NETHERLANDS: Foreign PhDs urged to stay during strong expansion

Jan Petter Myklebust and Eric Beerkens25 May 2013 Issue No:273

 

The number of doctoral candidates in the 13 Dutch universities jumped by almost 60% in the decade to 2010 and is now close to 4,000 students each year. An OECD country report on tertiary education in The Netherlands in 2008 said the proportion of foreign students at doctorate level was then 20%, with some 640 PhDs conferred.

Through the ongoing internationalisation of graduate education in The Netherlands, a broad variety of different PhD trajectories have emerged.

The PhD candidate as an employee of the university is the traditional model and is still widespread, especially in the hard sciences and life sciences.

Increasingly, however, foreign PhD candidates come to The Netherlands to pursue the degree while being funded by their own governments. Chinese government-sponsored students and DIKTI students – lecturers funded by the Indonesian Directorate General of Higher Education – are important examples.

The PhD premium

The output-based financing in the Dutch system – through a so-called ‘PhD premium’ where universities receive around €90,000 (US$116,000) for each graduate – is an important factor contributing to the growth.

Data collected by the Dutch Association of Universities indicates that 50% of PhD candidates at the three technical universities are foreign, with 60% from Europe, 25% from Asia and Oceania, and 10% from North America. The percentage of international employed PhD candidates for all universities was 45% in 2010, up from 35% in 2006.

The first five years after 2000 saw the third highest growth rate of international students in the world in The Netherlands, after South Africa and New Zealand.

According to a Nuffic report, in 2011-12, 69,450 international students were in the country, up 45% since 2007-08. But this large number included exchange students, while those enrolled in degree courses amounted to 56,131 in 2011-12.

Spain and France had more than 2,000 students at Dutch higher education institutions, while Italy, Bulgaria, the US, the UK, Poland, Indonesia, Greece, Turkey and Romania each had more than 1,000.

Not enough Dutch PhD students

But The Netherlands authorities are worried that doctoral training – especially in the fields of natural sciences, life sciences and engineering – is not attracting enough Dutch students, with many talented youths deterred from studying for a doctorate because only 30% of PhD holders are estimated to find work in academic institutions.

Furthermore, in many organisations outside the world of academia, a doctoral degree is not rewarded or is rewarded only to a limited extent.

The fact that PhD graduates are increasingly employed outside academe has been acknowledged by many Dutch universities and is reflected by the increased attention to transferable skills in many graduate schools.

The PhD Candidates Network of The Netherlands even set up a ‘professional PhD programme’ that provides students with the opportunity to work for several months outside their universities.

The Dutch authorities have tried repeatedly to address the imbalance between more doctorate holders leaving The Netherlands than those who graduated from local universities or migrated to The Netherlands with a degree taken elsewhere.

The Journal of Doctoral Studies published a report based on a survey that mapped the employment status of doctorate students at the time of graduation and looked at what factors influenced their initial labour market position.

The survey of 1,113 PhD candidates at four Dutch universities revealed that 86% of the respondents were in employment at the time of graduation, while 12% were working with a foreign university or university-affiliated organisation abroad.

Asked if they would seek work abroad, 11% reported they would go to another country, 14% were undecided and 75% said they hoped to find work in The Netherlands. Of internationally recruited PhD candidates who had come to The Netherlands to pursue their doctoral degree, 37% indicated they wanted to remain, 20% were undecided and 43% planned to leave.

The Social and Economic Council of The Netherlands, a powerful advisor to the government, published a report in January addressed to the Minister of Education and titled Making it in The Netherlands: Advisory report on retaining international students in The Netherlands.

The report calculates that if 19% of foreign students taking a degree in The Netherlands were to stay, this would generate €740 million a year in net return on investment.

It notes that, at present, only 7% of foreign students are studying science or technology – whereas in other countries the proportion is up to 52% – and calls for new strategies to recruit foreign students and retain them in programmes that will help alleviate labour market shortages.

Tax incentives

In an effort to boost the number of skilled workers and doctorate holders, the government introduced a 30% tax reduction scheme last year that also applies to postdocs. The extra incentives were intended to attract foreign specialists with specific skills or expertise that were scarce or not available in the local marketplace.

The most significant benefit is that the full Dutch taxable salary is reduced to a 70% salary, so that 30% of the agreed wage is exempt from payroll and personal income tax.

The Tax and Customs Administration offers a maximum effective tax rate of 36.4% so foreigners can cover their extra-territorial expenses, and these may include the costs of water, gas and electricity etc if prices in The Netherlands are higher than in the country of origin.

PhD and masters graduates who are hired within a year of completing their studies also benefit from a relaxation of the rules.

Conclusion

The high quality of Dutch researchers is demonstrated by the number of European Research Council grants awarded to young scientists at Dutch host institutions, second in the EU-27 grant round after France. A relatively small proportion of Dutch grant holders selected a host institution in another country, indicating untapped potential for recruitment of international talent.

Dutch PhD candidates were traditionally employed by the university where they earned their doctorate, but now universities want more flexibility by having the opportunity to offer scholarships instead of salaries.

But there is a lot of opposition from the PhD candidates, who fear a worsening of their working conditions. Universities, however, believe a more flexible system would increase the opportunities to recruit new PhD students, especially from abroad.

