens from an OECD country studying abroad in 2010. In the 21 European countries that are members of the OECD, there were 2.7 foreign students per each European citizen enrolled abroad.

Some 83% of all foreign students are enrolled in G20 countries, while 77% of all foreign students are enrolled in OECD countries, and these proportions have remained stable during the past decade.

Factors driving mobility

As national economies become more interconnected and participation in education expands, governments and individuals are looking to higher education to broaden students’ horizons and help them better understand the world’s languages, cultures and business methods.

One way for students to expand their knowledge of other societies and languages, and thus improve their prospects in globalised sectors of the labour market, such as multinational corporations or research, is to study in tertiary institutions in countries other than their own.

The factors driving the general increase in student mobility range from exploding demand for higher education worldwide and the perceived value of studying at prestigious post-secondary institutions abroad, to specific policies aiming to foster student mobility within a geographic region (as is the case in Europe), and efforts by governments to support students in studying specific fields that are growing rapidly in the country of origin.

In addition, some countries and institutions undertake major marketing efforts to attract students from outside their boundaries.

A significant portion of students coming from G20 non-OECD countries includes the better-performing students, natural candidates for public or private support, or students who have a relatively high socio-economic background.

This implies that student mobility can not only bring stature to tertiary institutions’ academic programmes, but also economic benefits to the host country's education systems.

In the current economic context, shrinking support for scholarships and grants to support student mobility – as well as tightening budgets among individuals – may diminish the pace of student mobility.

On the other hand, limited labour market opportunities in students’ countries of origin may lower the opportunity costs of studying abroad, and help increase student mobility.

The increase in student mobility in tertiary education can also provide an opportunity for smaller and-or less-developed host education systems to improve their cost efficiency.

For example, it can help countries focus limited resources on educational programmes with potential economies of scale, or expand participation in tertiary education without having to expand the tertiary system within the country itself.

For host countries, enrolling international students can help not only to raise revenues from higher education, but also as part of a broader strategy to recruit highly skilled immigrants.

International students tend to choose different programmes of study from local students, indicating either a degree of specialisation of countries in the programmes offered, or a lack of programmes in the countries of origin. It could also indicate better employment opportunities associated with specific fields of education.

OECD countries and mobility

Australia, France, Germany, the UK and the US each receive more than 6% of all foreign students worldwide.

International students from OECD countries mainly come from Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Korea, Turkey and the US and they make up 10% or more of the enrolments in tertiary education in Australia, Austria, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Switzerland and the UK.

They also account for more than 20% of enrolments in advanced research programmes in Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and the US.

Since 2000, and up to 2010, the number of foreign tertiary students enrolled worldwide has increased by 99%, for an average annual growth rate of 7.1%. The number of foreign tertiary students enrolled in OECD countries has doubled since 2000, for an average annual increase growth rate of 7.2%.

Europe is the preferred destination for students studying outside their country, and has 41% of all international students. North America has 21% of all international students.

Nevertheless, the fastest growing regions of destination are Latin America and the Caribbean, Oceania and Asia, mirroring the internationalisation of universities in an increasing set of countries.

Longer-term trends

OECD and UNESCO Institute for Statistics data make it possible to examine longer-term trends in tertiary student mobility.

These data illustrate the dramatic growth in foreign enrolments over the past three decades, with the number of students enrolled outside their country of citizenship rising dramatically from 0.8 million worldwide in 1975 to 4.1 million in 2010 – an increase of more than five-fold.

Growth in the internationalisation of tertiary education has accelerated during the past several decades, reflecting the globalisation of economies and societies, and also the expansion of tertiary systems and institutions throughout the world.

The rise in the number of students enrolled abroad since 1975 stems from various factors, from an interest in promoting academic, cultural, social and political ties between countries (especially as the European Union was taking shape), to a substantial increase in global access to tertiary education, and reduced transportation costs.

The internationalisation of labour markets for highly skilled individuals has also given people an incentive to gain international experience as part of their studies.

The increase in the number of foreign students can be compared to the increase in tertiary enrolment worldwide. According to UNESCO data, 177 million students participated in formal tertiary education around the world in 2010 – an increase of 77 million students (or 77%) since 2000.

Most of the new foreign tertiary students come from countries outside the OECD area, and are likely gradually to increase the proportion of foreign students in advanced research programmes in OECD and in G20 countries in the coming years.

In absolute terms, the number of foreign students enrolled in tertiary education has more than doubled since 2005 in Brazil, Chile, Estonia, Iceland, Indonesia, Ireland, Korea, Luxembourg, Saudi Arabia, the Slovak Republic and Spain.

In contrast, the number of foreign students enrolled in France, Germany, Mexico and New Zealand grew by less than 10%.

Shift to S&T, mobility growth influence new QS ranking

Karen MacGregor11 September 2012 Issue No:239

 

A global shift towards science and technology and rapid growth in international student mobility are trends impacting on the standing of the world’s finest universities, according to the 2012-13 QS rankings. Universities from a record 72 countries are in the top 700 list published last week.

