CANADA: Philanthropy, innovation and the idea of the university

David Strangway04 May 2013 Issue No:270

 

Universities in Canada are almost entirely public and funded by provincial governments. They are able to charge tuition fees, but this is also controlled by government. This means that there is very little incentive for real innovation, let alone differentiation.

Differentiation is important for innovation in a university system, but is very difficult to achieve in the Canadian system. In a number of countries there are excellent public and private universities side by side, leading to a built-in incentive for differentiation and innovation. One need only consider the United States, Mexico, Japan, and Korea, among many other nations.

Some countries have followed the German Von Humboldt model of the university, in which the research agenda sets institutional objectives.

In some countries – but not Canada – the Cardinal Newman view of the university, which provides a broad education, has thrived. This can be seen in the liberal arts and sciences universities and colleges often found in the United States. These are great universities or colleges for undergraduates and they produce a disproportionate number of great scholars.

The global ranking tables focus almost entirely on the research activities of universities. Even the Macleans rankings published annually in Canada focus on research and do not consider the student perspective.

The incentive to rise in the rankings is all about research reputation. This drives Canadian universities (and others) to be ever more homogeneous.

In Canada the research-granting agencies make contributions to the research projects they support, but they do not cover the full cost of the research. In the US the full costs of research are covered on the principle of not-for-profit but also not-for-loss. This has been a powerful tool for differentiation.

In the Canadian context, the more research undertaken, the more resources the university has to divert from undergraduate students to the graduate and research effort. Along with decreasing funding over many years on a per student basis, this movement to always favour the research agenda has led to a sharp decline in undergraduate education quality.

Philanthropy has the potential to broaden the financial base of universities. As in many countries, philanthropy in Canada has until recently been at a very low level. This only started to change in a real way in the mid-1980s.

Of course, philanthropy has been a major driver of innovation in the US for a very long time. But Canada has only in the past few years found that this is a major source for driving new activities. Two specific Canadian examples illustrate what can be done.

Philanthropy and fundraising

The University of British Columbia, or UBC, owned 500 hectares of land from its earliest days in the 1920s. Only a portion of this land had been occupied by the university and by student residences. The city of Vancouver had grown out to meet the campus.

In the 1990s it became clear that UBC was sitting on some very valuable land suitable for housing. A development company was formed and directed by real estate experts. UBC sold long-term leases to property developers.

To date this trust has raised over C$500 million (US$496 million) that has been added to the endowment fund. And there is still significant opportunity ahead. This endowment permits UBC to support academic activities.

In the 1980s a major fundraising campaign was started. In 1985, the endowment funds of UBC stood at C$80 million. Canada was only at this point ready for the move into major philanthropy. By 1994 the campaign was completed, with a total of C$270m having been raised.

At the time this was the largest ever fundraising campaign in Canadian history. It was a real turning point in Canadian philanthropy. Many newly endowed chairs and buildings were supported by these new funds, enriching academic activities.

In 2012, UBC launched a new fundraising campaign. This time the target was C$1.5 billion. Much of this has already been achieved.

In the space of 25 years philanthropy in Canada has grown from being almost non-existent to constituting a major source of innovation. Today the UBC endowment is well over C$1 billion and rising steadily. In Canada this is exceeded only by the University of Toronto.

Quest University Canada

The second example is the founding of Quest University Canada, or QUC. This small university opened its doors in 2007. It was designed from the outset to focus entirely on undergraduate students and thus to differentiate itself from all other universities in Canada.

QUC was from the beginning set up as a liberal arts and science university offering only bachelor degrees. It operates on the premise that knowledge has no academic boundaries (no academic discipline departments) and no geographic boundaries.

The small town of Squamish in British Columbia supported the venture by zoning the land that was acquired to permit the development of 1,000 units of market housing. Some land was sold at the beginning to provide start-up and planning funds.

Foundations also provided support in those early days. A very significant donor who believed in the concept provided C$100m for the campus construction. This was protected against the land asset, which can in future only be used for charitable purposes. In due course, the land asset will become an endowment for the university.

This university is now graduating its third class, but has received no public funding. Tuition is expensive since there is no government subsidy, but a large amount of the tuition supports a strong programme of student scholarships.

QUC is also different in its academic approach. Students take one course at a time that lasts for about a month. This provides intense participation in the classes as they meet three hours a day, five days a week. Classes are restricted to 20 students per class.

All students must take the first 16-month-long blocks, which are roughly half science oriented and half art and humanities oriented. This is a 21st century version of Cardinal Newman’s ‘Idea of a University’. All students live in residence. Faculty and students from 30 countries interact.

Perhaps most interesting is the fact that, without big expenditure on supporting research, the programme is able to be delivered on a per student basis for less than it would cost public universities.

There are few of the big ranking systems that focus on students and what and how they are learning. Best known is the National Survey of Student Engagement, or NSSE, that surveys 280,000 students at 750 universities in the US and Canada.

It is interesting to note that, in the five major categories of survey questions, QUC ranks well above all other Canadian universities. These categories are "level of academic challenge", "supportive campus environment", "active and collaborative learning", "enriching educational experience" and "intensity of faculty interaction".

Student demand is rising steadily as enrolment numbers approach 500 students. These are just two examples of innovation and differentiation. There are many examples around the world.

* David Strangway is former president of the University of Toronto, the University of British Columbia and the Canada Foundation for Innovation, and is founder of Quest University Canada. This is an edited version of a paper presented at the recent International Association of University Presidents semi-annual meeting in Guadalajara in March, titled “Global Trends and Latin American Higher Education Innovation”.
 

VIETNAM: Partnership with Russia for new, world-class university

Hiep Pham04 May 2013 Issue No:270

 

Vietnam is to invest some US$150 million to create a state-of-the-art university of technology in Hanoi. Russia is to be the academic sponsor, the Ministry of Education and Training announced. This is the latest in a series of partnerships forged with foreign governments and aimed at creating world-class universities.

The project will have two steps. In the first phase, from now until 2016, a Russian training institute will be established as a unit of the 47-year-old Le Quy Don Technical University. From 2016, the institution’s name will be changed to the Vietnamese Russian University of Technology.

Russian involvement in the project includes providing textbooks and curricula, granting degrees, sending professors to Vietnam to deliver courses in Russian, and hosting Vietnamese students and faculty on internships and fellowships at top Russian universities.

The official agreement is expected to be signed next month in Moscow, during a visit to Russia by Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung.

Ambitious project

The new institution is part of an ambitious project launched in 2006, aimed at establishing excellent universities delivering education of international standards with support and sponsorship from the world’s leading higher education countries.

Within this framework, the Vietnamese German University was established in 2008 in Ho Chi Minh City, and the University of Science and Technology in Hanoi was created in 2009 in a partnership with the French government.

Two other projects are also being negotiated, one in partnership with the Japanese government and the other with the United States.

According to experts, the new Vietnamese Russian University of Technology should be well prepared to confront the challenges faced by its two antecedent institutions.

In a recent article the local Thanh Nien – The Youth – reported that the Vietnamese German University had had difficulties recruiting sufficient numbers of students. Currently it has only 527 students, some 250 of them graduate students, within eight majors.

These numbers are far short of the university’s target of reaching 5,000 students in 29 majors by 2020. Besides the shortage of students there is a more serious dilemma: according to official data, the passing enrolment scores at the German university are much lower than those at Vietnam’s leading universities.

A similar problem has also occurred at the University of Science and Technology in Hanoi, where the student population is only around 400.

For Professor Jurgen Mallon, president of the Vietnamese German University, the preference of Vietnamese students for economic-related fields is one reason for the institution’s current difficulties.