Professor Jo Ritzen, a former education minister in three Dutch governments and president of Maastricht University from 2003-11, says: “The Netherlands’ prosperity, its economy and Dutch higher education will all benefit enormously if talented foreign students can be persuaded to study in the country and remain after graduation.

“I am tremendously pleased with the dramatic increase in foreign PhDs. This is a great contribution to our future welfare because they bring talent and make academia blossom in international openness.

“Many play a substantial role after completion of their PhD either within The Netherlands or in other countries as partners in academic or economic activities which spur the development in The Netherlands”.

* Eric Beerkens works at Leiden University on internationalisation policies and strategies.

SINGAPORE: Lack of students closes joint law course with NYU

Adele Yung25 May 2013 Issue No:273

 

A joint degree run by New York University and the National University of Singapore that awarded a master of laws degree from both universities is being scrapped after just five years, due to poor uptake by students.

The one-year graduate course started in 2007 with 39 students, with ambitions to enrol up to 80 students a year. However, according to National University of Singapore (NUS) figures it averaged only around 40 students a year.

Although the degree attracted students from more than 20 countries, just 21 students will enter the programme this year, completing the degree in 2014.

Tuition fees for the course taught by faculty members from both universities are around S$62,600 (US$50,000) a year – almost double the cost of NUS’s graduate law programmes.

According to local reports, “at least” 50 scholarships were offered in each of the first four years of the programme but that did not appear to boost the intake.

Singapore’s Economic Development Board, which provides incentives for private businesses to set up in Singapore, had provided some financial support “based on the understanding that it would be financially sustainable after a few years”.

Students study in the Singapore institution for a law degree before going to the US. New York University (NYU) said in a statement: “The incoming class that begins its studies in May 2013 will be the last intake for the programme.

“This group is the last that is covered by the order of the New York State Court of Appeals that allows NYU@NUS graduates to sit the New York Bar examination. It also enjoys generous scholarships and financial awards that the programme has secured for outstanding applicants from around the world.”

The degree was initially established for four years until 2011 and then extended for another three until 2014.

“We have now agreed to conclude the programme without seeking additional financing to extend it. In the last few years, the cost of graduate legal education has risen significantly, and running the programme in Singapore has been made possible by a generous grant by the government of Singapore to fund the numerous scholarships offered,” NYU said.

“Unfortunately, the programme did not become self-financing in the way we had hoped it would; continuing it in its present form would entail a significant diversion of financial resources on the part of both NYU and NUS.”

NUS said that about five or six of its students go on to study in the US every year.

The Economic Development Board said it had provided financial support to the NYU@NUS programme on the understanding that it would be financially sustainable after a few years.

However, other law education providers have not been dissuaded from the Singapore market.

The UK’s College of Law announced last year that it would set up a Singapore campus – its first venture outside the UK – in conjunction with the Singapore Institute of Legal Education, to develop new courses in the city state.

It will be an accredited provider of continuing professional development programmes in law, which became compulsory in Singapore from April 2012, as well as developing undergraduate and graduate courses.

Singapore is seen as a hub of international legal and arbitration services for the region, but in practice most law graduates in the commercial field work for British commercial law firms. 

Students ambush Subedi

Last Updated on 22 May 2013

By Kevin Ponniah

 

Students hold aloft signs protesting at the visit of UN human rights envoy Surya Subedi last night following a lecture he had given. Photograph: Vireak Mai/Phnom Penh Post

United Nations human rights envoy Surya Subedi was ambushed last night by what appeared to be a co-ordinated student group while delivering a public lecture, raising suspicions that it was a political stunt.

Professor Subedi, who was delivering a lecture on international investment law at Cambodian Mekong University, had completed his lecture and was taking questions when the ruckus began.

Six students took to the microphone, all questioning the right of Subedi to report on Cambodia, with many students also questioning his impartiality and agenda – all to raucous applause from the packed house of university students.

“What the hell are you doing to Cambodia?” one particularly energised young man asked. “Will you lose your job if you say Cambodia’s human rights situation is good?”

“Your result [in your report] is the same as the opposition party. I don’t have any questions for you because I am very disappointed in you,” said another student.

Subedi responded to the students’ questions after they had all spoken, saying he was impressed by their “courage”.

“My reports on human rights are based on my analysis of the situation here. I listen to people from all walks of life. As a friend of Cambodia, I am offering my advice on how to improve the situation of governance in this country,” he said, adding that the UN does not “impose its will on anybody”.

“You will thank me in 20 years’ time. You are young now and you have a young sentiment. I salute it; I appreciate it,” he told the crowd. Following Professor Subedi’s response, University Chancellor Ich Seng was delivering the closing remarks when a group of students gathered at the hall’s entrance and unfurled banners calling for the elimination of the UN Special Rapporteur position.

A number of students seated around the hall then pulled out similar hand-drawn signs from underneath their tables and began chanting “No more Surya Subedi” in English.

The students then assembled outside the entrance, continuing their chanting and refusing to budge despite the requests of university staff.

The protesters refused to comment, although one told the Post they were members of a political student group.

A local NGO worker, who wished to remain nameless, said she recognised some protestors as members of the CPP Youth.

Some of the students assembled also questioned the protesters’ political motivation. “I think they are from the government youth . . . if they want to protest against Mr Subedi like this . . . and they want him to go out of the country, then I think they are supporters of the government,” 24-year-old Sokha told the Post.

However, a female student who was one of the six to launch a tirade during question time, insisted that she was not a member of a political party and came to the lecture of her own volition.