The top 100 universities average nearly 10% more international students this year than in 2011, “the biggest single-year increase in the rankings’ nine-year history”, according to the latest World University Rankings.

“The unprecedented acceleration in international recruitment reflects an escalating global battle for talent: 120,000 more international students were reported by the top 500 universities this year,” said head of research Ben Sowter in a statement.

“The total number of international students now exceeds 4.1 million globally.”

Best of the best

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or MIT, in the US has overtaken Cambridge University in the UK to clinch the top slot for the first time. Cambridge slipped into second place followed by Harvard.

The other universities in the top 10 are, in order, University College London (up from seven in 2011), Oxford, Imperial College London, Yale (down from four), Chicago, Princeton (up from 13) and California Institute of Technology, Caltech (up from 12).

Two institutions – Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania – have fallen out of the top 10 since last year.

In a background article on the 2012-13 rankings, QS academic advisory board member and former Times Higher Education editor, John O’Leary, wrote that this year’s rankings are notable for the influence of the “seemingly unstoppable rise” of global student mobility.

“Even those universities recording a modest increase, or simply maintaining their previous recruitment, are being overtaken on this measure,” said O’Leary.

“Cambridge, for example, has seen a significant increase in international students, but has dropped five places in this measure, contributing to its fall from first to second place in the overall ranking.”

MIT was also powered to the top, according to QS, by its high citation rates, its academic-staff ratio, and an increase in international faculty.

“The rise of MIT coincides with a global shift in emphasis toward science and technology”, said Sowter in the statement. “MIT perfects a blueprint that is now being followed by a new wave of cutting-edge tech-focused institutions, especially in Asia”.

Nine of the top 10 technology-focused universities improved their positions, including MIT (1), Imperial College (6), Caltech (10) and ETH Zurich (13).

“Korea’s KAIST (63) is the biggest riser in the top 100, while Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (33) and Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University (47) continue their rapid ascent. Both were founded in the last 21 years,” said QS.

Other notable developments

Europe has the highest number of universities in the QS top 100 – 39 out of 100 including 18 in the UK, 20 in continental Europe and one in Ireland.

Continental Europe is led by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich), which rose from 18 in 2011 to 13 this year, followed by Switzerland’s École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (29), which is up six places. France’s top nine universities all fell in the rankings and Trinity College Dublin is the only Irish university in the top 100.

Six of Germany’s top 10 universities gained ground compared to 2011, said Danny Byrne, editor of TopUniversities.com. “However, with no German university in the top 50, the results may reignite the debate over the effectiveness of the Excellence Initiative.

“Some 14 of the top 20 German institutions rank lower for research citations than in 2011, including all of the top four.”

North America follows with a third of all institutions in the top 100, 21 in the United States and three in Canada – and it dominates the top 20 with 12 US and two Canadian institutions, including McGill (18) and Toronto (19), up four places.

America claims 130 of the world’s top 700 universities.

There are 19 Asian universities in the top 100 including three in the top 30: Hong Kong University (23), the National University of Singapore (25) and Tokyo (30). Two mainland Chinese universities are in the top 50 – Peking (44) and Tsinghua (48) – and another five in the top 200. QS points out that there is still no Indian university in the top 200.

Australia has seven universities in the top 100, with Australian National University rising two places to 24 and widening the gap on Melbourne, which fell five places to 36.

Universities in the Middle East performed better than before, with the top six all improving their positions, led by King Saud at 197. The region now has 23 universities in the top 700.

Latin America is led by the University of São Paulo (139) followed by Mexico’s UNAM (146).

The University of Cape Town remains Africa’s top institution, at position 154.

QS over the years

QS academic advisory board member Martin Ince looked at the QS rankings over the nine years since they began in 2004, and noted in an article that the biggest loser was the University of California at Berkeley.

But this did “little to reduce the dominance of California, the Northeastern US and South East England at the top of these rankings”. Seven of the top 10 universities in 2004 had retained this status.

The rankings for 2004 provided an analysis of just 200 universities, while it now provides information on more than 700.

The rankings use various measures, the most talked-about being the academic survey. In the first year, 1,300 academics were surveyed; this year the rankings drew on 46,000 respondents. The survey has grown in numbers and questions, wrote Ince, and today it “asks more questions, about national as well as local favourites and about detailed subject areas”.

The QS survey of employers began in 2005 and has also grown, with data this year from more than 25,000 people active in graduate recruitment.

Another four indicators add up to half of the potential score for each university: academic citations over five years, number of citations per academic staff member, international staff and student numbers, and staff-student ratios.
 

APEC summit moves towards Asia-Pacific higher education space

Yojana Sharma13 September 2012 Issue No:239

 

Leaders of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) grouping have called for greater cross-border higher education cooperation in advance of building an Asia-Pacific higher education space that would include South East Asian nations, India, China, Japan and South Korea as well as Pacific Rim countries such as the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Cooperation would include enhancing the “mobility of students, researchers and education providers within APEC through the development of higher education cooperation,” according to the 8 September final communiqué issued at the end of a two-day summit held in the Russian city of Vladivostock.