Xenocentric behaviour among students and parents is another reason. “The best students in technology fields will choose study abroad with scholarships” instead of studying locally, Mallon told Thanh Nien in an interview.

A recent report issued by the National Assembly’s committee for culture, education, youth and children also identified obstacles to achieving ‘excellent’ universities, including lack of facilities, unsustainable financial subsidisation and – especially – a shortage of full-time, highly qualified academic staff.

Both the Vietnamese German University and the University of Science and Technology in Hanoi mainly use part-time lecturers, some from local institutions and others from their foreign university partners.

Action to tackle problems

To overcome this challenge, the University of Science and Technology is planning to send around 400 PhD students in the sciences to study in France in the coming 10 years, with the expectation of recruiting them back to become tenured lecturers in the future.

However, according to Professor Pierre Darriulat, a retired French astrophysicist who has spent more than a decade teaching physics in Hanoi, the plan to send young PhD students to France “has nothing to gain if there is no follow-up to make a good use of their skills and talents at home”.

If not, Darriulat told University World News, this would “only lead to a catastrophic brain drain”.

Darriulat, who is a member of the University of Science and Technology international scientific board, believes that the top priority for foreign-partnered and Vietnamese universities with world-class aspirations should be to make proper use of young Vietnamese postdocs present in Vietnam as well as those in the diaspora, giving the younger generation a chance to play an active part in the renaissance of higher education.

To make that happen, Darriulat suggested that universities should create a habilitation degree, in order to select university teachers of sufficient level. Institutions should also establish centres of excellence, support them, and secure reasonable wage levels, working conditions, autonomy and academic freedom.

Granting an appropriate decree of autonomy – especially in terms of funding, human resources, governance and curriculum development – to aspiring world-class universities has also been recommended by Roger Chao Jr, a PhD candidate at City University of Hong Kong, whose dissertation compares regionalisation and internationalisation processes in higher education in East Asian countries.

“If Vietnam’s government still wants to leapfrog its universities to world-class level, autonomy is prerequisite,” Chao concluded.

Higher education that makes a difference

Posted by Arno Maierbrugger on March 15, 2012 in Education, Higher Education, Human Resources, Interviews

  

Professor Dato’ Omar Osman, USM’s Vice Chancellor

Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), the second oldest university in Malaysia, is known for its special approach to higher education where students can reach a high degree of specialisation by combining related subjects and organised courses. Fields that USM promotes and develops are natural sciences, applied sciences, medical, health and pharmaceuticals, building technology, social sciences, humanities, and education. Inside Investor spoke with Professor Dato’ Omar Osman, USM’s Vice Chancellor, about the structure of this educational strategy and its focus on benefiting the people.

Q: Could you give us an overview of the major milestones that USM has passed in building its brand credibility in the local education sector?

A: We as a university did not reach the half-century mark yet, but I believe the progress we have made is already beyond that because we have come to a state where we can easily say that we have reached maturity, reflected through the nation’s progress. We started later than the nation, but I think we have moved alongside Malaysia. We have linked with 300 universities worldwide in 90 countries over the years. That reflects the network of our faculty members in a global scenario. Now is the phase when we need to focus and direct our resources to areas where the value for money will be higher. We are stepping up strategies so that studies that we have, research that we do, and commercialisation that we invest in, will bring economic benefit to the university and to the country.

Q: What are the study opportunities that USM offers to foreign students?

A: For foreign students there might be some limitations because some courses are only held in our language – however, it is easy to learn but we require some conditions to be met for Bahasa Malaysia. We run our undergraduate programmes in sciences and core courses in English, but for other courses, Bahasa Malaysia is a prerequisite. Our priority is on local students, but we do invite those from abroad who are interested to come if they meet certain conditions. For the postgraduate studies, we can go up to 25 or 30 per cent share of foreign students, but even then we are moving away from quantity to quality for both domestic and overseas students. The resources need to be expanded and investment needs to be made, including into the students that come in, so that we get the good ones and the good ones will graduate. In terms of increasing the numbers, we now want to focus on areas that we are lacking in terms of capacity. If we have to invest into courses for foreign students, it has to be an investment that is worthwhile. That means that there must be a purpose of what we do at the stage we have reached now. It is not that we would take foreign students because the pay more fees, there must be a purpose for them to come and they have to be good students. As of now, many of them have been contributing very significantly to the university.

Q: How does USM differentiate itself from other learning institutions, especially in the science courses? Is there something unique that other private or public universities do not offer?

A: Yes, we are different. We make sure that what we do is an investment that is worthwhile. We are focused at sustainability issues across the board. We are consistent, persistent, and focused on the many things that we do. Now, we have embarked on undergraduate courses on sustainability which are compulsory for all, as we did for master courses and MBA courses. We look at sustainability research that benefits the people at the lower end of the population, the bottom billion. We do not focus on high-end products for high-end people. We are not going to spend millions of dollars to build facilities for the rich to exhilarate themselves. But we will invest into the areas that will benefit more people, such as programmes that relate to medication, vaccination, and diagnostics, and we want to encourage a lot more of our researchers to move into the source technology that benefits more people rather than going into high technology that benefits less people. Of course we could go into high technology that benefits more people, but this would require more money. Our country does not have that abundance of money to spend to get into that. For example, we have started with research on green sustainability years ago when nobody really paid attention to it. We have done our part in creating that awareness, and we were very jubilant when the government created a Ministry of Green Technology. Now, we want a Ministry of Sustainability. That’s where university should happen. We should move beyond the realms of practicality and show the way forward. We know that we have brought the nation partly on that track.

Q: How about foreign partnerships? Is USM collaborating with foreign partners in research and development and academic programmes? Please give some examples and brief details of the collaborations.

A: We have collaboration projects with many universities, for example in Japan, Saudi Arabia, and the UK, including some of our WHO acknowledged laboratory collaborators. We are doing collaboration on a beneficial basis. We are going there to give. In Saudi Arabia, one of the flagship projects we have been involved in was research on the Haj pilgrimage, in detail the management system of the Haj, the transport issues and the comfort level during the Haj and Umrah seasons. In Malaysia, we estimate that we have 150,000 people doing the Umrah and 30,000 doing the Haj every year. However, we have many more collaborations with a lot of other universities.

Q: What is the message you would give to the GCC about the standard of education in Malaysia as opposed the West?

A: Malaysia has established itself as a country that is focused in quality and proper benchmarking at an international level. We are not better, but we are not worse than any other educational institution in the world. We may not have the best facilities, but we definitely have all the necessary infrastructure and academic tools as well as progressive research. Perception is a manageable issue. Currently; over 20 foreign universities want to come to Malaysia. This country provides an ecosystem that is balanced, no matter if you are a Muslim or a non-Muslim. Furthermore, the standard of living is one of the attractive points of Malaysia, you get more value for money here than somewhere else. The education system is now well developed, not only in the private sector, also in the public sector. Malaysia provides a variety of choices. If you opt for vibrancy, religious tolerance, security, or else, it is all packaged into one in Malaysia. If Middle Eastern students want to come here, they cannot expect a Western atmosphere, but an Eastern atmosphere. They have choices, they can go for the best and the most exclusive university or a more comprehensive one where it is all about real life, or they can choose a private university that has only a few hundred students or they can come to our university which has 30,000 students. We provide an ecosystem, a platform of knowledge for people who want to experience the real life. And I don’t think our quality is less superior than the quality of any other institutions. We don’t have Nobel Prize winners, but Nobel Prize winners don’t teach undergraduates. Malaysia is a place where you can have a non-Western education based on Western standards.

Q: What opportunities do you see for GCC investors into the education system in Malaysia?