“I can say what my heart feels. I can say something that I know,” 21-year-old Hun Youn said.

Others who attended the lecture simply expressed their surprise at what had happened. “I did not expect this, and I think it’s not good because I support the special rapporteur. He is very good for Cambodia,” Narith, 30, said.

While Un Nay, 23, a member of staff at the university, said that although he did not expect the protest he supported the students’ right to do so. “If the action is effective for [Subedi] to hear it or for other people to hear it, it is good,” he said.

Gaye Valerie Salacup, head of the university’s international office, said the event was “not the venue” for students to voice their anger towards Subedi.

Subedi himself remained calm in the face of the protests, giving the Post a philosophical response as he exited the building:  “It was not surprising for me. They are learning and it is a process of learning. It will continue.”

Additional reporting by Sarah Thust

Hun Many looks towards the future

Last Updated on 23 May 2013

By Chhay Channyda

 

Hun Many, son of Prime Minister Hun Sen, speaks with the Post in Phnom Penh on Monday. Photo by Kara Fox

 

Prime Minister Hun Sen’s youngest son, Hun Many, is the first of his father’s progeny to officially run for public office. A father of three, Hun Many has studied in the United States, France and Australia. This year he threw his hat into the ring as a candidate to represent Kampong Speu province in July’s national election, surprising many observers who thought his elder brother Manet would be first to embrace parliamentary life. The deputy cabinet chief and head of the Cambodian People’s Party Youth Association spoke to the Post’s Chhay Channyda about stepping up into politics, foreign affairs and Cambodia’s future.

At the ASEAN summit last year in Cambodia, did you have the chance to meet US President Barack Obama? What did your father tell his children about the meeting between himself and Obama?
It was an incredibly proud moment, because in history, no serving US president had come to Cambodia. But [South Korean] President Lee Myung-bak, [Chinese] Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, former [Japanese] Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and [Australian] Prime Minister Julia Gillard also joined the ASEAN summit.

In the bilateral meeting between the Cambodian prime minister and the US president, there was a lot of talk. I also know [what was said]. I recorded the meeting in the meeting room, so I learned a lot from this discussion.

During the meeting, it was reported that there was some tension on certain issues.
I can say, as I was present during the meeting, that those types of tensions are common among leaders, but it was not an absolute 100 per cent disagreement. Be they in England or France, people get information from different sources. So that was an opportunity for Samdech [Hun Sen] to clarify [the situation in Cambodia] regarding what the media had said [about Cambodia], and he told President Obama that he got his information about Cambodia from his network or diplomats.

However, the situation that I saw on that day was not a serious disagreement. In the end, there were handshakes, discussions, and they had dinner that night.

China often gives loans or assistance to Cambodia for the construction of roads, bridges and other development. In the ASEAN meeting, there was some conflict on the issue of the South China Sea and charges that Cambodia adopted a pro-China stance. How do you feel about the government’s stance on the South China Sea?
I think the issue of the South China Sea did not [suddenly] materialise in November. We discussed and debated. [Malaysian] Prime Minister Najib [Razak] said that the issue of the South China Sea is in the mandate of ASEAN and China, and it has to do with ASEAN and China asking for other friends [to help] in following the guidelines of the DOC [Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea].

[Indonesian] President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono also raised that point. In fact, I can raise these points [now], because now the case is out of our hands. We [Cambodia], as the chair of ASEAN, needed to coordinate and could not express our view. Samdech Prime Minister also co-ordinated in his role as chairman of ASEAN, but President Obama said he agreed that a moderate position is how to help push the COC [Code of Conduct in the South China Sea].

We talked about [the South China Sea issue] in Phnom Penh and also in Brunei, but in Brunei, they [the media] said nothing, but we heard the news in November 2012 [while Cambodia had the ASEAN chair] that there was discord over the South China Sea.

But there is the same position [in Brunei], urging the COC. I think I will wait and see if at ASEAN Plus at the end of this year, whether it will be an issue.

Concerning the leadership of your father, what key influences have you taken from him politically?
I remember in the 1990s, my father did not want his children to engage in politics, because in the circumstances where he was still seeking peace for the country, it was very difficult. On one hand, he was responsible for the fate of the country, and on the other side, he had to think of his wife, children and entire family. But [when] I think of my father or other leaders of the CPP, the first priority, the main point of the Cambodian People’s Party, is that in all circumstances, they live with the people.

I think we all should recognise not only party policies [but that] if there was no sacrifice 34 years ago, we would not have arrived here today. The IMF [International Monetary Fund] and other countries also recognised [these achievements] as well.

This is a key factor in the sacrifice to the cause of the homeland. This is a point that I learned from my father and other CPP leaders.

In a previous interview with the Post, you quoted former US President John F Kennedy, who said, “Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.” What did you mean by that and how important do you consider the relationship between Cambodia and the United States?
I think that his speech was about sacrifice for the homeland. In fact, it reflects the real context of what’s happening in Cambodia, because if there had been no Kampuchean United Front for National Salvation [that liberated Cambodia from the Khmer Rouge], there would have been no sacrifice of fresh blood for the country. In that time, foreigners didn’t help us. I think regarding the other question, that the relationship with the US is crucial. If we study history, we suffered a lot of long centuries from war. So the CPP’s leaders said that Cambodia needs only friends, whether they are from the US, France, Australia or from within the framework of ASEAN, we want only friends, because this can develop our country.