The leaders acknowledged the role of education as an “essential driver of innovative” growth in the Asia Pacific region.

“All APEC economies stand to gain from enhancing collaboration on cross-border education,” a special annex to the formal declaration said.

“Education as a fundamentally important component of economic activity accounts for almost 7% of GDP in APEC economies. Cooperation in the education sectors of APEC economies fosters innovative growth as students, researchers and education providers build scientific, technological and linguistic communities,” it said.

“All APEC economies are ‘future lookers’ and we want shared goals in education and business,” summit host and Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the gathering, which normally focuses on economic and trade issues, although talks have broadened in recent years to include the environment, food security, energy, innovation and other global issues.

Fittingly, he was speaking at the brand new campus of Far Eastern Federal University on Russky Island, south of Vladivostock, where the summit was held. The university is known in Russia for its international collaborations, particularly with Asian countries.

In a commentary published in The Wall Street Journal just in advance of the meeting, Putin stressed that “special attention must be given to education” at the APEC summit.

He added: “In our view the time has already come to address the idea of forming a common educational space of the Asia-Pacific region.”

If fully implemented, the APEC initiative would dramatically increase the number of students in the region studying outside their own country and would also increase the number of foreign branch campuses in the region.

Summit declaration on higher education

Russian officials said globalisation within the education system was lagging compared to economic globalisation, due to internal barriers to education and scientific exchange.

Many developing economies in the Asia-Pacific region are rapidly moving into higher value-added manufacturing and knowledge-intensive industries driven by innovation. Access to a wide range of quality education services will be critical to sustainable growth on this development pathway.

"The APEC region also contains some of the world’s largest exporters and consumers of education services. Facilitating the flow of students, researchers and education providers, and reducing the transaction costs involved provides opportunities for a significant expansion of cross-border education services to the benefit of all economies."

"Increasing cross-border student flows will strengthen regional ties, build people to people exchanges, and promote economic development through knowledge and skills transfer. High quality cross-border education equips students with the 21st century competencies they need for their full participation in a globalized and knowledge based society."

Christopher Ziguras of the faculty of global studies, social science and planning at RMIT in Melbourne, Australia, said: “What is new in this declaration is the emphasis on cross-border mobility.”

Although discussions on cross-border mobility and regional cooperation continue in a number of forums, including the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) – which groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam – the APEC declaration goes beyond Asia and was “an indication of the rapidly rising importance of Asia, politically, economically and culturally,” Ziguras told University World News.

Importance of Asia

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard said in Vladivostock: “It makes sense to build on [the] national development of our education system by looking towards the region in which our future will be defined – the region of economic growth in this century, and to enable our students, our education providers and our researchers to move more freely across the region.”

Ziguras told University World News: “Universities in every part of the world want to be well connected with the US, well connected with Europe and now they want to be well connected with Asia. APEC is an avenue for non-Asian members to boost connections with Asia; that’s why they [leaders] are using this body for educational integration.

“We are also seeing regional bodies catching up with what’s happening on the ground – short-term mobility in Asia is growing quite rapidly,” he added.

An East Asian diplomat told University World News that Russia’s proposal on an Asia-Pacific higher education space would attempt to grow cross-border education and student mobility by increasing the amount of information on courses and programmes and moving towards a system for their independent evaluation and accreditation.

Victor Smirnov, deputy director of the international cooperation department of Russia’s Ministry of Education and Science, said the conference sought to provide a political impetus to cross-border education cooperation.

Challenges ahead

He admitted that existing education projects within APEC had failed to take off previously “due to differences in approaches – including the issue of regulating the education process among the different economies.

“This is our main problem,” he said after a preparatory meeting in Vladivostock in July attended by trade and education officials and academics.

“Originally our idea was based on the assumption that we would establish certain mechanisms, perhaps at the government level", but the focus had shifted to cooperation at the university level because of bottlenecks at the government level, said Smirnov.

However, Ziguras said there was “a gap between aspirations and initiatives” and that the region was a long way behind Europe in creating a higher education space, with few concrete targets to achieve the goals and little funding to promote student and faculty exchanges.

Deane Neubauer, of the East-West Center at the University of Hawaii, said there were still significant barriers to cooperation and student and faculty mobility. “We have to find a way to recognise each others’ institutions.”

This included an efficient credit transfer system and “even ASEAN is moving very slowly on this”, said Neubauer, who is also co-editor of Mobility and Migration in Asian Pacific Higher Education, published this year.

Neubauer pointed to significant overlaps between ASEAN initiatives and APEC, and said mutual recognition was as important as measures to set up partnerships.

In addition to the ASEAN countries, the APEC members are Australia, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Russia, Taiwan and the US.