A: We welcome GCC investors here, as we have a high potential of research such as water security, food security, and the like. We actually would need a lot of philanthropic organisations to come and move us, not only in the fundamentals, but also in the commercialisation of products. That actually benefits more people. If we have a fully commercialised business entity to come, this would be a big shot. For example, the Qatar Foundation would be indeed welcomed a partner for strategic initiatives.

Q: The university organises various programmes such as “Kampus Sejahtera”, “The University in the Garden” etc. to enhance its learning environment. How can these programmes benefit the students?

A: It’s an idea to get the campus community involved with daily efforts, through pragmatic solutions and proposals, giving it into their responsibility. It’s about wellbeing and sustainability, the “Campus in the Garden”. We want to incorporate this in the mind of the community of 30,000 on our campus. Doing this, we give impact to 200,000 other people over multiplication. The community follows what the students believe. It is positive empowerment. We cannot do what everybody is doing. We are doing things different.

Q: What is the APEX programme?

A: It is the Accelerated Programme for Excellence, a programme to be excellent in an accelerated way. In doing so, we push our resources to the limit. Part of this is the strong teamwork among the community. We say: let us spend more money to build ourselves rather than spending more resources to make ourselves recognised temporarily. We benefit more people and are not making few people rich. A university given apex status is one that has the greatest potential among Malaysian universities to be world-class, and as such, would be given additional assistance to compete with top-ranked global institutions

Q: Are you looking to get additional funding for the commercialisation of the universities research?

A: Funding from the government has its limitations, and we need to look at generating other forms of income, this is why we are looking for investors. Commercialisation of products is a painful and difficult process, and we need partners for this. For example, for halal products, we need someone who can provide the supply and sales chain.

Q: What is the share of academics in Malaysia compared to other nations in the region? What would be a desirable percentage to boost economic growth? What role does science and technology education play to reach these goals?

A: I can’t give you the numbers now, but it is clear that the country needs to produce a high-end cohort group of PhDs and other specialists. We want to increase that, but this takes time. The academic community in Malaysia needs to be given a status. If the government works on this, Malaysia would have a high rate of academics in about 20 year. But this needs more investment into higher education. Differentiation needs to be done, then the commercial sector follows, and the students will be nurtured. A pole position has to be taken.

Timor-Leste: Sweet potato improves life for subsistence farmers

27 April 2013 Issue No:269

 

The golden flesh of new sweet potato varieties is lifting living standards in one of the world’s poorest nations, Timor-Leste. Thanks to new varieties of the vegetable, farmers in the young tropical nation not only have a more reliable crop that out-yields local varieties of sweet potato, they can also produce a highly nutritious food.

Sweet potato is mainly a breakfast or snack food on the island and is boiled in water, baked or roasted over an open fire, or fried in oil.

But researchers have found that the new varieties are helping improve life for Timor-Leste’s 1.1 million people, of whom more than 80% are subsistence farmers.

Professor William Erskine, director of the University of Western Australia’s centre for legumes in Mediterranean agriculture, co-authored a report of the research outlining the uses of sweet potato in a country that is third in a UN ranking of countries with the highest percentage of chronically malnourished children.

The centre staff along with the university’s institute of agriculture, Timor-Leste’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, and the Seeds of Life Program collaborated on nearly 200 farmer-managed trials in the 2006-07 and 2007-08 growing seasons.

Whether sweet potato varieties were planted in a mixed plot with maize, cassava, beans or yams and whether the plots were weeded or not had no effect on the sweet potato yield.

The new test varieties also produced a sweet potato that was more marketable because of its smooth skin and flesh and regular shape. They are now being widely adopted across Timor-Leste.

One variety, which is high in calories and has good levels of beta-carotene – the red-orange pigment in plants that is a source of vitamin A – is likely to help prevent calorie malnutrition as well as vitamin A deficiency. The latter can lead to cancer, birth defects, impaired immune function and night blindness.

The new varieties have the added advantages of being able to store well and maintain their beta-carotene content for at least 50 day and this is also retained during cooking.

The researchers said that the study was unique in the way it involved farmers in the trials and then being interviewed after each harvest. “They were asked about characteristics in the local and test varieties and whether they would re-plant and why,” the researchers wrote in a paper published in the journal Field Crops Research.

UNITED STATES: ‘Jesus’ exercise ban curtailed academic freedom

The Palm Beach Post27 April 2013 Issue No:269

 

A faculty committee at Florida Atlantic University has made a preliminary finding that academic freedom was compromised when the institution banned a controversial classroom exercise that asked students to write ‘Jesus’ on a piece of paper and step on it, writes George Bennett for The Palm Beach Post.

The finding was read during a packed faculty senate meeting on 19 April. While teaching an intercultural communications class in February, instructor Deandre Poole followed the manual for a popular textbook, which said the ‘Jesus’ exercise was intended to teach students that “even though symbols are arbitrary, they take on very strong and emotional meanings”.

Florida Atlantic University initially defended the exercise when a student went to a local TV station with complaints about it. But when a national uproar ensued, administrators apologised and ordered it removed from the curriculum without consulting faculty. Poole, a Christian who said he wouldn’t have stepped on the paper if he had been asked to, received hate mail and death threats and was placed on administrative leave with pay because of concerns for his safety.

UNITED STATES: After Boston, fear of backlash against Muslim students

Dan Berrett, The Chronicle of Higher Education27 April 2013 Issue No:269

 

When she learned that two bombs had been detonated at the Boston Marathon, one thought crossed Ifrah Inam's mind: "Oh God, don't let it be a Muslim."

This is an article from The Chronicle of Higher Education, America’s leading higher education publication. It is presented here under an agreement with University World News.

The day after the bombing, the student in the pharmacy programme at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences in Boston briefly considered visiting Boylston Street, the site of the attack. She decided not to, in part because she worried what the reaction might be to her hijab.

"You couldn't help but be paranoid," said Inam, who is president of her campus's Muslim Students Association.

Paranoia

Paranoia has been in ample supply since the two bombs killed three people and injured more than 175 others. Before the suspects were named in the twin blasts, several young men, mostly South Asian or Middle Eastern, were convicted in the court of public opinion.

A Saudi Arabian national who was injured in the blast and then questioned by the police was erroneously labelled a person of interest by several news outlets.

An Indian-American student at Brown University who has been missing for a month was tagged in social media – in error – as being one of the bombing suspects who engaged in a deadly gunfight with police officers early on Friday morning. [He was later found dead.]

Those stories joined other episodes after the bombing, in which South Asians and Arabs were reportedly assaulted.

"Of course we are concerned about backlashes against our students," said Mody Alkhalaf, assistant attaché for cultural and social affairs at the Saudi Arabian Embassy. "There are still some ignorant people who find stereotyping appealing and easier than dealing with others as individuals."

Bomber brothers

The revelation that the suspected bombers are the brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 19 and 26 respectively, has both confirmed and confounded stereotypes – although the story of what motivated them to allegedly kill innocents remains unknown, and investigators are cobbling together fragments to try to make sense of it.

This much is known: Their family hails from Chechnya, the predominantly Muslim region in the Caucasus with a bitter history with Russia, one fraught with terrorist attacks. The young men moved to the United States about 10 years ago and settled in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

News accounts have portrayed Dzhokhar as seemingly well integrated into American life. President Barack Obama gave voice to the mystery of their motive. "Why did young men who grew up and studied here, as part of our communities and our country, resort to such violence?" he asked.

The leader of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, pointed a finger at the United States. "Any attempt to make a link between Chechnya and the Tsarnaevs, if found guilty, is in vain," he wrote on Instagram. "They grew up in the US, their views and beliefs were formed there. The roots of evil must be searched for in America."

A mental health issue

Many Muslim students and their advocates fear that the Tsarnaevs' religion will be seen as the determining factor in their actions, and that the kind of suspicion that followed the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 will re-emerge.