I remember President Obama’s speech when he was receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 2008, he thanked the committee that gave him the award but said the American people voted for him, so his important task was to serve his people. That is, he wanted to show that even if the world wants the president to take a peaceful position, he serves his people first.

In the future, if you are selected as a lawmaker in Kampong Speu province, what are the most important issues you will aim to solve for your constituents?
Regarding rice this year, Kampong Speu province was affected by swirling winds and violent storms, so we went to the fields. We think the most important factor is to share in their [farmers’] willpower and woes. This is not new to the CPP, but we, the next generation, will help more.

Do you believe young members of the CPP should seek to lead the country in the same way their leaders have, or should they have a different vision?
The CPP says the first thing the party youth must understand is about what is changing.

This means we must not copy, but be creative. I also think that we need transparency, and where there is a lack of progress, we must reorganise.

We also have to gather the basics to be innovative. If we do not understand where we come from, and if we do everything by copying other countries, it is impossible. One thing an IMF representative in Cambodia said was that “The factor that will make the Kingdom of Cambodia succeed in the development of its economy is based on ‘when in Rome, do as the Romans do’. With development partners, discuss, but be creative where it is suitable in the context of Cambodia.”

And we think that for this language to be processed, the CPP Youth must clearly understand where we come from, know what those basics are. If the basics are strong as recommended by the CPP, we need to be creative with what we have irrespective of any other country. There will always be faults, but we are united better if we know what our basics are.

It is the same as a supporting beam if you want to make a roof. We have to think about where the roof is and whether there might be a high risk of the house collapsing. The achievements are not reserved for anyone or the CPP; they are combined and united, because today youth have more opportunities, so we must do what is better.

What are your ambitions for the future?
I’ve spoken enough now. Thank you.

Interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Lessons for Laos and Vietnam (Malaysian Election 2013)

Last Updated on 20 May 2013

By Roger Mitton

 

The Malaysian election two weeks ago brought great satisfaction to all dispassionate observers.

Despite some sour protests to the contrary, it showed that democracy is alive and well in Malaysia, and it sent a positive message around the region, especially to dictatorial backwaters like Laos and Vietnam.

Said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch: “Malaysian voters reaffirmed their commitment to democracy and civic participation with an amazing and peaceful 80 per cent turnout.”

As for the actual result, the governing National Front coalition and its leader, Prime Minister Najib Razak, won comfortably by 133 seats to 89 by the opposition People’s Alliance.

But hidden within that seemingly handsome 45-seat margin were some nasty gremlins that will test the PM’s character and Malaysia’s social cohesion.

After its woeful 2008 election performance, the Front’s dominant member, the United Malays National Organisation, quickly dumped the incumbent PM Abdullah Badawi and shunted in Najib to turn around its fortunes.

But on May 5, not only did he fail to do that, but an additional seven seats were lost, the key state of Selangor was not regained, and most shocking of all, the Front lost the popular vote by a margin of almost 400,000.

It was the narrowest election victory in Malaysian history.

Only among rural Malays in its northern heartland did the Front’s vote hold up. It clawed back Kedah state and made gains in Kelantan and Perak.

But it lost ground heavily in the richer and more politically strategic states of Johor and Selangor, as well as in Najib’s home state of Pahang and in resource rich Sabah.

That said, while the opposition alliance, under its dynamic leader Anwar Ibrahim, did extremely well in urban and non-Malay areas, it failed to win over the huge vote bank of rural Malay Muslims.

The Alliance’s star performer was its Chinese component, the Democratic Action Party, which won a stunning 38 seats – second only to UMNO in the party rankings.

As well, the DAP’s veteran leader Lim Kit Siang hammered the Johor chief minister in the election’s most watched constituency of Gelang Patah.

In contrast, the government’s main Chinese partner won only seven seats, despite massive resources and government sweetners.

Najib called the setback an unexpected “Chinese tsunami”, but in fact the giant wave of discontent began 40 years ago when non-Malays were officially designated as second-class citizens.

The PM had sought to pare back the apartheid-like Malay privileges, but he simply lacked the clout within UMNO to do it.

Still, his anti-reformist opponents within the Front’s more rabid Islamic wing were themselves soundly defeated – as were many of the opposition’s fundamentalist members.

So another positive aspect of the election was the way it confirmed that a majority of Malaysians have no time for Islamic extremists. So where does all this leave Najib and Anwar?

Well, the elder Anwar, 65, had promised to step down if the Alliance did not win the election, but he has already reversed that vow.

If anything, the electorate’s message to Anwar was that he should cede the opposition leadership to someone whose personal life is less tainted and whose political decision-making less erratic.

As for Najib, 59, while he is better off, his failure to reverse the opposition gains made in the last election and his penchant for dithering, means that his grip on the premiership is far from secure.

Later this year, UMNO will hold its annual assembly and it is virtually certain that calls will be made for a leadership review.

The chances are they will fail, not because of Najib’s performance, but because there is a dearth of dynamic and visionary figures in the senior ranks of the party.

Consequently, the incremental gains by the opposition are likely to steadily continue and one day a tsunami will wash away the ruling party’s half-century hold on power – and the world will not end.  

ការក្រាញ​អំណាច​ជា «ជំងឺ» របស់​សង្គម​ខ្មែរ

ដោយ ប៉ែន បូណា (Radio France International-IRI)
ពុធ 08 ឧសភា 2013

សេចក្តីថ្លែងការណ៍​របស់​លោក​នាយក​រដ្ឋមន្ត្រី ហ៊ុន សែន កាលពីដើម​សប្តាហ៍​នេះ​ដែល​ថា លោក​នឹង​បន្ត​កាន់តំណែង​រហូតដល់​អាយុ​ជាង​៧០​ឆ្នាំ​នោះ បាន​បង្កើត​ឲ្យ​មាន​ការ​ជជែក​គ្នា​យ៉ាង​ផុលផុស​អំពី​អាណត្តិ​របស់​មេដឹកនាំ​ កម្ពុជា។ មតិ​ខ្លះ​បាន​រិះគន់​លោក​នាយក​រដ្ឋមន្ត្រី​ថា​នៅ «ក្រាញ​អំណាច» ទោះបីជា​ខ្លួន​កាន់​តំណែង​យូរហើយ​ក៏ដោយ។ ប៉ុន្តែ ប្រសិនបើ​គេ​ពិចារណា​ឲ្យ​ស៊ីជម្រៅ ការ​ក្រាញ​អំណាច​មិនមែន​ជា​រឿង​ដាច់​ដោយ​ឡែក​របស់​បុគ្គល​ណា​ទេ តែ​វា​ជា «ជំងឺ​សង្គម»​ខ្មែរ​ដែល​ត្រូវតែ​រួមគ្នា​ព្យាបាល។ តើ​ជំងឺ​នេះ​មាន​ឫសគល់​មកពីណា?

នៅ​កម្ពុជា ផ្លូវ​ឡើងទៅ​កាន់អំណាច​គឺជា​រឿង​ដ៏​លំបាក​មួយ​ទៅហើយ ប៉ុន្តែ ការចាកចេញ​ពី​អំណាច​​វិញ​វា​រឹត​តែ​លំបាក​ថែមទៀត។ លំបាក​នៅ​ត្រង់​ថា «វប្បធម៌​ក្រាញ​អំណាច»​កំពុង​ចាក់ឫស​និង​បាន​ក្លាយជា​«ជំងឺ​សង្គម»​មួយ​ដែល​ គួរតែ​នាំគ្នា​រក​វិធី​ព្យាបាល។

ការ​ចោទ​អ្នក​នេះ​ឬអ្នក​នោះ​ថា​ក្រាញ​អំណាច​ គ្រាន់តែ​ជាការ​បាចទឹក​ដាក់គ្នា​តែប៉ុណ្ណោះ​ ពី​ព្រោះនេះ​មិនមែនជា​បញ្ហា​ដោយឡែក​របស់​បុគ្គល​ណា​ម្នាក់​ឡើយ តែ​វា​ជា​បញ្ហា​រួម​របស់​សង្គម​ខ្មែរ​ទាំងមូល។ នៅក្នុង​រដ្ឋាភិបាល អ្នកដឹកនាំ​តែងតែ​ការពារ​អំណាច​រហូត​ដល់​ដំណាក់កាល​ចុង​ក្រោយ។ នៅក្នុង​បក្ស​ក្រៅ​រដ្ឋាភិបាល​ឯណោះ​វិញ វប្បធម៌​នៃ​ការផ្តល់​តម្លៃ​ទៅលើ​បុគ្គល​ដែល​ជា​«តួឯក»​នយោបាយ​ក៏​កំពុង​ចាក់ ​ឫស​យ៉ាងរឹងមាំ​ណាស់​ដែរ។

ជាក់ស្តែង នៅពេល​គេ​និយាយ​ពី​គណបក្ស​កាន់អំណាច គេ​សំដៅ​ដល់​លោក​នាយក​រដ្ឋមន្ត្រី ហ៊ុន សែន។ នៅក្នុង​គណបក្ស​សម រង្ស៊ី គេ​និយាយ​តែ​ពី​លោក​សម រង្ស៊ី ខណៈដែល​គណបក្ស​សិទ្ធិមនុស្ស​គេ​និយាយ​តែ​ឈ្មោះ​លោក​កឹម សុខា។ តួអង្គ​នយោបាយ​ទាំងនោះ​ត្រូវបាន​គេ​លើក​តម្កើង​ថា​ជា​មនុស្ស​យ៉ាង​សំខាន់។ សំខាន់​រហូត​ដល់​ពេល​ខ្លះ​បញ្ហា​ប្រជាធិបតេយ្យ ឬក៏​ស្ថិរភាព​របស់​ប្រទេស​ទាំងមូល ត្រូវបាន​គេ​ចង​ភ្ជាប់​ជាមួយ​នឹង​បុគ្គល​តែ​ម្នាក់។ នៅ​កម្ពុជា កុំ​ថា​ឡើយ​ដល់​ទៅ​ផ្លាស់ប្តូរ​មេដឹកនាំ​ប្រទេស សូម្បី​តែ​ប្តូរ​មេបក្ស​នយោបាយ​មួយ​ក៏​ជា​បញ្ហា​ដែរ។

នៅក្នុង​ពិភព​សង្គម​ស៊ីវិល​ក៏​មិនសូវ​ជា​ខុសគ្នា​ប៉ុន្មាន​ដែរ។ បុគ្គល​ដែលជា​មេដឹកនាំ​ច្រើនតែ​កាន់អំណាច​រយៈពេល​យ៉ាងយូរ​ ដោយ​មិន​ព្រម​ប្រគល់​ឲ្យ​ទៅ​អ្នកដទៃ​ឡើយ។ តើ​នេះ​មិនមែន​ជា​«វប្បធម៌​លើក​ស្ទួយ​បុគ្គល» ដែល​ជា​ឫសគល់​នៃ​«ជំងឺ​ក្រាញ​អំណាច» នៅក្នុង​សង្គម​ខ្មែរ​ទេ​ឬ?