Foremost in many of the students' memories are the efforts by the New York City Police Department to infiltrate Muslim student groups. The police defended their actions, which largely took place in 2006, by saying that terror plots in England had involved Muslim student groups at universities there.

Faculty members in New York condemned the surveillance. Jeanne Theoharis, a professor of political science at Brooklyn College of City University of New York, was among them, and she fears its resurgence. She said that several campus associations of Muslim students hang signs during meetings imploring students not to talk about politics.

"If you don't feel comfortable talking about certain things, you don't develop as you should," she said. "That's very costly in terms of education."

Theoharis said different standards also seemed to be at work in how people thought about the Boston Marathon bombings compared with other recent high-profile tragedies in Arizona, Colorado and Connecticut. In those cases, lone gunmen killed and injured scores of innocent people.

The gun-related killings are seen as the work of mentally unbalanced individuals, she said. White people, like her, don't have to answer for the actions of those white killers in the way Muslims are generally expected to after horrific episodes of mass violence of the kind that occurred in Boston.

"We should be looking at this through the frame of mental health," she said of the marathon bombings. "It's the frame we're comfortable with for other tragedies."

Akbar Ahmed, a professor at American University's School of International Service and a former ambassador for Pakistan, sees another paradigm at work in Boston and its aftermath.

The bombing, he said, is not evidence of a grand ‘clash of civilizations’, as posited by Bernard Lewis and Samuel P Huntington. Instead, Ahmed argued, tribalism is what drives acts of terror.

An anthropologist, Ahmed studied 40 remote tribal societies for his new book, The Thistle and the Drone: How America's war on terror became a global war on tribal Islam. Such societies are driven by a code in which honour, hospitality and revenge are paramount. Many of those precepts run counter to the tenets of Islam, he said.

"Islam had nothing to do with it," he said of attacks like the one in Boston. The real dichotomy, he said, is one in which the centre, or the modernised, prosperous world, conflicts with the periphery, or the tribal world.

When violence scars tribal areas in Chechnya, Pakistan, Somalia or Waziristan, for example, anger boils up among its men, he said. They look for ways to fight back. Since they are suffering on the periphery, men in those tribal regions reason, those who live in the centre should, too.

"They respond with their own mutated sense of revenge," Ahmed said.

While the Tsarnaev brothers had lived in the United States since the early 2000s, he said the legacy of Chechen tribalism ran deep. "The code is so strong."

Ahmed said this more nuanced understanding of Islam and of tribalism would ultimately help those who are targets of terrorism better integrate the alienated and disaffected products of tribalism.

He also thought Islam needed to do a better job of offering young men a fruitful path. "They have to get imams who understand youth culture," he said.

THAILAND: University autonomy prompts concern over student fees

Suluck Lamubol27 April 2013 Issue No:269

 

Thailand’s government is continuing to allow universities more autonomy, claiming that this will deliver administrative flexibility and freedom from state bureaucracy. But it faces opposition from students and academics concerned about fees and lack of accountability.

Last month the Thai parliament approved the first readings of three bills that make the three main universities in Bangkok – Thammasat, Kasetsart and Suan Dusit Rajabhat – autonomous bodies, granting executive and administrative power to their councils instead of the universities being subject to the Ministry of Education, as they currently are.

The bills mean that the universities will no longer be guaranteed state funding subsidies per student, as financial responsibility will fall on the universities, but they will receive an annual block grant from the state budget.

Among Thailand’s 172 universities, there are 15 universities that are already autonomous and 65 state universities. The rest are private institutions, community colleges or institutes.

“The goal of making universities autonomous bodies has nothing to do with having more independence or flexibility,” claimed Kengkij Kitirianglarp, a lecturer in the sociology faculty at Chiangmai University, which became autonomous in 2008.

“The state pushes the financial burden on the university to administrate, so that the state becomes less responsible for peoples’ education,” he told University World News.

Kengkij said that since autonomous universities receive block grants instead of per-student state subsidies, they are driven to earn additional income by opening profitable ‘special’ (commercial) programmes and recruiting more students, while facilities and lecturer numbers remain the same. This unavoidably affects the quality of education.

Statistics compiled by the ThaiPublica website show that after King Mongkut Institute of Technology, Ladkrabang, became an autonomous body in 2008, student fees increased by around 40%.

Burapha University, which also became autonomous in 2008, has raised fees by at least 40% and student numbers have doubled, with around half of them enrolling on commercial programmes. It has been speculated that the university might decrease student numbers on ‘normal’ courses while increasing intakes for commercial programmes.

Pakorn Areekul is a former leader of the Student Front against Autonomous Universities, a network of student groups at some 10 universities, which staged weekly protests early last year to oppose the autonomous university bills.

He said the bills would deprive students of guaranteed rights to education and give too much power to university councils. However, the protests did not stop parliamentarians from approving the first reading of the three bills in March.

Pakorn, a recent graduate of Burapha University, said autonomy from Thailand’s bureaucratic system could be good in terms of institutional flexibility and faster academic cooperation with other institutions.

But he called for a proper review of the bills by the university community before submitting them to parliament. Also, university councils should allow more participation by students regarding tuition fees.

“We think the university should have academic excellence, independence and quality, but it should also guarantee that all students have equal access to education,” he told University World News.

Pakorn added that student groups were preparing to submit a parallel bill to parliament, proposing a ceiling on tuition fees, more student participation in university councils and income-contingent loans.

Greater autonomy also affects university employees, including administrative staff and lecturers.

Under the autonomous structure, university staff may trade social welfare benefits – such as family-inclusive healthcare supported by the state – with a 1.7% increase in salary. Employment contracts must be renewed every one to three years, while previously people were employed until the retirement age of 60 years.

“Since the university needs to make a profit, it reduces all the ‘unnecessary’ costs, which affects employees’ job security,” said sociology lecturer Kengkij Kitirianglarp.

“It reduces the bargaining power of academics and staff in the university, which unavoidably affects academic freedom, among other things.” 

GLOBAL: Scientists sent to prison for fraudulent conduct

Geoff Maslen25 April 2013 Issue No:269 

Every year around the world, scientists and other researchers are found to have committed various acts of fraud, often after they were discovered to have manipulated research findings. But rarely do they suffer any more severe punishment than being dismissed and, occasionally, having their reputations irreparably damaged in the media.

Sometimes, though, a fraudster is actually sent to jail – as happened last month when a British scientist was convicted of scientific fraud after falsifying research data. Steven Eaton became the first person to serve time under the UK’s 1999 Good Laboratory Practice Regulations and was sentenced to three months in jail.

Eaton had tampered with data from pre-clinical trials of an anti-cancer drug while working at the now-closed Edinburgh branch of US pharmaceutical company Aptuit.

The BBC reported that in handing down the sentence, Sheriff Michael O’Grady said had the fraud not been discovered, Eaton could have caused cancer patients “unquestionable harm”.

The case began in 2009 when the pharmaceutical company noticed irregularities in Eaton’s data while conducting quality control procedures.

The company notified the UK Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency which, after conducting an investigation, found Eaton had been falsifying results of experiments to make them appear successful as far back as 2003.

Ivan Oransky, a clinical assistant professor at New York University and co-author of the blog Retraction Watch, which collates notices of retractions and scientific fraud, said it was unusual to see researchers jailed for professional misconduct.

Oransky said that in the past five years, the US Office of Research Integrity had found more than 40 researchers guilty of misconduct but only two had served any time in prison.

One was Eric T Poehlman, a scientist in the field of human obesity and ageing, who was jailed for six months for falsifying data in a grant application. He also published fraudulent research alleging that hormone replacement injections could serve as a therapy for menopause when it had no proven medical benefits at all.