ដើម្បី​ស្វែងយល់​ពី​បញ្ហា​នេះ គេ​គួរ​ពិនិត្យ​មើល​មូលហេតុ​មួយ​ចំនួន​ដូច​តទៅ៖

មូលហេតុ​ទី១ ៖ គឺ​បញ្ហា​មុខមាត់។ ជាទូទៅ សង្គម​ខ្មែរ​ច្រើន​តែ​ឲ្យ​តម្លៃ​ខ្លាំង​ពេក​ទៅលើ​តំណែង។ ក្នុងន័យនេះ ការបាត់បង់​មុខតំណែង​ត្រូវគេ​ចាត់ទុកថា ជា​ការបាក់​មុខមាត់​យ៉ាងខ្លាំង។ ហេតុដូច្នេះ​ហើយ​បានជា​អ្នកមាន​មុខតំណែង​តែង​ក្រាញ​មិន​ចង់​ចុះចេញ​ដោយ​ងាយៗ ​ឡើយ។

មូលហេតុ​ទី២ ៖ ការ​ក្រាញ​អំណាច​ គឺ​ជា​ផលវិបាក​នៃ​នយោបាយ​សងសឹក​គ្នា​តាម​យុទ្ធសាស្ត្រ​«អ្នកឈ្នះ​ជា​វីរជន រីឯ​អ្នកចាញ់​ជា​ជន​ក្បត់ជាតិ»។ ទស្សនៈ​នេះហើយ​ដែល​ជំរុញ​ឲ្យ​មេដឹកនាំ​មិន​ងាយ​បោះបង់​អំណាច។ ប្រសិនបើ​ត្រូវ​បោះបង់​ក៏​ពួកគេ​រៀប​ជើង​ព្រួល​ទុកជាមុន​ឲ្យ​ហើយ​ដែរ។

មូលហេតុ​ទី៣ ៖ ប្រព័ន្ធ​ច្បាប់​ដែល​មិន​បាន​កំណត់​អាណត្តិ​របស់​មេ​ដឹកនាំ​ ក៏​ជា​ឱកាស​ដែល​បើកផ្លូវ​ឲ្យ​អ្នកដឹកនាំ​តោង​អំណាច​តាម​ដែល​អាចធ្វើ​ទៅបាន។

ដូច្នេះ ដើម្បី​ព្យាបាល​«ជំងឺ​ក្រាញ​អំណាច» សង្គម​ខ្មែរ​ចាំបាច់​ត្រូវ​ផ្លាស់ប្តូរ​ផ្នត់​គំនិត​មួយ​ចំនួន​ជា​ចាំបាច់។ ជាបឋម គេ​គួរ​យល់ថា មុខតំណែង​ជាពិសេស​តំណែង​ដឹកនាំ​កំពូល​របស់​ប្រទេស​មិនមែនជា​កម្មសិទ្ធិ​ ផ្តាច់មុខ​របស់​អ្នកណា​ម្នាក់​ឡើយ តែ​វា​គ្រាន់តែ​ជាទី​លាន​បង្ហាញ​សមត្ថភាព​របស់​អ្នកដឹកនាំ​ឲ្យ​ប្រជាពលរដ្ឋ​ បាន​ឃើញ​ក្នុង​រយៈពេល​កំណត់​ណា​មួយ​តែ​ប៉ុណ្ណោះ ពោលគឺ​វា​មិន​ខុសពី​សង្វៀន​ប្រកួត​កីឡា​នោះឡើយ។ ការឡើង​ ឬ​ចុះ​ពីស​ង្វៀន​នេះ​ គឺជា​រឿង​ធម្មតា​ដែល​គ្មានអ្វី​គួរ​ឲ្យ​ខ្មាស់អៀន​ឡើយ។ ផ្ទុយទៅវិញ ការ​ស្ថិតនៅក្នុង​មុខតំណែង​យូរ​ពេក កំហុស​ក៏​អាច​កើតមាន​កាន់តែ​ច្រើន​ដែរ។

ក្នុង​បរិបទ​នេះ កា​រៀបចំ​ឲ្យ​មាន​ប្រព័ន្ធ​ផ្លាស់ប្តូរ​មេដឹកនាំ​ដោយ​ធានា​បាន​នូវ​ សុវត្ថិភាព​របស់​អ្នក​ចេញពី​អំណាច​ផង និង​ស្ថិរភាព​សង្គម​ទាំងមូល​ផង គឺជា​មូលដ្ឋាន​សំខាន់​ជាងគេ​មួយ។ ប៉ុន្តែ មេដឹកនាំ​ប្រទេស​ក៏​មិនត្រូវ​ប្រព្រឹត្ត​បំពាន​អំណាច​ណា​មួយ​ដែរ​នៅក្នុង​ អាណត្តិ​ដឹកនាំ​របស់ខ្លួន​ដើម្បី​ចៀសវាង​ការចោទប្រកាន់​ពេលចេញ​ពីមុខ​តំណែង។ តុលាការ​កាត់ទោស​អតីត​មេដឹកនាំ​ខ្មែរក្រហម​ដែល​កំពុង​ដំណើរការ​នៅ​ពេលនេះ​ គួរតែ​ជា​មេរៀន​សម្រាប់​មេដឹកនាំ​ខ្មែរ ហើយ​ព្រឹតិ្តការណ៍​បែបនេះ​ក៏​មិនគួរ​នឹង​កើតឡើង​ជាថ្មីទៀត​ដែរ។