Another researcher to face a term in jail was Luk van Parijs, an associate professor of biology at MIT’s centre for cancer research. He was sacked for misconduct after fabricating and falsifying research data in a paper, several unpublished manuscripts, and grant applications.

In March 2011, Van Parijs pleaded guilty in a US court to making a false statement on a federal grant application. The government called for a six-month jail term because of the seriousness of the fraud, which involved a US$2-million government grant.

After several prominent scientists, including Van Parijs' former post-doc supervisor, pleaded for clemency, Van Parijs was sentenced to six months of home detention with electronic monitoring, plus 400 hours of community service and a payment to MIT of US$61,117 – restitution for the already-spent grant money that MIT had to return to the National Institutes of Health.

In another instance, in 2010, an anesthesiologist named Scott Reuben was sentenced to six months in prison for healthcare fraud. This followed the revelation that he had fabricated data and had committed “related misdeeds” in six drug trials.

Reuben, a former chief of the acute pain clinic at a medical clinic in Springfield, Massachusetts, was also ordered to pay a $5,000 fine, to pay $361,932 in restitution to the drug companies that funded his research and to forfeit $50,000 in assets. After serving time in prison, Reuben had to undergo three years of supervised release, the Justice Department said.

These researchers, however, remain among the few of an undoubtedly large number of crooked scientists to face a court and be punished for their crimes.

GLOBAL: What motivates Brits and Americans to study abroad?

Yojana Sharma06 March 2013 Issue No:262

 

Students from the UK and US have different reasons for overseas study. British students say a major motivation is to work abroad and prepare for a career with international companies, while most US students view a period abroad as an opportunity to travel and explore other cultures, with less emphasis on the academic experience or job prospects afterwards.

Despite the oft-repeated notion that students in these English-speaking countries lack foreign language skills, four out of five respondents considering overseas study from both countries said they felt confident using a foreign language – and of the top 10 overseas study destinations chosen by UK and US students, seven were non-English-speaking countries.

Nonetheless 29% of UK students considering studying overseas said the US was their first choice destination, while 22% of US students chose the UK, according to a new British Council survey, Broadening Horizons: Breaking through the barriers to overseas study, released on Wednesday during the council’s Going Global conference in Dubai.

Only one in five UK students but just over half (56%) of US students surveyed were considering studying overseas, according to the survey of more than 10,000 students from both countries.

A large number of UK students – two-thirds of respondents – said they were not considering overseas study and many said they did not have enough information to make an informed decision about overseas study.

Among the British students who were considering studying abroad, almost half wanted to do so at undergraduate level and half said they wanted to study abroad as postgraduates. In the US, 82% wanted to study overseas at the undergraduate level.

Motivations

British students have a more utilitarian attitude towards overseas study; 82% of UK respondents considering overseas study believed they would need more than their current qualification to stand out from the crowd and secure a good job.

Nine out of 10 UK respondents believed an overseas study experience could give them an edge when applying for jobs, according to the report. Just 28% said they wanted to have fun and explore other cultures, compared to four out of five students who mentioned this in America.

Among US students, 30% saw study abroad as an opportunity to start an international career and 19% as a chance to improve employment prospects. More than British students they pursued study abroad “to develop soft skills and add non-academic weight to their resumés”, the report said.

For UK respondents the top three countries for study abroad are English speaking – the US (29%), Australia (10%) and Canada (10%), followed by France and Germany – with foreign language students preferring European countries and Japan, and business and management students preferring the US, Australia, Canada and China.

Italy is popular among those interested in creative arts and design. And China was one of the most popular destinations with students at UK universities that had institutional partnerships with Chinese universities.

Improving language skills was also an important motivation for British students, with half of all of those thinking of studying abroad citing this.

For US students, top countries for study abroad were the UK, which was named by 22%, France 11%, Spain 11%, Italy and Australia.

For US students, business and management, health and medicine, and languages are the most popular study-abroad disciplines – the UK, Australia and South Korea in particular are popular destinations for students of health and medicine, while engineering students prefer Japan, Germany and China. China is also the most popular destination for students of business and management.

Barriers

The main barriers to overseas studies were cost, including the cost of healthcare while abroad, as well as language, visa issues and leaving behind friends and family.

While for British students “there is a small but increasing consideration that a destination’s tuition fees may be cheaper than those in the UK”, the report noted that some 37% of US students said that access to financial aid directly affected their decision.

The report estimates that overall, for at least two-thirds of US students, financial issues were a potential barrier to overseas study. But being away from home was also a consideration.

“Many students explained that taking a year away from their established course companions, circles of friends and sports teams would, in their opinion, have an adverse effect on their future progress and success, both academically and socially.

“Establishing and maintaining such networks was often seen as more important than pursuing an overseas study experience,” according to the report.

CHINA: Online courses gain popularity at universities

Global Times09 March 2013 Issue No:262

 

The trend of learning through open online courses has made its way to China, as more of the country's top universities unveil public courses. The first cross-university open class for college students in Shanghai kicked off last Tuesday night, reports Global Times.

The city's university course-sharing platform formally began registering students from 30 schools in the municipality, and the course "Introduction to Philosophy", offered by Professor Wang Defeng with Fudan University, became the first-ever cross-university public course, welcoming 1,072 students last Tuesday.

Attempts to open resources at top universities to the public have gained popularity in the past two years. "I have a dream that everyone who wants to go to Peking University can see their wishes come true," said Zhou Qifeng, president of Peking University.

Full report on the Global Times site

 

The trend of learning through open online courses has made its way to China as more of the country's top universities unveil public courses, and the first cross-university open class for college students in Shanghai kicked off on Tuesday night.

The city's university course-sharing platform formally began registering students from 30 schools in the municipality, and the course "Introduction to Philosophy," offered by Professor Wang Defeng with Fudan University (FDU), became the first-ever cross-university public course, welcoming 1,072 students Tuesday. 

Wang's first lecture was broadcast live online Tuesday. Registered students at other universities could log on to watch it. 

"It took quite some effort to register for Wang's class. We call him the Prince of Philosophy," one student wrote on Weibo.

Another student surnamed Zhong, from Shanghai Jiaotong University, told the Global Times that he registered for a course on Western music history offered by the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. In addition to logging on for live classes, students are divided into 40 groups for panel discussions, and guest lecturers will also share their thoughts with the students.

Attempts to open resources at top universities to the public have gained popularity in the past two years. "I have a dream that everyone who wants to go to Peking University can see their wishes come true," said Zhou Qifeng, president of Peking University (PKU), on Tuesday.

As a flagship university in China, PKU is posting lectures by prestigious professors online. "We've produced dozens of episodes and will work hard to increase quality and share it with the public," said Zhou.

"This is a great trend. I love the film  class by Professor Dai Jinhua, and I don't need to feel jealous of PKU students anymore," a Beijing-based software engineer surnamed Lin told the Global Times. He added that such courses give people in narrow fields the chance to explore more ideas.

Global Times 
 

UNITED STATES: Tensions reappear at University of Virginia

The Washington Post09 March 2013 Issue No:262

 

 Out of sight, tension has continued to build between University of Virginia President Teresa Sullivan and Helen Dragas, rector of the institution's board of visitors, as they struggle for control over the university’s agenda and priorities, according to several people close to the situation, writes Jenna Johnson for The Washington Post.

In recent weeks, the conflict hit boiling point. Days after Virginia lawmakers confirmed Dragas’ reappointment to the board in January, the rector sent the president a lengthy and detailed list of goals to meet this year. Sullivan, apparently incensed, responded by sending the entire board an email arguing that the 65 goals constitute, among other things, “micro-management”.

The university is still recovering from the events of the summer, when Dragas and another board leader asked Sullivan to resign in early June without publicly providing reasons. Faculty revolted, demanding Sullivan’s return and the resignation of responsible board members. They were soon joined by thousands of alumni, students, donors and others. After 18 days of upheaval, the board reinstated Sullivan. 

Full report on the News http://Leader.com site

UAE: Universities reminded of obligation to teach in Arabic

The National09 March 2013 Issue No:262

 

Teaching in Arabic should be compulsory in state universities in the United Arab Emirates, Federal National Council members and linguistic and education experts have urged, writes Wafa Issa for The National.

Lessons taught in English are "a clear violation of the country's constitution", said Jamal Al Mehiri, a cultural advisor in the Dubai government. Article 7 of the constitution states that "the official language of the federation is Arabic", he said. "I am asking that the Federal National Council require UAE universities and schools to teach in Arabic, otherwise we will take to court any university that imposes English on our children.”

The comments and others were made at a seminar on the status of Arabic, its future and its relation to national identity, the last in a series of meetings between the committee and educational and linguistic experts. The committee will issue a report to the council and cabinet on policies and measures needed to enhance Arabic, especially among young people.

Full report on The National site

GLOBAL Australia rises as US, UK universities dip in reputation survey

David Jobbins05 March 2013 Issue No:262

 

 Three UK universities have dropped out of the top 100 in the latest Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings, while Australia continues to build its presence. The US, which has more universities than any other nation in the top 100, has lost two universities since the ranking began.

The 2013 rankings, published on Monday, seal Harvard University’s place at the head of an elite 'top six' of Anglo-American universities that continue to move further ahead of the rest.

Harvard University (pictured) is followed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Cambridge, the University of Oxford, the University of California – Berkeley, and Stanford University.

Although Oxford traded places with Stanford this year, membership of the top six has remained consistent since the rankings’ first edition in 2011, "with the gap between it and the chasing pack widening each year", according to the survey.

The World Reputation Rankings are a part of the ranking system published by the THE, but do not replace the broader World University Rankings published each autumn.

US representation in the top 100 dipped from 45 in 2011 to 44 in 2012 and to 43 in 2013.

Most of the US institutions to suffer significant falls are public universities, including the University of Wisconsin-Madison (27 to 30), the University of California – San Francisco (31 to 40), the University of Massachusetts (39 to 42), the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (which has dropped out of the top 50) and the University of Pittsburgh (which has fallen from the 61-70 band to 71-80).

US winners include Carnegie Mellon University (37 to 26) and New York University (34 to 29).

Outside the US, the UK has the most representatives (nine) in the top 100, but its overall performance has weakened since 2011, when it had 12.

The UK has seven universities in the top 50, with University College London up one place to 20 and the London School of Economics up from 29 to 25. The University of Edinburgh climbed three places to 46 and the University of Manchester has entered the global top 50 for the first time, in 47th place.

But this year the University of Leeds dropped out of the top 100, following the relegation in 2012 of the University of Sheffield and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Phil Baty, editor of Times Higher Education Rankings, commented: “Traditionally, the strength in depth of the UK system has been one of its most notable features. Having a large number of institutions with truly world-class standing has delivered huge returns for the sector and the wider economy.

“However, it now seems that a gap is opening up between the best and the rest, with even star institutions losing their lustre. With the coalition government attempting to introduce a ruthless market in UK higher education and concentrating increasingly scarce resources on a select few, it looks like there will be trouble ahead for UK plc.”

Australia rising

Outside the US and UK, Australia built on its strong representation, with the four existing top 100 universities joined for the first time by Monash University (91-100 band) and the University of New South Wales (81-90 band).

Baty said: “In many ways these results show that Australia’s image among scholars around the world is catching up with the reality: until now it has tended to perform less well in the reputation rankings compared with the overall, objective World University Rankings, which come out every autumn.

“These results show how well poised Australia is to make the most of its geographical advantages: while it has strong links with the best universities in the West, it has also made the most of East Asia’s booming higher education scene.

"If it continues to exploit these opportunities, Australia could be a serious beneficiary of the Asian Century, which is great news for its economy and competitiveness.”

Other nations

Japan, The Netherlands and Germany each has five institutions in the top 100, with Germany gaining a new entrant in 2013: Freie Universität Berlin, which entered the 91-100 band.

Canada, Hong Kong and Sweden each has three institutions in the top 100.

Japan remains Asia’s leading nation, but its universities are losing ground to rivals in Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan, including the National University of Singapore (up one place to 22), Nanyang Technological University (from 91-100 in 2011 to 71-80 this year), Seoul National University (41), and the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (up from 81-90 to 61-70).

The University of Hong Kong is in 36th place (up from 39 in 2012 and 42 in 2011) and National Taiwan University moved up from the 81-90 band in 2011 to the 51-60 group in 2013.

Although they remain in the top 50, China’s two globally reputed universities have slipped down the ranking – Tsinghua University from 30 to 35 and Peking University from 38 to 45.

Just 20 countries are represented in the top 100. India and Ireland do not appear, and nor does any African country. Brazil’s University of São Paulo, which holds its position in the 61-70 band, is the only Latin American institution represented.

Israel lost one of its two top 100 representatives, Tel Aviv University, while the Hebrew University of Jerusalem slipped from the 61-70 band to 71-80.

The reputation rankings are based on a global invitation-only opinion poll carried out by Ipsos MediaCT for THE’s rankings data supplier, Thomson Reuters. Over three years, there have been 48,000 responses from senior published academics in more than 150 countries, with the 2013 survey based on 16,639 responses.

Baty said: “It is clear that no university, no matter how prestigious, can afford to be complacent in this fast-moving, information-rich global age. New forces in higher education are emerging, especially in the East Asian countries that are investing heavily in building world-class universities, so the traditional elite must be very careful.

"In the three years that the World Reputation Rankings have been running, we have clear evidence that the US and the UK in particular are losing ground.”

Full results of the survey are here.

* Photo credit: Busch Courtyard at Harvard University. Picture by Rose Lincoln, a Harvard staff photographer.

GLOBAL: Higher education as soft power in the age of autonomy

Yojana Sharma08 March 2013 Issue No:262

 

Higher education is often seen as playing a ‘soft power’ role in international relations. But it is not easy for governments to co-opt universities, and soft power can be both positive and negative, an international higher education conference in Dubai heard this week.

Dorothea Rüland, secretary general of Germany’s Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), said at the British Council’s Going Global conference on 5 March that using higher education for soft power had become more difficult, despite the growing importance of the sector.

In a panel on “Soft Power: Higher education and cultural diplomacy”, delegates heard that the emergence on the scene of new players such as China had changed the landscape of soft power using higher education, which had previously been based on the strength of a country’s higher education and research sectors.

A totally different environment

Many more emerging countries “want to be players. They want to be knowledge economies and they want a very strong position. So I am sure governments will try to promote soft power to position themselves for reputation, visibility and influence,” Rüland said.

And the picture has become more complicated. “It’s harder now because former ‘target countries’ such as China or Brazil are now themselves players in this field. It’s becoming far more competitive. Soft power today takes place in a totally different environment.”

Also, not all universities would necessarily do a government’s bidding abroad. “Universities have high autonomy, and they have their own internationalisation strategies. They know what they want and where they want to be active, so it’s much more difficult for governments to use universities as agents in their soft power strategy,” she said.

Martin Davidson, chief executive of the British Council, said: “The paradox of soft power is that the greater the government involvement is, the weaker the soft power is.

“Increasingly, the strongest higher education institutions are autonomous of governments. Governments may talk of where their national interests lie; but the government can’t instruct universities to act in a certain way.”

What governments can do is help “create conditions of exchange”, Davidson said. But even organisations like the British Council, founded to promote British culture and education abroad, must “remain at arm's length from government in order to work effectively”.