សរុប​មកវិញ វត្ថុធាតុ​ដើម​សម្រាប់​ផ្សំ​ជា​ឱសថ​ព្យាបាល​«ជំងឺ​ក្រាញ​អំណាច»​នៅក្នុង​ សង្គម​ខ្មែរ​មាន​អស់​ហើយ។ ដូច្នេះ ដល់​ពេល​ហើយ​​ដែល​ត្រូវ​នាំគ្នា​ព្យាបាល​ជំងឺ​នេះ​ឲ្យ​អស់ពី​សង្គម៕

SOUTH AFRICA: Three universities pilot doctoral supervision course

Ishmael Tongai04 May 2013 Issue No:270

An innovative course that aims to produce a new generation of doctoral supervisors kicked off this year at three South African universities. The plan is to roll out the free course to other universities to raise the country’s PhD output.

The seven-week course was piloted at Rhodes University, the University of Fort Hare and Durban University of Technology.

It is structured around four themes – power relations in supervision, the importance of scholarship, supervisor practices and supervisor processes – and started when this year’s semester began in February.

The initiative received funding of €1 million (US$1.3 million) from the Netherlands Organisation for International Cooperation in Higher Education, or NUFFIC.

The course was developed by a consortium consisting of four South African universities – Rhodes, Stellenbosch, Cape Town and Fort Hare – and three Dutch institutions – Vrije University Amsterdam, the African Studies Centre at Leiden University and the International Institute for Social Studies in The Hague.

The project team spent last year developing the course before launching it at a November National Research Foundation meeting attended by university representatives.

The PhD supervision course

The seven-week course has three phases: an initial four-day face-to-face phase facilitated by one Dutch and one South African academic; a six week online period; and a three-day face-to face phase facilitated by the South African facilitator involved in the first phase.

“Most supervisors have no training in supervision. They supervise on the basis of how they were supervised. Yet students have changed and the academic field has changed,” Rhodes University’s Professor Chrissie Boughey told University World News.

Boughey, who co-leads the project with Dr Harry Wels of Vrije University Amsterdam in The Netherlands, said the quality of supervision could impact on a doctoral candidate's ability to succeed as well as time taken to complete and the quality of the thesis, among other things.

She said that in South Africa, where there are diverse experiences in higher education, the course would try to leverage knowledge, as some students would have been privileged in doing previous degrees at universities with a strong research tradition while others would have little experience of what research involves.

Boughey said that as more and more research is now interdisciplinary and uses a wider range of orientations and methods, some supervisors who have little experience of working outside one methodological tradition will also benefit from the course.

Studies have shown that the top five regular producers of research articles in South Africa – the universities of Cape Town, Pretoria, KwaZulu-Natal, Stellenbosch and the Witwatersrand – have large number of permanent academic staff with doctoral degrees.

South Africa hopes to radically increase its number of PhD graduates and produce more than 100 doctoral graduates per million of the population by 2030. Across Africa, the current academic workforce is ageing and there is a need to produce future supervisors to replace those who will soon retire.

The roll-out

Boughey, who is also dean of teaching and learning at Rhodes University, said the roll-out of the course to other South African universities would start in the second half of 2013-15.

Funding was available to teach the course free of charge at 18 of South Africa’s 23 public universities. There are 25 places at each university offering of the course.

“Some universities have already indicated that they would like the course to be run more than once. In this case, the course will be offered at cost, but the intention is not to make any profit from it,” she said.

The number of students that universities can train depends on the individual institutions' strategic goals and how participation in the course can help to meet them, said Boughey.

For example, if a university has the goal of graduating more PhDs in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, it would make sense to identify supervisors from these areas for participation.

The course is open to students who are nearing the end of their doctoral work and anyone working at a South African university who possesses a PhD.

“Our experience is that interest in the course from current doctoral students is very high,” said Boughey. Clearly, students recognised that the development offered by the course was important to their careers, she added.

The request to teach the course has to come from the university's research office, after which course facilitators visit the university in the planning stage. Discussions are mainly to try to align the course with the universities’ goals and strategic priorities.

“We try to ensure that universities nominate participants for the course who will be able to facilitate the course on their own campus later,” said Boughey.

The course materials are open source and will be made available to universities so that they can offer it for themselves, after the Dutch-funded version has been offered.

The course designers intend to use feedback from the pilots from participants and facilitators alike, and course materials will be revised accordingly, said Boughey.

She said it was hoped that the course could be taken to the rest of Africa in future, and funding for this was being sought.

UNITED KINGDOM: Why universities license degrees to foreign colleges

Nigel Healey04 May 2013 Issue No:270

 

Transnational education has become big business for UK universities. The latest data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency, HESA, reveal that the sector has more international students studying wholly offshore than on universities’ home campuses. The UK government has, in turn, become enthusiastic about the potential growth in this market.