Hard versus soft power

Dr Li Minjiang, an associate professor at Singapore’s Nanyang University of Technology’s S Rajaratnam School of International studies, told the conference: “There’s no such thing as hard and soft power; it depends how you use it.”

Culture can be used to coerce as well as for diplomacy, he said. “There are many, many examples where culture can motivate violence.

“Nation states engage in soft power activity because they want to achieve certain objectives with their national interest. For example, if country A decides to forbid higher education exchanges with country B, then country A is using higher education for hard power,” Li said.

China in particular had been using various policies to improve soft power, including through its Confucius Institutes abroad – they now number 700 – that teach the Chinese language and promote Chinese culture.

“The purpose of China investing so much money is to improve the image of China, globally, to help people understand China. China also provides a lot of scholarships to foreign students – in 2010 almost 23,000 scholarships,” said Li.

“So obviously China has been very serious about using higher education to cultivate soft power.

Some countries would prefer soft power relations to hard power. “We are getting hard power support from different sources, but soft power is not coming,” said Junaid Zaidi, rector of the COMSATS Institute of Information Technology in Pakistan.

“We need higher education for our own development,” he said. “We depend on different countries to get our people trained.”

Panellists agreed that soft power was most effective when the relationship was ‘win-win’. It will only work “if you really have cooperation and not one partner utilising the other”, Rüland said.

’Denationalisation’ of higher education

But in terms of international relations, she said: “In the 20th century, politics was very important, but now education, the power of research in addressing big global issues, has grown in influence. Nations may not play such a big role any more.”

Technology, including information technology and massive open online courses (MOOCs), may well be leading to a ‘denationalisation’ of higher education, Rüland added, which would make its use for soft power purposes even more challenging for governments.

Regarding the MOOCs movement: “We do not know what it will mean in the end and who will join and which countries and universities will feed into it worldwide."

Said Rüland: “We can observe a strong networking going on in the university sector”, and it could significantly change the way governments are involved in promoting higher education collaborations – perhaps excluding them altogether. 

Cambodia ‘near bottom’ in budget transparency

Last Updated on 08 March 2013

By Stuart White

 

Cambodia's government ranks among the worst in the world in terms of budget transparency and has shown zero improvement since 2010, according to a biennial report released by an international transparency group yesterday.

According to the report from International Budget Partnership, which was presented at a conference by a coalition of NGOs including the NGO Forum and Transparency International Cambodia, the country scored 15 out of a possible 100 points – the same as in 2010 – putting its score between Nigeria and Egypt in a group of countries identified as providing “scant or no information” about their budgets.

The failing grade, the report says, is largely attributable to the Kingdom’s failure to make key budgetary documents – such as draft budgets and audit reports – accurate, useful and available to the public.

“Publishing the [budget] report, making it transparent, is just part of the process,” maintained Transparency International Cambodia Executive Director Preap Kol.

Failing to do so, he said, “may create a question mark as to whether the government has a real will for change”.

Kol also advocated a wait-and-see approach, noting that the 2014 survey “will tell whether the political will is there or not”.

In the meantime, noted In Samrithy of NGO Education Partnership, uncertainty over the budget among teachers was already causing disruptions in the education sector, and Ros Sopheap of Gender and Development for Cambodia similarly cited a dearth of specificity on funding for women-centric issues in the national budget.

According to opposition parliamentarian Son Chhay, Cambodia’s draft budget isn’t even made public to lawmakers outside of a select few in the ruling Cambodian People’s Party.

“No one besides the ruling CPP has a right to know or a right to decide on a yearly budget of the country,” he said, while noting that corruption accounts for hundreds of millions in lost revenue each year.

“We are left in the dark,” he added. “We are representing all the provinces, but we don’t even know what they’re doing in Phnom Penh.”

However, Phenn Rithipol, the bureau chief of the Ministry of Economics and Finance’s Department of Budget, maintained at yesterday’s conference that there was “no secret or reason behind” not publicising budgetary matters, but that there was simply no money with which to do so.

During his remarks, Rithipol allowed that there was “a lack of information sharing,” but urged patience, saying that ministry employees worked a difficult schedule, and were “very busy”.

 

Foreign investment in Cambodia’s property rises

Last Updated on 28 February 2013

By Siv Meng

 

Property experts say foreign companies are coming to invest in Cambodia’s property sector, as they see the growth and potential of the Kingdom.

Sung Bonna, director of Bonna Realty Group, said that the number of foreign companies in the sector has grown, and most are from South Korea, Japan, China, Singapore and Malaysia.

Chinese companies started their investments earliest, while other foreign companies have been studying and doing research about Cambodia before investing here.

“The property investment companies growth rose a little bit during 2011-212 as it grew better during 2012 and early in 2013”, Bonna said, “After Cambodia hosted the Asean Summit, with world leaders joining the meeting, we see the inflow of foreign investors into Cambodia, but some of them, at the moment, have been doing research and considering about the possible investment in Cambodia”.

Despite the signs of more investment, Bonna warned that there are too many public holidays to make investors happy in Cambodian, a point which he is worried and focused on.

“Forty-five days into the year to so far, there have only been 25 work days, which is an important issue that Cambodia government should take care of.”

Kong Putheara, director of the statistics and information department in the Ministry of Commerce, said there are 347 international companies entering to invest in Cambodia’s property, in which 107 are from South Korea, 54 from China, 21 from Malaysia, France and the USA, 17 from the UK, 15 from Australia and Vietnam, 12 from Thailand, eight from Japan and 56 from other countries.

However, he didn’t comfirm the growth level of foreign companies investing in Cambodia.

Keuk Narin, vice president of Asia Real Estate Cambodia, said that since 2012, there have been many international companies investing in Cambodia’s property sector, in which investors are Malaysian, Singaporean and Chinese, and from the second quarter of 2012, there has been a greater inflow of Japanese companies in Cambodia.  

Cheng Kheng, director of the CPL real estate company and president of Cambodian Valuers and Estate Agents Association, said now he was working with a concerned partner, so he do not want to say anything.

He said “the number of foreign companies investing and doing business in this sector has really increased but I don’t have specific figures. I have been working with the concerned parties to clearly get the figure in hand.”

Tourists, Not Tension, Reign at Preah Vihear Temple

By Neou Vannarin and Simon Lewis - March 8, 2013

 PREAH VIHEAR TEMPLE – Several fierce battles have been fought with Thailand at this ancient temple in recent years, but last week it was an energetic game of volleyball that kept Cambodian troops on their toes as groups of tourists wandered unconcerned around the 11th-century ruins. 

 

A Preah Vihear Authority conservation ranger drinks water. (Simon Lewis/The Cambodia Daily)

Despite saber-rattling stories in the Thai press and a recent warning by Prime Minister Hun Sen that Thailand planned to attack if the International Court of Justice (ICJ) rules that land around Preah Vihear belongs to Cambodia, volleyball and water were the two main concerns among troops at the temple.

A number of soldiers approached by reporters said they were under strict orders not to talk to the media. But rather than staying quiet to keep the enemy in the dark about military matters, they said they were gagged after a recent radio report quoted Cambodian soldiers complaining about the lack of water at the temple.

“The commander was angry after that,” said a soldier who declined to be named.

Far into the dry season, with only a few centimeters of water remaining in wells, and the ancient ponds of the mountaintop temple almost dry, water appeared to be the troops’ most pressing concern.

One soldier, Morn Phat, said that drinking water was being brought up the mountain.

“The water [to drink] is enough, but we have some trouble with water for bathing,” he said. “It’s normal for this season.”