Transnational education offers universities a way of reaching the increasing number of foreign students who want a UK degree, but who are unable or unwilling to travel to the UK for study.

Better yet, transnational education breaks the link between conventional ‘export education’ and student immigration, which is currently so politically controversial in the UK, allowing universities to grow international enrolments without the cross-border movement of students.

International students on-campus vs studying wholly overseas


Of the plethora of ways in which universities can teach foreign students in their own countries, the best known is distance learning.

Although the emergence of massive open online courses, or MOOCs, opens up the possibility that anyone with an internet connection can enrol at a major US university, distance learning has been around for decades in the guise of correspondence courses.

Indeed, the University of London has been providing international distance learning degrees since 1858, just a decade after Samuel Morse transmitted the world’s first telegraph message.

Dominating distance learning as a way of reaching foreign students, and dwarfing the high-profile offshore campuses of some Russell Group universities, is what one critic termed the ‘McDonaldisation’ of higher education.

Like a classic industrial franchise, many UK universities license a third party – usually a private, for-profit company – to deliver their degrees through a foreign college.

In 2010-11, more than 330,000 foreign students were enrolled on UK degrees through such franchisees, compared with 94,000 taking courses by distance learning and 10,000 students enrolled at satellite campuses like the University of Nottingham Malaysia.

There are many flavours of university licensing, just as there are in the corporate world.

Like McDonalds, many universities require their partners to deliver a curriculum and assessment regime that is as close as possible to the same degree on their home campus – the ‘Big Mac should taste the same in Beijing as in Birmingham’ principle.

In other cases, the university may evaluate a degree designed by the foreign partner and, if it deems it to be of acceptable quality, allow the partner to market, teach and award the qualification as a degree of the university.

Export education

Licensing degrees in this way is widely assumed to be a natural extension of export education. With public funding growing scarcer, earning revenue from international tuition provides a welcome route to diversifying and growing revenue streams.

The annual value to UK higher education of (non-European Union) international students on campus exceeds £2.5 billion (US$3.9 billion) in tuition fee income alone.

But for every student who shivers on a UK campus, there are many more who cannot come to the UK for study, either because they cannot afford the cost of tuition and board or because they are deterred by distance or cultural or religious factors.

Licensing degrees to local partners opens up this new market. Local colleges can recruit local teachers at local salaries, unlike their university partners, which need to hire expensive, highly trained academics to support their research as well as teaching.

Local colleges can focus on high-demand courses in low-cost subjects like business and management, avoiding the heavy capital costs of a traditional university campus with laboratories and research libraries.

Offering licensed degrees at much lower tuition fees, which students can study in their own countries, creates a new source of demand for UK degrees and, after deducting local costs and service fees, potentially leaves a healthy royalty for the universities involved.

The government’s policy focus on the importance of transnational education, the vast numbers of students involved and the growing professionalisation of university management, all point to licensing being driven by an overwhelmingly financial imperative.

But a recent study published in the Higher Education Quarterly, “Why do English universities really franchise degrees to overseas providers?”, suggests there may be other motives operating behind the scenes.

The study finds that licensing is a predominantly post-92 university phenomenon, with most ‘redbrick’ universities shying away from the principal-agent risk inherent in allowing a third party to recruit to, teach and-or assess a degree under the university’s badge.

Licensing developed in the 1990s in a unique set of circumstances. The post-92 universities gained degree-awarding powers in 1992 after years of being validated centres of the Council for National Academic Awards.

Unlike their redbrick counterparts, the post-92 universities had sophisticated quality assurance systems and were expert at designing curricula and assessment regimes for external audit. It was a short step from being a validated centre to becoming a validating institution.

The post-92 universities were also keen to take advantage of the growing market for international students and, as private companies began to court the ‘new’ universities to allow them to offer their degrees, licensing offered a quick and effective way of internationalising a university and raising its profile in new, otherwise inaccessible markets.

So far, so good.

But overlaying this dynamic was another feature of the 1990s, the end of the Cold War and the availability of huge sums of European Union funding for UK universities to work with former Soviet bloc counterparts and develop their curricula.

At a time when most university academics regarded themselves as providers of public goods, this created an atmosphere in which international partnerships, including licensing arrangements, were seen primarily as development aid projects, with any profit a happy by-product.

Strong affiliations

The study also finds that, a decade and a half later, many of the participants interviewed across several universities felt that licensing arrangements had been maintained for extended periods for a range of non-financial motives.

University staff developed strong affiliations with their colleagues in the partner colleges and visiting the partners provided a range of benefits from staff development, building a spirit of camaraderie among staff and, at worst, a welcome break from day-to-day teaching.

Many champions of licensing passionately believe they are supporting the educational development of the countries in which they operate.

Overall, this study challenges the notion that licensing degrees has been an aggressive strategy of market penetration by UK universities, which has the scope to be – in Universities Minister David Willetts’ words – “one of Britain’s great growth industries of the future”.

Instead, it finds that licensing has often been driven by a desire to be internationally connected and engaged in the educational development of other countries, and has been sustained over an extended period by enthusiasts with personal loyalties to colleagues thousands of kilometres away, reinforced by visits and longstanding friendships.

In the end, licensing might be ‘big business’, but while it may not be good business in financial terms, it is also not the money-grubbing cultural imperialism feared by so many of its critics.

* Nigel Healey is pro-vice-chancellor (international) at Nottingham Trent University, UK.
 

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.