Another, Touch Rathana, said all had been quiet on both the Cambodian and Thai sides of the frontline since July, when the countries held an official withdrawal of troops from an ICJ-proposed demilitarized zone (DMZ) around the temple.

Combat troops were withdrawn on both sides, and Cambodia has kept only conservation rangers and police at the temple since, Mr. Rathana said.

However, troops in army fatigues sat in sandbag bunkers on the steep road up to the mountaintop, which is still within the DMZ. Around the Hindu temple, only police and the Preah Vihear Authority’s rangers, armed only with pistols, were seen on patrol. The heavy weaponry previously stationed near the temple has been removed and there has been no fighting in the area for almost two years.

Around the ancient stones of Preah Vihear, on four ornate tiers separated by steps and long causeways, a handful of tourists strolled peacefully, occasionally crouching behind the sculptures for shade.

Eur Say Lang, 57, a rice farmer from Banteay Meanchey province’s Svay Chek district, said she had come to visit with a group of 17 people.

“But I feel a bit disappointed because it is ruined because of the war,” Ms. Say Lang said, peering sadly at the iconic lower pavilion, which is in a rundown state of repair.

“It must have been beautiful, if it wasn’t ruined by the Thai shells,” Ms. Say Lang said of the iconic stone portico, familiar to all from advertisements and beer labels.

Though the damage Ms. Say Lang spoke of was not inflicted by Thai artillery, but just hundreds of years of neglect and the harsh tropical climate, she thanked the Cambodian army for saving what was left.

“I’m really afraid that they [Thailand] will shell more and ruin everything. I’m happy the army is here to protect it.”

Ms. Say Lang carried with her a $1.25 photograph of herself in front of the temple, taken by one of the young men who make their living with digital cameras and battery powered laser printers.

According to figures from the provincial tourism department, visitors to Preah Vihear temple reached 92,300 in 2012, an increase of more than 75 percent compared to 2011.

Kong Vibol, director of the provincial tourism department, said the two-year period of peace at the temple meant visitors now felt safe.

“The security issue is under control. Our authorities have strengthened security, public order and hygiene for tourists to the temple,” he said.

Of the visitors in 2012, 7,141 were foreign nationals, almost two-and-a-half times the amount recorded in 2011, according to the figures.

“Most of the [foreign] visitors are from Europe, including Italy and France, as well as Asia, including Vietnam, China and Japan,” Mr. Vibol said, adding that the growth in tourism at the temple looked to be continuing this year, with more than 9,500 visitors seen in February alone.

Russian visitor Oleg Malin, 35, said the temple compared in beauty to Angkor Wat, but had an added element of excitement.

“I had some concerns. I was not advised [to visit],” he said, indicating that the modicum of danger associated with Preah Vihear was just his cup of tea.

Mr. Malin gestured at his two Russian companions: “I have some very adventurous friends.”

Prosecutor Wants Change to Sonando Charges

By Eang Mengleng and Zsombor Peter - March 8, 2013

In a bizarre twist at the Appeal Court hearing of jailed radio station owner Mam Sonando, the prosecution on Wednesday asked that judges drop the charge against Mr. Sonando of inciting antigovernment violence, but then asked the court to uphold another charge of leading an insurrection.

Jailed radio station owner Mam Sonando waves to photographers from a holding room at the Appeal Court in Phnom Penh on Wednesday, during the second day of hearings to have Mr. Sonando’s 20-year jail sentence overturned. (Siv Channa)

 Both charges carry a prison sentence of up to 15 years.

The owner of independent Beehive Radio, Mr. Sonando was convicted on a total of six charges for stoking an alleged secessionist movement in rural Kratie province by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court in October and handed down a 20-year jail sentence in a decision widely denounced as politically motivated and aimed at stifling a popular government critic.

Appeal Court prosecutor Hean Rith asked the judges to uphold five of those charges, including the one for leading an “insurrectionary movement,” but to drop the charge of inciting anti-government violence.

In its place, though, the prosecutor asked the court to convict Mr. Sonando of a brand new charge, under the forestry protection law, of illegally clearing state-owned forestland for private ownership, which carries a prison sentence of five to 10 years.

“The prosecution believes the Phnom Penh Municipal Court’s decision to charge Mr. Sonando with Article 464 was not right and that he should be charged with Article 97.6 of the Forestry Law,” Mr. Rith said.

Mr. Sonando is appealing all the charges against him, alongside Touch Ream and Khan Sovann, who were handed five- and three-year jail terms, respectively, for their own roles in the alleged insurrection.

All three have adamantly professed their innocence.

Presiding Judge Khun Leang Meng, bringing two days of hearings to a close, said the court would issue its decision on March 14.

Contacted afterward, Mr. Rith, the prosecutor, said the Forestry Law charge made sense because the alleged secessionists in Kratie province’s Broma village were in a dispute with Casotim, the private owner of a local rubber plantation.

“I asked the judges to change one of the Phnom Penh Municipal Court’s charges and keep the others,” he said. “It is a land dispute and a forestry issue, not an incitement issue.”

Mr. Sonando’s lawyer, Sa Sovan, said the Appeal Court had no authority to change the original charges, only to uphold or drop them entirely.

Yeng Virak, executive director of the Community Legal Education Center, a legal aid NGO, said the courtroom twist was astonishing.

Mr. Virak said the prosecutor’s attempt to have Mr. Sonando convicted of leading an insurrection without actually inciting violence—the charge he wants dropped—was mind-boggling.

“It does not make any sense,” he said.

However bizarre, Am Sam Ath, technical supervisor for local rights group Licadho, said merely swapping one charge for another would make little difference.

“It is not good for Mr. Sonando because he still faces other criminal charges,” he said. “Those other articles still carry three- to 10-year prison terms, and some three to five years.”

Outside the courthouse gates, hundreds of Mr. Sonando’s supporters who had come from far and wide were no less wary of success.

Kong Hong, who joined some friends in renting a taxi for the trip from Kompong Cham province, proudly sported a baseball cap with the logo of Mr. Sonando’s NGO, the Association of Democrats. A member since early last year, his Association of Democrats photo ID hung from around his neck.

“Mam Sonando broadcasts the real thing in Cambodia; he educates people about democracy,” he said of Mr. Sonando’s Beehive Radio station, one of the few independent broadcasters left in Cambodia.

“They convicted him because they didn’t like his activity, so that he can’t speak on the radio,” Mr. Hong said. “They don’t want Sonando to do something right for the people.”

Rupert Abbott, Cambodia researcher for Amnesty International, said the failure of all seven witnesses that Mr. Sonando’s lawyers had asked to attend the hearing—for the second straight day—also left the proceedings wanting of due process.

Some of the seven had been co-defendants with Mr. Sonando at his first trial in September and implicated the radio station owner in the alleged insurrection. After Mr. Sonando was convicted, those who had testified against the radio presenter had the remainder of their prison sentence suspended and walked free.

“I think it’s outrageous,” Mr. Abbott said of the absence of the witnesses, “because the evidence was really based on what those witnesses were saying [in court].”

“So the fact that they did not turn up and the defense did not have an opportunity to cross examine them and show the inconsistencies in what they’d said was very disappointing. And the defense asked for those testimonies to be thrown out, and I think that they have a very strong case for that.”

But Mr. Abbott said the prosecutor’s request to have one of the most serious charges dropped did add to the prospects of an early release for Mr. Sonando.

“We have to be hopeful,” he said. “We would hope that the conviction is overturned, that he is released immediately and unconditionally.”

Mr. Sonando’s case has attracted widespread attention from human rights groups and foreign governments alike, all calling for his release.

On a visit to Phnom Penh in November, U.S. President Barack Obama urged Prime Minister Hun Sen to release all of Cambodia’s political prisoners and called out Mr. Sonando by name.

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